Surfacing... First post from France

It’s been less than a week since my last post, but it seems like a month or more. I’ll make the briefest summary of the past seven days and hope to come back and record details later. My work days are quite full, and the effects of the jet lag have left me precious few waking hours during which to write my thoughts. I hope to spend time filling out my story this weekend.

I arrived last Sunday morning (my baggage did not), made my way from Paris to the city of Bourges (a story to be told there) and checked in at Le Hotel de Bourbon (a lovely place, quite elegant and up-scale) which has been my base of operations ever since.

My first, and most delightful surprise is that I am remembering enough of my French to get by – being alone at the beginning of the week, I felt strangely comfortable walking into shops and “taking a shot” at asking for something in French. Lo and behold, folks either intuit what I mean, or can sift through outrageous grammar and limited vocabulary to comprehend my intention. As often as not, they speak a bit of English and together we navigate our way to an approximate understanding.

Bourges is larger than I expected. My explorations have been limited to the central core of the city – everything you’d imagine in a stereotypical vision of an ancient European city – narrow streets, cobblestones, bistros, brasseries, cafés and the like; modern stores selling clothing, electronics and cel phones all seem quite incongruous to my eye, set along winding alley ways, decorated with flowerboxes and shuttered windows.

On Monday morning, I made my way to Issoudun and the factory where I’ll be working. The managers of the factory had invited me in a day before the formal kick-off of our effort – this seemed to be an expression of respect, as well as a chance for us to size each other up a bit and have some get-to-know-you chats. Here again, no one was more surprised by my French than I was, and my efforts seemed to please and charm my hosts.

On Tuesday, we had a formal meeting. I connected with the other Boeing people I’ll be supervising on this trip, and we were joined by the senior Boeing manager arranging this project. Our hosts gave us a thorough tour and candid assessment of their current performance. Clearly, they had studied the introductory biographies we had sent over, and had a list of projects they hoped we could help with.

We spent the day Wednesday connecting with our “counter-parts” (as best we could understand their organization structure) and developing our strategy.

Yesterday, I led a brief workshop with my team and our hosts, to establish an overall map of their process for selling, designing, building and testing the seats. We’ll use that map to gather performance data, and make sure we’re targeting our improvement activities properly.

This being August, many folks are on holiday, or about to leave for two or three weeks – so today will be a scramble to make sure we know who to work with next week when a few of our key hosts depart. I’ve told the team that August will be all about asking silly questions and sorting out our plan and priorities – but come September 1, we need to have a very specific schedule of activities and deliverables.

All through the days and nights, away from work, it’s a never-ending series of small adventures – buying a cel phone (incomprehensible enough in English), ordering meals (a Chinese waiter in a Vietnamese restaurant, each of us with outrageously accented French), waiting for my luggage to arrive (the last valise turned up Wednesday), and laying plans for finding an apartment and school before Ceil and the kids arrive on August 19.

As I promised earlier, I’ll spend some more time this weekend, transcribing my notes about some of the more amusing adventures.

As my jet lag subsides, my home-sickness increases. I miss you all very much. I lurch from one end of the range to the other: excitement to frustration; longing for companionship to wishing I could just be by myself; gratitude towards my hosts and the other folks I interact with, and impatience with small difficulties. And it’s only been a week.

More to follow soon.

Peace.