Catherine McDonald  00:32

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast led by your host Shane Daughenbaugh and myself, Catherine McDonald, Shane, how are you today?

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  00:43

Well, Catherine, thank you so much. I am jazzed about spring here. If you’re listening to this in in a recent way from when we recorded it. It is springtime here in Nebraska. And I’m super jazzed about that. I don’t know what springtime is like in Ireland, but I’d love to hear is it good? Is it rainy? Is it wet? Like what’s it like? Yeah,

 

01:04

you’re so lucky, because it’s just it’s gotten really rainy here the last couple of years. You know, it is springtime, it should be almost summertime, but we’ve just got a lot of rain. And even you know, my kids GA and soccer matches the world canceled with the rain. So we’re kind of going through a bit of it. A downer here at the moment both look, it’ll pick up but always goes That’s Ireland. Ups and downs. Ups and downs. But also, Shane, it’s exciting because it’s the first time we get to do a podcast together.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  01:30

Yes. Very excited. Yeah, yes, it’s great.

 

01:34

It’s super. So it’s the first time obviously, we’ve been on and off with other hosts. But it’s the first time we’ve got to work together. So yay. And today, it’s very exciting. Also, because we are going to talk about process management, which I know, Shane, it’s a subject close to your heart, you talk about it a lot, I talk about it a lot. All of us talk about it a lot. And there’s so much to understand about it. So let me just explain what I mean by Process Management first. So really, Process Management, it’s not the same as doing the odd process mapping session or creating an SOP when an organization requires that it’s not about one time events, right? It’s about the continual optimization of processes. And it’s also about the alignment of process management and improvement to the strategic organizational goals. So there’s a lot to take in, in process management, and we really need to understand it. And to do this right. organizations really need to do a few things. They need effective leadership, for sure. They need systematic frameworks. And they need technological integration, okay. And there’s probably a little bit more, but it’s also important to address employee engagement on lots of these different types of people challenges across the organization in order to do process management, right. So today, Shane, you and I are joined by Matt spears. Shane, would you like to introduce Matt, before we hear from Matt himself?

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  03:02

Yes, I’d love to. I met Matt a couple months ago, we had a great conversation just through LinkedIn, just finding some of the content that he was putting out there. I thought it was rich, and and a great conversation starter. So we started talking. Very happy to have him here on on our podcast. Matt spheres is a business improvement professional with a passion for leading change and transforming the way value is created. Because customer value is created through business processes, Matt was necessarily drawn to the world of process management. Matt currently serves as the Senior Solutions Engineer for Nintex a leading process management and automation software company. In his current role, Matt has the privilege of helping organizations achieve operational excellence through business process management. And Matt, we are super jazzed to have you here on the show. Thanks so much for coming with us.

 

Matt Spears  03:55

Thanks. Thank you, Shane, and Catherine for having me. It’s my pleasure.

 

Catherine McDonald  03:59

Yes, we are delighted to dig into this topic. So I think maybe Matt, just to open up the conversation get us started. Can you talk to us a bit about what process management really is and how it’s different from maybe your typical approach to just process mapping or SOPs and organized reading SOPs? Can you tell us a little bit about what it is, please?

 

Matt Spears  04:22

Sure. And you hit on some of this Catherine in the introduction, but a concise definition for process management would be the disk discipline. And that’s kind of key a key point. It’s a discipline that improves company performance through managing and optimizing business processes. And so the discipline piece there kind of gets at what you were speaking of. It’s different from a one time process mapping event or a one time SOP creation event where we create a document and it may be really good and we put it away in a file drawer or we save it on a shared drive somewhere and we never pick it up and touch it again. So process management is not that. So we want to create this continual effort around nurturing, really treating process as an asset. So that’s a way perhaps, to think about it. So improving company performance through managing and optimizing business processes, and treating business processes as an asset.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  05:21

