Collaboration doesn’t happen overnight. You have to patiently chip away at old prejudices. When you dissolve barriers between “us” and “them” you can experience a tremendous upwelling of collaboration. The payoff is fewer problems, novel solutions, and remarkable goodwill. Sometimes people will show their best when things go wrong.

 

Here’s Tanya and Butch recalling a stressful situation at Abrasive Technology and how Heart Culture wins!

TANYA: It was late in the year, almost year-end shut down time. Suddenly, we had an influx of orders. There were many people out sick. Just about everything that could go wrong was going wrong. We were in trouble – and we knew it. There was a lot of product we had to get out in six weeks’ time. Things were a mess.

So we said to everyone, “Guys, here’s the situation. We have all these orders and expected shipments, and we don’t have enough manpower to make it happen – even if we work twenty-four by seven. How are we going to do this?”

 We put together a team of people from different part of the organization. All we told them was “Figure it out. Get together. Talk about possibilities. See what you can come up with.”

They did.

The team put a schedule on a big board every day showing what we were doing:  This is what’s going out; here’s what we’re telling this customer. It went from order entry to finish to shipment. We called their effort “all hands on deck.”

BUTCH: We knew the office folks, including leadership team members, could put off some of their work for a while. Maybe salaried people could work a couple extra hours at night. Could some people work on the weekend? People pitched in. Somebody from finance would say, “I’m here. I’ve got two hands. What can I do?”

It was like a job jar. At one time we actually had a jar. People would list items on a piece of paper that needed doing, things that could be done with only 10 minutes training. For example, the note might request help with packing boxes. If somebody had extra time they would pull out a note, and go find where they were needed.

We eventually had one person coordinating tasks from the job jar. They would balance requests with resources. They direct people were to go.

TANYA: This is another example of move to the work. When you have some time, it’s boring to sit on your hands and wait for other work to come in. Better to ask, “What can I do? Where can I go?” People learn more, which might attract them to another process. It helps them develop their own skills and opportunities for further growth.

We looked for what we could teach the office people in just a few minutes. This would allow people who were more technically competent to do the harder work that took six months to learn. There was incredible camaraderie. This felt really good.

The front desk was packaging while they were answering phones. There was a lot of creativity happening all over the place. Everyone in the entire facility was working together. They were absolutely determined to help and make it happen.

People in the shop gained more respect for people in the office.

The new-found respect worked both ways. People in the office brought a fresh perspective because the work was new to them. Some people even developed new ways of making parts. A woman in finance developed a rapid procedure that was taking too long. She opened hearts and minds and people started to bring ideas for her to review.

Long before all of this, there was a wall between the plant and the office. It couldn’t have happened 10 years earlier. This experience was a direct result of all the work we had done toward PCO and the learning culture. The experience was like pulling down the Berlin Wall. It all started by saying we needed help and asking, what can you do?

This collaborative feeling remains today.