by Shawn | Apr 23, 2021 | Podcast
On today’s Fun Friday episode, we continue our Ode to the Office series with an old school shout-out… Ode to White Out.
White out was friend for many years, helping me overcome misspellings and other mistakes to produce intelligible works.
I still see White Out every now and then, like that kid from high school that you lost track of but see on Facebook a few times a year. I hope you’re doing well White Out. We had a lot of good memories together.
And now, Ode to White Out
Ode to White Out
Mistakes will be made and you’re there at the ready
To blot out the words that are wrong
With a dab of your brush from a hand that is steady
You give us the chance to move on.
Like sins on our page in grammatical form
Our errors seemed destined to doom us
But then you came along and began to transform
The page and breathed new life into us
A letter magician, so skilled at your craft
We can’t believe what we are seeing
As you carefully use your white bristles and staff
To disappear what’s disagreeing
So thank you my friend, you’ve been so good to me
And our secrets are just ours to share
Especially each time that I failed to see
The difference between they’re and there
Check out previous Odes:
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. If you’ve got an idea for a future Ode to the Office episode, shoot me an email at shawn@shawnwashburn.com. Â I’d love to connect: website / LinkedIn / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
by Shawn | Apr 22, 2021 | Podcast
I hesitate to take myself back to this memory because I’m afraid I’ll start to smell the smell all over again.
Several months ago, I came downstairs to one of the most horrific odors I’d ever smelled in our house. I honestly thought something had died somewhere. I began searching in our basement and then inside cupboards and all over.
I didn’t find anything so I started to try to see where the smell was strongest. Amazingly, it wasn’t in the basement. It filled most of our main floor, but seemed to be concentrated in the kitchen.
Now, we’ve had four kids who have all gone through nasty poop diaper stages. And I’ve personally had my daughter throw up on me when she was sick one time. Both just disgusting smells.
But this one. This one was at least on par with those.
And I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t able to find the source.
So I kept searching.
Eventually, I decided to… unfortunately… look in the dishwasher.
Bingo!
Just opening the dishwasher door unleashed a deadly waft of unholy air into my nostrils.
“What in the world could possibly be doing this?” I wondered.
I scanned the few items inside and finally found the culprit.
It was a visually innocent looking lid to a tupperware container. No visible residue but a smell that could drive back a small army.
But why in the world did it reek so badly?
Well, eventually the story came out. One of our sons had found it under his bed. Who knows what had been in there but it had been there… for months. Amazing chemistry experiment to be sure.
And we tried and tried to wash that thing in any way imaginable and just couldn’t get rid of the smell. So, it had to go bye bye.
In short, it failed the smell test.
You know the smell test. We use it for milk to make sure it’s not going to kill us even though it’s passed it’s best by date.
Best by dates are good. They give us a ballpark of how long we should expect that certain food product to be good for.
That said, they are also merely a guard rail for us.
It’s still up to us to employ the smell test to see if they are still usable or not.
And today, I want to propose that your processes in your organization are the same way.
Our processes should all have best by dates of some sort. Something put in place that tells us, “hey, when this date comes up, do a smell check on this process to see if it’s still good.”
Unfortunately, most processes I’ve seen (and many that I’ve personally put in place) are put out into our organizations as a permanent instruction or guide, never to be challenged or reviewed again. Destined to live happily ever after in the land of business make believe.
But that won’t happen without a best by date. Things change. Technology advances. People come and go. New ideas and philosophies come along. And if we’re not willing to do a smell test now and then, our processes will grow stale and stanky, like that tupperware lid.
And then one day, you’ll open up that proverbial dishwasher door and realize that your processes are outdated, inefficient, and need to be either tossed or refreshed.
But just like in my situation, you’ll need to be brave to do your process smell check. Especially if you are the one that created the process in the first place.
In the long run, though, it will be worth it and keep your organization fresh and productive.
So take some time this week to review some of your processes and do your own smell check. It can’t be worse than what I found on that fateful day… dang, I can still smell it!
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. You can shoot me an email at shawn@shawnwashburn.com.
I’d love to connect: website / LinkedIn / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
by Shawn | Apr 2, 2021 | Podcast
I’ll keep this one short and sweet today.
Someone on your team or in your organization needs something from you today.
They need your belief in them.
They need a champion in their corner, spurring them on, building them up, believing in them and their idea or work.
They need a spark.
You may not see it on their face, but just underneath the surface, underneath the mask (literally) is doubt.
Doubt in themselves. Doubt, maybe, that they have what it takes. Doubt that they are going to be able to make it through a tough project or finish a difficult task.
And then there are the outside influences as well. Stress at home. Strained relationships. Fears. Worries. Financial issues. The weight that they carry in with them each day, invisible to the rest of the world.