Interesting to how you how you said that I hadn’t heard it put that way, prices management as an asset to the business. And that’s something that we have to do not something that necessarily is going to improve the bottom line or anything like that, but an asset to the business. And I love the concept for this show. This episode, you know, is beyond beyond waste elimination, right? And eliminating waste, how, how are we doing improvement that’s going to go beyond just taking out these little things these one time things like you’re mentioning, but I’m interested, how can businesses ensure that their management strategies, their process management strategies can align and help with their overall organizational goals? Like how does that tie in together? Yeah,

 

06:09

well, it’s like any other initiative, right, they should be there to serve the goals of the organization. And so often was not just process management that could be anything could be any technology initiative, or, you know, we think of a new ERP or something like that. And all of a sudden, it feels like the business is being driven by whatever the initiative is. And that initiative is really just meant to be an enabler for the business to do what it’s there to do, which is to provide value for their customers. And so we just don’t want to get into a situation where any one initiative or technology is wagging the dog, so to speak. So the organization first to avoid that has to have a clear set of objectives and goals, there has to be a clear vision. If that doesn’t exist, then the potential of being tossed to and fro, if you will, just goes up exponentially. So there first has to be a clear set of objectives and goals. And then I think there has to be a way to make decisions that reflect those objectives and goals. And so when it comes to process management, we’re going to be talking about things like how do we organize our processes? How do we govern our processes? What technology do we implement to help enable that? Where do we start? Where do we put the emphasis first, those sorts of questions have to be answered in light of organizational goals and objectives. And so there has to be a mechanism that informs those decisions. Now, that can be something like a decision matrix that helps to make those decisions more objective and ensure that they align more closely with organizational goals and objectives or strategy. Or it could be something that’s less formal, and doesn’t have to be a decision matrix. But we just have to be aware of those things, when we are prioritizing the different phases of a process management implementation, just like we would with any other initiative, or effort or implementation, we just don’t want that taking over the direction of the business and driving us away from what our purpose is.

 

08:16

Yeah, that’s such a good point. And, you know, it’s a structured approach really, isn’t it? And, and that’s really what’s needed if we’re going to avoid this whole shiny object syndrome, that a lot of organizations are guilty of these days, we take on more and more, and we want to change and improve everything. And really, it’s not possible, we have to manage, you know, our resources and our abilities in order to hedge on the right processes and improve the right things. So I do have a question, Matt, how how do you manage then if there’s particular processes in the business, let’s say that are not earmarked for, you know, maybe the next core focus, but yet, there’s some pain points associated with them and something’s gone wrong. yet. They haven’t let say, you know, being singled out as something that we’re going to work on this week or this month? How do we how do we balance that the real day to day need for improve, went and change and balance that with the strategic side?

 

09:13

Yes. So there’s, when it comes to doing that, through process, you have to understand at what level does the pain exist. So when we think about a business, there are multiple levels of process. Now we use this word process, and we’re even using it in this conversation. And we’re assuming that the three of us know what each of each other means when we say process. But for example, if we have a process for creating a new product line, contrast that with a process for updating vendor information in our ERP system, which one of those two processes is more involved? Obviously, it would be creating a new product line, right updating vendor information in a CRM or ERP, that’s something I can do by myself at my workstation within five or 10 minutes, and I don’t have to rely on anyone else, I don’t have to go outside of the systems and technology I have access to, I’m able to do that in my own workspace. Now, we could call that a process. And it’s not wrong. But when we start saying that’s a process, and also creating a new product line is a process, you can see where the confusion could come in. Because creating a product line is going to take months, maybe years, it’s going to involve collaboration across multiple different parts of the business. It’s going to involve a number of technologies and systems, perhaps outside consultants and things like that. And so yet, we call both of them process. And so when we talk about process improvement, and how do we make sure that we are improving our processes across those different levels, it starts with just understanding, where’s the pain coming from? Is it coming from inter vendor information in the update vendor information in an ERP, that level of process, which is I would call task level. So that’s think of that as individual, the individual lives there, the individual worker, they live at the activity and task level. And there’s pain that exists there. But there’s also pain that exists upstream from that, at the we might say category or process, group level, or value stream level, and the two are just not equal. So if we think for some reason that we have to go to that value, stream level and address pain points there, what we’re going to do is end up missing some of these every day, small wins, just do at type improvements that exist at the activity and task level. So first, to answer that, Catherine, first, obviously, you have to understand where the pain is coming from. And then based on the governance structure that you have set up, deploy appropriate measures. And if it’s something at the activity or task level, then maybe the individual has authority, and they’re empowered to go in and make that change, and deploy it across to other users who are doing similar work.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  12:12

