GA | 16 Jamie Flinchbaugh

Announcer: You’re listening to Episode 16 with Jamie Flinchbaugh.

[background music]

Announcer: Welcome to the “Gemba Academy Podcast,” the show that’s focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota, Del Monte, and the US Department of Defense. Now, here’s your host, Ron Pereira.

Ron Pereira: Hey there, this is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy. I’d like to welcome you to another episode of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen to what we’re up to.

Today, I’m excited to welcome a guest to the show named Jamie Flinchbaugh. I’ve followed Jamie’s work for many, many years. He’s been blogging and writing and doing other kinds of lean thinking activities out there. But, I’ve never had the fortune of actually meeting Jamie, so I was really excited to finally get to talk to him a little bit on this episode.

Jamie has written a really good book — we’re going to talk about it in the episode — called the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean.” It’s one of my favorite lean thinking books and actually, one of the earlier books that I read on my journey. He’s a really good guy. He’s very active in the consulting, especially the C-Level of organizations.

We’re going to have links to all of Jamie’s websites over at the show notes, which you’ll find at gembapodcast.com/16.

During this interview, Jamie and I really focused on the topic of lean leadership and how to go about developing lean leaders within organizations. We talked about all kinds of things and everything from our experience as soccer coaches to lean accounting and what practitioners you might not have seen your leadership support should do, what they can do to improve their parts of the world.

I think you’re going to enjoy this show. Again, the show notes can be found over at gembapodcast.com/16. Enough for me, let’s get to the show.

All right, Jamie, thank you so much for coming on to the show. Where are you calling in from today?

Jamie Flinchbaugh: Ron, thanks for having me. I’m calling in from my home office in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Ron: Nice. How’s the weather in Pennsylvania?

Jamie: Well, it’s pretty hot today, I’ll tell you.

Ron: My family and I just took a big road trip and we were up through Canada, then over to Ohio and Michigan and all that. We got to experience good old midwestern weather. It was actually beautiful when we were in that part of the other world there. It’s very cool.

Jamie, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and your company and what you do these days.

Jamie: Well, I’ve been working on lean transformation for over 20 years, a lot of time inside companies like Harley-Davidson, Chrysler Corporation, DTE Energy. Co-founded with Andy Carlino the Lean Learning Center 13 years ago now, and worked with clients all over the world and spend most of my time with executive coaching and also a transformation strategy.

Ron: One of my favorite lean books is something that you had a part in and that was “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean.” Tell us a little bit about that book.

Jamie: When we wrote “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean,” this was Andy Carlino and myself, we really tried to look at what we thought was wrong with lean journeys. We also looked at topics nobody was writing about. At the time, nobody was writing about lean principles or lean leadership.

So, this became the centerpieces of what the book was about. A lot of it is just a collection of our advising experience, hence the name. The experience we gathered throughout our travels from both inside and outside companies.

Ron: We’ll link to that for everyone over at gembapodcast.com/16. We definitely recommend that book if you haven’t already read it.

Jamie, so the way that we like to kick off all of our shows is with our guests sharing a quote that maybe it’s related to lean or leadership or continues improvement that inspires them. What quotation inspires you, Jamie?

Jamie: One that I’ve actually carried with me for probably 15 years now, maybe even longer, is by a guy named Frank Tyger and it’s “Experience is not what you’ve been through, it’s what you take from it.” I always loved that because there’s two ways to go through life — I mean they just go through statically or you learn from every moment. It is about how you learn through all your experiences.

Ron: I love that. I was actually going through your website a little bit today, your blog and digging in. As far as much as I care about everyone and I’ve been following your blog for a long time, but I saw something that it was interesting. I never knew this about you that you’re a big soccer guy and play it and enjoy it with your kids. I’m guessing there are lots of lessons that you’ve learned from sports as well, right?

Jamie: Well, absolutely. I coached travel team for the last couple years. I think the two things that I’ve learned the most is that both from a process standpoint and from a people standpoint, all the pieces have to work together. On the team, I coach, which is my daughter’s team, we worked a lot on team harmony and cohesion and team spirit. We worked a lot on the interaction on the field as well, the mechanics and the process of a team. You can have all the great stars you want. But unless the team works together, you don’t accomplish anything.

Ron: How old are the girls?

Jamie: The team I coach is now moving into under 13.

Ron: Nice. I’ve also coached my kid’s soccer team, so I quite enjoy it.

Jamie, the topic today, as I mentioned in the intro, is kind of lean leadership. What I wanted to start with is what is a lean leader and how would you define this role for lack of a better word?

Jamie: For one, I’d start with defining it as an act. Meaning that lean leaders and the job that we do, it’s not a person in a leadership role in a company that’s doing lean. That’s just simply the role that you have.

Lean leadership really is a process. It’s an act. It’s a verb. So, it’s how you show up in the organization. There are lots of new answers to defining it but to me, the single word is engagement. There are a lot of people that I meet that are highly supportive of their company’s lean journey, highly supportive of their team.

But if you actually said show me the things that you personally do to enable the lean journey, it’s hard to say. They write checks. They show up advance. They kick things off. They encourage. But they don’t really do lean themselves. There’s a big, big gap between support and engage.

Ron: Back when I worked in industry, I was always blown away if we were doing an event somewhere. Next thing you know there was one particular gentleman. I think he was a…I don’t know, senior vice president. He’s very, very senior in the organization. This guy showed up on Monday morning in blue jeans and a t-shirt and he joined us that week, like the whole thing. He wasn’t just there for a little bit, crawling around. I’ll tell you, people were blown away by this guy actively engaging. Like you said, he wasn’t there just to kick it off or there for the report at the end. Is that kind of what you’re talking about with the active engagement or is there something else?

Jamie: I think that’s a good example. Of course, there are more ways than one to be engaged. Showing up to kick it off and then showing up to the report at the end, that’s a fantastic way to support. But actually to participate, there are two sides of it.

One is the support you show the team that is more than just the support you show up by kicking things off. But more importantly, I think you’ve wholly get what it takes for your people to go through and make an improvement because you’re doing it too. You are part of the process. You actually see that it’s not so easy, that there are real barriers, both cultural barriers and political barriers and procedural barriers and focus barriers, these all sorts of barriers.

You get to understand that far better if you’re actually trying to do it too versus simply just encouraging others. I think there are a couple sides of it. But whether it’s the day to day improvements, whether it’s real A3 or 5Y problem solving, whether it’s participating in workshop events like that, I think it’s during the work, not just encouraging it.

Ron: Why isn’t leadership development a bigger part of most people’s lean road maps?

Jamie: I think the biggest reason is that too many of the road maps are led by individual contributors or other people that don’t know what it takes to do that role. They don’t even know what to ask for. They know that they’re not getting lean leadership from their executives and leaders and managers, but they don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what to ask for.

As a result, they kind of know that they’re not getting it and they’ll be vocal about it. But they don’t know what to actually ask for. The limits of what they’re asking for falls into the domain of support.

They never actually ask their leaders to learn a new behavior, change how they spend their time, change how they solve problems themselves. I think often because they don’t have an empathy and insight into what it takes to actually do that executive or leadership role.

Ron: I’m curious on your thoughts. Something that we’ve talked about and covered recently here at Gemba Academy is the topic of lean accounting. How do you think that fits into the whole concept of lean leadership?

Jamie: Well, that’s interesting. They’re coming up on the tenth anniversary of the Lean Accounting Summit. I helped kick off the first one, and one of my premises, early on, is that…I would hear a lot of complaints that we can’t do the right thing, because the accounting systems don’t let us.

It always bothered me a great deal. To me, the premise was that if there’s a leadership that knows what the right thing is, and their accounting systems don’t quite reflect the right thing, and they still don’t do the right thing, they no longer deserve to sit in that chair.

If you know what the right thing is, but you’re not going to get rewarded for it financially because your accounting system is, you’re no longer a leader. I don’t think you deserve to have that chair anymore. If you know what the right thing is, you should do it at whatever the cost.

To me, that’s one of the most important intersections between lean accounting and lean leadership. Lean leadership is making the decision. Just because your accounting systems don’t support it, you still have to make the right decision.

Now, we want our accounting systems to be better. That’s the other part of lean leadership. Let’s transform how we do things, but we can’t use it as an excuse.

Ron: Right. Do you think it’s possible for private companies, publicly traded companies, just companies in general to be extremely effective with the whole lean enterprise, lean thinking concept, without traditional cost accounting, if they are doing traditional cost accounting? Can they succeed?

Jamie: Yeah. I’ve seen them succeed, so I think so. I think it’s easier in the private companies. Just because as long as the family or the owners of the company…Whether it’s private equity or it’s a family held business, and we’ve worked a lot with both.

They can simply make the decision. They aren’t held hostage to a dogmatic view of the organization based simply on a set of numbers. They can establish a vision. They can say, “We know what’s right. We think this is the right direction, and we choose to go there.”

It’s harder in a public company, but it’s still by no means…leadership is leadership and shareholders recognize it. They sometimes will challenge it, but as long as you can tell people where you’re going, which you at least have an obligation to do, they can make a decision whether they support that direction or not.

I think it’s easier if we have numbers that better reflect the true process, better reflect the true cost and not just the transactional cost. I know this is sort of an impossible vision, but I still support Tom Johnson’s long standing view of lean accounting.

Our main goal is to get accounting out of management. I think it’s still an important tool. It’s still a part of the process, but, again, we shouldn’t be held hostage by just looking at a number.

Ron: Back to leaders here. What about the process of coaching leaders? What’s the best way to go about that?

Jamie: I think the two biggest mistakes that I see people make when coaching leaders, one is that any true coach is in it for the other person. If you find a good sports coach, for example, you really are there to help that other person succeed.

They’re there for the team. They want the team to do well, and the individuals on the team to do well. Too often, I see coaches “coaching.” People call it coaching, but it’s really their agenda, and not the person-they’re-coaching’s agenda.

It’s one thing to have a vision that supersedes or is elevated beyond the person you’re coaching. There’s nothing wrong with that. Making it about what you want versus what the coachee wants. Making it about your success versus about the other person’s success. That’s a recipe for failure.

Ron: Yeah. Along the same lines, being in the youth sports world, I see that also with parents. The bad leadership parents, if you will, are the ones living vicariously through their kid. The kid obviously isn’t passionate, but mom or dad sure is. It can go both ways, right?

Jamie: Absolutely. I could hijack this conversation with stories just about that topic, but I won’t.

Ron: Exactly.

Jamie: I think the other thing that I think is the second biggest mistake is just not having a process for coaching. People go in and say, “Yeah, I share my wisdom, and I do what I call drive by coaching. I pop in a few comments here and there.”

But, they don’t really have a process, a plan. They don’t really practice “Plan, Do, Check, Act” within their coaching. I think that’s critical. I think you need a process. You need a technique. You need a methodology. Without that, just like any process, without a process, very unlikely to get to your destination. I think that’s true of coaching as well.

Ron: The last question. I’m going to kind of turn the tables a little bit. We’ve been talking about lean leaders and so forth, but what about if someone is, maybe, a frontline associate. They’re passionate about lean. They’re fighting the good fight on a daily basis.

But, they’re not a supervisor. They’re not a manager. They’re not in, technically, a leadership position, if you will. Let’s say that this practitioner doesn’t have senior leadership support.

Maybe, like you said, there’s folks that…They’ll turn up then take off or something like that, but they’re not really behind these practitioners. And when the going gets tough, oh, we don’t have time for that lean stuff or that continued improvement stuff.

These practitioners who want to succeed, but they don’t have that leadership support, what can they do?

Jamie: I think the whole idea is that they don’t have the decision rights for stuff that is larger than their domain. But, they do have decision rights for their domain.

I remember one of our very first classes when we opened the Lean Learning Center. We had a supervisor from a large tractor company. He said, “What can I do? I’m just a supervisor of 11 people.”

All right. Take 11 people and the decisions that you own, and go apply lean. Go do a good job. If you’re doing it to drive performance, as long as you’re not trying to change other people’s worlds where you don’t have the decision rights, nobody is going to hold you back.

Now, you’re not going to change the company that way, but you’re at least going to do a better job. Quite frankly, if you do a better job regardless of whether you put a name on it or not, you’re more likely to get promoted. Now, your decision rights are broader.

It can be frustrating that there’s lots of things going on around you that aren’t headed in the right direction and aren’t supportive and aren’t part of lean. But, take the ones that you can control and do a good job with that and support the people you do support.

Ron: I love that. I love hearing the stories of how the guy was a machinist and worked his way up. Now, he’s the CEO. He probably did exactly what you just described. He made his job better or her job better. The next thing you know they move up and move up. The next thing they’re running the company.

Jamie: Even when you get to that point, everybody things that eventually we need to get the CEO on board when I can get the CEO. CEOs have bosses too, between banks and shareholders and customers and regulators who all put restrictions on them.

I’ve met CEOs who thought they were finally ready to rule the roost, and they spend 60 percent of their time on regulators, banks, and boards. They have very little time to actually run the company. You take the hand you’re dealt, and you take the constraints you have. You work the best you can within those boundaries.

Ron: Excellent. Let’s transition now into my favorite part of the show, which we call the Quick Fire section. This is where you get to share your personal thoughts and wisdom, which you’ve been doing, but now we’re going to really focus in on Jamie a little bit.

We lean thinkers spend a lot of time talking about respect for people and how important it is to always do that. To put your finger on what does respect for people mean or look like, that can be difficult. What does respect for people mean to you, Jamie?

