Gary’s Meditation Podcasts
Gary Galsworth has practiced meditation practice for over 50 years, leading meditation classes for some twenty of those years. While these classes started in person in Hoboken, New Jersey, they were switched to online sessions during Covid. They continue every week to this day.
Below is a selection of six of the nearly 200 recorded sessions now in our archive. While the 1.5-hour weekly format is a mix of Gary’s Zen and Vipassana commentary, silent meditation, and Q&A from practitioners, this page shares Gary’s opening talks only to preserve the privacy of students.
You’ll find a short description of each podcast. We plan to add new podcasts regularly.
Feel free to send Gary your comments and questions.
Radio Shows
Ep 1. The Visual Workplace: Let the Workplace Speak
What is a visual workplace? Why is it important? And how does it produce remarkable bottom-line and cultural results on your journey to operational excellence?
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Listen as Gwendolyn Galsworth—visual workplace expert, practitioner, and author of seven books—answers these questions and explains why workplace visuality is the glue that holds all other improvement methods together. Learn how visuality strengthens lean yet remains its own distinct strategy. Understand the difference between visual devices that tell and those that imbed behavior. Hear how visuality creates cultural alignment by liberating information and, in the process, liberates the human will. Whether you work in a factory, bank, hospital, military depot or open-pit mine, tune in and build your knowledge and know-how of visual workplace technologies and the principles and practices that drive them. Join Gwendolyn on the first show in her new series with Voice America/Business and learn how to let the workplace speak.
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Ep 2. First Building Block of Visual Thinking: i-Driven
What is Visual Thinking? The ability of a person to recognize motion and the information deficits that cause it—and then to eliminate both through solutions that are visual.
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The result is a new companywide competency: people who know how to think visually—a workforce of visual thinkers. These thinkers see workplace problems in a new way and solve them using a set of principles called the Eight Building Blocks of Visual Thinking. Listen as host Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual system expert and award-winning author, introduces the first of these building blocks: i-driven. Listen as she explains how answering two i-Driven questions build visuality into the workplace. Join us and learn what those two questions are and how they engage all employees in creating visual devices. From operator to CEO, manager to planner, supervisor to engineer, this is the dynamic that makes visuality rich, relevant, robust, and sustainable—the key to an aligned and empowered work force. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 3. Visual Thinkers Wanted: Building Blocks 2-5
How do you create a workforce of visual thinkers? What is the invisible enemy that visual thinking targets for destruction?
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How do you uncover the visible footprint this enemy leaves in its wake—the only means at your disposal for tracking down this profit-eating foe? Listen as your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, continues her overview of the eight building blocks of visual thinking. In her last episode, she presented the first building block: i-Driven. In this show she describes the next four: standards, six core questions, information deficits, and motion. As she does, Dr. Galsworth walks you through the logic of this new paradigm of thinking that forms the foundation of a fully-functioning, sustainable performance environment—and a spirited and engaged workforce. Whether yours is a factory, bank, hospital, office, military depot or open-pit mine, tune in and learn how to think visually and help others do the same! Let the workplace speak!
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Ep 4. Building Blocks 5, 6 and 7: Paulette Re-defines Her Value Field
Why do we say that visuality is a new system of thinking? What’s new about it?
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The answer is found in the eight elements that Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, calls the “Building Blocks of Visual Thinking.” In the last two episodes of Visual Workplace Radio, you learned about the first five of those: I-driven, Standards, Six Core Questions, Information Deficits, and Motion. This week Dr. Galsworth shares the final three: the definition of Work, the Value Field, and Motion Metrics. Listen as she explains the telling difference between primary and secondary value fields and why you can be sure you are in motion whenever you are not in your primary one. Learn how and why your understanding of your true value field evolves overtime as you begin to better recognize the true nature of work. Hear how 17 colleagues in a semi-conductor company outside Boston simultaneously experienced this as they watched Paulette Benedictus do her work. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 5. Ten-Doorway Model: Key to Creating a Workforce of Visual Thinking
How do you create a workforce of visual thinkers? Why is that important? What does a work area function like BEFORE this happens?
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What is the impact of a pre-visual workplace? Join Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth this week as she introduces her 10-Doorway Model for transforming the negative power of a workplace that does not speak into a self-ordering, self-explaining, self-improving company—a visual enterprise. The result is: every organizational level (from operator to CEO) develops a visual language of performance, adherence, and linkages. As Gwendolyn explains, these 10 Doorways allow the company to target its transformation, cultivating within each organization function a new mindset that enables us to solve problems permanently and sustainably. When we liberate information through visuality, we liberate the human will. Liberated information has the power to shift our identity from simply do-ers to contributors—visual thinkers and self-leaders of improvement. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 6. Doorway 1: 5S-on-Steroids
Question: If 5S is so important, why do so many western companies fail at it?
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Answer: Listen to Visual Workplace Radio this week as host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares her robust response as well as a rich cultural and technical explanation of how and why 5S works so well in Japan—but not in the West. Tune in as Dr. Galsworth starts to peel back the layers of concepts, principles, and practices of the first doorway in her 10-Doorway model for creating a workforce of visual thinkers. Doorway 1: owned by value-add associates who deploy the category of visual function she calls Work That Makes Sense (WTMS). Do not mistake this for mere industrial housekeeping or workplace organization. WTMS is more like 5S-on-Steroids! Listen as Gwendolyn starts to share the many innovations she designed to make the process work so well in the West. It will take several shows to tap into the richness of this doorway and what is possible. Hold on to your hats—and let the workplace speak!
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Ep 7. Doorway 1/5S continues: Western Gaps and Cottage Cheese plus Fruit
Have you been wildly successful in rallying hourly employees around the 5S goals of neat, clean, and orderly? Have you tried to motivate their commitment through compliance-based audits?
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Why not do as the host of Visual Workplace Radio and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, does instead focus your 5S on making the workplace visual. When you do, cleanup is about preparing the physical workplace to hold visual location information—the Visual Where. Go further she advises: Incorporate the term “visual” into the name of your process: Visual Factory, Visual Dock, Visual Quality. Or as Lockheed Martin did: 6S/Visual. Make juicy the sometimes-dry steps in 5S. Inspire visionary outcomes instead of only neat and clean. Incite thinking. Tune in this week and learn, for example, Galsworth’s plain but powerful way to join problem-solving with Shine/Scrub. Hear her tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of red-tagging while strengthening its vital center. Listen and learn. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 8. S1: What’s the Big Deal? (Doorway 1 continues)
What is the big deal in S1 anyway? What is hard about getting rid of junk? Why do so many companies fail at S1? Why are so many value-add associates disappointed—just plain mad?
