by Shawn | Mar 23, 2021 | Podcast
If you want to dig down to the root cause of a problem, try the 5 Whys method mentioned in this episode.  And if you want to see what made me say “It’s almost as if…”, you’ll find that today to. Â
So, one day I had to do some work on a welding robot. This is a robot that you program to weld parts together.
It does a great job as long as everything stays in place correctly.
On that day, somehow the welds it was producing seemed to have shifted off location and I was touching up the program to try to fix it.
I had done this several times before so I jumped into the program, bumped the points a little bit and then ran it through the cycle.
When the turntable swung back around and I grabbed the finished part out I was a little confused because it didn’t seem like my change had done anything.
I took a closer look and put it under some better light just to check it against the previous part.
And sure enough they looked the same.
I was a little puzzled but I had seen this before and so I hopped back into the program, tweaked the points a little bit more and gave it another go.
Certainly, that had to have done it, right?
Well, as it turned out, that was a big NOPE.
The second part came out and… well… it looked exactly like the first one.
Robot welding can be a bit touchy and I’d seen a few times where welds just seemed to want to go a certain direction.
I told myself I’d do one more small adjustment and that should do it.
So I did. Then I sent the part in, the robot welded it… and… drumroll… STILL THE SAME RESULT.
I was like “are you kidding me right now!?”
So I sat down with the family of bad parts in my hand that all shared a striking resemblance of a bad weld.
And this thought came into my head as I struggled to figure it out.
“It’s almost as if…” I started, in my head.
“It’s almost as if… nothing I did affected this program.”
“It’s almost as if….”
Suddenly I jumped up and darted over to the controller. I looked at the part and then back at the screen.
I had been modifying the wrong program.
So, I went in, made the right change and boom… fixed it on the first try.
But the whole thing reminded me of a root cause or troubleshooting concept we have in Lean Manufacturing called the 5 Whys.
Similar to what we talked about in episode 4 on Curiosity, the 5 Whys is an easy way to dig deeper and deeper to find the true source of a problem.
Unfortunately, most times we stop at the first or second answer and assume that is the problem. But it’s just a symptom.
In my case, it might have gone like this.
Q1: “Why is the weld still coming out wrong?”
A1: “Because the robot isn’t welding the correct location”
Q2: “Why isn’t the robot welding the correct location?”
A2: “Because the points must be off”
Q3: “Why are the points still off?” (this is where I made a false assumption in my answer)
A3: “Because I still need to keep moving them.”
And so on.
The key is that each answer is not only analyzed for accuracy but is also followed up with another question that goes one level down… until you arrive at the real cause.
Try that in your own organization this week. The next issue that pops up that you need to solve, keep asking why until you feel like you’ve sufficiently gotten past the easy or surface answers.
Become a detective. Don’t settle. Dig down deep.
Because that is when you’ll be able to really leverage your energy and manpower to get at the root and get things back to where they need to be.
If you’ve been enjoying these episodes, I’d love it if you took a moment to share them with a friend. It helps me reach even more business leaders and make a bigger impact. You could share a screenshot from your podcast player or just send them to shawnwashburn.com.
Thank you so much.
by Shawn | Mar 22, 2021 | Podcast
Assumptions… they usually get a bad rap.  But today we’re going to dig a little deeper and see how they can actually help us if we use them wisely Â
You know what happens when you assume, right? You make an…
Yeah, well, I’ll actually let YOU finish that sentence on your own. And… if you don’t know what I’m talking about, head over to the Google after this and just search for “when you assume”.
Now, I’m here to shed a little more light on assumptions.
Obviously, they have a PR problem. I mean, imagine if whenever anyone mentioned you, the first thing that popped into their head was that something really bad happens whenever you’re around.
Yeah, that’s what it’s like for assumptions.
They have to live with this dark cloud hanging over their very existence.
And I get it. Usually, when they’re around bad stuff happens.
But I want to dig a little bit deeper into assumptions today.
I’d like to propose that they actually can have a lot of value, but that they have to be used wisely.
You see, assumptions are sort of like a short cut.
When you say that you assumed something, you are basically saying that you took a short cut in your thinking or investigating or conversations.
As the saying goes, maybe you even “jumped to conclusions”.
But honestly, we assume things all the time. And if we didn’t life would grind to a halt.
We take calculated risks, we believe certain things to be true about the world around us.
We assume that our house isn’t going to fall apart today or that the milk that was perfectly fine in our refrigerator yesterday hasn’t totally turned to curdled yuck overnight. That we weren’t on mute when we chimed in with that perfectly timed response in our zoom call.
There are things that we assume every day… but we just don’t call them assumptions.