So it sounds like it’s very, you mentioned the word discipline, which gives me this, this idea that it’s very structured, if this is a very structured approach to going about this, and you just did to this great job of kind of delineating the task level and the value stream, the level and the different levels of the business. How would an organization go about establishing a framework for managing its processes? Like, what what goes in? What goes out? How do you how do you? How do you determine what this is? And what to focus on?

 

12:43

You? Yeah, well, most businesses are similar. And so I say that to start the answer by, you probably don’t want to reinvent the wheel, right? There’s a ton of great resources out there in the web that are available for free. I’m gonna plug ap qc.org. I’m not affiliated with them in any way. But they’re, they have some some industry standard frameworks they called they’re called process classification frameworks that are great starting points for these conversations, Shane internally. And so what a framework does is it breaks up an organization across high level process categories. So think about your business, and kind of take your mind up to the highest possible level you can where you’re looking down on everything. That would be the category level. Now, AP QC says there are 13 categories, whether there are 12, or 14, or 15, I’m not sure. I think 13. And the ones they put forward makes sense to me. But those 13 break up into two different groups. So you have customer facing processes, that are called operational processes are core processes or primary activities. There are multiple ways to categorize that. But those are the customers the the processes that directly feed to your customer. So think of business development, think product development, marketing, sales, product delivery, or customer service, those things that are touching your customer. And then below that, but still at the category level would be management or support processes. Those are your back of house processes, HR, IT finance risk. Those processes don’t touch your customer necessarily. But they do support the value enabling processes. So without your management and support processes, it’s kind of hard to deliver on those other things that are customer facing. So understanding your business from that level is kind of a first step and then decomposing or drilling down into each of those. And having a template is helpful because AP QC and some of these other orgs have done that work for you. And you can go in and say, Okay, does this make sense for my business? Okay, I’m gonna take 80% of this, and I’m gonna leave 20%. And maybe there’s 20%, that’s not there that I need to add in. But the templates gonna get you most of the way there, you’re probably going to need to change terminology to match your industry to match the way that your your organizational culture is to allow you to speak to your, to your process audience internally. But a framework is going to help you start to think through what are those high level categories? Okay, I have those established? How do I decompose or drill down into those now, and capture going down those levels of process down to that task level? How do I go from high level to task level across those 13 categories? Now, you’re not gonna be able to do that at once back to prioritization back to what supports the goals and objectives of my organization? And I’m going to do it in that order, right. And there’s some other factors that go into, can I do this now or not, it’s not just Should I do it, I have to have the ability to do it as well. But that would be a start chain is leverage a framework and work top down.

 

Catherine McDonald  16:11

I can see how having a framework is important there, because it does, it is a lot of work. But it’s not, I suppose as difficult if you’ve got the right framework, and as you say, the right templates, and you’ve got that kind of guidance in place to help you understand the different steps that need to be done and the sequence in which they need to be done, you know, to do this, right, and put this process management system in place properly. Just thinking beyond that. So I hear what you’re saying. So define the strategic objectives. Absolutely. So key, we don’t have those, you know, how do we know what we need to work on. So define the strategic objectives, then you’re digging down into sofern goals, to objectives to processes, you’re aligning the processes to the goals and objectives. And we’re trying to figure out and prioritize, you know, which of these processes we are going to, let’s say, work on or tackle. And then you mentioned the levels and understanding the different levels and making sure everybody else understands the different levels and their own roles and responsibilities. And then at that point, I just started thinking is that, how do we get those points across when we get to that point? And we’ve identified the processes? What how do we align the rest of the organization, then how do we bring them in and involve them understand roles, responsibilities, all that kind of stopped?

