"wanna see what else..." (creativity)

(part of the Total Quality Leadership (TQL) series)

How an organization achieves world class quality excellence depends on its leaders within the organization, at all levels of the organization.  Whether your organization has just started its quality journey with ISO certification or are ready to apply for the world renowned Deming award, the critical success factor to world class quality excellence…it’s all in the leadership!

Leadership skills that make an environment successful are the same skills that we learned when we were little and playing in the sandbox.  Today's sandbox skill is creativity.

Kids can make something out of nothing.  A bucket and a shovel can make beautiful castles.  You take the shovel and scoop up the sand into the bucket.  Once the bucket is full, you pack it down.  Very carefully, the child will quickly turn the bucket over and very carefully pull the bucket up, et voilà, a castle form.  From there, they add doors, windows, a moat, a bridge, and whatever else they feel makes their castle better.  Their creativity has no boundaries.

Creativity is the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things.  Creativity is the foundation of brainstorming sessions.  The first requirement is an environment where the associates and team leaders feel free to be creative, to brainstorm.  The old dysfunctional environment, the ‘me boss - you employee’ environment, prevents creativity.  One of the comments I hear all the time is “we tried to tell them” (ref my blog dated on “this is the last time I'm gonna to tell you! “ (listening), August 19, 2012).                                

“As a team, invent as many uses as you can for this pictured item.”  The above 2011 Family Circus cartoon represents an exercise I have used in my creativity, team building classes for many years.  This is a simple exercise to get the brains of the associates and leaders “out of their box”.  It’s also a lot of fun!  Fun is not a dirty word in a team based environment.

The World Class Leadership objective is to build excellence into every aspect of the company by focusing on creating a workplace that encourages EVERYONE to contribute.  The prerequisite is everyone must feel comfortable in voicing ideas and having them actively listened to versus the old dysfunctional attitude of “we (managers) know what’s best for you and we’ll tell you what to do.  We’ll make the decision for you and then we will hold you accountable to make it work.”  It obfuscates the associates.  Fear is not a motivator!

The associates who do the work 8 hours a day know the changes to make in their jobs to make it better.   Ask each associate and leader to “name 3 things that would make your job better?”  I am always (pleasantly) surprised to note the associates make changes that cost little to no monies but save time and increase productivity.  Think 3M, an engineer, paste, a tablet and post-it-notes – who woulda thought?

Associates are like the bucket – you fill them with the right education, top it off with a firm belief in them (based on your outstanding education and coaching to them) and then let them build their castles.  Allow their creativity.  Success is built on "can" not "cannot".   I find 99.9% of the time, they really can.