busy doing nothing

Progress.

Defined simply by Wiktionary as “a moving or going forward; a proceeding onward; an advance”

Progress is something you can witness, effect, and feel. You know the days I’m talking about. It just feels good when you’ve completed a project, nailed the critical idea in the development of a product, solved the root cause of a big problem, or simply sold a new program.

It feels good when you make progress.

What about the other days you work? What about the people you work with? Can you tell when they make progress?

Can you tell when they’re not making progress?

Sometimes.

It can be witnessed by individual or company – as in a culture of a company.

You know what I’m talking about. You witness:

• People walking really fast needing to get somewhere fast
  

• Someone walking in breathless to a meeting because they were rushing there

• A person who begins many sentences with, “I’m going to…” and “I’ve been really busy”
  

• People who choose to focus on the now with disregard for future work

• A person or group of persons busy but not getting done what they need to

There are a few top causes why this happens, let’s start a list:

• Procrastination

• Lack of understanding

• Lack of planning

• Alternative agendas

• Bureaucracy

• Conflicting directives

• Multiple ‘bosses’

• Lack of strategic direction

• Lack of leadership

Are you experiencing any of these?

mirror mirror on the wall

Looking at yourself whether under a magnifying glass or in a mirror rarely reveals results you want to find.

You may find flaws you thought didn't exist. It's hard to discover bad things about yourself. It's even harder if someone else knows (or tells you) about them. Discovering them however, is the first step in eliminating them.

Of course, I'm not talking about you physically now am I?!

I'm talking about your business.

What's wrong today?

Do you have quality problems? Did you miss ship -or another important customer date? Are your machines down frequently? Does your staff seem incredibly stupid or underperforming?

The good news is that these are only symptoms of (gulp) bigger problems and they can be fixed. The first step of course is understanding the root cause of these issues. Only in solving the root cause will you be able to forever-fix your woes. You may not like what gets uncovered, but facing issues head on is the right thing to do.

Finding things wrong you thought were perfect such as finding out that your processes aren't being followed as you thought they were, or finding out that your empathetic staff was not so respectful of others is hard to face. These problems didn't start overnight. Luckily with a little insight - perhaps unbiased by the fresh eyes of an outside consultant, you can start correcting quickly.

What is your company's culture like?

When was the last time they looked in the mirror?

us verses them

For as long as I've been in manufacturing, I have been aware of the 'us verses them' phenomenon. I'm talking about the exchange between new product and equipment engineers who create stuff versus the manufacturing engineers who are handed this new stuff and expected to make product.

The 'us' is typically the manufacturing guys who are handed the short stick when the development guys (them) use up all the customer timing and may not finish their work.

The problem arises with expectations I suppose.

The (new product) engineers expect the manufacturing plant to know everything they know * VERSUS * while the manufacturing engineers expect product and equipment to be delivered in working order.

I can see both sides:

New engineers are pushed on timing, timing to their managers or timing to the customer.

Manufacturing engineers are often in charge of multiple pieces of equipment and have less time to work on an incomplete designs.

So, how do we fix?

Meeting expectations is really the solution.

How? (some basic solutions often missed)

FOR THE PRODUCT & EQUIPMENT ENGINEERS

• Finish your work

• Do the high volume product run-offs to uncover (less than complete) equipment

• Find variation and fix it

• Complete documentation (and all 'PSO' materials)

• Create operator instructions specific to your machine/product

• Train the manufacturing crowd on 'how' to run it and how to fix it (note: see above where it shouldn't really need to be fixed at all!)
  

• Hand off all your documentation to help manufacturing stand on their own

FOR THE RECEIVING MANUFACTURING ENGINEERS

• Hold the developers accountable for delivering complete designs

• Be available to learn how to use the new equipment

• Understand basic problem solving and use of basic tools for basic fixes

Down in Mexico

Down in Mexico things are different.

Down in Mexico, people are genuinely interested in who you are. It's also good to know that while extremely hard working, time means much less than it does in the midwest.

What does this mean to you?

Your Mexican colleagues might not show up to the meeting at the same time as you, nor complete that project as you requested - at the same time, alternatives to your expectations might be caused by how you've communicated such timing and information.

Maybe it's you.

Cultural differences run both ways and it's important to understand how to say something as much as what to say.

communication & leadership

I finally watched the latest Alice in Wonder land film this weekend. With all the special effects and quirky characters, what I remember most actually is a new word, “muchness” defined early in the movie when The Mad Hatter explained to Alice that she had lost her much-ness, as in she had been so much more.

I like this new word. Let’s consider the muchness of people, leaders we know.

