Business Problems Solved Podcast

Lee talks with Lisa Moody, a Senior Change Manager in the Land Registry. She has been in change management for ten years, previously working in local government in service improvement and customer service. People focused skills have led her to her current role. Lee and Lisa discuss her move into change management, ambition, her civil service role, and how to create a change team with the concept of ‘The Invisible Change Manager.’   KEY TAKEAWAYS Ambition doesn’t mean striving for the next opportunity, it can just be to do a really good job of what you do day to day.  The civil service has currently a focus on digitisation and automation, allowing customers to self-serve and speed up service operation.  Improvement is about a better experience for the user of the process whether it be a customer or an internal employee. Co-design wherever you can. Work with your stakeholders and the people affected by the change to help craft the solutions.  The ‘Invisible Change Manager’ is the concept of the leadership figure of the department being the visible focus of change while actual change management remain background facilitators.   Change Management is a natural career step from a process management  perspective, but we are now seeing change managers that are more people focused, relying on the operational knowledge of the team they cooperate with and guiding the change process from a more psychological angle.   BEST MOMENTS ‘The beauty of the civil service is you can move departments, you can move within one department, you can do a whole multitude of different jobs so you tend to find people that do stick around quite a long time.’ – Lisa  ‘It's about making the experience better for whoever is using that process. Ultimately, I guess, everything we do from an improvement perspective should be about that end user, whether it’s the customer, whether it is for us in the civil service, case workers or internal people.’ – Lisa   ‘In those cases be super honest. Be really clear on what’s negotiable. I go back to FNC in these cases. What’s fundamental, what aren’t you going to influence at all. Be really clear about that. Be open and honest.’ – Lisa  ‘A lot of people change that I know, some of them have got egos and they’re in position because they’re the ones that like to have the answer. Have you had any challenges with that?’ - Lee   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 chats to Mark Drager, marketing expert and Canadian fine-haired business consultancy owner. He has worked on thousands of projects for hundreds of different companies ranging from international brands and airlines to small pre start ups. He is also a podcast host of “We Do Hard Things”, brand strategist and speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS Mark originally went to film school and left to work in television and eventually a corporate environment producing training materials and marketing. To build a company takes time, experience compounds, connections build and skills improve. Overnight success can be perceived, but in the background all the past experience helps support the version of the person people see. Be specific. Vagueness achieves very little. Be precise about your goals and they will be easier to aim for. BEST MOMENTS ‘I started “Phantom Media” in 2006. I was 23, my oldest daughter was only a week old when I decided to do this. My wife had no income and within two months I quit my job, had no money, no income, new born baby, my wife was at home and I was like ‘ Im gonna start this company” - Mark ‘You can show up like an overnight success because people won’t see the work you’ve done in the background. The work you’ve done in the background doesn’t have to be a slog or even linear.’ – Mark ‘If we are vague, if we’re fuzzy, if we’re not quite sure. I’m struggling with this right now. I have a podcast that we are a year and a half into, eighty episodes into and I’ve still not really defines enough who my audience is.’ - Mark GUEST RESOURCES Website https://www.markdrager.com/ Podcast https://youtube.com/c/MarkDragerYT   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’s job is to get organisations to adopt continuous improvement and problem solving cultures for the long term. There are three high level categories within this process and Rob explains them in this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Finding Problems. You may know your problems or survey your employees or customers to find problems. Find them when they are small by increasing discussion and communication between everyone involved in processes and asking better questions. Solving Problems. These are the tools and methodology that you employ to solve problems. Invest in training problem solving staff. Sustaining Solutions. Keep those solutions running and involve everyone so they engage with the new way of working. BEST MOMENTS ‘Typically when people engage us and engage other companies to help them create a problem solving culture or to create an army of problem solvers they want people to be trained in tools and techniques that actually solve problems.’ ‘Problem finding is not randomly or through annual data or monthly meetings but through daily conversations, through visuals, through challenging thinking including everybody that's involved in the process.’ ‘We treat problem solving like a special event for these big problems. We need to treat it like a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday, a Thursday…like everyday.’ 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 chats to Jared, speaker at the Virtual Lean Summit, an online event bringing together experts and leaders from all over the business industry to educate and share their methods on customer care and service, team building and efficient business problem solving. Jared works for the Port of Seattle as the Continuous Process and Improvement Program Manager.    