{"id":14272,"date":"2015-12-09T10:06:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T18:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/?p=14272"},"modified":"2021-05-23T16:43:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T23:43:55","slug":"podcast-10-improving-organization-with-gtd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/12\/podcast-10-improving-organization-with-gtd\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode #10 &#8211; Improving an Organization with GTD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast interview, Mike Williams chats with\u00a0Bob Hendriksen, plant manager for Steelcase, about Bob&#8217;s GTD practice, how the methodology is becoming a key part of the culture of his company, navigating the Weekly Review when you get interrupted, and more.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen Now<\/h2>\n<div id=\"video-container\"><iframe style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/3963450\/height\/360\/width\/640\/theme\/standard\/direction\/no\/autoplay\/no\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Subscribe or Download<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/getthing-things-done\/id999098861\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iTunes<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/s?fid=66868&amp;refid=stpr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stitcher<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.libsyn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Libsyn<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/music\/m\/If5n66lnvvompn4q7yqu4cqxax4?t=Getting_Things_Done\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Play Music<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/21mSaFgOhfR7TT8MKxF41n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spotify<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-697578497\/tracks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SoundCloud<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Podcast Transcript<\/h2>\n<p>PODCAST WITH BOB HENDRIKSEN<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Hello everybody. Mike Williams here, back with another GTD Slice Of Life and today I am joined by Bob Hendriksen of Steelcase and Bob and I met oh a couple months ago now when David Allen and I went to Steelcase and had a tour. David did an event and I walked away just thinking, \u201cWow! Bob you\u2019ve got a lot of really cool stuff going on there and this would be a wonderful conversation to bring to the GTD community.<br \/>\nSo what we\u2019d like to do here today is just have a Slice of Life conversation and explore what\u2019s going on in your world. So as we set the context for this, Bob, why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what\u2019s your position, anything else you\u2019d like to share in that domain?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Thanks Mike. Well, I\u2019m 45 years old and I\u2019ve worked with Steelcase for 27 years, so I started right out of high school and I\u2019ve got three amazing kids, two 17 year-olds and a 12 year-old and uh working on getting them into using GTD.<br \/>\nWhat I do here at Steelcase is I\u2019m in charge of one of our factories, so we\u2019ve got five factories around North America and others around the world and the one that I\u2019m responsible for makes file cabinets and desks and various other forms of office furniture.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Wonderful, and uh just for context, I have a 17 year-old and I have a 13 year-old, a daughter and a son. Are your 17 year-olds seniors \u2013 gonna be seniors this year?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, one a senior and one we adopted from Russia \u2026<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Uh huh.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: \u2026 five years ago. He\u2019s gonna be a junior.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Good, good. So you\u2019re in that senior year transition stage as well. Maybe we can play with that towards the end or something.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, two girls and a boy on my side.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Two girls and a boy, okay.<br \/>\nAnd let\u2019s just jump right in, because one of the things that really caught my attention when I was at Steelcase was your role as a Lean Leader, uh and in some of the TQM stuff that you\u2019ve done, Total Quality Management stuff that you\u2019ve done in the past and I always love connecting with people in that community and how does GTD look through that lens. So as part of the context for that conversation, I just want to carve that out as a big bucket we\u2019d like to pursue, but before we jump really into that, how the heck did you even find GTD? When and where \u2013 what was ground zero for you, you know; where were you in your career and how did you intersect with David Allen\u2019s work?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well I had been interested in this type of thing as a young leader and getting very, very busy with work responsibilities and such and I had read a book called The Ten Natural Laws of Time and Life Management, I think it was called by Hyrum Smith and I was a Franklin Planner user, but I kind of outgrew it and as my responsibilities increased, you know, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, wasn\u2019t cutting it anymore and then a good friend of mine, a guy named Rush Sharda, who \u2013 one of the most brilliant people I know said, \u201cYou gotta read this! This \u2013 this guy\u2019s figured it out.\u201d<br \/>\nAnd I said, \u201cFigured what out?\u201d<br \/>\nHe said, \u201cLife! Everything!\u201d<br \/>\nI said, \u201cWow!\u201d and uh like I said, I really respected his opinion and so I read it. I was like, \u201cWow! This is really practical and usable.\u201d So I went about trying to make changes to my system and really thought I was following it for a number of years and then about uh five years ago, our HR guy asked me to teach my quirky system to our staff \u2013 to my team. And I said, \u201cThey don\u2019t need that. They\u2019ve all got their own way of accomplishing things and they don\u2019t seem to be particularly stressed.\u201d<br \/>\nAnd he said, \u201cOh, they\u2019ve got you fooled Bob. They\u2019re just hiding it well. So why don\u2019t you go ahead and teach it?