Lean Leadership for Ops Managers

How well do you stick to your core values when it comes time to make hard decisions? It’s easy to talk about them in meetings and put them as posters on the walls, but do your decisions and actions align with your values? 

In this episode, Jamie shares how our behavior shows our values, plus an important update regarding the podcast. 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• An Update on the Podcast
• Core Values in an Organization
• Values Dictate Our Behavior
• Having the Courage to Make Hard Decisions

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/128

What is Lean Leadership?  It’s kind of an elusive, hard-to-define thing.

In today’s episode, I’ll break down what both Lean and Leadership mean to me, which then drives how I develop leaders. You’ll hear key components to consider when moving Lean Leadership beyond a buzzword to definable meaning.

This is my living and growing definition. Things can change, but the goal is to inspire you to create your own code to operate by. Let’s get to work!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• What Lean means to me, and how it advances my purpose
• My current definition of Leadership
• How my definitions of Lean Leadership drive my practice in developing people
• Key considerations for how you think about Lean Leadership
• Explore for yourself: What is Lean Leadership?

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/127

How well do you listen? How quickly do you jump in and start offering solutions or try to fix the problem? In this episode, Jamie shares things that hinder us from listening and how to listen effectively as an operations leader.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• Choosing to Listen Intentionally
• Things that Hinder Me from Listening
• Two Ways to Improve Our Listening Skills
• Shifting Away from Either/Or Thinking 

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/126

How do we create an organization that has a growth mindset? So often, we look at our teams to see how they can improve, but building a culture of improvement starts with us as the leaders. In this episode, Katie Anderson joins us to discuss GE's Lean Mindset Event and how to develop a growth mindset as a leader.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• Change Begins with Leadership
• Learning to Step into Something New
• Differences Between Fixed and Growth Mindset
• Growth Mindset is the Foundation of Continuous Improvement

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/125

How do you approach safety? As leaders, it's easy to focus on policies to ensure everyone follows the rules, but safety encompasses so much more than procedures; it is a team sport. In this episode, Jamie shares how safety starts with our mindset and culture within our team.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• Safety is a product of servant leadership
• Safety is an expression of love
• An evaluation of the safety in our organizations

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/124

Hello from New York! I am coming to you live from GE's Lean Mindset Event, which focuses on encouraging the right mindset to embrace lean and features several excellent speakers across different industries, including CEOs from top companies, former NBA and NFL players, and more. In this episode, I share an overview of the event, plus my initial reaction and key takeaways.

What You'll Learn from this Episode

• Live from New York
• My initial reactions and key takeaways
• A Lean Mindset leads to Lean Thinking
• Lean Tools versus Lean Thinking
• Leaning into the Growth Mindset
• Genuinely going to Gemba

https://processplusresults.com/podcast/123

How might operations leaders delegate more effectively? In this episode, Jamie explains how the reason we delegate can drive more effective delegation and practical steps you can take to delegate for development efficiently.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• How to Delegate More Effectively
• The Primary Reason for Delegating
• Gaining Clarity on the Individual, Activity, and Skills
• Define the Level of Delegation
• The Logistics of Delegation

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/122

Why do you delegate? How does that determine what tasks you choose to give? 

In this episode, Jamie discusses the real reasons Ops Managers should delegate and how it benefits themselves plus other members of their team.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• The Reasons Ops Managers Delegate
• Delegating for Myself
• Delegating to Help the Individual
• Delegating for the Good of the Team

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/121

How often do you delegate? It can be difficult to delegate tasks that could be completed by other members of our team, in turn freeing up more of our time. In this episode, Jamie discusses three common obstacles that leaders face regarding delegation.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How often do you delegate
• It takes time to delegate
• Letting go of control
• Feeling guilt in delegating

https://processplusresults.com/podcast/120

How often do you characterize your work as fun?  

In this episode, Jamie shares how a big challenge and getting creative and trying new and better ways is fun for her, and as Operations Managers, you should be finding fun in your work too. Even though not every aspect of your job may be enjoyable, if you never find joy in what you do, there is a problem.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• A shift in my client workload and time
• Finding fun in challenging problems and situations
• The difference between work fun and personal fun

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/119

You can’t have a lean culture without conflict, but so many organizations and leaders are NOT comfortable with conflict. Here’s the question: “What would be the impact to your organization if you could have less destructive conflict and more productive conflict?”

