Business Problems Solved Podcast

You cannot solve problems in a business if you cannot even find them. Encouraging and training team members to locate problems is a first step to making real progress towards solutions. Lee explains the qualities and mechanisms to put in place to create an army of problem finders.  KEY TAKEAWAYS When something is big enough to quantify as a problem then we often have strategies in place to then find and apply solutions.  All team members need to be able to identify problems, especially those that have not yet grown into large system breaking blocks.  To create a good problem finder, have clarity of direction, understand expected standards, have good visual management to prompt the right focus, demonstrate compelling engagement, create confidence and empower those that are closest to the problems.   BEST MOMENTS ‘Recently with one of the teams that I’ve been working with, they have a belief or a perception that they are really good at problem solving.’ ’The real crux of this change and improvement thing is to be able to have everybody finding problems. Solving problems is the easy bit.‘ ‘The reward is a resolution of those challenges and that only comes from having a feedback mechanism or empowering those that are closest to it to fix it.’  VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

In this episode, Lee wants to talk to you about simplicity. Over complication is the enemy of comprehension so when leading people keep it concise and simple to facilitate better understanding with those you lead. KEY TAKEAWAYS Often when in change mode we can become over enthusiastic and overload a task explanation to a team member decreasing their comprehension, knowledge and confidence in the change at hand. Keep instructions to one for each task and you will be unlikely to have to repeat yourself. Really understand the task from the perspective of the other person to be able to communicate in the most sympathetic way. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you can’t explain something simply you don’t understand it well enough.’ ‘When we start to deliver change in organisations and in businesses, we don’t necessarily keep it simple for the person, we over complicate things..’ ‘The simpler you can make what they hear and not necessarily what you say, then that will help you be more successful.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST   For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.   CONTACT METHOD   You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee goes back to basics and discusses some of the common pitfalls of business change. You may recognise some of these problems in your own change team and systems as many people have before. Listen in and see if you can avoid these problems before they occur. KEY TAKEAWAYS Immediate success and instant change is rare to impossible. Change is a process and a journey.  Communicate clearly to achieve change. Be sure your message has been received. Involve the people who are in the process to develop the change. It is more likely to be successful with buy-in from the initiators.  Be flexible. Be ready for fluid change when encountering problems in a plan.   Take care of your people. Involvement in change decreases the fear of it.  Celebrate success. Recognise things that are going right, nor just things that go wrong.  BEST MOMENTS “There is no moment when a monkey learns to ride a skateboard. It’s a process.” ‘Just consider are you involving enough people? And how are you involved with those people?’  ‘Leading change can be stressful and it’s really important to take care of your team or the people and peers that you’re working with during this process.’  VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Whose job is it to create motivation? Having a reason to take action is the meaning of ‘motivation’, but whose role is it to demonstrate the reasons to act? The fact is everyone needs a reason to do what they do, but what is the best motivation for your team to not only apply themselves but to do so energetically and enthusiastically?  KEY TAKEAWAYS We have to have clarity of understanding of the reason why we are doing our tasks.  As leaders, it is up to us to create the ideal environment to motivate with the right measures, vision, clarity, reward and recognition. Understanding the full reasons for their tasks is important for staff. A seemingly pointless activity is demotivating.  BEST MOMENTS ‘“Bob lacks motivation.” They are pointing the finger of blame at Bob and suggesting that it’s all Bob’s fault. But I think that as leaders of people and of change we have got a role in creating the environment to allow the people to have greater reasons to do the stuff than not do the stuff.’ ‘Nobody goes to work to do a bad job, I genuinely believe that. But not everybody is motivated to do a good job.’ ‘There’s so many factors that we need to consider and when we’re dealing with medium to large organisations it’s not simply just to give everybody the business reason to act because that does not motivate people.’  VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

We are not asking our people and each other enough questions as leaders. When we speak of engagement we need to engage the heart, hands and mind. Lee delves deeper into this concept of questions and answers and asks if, with all the technology providing instantaneous answers, are we losing the habit of asking each other questions at all?  KEY TAKEAWAYS We need to create an environment where we are asking better questions. Fast solutions for problems often do not provide complex solutions to the given question.  With the rise of social media and information sharing, we borrow other solutions to our problems but in doing that we are missing out on a learning opportunity. If we want our people to think more we have to challenge them to ask the pertinent questions that will provide the most creative, innovative and effective answers.  BEST MOMENTS ‘The world of AI is creating answers and things for us to do just with a few commands. Is this going to create a bigger problem when we stop asking questions because all of the answers are already provided for us?’  ‘If we’d have started by just identifying the correct priorities it would have become a little bit mechanical and we may not have seen the issue that would be solved by us asking that new question.’ ‘We don’t want to live in a world where all of the answers already exist. We want to live in a world where we are asking better questions of everybody.’  VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Happy 2023! We are about to start the New Year which of course means new years’ resolutions made in good faith and zealously followed for, perhaps, a month and then dropped like yesterday’s old chip fat-soaked newspaper until 2024. Lee is here with his 3 most relevant and attention-worthy business problems that you should be addressing in 2023.  KEY TAKEAWAYS How do you plan and execute in continuing uncertain times? We still have instability so it is important to effectively translate what our strategies are into meaningful things for our people to do at all levels of the hierarchy every day.  How do you effectively lead in onsite and home hybrid working environments? A quarter of all workplaces utilise hybrid working. Regular collaboration is still stunted and complicated by hybrid working and solutions are still being developed to solve this. Specific systems need to be found to bring the right people together at the right time. How do you reduce your costs and still delight your people and customers? The cost of living is affecting staff, supplies and customers. Your people need more from you now than ever and your customers still need to be served effectively.   BEST MOMENTS ‘At the start of 2021, I decided to write a blog article that was also actually a podcast episode about what I believed were the top 4 business challenges for 2021. I’m going to just go back over them for the start of 2023.’    ‘How do we translate our vision into making it meaningful for our people so they know every single day what they need to do to help us achieve our goal and work towards that on a daily basis as opposed to crossing our fingers?’  ‘Those are the four C’s that we spoke about. They still exist. Connect, converse, collaborate, celebrate. Those are the four principles I believe in working together.’  ‘Do you believe that the culture of your organisation is what you want it to be? Is it role modelled by you and the leaders? Does everybody do what is expected of them when nobody's looking?’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

