It was so good to be able to connect with a leader in the field of Enterprise Excellence like Chris Butterworth and gain his knowledge and insights.
Chris believes that the secret of excellence is leaders empowering and getting their people to think rather than being the expert (Which leaders often are) and telling people the answer or what to do. He mentioned that the expert approach to leadership stops people thinking and makes them dependant on you as the leader. This over time overburdens a leader and causes more fire fighting, rushed and erratic behaviour from the leader due to the pressure they are under.
Chris stated that the job of a leader is to make their people look good not themselves. It is to help their people grow and develop, build skills and capabilities. This creates an organisation of people who are thinking, learning and growing.
Chris mentioned the importance also of leading culture through behaviour. He discussed the fact that many leaders are chasing a result, an outcome that has either been placed on them or they have been involved in setting. Chris mentioned that it is the leading behaviours of people that will actually determine if the result is achieved or not. He discussed the importance of defining leading behaviours and KBI's, making these visual and improving them as a team towards achieving results.
Chris discussed the power of visual data and team huddles in creating a space for team members to initial form their challenging goals, define leading behaviours and raise improvement ideas and track them through PDCA towards achieving the gains.
This was a high practical episode. Listeners will be able to learn from this episode and consider ways to improve themselves.
05:37 What I've come to realise is key is that actually everyone has a valuable contribution to make. What makes the better businesses is where people go out of the way to help people to realise their value and to tap into that potenetial that everybody has.
06:53 Our role as leaders in any organisation is to make sure our people have systems that are easy to follow. That they have the training that they need, that they have the tools that they need. That could be computer tools or physical tools to do the job that we've asked them to do. And tap into their ideas on how to make those things even better, because actually they know what's not working.
07:21 Many managers assume that because they have the title under them, they have to have the answer to everything, and tell people what to do. Actually, the skill is to listen to what people are telling us, and let them make the improvements that they know they can do.
08:22 Far better in any conversation is to ask lots and lots of questions, not interrogate people but ask them how have they arrived at that answer? What structure have they used to solve that problem? and be more interested in the way they've arrived at the solution than the solution itself.
10:10 So if I ask them questions around customers or goals, in such a way that I'm testing them. Do you know the answer to this? Do you know...That's completly the wrong approach, and completely the wrong mindset. What instead I should be doing is asking them those questions to find out if the way I have communicated it is working. If the system that as leaders we have
To learn more about what we do, visit https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.
