Rhetoric in work instructions??

Rhetoric is persuasive communication. Shouldn’t work instructions just contain the instructions? We argue that there is a place for persuasion.
Do your team members sometimes cut corners in their work? Of course they do. Why? Often it is because they don’t see the value in the step that they are skipping. You want team members who act intelligently. Well, they are doing that, saving themselves trouble and getting the job done faster for you!
Of course you put those details in for a reason, but the team may not understand that reason. Adding a persuasive element to your work instructions can motivate team members and help them understand about the details.
There are four types of persuasive instruction writing you can use:

1. Refer to cause and effect
   Assemble the carton on the bench—protect your back.
2. Refer to authority
   Check that there is no fuel in the tank—it is illegal to send inflammable liquids by post.
3. Give an example or analogy
   Wrap the product in bubble wrap as if it was a carton of eggs.
4. Refer to a policy or decision
   Attach the product label to the carton—we show our brand on all packaging.

Look at the instructions you write for team members and see if some persuasion would make the instructions more effective.
If you have challenges with team members complying with instructions, get in contact with us.

Corrective action

The management standards like ISO 9001 refer to ‘corrective action’, but what does it mean?  It is more than just correcting something. You don’t want the problem to happen again, do you?

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Stop the problem spreading
2. Fix the immediate problem
3. Find and eliminate the root cause
4. Prevent it happening again

To illustrate, here is a story about how we dealt with the mice in our kitchen:

1. We blocked up gaps to stop them getting into the pantry—we stopped the problem spreading.
2. We caught all mice that were inside the house—we fixed the immediate problem.
3. We searched behind the fridge and dishwasher, found gaps under the skirting board and blocked them—we found and removed the root cause.
4. We made a note to always check that our house is well sealed.—we prevented it happening again.

The ‘Rolls Royce’ of corrective action systems (well, the Ford Motor Company’s system, actually) is the 8 Disciplines (8D). You can read about it here.
Things that go wrong can be costly, so make sure you get the the bottom of the problem. We have a system that uses free software to track your issues and tasks.
If you’d like to discuss your issue and task management please contact us.

Microsoft Word tips

Most of my Word tips focus on persuading people to use the keyboard instead of the mouse, because it is quicker and there is less repetitive strain. Today I couldn’t resist throwing in a mouse one.  Here are your tips.  To:

• Select a whole:
  • Sentence: CTRL+click anywhere in the sentence
  • Paragraph: click anywhere in the paragraph 3 times
• Delete a whole word to the left of the insertion point: CTRL+BACKSPACE
• Create a horizontal line under the current paragraph: – – – ENTER (three hyphens then ENTER)