What You’ll Learn from this Episode

• Two types of workplace conflict, and how they differ
• How the research behind DiSC for Productive Conflict does - and doesn’t - align with the other conflict models we’ve explored on past episodes
• Why you can’t have a lean culture without conflict
• The role leadership action plays in stimulating productive conflict
• What Productive Conversations and Conflict is and how it can help your leadership team achieve more effective change adoption, gain better adherence to standard processes, and foster creativity and collaborative problem solving

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/118

Do any of your leaders ever rush into solving a problem? It’s so easy to jump in and start pushing and moving too fast without taking a measured approach. In this episode, Jamie discusses the pitfall of Unstructured Urgency and how to overcome it.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode

• How Unstructured Urgency Shows Up
• The Impact of Lack of Structure
• How to Help Leaders Avoid Unstructured Urgency

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/117

Do you ever find yourself stalling to make a decision? Leaders often get stuck not making a decision because they don’t know enough or how to make the “perfect” one. In this episode, I share how perfection is an Enemy of Effective Operation and some practical steps to overcome it. 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How perfection shows up
• The consequences of the decisions we make
• Perfection delays action
• Ways of thinking to overcome execution traps

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/116

What causes Ops Leaders to struggle with effective execution? Even when the processes are in place, they never seem to be used consistently or correctly. In this episode, Jamie discusses how complexity is a cause of failed execution, and how to create simplicity instead.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• Choosing the Tasks to Complete
• Complexity as an Enemy to Effective Execution
• Creating Simplicity

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/115

I know you are busy. So, how do you prioritize tasks when they are all important? How do you decide what to focus on? In this episode, I discuss an enemy of execution: distraction. Not being distracted with meaningless or unimportant things, but staying focused on long-term, strategic goals when there is so much to do in your day-to-day. 

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• Dealing with the Day-to-Day
• Separating Priorities
• The Trap of Distraction

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/114

So often leaders want to learn how to “fix other people.” To get them to do the work, to get on board, to be better. But true leadership starts with our own thoughts, beliefs, and self awareness. 

You are probably keenly aware of your results. But what about your feelings? Or your underlying, automatic thoughts? 

In this episode, I dig into coaching techniques for self leadership. Because whether you like it or not, it’s hard to manage yourself when you don’t really know your inner workings.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode

• How life coaching applies to leadership self awareness and self management
• Lessons I learned from the CTFAR Self Coaching Thought Model
• How to facilitate the transformation from both thoughts and behaviors
• How to figure out what your underlying thoughts are

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/113

Do you want it done on time, or do you want it done right? We’ve all heard statements like this, and maybe we’ve even said them. It’s so easy to get caught up in this either/or thinking and thinking it’s impossible to have both outcomes. But what if it is possible to have both?

In this episode, I share the idea of AND thinking and a replay of my story from Episode 001, where I experienced a missed opportunity to practice this mindset.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• One of the overarching challenges ops leaders face, and why we need to challenge it
• How to stop looking at things as a dichotomy and open the door to possibilities 
• How to think and speak about the need to respect people and deliver results
• A practical example of using an AND approach- in leadership and in life

Get full show notes and more information here: https://processplusresults.com/podcast/112

As a leader, do you find too much of your time is spent in chaos and firefighting? Would you prefer to spend your energy moving your team toward an improved culture with better business results? In today’s episode, Paul Dunlop explains how Leader Standard Work cuts through the chaos and creates a stable environment ripe for Continuous Improvement.  

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

• The role of leader as coach
• How to shift from reactive work to proactively adding value
• Steps to slowly incorporate Leader Standard Work into an already-busy day

Learn more and find full show notes:
https://processplusresults.com/podcast/111

Is there any greater priority in today’s business environment than attracting and retaining talented and dedicated employees? In today’s episode, Tracy O’Rourke explains the critical impact of meaningful leader routines on the engagement of a company’s workforce.  

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:  

• The role of leader routines in improving culture
• Steps for implementing and enhancing Leader Standard Work
• Ideas for effectively managing time while adding new leader routines

Learn more and find full show notes:
https://processplusresults.com/podcast/110

While work is made up of process, organizations are made up of people. That’s right, weird, messy, emotional human beings. So operations leadership isn’t just about managing operations or improving process - it’s also highly dependent on leading people.

 Moe Carrick joins us to discuss how we can lead people well while also getting results. 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode

• People Make Organizations Great
• Skills for Activating People’s Talents
• Why Investing in Your People Matters
• The Value of Frontline Teams

Learn more and check out the links at our full shownotes:  https://processplusresults.com/podcast/