\u201d<br \/>\nWell before I did that, I re-read the book for the second time and realized I had missed 80 or 90% of it the first time through and so really started trying to apply all of it in earnest and then shared it with my team and it was tremendously beneficial to them and been a huge advocate and tell everybody about it. I\u2019ve put the book in more people\u2019s hands than I even know \u2026<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: You have.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: \u2026 or even remember.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Oh that\u2019s great. I remember saying the same exact words when I read David\u2019s book for the first time. I walked upstairs and said to my wife, \u201cThis guy\u2019s got it figured out! This guy\u2019s got it figured out!\u201d<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Everything, you know, all the stuff and I think I scared her away for like three years because I was so enthusiastic about what I had just read. And then I was working at General Electric at the time. Then I went back to my office and the next two days I just put everything in the in-box and processed it into the new system and started my practice from that day forward, but I specifically remembering this guy is gonna help me clear out the runway level stuff that\u2019s been clogging me up.<br \/>\nAnd then the other thing you mentioned too is it sounded like at that point in your career, because you did such a great job beforehand, you got rewarded with more work and then just going back to the personal side of your life, it sounds like you had kids and it got more complex, so \u2026<br \/>\nBOB HENRIKSEN: Absolutely.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLAIMS: \u2026 you needed something right? And I\u2019ve had multiple GTD implementers say that as they read the book once and then once they read it again it\u2019s a whole different book for them. It\u2019s a full context for it.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Ha, ha, oh absolutely! I think I\u2019ve read it about five times now and I get more out of it every time.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah, no \u2026<br \/>\nBOB HENRIKSEN: The same thing with Making it All Work. The first time I reads it I maybe wasn\u2019t ready with my practices at that point and then went back and re-read that as well and it opened up, you know, the whole perspective side really, where I had been very focused on the control side of GTD, even though he talks about it with the Horizons of Focus and The Natural Planning Model and everything in the first book, just expanding on it in Making it All Work, really helpful.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That\u2019s great. I love the in between book too, Ready for Anything. Have you read that book?<br \/>\nBOB HENRIKSEN: Oh yes, with all the quotes and yeah \u2013 super.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Oh and the stories, uh I\u2019m heading out to Chicago next week to teach our level II training, which is Projects and Priorities and we focus on Areas of Focus, we focus on Natural Planning Model, we focus on stalking the wild projects that may not be on your project list yet. So between those two books, gaining that higher level of perspective and the next version of your GTD game, it gets really exciting. So I\u2019m excited to be \u2026<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Really!<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: \u2026 going out there for that. Um, let\u2019s \u2013 okay I\u2019m gonna shift gears here a little bit. Now I\u2019d love to, I\u2019m reflecting back and I\u2019m walking back into your facility and one of the things that I notice when I was \u2013 uh when you were giving us our tour was, first of all we walked in your office and then I started seeing all this really cool ambient information, reminders about the GTD work flow. I think you had the work flow map up in your office as a reminder. You definitely had your cockpit set up with your in-box and such. So that was your personal space and then I remember walking into what I believe you called The Nerve Center. And The Nerve Center, for folks on the podcast, is this beautiful wooden table, kind of oval table and then on the outside of the \u2013 the walls is all this wonderful ambient information that I\u2019d like to explore with you, but right in the middle of the table, etched in the table is, \u201cWhat\u2019s your desired outcome? What\u2019s your next action?\u201d<br \/>\nAnd when David and I saw that, we\u2019re like, \u201cHow cool is that?\u201d<br \/>\nSo, let\u2019s start exploring here. So tell us a little bit about \u2013 I\u2019d like to go to the team aspect of GTD and I\u2019d also like to explore the Lean aspect of GTD. What would you like to start with first?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Let\u2019s go with Lean I guess.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Okay, so you\u2019re an experienced Lean Leader. One of the things that we found is there\u2019s a lot of GTD passion within the Lean community. So what does GTD look like and if you were to process it through the Lean lens, what are some things that pop to mind for you?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: So Lean is a methodology developed by the Toyota Motor Corporation largely to process improvement approach to increasing value through the eyes of the customers where they start the discussion. And it was developed over years and years at Toyota and then some researchers at MIT discovered it and coined the term Lean, but it\u2019s all about you know, increasing value and doing more with less, more efficiently, higher quality, more employee engagement, that\u2019s what Lean is kind of all about and we had worked with other process improvement approaches at Steelcase through our whole existence. We\u2019re a what\u2019s called a Make to Order company, so we don\u2019t make anything to stock like most companies do, which is a Lean approach to not having as much inventory because we make everything once we get an order from customer.<br \/>\nBut in the early 2000\u2019s, we really started gaining traction on applying the Toyota principles in house. And there\u2019s really the production, industrial engineering side of Lean. The other side needs to complement it for it to sustain and continue to grow is uh what\u2019s called the Lean Management System side of it.<br \/>\nSo we went about building this Lean Management System internally to help us you know, understand our performance, understand where our performance wasn\u2019t what we wanted it to be, understand the causes, and drive action to improve.