Ten ideas to improve your leadership performance.
Good leadership is essential to grow your company.
by Larry Fast for Industry Week
This column is based on material I used years ago for a roundtable discussion on leadership. Unfortunately, the author of the Noah’s Ark quotes is unknown.
However, that author put some very clever thinking into their idea. I was struck by how relevant these quotes are when applied to leadership in a continuous improvement culture. Perhaps you can lead your own roundtable discussion with your team.
“Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Noah’s Ark.”
- “Don’t miss the boat.” Procrastinators beware. Leaders who say they’re going to get started on continuous improvement “when things calm down” are lying to themselves and to their people. These are the worst kind of bosses. All talk and no show. Anyone who isn’t moved to lead the team to improve quality, constraint management, delivery performance and cost should be put on notice to either lead or leave.
- “Remember that we are all in the same boat!” If any function in the business is not aligned, then improvement possibilities will not be maximized and, in fact, may be undermined. Performance improvements depend on the right team of people coming together to improve the business one project at a time. Everyone in leadership needs to understand the big picture and think like a business manager, not just a functional manager.
- “Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.” Anticipation is a trait that, unfortunately, isn’t present in every gene pool. Usually this trait is instinctive to great leaders, but it can also be learned. My Little League baseball coach, in fact, taught us how to anticipate in practice. He asked us to anticipate overthrows to bases and where to position ourselves to prevent a base runner from advancing. He taught us to warn players who were running for a foul ball pop up, or the outfield fence, and were at risk of crashing into the fence and hurting themselves. My favorite Wayne Gretzky quote: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
- “Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.” They may also ask you to do something really big today! Are you prepared? It’s more than being physically fit. The larger question: Is your mindset fit for leading CI with both competent leadership and a vision for change? Continue reading….
