Mike Chapin doesn't need a job!!! (Since 1920)

Tomorrow my son, Mike will start as a pre-fab laborer.  He marks the 5th generation to work at Willmar Electric.  But before I go into that story, let me give you some background.

I never met my Great Grandfather Sam Chapin, but I have had several stories about him relayed to me from others within the Chapin family.  One of the most popular story's is about how in 1920, he left his job working as a railroad mail clerk to become an Electrician and start this great company. 

Most of my coworkers at Willmar Electric have heard that part of the story, but as a Chapin, I have also heard an extended part of the story.  That addition covers family members coming to join the company.  You might think that as a Chapin, you face a lot of pressure to work within the family business.  The truth is that all Chapins have been told, "Sam Chapin quit his job to follow his dream, so the sons and daughters of future Chapins should do the same, follow their dreams, not his." 

Still, our Great Grandfather welcomed future generations into the company.  All three of his sons worked at Willmar Electric.  Although his oldest son would leave the company and move to Nebraska.  He also welcomed his Grandson, my father, John, into the company but had 10 grandchildren chose NOT come into the business.  Instead, they followed their own dreams.  Two of his Great Grandsons, Justin and I, have joined the company, but dozens have chosen other dreams.

So tomorrow Mike joins us at Willmar Electric.  He wants to make some money and is under the impression Willmar Electric is a fun place to work, and he likes to use his hands.  So he is going to work at Willmar Electric.

Does that mean that generation is here to stay?  We don't know.

What we do know is that 92 years ago, Sam Chapin didn't start the company with Mike Chapin in mind.  He started the company to follow his dream.

Positive Peer Pressure

I am a big fan of accountability.  It is a trait many people have told me they don't enjoy about me.  It seems at Willmar Electric I have been doing things the wrong but I recently have seen a couple of positive signs. Let me explain.

In the book "The Advantage" by Patrick Lencioni he points out that true accountability within an organization comes at the peer level.

A couple of weeks ago two of my coworkers made a minor error and when I found it I call both of them and discussed the situation.  Both realized the error right away and set about fixing the problem.  No big deal.  Mistakes are allowed.

The very next day in a meeting another co-worker started talking about something wasn't possible.  He just didn't think he could do the necessary tasks.  The two coworkers from the day before quickly pointed out that the task was in fact possible and told our coworker how he could accomplish the task.

Wonderful.  Before I could even say a word the first two people were holding the third person accountable.  The third coworker took the correction from his peers and move ahead without incident.  I loved it. 

The same two people that I corrected only a day earlier were holding a peer accountable and they did it in such a matter of fact way that the third person excepted it.

Nobody wants to be the cop in the sky that overlooks and lords over everybody.  Everybody wants to be part of a team where everybody respects each other.  Respects them so much they aren't afraid to hold them accountable.

Three signs of a wonderful company

Patrick Lencioni wrote a book titled “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” and with a nod to that wonderful book I have noticed some encouraging signs at Willmar Electric.  Other than the fact that there are three signs in the book and I have a list of three items they have no relation to each other.  If you want to become smarter you need to read the book.  If you want to hear a positive story about Willmar Electric you should read what follows.

#1-I think you are wrong

A couple of weeks ago we had a meeting that involved some long range planning.  During the meeting on several occasions I made some suggestions that were met with disagreement.  Some people in the room agreed with me and some people in the meeting disagreed.  In the end "my side" one the day but I left the room impressed with the people that stood up for their ideas.

As a team we are moving ahead with one plan.  If in the end the results of my decision proves to be wrong I will admit my mistake.  But I am confident that the people on the "other side" aren't pulling against me.  Their voices were heard and their opinions taken into consideration.  The points that they brought up will play into future decisions at Willmar Electric.

A quick review.

·         Topic got discussed in the open.

·         Everybody shared openly.

·         We are moving ahead as one unit.

·         Everybody respects each other.

I look forward to our future discussions.

#2-Passion

We recently had an employee quit.  The employee was a key part of our long range plan and the team that we had worked hard to set up.  That employee’s leaving Willmar Electric really puts the rest of the team in a bad spot.  They had every right to be upset with the quiting co-worker and they were.

But it was the reaction I got from two people outside of the region directly effected by the resegation that really impressed me.  On two occasions I was on the receiving end of rants by a co-worker that focused in on how the leaving employee was letting everybody down.  They were mad.  What hit me was that these two people weren't going to be effected by the employees leaving.  Truth is they will  have be able to go about their regular day to day roles without really noticing the missing employee.