<br \/>\nWell eventually it became obvious as we learned more about and we had more years of GTD, to integrate the two.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Great. And what are the major categories within Lean. Aren\u2019t there like six or seven buckets of waste or something like that?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, there\u2019s seven forms of waste, like inventory and waiting and over-production are some of them.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Okay. And uh \u2026<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: And you kind of eliminate those.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Uh and this \u2013 in the mental construct when we\u2019re thinking about all the stuff on our mind and over-thinking things and under-thinking things and that\u2019s where I see sometimes some connection between the Lead principles and the GTD principles come into alignment on reducing the thinking waste.<br \/>\nHave you found, as you personally introduce GTD and reflect on things like that, where do you find some of the pain points that you had before and how has GTD helped simplify and bring efficiency into your personal life?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well back on your point about, you know, the elimination of waste, the main way in Lead that you eliminate waste is by improving the flow.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: So GTD and you know the processing steps and the five phases are all about improving mental processing flow, right?<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yep.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: A huge parallel there.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: If you go back to before GTD and then you found the book, there\u2019s probably some sticking points or \u2013 that you may or may not have been aware of and now that you\u2019ve been an enthusiast for a period of time, I\u2019m wondering if you have any kind of before or after scenarios of, \u201cOh I had this pain point and this came in and helped me with that\u201d, or \u201cI didn\u2019t realize I had this pain point and GTD came in and eliminated it and helped me with that\u201d.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Sure. I mean the biggest before and after and really in my progression with GTD, I started using it to gain greater productivity, so I could get more done in less time and you know, achieve the goals that the company has set and so on and so forth.<br \/>\nThe big benefit though in using this over time is the freedom that it brings, the clear space and what I\u2019m able to do with that space because I\u2019m not bogged down by trying to remember to follow-up on things in a busy \u2013 a busy job and a busy life outside of work.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah. So let me go down just a little deeper in the rabbit trail here because I \u2013 I seem to recall like if you\u2019re driving home and something\u2019s on your mind, boom what\u2019s your work flow?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Sure. So I try to not keep anything on my mind. In fact my mind sweep and my weekly review is a pretty quick process, \u2018cause I try to dump as I go. So I use a list manager called Wunderlist and it\u2019s a \u2013 it\u2019s a German software app, in the Cloud, runs on \u2013 on the web, on all my IOS devices. It\u2019s ubiquitous, always on me, always synced up. So I can use Siri on my IPhone and throw things right into Wunderlist In. I basically e-mail in, without ever looking at my phone or anything, so very easy to capture on any device that\u2019s at hand.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Oh good and then when do you come back and take what you\u2019ve captured and bring it to the next step? Do you do that at home or do you generally have some processing time at work, or all the above?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, I process a few times throughout the day and try and get all three of my main in-boxes to zero; e-mail, my Wunderlist in-box and anything that might be in my red folder that I carry around in my bag, but I do a lot of capture on my phone or my IPad or whatever, but I do almost all my processing on the computer. I just found it\u2019s quicker, I can drag and drop things a little bit easier than I can on other devices.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, I\u2019ve uh \u2013 Bryan Palmer who is another In-Conversation Slice of Life conversation that we had was very similar. He found that you know, just trying to use that mobile screen was just too limiting on that and then processing happened in the cockpit and it was much faster and more efficient. Cool.<br \/>\nSo now let\u2019s go back to, I want to pick up the thread at improving flow. Love the evolution of just productivity pick-up, as David has always mentioned, it\u2019s like layers of an onion and then going back to it, \u201cWow! Freedom and clear space!\u201d tasting that\u2019s pretty interesting.<br \/>\nLet\u2019s jump over to the team side of this real quickly. So how has GTD influenced the team that you\u2019re responsible for; how have you introduced that and how has it improved the team flow?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Oh significantly, significantly! So what we did is we \u2013 we all read the book, of course, and then we just set up some discussions as a team. So our team, at our factory here, is made \u2013 our leadership team is, you know, the manager of engineering, the manager of materials management and so on and so forth. All the functions that are required to run this plant. The plant\u2019s got about 900 employees and we make about \u2013 oh about 8,000 pieces of furniture a day. So it\u2019s a staff of 23 or so manager positions.<br \/>\nSo we each read the book, had these discussions to get on the same page and then one of the key things we did and I was a little hesitant to do this, because I never want to force a tool, but like I said, my personal list manager is this Wunderlist software, we found that it had this shared list capability and so that was tremendously powerful for us.