Influence Skills for Lean/CI Leaders & Coaches

Presented By:

David Verble & Judy Worth

“Make it so.”  That’s the response “next generation” crewmembers of the Starship Enterprise could expect from Captain Jean-Luc Picard to a well-reasoned proposal.  Unfortunately, that’s not the response we often get from others, irrespective of the quality of our recommendations.  Indeed, good suggestions often get rejected almost out of hand and without a proper vetting.  That’s because, according to the growing field of brain science, humans are often far from the rational beings we see ourselves as. In fact, we’re hard wired to make decisions based on a set of unconscious but largely predictable biases and then look for ways to rationalize the decisions we’ve made.  The good news, however, is that same brain science offers us ways to anticipate those biases in ourselves and others, develop strategies to pre-empt them and increase our ability to successfully influence those around us.

This workshop is designed for lean leaders who wish to increase their ability to get things done when they don’t have or choose not to use direct authority over others who need to approve, collaborate or perform the work to be done.  These skills can be successfully adapted to use to influence superiors, peers and direct reports in ways that increase the likelihood of success.

The content of the program will be based on the latest studies of decision science and influence tactics as well as the facilitators’ combined seventy years of experience. Instructional methods will include introduction of the key principles of personal influence, discussion of examples of application of the principles, review of studies illustrating the principles, demonstration of skills and tactics based on the principles, exercises to practice use of the skills and tactics, and feedback and reflection on participants’’ performance and experience in the exercises.

Learning Objectives

In this session participants will learn to…

In this workshop you will learn to increase your effectiveness and influence in making requests and offering suggestions by:

  • Leveraging your responsibility to company/operation as the basis for reaching out and seeking cooperation and support
  • Leveraging your existing relationship with influence targets to balance possible feelings of threat from change with trust in you
  • Drawing on your “social capital” in the organization if you have it or understanding how to create some if you don’t
  • Tailoring your approach to others and their situation and responsibilities
  • Channeling others’ attention toward the area of need before making a request
  • Selecting the most “favorable” time and place for introducing the need behind your request or suggestion
  • Acknowledging resistance and exploring it to connect and inform of favorable elements in the situation
  • Using open inquiry and listening with awareness to demonstrate understanding and create a sense of shared responsibility and common concern
  • Giving others time to consider a request in the context of their situation, ask questions and explore options without pressure to agree immediately
  • Using your personal influence skills effectively but fairly to be seen as collaborative rather than demanding or coercive.

Facilitator Bios:

David Verble, has been a performance improvement consultant and coach since 2000. Prior to that, he worked for North American Toyota for fourteen years, first as an internal change agent and later as the Manager of Human Resource Development. He has been on the workshop faculty of the Lean Enterprise Institute for twelve years and has done presentations and workshops to support a number of the LEI affiliates in the Lean Global Network. David has worked with clients in manufacturing, healthcare, service, finance and higher education in North America, Europe, the Middle-East, Asia and Australia.  His training and experience have focused on process management and improvement, leadership development, coaching, building PDCA problem solving skills, strategy deployment and support of cultural change for lean. David has worked with clients in manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and higher education in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.  David is a founding partner in the Lean Transformation Group (LTG).)  LTG uses value stream mapping a tool to help clients learn the problem solving and leadership skills to improve their processes and increase performance of their businesses.  David is co-author with his LTG partners of two facilitator guides for leading value stream performance improvement projects, Mapping to See and Perfecting Patients Journeys.

Judy Worth, a full-time consultant based in Lexington, KY, is a partner in Lean Transformations Group, LLC, and co-owner of Verble, Worth & Verble. She is also a member of the teaching faculty of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) in Cambridge, MA.   Judy’s practice focuses on organizational development and instructional design.  Judy began her Lean journey 11 years ago, when she provided the instructional design for LEI’s Mapping to See.  She is co-author of Perfecting Patient Journeys.  Since then she has co-facilitated value stream improvement initiatives in multiple healthcare and other organizations and provided train-the-trainer development for in-house facilitators.   During her career she has worked extensively in a variety of healthcare settings.  She spent five years as materials developer for the Kellogg-funded Computerized Office Record Review Recertification Project for the American Board of Family Practice (now Medicine).  She has over 20 years of experience as consultant and trainer for many of the federally designated organ and tissue procurement organizations in the United States, and for eight years she worked as a consultant and trainer for the Organ Donation and Transplant Division of the United Kingdom National Health Service, helping them develop and implement UK-wide systems for organ donation, adapting relevant best practices from the U.S. Breakthrough Collaborative on Organ and Tissue Donation.