<![CDATA[KAIZEN INITIATIVES INC.

<![CDATA[KAIZEN INITIATIVES INC. - Insights]]>Sat, 19 Jul 2025 18:59:21 -0600Weebly<![CDATA[January 05th, 2019]]>Sat, 05 Jan 2019 17:34:59 GMThttps://www.kaizeninitiatives.ca/insights/january-05th-2019TIME “MANAGED” IS TIME WASTED

When I ask people what they Value, everybody brings up the value of Family. And when asked what they mean by family, they all reply with an indication that it is important to them that they are part of something more than just themselves; that they belong to and spend their time with a defined group that shares common values and vision. It is their spouses, children, parents, siblings, co-workers, employees and friends. Everyone has values, and everyone values Family to some important degree. Think about your own Values… Family will be in there somewhere.

But there are two values that people do not bring up when asked what they value. And they happen to be the two most important values of all. In fact, they are often both required in order for all other Values to be met. Want to know what they are? They are Trust and Time. I have coached many people about the elements of Trust. You can read about how Trust works here. But what about Time? Is it something that you recognize as important to you? Is it truly one of your values? Because it needs to be… for all of us.

As you know very well, time is our most precious asset. It is the only thing in life that we cannot reverse. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Subtract 1 from that number and that is the one you just used up. Each second counts and each second matters. Whether you measure your time in days, hours, or minutes, they are all made up of single seconds. An isolated individual might easily justify not setting a defined schedule for their time, because in deciding to spend time doing something or doing nothing, they really only affect themselves. This is true, and we really are given the choice what to do with our own time. Where this changes though is that once you are in a relationship. Most of us were put into this position when we were born, with family and friends surrounding us as we grew up. For those who were not, I assure you that them not having family or friends does not mean that they don’t Value being part of something! Ask someone who works at an orphanage. They will tell you a hug from an orphaned child will change your life forever.

So if you are in a role where where others depend on you to complete your tasks before theirs, the decisions that you make on how you spend your own time becomes a huge responsibility, because the choice on what you do with your time affects their time. No matter what role we play, be it a delivery driver, a doctor, a friend or a parent, we all have people that require our time. Each and every person in our lives will ask for our time. And the people that count on us like our spouses, children, our staff or our customers will at some point will need some of this time from us. There are however only a few very important people who you would choose to give ALL of your time to. The rest are the “less important” people in your life that you would give very little of your time to. This is not to say that some people are not important. Everyone in this world matters. The reality is that some people are not as important as others to YOU.

Now, although I am not going to make you decide who is more important in your life, (although this is a beneficial exercise to do) but I am going to ask you to think about these questions… Why do we schedule our time with the people who are not as important to us yet we don't always do this with those who are? Why would we rush through a unscheduled coffee with our spouse to get to an appointment with our Banker? Why are we late for a child's dance recital and justify it because we were helping out an important customer? How come you have to interrupt an important conversation to take an important phone call? And why do we make huge commitments to spending time with those we care about, yet they are the first ones we drop or reschedule when something comes up? WHY do we ask those who mean the most to us to wait, but commit most of our time to those who have little meaning to us at all. Think about this for a minute or two. Let it sink in! Listen to what your saying to yourself right now, because this is where it all starts!

This all happens because YOU allow it to! Yes, it might be that this important person you are putting aside knows you, and therefore understands that you have other commitments other than them. You are most likely going to have their support in this, because we all tend to allow those we love do what they feel is important. But the truth is what you are saying to them is that there is something more important than them going on, and therefore your time with others is more important than them. The reasoning behind this is far too often played out with logic. Do you use excuses like “I have to spend my time working to provide for my family, so that is why I am not spending time with them?” And why would it be ok to say, “I do spend quality time with my family” yet when you are home, you work on your yard all day Saturday, or bring your phone to the dinner table? Does this sound like you?

Country Star Dean Brody wrote a song about this. He called it “Time”. I encourage you to watch his video and listen to his message. In verse two, Dean sings,

"Student hire and a fancy job, Big old house, two car garage
He works hard for his wife and his son, An empty seat at t-ball games
Just a sacrifice he’ll make, Make it up, next weekend comes along
Years go by and that day comes too soon...
That boy goes off to college, he stands in his empty room”

He points out the cost of doing things for those we care deeply about rather than with them. We take for granted that our loved ones will always be around, as will we. “The trouble is, we all think we have Time”. We forget that others are looking to spend their time with us… but are we taking that for granted as well?

