Topic 37.2

During my tenure running the lean process improvement program I learned a great deal about the 'flow' of

work and the multitude of types of waste in an organization. There are the obvious wastes such as scrap material or re-work but the real waste is waiting, waiting for real work to arrive at your station.  That can take the form of material or products in production environments but even more loss-ridden is the waste related to waiting for information to make a decision, waiting for information for a design element, waiting for approvals, etc.

Many organizations believe that they have the best people.  Some organizations might but it's a feel good platitude to stress the 'best.'  The majority of organizations have a mix of people, good, average and those who hopefully are improving.  With a rigorous employee-driven process improvement program those same employees will be able to eliminate the majority of waste through repetitive Kaizen events.  The best organizations are those that are the best at improving their own processes

Publication #36.2 Every Organization Is Just Off the Rocks

During my recent tenure it was clear that keeping organizations afloat requires strategy, strongly committed people, continuously updated systems and processes and ongoing self-review.  Early on we had problems hiring people.  A job would be posted, scores of resumes would be filtered by the HR department, the forwarded documents would sit in your in basket for a while and they you'd look for good applicants.  After scheduling challenges you'd seldom get to see the best and after calls for second interview and debates over nominal salary and benefit considerations you'd often lose candidates to faster, more nimble organizations.  In the last decade you also started to see the strange situation where new hires simply would not show up.

Strategic planning, ongoing management, market changes and the challenges of delivering your actual end products was fraught with challenges to success and survival.  As a manager you needed to keep the bilge pumps working, even on calm days.

My departure was generally OK but there was some lose caulking.  One formal communication included dates for conversion and/or continuation of life and long term disability insurance.  Frankly speaking, it was not clearly worded.  Now I'm not planning on dying or becoming disabled, but who is.  If that was important during my employment it should be important outside of that employment, even on my nickel. 

As an employee or better yet as serially employed individual you have obligations to ensure that all is well on your watch and during transitions.  I missed a sign.  I was expecting clear communication.  I was expecting communication that was explicitly clear, perhaps complex but as weather-tight as a good contract.  That was not there.  While communication that is not explicitly tight is open to interpretation you also have to know all the players, and when there are third party players you do not know (the insurance companies) you can ensure that someone knows how to write, explicitly.

Issue #36.2

Material

Winter 2011-2012 had very little snow.  Reclamation of the "Red Pines Lot" had a good start with the removal of about 40 large poplar trees in preparation for, what else, red pines.  A few blanks were ruffed out and became the source material for my primitive hand carved bowls for the 2012 season.

Basswood is really nice for greenwood carving and this summer's windfall on the Groningen Farm was timely.  It's not that there aren't a few hundred more poplars to fall on the red pine lot but basswood is smoother, less grainy and almost white, a nice backdrop for pyrographic efforts and the grain accepts watercolors nicely.

The downside is that a single tree is more than one part time carver can consume.  Even aggressive efforts as keeping it green, in a state of very slow drying, will fail.  It dries quickly but makes poor firewood.  All of the top branches were hauled out to the 'dump' where I put all the miscellaneous brush.  These piles attract and nurture wildlife and birds, preferably away from your house, not next to it.

Working outside and working inside

More time needs to be allocated for outside work and I need to move the nature and reward of inside work to the outside.

Release 35.2

Scheduling...

Positioning...

Skills...

Interests...

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This was a good couple of days 'up north' getting ready for winter which apparently coming late tomorrow in the form of 6" of metro area snow.  I'm almost done cleaning up the downed basswood tree and I have a winter's worth of carving material.

TUE AM I'm dropping off some power equipment at two repair places for scheduled maintenance and some upgrades.  After shutting down the pump/well in the barn I'm pretty much ready for winter.   As much fencing that can be done is done.  The deer have already pruned a few bushes that I missed.  That's OK because I have far more currant production than can be put to use or sold.

TUE I'll finish up the resume and put together a marketing document.  I'm going to include some system overview, process improvement and strategic planning examples & methodologies.

I'm finding the groove in this non-office time period.  I am convinced that I'd like an in-office groove, too, but less than 8x5x52.

The interest list is extensive.

Not being at the former place is definitely good.

Power Day #34 Month #2

A Short Retrospective Look

 The opportunity to lay down some De Stijl work recently was provided by some punk tagger.  After about twelve months a patron looked outside, turned, turned again for a second look and commented "that is beautiful."

Our best work is rarely appreciated at the time it is done.  That especially true when your work is a bit ahead of the curve.  Doing work in synch with the demand is key.  Know your audence.

