Leave Nothing on the Field

by Don Harkey

I have been reading a book recently called "Run with the Bulls Without Getting Trampled" by Tim Irwin. Irwin shares a story early in the book about his son who had just played in a very close football game. It was his last game in high school and they had lost in the playoffs. Irwin embraced his son on the field and held the big kid, who was sobbing uncontrollably. His face and body was covered with sweat, mud, and bruises.

Then the opposing team's coach approached the two men. "Sir, may have a word with your son?", the coach of the winning team asked. The father stepped back and coach grabbed the son's shoulders and said softly, "Son, tonight you left nothing on the field. You gave it your all, and it was an honor to play against you."

Isn't this the way we should all live our lives? Too often we are afraid to truly commit ourselves to our internal purpose because of our own fears. Rather than risk failure or discomfort, we make decisions that are "safe" rather than follow God's calling. We were all placed on Earth by our Creator with our own Strengths and our own experiences to try to find a life that is fulfilling and meaningful.

The noise of the world begins to cloud our vision of what makes us fulfilled. We begin to hold great value in things like security or high definition television sets or job titles.

I knew a manager of a major company who once told me that he once had great dreams for his company, but that he had long decided to keep those dreams to himself until he could get promoted to a level where he could make a difference. I asked him what that level was and what changes he would make. He paused and looked very sad. "I have forgotten and I will likely never reach that level anyway." This was a man who had risen to high levels in the company and was very respected. Inside, he was a broken man. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

The saddest part, was that he didn't even have the strength or courage not to warn others. Instead, his advice was to follow his path. Keep quiet. Take the safe road. Live for the next game, or maybe the one after that.

The story shared by the author reflects an important lesson. While we are here in this game of life, we must work every day to leave nothing on the field. This is not just the way to live a fulfilled life, it is a basis of morality.

God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He doesn't call us to be respected or admired. He doesn't call even call us to be successful... but He does call and we must listen.

That boy felt great pain that night on the football field. However, for the rest of his life, the boy, now a man, never regretted that day. Live your life so that you don't regret this day, or any other.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

- Teddy Roosevelt

Continuous Improvement - The Humidifiers (Part II)

by Don Harkey

For those of you haven't read "Continuous Improvement - The Humidifiers (Part I), you might want to follow the link below and read this first. Otherwise, skip the link and let's discuss.

http://galtconsulting.blogspot.com/2009/01/continuous-improvement-humidifiers-part.html#comments

There were some great suggestions on improving the humidifier process. Without seeing the process in detail, it is challenging to develop specific suggestions, but I love the variety of suggestions presented. Like any course of action, they all have advantages and disadvantages. Let's review a few of them.

Humidifier in the Furnace
One suggestion was to eliminate the 3 small humidifiers and install a commercial humidifier in the furnace system. This would definitely improve the process as we have it defined. Other than having the humidifier serviced annually, this would eliminate the daily employee interaction with the humidifier. When talking about process improvements, the first suggestions usually involve spending some money. This might be a good idea, but also presents its own set of barriers. Management may not be willing or able to spend the money. The other problem is that it takes the improvement opportunity out of the hands of the employee and puts it back to management. There are probably ways to drastically improve this process without spending money.

Use 3 Volunteers to Fill the Humidifiers
If the work of filling the humidifiers were spread out to 3 different people, the impact per person would be minimized. This would also encourage a team approach to work. However, the process itself is not really being improved. Are we missing an opportunity?

Use 3 Volunteers and Hold a Contest for the Best Improvement Ideas
This idea really focuses on improving the process and tries to get to people's competitive side. I'm sure this will yield some dramatic process improvements, but there are a couple of problems with this approach. First of all, when you have employees competing with each other, you shut down the flow of information between them. That is admittedly not a huge issue for this example, but it is important when talking about larger projects. In short, competing employees won't help each other. The other issue with this approach is that it sets a very narrow vision for the employees (improve THIS process). If I am very competitive, I might spend several hours coming up with new ideas to improve this process. Spending hours on this is really what we are trying to avoid!

Install a Long Hose / Valve
For a relatively small amount of money, you could install a long hose in the janitor's closet that could reach each humidifier. You could also install a valve at the end of the hose so the employee could start and stop the water on the move. This would certainly improve the process, but we have to watch for other problems. Having 50 feet of coiled up hose in the janitors closet might take up a lot of storage space. Also, dragging a long, wet hose through the office gives a high potential for making a mess at some point.

