Pages: 15

“Culture is what people do when no one is watching!” That was something Jack Welch discussed at an interview in the late 90s. Maybe it's an overly simplistic view of what culture is, but when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense. Culture is what people normally do without oversight. Four people are involved in different activities: one is seated at a table, engrossed in a laptop; another runs while speaking into a microphone; a third person reads from an electronic device; and the fourth individual employs electronic gadgets. An organization's culture sets the overall climate of the organization and, moreover, becomes a major factor in employees’ desire to join, stay, and grow there. It has a strong impact on employee engagement. Mindfulness as a concept is pervasive in today's business literature and generally, in all aspects of our conscious lives.

Pages: 14

This chapter discusses several perspectives on alignment, from strategic to operational, including the feedback required to maintain awareness of changes that put pressure on processes and people to alter direction. Strategic alignment refers to how the business structure fits with the business strategy and its operating environment. Research has shown that it takes approximately 70% alignment to have any success at all. Encourage your leaders and workforce to: When alignment occurs, everyone wins! Alignment is only effective when the organization communicates as a series of interconnected teams. Wickman's model of 6 focus areas is easily recognizable: What makes the model effective is Wickman's concept "traction" that ties strategic and operational alignment to measurable action. They execute well, and they know how to bring focus, accountability, and discipline to their organization.

Pages: 18

This chapter addresses the best ways to ensure direct feedback to individual or organizational performance so activities can be adjusted and aligned to shared performance goals. Assessment happens only when they have strategic goals, behaviors, data, and culture against which to assess. The authors have developed an organizational assessment tool that supports a high-level comparison of a core process to desired outcomes for identifying possible improvements. Basic business assessments focus on areas such as: Human-centered organizations focus on more than mechanics. When they assess their product and service creation and presentation, they must assess their outcomes as perceived by external stakeholders. The travel office had far fewer frustrations in their daily work, and three, the members of the improvement project came together as a cohesive team, building a positive and dynamic attitude within the department.

Pages: 10

Three people check off a list of priorities on a notepad. A person stands on the books and uses magnifying glasses for the topmost priority. Another person is holding a pencil and enabling checkboxes of priorities. Another person is sitting on the top of the notepad. Time is one of the most valuable and non-renewable resources the authors have. Unlike other resources, once time has passed, it cannot be recovered or regained. It is important to manage time effectively and efficiently, both at work and in life. Prioritization is important because it allows individuals and organizations to effectively allocate their resources, such as time, money, and effort, to the tasks and projects that are most critical or have the highest impact. Without prioritization, resources can be wasted on low-value tasks. Important tasks may not receive the attention they need, resulting in missed deadlines, decreased quality, and other negative outcomes.

Pages: 18

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is not new – it is an accumulation of skills and knowledge. LSS methodology integrates two process improvement models: Lean and Six Sigma, methodologies which were found to have compatible and complementary structures. Organizations can use LSS to eliminate waste and reduce delivery time for services to meet the ever-faster response times expected by clients, communities, and government officials. Its viewpoint is that unless all available resources are directly engaged in the fulfillment of a customer's need, something is being wasted. The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the 1980s at Motorola as an approach to reducing variation in production processes. The primary metric of Six Sigma is the defect per million opportunities. The need for Lean Six Sigma arises from the need for organizations to stay competitive in today's fast-paced and constantly evolving business environment.

Pages: 15

Customers are rarely concerned with the processes organization use to produce what they buy or experience. Once the organization and people are aligned, then it is time to target potential markets. The input of the external and internal customers (stakeholders) is the focus of Voice of the Customer (VoC). Processes and technology are only vehicles to attain the goal of satisfying human beings who experience the product or service. Engaged, enthusiastic employees and leaders use both internal and external VoC input for balancing resources and priorities. Building a human-centered organizational culture is not a short-term project. That culture influences and is influenced by the stakeholders with which the organization interacts. The human-centered organization is a long game. Working to meet and exceed the VoC involves gathering data to understand what output of their processes meets the immediate needs or expectations of their customers. This chapter explores the difficulties of understanding VoC.

