How it Started. How it’s Going. | 099
Welcome to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers, the podcast for leaders in Ops Management who want to spark improvement, foster engagement, and boost problem solving – AND still get their day job done. Here’s your host, Leadership Trainer, Lean Enthusiast, and Spy Thriller Junkie, Jamie V. Parker.
So you know that meme that’s like how it started and how it’s going and it’ll show pictures from both of those. Well, that’s what we’re doing for the next two episodes. Now, I promise we are going to come back to the conversation we were just happening these last couple of episodes about how do we help people get better execution and what about telling and the role that telling plays in leadership.
So after these next couple of episodes, we’re going to come back to that conversation. I’m going to talk about when telling isn’t enough and when telling goes wrong and those kinds of things. So make sure you come back and pick up the rest of that series. But we’ve got a slight interruption here. And the reason we have a slight interruption is because next episode is episode number 100. That’s right.
The Lean leadership for Ops Managers podcast is going to have 100 episodes in which we’re super excited about. And to celebrate, we’re inviting the process plus results team. So Leah and Stephanie and Krystal are going to be joining us next week so that we can have a team conversation and you get to meet the people who are part of the team. You get to move beyond just me and find out some other people who are making the magic happen with our clients.
[00:01:11] But what I wanted to do first is go back and talk about how it started, right? So you’re going to hear next episode how it’s going in episode number 100. But what about how it started? And I got to tell you, it started in August of 2020, so just over two years ago. And the crazy thing is that so the day that we started, we published our very first episodes. We published three episodes on day one. And when we publish those three episodes, I actually had a speaking engagement and guess where it was? It was all masked and all that kind of stuff. It was like hybrid half, virtual half in person, everybody’s six feet apart. All the stuff that was happening in August of 2020.
And you know where that speaking engagement was in Evansville, Indiana. That’s right. Like the place that I am living in right now. I was here two years ago for the speaking engagement on the day that the podcast started with episodes number one, number two and number three. So for how it started in this episode, episode number 99, you get to take a trip back in time and go back to how it started for us.
[00:02:28] And you’re going to be able to hear episode number one, episode number two, and episode number three right now. And maybe you were around listening to this episode and you’ve been with us the whole time and you heard them. What’s going to be a great refresher? And you get to go back and hear my first episodes. I’m wondering like, Oh my goodness, as I go back to listen to these, like, what did they sound like? Right. But I think it’s going to be great.
There’s some of the most popular episodes. I put a lot of time and energy and effort into making those three episodes. I think you’re going to like going back and listening to them again. And for some of you, I know that you haven’t even heard them. And in fact, most of the podcast apps, a lot of them won’t even show you more than 100 episodes or more than 50 episodes. Like, it’s like too hard to get there. So you may even have a hard time scrolling down that far in your podcast app. And so you can just keep listening right now to hear how it started. Episodes number one, two and three. Let’s go.
Episode 001: Respect for People vs. Deliver Results
Welcome to episode one. I am excited. It is awesome. I’m scared. Ain’t that the truth? Don’t we have lots of emotions when we’re trying something new? If you’re new to me, hi, I’m Jamie and I am a recovering Command and Control Manager. And I’m not saying that just to be cute. I used to tell my managers that “Hey, it’s really pretty simple. Employment is a contract. We agree to pay the employee a certain amount of money every two weeks and we agree that we’re going to have a physically safe working environment. That’s our part of the contract and they agree to basically do what we tell them to do.” It’s not that hard. I used to look at my team as talent on a chessboard. How can I move people around? I was known for turning teams like, “Hey, I can go in and whip them into shape and turn teams around and get people to move on or quit quickly, so I can get new people in.” I would go into the struggling store or the struggling cluster of stores or the struggling district and that’s what I was known to do. I made a career out of it and that’s why I was so curious 12 years ago.