<br \/>\nSo about two years ago we kind of landed on that and we all started trying to adopt it as our own personal list manager but then as you saw in our team space, our nerve center, we also have a large touch screen where we display the shared lists, the project lists and the next actions list where we come back to any items that are significant to the team. So what I mean by that is often in a meeting or when we\u2019re out on the factory floor, they\u2019ll be a follow-up and if it\u2019s kind of a one-off and someone has a trusted system, it\u2019ll just go into their own Wunderlist to be followed up on. But things that impact multiple stake-holders and is just good for all of us to know what was done to maybe correct a problem or go after an opportunity or whatever, we put on the shared list and then in our daily stand-up we follow-up on those things to see what got done. We\u2019re able to assign owners and dates and it\u2019s just really streamlined how we operate. It makes things very clear.<br \/>\nYou know, one of the things that was interesting about that was clarity around what \u201cdone\u201d means. So in this team environment when someone is you know going to the board and saying, \u201cI did this and I did this \u2026\u201d we kind of do a check in as a team and say, you know, \u201cDo we agree that that\u2019s complete, that that\u2019s done?\u201d And sometimes we\u2019ll say, \u201cNah, there\u2019s more to do here\u201d, or \u201cYeah, it\u2019s done\u201d and go in that box, scream make the noise, a ding sound and everybody claps and we try to make if fun getting things done.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, David and I had a chance to stand around a table and watch you all, you know, run a meeting and in this context, how many people do you have standing around that table? You must have like fifteen.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, it\u2019s 20 to 23.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: 20 to 23 people standing around this table. What do you call that session that we witnessed where everybody\u2019s just going around giving a status update; what\u2019s the name for that?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, we call it our staff exchange.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Staff exchange. And how much time did you have allocated to that?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: It takes between 15 and 20 minutes.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That was amazing. I mean about 20 people giving an update in about 15 to 20 minutes. This thing was so dialed in. It was absolutely amazing and a piece of art from my perspective. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. I was really excited to see that.<br \/>\nThe other thing I noticed though, what enabled the very crisp, clean updates from your perspective? Is there anything like in the GTD, like outcome\/action thinking and what you have there in the middle of the table that helped you just really say, \u201cOkay, here\u2019s what we want to communicate and here is some of the ground rules\u201d?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Oh, absolutely! It\u2019s all about defining desired outcomes, if there\u2019s something in our world that we don\u2019t like the way it is, something bad happened or something isn\u2019t the way we want we want it, then we define the desired outcome and we decided very finitely, very granularly, what is the next step to get moving towards it? And when we take the time to get the clarity around that, that\u2019s what makes everything move crisp.<br \/>\nIn fact, when things get stalled we\u2019ll often have to go back to, \u201cWe\u2019ve got more thinking to do to get this moving again.\u201d<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Nice.<br \/>\nNow, so having the individual team members understand GTD and start to practice GTD and then seeing it at the team level collectively, I\u2019m wondering what kind of feedback \u2013 what have others reflected back at you with a before and after kind of scenario sense of what GTD\u2019s brought into their personal life or what they\u2019ve experienced at the team level?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well, feedback we get from others outside of our plant is you know, we need to teach this, share this with other areas of Steelcase operations which we\u2019re doing. North America is following it very well.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: And what are people specifically drawn to, what are they seeing that say, \u201cHey, we need to duplicate this!\u201d &#8211; why, why are they even seeing this?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: They\u2019re seeing fun, they\u2019re seeing action and proven in the metrics is the key thing, right? So you can have whatever methodology or philosophy but if it\u2019s not moving the needle, so that \u2013 that\u2019s the bottom line and when they see steady \u2013 you know we measure ourselves against safety, quality, on-time delivery, cost and as you saw in our room, we make those metrics very visual, very easy to understand and so if you can make a connection between the actions people are taking and improvement in the performance then you want to applicate and scale that up. So that\u2019s what\u2019s going on.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Okay.<br \/>\nNow what about at like an individual team member sense when you have a one-on-one with a team member and you\u2019re just talking about their own personal performance, any kind of before or after sense that you\u2019re seeing with particular team members or any particular stories that you just say, \u201cWow! That was cool!\u201d?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, I\u2019ve seen transformation after transformation in individuals and how they work and the clarity of our discussions, so each of us have you know, a set of one-on-one lists in our list manager and so we\u2019re able to share those as well which is also a huge way to cut down on e-mail because if I know I have a one-on-one with Mike later this week, instead of going back and forth on e-mail, I can just throw it over into Wunderlist and both of us will see that it\u2019s in there and kind of queue it up for discussion.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: So stepping back a little bit, kind of going back up to the higher level, maybe I can borrow your Lean brain here for a second. If you were to design a hypothesis or a measurement system to say, \u201cHere\u2019s the pragmatic value that GTD has brought, an increase in this, a decrease in that \u2026\u201d what kind of things come to mind for you, if you try to frame it within that perspective?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: A big increase in clarity, clarity around what we\u2019re trying to accomplish, clarity around the actions that we\u2019re choosing to take to achieve the goals and vision that we have for our operation. And so having it all kind of laid out in front of us so we can decide we\u2019re gonna do that, we\u2019re not gonna do that \u2013 I\u2019d just say way better clarity.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Nice.<br \/>\nAnything else?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well I think what you experienced when you were with us is a whole lot more fun. It\u2019s very enjoyable to work around people who are \u2013 and I\u2019m blessed with the greatest group of people I could ever ask for to work with, our team is amazing and they gravitated to this so naturally. For one, they\u2019re all pretty \u2013 they can see a good process when it\u2019s laid out, especially as in operations and I work quite closely with IT and our IT group as well really resonated with and other groups all over the company, but yeah, it\u2019s just helped us \u2013 yeah, get clear and progress easily and have a lot more fun at work.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Great!<br \/>\nNow one of the things that I find interesting, \u2018cause sometimes when people ask me about, \u201cOkay, what\u2019s the value or the measurable outcome of GTD?\u201d it kind of starts to your point earlier where, okay, you know level one, you\u2019ll have a little productivity pick-up. You\u2019ll pick-up some time, you\u2019ll shave off time on doing e-mails, you\u2019ll get clear and things like that. But the second level of the onion goes towards the value of what you\u2019re cranking off your project list and the economic value \u2013 it\u2019s hard for me to answer their question without knowing the economic value of what is on that project list.<br \/>\nSo one of the things that I\u2019m reminded of when I went to your site was how life can throw you a curve ball and how you\u2019re gonna deal with it. So I think at the time I was there, the ports on the West Coast were clogged up and there was a longshoremen strike happening and you had some castors that you had to get on your product in order to get it out the door to hit a customer deliverable. So that was your curve ball that was thrown at you and watching that get operationalized onto a project list, nailed down to a next action and having a waiting for for the air shipment to drop, (I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m using the right terms) but that was reality in action. And I was thinking to myself at the time, \u201cHmm, I wonder what the economic value of that one project brings to a team like this to hit a customer\u2019s deliverable?\u201d I\u2019m sure you see that in spades.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Oh all the time, yeah. Our business is \u2013 like I said, the fact that we\u2019ll make the order with short customer lead times makes our business model very dynamic, you know \u2013 seasonal and we got all these priority agreements with certain customers and then you have things like the port strike and other interesting things that are going on in the world that affect the plan basically. So you can make you know, a very good plan and then it goes out the window sometimes very quickly so our ability to come together, decide what we\u2019re gonna do, who\u2019s gonna do it, and then follow-up relentlessly to make sure \u2013 like the port issue didn\u2019t impact our customers one bit and you know, that was significant and could have, and what you experienced in our little 15 minute stand-up was one element of us sorting through that issue, you know but there were obviously many other actions and owners and due dates and follow-up, follow-up, follow-up \u2026<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Right.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Smooth as possible anyway.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That was just \u2013 you know, it\u2019s just wonderful to experience that and when I close the door and do executive coaching with folks and see some of the stuff that gets cleared off their project list, the economic value of any one of those items or the ability to put one more on, in some instances, the ability to say, \u201cNo\u201d faster creates space for the next one to come on.<br \/>\nAnd going back to the theme of clarity that comes from reducing waste in the system from a Lean perspective is what I experience over and over again.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Absolutely.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Let\u2019s shift gears here just a little then. The other thing I recall walking around and seeing your team is they have a little orange sticker on the corner of their name tag and what did that little orange sticker say?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, it says, \u201cAsk me about GTD\u201d.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Ha, ha! Tell me the story about the sticker. I was \u2013 when I saw that I\u2019m like, \u201cOf course, that\u2019s a thing of beauty!\u201d Then the second thing was, \u201cTell me more! How does that come to be? What\u2019s that all about?\u201d<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah so a few years ago one of our brainiacs in IT Jim Horbath and I were chatting about things and we both, we found this common interest where I was a big fan of GTD, as was Jim. We found a few others and started this little make-shift hearing team, endorsing team, whatever you want to call it and we just started thinking about ways that we could spread it through the organization. We had this movement going and obviously your visit with David and David\u2019s keynote was a huge catalyst for continuing to spread, but yeah, the sticker was just an idea that somebody on the core team came up with. In fact, someone asked me yesterday, you know, \u201cWhat does that mean? What\u2019s GTD?\u201d and it allowed me to \u2013 she opened the door to a conversation about it.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Oh nice. And when you have a conversation with somebody about GTD, let\u2019s use one that you had yesterday. One of the common themes and questions is how do you introduce people to GTD? How do you personally engage in a conversation like that?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: So I\u2019ll explain it as you know, it\u2019s a life management system. It\u2019s an approach that was developed by this David Allen guy over many years of working with various busy people and he kind of knitted it together into a systematic approach that you use for your whole life. So I basically run my life at work and at home on the same system.