Passion for the good of everybody as a whole.  It was beautiful to see.

#3-Welocme to the team

Recently we added an intern named Alfredo to the Lincoln office.  When Alfredo started we took him around from office to office and introduced him to everybody.  I then got to spend a few moments going over the company’s organizational chart with him. 

It occurred to me that people in Willmar might want to meet him.  So at about 9:05am I sent out a meeting notice for a 9:30am video conference.  It was very short notice, in fact I wondered how many people would even see the e-mail.  I figured a few people would show up and say hi but I was wrong.  Nearly the entire office was there to greet him.

I was moved.  People took time out of their busy day to say hi and welcome Alferdo to the team.

Three signs.  Three different sets of people across all our offices.  Each made me think I was on a great team.

Speed of Trust

Over the weekend several of my co-workers took to the skies to jump out of a perfectly fine airplane.  Even after hearing from Dan Williams how he and Blaine Knight, Brandon Lee and others came to this bold decision, I still don't understand why they did it.  But their action tied into a book I finished over the weekend.  As you might remember I posted an article about the book "Speed of Trust" by Stephen M. Covey a few weeks ago. 

It is hard to communicate the message with drawing a chart and I don't know how to put a chart into this blog.  But don't worry you don't have to jump out of an airplane to get the point.

Imagine a chart that measures your propensity to trust going vertical on one side and the level of analysis you put into a situation before you extend trust going horizontally on the bottom.  Now divide that chart into four zones.

Zone 1 is the upper left corner.  High Propensity to trust combined with a low level of Analysis.
Zone 2 is the upper right corner.  High Propensity to trust combined with a high level of Analysis.
Zone 3 is the lower left corner.  Low Propensity to trust combined with a low level of Analysis.
Zone 4 is the lower rightt corner.  Low Propensity to trust combined with a high level of Analysis.

People that live in Zone 1 are gullible.
People that live in Zone 2 are using sound judgement.
People that live in Zone 3 are indecisive.
People that live in Zone 4 are suspicious.

It is obvious to everybody that the people in zone 3 aren't the kind of people you want to deal with and nobody wants to be considered gullible (Zone 1). 

You might be thinking "isn't it good to have (or be a) suspicious person (Zone 3) from time to time?"  I would contend that being overly suspicious has a high cost.  If you withhold trust too often you miss out on too many opportunities.

Even though to some of us jumping out of an airplane mid flight might seem foolish, my guess is my coworkers were operating in zone 2 when they came to the decision.  Clearly jumping out of the plane involves a high propensity to trust!!!  But in the months leading up to the jump Dan, Blaine and Brandon carefully weighed the opportunity, risk and credibility of the trainer and pilot before they more forward and strapped on the parachutes and went up in the air.  My guess is they continued to analyze the decision up to and until they hit the ground.  (From the sounds of it they are going to do it again!!!)

Having a world where everybody has a high propensity to trust others but at the same time they are carefully analyzing the situation would be the optimum.  Imagine everybody tending to trust people after carefully weighing the opportunity, risk and credibility of the people involved before they move forward.

Not overly suspicious but always using sound judgement.

Trimble

Currently we are trying something new at Willmar Electric.  It is a new GPS base software and hardware that helps lay out our underground work.  The product we our testing is calld "Trimble."  Trimble is a brand name and they have several competators but we have elected to go with the Trimble product.

Right now we at the training phase of this new endeavor.  By the end of the week we plan to be in the field laying out the stub-ups for the DEC project in Lincoln.

You might be asking why are you moving in a new direction.  We see four main advantages to switching over to a method from our current tried and true system.

-Our friends within the industry that have already made the move to Trimble-like technology say they are saving 50% of their hours spent on laying out projects.

-It lowers the number of people we need on site during this stage of the project.

-It allows to get work done is a shorter time span.  Less pressure at fitting into to the seeming constantly shrinking windows we are given.

-It improves the accuracy of the work we do.  By using highly sophisticated equipment we lower the role that human error might play into what we do.

The person doing the Trimble training has seen contractors layout nearly 400 points per day!!!

You might be thinking that there has to be a catch.  There is a catch but it is something that is easily over come by most people.  You have to be organized and you need to be planning ahead.  Since the reason for the equipment is to increase productivity and accuracy it is important that you do a couple of things before you get started with Trimble.

You must make sure you set up your tolerances are set correctly and that you have set up your project specific data correctly.  Otherwise you will get bad information out of the system.

The people invovled in the training and the experimental project are excited to see how it works in the real world.  As we continue to move ahead we will keep you posted.