{"id":218,"date":"2019-01-18T14:44:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T19:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/?p=218"},"modified":"2019-01-18T14:44:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T19:44:22","slug":"taming-the-savage-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/taming-the-savage-beast\/","title":{"rendered":"Taming the Savage Beast \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.\u201d – Elvis Presley<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that we are always up to something interesting, one of my golfing buddies recently asked, \u201cWhat new and different things are you doing at Queensboro these days?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last fall we became increasingly frustrated about a situation\nthat was occurring on our embroidery production floor.\u00a0 We felt that people who were listening to\nmusic through their ear buds were disconnected from the rest of their team.\u00a0 This was a difficult thing to work through\nbecause we are a company of music lovers and appreciate the positive benefits music\ncan bring to the work day.\u00a0 On the other\nhand, we also know how distracting our phones can be, particularly when we are\nattached to them. It is indeed the unusual person today who can resist\nconstantly checking their phone and investigating every new notification.\u00a0 Also, on a little bit of a deeper level, we\nsensed that listening to music while working led to an internal\/individual\nfocus rather than a team focus.\u00a0 This was\na particular challenge on our embroidery floor where teamwork is essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some long and animated conversations, we decided to\ntry working without ear pods.\u00a0 To help\nwith the transition, we also installed some speakers on our production floor,\nso we could at least listen to the radio while we worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there were some unhappy folks at first.\u00a0 Slowly but surely though, we did adjust.\u00a0 We now feel we are better connected as a team\nand are working better together than ever before.\u00a0 It was a tough call, and many thought we\nwould have an all-out revolt on our hands, but we tried it, and it worked!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that was one new and different thing we recently did, but\nthat is not the end of the story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is always the case when change occurs, there were some unanticipated\noutcomes.\u00a0 One morning soon after the\nspeakers were installed, Josh, our production manager, played \u201cThe Good Morning\nSong\u201d by Max Frost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first day people kind of perked up and listened.\u00a0 The second day some were singing along and\nbobbing with the music.\u00a0 By the third\nday, people were getting together and singing and dancing.\u00a0 People were smiling.\u00a0 Energy flowed.\u00a0 We attacked the day with gusto.\u00a0\u00a0 Pretty soon listening to \u201cThe Good Morning\nSong\u201d was a highly anticipated part of the embroidery floor\u2019s morning ritual.\u00a0 \u201cThe Good Morning Song\u201d has been a great and\nunanticipated connector for the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing how much fun the embroidery floor was having with\nthis, we tried it in the office.\u00a0 The\nfirst day, the folks from the embroidery floor unexpectedly came over and we\nall sang and danced together.\u00a0 It was a\nblast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did it in the office for a couple of days but were not\nable to sustain the energy.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t give\nup on trying to capture that happiness the embroidery floor found, though.\u00a0 Someone said, \u201cI\u2019ll pick a new song,\u201d but that\ndidn\u2019t quite work.\u00a0 We tried voting on a\nsong, and that didn\u2019t quite work either.\u00a0\nWe tried having each team in the office submit a song and a \u201cdecider\u201d\ndecide, but that, too, didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 We\njust couldn\u2019t quite find the magic that the embroidery floor had found with\n\u201cThe Good Morning Song.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we huddled up to talk about it, and finally came up with\na process where every morning a different person chooses a song and we all gather\nin a circle and listen. One day a ratty, lopsided sparkly ball showed up and we\nstarted kicking it around.\u00a0 Soon\nthereafter a couple of beach balls appeared and those started flying around our\ncircle as the music played.\u00a0 After last\nFriday morning\u2019s song, we voted on our favorite selection of the week and\nlistened to a cameo airing that afternoon and we all went home for the weekend\nwith a smile on our face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last couple of weeks, we have had a world music\ntour that has spanned the ages.\u00a0 We come\nto work each morning wondering if we are going to hear an old favorite or\nsomething totally out there.\u00a0 Sometimes\nbefore we start the song there are some comments or reflections on the prior\nday, or an explanation of why a song was picked. \u00a0The bouncing beach balls keep everyone engaged\nand paying attention while the song plays.\u00a0\nIt is a great way to start the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We work in an old converted red brick warehouse.\u00a0 There is plenty of room to spread out and\nenjoy this morning ritual.\u00a0 The\nEmbroidery Floor is still listening to Max Frost, and that continues to work\ngreat for them.\u00a0 Our warehouse, screen\nprint and operations teams don\u2019t really have a morning ritual yet, but\nhopefully they will find one soon or join in with the office or embroidery\nfloor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the work day can sometimes be a savage beast, our morning\nmusic ritual has definitely helped tame it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would have ever thought that banning air buds would have\nled to this?\u00a0 It has been a great and\nreally fun thing for our company though.\u00a0\nI have always enjoyed coming to the office, but the morning song ritual\nhas definitely made me, and others, look forward to coming into work in the\nmorning in a whole new way.\u00a0 And as far\nas I know, there is not another company out there that does it!\u00a0 It is a perfect example of implementing our\nthird core value: Innovate and have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.\u201d – Elvis Presley Knowing that we are always up to something interesting, one of my golfing buddies recently asked, \u201cWhat new and different things are you doing at Queensboro these days?\u201d Last fall we became increasingly frustrated about a situation that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.queensboro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}