What I would like to propose is that most assumptions are fine… they just need to be interrogated. They need to be sat down in that dark room with the spotlight on them. And then we need to ask them some really tough questions.
If we’re willing to do this, then assumptions can actually be good. They can be beneficial. They can save us time.
If you question an assumption and it can’t give you a solid answer, then you need to do more work on your part.
For example, let’s say you have a big meeting coming up with a customer. You set it up weeks ago and you need to make sure that they will be present.
But you haven’t had any communication with them recently about it.
You have a choice to make. You can either assume that all is good on their end. Or, you can just shoot them an email to make sure that they are still good for the meeting.
An email that might take you a few minutes but could save a ton of waste and add tension to the relationship if they didn’t show.
Maybe they had emailed you last Tuesday saying that they had to reschedule but it got lost in your inbox. Or maybe they never got the initial request. Or maybe something else urgent has come up and they were so consumed with it that they had forgotten about the meeting.
Whatever the reason, if you have any uneasiness in your gut or if there might be a big downside to a potential miscommunication, then it’s worth your time to just check in and make sure everyone’s on the same page.
We’ve all experienced the bad side of assumptions and have been burnt by not interrogating ours or we’ve burnt someone else.
But together, you and I can help change the face of assumptions. Using them for good, instead of evil.
Try looking at them a little differently this week and how, when used well, they can actually be something positive.
Maybe the new phrase could be “You know what happens when you use assumptions wisely? You and I save a lot of time and energy!”
OK, so maybe that one needs a little work.
I hope you’ve been getting value from these episodes. If you have, I’d love it if you left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite player. It truly means a lot and lets me help even more people. Thanks so much.
by Shawn | Mar 19, 2021 | Podcast
B25… BINGO!  I was amazed when I found out a hidden fact about BINGO, but it clued me in to something that happens a lot in business as well: we don’t see the whole board! Â
Sometimes, our eyes can deceive us. We may think we have all the information in front of us… but we’re really missing something.
And usually, when that happens, we make bad decisions or we feel the wrong way about a situation we’re in.
But if we knew the whole story, we might think differently.
I was reminded of this one time with a simple game of BINGO.
You ever played BINGO? Pretty straightforward, right?
You’ve got a sheet that’s got 25 squares on it and then five letters across the top: B-I-N-G-O.
Each square has a number and when your letter and number is called, you get to cross off that square.
All you have to do… is get five squares in a row in any orientation… and you win!
Well, I was playing BINGO and had my board and was ready to go. Number after number began to get called. “B3″… “G60″… “N32”.
At first I had a couple matches and crossed them off. Things we’re looking pretty good for a victory.
But then, as the letters and numbers continued to be drawn… every… single… one was missing from my board.
I was looking at the list of drawn numbers as it continued to grow and then staring blankly at my mostly empty board.
“How is this possible?” I asked myself. How could so many numbers be drawn that weren’t on my board?
Eventually, someone else won and I accepted defeat. But I needed answers, darn it! So, I went to the Google.
As it turns out that the 25 squares shown on anyone’s board are only ONE THIRD of the total.
There are actually 75 total squares and fifteen numbers for each column, even though any board only shows five.
It all started to make a little more sense at that point.
I was frustrated because I didn’t have all the information.
I felt like I should have won three times already when, in actuality, my chances of winning were still fairly low because of all the extra numbers that I couldn’t see.
And the same is true for you and I. Every day, there is a lot that we don’t see. Every time we’re faced with a decision to make. Every email we get ready to reply to. Every customer complaint or quality issue that we try to get to the bottom of….
Assume that each one is actually a BINGO board with squares that are missing. There is more to the story.
So don’t let your eyes or the information you’ve been given lie to you. Take a minute to consider what might not be visible right now and put in the work to find out those other details.
You’ll save yourself a lot of stress on the back end.
And… next time you play BINGO, just make sure you get the board with the right numbers to start with.
I hope you’ve been getting value from these episodes. If you have, I’d love it if you left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite player. It truly means a lot and lets me help even more people. Thanks so much.
by Shawn | Mar 18, 2021 | Podcast
Automation is a huge buzzword these days. It saves you time and money. It frees you up to do new things.  And there’s another surprise benefit that comes with it. Find out what that is in today’s episode.  Â
Automation is a big word these days.
I mean… it’s always been a big word, really. At least compared to smaller words like, you know, “donut” … “car” …… “mask”.
But regardless of the number of physical letters, automation is a big word because of what it implies.
And for good reason. To automate means to cut unnecessary time out of a process or to improve quality or to free your team up to do other things.
There is a lot of good that comes with automation. And we’ll talk about different aspects of that in future episodes.
