It’s very common that the leaders/managers say to me “I have this idea that I want to get installed in our organization, but I need to get my people to think it’s their idea first” the base is that now they will like the idea. That, to me, is more manipulation and maybe not so sustainable over time. What we want instead is to include the people who do the work in the solution, which means that they create their own solutions. They all understand the solutions and will sustain them. People are less likely, much less even, to resist a change they are involved in. Maybe when you are facing resistance in change, it’s not the people you’re working with that is the problem, maybe it’s the process you’re using. The secret is to include the people in the solution, less resistance, much easier and they will care for it.

For the change/improvement to be giving you the right results there are more to it than to get ideas implemented. What you want to do over time is to reduce/eradicated your losses. The definition of a loss is “Everything outside of ideal”. Focusing on losses ensures you act on what’s is causing the lack of performance. Ideas is not necessarily focusing on better performance; how do you know if you don’t start by understanding the loss?

We’re building a process of change. A process that becomes the engine that keeps running and constantly build a momentum for the future. The process is built around the people in the organization, all of them, total unity. That’s what makes change processes work together with the focus on losses. This is The Game Changer…

Johan Majlov, Founder and CEO Lean Dimensions International

As a society, we value IQ and logical thinking very high. It starts as soon as we enter school where we get trained to learn logical thinking and our grades are often based on that. As a person, we obviously have to master both logical as well as emotional challenges, it’s a part of life. In business, logical thinking has, so far, been the value that leads to a career growth. Emotional thinking has been, in my opinion, frowned up on. We have a lot a cultural based comment, like “He/she is very emotional”. That comment has never been spoken with a positive meaning, at least not to my knowledge. “Boys don’t cry” etc.

Successful business leaders, with success I mean results that stand over time and is based on the organizations capabilities and not just a product, has high EQ as well as high IQ. They have an ability to give purpose to the mission and care for the people and their ideas as well as needs. Everyone has both logical as well as emotional needs, for example:

…In a meeting you want it to start and end on time, have the technical support needed, and you want to be listened to, feel valued as a member as well as safe. A meeting that ended on time where you weren’t listen to wasn’t a good meeting, I think everyone agrees to that.

Hiring and choosing leadership with high EQ becomes more and more relevant, people attend school to learn and grow and want to use their knowledge and reach their dreams in the work place. High EQ would mean that a leader allows people to fulfil their dreams while they develop the company’s future. If the two focuses come together you are golden.

High IQ and less strong EQ often leads to decisions that hurt people and the style of leadership besoms more of forcing people. Inspiring them requires EQ and of course methods, tools and skills.

There is a movement happing in businesses and we like to support, develop and help it to become successful. This movement is EQ development and we can see companies struggle with what to do and how to do it however the will is there. It’s a very clear and positive sign.

Organizations have the employees they have and they might have been hired for IQ and now need to strengthen EQ. You can’t just change your workforce. So how do you do it? Partnering with a company that has the IQ and EQ combination as their base. Learn from them, let them model the behaviour and train, coach and mentor the organization.

Lean Dimensions International is based on this principle IQxEQ=Unity and Results. We have a combination of Engineering and Psychology with the corresponding methods and tools to take you through the journey.

Take the time and send me an email so we can talk about how we can support you.

Johan Majlov, Founder and CEO Lean Dimensions International

I am in the sky lounge at the JFK terminal two and because of the weather conditions we are all stranded here for a while. Several people have been here for like 24 hours. People are having a strain, whatever. And I was thinking about the connection between this and world-class manufacturing. So, imagine this that Delta airlines in this case, they have a problem. It’s not caused by them. It’s caused by weather, weather conditions. They can do anything about the weather, but they seemingly have a system to work on this. People are trained. People are trained to take care of people who are upset or are disturbed, you know, because they can’t get home to their loved ones. And when they need to go to work and everything like that, and they’re calm and they are explaining and all that.

There’s a training behind that.

This is not by chance that this is happening. Imagine this, you have a thousand flights or so that suddenly gets cancelled in a day. Now you might have a hundred-people calling in from those flights. And this means a hundred thousand people are going to call in to your customer service that you weren’t aware of. So how do you handle that? There’s a system behind that. There’s a system to plan for a new flight. And for example, in my case, my flight is now grouped. So, I have a much, much bigger aircraft that can bring much more people over to Atlanta. And, this is obviously something that didn’t come up with yesterday because the guys at work just came up with an idea here because they were clever. I’m sure they are clever people, but they build system because they know the weather’s going to hit them.

