It struck me that he was absolutely using the PDCA methodology in his job hunt: Planning for a high-potential career-fit target audience; Doing the work of contacting referral sources that might open some doors for him; Checking, validating what was working and what was not; Adjusting his process based on that feedback – and then doing it all over again. 

Here’s what his cover letter looked like.  Notice the relevant lead-in sentences. Notice his offer of help to me towards the end. And notice the clear and concise target list of companies he’d like to work for. 

Dear Adam,

Hope this update finds you in good health!  Now that the summer is coming to an end, I look forward to the coming fall with some faith that we will all be successful in our ventures.  I am staying busy networking and searching for my next great career opportunity!  Furthermore, I am pursuing a six sigma black belt (quality) certification and Toastmasters recognition.  I wanted to update you on my career search / target companies and ask for any recommendations you may have based upon my skill set.  My best leads and help have come through networking.  For your convenience, my marketing profile as well as target companies are listed below.  My LinkedIn profile is available by clicking on the person hiking above.  As always, please let me know if I can be of assistance to you. 
 

Thank you for your ongoing support.  Please have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!

Sincerely,

Chris
——————-
Marketing Profile

A Global Operations and Continuous Improvement professional with expertise in varied manufacturing environments.  I am experienced in implementing quality and continuous improvement efforts leading to cost reductions and productivity improvements.  
 Target Companies

·         Cleveland Clinic	·         PolyOne
·         University Hospitals	·         Lubrizol
·         PNC Bank	·         Rockwell Automation
·         United States Postal Service	·         Eaton
·         Bendix	·         Goodrich Aerospace
·         Crane Aerospace	·         Alcoa
·         Ford Motor Company	·         ArcelorMittal
·         Parker Hannifin	·         MTD Products
·         Swagelok	·         Dealer Tire
·         Invacare	·         Aleris
·         Sherman Williams	·         Honeywell

 

This guy gets it!  Chris, good luck in your search. I may have a name or two for you.

Adam Zak

We’re looking for an experienced Six Sigma leader with broad business acumen, global perspective and experience, and the ability to drive, facilitate and sustain change in a fast-paced, highly entrepreneurial environment.  

The selected individual will become our client’s Director, Global Six Sigma, and leverage her or his outstanding leadership, communications and technical skills to create significant and lasting impact and value at all levels of this organization.  

And yes, it’s going to take an ambitious, determined and committed “A-player” to reap the rewards of success in this demanding role.  But what business transformation worthy of that designation wouldn’t be a major problem-solving opportunity, and a challenge of such caliber that it rigorously tests the mettle of even the best Six Sigma pros in today’s competitive manufacturing world? 

Could you be up to this challenge?     (go here to download PDF position description)

Adam Zak

The first three paragraphs of this article appearing in today’s San Francisco Business Times caught my attention because of how seriously inappropriate it is to “dub” any initiative which will result in the elimination of 538 people as an operational excellence plan.   Who did the “dubbing?”

UC San Francisco, which faces a daunting budget deficit in this and coming years, is envisioning a restructuring that could slash up to 538 jobs over the next three years.

The game plan, dubbed “Operational Excellence,” could eliminate up to 35 central administration positions, up to 225 jobs in IT, 100 in human resources, 95 in finance and 83 in research administration, for a total of up to 538, according to a report sent to UCSF’s senior management in early April.

The proposed three-year plan aims to re-engineer internal organizations and processes, “transform” the IT department, integrate “service teams” in HR, finance and research administration, and create or save additional revenue through efficiency.  Read more: Restructuring at UC San Francisco could chop 538 jobs – San Francisco Business Times: 

(Note: I’m not an SF Business Times subscriber so I asked a Bay Area colleague to read me the rest of the story this morning; it didn’t get any better).

Why do some today still persist in equating business and operational improvement efforts with personnel cuts?  In a truly operationally excellent environment it’s all about continuous improvement and respect for people.  This way of thinking is just, as my Lean colleague Mark Graban puts it, L.A.M.E thinking!   We saw some of the same previously when the Wall Street Journal published a front page story about Lean apparently gone wrong at Starbucks. Why won’t this misguided thinking just die?

