A Sunday Morning Blitz

A "Sunday morning blitz" occurred in our house once or twice a month when our children were growing up.  It usually lasted from twenty to forty five minutes.  Thirty minutes was pretty typical.  During a blitz, everyone in the family was expected to work at maximum output, with  everyone focused on cleaning just one or two rooms in the house.  The sometimes highly authoritarian father (me) conceived these blitzes.  He (that's me) worked harder than anyone and the mother (my wife Karen) worked hard too.  We asked nothing in effort that we were not doing ourselves   And it got a lot done

The blitzes were designed to demonstrate that a lot could accomplished in a short time by intense, focused effort .  At least one of our five children seemed never to understand that it was a teaching mechanism and not intended as a torture treatment for children.  At least they never chose to understand.

Additionally it helped to demonstrate that we are capable of working harder than we thought we could.  This burst of effort is often visible with athletes, but it is just as applicable to other physical as well as mental efforts.   

Sometimes in life you have to go "way beyond yourself" to succeed.

Learn more about the World War II   BLITZ   of the United Kingdom here

OUTFLY!!

Wartburg College has it's 118 acre campus just a few miles away from us.  Their enrollment is approaching 2000 students.  Once a year, the college president and student body president set a secret date for OUTFLY, which is called early in the morning.

There are no classes that day, but instead just fun activities.  It starts in the early morning and has been going on for over 100 years.

We initiated Outfly at Richway a number of years ago.  Our Outfly usually begins in the late morning and gives everyone a paid afternoon of vacation.  Richway Outfly is in the spring and is usually on one of the first really warm spring days.

Why?  By the time we have Outfly, we have usually had a busy spring production season and everyone needs a little reward for their hard work.

             It is important to have fun at work.  
 
While Outfly is not strictly fun "at work" it fits within the general outline. 

See the Wikipedia entry for Wartburg Outfly here

You belong where you are appreciated

There is a current Nationwide Insurance television commercial which says in part “where ever you belong, you belong where you are appreciated"   

  

Feeling appreciated, or some variant thereof, usually ranks higher than money in making a job satisfying.  Study after study over the past many years has concluded that money typically ranks third to fifth in what makes the job "good".

Many people like to say that they are leaving a job for more money, but in reality, for most of them, it was NOT more money that made them first start seeking another job.

Once the decision is made to look elsewhere, it is often possible to find a job that pays more money.  Then upon leaving the person can tell management that they are leaving for money.  That is safer than telling the truth and usually does not burn bridges.  Note:  There are other reasons in addition to money and not being appreciated that cause people to choose to leave a job.  You can control some, but not all, of them.

There are lots of ways of demonstrating to people that they are appreciated.   And there are lots of ways to signal to people that they are NOT appreciated. 

I noted in an earlier post about the person who said no one came onto the floor just to talk to people ----and the owner who looked the other way.  These actions certainly did not make  people feel appreciated.

The culture and atmosphere which we worked to build and maintain demonstrated our appreciation for the people we had on the team.

Here is just one tiny example:  When taking outside visitors on plant tours I always tried to introduce them to people as we went through an area.  (often  along with a short vignette about the person)  I appreciated our staff members and I wanted our visitors to know it.  It also gave our visitors a chance to better understand our company, because they could interact with Richway people.  Our people knew they were appreciated because I would take the time to let them know our visitor.  I wanted our visitors to know that we were a team ---- not just me or me and a couple of management staff.

I could write a book about how to let  people know you appreciate them --- and how we did it.  As you continue to follow this blog, you will continue to learn some of the things that went into our culture.  Not everything worked, of course.  Some flopped miserably.  But we just kept on trying and doing.  Among other things, I did a lot of MBWA, a term made popular by Tom Peters, and attributed to management methods at Hewlett Packard.  [See comment at "Two kinds of engineers" post.]



Here is the takeaway-----  if you don't  genuinely appreciate your team members and don't let them know it, even your best people will be looking elsewhere.   (And your best people will have the easiest time finding another position)


 Learn more about MBWA here. 


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Testing 1-2 Testing Testing 1-2-3

The real tests of managers!

Bob Voorhees was the President of market leading golf course accessories  manufacturer Standard Golf when I had dinner with him  one evening in the late 1970's.  He made the statement that you get to be a real manager "when you lie awake all night wondering how you are going to make payroll the next day."  It was not too many years later that I had the opportunity to know the real meaning of what Bob said.



When times are tough, you find out if you are a good manager.   But too often, in this day of ever more highly regulated banking, with just the least little slip, a loan may be terminated (if you can get a loan in the first place).  Banks and managers never find out who can manage.  It has been more than 25 years since I was faced with such a crisis, but I still remember it well.  I was "working" a trade show at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue (the "Miracle Mile") in Chicago, when I called my office to check in.  This was long before cell phones.  Sometimes you had a phone booth, but often you were at a bank of phones with four to a dozen or more people able to hear your conversation.  I was given a message to call my bank lending officer, so I made the call as requested.  At the other end of the line was "D" who knew where I was and what I was doing.  Even so, he told me that he was "calling the loan".  I was in shock, but there was not much I could say right there.  I knew what I wanted to say, but could not, which was probably good.

We had held on until then (the late 1980's) through the struggles of the economy in general of the very early 1980's, which was followed by the even more difficult (for us) farm crisis which lasted into the mid-80's.  We had made our way back from having a negative net worth and now this guy wanted to call the loan.  I felt then, and still feel, that my management team and I had demonstrated our ability to manage in the face of a crisis, which should make us an acceptable risk, at least for that bank.  We ultimately were able to avoid having the loan called, but I have not forgotten that day.  We were not a very attractive potential customer for any other bank for a few years, but when our debt to equity ratio got down to just over 11% we left for a new bank. 

Two Kinds of Engineers

When I was in college, I worked in a factory with a man (Carl Hansen) who told me there are two kinds of engineers: The kind that sit in the office and never come out "on the floor ‘cause they think they are better than us" and the kind "that come out and get their hands dirty with us and then go have a beer with us after work.  And by God you better be the second kind!!!”  

I like to think, at least, that I have fulfilled Carl’s plan for me.  The culture and atmosphere which we tried to create and build had some basis in being "Carl's kind" of company.   

People want to be treated like people, not automatons.   

There were lots of people along the way who believed in the "project" and were very involved in culture building and reinforcement. 

I once had someone tell me that "their management did not care, they were never 'on the floor' just talking to people."  A person who worked at Richway told me they had once worked in a small factory where the owner would often "deliberately look the other way" when he met people in the building.  

The Hawthorne Studies, begun in 1924, were the basis for the "human relations school" of management.  Basically it was concluded that the mere fact that the workers were being paid attention to led to improved attitudes and improved productivity.  This movement really "picked up steam" beginning in the 1960's, though it was not widely adopted until even later.  Even now, many do not fully subscribe to that approach to management.  My preferred term is "people centered management".  See my "Notes" on the upper right for more information and the beginnings of my "conversion."



Coming soon:  The foundations of Richway culture. 

Learn More About the Hawthorne Experiments Here 


Learn more about automatons here