week 45

At this weeks staff meeting we talked about the cost of having Kaizen events. And the fact that they cost us money give them important's.

We talked about how lately all the kaizen events have been focus around the production side of the shop. Finishing is half of what we do. And now we are going to focus the next few kaizen events at the finishing area. How we can we expect Ventura to think that his job is important if we don't ever focus on his area for a place to improve.

We talked about why other people need to step up and start leading the kaizen events. Mainly because I have so many other things to do. I pointed out that before work even gets to the shop floor it has to be sold and engineered by me. If I am putting my time into kaizen events than I am not putting it into those two areas. Gagan pointed out that this opportunity cost.

We talked about how in this upcoming week we had repair a job that we did several months ago job b80 I think. We had to go there and stain a few boards in a door so they would match the other boards in the door. The time spent doing the repair not only cost in time but also in opportunity cost of doing other things.

In the past few weeks I have seen a really strong team spirit in the shop. I have seen the staff work together with a focus on results and not on who does what. It has made me very proud and very assured. Most of the time we are doing are own thing, each of us at the shop. And we need to talk to another to make sure the big picture goals are being achieved. And it is this communication that I have seen happening.

Building a team culture has not happened over night. It takes years and constant work. We are now seeing the results of that. This communication and focus on big picture goals is it. We will never stop talking about the core values of uildng a team, dependency, structure and order, inclusiveness, constructive conflict.

Tomorrow evening Gagan and I are going into job c86 which was completed weeks ago to do another repair. The repair is completely my fault. Against the better judgment of my staff we cut of a scribe, at my request in the factory. Gagan told me that we shouldn't and I said just do it, so he and Esteban did so reluctantly. If they had been just a little more forceful than I would have said fine we'll cut it on the job. This is constructive conflict. Gagan and Esteban don't be afraid to challenge me, that is part of constructive conflict and we need to go through with it. It may be uncomfortable but what do we say about disagreements? They are surfaced dealt with and dismissed.