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Where and why does this well-intentioned company initiative go off the rails? Listen as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and leading visual workplace expert, answers these questions and more. Learn the three premises for S1 success. Hear about the real meaning of S1 and why so much is at stake when so-called junk is removed in the name of 5S—and the territorial imperative kicks in. Understand why S1 is the stepping stone to an empowered work culture and to a new kind of improvement leadership. Hear how most companies, in their rush to clear out the clutter, miss golden opportunities to use S1 to re-frame, re-align, and re-invent the work culture. A case in point: Charley’s story and what happened to him and his table in the name of neat and clean. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 9. Doorway 1: The First S is for Spirit
Companies dream about cultural transformation brought on by 5S. But it rarely occurs. In fact, quite the opposite: 5S can turn a growing culture into a dust heap at the very first step—getting rid of junk.
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Tune in to Visual Workplace Radio this week as Doorway 1 continues. Hear Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and leading visual workplace expert, finish telling the story of Charley and his table—and the mistake made in the name of 5S neat and clean that Charley (and many others) never recovered from. Hear what really makes 5S a success. There’s an awful lot at stake. In the 5S reconfiguration Galsworth has developed over the past 30 years, she puts value-add associates front and center and lets them lead the change—a change in heart and in the physical workplace. She calls it “Work That Makes Sense,” a powerful, proven methodology to convert the HOW, WHAT, and WHO of letting operators get control of their corner of the world, visually. Listen/learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 10. The Visual Where: Doorway 1 concludes
What is the indispensable first step on your journey to a visual workplace?
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The Visual Where—the result on implementing borders, addresses, and (as applies) an ID labels for everything that casts a shadow. Operators who implement the Visual Where (5S) to their level of need often feel that the company is 90% through its journey to a fully-functioning visual workplace. Instead, fully-implemented, the Visual Where can only ever represent 15%-20% of the final outcome. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, concludes her scan of Doorway-1: operator-led visuality. In it, she introduces the purpose, power, and function of borders. Then she walks you through the the basics of addresses and those small clusters of the visual where that she calls “visual mini-systems.” Tune in and learn more about the knowledge and know-how you need to inform and inspire value-add associates as they gain control over their corner of the world. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 11. Your Success InfraStructure part 1
With so many powerful improvement methods available—including visuality, why do so many fail and fail early?
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First, companies have not put an improvement infrastructure in place prior to launch. There is no framework for success. Second, most companies don’t have a concrete means for tracking early victories and converting them into powerful next steps. This week on Visual Workplace Radio, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares the two sets of start-up requirements that companies need at the start of every improvement process (including visual conversions) in order to ensure intended outcomes happen and are long-term and sustainable. Listen and learn about the first four: 1) the Three Outcomes—the overriding goals of every transformation; 2) the importance of naming/knowing a Vision Place; and 3) importance of tracking bottom-line results; and 4) the meaning of great training materials. This is the first of a two-part series you won’t want to miss.
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Ep 12. 3-Legged Stool plus Improvement Time-Infrastructure part 2
Success in implementing improvement is not just about what to do but when to do it and by whom.
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This week on Visual Workplace Radio, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, presents the second of three shows on an Improvement Infrastructure: the eight behind-the-scenes elements that work synergistically to ensure your deployment outcomes. Continuing, she introduces the purpose and logic of the 3-Legged Stool—those key site leaders that prepare for an effective launch and support long-term outcomes. Then she explains what an official improvement time policy is and why it is indispensable to the on-going success of your improvement journey. She knows what you know: In the battle between production and improvement for time, production always wins. That is as it should be. Your company is in the business of producing products and services. But without a written improvement time policy, there is a real danger that needed improvement will never happen. Tune in/Learn more.
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Ep 13. Success Infrastructure part 3: Laminated Map. Hit List. Blitz
What is the set of practices and mechanisms that must be in place before your company can successfully launch a process that establishes continuous systematic improvement as a way of life in the enterprise?
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This week’s show on Visual Workplace Radio is the third and final in a series that describes that. In it, your host and visual workplace expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, describes the last three of the eight requirements she considers indispensable, in this case, for a highly-effective deployment of workplace visuality. They are: the Laminated Map, the Area Hit List, and the Visual Workplace Blitz. Working together, these processes help us find, hold, and drive meaningful improvement outcomes. Join Gwendolyn as she drills deeper into the vital behind-the-scenes preparation that supports the march of improvement through your work areas, across functions, and onto your bottom line. Once again, we understand that the destination of a journey is part of its first step.
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Ep 14. Visual Standards – Doorway 2
Standards are the bedrock of all work, paving the way to repeatable, precise, and predictable outcomes. What manager/supervisor does not rightly pursue standards as the starting point of all work. But where do Visual Standards fit in? And can they ensure exact, stable performance?
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This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, maps out the conceptual and practical profile of visual standards: what they are, how they work, and what they can—and cannot—contribute to operational excellence. This is the stuff and substance of Doorway 2, the category of visual function owned and led by managers, supervisors, and engineers—but also often mis-understood by them. Why? Because they look for control where none is possible. As Galsworth explains, visual standards can have only limited impact because they lack POWER. Power to ensure that what is supposed to happen does happen. Yes, in terms of power, visual standards have none. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 15. Visual Displays/Doorway 3: Supervisors Gain Control
Workplace information can change quickly and often—products, schedules, specifications, tooling, parts, methods, and the thousands of other details on which the daily life of the enterprise depends.
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How can busy (often harried) supervisors and managers stay on top of this ever-shifting detail and still make sound, timely decisions? The answer is: visual displays/production control boards. This category of visual function is Doorway 3 in the 10 Doorways Model. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your show host and visual workplace expert) defines visual displays: physical presentations of multi-layered information in single, interactive formats. Their purpose? To enable supervisors and managers to see and grasp complex information at-a-glance, understand a situation’s status, and take correct, timely, and independent action. Tune in and learn how displays get developed (I-driven) and help you gain control over your corner of the world, even when the pressure is on. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 16. Visual Leadership: Doorway 4 — a scan
Why do some executives and plant managers struggle to become effective leaders? What does effective leadership mean? How can visuality help leaders be more effective?
