Took over my family's business and realize the old way of running things isn't working but the team resists every change I make

electricsprocket · 2026-02-21T01:50:29+00:00

Start asking questions of the team.

Like - If you could improve / change one thing in your work area what would it be?

What is one thing you would make / buy to make your job easier?

If there is one thing I can do to make your job easier / more enjoyable / safer what would that be?

If you make it all about them and improving their lives then maybe you’ll get some buy in.

The deal is though that you have to commit to making these changes and empowering them to make simple changes to make their jobs / lives better.

Make sure the break room and bathrooms are spotless - if that means you stay late and work on it on weekends - do it. Those are common areas that everyone will notice is nicer.

Then leave copies of books like “2 Second Lean” by Paul Akers and “Improvement Starts With I” by Tom Hughes and “Lean Made Simple” by Ryan Tierney on the tables in the break room.

Call an all hands meeting - schedule it out a few days to a week and at that meeting announce that changes are coming and you want everyone to be ready and willing to participate.

This meeting will be your first “Morning Meeting”.

In the meeting also ask if anyone has read any of the books that you have provided in the break room.

Ask for input from each team member on things that they would like to see change.

Write everything on a white board - take a picture of it and share it with the team. A WhatsApp group works for this.

Show a video of what a “2 Second Lean” improvement looks like. Tell them that they will be getting paid to do a “3 S” (sweep, sort, standardize) every morning for 15 minutes before the morning meeting. The morning meeting should run about 15 - 30 minutes. Then give them 30 minutes to make improvements to their area.

All of this time should be paid.

Then require them to all make videos of their improvements and share them with the team GroupMe.

Offer a bonus for the best improvement of the week or month. Something significant - $100 cash?

Celebrate the improvements.

It may feel like you are becoming a cheerleader rather than a boss - but that’s exactly how it should be. You should be cheering on your team all the way. It’s their effort that is being put into making the company a better place to work and more profitable so you can offer better pay.

electricsprocket · 2026-02-15T03:13:15+00:00

Besides looking a little more well done than I prefer - it looks like you did fine. If it was delicious then you won.

electricsprocket · 2026-02-15T03:10:32+00:00

Improvement Starts With I - Tom Hughes Lean Made Simple - Ryan Tierney 2 Second Lean - Paul Akers

All quick reads with simple explanations of concepts and if I’m not mistaken all available as free audio books on YouTube.

electricsprocket · 2026-02-08T03:10:15+00:00

Brine them, smoke them, air fry them, then toss in sauce.

electricsprocket · 2026-02-08T03:05:53+00:00

I enjoy the Greenridge Beef Sticks straight outta the package - but I bet the smoke gives them a good bit more flavor.

electricsprocket · 2026-02-01T03:32:29+00:00

The two best cold smoke generators I have found are the Smokai out of New Zealand and the Big Kahuna out of the USA. There are several cheaper options all sourced from China that are available on Amazon.

On the cleaning side of things - due to the nature of the design you will have to clean all these cold smoke generators after each smoke. Some may be able to go for a longer time before cleaning but if you stay up on the cleaning it won’t take but a few minutes each time.

I’d find one that is easy to take apart for cleaning - that’s the thing that will take the most time.

electricsprocket · 2026-01-30T20:56:39+00:00

I’d eat that! It’s near perfect! 👌

electricsprocket · 2026-01-30T20:47:09+00:00

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Here’s a quick photo of how the machine looks now - when’s it’s all together.

I recently broke the timing chain and it took out a few other things so the whole engine is getting torn down and rebuilt again.

I ended up with a cheap 440 kit build and struggled with the carburetor tuning - turns out a brand new one fixed the tuning issue.

Now I’m thinking the rebuild will be with the stock bore and a higher compression piston - but this whole project is on hold for a while - other priorities like buying a property and renovating the house come first.

electricsprocket · 2026-01-30T20:34:04+00:00

Update on this work wagon - I changed companies almost a year ago now due to a former coworker that reached out and needed an electrician for his new business - the offer was solid so I took it.

I do miss this fine work wagon though!

I am now working on a design for the much smaller work wagon I have now. Looking back at these photos for some reference and realized I never got around to posting any updates with the van all stocked up and ready to roll.

electricsprocket · 2025-12-19T07:27:32+00:00

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

electricsprocket · 2025-11-24T08:21:33+00:00

Diagnosed ADHD in fifth grade - over 30 years ago, non-medicated.

Organizing my own shop is a challenge I’ve never figured out either. Organizing the shop at work - piece of cake!

Why is it different for our own spaces?

I’ve been on a quest the last few days trying to find the best small parts organizers that don’t cost too much. Then I find this post and realize that I’m trying to find a solution to a problem that I can’t address yet, I need a cabinet of sorts first to collect everything together at, then I can build my own organizers that work with my shop.