I was a retail district manager visiting a store and Enid said, “Can we talk?” You see, Enid was somebody that I looked at my chessboard and I thought that he was way in over his head. My goal, my desire was for him to step down, move into this tiny little store over there so that I could promote somebody else into his position. So Enid said, “Hey, can we talk?” We went into his office and I sat across from him. He said, “Listen, I went home last night. It was late. It was eight o’clock, nine o’clock at night, late like it usually is these days. I walked into my house and as I got a few feet into my house, I stepped on a toy and it hurt. I screamed, I yelled at my kids and I looked down, and my three year old had a look of fear on his face that I have never seen before. That’s when I knew I needed to talk to you because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t hurt my relationship with my kids just because I’m trying to do what you want me and need me to do here in this store.”
So here’s the part of the story where I’m supposed to tell you that, “Oh, that was a wake-up call and I started to realize how much influence we had and help people or people”, right? This is supposed to be my big aha reveal. Except it wasn’t. What really happened is that secretly inside, I was jumping for joy. I was trying to feign empathy. I was trying to look really concerned, but I wasn’t. Inside I was like, “Yes, yes, yes!” because now Enid is ready to step down and I get to move in who I want to move in. I can move all the pieces on the chessboard. I was so excited because you see, I was under pressure. It was under pressure to get results, to hit my numbers and not to do it six months from now, but to do it now. If you’re an Operations Manager, you probably get where I’m coming from, right? You got to get work out the door, you got to hit your numbers, you’ve got monthly targets, you’ve got quarterly targets. There is no leeway, there’s no ramp up, there’s no forgiveness period. Sound familiar? Yeah, it creates a lot of pressure too, and at the time, I didn’t know how to handle that pressure, other than to push and push and push.
When I work with clients, here’s what I hear. I hear “You know what? I want to run Kaizen events and I want to do improvement events, but we have to get work out the door. I want to lead with respect for people and treat people well and have them really enjoy working here and recommend this place, but at the end of the day, we have a business to run. I want to empower people to make decisions and to make improvements, but we’ve got to get results fast.” I get it because that’s exactly where I was with Enid, and while I didn’t learn the lesson then, what I’ve learned since then is this.
Enid wasn’t the problem, I was. You see, Enid could have grown and developed, and he could have been successful and he could have balanced both. That was possible. I just didn’t see it. And here’s what I want you to know, is that it’s not a choice. It’s not a choice where we say, “Hey, I want this BUT I also have to do this”. So it’s not a BUT it’s actually an AND, or sometimes I even say plus. So it’s, “I want to run Kaizen and have continuous improvement events and activities AND get work out the door. I want to lead with respect for people and treat people well and have them love this place and recommend this place as a great place to work AND run the business effectively. I want to empower people to make decisions and make improvements AND get results timely.” You see, mindset and language and what we feel in our hearts and our minds matter. And as long as I think that Enid can’t do it, then I’m looking for ways he can’t and I’m projecting my doubt onto him. Yet, when I think Enid can do it, I open the doors to possibility. This is the power of AND.
When we stop viewing things as a dichotomy, as a choice between this or that, and instead we start asking ourselves, how can we have both? How can we have process and results, process plus results? How can we have respect for people AND accountability? How can we have continuous improvement AND getting work out? This is the shift that we need to make. So let’s talk about it this way. It is summer. It is hot. I live in Denver. It’s been in the 90s most of the summer, crazy, crazy hot for us. So it’s hot. What do you do? Of course, you go to the ice cream shop, but there are too many flavors to choose from. You want this, but you also want that. So what do you do?
You can approach this from a BUT perspective – dichotomy, choice, either or, OR you can approach this from an AND perspective – I’m going to get two scoops, this flavor AND the other flavor. And I know you’re saying, “Oh, but that’s too much ice cream. I can’t eat that much.” Sure, then get a kid size with this flavor AND another flavor. You can share. You say, “I’m going to get this flavor, you’re going to get that flavor AND we’ll share.” You can get one cone now AND a pint to go. You can get one flavor today AND a different one next week. This is how it works when we shift from BUT to AND. When we stop looking at it as a choice, where we can only have both of them so much and then at a certain point, then we have to choose. “I want it to be a great place to work BUT at the end of the day, we have a job to do” means, “In my mind, I think we can only have both up to a certain point at which point now I gotta get me in again. Now I gotta hold people accountable.” And we want to shift that.