In his report of March 24, 2010, An Update on UCSF 2011: A Focus on Operational Excellence, UC San Francisco Chief Business Officer John Plotts sets a much clearer and more accurate tone regarding the true meaning of improvement efforts:

It is important to note that while the challenges in front of us demand immediate attention, it is in the University’s best interest to view these challenges as an opportunity to commit to a new way of doing business that encourages the continual examination of what we do and to ask, “Why do we do this? Is there a better way?”

By dedicating ourselves to continual improvement – this year and in the years to come – we can be sure that UCSF is well run and that our resources are supporting our top priorities:  patients and health, discovery and education.  Committing to excellence in all we do will allow UCSF to be the best university we can make it.

Bravo, Mr. Plotts, for being a Lean Thinker, And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

Please remember that there is no cost to any employer choosing to recruit NUMMI alumni utilizing this site.

http://nummitalent.ning.com/

A Lean Connections Community Service project from Adam Zak Executive Search, the Lean Enterprise Institute and others…

And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

Did things get a little tight for you as well?

Is it official?  Is the “Great Recession” over? Should we be launching new executive leadership hiring initiatives now? Are we sure? When will we be sure?  

1. Turn your competitors’ mistakes to your advantage. There indeed are exceptions to every rule and there’s always an exception for why someone might be an executive “in transition” (see above). Voluntary departures, particularly from your competitor companies, may have the potential to become attractive executive hires for you. Put together an intelligence network and do some sleuthing. Figure out why they left, turn it around, and make it a selling point when you go after these individuals.  A common concern I’m hearing is that many companies simply did not communicate effectively about belt-tightening measures. This had the effect of blindsiding mid-level leaders to the point where they unintentionally misinformed and misled their rank-and-file, and lost “face” and trust with these team members. Demonstrate how this will never happen as long as you’re in charge and you’ll win their commitment.
2. Do even more to become the employment brand of choice. Start thinking about your prospective executive candidates as you would of potential customers for your products and services.  Customers have unique feelings and attitudes about what they buy from whom. Chances are very strong you spend tremendous marketing resources figuring this out. Do the same kind of analysis for the executives you want to hire. Explore why they choose to work where they currently do.  Assess and define what they would find in your organization that would make you a potentially attractive company to work for – for them. Translate this information into a message that is in turn appealing and unique to each individual you want to recruit (no batch mass-marketing here; this is tailored one-piece, just-in-time communication flow).  Hint: strong leadership is something which most executives and line workers absolutely crave. Find a way to communicate that this is part of the foundation which underlies your corporate culture. You’ll attract the world-class winners you seek.
3. Plan for the Expected. Visualize for the Unanticipated. It’s hard to maneuver a decelerating aircraft carrier even if you prepare to dock well in advance. But just think how incredibly demanding it must be to turn one around on a dime.  Similarly, preparing an executive recruiting and succession plan is difficult enough in a stable and orderly business environment. Now imagine reacting to an out-of-the blue marketing threat from a major competitor, or responding to a newly discovered technological innovation, or perhaps a particularly attractive acquisition opportunity.  It’s only with deeply concentrated forethought and almost prescient insight that any organization could possibly hope to be thoroughly prepared for such scenarios on a moment’s notice.  And there are very few SWOT oracles around anymore these days.

But visualizing such unanticipated events, and building “executive talent supply chains” or pipelines around them, is a strategic investment which makes a lot of sense for the market leaders of tomorrow. Become just such a strategic talent thinker. Create virtual “Dream Teams” for existing and anticipated leadership roles within all of today’s major revenue-generating business units, as well as those with the potential to eventually supersede them. Fill the pipeline with names and dossiers of “A-players” who will be eager to take your phone call on the day your CEO comes to you and says:  “I want you to ramp up a critical recruiting effort for this deeply hush-hush business venture I’ve been covertly negotiating for months. Let’s get started now!”   

If I'm not on FaceBook, do I exist?

On an otherwise relaxing Sunday in suburban Chicago I began to address a business-related issue which has been nagging at me for some time now.  Multiple online identities.  What with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, numerous blogs and social networks, well, I think I’m beginning to suffer from “multiple online personality syndrome” (M.O.P.S.), to say nothing of the confusing mess I’ve also created with the passwords that go hand-in-hand with my .coms, .nets and .orgs…   This, of course, is not Lean at all and I determined to take a stab at removing some of this muda immediately.

But then, as I started off on this mission by searching for my first profile   -  on FaceBook  -  I was shocked to find that I… couldn’t find me! 

