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Posts in Process Improvement
Getting Up To Speed
How do you quickly become an expert at work? 👨🎓🚇 And what does a subway have to do with it?
I’ve been in subways before, in Washington, DC, and in Paris, France. So, I have some experience with them.
However, the subway in New York City definitely provides a different level of understanding and expertise.
I took a little time to study the subway map and to research online how to navigate the subway.
This allowed my wife and I to be able to effectively navigate around town over the last two days. Numerous times, my wife was lost or would have got on the wrong train, but I was confident and got us where we needed to be.
Last night, she commented on my ability to quickly learn the system and get us around easily. The trick, she pointed out, was that I took a little bit of time to learn about the system.
Trust me, there’s no better school than doing something, as there were things I continued to learn riding the subway. But, I knew enough to start and be successful and that helped me learn from there.
How do you quickly get up to speed on something and how does it work?
Any tips or tricks you would care to share?
#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com
Enter the matrix
Do you, or have you operated in a Matix Organization? 🤔🤓
I have seen, recommended, and used the matrix approach in several organizations over the past 30 years.
Most recently, I led a team of process Improvement experts and, although they worked for me, they were matrixed out to support different clients. This gave me the flexibility of economies of scale, but also deeply embedded them with clients (product lines).
I’ve found that a matrix approach is very effective in many but not all situations.
If you’ve been in a matrix organization, can you share your experience?
What were the benefits?
What were the challenges?
Was it a success or failure?
If you’ve never seen a matrix environment before, let me know too. What are your thoughts about one?
How are you organized now?
If you’re a professional in organizational design, what experience have you had creating matrix orgs?
What are your thoughts and cautions on them?
Thanks for your discussion. Very excited to hear from everyone.
#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com
Success takes time
True Success … for most of us … takes time! 🏅⏰
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh
This is not a brag fest email–just sharing a personal success story. It’s about being consistent and constant, while focusing on things bigger than yourself.
For 30 years, I’ve been building my knowledge, skills, and experiences in business improvement. For 16 of those years, I’ve been following a personal 20-year strategic plan.
Three years ago, I had great conversations with a company that was doing incredible things and was faced with incredible opportunities. Our timing wasn’t right.
However, I followed this company for the past three years, watched their progress, and stayed in touch.
Two months ago, the company reached out — they had been watching me on LinkedIn too. Our conversations three years ago made more sense now — they were ready.
This week, I started working with them on a strategic engagement and it is so incredibly exciting! My 30-years’ experience is coming to bear on a company that truly appreciates me and what I have to offer.
I am looking forward to huge successes with them!
#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
Crosscutter Enterprises
www.crossctr.com
Stuck in the Mud?
What do we do when we’re driving in the rain and get stuck in mud? At first we rock back and forth, saying, “I got this,” and we often succeed in getting more stuck.
Then we get help to push us out…
Not just any help, right?
If we saw a couple of young kids on the corner, they might be willing, but they’ll just get covered in mud trying and you’ll be more stuck.
No, we look for big burly guys to push us out.
But then along comes this one guy with a big truck. See, this guy…he knows everyone gets stuck here in the mud, so he hangs out with his truck when it rains. He’s not the biggest and baddest guy out there, but he has experience and the right tools. Unfortunately, he also charges a lot to get them unstuck.
Little does everyone know that this guy also has a store before you get to this section of road. There is a big sign out front that says, “All Season Tires For Sale! Helps Prevent Getting Stuck in Mud!”
No one ever buys these inexpensive tires from him, but almost anyone will pay for him high dollar to pull them out of the mud.
This is how business planning works. It’s fixing your roof when the sun is shining and its bringing in the expert who has years of experience at fixing roofs.
Lean and Healthcare
The Key Point from the Lean Daily Management for Healthcare Field Book.
When applying Lean in Healthcare, the traditional focus of waste shifts dramatically.
Silo Poster Child!
What does moving a manufactured home have to do with silos? In our case everything!
