Focus

Happy Thursday Everyone,

Think about focus.  Can you tell someone what you do in one sentence?  Is it precise enough they will understand completely?  Will anyone get it?  If I own a shoe store, well, my answer is "I am a shoe salesman."

How about focus for your job?  Is your vision for your career path focused?  Do you have a clear visual on what your steps are to your next major accomplishment?  Where will you be in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years?

My clear focus for my Thursday Think Tank e-mails; To make every reader think differently.

Take a moment and think.  Think about the current situation you are dealing with.  Are you focused on what you need to be focused on?

Have a great Thursday and "Think Differently,"

Chris 

Communication

Happy Thursday Everyone,

Communication, it's the exchange of information.  I saw somewhere that the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.  Do you realize how much confusion and frustration is created by poor communication?  If you think like I do, my communication skills are almost perfect....it's everyone else that has the problem...lol, wink, wink.  We probably spend more time second-guessing the intent behind poor communication than working to improve it.

• Why did she copy my boss?
• He is not telling me all the information on purpose, just to make my job harder.
• Oh, she didn't copy me on purpose.

Sound familiar?  Communicating well will help build trust in our teams.  Here is a list of a few common mistakes in communication, that deserve all of our attention.

1. Assuming Mal Intent - Not everything is intentional, so don't let an innocent oversight, like being left left off an e-mail or out of a meeting, destroy trust.
2. Hiding Behind E-Mails - E-mails can be great for recapping a conversation, but not as a way to communicate bad news, escalate something over their head to their boss,  or sending and assuming they got the memo.
3. Failure To Write Down Decisions - Great teams have lots of conversations, debate pros and cons, challenge each others decisions, and many times walk away from a meeting with different perspectives.  Writing down and agreeing on important decisions and follow ups help keep everyone moving in the same direction.
4. Wasteful Meetings - Meetings should be held for one of two reasons: to make a decision and / or improve relationships.
5. Spinning BS - Smelling BS in a conversation turns people away fast.  Transparency and straight talk from the beginning are a must if you want others to truly listen.
6. Don't be Boring - Tell meaningful stories, talk in an interesting way, and get to the point.
7. Listen - Listen intently so that you can ask relevant questions and get a true understanding of what the other person is trying to communicate.

What can you do to improve your communication skills?  Just like we have been discussing with lean, find something small and work on improving, one small improvement at a time.  I am going to focus on listening more intently and giving my full attention to the person talking to me.  Todd is probably shaking his head right now saying, about time.

Go communicate,

Chris

Open Minded?

Happy Thursday Everyone,

Do you have an open mind?  What does having an open mind mean to you?  Are you able to see things from the other person's shoes?  Do you believe someone else might have a good idea?  What if their idea is opposite of what you think?  What if their idea is going to prove what you have been telling everyone is wrong?

Should you have an open mind?  Think about the last time you took an idea to someone that shot your idea down right away without you even having time to explain it.  Did you take another great idea to them?  What about when you've seen proof of something and changed your mind?  That is OK, you can change your mind.

Opening your mind up gives multiple benefits.  The two main benefits is that you might find something better than your current belief and keeping an open mind helps others feel they can approach you with ideas...especially crazy, outside the box, ideas.  Remember, some of the people that work for you are extremely smart and might really have some awesome ideas.  Allow their creative thinking and ideas to be brought to you and keep you mind open to them.  You never know, their idea might help you to hit your goal.

Minds are like parachutes, they function better when they are open.  Open minded people embrace being wrong, are free of illusions, don't mind what people think of them and question everything, even themselves.  An open mind allows you to explore and create and grow.  Remember that progress would be impossible if we always did things the way we always have.

Enjoy your Thursday,

Chris

Thinking Lean

Happy Thursday and St. Pat's Day All, 

Do you think lean thoughts?  Are you understanding lean better?  Why should you think about lean?  Do you have lean habits?

Lean, as we all talk about at PAi, is very simply the elimination of waste.  And to eliminate something you have to be able to identify it....

• D - Defects
• O - Overproduction
• W - Waiting
• N - Non-utilized Talent
• T - Transportation
• I - Inventory
• M - Motion
• E - Extra processing

Any activity that consumes resources such as time, manpower, or money, but does not add to the value of the product, is considered waste.  So, do you think lean thoughts?  Do you think about things that are consuming time that doesn't add to the value of the product?  Do you think about things that consume manpower that doesn't add to the value of the product?  Or how about thinking about things that consume money that doesn't add to the value of the product?  My guess is that each and everyone one of you think lean thoughts.

