Build a Better Workplace

By Tom Terez

Don’t be fooled by their brevity. These three words are enormously important to workplace transformation: Make it visible.

Did you hear that? MAKE IT VISIBLE. The words are so crucial they call for extra volume.

During the past six weeks, I’ve been involved in three separate week-long Kaizen events. Each led to major transformational improvements, all of which were fueled by make-it-visible discoveries.

It happens in all Kaizen events, first when the team creates a big map of its current process. Participants struggle early on as they get accustomed to the process-mapping methodology, but when they end up with a detailed bird’s-eye view of their entire current process in all its delay-filled dysfunction, the lights go on in a big way.

“So that’s what’s happening,” one person usually says, looking in semi-amused shock at a tangled map of steps, decisions, and delays. Someone else observes: “I can see exactly where things are getting bogged down.” Others chime in: “This is why we’re getting complaints from customers.” “Those mysterious delays aren’t a mystery anymore.” “Why have we been doing it like this for so long?” And most promising: “Hey, I see a way we can make this process better for everyone!”

More lights goes on when participants “make visible” an entirely new process based on their discoveries and analysis. As they develop the future state on paper in visual form, they show how everything can fit and flow together in better fashion — something that written words and linear lists could never convey.

You don’t need a full-scale Kaizen event to leverage the power of making it visible. The next time you and your colleagues are anguishing over your suboptimal process, perhaps in response to some pointed feedback from your customers, add drawing to your talking. Have someone serve as a scribe, mapping out all the steps and decisions on a white board or flipchart as people verbally walk through the process from start to finish. This will take some time, but once the map is complete, the whole group will have a common level of understanding — and a much deeper understanding as well.

The same goes for developing better ways of doing things. Instead of relying solely on spoken or written words, craft a blueprint in the form of a future-state process map. Draw it for all to see and with everyone providing input.

By the way, Post-It Notes make scribing a lot easier. Use one color for process steps and another color for decisions, with a separate sticky for each. Butcher-block paper also helps because most processes run on and on and fill a surprising amount of horizontal space. Lastly, you might want to learn more about process mapping from a book or free online tutorial. A little bit of learning will go a long way, especially if you’re the one who ends up working the marker.

There are so many other opportunities to put visuals to work. Are you and your team aiming to improve workplace communication so more people are in the loop? Start by drawing out the current situation, perhaps by creating a visual web showing who gets informed of what. Use this to spot communication gaps, barriers, silos, and missed opportunities. Then go back to the drawing board to configure something substantially better.

Are you frustrated by your own lack of productivity during the workday? Don’t get mad, get visual. Pick up a notepad and map out your typical day from start to finish. Do it in detail to include all of the usual steps and decision points. Then look for anything and everything that slows you down or gets you off track, including excessive motion, delays, overprocessing, and other forms of waste. Your new understanding will point you to the biggest needed improvements.

We’ve all doodled at some point, usually during endless meetings. This is another form of doodling — but with a purpose. Think of it as constructive doodling for smart people.

So the next time you and your colleagues start working on a problem or opportunity, pick up a marker and say a few simple words: “Let’s make it visible.”

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