People Solve Problems: Creating A Problem-Solving Culture with Jamie Flinchbaugh | 064

People Solve Problems: Creating A Problem-Solving Culture with Jamie Flinchbaugh | 064

All right. Before we get into this episode real quick, guess what starts on Wednesday, October 27th? That’s right, it’s our Q4 Executive Series. So here is who is going to be in the lineup. First, you’re going to hear from Dave Conner, who is the COO at Anchor Industries, and then Kelly Ogunsanya, who’s the COO at Stryde Community Health. 

[00:00:27] You’re also going to hear from David Pender, the VP of Operations at Sage Glass, which is an arm of St. Cobain. And also from Jasmine Gorey, the VP of Human Resources at Sunland Logistics Solutions. And wrapping up our series is Chris Chippendale, the Senior Vice President of Northern Operations at ENT Credit Union. So we’ve got different roles, different industries, different sized organizations, but everyone’s here to talk leadership. So join in starting October 27th.

 [00:01:06] 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.

[00:01:31] Hey, hey, Ops Leaders. What differentiates organizations who have a learning and problem solving culture compared to those who don’t? Stay tuned! I received an advanced copy of Jamie Flinchbaugh’s new book, People Solve Problems, so today Jamie is going to answer that exact differentiation question.   

We also explore additional ideas that are relevant to Ops Managers and Ops Leaders and Ops Executives, including the balance of execution versus problem solving and how you can kind of merge them if you’re execution focused. As well as the one leader capability that you need to do, that you need to get your leaders doing to have the biggest impact on closing the problem solving culture gap.   

Now, Jamie’s newest book, People Solve Problems, is on preorder now, so we will put the preorder link in our show notes. You can go to ProcessPlusResults.com/podcast and then find this episode, which is episode number sixty four. And there you’ll have the link to order and to connect with Jamie. All right, let’s dive in. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:02:51] Jamie, welcome to the show today.

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:02:53] Thanks for having me. Glad to glad to chat with you. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:02:56] Yeah, so I’m super excited we’re going to dig into your new book, which is People Solve Problems, and I just want to start off and really understand, you know, what were you seeing out in organizations that prompted this book and this topic? 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:03:14] I think it’s a couple of things that really got me around this topic, and honestly, when I wrote the first book, it was like I wanted to write a book an we write about what I’m talking about. I wanted to write another book, but I really wanted to perhaps explore something a little deeper.  

And a couple of things that I saw in organizations that really prompted this one was really the hang up around the tools of problem solving. And when I say hang up, I mean, a lot of focus on it, a lot of training, a lot of, oh, what’s the what’s the best template and deep arguments about how many steps that you have and what language we should use and and all valid discussions, but still seem to be missing the point when we would even see in the same organizations and people doing a really great job driving performance through problem solving, but weren’t caught up in how many how many steps they necessarily follow in a linear way?   

And then I think the other the other thing that I really saw was how ubiquitous problem solving, really was. It really is, both for organizations that are doing something with Lean and organizations that are doing nothing with any vein of Continuous Improvement problem solving still there. And so whether it is a a peripheral piece of a Lean strategy, centerpiece of a continuous improvement strategy or just a doorway through which you can go and and do more proactive, true continuous improvement. I felt it was a topic that was ubiquitous enough that was really worth sort of tearing apart and putting back together. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:05:08] Yeah, absolutely, and this idea that it’s not so much what methodology or, you know, to your point, the tool side is that there’s still something happening like this fundamental thing that’s happening when you are thinking through problems in a systematic manner, regardless of whether you want to say you’re doing Gary, no, a three thinking or PDCA thinking or whatever else you might say. 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:05:36] Yeah, and today, I mean, short term, you really see quite a bit of this with some individuals and organizations that I would consider very, very good at this in general terms. But they are really overwhelmed by some of the problems, whether it’s staffing or supply chain shortages or container shortages or some of these other forecasts accuracy, some of the the chaos that we see going on right now. And and there are some people that are just like, you know, waffling around looking for a solution and others who are thinking systematic and they may not all be using.   

Some of them are doing some threes and doing some structured problem solving. Many of them, for whatever reason, feel like they just they just can’t. Perhaps because they’re just running too fast, but they still are thinking in a structured way. And so even though they’re not using any tools directly speaking, they are still using the spirit, mental models, capabilities and behaviors that come along with good systematic problem solving. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:06:46] Yeah, absolutely. So this really applies in whatever whatever your organization is or isn’t following from a formal standpoint, what we’re going to talk about here today applies all the way.

