Do Not Disturb !! 🤐 I am Focused

This week's blog content is attributed and credited to Julie Danaylov from Cirque Revolution as a result of her recent post on LinkedIn.

As an Industrial Engineer I know when an employee is in the zone because as they perform assigned tasks they are literally doing a dance oblivious to their surroundings. This is why, when designing work stations we were always instructed to make the design in such a manner that the care and feeding of the station should never disturb the operator.

Why? It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully refocus on a task after a typical interruption, according to research from the University of California, Irvine. While brief interruptions may feel minor, they disrupt cognitive flow, often leading to a "recovery time" of 8 to 25 minutes depending on task complexity.

Several years ago Jay Myers conducted a survey of over 30,000 companies across Canada and found that those operating with a single shift, the break-even point was reached at 7 hours and 54 minutes. This left the organization only 6 minutes to make money after paying for labour, materials and overhead costs. Scary !!

This why many organizations focus on "First Hour" and "Last Hour" to insure productivity is sustained throughout the shift. There are many tricks to help make this happen like leaving stations "Wet" breaking the natural paradigm to leave work stations clean and organized. Another major cause of disruption is those innocent Supervisors and Team Leads checking on Team Members on Production Status and general Well Being. When a Visual Hour by Hour board provides you from a far glance if the Team Member truly needs help.

I have always told our client partners to look at other sectors for potential game changers that could be applied within your business. Here is where Julie provided a great perspective .... enjoy the read ....

We don’t talk. 🤐🎪

Backstage on our sites, you’ll notice that our team never talks unless it’s about the show in progress. IE “30 seconds to the end of the track” or “Rigger standing by for final pull.”

We have made it a team rule to have no side comments, no extra words, no distractions when it's showtime.

This may sound militant, even mean (IE don’t you people like having fun backstage?) Actually, for us, it’s 100% a safety issue (and yes, we LOVE having fun, but only after a safe & successful show!) 

In the circus, you can literally save someone’s life by simply paying attention. That's not worth ANY distraction as far as we are concerned.💯

There are SO MANY tiny moments during a performance that are unnoticeable to the untrained eye but clear as day to a pro, which is why we need to focus.

🧠My brain….

“Is light in their eyes?”

“Can they hear the music?” 

“That landing looked off. Are they okay?” 

"Did she just hesitate?"

“Is that audience member too close for comfort?”

These are just some of the factors we are constantly evaluating for before/during/following stage time.

A common tendency is for people to rush up to our team immediately after a performance to talk. (We 💓 how excited people are to speak with us because they loved what they saw) AND we absolutely can’t talk to you until all wrap-up items are complete. [For example, hauling in a massive balloon, or securing lines, or resetting props etc.]

So if we are quiet, please know we are not mad or unfriendly. 

We are just paying attention [because someone’s life depends on it.] 🙏🏻

I encourage you to go to the floor, Stand in your Circle and Observe. Observe to see if you Team Members are being interrupted and if they are how often and why? What opportunities can you identify to reduce or eliminate interruptions? Are you using Flow racks? simple PVC pipes to convey fasteners close to the hands of your Team member? Are materials to be used conveyed to the outside parameter of their station, quietly, but within easy reach. Never, ever violate a Team Member's walk area or personal space of work.

Create your Center of Gravity with your Team Members through Daily Management and then let them be to do their thing. Monitoring should only be accomplished through Visual Management Aids, of course manual instead of digital since manual does psychologically increase Emotional Attachement between the Team Member and their Process.

because someone’s life depends on it? Perhaps not, but the success of your productivity, process and quality does ... and LOVE having fun, but only after a safe & successful productive day!

BTW, Thank You Julie for the inspiration.