GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Technology has strong character traits; it has wants and desires; it plans for the future. It’s alive.

Technology continually tries to reinvent itself. And like rust, it never sleeps – it continually thinks, schemes, and plans how to do more with less (or less with far less). That’s Technology’s life dream, its prime directive – more with less. All day, every day it strives, reaches, and writhes toward more with less.

Technology needs our help along its journey. To do this we must understand its life experiences, understand its emotional state, and listen when it talks of the future. Like with a good friend, listening is important.

Technology has several important character traits which govern how it goes about its life’s work. Habitually, it likes to focus its energy on one a single subsystem and reinvents it, where the reinvented subsystem then puts strain on the others. It is this mismatch in capability among the subsystems that Technology uses to fuel innovation on the next subsystem. Its work day goes like this: innovate on a subsystem, create strife among the others, and repeat.

Technology likes to continually increase its flexibility. It feels better when it can stretch, bend, twist, and contort. It likes to develop pivot points, hinges, and rubbery algorithms that adjust to unexpected inputs and create novel outputs. Ultimately Technology wants to self-design and self-configure, but that’s down the road.

Technology likes to get into the details – the deeper the better. To do this it gets small. Here’s its rationale: small changes at the molecular or atomic levels roll up to big changes at the system level. A small change multiplied by Avogadro’s number makes for a big lever. Technology understands this.

Technology is frugal, not wasteful in any way, especially when it comes to energy. Its best party trick is to shorten energy flow paths. The logic: shorter energy paths result in less loss and a simpler product. You’ll see this in its next round of work in energy efficiency where it will move subsystems closer to each other to radically improve efficiency and radically reduce product complexity.

Technology knows where it wants to go, and has its favorite ways to get there. Our innovation engines will be more productive if they’re informed by its character.

(Special thanks to Victor Fey for teaching me about Technology’s character traits, which he calls lines of evolution.)

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

It’s a little-known fact that you can disagree and still be a team player. (Really, it’s true.) It’s okay to disagree, but it should be done effectively. (Disagreement is not argument.) And disagreement can be a great source for learning. I learn most deeply from smart people I disagree with.

As a self-declared smart person, I hold my thinking in high regard. (To advance a cause confidence in your thinking is needed.) However, like with most things, there should be balance: confidence in your thinking tempered with healthy self-examination and respect for others’ thinking. There are a lot of smart people out there, people with different life experience, training, and education. Just the folks to learn from. (Different is not inferior or incorrect, it’s just different.)

It’s a struggle to get the balance right. Hold fast? Give a little ground? Change your thinking altogether? There’s no right answer, just the conviction that it’s best to move toward balance.

Trust and mutual respect are keys to our migration toward balance. Trust helps us start deep dialog. It feels safe to initiate when there’s confidence the disagreement comes from a thoughtful, unselfish place. Mutual respect keeps the dialog going – no low blows, just shared thoughts, experiences, and data.

With trust and mutual respect, healthy disagreement has time to blossom into fuller, deeper understanding – a credit to you and the important people in your life.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Doing new is difficult and scary. For safety, we create complexity and hide behind it; we swim for the weeds; we dive for the details. (At least we’ll come across as knowledgeable about something when we bury our heads in details.) All of this so we can look smart and feel safe.

But with new stuff, looking smart and feeling safe are not valid. With new, we don’t know; we’re not smart (yet); there’s no reason to feel safe. (Don’t try, it’s too slow.)

It takes focus and compassion to coax people out of the weeds and help them feel safe. Focus is needed to keep the end game in mind, to constantly keep context in the forefront (why are we here?), to maintain the right compass heading (into the wind). Compassion is needed to make “I don’t know” feel safe. To start, explain the deal: “new” and “I don’t know” are inseparable, a matched set. Like your best pair of wool socks, left without right doesn’t work. If that’s insufficient, tell them if was easy you’d have asked someone else to do it.

Day-to-day, it’s difficult to maintain focus and compassion. I find it helpful to remember it’s natural to seek safety in the weeds. We all do it. Keep that in mind while you do new as fast as you can.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

I think we can turn around the United States economy, one company at a time. Here’s how:

To start, we must make a couple commitments to ourselves:

1. We will do what it takes to manufacture products in the United States because it’s right for the country.
2. We will be more profitable because of it.

Next, we will set up a meeting with our engineering community, and we will tell them about the two commitments. (We will wear earplugs because the cheering will be overwhelming.) Then, we will throw down the gauntlet; we will tell them that, going forward, it’s no longer acceptable to design products as before, that going forward the mantra is: half the cost, half the parts, half the time. Then we will describe the plan.

On the next new product we will define cost, part count, and assembly time goals 50% less that the existing product; we will train the team on DFMA; we will tear apart the existing product and use the toolset; we will learn where the cost is (so we can design it out); we will learn where the parts are (so we can design them out); we will learn where the assembly time is (so we can design it out).