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:06:56] Absolutely. Yeah. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:06:58] Ok, so here’s what I’d like to understand is when you see organizations that maybe don’t do problem solving well, at least at the organizational level, right? So there’s, I’m sure, pockets of individuals and teams potentially. But what does that look like? What are some of the symptoms that show up or what do you see when you’re in an organization, you say, Hey, you know what? I can see that there’s a gap. What does that look like when it’s not really effective? 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:07:26] When it’s when it’s not effective, I think one of the first things you’ll notice is really problems feeling like failures as a as opposed to just part of life, part of running operations, part of running an organization, part of interacting with customers in the market. Your strategy and moving forward and just problems happen, right? So when you see an organization that really feel like problems or a failure, then they are something to be avoided as opposed to something that we just acknowledge is there?  

Now, of course, we want to avoid problems. Of course we want to be proactive. Of course, we want to be careful and diligent in our process, designed to prevent problems from creeping in. But the idea that we’ll be successful at that is either vain or ignorant. And so this idea that because we have a problem we failed is, I’ll say, probably the most common indicator that we don’t really have problem solving engagement going on in the organization.   

And then I think the other is that. You know, the lack of depth in pursuing that, just simply thinking I’ve assigned it to someone or someone to blame or someone owns it and they need to just go do something really assumes that we have all the answers, right? We already have all the answers. We just need to go execute to go close our gaps. And instead of kind of going, well, maybe there’s more. Maybe we need to learn. Maybe we need to uncover, or maybe we need to explore, maybe we need to collaborate instead of anything else. It’s just, yeah, we have. We have answers. We’re going to throw them at our answers, at these problems and execute our way to success as opposed to learn our way to success and. And that’s a pretty common indicator that we really don’t have any good thinking behind our problem solving intent. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:09:35] Yeah, I love what you just said, which is, so often people want to execute our way to success instead of learn our way to success. Because I think particularly for my listeners who are typically in operations, you know, execution is huge, right? Like this is what you learn about. This is your job is to execute and to realize that so often we think we’re doing problem-solving from an exploratory perspective and learning. And what we’re really doing is prescribing answers, prescribing solutions. 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:10:09] Yeah, and I have no problem with an execution orientation that says, hey, for most of our problems. 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:10:18] And that’s saying something in itself. But for most of our problems, we at least think we know the answer. All right, so we’re going to talk about prescribing, we’re going to go take an aspirin and see if it works and just and take the known set of solutions and execute as quickly as possible. But keep an open mind to did it really work or not? And then if it didn’t, then we go a step further, right?   

So I just love to use this example because it is so every day, is your gas gauge, says E. You don’t write a problem statement or draw systems diagram bill system. You go to the fuel cell fuel station and put fuel in your car. That’s that’s what you do. But then you kind of go, OK, oh, hold on. I checked the gas gauge. The gas gauge didn’t change. Oh, OK. Now my first sort of most common sense execution idea didn’t work. Let me now go to problem solve.   

And so when you are moving fast, when you are execution oriented, I I don’t have a problem with that being sort of a default stance as long as you are observant about whether it’s really working or not because no matter what, you’re still going to have to solve many of your problems with known solutions to known problems. That’s it’s hard to get through the day without doing a lot of.

Jamie V. Parker: [00:11:45] Well, let’s talk on the other side. Then when you see an organization who really does do problem solving well, it’s really integrated into who they are and how they operate. How does that look? You know, what would you see in those cases?

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:12:02] Well, I think the first one speaks to the word you use, integrate. I think the idea that problem solving is something you do in addition to your day job to use use a phrase a lot of a lot of folks like to use. It’s like, Oh yeah, when you’re not doing your day job, try to do your improvement and problem-solving.   

And I have a I think this is the quote I use from Tracy Richardson, who is a great person in the problem solving world of “This is your job.” This is how she was trained. This is your job. This is part of what you do each and every day. And I think that is fundamental is this is not something we find time for or get around to or try to get to like this is it? This is a big part of our job is to solve problems.   

So I think that is is first and foremost. I think along with that, you know, people have different structures, different tools, different methods. I do think good organizations have a preferred methodology. You know, I like to say that if I look at the top five problem-solving organizations I’ve ever seen and the bottom five, many of them have some of the same tools, which is why the tools aren’t differentiators.  

