Develop an Improvement Team Leader

Why Do You Need an Improvement Team Leader?

Accidents, incidents, and potentially unsafe practices continue to plague facilities worldwide. Knowing where to focus improvement efforts and how to engage employees and staff fully in improvement efforts can be challenging.

Companies continue to be reactionary, taking action only when something bad happens.  As Mark Paradies wrote in the TapRooT® Book (2008):

Crisis management isn’t management at all … You need a vision that keeps
problems from happening.  You need to develop an organization that
understands the best practices needed to achieve outstanding performance.

Accidents often occur because we fail to apply the best practices we have learned. That is why developing an Improvement Team Leader (ITL) at your facility is important. Improvement requires a focused and consistent effort and someone dedicated to leading it. As Admiral Rickover said:

“Good Ideas are not adopted automatically. 
They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.”

An Improvement Team Leader is dedicated to resolving issues that could result in:

• harm to employees,
• costly downtimes, or
• unwanted media or regulatory attention

if left unchecked.

What Does an Improvement Team Leader Do?

In facilities that do not have an improvement program, an Improvement Team Leader leads the team to develop a program and presents the suggested programs to management.  If a program is in place, an Improvement Team Leader leads the team in improving the existing program.  The Improvement Team Leader is an expert in improvement tools, ensures the plan is followed, and communicates lessons learned across the facility.

How can you identify a potential Improvement Team Leader?  They share these qualities:

• A questioning attitude
• Excellent presentation skills
• Ability to challenge the status quo while still being able to work cooperatively with senior management
• Good relationships with people
• Understanding of the business being improved
• Training in the improvement techniques being used

That sounds like many of the characteristics of a future senior executive.

Start Developing an Improvement Team Leader Today

Don’t wait for the next crisis to happen.  Empower an Improvement Team Leader who shares management’s vision and puts that vision into action.

The 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Course helps develop an Improvement Team Leader helps them better manage your improvement program and develops important career and leadership skills.

The locations and dates for our upcoming public TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training are available at THIS LINK.

If you already have an Improvement Team Leader trained in the 5-Day TapRooT® Course, ensure they attend the annual Global TapRooT® Summit. The Summit will help them discover new practices to continue to improve performance and benchmark your company’s improvement programs against some of the best in the world.

For more Summit information, CLICK HERE. To register, CLICK HERE.

Also, consider having your Improvement Team Leader attend the pre-Summit 2-Day Auditing & Proactive Improvement Using TapRooT® RCA course. This will help them develop skills to use the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis tools proactively and prevent accidents before they happen. Get information about all the pre-Summit courses HERE.