You might be thinking, "This is not me... I am actually really good with managing my time". Worse yet, you might be convinced that you “don’t have time” to commit to a schedule for your loved ones. You already run a tight schedule that includes what time you need to be home. You’re doing your best to pay the bills, maintain the house and give the rest to your family. That is great! But does it include specific time set aside to play with your son, or read with your daughter. Does it have “no electronics” time with your spouse, to talk and connect about each others day. Does it have time set aside to meditate or pray and set positive outcomes. And does it include a time to go to bed and rest. Even if it has all of this, it is nothing without commitment. The problem with “time management” is that any time you try to manage something, you have to be able to control it. But you cannot control time, and so "Managing Time" becomes an oxymoron! You can only decide where and how you want to SPEND it! And you only have this moment. There is not a single thing that you can do to get time back, and you cannot buy more time, so if you do not set your schedule around those you care about, and make specific time available for them, then you are going to face a day where you regret not doing so. All of us have regrets. Things we wish we did or didn’t do in our lives. But wishing we had spent more time with those we love should not be a regret. Ever!

It is TIME to make a shift, and this is the most important thing you can do with your time. Stop ‘managing’ your time, and start “utilizing” it! Life has its exceptions. The people you care about should not be one of them! An exception is defined as “a person or thing that is excluded from a general statement or does not follow a rule”. So ask yourself. What is the rule, and what is the exception? If you are continually promising time to your loved ones and bailing on them, or if you are not making the commitment to making time available to them on a regular basis, then you need to change your rules! There are many ways to help you keep track of your time. Calendars, phones, apps and even people you hire can help you decide where to spend your time. What none of these can do however is make the time that you spend more valuable. Only you can do this.

The most effective way to make the most of your time is to first consider all of things that are important to you. This starts with identifying and reviewing your values. It also includes deciding what you do and do not want to do. Once you have identified these, make time in your schedule for ALL of it. Health would include walking or workout time. Family would include being home for dinner or setting time aside to read with your child. It would also include making time to go visit a parent or a commitment to call a long distant relative. This schedule will need to include other responsibilities like paying bills or going to work (hopefully your work really is in the “want to do” category) But instead of making time for all of the things in your life like you normally would, consider changing it to making time for the most important things first, and then add in the other responsibilities. Once you have this laid out let those who count on you know when you will not be available, and then offer them the time when you are. This will allow you to get the things done that you need to AND allow those you care about to have just as much of you time. The difference is that this time made for them is only for them, and they get to use this time the way that THEY want to. One of my favorite writer/speaker influences is Bob Goth, who one said, “People do not follow Vision, they follow availability.” To me this means that until you make your fully focused time available to your people, they will not fully see your vision.

So here is the process. Take this challenge for the next 30 days. Draft up a physical schedule to include time for the things you love and want to do. Then add time for your personal health, both physical and mental. Set time aside to take a nap, read a book or go for a walk. Add in there the time you want to be by yourself, doing what you like. Let the important people in your life know of this time when you WILL NOT be available for them. Now, open up your available time to those you care about and allow them to request their time with you. Be open to their requests, and then commit to the requests they make for your time. DO NOT let other people steal this booked time. Call it a stakeholders meeting if you must! You would NEVER miss a Stakeholders meeting! For those trying to steal your time, such as your work, you can set time aside in your schedule for them too, but it is important that you follow through for your people!

The outcome is that your spouse will book a tea/coffee/dinner with you, your co-workers, colleagues, and employees will use this time made available to them to use you for their benefit. Make any adjustments needed to this newly developed schedule to allow you to see that time made available is not time being managed. Pay attention to when it fails, for this is a signal that you need to decide who gets your time and when. Your schedule will open up more than you could ever imagine! As for the unknown interruptions in your day? They become the exception, not the rule, and you will have time for these. You will see that those you care deeply about will ask for last minute things, and these become fantastic opportunities to serve them, all because you have the time. It is time being Trusted to others. They will use their values to utilize this “gift” that you are giving them in ways you could never imagine. And if they do not come to you with requests for help, or they do not book time with you, then have the conversation on Trust. It will take a bit of time for them to learn that it is ok to ask for help, and you will see how important this new way of Time Trusted is much more effective than Time Managed.

Thank you for your Trust, and for your Time!

Lenny Houweling

]]><![CDATA[November 24th, 2018]]>Sat, 24 Nov 2018 17:06:25 GMThttps://www.kaizeninitiatives.ca/insights/november-24th-2018How to Fix the #1 Problem in Your Organization for less than $100

If you are open to the idea of fixing the biggest issue inside of your organization, I would like to offer you this challenge. Make the commitment to “NEVER put an expectation on someone, even your own self from this moment on without making it VISUAL first.” Does this intimidate you? Are you thinking what a lot of people do when I offer them this challenge? That “it would be a waste of time to make EVERYTHING visual first?” Let me assure you that when it is not VISUAL, it is not IMPORTANT, and so not making it visual means you already are wasting your time and Energy, and you're also wasting theirs!

