Goal Setting

I taught two three-hour classes on Quick and Easy Kaizen each with around 40 students, mostly factory workers.  At the start of the workshop, I ask the attendees to examine, to mentally look around their work area, and find two small problems.  I ask them to find problems to solve that would make their work easier, more interesting and to build their skills and capabilities.  During the workshop, I give them lots of examples from other companies to show them how simple it is to find problems and then to come up with solutions.  At the beginning of the third hour, I ask the attendees to write up in only six minutes two small problems and the corresponding two solutions.  I then ask each of them to stand up and read the problems and the solutions to the class.

Normally, in my past classes this is a very easy exercise, for everyone has problems.  And as soon as you discover a problem for yourself the solution seems to come almost immediately. The trick is to recognize the advantage of identifying small problems and then to spend some time to solve the problem to eliminate repeating the same problem over and over again. 

People are creative.  Yes, you are all born creative.  Unfortunately, your schools have done a very good job of thwarting that in-born creative spark.  And your organizations have followed the educational system to restrain your creativity.   For some strange unknown reason the classroom was filled with people very frightened to find and solve problems.

I challenged them and went to the factory floor with a number of them and quickly pointed out problems that they could easily address.  Isn’t that the real job of a manager – to be on the factory floor and challenge people to use their creative spirit?

It then occurred to me that something vital is missing from my workshop.  I should not only ask them to find problems and solutions, I also should teach them, re-invigorate them, to dream up goals for their work life. If you have a goal to grow into something new, then work, no matter how boring and tedious, can begin to take on a whole new meaning.

A goal – “I would like to learn how to run the lathe, I would like to know how to use all of the features of word and power point.”  People only need some urging by their managers and then managers should ask the worker to report their daily progress to them. Sure, people might need a coach but that is the role of managers to be the coach to their workers.  Try it and see how exciting work can become.