On the next new product we will front load the engineering work; we will spend the needed time to do the up-front thinking; we will analyze; we will examine; we will weigh options; we will understand our designs. This time we will not just talk about the right work, this time we will do it.

On the next new product we will use our design reviews to hold ourselves accountable to the 50% reductions, to the investment in DFMA tools, to the training plan, to the front-loaded engineering work, to our commitment to our profitability and our country.

On the next new product we will celebrate the success of improved product functionality, improved product robustness, a tighter, more predictable supply chain, increased sales, increased profits, and increased United States manufacturing jobs.

On the next new product we will do what it takes to manufacture products in the United States because it’s the right thing for the country, and we will be more profitable because of it.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

The to-do list, whether digital or analog, we’ve all got ‘em. We cross things off and put things on (mostly the latter); the list evolves – it’s a living thing.We put energy into adding things, tasks, action items. (You can’t go to a meeting without collecting one of them.)

But most telling to me are the tasks that stay on week-on-week, the carry-over tasks. We never do them, but we never take them off the list. What are they? Why don’t we do them? Why don’t we just take them off the list?

For tasks we complete, the fundamental motivating force is fear, fear of not getting them done, the consequences of failure. The deal is clear: we don’t complete the task, and something bad will happen to us. We know what will happen to us if we fail, we know the consequences of failure.

But the carry-over task is altogether a different beast. It’s an uncompleted task where the fundamental motivating force is still fear, but this time it’s the fear of getting them done, the consequences of success. The deal is absolutely unclear: we complete the task, and something good will happen to us. Though, this time we don’t know what will happen to us if we succeed, we don’t know the consequences of success.

With the carry-over task, we must supply our own motivation, our own energy, to overcome the consequences of something good happening to us us. Strange, but true.

With success comes visibility; with visibility comes judgement; with judgement comes fear, fear of being un-liked. We will be seen for what we are, and we’re afraid of what people will think. Some won’t like us, and that’s scary.

The fear of success is real, and it’s a tough nut. Some many not want to crack it, and that’s okay. For those that do, consider this: today, as you are, some don’t like you, so how could success be worse? With success, at least they’ll know why they don’t like you: because you succeeded.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Everyone is dissatisfied with the pace of innovation – solutions that change the game don’t come fast enough. We look to the environment, and assign blame. We blame the tools, the process, the organization structure, and the technology itself. But the blame is misplaced. It is the innovators that govern the pace of innovation.

It certainly isn’t the technology – the solutions already exist; they’re patiently waiting for us, waiting for us to find them. We just have to look. The technology knows what it will be when it grows up: the path is clear. Put simply, we must break through our unwillingness to look. We must look harder, deeper, and more often. We must redefine our self-set limits, and look under the rocks of our successes and beyond our best work.

To increase the pace and quality of innovation, we must look inside.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

You solved a big problem in a meaningful way; you made a big improvement in something important; you brought new thinking to an old paradigm; you created something from nothing. Unfortunately, the easy part is over. Your work created the new baseline, the new starting point, the new thing that must be made obsolete. So now on to the hard part: to obsolete your best work

You know best how to improve your work, but you must have the right mindset to obsolete it. Sure, take time to celebrate your success (Remember, you created something from nothing.), but as soon as you can, grow your celebration into confidence, confidence to dismantle the thing you created. From there, elevate your confidence into optimism, optimism for future success. (You earned the right to feel optimistic; your company knows your next adventure may not work, but, hey, no one else will even try some of the things you’ve already pulled off.) For you, consequences of failure are negligible; for you, optimism is right.

Now, go obsolete your best work, and feel good about it.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Today’s biggest problems are difficult to solve and our approach to solving them isn’t helping. Whether it’s healthcare, education, infrastructure, defense, or the economy we never get past the wrong question: “Who’s going to pay for it?

With healthcare we argue about costs and taxes – who pays and how much. But we’ve got to move past that argument. The real deal is we create insufficient wealth. (Our inability to pay for healthcare is a symptom.) So the real solution must focus on work that creates wealth, real wealth. I’m not talking about merger and acquisition wealth. I’m talking about real wealth generated by inventing, designing, and making products. I’m talking about manufacturing – creating products out of dirt, rocks, and sticks and selling them for more than the cost to make them. With more manufacturing we can fix healthcare. (I also think we should look deeply at the work of providing healthcare and improve the work.)

With education we argue about costs and taxes – who pays and how much. But we’ve got to move past that argument. The real deal is we create insufficient wealth. (Our inability to pay for education is a symptom.) So the real solution must focus on work that creates wealth, real wealth. I’m not talking about merger and acquisition wealth. I’m talking about real wealth generated by inventing, designing, and making products. I’m talking about manufacturing — creating products. With more manufacturing we can fix education. (I also think we should look deeply at the work of providing education and improve the work.)

