Project Success

Design For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 13

Leadership Card 013 Focus on Strengths - Lean CX Ease of Use

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Focus on Your Team’s Strengths

Have you ever been around someone who can only see the negative side of life? If there’s a rainbow, they focus on the rain. If they are somewhere, they’d rather be somewhere else. Nothing is ever good enough. It’s depressing, isn’t it? Well the latest research shows it’s depressing for your team as well, and it actually reduces their engagement, their productivity and your profit.

We already know that checking in with your team regularly is important, and just doing that can increase team engagement and help keep your results on track. But what Gallup Inc. also found when performing the study was that leaders who focus on their team’s strengths saw up to 22% higher engagement than their counterparts who focused only on their team’s negatives.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Nobody likes a wet blanket. But also, while showing someone what not to do can be effective and has its merits, just hearing where you’re going wrong all the time wears thin pretty quickly. So thin, in fact, that engagement and productivity go down. And the fact is that unhappy people don’t do that great of a job.

This Is All a Part of Leading Well

Many people don’t have a playbook when they first become leaders. So checking in regularly by itself can make a huge difference because you know your team, what they are up to, where they are struggling and what they enjoy. And that is the real key to this Leadership Card – when we talk to our team members and they reveal what they are good at, what flows naturally for them, what they find easy and what they enjoy, we can find a way to weave that into their tasks or the way they perform their tasks.

Do they enjoy speaking with people? Find a way to put more stakeholder tasks, customer tasks, or running meetings into their work and go from there. Or maybe they prefer working with data? Can they manage a spreadsheet of their tasks or results, or do the same for their team, department or company? How about sales figures or customer drop off points on a website?

The point is, even in a team that performs similar tasks you will find people with different strengths. And you don’t usually get to find out what those strengths are to make the most of them, without actually checking in with your team.

Focusing on your team’s strengths isn’t as hard as some might think, and the rewards you will see will absolutely change your life and work for the better.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 11 – Clarity and Empathy and Employee Engagement

June 2, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXcustomer experience, David McLachlan, ease of use, employee engagement, leadership, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan

Design For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 11

Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card - Engagement Model 3

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Clarity and Empathy – Two Major Keys To Employee Engagement

Straight out of Harvard comes a story and research showing a simple way to improve employee engagement and your productivity, profit and happiness. It’s called caring. Actually caring what your customers are trying to solve, actually caring what your team is trying to solve, and providing clarity on the path to solve that problem.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Yet almost no one does this. Most people are too busy either putting out fires in their own business, or creating fuzzy, vague outcomes and mission statements that when it comes down to it mean absolutely nothing.

To Be Clear Is To Be Unkind

Something financial guru and entrepreneur Dave Ramsey says is “To be unclear is to be unkind”. And that kinda makes sense, doesn’t it? It happens so often not just in business but also in relationships – when you have an expectation that something will happen but you haven’t actually made that clear. You haven’t told the person what you would like! And since they can’t read minds, there is a good chance they won’t actually do the thing you secretly wanted them to do.

So make it clear.

Make it clear by understanding what your customer wants. Make it clear in a standard, repeatable process that shapes the path for your team. Make it clear when you check in regularly to see if everything is on track.

When you’ve made it clear, another thing can happen. It might be clear that the process is actually pretty hard. Maybe it’s an emotional time or area for a customer, maybe it’s a long and boring process. Nothing is perfect. So this is where the second part of our equation comes in:

Care.

Care about your team, sympathize with their troubles. Yes, problem solve with them using Lean CX when you can, but also just listen. Sometimes people need to vent, and need to be heard that they are going through something tough. Acknowledge that it is, and don’t minimize it.

Empathy and Clarity. They both make a difference to your team’s engagement, and if you use both I absolutely guarantee you will see some astounding results.

Chat soon – David Mclachlan

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Leadership Card 10 – Tie Outcomes To Meaning

June 1, 2018Leadership Cardsdesign your work, ease of use, employee engagement, leadership, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CX, life purpose, team purpose, tie outcomes to meaningDavid McLachlan

Design For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 10

Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 10 - Tie Outcomes to Meaning

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Giving Your Team a Purpose

There’s nothing worse than getting up at your alarm in the morning, getting the kids ready for school, downing a morning coffee and rushing in to work… only to have that work mean absolutely nothing in your broader life.

