When it comes to productivity improvements, most businesses are a little stagnant. While they are good at what they do, they may only know their world. As a result, you don’t get a lot of new ideas or transformative ideas from other industries.
While speaking at conferences, meetings, and trade shows, I like to get a feel for the event and the attendees. Recently, I was a part of the largest plastics show in the country, NPE 2018.
This is about as big as a trade show can get, with more than a million square feet of exhibits and more than 11,000 attendees. My schedule gave me some free time to wander and learn.
Keep in mind that I know little about plastics. But from my days as a TV news reporter, I’ve learned that curiosity is a superpower.
Here are some takeaways from the show that I believe can lead to productivity improvements in your organization:
Create Moments of Joy
Arburg makes injection molding machines for plastics processing. The company engaged attendees by offering two giveaways, a fold-out step stool and a watch. Both were assembled before your eyes by robots. Check out when mine was made in this video:
I choose the watch and I saw it quickly assembled in about 30 seconds. This was after I spend twenty minutes waiting in line. In a hall full of grabable giveaways, I chose to wait.
Why? Because the company was doing something fascinating and memorable. For me, the trade of time for a cool experience was worth it.
In your organization, are there things that need to be done but maybe are not the most fun things to perform? How can you add an element of joy to them? For example, when someone turns in an important report on time, that person gets to sound a gong or perform some other kind of celebration ritual.
Preparation Matters
Sometimes when I would visit a booth, I’d have a question or want to record a soundbite with a company representative. Canon did an excellent job in its booth of asking if I had any questions and then immediately connecting me with someone who could help.
Other companies were less effective. In these cases, employees seemed to panic at a question outside their comfort zone, didn’t seem to know one another, and there was no process to move a question to the right person.
The difference was striking and it comes down to preparation. While you can’t expect an employee to know everything about an organization, there should be some training in how it works.
As some businesses grow, employees know little about one another’s duties. Their knowledge is limited to a title.
This opens to the door to costly mistakes and misunderstandings. For instance, once a department awarded a project to an outside vendor that another department could have done for free.
Make sure people understand and can explain their role in your organization and how they fit into the whole.
Wandering Into Productivity Improvements
Do the members of your team have time to consider innovation in other industries? It’s easy to be so focused on the day to day work that you develop blinders to the outside world.
While I wasn’t in the market for a million dollar plastic fabrication machine, I could learn a lot by watching the people who were selling them. You don’t get that understanding, unless you enter the marketplace.
While not everyone can go to a trade show, can members of your team monitor other industries?
For instance, someone might be in charge of reporting on what’s new with technology companies. He or she could read magazine articles or watch videos on the latest news. That information would then periodically be shared with the group.
Pick several industries and suddenly, you’re learning a lot of new ideas and thinking about how they might be applied to your world.
If all you know is all you know, then you need to hope you know enough. Take an active role in promoting productivity improvements.
Does your next meeting need something special?
