"You have to build tribal pride across the board. Encourage open communication. Don't be afraid to name problems. And celebrate successes."
Those at the top think those at the bottom are doing nothing or doing it wrong. And the ones downstairs think the ones upstairs don't know what's going on downstairs. The next part of Ignition is about building tribal pride in a company, we're talking primarily about manufacturing, but it applies to all companies really.
Mirek Čáslavský is a lecturer, mentor, consultant, university lecturer and also a bit of a small-time maker, although he finds this a bit exaggerated.
Mirek trains hard methods softly. In companies he connects production with management and vice versa. He uses opportunity-focused root cause analysis because when players go after the ball and not the players, they become the team that has the pull to score. And that's what companies are all about. Whether in manufacturing or otherwise.
Mirek looks for friction points, (un)wanted standards and changes approaches and relationships between production and management. He is looking for a common language for the whole company. Thanks to his experience, we discussed the topic of corporate pride from many angles...
🔸 What is the most pressing manufacturing issue of today?
🔸 What to do about the moat between management and production?
🔸 Why should the owner or director go into production?
🔸 How to start building people's pride in "their own tribe"?
🔸 How to support lower management and "silent stars"?
If you want a nice summary of the whole story, check out the bonus. This time it's "11 TIPS ON HOW TO CHANGE THE ATTITUDE TO WORK (NOT ONLY IN A MANUFACTURING COMPANY)"
TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW
Martin Hurych
Hello. I'm Martin Hurych and this is Zažeh. Today's Ignition will be about manufacturing again after a long time, about people in manufacturing and why people in manufacturing think that work is a robot and how to work with them so that they have their pride. Today we welcome Mirek Čáslavský. Hello, Mirek.
Mirek Čáslavský
Hey, thanks for inviting me.
Martin Hurych
Mirek, you are a lecturer, mentor, consultant, teacher, rotarian and a small-scale maker. How do you manage it all?
Mirek Čáslavský
A small-time worker is a gross exaggeration. I don't think it's that difficult to prosecute the moment you get it a man will divide. Everything has its time, its requirements and it can be pursued.
What interests Mirek about the production and the people in it?
Martin Hurych
You've spent most of your professional life in various roles in manufacturing companies, and that's why you're here. What was it about manufacturing that interested you so much?
Mirek Čáslavský
I entered the manufacturing world as a recruiter. Then at some point when an expatriate was leaving, they told me I would take on production as a project for six months. It was kind of an experimental project, a lot of flexible manufacturing, machining, and it turned out that I ended up spending four years on it, even though it was only supposed to be for six months. I didn't want to stay with it for the first 2 years, but it gave me so much and I stayed with it after that. I've done HR twice in my life, and I can say that I've done it all my life.
Martin Hurych
At first, it kind of looked like you got it out of compulsion.
Mirek Čáslavský
In a way, it was an opportunity and it was up to me whether or not to accept it. I accepted it and it turned out very well.
Martin Hurych
If it was under duress, you'd disappear relatively quickly. You stayed in manufacturing, and even today the vast majority of your clients we've talked to are manufacturing companies. That's often an environment that doesn't appeal to everyone. So what do you personally enjoy about manufacturing?
Mirek Čáslavský
It's about the added value, something is being done there. A long time ago I started in a savings bank as an investment manager, as head of investments, and at that time the deputy economist told me that when something is produced, it is something tangible. I remembered that and I always wanted to have some kind of small-scale production, which I eventually did. It's about really creating. Services are a beautiful thing, I've worked in them as well, however I'm not somehow gifted in software and things like that, but manufacturing is basically where most of the nation lives. A lot of people did go into services after the revolution, but we were a country with a hugely developed industry, so manufacturing is the foundation.
Martin Hurych
It is still said that we are the most advanced manufacturing country in the European Union. I do not know if that is entirely true, but it is still a rumour. I do not mean the most developed in terms of technology, but in terms of co-production per head or the composition of the economy.
Mirek Čáslavský
It's possible. I confess that I worked in Germany for about 8 months in the past in a manufacturing company, or warehouse logistics company, but I'm not entirely sure, I probably couldn't confirm this.