Just like the problems that are carriers in any sort of manufacturing industry. There are similar problems, not necessarily the same, hopefully, unfortunately, is the same as well, but similar problems that occur. But if you have a systematic approach to handle that, it means that you can just execute a pre-defined process to handle the situation, as supposed to get stressed and worried about what happens when you get stressed and where the people come and complain, you might react very negatively to that because you think that you are a victim of circumstance, et cetera. So, I just want to point out the fact that people here are calm. Even the passengers are calm because the people are calm around them. And the Delta is working hard on getting everybody to where they should go and they have a plan for it just like you should have a plan for situations that you run into. And if it never happens – cool. But if it does happen, you just have to execute. People have already trained for a much easier life. People can stay calm and concentrated and make fewer personal mistakes. Thank you.

Johan Majlov, Founder and CEO Lean Dimensions International

I’m going to talk about world class manufacturing and the obstacles that can occur when you are implementing the system. Take a castle, for example. If you’re building a castle, technically there are a few things that you need to get right. There’s the right type of stones, solid foundations, the right place. You have to have the right windows. Everything must be technically correct. Otherwise, you will not get a castle that stands for so many years. It’s kind of obvious.

In this article, I will be talking about the key components in delivering a deep-rooted change in an organization, focusing on leadership.

Implementing a continuous improvement system obviously requires 100% committed management team, so after you have a clear direction, and you have your deployment done, your organization is aligned, now it’s important to ensure that the management is 100% commitment.

1% lack of commitment in a management team means 50% lack of commitment on the shop floor. That is important to remember. There are pockets on the shop floor, pockets in the company, they are now not committed to run or do anything with inside the improvement system. Why is that? Well, the managers don’t show commitment, why should I?

Here’s the thing that a lot of managers misunderstand: if you come in, in the beginning of a meeting, and you tell everybody how important it is and then you leave, that is not necessarily considered commitment. It’s not a bad thing to do that, but you know what’s much more powerful? Action, Participation.

Stay in the meetings. Participate. Walk the shop floor. Ask questions, and stay tuned for more articles on that part. I’m going to tell you more about how to develop questions. But if you don’t show action, it doesn’t matter how much you talk. It doesn’t. And maybe that’s unfair, but it comes with the territory, I’m afraid.

So, show actions. Think about this: when you come to work every day, as a leader you can either be a driver that make things happen, you can be a person that builds the road makes connections, the track, the path forward, you can also be a rock that blocks the track. That blocks everybody else from running. You can be a block by not doing anything. Think about that. So, you need to show actions to be 100% committed.

Johan Majlov, CEO Lean Dimensions International

Drawing by Johan Majlov

This article is about the habit of resisting change. Habits are created and often require some consistent work to be sustained.

Not too long ago I met a Vice President of a company, let’s call him Bob, he told me that he had an exit interview with a person a retiree, let’s call him Mike. Mike told him, “you have disappointed me so many times”. Bob said “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that”, Mike said “not you personally, but the company has”.

Bob started to ask more questions to understand what he meant and Mike said, “you started so many programs, interesting things where we could get going and learn more, develop, take more responsibilities, etc. and I really liked that. I wanted to learn and do more of that and I got engaged. I put my heart into it and tried to get going. Suddenly you stopped it, for unknown reasons. It just disappeared and sometimes it was because you didn’t have time, but we had time and the will but we’re not allowed anymore. Then Time goes by and you started another program and another program and another program, the only thing that’s common between them is, that they all stopped. I put my heart into the first ones, but after a few of them I got hurt because I wanted to do something good and liked it but as soon as I let myself get into it stopped. I started to protect my own feelings.

In my own passed I find this is very common, people get trained into resistance. When they were hired, they weren’t resisting at all. They just become resistant to change, to protect themselves from the pain they feel when they tried hard and then something stopped even though they liked.

This is a key part for successful change leadership, to think about why people don’t change. Maybe they are more than willing, but it might take time and real leadership where you walk the talk to convince them that you are serious about it.

What about your organization, have they been conditioned to resist to protect themselves?

Like and share this article and send me an email to talk more.

Johan Majlov, CEO Lean Dimensions International