Something to think about over the Holidays for that New Year's resolution...

"...Accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Yes, this is a quote from the Declaration of Independence.  Using this quote to offer some commentary on the state of the AEC industry would have probably been more appropriate near Independence Day but when a good thought strikes, why wait?  I like this quote because it so eloquently describes how we are more likely to go with the flow no matter how frustrating that practice can be. 

Great tip today from the Harvard Business Review on achieving culture change.  I'm sure you've noticed the effect of behaviors of influential people within your company or project.  Those behaviors create a mood on the team which then influences actions.  Notice that these examples in the link are not of a grand scale.  They are small changes, but because the changes vary from the norm, they are noticed.  A conversation develops.

Recently I was working with a client on developing a road map to deliver projects on a lean basis.  The executive champion for this client would stop by occasionally for a briefing on progress.  The focus was always on the result, i.e. what work was completed, what still had to be done, are you on schedule.  What if this champion came into the room and asked, "What are your roadblocks?  How can I help?"

What behaviors and language can you exhibit in your interaction with others in your company or project team to create the stories that will lead to developing a collaborative learning organization?

Pete Abilla recently wrote about why transformation efforts fail in his popular and personal blog - shmula. He cites an often used statistic that a majority of attempts fail (he uses 70%; some estimates are much higher). Reason is, he claims and I agree, that about half the time management doesn't do what they are suppose to and the other half the time subordinates don't do what they are suppose to do. Of course a lack of resources and other reasons contribute.

http://www.shmula.com/1510/why-transformation-efforts-fail

I'm posting today instead of my usual Wednesday because our blog editor software was not functioning as expected this week. These things happen. They happen on our projects all the time. So how do we keep our schedule commitments to our customer?

Traditionally we firefight (i.e. throw a bunch of people and resources at an issue to catch up) and/or overburden work teams with overtime. This rarely works. Firefighting addresses the current work at the expense of future work. Future work cannot be made ready by existing teams or people inexperienced with the current project are brought to the project and do not perform the work correctly the first time. Overburden stresses people so that they do not perform reliably in the future. The result is that the schedule losses accumulate rather than dissipate.

A lean approach focuses on understanding the issue that occurred so that we may limit future instances of similar issues. Working in a lean way also promotes those doing the work to replan the project collaboratively in order to meet the schedule commitment. When we combine learning with respect for the people on the work teams, we open opportunities to greater understanding of the future work. The result is improved flow of work, less non- value added activity and meeting schedule commitments.

One of my colleagues shared a Quick ‘n Easy Kaizen with us the other day. It was certainly quick, as well as easy – and very effective. It was a simple organization system for his emails. He found the tip on the internet some time ago, and put it in use for himself. He set up 5 folders in his email: action, archive, hold, respond, waiting. A few times a day, after reading his new emails he moves them into these folders. Whatever doesn’t fit in any of the folder descriptions below, he puts right in the trash. Action folder - for emails that he must complete an action before responding or archiving Archive folder – for emails that he wants to save but don’t require further action Hold folder - for emails that he will need to reference at some point in the near future, such as links for meetings, etc. Respond folder – for emails that he will respond to but don’t require any action other the response Waiting – for emails that he has sent to others and is now waiting for a reply or other action I guess some time ago I had come up with a similar system – quite possibly from another tip on the internet. But my system didn’t include the same folders as his. So I copied his folders and was able to eliminate several other folders I had (that contained 1 or 2 emails each). Now my email inbox is clean and refreshing – it doesn’t overwhelm me when I open it up. I can quickly find my actions, things I need to refer to, and responses I’m waiting for. And then I started thinking…..How else could I use this idea? I have a 5-compartment desktop file sorter on my desk. I usually put things in there when I don’t really know where else to put them. I always have a lot of papers that don’t really have a home, so it gets a little bit….um….jumbled. What I decided to do was label my 5 compartments similar to the email folders. Not quite all the same labels, but close. Thanks to my colleague sharing his QnEK, my file sorter is now organized too!

We talk about information as though it were a substance - a liquid, actually, something which flows.  This metaphor suggests that information is something we can pour into people, disseminate, transmit, or deliver through a hose.  It draws our attention to the sender or the source of the information.  All we need to worry about is bandwidth or the effectiveness of the spray nozzle.  I question whether this interpretation makes sense. 

Think about information from the point of view of the person receiving it.  They don't care about bandwidth, because they can pay attention to only one thing at a time (OK, maybe a few).  If they are not listening, then they are not being informed.  There's that word again, listening.  It always seems to matter.  I walk around with a set of problems and concerns, trying to take care of them.  When I hear something that opens up a new possibility for addressing a concern or solving a problem, then I am informed - I change.  My nervous system is modified.  Information is that constant process of listening and learning which changes us and increases our range of possible actions.

There's an article over on Golf.com about the struggles that Padraig Harrington is having with learning a new swing in advance of this year's British Open. If you don't' keep up with professional golf, Padraig Harrington has won the last two British Opens and the last PGA Championship.

One might ask after having that success why would he ever want to change his swing. The article quotes him as saying that he wanted to improve his position at impact. I interpret this to mean that he recognized he was doing something in his current practice that didn't add to his ability to control the golf ball and he wanted to stop doing it.