KEY TAKEAWAYS ‘Lean thinking’ is a transformational framework that aims to provide a new way to think about how to organise human activities to deliver more benefits to society and value to individuals while eliminating waste. Jared's day job is creating operational improvements in the busy and varied environment within the Port of Seattle, which is a government agency, during its numerous activities involving both private industry and the general public. Jared started work when he was 12! His first job was picking strawberries and selling them to his neighbours. While working for Daimler, Jared saved them millions of dollars using simple solutions by asking the right, simple questions.  This year's Lean Summit Theme is about going out and achieving a successful and continuous improvement culture within your organisation. It is more efficient to convince people of the advantage of lean thinking than forcing them to do it.   BEST MOMENTS ‘We shortened it on a business card because that’s too long, to the CPI Program Manager. What we do is we help the organisation to really embrace lean thinking and go ahead and think differently.’ - Jared ‘Being able to go ahead and identify the problem, that root cause, is important. I think even more important than that is being able to have a critical eye and asking questions.’ – Jared ‘Construction has always been part of my blood. My Dad, my Uncles, they all started construction businesses. I even worked for my Uncle who had a Finnish cabinetry business.’ - Jared ‘The first day is about embarking on your lean journey. The second day is about establishing a lean culture change. The final day is about embracing lean thinking.’ – Jared  ‘Whether we use the ‘L’ word or whatever improvement methodology we navigate towards is fundamentally about increasing the number of thoughts in our people and reducing the time from thought to conversation to action.’ – Lee    GUEST RESOURCES https://www.virtualleansummit.com/   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/

There are certain words that people believe are negative which can, in fact, in the correct context, be considered very positive. Language itself is a challenge due to the understanding and definitions of words changing depending on personal experience and how they are used.  Lee discusses how important it is to consider this when communicating effectively.   KEY TAKEAWAYS  To understand what has been heard by the person listening to you communicate, one must understand the experience of that person.  Failure happens. Mistakes happen. Things go wrong. It is a waste of time to mourn mistakes and failure and not just fix it and move on. If failure incurs punishment or ridicule it is more likely that problems will be covered up or ignored rather than dealt with.    BEST MOMENTS ‘The goalkeeper coach said “part of the goalkeepers job is to let goals in”. Which surprised me at first when I heard it but he was making it acceptable.’  ‘It would make that process far better because you wouldn’t have people hiding and covering stuff up, manipulating things to make it look better.’  ‘You want all of those things to be exposed so you can understand when all of those things have happened so you can put them right. If you can’t see it, you can’t 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/

Asking the right questions can be a great and essential method of becoming an efficient and effective leader. Often we fall into habits of asking the same questions but what approach should we be taking to affect change and motivate?   KEY TAKEAWAYS The secret of problem solving is are we finding enough problems?  Listening is the best way to formulate our questions. If you are attentive then your team will know you value their time and opinion. If we want to develop our people and encourage their self development then we’ve got to be asking more than just repeated set questions.  Ask questions that keep the other person thinking. You can affect their problem solving by the nature of the questions you present.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I genuinely believe that the secret of asking better questions is by being a better listener because if we are listening more than the person that we’re asking the questions of knows that we are interested in the answers.’  ‘The first time that we start to listen to the answers that are given we will think about those things that are being said.’ ‘The measure of success is all about the thoughts of our people and if we are creating good thoughts in our people we will get more ideas and more suggestions and we will make more improvements.’   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, through his work with teams, has been asked for feedback on how he would assess the teams performance. When reducing the time from thought to conversation to action there are three biases that characterise different groups' approach to actioning ideas.    KEY TAKEAWAYS  The Silent Bias. This is when we don’t feel comfortable or confident enough to share what we think  The Conversation Bias. We are happy to share ideas but tend to stick at the discussion stage, reluctant to commit and action the idea. The Action Bias. We would rather get straight to the action rather than spend time discussing it.  The ideal situation is to find a balance between all three.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I think what we have to try to find is a balance for this. We have to try to find a way to navigate through this on an individual and a team level.’ ‘You’ve got to create more thoughts in your people. You’ve got to get them thinking differently. You’ve got to inspire and motivate them and challenge the heads of our people.’ ‘need to create a place where people can do things and try things themselves and this is a challenge in finding a balance between all three.’   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/

