Everything Lean For Leaders And Their Teams

Building Continuous Improvement Management Systems

Lean Consulting

Lean Training

Lean Products

Lean Support Services

Forms and Tools

Lean Dictionary
Consulting Training Products Services Forms Dictionary

Call us at 1.800.670.5805

Email UseView Cart

Gotta Go Lean BlogView Cart

Gotta Go Lean Blog

There's More to "Lights, Camera, Action"

 

Yesterday I read something I hadn’t heard before about a very well-known phrase.

I heard that there are standard responses “Lights, Camera, Action.” That’s right. Each one of the words is actually an instruction that requires a specific response.

I am pretty sure that most people know that when the director calls “Action”, the actors start their scene. But do you know what the response for “Lights” is? How about for “Camera”?

Lights, Camera, Action!

It got me thinking about how often people go through the motions of communication. Managers ask how things are going without really waiting for the response. Or teams talk about problems in a morning meeting without really hearing the answer their coworkers give. Or an andon light burns brightly without a response.

Poor communication is worse than no communication. And one of the root causes of poor communication comes from the tendency of people to be better at talking than at listening. Try a little experiment. When you ask a question, see whether your mind homes in on what you are hearing. Or, see if it drifts off to what you are thinking about, or about what you want to say when it is your turn to talk again.

I suspect a big part of this disconnected communication style comes from the fast pace of business, and of life in general. We are always in a hurry, so we start trying to form up our next response as early as possible. Plus, we don’t like quiet time during our conversations. We tend to find it uncomfortable.

We also don’t like being idle. If we waited to form our response until after we heard everything a person had to say, that would be inefficient, wouldn’t it? Never mind the cost of misinterpretations, of the fact that we often end up repeating ourselves.

So if you are going to call out “Lights” wait for the response, “Lights ready,” indicating that the lighting is set correctly. If you call out “Camera”, wait to hear “Speed.” It’s a throwback to the days when cameras had to get ‘up to speed’ to film correctly. Now, it just means the cameras are rolling.

And if you are going to say something to a coworker. Try to focus on the response they are giving, not the one that you are about to give to what you think they are going to say.

Add a Comment

Share Your Thoughts    |No comments|

By Jeff Hajek

© 2009-2012 by Velaction Continuous Improvement, LLC. All rights reserved.

November 1st, 2011

Learn about

the author,

Jeff Hajek.

Don't forget to sign up for my Gotta Go Lean Blog.

Via RSSrss-feed-3d

Dopwnload our free Lean forms and Tools

Lean Blog-Gotta Go Lean | Tags:

Other Information You May Be Interested In...

  1. Communication Communication is the act of transferring information and ideas from person to person. It comes in many forms. Face-to-face conversations. E-mails. Phone. Voice-mail. Non-verbal communication (i.e. rolling of eyes). Pictures...
  2. Action Date Using an ‘action date’ is a proactive approach to managing your workload. Whenever a task is unfinished, there is a next step. Frequently, that step is passively managed. Usually this...
  3. Action Plan Action plans are, in effect, roadmaps to achieve goals. They should contain a description of the improvement goal, names of people on the team, steps to be taken, names assigned...
  4. Lean Litmus Test Question 5: Is There Understanding Before Action? This is the final question in a series of five questions I use to do a quick assessment of a company’s progress in its Lean efforts, as well as its...
  5. Using Video to Support the Process Walk I was talking to a consulting client the other day, and mentioned that it would be helpful to use a video camera to record a secondary process that would affect...
  6. Problem Solving: Creative Ideas Don’t Have to Cost a Fortune How much do you think it would cost to take pictures at the edge of space? You might guess tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you’d be wrong....

Comments and Feedback:

Please leave feedback about this post.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.