Turns out that there are 14 Adam Zaks in the FaceBook directory if you search from Google, but none of them are me.   This college boy appears to be having the most fun (http://bit.ly/b8ntEZ ) Well, hey, it’s college.  This Adam Zak appears to be the most dashing (http://bit.ly/cBi0Y4) of the lot.  And this little guy, residing in what I would guess is the Czech Republic, is by far the cutest (http://bit.ly/cgAMIc)

Eventually I did figure out that if you are actually on the FaceBook Web site itself, searching for the name Adam Zak returns 68 members and the real me, I was pleased to see, is at the top of the list.   So not Lost after all…but now suffering from even more M.O.P.S. than before.

Well, look at the time already.  Maybe I’ll get around to removing this waste next weekend.  And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

James created a survey for users of Lean and/or Six Sigma. It takes 5-10 minutes to complete and it is completely anonymous. Please participate yourself and also pass on to colleagues, contacts or friends who are active members of the Lean and/or Six Sigma community.   I appreciate your help;  please follow the link below: 

http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/sea/LSS

Lean and Green, the wave of the future.  And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

1. “Customer/client focus for the sake of the customer/client;
2. A habit of collaboration;
3. A focus on the medium-to-long term, on relationships rather than transactions;
4. A default stance to transparency, except where illegal or injurious…”

So what might this look like in terms of the day-to-day interactions you have with your (trusted) executive search advisor?  Ask yourself these questions: 

1. Does my executive search consultant (ESC from now on…) focus on me and my needs – professional and personal – or on himself? How do I know that?
2. Does my ESC seem motivated by his internal drive to do the right thing by me, or instead by his firm’s internal metrics and performance carrots and sticks?
3. Is my ESC competitive and innovative in that he’s constantly looking for better ways to deliver service, as contrasted with simply competing with other search providers for my business? Is he continually bringing new knowledge and fresh insights and experiences to me?
4. Does he demonstrate a belief that continued focus on defining and solving my problems is more important than just filling in boxes on my organization chart?
5. Do the ESC’s systems, processes, procedures and operational models effectively meet my needs or requirements ( a means to a successful recruiting outcome), and if not, are they discarded or reformulated until they do?  Is he continuously learning and improving his own professional skills and expertise in order to be able to do that?
6. Perhaps most importantly, does he listen to me, seek to clearly understand the issues I’m facing, and deliver strategies for creating solutions that will positively impact the growth and profitability of my business?

The company involved was a new executive search client and they were running into problems with their Lean implementation.  Turns out they had been working for over a year with an outside consulting firm to assist them in the transformation process, but they didn’t seem to be making any real progress.  And they weren’t really sure why that was the case. My client contact, the CEO, called me in to discuss the problem and propose solutions.

Part of the standard work I do when beginning a new search (I created a trademarked search methodology called pdcaSearch(R) in which we use Lean principles to drive the executive search process) is to uncover the root cause of the problem I’m being asked to solve. In this case it became very clear that there were ”multiple internal owners” of the Lean initiative, but there was no clear accountability for its success or failure.  The VP of Manufacturing had a small team of the outside consultants assigned to his “projects” and so did the VP Engineering. As did the VP of Supply Chain; and the VP Finance, and so on. 

The CEO had given each executive broad latitude and they were running with it. But all too often it seemed that an “improvement” in one area of the business soon became undone as another “improvement” elsewhere changed the overall operational dynamics of the organization. What Manufacturing improved became “unfixed” by the latest Kaizen event conducted in Engineering the following week. So naturally, Manufacturing Kaizen teams came back to the same area in subsequent weeks for a do-over.  This had been going on for almost a year and had devolved into an embarassing “Keystone Kops-like ” effort which I initially dubbed “catch-and-release Kaizen.”  The trout fishing devotees among you will immediately know what I mean.

Well, I fixed the company’s problem by recruiting a new VP of Continuous Improvement, an individual skilled in the principles of operational excellence and policy deployment. He quickly helped align objectives, resolved competing priorities and turned the focus of the improvement initiative onto value streams instead of functional silos.  Kaizens became more strategic, value-added events.  The new Lean VP continued to rely on a select group of outside advisors who could complement his own expertise, but he very rapidly sent the majority of the Kaizen Kowboys packing back to the ranch from whence they had come.

And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak