WEB DEVELOPMENT LIVE

Team Building

SUPERVISOR OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT:
CASE STUDY

PROJECT BACKGROUND

In June 1999, I was committed to directed twenty-four hours of team-building intervention with a group of twenty managers, supervisors, lead personnel, and employees of the production partner a major manufacturer of truck bodies. This privately owned private company founded in 1971 and is led by its Chairman and CEO started as worker in the shop, and had climbed the rungs of the organization to its current position. Operating in three shifts, the 200-person company has 150,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehouse and offices in Southern California, and is the largest agency services company U.S. West. Its customers include Ford and Chevrolet. My participation was requested due to the need to design and deliver training English and Spanish. Characteristics of the audience are discussed more fully below.
This effort was a collaboration between the Center for California Manufacturing Technology Center (CMTC), headquartered in Hawthorne, California, Center for Economic Development in West Los Angeles College and the Employment Training Panel, California State, which funded the project. This author and CMTC identified key customer needs to be:

Significant growth production capacity and financial performance, especially during the last 2-3 years. This rapid growth has resulted in thousands of additional hours cover customer demand, increased accident rates, difficulty in recruiting skilled workers, especially in the manufacturing department, a fire-fighting "approach to problem solving and decision-making management, reflected throughout the organization, and unexpected stresses on the computer, machinery and work processes. These limitations, in turn, creates bottlenecks in production and contributed to the "crisis management" in the atmosphere factory.
"A stable workforce (see Table 1, below) who resisted by CMTC, to adopt new technologies and work processes necessary to Lean Manufacturing. For example, a manufacturer's representative who regularly services the plant as an account reported that "veteran" workers resist to learn the new requirements, processes and materials that they feel because of their current technology to present their technologies and techniques of painting truck bodies and the processes they know are right.
-Lack of reliable means to measure the actual amount of waste and re-development of products.
"The unpredictability of programming of tasks related to changing customer needs and the sporadic use of planning tools business ventures.
-Re-produce bottlenecks production in the workshop, especially as regards the level of the production line (custom front) products.
Organizational servers security between some units and departments (eg, Standard vs. sports vs. load-line production) resulting from the production and weaknesses of the organization. For example, measuring templates and accessories designed and built by an engineering firm for the specific needs of a production line, could be effectively adapted for use in production lines. However, production inefficiencies resulting from employee resistance to adapt or combine these custom equipment with older equipment used in production lines.

Given these issues, management decided to act. Try to increase their market share and continue building its client base in the long term, the Company entered into a contract with CMTC to prepare the formation of a cross-functional (eg, production, purchasing, accounting, engineering, etc.) the team of 5-6 people. This team will be selected from the group of 20 participants in training, directing the efforts of continuous improvement in the company. Specifically, the team using Lean manufacturing technology to identify and resolve problems associated with online particular product. This core team, in turn, guide the formation of other equipment in the workshop, whose representatives attended the training.

Implementation Lean Manufacturing success depends on building effective work teams. My role in this process was designed and carried out a series of six, four-hour workshop equipment building over a period of three weeks, this would lay the groundwork for future Kaizen events. Following my work, a bi-lingual consultant Kaizen CMTC continue sixteen hours of intensive training in Lean Manufacturing. After six weeks of training, the client may begin to work together using the skills newly acquired to identify and resolve problems of continuous improvement.

PUBLIC

The outstanding feature in this group has been training their linguistic and cultural diversity. Of the twenty participants, only four were English. All other participants were native speakers of Spanish, descent Mexican. The plant manager and two supervisors of others who are of Mexican descent speak and read English fluently. The remaining 12-13 Spanish-speaking participants felt comfortable with the spoken and written English. We estimated that 20% of Spanish speakers struggled to read and write in Spanish.

Also observed Significant differences in cultural values and assumptions that are reflected in the design of training materials and training. They dealt with issues such as: How long the work should be used, how power and authority must be exercised, how the daily interactions between partners should carry out the proper exercise of discipline, perceptions of reward systems and formal, to what extent participation in decision making and problem solving is appropriate and desirable for hourly employees, etc.

For example, many participants hourly rolling in these team-building meetings openly his refusal to "interfere" in the decision-making responsibilities of their leaders, a common feature of industrial relations in the cultures of Latin America. To participate in decision making and problem solving is seen as a management role and distribution of power and authority has been generally considered by the most participants as a sign of weak and undesirable. Openness and trust required for productive work team was frustrated by a Latino cultural perspective emphasizes the solitary nature of being human, its isolation and essential and necessary that are not members of the family. For final consideration on this point, the reader can consult the work of Mexican author, Octavo Paz, in his seminal work entitled The Labyrinth of Solitude (1).

LESSONS LEARNED

Design and materials training to reflect these data. Therefore, the training design and presentation of issue highlighted the following points:
1.Build confidence. In Spanish, the word "Trust" is usually translated as "trust." New Revised Velazquez Spanish-English Dictionary (1974) also translates the word as "fearless honesty," "insurance", "firmness of opinion", and describe a relationship that allows a little secret and privacy. As is known, is normative Latin America "Trust" play an important role in shaping interpersonal relations. It also an important factor in mitigating the job and organizational relations. This is undoubtedly the training camp: If "Trust" is not earned and present – both among participants in the training and between students and instructors – trainee "Shut Down" and learning will suffer severely. The usual repertoire tools training to encourage participation and involvement is not likely that when the "Trust" is not present. This is particularly relevant to training interpersonal skills that these concepts and skills in providing relevant information, active listening and self-discovery not only of great value as elements training design and delivery, but in reality are considered by most professionals in basic training for this type of training.

Therefore, the instructor's ability to obtain and maintain "confidence" with the group is key, and he or she should avoid behavior that participants can interpreted as the confrontation. In almost all Hispanic cultures, interpersonal confrontation is considered negative and potentially destructive – that can be perceived as a personal challenge and an exercise of power and domination. It has a "high", and it is valued for its own good. U.S. Trainers However, they are much more tolerant of confrontation, who see it as a tool that can be used to resolve conflicts and differences.

Among the most effective ways of bridging the gap between these two worldviews is always "model of confidence-building behavior during training, and to avoid situations, at least initially, the participants consider the confrontation. This often means that training is a "minor" faster than you would with a non-Hispanics – in other words, needs a bit more to achieve the training objectives. Experience this author that a typical "soft" skills training program has been extended by a factor of approximately 20% due to these factors.

Skills held 2.La flow. The training design that offers many opportunities to practice new skills (eg, active listening, conflict resolution, problem solving in teams, decision-making approaches, etc..) When, in another situation training that could take two to three times to learn the practice of a concept or skill, I used varies from five to six or seven opportunities to teach active listening skills, for example.

3.Minimize reading and writing. Although each participant received a folder of documents relevant to each training module (knowledge of change management in the workplace, interpersonal communication skills, teamwork and problem solving team) became evident on the first day of training that most participants had difficulty understanding the book contents. Therefore, the documents and written exercises were used to reinforce concepts, case studies, role plays and other exercises that can be presented orally, demonstrated and practiced.

Discussion 4.Formalize. Hispanic cultures in general, the value of courtesy and formality in interpersonal relationships, compared with Americans. These values permeate almost every facet of daily life. For example, while Americans tend to enjoy the franchise in general, and openness in interpersonal relationships, it is safe say that this is not generally the case of Spanish speakers, which considers as potentially direct confrontation and disrespect. Therefore, training presentations, role playing, simulations, group discussions and all the other tools available to the coach must reflect and demonstrate these differences in cultural perspectives. Probably is best served by: (1) verbally acknowledging these differences, public education, (2) making it clear to the participants of the course objectives training, and this in particular can pose problems for training.

