When people can find themselves in the change, they own it deeply. They find a sense of safety, sanity and stability at work. Once that control is established, something very beautiful and natural happens. The person turns to others and says, "How may I help you? What do I need to share? What do I know that you need to know--in order for you to do your work?"
from Visual Workplace/Visual Thinking
by Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth
Visual Poem/Puzzle
Impediment Poem by Stephen Morris
And the Visual Fail Prize Goes To...
Visual Radio: The Voice of the User: Who Owns the Metric?
Listen to Gwendolyn this
Thursday at 10am
(Pacific) on
The Voice of the User: Who Owns the Metric? (ENCORE)
POP QUIZ: Q/1: How many sets of measures do you need to improve a department's performance? Answer: one. Q/2: Who owns that measure? Answer: The user. Q/3: Why is it critical for us to understand the importance of those two questions and how to respond to them fully and correctly? For answers, listen to Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth this week as she lays out that logic. With examples and stories, Gwendolyn shows you how to begin constructing a measurement system that drives--and why it's mission-critical. It starts with the first brick: identify the owner of the metric and then its voice. Only then will the metric illuminate cause. Only then can it drive. Learn, as Galsworth first walks you through a set metrics that don't work--that can't work. Then hear how to shift them. The fact is: metrics can perform on a level far distant from and far better than merely counting and tracking. They can do more than simply monitor performance. They can improve it.
Recently I was onsite with a medical device manufacturer, followed closely by other onsite work with a government agency. And I found an odd commonality: Both facilities were dominated by labyrinths of seemingly endless white (or beige) hallways that appeared to be identical, except that each led to somewhere else.
I call hallways like that "high risk" corridors--faceless, featureless, mute...even dumb in the exact sense of the word. They do not speak. You could so easily get lost in them and no one would ever know. Even onsite employees are aware of the danger, so they rarely send a visitor to another department without a knowledgeable insider as an escort. From the viewpoint of visual thinkers, who know that visuality lets the workplace speak, the maze of faceless hallways is a sure recipe for motion--moving without working.