You’ve been there before, haven’t you? The work is either boring and too easy (or too hard), or too little or too much. It’s rarely ever Goldilocks – just right – and it’s almost never a part of your real dreams, passions, or purpose.

There’s A Lot Of Disengagement Out There

And the stats on this are pretty brutal. Nearly 67% of workers are disengaged at work – dragging their feet, making additional mistakes, and having significant time off before leaving altogether. But the research also shows that people want to do a good job, it’s usually leaders lacking in real team motivation, psychology and operational management skills that cause people to lose their engagement and their drive. Which makes sense, because no one really ever teaches you this stuff, do they? Especially not in an easy to use framework like the one from “The Lean CX Score” book.

Tying the outcomes of your team to a higher meaning has been proven to improve the engagement and purpose of your team, and the results they get. The good news it doesn’t have to be a fancy meaning like curing world hunger, it just has to be a meaning higher than the work they’re doing now.

Things like:

Your work will have a direct impact on meeting our profit target in this way, or;
The customers you help are impacted in that way, or;
You are helping your broader team achieve something by doing your work, or;
Even almost any “because”.

Just Saying “Because” Increased People Saying Yes By 93%

During a study by psychology Ellen Langer, she wondered what sort of words she could use to get people to let her cut in line before them at the copy machine.

She used many different variations and ways of asking, but it turned out that almost any reason was enough – the highest performing sentence included “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” with a 94% compliance rate. But just giving any reason also gave a 93% compliance rate, such as “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

Just including a “because” in your request brings a different meaning to things – a meaning that’s not just all about you, or the other person in the moment.

So when you tie the outcomes of your team’s work to a meaning, give it some thought, but don’t overdo it. Don’t spend six months coming up with the perfect “meaning”, when a simple higher meaning will do. And then watch your team blossom just that little bit more, as the engagement within your team grows.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 9 – Setting Clear Outcomes

May 31, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXcustomer experience, design your work, ease of use, entrepreneur, leadership, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan

Design For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 9

Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card - Engagement Model 1

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A Simple Way To Improve Engagement

In the research Leadership Cards previously we’ve seen that a big part of getting where you’re going is having a destination in the first place. It’s that old cliche, worn out but it’s true, of setting goals to have success in your business and your life.

But setting goals can sound boring, can’t it? Instead, we could look at it this way – it’s not so much about setting goals as it is about getting stuff done. And further to that, getting the right things done. Setting a clear outcome, a clear destination for your team, puts them on the right path, gives them clarity in their work and life direction.

If you were a pilot taking off from an airport, you would want to have somewhere to go. If you just flew round in circles for a few hours, you would run out of fuel and crash. That’s what’s happening with your teams.

The research also showed that setting outcomes collaboratively, where you sit down with your team, choose tasks that suit their strengths, improved results by up to 35%, and in some cases more.

So make it clear! As part of the Ease of Use framework, outlined in the book “The Lean CX Score”, you find your customers (the people you serve), find what they want, and outline the steps to get there. That’s clarity.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 8 – 50% of Employees Don’t Know What is Expected

May 30, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXcustomer experience, David McLachlan, design your work, ease of use, entrepreneur, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CX, startup, team buildingDavid McLachlan

Design For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 8

Lean CX Leadership Card- Employees dont know what is expected

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If You Don’t Know What’s Expected, What Are You To Do?

Imagine this: in a high performing company there are two teams. One team is given a clear objective and is clear on their path to get there. The other team is given no direction at all – in fact some of them are not even sure why they turn up each day.

Which one do you think will do a better job? And if you’re a business owner, which team do you think will be worth the wage you’re paying them?

When we put it like this, it seems obvious, doesn’t it? The team with the clear direction, objective and path will certainly outperform. Yet recent research shows that around 50% of employees in work today are not clear on what is expected of them at work.

And when they’re not clear, as we found above, they’re probably not going to be doing a great job for you or your customers. Here’s the thing about people who aren’t clear on what their objective is – they perform 35% worse and are 34% more likely to be disengaged in their work.