 

18:00

so you have to have a you have to have a common language, you have to have a common set of terms a lexicon or dictionary that in this in this sounds really boring. But but it’s really not. And it opens up conversation, it makes conversation possible. So there has to be a clear understanding across the business using terminology that’s accessible to everybody. I’m not talking about Ivory Tower, your center of excellence, sort of language, know something that can be deployed down to the frontline down to the workers who are interacting with customers, because they’re the folks that put processes into action. Right. So we talked about people process technology, I happen to think process is the black sheep of that group. Oftentimes, we do a really good job of oftentimes of finding the best people and training them and enabling them. We certainly spend tons of money on technology, right? Most of us do anyway. But But process is kind of the glue that holds both of those things together because people execute processes. And technology enables processes. So it’s really, it’s really about connecting the people with that information in a way that’s meaningful to them. And so you have to use language that that makes that accessible. But then there has to be a visual medium. So it’s not just that we’re talking about these things. This is the process. This is what you do in that process. But let me show you, let’s let’s actually pull it out of out of the ether, if you will, instead of having that just known tacitly we know it in our heads. Let’s now make it explicit. And we put that into a visual format. So when we talk about process management, and we say process mapping or process documentation or SOP creation is not process management. That’s a true statement. But process mapping SOP creation those things are part of process management. And those are the way those are the techniques, the tactics that we use to make the process visual, so that we can now communicate it in a way that makes sense to the process performers. So that would be my answer to that, Katherine is we have to, we have to have a common set of terminologies that we’re there we’re going back to, and we’re accessing, and we’re leveraging those words. And those words have particular meaning. But then we’re also visualizing the process so that we can all stand back together and look at it and point to things and make and ask questions and point out places perhaps that are not functioning the way that they should. You have to have a visual representation of the work in order to do that.

 

20:42

I don’t see him starting to jump in there with just one question linked to that, then that. So once we get to that point, and we were using the language and maybe I don’t know what maybe there’s a place where people are being trained, in whatever chosen quality methodology be lean or whatever else, and people are starting to use this language and understand the tools and all of this? Do you go as far then as having things like, because I know, I’ve seen this in other organizations as having that’s a process owners, people who are responsible for particular processes and the management of them? Do you go that far?

 

21:20

Yes, I Yes. Ideally, it’s not really sustainable. The, the discipline of process management becomes unsustainable without governance, in that governance being process owners, again, think about the levels of processes in a business, you’re not going to have the same type of person that serves as a process owner at the category or group level, that you will down at the activity and task level, right. But each level needs appropriate ownership, what that looks like for the business is going to is going to vary based on different factors. But you definitely have to have ownership to keep those visualizations, those documents, the process maps and associated procedures relevant to make sure that they’re still resonating with the workforce, they’re still accurately representing what’s happening in the business. So really, no way to do that, beyond ownership, there’s kind of an old saying, Catherine about a village that has a goat in it. And if everyone in the village is responsible for feeding the goat, what happens to the goat? Well, the go dark stars, everyone assumes someone else is going to do it. And so process governance is similar to that, if we put all of this effort into process mapping, and I’ve seen so many organizations do this, I bet a lot of the folks that I work with on a day to day basis, are coming to me. And this is where they’ve been, they’ve tried Process Management before and in the past, and it didn’t work. But they didn’t really try process management, what they tried was, we’re going to just push really hard to document all of our processes. And they got to the end of it. But there was no system in place to maintain any of that. And so the piece they were missing was governance. So I would say absolutely, you definitely need governance or accountability, some mechanism of accountability to to keep this relevant.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  23:18

Excellent. Excellent. So I want to go back just a little bit. You You said something interesting to me. You talk you mentioned the phases of process management. Now, maybe you’ve you’ve been you’ve been kind of laying those out already. But are there particular, you know, I think of like the DMAIC process, you know, define, measure, analyze, improve, and control, like those are phases that you’re going through? What would you say the phases of all of this you’re talking about? It sounds like they’re there. I’m just curious as to what they are?

