Day 670: One door closes and another one opens

In late August, I completed my Master Black Belt. It's official, I'm done the program! I received the coveted Crystal Pyramid of PowerTM and was sworn to use my new-found powers for good and not evil (but would join Elon Musk in a bombing run to Mars if invited).

I was very happy to have completed the progam, but that last week was really mentally and emotionally exhausting. As a super procrastinator, I really topped myself, and was still finishing up my workshop the day before presentation (ssshhh don't tell anyone - ooops!). But I got through, and then immediately went on vacation. We all went to Toronto to visit with family, and I took advantage of the time away from work to think about "what next?" (and see a Jays game)

Conveniently, what was next pretty much fell into my lap. I had an offer to join an organization that needed my skills, that was growing, and that was in a sector that I adored (aerospace). So when I returned from vacation, I handed in my notice. It was in many ways one of the easier decisions I've had to make in my career, not because the current company doesn't have a lot to offer, but because I needed to do something dramatically different and to have a better work-life balance. So when this offer showed up, and it ticked almost all of the boxes, I jumped.

So today is my last day at my current organization. And as I walk the hallways with a giant bowl of candy, saying thank you and goodbye to everyone, I know I will miss everyone here. But I am also super excited about what lays ahead. And this organization could use the space that I will leave to fill it with new ideas, new people, new processes. 

Sometimes, we need to make space for change to happen. We do it in our personal lives buy cleaning out the closets, by dropping activities that don't mean much to us, by stopping doing certain things. I gave up Facebook over 2 years ago because it was not really contributing much to my life. I was putting time and energy into it and wasn't getting a lot of value back. Likewise, I'd had acquaintances that took time and energy and didn't give a lot in return, so I chose to not spend that time and energy in that relationship. By giving up on those time-wasters, I have more time for things that bring me joy - like coaching, like trying new activities and pushing my boundaries, like family.

So I leave Alpha hoping that I created at least a foundation for its future, that I left it in a better place then when I found it, and knowing that I am leaving space for future growth of its people.

AMac

PS: I will probably keep writing this blog, so stay tuned...

Day 628: So close I can taste it

This may be one of my last blog posts as I am officially in the home stretch of my Master Black Belt program. I am so close to the end of what has been a really interesting, challenging, fun, frustrating, complicated ride. By this time next week, I will have delivered my final workshop, presented my final presentation, and screened my final video (and yes, I'll post it on this blog once screened). It's all coming together rather quickly, and this pressure-riven procrastinator loves it...

After it all winds up, then it's time for a vacation. We'll visit family and enjoy a break before the school year starts up, before skating season kicks off, and before going back to work. 


I'm kind of starting to wonder "what's next?" even before I pass the immediate milestone in front of me.

When racing, I'd always be nervous about the "what's next?" question - and more specifically about the period of time between ending one journey and beginning the next. It may be the lack of focus, direction that makes me queasy. It may be the fear of not having some goal that I can talk about with others; most of my friends and family know I'm always up to something, so a lot of our conversations start off like "what crazy thing are you training for now?" What on earth am I going to talk about? The upcoming federal election? The MLB stretch and how the Blue Jays are playing? Hm.

I have never been good at rest, at relaxing, at unplugging, at being still. It is something I have worked at over the years, and made some progress, but it is hard work for me. It's when I have a goal on which to focus that I feel still - it's almost counter-intuitive. 

Good thing I still have a crazy week in front of me.

AMac

Day 611: House Painting (or why I should be working on my final presentation but I'm not)

Today I'm painting the house. We've been working away at repainting it since last summer. We did subcontract out a big portion of it, but there are a lot of sections that need repair or other fixes before even putting a brush to it. Plus being a heritage house (1908) there are a lot of features that, while charming, do require a lot more time and attention to not ruin. So it's a slow process. We want to do it right (and not break the bank) and there's something worthwhile in doing it yourself. At the end, hopefully we'll be able to look at it and say something like "damn that's a fine looking house."

Yet I'm three-ish weeks away from my final two presentations for my MBB program, and I've barely started. I should be using the entire day to work on them. I know this is one of my weaknesses - I like to have 90% of the solution/story/idea done in my head before I put pen to paper (brush to wood?).