<br \/>\nIt starts by getting everything out of your head, capturing it into a system you trust, clarifying what it means, what outcomes you want, what actions you need to move towards those outcomes and then you just basically track it in a way that make it really easy to bump into the right things at the right time. And the outcome is freedom, freedom to enjoy your time and be in the moment.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah. Well, well said and uh you know on the freedom side of things, you know one of our GTD champions said he was free to be at his daughter\u2019s soccer game and actually be there and not be on his IPhone or something, and actually engaged in watching.<br \/>\nYou know, others they find the freedom of enjoying a dinner with their spouse or life-partner and actually being there at dinner and not being distracted by work.<br \/>\nAnd it shows up in little spaces or you call those big spaces like that and it\u2019s a thing that happens.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Our company is a real big advocate of well-being for our employees and we have these six aspects of well-being and one of them is mindfulness, being present, being in the moment. Our CEO Jim Keane is a huge believer in unplugging when you\u2019re in a meeting with him. He is always there. And I think you and David met with him.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yes, yeah, beautiful gentleman.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: He\u2019s amazing and you know, you can\u2019t be in the moment if your head is full of all these commitments that you\u2019ve made that you\u2019re afraid of dropping the ball on. So GTD is an enabler to mindfulness like no other thing, more so than meditation or anything else we found.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Um hm. You know, I recently went on vacation to Mexico and I just got back with the family and we had very limited internet access so we had the whole family off of technology for a week and it was amazing how much signal came back through all the noise that we thought was so important before being so connected and in that kind of silent present space you get more sensitive to new stuff coming in, the quality of it, the quality of being together and now that we\u2019re back, I can see the behaviors kind of snapping back into place and it\u2019s a very interesting thing to pay attention to. As David, I think when he was out there, mentioned the book Brain Chains, C-H-A-I-N-S, the chains that bind your brain and how technology and the way the brain reacts to it can be really kind of interesting to pay attention to. Because every time you take a look at that news feed or that Facebook feed, a shot of Dopamine goes into your brain and you\u2019re like, \u201cAh that felt so good!\u201d But when I personally stepped back, I was like, \u201cWhat did I really accomplish there?\u201d I was going in to check something else and I get distracted by all this other stuff. It\u2019s very interesting.<br \/>\nSo let\u2019s jump over to a different side of things. A couple maybe rapid-fire questions for you: If you were to dial it back to say ten years ago and try to introduce GTD to an earlier version of yourself, what would you say to somebody who\u2019s just starting out their career about GTD and how it might be relevant to them?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: I think no matter what point you\u2019re at in your life or your career, read the book and just start. What I\u2019ve experienced is people will read the book and be a bit overwhelmed, you know, obviously. There\u2019s all these \u2013 even if you\u2019re young, there\u2019s a lot of habits that you have to change like writing things down.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: And building a habit like the weekly review, those sort of things, but the key is just to get started and know that it\u2019s possible to follow an approach like this. Anyone can do it, so that\u2019s the advice I have, get started.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Do you find any particular components, particularly for people starting out are a bit more accessible and once people engage with those components, they\u2019re like, \u201cWow! That was a little more profound than I thought it would be.\u201d<br \/>\nI mean, do you have any experiences, based on your experience with your team members on what they find most useful, say at the front end of GTD and then \u2013 then we can explore the back end later?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: So the waiting for follow-up list and really a one-on-one list is a form of waiting for follow-up; tremendous value in that because our world out here in the plant is very busy, very dynamic and often they\u2019ll be things delegated that aren\u2019t followed up on. So one of the biggest transformations we\u2019ve had in the plant are these one-on-one lists and the waiting for follow-up lists. Just circling back to things until all parties feel it\u2019s done is tremendously powerful.<br \/>\nUh, the weekly review has been an interesting journey for us. I would say by far the most difficult habit to build organizationally in terms of getting to do it. We try to keep our Fridays light loaded in terms of meetings and kind of a heavier load Monday through Thursday and about 80% of our team does their weekly reviews on Friday.<br \/>\nI take the weekly review reminder that day and I forward it out to our entire team, even our team leaders. So team leaders have about 10-12 employees that report to them and so the weekly review reminder goes out to everyone and then I\u2019ll add a few comments, but that\u2019s been a challenge for a lot of us, including myself, to build that habit.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, but once you step into it what happens? Once you get through the weekly review, what do you feel on the other end?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Oh, freedom and control. You feel on top of your game and I hear that from people all the time. And you can almost sense when someone short-circuited their weekly review because it\u2019s a more frantic individual.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, that feels so true to me because when I\u2019m fallen out of the weekly review, I get frantic. That\u2019s a good term and I feel scattered. I can feel the disturbance in the field \u2013 the force field.<br \/>\nI actually did just a quick analysis of the weekly review. So let\u2019s say, let\u2019s pretend you work a 40 hour work week and you spend 90 minutes on your weekly review, that\u2019s 3.75% of your time and then the question becomes, you know, if you do the 3.75%, how\u2019s that going to improve the quality of the other 96.25%? Ha, ha! So that keeps me motivated, engaged and honest to like, \u201cOh man, it\u2019s only 3.5%!