You Could Have Had This For Nothing

"An employee was retiring from a company after 30 years. At his party he got up and thanked his fellow employees and then turned to the management team and thanked them for a great 30 years. Then he held out his hands and said "you know you paid me well for the use of these" and then he pointed to his temple and said "but you could have had this for nothing but you never asked."

- Unknown 

"I did then what I knew how to do and when I knew better, I did better."

 - Maya Angelou

As a follower of these posts, you probably know that I have evolved over the last few years from a buttoned down corporate executive who thought the path to success for a business was the black and white, common knowledge, old beliefs that we have all been taught and weaned on all these years.

I have learned so much and dispelled so many of these old beliefs. I have found the truth about business and the key actions that need to be taken to build a profitable business and provide the owners and the employees more money, more time and a better team.

You see, unlike what I was taught and practiced in my career "to improve profits we need to raise prices and cut expenses", I have learned that there are only two real levers to profitability: Gross Margin % and Labor Productivity.

We were always taught to budget labor (it was an expense), add a little for health insurance increases and raises, and that was the last we looked at it until sales were down, profit was tanking and we had to reduce our labor force.

I now know for certain that Labor must be looked at as an Investment.

How can I maximize the return I can get on that investment? That is the true profit driver.

I have confirmed over and over the following premises:

• 'A' Players may cost a little more but they produce 2 times the average employee
• People who are engaged, share your values and enjoy coming to work every day, will increase the productivity of the company
• Annual reviews and standard management techniques don't work, you have to coach, not manage

In other words, the better the individuals are on the team, the more they are engaged, the more they enjoy working there the better the return we will get from that investment and the higher our profits will be. (Not to mention a better place for you and the entire team to come to every day).

I want to introduce you to a man who has developed the best engagement program I have yet to see, and a program that will increase the engagement, the productivity and thus the return on your investment in labor.

Paul Akers developed this simple yet powerful program, no it is more of a culture, that he has been using in his company for several years and is now spreading the word all over the world.

It is called "2 Second LEAN", and it's the name of his book.

It is a simple, fun process to engage the whole company in:

1. Seeing Waste
2. Empowering them to fix what bugs them everyday
3. Videotaping the before and after

Many of my clients have recently implemented this in their companies and the results so far are inspiring.

Here are a few select videos from some of the hundreds of videos that he has on his website. Watch a few and catch the bug for your company.

Paul has a tour every single day from companies around the world. I think this video captures the magic: 

Bombardier Tour - What they learned & why it works (14 minutes)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3QxouC6r38&hl=en&fs=1

(If you want to know the whole story, watch the Morning meeting (53 minutes).) 

Paul's story, "LEAN is Simple" (1:37 hours):

Knowing is not enough - we must do.