Customer focus part 6 - Leadership

In any situation where a group of people striving towards a common goal; leadership is the most important factor that will determine the success of the group. Hence, in an organiszation which aims to sustain continuous growth, it must be taken into serious consideration to have a process in which leadership is natured and developed so that the continuous growth can be realized. Leadership must not be taken for granted and it cannot be assumed that anyone in the group is capable to leading it towards achieving its objectives. Leaders are people who excel in specialized skills unique to the individual who assumes the leadership role and in addition possesses a mindset that is positive in his/her everyday undertakings.
Organizations that are successful in focusing on the needs of their customers are, besides having able leaders; those that also have successfully developed a pool of strong and reliable team-leaders. These team-leaders are skillful, very well trained and have comprehensive and thorough knowledge and techniques in problem solving techniques. Strong leadership qualities like the 11 attributes of leadership (listed below) given in the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill are essential to serve as reinforcement in their personal qualities. The attributes of leadership are;
1. Unwavering courage
2. Self-control
3. Sense of justice
4. Definiteness of decisions
5. Definiteness of plans
6. Habit of doing more than paid for
7. Pleasing personality
8. Sympathy and understanding
9. Mastery of details
10. Takes full responsibility
11. Cooperation
For visual presentation of these attribute, please click here.
Problem solving quality calls for more addition habits than those listed above; team-leaders must possess a particular mindset that of a professional solutions provider. As in my previous post, the pro solutions providers must live by these 10 principles that are essential for team-leaders to instill them as habitual actions. They are;
1. Never tell a lie.
2. Utilize accurate facts.
3. ‘Do all the calculations’; educate and equip with proper knowledge
4. Train, acquire and get certification on specialized skills, ‘be a pro in you trade’
5. Solve one problem at a time. ‘
6. Measure and analyze all contributing causes or customers’ requests rigorously
7. Be creative
8. Be rational and open-minded when making solutions.
9. Challenge difficult situation personally.
10. Never give up or quit

Customer focus part 5 – What’s the problem

In today’s post I’d like to write about the similarity between problems and customers’ requirements. Problem can be simply defined as the difference or gap from an accepted value in a particular situation. A problem will exist when a guy smokes a cigarette in a room that is occupied by non-smokers. In this case, smoking is an unacceptable value of a group of non-smokers, so the gap between the smoker’s and the group’s values is causing a problem here. A problem can also merge in a situation when your boss wants you to complete a certain task 3 days in advance from the previous date agreed between you and your boss. Like wise, customers can give you ‘problems’ when they request various changes from your standard designs.
In order to understand the nature of various requests from customers, it will be enlightening for us to grasp the 4 types of problems in business environment. Since customers’ requirements are some sort of structured problems, they must be solved in order for us to gain the confidence of customers which subsequently lead to more business. No matter how difficult they seem to be, it is inevitable that we have to get the right solutions for all their requests.
A customer request or ‘the cause of a problem’ can be simply divided into 2 basic categories; they are either known to you or unknown. Similarly, the solutions for the requests, they can also be categorized as either known or unknown. Thus, from this similarity we can combine all these 4 categories and presented them in a matrix of 2 X 2. This type of matrix is useful and can assist us in making better decisions towards taking the correct actions to satisfying the customers.
Problem is the product of cause and solution. We’d normally say that a problem is simple if the cause is known and the solution is also known. If you have the right technology for every request, satisfying your customers is a simple matter. When the causes are known but the solutions are unknown, these problems may require a relative higher degree of sophistication to solve; problems of such nature require technology that must be acquired from outside sources. It’s like knowing the brakes of your car are worn out and you don’t have the knowledge to change them by yourself; this case we will sent the car to the repairman. If you face with this type of requirements, you might need out source or to employ an expert in order to complete them for you.
The third type of requests are that you might received those that your customers might just indicated by telling you their desired results, like increasing the production output by 50% from present situation. If you can only increase a maximum of 10% with the existing system, you might have to do R&D and challenge the target set by the customer. If there’s a similar system in the market that is performing as what your customer’s requested, you might acquire the system and perform a cause analysis or reverse engineering. This is the fourth type of problem or requirement from your customers.Thus, knowing precisely where you stand in working towards to satisfying you customers is important matter.

Customer focus part 4 – changing time

How can I be customer focus? That’s the question which everybody in your organization should be able to answer if you’d like to stay longer in business. Yet, as indicated in my previous post, it was not at all surprising an owner of a business found out that nobody except himself believed that customer focus is an important mindset that every business can’t do without. He's not alone; there are many organizations that are in the same situation. Such organizations would be in trouble down the road later due to the fact that they just can’t hold on to the customers unless they make conscious efforts to transform every person towards customer focus.
Why customer focus is important to the owner but not to his 5 key personnel? What he should do to change their mindset so that they would think like him? Where did he go wrong? These are amongst many questions that he has to answer in order to keep his key people on track similar to his thinking. Only after achieving this, he and his team could concentrate to elevate the business to a new height that had been elusive for the past several years.
What would you do when facing similar situation? Most of us would settle on training to quicken the process of transformation of mindset from self focus to customer focus. However, training alone is insufficient and there other crucial activities that must be carried out by these people themselves especially at making it a habit. In order understand the basic feeling of the customers; they must think and act like customers. Through diligent practice daily they might gradually understand the basis of each requirement that their customers asked for.
The owner or boss, on the other hand, must induce a suitable environment for change in his organization, like getting involve in the finding the need of the right training curriculum for the team members and conduct a daily meeting or discussion on building customer focus culture. He should also analyze and get the root cause why his people didn’t think like him. He should get to the bottomline of what benefits that they would gain as individuals by making customers come back for more services or products. He must enforce the 5 steps to satisfying customers as a compulsory work process;
1. Defining requirements of customers.
2. Make certain that all the requirements are feasible.
3. Analyze the options available to satisfy each requirement
4. Design the best option that can make the customers satisfied
5. Verify all the requirements are attainable within the stipulated budget.