What is the most pressing manufacturing issue of today?
Martin Hurych
As you move between manufacturing companies, what do you think is the most pressing connecting issue that you see at the moment?
Mirek Čáslavský
You mentioned the robot at the beginning. The vast majority of people, from executive operators to top managers, treat work as something that is necessary. They need to be able to pay the bills, they want to get it over with, retire as soon as possible. This is true for young people as well. That's where I think the biggest problem is. There's a very low level of some affiliation, some pride, for these people to like themselves a little bit, to be proud of what they do, even though it's not anything sophisticated, it's not a rocket industry. But it's very crucial and important, because without every single operation, the product would not have been made. But even with this job, you can think about it, you can look for ways to do it a little differently, and when it comes down to it, these people can do it. When I bring this up to the senior or seniority level, I often find myself working with managers who don't want to do business change. The numbers always get done somehow, it always gets done somehow, and while it's declared that they want to and it may be written down, the real pull at the gate is often missing. I do not want to generalise, but I believe that a significant number of people unfortunately have this. However, I am in the manufacturing world, the hard manufacturing world.
Martin Hurych
From what you say, I would assume you're talking more about larger companies.
Mirek Čáslavský
Yes. In those concerns, I think it's quite a given, because I'm part of a mechanism and I move as fast as the gears allow me to move. However, there are small companies where the attitude is similar. It depends a lot on what kind of pull there is from the top, from the owner, from the CEO. It's not about how great we are professionally, it's about how great we are professionally, how we behave, how we breathe the air there. I'm on corporate culture and one definition says that the level of culture is determined by the worst possible enabling behavior from management. We can look absolutely bravura and great somewhere, holding each other around the shoulders and taking pictures, but on the shop floor it can look very different. Here I think is the root of the whole problem of why people feel this way at work.
What to do about the moat between management and production?
Martin Hurych
Where I go, I see quite often that the white collar, managerial level, owners would like to, but the factory itself lives that idea of labor. I often see a big moat between the office world and the manufacturing world. What do you do about it, what do you do about it personally?
Mirek Čáslavský
When we say collars, I see engineering, technologists, designers and technical production preparation. The moment there is trouble, the production has to deal with it. It's often a big problem to come to an agreement with the office. There are not always the people, the competence is not always complete, the operations crush us, and the approach is not always such that we really want to solve the problem and not just patch it up so that we can have peace of mind. If I'm a young engineer in technology who's getting used to it, that's a huge problem. Producers measure 450 minutes, everything has to be tapped and so on. The engineers or technologists come in, go for a snack, go for a smoke when they want to, and it's impossible to get them on the shop floor. I have hundreds, if not more, of examples like that. The people downstairs, including foremen, production managers and below, it ...it's very annoying. But there is a solution. I really like root cause analysis. Everywhere in the world they are used on occasion, here it is only known in the qualitative world and only when there is a problem to solve, to expose it. Very often, however, it is only from the table. These are situations where I need to get to the problem we are solving from the place where the problem originated. Next, it takes his direct supervisor, a champion, a team leader, someone of quality and certainly a technologist to be there. 5, 7 people for such a workshop is the ideal number. That's exactly the right moment at the moment when we can keep any invective at bay, when it's true that we're going after the ball and not the player. At that moment, those people can perceive the other's reality in a completely different way. They get much closer, they already know their problems and when you do more of these workshops in a row, they really become the ones with the pull. They then want to be more proactive, they look at things through a different lens than the way they've been taught or the way they've always done it, and they start to think differently. Those are the moments where the change has a very real chance to start.
Martin Hurych
How often do you hear that there's no time for a meeting?