\u201d I just need to step into it and then let it take over and then when I walk out the other end it\u2019s like, \u201cWhy do I resist this at all, if at all?\u201d<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Absolutely! What we found is if they use their weekly review time to catch up on e-mail and catch up on their in-box, a lot of times they\u2019ll use their whole weekly review for processing and so we\u2019ve had that \u2013 you know, continue to remind ourselves that that\u2019s not the \u2013 obviously you want to zero out your in-box, but that should be a small portion. So just trying to be mindful of that and prepare for that. Okay? Friday afternoon is coming, let\u2019s try and get clean you know. If we have to work a little longer on Thursday or whatever. So we go into it and could really zoom out and you know look at our project lists, make sure there\u2019s a next action associated with each one and really do a weekly review the way it\u2019s meant to be done.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, now and have you found folks go to their own special place to do their weekly review, because man that\u2019s at Steelcase headquarters. How many beautiful special places can you go to in the space that you have designed at your headquarters and some folks that I know need to get out of like their normal place of operations and actually walk someplace different, their own special hiding place. Do you see that within your team or yourself as a tactic?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Yeah, it\u2019s kind of a mixed bag and I\u2019m actually considering changing the location. I do mine in my office but I still, even though I hang my little GTD Weekly Review in Progress sign on the door, do not disturb sign on the door, I still get interrupted from time to time, so I\u2019m gonna try to chance up the location, but yeah, a lot of people do go and find a quiet space to do it. Some do it at their desks.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: And it\u2019s, you know, varying degrees of effectiveness I would say. We\u2019re still learning.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Good, good.<br \/>\nNow I\u2019m gonna shift topics. Again I want to go back to the nerve center a bit and talk to me a little bit about you know, some of things I saw were ambient information that you had hanging within that nerve center with really kind of your key information that you use to show the health and well being of what you\u2019re managing. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how that supports your team and the principles behind that and then how that leads to any actions or projects that you might capture in your system?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Absolutely. So it\u2019s a Lead technique of visual management of visual controls and the idea is just to not have things hidden in a spread sheet or on a, you know, on MS Project, or whatever behind the scenes. Try and make, like you said the health of our operation very obvious to the team, so we know what the points of struggle are and we know the areas that are working well, so we can redirect the focus and drive appropriate actions to include the performance.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Nice. And the way it struck me is \u2013 is these daily scrums or even the weekly review, there\u2019s the last step in get current is review any relevant check-lists in the weekly review. What I saw there was kind of the visual equivalent of any relevant check-list that you want to see if it triggers anything that you want to capture into your system. So thanks for sharing the resources behind that so if others are interested they could pursue that further.<br \/>\nBut I thought it was again, there are so many points of beauty in the flow that you had at an individual level and a team level, that\u2019s another one that caught my attention.<br \/>\nSo Bob to shift topics a little bit to go on the personal side, what GTD principles have trickled over to that side that seems to be working for you?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well I\u2019ve got a lot of hobbies. I love to be outdoors, outdoors with the kids, you know, we\u2019re into kayaking, back-packing, you name it, just anything that we can do together that\u2019s outdoors. We ski and snowboard in the winter, which is great around here; just love being outdoors. So we have, you know, if we\u2019re going to the beach we have a check-list for what to bring to the beach. If we\u2019re going back-packing, of course, we have that check-list; very important, especially if it\u2019s an overnight one or a multi-day one that we have everything with us. It just makes it really, really easy.<br \/>\nI\u2019m learning to kite surf now, which has been an interesting adventure. I\u2019ve drank more Lake Michigan water than I care to mention, uh steep learning curve, but because of GTD I could be out you know, whatever I\u2019m doing enjoying it, focused on it and not worrying about something blowing up in my world that I wasn\u2019t keeping track of like I should have. That\u2019s a huge \u2013 a huge benefit to this system, is you know, the freedom. Not just the mental clarity freedom, but the freedom to enjoy the things in your life you want to pay attention to.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That sounds \u2013 it sounds like you\u2019ve had the clarity to find some of those fun places to play and explore those.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Absolutely. Uh, my oldest daughter is using a list manager. I do have to admit I use a bit of a technique to get her on board. She really wanted an IPhone and I agreed that I would get her an IPhone as long as she downloaded Wunderlist and we set a shared list, so she\u2019s doing a good job capturing things that she needs to follow-up on, whether it be for school or things around the house and I\u2019ll throw things on there and she\u2019ll do a check-in with me before she goes to the beach with her friends or whatever to make sure we\u2019re in agreement on the things that need to be accomplished beforehand. So \u2026<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That\u2019s great!<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: A little leverage there.