Woodworking Network Podcast

Work-life balance - with Matt Mimnagh

Episode Summary

Will Sampson talks about balancing the pressures and rewards of work and life outside work. His guest is Matt Mimnagh, a woodworker from North Carolina who took the unorthodox step of making his business smaller to make it better for him.

Episode Notes

Episode Notes

This episode of the Woodworking Network podcast was sponsored by Wood Pro Expo Florida. It’s really easy for woodworkers to stay stuck inside, focused on their shops and production. But over the last couple of years, the pandemic has forced them to be even more isolated than usual. Now it’s time to get out of the shop and resume life in the outside world, especially when it’s a chance to network with your woodworking business peers. That opportunity is coming April 12-14 in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the Wood Pro Expo joins with the Closets Conference and Expo to offer an unparalleled opportunity to boost your business with intelligence on techniques, tools, and technology. Let’s get face to face again. Learn more at WoodProExpoFlorida.com. See you there.

Woodworking Network is a home for professional woodworkers, presenting technology, supplies, education, inspiration, and community, from small business entrepreneurs to corporate managers at large automated plants.

You can find all of our podcasts at WoodworkingNetwork.com/podcasts and in popular podcast channels. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Thanks again to today’s sponsor, Wood Pro Expo. If you have a comment or topic you’d like us to explore, contact me at will.sampson@woodworkingnetwork.com. And we would really appreciate it if you fill out the survey at woodworking network.com/podcast-survey. Thanks for listening.

Intro music courtesy of Anthony Monson.

Episode Transcription

Intro

Welcome to the fourth season of the Woodworking Network Podcast and a new episode. Join us as we explore the business of woodworking big and small and what it takes to succeed. I’m Will Sampson.

 

Today’s episode is sponsored by WoodProExpoFlorida. Today our guest is Matt Mimnagh, a North Carolina woodworker with an interesting story to tell about how he changed his business for the better by making it smaller. But before I get to that, I want to talk about:

 

Finding balance between work and life

 

Do you work to live or live to work? It’s an important question that has long-term implications for your health, wealth, and wellbeing.

As a media company focused on business, we talk a lot about things like production efficiency, profitability, and growth. We talk less about the human element of all of those things. But it’s a subject we all ignore at our own peril and likely at the peril of our businesses, as well.

Just about every company I visit and every business leader I talk to shares concerns about not being able to find enough good employees. I often ask in response what they have been doing to attract those employees. Most reply with a list of traditional incentives like higher wages and benefits. Few talk about making their businesses a place in which people want to work.

I’ve been described occasionally as a workaholic. From my first real job at a local newspaper when I was still a teenager, I was always willing — often enthusiastic — to put in long hours to get the job done. Much of my personal identity has been defined by my work. But over the years some things have moved in to compete for time and mental bandwidth.

Marriage and kids were and remain big factors in my work-life balance equation. I’ve had the luxury for many years of being able to work from home. So, even when I’m putting in long hours at work, I’m still accessible by the family. That was especially valuable when my kids were young. But even now, it plays a role in my marriage and my relationships with my adult children, even with them in their own homes many miles away.

But most people in a production environment can’t work from home. They have to interact with co-workers directly to produce products together. How that work is constructed, managed, and compensated all play a part in making the time at work rewarding and worth the cost of time away from other parts of life.

Frustrations at work will quickly erode rewards and tip the scales away from work-life balance. Some things just aren’t worth any form of compensation. Shigeo Shingo, was one of the founding fathers of what today we call lean manufacturing, and I was privileged to have spent a day with him in 1984. One of his more profound statements was, “There are four purposes for improvement: easier, better, faster, cheaper. These four goals appear in order of priority.” Making things easier first improves the work-life balance of employees.

As employers, we are often blind to the life side of our workers’ work-life balance scales. We need to recognize and pay more attention to the fact that work is not necessarily the highest priority of our employees. And, as managers, employers, and owners, we need to pay attention to our own work-life balance as it affects our outlook, focus, and relationships with everyone around us.

I can’t tell anyone what constitutes perfect work-life balance, but I urge everyone to consider it seriously in their own lives no matter what their role in work is.

 

I want to get to our interview with Matt Mimnagh, but first, let’s pause for a word from our sponsor:

 

It’s really easy for woodworkers to stay stuck inside, focused on their shops and production. But over the last couple of years, the pandemic has forced them to be even more isolated than usual. Now it’s time to get out of the shop and resume life in the outside world, especially when it’s a chance to network with your woodworking business peers. That opportunity is coming April 12-14 in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the Wood Pro Expo joins with the Closets Conference and Expo to offer an unparalleled opportunity to boost your business with intelligence on techniques, tools, and technology. Let’s get face to face again. Learn more at WoodProExpoFlorida.com. See you there.

 

Now let’s get to our interview with Matt Mimnagh.