But if I also look at the top five, they all do have tools, right? They do all have methods and templates and roles and role clarity and all those things that wrap around it. So I do think that that is is fundamentally important. But then I think one of the differentiators is really focusing on the behaviors behind the tools, even if it’s subtle, even if it’s not.   

Not overtly spoken about, but is a common thread led by leaders of here’s the behaviors that that really make problem solving work. And then focusing on problem solving as a as a capability and not just a template and when when you kind of go, Oh, we’re going to build people through problem solving, we’re going to solve problems through people’s capabilities. When you get that message right that it is the people solving the problems and the title, then I think a lot of other good things come along with that with that mindset.

Jamie V. Parker: [00:14:28] Mm-hmm. And especially that people development piece of that right is I see this a lot. You know, when we think about what’s our role as a coach, maybe we’ll we’ll jump into that later. But but you know, when we think about that is, you know, am I coming into it as a coach or as a leader with the goal of solving the problem? Or am I coming into it with the goal of developing the capabilities of people? And those are different approaches, right?

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:14:55] Yeah. And you sometimes need both, right? I mean, there’s absolutely just need to be solved, and I don’t care if anybody learns anything. And even if even if they just need to be executed on, you can at least learn. Was I right? It was was my either intuition or experience right? Or was something else different? But then whether I’m developing or other people or developing and both are still important? Right.

Every problem solver is an opportunity to learn is an opportunity to gain experience and gain. I’ll say muscle memory of core capabilities and developing those capabilities through the repetitions of problem solving is what makes us more resilient to future problems that we have yet to even identify. And I think that that itself is like, OK for today on a Monday morning, are we are we getting through the day? But what problems am I going to experience next year in the year after? And do we have the capability to solve them before they even occur?

 Jamie V. Parker: [00:16:03] Yes, fantastic. Ok, so we’ve got these this kind of description. You talked about organizations and symptoms and things that you see when maybe it’s not going so well and then what you see for those top five, when it is going well and now we have this gap.  

 And so when you think about for our listeners out there, maybe they fall a little bit closer toward the knot and they want, you know what, they’d like to achieve this. What are some key things I think I heard you talk a little bit about mindset, beliefs and behaviors and then your capabilities. So so what are the pieces that go in to helping organizations close that gap?

 Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:16:43] Well, I think I think the number one leverage point for actually closing your gaps is as a problem solving community is coaching. This became a big part of the book. Mostly because first, I see most organizations trying to solve that gap with Green. And I just don’t think that gets you there.  

 Second, just because I’ve worked on it so long, I turns out I have a lot to say about corruption. So it actually was a subsection like just a chapter. And then it’s like it became its own section just on coaching. But the reason that I think training is insufficient is that we are all starting from a very different standpoint, we’ve been problem solving our way through life since we were infants.   

We learned in school whether we knew it to call it that or not, especially if you went into medicine or engineering or one of the fields that actually really fundamentally teaches problem solving, but the main specific problem solving. Right. So we’ve developed a whole whole bunch of habits and developed a whole bunch of skills, and some of them were thoughtful. Some of them were blind to some of them are good habits.Some of those are bad habits, right? But but either way, we have developed ourselves to be a problem solver before our first job and then much more so since then.   

And so training is great for giving a bunch of people homogeneous information. But the problem is that sort of assumes you have a homogeneous starting point. And that’s just not the case with problem solving. So that’s one reason I think training is insufficient and coaching can help each individual with their own learning. 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:18:39] And second is that I think problem solving is you learn through repetition and even even most training classes are like, Oh, can we do two repetitions of problem solving in the class? That would be great. Ok, well, that’s like two swings of the bat or two swings in the golf club. And now I know how to golf like it’s the same kind of thing. No, you’re going to need tens or hundreds of repetitions and. Coaching can have a different role with your 50th iteration than your first, but it still has a role and still has an opportunity to help develop people and I think that is the single largest lever to help improve our organizational problem-solving, whether we’re just getting started or we’re already pretty good and looking to be great.

Jamie V. Parker: [00:19:31] Mm hmm. Ok, so I’m loving that you brought up coaching, but I want to I want to talk about this for just a second. I actually just did a podcast episode called That’s Not Coaching, but I think I think there’s this and not from a standpoint of like, who’s right on words and all of that. But I think there’s this thing out there because of maybe a sports coach and the title we use in sports coaches that we think a lot of things fall under this coaching umbrella.