 

23:53

Yeah, they are? They’re so that’s a? That’s a great question. I’m glad you glad you asked that, because I don’t think we have explicitly talked about the phasing. Everyone is going to have different names for this different categories. For this. I’m not claiming to be the foremost expert. But the way that I teach this to clients, is there are three phases. There’s planning, there’s execution, and there’s continuous improvement. So you have to plan for process management, which means we have to understand what are our priorities? What are our goals and objectives for this? And again, that should be aligned with organizational goals and objectives to support that, ideally, right. We need to under understand things like the type of governance system that we’re going to have in place, what type of technology are we going to deploy to help enable the governance and the documentation and the upkeep of this that we would like to have at the end of the day? So there’s the planning phase, and then there’s execution, okay, we know what we want to do. But now we have to go out and actually start creating these processes. We have to start nurturing them and publishing them and then maintaining them and optimizing them. So how do we go about doing doing that? How do we connect the right subject matter experts with the right process, put names and faces into those governance assignments that we’ve talked about, we have to actually have people fill those roles. And then once processes are created and published, we enter into that third phase of continuous improvement. So how do we make that process better over time? And that involves measuring the performance of the process and also receiving feedback on the process? Are there pain points, obvious points of defect, that we need to go in and address prioritizing those efforts? And then going through that continuous improvement motion? So three phases planning, execution, continuous improvement? That may be oversimplified, admittedly, but I think any, any implementation framework is going to follow those basic, those basic steps.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  25:58

So would you say, in that execution stage? No, you’re you got the planning you figuring out what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it? And then you mentioned, you know, executing these process, putting them in place, making sure you have people? Are you at the same time, I’m assuming that at the same time, as you’re putting these processes together, and the governance with them, that you’re also improving how they do this maybe is, you know, how do we update, you know, vendors in the system, so we can pay them on time, or, or whatever it may be? Are you at the same time that you’re setting these up reviewing them saying, okay, so how can we make this better? What’s the best way we want to do this? Because let’s put our best foot forward, you know, in this execution?

 

26:42

Yeah. That’s, that’s a great question. It depends. What I would tell people and I do give this advice, quite often, I would not get hung up on making the process perfect, improving the process, if you will, before it is published into its version one. The reason for that is people tend to feel this burden, especially as you’re just getting started with process management. There’s oftentimes this idea that everything has to be perfect, or it’s not going to work. And the reality is, it’s never going to be perfect. And it’s working right now. And you’re and you’re not, you haven’t, you haven’t done any process management intentionally anyway, and your business hasn’t as it collapsed. So what we’re trying to do is to make your business better. And to do that, you need to get going. So 80% is better than 80%. Now, it’s better than than 100%. That never happens. So let’s get that 80% out there. And then we will start to intentionally improve it. So unless Shane, it’s just obviously wrong, there’s something obviously not working here, then we may need to address that upfront. Otherwise, my advice is, let’s get version one done. And let’s get it standardized. And let’s get the variation leveled out and start now measuring the performance of this before we make any changes.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  28:09

So that, that also makes me think, then, from that kind of framework you just mentioned, now you have data to know exactly, which processes need to be addressed. Where are the pain points might be, you know, if you’re measuring those metrics, and figuring out, hey, you know, this process is going fine. We don’t necessarily need to change it. Or maybe because of this data, we see, oh, well, man, we thought the delivery was going to be 10 days, we find that it’s worth 15 days out, we’re still not there.

 

28:38

That’s right. And funny enough, and you’ve probably seen this, this Shane to working with clients that there’s a number of processes that people consider absolutely core and critical and foundational to what they do that just end up getting deleted entirely. We don’t even need to do this. Right. So and that’s another reason why I would say let’s not try to just improve it because improving a process, you’re assuming that that process is valid. And even that it’s designed appropriately, and it’s producing the appropriate output. And we just need to tweak, you know, the metrics associated with that output production. There are a lot of assumptions that go into uproot improving a process. And one of those would be that the process is valid in the first place. And so part of this planning and executing, at least in that first phase, is is saying, Okay, this is what we do now. But then the next question is, is it even necessary? Does it make sense because we don’t want to go down this improvement path, wasting those resources, whether it’s technology resources or human resources to improve something that we really don’t need to be doing in the first place.