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: I had another GTD champion and he developed these things called GTD bucks and if and \u2013 he has a little picture of himself on the buck and then he had in-boxes for all his kids and he would put a buck in an in-box with maybe an instruction on it and an expiration date. So if they went to the in-box, found the buck and did what was on the instruction (and the instruction could be just say, \u201cHey, I checked my in-box and I found this in it\u201d and bring it back to him) they would get buck credit, whatever that was in their family to help promote the behaviors, you know, as you know, form follows functions and it\u2019s a good thing. So kudos to you! Ha, ha, ha. Folks emerge and find their own unique systems as they go. That\u2019s awesome.<br \/>\nAnd check-lists \u2013 where do you keep your check-lists?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: They\u2019re all in my list manager. My uh Wunderlist is my external brain. I use it for random check-lists as well as the context based lists, you know, @computer, in-car. Oh, we actually figured out a way to consolidate two of the lists in this book, so instead of a @phone, or calls-list and an errands list, because we can safely do it with ear buds and Siri, most of us just use a list called in-car, and then we put phone calls in, things to get at the store on that. So, anyway, yeah, it\u2019s all in one turbo-charged list manager that we love.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That\u2019s great. Now do you have any favorite customized context that you like to use outside the standards?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well yes. So I have one called Horizons of Focus and it contains all the way from 50,000 through 20,000 foot level, so I have my own personal purpose statement, some vision statements, one to three years out and then I\u2019ve got goals listed to support my vision. I\u2019ve got my roles and then of course, projects and actions are separate from those, but I do scan \u2013 kind of scan through my Horizons of Focus as part of my weekly review. It\u2019s attached to my check-list for my weekly review. And then I go a little more in depth quarterly and annually.<br \/>\nI used to have to come in and I said, \u201cWhy not put it all in the same place.\u201d<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Oh excellent.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Uh let\u2019s see, I\u2019ve got a &#8211; obviously my weekly review agenda, our shared list. Most of the other ones are right out of the book; Taylor-Dad stuff, that\u2019s the one with my 17 year-old and then I\u2019ve got a set of Wunderlists as a cool feature of these folders that you can take lists and sort of collapse them, so you see a high level and then you can expand it and go down. Uh, let\u2019s see I\u2019ve got a list of cool quotes, I\u2019ve got, yeah, various check-lists for the different outside of work activities that I enjoy, movies to watch all that kind of standard stuff.<br \/>\nOh, there\u2019s one \u2013 podcast with Mike Williams.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Who\u2019s that guy? Ha, ha, ha.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: The &#8211; some stuff I was thinking about in advance.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Well is there anything else on that list that we should cover?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: No, we\u2019re hitting it pretty good.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Well, let\u2019s see here. Now is there any question that you wanted me to ask you that I didn\u2019t ask or anything you want to bring forward about your GTD experience, system, practice?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Well David mentioned that those who need it least sort of gravitate to it the most and we have found that here at Steelcase in spades. Our Senior Vice-President of Global Operations, Bob Krestakos is a huge believer in GTD, read the book, gave it to all of his direct reports and his boss and he just \u2013 I couldn\u2019t have more of an advocate at the top and that\u2019s why it\u2019s spreading like it is. It\u2019s wonderful.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: That\u2019s great. And sage words of wisdom on helping people get a taste and then the taste draws them in further. And we share the same mission here, we\u2019re trying to give people a taste of all of that as well. Probably a good place to stop.<br \/>\nIf folks were interested in contacting you or learning more about anything that\u2019s kind of important in your world, where would you like them to go, if that\u2019s okay?<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just drop me an e-mail. I\u2019m at RHendrik@Steelcase.com.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Okay. And Bob thank you so much for your time, thank you so much for being a GTD champion. Thank you so much for your friendship. I really appreciate our exchanges over time and I look forward to intersecting again, hopefully on a snowboard on the mountains someplace. That\u2019d be a lot of fun. Ha, ha, ha.<br \/>\nBOB HENDRIKSEN: That\u2019d be fun. Thanks Mike.<br \/>\nMIKE WILLIAMS: Alright. Take care.<br \/>\nEnd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast interview, you&#8217;ll hear Bob Hendriksen talking with Mike Williams. Bob is a plant manager for Steelcase, and a complete GTD enthusiast. He has a keen interest in improving systems, with an emphasis on &#8216;lean&#8217; production. He discusses how lean improves flow to reduce waste, and points out that GTD is all about improving the mental flow. You&#8217;ll also hear how Bob applies GTD in his work and life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[697,1,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-stories","category-featured","category-podcast-2","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.8 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Introducing GTD to a Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/12\/podcast-10-improving-organization-with-gtd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episode #10 - Improving an Organization with GTD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this podcast interview, you&#039;ll hear Bob Hendriksen talking with Mike Williams. Bob is a plant manager for Steelcase, and a complete GTD enthusiast. He has a keen interest in improving systems, with an emphasis on &#039;lean&#039; production. He discusses how lean improves flow to reduce waste, and points out that GTD is all about improving the mental flow. 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