Mirek Čáslavský
A lot of times, but I say it's not a meeting. I am very fond of the flip chart, which I often take to the workshop. We do an analysis on paper in 30 minutes and we do an analysis in 15 minutes. That's the next stage. It's one thing to list what comes to mind on the fishbone, not to worry at all about what's more important, just list it, rank it somehow, and then choose priorities. The priorities are chosen together, everyone has a vote, even though there are 30 points, so we say that the day has only 24 hours and we choose one, two, three or five of the most important. It has two parameters, one is what makes the most sense to you and the other is what you think you can influence. The important thing is to start with ourselves, what we can influence in that narrow circle. Suddenly there are these 5, 7 people, everybody has said their view, their priority, however we have generated a list from that and that list is again appropriate to write the whole list down. Then it's about translating those top priorities into action. These people need to see the feedback, they need to see that the matter is being addressed and that it has made some progress. If it hasn't, which can happen, they get feedback as to why it couldn't be done. Very often what happens is that we expose one problem and then three others come up behind it, or by some change we create another problem that we didn't know about. That's not to be discouraged. The important thing is to get these things moving, to get people thinking that they can do something differently. Here's the beginning of the change, I call it deviation islands. When you get a group together, there's always one or two who get fired up for it. My hope is that those people will eventually become moderators who will stand in front of that flip chart and translate it into some simple format that will become the standard. This really works. There has to be support from the top, there has to be a chance, if something changes, to at least partially not only praise the approach and the process, but to reward the results. It's not about millions, just a little at a time.
How often do production people "fight" against their own management?
Martin Hurych
How often do you see guerrilla warfare start against the leadership, where the people at the bottom have enthusiasm, want to do something, want to improve processes, but don't have the mental support and diplomatic cover from the top?
Mirek Čáslavský
I would divide it into thirds. In one third, there is no support in the result. In one third, the support is declared but not implemented for a number of reasons. I can certainly relate to some of that because I have been in those roles and I have been in those situations. Then there is a third where those things can happen, but it really needs a certain amount of enlightenment that we come down from somewhere above. Whenever I wanted to see something, the operator on the shop floor was the one who told me the most. The moment someone in top management can approach that enlightenment in a sub-momentary way and take it seriously, those people will believe. It's about credibility. If I get people to trust me, things can happen.
Why should the owner or director go into production?
Martin Hurych
I always say it has to start building by the owner or the general voluntarily and credibly going through the factory from time to time and asking people what's bothering them. If I'm in an ivory tower somewhere and all I get is a shop floor speech, nobody will believe it.
Mirek Čáslavský
I had a wonderful director who taught me so much. I often disagreed with him, but he was a real leader. He traveled a lot, but when he was in the factory, he was in the factory almost every day. He would just go and say hello, look around, ask questions, and he was absolutely fantastic at that. Of course in today's over-organized world, where everybody has a million meetings, a million calls, a million emails and so on, they don't give space for that, but it's about making that time and making that time.
What are hard methods softly?
Martin Hurych
I found hard methods soft with your site.
Mirek Čáslavský
That kind of came out at some point when someone asked me what I was doing. When I was talking about these management training courses, they always sent us to hard methods or soft methods. We learned the hard methods, then they sent us back to the factory and either we wanted to change something but for some reason it didn't work out or we got crushed and all the enthusiasm wore off. I understood the method, I could imagine how to use it, but nothing made me go against the windmills. It was similar with the soft methods. So I thought I would do the hard methods softly. In the beginning, I had about 12 hard topics for freelancers from educational companies. Today it's that we find out what's going on in that company through workshops. It's a cross between a seminar, a lecture and a workshop, and it takes about two or three hours, and first we break down the situation and then we say what methods could be used. The methods can be used in a piecemeal way, but it's important to follow through. We can also start to address the specific situation in that client's environment, how to apply the method, how to react to it and what to expect. Because they all start to fall apart right away, so we break it down and model how it could be. There are elements of negotiation, there is a moment of some critical management, we talk about corporate culture, we talk about credibility, we talk about missions and visions. The company has visions, missions, values, it has them posted somewhere, declared, but not everyone accepts them as their own. It is important that the employees at the lowest levels also accept them, because then they add value. Basically, I try to divide some of the proclamations that are at the top, which are often beautiful, some of which I was there when they were created, into parts. It's for the reason that they see their vision, they set the mission on it, they do it in a comfortable atmosphere and the value works there. It brings people very close together.