Another aspect that the owner can serious look at is how did his people thought about him. He might have shown less attention to customers's demands on few occasions before and demonstrated some indications in the past that he himself didn’t make conscious efforts to satisfy fully the customers. Or he might be forced to change lately due to growing numbers of complaints that can jeopardize his business; or he is facing tremendous pressure of losing his business to a new competitor which he knew the reasons was directly related to lack of customer focus. Or he might also have gotten a frank remainder or two from his customers to start charging his focus towards making them satisfied or face the consequence of loosing them.

Customer focus part 3 – the simultaneous shifting of heads

Free consultations from customers in favor to their usage of the products and services are good in the sense that these suggestions can initiate the change of momentum towards continuous improvement of the products or services. Listening to customers can indeed make us move forward with new ideas that could change the existing current standard entirely. These forced-changes must be challenged for they would open up a new frontier or dimension in the business.
All loops that were closed for sometimes may be already too long and need to be reopened for new breakthroughs. Making small changes for new improvements must be encouraged by everybody in the organization. Everybody must be aware of all changes no matter how small they are. All eyes must be on the ball. When all eyes are glued on the ball, the simultaneous shifting of heads of spectators watching the Wimbledon Men Single Final should give us the picture of how everybody much act in an organization that encourages small changes of continuous improvement.
All requirements of customers must be taken as stipulated problems. They must be analyzed to generate several solution options that must be subjected for intense discussions before selecting the most appropriate solution for implementation. These steps of problems solving are very normal for organizations that are already accustomed to problems solving. For organizations that had taken negative approaches towards problem solving would find such steps a little awkward initially, however, overtime could be experts through constant practice.
The elements of the spiraling upwards movement of continuous improvement always begins with
1. Stipulated problems
2. Problem solving activities
3. Setting as current standards which would always subject to change
4. Current Improved system (products and services)

Customer focus part 2 - leadership

In his book, Napoleon Hill stressed on the important QQS formula for individuals to ‘apply it as a habit’ during the period of employment to gain excellence and build wealth. He said that in order to be successful in one’s profession an individual must provide quality service all the time (in quantity) and always in good spirit through harmonious cooperation with members of the organization that the belong. This formula was more suitable for the “go-giver” type of mindset who gives more than he gets, rather than the ‘go-getter” type as mentioned by the Mr. Hill, but ironically even though 70 years have passed, the “go-giver” type of mindset are still a rare species.
Once I distributed a questionnaire on leadership style to a group of 6 people that represented the management of a small medium enterprise in a seminar that I moderated on mastermind formation. Amongst the questions asked was customer focus and surprisingly nobody except the business owner himself (managing director) acknowledged that customer focus was one of the most an important aspect of leadership in business today. He agreed that it was a serious deficiency in his organization and wanted me to work on it immediately.
Such organizations as above are slow in their actions to satisfy their customers at 100% percent level and also slow to react to complaints and claims from customers who could turn their attentions to other better providers. When customer focus is given top priority managers and engineers would begin to take heed of the ‘consultations’ from customers that are not only free but also got many intrinsic values attached to them. Delivering what they'd expected is the shortest cut towards becoming a top quality provider.
Leadership pattern in business organizations that seek excellence in giving 100% satisfaction to customers is associated to closed alliance of mindsets of individual key personnel working very hard towards giving their customers the feeling of being in the ‘family’.
Leadership style of customer focus must in agreeable with the points listed below.
1. United effort to manage as a team with a mastermind ideology

2. Guide and educate inside and outside (contractors, suppliers and regulators) people / stakeholders towards rendering customers' satisfaction

3. Eliminate defects and improve quality their respective quality based on requirements given by customers

4. Reduce costs and share benefits with inside people and not forgetting the customers

5. Guarantee production volume by meeting delivery datelines

6. Listen to customers and sell products and services that delight them

7. Maintain safety as to avoid hardship to people and the organization in general

8. Create a rewarding workplace by giving those who performed recognition and wealth

Customer focus part 1 – Customers’ requirements

Products or services have particular relationship with the people who benefit from them. Different people benefited in different ways from products or services they procured, expectations on a particular product vary sometimes greatly from person to person. Products or services that excel in giving them what they want are regarded as having quality. On the other hand, the products and services that fail to give them the expected results are regarded as inferior or products and services that got no quality. Hence, quality is relative and depending on the expectations of user, like the saying; “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”
As customers are becoming more educated and have easy access to information sources, their dependence on sales persons or sales engineers for information on the products or services are fast decreasing. With the Internet, prospects are readily accessible with mountains of information and this has forced a change in the perspective of the customers toward the information provided by the sales persons. It’s very common for a prospect to immediately get online as soon as the sales person leaves prospect’s office to source for additional information. He/she can easily turn to the Internet for products knowledge in numerous ways, such as getting more facts from competitors’ websites, online forums, blogs and how to.. websites. Thus, the method of how producers and service providers compete are much more open and in order to win they must identify accurately pinpointing the characteristics that surely satisfy the customers in question. The assumptions that all customers can be satisfied by standard features that designers and engineers have thought of are just not going to work nowadays as demands from customers might not be as similar. As I’d written in previous post, sales persons must really get involved in understanding the customers' requirements before engaging in the process of making the products or services so as to grasp the reasons behind each requirement comprehensively before informing the people involved in the production. Sales are the front-wheel-drive; sales persons are the people who deliver exactly what customers want; after which the designers and engineers would transform these requirements into functional units of the products or services. Sales persons have to be the front runner in the defining, measuring, analyzing, designing and verifying the requirements of their customers accurately and get these items endorsed by the customers before kicking off the making process of such products and services.