Here’s the secret to the power of AND. Are you ready for it? Because it’s elusive and most of us miss it. You have to believe even before you have it. You have to believe first even when that’s not your reality yet because you’re going to say, “But I don’t have both, Jamie. You say it’s the power of and yet I look at it and I don’t have both.” And I get that because we’re going to work toward it. We’re going to achieve it and so you need to believe it first. This becomes your true north, your ideal, your target. Believe first that it is possible to have this AND that. The next thing is just for us to figure out the challenge of how to get it.
So what does this mean for you? Here is your action, I want you to really reflect and catch yourself in a BUT mentality. Where is it that you are forcing yourself into a choice? Where is it that you’re telling yourself “I can’t have both I have to choose”? Catch yourself saying the word BUT and reframe it to an AND. How can you shift that to an AND mentality? Figure out the most important places that you need to shift from BUT to AND. That is your homework.
Here’s the thing about Enid and his dilemma about being a good parent AND being a good manager and leader. He wasn’t the problem, I was, because I lived in a world of BUTs. I want to help Enid feel less stressed BUT we’ve got numbers to hit. I want to devote more time to helping Enid BUT I’ve got my own responsibilities and deadlines. I want to help Enid be successful BUT I have to deliver results now. I don’t have time to bring him along. I could have led better and I wish I had. So don’t be like I was, choose to be an AND. Choose to add value, not to BUT it away.
So, here’s the thing. This podcast is just getting started, and I’m going to ask for your help. I’m going to ask you to subscribe wherever it is that you listen to your podcasts, subscribe, AND share it with one Ops leader. As we go along this podcast, we’re going to talk more about how do we not just believe in AND, how do we also achieve it? How do we not just say I want this? How do we work toward it? How do we Identify and overcome challenges? What are the things that we need to do? How do we need to interact with our team members? What are the skills we need to develop, and how do we do that? We’re going to dig into all of that as we move along this podcast and I’m so excited to have you here along this journey with me.
You’ve been listening to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers with me, your host, Jamie V. Parker. For more information about me and how we can work together, head on over to ProcessPlusResults.com. To help more leaders like you discover the podcast, give us a rating and review, and to make sure you never miss an episode, hit that subscribe button wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.
Episode 002: Why is Lean So Hard?
Why is Lean so hard? Have you ever found yourself asking that question? I understand that a lot of the concepts are simple, right? We can understand them, they make sense. But simple does not necessarily mean easy, especially when it comes to implementation and sustaining and broadening. So I want to take a little bit of a flashback. Let’s go back to 2012, 2013, somewhere in that timeframe, and I was in a Regional Operations Management role at the time. It had been about two years since we, in our division at first started our Lean journey. So we were practicing some kind of, let’s call them early levels of Lean. Just tons of problems, tons of things we messed up, tons of things we did wrong time. We’ll take another podcast to talk about all that.
But here we are, we’re about two years in and so we have kind of that introductory level of 5S and Visual Management. We’ve got stand up meetings that we had started, and we’re working on improving the flow of work to try and get closer toward continuous flow. And we were getting results. We could see that impact particularly in our quality especially, and even in some of the costs and productivity measures. So we were getting results but it was really, really hard. It felt so much harder than it should be, and it felt like we were dragging people along. This really bothered me because I could see how much potential there was for us to engage people across the division, across the organization in improvement, and yet we were struggling with it.