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In this show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual workplace expert) scans the fourth door in her 10-Doorway Model: the making of an executive leader through metrics, problem-solving and hoshin (policy-goal deployment). To Dr. Galsworth the task of executive leaders is to: decide and drive. She does not embrace the popular but mistaken notion that effective leaders can only be born. Instead, she offers new leaders (and harried managers) a set of highly visual tools that—when learned, applied, and mastered—confers the holy grail of leadership: the ability to say YES to the few and WAIT to the many, with confidence and knowing. Along the way, she shares anecdotes that anchor her meaning—for example: Captain Sully’s emergency landing in the Hudson on that cold grey day in January 2009. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 17. Doorways 5-10:The Best of the Rest
This week, your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth concludes her walk through her 10-Doorway Model; she discusses the final six doors. First, Doorway 5: use visual controls and visual pull systems to regulate-balance the consumption/replenishment of material.
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Then move to quality. Doorway 6 targets poka-yoke devices (aka., “visual guarantees”) so you can control the behavior of cause on the attribute level. The result? The end of mistakes and with that, zero defects. Doorway 7 is next: Apply methods from the six previous doorways to a new outcome: the Visual Machine®—let your equipment speak. Similarly, apply those same six methods in Doorway 8 and achieve the Visual-Lean® Office. In Doorway 9, set up a Visual Macro Team for creating visual linkages between departments, enterprise-wide. And in Doorway 10, implement a comprehensive self-audit system, based on a compelling array of visual principles. Align and unite the company visually. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 18. The Visual-Lean Alliance: Two Wings of a Bird
Question: Which is more important—visual or lean? Answer: Bad question. Visual and lean share a single destination: operational excellence.
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Listen this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, explains why visual and lean represent a single comprehensive improvement strategy but with a telling difference in focus, process, and metric. They are allies, yet importantly and exquisitely different. Visual’s name for the enemy is information deficits; its macro metric is motion/moving without working. Its goal? Build flow. Build adherence. Lean targets the critical path; its macro measure is time and its corollary, speed. Its job is to dis-entangle the path that value follows—and then put pull in place. Which is more important: time or information? Another bad question. Like the wings of a bird, visual and lean are separate yet equal in impact. Ask a bird which of its wings is more important, and it will answer by flying off. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 19. Its the Start That Stops Us: Five Factors
Why is getting improvement going and growing so tricky? Why do companies so often bail in the early stages—long before they even have had time to fail.?
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Why is it that the start stops us? If you already learned the answers, another improvement initiative will only strengthen you. But newcomers may take a nosedive. In fact, understanding WHAT to do is only half the battle. The other half is HOW—how to do that what. And then doing it. Knowledge + Know-how. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares the lessons she has taught—and learned—about that HOW. She maps out five factors that can doom your best intentions and your highest hopes—and waste a lot of money. And they may not be the factors you think: 1) the mistaken pursuit of perfection; 2) casual selection of the improvement method—and/or its lacks of a separate and robust deployment protocol; 3) demanding results too quickly; 4) training for the wrong reasons; and 5) ….well, tune in and find out.
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Ep 20. The Hero Within: I-Driven Visuality 1
What if every CEO, manager and supervisor commit to the single cultural outcome of making every employee a hero in their own eyes? What would change as a result?
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What would have to change? And how would that happen? Join us this week as your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, describes how visuality is designed to make every employee a hero at wo—and why this s a core outcome to your journey to operational excellence. In each of us is a deep and abiding need to contribute—a longing to create something of value and share it. Not just in our everyday lives but also at work. Especially at work. There is a hero within—the desire to master and excel. Because visuality is, at its core, a language that is meaningful, practical, and I-driven, it ready for this challenge, prepared to assist every boss make the following part and parcel of their job description: to ensure people at work become heroes in their own eyes. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 21. The Power of the I: Visuality Liberates the Human Will 2
Does it surprise you to learn that operator-led visuality is not a team-based methodology? Not at first. At first, it strengthens the individual—both in skill and identity.
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Listen as visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, explains how, when visuality liberates information, it also liberates the human will. This is an outcome that is unique to the visual workplace. It is, also, an indispensable requirement for letting the workplace speak—through people. You can never gain and hold on to the 15%-30% increase in productivity that Galsworth promises—and delivers—if you don’t make room for that part of your employees they leave in their cars, with the window slightly cracked, so it will be there when they clock out at the end of their shift: their will. Visuality invites that part to join in: to participate, express, contribute, and invent visual solutions—many never been seen on the planet before. Does this happen overnight? Rarely, but in operator-led visuality, it does happen. Guaranteed.
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Ep 22. Journey of the I: From Struggler to Self-Leader 3
How do visual principles and practices create heroes at work? What are the mechanics?
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In this third show in her series, The Hero Within, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, un-nests the power of the two questions that drive workplace visuality: What do I need to know? and What do I need to share? This is the journey of the I. Building on last week’s discussion, Dr. Galsworth maps out how the first question builds self-sufficiency—and the second builds self-leadership among team members and across departments. Each question is designed to help individuals shift their identity as they build the details of their operations into the living landscape of work through visual devices. This impact is huge. That’s when managers and executives realize they are not just investing in a 15% to 30% increase in productivity when they bring visuality on board, they are also cultivating a spirited and engaged workforce—heroes at work. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 23. Parable of the Rowers: Indifference, Resistance, Touchdown! 4
Do we really have to like all the people all the time—especially if “some people” are not cooperating with our very important improvement agenda?
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Can’t we just make them? Or are we forced, in today’s PC-zealous world, to “show respect” for everyone—even when some are clearly indifferent to the corporate intent and others actively push back? Join us this week as your host, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares her take on this tricky scenario. Listen as she shares The Parable of the Rowers. What does she advise? Don’t cave in and sacrifice your improvement vision. And don’t push your agenda strenuously. Instead learn the telling difference between inertia and resistance—and how to handle both. Keep your eye on the main event: getting visual improvement going and growing in the company. To do so, you may have to learn a new and very different way: allowing, even encouraging, people to be themselves, without fear of penalty—even if they are grumpy. Let the workplace speak!
