Focus: Getting the right things done at the right time with the least stress.

Jim Says:

I want us all to be truly effective - not because I want us to have money or power or get "things" done - but because I want us to get the right things done. I want work and life to matter. When I work with others I want them to feel the passion and excitement of finishing something I do. We get ourselves focused on metrics and numbers and lose sight of professionalism and care. When we do that, we stop communicating. Work becomes about meetings and money and not about success ... real success. With Personal Kanban or Lean Coffee or our other tools, Toni and I are taking a lifetime of experiences to create systems that help people achieve - and nothing is better than that.

Focus: Creating healthy environments where people thrive and value is realized.

Toni Says:

People should feel their work is valued - that THEY are valued. A Post-it on my monitor reminds me why Jim and I do what we do. It’s from a client who implored, “Please. Help me justify my existence to my boss.” Not a day goes by that I’m not in equal measure haunted and yet driven by this plea. With our toolkit, our once-tacit workload - backlog, priorities, capacity, effort - is made explicit. We gain clarity over our options, feedback from our actions, and unassailable recognition when value's created. Creating workplaces that are more humanistic than mechanistic, where those creating value ARE valued - is a step towards creating a virtuous cycle. For the employee. The organization. For society as a whole.  

We’ve worked with individuals, startups, hospitals, government agencies, non-profits, and Fortune 10 companies. We’ve had the privilege of working in just about every vertical on six continents. We’ve seen first hand the complicated, emotional, and frustrating ways we universally “organize” and process our work.

Overload generated by email and phone calls, coupled with legitimate (and ever-changing) colleague and client needs lead people to believe work is synonymous with overload, confusion, and stress. They are convinced that the solution to these issues is simply beyond their reach.

But it’s not. It’s a matter of effective communication.

To be sure, while getting people to communicate better is in itself an effort, much of the problem is just trying to communicate all there is to say.  Context changes and so do our priorities. Tasks are then done hastily, work (and quality) escape us, and we seldom take the time to update others on our status. This isn’t because we’re hiding things from them or intentionally being evasive. And it’s certainly not because we’re evil.

It’s because we are constantly busy.

Healthy companies rely on mechanisms that contain and convey all those really important things that we don’t have the time to: How much work do you have? Who is working on what? What information do you need? What work is in peril? What work can be improved? What work is coming your way?

We have watched how clarity, agency, and the ability to solve problems eases the stress of individuals, teams, and organizations world-wide.

Removing that stress, letting people focus on what’s important, making work life better…that’s what we’re all about.

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