So I really dug in, and I went and had listening sessions, touched with lots of team members really listening to what they had to say. Went out and did observations, what’s really going on? I just really went into the details. I needed to figure this out. Why is this harder than it should be? Here’s what I learned, is that what we were saying wasn’t matching what we were doing. You see, we were making lots of changes to work and workflow and the things that team members did, and maybe even to some of our own activities as leaders, but we weren’t really changing our leadership. What I mean by that are the interactions, how we showed up, what our priorities were. So while we were expecting all of this change to happen in the work and on the floor, we weren’t actually doing the internal work as leaders, and we weren’t changing how we were interacting
This is what put me on the path I am now. I became super passionate and purposeful about this work with leaders. So at FedEx working directly with Operations Managers and trying to figure out what kind of changes and adjustments do we need to make? And I was hearing the same kind of things that I heard from managers in FedEx when I started working with clients and when I was out in the Lean community. I love the Lean community because everyone’s givers, we’re sharers. So, throughout all of this work of working on this leadership side, I kept hearing some of the same things over and over. Here’s what I kept hearing. So here’s what normally happens. We have a problem, a challenge, something that we’re either trying to overcome or work toward and we look at this and we say, “Okay, how can we solve this problem?” Then we go and implement systems or tools. There’s some sort of tactical thing that we do, whether that’s in workflow, whether that is in 5S, whether that’s your Visual Management or your Kanban systems. There’s some sort of thing, tool, tactical step that we take.
Then this is what I hear. “At some point, that becomes like wallpaper.” Have you ever had wallpaper in your plant or your organization? I know I have. Maybe it’s a Visual Management system and then at some point, we’re not updating it, it’s not current. Or maybe it is, but we’re just going through the motions. We’re just going through the motions of our startup meeting and we’re not actually using the information and the tool and the system to help us make decisions, to help us solve problems, to help us create more value. It becomes wallpaper, whether that’s physical visual wallpaper, or just wallpaper by going through routines.
So, I want to use an example and I’m going to talk about systems and then how we can do this differently, the pieces that are missing, what are the two other pieces that are missing? I’m going to use an example of the Peloton. Do you know the Peloton, the spin bike? I’m using this because so many people that are in my friend network have it. My brother even got one. So everybody’s getting this spin bike, and they’re talking about it and they’re so stoked and they talk about all their rides and who their favorite trainers are and the different playlists, right? I’m hearing all about it. If you’re not really a Peloton fan, that’s okay. You can use any sort of fitness tool or system that you’re familiar with. So maybe it’s the Couch to 5K running app, or maybe it’s the Beachbody P90X or whatever at-home workout. Or maybe it’s the Zumba class at the gym or your personal trainer. So maybe it’s a personal trainer that you work with and having the process of going three times a week to work with that trainer. Regardless, you can use any example you want. In all of those, what you recognize is that is the system. That’s the tool, that’s the system that is going to help you improve your fitness.
Now, here’s the thing, the system by itself is not enough. This is how we get wallpaper if we don’t have behaviors. My friend Teresa said one time, it was a few months ago – she’s back on it now – but a few months ago, she said, “You know what, I’ve been so bad. My Peloton is basically a really expensive coat rack right now.” So she had this system, she had the tool sitting in her house, and yet because she wasn’t using it. because she didn’t have the behavior of daily use, it was in fact an expensive coat rack, wallpaper. So you have to have behaviors. You can’t just have a system. You have to have the behaviors. But here’s the other thing, is that belief drives behavior. Are you familiar with the Find Your Why movement and ideas? It’s been shared with by Simon Sinek but lots of other people, this is not the first time you’ve heard this, right? So this whole idea that when you find your “why”, your reason, and it is so strong, that belief actually drives your behavior.
Here’s what happens in our Peloton example. You have a “why” that is so strong, something like, “I want to have the energy to run around outside and play with my grandchildren. I want to make sure that I am alive and healthy and able to walk my daughter down the aisle.” Whatever that “why” might be for you. It’s something that when your alarm goes off in the morning, you go “Ugh, I don’t feel like it. I wish I could stay in bed. And yet I get up anyways and I do that behavior anyways because my belief, my value, my “why” is so great that I do it.”