Jamie: Let me start by saying what I think it isn’t. I think it isn’t about being nice. It doesn’t mean you have to be mean. That’s not the heart of it, even though I often see people thinking that’s the heart of it. To me, the heart of it is really around developing people and the fact that I want the people around me to be better off, to be more capable, to have more ownership, whatever that might be, than they did before I found them.

I want people to grow. That, to me, is respect for people. Sometimes it involves coaching. Sometimes it’s about giving them opportunity. Sometimes it’s about giving them degrees of freedom. Whatever it is that helps those people develop and take more ownership over their lives and develop more capability, that, to me, is the ultimate respect for people. Sometimes doing those things means you won’t be their friend and they may not like everything you’ve done, but they’re still better off for it.

Ron: Exactly. One of the most common questions we get at the academy with videos and what not is, “What video should I watch first?” Our response is normally, “What problems are you trying to solve? What ails you, if you will?” I’m always curious. What’s one problem that you’re trying to solve right now, Jamie?

Jamie: I think related to the topic, I’m really trying to solve the self-development of leaders, helping leaders find ways to manage their own self-development. I spend a lot of my time coaching people. Bandwidth becomes the biggest problem. I only have so many hours to go around and work with people. They can only pay for so many visits.

I’m really trying to find ways, techniques, methodologies that really get leaders to take significant ownership over how they manage their own learning cycle and their own development. Of course, time management becomes a big part of that, because that’s a big constraint on everybody’s plates today. That’s one of the problems I’ve been trying to solve of late.

Ron: Jamie, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Jamie: I think the best advice is more unique. There’s lots of generic advice that’s always very good. Make every career decision based on learning first. I’ve twice taken pay cuts specifically because what I was going to go do next I was going to learn more in.

Whether it’s joining a board of directors, I recently joined the board of a 120 year old company. The sole reason was I wanted to learn how they did that. That’s really cool, 120 years. To make every career decision, the first factor is, “What are you going to learn?” I’ve really tried to apply that in every career decision I’ve made. I think it’s served me pretty well.

Ron: Jamie, do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Jamie: The thing that works for me is I have weekly standard work. I call it control point standardization. Others might call it leader standard work or even manager standard work. I have one sheet of paper that really lays out my routine of what’s important each week.

Mostly, it’s things that I don’t naturally do, that are easy to get distracted from. It changes over time based on my priorities changing or based on me developing good habits, in which case I don’t need good reminders anymore.

I have a part of it that’s the same every single week. Part of it is about laying out my priorities each week. Part of it is based on reflection. Part of it is just based on capturing actions. I have standard work that I practice each and every week.

I’m not inherently built for discipline. When I commit to a process, I can be disciplined, but if I don’t have that process, it’s very easy to lose focus and get distracted by the shiny object. That’s what’s worked well for me.

Ron: How do you monitor how well you’re doing? Do you check things off?

Jamie: It’s each week I have the things I do every single week, and I have the things that I plan to do that week as priorities. I just look at how many of those standard things I actually got done and how many of the priorities I actually got accomplished.

They’ll be really bad weeks because of a combination and lack of focus. I got very few of my top priorities finished. Well, that’s a good lesson. Figure out why and do better the next week. I don’t turn it into a metric, but it’s pretty obvious at the end of the week whether I was focused or not.

Ron: If you could recommend one book, and “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean” is obviously something that we recommend, but in addition to that, if you could recommend one other book related to continuous improvement or leadership, what would it be and why?

Jamie: I think the book that has had the biggest impact on me, and it’s not exactly an easy one to recommend because it is hard to read, is “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. It’s a pretty powerful book. It was written while Frankl was in the concentration camps.

It really is about purpose and man’s search for meaning. What is our purpose? Finding your purpose and having that be the driving force in all that you do, your decisions, your behaviors, and your focus, just creating meaning to overcome all the adversity.

Adversity without mean to overcome it is a horrible way to exist. Adversity in the face of a purpose is very tolerable. The way it was written, the context in which it was written and, of course, the message itself, it’s just been a very powerful book. It’s been a long time since I read it last, but a very powerful book for me and several others that I know that have read it as well.

Ron: I’ve not read it. Why do you say it’s difficult to read? His writing style?

Jamie: Some of it is the writing style, but some of it also is just the fact that it’s written from the confines of concentration camp. The context under which it’s written…I wrote half of my book sitting at a coffee shop. He didn’t quite have the same nice conditions for thinking through his message and his research and everything else. That became really what made, I think, the message so powerful is that his life’s purpose is what carries him through.

Ron: Last question, Jamie. Imagine you’ve been hired as the general manager of a company that’s struggling with quality, productivity, poor moral. Really they’re just a mess. You were hired because of your experience and your past successes.

The CEO that hires you is giving you complete operational and P&L control. They trust that you’re going to right this ship. With this said, what would you do on your first week and why?

Jamie: I think I have to first cautiously answer that by saying that if I had a pat answer for that under all conditions, it would probably be the wrong one. I think you have to read each situation and develop a unique plan. I think in a general sense, my base plan going into a situation like that would be to really spend the entire first week getting a deep sense of current reality.

I’d probably start with the customers, going off visiting as many customers as possible. Of course, it varies greatly if it’s a consumer products company than if it’s a three client business to business company. I’d want to first get an understanding of what’s the clients are saying about us. What is their opinion? What is their perspective? What is their experience? What do they value?

I’d then want to understand the employee side. What’s their context? Do they feel appreciated, under appreciated, engaged, unengaged?

Third, I’d want to understand the process. I’d want to go from beginning to end and walk the value stream basically.

Fourth, and again, logistically, it never quite works out in a linear way, but fourth I’d want to understand the strategy and the management and how the strategy affects management, meaning does everyone know where they’re going, do they not know where they’re going? Do they have a work plan to get there? Are they just reacting to what’s in front of them? How does management do their work and how clearly connected are they to the strategy of the company? In a week’s time, you can get a good baseline on each of those and at least know where to dig in a little bit deeper next.

Ron: Very good. Thank you so much for taking time to come onto the show. Let’s go ahead and wrap it up with you offering some final words of wisdom. Then why don’t you tell people how they can connect with you on social media or any other outlet that you prefer?

Jamie: Certainly. My most important advice that I’ve been finding lately is ownership. People have to take ownership over their situation. I get a lot of people who talk to me about, “I can’t get my boss to do this. My situation isn’t right. I can’t make these things happen.”

Those are just problems that we have to own and say, “I’m part of that problem, because it does surround me. Just the fact that I haven’t found a way yet makes me part of the problem. I’ve either solved it, or I’m part of it. I can’t detach from it.”

Invest yourself in where you need to go. Really ask yourself how far you’re willing to go to make your own personal vision happen. If you think you need to turn left, what is it going to take to turn left? What are you willing to sacrifice, give up, risk, or take on and persevere with to make that, achieve that outcome? We can’t sit around and wait for things to happen for us. We really have to take that ownership.

Ron: How can people connect with you?

Jamie: I think the easiest place is on my blog, jamieflinchbaugh.com. I’ve been writing there for awhile. I intend to get back to writing a little more frequently than I have been. Hopefully, I’ll have a fairly steady pace of content, but also you can reach me directly through the website.

You can also find me on Twitter at @flinchbaugh. You can find me at leanlearningcenter.com as well. Those are probably the easiest places to find me or just to follow me.

Ron: All right, very good. It’s July 2nd, today, when we’re recording this. We won’t release this for a few more weeks, but happy fourth of July. Good luck with your daughter’s soccer team. Do you guys enter into your year change right now? Is that how it works there?

Jamie: Well, our year change, but we’re also, you know, tournaments, practice, and already time to get ready for football.

Ron: Very good. All right. Thanks again, Jamie. Be well.

Jamie: Thank you. Same to you.

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 GA 15 Mike Grogan

Announcer: You’re listening to Episode 15 with Mike Grogan.

Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast! The show that’s focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota, Del Monte, and the US Department of Defense. Now, here’s your host Ron Pereira.

Ron Pereira: Hey there! This is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy, and I’d like to welcome you to another episode of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time to listen to the show. We truly do appreciate each and every one of you. Today, I’m excited to welcome Mike Grogan to the show.

Mike, as you’ll learn is doing some incredible work in Tanzania, Africa where he’s primarily working with hospitals. As you’ll soon hear, Mike is extremely passionate about the work he’s doing, and is without question an incredible example of what it means to truly respect people.

Next, I wanted to point out that we’ve recently formed a new partnership with audible.com. If you’re interested in downloading a free audio book, definitely check this episode’s show notes out for all the details. These show notes can be found over at gembapodcast.com/15, which is 1-5. It’s gembapodcast.com/15.

Finally, I truly believe in being as transparent as possible, even when mistakes are made. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow my own standard work when it came to recording this episode. Specifically, we use Skype to record these interviews.

Within Skype, you have to select a microphone that you’d like to use. We’d just gotten done with our morning Gemba Academy team Skype call, where I used my Mac’s Thunderbolt monitor, the microphone in the monitor, so all the other folks in our studio can talk to our colleagues around the country.

Guess what? I didn’t reselect my fancy studio mic that I’m using right now for the podcast. I was actually using the Thunderbolt microphone, so my audio quality isn’t quite as good as it normally is. I apologize for that, but my part of the show isn’t as important as what Mike shares.

We’ll just chalk it up as an excellent lesson learned and move on. Enough from me. Let’s get to the show.

All right, Mike. Thanks so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from today?

Mike Grogan: I am calling in from sunny Tanzania in East Africa.

Ron: I think that you definitely win the award for being the furthest away to do a podcast so far with us, so fantastic! We’re going to explore why it is that you are in Africa here in a bit, but before that, talk a bit about your background, who you are, Mike, and your experience.

How you got into this whole continuous improvement thing. You do have an interesting accent, so maybe you could talk about that as well.

Mike: I’m originally from Ireland, which is the give-away for my accent. I was first exposed to lean thinking continuous improvements back in 2006. I worked for a local pharmaceutical company for seven-and-a-half years and they were going through, or experimenting with lean thinking.

That company was Merck. I spent three years with them in the UK. I did another three-and-a-half years with them in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. From there, I decided to move on to take the vast body of knowledge that I learned, and to join a not-for-profit healthcare provider here in Tanzania.

In a sense, I’m a child of manufacturing, Lean Manufacturing, and in the last two years I transitioned into spreading this thinking into healthcare, and in particular, in the African healthcare system. I feel very fortunate to get exposed to this in my career.

Ron: We’re going to really think that’s obviously the whole spirit of this episode. Before we get into that, Mike, we like to start all of our shows with our guest sharing a quotation, perhaps it’s Lean or leadership, anything that’s related to that kind of side of the world that inspires you. What quotation inspires you, Mike?

Mike: For me, if I had to pick one, I would say, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I first heard that from reading John C. Maxwell’s material, but Theodore Roosevelt was the originator of that quote, or whatever originator means.

For me, it is a powerful sticky quotation that has stayed with me in my career in terms of the importance of relationship, and trust in a leadership, or coaching role.

Ron: Let’s just get into it because I’m dying to learn more. By the way, just so all the Gemba Academy customers know, Kevin Meyer, my business partner and co-founder of Gemba Academy, was recently in Africa with his family. He met up with Mike and they actually shot some video together. That hasn’t been released yet.

This podcast will definitely be out before that video is released. From what I understand, I haven’t actually even seen it yet, Mike, but from what I understand it’s some powerful stuff. First of all, thank you for doing that, Mike, and opening your doors to us and our video cameras.

Let’s just start, Mike, with at a high level why are you in Africa? What are you doing there? Are you part of an organization? Are you there on your own? Just give us a little bit of background.

Mike: Yeah, this is the same question my mother asked me. What am I doing here?

[laughter]

Mike: First of all, I’m a huge fan of this podcast. I’m not saying this because I’m trying to impress anyone but I’ve listened to all of these podcasts. Actually, the podcast you had with my good friend Steve Bell…

Ron: Yes.

Mike: …was the reason I found out that Kevin was in Africa. I asked Steve to reached out to Kevin.

Would you believe he came in for about six hours, him and his wife, to our facility? We got to do some video footage which was beautiful. It really was.

To answer your question of why I came here, I first came to Africa as a tourist back in 2010. When I lived in England one of my roommates was Tanzanian and his sister was getting married. He invited me as his friend to come to that wedding. For me, I was a child of the west. I had never left Europe or North America.

It was the first time out of that comfort zone. I certainly stuck out at the wedding. I was the only non-Tanzanian at the wedding. [laughs] So you can imagine what the photos looked like. For what really took out for me…What made that trip special and very impactful? It was the first time I saw women and children in poverty. The consequences of not having the opportunities that you and I and more so our listeners were blessed with. I never really appreciated that to that level, and what I saw with my eyes and heard the stories, it just devastated me.

It left something imprinted inside me that I needed to do something. It took me a while to finally know that that something was to actually quit the US and move full time to Africa. I went a year later for two weeks to volunteer. Then I went another year after that for five weeks to volunteer. The experience was the most, was the greatest work I’ve ever done in my life, and a sense of fulfillment and a sense of purpose.

Ron: Let’s go back to that first trip that you went on as a volunteer. What did you do on those first few trips? What kind of activities were you doing?

Mike: [laughs] When I reflect on it now, I laugh about how ineffective I probably was.

