Employee Engagement: Going to the Dogs ... for lessons

Roxy

Dogs are wonderful animals and we can learn so much through our interactions with them.

We have two miniature poodles, Roxy and Sam.  Roxy is now approaching 13 and Sam is a rescue dog we adopted as a puppy about 4 years ago.

Dogs exhibit traits that actually do have a lot to do with good management.

They're social animals.  They like company whether it's humans or other dogs.

They seek out leadership.  Bred with an innate sense of hierarchy, they obey the being that they perceive as their pack leader.  That could be their owner/master - or it could be one of the dogs in the pack.  This was something I really learned about from watching and reading Cesar Millan - The Dog Whisperer.  If you want a dog to obey you, your first task is to establish yourself as the pack leader.

They enjoy learning (especially when they receive treats).  

They are fiercely loyal.

If you come across a dog that's bad-tempered or vicious, take a careful look at the owner.  It could very well be that the owner of such a dog is also bad-tempered, antisocial and may be abusing the animal.  There's a saying that there are no bad dogs - just bad dog owners.

The same can apply to business.  If you are receiving surly service from a business employee, chances are that the employer is treating the employee with disrespect.

Now, this doesn't mean that dog owners who are kind to their animals will necessarily have obedient dogs.  If the owner(s) can't assert their authority over their dogs, the dogs will try do whatever they want.  

One of the things you learn early on in obedience training is that, in order to be perceived as the pack leader, you must earn the respect of the dog.  Note the emphasis on the word "earn".  You don't automatically get respect just because you're the master or owner.  The process of earning respect is based on a process of building trust, not one of coercing submission.

This does not mean that you punish the dog when it makes a mistake by beating it or hitting it - or even yelling at it.  It's amazing how much you can improve the behavior of a misbehaving dog by talking to it calmly in a disapproving voice.  Dogs have a strong sense of emotion that they pick up in our voices, so they distinguish between when they have pleased us and when they have displeased us.  Couple this with rewarding behavior - verbal praise, stroking and, yes, treats - and dogs quickly learn to do the things that please us and not to do the things that we don't like.

Roxy, who's now approaching 13, is getting a little crusty in her old age and doesn't always come when she's first called.  To get her to obey, I revert to something I learned from my Mother.  When I call, "Roxy Jamieson" in a stern (not angry) voice and emphasize the Jamieson, she knows I really want her to come, and that's usually all it requires when she's reluctant to move.

On the leash, we have the option of yanking on the leash every time the dog does something wrong or we can teach them to understand a correction - a quick flick of the leash that diverts their attention away from a behavior we don't want and gets them back onto what we want them to do.  Again, notice the emphasis on correction: we're trying to correct behavior, not punish bad behavior.

In Cesar Millan's terminology, the goal, as a pack leader, is to exude a calm sense of assertiveness to help the dog achieve balance.  He also promotes the concept of providing a framework of discipline that sets boundaries for the dog and his/her behavior.  He advocates timely use of praise to reinforce good behaviors.  

Now doesn't that sound like a philosophy of good management?

In the next post, I'll tell the story of Sam and what I learned from him about respect.

Employee Engagement: Improving a Damaged Process

One company I worked for made flexible pouches for the medical device, food and military markets.

I'd just recently joined and was following my first order through the plant, so I was still getting to know the people in the production department as well as the processes they used to make our products.

When I came around to the line where my customer's product was being made, I noticed nearly all the operators had bandaids on their thumbs.  So I asked one of them why so many people were wearing bandaids.

This particular customer's product was formed and then diecut to shape in a second operation. To ensure the printing on the pouch was in register to the seals and the overall shape of the pouch, we used what is called a pin registration system. This means that, when the pouch is formed, a series of holes are simultaneously punched around the perimeter of the pouch. When the pouch is diecut, it is placed on a board with a steel ruled die and the holes punched in the pouch fit onto pins mounted in the die board to ensure the pouch is cut consistently and with print in register with the seals and the overall shape.

In this case, the operator explained they were puncturing their thumbs as they struggled to stretch the pouch over the die board to align pins with holes in the pouch. The pins being used were actually nails which, of course, had sharp points.  Moreover, the nails were aluminum roofing nails and were so soft the operators were constantly trying to straighten them out - the tension of the stretched pouch was causing the roofing nails to bend.

This particular product was new to me, but had been run before in our plant and the operator told me this was how the company had been doing this operation "for years."