 

29:53

Yeah, that’s really, really good points and really good questions chain as well. It’s so interesting. Yeah, I love this. This kind of structured approach, it just makes so much sense in terms of efficiency and just wise use of time and energy in organizations, it makes a lot of sense. You’ve mentioned technology a couple of times, Matt there. And we, as we know, technologies out there for our use. But I think you also touched on it earlier that we don’t always use technology well enough to help our process management. So maybe could you tell us a little bit about how the best way to approach the use of technology is and how it can really help us rather than hinder us in all of this?

 

30:33

Yeah, technology for, really, for any function within a business, and I’m speaking towards process management in particular, but any organizational function, technology can be a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master. And we do not want to get into a situation again, where technology is wagging the dog, where we’ve invested in, you know, Company X. And so that means our processes have to function within the limitations of company, you know, Company X is functionality. Don’t definitely don’t want to end up in that sort of a situation. Now, a lot of companies are in that situation, they just don’t realize it. So, really, first and foremost, have to understand technology is an enabler. It’s not the outcome in and of itself, it’s there to help us achieve the outcome in the most effective way possible. And so then the question is, okay, well, how do you pick the right technology for process management, in particular? And that comes down to understanding those things we talked about? What type of framework? Do I need to have to support process management within my business? What type of governance do I need to have? Do I want a center of excellence team that’s well trained and their master black belts, and they know they live breathe process every day? Those are going to be the only people, you know, touching and owning this content? Or am I going to go out into the business and and draw in some subject matter experts who know the process better than anyone else in the business, but maybe they’re not trained in process management or process improvement, or Lean Six Sigma or anything like that? Okay, those are two vastly different audiences. And so the technology you select has to be selected with, with your audience in mind. So knowing who the audience is, who are the governance actors going to be all of those things play into the selection of the right technology?

 

32:38

Yeah, for sure. And it’s people that program, the technology, the software, it doesn’t program itself. So it’s there definitely, as you say, to help us and guide us, but it does make me think, then, about the people side of all of this, you know, we’ve looked at the structures, the frameworks, we talked about the tools, you know, you broken down the phases, you know, so in terms of a system, it’s all very clear, you’re making it very clear to understand that. So it will be interesting if we could look at this from now that the people in leadership, especially perspective, so it makes me think, you know, what do we really need in our leaders in our organizations today to make this work? Because it does come down to people making this work really, doesn’t it? Yeah,

 

33:24

it always does, doesn’t it? Katherine, I think it comes down at the end of the day to the people and getting the right people in place. And so the way I look at the people side of process management is looking at a business and I try to again, simplify, maybe it’s an oversimplification, but your business is going to break down into three basic categories of people, you’re going to have your executives, you’re gonna have your middle management team, maybe your your back of house, like it sort of support partners. But then you’re gonna have your frontline staff your workforce. And, again, my perspective on process management is people are the ones executing the process. And so we want to make sure that whatever we’re doing is there’s a, there’s an intense people focus. And that means a frontline worker focus. So we don’t want to forget the business and all of this, but each of those different levels, so your executives, your middle managers, your frontline workers, they’re all going to have unique roles to play by but any initiative like this, because let’s just be honest process management. There are a lot of companies right now that are doing really well. And they don’t have any intentional process management program or discipline within their business. So we’re not sitting here and making the claim that those organizations are failing. But what we are saying is they’re they’re not performing as well as they could be performing. Right. But because there are a lot of successful organizations that They’re not bought into process management, if you will, it’s going to have to be a top down effort. Now there needs to be bottom up work going on as well. But if you do not have that executive level support, active support, and I like to contrast this, Catherine between there’s executive active support, and there’s executive, passive permission, I don’t want passive permission from my executive, I need active support. And how does that play out? Well, it’s going to look different for different organizations, and for different implementations. But at a minimum, I need someone who understands why we’re doing this. And they, they see that it does support the organizational goals and objectives. And they’re, they’re bought in on that. And I need that person, obviously, to allocate the funds necessary to allocate the people necessary, but also to be a mouthpiece for the effort. That means when an executive is talking in a staff meeting, we’re always going to have a process component to that staff meeting. I come from the construction industry. And when we were rolling out process management at the construction firm that I was working at, we had a wonderful executive sponsor. And what he would do in our staff meetings is he would incorporate a process component. So if it was Safety Week, in there is a safety week in the construction industry. If you’re not aware, during Safety Week, we would have, we would highlight our some of our key safety processes in the meeting. And getting people thinking about process. Yeah, oh, yeah, we do processes. We’re a process oriented business, right. So the executive has to keep it in front of the folks, whether that’s their staff meetings, newsletters, obviously communicating to their direct reports, A, this is important to me. And so when your people start talking about this, you need to know that this is coming from me, and I support this. So you have to have that, that active support, from the executive level, definitely need middle management support, grassroots support, certainly. But if you don’t have the executive support, so many times it just dies. Because people look at it. And they say, this isn’t important to the business, because it’s not important to the person that’s got the seat next to their title.