In a sense, I did primarily PowerPoint. “Death by PowerPoint” as I sometimes joke about. I essentially tried to focus on one topic and it was just introducing what I introduced to them as scientific problem solving. Different names, Deming, Kaizen, PDCA, however we wanted to phrase it, the scientific method of problem solving.

Ron: So you did start with guns blazing, if you will, with continuous improvement?

Mike: Yeah, I went straight in and introduced how you could. It was all theoretical because of the limit of time we didn’t get to use this theory on an example. But the feedback I got…half the time was classrooms and the other half was one-on-ones. But the feedback I got from the colleagues in that short two weeks was that this was useful.

Ron: Who were you teaching? Who were you working with?

Mike: I got connected to a small not for profit hospital in the city of Dar es Salaam. It’s bizarre how these things work, but a friend of mine in church who is Tanzanian, her cousin was a professor in Dar es Salaam. One of her students was the CEO of this healthcare provider and essentially through that connection my invitation letter got sent to him.

He was excited. We did a two-week experimentation and the feedback was, “We want you back.”Actually, on my last day there, he offered me a full-time job. To be honest, I was too scared to leave. It took me a year later procrastination and self-doubt to finally realize that was the right thing to do.

Ron: Do you remember the first improvement that you guys ever made?

Mike: The first improvement that I always involved hands-on with was in my second trip. Learning the lessons from my first volunteer trip, the second one trip was focused on issue on procurement. Essentially, with another colleague of mine, Emily, together we did facilitate an improvement event, workshop, whatever different names we have for us.

As well as doing training on this time, I introduce them to the management systems with…I focus less on training and more hands-on work with them on the application of problem solving in procurement issue.

The problem they had was a stuck out, essentially good. Application with scientific method, we help them address that problem. Essentially, one of the biggest takeaways that I got from feedback from the colleagues was that concept of gold seat just to help them in how to see ways and how to see the gaps, both in the operational standards and then the management standards.

That gave me a lot of satisfaction from that event we did. It was a big two-week event that the tangible improvements can’t prove enough, just improvements that change the processes but of course the greatest improvements. Maybe that’s planting a seed for a change and thanking and potentially inhabits.

Ron: At high a level, what’s it like teaching Lean in a developing world, especially in the world of healthcare in the developing world?

Mike: Notice expect to my manufacturing colleagues was I’m a child of Lean manufacturing. What healthcare gives me, let me just answer for healthcare, is that extraordinary sense of contribution, because we’re so close to patient.

When I worked in pharmaceutical manufacturer, yes, I was proud of the healthcare system but very much off-string in terms of back scene and talent manufacturer. In healthcare, every single day, we have work in a disability hospital and we’re building maternity hospital to see…knowing that your work is contributing to adding a better quality, better quality and a safe outcome for that child or a mother, it just gives you extraordinary job satisfaction. I think that that feedback loop is more apparent in the healthcare industry.

Ron: What about the developing world side of things? Obviously, working in a hospital in Dallas, Fort Worth is going to be different than [laughs] Tanzania, right?

Mike: Yeah. Many Westerners may answer this question very differently. I reflected a lot on that. Even my answer a year ago would have been…My answer today is very much different than my answer a year ago.

The key thing is meeting people where they’re at. It’s so easy to come here. Just like Kevin a few weeks ago and compare our hospital here with a hospital in North America, if you get into that comparison trap, it’s very dangerous, because there’s so many gaps. There were so many gaps. In terms of quality, we just even pick one metric of maternal debts.

In some cases, it’s 500 times what it is in a hospital in North America. It’s tragic and heartbreaking.

I try and help meet people where they’re in. Always remember, it’s not that people I work with have less time with me. Absolutely not the case at all. I was coached for two years. I would’ve said I had worked for big multinational company that poured so much into my own development.

I’m so fortunate, and that you are not at a higher level, I have two great parents, the best gift I ever got in my life. Not everyone would get those luxuries whether they’re at home or their career development.

Many people who are asked and helping them with their thinking. As long as people who just, and leader, keep that in mind, you still can be very successful in developing more context.

Ron: You’ve talked about some of the initial improvements that you made there. What are some other successes that you’ve realized over your time there so far?

Mike: People ask me about the successes or the impact question, this being called generous continuous improvements. Thinking is making. I split my answer into two. There’s the visible piece and there’s the invisible piece.

The invisible impact is obviously a lot easier to see. What I mean by that is improvements with med in terms of reducing the safety risk for staff, reducing wait times for patients. We’re taking steps out of procurement processes. Taking steps out of various documentation processes.

Probably I could spend the next hour giving example after example of improvements the teams worked on.

Ron: Let’s dig in a little. Tell me one that you’re extremely proud of? Let’s put it that way.

Mike: [laughs] Hopefully I’m not diverging away from…

Ron: No, don’t worry. We’re just having a conversation.

Mike: I’ll share one that was some of the proudest moments that I had. Some of the proudest moments that I’ve had is when I saw the student become a teacher. That, for me, was [laughs] beautiful.

One of my heroes, Dr. Brenda, met her to a podcast last year with a mutual friend, Mark Graban. This woman is the most passionate woman I’ve ever met. She deeply, deeply cares about the mothers that are losing their lives and massive risk by giving birth into the African healthcare system.

Just to see her so passionate about developing herself, becoming a better leader, and coaching her colleagues, that gives me the extraordinary sense applied knowing that I’d played a part in her development.

My answer truly is seeing her shine and her call to others on this improvement rather than a Pacific improvement that we met on the ground. Hopefully, I didn’t diverge.

Ron: No. That’s beautiful. I can even sense in your voice that this is a deeply, almost an emotional topic for you and something that you’re deeply passionate about. This is not about me, but a side story that I can relate to you. Back when I worked in the industry, I worked at a company. I was actually in the UK. We were visiting a facility, and saw a young man.

He was working the night shift. He was, I don’t know, 25 years old. Big smile, I’d never forget the look on his face.

Walked up to him before we were leaving that evening and shook his hand, and asked him what he was going to be doing. He told us some of the things that he had planned for that evening. There were just a few folks working that evening. The next morning, we pulled up. There was closed-circuit TV all over the place and police everywhere. Come to find out that there was an accident. I won’t get to any details, but he passed away because of his situation. It chokes me up, thinking about it today.

There were things that probably could have been done better from, say, a continuous improvement perspective, whether it’s standard work or whether it’s just various processes that could’ve been improved. I personally feel some responsibility for that, because I was part of that leadership team that we’re putting these programs in place. Make no mistake that the work that we do as continuous improvement practitioners can have life and death impact, not just in a hospital, in a factory or wherever it might be.

I can hear that in your voice, in how important the work that you’re doing. Keep it up. I know the next thing I want to transition into is some of the challenges that you’re feeling and that you face. Why don’t you talk a little bit about that, Mike?

Mike: First of all, thanks for sharing, Ron. I don’t want this podcast to be exclusive about healthcare or Africa. Some of the lessons I’m learning here and we’re sharing here and discussing are very applicable in our communities where we live throughout the world.

Once again, about a year ago, I may have answered differently. A year ago, I may have point this to the obvious, which would be the lack of resources, the fact that I’m the only Lean coach or healthcare provider of 450 so people.

I would point that things that are people as biggest challenges. Where I am now, I am very proud of this answer of what my biggest challenge truly is, and it is me. We have found the enemy, and it is I. The biggest challenge is me. The biggest reason why this organization hasn’t developed as fast enough on its continuous improvement journey is because of me, because of my limitations as a coach.

There are advantages and disadvantages to that realization. Realizing that my own development and the fanatically developing in myself will allow me to contribute better to the organization and drive the organization forward is something that’s within my control. It’s very easy to point outside, but the biggest challenges are my own limitations.

Me and you and others listening to this may be perceived as experts, but I’m certainly a lifelong student of continuous improvement. The day I say that I master this is the day I stop learning and the day I stop leading and stop influencing others. There’s so much in this body of knowledge that we call continuous improvement.

The better I get at this, the more effective I can be at supporting some of the managers and doctors that I work with on a day to day basis.

Ron: Sometimes I feel like the more that I learn, the more that I realize I don’t know. It’s funny you say that, because Kevin and I were joking the other day. Even within Gemba Academy, we do our very best to practice Lean principles throughout our company and documentation and standard work and so forth.

We have struggles. We’re not perfect. We’re not invaluable. It’s like, we can teach other people, but it’s hard to do it yourself.

Just something that I wanted to ask you is, and you led onto this a little bit earlier. Why are you doing this, Mike? Obviously, you’re a talented young man who could be doing also additional incredible work. You’re obviously doing incredible work now, but you could be doing incredible work anywhere in the world.

Mike: I spent a lot of time reflecting on this. At different stages of my life, I had a different answer to this, just like my last answers. I’m going to use this opportunity to share my faith, my faith and God. I believe that it’s God’s purpose for my life to be here at this season of my life. I believe that He created this opportunity to see people in tremendous suffering.

As a part of my mission here on Earth, He wants me to do something about. The more I give, the more I get back, in a way.

I mean that all respect to my fantastic colleagues that I work with in North America and Europe. Tomorrow, I’ve got a coaching appointment with my one of my favorite people, Dr. Fatima. She goes through so much adversity. She works in one of the government hospitals and helping coaching clinical skills on maternal health.

This woman sees death every single day, another tragic loss of a child, of a mother. 99 percent of the cases, avoidable, avoidable, avoidable. I’m one of the very few resources that she has, that she can talk about these things. I help with her with the various challenges she has in trying to influence others.

This woman is my hero. She goes through so much challenges and adversity in her week. Knowing that I somehow helped her in her journey to be more effective or more efficient just gives me strong satisfaction.

The one-liner is why I’m here, I believe, and I won’t know until I die, but I believe this is part of my own destiny, part of my own vision. For this season of my life, I’ve been so lucky with the times that I’ve been given and the development I got today, and I’m still growing, but this season is to give back and to contribute.

There’s massive challenges living in this part of the world, but it’s still the best — definitely, in terms of career, the best, and spiritually – decision I’ve ever made.

Ron: That’s beautiful. I know there are people of many different faiths and traditions listening to this. This isn’t meant to be a sermon or anything like that but I couldn’t help but think of when you said that, the words of Jesus in Matthew. He said, “Truly, I tell you, whatever you do for one at least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me.”

I think you’re truly living those words there. I really admire you for that, Mike, and hope you’ll continue. How long do you plan to stay? Do you have any ideas?

Mike: [laughs] The same question my mom asked…

Ron: Me and your mom got to get on the phone, man, and hook up, did you talk a little bit, chat about Mike and his life. [laughs]

Mike: I don’t want to let CCBRT down. The CCBRT, the hospital I work with here, I think failure on my end if I don’t leave them with habits whenever I do this item, that if the senior leaders, those key, talk and the directors, the heads of departments, those key people, a few people I influence.

If they don’t have change of habits, those continuous improvement habits, after I leave, I think I failed. In addition, if I haven’t set them up with other support, whether it be from people listening to this podcast or other people that I connect with last year and a half or so, almost two years, then I’ve also failed.

If it dies after I leave, that’s a sign of failure. I think that that’s important. I can’t leave until I put them in a place where they can continue on this journey. I don’t fully know the answer, but I can say with a bit of certainty that I’m not ready to go back to the developed world.

If I do leave Africa or leave this particular assignment, I would like to stay in a developing world context, whether it be somewhere in Asia or elsewhere in Africa, just because that I get so much satisfaction out of seeing people grow and develop and contributing to someone that’s bigger than self, advancing society. This is still a question mark. Sorry, Mom, if you’re listening to this.

Ron: I can imagine how incredibly proud she is of you, though. Goodness gracious. What do you do for fun? What does a Friday night look like?

Mike: [laughs] I just had lunch with some friends today, or discussing what Africa does to you. Three of us came to the conclusion that Africa, or this life that we’re living here as expats, it exposes things of your character that you never knew existed. I’ll be totally honest. This is one of the most challenging seasons of my life.

I have been at very many low points, but at the same time, it is the greatest spirit of growth in my life. I’m going back to what I said earlier. I do not regret for an instant what I’ve done.

Essentially, I thought it was loneliness at first. I will repeat it back later to you. It’s an important message to share. I thought it was loneliness at first, but it really wasn’t loneliness that I was suffering from. It was essentially that I didn’t know how to manage being on my own.Yes, when you do come to places like this, you get a lot of down time on your own. There are many dangers that come with that. In those times, you get to figure out what’s most important or figuring out so much stuff about yourself.

I really feel this experience is going to be back so much more than I can give back in terms of learning about myself and understanding what’s most important, putting first things first.

I’ve certainly matured. Probably, more so in this year and a half than the 10 year before that. Maybe I didn’t answer your question, but certainly, there are absolutely so much avenues. There’s still a big expat population here. Even though I’m recovering from food poisoning the last few days, I do play soccer about two or three times a week. I got some great friends both at work and outside of work. It’s certainly different. It’s not like a night out in Philly.

Ron: We’re recording this right now in the middle of July. It will be released a few weeks later. The World Cup is in full swing, and we have our final now with Argentina and Germany. Are you guys following the World Cup?

Mike: Oh, yeah. It’s fantastic to see how passionate the Africans get over football. I’m sure they were very disappointed when their representatives didn’t progress further, but yeah, it’s a beautiful sport. I used to get depressed about sports. [laughs] I’m sure a lot of listeners do when their team doesn’t get through, or whatever disappointment. But this experience in Africa has shown me, it’s perspective.