Do We Really Need a Humidifier?
The question from one respondent was simple, "do we really need the humidifiers?". The specific suggestion was to stop using one and see if anyone noticed a difference. If they didn't notice, stop using 2 and see if anyone notices. Repeat until someone notices the difference or until there are no humidifiers. I am often surprised by how many processes I see that really add no value. If a process is taking up resources, it should be adding value. Does filling the humidifier (or filling out that daily report) really add value worthy of the resource? I like this suggestion a lot, although I would suspect that we would find that the office needed all 3 humidifiers.

Small Improvements Adding Up
I have the luxury of actually filling these humidifiers from time to time and my improvements have all been small, but have really improved the process. For example, I found that waiting for the water to fill the tank seemed like a waste, so I made sure the next tank was ready to fill. My goal when I fill them is to keep the water running as much as possible. Also, I found out that I could carry 4 tanks at once and save an extra trip down the long hallway. Finally, I discovered that staging the tanks so they are ready to be picked up without moving them again keeps me from shifting the filled tanks around (they get in the way). These small improvements were developed without a formal process. They were developed simply by thinking about how I was doing it and thinking about ways to make it better. These small changes improved the process from 12-15 minutes to just over 6 minutes!

Thank you to all who submitted ideas for filling the humidifier. Soon, I will include a YouTube link showing a video of the filling process.

Baby Steps

by Don Harkey

There are so many concepts and so much information available for leaders trying to make positive changes within their organization. There are programs galore to choose from like Total Quality Management, Six-Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, 5S, 8D, etc... you get the idea. It can all be overwhelming.

Where do you start?

Start with baby steps. If you are thinking about change, you must first know what the change is. Change involves going from "A" to "B". If "A" is now, that means you need to know where you are. If "B" is the desired future, that means you need to know where you want to be. This is the first step of any deliberate organizational transformation (in other words "making things better").

The analogy of the baby step here is actually pretty good. A baby step is usually used to imply a very small step. However, we can go deeper into its meaning. A baby taking steps is seldom stable or confident. The first steps are extremely difficult and often result in falling. Yet each new step adds confidence and stability. Once a baby learns to walk, a whole new world is opened up. This is true in an organization as well.

You don't have to map out the entire transformation all at once. That is like trying to get a baby to run the 400 meter hurdles. Start off by pulling your best people together from across your organization and having some frank discussions. Where are we? What are we good at? What can we do better? What defines us?

Brainstorm a list of qualities on the board that your people consider to be desirable. Then discuss each quality and determine if your organization truly possesses those qualities. Some qualities will reflect the DNA of your organization. These are your core values.

Be honest and hard on yourself. I was participating in a session with a company that found discussed the quality of "excellence" and tried to apply it to themselves. The people in the room defined excellence as "being the best you can be in everything you do". A corollary of this could be "if its worth doing, its worth doing right". The company certainly does a lot of things right, but ultimately the group admitted to itself that it doesn't do everything right. For some things within the company considered to be low priority, the effort to do things really well was not very good. This was a tough admission for the team, but it really gave insight into where they were and where they wanted to be.

Most companies establish a list of core values and most companies have NOT been through this process of honest introspection. If you already have a list of core values, challenge yourself. Are you really following them? Do they really reflect who you are? Remember that you are defining yourself, not creating a marketing brochure.

These conversations can be difficult, but they will start to give you more and more insight into who you are and where you want to be. The next step is to look at the qualities where you fell short. If your quality isn't really the best it could be, would you like it to be better? This is an example of an "envisioned future". This is where you want to be.

There you go again! You are trying to envision the whole process through without taking any steps! It's OK. Most people do that. Start with the first baby step. Pull your team together. Ask them what is important to them. Listen. Bring in a trusted outsider to help keep you on track and get an external perspective (this will save you a lot of time!). Don't be afraid of getting lost or falling down. Once you learn to walk, you'll be leaping hurdles in no time!

Unconventional Wisdom

by Don Harkey

In case you haven't noticed, the economy seems to be struggling a bit. When you combine this with the significant changes that have occurred in the U.S. Government after the 2008 elections, this is a very interesting time.

As the Government scrambles to react to the current economic climate, I want to remind all of you to beware of "conventional wisdom". "Conventional wisdom" is a term that generally applies to knowledge that most people and experts accept as being true. An example is "smoking is bad for your health". A vast majority of experts and people believe this to be true, so people use the term "Conventional Wisdom" (CW) as a convenient way to lock into the "truth".

When people try to understand something complicated, they must start with some basic truths. In order to understand how to do Algebra, you must first understand basic math. You must accept the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 and that it always equals 2. These truths become building blocks toward understanding more and more complex ideas. Addition leads to basic math, which leads to algebra, which leads to calculus, which leads to physics...