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Ep 24. False Rivals: The Dilemma of the Two Leans
Have you noticed? There are two leans in the world today. One lean is defined as a known and knowable destination, achieved by applying a closely defined, formulaic engineering protocol that uses time as the lever.
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The other lean is seen the same as continuous improvement a never ending process without a hard edge, co terminous with the pursuit of perfection. Join us on Visual Workplace Radio as your host and leading expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, presents the dilemma of two of lean two options or two rivals. First, she un nests each approach. Next she considers a third option, keenly captured in the saga of Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot. Then, linking Alex and his solution to our day, she shares her experience with Delphi Automotive when the company set aside its own widely accepted definitions, rules, and practices to achieve a 30% increase in productivity on the shoulders of an already perfected lean production system. In a stroke Delphi defined what growth meant to it.
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Ep 25. Visual Management: What It Is Not
Did you know: visual management (VM) is only a subset of the visual workplace? Did you know there are seven other key categories of visual function?
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Though VM is important (especially to managers and executives), it contributes only about 10% benefit to your bottom line and work culture. Join us this week as your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, defines VM and its over arching goal: to clarify, connect and align operational results with the corporate intent through an array of highly visible (but flat) 2D formats charts, graphs, LCD monitors, KPI dashboards, etc. But VM only shows the results of behavior. It does not create behavior. It does not imbed it. It is limited and over estimated. It cannot replace the other visual functions it is only one of them. Expand your thinking expand your language. Realize the full benefit the visual workplace can contribute to your bottom line and to growing a spirited and engaged work culture. Understand what visual management is not.
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Ep 26. Cultural Transformation: How Visuality Does It
Lean is capable of improving the operational profile of so many companies and fast Yet we ask: When lean turn arounds are so rapid, can culture be transformed as well?
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While it is possible, for most companies it is unlikely. And while many techniques impact the work cultural, none in the view of host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, is more powerful than visuality in transforming a work culture completely and sustainably. This week Gwendolyn launches the first show in her Visual Leadership series and describes how visuality does it. Hear how and why her visual approach engenders fierce commitment and very personal expression. Learn how visuality creates connectivity in an enterprise, even tough ones. Understand the power of margin that slightest bit of internal personal space that can and does liberate human potential and trigger a spirited, engaged and unified workforce. Learn for yourself, why she says: visuality does not just support an aligned work culture. It creates it.
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Ep 27. The Biggest Obstacle: Lead vs. Manage
Do not confuse managing with leading. Yes, they need each other but they are not the same thing. Each has a central role to play but sequence matters.
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Join us for the second show in the Visual Leadership series of your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth. Over 35 years of hands on experience in the field of visual transformation taught her that managing is a peace time activity; and its behaviors align: We keep things going and stay on an even keel. We monitor, track, and check. And then we check again. Management is about stabilization. Leadership is about growth. Management creates short term safety and a knowable future. Leadership creates short term risk and future expansion. Change is not easy but leaders make it possible. Listen as she shares how the head of one of Indias greatest family conglomerates pivoted his senior team into the first leadership step on a single Saturday morning but only after half the group quit. Tune in or Learn more. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 28. The Visual Executive: A New Identity
What is visual leadership? Why is it so important? How do leaders become more effective? What does “effective leadership” mean anyway?
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These are just a few of the questions your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, tackles this week with the next installment in her visual leadership series. The fact is: Compelling, natural leaders are rare in any field—regardless of industry or venue. Executives, managers, supervisors! To make a compelling leadership contribution to the enterprise, you need to do more than simply chase down information, monitor KPIs, submit reports, and show up for meetings. You need to change your job description, and in the process, change yourselves. Fire the boss that you are—and hire a new one. You need to transform your identity. But identities shift only when we see and understand ourselves differently. Tune in as Gwendolyn maps out the seven behavioral elements that executives engage in order to become powerful leaders of improvement, visually.
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Ep 29. Supervisors/Leaders of Improvement: Seven Elements
What does a leader of improvement on the supervisory level do? Does that new role overlap with such traditional supervisory duties as expedite and firefight?
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This week, as her series on Visual Leadership continues, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) maps out the seven elements that define improvement leadership for supervisors and managers—and then explains how visuality is the glue that holds them all together. With “improve” as the anchor element, she walks through the other six: stabilize, measure, target, problem-solve, coach, and model. Then she shares a simple way for supervisors to self-diagnose and put those skills into action, without over-reaching or making too sharp a turn away from their current duties. The key is understanding; then practice one new behavior at a time with a buddy—then another. Easy does it. It’s best to eat this particular elephant one bite at a time. Change is never easy, especially when you are its focus. But excellence requires it.
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Ep 30. OSIT: A House Worth Building/Your Improvement Horizon
Have you seen this? Executives in front of dashboards and LCD monitors, eating up KPI and OEE data. Some, real time. Executives love it. We ask why.
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The answer is simple: Because they get answers to the question: “Should I worry—or can I relax?” This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, explains that such tools provide executives with information but not with meaning, context or direction—without which executives cannot function effectively. As remedy, Galsworth presents the first of her top three visual tools to help leaders decide and drive (their job): Operations System Improvement Template/OSIT. At first glance, OSIT may look like just another version of the Toyota House (temple), capturing key TPS elements and ready for the office wall. But when fully understood and used, OSIT becomes the premier tool for defining the company’s corporate intent and connecting that to the strategy and principles required for stability and then dynamic growth. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 31. OSIT/Part 2: The Nine Elements
What does it mean for a leader to name the horizon? And why is that important? When a leader names the horizon, he names where he wants the company to go together.
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The horizon is the destination (for example, a 40-Day Engine). Join Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, as she continues her description of her Operation System Improvement Template (OSIT). “Deciding,” she tells us, is where visual leadership begins. The nine OSIT elements provide the foundation for this, allowing the leader to name: 1) customer; 2) vision; 3) mission; 4) values & beliefs; 5) strategy; 6) macro metric; 7) strategic principles; 8) tactical systems; and 9) methods. Attempting to run your company without a fleshed-out OSIT, she says, is comparable to the difference between skiing down the powdery slopes of your favorite mountain—or getting caught in a blizzard on that same mountain, without skis, without food, without a compass, and without anybody even knowing you are there. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 32. X-Type Matrix: Strategic Goals into Tactical Projects
Why do some executives shake their heads in disgust at mention of the X-Type Matrix—while other sing its praises and credit it for not just saving their company but their jobs.