I see this problem everywhere that I go. It exists in our work, with our friends and even in our own families. In my previous article, “Their failure to understand starts with you” I shared the stark difference between managing expectations and setting expectations. Managing expectations always results in poor communication, and this is why we see good people being let go, countries at war with each other and families in turmoil. Instead of searching for better ways to communicate, we search for “better communicators”, which is insanity. The amount of time and money that goes into managing expectations these days is mind-blowing! Author and Communication Coach Debra Hamilton asserted in her article the “Top Ten Email Blunders that Cost Companies Money,” that even for a company of 100 employees, miscommunication can cost them $400,000 or more per year. And her article was written almost 10 years ago! Take a moment to think about your organization and imagine how many lost sales, lost customers, lost employees and lost revenue occurred in the past 12 months just because of poor communication. Let that sink in for a moment!

The reason for this loss is because we all see the same things differently, and we all translate what we see in different ways. This is what makes each one of us unique as well as extremely good at problem solving. When we see a problem and believe that we know how to solve it we instinctively propose our solution, often with the expectation that others should immediately understand us. And when we place someone in a role where they are expected to resolve issues that we already know how to fix, we often find ourselves watching over their shoulder out of fear of them choosing the wrong solution. Even though our intention is often to help resolve the issue, we instead find ourselves re-explaining or arguing with others what we think should be done and often end up with a less than desired outcome. This instinct we all have to “fix” things and expect others to accept it a human trait. Yet we are often haunted by the desire to fix it as soon as we believe possible, and often at the expense of our relationships with others. This habit is what gets in the way of what we really desire, which is effective communication. And it is exactly what creates the fear, frustration and anger that results in lack of engagement and accountability.

For organizations such as businesses or non-profit, the channels of communication can be extremely hard to manage. There is no one in this planet that could say that they are the perfect communicator, at least no one who is being honest with themselves! If you are NOT communicating your expectations visually to those you depend on, you are going to be managing your expectations until they fail, or until you have to “make it happen” yourself. And if you are accepting tasks from others without being able to first see what is expected of you, then you will not meet their expectations, at least not effectively. Recognizing that communication is the main reason why relationships fail both personally and professionally is a big step for some people. But once this is accepted, anyone can begin the journey of creating stronger and more effective communication for themselves and for others. When you clearly define each person's roles, and then incorporate a visual system of expectations and goals, the channels are opened up and people are free to see what you want but from their point of view. ALL information must be visual and THEN communicated to the people that you serve. Making it visual means no more verbal diarrhea!!!
So here is how to save you and your team a substantial amount of time, energy and money...

Head to your local office supply store or go online and buy a dry-erase whiteboard. (size and style are not important here. 24” by 36” is the average)
Hang this board in an area where where it is close to you and where the people you lead can see it.
Next, write down on your whiteboard everything that YOU have on your mind regarding your organization. Make note of what stresses you, what you see needing to get done and what you feel needs immediate and long term attention in your organization. Don’t worry about how pretty it all looks. It just needs to be visual.
Review what you have written and make any necessary changes to make sure it states what you feel. The exercise of writing it out should already have you feeling a little less stressed.
Bring in those your managers, team leaders and employees as individuals or as a group and share with them everything on your whiteboard. Take them through each item and share your interpretation of each item that you have written. This not only provides them with Vision, it allows them to see what you see, and this builds Trust.
Repeat this exercise every week or every time you meet with your people. Always remember to spend time filling out your whiteboard before you have any interaction with your people!

What happens next is nothing short of amazing! As you take them through your board, your people will begin to ask questions in order to clarify what they see. They will also seek direction from you on things like who, what, when, where and how. And in this moment is when you will see them engage. They will start to help you by offering their help to resolve what they see. They will seek your approval to handle certain items that they feel they can resolve or manage, and they will be open to your suggestions and input. Be open to this, as it is a great way to delegate a lot of items and challenge your people to engage in activities that you otherwise felt you have to manage.

As they offer to take items from you, consider duplicating this exercise for each of your people. Buying each one of them their own whiteboard will allow them to “transfer” your items to their board. The goal would eventually be that each leader from the bottom of the pyramid up would have their own whiteboard to communicate in the same way that you do. This then allows them to show their people what needs to be done. You will also want to transfer any of their needs to your board. It also allows you at any time to go and see what they have on their mind, as well as maintain a visual on what’s expected of you. This creates an environment of support and accountability and the result is a culture that embraces visual communication. Toyota calls this “Glass Wall Management” and it is a core reason for their continued success in creating one of the world’s strongest Cultures.

