GEARS session tackles problem-solving

Participants in a manufacturing industry leadership program in Springfield spent much of a recent training session playing with Lego bricks. Their goal? Finding insights on problem-solving.

The third session of GEARS, a joint project launched in January by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Leadership Springfield, was held March 31. An acronym for growth, education, action, relationship and success, GEARS allows participants to sharpen leadership skills, expand their network and gain insights from industry peers through workshops, panel discussions and guest speakers.

The inaugural cohort, which launched in January, is capped at 25 and represents 15 businesses, officials say. The program consists of 90-minute sessions over a six-month period hosted at multiple local manufacturing facilities. Its session at the Frisco Building, 3253 E. Chestnut Expressway, covered operational excellence and problem-solving within the manufacturing industry. This included an interactive component dubbed Lego Serious Play, presented by Lance Coffman, senior program manager for strategic initiatives with Efactory and the Missouri Small Business Development Corp. at Missouri State University.

Coffman said he was exposed to Lego Serious Play a couple of years ago and “immediately fell in love with the format” and its learnings on leadership development, team-building, problem-solving and communication.

“So, you’re building a shared story instead of just putting some words on a piece of paper,” he said.

The methodology originated roughly 20 years ago, and the Denmark-based Lego Group began offering it as a community-based model in 2010 under a Creative Commons license, according to the Lego website.

“It’s something that engages your mind in a different way,” Coffman said. “It’s something that allows you to solve problems creatively, but still be productive, even if it seems like you’re playing a little bit.”

While noting he also loves process flow charts to map out projects, Lego Serious Play is completely different, Coffman said: It engages your mind in a different way and draws on imagination. Participants are led through a series of questions to go deeper into a subject. Each participant builds his or her own Lego model in response to the facilitator’s questions. The models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge-sharing, problem-solving and decision-making.

Coffman led the participants in several short exercises. Those included assembling a 3D model dog with six Lego bricks, then explaining to other participants why it is the world’s best – a boast that they were also asked to continue justifying, even after removing two bricks.

“You decide the meaning of the model. The model is yours, so take time to interpret it, take time to ask questions of the others at the table,” he said.

Challenges within
Cohort participants also heard from a couple of manufacturing executives about challenges faced by the industry and continuous improvement practices they’ve witnessed over their careers.

Krisi Schell, executive vice president of human resources at SRC Holdings Corp., and Dusty Cruise, president and CEO of Missouri Enterprise, spoke on a panel moderated by Carrie Richardson, Leadership Springfield president.

“What I hear most often is supply chain,” Schell said of operational challenges manufacturers struggle with regardless of their size. “When you think about manufacturing, do we have the parts? Do we have the parts at the right time?”

SRC navigates challenges among its 10 plants and roughly 1,800 employees companywide. That workforce includes around 1,550 workers in the Springfield area, which ranked it first last year in Springfield Business Journal’s list of the area’s largest manufacturing employers.

Labor quality also is a common challenge, Schell said. Additionally, as a company gets bigger, she said there may be more silos to navigate.

“Those are things that can challenge communications,” she said.

Cruise said the COVID-19 pandemic certainly put a spotlight on supply chain challenges, some of which remain to some extent.

“Technology is another one because we’re moving to be more competitive with more domestic content in what we’re building,” he said. “We’re trying to not rely so much on the foreign countries.”

Missouri Enterprise, a Rolla-based nonprofit with an office in Springfield’s Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center, aids state manufacturers in areas such as workforce development and cybersecurity compliance.

Cruise said companies such as SRC recognize that continuous improvement is not just a temporary initiative.

“Continuous improvement, it’s ongoing; it’s forever. It’s how you engage with your employees,” he said, adding companies need to have buy-in from the leadership. “The companies that are really good with continuous improvement don’t see it as a project. They see it as an everyday activity. You’re progressing in all these different areas a little bit by little bit all the time.”

SRC’s open-book management system, known as the Great Game of Business, isn’t just looking at the short-term financial performance of the company, Schell said.

“We’re looking at how did we do last month, how did we do last week and then what is our commitment, what are our goals for the next month, for the end of the month, for the end of the year, and then what’s the variances there,” she said, adding it’s the entire organization, not just management teams, that should look to see where every employee can contribute to hit financial goals.

Whether it’s in manufacturing or other industries, Coffman said there are times people are faced with leadership challenges and need to apply problem-solving. Maybe resources are absent, something changes, and you have to pivot, he added.

Knocking two bricks off a six-brick Lego dog is just one example of cycles of creation followed by change that Coffman shared with cohort participants.

“That’s kind of the way life works, kind of the way problem-solving works,” he said. “You gain new information, you pivot, but fundamentally, maybe it’s the same.

“Lego Serious Play is all about building metaphors, building a story,” he added. “In the story, each brick can have meaning, and it can have different meanings to different people. So, it’s really important that the person explaining is the one who owns the meaning behind it. Through metaphors, they’re building stories and models that communicate complex ideas.”

The cost for GEARS is $1,250 for chamber members and $1,650 for nonmembers, according to past SBJ reporting. Enrollment provides participants with tickets to select chamber events and networking opportunities, lunches during each monthly session and membership in The Network, the chamber’s program for young professionals.