Have you ever witnessed someone to lose their muchness? …Their moxy? …Their rapport? ..Their cover?

It’s amazing how quickly your trust, respect, and “follow-ship” of a leader can be annihilated. I recently witnessed just this phenomenon. In this situation, the leader felt compelled to give grandiose speeches via email paired with long spaces of time between communications and avoided questions from others.

Was the intent to be cryptic? Controlling? Passive aggressive? Persuasive? This could also have been someone incredibly busy, prone to thinking out-loud, and not considering the relationship with the team.

Then this leader avoided, as in didn’t show up to a critical meeting with her team.

Unfortunately, whether meaning to or not, her cover was blown, her “muchness” removed, and her “follow-ship” erased.

Any benefit of the doubt was removed due to blatant disrespect.

The trap can be easy to fall into. How you are perceived by others is their reality of you. Constant communication helps to correct misconceptions and to keep conversation going.

What opinions are you holding of someone that a conversation might clear up?

What has caused you to lose “follow-ship” of a leader?

out of the office

We're moving to relocate our office back to Michigan. Check back in a few weeks for new posts on lean imple- mentations and customizations.

Have a great lean week!

the process of product development

Good products and great solutions don’t ‘just happen’. The process of product development is just as important as the results.

How is this possible, you might ask?

There is a phrase I use when praising slow food and when talking about product development; here it is: garbage in, garbage out.

It takes specific deliberation to overcome obstacles, create a product that your customer wants, to solve the problems your client didn’t even know existed, to delight your clients into sustained business, and to bring autonomy into your workforce.

I used to have a naysayer on every team I led. You probably have a few yourself... or maybe it's YOU!

I've learned over the years that there is always a solution and with structured deliberation combined with calculations, package studies and even a few prototype tests, one can overcome even the most difficult of challenges.

What are you facing?

Over processed

There is such a thing as being over-processed. You may be experiencing this right now: so many checks and balances that your hands are tied and your projects can’t move forward.

Aren’t checks and balances good?

In efforts to be lean and to minimize defects, some companies have worked very hard implementing special reports, long step by step processes, and multiple authorizations to find themselves spending a lot of time** doing work unrelated to design and producing product.

It is tempting to adopt ready made processes or to copy by benchmarking quality and development processes of sister companies. Supposedly these other companies have error proofed and sweated out the details of their process to be efficient, right?

This is akin to borrowing clothes or buying off the rack. To borrow clothes from an older sister or buy off the rack at the mall will result in pants that need hemming, a fit around the waist that isn’t quite right, perhaps a shirt that is too long or the sleeves too short.

Basically, the clothes don’t fit as they should.

It’s the same with processes in your organization. Buying on-line or one-size-fits-all development systems will likely cause you a lot more grief and aggravation in the long run verses carefully creating processes that work for your team and your product.

**time = money. How are you spending yours?

What do you make?

money, car parts, plastic things, a difference..


What does your company make?

What do you make?


Taylor Mali talks about what teachers make as performed in this live poetry reading:

What's wrong

There is a lot of focus on fixing what is wrong in our businesses.

Mistakes

Failures

PPM

Inefficiency

Fat

I do this in my business. In fact, I get a lot of business to come in to ‘fix’ what is wrong.

As a kid I learned fast to make do with what I was given. I learned to make do with what was known. I learned how to fix what was broken. I learned that their is always a positive solution.

I still apply this thinking and these lessons today making something work or developing something new with known quantities and information. Even in development, we know a lot – and are simply leveraging the little bit we know to solve or create something unique.

I dare say in focusing on what is ‘safe’, to focus on what is ‘great’, we thereby focus on what makes us strong as well as the strengths of others.

By focusing on what is good and expanding on what makes you great now, we can move forward to an even better place.

A better place to work.

A better colleague to work with.

A better team to leverage.

A better product.

A bigger bank account.

Happy Easter

I'm taking a little hiatus this week in cele- bration of Easter.

Happy Easter to you!

Many blessings to you.

Thank you for your support and reader- ship as I develop this blog and my business!

SFW

What’s Safe For Work?

Seth Godin wrote a little query about this.

I’m sure you get them, personal emails to your work address. It continually surprises me how many people still do not establish nor use their personal email for cutesy forwards. If you’re lucky, the sender will warn you not to open up in your workplace as the contents will be visually or audibly distasteful. This is typically abbreviated with, “NSFW”.

Seth counters with a marvelous idea to consider what is SFW. What is safe for your work?

What is great?

What are the good ideas to consider in the work place? I’m talking about the things to do when considering the great ideas and people you come across of course.