Here’s the thing, though. You ever had a “why” that you feel is pretty strong, and yet when that alarm clock goes off in the morning, you still hit the snooze button, snooze, snooze? And you’re just like, “Yes, I want this, and I have the Peloton bike sitting right there, yet I cannot figure out how to actually get out of bed and use it in the morning.” You might hear a fitness expert say something like this, they might give you advice that says, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take your clothes, your workout clothes, your gear, and I want you to lay it out at the end of your bed or on your dresser the night before. Then when you get up, all I want you to worry about is putting those clothes on.”
So that is a behavior and the reason they suggest that is because a lot of times for a lot of people, just doing that behavior, setting out your clothes the night before, and just putting them on actually then impacts your belief. Now you’re like, “Oh, you know what, I guess I could do it. I don’t have to do the whole ride, but I could do five minutes.” Then you go down there and you get on for five minutes and you end up doing the whole thing. Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking”? I first heard that phrase, I actually read it in an article about NewMe years and years ago. Sometimes it is. The thing is, belief drives behavior, but it goes both ways because behavior influences belief. In fact, all three of these – belief, behavior, systems – influence and reinforce each other.
You see, the Peloton system isn’t just the bike. It’s not just a spin bike. If it was, they wouldn’t be able to sell the thing for 2500 bucks plus a subscription fee, right? It’s the engaging instructors and the data that tracks your improvement and notifies the instructor to give you a shout out when you hit a milestone like, “Hey, it’s your 100th ride. I just want to shout out to ‘so and so username’.” It’s the community of all of these folks who are Peloton riders as well. It’s all of this that works together. So the system actually influences and reinforces your beliefs. When you see the data, and you can see your improvement and your instructor calls you out and your instructor has this great playlist and you’re like, “I can do this, I’m doing it”, it also impacts your behavior because that playlist that’s so awesome and now you’re singing to it your favorite songs, and it gets you pumping and then you stick with it. You’re like, “I’m only going to do five minutes”, but you end up doing the whole 45-minute ride. You see, beliefs, behaviors, systems, they all work in tandem. That means all three – beliefs, behavior systems – need to be aligned.
So let’s go back to my Region Ops job. I learned that we were saying things like, “Blame the process, not the person” and yet when a big customer failure happened, the first thing we did is we went and asked who ran the job. I found out that we were saying things like, “Hey, team members, you know the work, you do this every day, we want your ideas, and we want your improvements and we want you to contribute.” We even had a system of an idea board and yet, that system would sit there unused and we wouldn’t get back to team members. Even when we did, we often explained to them why that idea wouldn’t work. “We tried that before. Oh, no but see, you don’t understand this.” We were out of alignment and this was making it harder. It was like this misalignment was a big ball and chain making the journey more difficult. So we were getting results but we were doing it a little bit harder than we needed to.
And it wasn’t just misalignment and what we said and did, it was also misalignment in our own beliefs as leaders. You see, as I listen and as we dug in, we found out things like this – regardless of what leaders would say, what they thought was “Well, you know, it’s faster if I just do it” or “Yeah, I want to engage and empower, but they just don’t understand flow the way I do” or “What do you mean all this respect for people. empowerment, engagement stuff or recognition? They want a cookie for just doing their jobs?” Or “We have to get work out the door. We don’t have time to also teach and train and facilitate improvement activities. We want to do it, but the only way for me to do that is if I reduce my production targets.” By the way, that last one, if you struggle with it, make sure you check out episode one because I dig into that particular challenge in Ops Management. We talk about thoughts and language and how that all intersects.
So here we were, and we found out that it wasn’t just that what we were doing didn’t match what we were saying and what we were putting systems and tools out there for. It was also some of our own beliefs deep down. We said respect for people and yet deep down, we still had some of these old hangups. So we had to develop our leaders, our senior leaders and our plant managers, and our department managers, and line leaders. We said, “Okay, we need to help you think differently, to behave differently, and to work in different systems altogether, all in alignment, all reinforcing each other.