What is the difference between an Internal and External Improvement Person, be that a Coach, Consultant or Change Practitioner? Lee has been both and in this episode will detail not only the differences but the commonalities, be it the way the two are perceived by their team or those they are working with, the preconceived notions of seniority or the level of credibility offered and maintained.  KEY TAKEAWAYS The differences appear in the way the Change Leader is perceived. People often find External Change has more credibility as they are tackling a problem That the internal system could not solve. This credibility is fragile and harder to maintain. Internally it is harder to gain credibility with those with whom you have previous working relationships. The relationships are at a more equal level, but once respect and credibility are achieved it is easier to maintain amongst familiar companies.  Internal change is advantageous due to knowledge of processes and established working relationships with teams. However, an over-familiarity with systems may prevent the spotting of long-term obvious errors and an impartial conception of changes required.  BEST MOMENTS ‘I’ve had the opportunity to be both an Internal Change Person and currently an External Change Person supporting businesses and teams and leaders to do what they do better.’  ‘It’s harder to gain credibility because you’ve got to deliver stuff. You’ve got to have a background in delivering, or a level or seniority that allows people to know that you mean business and you can actually help them.’  ‘With an External, it’s easier to ensure that people have the ownership and accountability of the solution and of the answers because you don’t know the processes.’  ‘They each bring different challenges, but I think it comes down to credibility. External people have instant credibility that can be lost in how they turn up, show up and what they do. It might take a little bit longer to build credibility depending on your level of seniority and what it is that you do to help people win.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Feedback is often seen as one of the main drivers for improvement, but the nature of that feedback can have a direct bearing on the continuation of the task and the satisfaction and motivation of the staff members involved. Lee explains the feedback ‘sandwich’, the relevant time and forum for feedback, your relationship with the person you are approaching and how you encourage development and learning by asking the right questions.  KEY TAKEAWAYS The definition of ‘feedback’ is ‘information about reactions to a product or person’s performance off a task which is used as a basis for improvement.’ A constructive feedback method, the ‘sandwich’ is to offer a positive then an area that can be improved and then another positive. We need to give feedback at the right time and correct forum to offer maximum benefit to the target of the feedback. Feedback is down to your relationship with the person who you are trying to benefit. If your goal is to improve the person that is receiving the feedback, then your role is to keep them thinking, not offer your solutions to the situation. BEST MOMENTS ‘As a leader of people or of change we are often tasked with giving feedback to build the capability of others.’   ‘When we consider feedback, sometimes we take things personally. In the world of improvement we have these daily huddles, the daily standup. I think that there are different kinds of feedback in that situation that we need to consider.’  ‘One of the key questions that you need to ask during the initial conversations is how would they like to receive the feedback that you’ve got?’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

In improving the working environment the action of adding tools and changes is often reduced to a box-ticking exercise and not approached as a continuous ongoing task requiring regular attention and updating. Lee is here to encourage you to not let all your approaches slide away and degrade and to keep up that constant improvement.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Introduce every new tool on a timeline to keep a close eye on how they are maturing and integrating as they mature and regularly check in on their progress.  Process capability and people capability need to move forward together and this does not occur without observation and maintenance. Understand what is required to develop the tools and maintain and improve in the future.  BEST MOMENTS ‘You might have a ‘huddle’, a Daily Standup Meeting, a Short Interval Control Board, some sort of daily conversation taking place. Success is not that the daily conversation is taking place, ‘box ticked’. Success is that you’re constantly, consistently developing the daily conversation in line with what it is you need to deliver.’   ‘We want everything to be improving together, and continuously adapting and changing depending upon what is being seen, what is happening in the environment that the process is being worked in.’   VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Our comprehension of specific words is often informed by the experience of learning its meaning, where we got it from or the person who taught us, for example. In this way, our communication should concentrate on what has been heard, rather than what has been said to avoid misunderstandings. Is your teams understanding of a high performing team in sync?     KEY TAKEAWAYS To gain an understanding of peoples opinion of high performance, ask each person to choose an example which for them exemplifies a high performing team. Ask them what they think will exemplify themselves as a high performing team so they can understand the different aspects that are required. BEST MOMENTS ‘I asked everybody to think of a non-work related example of a high performing team. Typical answers are Formula One, the British Cycling Team, Englands Women’s Football Team. When I ask this question it’s to give me a reference point for each person.’ ‘It’s vital that we provide spaces for people to explore and share what they have heard not just accept because something has been said that everybody has understood it in the same way.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast          ABOUT THE HOST   For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.   CONTACT METHOD   You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/