Gina London: Work smarter – not harder – and watch your productivity take off

Today, Aaron is the managing director and head of performance for Lean Practice Limited based in the UK, the consultancy partners with global construction and manufacturing organisations to increase productivity.

But he was first introduced to the concept way back when he was just 17 and joined the Royal Air Force to become a mechanical engineer maintaining aircraft.

“We needed to quickly turn the jets around,” Aaron said.

“If a jet is down, it’s not flying, so there’s a need to improve productivity to get each jet operational and competent. The teams I was involved with were quite high performing. I didn’t realise it was unusual at the time as it was the norm in the RAF. Only when I left the RAF and went into civilian industries did I realise that most everywhere else isn’t high performing.

“I went on a Friday working on military aircraft to on a Monday working in a toilet tissue factory. There was a big, big difference.”

Aaron went into the role as a senior engineer, in charge of other engineers who were older and more experienced.

He knew he had to tread lightly to bring his colleagues along and not have them revolt. His successes earned him promotions into more operational and site-wide transformations.

“I became passionate about changing the way people do things to free them up to do something better,” Aaron told me over Zoom recently.

“Productivity often gets a bad rap. It’s often used as a word to get more out of the people working, which means, for the worker, you’re going to have to work harder. But if I can help an organisation be more productive, it frees the workers to examine some of the more intricate kind of challenges that they’ve got. ‘How do we grow? How do we innovate?’

“Productivity frees us up to do bigger and better things.”

Assess the value of what you offer

Since Aaron’s company stresses the word “lean”, let’s start with Aaron’s definition of that word.

“If I’m delivering a service to a client, the value is that service I’m delivering in the light of what they expect for that service. The value is always defined by the receiver of that value. Look to your customer. Get close to them and really understand their expectations.”

Minimise waste

Next, according to Aaron, it’s essential to examine how much time, energy or other resources are being wasted during the delivery of that value.

“Whether it’s a service or a product, the manufacturer of that product or the builder for that service needs to not waste any activity that provides us the service. The transformative activity changes which are required result in a form of added value,” Aaron explained. “And anything that doesn’t add value, is called ‘nonvalue added’.

“Applying ‘lean’ methodology is very simplistic. It’s pretty black and white. There are things that enable the value-added activity that I must do.”

For example, Aaron discusses the non-value of allowing stock to pile up on site.​

“Customers are not going to pay for things to sit there. This is pure waste.

“We don’t need as much stock as we often see on site. So, you’ve got to be able to be that kind of value focused.”

Concentrate on your purpose

For my own business, I remember I used to spend hours and hours writing multiple-page proposals.

A strategic adviser recommended I simplify my proposals into one or two-pagers.

Most clients didn’t want to read through every detail of methodology or examine every second of my workshop or coaching engagement agenda.

This simple change has saved me loads of time that I can instead focus on providing transformative upskilling for more clients. Aaron encourages us to apply ‘lean thinking’ to every aspect of lives.

“If you’re entering a conversation,” he says, “ask yourself, ‘What’s the purpose of this conversation?’ ‘What is the value that I want this person to receive?’ The value might be, ‘How do I want to make this person feel?’ So, be purposeful in that. If we’re going into a conversation that is all small talk, that’s waste, you’re not getting anywhere to that value. But, you may say, ‘Well, that’s an enabler and I need to build a rapport.’ Then I can get to the purpose. That’s okay.

“There’s a difference between a lot of idle chat that goes nowhere. How many of us have been in a meeting where the concrete agreement never even occurred? The next steps never were agreed upon and you needed to back-fill with emails and follow up calls and whatever because you didn’t actually have that focus of purpose or knowledge of intent?”

The same process applies to team meetings. How do individuals come together as a group of people delivering value? What’s the shared goal for the team?

“We need to focus on what’s important.”

To borrow from Aaron’s previous careers, if you want to fly high, you need to wipe away the waste.

Write to Gina in care of SundayBusiness@independent.ie

​With corporate clients in five continents, Gina London is a premier communications strategy, structure and delivery expert. She is also a media analyst, author, speaker and former CNN anchor. @TheGinaLondon 88