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 | Feb 22, 2021 | Podcast
Today I’m introducing a new podcast that’s been already playing in my head for years but will now finally make it into your earbuds for the first time. Going forward, a new episode will come out every weekday morning, starting a week after this intro episode.
Before I get into the show itself, let me address the change in the podcast feed. You may notice that there are older episodes out there of a podcast called Stories of Starters. If you’re new to it, that was my first podcast, where I interviewed people who had taken a vision or passion and turned it into something bigger.
In order to preserve those interviews, which I still think offer a lot of value, I decided to start here where they left off instead of with a totally new feed. But feel free to dig through some of those older episodes and enjoy.
As for the Engineering Your Business podcast, it will be a totally different format and focus. Where Stories of Starters was a semi-weekly show that featured interviews which could be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, Engineering Your Business will be a short daily show (I’m thinking five minutes or less) that will focus on helping you optimize the People and Processes that you deal with every day as a business leader. My goal is to provide you with bite sized episodes that you can easily grab and go daily… or even batch on the weekends.
Personally, I have a mix in my own podcast playlist. Some are longer, interview or monologue shows while others are short daily shows like this one. I’ve really taken a liking to the shorter ones as they pack a punch, have a lot of variety and yet are easy to get through even if I’m short on time.
So, back to this podcast, you might ask “why the name Engineering Your Business”? Well, it has sort of a dual meaning. On one hand, I’ve been an engineer working in manufacturing for over 25 years and I’m bringing some of the lessons I’ve picked up over that time to your and your business field. As well, the episodes will help give you tools, encouragement and practical ideas that you can use to engineer your business and get it running at peak efficiency.
Now, about the specific focus, People and Processes? That comes from my wiring and makeup. I’m part engineer (it’s my job and I’m also generally curious about how things work), I’m part human resources (in that I’m relationally wired), I’m part creative (I love to write, create and see things differently) and honestly I’m part comedian (sarcasm is one of favorite languages). Granted, I’m not sure that those four types would often hang out together outside of my head, but somehow they get along in there.
And that all brings us to you, the listener. You are a business leader with a lot on your mind daily and a weight of responsibility for your business or department. You have demands. You have stresses. You have goals. And a lot of the time you might feel stuck. I want to be able to help give you a jolt, a boost, some new insight or even just some encouragement along the way.
Personally, I’ve often found that I can pound my head against a wall over and over trying to solve a problem or how to make something more efficient and then someone will come by, offer a few words and totally change my thinking or perspective. And that’s my goal with this podcast.
That said, I also believe in being yourself and offering the world your own special flavor, so you’ll find plenty of humor and creativity mixed in among the often-stuffy business talk.
I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this intro episode. Your time is valuable and I don’t take that for granted. I mean, you could have been catching up on the latest social media buzz or watching ESPN highlights or organizing your sock drawer, but you chose to spend these few precious minutes with me… while probably also doing those other things… which is why I love podcasts so much.
If you haven’t already, hit subscribe so that the next episode drops right there into your favorite podcast player. And I’d love it if you told a friend or coworker about the podcast as well.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
I can’t wait to connect with you again tomorrow