QQS formula

I was quite surprised when stumbled upon the QQS formula in an old but one of the greatest books ever written about personal achievement. In his book Think and Grow Rich (published in 1937), Napoleon Hill clearly outlined the customers’ focused formula of QQS which meant Quality, Quantity and Spirit. It clearly shown that entreprenuers had already being told the 3 words that were the focal point of customers’ satisfaction long before the emergence of customers focused companies like Sony, Honda and Samsung.
My next series of posts will focus on these 3 magical words that had revolutionized the way businesses being conducted today.

Visual management – ‘A piece a day will keep the boss away’

How much information can you pass on to your boss or a working committee on a piece of A4 (about letter-size) paper? Not a whole lot. You just can’t use it to contain the whole report of a cost saving project that took 3 weeks to complete. However, it can contain complete daily progress report that include graph, charts, drawing and matrixes; enough information for the boss to be updated and informed about the daily progress that you'd made. This type of report is commonly known as one-page report, and it is an invaluable piece of objective evidence that tells the story about the events of the particular day in the course of completing a project.
Why a one-page report is indispensable for a project or a job assignment? There are two good reasons why this one-page report is indispensable. The first is a one-page report on an A4 paper is just nice to fax to the boss or peers of the same project team but located in separate locations; second it can be filed in and converted into the project journal or ledger which would be useful later when compiling the final report of such project. “A piece a day will keep the boss away”….emm, how about that?
The one-page report is usually prepared by hand in about 20 to 30 minutes and it’s normally written towards the end of each day. The content is restricted to the day’s results and observations made on the day. Since visual presentation can replace many words, it is preferred than written or essay style since there are no conclusions to be written. It’s just like making a presentation to the boss on a white board at the end of the day but now instead of the white board it is on paper. The boss or your committee might scribble some comments for you to look into and later would pass a copy back to you.
It fast, efficient and instant documented communication. This concise and simple reporting method is an important element of continuous improvement activity that an active organization cannot do without. It teaches technicians, engineers, and project managers to be more objective in presenting daily progress reports so as to leave a traceable track that can be developed into highway as soon as the project is completed.

Visual management – Getting ahead with symbols

Using symbols in your presentation, whether it’s on screen or on paper is very effective and could give clear picture to your audiences. Symbols usage had rooted thousands of years before the invention of the modern day’s alpha-numeric writing which I’m using now. Nevertheless, the use of symbols nowadays are still widespread and among the symbols that are popularly used today are the cross (×) and the tick (∕) which carry the universal the meaning of wrong and correct or right respectively. The cross and tick are symbols have been the most useful means of communication between teachers, students and parents for many decades. All ticks in the homework books would make parents proud of the children as they know that their children are good in their studies.
During my early school days I would feel uneasy if my homework books are filled with crosses marked by my teachers, the more crosses I received the more uneasy I’d become. I got on few occasions the teacher would just made a big cross that covered the whole page of my exercise book. I felt like tearing off the page which I couldn’t because the teacher would report my bad behavior to the headmaster.
In daily business communication, the use of symbols have many advantages over descriptive words. Two profound advantages in symbols are first symbols do not occupy large spaces particularly if the presentation is on a spreadsheet and secondly it’s a real time saver as there are no descriptions to be written. There are four symbols that are being used in Total Quality Management in entire Japan, they are the cross, the triangle, the circle and the double circle (one smaller circle inside the circle). These four symbols have powered Japan Industries as leaders in the production of quality products and services.
There are two types of measurements that must be carried out when conducting analyses in today’s businesses; they are either quantitative or qualitative measurements. The quantitative measurement is one that quantifies amount of the items being measured, example are, 5.89kg of potatoes in a bag or $4.12 per piece of screw. While qualitative measurement is commonly made in comparison with a standard or a reference items. It is relative. One example is a par in your golf score can be marked with a circle symbol in your score card or in another example a lighter object against the standard object can be indicated by a triangle in your record sheet. Symbols can be used in most of the qualitative measurements and analyses and in some situations they are most suitable.
The four symbols described above are; first, a cross symbols which means any situation that is totally out of expectation or an action plan that has not started. The second symbol which is a triangle represents any situation that has just taken off or test results that below the expectation and not good enough. When confronted with a triangleor even a cross, more effort must be taken as corrective actions to get the expected results. The third symbols, a circle means situations or conditions that meet the set expectations, such as a par score on a certain hole of a golf round; it can also mean that situations that are under control or a project that is ending with expected results. Lastly the fourth, the double circle or a closed loop is to indicate any situation or condition that is closed or completed. This symbol is also used to indicate above expectation results, like an A+ grade of a test for example.
Projects matrixes, charts and tables can be simplified by utilizing these symbols, they are simple to prepare, easily to understand and a real time saver.

Visual management – simply the best communication option

I’m very sure that most of us knew pretty well what is meant by the saying “A picture can tell a thousand words”. This old cliché is very much useful in simplifying the communication process intra and inter organizations. A smiley in an instant messenger is a perfect example of a visual that has replaced lots of descriptive words and a tremendous time saver. It’s so simple, direct, understandable, and fast to get your message across; I sure that you’d agree with me.
Some countries have come up a very simple and easy to identify rest rooms whether they are for male or female with only visual signs; but unfortunately in my country this simple convention has not been used for reasons which I really don’t know. In Japan for example, a ladies rest rooms are marked by any simple drawing shape (triangle or a circle) that is pink in color while for gentlemen the shape is colored blue. So, being a simple minded person, I’d always look for blue color when looking for public gents rest rooms. In Malaysia most of the toilets signs are unicolored and a simple sketch (long haired face and a side face figure with a tobacco pipe in the mouth) to differential between ladies and gentlemen respectively. Wouldn’t it be easy if the same color convention by were to be used?
Signboards, posters and banners are the existing visual management media that are still being trusted by organizations as the effective means to communicate to employees, contractors and customers. With the advent multimedia for PCs and mobile devices, the possibilities to communicate with visual management is limitless. Myspace.com and Youtube.com are excellent examples of how visual management can be very effective in helping managers and entrepreneurs to getting their business goals faster. Business performance graphs reprsented online can be programmed to impart tremendous amount of information to affiliates and branches offices around the world. Google Analytics has done a really good job in making graphic presentations which has vast application potential. Visual management is simply the best communication option that is readily available.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 10 – Safety management.

Many companies and businesses nowadays regard safety management more important than other management systems due to the fact that it could stimulate cost saving, produce higher quality products and services, provide ideal working environment and an organizational culture that is positive towards attaining higher goals. The topic like 5S which was traditionally regarded as the steps for the betterment of housekeeping has made its way into more important revenue generating activities integrating itself with kaizen or continuous improvement, total productive maintenance and time management systems. In fact safety management, if we were to look at it in a broad perspective is the driving power of all systems that are essential for a good business of today.
A successful safety management today does not only focus on accident prevention and accidents investigations, it encompasses all activities that make business running and earning profit. As mentioned earlier, this is accomplished through its integration with all the functions of the organization. The benefits that a company may enjoy can be listed as following:

1. In human resources department: High employees’ morale is always associated with organizations that are accident free and always show evidence of lower rate of employment turn over. People are more attracted working in accident free organization – it goes without saying.

2. In finance department: Accident free environment of a business would resul in lower premiums of various types of insurances. Medical expenditure would also be at minimum.

3. In manufacturing department: High efficiency of work performance and lower resignation rate are the forces behind better quality products and services, hence meeting the requirements of customers. Meeting delivery datelines of customers is also one of its merits.

4. In design department: As all the employees are driven by the ‘Safety First’ slogan, design personnel will take serious considerations on the safety aspects when designing new products or an improved new versions of the existing products. This will increase the confidence of the customers towards using the products or services provided by the company.

5. In purchasing or procurement department: Getting reliable services from suppliers and sub-contractors can be a nightmare if they were unreliable, problematic and without the knowledge of 5S. Sub-contractors who are outstanding in the safety records would normally share the same values with the principle companies and often they have no problem work in accordance to the set of rules that were imposed upon the by the principle companies when signing the service agreements.

6. In the CEO’s department: As the leader of the organization or the company, he has to lead his organization by giving undivided attention and facilitate in all safety activities. He has to demonstrate leadership by example and to uphold the 3 objectives of safety management; firstly zero loss of life, secondly zero injuries and thirdly zero damage to properties.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 9 – Positive attitude.

In today’s post I’ll introduce you the final process of making your work place a safe and efficient place to conduct your business. The route towards realizing zero accident and maximizing your profit started with firstly cleaning/clearing up, secondly orderly arrangement, thirdly making them shine and fourthly operational standards. The fifth and final process which is in the same category as the forth process, that is maintaining and upkeeping the new improved conditions is mainly concerned about getting the right habits to sustain the improved conditions that were set up by the earlier processes. It’s instilling the right culture to the team or organization so that everybody in the team will contribute equally to sustain the continuous improvement activities for as many generations to come. Many Japanese corporations have proven that this approach is undeniably correct.
The five processes can be broken down into two stages. The first being the action stage where physical effort is required to clear up, arrange to order and keeping everything spic-and span; the second stage which concentrates on managing and maintaining the results and conditions from the first stage and sustaining a constant ‘growth rate’ of continuous improvement.
The content of this fifth process was already written in my previous 5-part blog posts entitled ‘Positive thinking’. Please read them if you’ve not read them. A positive mindset is simple to acquire if you decide to take immediate actions on things that can be accomplished within 2 to 3 minutes first, listing them as priority in your daily do list. If you make it a point to act 10 minutes at the beginning of your day, 10 minutes when you resume after lunch and 10 minutes at the end of your day, you got 30 minute to focus on items that need immediate actions. Within this period you could easily complete 10 to 15 simple but necessary items for the day leaving you with ample time to concentrate on meetings, discussions and jobs that require interaction with others. These actions will leave your ‘in’ bin empty every day before retiring for the day.
The 5 processes which I mentioned is popularly know as 5S activities, namely;
1. Seiri (Cleaning / clearing up)
2. Seiton (Arrange to order)
3. Seiso (Shining or Spic-and-span)
4. Seiketsu (Operational standard of the system in placed)
5. Shitsuke (Positive attitude of team members)
As I indicated earlier, items 1 to 3 are actions that require physical efforts and some form of creativity, item 4 is making the working conditions suitable, comfortable and safe, and the final item 5 is ‘fine tuning’ our attitude and mindset towards achieving the vision of the group or the organization that we belong to.
For further read up on the processes that I wrote please do a Google search on ‘5s activities, lean manufacturing, kaizen’. Happy reading.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 8 – Operational standards.