If I were to start a list, it might look like this:

• Considering where your colleagues are coming from when they express an idea or opinion.

• Honoring the devil’s advocate point of view so to improve upon your original idea.

• Giving the benefit of the doubt to everyone.

• Asking questions first before jumping to conclusions (before jumping down a colleague’s throat)

• Realizing that the people you’ve grown to dislike for one reason or another (perhaps because they don’t get what is SFW!) do not simply ‘go away’.

• Letting go of your colleague’s faults, accepting them as they are, utilizing and taking advantage of their strong suits.

• Focusing on your strengths to better yourself and move the company forward.

What more would you add that is SFW?

goals vs. goals

I teach a class on problem solving.

Actually, I teach a few classes on problem solving: 9-step which is reactive problem solving and the other is Advance Product Quality Planning which as you know is proactive and can eliminate the need for reactive problem solving if executed correctly.

The most common mistake I see in the classroom and in manufacturing, is confusing the result of a problem with it's cause. If one jumps to conclusions too quickly, you'll find yourself missing out on the simplest solutions, and often thinking in circles or missing the point all together.

This happens in companies when they start to improve their bottom line too. Perhaps a company starts with 'make more money' as their primary goal.

It's not a bad goal, even I have to admit!

We're all in business to make money, that's irrefutable.

We're in business foremost however to provide a product or service in a very particular way.

Let's just make a quick list of how your company can make more money:

GO!

1) spend less money
2) eliminate overtime
3) create higher margins
4) downsize the staff

and how about:

5) create the best possible customer experience
6) maximize product design for quality & purchasing power
7) enable employees to fit their duties into a 'normal' work day
8) evolve continuously with new products & services
9) launch, process, and manufacture products & services flawlessly

Which sounds like more fun?

Which sounds more successful long term to your end goal?

Which gets your whole staff involved, motivated, and proud of their work?

How many solutions have you already come up with to attain goals 5 - 9?

are you ready?

Are you the only person in your group that wishes the company to make more money?

Is everyone thinking about the company, or just their job?

Like spokes in a wheel, each person is integral to how the company operates, how it makes money, how the customers feel, and how the company remains sustainable over time.

How many in your team come up with ideas on how to improve their position, their process, or the process outside of the group?

How many in your team share their ideas?

Does your company reward and encourage their initiative?

Initiative isn't just about showing up to work or completing reports without prompting as you likely know already. Process improvement does not come easily, nor does it come with just one person.

Lean improvement comes with the collaboration, initiation, and promotion of everyone on the team.

The individual is to be encouraged and embraced.

The team is to be embraced.

Lean implementation will then be embraced, nurtured, successful and productive.

Many companies do not know how to encourage initiative; it's not taught in schools.

How do you encourage initiative?

where do I start?

What is the first step to making more money?

More product?

Better services?

Faster processes?

Less mistakes?

The question I get asked the most is, "Where do I start?"

Knowing your target is the most important. Understanding your goals and what is most important to your business is the first step.

As an example, consider the following goals:

1) Quality customer experience

2) Quick customer turnover

3) Quick customer turnover with quality experience

4) Exclusivity

Sure, you might want to choose option 3 all the time, though depending on the goals of your business, how you staff and how you operate will change with the goal you prioritize highest.

Consider your business and how you would meet each goal listed above.

Do you find that your solution is slightly different with each?

Becoming lean ultimately brings more income to your business along with the benefits of smoother operations, faster production, an autonomous staff, and happier people who touch your company.

Starting with clear goals is step one.

damage control

One of the first steps in correcting a problem is reducing the damage the current situation is causing. This involves protecting the customer, protecting employees, seeking out all the affected product, and taking extra steps to ensure bad product is discovered while production continues.

What about public perception and communication?

If you've ever been involved with correcting an issue with a customer, and I'm pretty sure if you're reading this, you have, you well know that communication to your customer is vital.

Communication to those unaffected is vital as well.

Transparency is a huge relationship and trust builder.

Check out this report from Gerson Lehrman Group to hear what industry experts have to say about the recent Toyota product failures.

What are your customers and others saying about you?

as a side note - I think this is one of the best internet articles regarding the Toyota recall

wishing your way to lean

Do you wish your business was more lean?

Do you wish you were making more money?

Less mistakes?

Less waste?

More product out the door?

Quicker development cycles?

How are you turning your wishes into reality?

When does the season of joy end?

Christmas time is one of my favorite holidays for many reasons a part from the celebration of my faith. I enjoy the beauty and calm of the first snow fall, of twinkling lights from houses, how stop lights even appear to be hung for the season, all along with a change in attitude of complete strangers smiling more to each other and extending gracious (and common) social courtesy.

