Production or Craftsperson?

Are you a production worker or craftsperson? Neither is wrong, it is understanding your market.

If your work is frequent and repetitive, you are a production worker. The goal is quality products or services delivered daily. Your strengths are process and productivity. Focus on building teams, improved skills, cost reductions, tooling improvements, statistical processes, inspection/verification, checklists, and integrating new technologies. 

The danger here is when competitors bring out newer, better products and services. Hubris kills many industries. However often the second movers gain an advantage, so you have a short time to adapt to a new market.

If you make one of a kind art or services, you are a craftsperson. Your strengths are originality, quality and effectiveness. Focus on technique, style, and sales. Successful artist sell their work and ship near perfect works. Understand the business and marketing of your art and services to succeed. Find partners to help in areas that take away from your focus.

The most success leaders are blend of production and craftsperson. Understand your strengths and build upon them. Surround yourself with people who support your work. Success is doing what you are great at. And you are great.

Lower Overhead

Do you work in an open office? I do. 

Moved from a partial cubical row with tall walls between rows and overhead storage to a small room with low walls. More audio and visual interruptions / distractions. Less productivity per employee.

Less personal and less storage. Lets be honest, engineers love having samples in our cabinets. Lets us look at the designs we are trying to improve. Room for pictures, calendars and personal items so office felt like home. Now minimized, have 5 drawers in roll around cabinets.

Why are businesses going to open offices if not for productivity? Less floor space per employee equals less cost. 

The average office space per employee has shrunk from 225 sq. ft. in 2010 to 150 sq. ft. in 2017. Saving 75 sq. ft. times $50 annual building cost per sq. ft. times 500 employees would save $1,875,000 per year.  That is a lot of savings for any company. [Credit Erik Rood for analysis]

The easiest way to improve business results is to lower overhead costs, especially real estate costs. Cost reduction is easier than getting more customers, expanding profit margins per sale, or improving productivity. 

Our job is to be productive no matter our workspace. What works for you? Library rules, noise canceling headphones, more email / messaging, or more meetings to discuss projects. 

https://www.fastcompany.com/90220029/the-real-reason-your-company-switched-to-an-open-plan-office?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=3&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=08172018

Focusing on What is Important

Productive workers are not the busiest worker. They are the people who focus where a difference can be made. It is surprising the management miss this simple concept.

Have seen managers reward workers who show up on time and crank out volumes of simple, repetitive work. Easy to do because these people are not encountering hard problems that require manager’s time & attention. They generate good metrics and free your time.

However your most valuable employees tackle the more difficult work. They are not going to crank out numbers fixing typos. They do research. They negotiate with other departments, suppliers and customers to find good solutions.

Managers have ignored female coworkers contributions I have worked with. It’s because they don’t pay attention to their informally teaching coworkers skills, and ignore how difficult are the issues they tackle. It creates resentment and often leads to your best people leaving.

An Insurance Company rewarding their best salesman. This company focused on the metric of sales calls per agent. The vice president giving the award note the best salesman only made half the sales calls per the goal. “Can you imagine how many sales he would of made if he met the sale call goal?”

The agent responded “Can you imagine how much your sales team would sell if they made as few sales calls as I do?”

The question is Where Can You Make a Bigger Difference at Work?

This riff was inspired by Bloomberg’s Jerry Useem’s well thought out “The Hardest Workers Don't Do the Best Work”. Worth your time to find out why your best workers “do fewer things, and seem to have better developed mechanisms for deciding what not to do.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-02/the-hardest-workers-don-t-do-the-best-work

Happy 100th Birthday Boeing

The original Pacific Aero Products Company celebrates turning 100 today. Boeing is now a huge international company known worldwide. It was originally a few men who believed they could make better airplanes, and they did. From the original B&W Model 1 to the Clipper to WW2’s B-17 to B-52 to 707’s original jet age to 727 to the iconic 747 to the great F-15 to the amazing C-17 and F-18 to today’s 787, Boeing makes wonderful airplanes.

Boeing is the 3^rd company I have worked for with over 100 years of history. Celebrated Colt Firearms 150^th anniversary, and Sargent and Company dated back to 1864 making builders hardware.

What do these companies have in common?

• ·      Innovate great products and services.
• ·      Look out for their customers & end users. They care.
• ·      Always becoming more productive.
• ·      Adapt and adjust to market conditions.
• ·      Always learning, especially from failures.
• ·      Hire and develop great people.

Boeing has “The Incredibles” who built the first 747 in ~16 months while the factory was built around them. Supervisors would sometimes have to walk people out to their cars and watch them leave to make sure they went home for a break. (You cannot pay for performance like that.)

A lot of people will honor Boeing today and it is well deserved. Boeing people “Enthusiastically Tackle Challenges” through the decades, and do so today.

This is the best company ever worked for. What took me so long to get here?

What Should You Be Doing Right Now?

You are reading this because you want to be better. You want to be successful. You want to be recognized as a leader.