We’ve gone through the three vital initial processes towards achieving zero accident in our work places or workshops. The three processes are cleaning/clearing up, orderly arrangement of items and making them shine. These processes are pretty straight forward and can be effectively carried out; however, to maximize their benefit they have to be carried out in the sequence which begins by cleaning and clearing up of everything in sight, followed by arranging the items that are essential and important to conducting your daily business in the order most comfortable to you and your team members and thirdly keeping them shining and tidy (free from dust) all the time. The combination of these three processes will guarantee that your work place is a safe place at least for the period when it is cleaned. To make it safe for as long as possible requires constant maintenance and continuous improvement of the situation. Making your work place or workshop free from hazardous is important not only to avoid accident and injuries but most important to be lean and in the long run maximizing your profit.
In this post I’ll describe the task which in my opinion is most difficult to be carried out in order to ensure that our work places are safe and inspiring for as long as we desired. The question to be answered is; how can we maintain so that our work places or workshops or offices are well always organized, highly efficient, and spic-and-span? For most of us, the answer would be employing more office assistants or general cleaners and assign them the cleaning jobs. Well, if such shortcuts were taken, the following results could result, clean - may be; efficient - may be not. The problem with us is we never learn to clean up the mess that was made by ourselves in the first place. That’s why most of us would resort to employing cleaners, and there will always be somebody who does the picking job for us. Employing more staff for these menial jobs is definitely not the answer as it would invite more problems into your work place and your operating cost would escalate. On the other hand, if you were organized and efficient more and more cost could be reduced through continuous improvement on the first three processes and standardization of your operational procedures and that will takes us to the forth process of achieving zero accident in your work places.
The forth process to achieving accident free environment with additional benefits of low cost, high quality and high efficient is to conduct our business in accordance to a set of rules that were adopted as the operational standards of the system in which we are in. These rules could be as simple as doing what ever comes first into your ‘in’ bin (first in; first out basis) as described in the previous post. Every thing must go through this process, even though some may be just trash. Until we take a look at them, we don’t know whether they are trash in the first place, so never be judgmental until we are absolute sure that they really are. And don’t work on the easy ones and leaving behind the difficult ones lying idle in the ‘in’ bin, you might be facing the whole bunch of difficult one later. This way, you are assured that all items are being screened through before distributing them into classification like immediate actions or to put in incubations or keep as references or to trash them. You can make use of some good guidelines from time management literatures and employ them as your operational standards.
The key to continuous improvement is to make your standards open and make room for new set of rules. Standards should not be rigid and unchangeable as they would hinder the continuous improvement activities of your organization. Many of us take standards as the entities that are not negotiable which regard improvements as unnecessary and a waste of time. Continuous improvements allow us to strive beyond the limits and setting up improved standards that surpass the capability of our competitors. Only by diligently following the present standards one can discover new areas to study and hence making viable improvements.
What makes standardization so important is actually getting measured results. Accurate and reliable results are the products of good documentation, measurements, standard procedures and data comparison knitted together to make an operational standard. These results could be used to steer the team in the direction towards achieving your desired goals. An on coming vision of the entire organization would then be formulated more realistically with all the teams get together pursuing towards one common target. Over time, every one would be playing their individual role in executing the processes, getting favorable results effortlessly and in most efficient manner; thus making cooperation and team work as the forces behind the organization that could survive harsh and uncertain economic conditions.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 7 – Keep shining them

Let’s review what I’ve written in the last two posts. We started with cleaning and clearing up all the mess and discarding away all unwanted materials and junks that were left unnoticed for sometimes. This action would clear up some places which can be utilized later for value added purposes. Having done the cleaning and clearing, the next on going activity is to arrange the essential items that left behind in a manner that would clear up our daily activities towards attaining high efficiency. Tagging and classifying these items is a good practice that must be carried out and maintained in order to strive for continuous improvements.
In almost all human activities, getting things done for short period of time is easy but over time our attentions could swerve in other directions and things would gradually return to situation that started off in the beginning. Once this happened, it’s just impossible to recover the time and money that was wasted away. We can't afford to treat these activities like periodic or seasonal carnivals where the activities are only expected to last about a week or one month where the level of enthusiasm was high. The fact that we are so accustomed to this type of life makes us slack in up keeping or maintaining a constant level of concentration over time. Without any doubt, maintaining the orderly arrangement of materials in our workplace for as long as we want it to be is indeed difficult; that’s why in the Japanese kaizen (continuous improvement) of 5S the third step of shining up is simple and vital and acts as a stepping stone towards the more difficult part which is maintaining and making it a part of our daily lives. I will write about it in the oncoming post.
Shining up your working place is a very simple and straight forward act, and yet it being left undone may be because it is too simple or its trivialness is a good excuse for postponement. If you are a person who is very particular about neatness and tidiness, it’ll be good for you to keep up this habit and not be influenced by others who despise it. You can lead the way for your team members to emulate good working practices. Once your habits becomes imbedded and followed by your co-workers you can be proud that you’ve changed the lives of your friends to be more positive towards their work places. The results will be reflected in reducing amount of money incurred by these work places and the income amount will steadily increase.
About 10 years ago, in Japan while going on tour to the historic city of Kyoto, I observed that the drivers of ‘kanko’ (tourists) buses dusted the body of their busses with long feather dusters, some as tall as the drivers themselves, while waiting for their passengers to return to the buses. Practically all the drivers, regardless from what company they belong to, did that routine while waiting for the group of tourists to return from their tour rounds. This acts of dusting entire body of the buses really impressed me. I’m sure that the acts of dusting the buses are still going on until to day. This simple act of keeping their buses shining is important for three reasons. First, is to keep on working and be productive while waiting for their passengers to return in about 30 minutes. Second, the comparatively higher level of quality consciousness of the general public in Japan demands the drivers to maintain a higher standard of services which include the best appearance of the buses all the time. Third, the drivers being responsible employees from their respective ‘kanko’ bus companies must up held the name of their companies, thus leaving the logo or the name of their companies hidden under the accumulated dust would reflect the lazy or poor attitude of the employees. Hence, by keeping the logo or name of their companies under the dust would be committing some sort of sin by the drivers.
By keeping our eyes on to all the places in our workshop always, will keep away all unwanted items from entering our system. Keep a bin or a basket (an ‘in’ bin) at the entrance of the work shop is an excellent idea of only allowing the things that are worthy to course of the business into the work places. On the opposite end of the ‘in’ bin, you can place another bin that carries an ‘out’ label. Every time after going through the contents of the ‘in’, items that has no value to the improvement of the business like junk mails, ads from local stores, unread portion of newspapers and wrappers can go straight into the ‘out’ bin. This act is a definite time saver, rather than allowing all this junks into the workshop and let them accumulate before actually discard them away later. The golden rule is to only allow the items that require completing of the work cycle in the workshop and to profiting from the completion of the work cycle.
Keeping spic-and-span of every little item in your place that were designed to earning money would result in more money coming at you. Your daily routine is very simple, just follow closely to the routine that I wrote in the ‘Clean up’ post will surely takes you to a prosperous future – Do your clean up routine 10 minutes before work start, 10 minutes after lunch and 10 minutes after you completed the day’s job. No matter where you are or in what business you are in, doing it day in and day out as the best practice because it is THE right thing to keep your business going.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 6 – Orderliness