Ron: I’m a big baseball fan, and my Texas Rangers are in last place. They just lost to the horrible Houston Astros, got swept. Then I was just thinking I’ve got six healthy kids and a wife that loves me, and a great career, so things could be worse. [laughs]

Mike, the last question I have for you in this section is, what can people do that are listening to this right now? I can’t imagine if someone has listened to this point of the show, that they’re not touched by your words, and the work, and your mission that you are doing over there. What can people do to help?

Mike: I’ve thought a lot about this, and previous answers would have been come to Africa. Quit your job, move your kids over. I know, I’m realistic here, I know for 99.99 percent of listeners that’s not possible. Maybe my message is not necessarily to my cause here in Africa, but maybe is the higher level cause, that sense of contribution to society.

Yes, of course maybe we’ll share details of that foundation in North America where people can contribute to it. I would love, like when Kevin was here and many others. We have John Tucson from the center for healthcare coming here later in August, and many other visitors have come. I open up those doors to people to directly contact me if you want to spend some time here. But for those who can’t spend time, or can’t quit everything and move over, I will ask them to reflect on their own communities and organizations. Because this continuous improvement thing is pretty special. It’s golden. We know it works. How can we give back?

Ron: Are there websites people can visit to learn more? We will link to everything in this show notes. I don’t want to call out the show notes number right now because I’m not exactly sure what those will be. I will have those in the intro and the outro of this episode. But where can people go to learn more?

Mike: Obviously the CCBRT website which I’ll give, the Kupona Foundation websites. I’ll give my personal website, I’m on LinkedIn.

Ron: Go ahead give one right now, at least. Just call it out for someone who is listening to iTunes on an airplane.

Mike: KuponaFoundation.org.

Ron: Spell that.

Mike: Hopefully I won’t butcher the spelling, because it’s one of my strengths.

Ron: Type it into your browser. We can edit this pause out. Don’t worry.

Mike: KuponaFoundation.org.

Ron: KuponaFoundation.org.

Mike: I’ve written a blog on it as well. It’s our presence in North America.

Ron: What’s your website, your blog website?

Mike: My personal website is MikeGroganConsulting.com. It’s probably best to connect with me via LinkedIn.

Ron: We’ll have all those links in the show notes, so that’s fantastic. Let’s go ahead and transition now into the quick fire section. We’re going to keep digging in and learning more about who you are, Mike. The first question, and we’ve spent a lot of time talking about this already, but I want to keep exploring it because it’s such a powerful topic.

We lean practitioners, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of respect for people. It’s one of the pillars of what we do here as lean thinkers. But if you were to explain what respect for people is or define it, it can be tough. What does that mean? What does respect for people mean to you, Mike?

Mike: I could spend the next hour. This is my favorite principle of lean thinking, respect for people. Because without it, nothing is sustainable. Actually, my good friend, a fellow interviewee that you interviewed, Joel Gross.

Ron: Yes.

Mike: On his fantastic web page, I was a guest blogger, a writer on that. I wrote a more detailed answer.

Ron: I’ll link to that, but I’m going to put you on the spot now. You’ve got to give us an elevator speech on respect for people.

Mike: Here’s the 60 second elevator. I prefer the phrase respect for humanity.

Ron: John Miller actually explained that’s better, as you heard on that episode.

Mike: Yes, John Miller.

Ron: A better translation.

Mike: Fantastic lean thinker, John. It really goes back, you’ve really got to care about your people. You really must have the belief that the greatest resource in your organization is human potential, and that you really must be conscious and look at this from a manager perspective, how your actions and behaviors have an impact, a direct impact on the quality of life of your employee.

If people don’t appreciate that, that’s the first problem to solve. If they don’t make that link, I’d even push people as far as if you don’t feel that you care about your people, you don’t think that people are your greatest resource, then maybe you’re in the wrong job.

Maybe you have to deeply reflect, because I know we have assets, we have machines, whatever it may be, but if it’s people that leave a legacy, not the buildings or equipment. One of my favorite writers or thinkers on human development, human models is Tony Robbins. I’m addicted to his stuff, but he talks about the six human needs — certainty, variation, significance, connection/love, rules and contributions.

I think that there’s a beautiful link there to respect for humanity, in terms for the manager, and of course be aware of those human needs and to do actions that add value to those needs, and not detract from them. I can talk for hours and hours, but that’s the gist of it.

Ron: That’s excellent. Everything you said so far, we’ve been talking for 30 minutes or so, it’s all about respecting people, what you’re doing over there. That’s fantastic.

Mike, what’s one problem that you’re currently trying to solve?

Mike: I’m looking introspectively, and I think the problem I’m trying to solve is how can I become more effective at Gemba with dialogues with the senior executives that I’m working with? I’m really reflecting on how I learned that continuous approval is always the most effective way, and I really believe that the most effective aha moments and experiences came from one on one with my sensei at the place of work.

I’m trying to master those times I have with those leaders. Some of those experiments, I’m very excited because they create a pull where they want to meet me more frequently. Some, I haven’t got as much pull, so I’m trying to master, how can I develop a standard work for those kind of jobs, so that a leader finds they get this certain value.

At a very high level, essentially I’m asking three questions all the time, and that is the process. What is the operation standard? How do we know if it’s working, as in what is the management standard, and how are we improving these standards? I do want to master the standard work and become a more effective coach in those kind of work, so I am doing a lot of self reflection on that.

Ron: Mike, what’s the best advice you ever received?

Mike: “Michael, the more you talk, the less they learn.”

Ron: Who told you that, your mom?

[laughter]

Mike: I’m sure I did too much talking when I was a kid. I actually credit this to a guy named Ron Webber, a master black belt in a former company. Ron was a fantastic LSS teacher, and the most impactful advice was, maybe I’ve got better advice, but this advice was the single most stickiest advice I’ve ever got.

Because it made me reflect, and there’s not an instant where I teach, whether in a classroom or in a one on one, where somehow the words come back to me. “No Michael, you need to listen more, you need to listen more, you need to sympathize more, you need to empathize more.” I know the problem many people have, and maybe now I talk too much, the sound of my charming Irish voice is not what everyone wants to hear all the time.

Ron: Your accent is definitely cooler than mine, so I’d rather you talk to me. Somebody told me a long time ago, I don’t remember who it was, that God gave us two ears and one mouth, use it in that proportion. [laughs] Wonderful.

Next question. Do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Mike: Yes. Many, many. But because you’re asking, the most impactful ones, I would say it’s the application of data and getting things done has had an extraordinary impact on my productivity. There’s a great book by Charles Dewey called “The Power of Habits,” and in the book he talks about keystone habits.

In a nutshell, keystone habits are certain habits that have a fertilizer impact on other habits. So for getting things done, there are loads of great things in the getting things done system. But if there are two keystone habits that really drive productivity is never, ever keep anything in your head for the rest of your life, and emptying your inbox every 24 to 48 hours.

Sometimes people laugh at me, because I’m always walking around with a pen and paper. Sometimes, when I used to drive to work, if an idea came into my mind, I would pull over and write the idea down into my iPhone or whatever tool I had at the time. It is the worst place you can store things, in your mind.

Ron: I use my voice recorder on my iPhone. I hit the record button while I’m driving, and I will talk into it and remember it that way.

Mike: I’ve got two more things. From an effectiveness perspective, I also encourage people to study habit number three of the seven habits, putting first things first. That’s part of the material. I really believe that the application of that material has changed my life. To highlight one thing out of it, the importance of the “not to do” list.

It was Peter Drucker who said us coaches we had a tendency to tell people what to do, where instead we should be focusing on what not to do. So for me, I have a very active “not to do” list which I often add to through my reflection sessions. But knowing what not to say no to is an extraordinary sense of power, because you say “Yes” to what’s most important.

Ron: Mike, if you could recommend one book related to continuous improvement or leadership, what would it be and why?

Mike: “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” I’ve read it probably eight times. I’m not trying to boast, but I think people need to. A good friend of mine said recently, I’m in the habit of reading a vast amount of material. Which is good, but there’s still a huge gap between what I know and what I do. It’s essentially one of the biggest gaps in the world, between knowing and doing.

I’m trying to get into the habit of those few key books, to go back and maybe every year, every six months for certain books, to go back and re-read. I have another couple of books that I recommend in particular, continuous improvement books.

Regardless of where you are, and I’ve had friends who are nurses, to pastors, to doctors, coaches, podcast interviewers. Wherever you are at a stage in life, the seven habits is just an extraordinary amount of material in that. The application of it has changed my life, in that I know listening to previous people who give interviews, they’ve been tortured by this because they’ve got so many. But apart from that, I’d like to.

Ron: Go ahead, no problem.

Mike: In the classic continuous approval world, number one is two books that fundamentally changed my thinking. “Toyota Kata,” there’s enough written about that by your previous interviewees, so I won’t add to it anymore. You have to read it, people. And number two, some book that hasn’t got as much attention, but it’s a book called “Creating a Lean Culture” by David Mann.

That book is focused on management systems, and I really believe when I look back on the many lean transition failures, or failed results, that it links back to the absence of a lean management system. Leaders not having the tools, and not knowing what behaviors they need to do.

That book is fantastic, and I really have gone back to it maybe six or seven times, reading it, reflecting on it and trying to use that as a base to be a better coach. Sorry to interrupt, for our friends in healthcare the David Mann book is very biased towards manufacturing. Our colleagues that are in healthcare, our good friends from the Pedicare Center for Healthcare Value, Kim Barnas released a fantastic book that has the same kinds of principles that David Mann talks about, but the application here is in healthcare, and that’s the book “Beyond Heroes.”

For those listeners that are in healthcare, maybe David Mann’s book would be useful, but I hope people are not turned off by the manufacturing examples. But if you want a pure healthcare industry example, Kim’s book is fantastic. “Beyond Heroes”, I want to add that as well.

Ron: Not to put you on the spot. This isn’t even a fair question, I shouldn’t even ask it, but I’m going to anyhow. Do you think “Toyota Kata” might be the best lean thinking book ever written?

Mike: I’m going to steal a phrase my good friend Joel said, Joel Gross, and it depends where you are in your journey to read a book. If it’s the first book you read, I don’t think you may get as much value. Just like I’ve never done an MBA, but from speaking to people who have done MBA, they are grateful they’ve done it after they have a certain amount of years in the industry, they reflect on it.

Why “Toyota Kata” was so powerful for me was because I could reflect on all of my failures, and all of the time of success and failures, whatever it may be. Because of that, I took so much out of it.

Ron: That makes perfect sense. So yeah, maybe have a bit of a journey and then go to it. Yeah, excellent. Last question, Mike. Imagine that you’ve been hired as the general manager of a company that’s struggling with quality, productivity, hourly, it’s just a mess. You were hired because obviously your incredible background and experiences and past success.

As it turns out, the CEO that hired you is giving you complete operational control and trust, yet you are going to right the ship. So with this said, what would your first week on the job look like? What would you do, and why?

Mike: I listened to all the answers of all the previous TSO people that you’ve interviewed, and part of me thinks “Do I say the same thing, or do you want me to try to come up with something different?” In a nutshell, things previous people have answered about the goal set mindset, sympathize, empathize, observations, talking to clients, staff and stakeholders.

If I were to pinpoint what I would try to do in the first week, I would try to get as much one on one time with my direct reports as I could. One on one time would include both in the office and in the Gemba, because I really want them to know who I am.

Spend less time introducing myself, and more time listening to their frustrations. My old sensei introduced me to something called the 10-question challenge, which was essentially 10 questions but asking the same 10 in terms of what are your frustrations, what are your challenges? So, really listening, listening, listening. Going back to that phrase, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Some previous interviews have said the power of empathy. My sensei told me “Michael, do not underestimate the power of empathy. Empathize, empathize, empathize.”

I would spend much time with not just direct reports, but other frontline workers, as much time learning and listening in the first week. Outside of that first week, I would as best I can try to develop models. What I mean by that is an inch wide, mile deep experiment on a lean management system focused on a business problem. Maybe that lean management system may be with my team, maybe that’s in a particular department, but doing my best to show what good looks like, in terms of not just systems, but the behaviors that go with it. That would be one of the key things that I would do in the first week.

Ron: Mike, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Just let me say, on behalf of everyone listening to this, perhaps they would like to say this to you. Again, they can send you an email, but thank you for everything that you’re doing for the people over there.

You’re doing work that truly matters, and so I’m really inspired by you and what you’re doing there. Why don’t we wrap this show up, Mike, with you sharing some final words of wisdom? Then tell people again how they can connect with you via your favorite social media outlets.

Mike: In terms of final words that I would share with people, perhaps one of the reasons that people listened to this podcast was that all of us have got something in common, and that’s our passion for continuous improvement. But I don’t want people to listen to this because of, perhaps, the interest in my story, of some guy who quit his job in the corporate world and moved to Africa.

I really don’t want people to have that takeaway that this was about me. I really want them to reflect to themselves about their story and to get spiritual or to get really deep, but it’s essentially what are you going to do with the rest of your life? If we’re brutally honest, the vast majority of people do not have a great life.

The vast majority of people do not reach their potential. The vast majority of people do not fulfill their destiny. Now, I want to make a clear definition between yeah, people may be successful, but there’s a huge difference between being successful and reaching your potential.