The problem with some of the "softer" sciences like economics or management theory is that these "truths" or building blocks are harder to prove. Misinformation leads to complex theories that are simply and very wrong. A good example from the past occurred in the field of astronomy. The Earth MUST be the center of the Universe, so all theory at the time was based on this piece of "conventional wisdom".

My warning is this... beware of "conventional wisdom". In the information age, it is extremely easy to pick up "truths" that are actually not true. Worse yet, it is extremely common for theories to be presented as truth.

This brings me to our current economic situation. Few people in the U.S. truly understand what has happened, yet we were basically asked to choose between two very different approaches to the problem in the most recent election. It is a battle between "supply side economics" and "demand side economics". Both theories have significant support and yet, they can't both be correct. Yet both are often presented as "conventional wisdom" and serve as a basic building block for designing the solution to the problem.

Do you want to see what I am talking about? I present Exhibit "A". The following is a link to an ABC News World Report from January 27, 2009. The title of the segment is "Will it Work" and it refers to President Obama's plan to stimulate the economy. The information is presented with an introduction that it is "generally accepted by economists". Go ahead and watch... I'll wait...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6744866

This was nice presentation of a complex topic. The key information was that for every $1 the government spends, the economy is stimulated by $1.50. Also, for every $1 in tax cuts, the economy is stimulated by $0.75. The broadcast goes on to explain that tax cuts provide a quick stimulus while the government spending takes a lot more time.

Now I want to point you to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 22, 2009 by Harvard Economics Professor, Robert Barro. If you don't read the whole article, just read the first few paragraphs... go ahead...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

You will note that Barro references the same "1.5" number mentioned in the ABC broadcast and argues that this number is not just a little flawed, but extremely flawed. He argues that the number may be closer to zero. Note that the article appears in the "opinion" page of the Journal (which I find admirable because they are acknowledging that there are other theories out there... unlike the ABC broadcast).

My point here is not to argue for or against the current stimulus package. My point is encourage you to be careful what blocks of "truth" you choose to stand on. Dig down to the basic truths and test them. Don't passionately live in a house built on a foundation of sand. Question everything! Do not surrender your judgment to "conventional wisdom"!

God and Business

by Don Harkey

Religious freedom is held as one of the most sacred foundations of the United States. Regardless of faith, a person in the United States has a right to live their life and pursue their dreams.

The execution of this basic principle sometimes blurs our vision.

The concept of the separation of church and state comes from the very beginnings of this country. The purpose of this is obvious. If the government adopted a national religion, which religion would they adopt? Who is to say it is the "right" religion? It would be well within our human nature to begin to suppress the "wrong" religions if a religion were declared to be "right".

However, separation of church and state has entered our politically correct (PC) culture and taken on a new meaning.

In many large corporations (and more than a few smaller ones), it is against company policy to discuss religion or faith. Employees are trained with the conclusion statement of "just don't do it". A lot of this is admittedly driven by our out-of-control legal system.

I think this issue needs some clarity.

When one employee continuously preaches to another employee about their religion, tells another employee that their beliefs are "wrong" or when makes fun of another religion, the employee is has clearly stepped crossed a line. First of all, in terms of business, this produces an environment that kills open communication and the sharing of ideas. This is not good for the organization. Secondly, from a religious standpoint, this is the wrong way to try to help someone. As Christians, we are called to be "fishers of men". Is the right way to catch a fish to push it away and make it feel inferior? We are all imperfect people who are just struggling to do the right thing and we can all learn from each other.

However, when we completely separate God and business, we start to lose sight of our own personal core purpose. Most people believe in a "higher power". When we separate God from business, we are creating an anti-sanctuary where we suspend our core values in place of business metrics and profits. We lose opportunities to truly help people and live out our Faith (note that I say "Faith" not "Religion").

I believe we are placed on this Earth for a Purpose. God has given each of us Strengths to carry out that Purpose every day of our lives. We live together and work together and try to maintain our clarity on what that Purpose is for each of us.

This is why good management in business is so important. This is why good ethics in business is critical. EVERYTHING we do must align with our Purpose. Our goal in life is not to follow our own mission, but to follow God's Mission!

So if you are someone who has control over an organization, embrace the diversity of souls that have been brought together and allow people to feel the full satisfaction of living their Purpose and learning from each other. Allow people to apply their Faith to their work when it is done in a way that doesn't destroy communication or the sense of team within an organization. Pray together. Even someone who doesn't believe in God can respect the focus and clarity that can come from a good Prayer. Respecting each other is respecting what God has created.