The Golden Circle is a model applied by influential speaker and author Simon Sinek to explain the success of leaders in fields ranging from invention to politics. In this episode Lee explains and contextualises The Golden Circle so you can apply it to your business role. KEY TAKEAWAYS Simon Sinek is critical of businesses who apply the following in the wrong order. We should start with ‘why’, move to ‘how’ and then to ‘what’. Why is it important for the senior leadership team or the change team, HR, team leader, operators? By asking these questions you allow people to buy into what you require from them. The how is the differentiator. This is the performance. This is the area that will make you stand out. How you do what you do will define your change. How do you do things differently? The what is the result and if you begin with the ‘what’ you fail to establish the structure and motivation to achieve it. BEST MOMENTS ‘ There’s different purposes for each of these different statements. So, the why. The why do we do it is for people to build connection to whatever it is.’ ‘When you’re delivering change the outcome is the ‘what’.’ ‘So someone’s bias was towards problem solving, another ones bias was towards a daily meeting structure. Ultimately, those are just tools to help create leaders to ask about questions and all of that stuff.’ 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 chats with Josh Gain, founder of The 10x Manager Community, an organised skill sharing group dedicated to helping managers be the best in their current leadership role and preparing them for the next. One of 10x leaderships philosophies is “Management is a title given to you by a company. Leadership is when somebody decides that they are going to create change and impact their team, their business, their industry and beyond. Leadership has nothing to do with job titles, it's all to do with people and their actions.” KEY TAKEAWAYS After studying history at The London School of Economics, Josh began a sales career but always with a mind to starting his own business. One of the real challenges in the scaling of high growth business is attracting the best people and retaining them. 10x Management is a community driven learning platform where managers come together and share knowledge and insights to ultimately improve in their positions. 10x has developed a whole training platform that helps people train in the 12 key areas of management. We need new ideas that are implemented or perhaps even fail, to learn. We need to analyse the results and 10x allows you to share these insights with the community. Have clarity on your destination. Set clear goals with timelines and measurable results. BEST MOMENTS ‘I graduated with a history degree and then tried to work out ‘what do I do now with a history with a history degree?’ and I Kind of fell into sales’ – Josh ‘The real problem was, managers need better training. They need to become better leaders. Companies are aware of it and managers are aware of it but no one really does much about it’ – Josh ‘When you talk about those twelve things, how did you identify those twelve?’ – Lee ‘Through all the conversations we’ve been having. Each week we do a Management Masterclass. We bring someone in to speak about what they are great at and how people can actually replicate that.’ - Josh ‘We prompt everybody to reflect into the community. Based on the experience that you’ve had and the insights that you’ve taken in we prompt them to say something or ask a question into the community that can help have a discussion and prompt more ideas from other people to really develop that thought and that learning.’ – Josh ‘I can always get better and I can always improve and there’s always people to learn from.’ - Josh GUEST RESOURCES Website ; https://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisit%2E10xmanagers%2Ecom%2F-home&urlhash=821F&trk=about_website 10x on LinkedIn ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/10x-managers 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 details two key factors that are essential to driving your improvement project forward. Creating change can be achieved much more quickly by applying these two methods.   KEY TAKEAWAYS We need to be more aware and understanding of the process of forming ideas, expression of ideas and actualisation.  The length of time from thought to actualisation, the lead time from idea to action, should be discovered. We should do what we can to reduce that time span. Increase the number of constructive thoughts that people have. Engage them so they want to produce results towards your business. Ask them questions more frequently, create structured conversations for them to have ideas and express them. Put in place a safe environment. Do not criticise ideas pejoratively that will make your people reticent to express themselves. Understand how comfortable your people are with group or one to one meetings.    BEST MOMENTS ‘We need to be like magicians and make the invisible visible.’ ‘If this is done in a way that is creating the right thoughts in people then you are going to create more positive actions in the goal or destination that you are trying to achieve.’ ‘Is it easy for people to see what should be happening now and whether it is or isn’t happening the way that it should be happening?’ ‘They’re giving a month for the action because that’s when the next meeting is going to take place. But the action might only be an hour or two hours.’   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/