Balancing Work and Family-It's Not Easy

An excerpt from my ebook Invest in Yourself

You want to improve your life. Something is motivating you to become a better person or employee. There is power in simply sitting down and putting your thoughts to paper. From this documentation comes the beginning of your plan.

Step One: Create a Current State SIPOC Diagram of Your Life (see example above)
The diagram depicts the current state of your life. Starting with life process (P), list in order of priority: Work, Family, Play (self), and God. The priority should reflect where each stands in your life. Where are you spending your time and thoughts? Your day rises and falls with what occurs in these arenas.

Be honest in the prioritization. If you are taking time to do this, you want to change so make this an honest effort.

The output (O) of this life process is your feelings. Give yourself two and one half minutes to write down (in the output O column) the negative feelings you have and the same amount of time to write down your positive feelings. These are your emotions during the course of a day. Think about this week and things you encountered at work and away from work. When you are done, add up the total amount of feelings and calculate a percent positive and a percent negative. Write the percentages in the third row under output.

Your customers (C) are the recipients of your feelings. They receive them free of charge in their daily interactions with you. They see the good and bad in you. They know you (some better than others) as a person. In general terms, use the 3F3C format: First (you), Friends, Family, Colleagues, Clients, Congregation. First (you) signifies yourself as a customer. To be good to others, we must be good to ourselves. Friends are the people you enjoy being with and need to interact (with) for your well being. Family is your immediate family and extended family. Colleagues are the people you work with. You spend a significant amount of time with them so it is important to treat them as customers. Clients are the workplace; the recipients of your skill and work tasks. They can be internal to your company or external to the company. Congregation is your church. Write the categories in descending order according to the current priority in your life.

Study your life process, output, and customers. What does this self reflection mean to you? Hopefully, this allowed you to organize your thoughts.

Write down the current inputs (I) to your life process. I suggest two sources: Physical condition and thought process. The concept is sound mind and sound body. In the S column, list the suppliers of your physical condition. What suppliers are shaping your thought process? Think of what you are bombarded with every day. A distribution of your time should help with this.

Go to the third row and summarize each section of the SIPOC diagram.

Step Two: Create a Future State SIPOC Diagram of Your Life (see example above)
Becoming lean means systematically eliminating waste from processes to deliver products and services quicker to your customers (always on time) with exceptional quality. A leading tool in lean is a value stream map. In general terms, value stream mapping creates a current picture of a key business process including areas of waste and creates a future state map of the process minus waste. Your life is no different. The current state SIPOC diagram shows where you are now. This should organize your thoughts and help you understand what is coming into and going out of your life. The future state SIPOC diagram is the vision of what your life will be minus waste (sin, etc.). God already knows the answer but you are starting (with this diagram) to learn what his plans are for you.

Change the Priority Order of Your Life Process (P)
Critique the order in your current state diagram. Does the list reflect the correct priority order? If not, put them in descending order (on the future state diagram) from most important to least important. Often, my high school football coach told us to keep priorities in order. His order was God, Football, Family, School, and all Else. This reordering of priority is your first step towards change.

Focus now on the suppliers of your inputs. To improve or change your physical condition and thought process, you must improve or change suppliers. In the supplier column, write a list of suppliers you will allow in your life. The list may contain current suppliers and/or new suppliers.

This activity is done with the belief that God is pleased with your action. He loves the fact you are excited to discover what he has planned for you. What you put on paper does not have to be correct. There is no right or wrong. The significance is you are putting your innermost thoughts to paper. You are opening your heart and mind and documenting both for you and God to see.

God knows the output. All you have to do in the output column is write down what you want the output to be. What do you want in life? Think about this using everything you have done to this point. You are poised to ask God for something. He anxiously awaits the question and is eager to help you. In the form of a question starting with “God, I ask for/that,etc.”, write down what you are asking God to do in your life.

In the customer column, prioritize the list of customers from your current state diagram. Who should be your number one customer?

In the third row, write down actions you want to take to better serve your customers and actions you will take for each supplier.

Voices Need to be Heard

A quick lesson on problem solving-

In business, we are constantly faced with issues that demand our attention and resources. There could be customer complaints that require a drop everything sense of urgency if you truly are customer focused. Internal issues creep up every day and can't be ignored. If you do ignore them, they will grossly infect your organization with waste, sloth, and apathy.

