Crazy

Crazy made its way back into our building last week. With a very large new project launching and many labor-intensive projects in the pipeline, crazy has taken over.

What's crazy?

It is the feeling that everyone is crazy busy...

Overwhelmed...

Stretched too-thin...

And in need of a vacation.

The funny thing about crazy is that it is a far better alternative than its ugly cousin, quiet. Quiet seems enticing at first.

No emails...

No complaining...

No problems...

All in exchange for no new business.

It had me until the end.

So even though it’s a good thing, crazy is still crazy, so here are three areas that I am focusing on to combat everyone's crazy feeling:

Communicating via the spoken word: The crazier things get, the less mental capacity people have to read emails. Some people on our team, our General Manager comes to mind, gets bombarded with hundreds--literally hundreds--of emails each day. It is not realistic to expect his email comprehension to be at 100 percent. Therefore, the crazier things get, the more I need to be speaking daily with him face to face. This actually serves him by allowing him to ask clarifying questions in the moment, as opposed to having to use time to write an email back to me. I need to intentionally find others experiencing "crazy" and do the same.

Encouraging Fun: I need to remind people that they need to have a life outside Hoffer Plastics. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I have come to realize how necessary fun is. Recreation is necessary to "re-create." As a leader, I need to be reminding others--and myself!--of this continually. And it’s even more important to have fun and unplug sometimes when crazy is hanging out with us at the office.

Reminding everyone of the "why": One of the projects we are working on will help solve an assembly issue at one of our customers. That means our effort will help keep their production lines running, which will keep their workers working. The long hours we invest in this project will have a tangible impact in helping improve the lives of the workers at this customer. This, we believe, is a pretty compelling "why." As a leader, I have to connect these dots continually and share them with the team. Working your butt off to make more money for us isn't that motivating. But working your butt off so that you can help a family keep food on the table is.

I suppose some may feel that I am over-exaggerating the impact manufacturing has on human beings in the last point above. Experience teaches that I am not. There are great companies--competitors like HQC come to mind--that are experiencing the same effects. To that end, let's all keep doing what we’re doing! And in the process let's all encourage each other to communicate well and have fun in the process!