We touched on the fact that we are victims, we are not responsible for anything and our life sucks. We got into tribal leadership, which is a fantastic resource, and somewhere in here it mirrors what we've both been through in our professional lives. The way people take it, they get up in the morning, they go to work pissed off, then they come home, they spill the beans about how it all sucked, and they go to sleep at night knowing they have to go back tomorrow. They don't realise the impact it's actually having on their neighbourhood and the next generation. When the younger generation hears it every day, they see it as perfectly normal. The third of our active lives that we spend at work should be enjoyed a little bit, not seen as a necessary evil. The moment I start working as a young person, even though I have different perceptions, different resources, use different tools, what my parents transmitted to me is still stored somewhere in me. I see a big problem here.
How to start building people's pride in "their own tribe"?
Martin Hurych
The vast majority of conversations I have here, if they are about problems in companies, lead to the fact that there is absolutely no communication between the different levels. What you describe evokes in me that I can't be proud if I don't know why I do what I do and what it leads to. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day and I think a lot of it is due to what our generation experienced here some 30+ years ago. We laugh at the visions and missions that hang over the doorpost somewhere because we remember the Bolshevik era where we all laughed at it and unfortunately it hasn't worn off. So come tell me, what if I had a small or medium sized factory and I wanted to break with this status quo. How do we start building it from the top or from the middle so that everybody knows why they're in that factory, so that they know they're not going there to work and why they should be proud of their tribe? How do we even begin to build that pride?
Mirek Čáslavský
It's the transformation of each one, or rather it's in the examples. Examples can be contagious. Of course, we are mostly pulled down by the negative ones, how to make things as easy as possible, how to simplify, how not to do more, because the moment we start doing more, the norm, perspective or expectation changes. I believe that the management at the top needs to realize that. If this is arising somewhere below them, they need to give it space and possibly some reward because people really do hear the money. When I do something because I enjoy it, nothing comes in return, and then suddenly someone next to me gets a raise who does nothing and is more of a saboteur, the frustration increases and so does the distance. I recently came across the concept of the silent star by Jirka Kastner, so I thought I needed to light them up. The people are there, often they don't know it about themselves, but the energy can be built. To go back and answer the substance, it's about naming what we actually want, which we should for two reasons. One is that until recently it was true, or still is true, that we don't have people. When I started in 2015, we didn't have the right people. A year, a year and a half after that, we didn't have people at all and we were taking anybody who could read, write and count. It ended up that today it's the people who choose, there is no longer the fact that the company chooses, and this is also true in the blue-collar professions. We're racing ahead in the benefits flock, it starts with how we declare our company, what happens in that company, how we feel about it, and so on. There aren't a lot of companies like Sonnentor, ICE Industries, KONA and the like. There are many more in the IT, hardware, services, insurance world, but not quite in the hard, sometimes dirty manufacturing world. So when someone complains about the environment, that they're out of coffee, that there's not enough fruit, etc., which I've registered, I'd take them to where and under what conditions those people really need to produce. Benchmarking helps. Benchmarking is another moment for managers as well, where they can compare that what they have breathed somewhere else could be implemented here.
Maybe I'm still running away from the question. From my point of view, it's about starting, giving it space, remembering that many things will go wrong, there will be mistakes, there will be disappointments, but being able to persevere nonetheless
and be sure to declare it. You mentioned slogans and exclamations. If you go back to Bata, he had a lot more slogans, but they stuck to them, the slogans were valid and we acted on them. For me, that's a huge example, a huge role model, so it doesn't have to be written down, but it has to be breathed and lived. These people change their vocabulary, they change their reactions, they change their perspectives, and I really see it in real examples, they're individuals, or dozens, but it's beautiful. Then I see hundreds and thousands of others, but we'd be reeling from that, you have to start somewhere. I'm talking about islands of deviance, it can be contagious, even managers who look and pretend life is great are often wearing a mask. Often then, when we get deeper, for example with that mentoring, where both the work world and the private world are projected, because they are connected vessels, we suddenly discover, expose and name what we are missing. As a result, we miss the feeling that something was successful and that others have a similar emotion from it. If you're like the manager upstairs, you often have to give but rarely have room to take. You also need to gain, you need to recharge and recharge these situations that have at least partially succeeded. Suddenly you find that people have started to do it themselves. Suddenly you find that they came up with some suggestion, some idea of their own, that they implemented something and then they came to tell you. That's definitely where it belongs and that's where it has to start. We need to be able to sell it. When we're in a company where the employee of the month is pinned up against the wall and that person is kind of putting on a face, it's more for laughs. It would be much better to take a picture of that person right at the machine at that moment. That's the moment when he's smiling, he's in his environment, he's dirty, but it's authentic. The person is proud of what they're doing, because not everyone can do that.