In the first two weeks of January, most households dismantle their holiday cheer often spurned on by city deadlines for tree pick-up services and in the northern parts of the country whether brought on by frustration at the difficulty of driving in icy conditions or simply forgetting how good it felt to be courteous to one another, motorists drive selfishly once again.

When does the season of joy end?

What is the acceptable date to take down Christmas decorations? What makes this date acceptable?

When does it become acceptable to dismiss extensions of grace?

A ‘season of joy’ exists outside of the Christmas celebration however, as I would say we experience a season of joy in our relationships as well, both personal and professional.

Think of the new hire’s first two weeks in the office; how he’s treated and how he acts. Think how you behave in the first few months of a new relationship.

Initially everyone is on their best behavior and providing the benefit of the doubt for actions misunderstood. We even go above and beyond expectations to delight our new partner, boss, colleague, or friend.

In this season, everyone is mostly happy, contributing, and collaborating.

Then what?

It changes.

You know what I’m talking about: suspicion, jealousy, pride, mistrust, ambition.. it all comes rushing in.

The season of joy ends.

Unlike holy days marking a calendar, within our relationships we have no excuse to let our diligence falter. We have no excuse to take advantage of others, to stop providing the benefit of the doubt or to desist in giving our personal best.

Let the season of joy continue with collaboration, adoration, trust, and extensions of grace.

For me – in regard to the season of celebration to Jesus’ birth, I’ve decided that perhaps Ash Wednesday is a good date to desist and remove the frolic of Christmas decorations; somber holy days clashing wildly with colorful paper ornaments and twinkling lights.

good ol' days PART II

I once worked in a company that was very fast paced. Everyday we were pushed to hurry, pushed to do more, and pushed for results.

It was tiring in hindsight, my youth absorbing the 80 hour work weeks and high intensity. Luckily we were led by an amazing group of people and moral was high. Small incentives were plentiful as was recognition and project autonomy.

How hard would you work at something you loved?

Is it necessary to love your work?

As I reflect on my professional life, it is the projects I found most meaningful where I had the most input and where bonds with colleagues forged deeper as we worked diligently together each contributing as we knew how.

Each day and every project we take on will become a part of our past life. These are the best days.

These are my best days.

These are your best days.

These are the good old days.

How does this knowledge change how or what you're working on?

The good ol' days

I thought I’d go a little off topic this week.

Our lives are filled.

Filled with work, family, commit- ments of one sort or another.

Everyone carries stress though we each bear varying loads. The recession has hit everyone in the world though I’m sure you could make of list of all the things you were equally stressed about ten years ago.

I’ve reached an age now where I easily tell stories about moments occurring 20 years or more ago. What I like most about distant memories is how much more humorous those times were than when I was in the thick of it. Thinking back, if I knew how funny those times were to become, perhaps I would have enjoyed them even more and worried even less.

Grandparents talk about the good old days. Their whole life is but a great memory of precious and adventurous moments. Our lives we are living today are equally precious and will be reflected on as ‘good’. Today, this week, this month, and this year will be regarded as special.. eventually.

Is today a good day for you?

If you were to live more for this moment and to be with your friends and family in this moment, to be there for your coworkers in this moment without worry about tomorrow, how would it change your behavior?

I’ve been thinking about this tonight in preparation of writing this post. It was 9:30pm and I was catching up on some work when my partner asked if I wanted to join him to get a milkshake.

Here was my list for reasons not to go that ran through my head:

• I’d get some personal time alone if he went alone

• It was late and I wanted to finish my work

• I didn’t want a milkshake

Reasons for going:

• Car trips no matter their duration always offer great conversation

• It’s always an adventure when we go anywhere

• I should be listening to my own reflection and enjoying the here and now

I went.

Sure enough, I heard some good stories in the car I may never have heard, I ended up getting a tasty banana milkshake, and the trip also turned into an errand to get more brine water to keep the shrimp bait alive and happy from the park where we often put in our boat for fishing.

Quiet, dark, and deserted with a partial bright moon shining through clouds illuminating the empty boats moored there; we walked through the manicured park to the water’s edge where the water lapped quietly on the shore.

Carly Simon sings a song considering living for the future or in the moment. It’s one of my favorites still. Listen here.

drive & inspiration

There was an interesting interview on NPR this month with an author talking about inspiration in the workplace.

Quick:

Name five things you do to inspire and reward your employees?

(quick)

Old school taught us to reward effort by passing out car washes, sending flowers to the wife of the overworked husband, and providing gift certificates to local restaurants. Don't get me wrong, these take-aways are very much appreciated.