But today I wanted to talk about one big benefit that comes from the actual process of implementing automation.
That benefit is standardization. (Yeah, I know. Another big word 🙂
What do I mean by that?
Well, I’ve seen this story play out time and again…. A company is trying to cut costs. They say “hey, let’s automate that process”.
Everyone agrees that this is a good idea.
They get quotes on what it will cost and compare to what it is costing them now. The risks, the benefits. And they give it the green light.
Then they start to get into it.
And a few steps in is when it happens.
The questions. The confusion. The lack of standardization.
That’s because automation requires rules. It requires answers. Consistency.
And what often happens is that the process of implementing automation reveals the lack of clear rules and guidelines.
All of a sudden you find out that the only way that you’ve been able to make your product currently is because your team members usually make some tweaks or decisions to make it work, or there is some tribal knowledge about a process that requires intervention each time.
For an example, let’s pretend you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich operation and you want to automate it.
You hire a company to automate the process for you.
Simple, right? Bread, peanut butter, jelly. Done.
Not so fast.
“What kind of bread? Where is it kept? Is it OK to use the butt of the bread? What if the slice has a hole in it? “
“Where should the sandwich be assembled?”
“What kind of peanut butter? Where can we find it? How much on the slice of bread? Should it go all the way to the edges?”
“What kind of jelly?… “
You get the picture.
The questions may seem annoying or obvious, but usually they help you fill in communication or procedural gaps as well as irregularities in upstream deliverables. You may not have realized until automating that there were so many exceptions.
And it is often those exceptions, those unwritten rules, those decisions that only Bob knows how to make and… well… Bob’s not here today.
So, along with the known benefits of automation, the standardizing that happens in the process (or, even better, beforehand) is really one of the true wins of automation.
Because then, going forward, there is a much clearer set of steps, rules and decisions in place for the next process that comes your way.
And that, to use a smaller word, is awesome.
If you’ve been enjoying these episodes, I’d love it if you took a moment to share them with a friend. It helps me reach even more business leaders and make a bigger impact. You could share a screenshot from your podcast player or just send them to shawnwashburn.com.
Thank you so much.
by Shawn | Mar 17, 2021 | Podcast
Have you ever cooked pancakes?
At our house, we love making things from scratch when we can, but we’ve also used those pre-made mixes as well.
The images on the side of the box just make my mouth water. That huge stack of pancakes with the butter slightly melting on top and the syrup slowly dripping down along all of the edges and ending a pool of brown sugary goodness on the plate.
So, you open the box, measure out the mix, add water, mix together in a bowl and there you go. Pancakes. Right?
Well, for some reason, that creamy liquid in the bowl doesn’t quite resemble what I see on the package.
Why?
Because they aren’t pancakes… yet.
They obviously still need to be cooked on a skillet to become that delicious meal that you’ve already imagined devouring in your mind.
Yet.
I’ve really come to love that word.
I love it because, with just three little letters it packs an incredible punch.
It speaks of potential, of what could be. It breaks through barriers, both mental and physical.
Yet is a powerful word and should be added into our vocabulary more often.
Think of any of the barriers or limitations that you feel in your business. Many of them may feel definitive. They may just feel like how things are now and how they’re going to be in the future. There might be even a hopelessness regarding any change to the what things will look like down the road.
Maybe you’re struggling with a team member who just isn’t grasping something. A skill. A company value. Communication. You’re starting to believe that it’s just not going to work out with them.
And maybe you’re right. If you’ve done your due diligence and gone out of your way to try to understand and help, it’s possible that they just aren’t a good fit.
But before you throw in the towel, try using “yet” a little bit more in your company language.
Instead of “she just isn’t able to make rate”, add “…yet” at the end. And let yet guide you with questions like “what would have to happen to get her there?”. Maybe it’s a training issue. Maybe some miscommunication. Maybe struggles at home. If she has the desire, yet opens the door to further explore what might be missing.
Yet is like a foot that keeps a door from closing. It forces us to rethink, to explore, to question. Maybe it’s your people, maybe it’s a machine or process or software that isn’t cutting it right now.
Before you give up on it, let yet give you the push to dig a little deeper.
And in pushing deeper, you might, indeed find that the door should be shut. But you’ll have given yourself the chance to exhaust all options first with the hope that there is still value there that can be unearthed.
So where can you use yet this week? As you look at the challenges you’re facing, try adding it more into your vocabulary and see how it shifts the conversation.
As for those pancakes, they aren’t totally eaten… yet. But if you don’t hurry up and grab the last stack they will be.
I hope you’ve been getting value from these episodes. If you have, I’d love it if you left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite player. It truly means a lot and lets me help even more people. Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