It’s a very good sign that you have already started clearing up your places of work or your workshops. When I did this cleaning and clearing before; I recovered some old bills, important letters, my insurance premium receipts, the screw driver that I thought was taken by somebody else and even some money. That answered why I was behind at getting the right things done on time. No wonder much of my time was wasted looking for these things and it was so bad that I just forgot about the whole thing. I am very careful now not to take any junks or rubbish from outside into my working place. There are just too many junks out there like brochures for machine parts, directories, and catalogs that I brought back from exhibitions or hundred of old diskettes that contain some information that I really don’t need anymore.
Filtering off the items from getting into your workshops is a must to maintain the amount of accumulated stuffs that if left unchecked would develop into time wasted problems later. Make sure that these items are discarded immediately because you don’t actually need them although sometimes your conscience would feel otherwise. If you want to have a collection of items, let the items be something which can appreciate in value over time. Don’t buy some tools just because you need to use them once. We can afford to accumulated useless items and spent money or time to manage their inventories. It’s ridiculous.
Ok, in my last post I attached a photo of a workshop of a violin maker. She got this perfectly arranged cute little workshop that worth giving 10 out of 10 points. For the benefit of you guys, I attached the photo with a slightly higher resolution. Every thing big or small is neatly arranged; materials and tools are in order. It’s a perfect place to wooing money to come. You see orderliness is your next task after first cleaning and clearing away the junks from your workplace. All things come in shapes, type and sizes that enables you to place them in an orderly manner.
Use your creativity to get all the tools, materials, books, etc properly arranged; put in some artistic touch to arranging them in the manner that you are comfortable with. Use your imagination to get this thing done in a satisfying way. As I wrote earlier, small items that are frequently used can be on your table or places that can be assess effortlessly. You might want to use different colors to differentiate different sizes or material types. Yeah, get into the visible management.
Another hidden benefit of good arrangement is space optimization and you can use the space or area that you have ‘reclaimed’ for more valuable activities. Don’t utilize it for storing items that are supposed to be discarded. May be a place for your meditation or worship…is up to you as long as it is being used for purposes that add values to your work. Orderliness and smart arrangement or our workshops or working places can have a positive impact on your motivation to be more productive. Make our work places as the places for the minds to be inspired to do more and to get more without burning extra energy. As I told you earlier money has no eyes, but it has class when choosing a place for to reside.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 5 – Clean up!

Is your work place messy and unorganized? If it is; than the right thing to do is to clean up. Make sure that you got the place for everything; no matter how small it is just get a place for it. A clean, tidy and an organized work place is where the money likes to be; no argument. It is where the money and other good things like to associate with, no question about it.
How can you know that your place needs cleaning? One sure answer is, when you can’t find the things that you need and knew pretty well that you saw where they were a day or two earlier. Let’s say that you need a Philips head screw driver to open up your desktop pc and you just can’t find the screw driver that you had used it 2 days ago; then you’d better get organized. Or, when there’s a sudden black-out and you can’t find the flash light which you think it is still in the first draw of your work table. There were numerous cases that you and I had experienced that tell us to get tidy up and get organized.
The examples above tell us that when our work places are messy and things are all over the place, we are wasting valuable time. In time management, the first thing that we have to do before even before getting your planner right; is to get all things at the right places. Time is so precious because unlike money, once its loss it’s unrecoverable – that simple. If you lose a day, you are behind your competitor by one day, and there’s no way that you can be head unless you have to put in 200% effort just to get even and another 100% increase to be ahead, in simple term, you have to put 3 times your normal effort to get head again by just losing one day. That’s why we just can’t afford to let our bad habits to interfere with our ambitions.
Besides, a clean and organized work place is an ideal place to conduct business, rest assured that there won’t be any hidden danger which could strike you when you least expected it. All movements would be smooth and jobs would be conducted swiftly and as a result money would come in quicker.
Start cleaning up by putting or placing things in it proper places. If you can’t find a place for some items, just throw them in a bin which you can sort out later after you complete the cleaning job. No, no… don’t procrastinate; start sorting up the items you collected in the bin and figure out how can you get proper places for them. Well, for some items that got not value to you, just get rid of them by giving them away or sell them off. Label your drawers, cabinets and lockers, they are essential because you can’t see them once you’d locked them up. Place all the frequently used items near to you, an arm length about you or make them visible to you.You see cleaning up your habit and your work place would bring you more good luck than bad ones. It’s simple; just use your 10mins before starting work, 10mins just after lunch and 10 minutes before closing for the day, everyday without fail would bring you good luck. How about that?