The LHH guy made some good comments on the resume and moved the "good work" items to the top.  We left my somewhat out of the box intro comment about old experience being more "old" than anything else.  I'm playing the youthful perspective with a lot of experience card.

On a Practical Note...
This spring a basswood tree tipped over on the Groningen farm, avoiding the house.  With about 30% of the roots in the ground it leafed out and stayed green all summer.  Today I cut up most of it for bowls and a handful of large sculpture blanks.

This daylight savings is killing me.  I need sleep.

In August I combined a couple of weak hives expecting that to fail. Surprisingly it thrived.  Two weeks ago I started my fall feeding which was about three weeks too late.  In the fall it's good to do a 'reversal' of hive bodies to ensure that the bees are at the bottom of the stack and the surplus honey at the top.  During the winter they slowly work themselves upward.  Starting at the top will leave them with no honey stores above them.  They will starve.  Bees are not smart.

When I started to do the reversal about five pounds of comb with honey and brood dropped out of the bottom of the super on my feet and the bees went crazy.  Today I attempted to complete the reversal but had lost my propane torch that I use to start my smoker.  When you smoke bees they eat some honey and immediately become calm.  I did it without smoke.  Apparently somewhere along the path of this summer I put a super on one of the two hives ultimately combined but it had five frames instead of the standard ten. The bees had built natural free form comb not on frames.  They did what they are supposed to do.  That's what ended up on my feet. 

Day #33 Month #2 ... the nature of work

Blue Collar - White Collar

The early days of work were the typical high school gigs although I will say that my time in the local sporting goods store gave me significant experience in retail sales and direct customer service and a perspective especially on the firearms industry that has remained of interest for almost 50 years.  The blue collar days were the meat packing plant, the milking machine factory and a laborer with a house moving crew.

College set me off on a series of white collar endeavors that included several major cycles at the last 27 year gig.  Increasingly my personal interests have moved from the software hacking to the hands on beekeeping and agricultural hacking and my growing interest in primitive folk art.  This photography probably is a good representation of my current interests.  Along with my home office I've found a number of locations that I can retreat to and immerse myself in writing and creating some future entrepreneurial plans.

The 1952 Ford 8n awaits a jump start and one happy operator with many projects on the small agricultural acreage.  It's where I feel increasingly grounded, no pun intended.

Day #32 Month #2 ... It's Called Work Because It's Not Fun

The Early Days

After some time spent at the trigger end of an M-60 in the late 1960s my first full-time job appeared.  Starting as a production monkey in the fabrication shop of the Universal Milking Machine Company I rose quickly from the ranks of those doing 'piece work' on the drill presses, turret lathes, shears, power brakes and punch presses to being a 'setup man.'  It was a relief to avoid the 1000 piece per hour days at all of those limb and digit consumers.  Actually they just severed, lacerated and smashed things.  Even if you kept your parts out of the works they did make you deaf.

This became my first 'management' job.  While I was not in a hire/fire role I did direct the activities of those 'on the line,' making sure that adequate parts were in place, that breaks were followed and ensured that the machines were set up correctly and I constantly measured the accuracy of the products.  That was not simple in that chaos.

This was one of the measurement tools that I used.  Purchased in 1969 I believe it cost $2.  After five years at that gig I've kept it in my desk to remind myself to always keep my parts out of the works when the works are dangerous.

The factory workers were a complete range of single and married people, some there for the duration, some there just long enough, some with hope and others with nothing but the vodka in their coffee.  Finding a common ground with each of them, each of them with different needs in that chaos taught me a great deal.

The output of your work, it's value is determined by it's correctness and it's quality.  You cannot do all the work yourself and actually you  cannot do much at all.  You become a coach.  Your people do the work with your coaching and mentoring and you give them all the credit.

A Flash Of 1973...
After the Milking Machine venture I ended up at the University of Minnesota as a sophomore, perhaps a junior.  One of my first courses was "The Sociology of Work" taught by a young professor, Dick Hall.  It was great.  Of course most of the people in the class had not spent any time with an M-60 and they certainly had not had five years of turret lathe tedium.  I had really worked.  I got it.  Today people might say that it resonated.  Having spent all that time in a factory I knew that work was much more a 'din.'  Dick Hall knew that, too, and spoke to the nature of work for both blue color and white color environments.

His influence made me a better manager and there many unstated references and a few direct quotes of him throughout my succeeding tenures as a manager.  My favorite remains "...they call it work because it's not fun..."

It can be fun and it can be creative.  That's next.