So here’s the thing, in the next episode, I’m going to go into more detail on this with examples of how it shows up and how you can apply the model in your work. For now, though, I want you to take one action. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think about beliefs, behaviors and systems and I want you to go out and look for inconsistencies. Be on the lookout, take notice, jot them down. In fact, if you go to the show notes for this episode, you’ll be able to download a visual aid so you can keep this front and center. If you’re not sure where to start, look for where you have a mismatch, that what you say, or what we say or what we say we want to be doesn’t match what we actually are. Look for systems that are becoming wallpaper, systems that maybe aren’t being sustained. Look for the things that you have to follow up on constantly or else they don’t get done, start there. Beliefs, behaviors, systems, these three in alignment working together, that’s the key. Your next action step is awareness so let’s go find those inconsistencies.
You’ve been listening to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers with me, your host, Jamie V. Parker. For more information about me and how we can work together, head on over to ProcessPlusResults.com. To help more leaders like you discover the podcast, give us a rating and review, and to make sure you never miss an episode, hit that subscribe button wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.
Episode 003: Getting Lean to Stick
Hi there my favorite leaders. Have you ever tried to implement something and found it to be a struggle? Yeah, I know, right? Maybe it was operational processes or new workflow, or a Lean system like Visual Management and you just couldn’t get it to stick. It became like that wallpaper we talked about in episode two. Well, here in this episode, we’re going to build on the model I introduced in episode two. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, be sure to go back and check it out. You’re also going to want to make sure that you go to the show notes and get some links and resources from this episode, episode three.
All right, I’m going to share with you a Lean leadership related example of this model that we talked about and then I’m going to walk you through three BOLOs – be on the lookouts – and then I’m going to share how you can take next step. So that’s what we’re going to do here in this episode.
Now, as a refresher, there are three points in the Transformation Trinity – beliefs, behaviors, and systems. When these three points are all in alignment, they reinforce each other to lead to better and easier transformation. Remember that it’s not a linear path, all three influence each other. It’s not a sequential linear, we do one then we move on to the next. They’re all happening at the same time. So think back to our Peloton example, the beliefs, the why influences behavior. It also drives you to even go looking for and developing systems like buying a Peloton. Behavior influences the system because when we do the behavior consistently, the system becomes more effective. Behavior also influences belief. When we take actions, we start to believe more.
In the peloton system, the bike, the visual data, the playlist, the instructors influence the belief that you can do it and the behavior of doing it. That is, of course when they’re all working together but sometimes there are breakdowns. Remember my friend Teresa who said, “Hey, right now my peloton is basically an expensive coat rack”? Yeah. So when there are inconsistencies, when there are parts within the Trinity that don’t align, then the change, the implementation, the transformation become more difficult. That’s when we start getting into challenges with follow through and execution and sustainability.
So I want to walk you through a real-life scenario to show you how this works. Then I’m going to share with you at the end how you can take action and apply it.
So let’s talk about Brian. So Brian was a mid-level manufacturing manager who felt overwhelmed. He said, “I just don’t have time to do my day job.” He was the primary problem solver in his group. So he was the one that was figuring out new processes, that was testing, that was iterating, and while he might get his team involved, and get their opinions and their thoughts and their perspectives, he was taking the lead, he was doing the actual problem solving. Now, his belief was that people who do the work are in great positions to improve the work, that they often know more than he does about the work. So if he could develop the problem solving skills of the team, then collectively, they could deliver better results easier.
He put into place a system. It was kind of like a mini Kaizen type of system. So there was this queue of challenges or problems that the team was raising and as they would raise problems, they would go into this queue. Each little mini group on the team would select one next problem to work on from the queue. So they would usually have two or three groups working on a problem at a time. It was great because he engaged the team, they were the ones raising the problems, they were the ones prioritizing, they were the ones selecting the problems, so the system was really good in that way. They also scheduled the time. So let’s say there were two groups working on a problem at a time, they would schedule it and say, “Okay, here’s when we’re going to get together and work on this problem solving.” And honestly, they did a pretty good job with this. They were pretty disciplined. I would say probably about 90% of the time, they kept their commitment to meet when scheduled.
