How to get 13 months for the price of 12

In this ever-changing world driven by cost reductions, as well as being faced with keeping the work force motivated and fully engaged doing value added work, how do we do everything we need to and still communicate effectively both up and down the chain? 

Easy, by using simple communication cells, “Huddles” or “Glass Walls,” we gain one month of free work from the time saved from normal meetings. How is that possible, you may ask? What are we cutting out of the normal 1 hour meeting? The answer will surprise you. We cut out those bad habits of getting comfortable in nice big leather seats, with our cup of coffee, and having several side bar conversations not connected to the point at hand. These meetings we are talking of are drastically different than the typical “board room” meetings.

First off there are no computers, cell phones or other distractors allowed. Secondly the meetings are “Stand Up” meetings. Yes, no chairs, no tables, no getting comfortable, plus it is healthy, (more on that later). These meetings are held around a simple non-automated, very visual board that contains what is important to the work at hand. That is broken into 3 main categories: People, Performance, and Continuous Improvement. The data shows everything that is needed to properly brief the upcoming daily task; it doesn’t matter if it is a factory floor, an office, a restaurant, hospital, or even a cleaning of the neighborhood park.

You see all too many times we fall into the mindset that if we are in a meeting we must share everything with everyone via a PowerPoint or some other type of wasteful presentation that no one in the room is listening to as it doesn’t pertain to the “Big Picture” or the “Whole Business”. In all honesty, that is reason that everyone brings computers to meetings, so that they can do e-mail and other work as others are speaking and they await their turn to be ignored. Whereas using the simple and effective 3 part “Communication Cell” it ties everyone’s work performance together to the overall true needs of the organization. It allows us to all truly understand the current staffing issues of the day and tells us who is doing what. It talks to the performance of what we have accomplished and what needs to be accomplished. It also allows us to share ideas that either need fixed, improved, or changed. But also allows us to share the good things that we have done and how to continue to do such activities. The information is updated as needed be it hourly, daily, weekly it is when the information is needed so everyone knows exactly what the status of the task are and; if there are any issues that require others assistance. It also affords the opportunity for all team members to share ideas with whole team, sometimes the solution is there we just never ask the right people. So, we then actually operate as a team and not a collective bunch of individuals. 

The good natural and unavoidable side effect is that the “Team Members” actually get to know one another. Not just the typical “Good Morning Bob”, “Good Morning Joe”, “Have a good night Bob”, “You too Joe” it is amazing to see in many large companies that the work force who have been there working side by side and they don’t know anything about the each other. I have witnessed this many times, were people working on same project have been doing so for several years, with daily e-mails and phone conference calls, then they appear in a face to face session, where they are shown how to conduct such a simple meeting, and become friends; yet they have been in the company for 2,5, up to 15 years and never took to time to really get to know and understand the others. 

So, through the simple use of a 3 section “Glass Wall” your employees are happy as they get to talk face to face with the others, they grow as one large (Cross Functional) team and not 3,5,7, or more separate (Silo) groups. The best part what used to take 1 hour or more can now be accomplished is 15~30 Min therefore saving that time for productive items to be completed. As I have again personally witnessed in a recent client site saving 40 mins a day, day in and day out over a year will save you over 160 hours per person. That is getting 13 months out your workers in 12 months, and the good thing is the workers are much happier as they now feel they are part of team, they are completing task that are important to true purpose of the company no matter what is the product, or service being delivered. 

Now, as promised earlier, more on Stand-Up meetings from a purely health aspect. It has been proven that among the most dangerous things we do is sitting, here are the facts: Sitting can impact your metabolism and affect the onset of type 2 Diabetes, and excessive sitting is positively correlated with breast, prostate, and lung cancer. One study found that men who spent two more hours sitting each day had a 125% increased chance of cardiovascular disease.