So many people towards the end of their life live with so many regrets. A study was done some time ago about what the three biggest life regrets. They said the three biggest life regrets can be categorized into I didn’t take enough risks, I didn’t reflect enough, and I didn’t do enough things that would live on long after I’m gone, a legacy. This podcast was not necessarily about encouraging people to quit and move to Africa.

I really want people to reflect on the gifts they’ve been given. They can act. There is so much time, and there is time to act. The two actions I ask people to reflect on is growth, your own personal growth. The greatest investment you can make in life is yourself, as Benjamin Franklin said. Expanding your capacity, expanding your capability, your understanding of this beautiful thing of continuous improvements that we are so fortunate, because the more you can invest in yourself, the more you can give back, the more you can contribute to society, to advancing society.

Especially in developing people, and history has shown us so much, there’s so much data to show, that it’s the greatest way we can advance a society, whether that be our children or our communities. The heartbreak that’s happening in Africa right now is by developing people. That’s proven time and time again. These goals that we have of continuous improvement, the world is in desperate, desperate need for it.

Once again, I’m not asking people…I welcome people to connect with me if they’re interested in coming for a period of time.

Look around in their own communities, whether it be their local churches, local not-for-profits, their library, whatever it may be. Opportunities are, some of them even in their own company, to mentor, to share, to share this knowledge with, to experiment on ways that they can give back.

I really believe to have a fulfilled life, to live the purpose, we must grow and contribute. That really is the ingredients or the formula a great life of reaching your potential and setting your destiny.

Ron: You mentioned earlier LinkedIn was the best way to get you?

Mike: Most people are on LinkedIn.

Ron: It’s Mike Grogan, right, or is it Michael?

Mike: It’s both. I put both in, in case you mis-search me. Mike Grogan or Michael Grogan, you’ll be able to find me, as well as I’ll give a link to my own personal website, Mike Grogan Consulting, and the component website, CCBRT website, and my own personal email, which I’m sure have the show notes. These are many ways to connect with me.

Ron: Thanks again, Mike, for everything that you’re doing. Again, Gemba Academy customers, keep your eye peeled, because we’re going to bring Mike to life in video here. Probably within the next month, we’ll have some footage up of Kevin’s visit with you there in Africa.

[background music]

Ron: Keep up the good work, my man. Keep fighting, keep doing the work that you’re doing, because it truly is incredible. You really do inspire me.

Mike: I appreciate it, Ron, but I’m very humble the way I am. I’m so lucky to get this opportunity. I feel very fortunate, and I appreciate your comments.

Ron: Be well.

Mike: Thank you.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now, it’s time to take a free, no strings attached, fully functional test drive of Gemba Academy’s school of Lean and Six Sigma over at gembaacademy.com.

Gain immediate access to more than 500 Lean and Six Sigma training videos free of charge at gembaacademy.com.

Announcer: You’re listening to episode 14, with Adam Zak.

[music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that’s focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota, Del Monte, and the US Department of Defense.

Now, here’s your host, Ron Pereira.

Ron Pereira: Hey there, welcome to another episode of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time to listen to the show.

Now, one quick Gemba Academy tidbit I wanted to share is that we’re now offering a free, full access, three day trial to our School of Lean and School of Six Sigma. To be honest, we found our best sales tool is to simply let people have a sneak peek at what we have to offer and then let them make a decision on whether they want to buy or not.

If you’re not a Gemba Academy customer and are interested in learning more about what we have to offer, please head over to gembaacademy.com and request a three day trial. You’ll see a link right there on the home page. If you’re already a Gemba Academy customer, thank you so much. We truly do appreciate your business.

Today, I’m joined by a gentleman named Adam Zak. Adam is actually an executive recruiter who specializes in the Lean thinking space. But as you’ll quickly notice, Adam isn’t your normal executive recruiter since he has an incredibly deep understanding of what authentic Lean Leadership is all about.

During the show, Adam and I focus on the topic of Lean Leadership, including what makes strong companies successful. The show notes, including links to everything Adam and I talk about, can be found over at gembapodcast.com/14. That’s 1-4.

Enough for me, let’s get to the show.

All right, Adam, thank you so much for taking time to visit with us today.

Adam Zak: Ron, it’s really a pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you for having me.

Ron: Yeah. Where are you calling in from today, Adam? What part of the country?

Adam: I’m in the Midwest, just outside of Chicago in the Northwest suburbs. The little town I live in and have an office in is called Barrington, Illinois. My family still thinks that I actually live out of O’Hare Airport.

Ron: Yeah, OK. [laughs]

Adam: What can I say?

Ron: All right. Let’s get things started. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, Adam. What do you do and maybe a little bit about your continuous improvement background and how you got into all this Lean thinking stuff.

Adam: Sure. I’ll keep it to a thumbnail sketch, sort of. A lot of people don’t know this, but I actually began my career as a CPA and a consultant with KPMG. That led to a number of financial and then general management roles in a few companies on the West Coast. One of those included a startup.

Eventually I wound up in a small venture capital firm for a few years. That’s where I helped build leadership teams for startups. That’s really what led to my entry, eventually, into executive recruiting. My executive search focus has been primarily operations. I conducted my first, what I’ll call, Lean recruiting project way back in 1996 for Robert Bosch Corporation.

Then more Lean executive searches followed soon after that. Today my work is all focused on Lean and split about 50/50 between line and staff rolls in both manufacturing and service companies. It’s fun. I get to create an impact on every company I work with, and I really love what I do.

Ron: The whole Lean tie-in thing, how did you get first exposed to that? Was that just at your previous companies?

Adam: I actually started doing continuous improvement pretty early in life. It seems I was always looking for better ways of doing things, even in the part time jobs I had in high school and college. In my junior year I heard about a company called Nightingale-Conant.

They used to record and sell these personal improvement tapes from speakers like Zig Ziglar, Dennis Whaley, Tom Hopkins. I was really conditioned to that message, and, of course, I’ve been trying to improve my golf game for many, many years. That hasn’t worked out real well. When I read “The Machine that Changed the World,” that just made perfect sense, so here I am.

Ron: Very cool. Adam, something that we like to do with all our guests to start the show is have them share a leadership or continuous improvement quotation that inspires them. What quotation inspires you, Adam?

Adam: I’ve actually got two that I’d like to share with you, but they’re very closely related and sort of the foundation of my thinking on executive leadership. The first one is by John Quincy Adams. He said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader.”

Peter Drucker expanded on that theme when he wrote, “Leadership is not magnetic personality. That can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people. That is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”

I just want to add onto that, what I find interesting about those quotes is, first of all, they do not presume that leadership is only available to certain select individuals. I hear a clear message that anyone can be a leader at any level of the organization.

I also notice this external emphasis, it’s that focus on inspiring others to achieve, to improve, exceed expectations. I see a real direct correlation with Lean culture there.

Ron: Yeah, no I do, I love that. Adam, you’ve obviously been in this business for many years, like over 20 years. You’ve been recruiting Lean executives and whatnot. At a high level, what do you think, if you were to define a Lean leader, what is it? What do you look for when you’re recruiting these folks?

Adam: I’m going to tell you what it’s not. It’s not “Kaizen Kowboy.” That’s a term I actually coined back in 2004, you can Google that. It shows, actually, shows up in a book that productivity press published called “Lean Culture.” But it’s not about kaizen and it’s not about tools. It’s really about mindset and behavior.

Let me just give you some highlights, maybe four or five, six things. First of all, we look for system and process thinking, the ability to see processes as they underlie business activity. Then combining that with the belief that most systems, in fact, can be systemized and then improved. That’s probably the first thing. Again, that’s at the macro level.

Connecting directly to that is, I think you have to understand that the systems support the culture and then the culture, in turn, drives the system and the improvement to that system. That’s where the catalyst or the engine for growth and innovation turns into positive outcomes. People who can do those kinds of things really are at the top of their game.

I like this word, humility. A lot of people misinterpret what that means. I think humility is just knowing that you don’t know everything. Because if you assume you do, that really closes the door on any possibility that you’re going to learn anything new.

Executives who come to their roles with this attitude of humility really understand that they know very little about the whole enterprise and that their success will come only when they’re willing to tap into that great body of experience and expertise that’s flowing throughout their organizations. I think that’s a pretty important concept.

I got a couple, maybe three more I’ll touch on.

Self awareness, this is interesting, because it takes most people a long time to actually develop a keen sense of self awareness. It starts way back when your parents first ask questions like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Goes back to how and why you selected the college, major, first job, place to live. It’s about who you are, what do you like, what are you good at, what do you want. Those are all very tough questions.

But we used to think that that was one of those soft skills. What’s interesting is that there are a number of studies that have been done, and they clearly demonstrate that this one particular soft skill turns out to be one of the strongest predictors of an individual’s overall success. They mean that in terms of their life as well as their professional success.

The Oracle of Delphi, I don’t know the Greek for it, but the Oracle of Delphi said, “Know thyself.”

Vision, vision is, again, very important. That’s pretty simple, I think, to explain, difficult to actually address. But it’s pulling forth a structure from chaos. Then we talk a lot about future state and so helping define that. Then you’ve got to connect all those things to a business strategy, to design a process and to implement it.

You know what? None of those things are going to work without these last two, and those are heart and grit. Heart just means an open and sympathetic person who really relates to the needs of the team and understands their difficulties. It’s not just about business. People come to work every day with issues. They’ve got stuff going on in their lives.

The leader who understands that, and then works with them, and makes them comfortable with that, is much more able to really build the kind of teamwork and move the organization forward. Of course, grit, that’s discipline. Set the metrics, measure performance. Just go, “They’re willing to work hard, get stuff done, and drive towards the goal.”

Ron: I really like the one, heart. That really resonates with me. I interviewed Matt May a few weeks ago. He talked a lot about the importance of empathy, from a leadership perspective. I think there’s a lot of parallels with empathy and heart, and just really listening to people. That’s something that many folks don’t do very well.

Adam: I tell you, I’ve enjoyed every one of Matt’s books, and I think he’s one of the guys out there in our world who really gets that. I want to mention one other thing. None of these characteristics, by the way, show up on a resume. There’s no way to see that on a resume. Again, when I look for someone, on behalf of a client, I’ve really got to dig in.

I invest a huge amount of time in conversations with people, to get an understanding at a very deep level about the things they’ve accomplished and the how and the why. At the end of the day, that is how and why they’re going to either relate or not relate to the needs of that organization. Just important to consider.

Ron: Let’s turn tables a little bit. That’s a lot about on the individual, but what about on a company level? I guess we could look at it of, “How does a company attract and retain the best Lean leadership?” But on the flip side, what does a company need to do to be a strong, Lean-thinking, learning organization? What does that look like?

Adam: As I think about your question, what I don’t want to answer, from the standpoint of “What are the characteristics of a Lean organization?” What I would prefer to answer is, “What do companies need to put on the table? What do they need to be like or look like to make themselves attractive for a top-notch Lean executive?” Would that be OK?

Ron: Absolutely.

Adam: [laughs] Let’s talk about this one and get it out of the way, right up front. Money. Money is very important. Interestingly, however, it’s never the number-one reason why people join a company or why they leave a company. People, obviously, they’re working for a living. They expect a reasonable package.

They also want those rewards for the performance that they’re delivering, and maybe just a little bit more, if they get exceptional results. We’re done with money.

The other four key points are probably more in line with what’s…I guess we’re talking about meaning in work. The first of those would be good people want to do inspiring work. Maybe that’s too ambitious.

Daniel Pink, a very well-known author, writes about designing jobs which give people autonomy, mastery, and purpose. To me, that sounds a lot like incorporating that concept of respect for people, and then empowering them through how the position is designed. That’s really the target companies need to aim for when they’re creating these positions within the organization.

An organization has a right to ask people to succeed, but it also has an obligation to give them the tools and the development opportunities to do that. Again, that’s at every level, from executive level to middle managers to the people who actually do the real work. [laughs] The second major point, I think, is I call it enlightened leadership.

Again, from the CEO on down to that shift supervisor, most people don’t quit jobs because…Actually, there’s a lot of reasons why they quit them, but most people do quit jobs because they have a lousy boss. I think it boils down to that, more than any other reason. People need real-time feedback. They need sincere coaching, and they need opportunities to develop and grow within the organization.

If they don’t see those things, at some point, they are just not being satisfied. They’re not being fulfilled. Since that’s what companies look for when they want to hire a new person, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a company should already have people like that, who think that way and act that way, in the existing organization?

Next would be, just like we’re trying to improve our golf game, I think we’re always looking for other ways to improve our lives, professionally and personally. A company needs to offer a vision of a better future.

There’s just that certain excitement that inspires people to do their best work, when they know that they’re valued and that their excellent work can open doors and paths to a wide variety of interesting and challenging projects, assignment, positions in the future. Not just talking about promotions, by the way. It could be rotational opportunities into another function.

It could be a new geography, a new country. It could be another business unit. The challenge of that exposure and of adapting to new situations, solving new problems, is what keeps people going. It’s one of the strongest drivers of employee engagement at all levels. I have seen CEOs who have been so disengaged with their companies that they’re basically retired on the job.

They’re just not functioning because they don’t see a better future. It’s like a dead-end job, and boy, is that a disaster.

Ron: Are you familiar with Richard Sheridan and Menlo Innovations?

Adam: I am. I actually met Richard’s partner when I spoke at the last Shingo conference. They attended. I think they had won a prize of some kind. I’m not exactly sure, but yeah, I know a little bit about the company.