5.Aim for clarity. The circumstances described above reinforce the importance and utility to be unequivocal and clear in giving instructions, the establishment of classroom practice, asking for participation in exercises, etc. I found that the public objectives and methods required for each exercise, each small group discussion, each training intervention to be discussed beforehand, and in more depth you can not require a group of monolingual English-speaking participants.

6.Teach Policy "vocabulary". The participants had established who do not share effective interpersonal skills that could apply to work together. Cultural differences and language aggravated this situation. Orders, requests, notes, and indeed almost all the early management of communications to be interpreted from English to Spanish and filtered by employees who do not speak English in the workshop, through bilingual staff and supervisors, direct. Inevitably, the effectiveness of communication suffered. This interpretation of data and communications has resulted in the loss of efficiency and effectiveness in a work environment monolingual probably not have occurred.

7.Practice practice and practice. Use many real life examples to make a point and teach a trade. When used for training examples is suitable for almost any training situation in this circumstance should minimize the use of analogies or examples that participants considered likely to be too abstract, that is, the examples used are all manufacturing and production situations affecting production possibilities and supervisors.

8.Reward performance immediately. It is particularly important to be alert and immediately reward participants who made an honest effort to learn. Because most participants were not naive and part of this material training, while the yield pupils approaching or that faithfully reproduces the desired behavior (such as listening) was quickly rewarded through incentives and specific verbal approval. For example, when John, a foreman, has demonstrated precisely tuned actively with others in the group, I told the group: "John, that really sums up Joe's point very well. It is a great example of the use of active listening," or "Did anyone notice how Justin uses "clarification" to better understand what John was saying? Justin, can you repeat exactly how you've used the technique of clarification with John now?

9.Mix above. According to the PLR, the mood, the level of interest and wishes, I have used both Spanish and English interchangeably during training sessions. For example, I wrote the key points on a flip chart summaries in English and Spanish, or, I conducted Role Play in English and one in Spanish. Other techniques include:
key producing books and tools in both languages. Encourage participants bilingual to summarize the key points of their monolingual peers, and;
10. Invite students to participate in either English or Spanish, provided that or, a colleague and I immediately translate the content of their comments to others.

TRAINING RESULTS

Career success? Impacts This program should be measured after applying the total package, including Kaizen interventions. To this point, it will be possible to indirectly assess the extent that these training sessions have helped in applying this knowledge to situations of shop floor. Why only indirectly evaluate the impacts? Because, to develop the causal relationships between the formation and behavior in the workplace improved effects and influence of Kaizen events should be eliminated, or considered. Given the current state of the art assessment, this does not seem possible now.

Written evaluations of each group were asked to what extent students learned new skills. On average, eighty percent of students said they had acquired specific skills and knowledge in this period training session. The training group, the investigator and the independent CMTC Kaizen agree that this first effort has provided the impetus for Kaizen to start before and succeed.

REFERENCES

1.López Aqueres, Waldo, Ph.D., "business characteristics, characteristics and market employment trends of older Latino-owned businesses in Southern California. "1999: Thomas Riv4era Policy Institute: Claremont, CA
2.Macmillan Almanac Visual (1986). Woodbridge, CT: Blackbirch Press
3.Paz, Octavio (1961). The Labyrinth of Solitude. New York: Grove / Atlantic Press.
4.Riverside, Press-Enterprise October 21, 1999.
5.US Census Bureau. 1999. Program population estimates, Population Division. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

IV.AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Anthony C. Griffin has a master's degree in adult education and worked as a training manager and training director for the international operations of the Ray-O-Vac batteries, Hospital Corporation of America, TechnoServe, Inc. and ITT Industries. Since 1994 he has directed his own consulting company, TeamWorks, Riverside, California. He is a member of the American Society for Training and Development, the Association of Professional Consultants and the International Association of Facilitators. Phone: 951-784-9330. Fax: (951) 784-5003 Email: training@teamworks1.com. Website: www.teamworks1.com.

About the Author

RIVERSIDE COUNTY DANCE LIVE COMPANY 2005-2006