And I think it’s different. I think it’s a much narrower skill set and interaction type within within your role as a leader or within your role as a coach. But coaching is something different. But can you like to, in your words, how would you describe coaching or how would you differentiate between things like coaching versus teaching versus giving direction, things like that? Yeah. 

Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:20:29] Yeah, that’s a great question. I like to say when I when I used to actually teach more classes, I would even ask the audience, you know, put your hand up if you think you do coaching now and then after we go through coaching, I’m like, OK, now put your hand up If you think what you were doing was coaching, and you get a whole lot less answers and I say my, goal is to actually have you coach less often, but at a different standard and by narrowing your definition, I think that’s very important narrowing your definition.  

I think people are like, oh, coaching is better than managing or teaching. So therefore that’s what I am, right? And what a lot of people will do is do what I call drive by coach, which really means you’re just dropping little pearls of wisdom in meetings based on your experience. And people go, Oh, you’re pretty smart and all that coach. That’s not coaching at all.   

So, there’s as a recently retired soccer coach here’s my definition of when are you a manager? When are you a teacher? When are your coach? All three are important roles. And of course, if you’re not a manager, then you have different trade offs. But this is just how I would frame it is. If I’m managing a game, I’m coaching a game as a role, right versus an act and so the coach is the role, but as an act in my coaching. And so if I’m coaching a game and I see a player out of position, if I want that, if I’m managing, I tell that player where to go and if I care about the result, which sometimes that’s the right answer. It’s like the last ten minutes of the last game of the season.   

We’re playing for a championship I don’t want to learn in the next 10 minutes, I want to get a result. So I told them where to go. I fix the problem myself. That’s managing the problem. If I tell them where to go and tell them why, I’m teaching them. But I’m teaching them my way, I’m teaching them my thinking, and I’m teaching them, here’s how I want you to play and here’s what I want you to do in that system. And that’s great for a situation where they are going to remain under me as coach.   

If I ask them, where should you be? And then let them make a decision and then when they come off the field, help them reflect on what decision they made and why and what result they got and why. That’s when I’m coaching, and that allows their decision making and their reflection and develop their own way of thinking, which makes them smarter for when they are no longer playing for me. And there’s a place in a time for all three, right, it’s not that one is better than the other. But the place in a time for for all three.   

And so with coaching problem solving, I think fundamentally you are allowing that person have success and failure to make decisions in their own way. And you were helping them learn productively, rapidly, effectively through their own iterations of problem solving on their own journey. And so, yeah, I believe we should all for many of us that think we’re coaching, we should call what we’re doing, coaching much less frequently but at a higher standard than we typically do. 

Jamie V. Parker: [00:23:57] Yes, I love that example. I used a tee ball example once in a like it was off the fly, but that was the question I got was, Hey, I coached T-ball. And what you’re talking about here is not how I coach T-ball. So, yeah, so it’s kind of that same type of thing. And I just think that’s really clear the way you just described it with that soccer example and understanding what are you trying to achieve in that moment will help you decide how you want to show up.  

And it sounds like when you say coaching is that biggest leverage that you have to to close the gap. So when it comes to problem solving in a culture of problem solving organizationally, it sounds like you don’t see much problem solving coaching or as much problem solving coaching as you think there needs to be in an organization to create that learning organization.

 Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:24:49] Yeah, I see problem solving, mentoring or sponsoring, right? And, you know, mentoring is just a supportive role in many cases. Nothing wrong with it, right? Just a supportive role. I think sponsoring is about framing the problem, right? Putting a box around it and helping the individual know what they should be doing. It’s prioritization. It’s narrowing the field of play or expanding it to finding the success criteria at the other end and sponsoring delegating problem-solving to people is is an important task for a manager as well.  

 But but coaching is, I think, different and it largely is about creating opportunities for the person you’re coaching to learn through self-discovery. Quite frankly, learn through self discovery. In the end, it is their conclusions that they earned for themselves knowledge that they earn for themselves. And I don’t think I’ve used this quote before, but there’s a quote from the movie Jurassic Park about, you know, about what they did and there’s the science you didn’t earn for yourself, so you don’t respect.  

 I think with problem-solving, because it’s such an important and personal skill set, because again, it’s part of who we are that I think you need self discovery of your own lesson. Just because Jamie said so isn’t a good enough reason, you know. Five years from now, when you’re solving a really scary problem, you need your own set of beliefs that you have earned yourself or knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, capabilities that you’ve earned through self discovery.  

 So the coach is the architect of allowing for that self-discovery. But still, the student ultimately does the heavy lifting.

