Get Better Idea 1 - Responsible

Being responsible for your actions. You eliminate denial and go straight to learning. Then we improve our life and the lives around us.

Leaders and Parents take responsibly for people around them. You are responsible.

Mentoring Teaching How to Think

Most of us will take a new job, and we depend on people to teach us. They become our mentors. Then comes the day we have to teach the newbie. We are their mentors.

So how do you train someone well? First remember some failures of other people to orient you before. Hours, breaks, bathrooms, and general rules of the office are helpful along with introducing coworkers.

The story of a new hire on a manual zinc die cast machine comes to mind. He just had to pull the lever to close the door, then push the lever open to get the part. New guy works through break, then thru lunch. Finally his manager asks him how he is doing? Sweating profusely the new guys says, “How do you stop this machine?” When told just don’t close the door. He picks up his things and walks out the door quitting on the spot. Training failure.

You need to show someone more than what steps to do. You need to teach them how to think. The steps are okay if everything goes right. What do you do if something is wrong? Mentors must teach how to think. How to handle unsatisfied customers. Who to call for problems. Safety rules and processes. Warning signs looking out for potential problems.

Here is a list of mentoring steps by a curmudgeon:

·   Read the draft manual & procedures.

·   Complete my required training.

·   Giddily using a red pencil to redline the hell out of my engineering drawings.

·   Go leave the comfort of our cubicle area to go to the labs and to walk the production line.

·   Forced me to talk with the mechanics and technicians.

·   No clue what to say, so he would politely say something in just the right way for me to rephrase it and ask it myself.

·   Stories shared from his 30+ years with the company on mistakes made & how they were fixed, successes achieved.

·   Important things to remember when running this test or that analysis.

·   Knowing how the organization works and who the key players are.

·   Why it's important to understand things from our customer's perspective.

·   The significance of integration & handoffs between engineering groups and our products.

·   Appreciation of the precision and detail required to generate computer equivalent engineering drawings by hand.

This woman’s career was been forever shaped by the time and effort this man put into her to learn about the craft of engineering.

Mentors are not done unless the trainee also has life skills to go do the job.  The soft skills of working with people have to be taught everyone. 

Especially the transition from schooling to working. Working with 2 interns they thought there would be no issue sitting down and talking with the CEO. My question was don’t you think he has other responsibilities to be working on? Most CEOs are the chief salesperson making decisions daily, that affect many employees. Part of our job is to protect their time so the CEO can focus. However if you have great ideas and necessary information, you need to bring it to the CEO.

Here are some soft skills were taught by my mentors:

·   Encouraged become a problem solver, to take initiative, and to meet deadlines.

·   Stressed 'problem solving'.

·   That things will go wrong, and to focus on prevention as well as recovery.

·   Asking good questions.

·   Help me develop perspective, and to take logical risks.

·   Humility - serious about my work and not so serious about myself. Life is easier.

·   Speak up and overcome my shyness.

·   Engineering should also be interesting and fun (and not to lose that)

Successful in my career and life because many people took their time to teach me life lessons, work skills, computer programs, problem solving, handling people on bad days, and maintain perspective in crisis’s. Am eternally grateful, and passing my learning on.

Who mentored you? Honor them by teaching others.

Get Your Satisfaction

Being Unsatisfied is our normal state. Actually it is a good thing we are not satisfied with the way our situation is. This motivates us to make changes for the better.

Something that doesn’t work motivates me to fix it or replace it. It is why we invent new tools and come up with new solutions. It is how the human race grows.

Still it is not easy. You don’t feel good. How do you stay motivated? How do you relax?

For example every job gets repetitive, boring, co-workers complain, something does not work, and life gets frustrating. What do you do? Find something about you job you like.

I worked for lock companies, which sounds boring after aerospace. What motivated me for years was the mission. We were protecting people and their businesses. Would dive deeper into problems, learn more and think of creative ways to improve our products and services.

My current position does not use all my skills. My position is in a bit of a silo. My motivation is helping mechanics by simplifying their instructions, removing obstacles and providing better tools to be productive.