So set clear outcomes. Better yet, do it collaboratively with your team. You will be pleasantly surprised by the results and the improvement to your revenue and profit.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 6 – Employee Engagement and Defects, Theft and Safety

May 28, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan, defects, design your work, ease of use, employee engagement, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CX, safety, theftDavid McLachlan

Design Your Work For Ease of Use Using Lean CX – Leadership Card 6

Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card - Theft and Defects

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Have You Ever Been Happy?

Silly question, I know. But… have you? Really, truly happy? Do you remember what it’s like? Maybe it was this morning, maybe it was yesterday, maybe it was last week or maybe it was last year. But the thing about happy people – people who are fulfilled, at peace with their place in life, and satisfied with what they have, is that they are nicer people to have around for a variety of reasons.

Sure, they are happier, they don’t grumble as much, and are generally more fun to be around. But the statistics also take it a step further, because people who are happy, find meaning from and are completely engaged in their work actually make fewer mistakes, have fewer safety incidents, and steal less.

Employee engagement is so important when it comes to safety incidents, in fact, that one CEO I recently worked with used to have a rule: “Don’t tell me the engagement score, just tell me how many safety incidents and absentees your team has had.” That was all the information he needed to know to get a gauge on whether or not the team would be working well or far off track.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 4 – Productivity and Profit

May 23, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership CardsDavid McLachlan, design your work, ease of use, employee engagement, infographic, leadership card deck, leadership cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan

Design Your Work For Ease Of Use – Leader Card 4

Leadership Card 4 - productivity and profit

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Employee Engagement Affects Productivity and Profit

Most everyday leaders battling in the trenches are not aware of a thing called “Systems thinking”. It’s a way of thinking, taught to most MBAs or business school graduates that asks you to think of the bigger picture, and then the bigger picture again, and to how each tiny action will affect the whole.

The perfect example of this is how employee engagement – where your employees enjoy and are empowered to do their work – affects not only your team’s happiness but the productivity of your team and the profit of your company.

If you are a small business or a startup this is absolutely critical, because eventually you will be needing to hire your initial team of people to run things when you’re not around. Trusting those first few people with your fledgling business can be very difficult, but it is made infinitely easier with the trust that comes from highly engaged, high productivity and high output team mates.

Design Your Work for Ease of Use

The good news is there is a proven framework that shows you, step up step, how to design your work in a way that increases engagement and reduces the friction you feel when your work isn’t quite right.

It’s called the Ease of Use framework, and it was first outlined in the book “The Lean CX Score”. It takes the absolute best methods from the most customer and culture-centric business improvement method of the last century, and makes them usable in a white collar world.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

Get "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news! You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time. Get the Lean CX Score now.

Leadership Card 2 – Levels Of Engagement

May 21, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan, design your work, ease of use, leadership cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan

Design Your Work For Ease of Use, Leadership Card 2

Ease of use leadership card 2 Levels of engagement

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Recent research has found that the majority of workers are not “engaged” in their work. By engagement we mean they know what is expected of them, have the tools to do their work and enjoy their work.

The effects of low engagement can be huge on a company. As you will soon see in future Leadership Cards, sales are lower, productivity is lower, and absenteeism is higher. It’s a hidden cost that leaders may believe they have no control over, however by being intentional about designing your work for ease of use, using the ease of use framework, you can significantly improve the engagement of your teams.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 1 – Introduction

May 20, 2018Ease of Use, Leadership Cards, Lean CXDavid McLachlan, design your work, design your work cards, ease of use, ease of use cards, frameworks, leadership cards, Lean CX, research, strategyDavid McLachlan

Welcome to the first Leadership Card by David McLachlan.

So many studies have shown the benefits of intentionally designing your work, designing your customer experiences, and designing your products for Ease of Use. Huge benefits, like outperforming other companies in the stock market by 76% on average over five years (during market crises too), enabling customers to stay for six years on average (instead of just one), and much much more.

The Leadership Cards will bring you research and frameworks, packaged in a neat card for you to collect each week as you improve your business, your leadership, and your life.

Please enjoy!

Leadership Card Deck 001 Introduction - Lean CX Ease of Use