The Queen and Lean
4 October 2022Well it’s been another momentous month in the insanity that is the 2020s. I was surprised at how sad I felt after the Queen died … it really is an end of an era isn’t it? Not quite so sure I am delighted at being a ‘subject’ ruled unquestioningly by a privileged elite who we all collectively pay a large amount of money to every year, but that aside, no one can question that the Queen definitely did serve her country diplomatically, faithfully and for the entirety of her reign. She will be much missed.
In the approximately 56 hours of royalty based tv that I wallowed in, the tribute documentary that resonated me the most was one that talked about the Queen’s realization that she should have visited the village of Aberfan sooner after the tragedy … and that this mistake was something that she never made again. She made sure that she was visible and present very quickly after major incidents, and importantly, visiting Aberfan several times in later years to right the initial wrong.
Reader, it may not surprise you to learn that this made me think of lean and the power of improvement. She appeared to not make the same mistake twice. Charles, initially, was seemingly prevented from marrying a divorcee that he loved … that didn’t exactly work out very well …. so after that, other children were permitted to marry their choice of partner. Lesson learned.
Now it might be too considerable a stretch to link the Queen’s death to lean, but it did remind me of a juicy conversation with my friend Tom (who successfully completed Cardiff’s Executive MBA and said it was the best thing that he ever did for his career… ahem) about how we should write a book on lean as a self help device because the concepts and tools of lean are wholly applicable to your personal life as well as to your working life.
You kind of can’t help it, because when you teach lean and try to help organisations (including your own) to be lean you do have to attempt to practice what you preach. It does not look good if you yourself are an organisational nightmare. This pressure leads to such personal efficiencies as creating a google form to collect menu choices for my Mum’s 70th birthday party (extremely successful) and also a shared note between me and my husband which lists jobs that he needs to attend to (largely ignored … plus potentially relationship damaging. Husbands do not like to be leaned).
I try to improve my lean training programmes as well as my partners, learning each time from how each one goes. I recently completed a programme with a fab Insurance company based in Caerphilly. This time, I spent more time talking about the two different types of improvement – Kaizen and Kaikaku. I was careful not to keep stressing the Japanese terminology too much (although I do really like saying the word ‘Kaikaku’ … almost as much as I like saying ‘Pokayoke’) the important principle being that there is the more intense ‘project based’ form of improvement but there is also the more incremental and fundamental form of improvement which is built on platforms of improvement practice.
I’m aware that that previous sentence was classic ‘change management speak’ so let me attempt to explain further.
When you start getting passionate about improvement, you start to see the potential for what’s possible everywhere. Lean encourages you to look for FLOW across organisational boundaries so you are drawn to big, cross functional projects that seek to revolutionise how processes work (kaikaku).
But such activities are only part of the improvement story. So much can be achieved from improvement daily practice. How you run a meeting, how you visualise what work is being done, how you manage your time to ensure reflection. These small, improvement practices all add up to creating an organisation that learns, and tries hard to not repeat mistakes (kaizen).
You can achieve improvement simply by yourself, building time and space to work through your own Plan Do Check Act cycles of learning, via methods as such as a reflective journal for example. So when teaching a lean programme this time, I made sure to stress the power of the little things as well as the big, high impact projects. Because the little things mean so much within successful lean leadership.
We were lucky enough to welcome Nigel Wilson, Group CEO of Legal and General, to launch a programme that we were delivering for the NHS Wales Finance Academy a few years ago and he talked openly about how important he found setting time aside to reflect on what went well that week and what lessons he needed to learn. His talk was fascinating and really inspirational. It was the first time that I had heard a leader talk openly about how they carve out time to reflect and to think. Indeed, a quick google search will confirm that lots of successful CEOs build in time to reflect in forms such as a ‘leadership journal‘ it would seem.
Whilst I might set up google forms and collaborative to do lists at the drop of a hat, I have yet to start a journal or diary so perhaps I should start? (I did buy The HappySelf Kids’ Daily Journal For Boys and Girls Aged 6 to 12 – for my daughter though, in an attempt to make her a more calm and balanced person than me. Let’s hope it works.)
“So Sarah, this blog is called The Queen and Lean .. are you going to get back to that at all?” well … turns out the Queen was indeed a journaling fanatic and that she had a conversation with Sir Michael Palin about how helpful she found it! Maybe it was this daily reflective routine that was the secret to her enduring success?!
So there you go, HRH the Queen was a fan of lean. Isn’t everyone? 😉
- Double Meanings
- Ticketing Masterplans
- When will it all end …
- Lifetime Loyalty and Taylor Swift
- Looking at Things Differently
- Networking Noodles
- Addicted to Truth
- Designs on Service Design
- The Multiple Joys of Universal Design
- Hungry Cultures
- Event Lean
- The Traffic Analogy
- Moving on Up
- Rosé Cava Revolution?
- Powerpoint Sneaky Lean
- Writing about Writing
- ChatGPT Response: Exploring the Art of Expression: Unveiling the Magic of Writing in the Style of Sarah Lethbridge
- Help to Grow Coldplay Style
- Caring IS Everything!
- Institutional Flapping
- “Just Do the Next Right Thing”
- Trust Thermoclines
- Organisational Tempo
- The Inaugural Lethbridge Customer Service Awards
- Vaccine Lean – The Dawn of the Water Spider
- The Queen and Lean
- Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
- Peaceful Protest
- Tesla Tales
- Back to Reality!
- Carrots, Sticks and Buckets of Time Tricks
- The Great Pandemic Pause
- Organisational Therapy
- Late Night Wordleing
- Vaccine Lean
- Chief Letters of Complaint Officer
- AMBAZING Accreditation!
- My Big Lean Head
- [Let us] Help [you] to Grow: Management
- The Love Island Blog
- October 2024 (1)
- September 2024 (1)
- July 2024 (2)
- June 2024 (1)
- May 2024 (1)
- March 2024 (1)
- February 2024 (2)
- December 2023 (2)
- October 2023 (2)
- September 2023 (1)
- July 2023 (3)
- June 2023 (1)
- May 2023 (1)
- April 2023 (1)
- March 2023 (1)
- February 2023 (1)
- January 2023 (1)
- November 2022 (1)
- October 2022 (2)
- August 2022 (2)
- July 2022 (1)
- May 2022 (2)
- April 2022 (1)
- February 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (1)
- December 2021 (2)
- November 2021 (1)
- October 2021 (1)
- September 2021 (1)
- August 2021 (1)
- July 2021 (1)
- May 2021 (2)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (1)
- January 2021 (1)
- December 2020 (1)
- October 2020 (3)
- August 2020 (1)
- June 2020 (2)
- April 2020 (1)
- March 2020 (1)
- February 2020 (1)
- December 2019 (2)
- October 2019 (1)
- September 2019 (1)
- August 2019 (1)
- July 2019 (1)
- June 2019 (1)
- February 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (1)
- September 2018 (1)
- March 2018 (10)
- April 2016 (1)
- January 2015 (3)
- July 2014 (9)
- September 2013 (1)