You're Invited to the Gospel Jubilee!

7/26/12...Today I wondered about the idea of Jubilee. In the Old Testament there were periods of time called the Jubilee and the Sabbath Year, as quoted below from Leviticus;

25 The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. ³ For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵ Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. ⁶ Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, ⁷ as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.

What I am wondering is this. The last two and half years the rate of change at our company is incredible. In fact there is a lady at work who is getting ready to retire. She has been with us for fourteen years, twelve more than me. Our location only started fifteen years ago. As I talked with her wishing her well, she said part of the reason she is now retiring is the change is just too much. There is no doubt, due to Lean and Six Sigma, our Plant is realizing improvements at a rapid pace. As she said, there has been more change in the last two years then she has ever seen in her fourteen years at the company. One of our newer leaders who just started this year said we were on a "psychotic pace of change." Quite funny...and true.

What I have noticed though is due to this unrelenting pace of change, there is never time to adequately rest and reflect. There is never time to tie up loose ends. There is never time to just hang out and fix all the small things not quite working in the created systems and programs. Instead it is on to the next big thing. What I have noticed is when there is a breather week ever so often, I am able to tend to the smaller things and fine tune at my own pace. Sort of like the Jubilee. The above passage speaks of not sowing new fields, or pruning the vineyards in the seventh year. Nor of reaping what grows or harvesting. There is a year of rest for the land, and man is to enjoy only what his untended crops yield by themselves.

What would this look like in business? The concept intrigues me and I imagine even pondering this would cause some in the business world to cringe with any number of thoughts. To me, I think of this a little more, some possibilities,

Not sowing equates to no new ideas, no new concepts, no new programs, no objectives, no performance reviews.

Not pruning equates to no fine tuning of existing systems and programs.

Not reaping equates to...well I am not sure. The dictionary meaning is to get as a return. We still have to produce and sell product to meet customer needs. There has to be a collection of money in order to stay in business. The concept is on a little shaky ground at this point. I suppose whatever our processes and systems yield is what we live on. In this vein, maybe this is how we reap.

Not harvesting equates to not gathering. Maybe in a way saying producing no more than the customer orders. No gathering of huge inventories or working more than necessary trying to build inventory. No going out and harvesting more knowledge is another possible thought.

I feel there is something to this, but I am not quite connecting to the possibility. This may take some time to ruminate for a while before I come back to it. Conceptually I just think what if we had an entire year in business of doing nothing more in a leadership capacity than letting the systems rest. We spend time listening, and in dialogue at only a day at a time. We create no task list. We simply take whatever fine tuning presents itself and work on it until completion. There is no sowing of task lists. We work but in a different way in that year. I certainly wonder if a year of rest in Lean Six Sigma is a need. Our plant officially started the journey in 2007, we are getting ready to enter our sixth year. Hmmm...maybe God will plant further thought regarding this matter in me in the coming year. Right now, not all the dots are connecting.

One final thought on Jubilee. I just remember when I was a young boy hearing the Gospel Jubilee music hour on Sunday mornings. Very catchy theme tune.

Jubileeee! Jubileee! Jubileeee! Jubileee! You're invited to the Gospel Jubileeee!

Clear as Mud

7/12/12...Muddled. This word seems best when trying to describe me in the context of workplace personality tests. I both cringe at these and in some masochistic way enjoy taking them. Here are some of the ones I have taken, both in personal life and in workplace life:

Meyers-Briggs

Personalysis

True Colors

Spiritual Gifts

DISC

Strengthsfinder 2.0

Work Teams

Now that is alot of personality testing going on, trying to figure me out and supposedly offering me insight to help me figure my own self out. Alot of figuring. I figure there has been some worth to these. Spiritual speaking from The Toil perspective, the Spiritual Gifts test and Strengthsfinder were immensely valuable. Both of these I have taken over the last five years and the insights really helped me affirm who I am, and to embrace how God created me versus lament over what I am not. I use to focus more on trying to improve what I was not versus focusing on what I was. Very liberating day when I realized the Holy Spirit uses me more for what I am, instead of me striving to be something I am not.

With that said, I also figure when it comes to employers trying to use this information, it is not such a good thing. Employers seem to want to always work on what I am not versus celebrating what I am. I not only see this happening to me, I also see it happening to others around me. Because none of us are the "be all" or "end all", there is always deficiencies in us. And this is how business sees us, or at least in my experience. And so now I have to work on a "development plan" to strengthen my weaknesses. Whatever. Now me and the other someone will spend 80% of our time to improve my weaknesses by 20%. Why not spend 20% of our time harnessing my strengths and getting 80% more results. After all what comes easy to me are my strengths. They are natural.

Some more rambling...the other issue with all these tests from a work environment perspective, is in general they stereotype everyone, but each of us are really complex. There are so many factors influencing us, it is therefore difficult to truly "peg" someone with a personality test. Humans are complex. I think back to my elementary and middle school days when we had to break plants and animals down into classifications, i.e. plant or animal, mammal or non, etc. I think when God created us, a beautiful complexity is what He had in mind. When employers or even myself ask others to take these tests, what happens is not an appreciation of the beautiful complexity, but a realization we really cannot define people in such a simple way. We "muddle" up God's beautiful complexity, trying just like scientists do, to figure it all out.

By the way this is who I am as a result of these tests:

A "C"

Connectedness

Maximizer

Belief

Ideation

Intellection

A "Barney"

Feeling

Warm up to Change

Confronter/Glad Hander

Ideas

A "Green"

A "Gold"

Creative Communicator

Knowledge

Giving

Encourager

And lastly elements of Controlling, Understanding, and Authoritative at the Instinctive Level, elements of Questioning, Involve and Direct at the Socialized Level, and elements of Self-Directed and Structured at the Rational Level.

So there you go...clear as mud.

Lineup Change, Not So Sure About It

7/11/12...Yesterday the Plant Manager came in and announced the departure of someone in the leadership team. Certainly the news was not good because this person in a short amount of time made some good contributions to our psyche. And also since he is a brother in Christ, my heart ached somewhat, somehow sad to know I may not be able to have some deeper conversations with someone who can relate.

The thing is this, the departure represents an opportunity to change the lineup. Not so sure this is a good idea. Even though I wrote in a previous post regarding the merits of changing the lineup in poorly performing teams, I wonder if changing the lineup in well performing teams is a good idea. The Plant Manager is someone who does not hesitate to pull the trigger on change. Me, I have to warm up to change. Somehow in our careers, this tension in our approach to change has helped both of us, one being a little more cautious and the other a little more riskier.

In my past, I have made changes in personnel who were doing a great job at one thing, but were weak in some other business need area. However, making the lineup changes did not always work well. I simply put another person in the place who had other deficiencies. And so it is. No matter who you are at The Toil, I think all of us have deficiencies. So I need to be careful. If someone is doing a fantastic job in one area, I should not deceive myself in thinking a lineup change will solve everything. It will not. It may solve the one deficient area but it will only be replaced by another area of deficiency. Once the euphoria wears off and reality sets in with the new person, it is just a matter of time before the new deficiency is uncovered.

This is why I believe harnessing the strengths of people is paramount. As long as a team is performing well, only make the lineup change if it continues to utilize the strengths, not shore up weaknesses. I need to remind myself of this.