Bring Your Boss
Sell Your Boss on Coming
No matter how excited you may be to come to the Continuous Improvement Conference, you would be wise to try to convince your boss to come with you. There is plenty of content for all levels, including company leaders, and many of the approaches discussed will need top-executive support to implement. That support will be much easier to come by if your boss is in the room and hears the content delivered the same way that you do.
Convincing your boss is a three-part endeavor: 1) you need to demonstrate the benefit of the conference; 2) you may need to persuade your boss that it’s worth your time and money to attend; and 3) you need to persuade your boss that it’s worth his/her time and money to attend.
Step 1. Review the Program
Determine which sessions you want to attend. With 20 sessions you’ll be able to craft a curriculum that will give you and your company the information that you need. Is your organization struggling with employee engagement? There is a session on best practices in employee engagement. Show your boss the sessions that cover how Lean tools are used to boost efficiency and cut out waste. Need to reduce downtime? There is a session on that. If your organization has a particular challenge, there are definitely sessions that will provide you with a solution.
Step 2. The Value of You Attending
The bottom line is the more you know about achieving operational excellence, the better it is for your organization! Organizations take a big risk when they don’t benchmark their processes against other progressive companies. Do your makeready times truly give you an edge? Have some companies cut their spoilage rates far below yours? At the conference you’ll hear companies discuss their continuous improvement efforts and the positive results that follow. During the many sessions, you’ll have the opportunity to pick up improvement ideas from some of the most well run companies in the printing and converting industries. Your boss may be worried about the cost or even your time out of the office, but remind him/her that it’s the willingness to make this kind of educational investment (and a commitment to implement ideas learned) that separates profit leaders from profit laggards.
Step 3. The Value of Your Boss Attending with You
Many attendees are energized by what they hear at the conference, only to return home and discover that their recommendation to use a strategy like 2 Second Lean is met with indifference. Putting into place an improvement strategy and sustaining it requires active involvement from your COO, president, general manager, and other top executives. The best chance of getting that support is to have your boss attend the conference with you so he/she can find out how improvement strategies are changing the fortunes of other companies. At the conference’s conclusion you’ll both be informed, inspired, and equipped with practical guidance to accelerate your pursuit of operational excellence.
Step 4. Use the Request Letter
Sometimes your boss will need a written request. In that case, we’ve got you covered—use our handy Letter Template to list your reasons for attending and invite your boss to attend with you. You can customize it however you want, but this letter gives you a great starting point for organizing your thoughts and making sure you make the best case for coming to the Continuous Improvement Conference!
Step 5. Bring It Home
We are confident that the learning you get at the conference will be valuable. We can say that because in 2018 99% of attendees said they would recommend the conference. Let your boss know that you will commit to a post-conference briefing for other managers, where you’ll highlight what you’ve learned from the conference. Tie your learnings to your organization’s goals or strategic plan—it’s important to show that the conference wasn’t just good in theory but that it gave you real, actionable strategies that other companies are successfully using.