How do you celebrate the completion of the ordinary? Who would want to come to that party? Getting ready for a successful visual conversion begins many weeks before the first training session--and it looks like a long list of mundane, humdrum tasks. There is good reason for that: It is. But if you don't do them, the likelihood of failure looms large. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth will walk you through the next six tasks on her 25-item list of how to get ready for a splendid visual transformation. This set of six is undertaken by your trainers and supervisors: 1) Define the new role for supervisors; 2) Decide on a border protocol (so they last a year but can be removed overnight); 3) Develop a color code system for borders; 4) Create ways to keep visual workplace supplies handy (and why); 5) Set up a communications center; and 6) Give money away to operators, with few strings attached. All before you launch. Tune in/Learn more.
For me, the operational essence of the leader dilemma is this: How do I say YES to the few and WAIT to the many? How do I decide?
The so-called natural-born leader is a mysterious (to some controversial) concept: an individual for whom achievement, direction, and drive seems to come effortlessly--as if destiny eases the way. Churchill comes to mind. His leadership and his victory seem inevitable--in hindsight. But read his Memoirs of World War II (even in the 700-page abridged edition) and you will see a man struggling to balance impossible competing priorities, with the lives of nations and their societies hanging in the balance. Still we can never get close enough to disentangle the pressing realities of the moment from history's acclaim. Leaders of Churchill's time and tradition were not self-confessional. They revealed a great deal about their accomplishments as leaders--but little of the stuff and substance of their predicament. That makes it hard for us to draw parallels to leadership today. We are simply glad they prevailed.
But, if we poke around a bit, we can find quirky markers that seem to reveal important truths--for example, that Churchill was a natural-born visual thinker.
Have you seen a Visual Fail that made you laugh? Send the image to
cindy@visualworkplace.com,
and we'll put it here and credit you with the funny find!
Visual Thinking Inc. & The Visual Lean Institute |
503-233-1784
