Visual Management Systems and Trust
The following is an excerpt from Part 17 of my forthcoming book on organizational trust, accountability, and flow (title TBD).
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Organizational trust dies in darkness and obfuscation.
When goals are not clear, roles and responsibilities are not well defined. When information is not shared, trust cannot flourish. Expecting to establish an environment of trust, accountability, and flow in an organization where information is hoarded and/or protected like state secrets is akin to living a fallacy.
Yes, organizations have trade secrets and competitive intelligence that would be damaging if it were to be leaked. However, well-crafted employment agreements and effective communication regarding what information is, and is not, sensitive can provide the necessary guardrails to keep that which is sensitive within the four walls of the organization. There will invariably be a small subset of the organization’s data that must be restricted to a subset of the employee population, but those datasets and the individuals or teams that have access to them should be carefully considered and periodically reviewed to prevent more data to be labeled as “classified” than necessary.
If you’ve spent time working in a corporate or institutional environment you’ve likely run across a domineering boss or two that thrives on internal protectionism and uses obfuscation as a tool to (a) control their employees, and (b) groom their personal reputation with senior management. These boss archetypes are highly selective regarding the data and statistics that make it out of their part of the organization. What these bosses typically can’t or aren’t willing to see is that when everything appears to be going great all or most of the time, that in itself is a red flag. Also, in the long lens of time, this behavior is unsustainable for both the boss and the team.
Earlier in my career, I too was an information and data protectionist. This, coupled with the “Andy said” culture I cultivated, led to an environment where everyone was looking over their shoulder and waiting for the next shoe to drop. No one but me had the full picture of how the business was doing, and I can attest that running a business that way was more exhausting than it needed to be. It turns out that it takes more work to obfuscate than it does to be transparent! It was only after I learned to accept that a modicum of vulnerability was the missing ingredient that things started to turn around.
Vulnerability was the key that unlocked hidden potential in both me as a leader and the team as a whole.
You see, if we shed our emotional suit of armor and let others really see what’s going on in the part of the business we’re leading—the good, the bad, and even the ugly—it turns out that most people want to help make things better. It also places a bright spotlight on the small minority of colleagues who have a deeply fixed mindset and operate by fear and intimidation. Once the majority of leaders begin to sprinkle a bit of vulnerability into their standard work, then the oxygen is removed from those who thrive on obfuscation and mud. The truly unchangeable fixed mindset bosses will begin to self-select out of the organization to find other organizations to terrorize. Others will see the benefits of working toward common aims in the spirit of collaboration and discover the joy that comes from winning together.
In Part 15, we introduced the concepts of the gemba walk and the gemba board. I personally like these transparency and visual management tools because they’re so organic and authentic. As discussed previously, gemba boards should all conform to a certain level of standardization (the required elements) to promote readability and understandability across departments, but then each department can add their own spin to their board. The required elements were very helpful for the gemba walker (me and other senior leaders) to reduce the burden of having to remember myriad formats, but I also loved seeing the individuality that would be put on display, depending on the unique subculture of a particular department. As you might expect, marketing’s board looked different than finance’s or technology’s boards.
To be clear, one of the required elements of every team’s gemba board (or other visual management tool) must be the KPIs, metrics, and/or OKRs that apply to that team from the organizational KPI Tree.
Conclusion
You can’t help improve that which you cannot see. You can’t hold an individual or team accountable for that which is not measured. Visually showing the blinking red or amber lights in addition to the green ones in your department lets others in the organization see that your part of the company is not perfect. Adopting and weaving visual management systems into the flow of work is an important tool to show that it is not only acceptable, but expected, that we all work together to improve upon organizational challenges.
Working knee deep in the mud of obfuscation is no fun for anyone, and certainly doesn’t promote trust, accountability, and flow.