How to support lower management and "silent stars"?
Martin Hurych
From what I observe, the position of silent star and lower, at most middle management, often recruited from former friends and associates, is terribly unrewarding. They are actually between two millstones. Downstairs they are losing friends because their roles are changing, they are already supposed to manage them, they are responsible for their salaries and whatnot and on the other hand, senior management often looks at them as the ones who haven't grown up to them yet. For the change to work, what support should I, as the owner or senior management, give to these lower management and silent stars to stand the pressure of their former colleagues. How do we create an environment for these people to stay in these jobs and want to keep doing it?
Mirek Čáslavský
I believe that the complete basis is normal natural interest on the part of the owner. It costs nothing to say thank you or praise for something. The other problem is that many times we give responsibility but we don't give authority. Decision makers are up there at the very top and we basically don't admit mistakes. Mistakes are normal, but people are afraid. I've experienced this many times and sometimes it's just a generated relationship of standing out from the crowd. That needs to be overcome. It's not a snap of the fingers, it's always a process and many things go wrong. I have to approach it by working on myself as much as possible because then it will show. We're talking about Kaizen. Everybody talks about Kaizen, but a lot of people don't know what it is. It's not something from the automotive world, it's from the samurai, 300+ years ago. They worked on each other a little bit at a time. Kaizen is the great joy of making a small change, changing something, fixing it, making it different. When it's done side by side, multiple people doing it, then it really uplifts and grows in value. So not only do I have to get better at what I do, what I can do, but I learn something else alongside, maybe in the private world, because it moves me. Then when I come to work excited, it's amazing because I've brought a positive emotion and that's contagious too. It's not just about what's all wrong. We can change it. It's about recognizing what's bothering these people the most, letting them say it out loud, and looking for ways we can change some of that.
Again, there are two rules here, what makes the most sense to them and what we can influence. I'll admit, I equate it to a hangover. What do we do when we're hungover, many of us spill our guts. I'm really saying out loud, let them puke. Anything they say, I write on a flip chart and we put bullet points under it. First everything gets spit out, it comes out of these people, they get relieved, and then we show them that we're going to do something about it. We pick one or two points and we try to change those. What may happen is that it will expose other screw-ups, the fact that we're misrepresenting the numbers and the fact that it doesn't look anything like what the auditor saw, but we need to expose, say things out loud and then look for solutions. That is the medicine. Without that, we will go on and on and survive. Somewhere out of business mentoring are quadrants of time. We're manufacturing, the core business is manufacturing, we have to administer that somewhere from getting the business to getting the invoice out, and that's in the bottom two quadrants. Then there are the development quadrants. No customer is forever, I have to keep thinking. The only money that comes into the company is from the customer and then it's about developing the company, the process, the product and so on. What happens to us very often is that we live only in the bottom two quadrants. They are called that, they are the quadrants of survival, make, deliver, make, fix, make, deliver, make and nothing more. That's all we're happy about. I have to, even in all of this, which I think I absolutely cannot do, generate half an hour, 20 minutes, 15 minutes a day, 2 hours a week, and start to change things there gradually and together. I have to expose it first. I'm back to root cause analysis. The people on the flip chart understand it, it's their words, their nomenclature, their joys, their sorrows, but the action has to come behind it.
What kind of production does Mirek himself have?
Martin Hurych
I would underline that twice in red and add to that that it's not just manufacturing but any company. Now I would turn the page a little bit. You were being a jerk when I called you a small manufacturer, anyway you said you always wanted some manufacturing. You did it. So what did you indulge in and how are you doing?