This story has become the poster child for my book, Overcoming Organizational Myopia!
My wife and I purchased a manufactured home for our horse property. There are actually quite a few moving parts to buying a double wide. One would expect these people to be experts at this.
The problem — silos creating organizational myopia.
It’s so bad, I, as a customer, can see every issue with these companies as plain as day.
First, let’s examine the major silos at work here:
1. Dealership. They are made up of three silos: 1) Sales – the people who sell the product; 2) Finance – the person who completes the formal paperwork; and 3) Project Manager – the person who is supposed to manage the delivery and setup of the home.
2. Factory. The Dealership and Factory are the same company. I see three silos: 1) Constuction – builds the home; 2) Maintenance – responsible for setup and warranty work; and 3) Trim Out – contracted company that finishes out the inside of the home onsite.
3. Delivery and Setup. Although used as a local contractor by all the dealers, they are a subcontractor that does site prep, delivery, setup, hook-up, and special stuff, like decks and skirting. As far as I can see, as a customer, they have at least seven silos, but they actually have silos within silos. The first silo is the Project Manager – this one guy is terrible, so bad in fact, I didn’t even know he was out PM for this effort. The first person we dealt with, forms a second silo. I’m not sure what to call him, but he’s kind of like Sales, but he was the first person who surveyed the site, determined requirements, and put together the bid. Of course, they have a Finance silo – one single person to take your money (everyone has one of these). Then, you have the Site Prep silo, Delivery silo, Setup silo, and Utilities silo. The Setup silo uses subcontractors and each of them (we dealt with three, that do the same job) are their own silo. I suspect there is at least one moresolo, made up of subcontractors, that handle the siding and decks, but haven’t dealt with them yet.
If you have read my book, I’m sure you can already see where the myopia might form. Let me tell you, it’s been pretty obvious working with this effort.
Myopia Issue #1. Dealership makes promises, yet financial paperwork is different. Here’s how you know you’re dealing with myopia. We signed an agreement with the salesperson. When we go to signing the 1,000 pages of documents, what we agreed to is not reflected in the paperwork. Comment, “Oh, I didn’t know that. I’ll have to check with the salesperson.” Impact: wasting company’s and customer’s valuable time at signing, getting with salesperson, validating what was written down and agreed to, and redoing paperwork to sign.
Myopia Issue #2. Dealership Project Manager only cares about getting the house built and delivered. While it’s being built and delivered, its costing them money. After it’s delivered, it’s someone else’s problem. Even though, they should ensure the customer’s end-to-end experience is flawless. Impact: Customer has to deal with several people across the three major silos to actually move into their new home.
Myopia Issue #3 — Everything After the Sale. Since the Dealership PM only cares about getting the product off their books, they dump the effort at that point. Now, I, as the customer, am forced to deal with all the silos related to the Factory and the Delivery and Setup subcontractor. This is where it really gets UGLY!
With the Delivery and Setup silo, two major myopia issues impact this company and resulted in a big fat 0 for customer satisfaction! First was a PM that is totally clueless. This guy didn’t just drop the ball; he lost it under the bleachers. The PM was so bad, that we didn’t even know he was our PM. Impact: Customer (that’s me) acts as PM and spends hours working with every silo in the company! The second major myopia issue is Communication (or, the Lack There Of). Since, I’m the PM on this effort, I worked with every single silo. In every interation the silos complain about and/or demonstrate a complete lack of communication across the company. Impacts: Project delays, constant defects, and unhappy customer.
Since the Dealership PM drops the effort after delivery, the other major silo we are forced to work with is the Factory. So far, it’s been the finishing effort on property. Their major issue is a lack of end-to-end process ownership. How this manifested itself is as follows. The finishing crew comes out to basically Make Ready the home for move in. They have to close up the two halves of the house, fix all the damage from moving, and repair stuff the Construction silo screws up. This was a constant game of Passing the Blame. These guys passed so many bucks that they’re horribly in debt! They blamed everything on the Delivery and Setup and Factory silos, so essentially they could get out of doing tons of work. Impacts: Work left no lt completed, more delays, and tons of rework by “warranty.”