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 4 – Finger point and call (FP&C)

To be free from accident one must have a positive mental attitude towards safety, one's jobs, co-workers, the business and to oneself. Mental alertness of this sort could only be attained when absolute focus is given on the tasks that are being performed. Take a very simple task of filling a mug of hot coffee, although we might have done it thousands of times before, we might not realize that our bodily actions for pouring the coffee is being controlled by our mind. Just before this task is being carried out our minds will alert us the important facts like, the coffee is hot, the cup or mug should be on a stable base and remind us not to fill it until its rim. Thus, with all these mental alertness facts the risk of having hot coffee spilled on to our bodies or somebody else’s hands would be eliminated. It’s very natural for us to look and also hearing the sound of pouring hot coffee in a mug before deciding that the coffee has reached a safe height in the mug.
I came across a number of cases where injuries happened when the victims were not aware of the imminent dangers that were sort of ‘hidden’. It can be due to the fact that their minds didn’t realize that the situations were dangerous, like the hazards of moving fan belts of an engine of a car or an air hole (the size on the index finger) on the cover of a rotary feeder. In both cases, the victims cut off part of their index fingers because of being ‘curious’ and used their index fingers to assess the situations. I’m sure there are hundred or even thousands of cases similar in nature are happening every day whether at home or at work.
In Japan, one organization has perfected a method that would reduce the risk of accidents by making the mind to always be on the alert. The method is accepted by the general Japanese public as a responsible act and is now being adopted in almost all organizations and businesses in Japan. Many foreign visitors in Japan found that the Japanese Railways Corporation (JR) is very responsive when providing safety service to commuters. Safety announcements, like all commuters must be behind the yellow line are made on every train arrival, are very clear and a must to alerts commuters of the ‘hidden’ dangers on a moving object. Before the train doors are opened, a JR employee on platform duty will look to his right point his fingers while uttering the words ‘line clear’ and he would repeat the same routine when turning to his left. This act, which is translated as ‘finger point and call (FP&C)’, is not only very important to him and his company but also for the safety of the commuters. The JR is world famous of its good safety record and its employees are proud to show off this act.
The FP&C method is very common in Japanese factories and workshop nowadays. It is an accepted as positive behavior that could reduce the risk of accidents. This act will alert the mind on the presence of the dangers (known or unknown) through the main senses of the human body, like sight, feel, and hearing. When I finger point and call on a situation, such as the moving fan belts of a car engine to look for the source of an abnormal sound, I would say out “Fan belt is moving, ok”; through this act I’m actually alerting my mind by making use of the 3 senses routes to my brain. I’m using the speech part of the brain to say out the words which alerts my mind of the dangers; I’m hearing what is being said which also alerts my mind of the danger; I’m seeing the moving belt by pointing it with my index finger at the moving belt while saying the words also alerts my mind through my sight or vision of the danger. Hence, from these FP&C actions the mind gets informed through 3 routes, thus ensuring it to coordinate a careful judgment and movement of my body and hands when carrying out the work. So its no more a myth when we observed an airline pilot said ‘check’ at every step of his take off routine before taking the plane up in the air.
These simple acts of seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking are frequently not completely used for the benefit of reducing the risks of accidents thus resulting in injuries or fatalities. These acts were taken for granted by these victims; just like we take little notice on all the billboards along the road while driving to work because the impact of these advertisements is insignificance to our daily life. Often accidents with serious injuries happened when the victims didn’t adequately assess the potential hazards by using all these senses in combination to have a good assessment of the working conditions before acting. When analyzing such accidents, one might have the impression that the victims had acted carelessly; if only he would pause a while and gave a thought he might have all ten fingers on both hands rather than three on the right hand.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 3 – Structured hazards predictions.

In this post I’ll elaborate on the accidents prevention by structured prediction of accidents carried out by a working team of 4 to 5 co-workers taking the account of actual near misses experienced by the group members as case studies. The structured prediction of an accident focuses on two causal causes of accident; namely unsafe conditions and unsafe acts. It is customary done through brainstorming to lead the formulation of preventive measures of an imaginary worst scenario or injuries that could result if the accident were to actually take place. The group’s mission is to reduce or entirely eliminate the risk in the job that the near accident had taken place, thus making it safe.
Below are the steps to carrying out the structured prediction of accidents.

STEP 1 – Reenacting the near or minor accident
The leader (a supervisor or the manager of the group) will start with an explanation of the case to be studied. The scenario must reflect the actual near miss that took place and experienced by the members of the group. It would be better for the leader did some home work before presenting, like taking photos or video or an accurate sketch to reenact the incident. Usually the person who experienced the near miss would also tell his/her account of the near accident. The group must be absolutely clear about the case’s scenario. The leader should ask questions to the members of the group to ensure that his team members are clear on what actually had happened. It will take about 10 minutes to complete this step.

STEP 2 – Brainstorm on worst scenario
Focusing on the 2 attributes, unsafe conditions or circumstances and unsafe acts, as mentioned earlier, the leader will start the brainstorming process of getting as much as probable causes as possible from members. All points should be presented or worded as, first is nature of injury than the event and giving the reason of whether it is due to unsafe condition or unsafe act. It is like playing the dominoes in the reverse direction. This way the group members can visualize and can make assessment of the risks of the unsafe conditions or acts.
It is vitally important for all members not to indulge in argument, as it will distract the flow of the brainstorming process. All probable causes must be recorded by the leader. To make sure that records are organized, it is proper to write the probable causes in two columns, one being unsafe conditions and the other is unsafe acts. If the brainstorming process were to be carried out effectively each column would have 10 probable causes. This step can also be competed in 20 minutes.
Some examples of the most probable causes are;
- Paralysis or serious back injury would happen due slip because of water on stairways. – unsafe condition
- Fatal accident could result due to swinging iron beam because site supervisor fails to cordon the swinging path before carrying out the work. – unsafe act

STEP 3 – Risk assessment
Ok now, the group has 10 probabilities in each column and the leader will moderate the discussion by the members to select 3 most dangerous probable causes in respective column. Having selected 3 out of 10 that are ranked as very dangerous and most imminent hazards in the work that being discussed; the leader must record in order of most risky as the top most of the list followed by the lesser ones. This step should take about 10 minutes.

STEP 4 – Formulating preventive measures and immediate implementation
For each cause that the group has thought off, they must now formulate 3 preventive measures for each cause with the aim bringing down the possibility to zero. So, the goup would have a total of 9 preventive measures. However, to implement 9 preventive measures are some what not realistic, thus it most advisable to select the top 3 measures that have most effect in preventive such recurrence of the accident. The leader has the responsibility to document the preventive measure and then forward his report to his boss and to the safety committee or the safety manager. Finally, the group will say aloud the most important measure as to mark the end of their discussion. This would take about 20 minutes.

