The Anatomy of Success? and Perseverance

2/8/15…Something remarkable occurred. After five years of tilling the soil, we are now seeing something special. To cap it off, our plant just won the Lean Award for the plant furthest along the journey within our global company. Of the three times we were eligible for the award, this now makes a 1st, 2nd, and 1st finish. I should feel really good about this, especially since I am the CI Manager and responsible for championing the journey. But I don’t…necessarily. The worldly me feels good. The spiritual side, not so much. After all, I don’t think God is really in this. I never heard a prayer by anyone submitting ourselves to Him. In fact what we produce are 80 million bags a year, most of which contributes to obesity in the United States, and diverts natural resources to the richest country in the world. 

The only tie in I can find is we are like the ants, who in part work hard. We do provide for our families which is part of living in this world. God is not a fan of laziness and our company certainly is not lazy. Myself, I am responsible for a wife and also a son going through college. I am grateful for the company, and yet…

I started this blog five years ago. Part of reflecting on the Toil was understanding how to glorify God in my work. There are glimpses of when I tied in spiritual with work, but as of today, I see little synergy. I just see a company making profits and demanding more and more from their people. Some of this is not bad in that to stay in business we must remain competitive and ever improving. Yet sometimes, I feel we are just part of a game with every year measured against the last. And I also feel, what is the next crisis? Seems every year there is some burning platform which unexpectedly comes up and drains resources. Alas, maybe this is the manufacturing world…

Or maybe this is the Toil.

VPP, God and Pull

8/27/14…Over the last few years, our plant is considering pursuing a Virginia VPP certification in safety. We believe using this process may change our plant culture, ultimately driving reduction in injuries. However, like other third party auditing such as SQF, ISO, etc., there are wastes in this process. Typically auditors, at times, take certain elements to extremes, which may bring no value into the system and increases costs. VPP is a great example of this. We are hearing from other companies, that although VPP helps drive safety culture improvement, the downside is the process drives up costs and ties up significant resources within a company.

What I find interesting about VPP is the approach. Virginia’s OSHA agency created this program. A significant part of their customer base is manufacturers. Their challenge is how, under limited people resources, do we enforce compliance within the state of Virginia? In part, the way they answered this question was creating a gap analysis to communicate the elements, required mentorship by fellow industry members and most importantly a prestigious certification and award. The approach, with the marketing and branding, is genius. Their customers, including our plant, are using their resources, energy and passion to go after this prestigious certification and even mentor other manufacturers. OSHA added no resources. From a lean perspective, they created a pull versus a push system.

  

I have also seen this experience within our company. Our global group created a Lean Assessment to communicate and convey how far each plant is on their Lean journey. By creating this and attaching an award along with the prestige, they created a pull system, whereby some, but not all of our plants worldwide are going after this award. In essence, this is also a pull system because plants are asking for knowledge, help, etc. from the global group versus the global group pushing compliance.

With these examples, I also wonder where else can a pull versus push system succeed. Leadership generally pushes down. Instead, how do we create pull with initiatives? Most training programs I am involved in are push. After the training, most people do not apply the knowledge or soon forget. 

In looking at this from the TOIL perspective, I find God’s approach is pull. In the Bible, He conveys to me, the closer I am to Him, the closer He is to me.

Indeed…a pull system.

Consultant Road

3/7/14…Here are the steps I notice about most consultants I encounter, and how they approach their business…

1. Come up with an idea; not necessarily original
2. In the idea, ensure there is an element of truth people can relate to
3. Use your experience to offer broad insight with examples
4. Repackage the elements; use one’s own jargon
5. Brand it
6. Package it
7. Blog, lecture, write articles, etc. as a knowledge authority
8. Finally, license others to consult