systems Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

20
Aug 21
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Small Fires and Your Workplace Success

Tags : firefighting leadership management systems workplace problems

Managing small fires is much easier than dealing with a full-blown blaze. What are your habits for the metaphorical, workplace fire management?

Managers are often in place to solve problems. They’re also in place to execute strategy. Which activity consumes the most of your time?

Fixing a problem sooner, when it is smaller, seems to make sense.

If that is true, why do so many start burning out of control?

Is it a systems problem?

Systems Problem

If there is a system in place, does it help?

When the process starts to slip out of tolerance is it corrected?

Systems are often created to build something. They are also created to prevent something.

Too much production time and not enough preventative maintenance and you may have a break down.

It is true for production machinery and it is true for customer satisfaction, brand reputation, and marketing.

It might also be true for organizational culture and leadership.

Should you fix it before it grows?

Small Fires

How long has the problem been a problem? The longer it goes, often the worse it gets.

Your job likely includes putting out some fires. The smaller the fire the easier it is to manage.

When you put a system in place, you should adhere to the specifications.

If the check engine light comes on, check the engine.

Low tire pressure or low on fuel, resolve it before it becomes a bigger problem.

You should do that for your car. And if you don’t, you’ve probably already had a small fire turn into a blaze.

Small fires are easier to manage and faster to resolve.

That allows you to spend more time with strategy.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

28
Jul 21
-

Problem Solving Tactics Are Part Of The System

Tags : problem solving systems tactics

Is part of your job to solve problems? There is a good chance that it is, in fact, it may be the exact reason your business exists. Problem solving tactics are part of the process.

It is commonplace for people to wish for a life (or career) without problems. Yet, that may be exactly why you are there in the first place.

When you fix a problem, resolve an issue, often there is another new problem right around the corner.

New Problems

Have you missed a team members birthday recognition?

You have a cake and a party and now you have a cake and party for everyone’s birthday. It all works great until you miss one birthday, just one, only one. Now you have a new problem.

In a metro area, you walk, take a train, or use a bicycle. There are challenges with weather, schedules, and convenience. You buy a car and it improves many of those problems, but invites a whole new set of challenges.

Even something as modern and efficient as a smartphone. It works fantastic, it grows on you, you use it for everything, until you don’t have service, then there is a problem.

In life, problems seem to always occur. Perhaps, they are unavoidable. Solve a problem and a new one appears.

Are problem solving skills and tactics important?

Problem Solving Tactics

Wishing problems will go away is common.

If problems will always exist, then they must be part of the system.

Many people are good problem solvers. They may be the go-to person, or even the boss. In some cases, they are the person who has been around the longest, knows the ropes, and has a history.

Management team members are usually confronted with problems. Their assignment is often to utilizing the team in order to fix, repair, replace, or otherwise resolve a problem or issue.

Every day is a push back against problems. Minimize the problem or obstruction and you’ll have a product or a service that others desire.

How you make decisions impacts problem resolution. Learning from mistakes can be powerful. Learning by observation or formal study can also be powerful.

People with a lot of knowledge and skill probably have solved a lot of problems. They’ve also created a few.

Problem solving is a tactic for success. Procrastinating about tackling the tough issues is not.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

28
Jan 21
-

Popular Isn’t Always Immediate In The Workplace

Tags : culture innovation popular systems workplace

Much of the work people do is an attempt to make it popular. It is desirable for ideas to become popular. The same is true about workflow, energy, and the secret formula that every business believes they have.

When it comes to workplace culture, it is unique. To the same extent so are the individuals who make up the culture. Each person is bringing a slightly different perspective of their own values and beliefs.

Culture isn’t immediate. It takes shape across time.

Slow Starts

Many great ideas aren’t popular at first. They take time, some proof, a story, and examples.

Umbrella’s, coffee, and even personal computers had many moments of not being popular. While it sometimes seems hard to believe, often great things require time to become great things.

Businesses, organizations, and groups of all sizes and styles experience new ideas. Some of those aren’t original, and most haven’t been tested or stood the test of time.

It doesn’t mean that those ideas, systems, or strategies are without value.

Becoming Popular

What may be required is consistent effort, devotion, and an undying level of persistence to bring them to life.

If the people involved care enough and demonstrate their commitment others will often jump on board. For every idea, there is an associated journey. Some are longer than others. Some flash in the pan and are then dismissed just as quickly.

The biggest ideas, those of great value, often aren’t catchy at first.

Being popular, or not, often has little to do with long-term success.

Not immediate almost never means, not worthwhile.

It may some day mean popular.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

29
Dec 20
-

Systems Culture And How You Are Part Of It

Tags : culture human behavior psychology of work systems teams

Do you believe in a systems culture? Is everything in the workplace about a system?

Some would quickly say, yes. Others might just as quickly denounce that everything is a system.

Likely, the real situation for most is somewhere in the middle.

Human behavior may be hard to place within a system.

By design the system is a set of rules, specifications, and prescribed outputs. Do it correct once, and do it correct the next million times. It is a system.

One problem with the system is that often the mindset develops to resist change. There is so much effort and so much focus on doing it exactly this way, never waver, never stray, do it this way, and always this way. Mentally, it is an antonym for change.

It Is Culture

Every workplace has a culture. Promoting and standing behind systems may be just one of the methods.

Certainly, there is great value to systems. You may have a system of how you get up and get to work each day. You arrive, just like everyone else, but how you did it might be a little different.

In the workplace, not everyone’s values and beliefs are identical. However, everyone you work with is part of the culture.