I liked the ingenuity of using nails for registration pins, however, the type of nail being used was so soft they would only be truly in register the first time they were used.  As more pouches were cut, the nails became more and more distorted.

I went to the production manager and suggested they modify the design of the die to use steel nails, which were much stiffer and more resilient.  I explained the operators were getting injured from using the original die design and the aluminum nails were not helping us produce a consistent product.

The next day, I found the diecutting operation going a bit quicker, and the die boards now had steel nails instead of aluminum.  I asked the operators what they thought.  They told me the new "pins" lasted much longer and they didn't have to keep trying to bend the pins straight.  However, the pins were still nails and they still had sharp points.  People weren't getting hurt so easily, but they were still getting hurt.

Now I spoke with our plant engineer about the issue in our diecutting department.  Like me, he thought using nails as pins was resourceful, but still a long way from being a best-in-class die design.  He modified the pin system to incorporate spring-loaded steel pins with rounded tops.

When we introduced these to the diecutting department, the feedback from the operators was very positive and productivity improved.

I think the operators in this plant appreciated having someone come out to see how they were struggling with a poorly designed process.  Even though our first modification - from aluminum to steel nails - wasn't a complete success, it showed the operators someone was listening to them.  We reinforced that by getting more input from the operators, which led to our plant engineer's solution.

Another thing I found was that, when I went out into the production floor, the operators seemed much more helpful and friendly.  People opened up.  We talked about families, pets, hobbies - and about the processes we used to make our products.  One operator gave me a complete tour of her department - just because I asked "why do you do things this.....?"

Let there be no doubt about it, the people in the diecutting department knew they had a faulty process.  But management either wasn't listening or was just too cheap to do things the right way.  The employees were afraid to ask for improvements.  It just took someone from the front office going out to ask how things were going to get the feedback and drive some action to remedy the issue.

Employee Engagement: "It's Not in My Job Description"

For me, the sentence, "It's not in my job description", is a huge red flag.

It's a sure sign someone is not a team player.  It's a sign someone is a taker, not a giver. It's a sign someone is self-centered, putting their importance ahead of others.

I think I've said before how influential summer jobs can be, and today I'd like to share with you why I feel so strongly about the phrase in the title of this post.

Between my second and third years in university, I worked in the drill squad of the world famous Fort Henry Guard, based in Kingston, Ontario.

One of the unofficial mottoes of the Guard was "Remain Flexible".  The meaning of this was that, at any time, you could be asked to be a sentry, on gun drill, tour guide or cleaning up. Duties for sentry duty or gun drills were assigned each day, but sometimes we had more visitors than expected, which meant you had to be prepared to take on some new assignments.

While this may have been just a summer job, I think these principles hold true in any well-run organization.

In larger organizations, we tend to be slotted into narrowly defined roles and responsibilities that make it hard to be as flexible as we were at Old Fort Henry.  In smaller organizations, the ability to be functional in job roles outside your core responsibilities is vital.

At one company, our purchasing manager lost both parents within weeks of each other.  She was overwhelmed not only with the loss, but also the responsibilities of attending to both their estates.  As a result, she found it difficult to keep up with her job responsibilities, and purchasing was an area in which we were extremely thin on manpower.

While this was happening, we were also having quality issues with a company that supplied a critical laminated material for one of our products.  They were unable to identify for us whether the issues was the result of a fault in the lamination process or a defective batch of material. We knew we needed to find an alternate supplier for this lamination, and the process for finding one was normally managed by purchasing.

Because of the quality issue, we were prevented from manufacturing a product for one of our key customers, who were anxious to know when we would be able to re-commence supply.  They needed answers, not excuses.

I offered to take the lead on finding alternative suppliers because, in the end, it was a customer-driven issue: we had a customer who could not market their product because we were unable to supply a critical component.  So, while my job role was sales, handling a purchasing issue was also a way of solving a supply chain issue for a customer.

The more I researched companies who made one of the materials in the lamination we purchased, the more I came to realize there were literally only a handful of companies in the world who had the capabilities of making the material used, let alone being able to meet our specifications.  (Our customer thought there would be hundreds of companies who made this material and changing suppliers could be done in a couple of weeks). We were fortunate that two of those suppliers were located within a half-day's drive of our plant, so I visited them both to get a better understanding of the challenges in making the material we needed.