Now, with the system, since they were learning problem solving skills, Brian would join each group at their scheduled time to help teach and coach them, and he felt like things were working. The challenge was that when Brian started to step out of the sessions and allow them to do more problem solving on their own, then it wasn’t working anymore. You see, the belief and the system was there and Brian was saying, “Hey, I think I need to change the system. This isn’t working. I’ve got to figure out a different way of doing this.” That wasn’t actually what was going on because when we really dug down deep into what was happening, the disconnect was in Brian’s behavior.
You see, Brian had strong problem solving skills. He was good. He had built up those skills. It’s actually what helped him get promoted. But he was so good that he couldn’t help himself from jumping in. So he was doing what he thought was coaching but it wasn’t coaching. It was actually leading to the answers. He was dropping the breadcrumbs. Team members were learning how to give Brian the answers he wanted to get to a countermeasure. They weren’t learning how to do the thinking and problem solving themselves and that’s because Brian hadn’t yet developed the skill of coaching. So as we take a look at this, Brian’s initial thought was, “Hey, there’s something wrong with my system because it’s not working.” Ever see that happen where we start with a system or a tool, and then the first thing we want to do is go and tweak it, tweak it and tweak it? Sometimes that’s not actually the problem. So when we look at it in this model, we can see that the real gap where there’s misalignment is in his behavior. And not meaning behavior like “Oh, he’s a bad manager, bad manager, bad behavior.” We mean behavior kind of like the skill.
So this is how we knew what we needed to work on. And actually, what ended up being my work with Brian is actually the start of what eventually became one of my programs called How to Coach Problem Solving. I’ll put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more about that. So this is how this works. Now, this is just one example. We could go on and talk for hours about different examples. We talked about it using the Peloton example in episode two and I wanted to bring a real-life Lean leadership example here in episode three so that you could see it applied.
So I really like this Transformation Trinity model because it challenges you to not just look at the artifacts of what we’re trying to achieve, you really have to observe and listen and dig a little bit deeper. So when we do this, we can then start to see the inconsistencies and when we can see the inconsistencies, then we’re able to map out the steps so that we can get Lean or whatever you’re working on now to stick or get better execution or start to get that transformation. So before you go out to apply this using a workbook download I’m going to provide you I want to talk about three BOLOs. That’s right, BOLOs – Be on the Lookouts.
So when you start to do this work, let’s talk about beliefs. There are really a couple of different areas that beliefs can show up. There are a lot of different areas, but kind of big buckets. The big buckets are going to be our individual beliefs as leaders, as well as the collective, shared beliefs of the team. Those are those underlying beliefs that Edgar Schein talks about in his work on organizational culture. So we probably need to look at both places. We’re probably going to kind of take a look at both. What are my individual beliefs as a leader? And what are these collective, shared, underlying beliefs, the types of things that people don’t often say out loud?
And because people don’t often say it out loud, we have to actually do some work to get past the surface level. Because there is a difference between what we want to believe and what we actually believe. We want to believe respect for people and we do on so many levels. And when we dig deep, sometimes we get into those BUTs. “BUT we got to get work out the door. BUT at some point, I got to hold people accountable.” So we want to dig into those areas.
There’s also a difference between what we say organizationally is important to us – values and purpose and principles. We say, “Hey, team members, your job isn’t just to do the work, it’s also to improve the work.” Then there’s also what is an actual shared belief and that actual shared belief might be something like, “The way I add value is to get work out the door. If I’m not productive, then I get in trouble, so I’m just going to put my head down and make sure I get out the door.” There’s a difference and so we’ve got to make sure that we get past the surface level. So you might need a couple of rounds. When you go to start practicing, you might go one round and say, “Oh, let’s go back. Let’s go back to beliefs. Okay, now let’s go back to beliefs again.”