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  37:22

Right. So then what role or what does it look like for the employee level for the employee engagement, we just talked about leadership. And I really love that active support as opposed to passive permission, I may I may steal that, and spread that spread the love with that one. But in regards to employee engagement, like when it comes to successful process management, what is employee engagement look like?

 

37:48

Yeah, you have to answer the question, what’s in it for me? What’s in it for me? frontline workers, just to be honest, I mean, we’ve all been there. They have been just jerked around. So many times, pushed in in 10 different directions, there’s change fatigue, they’re tired of change, and rightfully so. And so when I come to them, and I say, hey, you need to care about process now. It’s, it’s an, I’m obligated to tell them why they should care about process, I can’t just go and say you have to care about this. I have to say, This is why you should care about this. This is what is in it for you. And that means when we’re planning. So back to the three phases of process management, part of your planning phase, is understanding the value that this is going to bring to the business. And taking that value and communicating it uniquely to those three levels of stakeholders we were talking about, you’ve got a different talk track for your executives, you have a different talk track for your middle management, and you have a different talk track for the frontline employees. Now there’s a I like to call a golden thread that ties all of those together. I’m not just making up things for executives and making things up for middle management and making things up for frontline workers. It’s all coming from the same root system, if you will, the value that process management is going to bring it’s just articulated differently to each of those groups. And so when I’m talking to a frontline worker, I need to tell them, how is this going to make their life better? Is it are they going to now all of a sudden have at the end of a week, you’re going to look back and you’re going to have spent two or three hours less time searching for answers to your process questions. Because processes now are organized. They’re defined, they’re visualized. They’re in a library that’s accessible to you. And you can go in and actually get answers to your questions quickly. Instead of going to SharePoint and searching the portal or or going on to teams or slack and messaging someone or picking up the phone and calling someone every time you have a question, I’m going to now put the information in your hands. And what you’re going to find is at the end of the week, you’ve got an hour or two or three extra that you didn’t have last week. That’s what’s in it for you. And maybe it’s two or three other things, right. But I have to answer that question, what is in it for them? Why should they care about it? That’s an that’s my obligation as a change leader, as a process management leader. And if I don’t have answers to those questions, then they have no, I have no reasonable expectation that they’re going to care about this. The other thing I want to add to that chain, I need to be able to articulate what’s in it for them. But I also need to be able to articulate what I expect from them. How long is how much of your time do I need to make this happen? Not just initially, but ongoing? What’s it going to cost you? So I’m telling you what the what the value is that you’re getting? But what’s that value going to cost you? And I have to have those answers for my executives and middle management, too. So those two things, what is it going to cost you? And what are you going to get from it? I have to be able to answer those questions.

 

41:10

And it really makes me think as well, Matt, you mentioned the role of middle management and all of this, it’s just huge, because the direct line managers are the people who have the most opportunity to have these sorts of meaningful conversations with people you know, and to make it happen and to be proactive about it. Because not all people on working on frontlines will go and look to have these conversations with their manager, it really has to be facilities conversations need to be facilitated by managers, you know, in one on ones where possible, as well as in in team settings, really? So I mean, is there anything else you’d like to say about the role of the middle manager from your experience, because I just think it’s such a crucial role in making all of this happen in the alignment piece in the motivation piece, we really need good managers in that position.