Get comfortable with being a little uncomfortable. Try something new outside your strengths. Introduce yourself to strangers. Ask awkward questions. Go somewhere you aren’t sure you belong. See what is like and who you meet there.

Along the way you will grow.

  

Men's Night

My church is very active. With lots of different groups supporting charities, school and church activities & events. Last night the church held a 2^nd Men’s night at Rob’s garage and driveway.

What was different about Men’s night? No purpose other than getting to know other men you did not know before. No fund raising. Bringing food was optional. The pulled pork and beer was already donated (Thanks Knights of Columbus).

Saw men I knew from my small group, K of C, and weekly coffee and donuts. Met a three nice men much younger, two older members, and we had more than two dozen around Rob’s $24 bar and brewing equipment.

Stories, quips, snarky comments and the occasional joke were told. We ate together, choose from 9 beers by Sean & Rob’s future micro brewery, and generally acted like men.

Father Brad was there with humor in fine form. Joked we were going to do 20 rosaries “on our knees” for the evening. Most of us would not get up after 1 rosary from our knees without help. He just held a short prayer before food was served.

There was no planned activity. What was accomplished on a nice spring evening? The community was strengthened. New people welcomed. Experiences were shared. Advice given. Deeper knowing of each other. Bonding. You become known to others and a resource for the future.

How are you planning build connections in your business? Take time to build people up, and expand their networks. When needs come up, you have a real team.

For example the storm took out the power the day of the St Patrick’s dinner. The volunteers at church cooked by flashlight. Dinner had candles. About 60% of the expected parishioner’s showed up. Everyone was fed. Funds were raised. The team rose to the challenge.

Build people up and build teams. For work, charity and life.

New Standard of Excellence

Not often I recommend an article from 2004 to read. But this article by Dr. Atul Gawande leads to a new standard of excellence. Anyone with a basic statics education is familiar with the bell curve. Most medicine is successful in the middle of the curve. Sometimes treatment at the low end of the curve.

Dr. Warren Warwick’s example at the end of the article shows how you get off the chart medical treatment of cystic fibrosis. He made a study of what it takes to do better than everyone else. He believed that excellence came from seeing, on a daily basis, the difference between being 99.5-per-cent successful and being 99.95-per-cent successful. Warwick’s combination of focus, aggressiveness, and inventiveness is what makes him extraordinary.

“What the best may have, above all, is a capacity to learn and adapt—and to do so faster than everyone else.”

The question is why do you want to be extraordinary?

What are you doing today to get there?

Are you in Dr. Warwick’s territory?

The Bell Curve

What happens when patients find out how good their doctors really are?

The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/12/06/the-bell-curve

Day by Day Success

Success is built day by day. It does not appear magically overnight. The overnight successes you see on the news come after years of hard work.

What should be on your daily to do list?

•       Care about others
•       Listen & take feedback
•       Work on the important projects
•       Learn something new
•       Be 1% better than yesterday
•       Take Action
•       Repeat often

Build your success today.

3 Networking Secrets

Being self-employed had to learn how to network. Being naturally shy it was difficult at first until learning these secrets.

1. Act as the Host/Hostess

Help someone prepare, show someone around, tell them where to find the registration table or bar. It is natural to start conversations with the people you help.

2. Ask Questions

People like talking about themselves. It is natural. So asking their name (and repeat it soon), what they do, how does the customer benefit, why they like their job, and who is their best prospect? After talking with you the good listener, they are ready to hear you and help.

3. Treat Everyone as Your Peer

Realized this week have done this my whole life with everyone from presidents to the new hire. Everybody is wired to be concerned about their own status with their neighbors. By being your equal they feel comfortable, and so are you. 

   Summary

The secrets are all based on focusing on the other people and their needs. Not focusing on our nervousness and neediness. By being human we make better connections and get customers and friends.

Networking is helping other people get what they want. Everyone offers valuable services and products including you. We add value when we connect people, which is why we network. By helping others we get what we want.