Now, just think…they haven’t even finished the setup of this home and we have yet to move in. Consider this timeline so far. Its May 14th. On April 1st, we closed on the sale of our other home. On April 4th, we agreed on the purchase of this home. On April 8th, we closed on the purchase (paid cash). On April 15th, the house was ready (it was already being built when purchased). It wasn’t delivered until April 29th! It’s now May 14th and yesterday they “finished” the finish work after passing off unfinished work. Also, no utilities have been hooked up and we don’t even know when that might happen.
Leaders…Take a look at your operation. Is this what you see? You have silos in your company…they are inevitable and you actually want them … no, you need them to operate! However, it’s the myopic behavior, as demonstrated here, that forms out of silos gone wrong.
Need help identifying the silos and the myopia? I’m an expert at it. Every business you deal with throughout the day has these issues.
I hope this helps you better “see” how silos exist, organizational myopia occurs, and what its impact is like.
Coach vs Consultant
When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I am a Personal and Professional Business Coach and Consultant.
But isn’t a Coach and Consultant essentially the same thing? I don’t believe so.
If you know who Tony Robbins is, you’ll appreciate his breakdown:
https://www.tonyrobbins.com/coaching/coaching-vs-consulting/?gclid=CjwKCAjwiN_mBRBBEiwA9N-e_r9iYZdJVc4U2jQgJDs5KXqGQZ_dbrTFKCCX6FRZ0iD0CiNanUYsQBoCIl8QAvD_BwE
However, here is my simple definition of differences…
A Coach guides and advises you on taking action to solve problems, overcome obstacles, and achieve success.
A Consultant takes the action for you.
It boils down to two things: Capacity and Capability. Capacity means that you have the time and resources to take the action yourself. Capability means that you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to take the action yourself.
You coach someone when they have the Capacity and Capability. When they don’t have one of the two, you step in as a Consultant.
What Was Your First Job?
What was your first job? Leave a comment below.
My first paying job was a paperboy. When I look back on this now, I can see the lessons I learned and didn’t realize it.
Capacity Management. No matter how many papers I would have liked to deliver (and make money from), only so many would fit in the bags on my bike. This is why paper routes were taken over by people in vehicles.
Accounts Payable. If I didn’t collect the money from the customers, I didn’t get paid. This taught me concepts, like: “fee for service,” and “deadbeat.”
Customer Experience. I got lazy and I dumped my papers in the bushes one time. Tons of people called and complained. I don’t mind being lazy, but that just caused more work in the long run. People don’t like lazy employees.
I didn’t think I was a Business Owner when I owned a Paper Route. Maybe if I had, I would have run it different? In life, we often do see us as “owning” anything when we work for a company…we turn over our rights to someone else. Maybe we need to rethink ownership, regardless of our role?
Where did you start and what didn’t you learn from it?
Frustrated with the Hiring Process?
As a professional coach and mentor I often work with people who are trying to find a job in the corporate world. They are often frustrated with the hiring process and struggle.
One of the most frustrating things is being declined without even a phone call.
Here’s some situational advice…
Large companies often post jobs externally and internally at the same time. However, they will often look at internal candidates first before they look at external. If they find someone that fits internally, they will hire them first.
If you are looking for jobs on search engines, like indeed and LinkedIn, chances are that job has been posted for a while and the company paid to expand the search. People who have a job alert set up with that company posted long before you did.
The most important thing in job hunting is to create and leverage a network in the companies you want to work for. If you don’t have strong, personal connections then you are fighting with those that do.
Not tailoring your resume? Shame on you! You have to adjust your resume for every job. Make it easy for recruiters and boolean search engines to pick your resume out of the stack.
Finding a job is a full time job in itself. Align yourself with an expert who has successfully sat on the job search side and hiring side. Hiring is a process…once you understand it, you can beat it and not let it beat you!