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The answer to the first: They were taught incorrectly and badly. The answer to the second: They were taught well. The X-Type Matrix is a single-author tool that allows the visual executive (YOU!) to translate, align, and integrate your company’s vision, mission, and strategy into actionable, cross-functional goals, and projects. Listen this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual expert and your host, defines the X-Type Matrix in detail and explains: a) how a leader develops it; and 2) how that same leader deploys it through others. Once in place, the X-Type connects with the projects, targets, outcomes, and resources required to achieve coveted enterprise outcomes. It is your annual plan on a single page—precise, actionable, and exciting. Yes, there are mistakes to avoid and victories to win. Tune in/Learn more.
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Ep 33. X-Type Matrix: The Power of Limits
How can structural limits be useful to Executive Leaders? Study the X-Type Matrix and find out. In this episode in her visual leadership series, Gwendolyn Galsworth delves into the importance of the very limits the X-Type incorporates in its layout.
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More than any other visual leadership tool, the matrix teaches executives their most important function: how to say yes to the few and wait to the many. As the X-Type teaches us discipline and clarity, it also guides us in developing greater skill in deciding and driving on ever finer levels of detail and effectiveness. The X-Type teaches—and it does not waiver. It doesn’t give an inch. You learn … or the tool stops helping you. Set it aside, blame the tool—but the X-Type merely waits until we learn the lesson it was designed to teach: We will fail as leaders if we do not curb our appetite and cultivate discernment—lean-ness in thinking and action. This is why the X-Type Matrix is the supreme vehicle for attaining our improvement future.
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Ep 34. Leader Tool 1/Supervisors: Visual Displays (Part 1)
Change is never easy, especially when we are the focus.
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Join Gwendolyn Galsworth in the next show in her visual leadership series as she discusses the power of visual displays to help supervisors/managers learn the behaviors of becoming leaders of improvement. No longer harried expeditors of logistics, these hard-working lieutenants use displays to organize information into a single, centralized format so they can: a) see the dynamic relationship between complex layers of fast-changing data, b) derive meaning, c) make precise, useful decisions, and d) take timely, independent action. Through displays, supervisor gain control over their corner of the world, even when the pressure is on. Listen and learn how displays become the anchor for the supervisors need to know—morphing overtime into vital action centers for change. And, in the process of changing the workplace, these leaders-in-the making gain the internal margin they need to change themselves. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 35. Visual Displays: Supervisor’s Growth Platform (Part 2)
Question: Don’t computers make visual displays redundant?
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Answer: No, the reverse is true; displays are often the only means by which we can, in real time, find and share data from multiple sources (including but not limited to from computers) and cultivate operational excellence. As importantly, displays provide supervisors with the margin and means to master daily dilemmas and become leaders of improvement, not merely logistical expediters. Join Gwendolyn Galsworth in this second installment of the indispensable role displays play in not just improving performance but, as importantly, in providing harried supervisors with that modicum of margin that allows them to grow and lead. Listen as Gwendolyn shares her “10 + 5” add-ons for building more powerful displays and a more actionable understanding of what production data really mean. Learn more as she describes the legendary impact Charles Minard’s visual display had in depicting Napoleon’s disastrous march on Moscow in 1812.
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Ep 36. Metrics That Drive & Problem Solving That Aligns
What happens when supervisors use metrics that drive—instead of measures that merely monitor? This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth (host/visual expert) shares the telling difference as part of her Visual Leadership series. The focus?
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The role of supervisors and managers as leaders of improvement. Too many managers falsely believe that posting KPIs on a dashboard or bulletin boards will trigger improvement. They are wrong. When they deploy visual metrics instead, they illuminate cause, build local ownership of the problem, and use those metrics that drive us down the causal chain—and bridge naturally over to visual problem solving (VPS). Traditional PS organizes the noise around a problem. VPS doggedly pursues cause in the nested, multi-layered construct where cause resides. There is no silver bullet solution. Listen as Gwendolyn also shares her perspectives on—and experiences with—CEDAC®, ScoreBoarding, Rolls-Royce/Aerospace, Sheldalh, and Sumitomo’s great practitioner: Dr. Ryuji Fukuda.
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Ep 37. Chaos, Fractals & Leadership (1)
Strange how most of us think that change happens—and how companies learn and improve. Stranger yet is how we seek to validate the progress we think we are making by identifying exact causes and the concrete logic of the physical.
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But what if an entirely different set of causes pertain? What if an all-but-undetectable logic produces tangible, physical outcomes? What if reality ain’t what it’s supposed to be? Yikes! Tune in this week when your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, takes you into the world of chaos theory, fractals, and morphogenic fields. Listen as she shares scientific and personal research about the largest gap in human knowledge: “What we don’t know that we don’t know.” The implications are compelling for all of us, leaders included. When leaders decide to deploy a structured process to move their organizations forward, forces are set into motion that will challenge that decision—even as other forces are triggered that invisibly support it. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 38. Leaders, Monkeys & Morphogenic Fields (2)
Changing the consciousness of your company (and therefore its operational capability) can never happen through sheer dint of effort—as legions of exhausted and disappointed change-agents can attest.
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It happens when we tie into the deep force within us that is the source of all positive change. In combination with us, this force works to inspire, transfer, and translate the new thought. The kind of changes that take place as you implement, for example, the principles and practices of workplace visuality change the way that work gets done in your company — and change you in the process. This is what you want to happen. This is what is meant to happen. Tune in this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, completes the discussion she launched last week into chaos theory, morphogenic fields, fractals and leadership. Adding to this powerful mix, she shares the story of the 100th Monkey, tying its relevance to the transformation that every enterprise wants.
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Ep 39. Borders: Unique & Indispensable to Your OpEx Journey
Until a company understands the logic and power of borders, they are treated as merely so many lines—useful for neatness and order but not much more. Few people expect “lines” to improve performance; and they don’t.
