A weekly newsletter about letting the workplace speak
Issue 18/Volume 3                www.VisualWorkplace.com                  May 4, 2016
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Visual Thinking Inc.

Upcoming Events
Lean Management Journal European Conference
Panel Participant & Keynote Speaker
London, UK  
May 11-12
 
Visual Thinking Seminar and Site Assessment 
Galway, Ireland 
May 17-18
Registration Closed
 
Visual Thinking Seminar and Site Assessment 
Querétaro, Mexico 
October 20-21 & 24-25  
Product News
Now only $4980 (or $415/mo) get your
Work That Makes Sense
without waiting for corporate authorization.
Thought for the Week
Attempting to lead an enterprise without an Operations System Improvement Template is the difference between:
  • Skiing down the powdery slopes of your favorite mountain...or
  • Getting caught in a blizzard on that same mountain without skis, without food, without a compass, and without anyone even knowing you are there.
from Becoming A Leader of Improvement seminar participant manual
by Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth
And the Visual Fail Prize Goes To...
Have you seen a Visual Fail that made you laugh?  Send the image to cindy@visualworkplace.com,
and we'll put it here and credit you with the funny find!   
Visual Tricks and Treats
Great signs, clever visual devices, artistic or humorous graffiti. If you find one to share, send the image to cindy@visualworkplace.com  
Visual Radio: 
5S, Visuality & Participation Myths
Listen to Gwendolyn this 
Thursday at 10am (Pacific) on
 
This Week's Episode
5S, Visuality & Participation Myths

Does this sound familiar? You find ourselves faced with a powerful opportunity for change--and decide you'd better take it in small doses. Better not get overwhelmed, you think. Better not lose control. So you enter that powerful opportunity, piecemeal. And then you wonder why the change seems so ordinary--not much of a change at all. Companies are like that too, especially if they are at an early moment in the switch from a command and control work culture to one of genuine empowerment. Listen this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth maps out some myths about participation that can exert a weakening influence, even in the early stages of 5S. And if 5S gets off to a timid start, not much of strength will follow. What are those myths-their names and their anxious behaviors? And how do we combat them? How do we build a powerfully engaged work culture--beginning with 5S--so we can move from strength to strength.   
  Listen

Timid?
   
Feature Article
Lilies & Chiquita the Banana: Beauty is as Beauty Does  
by Gwendolyn Galsworth, PhD

I happen to love overhaul and repair (O&H) facilities but that may be because I never had to work in one of them, year after year. It's a pretty brutal environment. I had been on site for five days, working with the local team on visually converting a machining cell--one of the cleaner operations in O&H. Everything upstream from that requires de-greasing and de-griming. Very goopy work.

I arrived the Thursday before Easter and happened to see a beautiful Easter Lily on my way to the hotel. A spreading stalk of pure white lilies, trumpeting the coming of the Spring. I bought it. A week later, on Thursday night, I made a last visit to the factory to talk with third-shift operators about what was going on. I would fly out in the morning. Not wanting to abandon the beautiful lily in a lonely hotel room, I brought it with me, planning to leave it in the department where we were doing the conversion.

I was amazed by people's response. Operators gathered around the lily as though it was an adorable puppy. Or a new born baby. A thing of beauty. I was moved. Not just by their thanks but by the realization that beauty was such a rarity in their work lives. A living beautiful thing inside the factory walls was never part of the plan. I felt a familiar question bubble up inside me: Why not? Why not beauty inside the plant? Why not bring beauty into where we spend so much of our lives?
 
Visual Poem/Puzzle