Posts Tagged ‘goal setting’

We think we control what we do.

But the reality is that…. we just kindof end up doing what we do. A simple example is this: I go into the closet and choose what to wear today. I am not one of those people who can lay out my clothing the night before. How am I going to know what I am going to wear tomorrow until t0morrow gets here?  Sometimes I wonder why I am even wearing what I’m wearing. This happens more all the time actually and I’m grateful for it. Not for any fashion statement but for a letting go. A discovery. Oh – so this is what it is going to be today? Fine.

And before you start to argue with me about free will, think to all of those times when you said you wanted to work out and you just can’t seem to do it. Or you wanted to save that money but you bought a guitar instead. Or you were supposed to get the salad but ordered the burger. There are plenty of times when we do what we say as well. But can you really point to why? Seems almost luck if you think of it in comparison to all the times body and mind refuse to line up.

Observe yourself in your day and see how easy it is to “make” yourself do anything at all.

That is why I think with organizing, or working out, or any other change or alteration you want to make it is easier to go very  slowly with small almost imperceptible changes and implement alterations in other areas that aren’t “hot.” Telling, ordering, demanding and planning sometimes works about as well as reasoning with a 2-year old.

From Here to There (Photo by PeWu)

Sometimes it takes someone else’s eyes to get us to the other side of a transition.  We’ve been on the same path for so long there is just no way for us to see our own way out.  I think that is the beauty of what we can do for each other. Lend vision.

So when someone tells me they can’t see the floor in their office for all the clutter, I see an organized space for them until it becomes a reality.  Or someone tells a physical trainer they’ve been overweight for so long they don’t think they can lose it. The trainer holds the vision of success for them until the goal is reached.

If a trainer or coach really believes a person can reach their goal then they probably will. Yes, both have responsibilities along the way, but the teacher/trainer/coach must hold a vision.

That is why it is so important to find the right people to work with us – in all areas. Because this vision stuff works. So you want to make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who are holding a strong, complete and successful vision for you as you journey.

2010 Toyota Prius sedans (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Toyota is famous for Kaizen – not just as a philosophy but for successfully implementing it daily into their manufacturing culture to achieve consistently high quality output. Kaizen is the philosophy of continuous improvement and at Toyota each employee is invited to participate. Employees can speak to management about opportunities for improved productivity in any area of the company.

I heard more about Kaizen and Toyota’s culture on an informative and moving This American Life podcast about Nummi, the jointly run GM and Toyota plant located in Fremont, CA.  Nummi shut down on April 2, 2010 after producing cars for more than 26 years. The GM workers were transformed by Toyota’s practices but GM as a whole was not, or at least, not quickly. Still,  I am struck by how powerful Toyota’s Kaizen method and message is for anyone trying to make small changes over time.

As a professional organizer, I’m fascinated with the philosophy of Kaizen and how Toyota uses it to create an amazing product and a healthy corporate culture. They are doing on a very large scale what I’m trying to do on a small scale with my clients: Increase the client’s productivity (rather than the factory’s) in increments, creating change (rather than a car) that is sustainable over time.

I did a lot of research – probably more than I should given my current time restraints – to see if there have been many changes to Toyota’s Kaizen culture in the wake of the relatively recent Toyota vehicle recalls. Although, it seems unlikely Toyota’s recent problems are due to Kaizen practices. More likely their overly growth-centered goals are to blame.

CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, grandson of the car company’s founder, announced in February of this year that he will lead a new quality committee. This is a shift from employee, internal, Kaizen-like improvements. Steven Spear, who has studied Toyota for years, wrote a landmark PhD dissertation on their production systems and in 2008 wrote Chasing the Rabbit lauding all things Toyota admitted, “We are now sadly seeing that the capacity for developing people can be overstretched.” Spear went on to say, “It was not recognizing this, and succumbing to the temptation to make growth its first priority, that led to Toyota’s current problems.”

In saying the “capacity for developing people can be overstretched” did Spear mean that Kaizen culture was pushed too far? That you can only improve systems and efficiency and productivity so much? That Kaizen reached the point of diminishing returns at Toyota? Because I do think there is such a thing as being too organized and too productive. This kind of effort can double back on itself and have the opposite effect. Like sharpening a knife to the point it disintegrates as Alan Watts has pointed out in his lectures on Buddhism.

