Lean Lessons From the Seattle Snowmageddon

I grew up in Chicago. When it snowed, we had to get drifts over a foot to get school cancelled. At least that’s how the school-aged kid inside of me remembers it.

But I do know that we had some pretty bad storms. During the storms, things shut down, then got back to normal pretty quickly. I also remember that we’d just finish digging out our driveways, and the snowplows would come by and bury our driveways. Fortunately (and unfortunately) I don’t have to deal with that last part anymore.

That’s because I am now living in the suburbs of Seattle, and things are completely different. We typically have one or two snowfalls per winter. Maybe a few more dustings, but only a handful of significant ones. And it warms up pretty quickly afterwards, so the snow gets melted away in short order.

Because of that, the cities don’t invest much in snow removal equipment (hence no driveway barriers). My town has one truck that can be fitted with a plow, and I think one sand spreader. I’ve also seen a deicer working from time to time, but that might just be a pack thrown in the back of a pickup truck.

Last weekend, there was a decent amount of snow. The difference in this event compared to most in the past, is that it hasn’t warmed up. We’ve been getting a little bit more snowfall, and it layers on top of the existing pack on the roads, and everything grinds to a halt. Or at least is stops at the bottom of our many hills. You can’t get anywhere in Seattle without going up or down a bunch of times. To play it safe, school was cancelled Monday and Tuesday, and had late starts on Wednesday and Thursday. They got a full day in on Friday, but that was just before the new round of weather hit.

My wife was away on a trip and was supposed to come back on Saturday, but she changed her flight. There was a big dump of snow forecast for Friday afternoon into Saturday morning, and it would be an epic 30-mile drive home from the airport.

Kudos to Alaska Airlines for letting people on the Saturday flight change for free. It came across as good customer service, but in reality, I think it was really beneficial for them as well. The more people they got off the flights that were likely to be impacted by winter storms, the fewer people they would have to deal with when they missed connecting flights, or for cancellations.

The way home was slow going for her, but not because of the weather—at least not directly. Everyone in Seattle decided at exactly the same time to beat the storm at the first sign of snowflakes, and the roads got packed. It was like a mega rush hour.

That predicted storm hit, and another big dump came on Sunday night. Now, as I write this on a Monday morning, the kids are still sleeping in with yet another cancelled school day. Tomorrow, and probably Wednesday will also likely be cancelled, as another 6-8 inches are forecast for tonight.

So, what are the Lean lessons here?

People have short memories when it comes to managing risk.

While everyone complains about the snow when it happens, there just isn’t much support for investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment that is needed—really needed, not just nice to have—once every 4-5 years. If a vote happened right now, I think the city would get the funding overwhelmingly. In the next budgeting cycle, maybe late in the fall, not so much.

For your business, right after a crisis, there is always a big push to change operating practices, improve processes, add staff, etc. But the longer it takes to start actions, the less likely they will be to actually happen. Don’t delay changes. You’ll never have more support for getting big changes in place than right after an incident.

Don’t judge others by your own standards.

I am pretty unimpressed by the threshold for ‘major winter event’ in Seattle. When it gets below 20 here, people panic. In Chicago, my family just experienced some frigid cold. And I mean really frigid. It was cold enough to crack the earth in things called ‘frost quakes.’ It’s a real thing. The ground water freezes deeper than normal and expands, and ruptures the hard packed, frozen ground.

2 inches of snow here cripples traffic. In Chicago, it just means they probably need to keep it under 70. But with the hills and the lack of snow removal and the daily thaw-freeze cycle that creates a new sheet of ice every morning, and the standards are much different.

When you set up standards and abnormal conditions for your processes, don’t take a one size fits all approach. Make sure each operation is held to a standard that is appropriate for them.

Adapt and Overcome

When something happens that throws you for a loop that you are unprepared for, you’ve got two choices. You can wallow and hole up and wait out a solution, or you can embrace the situation, stop fighting what is, and start adapting.

Last night, around 10:00, I heard some brakes stopping right in front of our driveway. I looked out, and a pickup truck was idling there. It was odd. I heard some voices and was wondering if they were stuck or were reconsidering going out.

Then I saw the rope.

They were embracing the weather.

They were pulling a sled up and down the street in the fresh 2-3 inches of powder. I heard a lot of laughing every few minutes for the next half hour or so.

There are probably some more lessons here, but this article is already getting a bit long. Let me know if you think of any more in the comments section below. If you are not already signed up, become a member to get an invite code to post comments. It’s free and you’ll have access to lots of downloadable materials.