Aren't we all on the same team?  Working towards a people empowered company driven to continually accelerate the speed at which we can exceed our customers' needs while focusing on..1) our team member's quality of life, 2) company profits, 3) an increasing and scalable business with a legacy for growth. If that's the case, you should be thinking about lean and creating lean habits.

My goal is to get you thinking.  Open your mind to new and crazy ideas.  Go out and educate yourself on lean thinking.  Read "2 Second Lean" by Paul Akers.  Read "The Toyota Way."  If you don't want to read, get the audio version and listen.  The more I learn about lean thinking, the more I realize I don't know about lean thinking.

Chris

Having Margin In Your Life

Happy Thursday All,

Everyone knows what margin is, correct?  It is the extra part of something that can be used if needed.  The margin on a piece of paper is around the edges.  It gives space to help things not seem so cluttered.  It gives us the room to be able to grow and expand.

Do you have margin in your life?  Work life, home life, budget, etc?  If you don't have margin, your stuff can quickly become cluttered.  Margin is breathing room.  It is time to work on the business and not in the business.  Margin in your budget gives you the ability to deal with the unexpected expense without so much stress.

As we push everyday to continuously improve, improving your quality of life is also very important.  You need to have margin to be able to keep growing. You need to have margin to help others around you keep growing.

Stop today and reflect on having margin in your work life.  Ask yourself the tough questions...Do I take time to work on the business and not just in the business?  Do I have the margin in time to really listen to what my team is asking of me?  Do I take the time to share the vision of my department so my whole team is pulling the same direction?  Do I take time to increase my knowledge as a leader?  If you have margin in your life, YES to these questions is a lot easier than the excuses many of us came up with.

Enjoy your Thursday,

Chris

Being A Better Teammate

Another Thursday, another thought provoking e-mail via the Thursday Think Tank.

How are you at being a teammate?  Are you a team player?  What does it take to be a better teammate?

I took this information from a sports oriented article which really is talking about a sports team.    The crazy part is all of us are part of a team at work and this can relate to each and every one of us.  If you are not working at getting better at each of these, well...maybe you should.  I know I am working hard at improving in each of these areas.  Some I need to work harder at than others.

10 Ways to be a better teammate....

1. Goodwill - Win as a team.  Lose as a team.  Don't blame or take it out on anyone.
2. Respect - Show respect to everyone around you.
3. Devotion - Devote yourself to the sport (job) for your teammates.
4. Support - Show your team that you are always willing to help.
5. Trust - Show your team that you are trustworthy and you do what you say you will do.
6. Encourage - When things get tough, encourage your teammates to keep working hard.
7. Problem solve - Work together to solve problems and mistakes.
8. Communication - Be effective when communicating.  Be honest with your teammates.
9. Learn to listen - Don't be in such a hurry to say your part.
10. Work together - There is no "I" in "TEAM"

"Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the me for the we." -- Phil Jackson

GO TEAM GO!!!

Have a great Thursday,

Chris

What Do You Value

Happy Thursday All,

If you sat down and listed the top 5 most important things you need to be doing each week in your job, what would they be?  Would your boss, internal customer, or external customer agree with your top 5?

What about your time commitment?  Does that agree with your top 5 most important things?  Each week, we all have the same amount of time, it's how we use it that creates value for our boss and/or internal or external customer.  If I believe one of my top 5 is to make sure we are producing and shipping product on the date we have promised the customer, and I spend 2 minutes per day looking at a work in process and working on hitting dates, and we are not hitting dates...well, that doesn't show my time commitment is in agreement with my priorities.

I want to challenge each of you to work ON your business instead of IN your business for one hour next week.  

• Get to a quiet place.
• List 20 things you think are important that you do on your job.
• Narrow it down to what you, your customer and/or boss would say your top 5 are.
• Do a brutally honest evaluation of what you have been spending your time and attention on.
• Make adjustments on your calendar for next week to make sure your focused time commitment is in agreement with your top 5.

If you keep a time log, you will see what you value.  What are you spending your time on?

Have a great Thursday,

Chris