Now, when we’re working on behaviors, behaviors is not just what we do. It’s also how we do it. Think about some of the skill development that’s involved. So for our team members, there’s a lot of skill development that’s involved in learning Lean thinking. And for you as well, in learning this Lean thinking. There’s also skill development on the leadership side. So think about Brian and his coaching skills. Behaviors doesn’t mean bad behavior. It’s just what we do and a little bit of how we do it. So it might be listening. You might say, “Hey, you know, it’s this effective listening, and we all kind of have a general idea of what this is and we all know we probably don’t do it well enough or frequently enough.” So when we think about this, we say, “Okay, well, let’s go look at our Gemba walks, or our Tier 1 meetings, or one on ones with our team members”, and not just look and say, “Are we having those? Oh, yes, we listen because we’re having these activities.” We also go and say, “Okay, how are we doing that? What is the effectiveness level of that?” Thinking about how we give recognition and how we give correcting feedback, these are all skills and skills development. So behavior is not just what we do, but also some of the how we do it. Think about it from a skill perspective.
Then in systems, really important that you check for unintended consequences because a lot of times, you’re working on systems that are production-related and it turns out there are other systems going on that are also having influence. Or you’re working on a system that’s production-related, that’s impacting behaviors that you don’t even realize. So think about it this way. With the incentive setup, how do you have incentive setup for your team? How are performance metrics set up and what are the potential unintended consequences of that? How do we display and measure what’s red versus green, and what message and what unintended consequences? I’ll do a full podcast on this later, but there’s an example that I have with a manager who was using the Safety Cross. It was a big thing in their Tier 1 meetings. They were doing this whole thing with Safety Cross but what he didn’t realize is the way they had that set up, it was actually the result, the unintended consequence that people were not sharing, they were not raising and telling people when minor safety issues happened.
So here’s a good thing, Lean tool, Lean system, Safety, Cross, Visual Management, Tier 1 meetings and there was an unintended consequence there. So when we go with our systems, we always got to ask that, what are potential unintended consequences here? So we walk through an example, I talked about Brian and his example with how to develop his team of problem solvers. He thought it was a system thing. He thought that he needed to go and tweak and edit his system and make changes and make adjustments and iterate his system, when in fact, the real thing we needed to work on were his behaviors and building the skill. Then we talked about our three BOLOs for beliefs, behaviors and systems.
So now it’s going to be your turn, I put together a workbook that you can use to apply this model to understanding your current state and figuring out what are some first next steps. So you can head on over to ProcessPlusResults.com/transformation to download your workbook. That’s ProcessPlusResults.com/transformation. And then when you get this, you’re going to go through the examples and you’re going to go through the workbook, and as part of that, I want you to take one area in your work and go through this process. Don’t try to take everything all at once. Don’t start with this culture, this elusive big idea of culture. I want you to pick one area. Find an area where things aren’t sticking. Maybe you’ve had some Visual Management that’s turned into basically wallpaper. Maybe you’ve been trying to do Gemba walks and either they’re not going super well or they’re not happening all that frequently. Maybe the team is having Tier 1 or daily stand up meetings technically speaking, and most people think they’re a waste of time. Maybe you’ve got hour by hour charts or you’ve got safety talks that you expect people to do consistently and execution isn’t there. Pick one of those then go through the Transformation Trinity workbook, to identify your inconsistencies, and map out what it would look like if they were aligned. Because when you get that alignment, then execution and change and transformation all become easier.
So download the workbook and get to it because leadership happens in your every day. Your everyday beliefs, your everyday behaviors and your everyday systems. Talk to you next week.
Thank you for listening to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers. If this episode spoke to you and you’re ready to take it to the next level, then head on over to ProcessPlusResults.com/transformation where you’ll find the Transformation Trinity Workbook. The workbook includes an overview of the Transformation Trinity model, examples of the Trinity in action, links to the relevant podcast episodes so you can listen along and learn and, of course, a worksheet for you to apply the Trinity process to your work. So you can figure out why isn’t it working? Why is this so hard? Where are those challenges, and actually map your path to improvement. To help more leaders like you discover the podcast, give us a rating and review, and to make sure you never miss an episode, hit that subscribe button wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.