One of these suppliers analyzed samples of the lamination we used - both past and current - and determined that the incumbent had, despite protests otherwise, switched recipes and companies they purchased their materials from.  We now had scientific evidence to support our allegations there had been material substitutions.

A few weeks later, when our purchasing manager returned from bereavement leave, I took her to meet the company we felt represented the best opportunity to supply the lamination we needed.  This gave her a chance to see the plant as well as meet the executive team and allowed me an opportunity to transition the supplier search back to her so she could begin qualification trials.

Taking on a task normally done by purchasing gave me some insights into the challenge purchasing people face in searching for and selecting suppliers.  Given the circumstances, it helped forge a stronger relationship between sales and purchasing While helping the company respond to a customer in need.

When I left this company, the purchasing manager was the first person to come into my office and give me a hug and tell me how much they'd miss me.  I was really touched by this and it is a moment I will never forget.

I hope you can see that, in this situation, the roles of sales and purchasing were very strongly interdependent. Had we stuck to our job roles, we might still have solved the supply chain issue for our customer, but at the cost of several weeks being unable to supply them. Blurring the lines between sales and purchasing in this case demonstrated that our company really required a team effort to survive - and thrive.

People have Customs; Customs are People

Anyone who has traveled internationally has encountered customs officials.

Usually they look stern and impassive and, when we meet up with them, we feel like we're being interrogated (which I suppose we are).  To most of us, they're intimidating.  We look on customs officials as wooden, bureaucratic and cynical - people who can find guilt in the most innocent of people.

However, there IS a human side to customs personnel if you give them a chance to show it.

One of the companies I worked for sold equipment and I regularly carried a demonstration system with me whenever I traveled.

On a couple of occasions, when I was going through US Customs, I was asked to get a document called a carnet, which is basically like a passport for equipment and which demonstrates that the material listed in the carnet is only entering the country for a limited time and would be returning to Canada with me.  The carnet came with a cost (which was not huge), but my boss did not see the need for the carnet because he had had no problems taking equipment across the border himself.

One morning, I was going through US Customs for a week-long trip to the East Coast and was refused entry because I did not have a carnet and it had been documented that I was supposed to get one.  I had never been refused entry to the United States before, so this was a major personal blow, though I did end up driving down and managed to see all the customers I had planned to visit on that trip.

If I thought I had it bad, another person going through about the same time as me was heading to a trade show in New York with a number of hand-tooled saddles.  She had no documents to declare the value of the saddles and was unable to satisfy the customs official that the saddles would not be sold at the trade show and be returned to Canada.  He told her the only way he would allow her to enter the United States was if she used a box cutter to cut into the saddles to make them unsalable.  She obviously wanted the saddles in pristine condition to display at the show.  I don't know how here experience played out - whether she declined to go to the show or if she damaged her merchandise to be able to participate in the show.

My case for getting a carnet was now much stronger, and we got the document.

Using a carnet requires the carnet-holder to clear Customs in his/her home country and then Customs in the destination country, reversing this on the return journey.  Each time Customs takes a fiche or page from the carnet and stamps the document so the other customs officers can verify that procedures have been properly followed.

When flying, the carnet can only be cleared through designated international airports that have a customer office, which restricts where a carnet-holder can depart.  At Laguardia Airport in New York, the US Customs office is about a half mile walk from the terminal in a separate building, but usually Customs is somewhere inside the terminal building.

From a Customs officer's perspective, the carnet is a professional way to handle temporary importing of equipment or tools.  It demonstrates the carnet-holder's openness about declarable items as well as being properly prepared for customs inspection.  And you get more of an opportunity to interact with Customs personnel.

One one trip to the US - just before Thanksgiving - I had a pleasant chat with the customs inspector about holiday preparations and got his recipe for smoking a turkey.

One time I was driving and declared to the primary inspector what I was travelling with.  He asked, "Plasma. As in the 4th state of matter?", which caught me a bit off guard.  It turned out he was a science buff and watched a lot of Discovery Channel.  I asked if he'd like to see the equipment and I could explain to him how it worked.  We spent a pleasant 15 minutes together.  He could show his supervisors he'd done a thorough inspection, he learned something new and I got my equipment across the border so I could make my sales calls.  We both won on this exchange.

On a return journey from the US, the time getting customs documents was taken up by comparing notes on operations the customs officer and I had had.

