Reflections... Start & Finish Your Day Well with Daily Management

Daily Management – Start & Finish Well

This next week, 10/31 – 11/04, we will have our semi-annual Lean Mentality Week, with a specific focus on Daily Management. I encourage you to participate in the week – practice and refine your daily management practices, engage in the OutageBuzz social media posts, and share any continuous improvement ideas.

As you think about daily management next week, I also encourage you to embrace the STA tool as a foundation to start and finish your day well.

 Starting the day with task visualization

 I saw this in action earlier this week on a site visit to Air Liquide in Pasadena, TX. I am impressed with the level of specificity for the Task Details, ex: “Walk down work area to access what needs to be done to complete task.” That same specificity and detail follows with the identification of Hazards / Risks and Controls / Commitments. I can put myself in the place of the workers and visualize this task being completed successfully.

In a prior blog I mentioned the power of visualization, referencing the Hard 90 podcast, by Zach Sorenson, the mental performance coach for the Atlanta Braves. Episode 312 is “See Yourself Make The Shot”. I again share this to reinforce why our safety disciplines – the prejob brief, the safety task analysis – are so valuable. Our team visualizes the task, from start to finish, walking through what the good task looks like. The time spent in preparing for, discussing, and visualizing the task is a huge performance booster. It works!

Finishing the day with reflection and applying 5S

 This is something we all can improve upon, including myself. Spending just a few minutes in reflection – the after lunch reset, the after shift review – allows us opportunity to learn from the day. What did I do well? How can I repeat that tomorrow? What did I struggle with? How can I change or tweak something to improve tomorrow?

 As you reflect, I also encourage you to apply 5S principles to your work site, whether it be your turbine deck, your tool container, your trailer or office. You could also apply these principles to your email inbox, your laptop desktop, or your AirTime dashboard. “A place for everything and everything in its place” and with a little shine!

I am willing to bet that if you spend just a few minutes at the end of your day in Reflections and in applying 5S principles, you will notice two things: You will sleep better at night because your day has been closed well, and You will start the morning already with a plan and with a framework for success.

“Win the morning, win the day.” I agree with one add – start your day the evening before. “Win the evening to win the morning and win the day.” We end the day with a period of reflection. When we do this, we are already winning the evening, in that we identify what worked / what didn’t and adjust accordingly the following morning day as part of our daily management discipline.

- Jake