How do you accomplish these goals (and more)? Thinking Smarter? A Grand vision for the Future? Better Planning?

Focus on now, and do what you know needs to be done.

The execution now is more important that the grand vision. Daily doing beats big dreams time after time.

And don’t focus on the Urgent. Make time for the Important. Somehow it gets put off too long.

Credit Bruce Kasanoff’s article “The No. 1 Secret To Career Success”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucekasanoff/2016/05/20/the-1-secret-to-career-success/#3924fc9128cd

Simplify to be Productive

Work often expands to the time available. This is urgent! Can you fit this is? The tyranny of the To Do list. This is not where you want to spend your time.

Don’t make yourself busy. Look for what would make a difference. Improvements, new products, new services and innovations. Schedule time for the big projects.

The secret is to minimize unimportant work, and focus on work that benefits the customer in the long term.

Be a Better You

"Be at war with your vices; at peace with your neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better man." - Benjamin Franklin

Everyone would like to improve. Why else do we make New Years resolutions? We want to make more money, get promoted, lose weight or find the love of our life.

Instead of making very general resolutions that will fail in the first weeks, choose what you will succeed at. That is right, you are going to succeed.

How do I know this works? Have done it. Who else do you know planned to lose 10 pounds, and lost 16? Successfully lost weight and kept it off for years.

Lets Get Started

Start writing a list of desires.  Where do you want your life to be better? Get paper now.

Why do you want to improve this part of your life? Write down all the reasons.

What values & beliefs of yours support these ideas/resolutions? Write them down.

What values & beliefs hold you back? If you think wealth makes you an evil and mean, you will sabotage your efforts. Write down the values/beliefs why you can’t do it. Are they true? I really doubt it. There will be difficulties, but nothing you can’t work around or overcome. Your talent and hard work will be rewarded.

Now comes the hard part. Which resolution is no. 1?  You need to put them in order.  Which resolution is most important to your values and actions?

Then you pick. Preferably choose only 1 resolution, but no more than 3. May be one major and a minor one? You choose which goals to succeed at.

Now start planning how you will succeed at your first resolution. What steps are necessary for you to consider your experience a success? What can you start today? Focus on what you control.

Repeat if you are working on a second resolution.

Why It Works

Focusing on a few goals, and creating actions you follow get faster results. The more you value a goal, the harder you will work to succeed at your resolution.

Writing it down is another reason for success. Write the goal as if it has already happened. Write the actions as if the past and you did them already. You mind will follow you.

The results may take longer or be less than expected. Sticking with it gets results.

Results

Weight loss, was it easy? No. Did I fail at times? Yes, of course. But I stuck with it.

Was technically not fat, just at the higher end of my healthy weight range. However was not playing volleyball 4 times a week nor weightlifting. Sitting around let me gain weight. Just did not feel good physically. Motivation included Dad getting Adult Onset Diabetes. Taking care of myself could prevent that.

 My plan was rather simple. I gained weight one pound at a time. Losing it was going to be the same. Skipped the diet and went immediately to a maintenance plan. Less carbs, smaller portions, more exercise, and add some healthy foods. Did not give up any foods I loved, just limited how much I ate them.

Another secret, allowed myself one cheat day per week. Still could go for cake at a birthday, donut on Sunday, or restaurant meal. Spread them out by dieting 6 days a week.

Results: 16 pounds lost in 18 months. You have heard the last 10 pounds is the hardest to lose? That was my whole goal. Weight did not fall off easy. But have maintained the gain 5 years by making a permanent change.

Second did go through unemployment and find a new job while losing weight. Succeeding at one goal supported working towards another goal.

Follow Thru

Lots of people think they have to be perfect to accomplish anything. Not true. Every plan will have setbacks and make adjustments. Your plan must allow for changes, celebrations and vacations.

People think focusing on one or few changes, the other goals will not happen. Truth is by focusing you complete goals faster. Success motivates you to start the other goals expecting to succeed.

Pick your most valuable goal, and write down your plan. Then adapt and adjust your plan until you succeed.

Following this plan myself. Will let you know how I make out. Let me know how your plan worked for you.

A very happy New Year to you, your friends and family.

Pre-Mortems How to Prepare for Stress

No one thinks well under stress. Flight or Fright = Cortisol which shuts down deep thinking. Survival takes precedence.

So how do you handle stressful situations? You think about, discuss and prepare for difficult decisions.

The Army prepares soldiers for ambushes as an example. Trains soldiers to attack the ambushers rather than to sit helplessly and be slaughtered.

Drivers Ed taught us what to do when common emergencies happened. Brake and Steer out of danger. Recover from a skid. How to change a flat tire.

Daniel Levitin: “How to stay calm when you know you'll be stressed” is a great primer in preparing. He gives an example of a medical decision, and how to prepare not to lose something important.

There is a good likelihood something stressful will happen in your life. Do pre-mortems on likely stressful events to make better decisions.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_levitin_how_to_stay_calm_when_you_know_you_ll_be_stressed