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Borders, however, do. And mightily. Borders function. What a surprise to discover that borders (especially when combined with robust addresses) can measurably increase productivity enterprise-wide even as they build a spirited, engaged, and contributing work culture if none yet exists. If such a culture does exist, borders strengthen it, almost immeasurably. On this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host, author, and visual expert) presents the first of twelve reasons that validate the role of borders on a functional as well as cultural basis. Listen to this first in her new series on operator-led visuality, as Dr. Galsworth describes examples of seven of the 18 types of borders—so you can imagine/re-imagine the role robust borders can play in your company.
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Ep 40. Borders: The Pattern of Work-The Power of the Mind
What happens when your 5S lines find a new life and new purpose as borders? What difference does that make—and why is it important?
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Tune in this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth shares how borders produce excellence, ownership, and commitment on your operational floor. That HOW is directly linked to the brain’s relentless effort to find and interpret visual data. This pattern-seeking mechanism of the brain is both built in—and as involuntary and insistent as our heartbeat. Listen as Dr. Galsworth tells the story of her own discovery of this remarkable function of the mind when an operator team implemented a set of borders that transformed the behavior of forklifts drivers—to everyone’s happy surprise. Hear about the unbreakable connection between the pattern seeking capacity of the brain and the built-in capability of the human mind for continuous improvement. Borders have an incredible power to transform even as they create a sense of safety and alignment. Let the workplace speak
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Ep 41. Borders: a Function, not a Line (3)
How can a line impact performance? After all, it is merely—as John Casey, noted 19th century Irish mathematician, stated—”a straight one-dimensional figure, with no thickness, and extending infinitely in both directions, without any ‘wiggles’ along its length.”
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Why not change the paradigm and turn your “lines” into functions, renaming them “borders.” Liberated from their restricted past, your newly-defined borders are now free to trigger a revolution in operational improvement. Listen this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual workplace expert) completes the 12 reasons for borders and her march through the 18 border types. Learn about person-width and photocopied borders, range of function, dashed, and slanted borders. Hear about directional and double-function borders, borders as controls, barriers and foam borders, and another visit to time-based borders that allow operators to apply core lean principles while retaining a powerful visual focus. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 42. Why Borders? Why Bother? (4)
Why bother with borders? Because borders create flow—the foundation of operational excellence. Taiichi Ohno (co-architect/Toyota Production System) told us: “Flow where you can. Pull where you must.”
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Lowly borders are key to that. They are the work horses of your operations. Yet, they are rarely well utilized because they are not well understood. Tune in this week as your host and visual expert Gwendolyn Galsworth walks through the seven core elements in the effective implementation of borders, led by your operators. Learn the dynamic fit between: brain function, i-Driven change, missing answers in the workplace, the smart location of function—and the financial and cultural impact of borders when operators learn to use MOTION as a lever. Across 30+ years of hands-on practice, Galsworth has witnessed the synergy of these six factors produce a seventh: 18 different types of borders, invented and deployed by operators. Wouldn’t you want to bother with that? Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 43. Borders: The Work Horses of Operations (5)
Borders are the—and yet are rarely utilized to their full potential. Over the past four shows, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, mapped out the vital importance of border—as one of the three elements of the visual where and the most powerful.
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Then she walked through the logic of borders and why you apply them to everything that casts a shadow—from easy-to-move items like benches, carts, and WIP to items bolted in place like machines, tall shelves, sinks, and so on. You also learned that, as you get smarter, your borders will get smarter, reflecting not only your operational intelligence but the inexhaustible spirit of continuous improvement. You learned that borders boil down to brain function and the pattern of work. Last week Gwendolyn mapped out the first four of the seven elements that turn borders into a thinking system for operators: impact/results, brain function, and info deficits. This week she concludes with the final three. Let the workplace speak!
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Ep 44. Work That Makes Sense: The Book (1)
What can a company expect from associates in terms of improvement and ownership? According to Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and author of seven books, a great deal more than they ever imagine.
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Today she begins a new series on her Shingo prize-winning book, Work That Makes Sense. In the words of Brent Allen, VP/Operations at Lifetime Products and its WTMS Champion: “I have been a student of management for 30 years, read countless management books and gone to many seminars. I have never found a better, more powerful system of transformation than Galsworth’s. That comes through on every page of this book. She does that better than anybody.” Listen as she shares why 5S specialists, trainers, and coaches welcomed her WTMS book as an antidote to the array of their own mistakes in trying to implement Japanese-style 5S in the West. As Rhonda Kovera, president of Visual Workplace Inc./Michigan, put it: “…I feel sure that anyone who reads this book will never confuse 5S and visual again.”
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Ep 45. Getting Ready to Get Ready
What would it be like if the floors, instead of just holding us up, actually helped us with our work? What if we could learn to make the walls, benches, desks, and tools active partners in our performance?
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Many people think they know what a visual workplace is. But it is so much more than is commonly understood. For one thing, visuality is a way to ensure that work not only gets done but that the physical work environment becomes an active partner in achieving work outcomes. Join us this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth continues through the pages of her book, Work That Makes Sense. Setting the stage, she describes the role of management. Then she addresses value-add associates directly, recognizing their pre-existing expertise and describes the further contribution they can make by learning how to think visually. After a clear definition of a visual workplace, Galsworth points out that visuality in the community is everywhere—but rarely in the workplace. Rarely does the workplace speak.
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Ep 46. A Workforce of Visual Thinkers: A Scan of the 10 Doorways (3)
Is it enough for value-add associates in your company to become visual thinkers? Is that what it takes to let the workplace speak?
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No matter how many line employees invent and implement splendid visual solutions, they represent only part of who needs to learn how to think visually. True success in visuality means that every organizational level learns to create visual devices. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, adds to her discussion of her Work That Makes Sense book as she scans her 10-Doorway Model so you can understand for yourself how everyone—from buyers to engineers, planners to machinists, supervisors to CEOs—can learn to make the workplace speak. From visual displays to visual standards, visual metrics to visual problem solving, visual pull systems to the visual control of material, and visual quality to poka-yoke systems, imagine what it would mean for your company to become a fully-functioning visual enterprise. Imagine what it would mean for you.
