Is your visual management system merely a decoration or does it tell the truth about what is happening in the operation? Is it a polished version of the truth, or does it reflect reality?

Visual management tools, such as visual management boards, can be “extraordinarily powerful” if used correctly, “but if not used correctly, could actually lead to more distrust and more resistance and bigger walls,” says John Dyer in this episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement.

Thus begins the second in a series of podcast episodes exploring key behaviors that determine the effectiveness of well-known lean and continuous improvement tools. This episode's lean tool: visual management. The behavior behind it: transparency.

Without transparency, say cohosts Dyer and Dr. Mohamed Saleh, visual management is nothing more than wallpaper.

The two begin the episode with a quick explanation of visual management. It’s more than simply displaying information on a dashboard or a whiteboard using color-coded metrics, says Saleh. Visual management should make the work or the conditions immediately understandable.

“I can understand the health of a site based on that visual management, and depending on the layer in the organization, I understand at least that slice of the organization's health,” Saleh explains. “Usually it shows what's happening. … Often, it shows you even what the gap is, and sometimes even shows you what the next step. And, in some rare cases, it'll actually even show you who owns it.”

But simply displaying information is not enough. Transparency is required for the tool to work.

“There's a lot of discipline that is required behind that in order to bring that transparency. But at least from where I sit, many things go wrong,” Saleh says.

Dyer and Saleh discuss how outdated metrics, too many or overly complex metrics turn visual management boards into decorations versus tools to help employees do their jobs better.

“Sometimes people just put things up that are just to fill a gap on the board, versus saying what is really important for us to display so that our employees can achieve excellence,” Dyer says.

They talk about the untruths that can hide behind red and green status labels, and the leadership behaviors that drive deception.

“A key message for our listeners is that visual management is not about making information attractive, and unfortunately, there's too many organizations trying to put window dressing and making their visual measure be attractive—and they're not practicing the behavior of transparency,” Saleh says.

Without transparency, visual management boards fail as an effective tool to empower decision making.

Both Saleh and Dyer emphasize leaders’ role in encouraging the behavior of transparency. That means leaders must create conditions in which employees’ sharing bad news is seen as an opportunity to improve and problem solve, not as something that is going to rain punishment on the workforce. (See also: How to Drive Out Fear, the 'Biggest Destroyer of Value'.)  

“When leaders create safety around the truth, visual management becomes a system of learning and action. But when leaders punish the truth … even the best designed boards become a decoration,” Saleh concludes.