Making the Case for Continuous Improvement with Terence Mahone of Farfetch

Summary

Joining Daniel on the show this week is Terence Mahone of Farfetch. When Terence took on his role at Farfetch, the directive was simple: Go out and create a culture of continuous improvement. We talk about the need for senior leaders to be willing to build the structures that can allow ground up engagement and idea generation. We also talk about the importance of fluency around a directive, and how understanding the language can help prevent fear or doubt in your teams. 

Key Takeaways

• The best implementations of continuous improvement starts the process with the ground level team, but senior leadership has to be on board to build the structures and create the environment.
• Fluency in the process is important. You can assuage fears by teaching your teams the language.
• Listen to learn. As a manager, listen to learn, invite your directs to speak freely and listen to learn. 
• Work to ask questions in a way that doesn't feel like a deflection. 
• The words we use and our tone of voice matters when it comes to getting buy in for ground up idea generation. 
• Build a system to quantify the effect of process improvements, and provide meaningful feedback. 

Links & Resources

Terence Mahone on LinkedIn

Can Lean kill creativity? No. 

Overview of Six Sigma

Continuous Improvement - Kaizen

Glossary
5 Whys - A root cause analysis technique to determine the root cause of a given problem and help identify a solution. Read more here. 

Gemba Walk - The action of going to see the actual process, understand the work, ask questions, and learn. Read more here.

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com