In some businesses, watching the clock is part of the culture. Who is on the clock the most? Who puts in the most hours? It is part of the culture, developed over time.

It is true for complaining and blaming, it is true for all of the ground rules and it is true for everything from dress code to lunch breaks.

It is also true about productivity and success.

Systems Culture

Many people believe that they are resisting the culture and as such they are not a part of it. The truth is that the resistance has been part of it all along.

You may or may not be a systems fanatic.

If you are part of an organization you are a part of the culture.

Your belief in how work does, or does not get done exists within it.

The trick then is to get more people on board with the purpose of what you do. Which will make doing it right matter more.

Instead of it happening to you, it is happening for you.

It’s the culture, you matter, you’re a part of it.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
Jan 20
-

Workplace Calamity Should Be Avoided

Tags : calamity focus metrics systems workplace

Smooth sailing is what most people desire. Things are a lot more productive without workplace calamity. Are things going smooth?

I believe it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

Of course, we can find a lot of metaphorical truth in that statement.

Yet, what we typically try to construct are processes and systems to keep things calm.

Many years ago, there was a warehousing and manufacturing buzz term, “just in time.” It is still true today, only today it is often considered a common sense practice.

As an example, just in time inventory helps keep costs lower and efficiencies higher. Having only what you need when you need it makes sense.

In practice it is a system. A design that will keep everything running smooth.

Systems don’t always fit every scenario, but they often work well for operations.

Workplace Calamity

People factors can wreak havoc on systems. Assuming that the decisions, emotions, and experiences of people will fit nicely into a tight system can be a big mistake.

However, having a frame or guideline can still be helpful.

Systems, metrics, and measurements are helpful for keeping many things in check.

One of the biggest benefits to a good system is that it makes things easier. It keeps the sea’s calmer.

When you step outside of the system, and this happens often, it rocks the boat a little bit. The waters are not so calm. Things blow up, get embellished, and often become far more dramatic.

The key then, or so it seems, is to keep the calamity out of our workplace. It won’t be effortless, but it will be worth it.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

20
Aug 19
-

The Failure of Customer Service Systems

Tags : costs customer loyalty retention systems

There are people who believe everything requires a system. Operations, a system, production, a system, and customer service, a system. Do customer service systems fail? You bet.

Executive Decisions

When senior leadership decides:

In a variable services model, all customers must pay a specific price.

We’ll charge our best customers a little more to continue with the service they once received as a standard offering. New or smaller customers still get the old deal.

The organization will bear no burden for merchandise they don’t manufacture. “All we can do is send it back.”

These examples and many more represent the foundation of systems failure.

The organization wants loyalty, retention, and happy customers telling others to join in.

The failures often start with a system.

Customer Service Systems

The system that fixes price for the customer who spends ten dollars, and the customer who spends ten thousand. Fail.

Then there is the system that says our best customers need more attention, our core philosophy operates on a first come, first serve basis, to get your old level of service you need to pay more. Fail.

Of course, there is always the blame game. “We aren’t the manufacturer. You are a victim the same as us.” All we can do is send in a request or send it back and wait. Fail.

High Cost of Systems

Systems can be important. Systems help us navigate and structure what are sometimes complicated situations. When serving your customers, systems can work, or they can be the beginning of the end.

What is the cost of replacing a customer? Does it cost more to get a new customer or to keep an existing customer? Are the front-facing teams appropriately empowered to work beyond the system?

Often a system built to protect the organization is a system built to fail with the customer.

There is an alternative. Identify your best customers. Use a net promoter score, historical data, or let front-line teams make recommendations.

There is a chance the system you’re building will not protect them, it will alienate them.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

18
Mar 19
-

Workplace Innovation is Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Tags : innovation plan rigid strategy systems

Have you ever wondered who first connected peanut butter with chocolate? Perhaps it was the other way around chocolate with peanut butter? How does this connect to workplace innovation?

You must wonder sometimes, how does real innovation occur? Is it by luck, by chance, or perhaps an accidental connection?

Exploring Different

Who decided to put ketchup on potatoes, cheese with eggs, or little tiny marshmallows in cereal? Was it all intentional, or was it an accident?

When someone takes the chance, takes a risk, and is willing to explore it changes the norm. It creates the unexpected. Somewhere deep inside the unexpected exists the breakthrough.

When we want to make something different happen the belief is that we need a plan. People and companies develop a plan. They form a strategy, design tactics, or establish a new procedure.

Does that happen by chance?

Workplace Innovation

Most of our plans develop through brainstorming. A strategy discussion, an idea dump, a throw things on the wall and see what sticks.

When you are looking for a breakthrough you can’t expect to color within the lines. You can’t expect a rigid system to have enough flexibility to allow for innovation.

A plan or a system strives to eliminate surprises. It is a rigid guideline for creating an anticipated result.

There isn’t much room in rigid systems for innovation.

We don’t get peanut butter with chocolate unless someone breaks the status quo. There isn’t an opportunity to spice up our potatoes, add a little cheese to an omelette, or find the marshmallow in a breakfast cereal.

If you’re looking for workplace innovation, seeking to find a breakthrough, or to change the results, you’re first going to have give up the rigidness of the current plan.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: systems

Aug 21

-

Systems Problem

Small Fires

Jul 21

-

New Problems

Problem Solving Tactics

Jan 21

-

Slow Starts

Becoming Popular

Dec 20

-

It Is Culture

Systems Culture

Jan 20

-

Workplace Calamity

Aug 19

-

Executive Decisions

Customer Service Systems

High Cost of Systems

Mar 19

-

Exploring Different

Workplace Innovation

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