Category Archives: Print Spend Management and In-Plants

In Plant Planning Survey – 2 minutes. Free Download

 

Print13 happens in a few weeks.  This international gathering of In-Plants and Commercial printers is a powerful way to meet some new folks, get educated and informed, and see what is new and changing.

Your progress probably won’t be on a banner, but it should be noted.  I want to note it.  You can help many others by taking 2 minutes and clicking.

Once I receive your information, I’ll send you a FREE DOWNLOAD of management principles that are gaining great reviews worldwide.  Then, I’ll send you the second set right before Print13.  These pithy principles take no more than 2 minutes each to read and can change your team’s results.

See you there:

R33 – In-Plant Extreme Makeover: From Reactive to Responsive

Date: Tuesday, September 10

8:30 am – 10:00 am

 

 

R33 – In-Plant Extreme Makeover: From Reactive to Responsive

Date: Tuesday, September 10

8:30 am – 10:00 am

Speaker: Phil Larson

Description:

Whether you are tasked as the new manager in succession to follow a manager of multiple decades or are part of an executive committee challenged to build a service responsive in-plant to meet current business demands, you need a fresh approach.  The old ways just won’t do the job anymore.  What will you do?  Executives need good answers from you.  You may not survive without this information.

You will learn:

  • Workflow Efficiencies:  You’ll understand simplified LEAN principles you can gain back useable capacity improvement.
  • Value Add:  how to improve your single source provider influence in the mind of the customer.
  • Product Optimization:  Get the right product mix that has high benefit and fits your location, equipment, and people.
  • Online support and PDF workflow stabilization
  • Client and Customer Management: You will learn key conversations you need to have and what to say when you have them.
  • Business Development / Expansion:  You can grasp the long term view balanced with optimizing the existing business and have an outline to present to decision makers.

Who should attend: In-Plant managers and assistants, Executives with In-Plant line responsibility, Commercial providers looking to improve sourced arrangements, Marketing and sales reps wanting to understand customer decision making, In-Plant technical and creative and customer service support, and Vendors to In-Plants who need to “get it” to support the business

 

Track:
Inplant/Transactional

Phil Larson, President
Shepherd Consulting

Vitalize!: 4 Ready Executive Tools Increase Best Value

Increase asset value.  Do it.  Quit waiting. Isolate key components for value and recover.  Print communication services have declined in value as a viable business asset.  Communication channels have changed. Entrenched opinions view print as a commodity.   Look through that tinted lens and business value will suffer.   There is great value to be activated.  Right understanding and fresh vision can cause print communication to give value business results.

Think back.  What was the last department or business unit you overhauled that reaped benefit quickly?  How did you drag value out?  Did you offload a business unit with aging impact?  Why is it not working here?

Finish the quick article at GCWORLDBIZ

Vitalize!: 4 Ready Executive Tools Increase Best Value http://ow.ly/lLPe0

Lead with Solutions: Five Key Phrases To Lead

There is power in your words, Leader.

Leaders lead.  We lead with our words, our actions, our intent, and our example.

Leaders lead.  Leading flows from the inner core of a leader outward for followers to follow.  Wisdom literature intrigues and builds me.  Two principles that regurgitate in my meditative time apply here.

  1. What is in your heart comes out your mouth.
  2. Words carry life or death.

Uncomfortable as that may be for some, it is life and energy for leaders.  Those that deny they are being led are fools looking for a place to fail.  Those that accept they are both being led and leading others have matured to a grasp of reality needed for contentedness and success.  Watching words is a key necessity of leadership.

One of the ways leaders lead is with the entry words they use in conversations and meetings and personal engagements.  So let’s look at five phrases that lead well and lead to impact and influence.

How can we lead effectively with our entry words?

Lead #1: How do you feel about this situation?  Leaders fail many times by leading with precooked answers.  Try leading with a question.  The conversation is headed a positive direction based on your quick and thoughtful lead.  Watch out for asking how people think.  That will get you 80% less response than asking them how they feel.  They will tell you what they think in response to asking them how they feel.  For the most part, people are less threatened when asked how they feel than asked how they think.

Lead #2: There could be some amazing benefit to this approach.  You just opened the other person or group up to a positive view of what follows.  Yet, you have not committed anyone to a position of yes or no.  The engagement is now open to include a description of the issue being addressed, but with an expectation of a positive outcome.  Lead on.

Lead #3: What worries you most about our issue?  Wow.  You just posed an emotional tie to the others in conversation.  It is not someone else’s issue, but our issue.  You’ve entered into a supportive stakeholder position and communicated you will be there to help work through the blips.  At the same time, you gave the other person influence in the next steps.