Coming back into Canada one time, I was standing in line in secondary waiting for my turn and one of the officers called out, "Is that a carnet you have there?" When I confirmed this, I was whisked to an officer who I guess had had a full day of going through passenger's luggage looking for prohibited food, alcohol and tobacco and for her, it was a welcome relief to deal with someone who had things in order.

Customs people have a tough job to do to protect our countries.  They are trained to be wary so they can spot potential smugglers or criminals and often this wariness is what we see when we go through Customs.  But they are still people.  If you treat them with respect, it's possible for the human side to shine through.

Employee Engagement: Get Out of Your Office

It's been a long time since my last post - partly because I've been working and partly because I was working on one of my other blogs, Packaging: The Forgotten Medium.

My inspiration for this post - and for the next few - came from a meeting I had yesterday with a person in Human Resources, and we were discussing taking employee relations a step up into employee engagement.

When I moved from the world of Consumer Packaged Goods marketing into B2B sales and marketing, the general manager of the company I then worked for brought me into his office and gave me some of the best advice I've ever received.

He told me to buy some safety shoes and spend 30% of my time on the shop floor.  I asked why, because I  thought sales and marketing people needed to be out on the road in front of customers.  He said I needed to know everyone in the plant on a first name basis because, as part of the management team, we would be going out just prior to the Christmas break to extend our holiday wishes to all employees, and he wanted it to be more than just a perfunctory handshake.

Our plant had two unions and a history, under previous ownership, of bad  management-union relationships.  There'd been a few strikes in the past and the current owners wanted to make a fresh start.  Our GM told me that, in the past, it was like there were two worlds in the plant - shop floor and office - separated by a wall.  We needed to break down that wall and make the management more accessible and responsive to the union personnel.  Knowing everyone in the plant on a first name basis was an important part of this.

I followed his advice and remember putting on my safety shoes in preparation for my first time on the shop floor by myself.

I'd already been introduced at an all-employee meeting as a new member of the management team, so everyone knew I was the new kid on the block.  I'd also been around through the plant a number of times, but never on my own - usually giving customers a tour with my boss.

I walked up to the first of several laminators we had in the plant and approached the operator.  I asked him what this machine could do and how it worked.  For the next hour, I was taken on a thorough tour of the machine by the operator and learned a lot!  I appreciated the tour and what I could see was a sense of pride the operator had in his machine centre and a willingness to share that.

This was the start of a process of learning how to make a plant work more effectively, and my next few posts will be structured around this topic.

FAMILIARITY BREEDS RESPECT

One of the best lessons I learned came from the general manager who recruited me from the packaged goods industry into the packaging industry.

The plant we worked in had two unions and a history of poor labor relations. The first week I was there, we had a communications meeting, and the union reps were not only very vocal about their views on management, but also seemed very aggressive.

The general manager’s advice to me was to get a pair of safety shoes, spend at least 25% of my time in the plant and to get to know everyone in the plant by name.

That first week, I tried to put it into practice and walked up to one of the machines, introduced myself to the operator and asked what his machine did. I think we spent about an hour together as he showed me what the machine could do and what capabilities weren’t being used. He took time to answer all my questions.

The company eventually suffered a financial setback, and we had to lay people off. Now, when I walked through the plant, you could sense the employees were scared. Because I was not only on the management team, but also the Marketing Director, I had some insight into the fortunes of the company.

When I encountered the union reps, the tone was very different from what I’d seen in the first weeks. They wanted to know what the future was for their members (and probably themselves), but the tone of communication was much more sober and the questions came not as “the union line” but at a more personal level.

I told them that quite honestly, I didn’t know what the future held. I didn’t promise everything would work out. I think they sensed and appreciated the candor in what I said, even though what I’d said didn’t really put their minds to rest.

At this point, it dawned on me that our role as managers was not just to run the business profitably, but we had a responsibility to the employees for their jobs. Their livelihood, in fact, depended on our ability to keep the business going. We had more control over their employment than they had – even with the unions – and therefore if we let the company go down, we were also letting down a whole team of employees who relied on us.
The lesson from this is that managers must remember that their employees are dependent, in more ways than we generally realize, on their actions. There is a need for mutual trust to make the organization work effectively and the best way to build that is to get out of the office and put a face to every employee in the organization. For the employees, it means there is a face to management and they can see managers as humans. Similarly, for the managers, it is an opportunity to remember a business is more than numbers: there are people whose livelihood depends on their actions.