Mirek Čáslavský
I got the opportunity to meet a man who is very active in his retirement and his life's work, which was the manufacture of corundum products in a small manufactory. Corundum is the hardest thing under a diamond. Our particular one is a direct mass that we make ourselves, there were patents in place for it until recently, both for the mass and the process, so we make special products out of corundum. Corundum is hard, inert and non-conductive, although it can be to a certain extent. We make the specials that the customer wants. I've pulled my friend into it, I'm only part time, he's full time because I want to keep doing my job as well, which is what we're talking about here. We're in it for the second year, we moved 100 km, we left all the staff because they were of retirement age, we learned everything ourselves and now we're starting to teach it to others and we're growing gradually. It's really a high value-added manufactory, but you can't really talk about a factory. Actually, I have another thing that completes my being. I was once told by a gentleman who employed me that every business should stand on at least three legs, because even a stool won't stand if it has fewer legs. So one leg is hard methods softly, the second is manufacturing, which you just asked about, and the third is working with young people, external teaching and working on student startups.
Summary
Martin Hurych
If we were to practically summarize today's talk in a few points at the end, what would you recommend to actually start building tribal pride in a manufacturing company at that blue-collar level? Then we would work that into a bonus for the audience and listeners.
Mirek Čáslavský
The blue-limbed ones are actually in the same boat. I managed to generate what I think could be a pretty nice example in one company where there was supposed to be a training series for line managers, 4 topics, 6 groups. I don't know if this completely answers the question, but I felt like everything was completely wrong after the first topic. So I agreed with Mr. Personnel, we went to Mr. General to see if he knew about it, because I was convinced that he didn't know what these people from downstairs were saying. It could have gone any number of ways, however, what ended up happening was that the CEO called together his top management, there were up to 6 layers of management, there were 15, 16 managers, so he called them all together. He told me to repeat to them what I said to him. Again, I'll use the thirds because a third didn't believe me at all, a third were annoyed with me and a third didn't care. From that line management, we went up two more floors to the production directors where we pulled those 4 topics down to 3 from those 4 days with feedback from below. There were 15 of those production managers here and it came down to them telling me that what I was saying should be heard by those above them. That continued with the upper tier managers. We ended up making 2 of those 3 days for management feedback, which I liked. So to bring the question back, how do you do that, going across, giving equal value. I know that basically, from my perspective, the most difficult role in the company is the master role. That person is between the millstones and has a very difficult time. He has no or minimal authority, but he has a huge responsibility. A lot of times you become a master just because you've been made to. There is no pride. But that has to be generated in them by those blue collar people, in which in turn someone else has to generate it. So it's important to go across the board, to have as much open communication as possible, to not be afraid to name things and celebrate successes. The pride will then come from the fact that something was good and said out loud. The moment I keep that communication connected, the moment that evangelism works, then it gives those people the incentive to a certain extent to go into such actions. We have to give space for development and that has to be generated. It can't be commanded, it has to have some kind of at least semi-natural growth. We try to bring it somewhere, of course, but in such a way that those people still feel happy about it, because it then creates the environment in which we work.
Martin Hurych
If I feel like knocking up my own production company and what you say here appeals to me, where can we find you?
Mirek Čáslavský
There are some connections to me, it's a simple website, LinkedIn, there's always a connection. I'm very happy to do it if someone really wants to. It's important that it's not a declared want, but that the person is serious. It's one thing to declare it, and it's another thing to actually implement it and give it support. I need to break it down, I need to break down one problem into sub-problems, make the sub-problems into what those people will like and give them the tools to do it. Then it works.
Martin Hurych
Thank you so much for being here and for the interview.
Mirek Čáslavský
Thank you for the opportunity. Have a nice day.
Martin Hurych
Today was all about building pride and building a tribe, especially in manufacturing companies, however we they said that this applies not only to manufacturing companies. If you're interested in this episode and want to get your company
to shake things up, so get in touch with Mirek on LinkedIn. Be sure to check out my website, www.martinhurych.com, where there will be a bonus for this episode in the Ignition section. Don't forget to put subscriptions and likes wherever you're listening right now, whether it's YouTube or your podcast app. All I can do is say thank you, keep my fingers crossed and wish you success, thanks.