Ron: We’re actually visiting them next week. We’re going to visit Menlo there in Ann Arbor, Michigan to do, again, the live shoot. He wrote a book called “Joy, Inc.” I’m reading it right now, in fact. [laughs] It’s how he built a workplace people love. Part of what they really stress there at Menlo is they work in pairs. It’s software, so it’s a little bit different than your traditional, say, manufacturing company.

At the end of the day, their whole point of being is to build a workplace that is all about joy. It’s like, “Wow,” when you think about that. If you have that, the profits and everything else, they’re just going to follow naturally.

Adam: It’s interesting. I’ve read a lot about satisfaction, fulfillment, purpose in life, just because it relates to why people do the things they do. So many things you cannot pursue directly. They come only as a result of something else. That’s why we often say that the company that focuses its attention on profit will never become successful, because the profit is not, in and of itself, attainable. It is only the result of doing so many other things well that leads to that profit. I get it.

Ron: In your opinion, Adam, what are some of the biggest mistakes companies make when they try to recruit people for these, let’s say, Lean management roles?

Adam: There are really two that come to mind. They’re inter-related. The first one would be a lack of clear direction and agenda for a Lean initiative. Then, connecting to that would be the lack of a clear vision and metrics for the position in which someone needs to perform to make that happen. Let me back up and explain a little bit.

I think organizations can also suffer from a version of what I would call poor corporate self-awareness, or at least an inability to clearly articulate strategy and purpose around Lean. If the company’s unclear about how and why it wants to drive its Lean transformation, and what the expected outcome should be, it’s not really going to be able to zero in on exactly who would be the right individuals, the right leaders to bring into that situation.

One of my biggest recruiting challenges with these organizations is to help them understand what’s possible and what it’s going to take, from a leadership perspective, to get them where they want to go. Some companies also, then, have difficulties in laying out specific and clear requirements for the executive position, for the person they want to hire.

A lot of them will use a traditional fallback approach, where they’ll write a position description. They’ll talk about, “What college should this person have gone to? What degree should they have? What should be the companies that they’ve listed on their resume? What are the position titles?” and so on. Instead, the position profile really should be much more of an action-oriented document. It’s built on, “What is the person in this position going to need to accomplish? Against what tricks? Within which time frames?” It’s like building a house, in a sense. If a blueprint is inaccurate, or it’s incomplete, who knows what the house is going to look like? Assuming you can even begin construction once that thing is finished.

Again, I want to invest a lot of time up front, a lot of energy, in helping clients get that blueprint right. Get it as accurate and precise as possible before we ever launch a search.

Ron: Adam, my next question is — I really want to take a slightly different angle for this question — let’s say that we’ve got a middle manager or maybe even a practitioner-level associate who’s practicing Lean and practicing continuous improvement, and they’re really fighting the good fight.

Let’s say they’re on an airplane right now, and maybe they’re a little bit discouraged that their leadership, while they maybe have some support, it’s not real, deep authentic support. But this person is trying. They’re trying to fight that good fight. What advice do you have for that middle manager or that practitioner? What can they do to maybe manage up a bit? What advice do you have for that person?

Adam: I believe there’s really only one answer that actually makes practical sense. It’s one word. It’s data. Just data. In my experience, most of the Lean initiatives that actually succeed and last for more than a few years are led top-down, where the senior leadership team gets it.

In your case, in this particular situation, I would say to that person, “Look, if your senior leadership team understands data and they can be persuaded by your business case for Lean. Now you’ve got to have a lot of ammunition there. You’ve really got to do your homework. But if you can demonstrate a business case for Lean, then you have a shot at getting their attention and support. It needs to be a very clear, unambiguous business result. It’s got to be backed up by solid numbers, which I’ll add is very difficult in a traditional cost-accounting environment. You’ve got to be creative about how you help them interpret and understand those numbers. To have any chance of swaying opinion in your favor, that’s what you’ve got to do.”

My sense is that every company would like to achieve the benefits that a Lean transformation can offer. The problem here is that most just don’t want to do the hard work that will make that happen. They’ll use a shortcut to cut their way through activities. They won’t change the underlying system.

Ron: They want the five steps to being Lean that they can do in the next 30 days. [laughs]

Adam: Sometimes, they’ll want the 12-step program, but then they’ll say, “Let’s be Lean and cut it to six.” How’s that going to work out? Quite honestly, the other piece of advice I would have, if they’re running into that brick wall, maybe they should just send me their resume. [laughs]

Ron: You joke about that, but I also interviewed Bill Waddell recently, and that’s basically what he said. At the end of the day, if you come to a point in your career where you’ve done everything that you can and you’ve done it the right way, sometimes, certain companies, sadly, they don’t get it.

Realistically, if they don’t, the chances of them being around in 20 years are probably pretty slim, anyhow. [laughs] In today’s environment.

Adam: Makes sense.

Ron: Adam, let’s go ahead and transition now to, actually, my favorite part of the show, which we call the quick-fire section. This is where you get to share your personal thoughts and wisdom, which obviously, you’ve been doing. But now we’re actually going to focus in a little bit on Adam. [laughs]

The first question that I have for you is we spend a lot of time in Lean talking about respect for people. It’s one of the pillars of continuous improvement, but it’s hard to put your finger on. What is that? What does respect for people mean to you?

Adam: I have a very personal definition, which I will typically share with clients, because they have that same question. Everybody reads about this, but what does this really mean? It has to be internalized. For me, it means recognizing individuals as they are and not as we would wish them to be. And then helping them attain as much of their potential, professionally as well as personally.

It’s not one of those soft things that business-people refer to at all. Of course, in the broader context, broader definition, we could start talking about all the pieces that go into that, that make that up. The transparency, the trust, responsibility, accountability. Really, it’s those values that connect back to that golden rule. Lots of things, but the core really is quite simple.

Ron: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Adam: There is a — I guess I’ll use the word “maxim” — a maxim in real estate development known as “highest and best use.” What basically that means is if you have a hot piece of property, piece of land in San Francisco, the highest and best use for that land is more likely to be a Trump Tower and not a Sonic burger joint, as much as I love Sonic burgers.

Here’s what I would say to every individual listening. Your time and energy, right now at this moment, are infinitely more valuable than that piece of real estate. Periodically, during the day, stop yourself and ask, “Are you using that time and energy in the best possible way? And what could you be doing instead that would be more powerful?”

What could you be doing with the greatest possible impacts that you are capable of delivering? You do that, and you’ll find that throughout the day, things will just go that much better for you.

Ron: Very good, Adam. Can you share maybe one of your personal productivity habits that others might benefit from?

Adam: Yes, here’s one I’ve been using now. I’m not sure if it’s almost three years, possibly. I call it “reflect and record.” Immediately after every phone call, interview, meeting, any significant interaction. I’m not talking about just taking notes during the interview, for instance.

I’m talking about immediately after that significant interaction, I take just about a minute to reflect on and think about, “What were those key issues?” Then, I write those down. It forces me to decide what was important about that event or communication, and why. I want to make sure I write that down, too.

Over the years, I find that, as I do this, I’m getting better at evaluating and interpreting key points, setting priorities, and then deciding on next steps or plans of action. I look at it almost like a micro, personal PDA thing for my productivity throughout the day. It’s been very helpful.

Ron: Do you write it down, like pen and paper or electronically?

Adam: Yes, I write it down. Actually, I keep a notebook for just those reflections.

Ron: Nice. Do you ever go back and review those from years past? How does that work?

Adam: I’m glad you asked that question. I do. [laughs] I think you have to have a system. Probably for the last few years, since I’ve been involved in Lean, I’ve applied those principles to how I work. Sometimes, my personal life, as well. I do have a systemic approach as part of my standard work to go back and through those.

What’s interesting is that over time, you begin to see correlations. You begin to see patterns. That’s the base, the foundation, for learning and changing behavior. That’s why I think it’s a great system, because it’s beyond just the moment. It really begins to connect things over time. Again, those patterns are very important to recognize.

Ron: Last question, Adam. Here’s the scene. You’ve decided to go back into industry a little bit, and you’re not going to recruit anymore. You’ve sold your recruiting business for a billion dollars. Now, you’ve recently been hired, Adam, as a general manager of a company. This company is struggling. They’re struggling with quality, productivity, poor morale. Really, they’re a mess.

You were hired because the CEO believes in you and your background and really feels that you’re going to be able to right this ship. They’ve given you complete operational and P&L control. This is your baby. With this said, Adam, what would you do in your first week, and why?

Adam: First of all, I’ve got to tell you that this absolutely has to be a trick question, because there’s no way anybody’s going to buy my business for a billion dollars.

But having said that, many of us would recognize, right off the top, that a new executive coming into an unfamiliar organization, I don’t think you can really expect to roll out some sort of a 90-day turnaround plan, after just meeting and greeting the team in the first week. What I’d like to do is share a brief story about a client situation to what I think demonstrates something that’s just infinitely better. I was retained to do a search for a company’s new vice president of Lean supply chain. The CEO had actually been with the company for just over a year. He’d come to the realization that the supply-chain part of the business just wasn’t working.

Coaching, mentoring didn’t help. The VP was just not up to the job. I got the call, but here’s the thing. I didn’t get the call right away. That CEO personally moved the VP aside and then took the job himself. He took on the supply-chain role for the next six weeks. During that six-week period of time, he did everything. He was digging into supplier delivery issues, incoming quality problems.

He was reviewing supply contracts, looking at pricing variances. He went out to qualify a new vendor, outsource a deal. You name it, he did it. He had some help. He’s got a small staff there, but he dug into and touched every nook and cranny of that organization’s supply chain.

Ron: How big was his company, approximately?

Adam: About $250 million in revenue.

Ron: Wow. OK.

Adam: At the end of six weeks, he knew exactly what problems needed solving and what it would take to make that happen. Connecting back up to how we talked about how companies sometimes have a hard time pulling together a position profile, after that experience, boy, could he write a clear, concise profile for what he needed, specific metrics, time frames, why. That’s when I got the call.

I guess the lesson there, you’ve got to walk deep into the gemba to listen and understand and only then can you begin to act.

Ron: You know what’s fantastic about that, and also sad at the same time is that it’s great that that person did it. But gosh, it would have been even better if it didn’t take a crisis to get leaders to do what that person did. I often wonder why more leaders don’t just go to gemba more just to experience what their folks are dealing with. Because when they do, things like what you just described can happen before, like I said, a crisis occurs.

Adam: Let me address that in this particular case, because this CEO, again, was relatively new. He had come in, taken a look at the areas of the organization where he needed to prioritize issues. Initially, his time had been spent on operations, on manufacturing and other things. Guess what? It’s that case where you start lowering the level of the water running through the creek and something else shows up, the other rock.

What he had done initially is lowered the level on the operations side, the production, the manufacturing and the quality issues, and found that they needed fixing, and they did that. The minute they fixed that, all these supply chain problems became apparent. That’s when he jumped into this.

Ron: I got it, OK.

Adam: Logically, that worked. But you’re absolutely right, sometimes over time, we get lulled into a sense of security that things are going well. We need to not do that. We need to go back and revisit and revisit and revisit, because that’s the only way we can tell.

Ron: Excellent. Well, Adam, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to visit with us.

Why don’t we wrap up the show here, Adam, with you giving us some final words of wisdom? Then why don’t you tell people how they can connect with you through your website, in any social media outlets that you’re active on.

Adam: OK. I have three, actually, they’re very short phrases. I’ll tell you what those are and then I’ll just spend a moment on each explaining what that means.

Number one, no shortcuts. Number two, no assumptions. Number three, no excuses.

Shortcuts, you can interpret that in two ways. Anything important that you want to achieve and sustain means hard work and takes time. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book in which he popularized the notion that 10,000 hours of practice is what’s necessary to achieve mastery of something. There’s a lot more to it that that, but that’s a topic for another podcast.

I’d say during the course of my search career, for instance, I’ve invested probably several years worth of time just in interviewing clients and candidates. I’m finally starting to get pretty good at it.

The other interpretation is that you can’t cut corners and also expect great results. That’s a really good argument for standard work and checklists, for instance. I know that the one time, somewhere down the road, if I forget to check a reference for the top candidate, we’re going to find out that that person never really did earn that rocket science degree from Stanford.

No assumptions. I think this is very difficult to do. This goes back to what we were talking about, how you’ve got to revisit and revisit and revisit areas. You cannot assume that things are working well. But that’s very difficult to do, because we’ve conditioned ourselves to rely heavily on past experiences and learnings. That’s now the framework, the lens through which we view and assess new situations, new people or issues.

Often enough to make it hurt, we assume something is like something else we know about and it’s not. That’s when you get into trouble, so that’s a bad habit. Don’t do it.

Finally, no excuses. Excuses are just a way of transferring accountability for something that you did that didn’t work out and you transfer it to another person, a place or a thing. You don’t learn a thing from shifting that blame and because you don’t learn anything, you’re just more likely to repeat that poor result again in the future. Don’t do that.

What’ll change when you don’t make excuses is you’ll like yourself more and your friends will like you more, too.

Ron: Maybe your significant other, too. Right?

Adam: Maybe that’s true, too.

All right. Social media. Easy enough. On LinkedIn, I’m Adam Zak, A-D-A-M-Z-A-K, all run together. On Twitter, I’m LeanThinker, and my newly updated website is leanrecruiter.com.

Ron: LeanThinker. How did you get that one? Man, you must have jumped on that quick.

Adam: I did. I did.