Or did he just mean Toyota pushed too fast and too far? As in away from the center where people understood it? Spears points out in his second statement that growth became Toyota’s first priority and in order to grow they started outsourcing, sending production to other countries and getting materials from other places. Places where Kaizen was not practiced perhaps?

In my experience running a big car company…ok…well…I don’t have any experience running even a small car company. But I do have experience with growth. And with trying to grow too quickly. I have personal experience with this and I’ve seen it with my clients. It looks like working out for hours and not being able to move for days, or working in your office all night organizing and never wanting to go back in.

In fact, this is often what people want. Make change. NOW. Whenever anything grows too quickly or beyond its reach we get results similar to what we have seen with Toyota. Some overheating and then production shuts down.

Don’t get me wrong. Growth is great. I’m all about it.  I’m just kindof partial to Kaizen.  It feels real and the results stick around.

Goal Chalkboard (Photo by Mary Kate McDevitt on Etsy.com)

A low tech solution

I saw this goals chalkboard from Mary Kate McDevitt on the weheartthis.com Etsy for Friday review and zeroed in on it immediately. Love at first sight. If one must be organized then why not also have a bit of fun at the same time. Will this goal board sync with your PDA, android, iphone or otherwise? No. Will it handle everyone of your lifelong, or even perhaps daily goals? No. Is it whimsical and will it let you pretend you are being organized? Absolutely.

Grease is the word

826 LA needs tutors for the summer! There are great projects coming up…like this one I posted about recently….

Tonight someone told me Grease was filmed at John Marshall HS.  This is so funny to me – not only because Grease was my favorite movie of all time for the first 12 years of my life but also because I just finished a project volunteering there with the 11th and 12th graders through the organization 826LA.  There was no singing and dancing (thank goodness) but there were words. Lots of them. Enough for 826LA to publish a  book in fact.

John Marshall HS book cover

Tonight some of  kids read their stories from the book at a reception at Skylight Bookstore in Los Filez. I can’t tell you how inspiring it was to hear those kids bravely telling their stories. So proud to see their words in print. Their hard work paying off. The staff at 826LA is extraordinary – working around the clock to make literary projects like this happen. Word.

Experiment with fire (Photo by Everyone's Idle)

Sometimes I’m working with a client and I’ll propose a new way of doing something that just doesn’t sound great to them. Like, throwing papers in the recycling bin instead of stacking them up for months.  I’ll say, “Well…maybe you can try it as an experiment, since what you’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working.” Sometimes this tack works and sometimes not.

But I like the idea of an experiment. I use it on myself all the time…I don’t have to do “x” this way forever. I just have to try it and see if it works. Getting up at 6:30am to exercise. Cutting eggs out of my diet. Cutting sugar out of my diet. Opening the mail as soon as it arrives. Being nicer to so and so. Ha!

Becoming a little scientist in your own life allows for a little distance, a little breathing room. You can go from, “I’ll never, ever do that” to “Ok…maybe I’ll try it.”

Who knows…maybe you’ll discover the cure for cancer. Or at least the cure to your clutter.

Riots in Downtown LA after Lakers win 6/17/10 (Photo from LA Times)

The riot in Downtown LA was organized quickly. So quickly my friend and I were innocently driving right through it on our way home from an event tonight. It felt to me like those involved were organized, unified around being after or against something or someone – what and/or who? I couldn’t tell where I stood in it and just wanted out. Out was not that easy but eventually happened. Lots of police, more than I’ve ever seen, lots of noise, and I don’t know the purpose.

When organizing a riot of that scale, I think it is best to have a purpose, make a point. What’s your riot?

It’s late and I’m exhausted. But that is not the interesting part. The interesting part is that I’m still writing this blog. I committed to writing everyday no matter what and that commitment has taken on a life of its own. Now I just do it – no matter what time it is (and for better or worse quality…I’m aware of that but for now I’m working on consistency. One thing at a time!). That is the great thing about commitments.

You do what you are supposed to do no matter how you feel in the moment or what else comes up. Committing to a schedule is the same. I know that there are three times each week when I’ll be in the gym no matter what. There are other things I’d like to do in addition but at least those are in stone – no matter how I feel. These commitments carry you along with their own current and pay back to you in results time and again. Not immediately – over time you see the results of your consistent efforts. You just have to get the commitments in place – the ones that make sense for you, that will pay off in the right way, that carry you to the ocean you want to swim in.