Pages: 10

Process thinking is a systematic approach which drives critical decision-making. At a minimum, this mindful type of planning provides a clear path with various activities that need to be done so that the work can be finished within the expected timeline. In case there are unforeseen events that interfere with the work plan, then the plan can be adjusted accordingly. Process thinking is a way of approaching problems and tasks by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable process elements, then examining the relationships between each element in the process to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The authors recall at many of their presentations when they brought up the word “process,” people's eyes would glaze over. It seems to be a mental block for many people because in the past they have gone through corporate initiatives where process reengineering was conducted throughout the enterprise.

Pages: 12

Data consists of any information or facts that can be collected, analyzed, and used for making decisions or gaining insights. It can include numbers, text, images, or audio. In effect, it measures an event, phenomenon, or observation. It can be a numerical value, a categorical value, a string of text, or pixel values for images. Examples include data collected through a survey, data collected through sensors, or data collected at various levels of detail, such as daily, weekly, or monthly over different time frames. Measurement data is the foundation of how the authors manage the performance of a process. Without data, knowing how well they are doing is hard or even impossible. They may think they are already doing well when they are not, or they may be operating just well enough to get by, never realizing the vast improvements that could be made.

Pages: 11

Process variation is a measure of dispersion, or how spread out the data are. And it is often expressed as the data's range, variance, or standard deviation. Think back to your classes in high school or college. Remember what the class average score was for your class, how the score spread around this average, and how well you did against the class average. When a process experiences a high amount of variability, quality issues arise, and root problems must be determined. This challenge is being fundamentally addressed by the first rule implemented in the Toyota Production System, which states that all work shall be highly specified according to the content, sequence, timing, and outcome.

Pages: 17

The history of quality reaches back into antiquity. The current quality movement began in the 1920s. The “quality profession,” as it is now known, started with Walter Shewhart of Bell Laboratories. He developed a system known as statistical process control (SPC) for measuring variance in production systems. SPC is still used to help monitor consistency and diagnose problems in work processes. As economies and organizations matured, quality frameworks, such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Performance Excellence program, ISO, Lean, and Six Sigma, were developed to encourage systematic approaches to integrating quality practices into all areas of the business. Many of the quality tools do not give answers, they simply provide the foundation for informed discussion around an issue. A good quality facilitator will use these tools to engage a team in problem-solving and decision-making based on established goals.

Pages: 14

This chapter discusses the subject of mindfulness. This valuable human skill – of full and non-judgmental awareness of one's present state – is proving its benefits in countless areas in our lives. An organization functions as an “individual” entity that can suffer from the same ramifications: ignorance of the consequences of actions, failure to make progress (spinning the wheels), frustration and disrespectful behavior; barely (or not) meeting requirements, forgetfulness, wastefulness, and the general disinterest of all the workers involved. Everybody is so preoccupied and overloaded with information that no one can determine what is important, what could be improved, and what valuable resources are going to waste. The present challenges the authors confront are overwhelming and complex.

Pages: 16

The daily behaviors at every level of the organization are mostly habits. Sustainability means the habit continues productively and is somehow rewarding to the performer the new habit makes the task more enjoyable, profitable, satisfying, comfortable, or inspiring, just to name a few possible benefits. The authors have observed many challenges to implementing an enterprise-wide change initiative. They would call the traditional training model "high touch low frequency" versus the newly proposed training model "low touch high frequency". Getting more frequency provides an opportunity to reinforce new concepts, allowing individuals to internalize them, and eventually become a part of their daily work habits. They have observed that organizations focus on one aspect of the equation and ignore the other.

Pages: 2

As we defined in Chapter 1, a human-centered organization is “an organization that seeks to deliver the most value to the end customer while unlocking hidden potential and leveraging talents from every single employee to thrive in this very dynamic, fast-paced, and complex business environment.” To achieve this, we aim to help prepare every single employee to become an effective problem solver, supporting their department's goals and aligning with the organization's broader goals. We want employees to be more effective, efficient, and inspired by having access to the right tools and techniques, improving their chances of success. This should serve as a solid foundation for continuous improvement, thereby enabling excellence to thrive within the organization.