I know it's not the best way to do these things, and I know it drives some people nuts. But here I am painting instead of sitting at a computer screen drawing a blank at what to type. I'm hoping (or betting) that the idea will come to me while working on something completely removed from the topics of my presentations.

Or am I just procrastinating? I've always worked like this on things where I need to be creative. If it's straight-forward items, like updating a document or analysis, no problem. Heck, if it's going for a 20k run up a mountain, bring it on, the creative side of my brain isn't needed. But for some reason when trying to be... clever? creative? I find I take a loooong time. I get it done, but usually right at the last minute. It's like the right-side of my brain needs to be under some pressure, some time-bounded stress to perform. I like it when something clicks together and the story presents itself, almost like magic.

I found this graphic from Mercedes-Benz that seems to resonate with me:

While I get some enjoyment out of the right-brain activities, quite a lot in some cases, a deadline does not motivate me any more than the activity itself. In fact, I'd feel pretty confident in saying that a deadline probably makes me want to drag my heels more than usual. 

So back to painting, while I wait for that magic moment when I see the story present itself.

AMac

Day 559: So close! Intern days done!

Yesterday was a BIG day for me as I finally completed the last required internship day for my MBB program! I spent two days at a local-turned-national retailer, working on a supply chain challenge, followed by one day at a regional food producer starting a lean assessment. And while I'm thrilled to be done this part of the program, I know I still have projects outstanding - some of which I'm not too worried or stressed about but one that is a BIG project for me and I'm going to have to make sure I git'er'done on time. Tick tock tick tock....

But back to these last two companies where I spent these days - I wanted to share an interesting observation. The first company, I'll call them Company A, had been on their lean journey a few years now. The second, Company B, hadn't even heard of "lean" or the concept of continuous improvement. Company A had a very clear problem to solve - they knew what they needed to address, perhaps not how. Company B didn't know where they were going, or even what was going on right now - they didn't even know what problems existed to be solved. Company A had staff who were motivated to solve the challenge, and who worked openly, honestly and together to get through to a solution. Company B was full of whispered hallway conversations, mistrust and fear. Company A knew their vision very clearly. Company B - no one knew one existed or was written down anywhere.

As I reflect back on the vast differences between these two companies, I am amazed at how far Company A moved the "culture needle" in a few short years, and while I think myself an optimistic person, I wonder if Company B isn't ready for real change, you know, the kind of change that requires an honest look in the mirror (so to speak).

In all my visits to all these various companies, there are many similar themes - we want to get better, we want to improve, we need to improve... our people are important, our customers are important, our shareholders are important... 

But the difference I see in those that do improve compared to those that don't is in the leadership of the organization - having the vision to see where to steer the ship, the courage to let go of control and trust their people, and the humility to understand that it's not about them (time to check the ego at the door).

AMac

Day 521: Easier to Coach than to Learn?

One of the things I do in my job is coaching. I coach people in different ways to accomplish different things - from visual management and organization to personal development and everything in between. One recent session was about helping people focus on how to manage upwards. It was in the context of the Gallup 12 - a set of twelve questions used to assess employee engagement (I wrote about it before, here). I asked everyone to look at the twelve questions and think about which ones were truly the responsibility of the organization and which had the potential for influence and action by the employee - that is, put effort where you have the ability to affect the outcome.

After the session, I decided to do the same exercise myself. And I was pretty surprised to see that in a lot of areas, I was doing a terrible job of actually taking action. Why was that? I knew the philosophy, the theory, the how-to, yet wasn't even doing it myself. Was it time or lack thereof? I don't think so. Was it desire or perceived need? This might be closer to the truth. 

It's funny how sometimes we don't take our own best advice. I live near a major hospital and am still baffled when I see doctors or nurses outside smoking. You'd think they would be leading by example, or at least doing right by themselves based on their knowledge and experience. I spend so much time and energy trying to grow or shape my career, my skills, but I completely missed this aspect of it - that for as much as I think I am doing a good job as a coach to those I coach, I am completely far less effective at coaching myself. 

