FrenchHerding Sheep can improve our time in the Work Place
- Posted on March 17, 2015
- By EMS Cognito
- in Adding Value, Change
- Comments: Comments Off on Herding Sheep can improve our time in the Work Place
- Comments Off on Herding Sheep can improve our time in the Work Place
Building the Best Team in Your Field
Today I swapped the heels for a pair of muddy boots and spent some time in a field with a flock of sheep at Raising the Baas Open Ewe-niversity to find out how Herding Sheep can improve our time in the work place. Thank you Chris and Caroline!
The sun was shining spring was in the air and it got me thinking………….
How often do we leave the board room or office to spend time in another environment in order to learn about our own world? I’m guessing not often. Which is a shame, days spent like this enhance the creativity and open a fresh perspective on everyday problems. Time well spent!
My inspiring thought
Working with a group of people that did not know each other before entering the field, we shared a common goal; to get the sheep in the pen. And we did succeed in our mission…eventually! So if we can do this as strangers why is it so hard in the work place when you know the team?
Lesson 1: Set the objectives what are we here for?
Objective shared, to get the sheep in the pen. We then had to understand how this was going to be achieved, the strategy. Having agreed our approach we set out to achieve. We had very little idea but were prepared to give it a go. We missed a lot of obvious opportunities and spent a lot of time running up and down the field!
Lesson 2: Check-in
Chris then stopped us to see how we were doing and were we winning? No sheep in the pen so obviously some progress was still required. How often in business do we set the goal and forget to check how we are progressing against the target?
Lesson 3: Shared Ambition
As we moved together it became clear, we had to move as a group and understand our strengths and weaknesses then we could make progress as a team. We needed to spend time understanding each others background and feelings towards the goal and then we could make progress. This is usually the time in our companies when we start shouting and threatening people – why don’t they do what I want? Perhaps this time is better spent confirming understanding of the goal and our confidence to achieve. If you think you will or you won’t you are almost certainly right.
How does Herding Sheep relate to what we do at EMS Cognito?
1. We work with you to set the business objectives and build a system to ensure we check-in on progress.
2. Objectives are agreed and we can then start to understand what the problems are and what systems are broken.
3. We work as a group to focus on three areas: Reliable plant, robust processes, knowledgeable people.
For reliability we build a system based on Lean applications applied using reliability centred maintenance, the focus of which is to prevent breakdown or predict before it is catastrophic.
If the problem is broken processes we have Process Improvement to understand, take apart and rebuild existing processes using a lean approach.
The beauty of our approach is we facilitate; the true decision makers and doers are the people already part of the process by being the architects of the system you build great knowledge in your people.
So what sets us apart?
We work together with you; we craft and build systems to allow your teams to improve their processes using some very handy tools.
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