With infrastructure we argue about costs and taxes – who pays and how much. But we’ve got to move past that argument. The real deal is we create insufficient wealth. (Our inability to pay for infrastructure is a symptom.) So the real solution must focus on work that creates wealth, real wealth. I’m talking about real wealth generated by inventing, designing, and making products. I’m talking about manufacturing — creating products. With more manufacturing we can fix our infrastructure. (I also think we should look deeply at the work of creating and maintaining infrastructure and improve it.)

With defense we argue about costs and taxes – who pays and how much. But we’ve got to move past that argument. The real deal is we create insufficient wealth. (Our inability to pay for defense is a symptom.) So the real solution must focus on work that creates wealth, real wealth. I’m talking about manufacturing — creating products. With more manufacturing we can fix defense. (I also think we should improve the work of providing defense.)

Pulling it all together, with the economy we argue about taxes – who pays and how much. But we’ve got to move past that argument. The real deal is we create insufficient wealth. (Our economy’s health is a symptom.) So the real solution must focus on work that creates real wealth. I’m talking about manufacturing. With more manufacturing the economy will fix itself.

Thankfully we all have different views on healthcare, education, infrastructure, and defense, and I want to preserve them. (That’s what makes our country great.) However, I think we can all agree that creating more wealth will improve our chances of fixing our big problems.

Let’s do more manufacturing.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Work can be exceptionally profitable, work can dovetail perfectly with strategy, and work can make perfect business sense. Though these attributes seem powerful, they’re insufficient for work to carry the day. But there’s a far more powerful force out there, a force that virtually guarantees that work will take on a life of it’s own, that work will go viral. That force? Intrinsic motivation.

Work must be meaningful. The team, or you, must have a personal reason, a vested reason, an intrinsic reason why the work should happen. Otherwise, it’s a crap shoot. Otherwise, it takes massive effort and powerful control mechanisms to roll work up hill. What a waste. The energy spent on pushing should be spent on the work. Imagine if pushing energy was converted to advancing-the-work energy.

With intrinsic motivation, work accelerates down hill. Intrinsic motivation is the gravity that pull on work, builds momentum, and steam-rolls those in the way. (Although intrinsic motivation has been known to clear the way of those who can help.) Intrinsic motivation flows work over and around rocks, tirelessly smooths sharp edges, and uproots sticks-in-the mud. (You know who I’m talking about.)

Do you and your work have intrinsic motivation? I certainly hope so. How do you tell? Here’s how:

Question: Why do you want this work to happen?

Answers – missing intrinsic motivation:

• Because my boss told me to do it.
• I don’t really care if the work happens or not.
• I’m just here for the free doughnuts.

Answers – with intrinsic motivation:

• Because it’s important to me.
• Because it will benefit my kids.
• That’s a stupid question. You don’t know? I’m glad you’re not on the team. Get out of my way.

Intrinsic motivation makes a big difference, it changes the game. It’s like the difference between pushing against gravity and rolling down hill with a tail wind. You should know if you have it. If you don’t you should be ready to push like hell for a long time.

Acid test — does your work cause you to pole vault out of bed? If not, find new work.

For some inspiration, here’s a video link — Indiana Jones and the boulder of intrinsic motivation.

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GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

The notion of a unifying theory is tantalizing – one idea that cuts across everything. Though there isn’t one in manufacturing, I think there’s something close: Design simplification through part count reduction. It cuts across everything – across-the-board simplification. It makes everything better. Take a look how even HR is simplified.

HR takes care of the people side of the business and fewer parts means fewer people – fewer manufacturing people to make the product, fewer people to maintain smaller factories, fewer people to maintain fewer machine tools, fewer resources to move fewer parts, fewer folks to develop and manage fewer suppliers, fewer quality professionals to check the fewer parts and create fewer quality plans, fewer people to create manufacturing documentation, fewer coordinators to process fewer engineering changes, fewer RMA technicians to handle fewer returned parts, fewer field service technicians to service more reliable products, fewer design engineers to design fewer parts, few reliability engineers to test fewer parts, fewer accountants to account for fewer line items, fewer managers to manage fewer people.

Before I catch hell for the fewer-people-across-the-board language, product simplification is not about reducing people. (Fewer, fewer, fewer was just a good way to make a point.) In fact, design simplification is a growth strategy – more output with the people you have, which creates a lower cost structure, more profits, and new hires.

A unifying theory? Really? Product simplification?

Your products fundamentally shape your organization. Don’t believe me? Take a look at your businesses – you’ll see your product families in your org structure. Take look at your teams – you’ll see your BOM structure in your org structure. Simplify your product to simplify your company across-the-board. Strange, but true. Give it a try. I dare you.

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