It may be the hazard of the job. 

AMac

Day 493: When "CI" means "Control and Influence"

I am just back from Edmonton, after a three day White Belt kaizen session with another of our field service groups. This session was a bit unique in that this group was able to determine their own project instead of having a sponsor prepare a project for them. Lots of interesting ideas came up, but many of them involved people who were not in the room, not on the project team. In fact most of the ideas started out with "How about that process done in Toronto?" or "Maybe we can look at how we work with those guys in Burnaby?"

These were areas they had very little control over - half of their project time would have been spent trying to influence decision makers thousands of kilometres away. 

While interesting ideas, I wanted to see what the team could accomplish there and then. We went to gemba - in this case the warehouse and the field tech's truck - and looked. What wasn't working here? What wasn't self-guiding, self-explaining? What should this area look like? What was difficult? Unsafe?

So I let them in on a little secret - sometimes the "CI" in "continuous improvement" really means control and influence.

Deciding on what improvement to make, and at what level, success will depend on both: your ability to affect change because you control the process - you are the decision-maker; and where you don't control the process, your ability to influence those who do.

So with their new version of "CI" in their kaizen tool box, standing in front of a pile'o'stuff that made no sense to them, the light bulb went on. 

"We can fix this" they said.

And so they did. 

After a whole lot of 5S, they saw the end result and how the new standard made sense for them. More importantly, they saw how they owned this new standard - no one from any of the other offices had any real control over their solution. As long as it worked for them and the type of work they did at this location, it was valuable to this team. Even better, the new standard would act as an influence on the other locations who were doing similar work.

Best of all, the team could see the logical next steps - which projects to tackle next, which additional improvements could be made - all focused on the areas in which they had the greatest degree of control. 

AMac

Day 479: The Full-Circle Effect

Last week, I was lucky enough to participate - as a presenter - at the Burnaby Board of Trade's Green Talks! event. Five minutes on any topic about the greening of our business. I chose to talk about the major challenges we had in getting employees to care about waste sorting, about their commute, about the energy use at our facility. But I also showed how we slowly changed that mindset, and how after three years, the organization had achieved some impressive results. I talked about the need for branding, guerrilla marketing (quick'n'dirty/cheap & fast/funny), and communication. This was after all a change we were asking of our employees and we needed to do a good, no - great - job in communicating why we were making this change. 

Which is more effective?

A company-wide email stating something like "Effective immediately, all employees will sort their organics into the green bins in the lunchrooms" with the email printed and taped above the bins.

OR

The new green bins, each bin adorned with distinctive, highly visual posters and labels, with the company's green mascot clearly shown, and a real live friendly person standing there explaining how and why we will sort our organics to prevent them from going to the landfill, and who gives you a lollipop as a reward for listening and sorting.

(Yes, we really did this.)

Seems pretty obvious I think. If you really want people to understand the need for a change, you have to talk to them about it. One of the building blocks of Training Within Industry (TWI) is called Job Relations (JR), and one of the core principles of JR is that you tell people in advance about changes that will affect them.

Seems pretty simple right? So why are people so surprised when the company-wide emails don't drive effective change? Why do organizations keep doing it and expecting results? Isn't that the definition of insanity?

I think it's because sending an email is EASY. Putting in some effort to (1) lay the foundation for the change, (2) talk to people about the change, (3) answer their questions about the change, (4) encourage the right behaviour with praise/reward isn't hard, but it's not as easy as sending an email. I'm pretty glad that I work with people who are willing to put in the effort to do it right. So much so that we put it on our wall.

So from being able to show off our sustainability successes at this event, and being really proud of all that we had accomplished in a few short years, less than a week later I turn around and have my doctor (my respirologist) tell me that I have developed pollution-triggered asthma. That's right. All my years of running, triathlon, cycling, swimming, skating, all those activities and accomplishments didn't make much difference - the air I was breathing on a daily basis was causing my lungs to constrict and would have eventually turned into COPD if I hadn't pushed to have it checked when I did.

The irony of this whole situation isn't lost on me. 

I'm not certain what it means - for me - yet. But I'll figure that out.

AMac