Follow the process.
Achieving big goals is what we are all pushed to do, but often it is overwhelming, simply too big to contemplate, so mostly we hide, in our own particular way. We watch in wonder while others achieve their big goals, and put that success down to luck, circumstances, or a dozen other things.
We would be wrong.
Whenever you see someone achieve a big goal, they have done so by applying discipline, and following a process. They have broken the big goal progressively into smaller more manageable chunks, until they are concentrating just on what is in front of them, right now. Get that right, embed it into the ‘muscle memory’ and then move to the next one, which is an incremental and cumulative movement towards the big goal.
Several of my children were successful elite level athletes. While the big goal was always there, in the background, providing a reason why they were working so hard, what they concentrated on, every day, was what was in front of them.
Another set of reps of a specific move that provided another brick in the foundation of their performance, as they cumulatively built the wall.
The chaos that exists in all our lives, the big things we face can similarly be broken down into simple, progressive steps to be taken. Simple is not easy, simple is in fact very hard, but necessary. Break down the difficult big thing into its component parts, and tackle each one in turn, succeed at it, and move on to the next one.
Improving productivity of a factory process is no different.
Break down every job into its component parts, and get done the one in front of you.
As I work with factory management, one of the best ways to improve without trying to make the big changes all at once which leaves people out, is to have a daily ‘WOT’ meeting, (What’s On Today). Depending on the factory, it may be the whole staff, or it may be individual work cells, the process is the same. Agree the priorities for today, ensure the resources needed are available, and do it, knowing the other parts of the process are doing the same thing, and they all feed into each other.
Excellence is just a matter of steps, excelling at, and continuously improving each one along the way before moving on to the next.
When it comes to getting stuff done, distraction, disorder, and uncertainty leads to failure.
A process is something that goes from A to Z, we lose the game when we focus on Z, forgetting the B to Y steps in the middle.
Play what is in front of you, without losing sight of the wider context, the next step, and overall objective.