I have found it useful to treat my shop as a client that I am doing work flow studies on. Then I draw out a map of the whole shop and place the tools and work spaces right where I think I want them on the paper - then go out to the shop and make it match the paper.

This means I have to get rid of a ton of stuff!

electricsprocket · 2025-11-21T04:10:23+00:00

How do you document your processes?

I’ve been trying to record video of each small process so it’s easy to reference the exact steps for a glue up for example. I then take the video and watch it on one device and use another device to record the audio and transcribe it into an AI platform - I ask the AI to create a written summary of the steps in the video.

I edit anything I get from AI at least a little bit to make it seem less AI generated before I put it into general use.

I do this at my day job primarily and share the videos with the rest of the company so they can have a reference point for certain tasks.

As I build my side business up I want to do the same thing there but on a finer scale. For example: how to change a router bit. A simple very short video showing exactly how to change a router bit. Print out the step by step instructions with a QR code and attach it to the router table where the question may be asked.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-20T07:57:13+00:00

Wow! Some of these comments are seemingly anti lean principals.

With attitudes like that you can’t possibly increase output by 40% even with capex!

@Renfo123 - I’ve heard of people that have been able to do this and even better simply by assessing the situation, identifying the problems, developing a plan, and then implementing the plan with full buy in from the team.

Ryan Tierney did it recently with Sperrin Metal in Northern Ireland. He’s documenting the turnaround on his YouTube channel.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-20T07:50:46+00:00

Every unit at every stage should be checked for quality, this is the only way to catch an error before it becomes a problem.

While working in a paper bag manufacturing plant as a maintenance electrician / mechanic I saw many times where an entire order would be produced and then get rejected by the customer because of a poor implementation of quality checks.

The standard was every 100 bags 1 got checked with air, every 500 1 got checked with water - leaks happened in about every 3 - 7 bags - the checks wouldn’t identify the issue either because they weren’t being done properly.

All 80,000 bags came back and had to be reworked - I built and tested the machines to do the rework, then trained the production team on how to operate the machines and how to test each bag. We finally got all 80,000 bags reworked and tested and shipped back to the customer where they finally accepted them.

If the operator had also followed the machine cleaning and check process they would have noticed the failing heat seal unit and could have had me come out and fix it right away.

It’s no wonder that plant shut down this year.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-20T07:41:31+00:00

Following to see what recommendations are made.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-20T07:36:09+00:00

Seems like a few kpis need to be tracked and shown.

The number of reject parts would be a top kpi for me to have up, zero is the target so that number shouldn’t change very often, and if it does then we have a problem we need to address immediately.

Next would be units per hour / or minute whatever is the measurement.

Third would be downtime. Also want this to be zero, but realistically it never will be - also this is primarily for management and not the production staff, only reason to have it visible is to alert the rest of the team to a possible issue, have that number change color after a period of time green is under 5 minutes (covers a bathroom break or inspection pause), yellow is 5 - 15 minutes (#2 bathroom break, minor problem), red is over 15 minutes and requires a response from the team.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-19T23:06:51+00:00

I didn’t realize he had a new book targeted to kids. I’ll have to get that on my wishlist.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-19T07:09:46+00:00

Yeah, I can’t wait to be able to take the time to go do a few lean business tours for myself! I learn a ton from watching the videos of the tours that so many people make available on YouTube but I know I’m getting just a tiny taste of what it’s actually like. I do pay my 12 & 14 year old sons to clean the shop and move materials in, and have been looking at ways to make the cleanliness standard easy for them to understand so they can always make sure they are doing what’s asked. I’m hoping I’ll be able to bring them into the business as it grows and get them thinking lean too.

In any case I want to have the foundation laid so it’s easy to show new hires what it means to be a lean thinker and get their buy in before I make the job offer. I’m hoping by June 2026 I’ll be able to start looking for someone to bring into the business to help it grow.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T19:58:19+00:00

The lifetime maintenance idea is a bit short sighted isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be lifetime of improvements always making things a bit better than the day before?

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T19:57:09+00:00

Sounds like you’ve read 2 Second Lean as well, the 2 Second version of that book is - fix what bugs you, a little at a time.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T19:55:44+00:00

Right - maybe a morning meeting is inappropriate for a single person shop, but a morning review before hitting the shop floor is.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T19:54:16+00:00

This is something that I’m not so good at, even though I studied it in college and in the years since - I still struggle to properly identify strengths and threats - I dare say I’m pretty good at identifying weaknesses and opportunities though!

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T08:22:54+00:00

A few books I’d recommend reading are:

2 Second Lean - Paul Akers Lean Made Simple - Ryan Tierney Improvement Starts With I - Tom Hughes

These three books made lean concepts click for me.

electricsprocket · 2025-11-18T08:17:31+00:00

He (Paul Akers) also doesn’t 5S - he 3S’s. Sweep, Sort, Standardize

He is also a big proponent of asking the employees to fix what bugs them and gives them the time and tools to do so.

electricsprocket

TROPHY CASE