Allan Kempert Discovered That Truly All You Gotta Do Is Ask.

A year or so ago, I met Allan Kempert. Allan was Quality Assurance Supervisor for a metal stamping company in Ontario, and just completed Norman Bodek’s book, The Idea Generator, Quick and Easy Kaizen. As Allan explains, he couldn’t put book down because it was such a simple approach and he knew that it was going to empower employees at his place of employment. In fact, Allan had tears in his eyes a few times while reading book because he realized that he had come across a jewel. He spoke to people in his department and explained how program worked. He convinced them that it would be beneficial to company to start a pilot program within their department.

Upon completion of book, Allan set up an appointment with me and proceeded to convince President and Vice-President of his company that they needed to accompany him to see how another company had implemented process. Allan’s theory is, “learn from mistakes of others because we don’t have all time in world to make them ourselves.”

Each department in company had a leader in program; a team of 12 people was assembled to look at problems with traditional suggestion programs, causes and solutions. The solutions were based on Quick & Easy Kaizen and conversations between Allan and me. Allan would implement an idea system, where people implement their own ideas. This is a distinction he makes from a suggestion system, where ideas are usually submitted to a committee who either transfers it to a department to review or kills idea. Everyone in company was trained to new IDEAS program. In fact, training involved encouraging people to put forward IDEAS during training session. This resulted in over 100 Ideas from 104 employees by end of training.

The team conducted an effectiveness review. They developed questions and asked participants in program as well as non-participants questions pertaining to program. This helped to improve program. What really stood out to team is that by asking people to make their jobs easier, which was main focus at onset of program, people commented that they felt empowered, listened to, like someone cared, happy about coming to work etc. The team also noted that IDEAS coming in were related to not only making people’s jobs easier but were also related to safety, set-up, 5S and cost savings. Allan likes to point to a statement that explains this. Mahatma Gandhi stated, "take care of MEANS and ENDS will take care of themselves".

Ten Top Tips on How to Get the Best from Changing Situations

1. Accept How You Feel How you feel is OK. Whoever is going through this change experience would feel way you do, whether it is angry, sad, frustrated etc. all emotions are acceptable. It is OK in moment to feel way you do.

2. Sleep on it Avoid being hasty about anything - let it sink in. The better news will be tomorrow - after you have had time for it to stew a little. Your right brain will kick in - and then you can get creative!

3. See Through Emotion Here you can combine facts that you have - and be very honest and realistic here, with possibilities. What opportunities could this present?

4. Think Big Picture At this point you can see micro-environment - how it might affect you and what a difference it might make to your life. But, what if whatever happened was going to be OK. What could you use out of this experience to help you go wherever you might want to in future? Taking a pro-active position on this will make a BIG difference.

5. Create a Plan At beginning this will be very sketchy, but how about creating a plan of how you can utilise change to create a better more fulfilling life for yourself. As Benjamin Franklin said 'Out of adversity truly comes opportunity'.