by Therese Johansson

- Instead of focusing and putting all your energy on the employees who create a bad atmosphere, you should put all your energy and focus on "watering" the employees who participate and create a good atmosphere.

I said this to a leader a few years ago and the leader thought for a long time about what I said.

- I have to develop further, I continued. By getting those who create a good atmosphere to blossom into their full potential selves, they will bring along employees from the group who create a bad atmosphere. In the end, there are only a few left in that group that creates a bad atmosphere, they will be forced to choose between going with the great mass of goodness, or they will choose to move on to other missions, where they can continue to spread bad atmosphere.

It is not a loss for a company to lose these employees as they entail large costs, which are hidden in the idea of soft values in that they contribute to the working environment being bad and their colleagues not doing well. They are also not good for the company, as every employee is the company's best marketer.

It becomes a "win-win" situation and you, as a leader, have given all the conditions to the employee's own choice to cooperate or oppose.

LEAN & Kaizen

As I wrote before, my heart beats for the LEAN methodology. There is a book that I highly recommend, "The Toyota Way". Kai-Zen can be translated to Improvement, the term is said to have been coined by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota production system. Kai is "change" and Zen is "good", the meaning is "improve for the better".

If we connect changes to our brain, the brain does not rejoice at doing things differently, but it screams loudly in opposition. This means that change work in organizations requires continuous training and patience on the part of the manager/leadership, this in order to lead the workforce to insight.

Now I'm guessing that there are many readers who say: - "We tried that at our company and it didn't work at all." Then I will be tough and say: Then the LEAN implementation was not done correctly because the method obviously works because Toyota is still alive. The problem is that it is complex to introduce new methods and it requires knowledge about humans because it is humans who must change and do something new. Humans require knowledge, which with training, reminders and repetition is transformed into competence. The LEAN method also needs to be adapted to the company and its culture in order to work. It is completely impossible to push a method into a company without adapting the method.

Tips on the way…

When I work with companies and their employees, I often encounter resistance. Below are two examples:

1. "We've tried that before, it doesn't work."
My answer is; Then we haven't found the right way to do it. Evaluate, learn from the mistake, turn right or left and try again. That method is called "Plan, Do, Check, Act".

• Only cowards do that. Choose your mindset.

2. "I know that *sigh*".
My answer is; The important thing is not what you can without what you make and I don't see a positive result from what you're doing, so it's just a matter of training further, evaluating, screwing to the right or left and trying again.

• Bad excuses are for losers. Choose your mindset.

We at NLC work with a business coach from Connect so that we ourselves live what we learn. The business coach talked about NLC and others who "change" and that we get a lot of "mental beating" and I am prepared to agree with that. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we who work as change leaders take care of ourselves and continuously practice mental and physical training, surround ourselves with developed people who understand that change is not bad but leads to something good. These positive cheerleaders, lift us up and change us when we have had a lot of "mental beating" and then we can go on a new loving lap the next day. Everything to make the company, society and the world a slightly better place to live.

My gratitude today goes to my positive cheerleaders who give me strength to continue developing myself and NLC. To continually depart from can to make.