We’ve talked about it before, but your words and your message are powerful.
Choose to believe today. Even choose to give the benefit of the doubt.
Pick one person. Affirm them. Be in their corner today.
Believe in them.
If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, I’d love it if you’d leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts at shawnwashburn.com/apple  Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
by Shawn | Apr 1, 2021 | Podcast
How Can You Help Your Team Members Succeed?
When you look at each of the people in your organization, they were brought in to make an impact, to solve problems, to make the best product or deliver the best service to your customers.
There was a reason why you brought them on board.
Hopefully a lot of reasons. Skill set. Experience. Personality. Approachability. Integrity. Curiosity. Dependability.
But sometimes it can feel like they’re just not getting it.
You may have found yourself getting frustrated because you’re just not on the same page. There’s a team member who isn’t giving you the results that you’re looking for.
But I want to suggest that maybe there is something else going on.
Take a step back and think about what you really need from them.
Not how you want them to do it. But what is the end goal?
You see, I’ve seen this happen all the time.
Usually, the person assigned the task is more than capable and more than willing to do it and deliver the end result in flying colors.
But the problem often comes in the how.
Granted, there are plenty of guidelines or procedures or standards that need to be met and kept in order to maintain consistency and quality.
But I think where the issue comes sometimes is when we put unnecessary constraints on the process that limit the creativity of our team members and their ability to get to the end result in a way that fits them best.
Let’s go back to the peanut butter and jelly example from Episode 15.
I could tell you that I want you to make me a PB&J and I could even tell you what type of bread, how much peanut butter and how much jelly.
And you could get to the finish line with a sandwich that met my expectations.
But what if I watched over your shoulder or if I had created such a detailed set of instructions that it just made it super inefficient and frustrating for you.
For example…
Take one piece of bread with your left hand and place it on the left side of the cutting board.
Reach into the silverware drawer with your right hand and grab out a knife.
Place the knife on the cutting board 1″ away from the piece of bread and parallel to the side of the…
OK, you might have just gone ahead and quit by this point. And you might already be asking “can I just do it my way?”
And if I responded “no, unless you place the knife 1″ from the side of the —” I probably would have ended up with a face full of jelly.
So, today, as you think about work that you’ve asked others to do, whether inside or outside of your organization, allow yourself to take a step back and look at what you’re really asking.
Maybe you can give more freedom and creativity in the in between, the process, and allow your people to do what they do best.
You just might surprised at the result.
If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, I’d love it if you’d leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts at shawnwashburn.com/apple  Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
by Shawn | Mar 31, 2021 | Podcast
What Is a Tip For Improving Your Processes?
As we mentioned back in episode 3, just about everything we do is a process. You could take any aspect of your day and break it down into steps that you might create a work flow for… you know, if you really wanted to do something like that.
At your organization, no doubt… hopefully… you have different standard operating procedures or instructions for different items that happen to make your company work.
But how do you know if they are robust enough? How can you tell if they need some improving or tightening up.
There are plenty of things you could do, but I want to suggest one for simplicity.
Ask questions. Act like an outsider, someone new. Or better yet, take someone new or from a totally different department and have them try to walk through one of your organization’s procedures and ask their own questions.
I’ve found that, often, we maybe aren’t communicating as much as we thought (leaving communication gaps) because we are too close to a process.
Our brains may be filling in those gaps for us, answering questions that we didn’t even ask verbally, and allowing us to get to the right destination.
But when someone new is dropped in there (or we’re able to try to look from a new perspective), we can unearth some potentials for miscommunication, defective parts, letting customers down, and more.
So, here is your challenge for today.
Find a written (or maybe even a verbal) process.
Then, for each step, ask as many questions as you can come up with. EVEN IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWERS.
Ask away.
For example:
Step 1. Open the HPE file, fill out lines 1-3 and submit it to the sales department
Questions:
– What is HPE?
– Where can I find this HPE file?
– Does everyone have access to it or could there be a problem for some?
– Is the file editable?
– Should I save a copy or change the actual file?
– Who should I contact if I have questions?
– How should I submit it to sales? Email, paper, fax, carrier pigeon (I hear those are making a comeback)
– Who specifically in sales should get it?
You get the picture. I’ve found this exercise to be really eye-opening when I’ve done it with procedures on manufacturing lines where I’ve worked. And it has always opened up the potential for a communication gap and given us an opportunity to close that gap before it leads to something bad.
So, good luck with your quest. If you find that you’re not coming up with many questions, grab someone new and have them go through it. I think you’ll find their input invaluable.
If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, I’d love it if you’d leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts at shawnwashburn.com/apple  Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