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Ep 47. Benefits & Building Block 1: The Need-to-Know (4)
What are the benefits of making the workplace speak? What drives visual work inventions that result? In this week’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, describes the seven benefits of workplace visuality.
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Benefit 3/the practicality of visual thinking itself. Visuality is not merely about abnormal vs. normal; it’s about increasing flow by minimizing struggle. Benefit 4/the power of making a partner out of the physical work environment. When you give a voice to inanimate objects through visuality, you come to expect more from them—and they deliver more. “Expect more from the floor,” she says, “ than merely holding you up.” Hear how world-famous composer, Philip Glass and Gwen’s brother, Gary, (both NYC plumbers in their youth) got ornery pipes to loosen up—when Glass sang to them. Then Gwendolyn launches the eight Building Blocks of Visual Thinking, starting with the Need-To-Know, the foundation of i-driven visuality and an opportunity to establish tolerance at work.
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Ep 48. You Go First: Ideas, Tolerance, and i-Driven Visuality
Where is the “we” in visuality’s first driving question “What Do I Need to Know?” Where are the teams? This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth discloses the genius of visuality’s second driving question, “What Do I Need to Share,” revealing the power of the Work That Makes Sense methodology to inspire, inform, connect, engage, and align.
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WTMS is a new way of thinking and performing for operators. Listen as Galsworth shares her “You Go First” protocol that shifts operators into tolerance when patience is too far to reach. Fears about associate-led change can trigger a lot of commotion in executives as they face their company’s true work culture—even as i-driven visuality helps those same associates cultivate courage, curiosity, and discovery. The benefits can be enormous. In one company, 200 i-driven operators freed up a mere five minutes/day by eliminating info deficits through visual thinking. The multiplied impact? The liberation of 31,890 work hours in one year. Let the workplace speak!
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Ep 49. Work That Makes Sense: 5S is about Compliance, not Development
What the difference between operator-led visuality—Work That Makes Sense— and 5S? Is it such a big deal anyway? This week Gwendolyn Galsworth, author of the Work That Makes Sense book and her Online Training System of the same name, gives the low-down on why she wrote the book.
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Making sharp contrast between WTMS and traditional 5S, she notes: “5S is about compliance and the proper relationship between work and dirt.” White-glove cleanliness and order anchored in lines and labels mean employees do better work because they feel safe. WTMS achieves that—plus a stable, spirited, contributing, and engaged workforce. Listen as Gwendolyn delves deeper into i-Driven visuality in the second driving question: “What Do I Need to Share.” Hear how it generates concentric circles of connectivity—and builds servant-leadership amongst hourly employees. Learn her “First-Question-Is-Free Rule;” apply it in the morning. This show also introduces Standards, the second Building Block of Visual Thinking.
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Ep 50. Info Deficits: Questions Asked But Never Answered
When the outcome is excellence, what’s not to love? This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth continues her walk through her Shingo award-winning book, Work That Makes Sense—specifically Chapter 2: Eight Building Block of Visual Thinking.
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After she re-caps visual standards (Building Block 2), she presents the six core questions (Building Block 3): Where? What? When? Who? How Many? and How? When the answers to any, many or all of these six questions are incomplete, inaccurate, hard to find, or simply not there, the result is the negative performance environment called “the pre-visual workplace.” This is a workplace flooded with information deficits—and, therefore, flooded with mistakes, mis-steps, and danger. Info deficits (Building Block 4) are invisible by definition—findable only by their footprint: motion/moving with working (Building Block 5). Motion is the struggle that leads to bad performance, danger, a de-moralized workforce, and managers/supervisors whose only weapon is firefighting.
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Ep 51. Value Field & Motion Metrics: New Habits of Mind
Is operator-led visuality about thinking or doing? Answer: It is a system of thinking first, then a system of doing. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth completes her discussion of the eight building blocks of visual thinking with the final two elements: value field and motion metrics.
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When your associates can define their value field, they begin to understand the balance point between moving and work—and moving and struggle. Dr. Galsworth illustrates through a mini case study of 17 grandmothers who began their visual conversion in a semi-conductor bonding cell in just that way. Couple that with motion metrics and your company has a powerful way for operators to define and measure their struggle, identify with their area KPIs, and own their behavior. Associates realize that, in a non-visual workplace, their hands, feet, and mouths constantly seek the vital information they need but can never find. Learn how the building blocks cultivate new habits of mind and let the workplace speak.
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Ep 52. Beware of Borg: Standards, Standardization & Standard Work
Do you pursue standards, standard work, and standardization as the bedrock to repeatable, precise, and predictable outcomes? Yes, all three words contain “standard” in them; but it is a mistake to use them interchangeably.
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They are not the same. To think so is to radically limit the contribution each can make to operational excellence. Add to that a parallel misunderstanding about “visual standards” and you have a cognitive and deployment trap of the first order. The trap is the mistaken notion that if we make everything the same, we will a) ensure that the right thing will be done again and again; and b) attain the triple win of repeatability, repeatability, and sustainability. This is not true. Listen as Gwendolyn cautions you to resist this form of Borg thinking. Be careful not to swallow the marketing when you bite into your love of “standards.” Get your terms right and definitions clear. Resistance is not only not futile, it is mission critical. Beware of Borg!
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Ep 53. The Three Outcomes: How Visuality Defines Success
What does improvement success mean? What goals are universally relevant, making your improvement efforts worth the investment? Today, Gwendolyn Galsworth resumes her march through her prize-winning book, “Work That Makes Sense (WTMS).”
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Now on Chapter 3, she defines the three outcomes that all visual transformation targets. Outcome 1: Achieve a Visual Showcase, a work area that demonstrate high-performance visual performance. Outcome 2: Achieve trackable, bottom line results. Visuality does not attack KPIs directly. Instead, it focuses on transforming the physical environment so that struggle evaporates, and flow not only accelerates but is visually controllable. As a result, KPIs that need to increase, do so—and those that need to decrease, do that. Outcome 3 is to adopt an attitude of learning. As people implement WTMS, they change the process and change themselves in the process—including their thinking and sometimes even their attitudes. That’s what success means in WTMS.
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Ep 54. Your Success WTMS Infra-Structure (Part 1)
With so many powerful improvement methods available, why do so many fail—and fail early? One main reason is: Companies have not put an improvement infrastructure in place prior to launch. There is no framework for success.