But, do they really inspire creativity?

Do they inspire long term loyalty?

Do they improve the bottom line of your business?

NPR notes, "Daniel Pink argues that people will do more if they are given the opportunity to work on their own time, to be creative, and to do good." Hear the interview here.

Implementing a lean program is a lot more successful when the whole team is on board and when all are involved in the process of leaning your organization. Who knows best? Often those who are closest to your product and service. With a little guidance, everyone can do amazing things. With a little space and autonomy, everyone will simply bloom.

Build it wrong

Have you ever launched a production line only to start making bad parts instantly?

Have you ever launched a production line with a horrible PPM ranking after weeks of meticulous planning?




Product development is complex and demands a process of it’s own to ensure critical elements are considered and implemented. I could –and others have written, volumes on this topic, but today I want to focus and share a tried and true method of bullet-proofing your manufacturing line.


There is actually a trick.

Sure..

• You think you know how to assemble that part.
• You think you’re a good communicator and trainer to teach others how to put it together.
• You think you’ve balanced the line such that every person is done with their assigned tasks in 12 seconds.

You think.

Before you’re finished with designing fixtures and equipment for the production line and certainly well before you even consider a run at rate evaluation, host a ‘build it wrong’ day.

That’s right. Dare your team* to build the part wrong.

HOW TO:
*Collect a diverse group consisting of engineers, managers, team leaders, operators, and maybe even your staff assistant and assign them a ‘station’. At each 'station', provide them all the parts they'd need at that defined ‘station’ along with a few tools both necessary and completely useless, then tell them to put it together.

ie: say: "put this together", and walk away.

That’s right, provide no other instruction, no other words.

In addition, create a special ‘station’ where you have all the parts for the assembly and have someone try to assemble the whole thing by themselves (again without any instruction what so ever).


WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER:
• Poke Yokes you’ll need to create; both design and process

• Operator instruction noteables

• Product design changes necessary to eliminate possible mis-builds

• Process steps needed

• Special tools required

• Ergonomic changes to the station including fixtures and tools necessary


THE BIGGEST LESSON?

You’ll discover what you don’t yet know.

Are you boring?

One of my earliest experiences with a project team was in the development of a hinge that would be unlike any hinge we’d ever created. This particular design element was critical to the rest of the product and had to be tackled early as it would drive the aesthetic and thereby likely the function of our product solution.

I decided I didn’t have to figure this out all by myself and challenged my team with a whacky benchmarking assignment they’d have to complete on their own time outside of work. Initially there wasn’t much movement around the table nor hearty acceptance of the proposal but as the idea swam inside of the heads of each colleague you could see creativity take root.

Two days later, we met again. Every one had done their homework. Every one had bought their hinge of choice for a show and tell, ideas spouting from each inspired to a better solution as we went around the room.

One thing was clear: they were hungry for inspiration, expectation, and a challenge.

How are you challenging your team every day?

How are you challenging yourself?

update: I was catching up on my NPR listening and found this snipit on motivation in the workplace. Give it a listen (short & sweet):

I give up

I discovered a blog about Detroit recently that opinionates issues the city is experiencing.

Having served customers in the Detroit area for the last twenty years and visiting frequently, I was always aware of the decay of the city in addition to the phenomenal work there by several innovative persons.

The blog paints a much different picture though and offers perspectives from those who live out of state. Murder rates, foreclosure statistics, and business failures have been found more interesting to possibly pessimistic onlookers. Perhaps it was just my unabashed optimism, but I didn’t think Detroit (in spite of the failure of the automotive industry and incredibly poor city management) was that bad.

Like many of you, I have driven quickly via shortcuts, detours, and with wayward mapquest directions past abandoned houses, decrypted apartment buildings, and decomposing once grand public buildings. I had never seen this before however and it brought mixed feelings of sadness and curious inspiration; sadness for both the soul of the houses and the loss of the families who once roamed their halls and laughed around their dining tables. Curiosity in how a film company could utilize the houses as a movie set, an adventure through the jungle of the house, and in how the houses were now as tree-houses; images of kid’s imaginative stories and play acting bringing joy to my mind’s eye.

It would be easy to just give up.

It would be easy to simply ignore and further abandon the neighborhoods of Detroit and the neighborhoods in our own cities that have fallen into decay experiencing the biggest financial losses and community breakdown.

Ignoring would be easy.

2010 will be a year of creativity and finding different ways of doing business. 2010 will be more about entrepreneurship. Partnerships, giving of services, reaching out to others, including others for both profit and simple goodwill is what we’ll be all about.