News

A client last week … A department knew they had ‘problems’. Productivity had dropped, Work in Progress was growing, quality ‘issues’ (that were ‘sort of’ measured) were raised. What then happened is very common in many workplaces. In the midst, one question saved us lots of time, effort, and energy.

Oscar was recently interviewed by Value Prop CEO, José Palomino, on Business Growth On Purpose. The discussion led to seeing ‘improvement’ a little differently.

What a person thinks - right or wrong - is a fact to that person and must be considered as such.

Job Relations, specifically the 4 steps to handle a problem, is introduced in linear form to assist ‘learning’, then, when learned, the cyclical nature can then be noted and applied.

In my mid-April news item I introduced the work we’re doing with Story Construction, Iowa. I spoke of the application of Work Standards with the Small Projects Group. Their endeavours have continued largely through ‘learn by doing’ with mentoring via Zoom (1 x 1 hour session per week). Our goal – apply the model you see to their ‘Daily Routine’ of planning and reflecting.

I have had a great time recently working with teams at different workplaces that both wanted their workplaces to speak. We’ve had some great learnings and conversations.

Story Construction deliver construction projects. That’s what they do. They say the reason why they do it is because people matter. This is perhaps a phrase that has been coined before and loosely applied by many. The difference with Story is that the President and Chief Operating Officer walk the talk, which then spills in every direction. Not in a loud way - in a way that embodies respect for people and builds trust.

I was recently reminded whilst working at Cabonne Shire Council the benefits of planning to build people capability before the capability is needed. Three separate departments had approached me in preparation for the arrival of 'new' staff. The new staff were replacing staff about to go on maternity leave and filling existing vacancies. What the leader (and teams) wanted to create was a clear plan of who to train, for which work and by when.

At Warburn Estate, in the last 6 months, it has become very apparent that without Work Standards effective and efficient problem solving on the production line is tough. There’s a high risk of going around in circles. Before going deeper into this, clarification around terms will help.

In mid-January I posted a news item about a Plant Manager planning a well-deserved break, however he wanted to maintain stability in the workplace whilst he had time off. This article is a follow on.

In early December I had a great conversation with a client. The caller, the Plant Manager, was planning a long well-deserved break. He had worked a VERY hectic 2021 with little to no time off and really needed a break. Where the conversation quickly led to was the fact he wanted to maintain stability in the workplace whilst he had time off.

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The Water department at Cabonne Shire Council recently found themselves in a position whereby a Senior Operator and an Overseer were directing the work of others, yet they’d never held leadership roles.

As many of you will know from our webinars, Warburn Estate has been drilling deeply into standardization first with the development of ‘Work Standards’. (As Kato said and there is nothing related truer, ‘Without work standards there will be no standardized work.’)

Three of their Leaders piloted a blended program consisting of Action Feedback Trigger based Activities with live online mentoring sessions. Learning and skill development was still individual, they still practised in their environment, however they then collectively reviewed their progress, discussed learnings and made adjustments to their next steps. The trio are close to finalising their Activities and this is the feedback about 2 weeks ago from one.