Ron: That’s awesome.

Adam: Or you could just Google Adam, A-D-A-M, Zak, Z-A-K, and you get like five pages.

Ron: You are like the Lean recruiting guru, man. If anybody out there is in the need of Lean related work, and I always send people to your website when people ask me. Because I’m obviously not in that part of the world. But I have a lot of people, made a lot of contacts over the years who, unfortunately, sometimes fortunately, they’re looking for other opportunities.

Adam: I thank you very kindly for that. I appreciate that.

Ron: Yeah. All right, Adam, thanks again and perhaps we can hook up again and do another interview down the road someday.

Adam: Awesome. We’ll find a new topic and do it again. It’s been my pleasure.

Ron: All right. Thank you.

Adam: Thanks.

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Announcer: Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy Podcast. Now it’s time to take a free, no strings attached, fully functional test drive of Gemba Academy’s School of Lean and Six Sigma over at gembaacademy.com. Gain immediate access to more than 500 Lean and Six Sigma training videos free of charge at gembaacademy.com.

 

Ron Pereira: You’re listening to episode 10 with Steve Bell.

[background music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Gemba Academy podcast, the show that’s focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota, Del Monte, and the US Department of Defense. Now, here’s your host, Ron Pereira.

Ron: Hey there. This is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy, and I’d like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to what we’re up to, and a special shout-out to all the Gemba Academy customers out there who are with us and watching our videos and trying to really improve their businesses and ways of life. Thank you to everyone out there.

Today, I’m really excited to welcome a gentleman named Steve Bell to the show. Steve, as you’ll hear, is a longtime lean thinker. He does a lot of work in kind of a lean IT space and does some work in the Agile space.

But that’s not what we’re going to talk about today. In fact, we’re going to talk about I guess what Steve would define as something that he does on the side but he’s obviously extremely passionate about it and that is some non-profit work, or NGO work as it’s referred to. Basically, he’s working in places like Uganda, and less fortunate places than most of us listening live.

He’s going over there and he’s helping these folks apply lean thinking principles to their way of life and, perhaps if they’re farmers or whatever it might be, to really try and improve folk’s lives, and to help people make enough money so they can send their kids to school and feed and clothe their children.

So, some really, really powerful stuff. Steve shares some extremely powerful stories in this episode. It really touched me and I hope it touches you. I do want to really give a shout out to Steve’s website. We’re going to mention it in the episode several times. It’s lean4ngo.org. Again, lean4ngo.org. All the show notes for this episode — there’s going to be some important links — can be found at gembapodcast.com/10. So, gembapodcast.com/10.

Enough for me, let’s get to the show.

Steve, thank you so much for taking time to come on to the show today.

Steve Bell: Thank you for having me, Ron.

Ron: What part of the country are you calling in from today, Steve?

Steve: I am calling in from Portland, Oregon, which is on the west coast, and we’re having a beautiful sunny spring day today.

Ron: Steve, we have a unique topic today I’m really excited about. Before we dive into that, why don’t you just give everybody a little bit of background on who you are and how you first came into this whole continuous improvement world?

Steve: My area of specialization is applying lean thinking to the domain of IT, information technology. I’ve spent about the last 25 or more years working with lean in terms of ERP systems. I started in manufacturing, but I do a lot of my work nowadays in financial services and other types of services, and spent a lot of my time working with IT professionals helping them to drive continuous improvement and innovation within their organization and through the business.

That’s my day job. That’s what pays the bills that funds my real passion, which is bringing lean thinking into the word of nonprofits and NGOs, as they’re known internationally — nongovernmental organizations — and the under-served populations around the world.

Ron: That is going to be the topic of the podcast today. But before we get into that, Steve, we always like to have our guests share a quotation. It could be leadership or continuous improvement slanted, whatever you’d like, that inspires you. What quotation inspires you, Steve?

Steve: You shared with me you were going to ask that question and I have really pondered it, and I’ve had a hard time landing on any one particular quotation because there have been so many thought leaders in the lean world for the last several decades that I’m going to go a little off script here and say it’s not a quotation from any one particular individual. What I have learned in my decades of practice with lean is the key is to make any situation you’re working in visible.

If you get people up at a whiteboard with pens and sticky notes and butcher paper, and really sorting out a problem or a process, they get beyond their emotions, they get beyond what they think the problem is and they really get into visualizing what really is. That’s when people become teams and start solving problems for themselves.

My own quote is make everything visual.

Ron: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Let’s get into this lean NGO world. So your organization goes by Lean4NGO. Is that right?

Steve: Right. The website is www.lean4ngo.org.

Ron: We’re going to link to that in the show notes which everyone can find over at gembapodcast.com/10. What inspired you to start this organization, and how does it work?

Steve: First of all, what inspired me. For many years I was involved in humanitarian activities, volunteering activities, and my passion for many years was something called microfinance, which has been around for about 30 years now. Many of you may be familiar with kiva.org, which is a consumer site that allows you to fund budding entrepreneurs worldwide.

The notion behind microfinance is that poor people are resourceful, they’re innovative, they’re hard workers, but they lack access to capital.

For just a few dollars, a very poor person can start up a business and feed their family and put clothes on their kids and send them to school. These, by the way, are mostly women that are doing this. There are millions and millions of these loans out there every day all around the world.

When I saw those on the ground, when I’d actually go out into the field and see these micro-entrepreneurs working, I saw so many similarities to lean principles of innovation, of continuous improvement.

A couple of years ago when “The Lean Startup” book was published, I realized that every microentrepreneur anywhere in the world is a lean thinker and can benefit by those practices. I became very passionate in that.

My wife and I started what is a very modest organization which primarily consists of a website, lean4ngo.org, and a LinkedIn group, lean thinking for NGOs and nonprofits. The intent behind that group is to bring people around the world, and the membership is very global, together who are practicing lean thinking in their non-profit organizations or even taking lean thinking out into the field to the people they serve and sharing tools and case studies and videos.

Anyone in the non-profit world that is really intrigued by lean can get a good start at least by visiting this organization and starting a dialogue with its members. It’s free, by the way. There’s no charge whatsoever to this. I’m just putting it out there.

Ron: Now is it a 501(c)3?

Steve: At this point, it’s not. That may be in the future. You start a 501(c)3 so that people can make contributions that are tax deductible, but right now my wife and I are just self-funding it. The proceeds from my last book that I published I dedicated to supporting this. For the while, that’s all it really requires.

Ron: Let’s dive in a little bit on Lean4NGO. Maybe some success stories or some things that you’ve actually done that you’ve accomplished. When did you start it, by the way?

Steve: It’s been in the last three years or so that we started it, and it has grown at a surprisingly steady pace since then. I’ve done a number of non-profit activities, some pro bono and other at a reduced fee, with various organizations both locally and around the world. The one that I’m most proud of…there’s actually a video posted on a site you could see of a presentation I made Grameen Foundation in Kampala, Uganda, where my wife and I spent a week last June in Uganda, went out in the field for a Gemba walk. It was the most amazing Gemba walk out into the fields.

Grameen, which is affiliated with an organization that basically is attributed to creating microfinance in the first place back in the ’70s, Dr. Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh. This organization is experimenting with something they call the Community Knowledge Worker Program, which is an agricultural extension service that puts mobile phones and coaches into the field in the agricultural-rich areas, in this case, in Uganda, bringing knowledge and collaboration into the field with some amazing results in terms of productivity, crop yield, economic social improvement for the families who are participating in these activities.

It’s just amazing, the results, when you bring just a little bit of empowerment and knowledge into the hands of these people who are in the field and spend a week there with the organization, teaching lean, a little Agile and Scrum practice on a software development side, and really helping them to improve their productivity. It was an amazing experience.

You’ll find a link to that video on the LinkedIn group, and it may also be posted on the linked site within the lean.org.

Ron: We can work offline, and I’ll get a link to it from you and we’ll put that in the show notes as well. I’m curious, though. I’m going to push you a little bit here, Steve. Give examples. What did they do? You said they improve productivity. What did you teach them? You teach them 5S with the seven ways word? Did you value stream map? What did you do?

Steve: Two things that we did that I feel were the most powerful, we started out in a day with the leadership of the organization, in a room together, around the table. I did some basic lean orientation, principles and practices of lean, and then we broke out for about a two-hour exercise on leadership Kanban.

For those of you readers who are lean people, I’m not talking Toyota production system Kanban where there are parts moving at the factory floor, I’m talking more the Agile software development view of Kanban, which is take a piece of paper, put some sticky notes up on the board to manage your demand, manage work in process, make sure you’re not trying to do too many things at once, make priorities and problems clear.

I had each one of the leaders of this organization make their own Kanban to manage their own work. That exercise took only about two hours, and then they reported out to each other. The results from that single exercise were amazing. When you ask somebody to actually make their workload and their demand visible, it gives you new insights into maybe why you’re not able to get your work done in a day and better ideas about prioritizing.

When all the leaders were able to see explicitly what their peers were doing and were not doing, that was extremely powerful. To this day now, not only all the leaders are maintaining their Kanban boards but many of the development teams have their own Kanban boards as well. That was very powerful, and that was on the first day. Days three and four. Actually, I’m sorry. The first day was the Gemba. We went out to the field. That was day two.

Ron: When you said “the field,” what do they got in a field? Are they making stuff, growing stuff?

Steve: Yes. The field are thousands of villagers in remote parts of Uganda. Uganda is a heavily agricultural economy. We all got in a bus. It was a Toyota bus, by the way, because that’s the most dependable. We bounced around for nearly two hours and went way out into the jungles and the fields of Uganda where we visited basically two stand-up meetings with two villagers with a community knowledge worker there, with a mobile phone, with cellular coverage.

Because even in remote Uganda, they have signals. You’ll find that something in the developing countries, cell signals are very present and they’re high-speed.

The idea of developing knowledge into the hands of remote villagers is actually quite practical, and saw the results in the field, meeting the villagers, meeting the leaders of the villages, and really hearing the stories about how problem solving was helping them increase productivity.

One woman stood up and said, “In the last six months, I’ve doubled my yields and my corn crop, and I bought a goat.” What that means is that woman now has an asset. She has a financial asset that puts her foot on the first rung of the economic development ladder. Those kinds of stories are just powerful.

Ron: That’s incredible. Why do you feel lean principles and practices that we lean thinkers do on a regular basis, why are they so suited for this NGO environment?

Steve: Let me answer that in the form of a response to what we did on day three and day four. We had amazingly intelligent, resourceful, passionate people at this NGO who were working their hardest everyday to deliver these services out into the field.

As in for-profit organizations, many of them didn’t understand what the other people were doing. What we did in day three, day four, we didn’t exactly do a value stream map, I would call it more of a swim lane process map. There, we had everybody standing up with sticky notes and pens in front of a big wall covered with lecture paper where the various responsibility centers of standing up a program in a new part of a field, getting it going, and supporting it, and making it self-sustaining.

For two days, everybody was up there saying, “Here’s what I do here, here are the problems I’m experiencing.” At the end of those two days, they were an energized team. They understood better than they ever had before what they were trying to do collectively and the things that were getting in their way.

When I left them at the end of that week, when my wife and I left them, because we were both facilitating this workshop, they had a list of problems that they were working to solve. As a result of that, by the way, through Lean4NGO, I found a lean coach in Toronto who was willing to go to Uganda, his expenses paid but no revenue for six months.

That just energized the whole organization. There are people out there who are at a point in their career or maybe they’re a coach within a corporate organization who has a partnership with an NGO who would love some experience in the field, doing something like that, not necessarily for six months, maybe for a month or maybe even for a week or two.

The experience you get in the field, doing something like that, helps them, it helps you, and it helps bring some real life hands-on experience back into your organization. It’s a win-win-win for everybody.

Ron: What are the biggest challenges for NGOs right now, especially as it relates to adopting lean?

Steve: Every challenge you will find in a for-profit organization, you will find in a non-profit organization, with one exception. Anybody who’s been in a lean transformation journey in any for-profit company, name all of the challenges you had to overcome and you will find them in an NGO. The one thing you won’t find is a lack of passion and a lack of shared purpose.

People work for NGOs, because they believe in it passionately. They’ll work excessive hours for low pay under tremendous circumstances. Particularly, when you’re in the field in a developing country, conditions on the ground change every day, so you got highly dynamic, often unstable situations to work in. With all that said, people are passionate, because they can see the results of their efforts.

You don’t have that challenge, but what you do have is the challenge of heroic efforts. People will often just give until it hurts until they absolutely burnout. You see a lot of that in the NGO world. What I will also see, and for the sake of not offending people, I’ll try to be careful on how I say this, but less of an awareness of process and process excellence and process discipline.

People in the NGO world are all about what can I do, how can I jump in and fix this. Sometimes, it’s hard to pull them back and say, “Now wait a minute. Let’s look at this as a process. Let’s look at this as learning journey and invest a little time up front.” To help people get over the hump, what you have to do is help them understand that if you do this, it will increase your effectiveness. It’ll increase your productivity. What that means is more kids getting fed every day, more kids going to school, more mothers getting adequate healthcare, societal benefits that are just extraordinary.

If you can help make the lean journey connect with these people who are passionate about what they’re doing, that’s the best way to overcome that form of resistance.

Ron: One question I have for you, Steve, kind of off-script here a little bit, I hope it’s OK to ask this. We can always edit if we need to. [laughs] You’ve mentioned several times now that you’re really impacting the female population of Uganda. Why is that? I don’t know how I should say it. Where are the men? [laughs] What’s going on there?