By bringing Faith into our work, we just might gain a little more clarity to our real Purpose!

Continuous Improvement - The Humidifiers (Part I)

by Don Harkey

Everyday, every single of one of us engages in multiple processes. We drive to work, make our breakfast, open our email... there are countless processes throughout the day. At work, this is especially true. Many times, these processes are repeated over and over again.

Have you ever thought about how much time you actually spend on a process? If you spend 5 minutes per day doing something, you will spend 1825 minutes doing it per year, which is over 30 hours. That's almost a weeks worth of work! Most organizations would really think hard about offering their employees an extra week of vacation, but few think about adding 5-10 minutes or more to a process that is repeated.

I want to give you a simple example of continuous improvement. Our office has 3 large humidifiers located down a long hallway. These humidifiers must be filled at the start of each day. I am at work pretty early, so I am often the one who fills them. Each humidifier has 2 tanks on it that can be removed. At one end of the hallway is a janitor's closet with a hose where the tanks can be easily filled.

The first time I did this, I went to the far end of the hallway, picked up both tanks, then carried them to the janitors closet. I then collected the 2nd humidifier's set of tanks, and then the 3rd set. I removed the cap on the first tank, placed it in the closet, and filled it with water. I stood and watched as it filled. When it was completed, I took the tank out of the closet, placed it on the floor and secured the cap back onto the tank. Then I took the next tank, removed the cap, placed it in the closet, and filled it up. I again waited as it filled (takes about 30 seconds). Once it was filled, I shut off the water, removed the tank from the closet, placed it on the floor, and replaced the cap. I then grabbed the 2 tanks, walked to the farthest humidifier, and installed them. I then repeated this process two more times for the remaining sets of tanks.

One problem I ran into early on was involved the fact that there are left-handed tanks and right-handed tanks. The difference can be seen easily, but its not overly obvious (especially to someone who is a little sleepy!). One morning, I wasn't paying attention and I carried two left-handed tanks to the farthest humidifier. I realized my mistake immediately, and carried the wrong tank to the other humidifier and then returned to the closet to fill up two right-handed tanks.

While I didn't time the process (although I plan to soon as a great example), I probably spent 10-15 minutes filling the humidifier each morning. Considering that the humidifiers run for 6 months of the year, this means that company employees will spend 25 hours per year filling the humidifiers.

So how do we improve this process? It is too easy to say that we purchase self-filling humidifiers (let's say we don't have the capital). In a future entry, I will share some of the simple process improvements I made. Meanwhile... any thoughts?

Leadership - Not a "Do It Yourself" Activity

by Don Harkey

Since I was little, I have been interested in leadership. My favorite game growing up was setting up a club of my friends, coming up with our secret handshake, setting up the organizational structure... yeah... I have always been a little sick.

One of the challenges I can remember is getting my friends as excited about the club as I was. I would be really into something we would be doing and I would have a terrible time getting my friends to follow along. I didn't understand... all they had to do was follow my clear directions!

As I got a little older, I got into Scouting. With my sick love of organizations, I soon became a patrol leader. Members of my patrol were very excited that I was to be their leader as I had great visions of what we could do. I envisioned working together on campouts to cook and set up our tents together. I talked about field trips and games. I even developed a patrol newsletter (called the "Bear Facts"... we were the "Bear" Patrol).

Then as we started having meetings, I laid out all of my great plans with my patrol. Within minutes they were distracted and doing other things. I was very frustrated. Why couldn't they just listen to me?

As I grew older and took on more leadership roles in high school, college, and then in business, I learned a lot more about leadership. Leadership is about providing your group with a clear vision. However, a key component to motivation is autonomy. This means that an effective leader should communicate a clear vision, and then leave their people to choose how to move forward.

This can be very challenging for the holder of the vision, especially if the leader holds a lot of passion for the vision. There is a natural fear that others will "mess it up". How many times have you heard a leader in an organization say, "sometimes its just easier to do it myself". That may be true, but that's not leadership.

If the vision is communicated well, a team of people working toward the vision will do much better than just a single person would. They can apply more knowledge, more creativity, and more brute force to an idea than any one person. Furthermore, they will become inspired by the work of the team. The word "synergy" is a popular buzz word, but that is exactly what these teams do... they create energy out of nothing.

If you are a visionary thinker, remember when it comes to leadership, your role is to let others in on your vision and then give them autonomy for how to get to that vision. Believe me... I have a whole pile of disbanded clubs and chaotic patrol meetings to prove this point!