It’s 7:58 AM and beads of sweat are forming on your forehead. Your pulse rate is increasing as you grip your steering wheel tightly. And to make matters worse… you forgot your mobile phone at home.

In 2 minutes you will officially be late for an extremely important meeting with your new boss and a group of customers. Oh, and these customers are visiting to discuss the poor customer service they claim your company has provided them.

The reason you’re late is not your fault. There was a major traffic accident which created a parking lot for more than one hour. The most frustrating thing is you left home extra early due to the importance of this meeting.

You finally walk into the meeting at 8:27 AM. You’re close to 30 minutes late and your new boss does not look pleased… nor do your customers.

What would you say?

A friend, who’ll stay nameless since it involves a family member of his, recently told the story of how his 8 month old child threw-up on him, smiled, laughed and then had a blow-out diaper.

How’s that for imagery?

Well, my friend went on to say how he learned a valuable lesson from his child’s happy response to adversity.

Now I know the imagery of this story is less than appealing, especially to those of you without kids. But, this story really does teach us grown-ups a valuable lesson if you ask me.

He Smiled

My friend’s child obviously felt bad or they wouldn’t have been throwing up… yet they smiled.  So no matter how bad your day, week, month, or year has been try to smile more. It can’t hurt.

He Laughed

Likewise even though this poor child’s tummy obviously felt terrible… they looked up at their Daddy and laughed.

In other words, quit being so serious all the time. When you’re running your next kaizen event or teaching your next class or spending time with your family… loosen up and laugh. It’s not so hard.  Oh, and it’ll also help you smile more.

Don’t Worry

And, no, I won’t attempt to tie in how the blow-out diaper can help us be better people.

But I will say that the next time life throws you some lemons perhaps you can replay this story in your mind as you twist those face muscles of yours ever so slightly… and smile.

Come on. Let’s try it.  Smile. Come on… you can do it.  Now give me a little smile.  That’s better. Now laugh. See? It works doesn’t it?

If you work for a company that doesn’t need to cut costs you can ignore this article.

If, however, your company needs to reduce costs now more than ever it’s my hope this short article may help you along the way.

And while the ideas I’ll list are not revolutionary or new… chances are your company is not practicing all of them in which case opportunity exists! Let’s get started.

1. Print on both sides of paper

Paper is not cheap… in fact if you work in a big company I bet you spend thousands and thousands on it. So, instead of printing on one side of the paper use both sides. In some cases this isn’t practical… but in many cases it is.

2. Stop printing all your emails in color!

Next, challenge your workforces to stop printing emails as if life will stop if they don’t. And please stop using the color printer! I once visited a plant that controlled this by placing the printer by the managing director’s desk to control this. This may be a bit more command and control for many… but it worked!

3. Re-fill ink cartridges

The ink cartridges in those printers you have are e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. So, instead of ordering new cartridges you may look into getting them re-filled. There are companies dedicated to this and from my experience the quality of their work is beyond excellent.

4. Try video conferencing

Instead of paying hundreds, maybe more, for an airplane ticket to that one day meeting why not utilize video or web conferencing instead? You can share files and collaborate very well these days with applications like Webex.

5. Use Skype

Skype is the bomb and will save your company lots of money on phone bills, especially if you make frequent long distance calls within your company.

6. Close the doors for a week

If things are really bad and it’s looking like layoffs are imminent you may try to close the doors for a week or more while asking employees to use vacation time. Sure this isn’t exactly fun for the employee… but it’s better than the alternative!

7. Frequent Flier Miles

OK, how about this heretical idea. If you fly a lot for your company and they pay for your plane tickets while you rack up the frequent flier miles… how about asking employees to use these miles for future business trips? Perhaps the employee creates a separate frequent flier program for all business trips.

Now, some will say their company “owes” them these miles for being away from their family, etc. Me, I don’t buy this. If you don’t like to travel you are always free to find another job that doesn’t require it.

You know, some place like Burger King where they do it your way!

What do you think?

What do you think of my list? Especially number 7? Can you think of any other ideas for how you can help your company save money in these difficult times?

How many times have you heard lean advocates ramble on about how respecting people is a key tenet of the vaunted Toyota Production System? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this AND written it myself here on LSS Academy.

And while it’s true… respecting people is mandatory…what does this really mean?

How exactly do you respect people? It may sound like a simple question but I contend it’s anything but simple.

With this said, I hope to share some of my thoughts on some practical things we can all do starting today to respect people no matter if our job title is Senior Vice President or Mom.

1. Look at people when they talk to you

Have you ever been asked to come to someone’s big office for a meeting only to find them checking their Blackberry or email more than actually listening to you? This is NOT respecting people.

So, the next time you engage in a conversation – even a short one at the water cooler – look the person in the eyes when they’re speaking to you. If this means closing the lid of your laptop or putting your Crackberry in your desk drawer with the ringer and vibrate function turned off… do it.

2. Listen. Really Listen.

And as you’re looking the person in the eyes listen to them. Really listen. Often times this requires you to say a few things back that actually contain some substance.

3. Don’t always agree

Some think that to be respectful you can never disagree. This is ridiculous. My old boss at Nokia used to tell his management team that if all 8 of us agreed he had 7 too many people in the room. So true.

4. Don’t simply disagree to justify your existence

With this said, don’t attempt to always find at least one thing to disagree on in attempts to somehow feel like you’re justifying your existence.

If you agree with a point and can’t add anything to it… just say something like, “Sounds great. You’ve obviously done your homework. Let me know if I can help.”

5. Engage the Gemba

Another favorite we lean practitioners like to talk about is genchi genbutsu, which literally means to go to the place the work is done to see with your own eyes.

There are many benefits to this… but one that doesn’t get enough press, in my opinion, is that by going to the gemba you’re able to actually engage in the situation. In fact, you may be able to actually get your hands dirty while helping to solve the problem.

6. Increase the tension

One of the so called contradictions of Toyota is that they often place incredible tension throughout the organization.

This is sometimes done by setting incredibly difficult goals and targets. It’s also done by constantly preaching how the sky is falling and all associates must do their part to help the company stay in business.

So, while there must be a balance, I do think ensuring a fair share of tension exists throughout the organization is a good thing.

7. See the forest

Finally, as a leader one of the most respectful things you can do is to keep your eyes down field.

In other words, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. Because if you do bad things will eventually happen… meaning that conversation you’re having – while looking the employee in the eyes – may not be fun.

What do you think?

What other ways, dear readers, can you think of to respect people?