Lead #4: Have you considered a possibility of option X?  This is an enticing lead that suggests a solution without forcing compliance.  Leadership contains an element of power along with authority.  By opening with consideration of an option, meaning there are other options, you give power to the others in the conversation.  It can be a big win when working with a strong leader.  Some leaders place themselves in defensive stance over a position they have taken in the past.  You just graced them with a way out that saves face for them and could bring them better success than a present entrenched option.

Lead #5: Having considered many options, here is one I’d like to bring to the table for discussion.  Okay, this is a lead based on research prior to this moment.   You’ve opened the discussion to include consideration of other options and problem barbs and even rabbit trails.  It is an empowering position for all included.  Sometimes an entire room will just go quiet at this point and let you lead forward.  Be ready for that.  After all, you are a leader.

Summary:  Notice none of these leads starts with the issue at hand.  All of these communicate co-ownership of the issue and the solution and confidence in a positive outcome.  Avoid leading with the issue.  My days are full of conversations that start, “Phil, I have a problem.”  That is a position of weakness.  Sometimes the individual just wants to discuss their ideas.  Many times they are looking to offload the problem and responsibility.  Take responsibility by leading into a solution.  Leading with the solution in today’s environment can be considered pushy and too strong.  Lead with compassion and listening and strength with some key phraseology that reveals intent to engage along with intelligence and ownership.  Lead on, Leader.

The People We Serve… Consider Well..

The People We Serve… Consider Well… This is a great comment on the Print Production Professionals group  from one looking for great service.

Jayne Bennett • I believe solid relationships are built on positive working experiences, mutual education and growing trust. Suppliers can create those positive working experiences through performance and service. They can also earn my respect when they bring me up to speed on something they offer or can offer ways to enhance what I do for my clients/end users. Brownie points if they try and understand my clients’ needs and industry/marketing challenges. They can establish, nurture and grow trust through performance, honesty and integrity.

Yes, folks, price is important! It always will be. But it’s not the only game in town and buyers who look solely to price aren’t adding ANY value as a buyer. As a buyer, I try and hold up my end of the teeter-totter by sourcing judiciously (let’s face it–as a supplier, you do NOT want to get another quote you know you aren’t suited for–it’s a waste of your time), communicating thoroughly and honestly and being a fair, but admittedly demanding, customer.

In my opinion as a buyer, you can build strong relationships and still get the pricing and service you need–there is no need for browbeating and haggling. I source to those who are equipped and able to do the job–the competitive pricing flows from there. My vendor pool is bidding on work that suits their shop, not to try and put a number under my nose and hope I bite this time. In fact, when you have to perform the impossible, isn’t it great to have someone in your corner who WANTS to make you look good vs. one that grudgingly has to do so because it’s a “good job to get in this market?

Excellence Starts Here! Three Tips For Top Performance. Engaging Ingenuity.

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These two gentlemen represent a great event in a production shop.  What really is the beginning of such powerful events?  Oh, the event?  The team had kept key equipment up and running and productive for 30 days with no vendor calls.  Amazing.  Especially considering the fact that prior to this the equipment required calls every 2-3 days for many years.  They are holding an award for the historic event.  Now, back to the question.  What really is the beginning of such powerful events?

Think about why you need these events?  A friend used to call them “Big Days”.  Big Days build strength in an organization, overcome defiant obstacles, and release energy of the team in a positive manner that is brooding in a negative manner.  For those reasons alone, you need to engage the next three points.

One: Get dissatisfied.  Yes, that is the beginning of all great change.  If you are comfortable and content, change is a threat.  You must engage vision for the future with passion and be dissatisfied with the status quo.

Two:  Spread your dissatisfaction.  Now, you don’t need to get people upset over nothing.  But if the people you are serving can’t get their jobs done or their product delivered or their services received on time, you need to get some partners in your dissatisfaction.  Other managers, co-workers, staff, key customers, executives and others probably are already dissatisfied.  Let them know you understand and listen to their view points.

Three:  This is where real change starts.  Pick a key point over which everyone is dissatisfied and attack it with passion and purpose.  Dig for a root cause that will help everyone in the process.  The theory of constraints explains that when you dig out a major point of constraint, you loosen up other constraints to become visible so they can be resolved.  In other words, break the dam!

You will be amazed.  This team went into overdrive for customer satisfaction when they found this one barrier to productivity resolved.  They annihilated this bothersome downtime issue on key machines, developed new procedures for maintaining the equipment, gained independence from the vendor, improved production turnaround times, and improved the entire shop morale.

Just a thought today for those looking to do something good for themselves and those they serve.