Please leave your comments below and let me know how you have utilized this thinking. And know in return that I am always available to help you with your implementation!

Lenny Houweling
Kaizen Initiatives Inc.
kaizeninitiatives.ca

]]><![CDATA[For the MSO]]>Thu, 15 Nov 2018 14:43:53 GMThttps://www.kaizeninitiatives.ca/insights/for-the-msoHave more than one location? Take a look at the results that led this MSO to begin eliminating over 25% of wasteful activities with-in their organization in just one session!

Multiple locations... (Before)
Each had their own process from Initial Customer contact to Customer drop off for repairs
FLOW of admin steps not fully VISUAL. Multiple steps being done multiple times in the process
S.O.P’s in place but there were different SOP’s in each store and SOP’s did not fit FLOW
Operators in each location unable to see current admin state or health of the facility’s admin.
Neither location able to book repair work in without immense amount of communication
System depended on PEOPLE to manage, resulting in multiple people doing multiple things

Multiple Locations... (after)
Applied “VALUE” exercise to all steps in process. Eliminated approximately 25% of WASTE
ALL stores now have SAME process from Initial Customer contact to Customer drop for repairs
Current SOP’s will be utilized in the form of Standard work. No need to “reinvent the wheel”
Operators in each location can now see current admin state when in each store. Staff can transfer easily and smoothly resulting in less lost time and better customer service overall
BOTH locations now able to book repair work in with very little communication required
System now manages itself. People now know where to be, what to do and when to do it.

]]><![CDATA[November 12th, 2018]]>Tue, 13 Nov 2018 03:58:48 GMThttps://www.kaizeninitiatives.ca/insights/clean-your-roomTheir Failure to Understand Starts with YOU!

True story. Our boys LOVE video games. So much that they would do anything to spend time playing them. One day after school they came upstairs and asked if they could play video games. In our house we treat things like video games as a privilege. Because my wife and I believe in working for our privileges, we proposed, "First clean your room and you can play video games." Their response was “ok”, and they raced to their room like they had just won the lottery.

Twenty-two minutes later came up and said, “We’re Done!”
What?!?!? How could they be done? That room looked like someone shook it like a snow globe! There was no way they could have cleaned it that quickly! They followed my wife and I as we went with eager skepticism to investigate. So if you have and/or look after young children, then you already know what they did. They literally shoved everything they could into their closet. And when they couldn’t shove any more items into this makeshift vertical storage silo, they proceeded to fill their beds with the rest and neatly cover it up with the bedspread. The pure childish pride on their faces was all we could hold onto from losing my cool. To them, they were heroes! They “cleaned” their room right?

Just before we buried them in lectures about how they should know better (as we have done in the past) I pointed out to my wife that we were not getting the results we wanted, and this may be an opportunity to change our approach. Taking a moment to understand how this situation could have been avoided, it dawned on us that we have never really showed them what a clean room actually looks like. The problem was US!

After a somewhat painful 2 hours of cleaning and organizing, we turned to our boys and shared hugs and high 5’s. The Lego was in the bins, the stuffies were happy on their shelves and the dirty clothes were in the laundry bin. We even managed to identify items they no longer needed, and found toys they thought were lost! We were done! You can only imagine the energy it took for us to remain focused on the goal AND keep these two young boys motivated to help us.

The crazy thing though is that this was not the first time that this room had been so beautifully organized. When we first moved them into this room it felt this same way. As we sat and talked with them about what we just accomplished, they shared their thoughts on why a clean room is better than a dirty one. They saw the value in finding their favorite Beyblade that lived under the bed for 4 months. They liked the thought of having a place for their lego, ready to use whenever they wanted. And they said they enjoyed being a part of the activity, especially because we were there with them. Awe…

So this was all quite beautiful, but I had a nagging gut feeling that we would soon find ourselves managing this issue again… and probably as soon as tomorrow! I want my boys to be in charge of their room, and I want to support them in this responsibility, but I do not want to have to do it for them. On top of this, I do not want the results I have had in the past, which is anger and frustration on not getting the results that I wanted. We had to find a way to make it stick. Of course my Lean instincts kicked in! We took a picture of the clean room and put a copy of it under their light switch. This way when whenever we say, “Clean your room”, this picture offers a snapshot for them to reference to. They now do what we want them to do because they can see the way we want them to do it, and THEY want to do it! Do they cheat sometimes? For sure! Do they sometimes still forget to reference the photo? Yup. But now we use the photo to respectfully SHOW them what we expect of them instead of having to retell it every time. We are SETTING our expectations, instead of MANAGING them.