The structured prediction method (Kiken Yochi) has allowed the Japanese organizations to move one step ahead of an unforeseen event by treating the ‘symptoms’ rather than ‘curing the disease’. Just like the old saying “prevention is better that cure”. This ‘ritual’ can be as elaborate as what I’ve written that takes about 1 hour of meeting time, but now most seasoned organizations employees are conducting the lighter version which only take about 15 to 20 minutes and are carried out daily before commencement of work.
A typical employee who has worked for 5 years and have done this ‘ritual’ daily would already developed his/her mind to be very quick to respond to any unsafe conditions and acts that he would encounter when carrying out his/her duties. His/her eyes and ears mind would always look for hazards because his/her mind is very developed and capable of identifying the dangers. Further, he/she is also accustomed to act immediately to avoid harm on to his/her body or to his/her fellow workers. He/she is said to have developed an ‘instinct’ to fight against hazards.

What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 2 – Overview on accident prevention

To me, the message of the slogan ‘Safety First’ is simply aimed at making safety as the top priority in what ever act that we are about to take or execute; whether the act is going to be diving or answer a call on cell phone while driving or slicing a cucumber with a sharp knife for a dish; it can be anything. Since all of our actions (conscious or unconscious) originated from the brain it would be most effective to have a mental picture (visualization) of the outcome of the acts that are about to be executed. Will the action that I’m going to take produce the result as expected, that is, without injury to me or to others? If the answer is yes; it’d better for me to rewind and play back the mental image and start identify the imminent dangers thinking of how to eliminate them. It’s like when a gymnast perfecting a new difficult and dangerous routine; he/she would take a brief moment to visualize the routine before executing it. However, to most people this preparatory step of executing an acted is seen as a wasted moment and argued that if accidents were to happen they will regardless whether we like it or not. I believe that all accidents can surely be prevented.
Safety management has 3 main goals and in order to be effective safety managers have to perform tremendously difficult task in ensuring that all accidents are prevented from occurring. They are responsible to ensure that;
1. zero loss of life
2. zero injuries
3. zero property damage
Imagine that you are the safety manager of a shipbuilding company where hundreds or may be thousands of people are working with sharp metal edges, welding torches, heavy overhead loads and working in confined spaces. Keeping it an accident free place requires more that asking all workers to wear their safety gears or personal protective equipment. The safety manager is just like a musical orchestra conductor; ensuring every little musical note is just played but played with feeling and affection.
In Japan, the notion that in every one fatal accident there were 29 minor injuries cases and 300 near accidents cases is wide spread. Every body is aware of such notion. So, it’s a duty of the safety manager to capture all near misses case in order to prevent injuries from happening. All near misses are analyzed, tagged and kept respective databases. Their counter measures were documented and actions were immediately implemented to prevent recurrence. It is the process that the safety manager must adhere strictly in order to eliminate entirely the possibility of having a fatal case. This can only be effective carried out in organizations where communication is efficient where everybody in the organization knows that the information could be used to prevent a serious accident. It would be near to impossible task in organizations where the ‘infrastructure’ of effective communication is not been developed and the people are unaware about such notion as described earlier.
Can an isolated case of near accident experienced by a welder working alone in one end of the shipbuilding yard be reported to his safety manager? The answer is yes, if the welder were to realize that his experience would one day prevent himself or his co-worker from getting killed. Many of us have the tendency to brush away our near misses experiences or somewhat ashamed to make them public or just don’t think that they are important. Well, we need to be otherwise in order for the organization or the community that we belong to live in an accident free environment.
Have you ever seen in real life on in tv the routine of an airline pilot confirming and verify his/her act before getting the plane to fly? For every switch or button that he/she pushes he/she would confirm by pointing and uttering the word “checked” simultaneously. This act is important to ensure that the pilot is on tract of getting the plane ready for take off. It’s one way to remind our brain through the eyes and ears that the action was successfully taken and it’s ok to execute the next step of the process. If this routine is effective for pilots, it would also have the same effect for us to copy like, before crossing a street or before preparing coffee in a pantry. Others who are ignorant of its effectiveness to prevent accidents would regard the act as silly and would find it’s an awkward act to imitate. Think it this way, is it silly for us the copy if we could avoid ourselves or friends from getting killed or paralyzed? I’m sure you have a good answer for that.

What's hidden under 'Anzen Dai Ichi' (Safety First) part 1 - Introduction

An unsafe workplace is one that contributes many problems in any business environment. The problems that surface out from an unsafe workplace include; loss time, defective products or services quality, temporary loss of skill, additional cost and higher turnover rate of employees. The combination these problems will sum up to produce a major impact to reducing your customers’ confidence level towards the business. If your business efficiency is on the reducing trend, my suggestion for you is to start acting in making your business premise (offices, factories, workshops, machines, warehouses, vehicles, tables and servers) a safe and secure place. Money doesn’t have eyes but one thing for sure; that you will drive it away when it ‘sees’ that your workplace is an unsafe one.
We just cannot afford to lose our business money unnecessarily in the present economic conditions. As the crude oil price escalating unstoppably, money is a scarce commodity now, thus prompting many businesses to take actions towards reducing cost; which if taken wrongly would be disastrous the business. Businesses that were established in the post second oil shock period (from 1987) are most venerable compared to those businesses that survived the 1st (1974 to 1979) and 2nd (1980 to 1986) oil shocks in the present economic situation.
As I came from a Japanese corporation that had gone through these hard times in world business history, I’ve the firsthand knowledge on how did the company sustained harsh effects of sudden increase in oil price; (I was employed in 1976 and took an early retirement in 2000). So, one may ask; what has the price of oil has to do with a safe workplace? The answer is simply, money. With a safe working place you won’t be having the problems as listed earlier and thus can channel your business money for better uses.