Steve: For anyone that’s interested, there is a tremendous book written by two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists called “Half the Sky.” If you read this book, you’ll understand that in most cultures around the world, half of the population is not being heard from is under-utilized, and that half of the population is the women.

Women are nurturing, they’re innovative, they’re very hardworking. Now, for the sake of offending people, I’m going to say this anyways, because research, decades of research, shows that in developing countries, in any culture — it’s not just Africa, it’s not just Latin America, it’s not just Asia — in developing countries, the men are more likely, if they find they suddenly have a dollar in their pocket, they’re going to go spend it on themselves.

The women, if they find a dollar in their pocket, they’re going to spend it on their kids for food, for clothing, for education. I’m sorry to say, that’s just the way it is. That’s why when you really want to move the needle on development in developing countries, you focus your efforts on the women. That is certainly not to say that all men are unreliable and aren’t worthy of the investment. It tends to work that way. That’s just how it is.

Ron: Thank you for your honesty there. What can people do if they want to support your work for NGO or just non-profit work like this in general? What can they do? Can they volunteer their time? Can they send money? What can they do?

Steve: First of all, what you can do to help the mission of Lean4NGO is just to visit the website, look around, join the LinkedIn group, look at the conversations, join in any conversations or start a new one, send to me case studies or examples, because the real impact at Lean4NGO is when we get more examples and more people willing to share what works and what doesn’t work.

It’s a resource to help people who really want to go down this path. There are some amazing case studies, videos, examples already there. That’s all I would ask.

As far as what you can do, I have found that most people who are in the lean world are already very open, very generous, many of you already volunteer your time in your local communities doing whatever, habitat for humanity, rolling up your sleeves in any way. Think about searching out a non-profit organization in your local community and approaching the leadership and say, “Hey, I’d like to take some time, learn about you, share this lean thing with you, and see if it makes sense.”

Don’t force it on them. If they’re not interested, then don’t push it. Really, think about engaging with the leadership and saying, “Let’s do a pilot. Let’s do an experiment. Start it slowly. Make it experimental and see where it goes.” Use your professional expertise.

If you’re a corporation and you have a lean transformation program on their way, chances are you have some coaches that would benefit by going out in the community, either your local community or your global community, and through your corporate social responsibility effort, give those coaches some experience in the field. Then bring them back and let them tell their story and share what they’ve learned so there’s a win-win-win on the corporate side as well.

Ron: Something that is just really moving me right now, hearing what you’re talking about, and we haven’t even talked about this at all, offline, and it would need tremendous planning and thought. I wanted to throw it out there right now here on the show is Gemba Academy, obviously, we make training videos.

In fact, we have customers in Africa using our videos. I want to find a way, and I don’t even know…we’re not going to figure it out here on the call, but I want to find a way for Gemba Academy to get more involved and how we can support it.

I’ll tell you what. We do these things called Gemba Live, where we go to companies. In fact, we’re going to Menlo Innovations next week to shoot some stories with Richard Sheridan and his team over there.

Steve: Say hi to Rich for me. Tell him to wear his Viking hat.

Ron: I’m so pumped up for this Gemba Live. I can’t even tell you how excited I am. Anyhow, we do these. Why are we not, Greg, our videographer, and myself, jumping on a plane with you and flying to Uganda and spending a week, and teaching them, and bringing visibility to them that way? I would love to do something like that with you down the road.

Steve: That would be great. I would love it. Tell a story.

Ron: I definitely want to do that. I don’t know how we’re going to do it or what we’ll do, but we’ll figure that out, especially since you said they have cell coverage out there. We get them some iPads and there they go. They’re watching Gemba Academy videos from their field as long as they have a cellular connection.

Steve: Absolutely. The powers of online learning and the powers of storytelling are huge. The big missing piece is you’re unlikely to be successful in the long run in a sustainable way unless you have a coach who’s there helping you from time to time. A lot of examples out there, people who give an hour a week or a little bit of time, over Skype, coaching people remotely is a really powerful thing. It’s really engaging.

Ron: I’m not a fan of him or anything but this Brian Kelly guy with the Eagles — I don’t know if you follow the football or not — this guy is out there on his iPad, on a little rope. He can’t be out there on the practice field, but he’s there on his iPad. That’s brilliant. Why are lean consultants, these guys, traveling 350 days a year?

I’m like, “Why?” Pull your iPad out and you can coach 10 people in a day instead of one company. Sometimes, I don’t get my lean consulting brothers’ [laughs] methods very well sometimes. Just be smart and use technology as it’s available.

Steve: Just like the Khan Academy single-handedly redefined the whole world of global education idea. I think lean consultants and coaches have that same opportunity. There is no substitute for the Gemba. I would say that everyone who ever coaches non-profit in the field remotely, at some point, needs to see it. It will be one of the most rewarding things that I’ll ever do.

Ron: Let’s talk offline. My business partner, Kevin Meyer…I don’t know if you know Kevin.

Steve: I know Kevin.

Ron: Kevin’s going to Africa later in June. I’m not sure where he’s going. We need to talk about this offline.

Let’s keep the show going here. Thank you for all that. It’s lean4ngo.org, and we’re going to have that information in the show notes. We actually have a schedule of podcast. I’m going to move this one up in the line, because this is so good. We’re going to have to go back and re-edit. I don’t want to give out the URL right now as far as where the show notes are going to be, but we’ll have that in the intro and the outro [laughs] of this episode.

Let’s jump now, Steve, into the quick fire section. This is where you really get to share personal thoughts and wisdom, which obviously you’ve been doing, but you’re going to really share them about Steve now. We’re going to drill in on who Steve is.

The first question, Steve, is we lean thinkers, we spend a lot of time talking about continuous improvement, obviously, but then we also spend a lot of time about respect for people. We hear those words a lot. Sometimes, it’s hard to put your finger on. In your opinion, Steve, what does respect for people mean?

Steve: I will phrase this from the perspective of Lean4NGO. I will say that there are various ideas that people have — notions, biases, whatever — about what it means to be poor. I’m not talking about relative poor, which you have primarily in this country, relative poverty, but absolute poverty where people are living on one or two dollars equivalent a day.

Where they don’t know where their next meal comes from, where they don’t know where the roof over their head is going to be that night, where they’re constantly under a threat in so many ways.

This is, by the way, how about 80 percent of the population of the world lives. What does it really mean to feed your family and keep them safe and try to help the next generation to escape that? When you see it on the ground, when you meet these people, you realize anybody who’s living under such desperate conditions has to be incredibly resourceful and innovative and community-spirited in helping each other out.

When you really see that firsthand and when you see what I see with the amazing things that giving, or not giving, lending $50, for example, to a woman in Africa to buy a sewing machine and some fabric or lending $10, literally, to a woman in Nepal so that she can buy scissors, comb, and a mirror, and start feeding her family by cutting people’s hair, that she could not afford that.

Now that she has that vital asset, she can repay the loan in a matter of a few months and now, she has an asset and she has a business.

You realize that these people need so little that we have to give including our expertise. That’s what it means to me.

Ron: What’s one problem you’re currently trying to solve, Steve?

Steve: The coaching problem. Lean4NGO has been very successful in reaching people in Africa, India, Asia, Latin America, for example, with stories, with tools, with books, with guidance. But you still need a one-on-one coaching relationship for an organization that really wants to make this work in the long run, because you can’t just practice lean out of a book.

And so, that’s what I’m hoping ultimately Lean4NGO will do is become a clearing house where people who say, “I want to be a coach. Can you fix me up with someone who needs my coaching services?” I would love for Lean4NGO eventually be able to do that.

Right now, though, all I can do is encourage people to go out in your own community or reach out and, say, find an organization that resonates with you and find some way through on-site, through Skype, through phone, whatever. Get a cadence of a relationship going with them where they can count on you for a while to help them through the initial learning journey that they so desperately need your help with.

Ron: Steve, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Steve: The best advice that I’ve ever received — go see, ask why, show respect. Because whatever idea you have in your head about what those you are trying to serve need is liable to be wrong or at least incomplete.

The people who own the process and who own the solution need your help, but you can’t presume you know what they need. So show a little humility and meet them where they live.

Ron: Yeah, a secondary theme I think of this whole episode has been, in addition to helping people, bringing visibility. You kept talking about those visual controls in the beginning, but you have to see. You have to go to Gemba. The place that work is done. You have to go and you have to look with your own eyes and not depend on secondary stories and whatnot, even though they’re powerful. I’m moved by your words, but I’m sure it would be 10 times more if I actually experienced it with my own eyes and my own feet on the ground.

Steve: Hopefully Kevin will write up some of his experiences.

Ron: I’m sure he will.

Steve: By different countries and he’ll share that with us.

Ron: Yeah. Steve, do you have — on a different angle here — a personal productivity habit that you think others might benefit from?

Steve: Yes, it’s that same Kanban technique that I shared earlier, which is to try to make my commitments and my demands and what I’m working on visible. It’s not always easy. It’s a discipline that requires constant attention but it really pays off.

Ron: Right here next to my desk — it’s a podcast so you can’t see it — I have a big whiteboard. I’ve made it work for my situation. With all the videos we shoot, webinars, podcasts, and whatnot, the schedule can get crazy in what’s edited first, second third or fourth. We’ve got a whole bunch of sticky notes over here on what’s on the tap for today and what we’ve got coming up next week and so forth.

Without having visibility, you really start to go nuts. You become overwhelmed. But when you get it all up in front of you, it might still look overwhelming, but you at least have a plan.

Steve: The moment you can see where the problem is, whether there’s too much work or not enough processing of prioritization of demand, at least it gives you a fighting chance to do something about it.

Ron: Something that we like to do, I don’t know if this is in the Agile rule book or not, but all the completed items we do, we have it all in one little row over there with a whole bunch of sticky notes. It makes you feel good that we’ve gotten a lot done over the month or so.

Steve: Something to celebrate.

Ron: Yeah, very good.

Steve: One of the Agile tenants that I like is to ask yourself, what does “done” mean really? Move that little sticky note into the done column. Are you really done?

Ron: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Steve: Have you put whatever you’ve delivered into the hands of somebody or have you actually validated that it’s delivering the value it was intended? That’s a big difference.

Ron: That’s a great point. Even our situation, we might edit a video, might release it, but then we may go back to it and get some feedback and tweak it or update ever so slightly. So that’s a great point.

Hey, Steve, if you could recommend one book, and I’m sure you’ve read many, many books. But if you could recommend one book related to continuous improvement or leadership, what would it be and why?

Steve: There are so many in the last few years, but I don’t have a problem answering this question. “Toyota Kata” by Mike Rother. I read it and reread it three or four times now. I come out with something new every time. I see it being discussed everywhere. It is a book that is not only popular in the lean community, but is popular in the Agile community as well. It’s really brought us together.

It’s such a simple set of practices, but it’s really the thinking process. So that’s my one.

Ron: We’ve done…I don’t know how many episodes we’ve done now, but Toyota Kata is definitely running away with as being the most recommended book. In fact, we did a whole episode with Michael Lombard, who’s a huge Toyota Kata believer and uses it in his hospital. So good stuff. Mike Rother’s a great guy.

Steve: He is.

Ron: Last question, Steve. Let’s imagine that you’ve been hired as the general manager of a company that’s struggling with quality, productivity, poor morale. Really they’re just a mess. You were hired because of your background and your experience and past success. That CEO that hired you has given you complete operational and financial –you have full P&L control — and the CEO trusts that you’re going to right the ship.

With this said, what would your first week on the job look like? What would you do and why?

Steve: I would go see, ask why, and show respect. I would try to learn firsthand on the ground as much about the situation as I possibly could before making any decisions or imposing any of my ideas or my will on anyone.

Now, in the rare case that there was literally a crisis, if there was something where an intervention were needed in order to stop a bleeding, I would get the whole leadership team in the room and do a thorough problem analysis. Pull out an A3 and do a problem analysis and make an intervention if it was necessary. But in most cases, I would resist that and I would just go learn, because most often you’ll find that it’s just a communication problem. It’s a problem-solving problem, and to step in and throw your ideas on top of everybody else’s without really understanding what’s going on, you’re just going to introduce more noise into the situation and you’re going to disempower a whole lot of people.

Ron: Steve, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I’m really moved by this episode. I really hope it resonates with the folks that are listening to this right now. I want to call out your website again, lean4ngo.org. I want to just close the show, Steve, if you could maybe share some final words of wisdom and then tell people how they can connect with you through your website and any other social media outlets that you might be active on.

Steve: Wisdom, that’s a big word. I think, hopefully, have shared a little bit already through this section but I would say just learn. Be curious and always ask why. There’s a whole lot of learning to be done on this journey.

As far as reaching out to me, you can get to me indirectly through lean4ngo.org, but if you want to reach out to me directly, my website is leanitstrategies.com.

Ron: We’ll put a link to that in the show notes, leanitstrategies.com.

Again, thank you so much, Steve. Hopefully, everyone will go visit your website and support the work that you’re doing. I do want to say thank you for everything that you’re doing for those folks and I look forward to figuring out a way that Gemba Academy can be more involved in the work that you’re doing, and I really do mean it about someday going over there and getting on the ground with you and supporting you guys however we can.

Steve: Let’s go. Ron, thank you for your time and your enthusiasm. I appreciate it.

[background music]

Ron: Take care, Steve.

Steve: Bye now.

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