 

41:56

I agree completely. So middle management, it is that is the linchpin, oftentimes, there, because they’re going to be able to influence their teams, and they’re the frontline workers that report up through them, either positively or negatively, for this implementation effort for this, for the creation of this discipline within the business, oftentimes, they’ve been there at the business for quite a long time. So they have organizational influence, they have credibility, they have power. Are they going to exercise those things? On behalf of process management? Since we’re talking about that? Or are they not, and if you don’t have general management buy in, then you’re gonna have a hard time getting traction. But but really, in this, so many managers don’t live in this reality. But I’ve worked with a lot of good managers in my career. And I’m thankful for that. And those managers understood to a person to an individual, they understood that it was their obligation, as a leader of teams, as a leader of people to put themselves behind initiatives that were going to be in the best interests of their workers. And I think, Shane, I’m not sure if you and I talked about this on LinkedIn, but someone recently made the comment that if an initiative or an effort or an implementation, if it supports the frontline workers, nine times out of 10, there’s going to be an organizational benefit, they’re 99 times out of 100, maybe 100 times out of 100. So if you’re supporting the frontline staff, then you’re in a safe place most of the time. And middle managers need to understand that.

 

43:45

And we could talk about that all day in terms of building trust, psychological safety, and there’s so much more on that side. But I think you’ve done a really good job of breaking down what we need on the system side, and then what we need on the people leadership side as well. So it’s been fantastic. Shane, do you have any last questions before we wrap up? Because I think we probably need to? I

 

Shayne Daughenbaugh  44:08

mean, I was I would, I would just say, Matt, is there anything that you know, is passionate to your heart when it comes to process management that we haven’t hit on? Because we’ve hit on some great stuff like this? I got pages of notes here. Oh, it’s some rich stuff. Is there anything that you want to leave our listeners with? You know, that that will give them a spark that will give them an idea that will give them hope that you know, whatever? Yeah,

 

44:33

maybe I’ll end with with this. So if if someone’s listening to this podcast, they’re interested in improvement there is they’re interested in organizational performance, and probably in a position to influence those things. And so I would say, remember the fundamentals, remember the logical progression of improvement. We can’t improve something we don’t understand. And if we can’t visualize something, we’re probably not going to be To understand it to improve it. So you need to have a clear understanding and visualization of your processes before you go on this improvement journey. And so I say that because so many people especially in our day and age, AI is everywhere automation is everywhere. I work for an automation company I love automation automation has a place in a business is a critical component to a modern business. However, if you do not understand the processes that you are automating, you are going to mess something up, you are going to underachieve, you’re going to waste your resources. So I would just encourage the folks listening today to prioritize process management as a foundation for your process improvement efforts. You need to understand your processes. visualize them. That’s the foundation for improvement.

 

45:50

That is excellent advice. Really excellent. And I hope there’s lots of listeners out there go yes. And just so motivated to go off and do just that. You explain it so well. And Matt, if people want to follow you on LinkedIn or you know what should they look up? Or is there any other way that you?

 

46:07

Yeah, follow me on LinkedIn connect with me on LinkedIn, for that matter? Definitely. I’m not sure that the URL LinkedIn and then forward slash Matt H spears, go to simplifying processes.com. Simplifying processes.com That’s my website. You can email me Matt at simplifying processes.com LinkedIn the is probably the best place to get a hold of me.

 

46:31

Okay, that’s excellent. Okay, well, hopefully you will have loads more followers as well. Once you know people, people hear this. And I really encourage everybody to follow you and learn from you because myself and Shane have obviously learned so much even just from our short time together today. So Matt, huge thank you from us. You’ve been an excellent guest. And we’d love to have you back on the show at some more other point because I think there’s loads more we could discuss around this system and ways of working that we just didn’t have time to get it everything today. So thank you. It’s been brilliant.

 

Matt Spears  47:00

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.