Most organizations are dealing with this same challenge when it comes to how they operate. They spend a huge amount of resources including time and money to keeping the wheels turning “smoothly”. If you own a company, you can relate to this. I hear CEO’s, business owners and managers saying it everywhere I go.“They always make mistakes, they never hit the deadlines, we aren’t making any money”, and my personal favorite, “It’s hard to find good people”. Sound at all familiar? Please keep an open mind when I say that the solutions to these challenges that you face all start with YOU. You want people to be accountable for their roles, but you are not holding yourself accountable to your own role! Allow me to explain.

You see where your organization both excels as well as struggles in the day to day tasks, because you yourself know what needs to happen to get the job done. This is because you built and/or took over this organization with your very own knowledge and skills. Now you have reached a point where you are depending on the team that you assembled around you to continue with this legacy that you have built. The reason these people are part of your organization is because you recognize that you are not able to "do it all" by yourself, and so YOU have surrounded yourself with people that you feel "complete" you. You then fostered an environment that created buy-in by using your abilities to help those around you see the Vision that you have. The challenge at some point becomes how to get them to do what you need them to do, but because THEY want to do it. This is the life goal that my wife and I have as parents for our kiddos.

So here is the question to ask yourself and your Leaders...

"Are you spending more time MANAGING your expectations... or are you effectively SETTING your expectations?

How CLEAR are the expectations that you have for your leader(s) and their people? You might think that you have done this, whether it be in interviews, reviews, and/or generic job descriptions, or they have been there for “all these years”, but I assure you this is where the opportunity is. Yes, these are all great ways to help an individual initially see what is expected of them, but it most likely does not contribute to helping them understand what is expected of them. In a lot cases, when the individual or team does not understand what's expected of them, they rarely perform as expected. The expectations are then set out again, which unfortunately is often done verbally, and they are sent out to try again. This might bring some results, but it usually falls short of the expectation or worse yet results in anger or frustration. Nothing really changes at all. Your energy spent trying to get them back on track is wasted. You think it is because they don’t want to do what they are asked to do, but in reality they want to win, just with clarity and respect. Because without it, they (and you) will fail. Simply put… if they cannot clearly understand what you have as expectations for them, then you are MANAGING your expectations, and that is YOUR problem!

SETTING expectations means spending the time up front making sure that ALL efforts are made to lay out what is expected. There are many ways to do this, and one exercise (which I challenge you to do) is to write out all of the roles and responsibilities you know you need in place in order for your organization to operate. Notice that I do not ask you to write any names? It is because it is not about the individual, it is about the roles and the related expectations. Once you have spent time defining what your expectations are of this role, it is then time to sit down with the person(s) that you feel are best suited to take on this role.

What is important is this… Know that the moment you put the expectations in front of them, it simply creates conversation. This conversation is where you and the person that you chose to fill this role can spend time clarifying what is expected of them, and what questions or challenges that they might have in taking on this role. Then, in a Supporting vs. Dictating approach, have the discussion with the individual what parts of their role are they “going to own, need help with, delegate to others, or give back to you as their leader.”

I have had people challenge me by asking, “You seriously want me to write out EVERYTHING that I expect my people to do?” and my answer is “YES!”. And if writing does not work, use a video, or a picture. Just make sure it is crystal clear! In all of my years of experience leading people (which includes my very own children) I have not had to “manage” my expectations whenever I actually committed the time required to help them understand what is expected. When an expectation was not met, (and this will still happen) my time was not spent on re-explaining what was expected of them, rather it was time spent coaching, supporting and understanding why they were unable to meet the expectations. This creates a safe place to talk about skills, knowledge and desire. Being available in this manner to those that you count on to get things done gives them the control to decide what they need to change or adjust to meet the need. This is called Empowerment. And with empowerment comes something that we all truly long for… Accountability.

I’ll end with this question. “Why is there never enough time to do things right the first time, but there is always time to re-do it?” The answer is “Because if you do not do it right the first time, you WILL BE re-doing it.” And if you choose to continue to run your organization or family this way, you will set them and yourself up for failure... Every time!

Please watch for my next white paper where I will share some exercises that you can use in a more structured approach to making this part of everyday life.
Enjoy this beautiful day, unless you choose otherwise!
Lenny Houweling
Kaizen Initiatives Inc.

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