If you have begun your lean journey, you probably can sympathize with him. You might feel as if you were fairly successful working the way you had. It may not have been perfect. It may have been stressful and you may have had to redo work, but at the end of the day projects got done. But you obviously recognized the opportunity for you in changing your approach. Now you are learning, but the project is taking longer to complete than a traditional approach and you aren't immediately successful. It can be frustrating.

In the world of blogging, it seems like there have been several posts about rewarding, incenting and motivating employees recently. In fact, just 2 blog posts ago I wrote about the very same thing as it relates to Quick ‘n Easy Kaizen.

On July 1, I ran across http://tinyurl.com/Creativity-sForbiddenFruit that addresses this as well. Matthew May refers to rewards as “Creativity’s forbidden fruit.” I think he hit the nail on the head with his post. He talks about making kaizen (continuous improvement) the daily work. I couldn’t agree more and especially when it comes to workers continually improving their own work.

I was fortunate to have worked for a company that decided they wanted to harness the power of employee creativity. With some guidance and coaching, when they rolled out the Quick ‘n Easy Kaizen program they didn’t offer “incentives” for employees’ contributions. They gave us a few months to get used to coming up with, implementing and sharing our improvements while helping us through internal and external coaching. They told us by the following spring, they would be asking each employee to implement three or more improvements each month.

•    Did they tell us that we were “expected to contribute?” Yes.
•    Did they tell us if we didn’t do them we would be fired? No.
•    Did they tell us that we would get paid for these? No.
•    Did they put up with a lot of half-baked improvements? Yes.
•    Despite getting some (or many) half-baked improvements, did they get some excellent ideas they could implement company wide? You bet they did!
•    Did many of the employees develop both personally and professionally through creating and implementing improvements on a regular basis? Yes!!

In fact, on a weekly basis the corporate office would send out an email with a few QnEK from the week that would be easily transferable. Then monthly each division would submit those that were the most impactful and had the farthest reach.

We had almost 500 employees, and the majority of us were contributing to the improvement system. And you know what? The more small improvements you make on a daily basis, the easier it becomes for you to spot the opportunity for more. Like most things in life – the more you practice, the better you become!

I’ll admit it. I’m a complete coffee addict. I never really saw much harm in drinking 6-9 cups of coffee a day…or maybe I chose to be ignorant about any harm it may cause. Until recently when my doctor informed me that 2 cups a day was fine, but 4 or more definitely was not! Faced with this conversation, I could no longer choose to be ignorant on the issue, and I had to change my ways.

To avoid cutting back so significantly, I made all kinds of excuses to myself. What was I going to do? Nobody else in my house drinks coffee, just me. The thought of making half a pot of coffee just doesn’t seem right. And what about when I want to have one cup in the morning, and my second in the afternoon? With me, the last cup in the pot is always cold. And I certainly didn’t want to make a whole pot, only to pour half of it down the drain. The batch size is just too big. How wasteful!

Thankfully, the wonderful coffee maker companies of the world have been improving the coffee making experience for their customers. Over the past couple of years, the single-serving coffee makers have become quite mainstream. My family, knowing of my plight, kindly bought me one for Christmas. This machine is great – it takes about 60 seconds to brew a fresh cup of coffee.

Now I can brew just one single cup of coffee, as I need it. I have the option of using the pre-filled disposable containers, or I can fill my own little filter with enough ground beans to make just one cup. No coffee goes to waste, and my cup is always fresh and hot! With all of my excuses gone, I have no reason not to cut back to 2 cups each day. Now I can meet the doctor's request, have my coffee just the way I like it, and not have any to waste!

Talk about a change for the better!

Have you ever gone to a great training class, a conference or a seminar that you really feel you learned a lot from? You know the kind – where you’re feverishly taking notes throughout the day, falling behind in your listening because there is just so much powerful information you want to capture? Well, I went to a one-day training like this a couple of weeks ago. I left this training with over 40 actions that I wanted to take in both my work and my personal life. But see, a lot of these actions were more about developing specific communication skills or changing my perception on things than they were “to do’s.” In other words, I have to practice using these skills or perception shifts over and over until they become second nature before I can consider them “done.”

I’ve had a lot of similar experiences in the past. What typically happens is I’ll remember a few of the skills for a while, and keep them in the front of my mind, practicing when I have the opportunity. I usually forget about most of the others. Ooops. A couple of months down the road, someone will say something that jogs my memory about a skill I vaguely remember. This prompts me to take out my notes from the training and have that same “A-ha” moment all over again. Then, of course, after a day or two, it will promptly slip right back out of my mind. End result: Little to no development achieved.

So I’m going to share with you my absolute favorite action from this recent training session. At the instructor’s suggestion, I’ve taken all of the actions that are about developing skills and jotted them down on their own index cards. She recommended we post these cards where we will see them the most: on the refrigerator, the mirror, back of a sun visor, etc. Since I spend most of my day at my desk, I’ve got them posted all around my monitor, on the wall behind my monitor, and even have one posted right on my desk.

Now I’ve been practicing 12 different communication skills and perception changes for a whole week. I’m getting better and better at them, and they are starting to weave their way into how I communicate. People who know me well are starting to notice some differences. It’s working!

It boggles my mind to see the substantial difference in my learning of these skills as compared to some of the other skills I was taught at trainings in the past. And to think, I owe it all to my instructor and to this one --- teeny tiny --- change she recommended I make! I guess it’s time to dig out my old materials from other sessions and make some more note cards!