These issues can only be solved by seizing, extracting, and removing the problem's root. The "root cause" of the problem is driving the effect. The latter is the pain you feel and sense. It is the fire that needs to be doused so you can move to more productive work such as employee development and customer service.

Too many times we only address the symptom of a problem and don't dig deep enough to find the root. A simple example: If you wake up tomorrow feeling very sick, you may go to the doctor. Let's say your stomach hurts bad enough for you to miss work. The pain you feel is the symptom. The doctor surely needs to know the symptom but must address the cause of the pain to make you well. Watch any episode of House and you know what I mean.

Right now, our country has multiple opportunities for improvement. There is a widespread sense that we need solutions and we need them post haste. The government is throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at the economy to jump start it back to vitality.

But are we addressing the symptom or the root? I would argue the former. I don't disagree that something must be done. I'm not smart enough to understand the intricacies of our economy but do feel that many of our systems (banking, etc.) are broken and must be fixed. So, some level of involvement is needed.

But ask yourself this-How did we arrive at this mess? I submit that we did so by straying from the principles on which this country was founded. Words like greed and corruption come to mind as I list the issues we have heard and read about over the last six months.

The root lies within our hearts and minds. Our standards for living have altered. This country was founded on God's standards. We seemed to have strayed from how God instructs us to live. We need voices to speak up and say what needs to be said. I don't care if it is the President, a Major League Baseball player, or a Minister, now more than ever, this country needs to run from unethical and amoral practices and get back to life's basics-that is living according to what God says in the Bible.

To me this is not debatable along the political spectrum. Read the story of Joshua as he prepared to lead the people into the promised land. They lived in the wilderness (where we seem to be right now) for decades and were poised to cross the Jordan River into the promised land. God had just transferred leadership from Moses to Joshua and gives Joshua a small "pep talk". He speaks several pieces of advice as the people stared across at the unknown land promised to them many years ago.
To Joshua, He says:
1. I will not leave you or forsake you.
2. Be strong and of good courage
3. Observe to do according to all the law which Moses commanded you-do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.
4. Do not be afraid nor dismayed.

In my lifetime, this is as close to wilderness as our country has come. The government can't enable us to cross over because the root lies within our relationship (or lack thereof) with God.

Hope this gives you much to think about. Please share this with friends and colleagues.

Professional Development Using ASQ Certifications

I was certified as a quality engineer in 1991. I can honestly say that going through the certification process made me a better engineer and sparked interests in me that became my path for professional development:
1. A career path in quality engineering and quality management (1991-2009)
2. A Masters of Industrial Statistics (2003)
3. Certification as a Six Sigma Black Belt (2005)
4. President of Quality Minds, Inc., a six sigma consulting firm (2006-Present)

To become certified takes much work, time, and sweat. The number of certifications you pursue depends on several factors:
1. Your ambition and drive
2. Who is paying for it? You or your company?
3. Your personal life-do you have a family? How much time can you apply to this effort?
4. Your educational and experience levels
5. Your career goals Exams are given every March, June, October, and December in most metropolitan areas. You can register on line at http://www.asq.org You do not need to be a member of ASQ but it helps your wallet to be a member.

I have been teaching exam preparation courses for almost twenty years. Here are the factors, in my opinion, that separate those that pass from those that do not pass: Key Factors for Passing an Exam:
1. Have a Good Textbook: Quality Council of Indiana has great books for exam preparation
2. Support: I recommend taking a preparation course on site or online. A great online resource is www.cpionlinecourses.com It is important to have someone you can go to for questions especially with the advanced subjects
3. Study time: Decide when to study and how often you will study. You must establish a routine for studying. Don’t get behind.
4.Working problems: Practice makes perfect. Work all the problems in the textbook Seek extra problems to work. If you take a course, a good instructor will give you extra problems to work.
5. Equipment: Get one other reference material such as Juran Handbook, calculator, # 2 pencils

If you are interested in ASQ certification and want to take a preparation class, contact Stephen Deas (843 814 3864, sd@qualitymindsinc.com) or visit www.cpionlinecourses.com