Listen for the Non-verbals

When you are facilitating an event, whether it's a Lean Kaizen event or a Six Sigma project meeting, listen for the non-verbal feedback. Huh? Listen for non-verbal?

Be in tune with what your team or group is telling you when they aren't saying anything. For the same reason you want to keep your face to the audience, you want to look for cues that tell you more than words. Rolling eyes, shrugs, grins, sighs, leans, and far away gazes. All these hints tell you as a facilitator who is actively engaged and who has checked out.

How deep is your Pareto?

Does your organization have a culture that solves problems at the root causation level or just at the surface? Pareto charts are a great tool to use for digging down to the root, but one level just won't cut it.

To be two to three levels deep in a Pareto chart requires data. You will have to work to get beyond one level, but often the solution is two or three levels deep.

Don't accept opinions to solve problems in your organization. Tell them you can't hear them unless they are at least two Paretos deep with data.