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This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares six behind-the-scenes elements that ensure the success of your WTMS (Work That Makes Sense) deployment. These need to be in place on the macro-level before the launch: 1) vision place (to keep the initiative on course); 2) systematic methodology/WTMS; 3) excellent training materials; 4) onsite leadership (“3-Legged Stool”); 5) laminated map; and 6) official improvement time policy. Today’s show details the first four, with special emphasis on the 3-Legged Stool, comprised of the Management Champion (who resources/protects WTMS), WTMS Coordinator (in charge of scheduling, logistics, and deployment) and the Steering Team (a group of volunteer value-add associates). Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 55. WTMS Infrastructure-Part 2: Your Improvement Time Policy
If the destination of a journey is its first step, then what is the first step for a successful visual conversion? Tune in this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, continues to define the elements of your improvement infrastructure and the indispensable contribution it makes to every visual conversion.
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Just as a new city’s future depends on the design of a quality water system, electrical grid, and roads long before that city can prosper, so must the enterprise prepare for improvement success well before the first training class. After Gwendolyn revisits the Laminated Map and several new applications, she details the importance and process of establishing an official improvement time for your company. Learn the considerations in drafting this policy and how to operationalize it. If you are the ranking site executive this task will fall to you, along with decisions about the pace of change and the consumption of resources. Tune in. Learn more.
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Ep 56. Becoming a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer
Are there natural-born visual workplace trainers? Is training visuality so different from training other topics—like lean? How much is a trainer responsible for the participant learning—and for implementation results? What are some common training mistakes?
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What are the tricks—and the golden secrets? In today’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual expert and your host, continues to un-nest her ”Work That Makes Sense/WTMS” methodology—this time with a focus on the training function as an indispensable success factor in your WTMS conversion. This is the first in a set of shows that shares powerful, proven training process she has developed for transforming value-add associates into visual thinkers and passionate contributors of visual solutions. Yes, the success of WTMS derives from its dynamic logic, rich training materials—AND from the skill, knowledge and know-how of the WTMS Trainer in charge of instruction. Tune in as Galsworth shares training tips, concepts, tools, and guidelines.
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Ep 57. Great Training: Eight Physical Elements + Nine Long-Term Principles
How important is the physical training environment for effective learning and application? In today’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual expert and your host, makes it crystal clear: physical factors are mission critical to your success.
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She then shares her list of eight indispensable physical elements, in telling detail and with lots of helpful hints. The training room must: 1) be large enough; 2) be clutter-free; 3) have the right equipment; 4) be quiet (noise and sound are not the same thing); 5) have good air; 6) be dark enough (to see visual solutions sharply); 7) have a workable layout (line of sight; good circulation; crescent shape); and 8) have water and refreshments on the inside (NO CHOCOLATE). Then Gwendolyn presents the first five of other nine effectiveness principles. “Inspire First/Then Inform.” “Start Small.” “Everyone Gets Trained.” “Make the Training Room Psychologically safe.” “Get and Keep Your Supervisors Onboard ….” Don’t miss this show. More next week!
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Ep 58. Supervisors & Your Visual Workplace Training Success!
How do supervisors contribute to a successful visual workplace conversion? After a review of the principles to date (plus a newly-added discussion of discovery teaching/discovery learning), your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, details the remaining principles for an effective Work That Makes Sense Training.
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The focus? The crucial role supervisors play—which may not be what you or they expect. Yes, everyone knows it is vital for supervisors/managers to get on board. But in the WTMS process, their job is to strengthen i-driven visuality in associates by: a) keeping a low profile; b) not pushing/supervising in training sessions; and c) not “making” the change happen. Instead, a supervisor seeks to build the confidence, skill and spirited contribution of area employees as they visually convert the work areas. The focus is on ownership, self-leadership, and self-accountability. That’s how your supervisors contribute to your WTMS success and long life. Let the workplace speak.
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Ep 59. Supervisors: Keep a Low Profile (part 1)
What does it mean for supervisors to keep a low profile during a visual conversion—and why is that important?
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After an overview of the factors in determining a company’s true level of organizational readiness for change, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual conversion expert, digs into the critical contribution your supervisors (and managers) make in cultivating—rather than pushing—the transition from a traditional top-down work culture to one that is empowered. This does not mean supervisors/their bosses surrender their decision-making role or abdicate their own leadership power. Not at all. It means they identify their power contribution and clearly distinguish that from the power contributions that value-add associates can and must make for the enterprise to grow and transform. Hidden within this process are what Gwendolyn’s calls the two pyramids of power—the top/down and the bottom up. Listen as she describes the telling differences between them and how each functions.
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Ep 60. The Hidden Geometry of Empowerment (part 2)
The world of work can sometimes resemble politics in a hotly-contested election—with further polarization the method of choice for handling differences: Go to your corner and come out fighting.
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Though showy, playing our differences against each other is not a long -term win. This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, recounts the true story of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups doing the hard work of seeking and finding common ground. In so doing, they demonstrate the importance of our learning a new way and breaking the myth of either/or choices. No less so in the workplace where the process begins with an executive decision to invert the power pyramid and develop a new power proposition. Executives then learn a new way as do value-add associates. The result? Alignment and the simultaneous definition of areas of commonality and areas of enduring differences. In short: unity. And throughout, managers and supervisors are caught in the middle. Tune in/learn more.
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Ep 61. Empowerment’s Power Inversion (part 3)
Remember the well-worn adage: The only way to achieve employee empowerment is to turn the top/down pyramid on its head—into the bottom/up pyramid?
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But what do we do with the top/down structure? The wrong step is to reject it and throw it out. The right step is to engage a process that blends the two power structures into a single, coherent framework of governance and participation. In the third and final show of this sub-series, Dr. Galsworth describes the 3-step process for liberating the hidden power of the empowerment paradigm through the re-distribution of power. Doing this launches executive and value-associate alike on a curve of learning and change that re-defines the roles of each and the outcomes for which each is responsible. Executives identify and drive the company’s vision, mission, values, strategy, systems (WHAT, WHO, WHY). And value-add associates learn to hold a steady focus on HOW. An effective work culture is balanced blending of the two. Let the workplace speak.
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