 Jamie V. Parker: [00:26:52] Yeah, there is definitely a different level of processing that happens when I learn something conceptually and then when I learn it through the the act of doing and and reflecting. It’s just the those are two different outcomes where I learn both with the level of learning is just so different.

 Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:27:14] Yeah, and and I’m not against training. To be fair, it has value. It’s important. There’s conversations I have with clients to help them think through their training strategies. So I don’t want to be very clear. I’m not against it, but I don’t even do it anymore. I don’t do training because, you know, I spent so much time seeing people, you know, conceptually work with the material in the classroom, even with real simulated simulations and case studies where they get to actually do repetitions. But then they go back and they try to wrestle with real challenges, and it just really gets really hard, really fast.  

 And so even my learning lab workshops, it’s like, you know, we’re going to go do real work like, we’re going to go, I don’t care if it takes a month, we’re going to go do a real problem, not just a classroom situation, because that’s where the real learning takes place. Ultimately.  

 The classroom might set that up.Yeah, I don’t have a problem with that, but there’s a reason companies kind of go, oh, let’s do more problem-solving training. Let’s do more problem-solving training. Let’s do more problem-solving training. It’s because it didn’t work the first time it was. It might be necessary, but insufficient to actually get us where we want to go.

 Jamie V. Parker: [00:28:31] Yeah, yeah. I’ve kind of think it’s like the starting point, and you might start there to get some common language and all of that and learn some, some like you learn fundamentals and some of that, but then you have to go and do it right. So yeah, for sure. Ok, so then just as we close out today’s conversation, what words of advice or encouragement would you leave our listeners with today?

 Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:28:56] I’d say first start. I mean, of course, everybody’s solving problems today, so it’s not like they’re not doing that, but start having a deliberate intentionality in your problem solving. Just I don’t care if you have if you even have a tool yet. You have a tool, great, keep using it. If you don’t, I don’t care. But be intentional with your problem solving efforts. Think about why you’re doing the things that you’re doing.  

 And second, whether it’s with a coach on your own or with a peer, have some cycle of reflection, some cycle of self-examination, of observation, of feedback, some way to force yourself to learn from your effort to be intentional. All of this is an effort to just make you much more self-aware of how you’re solving problems so that you can have your own your own cycle of.

 Jamie V. Parker: [00:29:54] All right, fantastic. So, Jamie, thank you so much for joining and congratulations on the new book. It’s people solve problems. The power of every person, every day, every problem. We’ll make sure we put that link in the show. Notes and links to people can connect with you and follow you and learn more about the work that you’re doing. So thank you so much for joining us today.

 Jamie Flinchbaugh: [00:30:16] Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. 

[00:30:20] All right, what were your key takeaways? Here are a couple of mine. I really love that Jamie acknowledged the execution reality for ops leaders, and he kind of gave a compromise or a stepping stone for you. So if you find yourself to be really execution oriented and you think you know the answer, the solution, the countermeasure, then you could go ahead and take that one step, but have the presence and reflection to pay attention to what actually happened.   

And if it didn’t work or didn’t fully work, then instead of just going down the line and try the next thing and then the next thing, you want to pause at that point and move to a more structured problem solving thinking. And so I think this is a great way. It’s a great stepping stone that you don’t have to be all or nothing, right? And so this is a great way for ops managers to think about this now.  

Another key takeaway for me was the reinforcement of leaders doing more actual coaching. Well, Jamie kind of described it as doing less coaching than you think you’re doing right now, but doing real coaching. What I say is real coaching that narrow definition of coaching it, raising the standard of the coaching you do right now. As you were listening to this, you probably heard that there’s a lot of alignment between how Jamie and I think about coaching.   

So if you missed the That’s Not Coaching episode, you should check it out. It’s episode number sixty two and released on October 6th. And Jamie talked about three roles these three roles of managing, teaching and coaching. And remember, he said that all three are necessary and have their place, but he gave a great soccer example to help illustrate the differences between them.   

Now, if you follow my work, then you know that I use a five point continuum to describe the different interaction types or these role types that you play as a leader, as you develop people or as you lead just in general. And so those five roles are direct, share, teach, coach and connect. Now I talk about those in episode number sixty two. I also talk about them in episode number 14, which is titled Don’t Succumb to Command and Control. So those are great episodes to explore if you want to do more coaching or you want to explore this idea of what really is coaching.   

Now, what about you? What was one key takeaway for you? Reflect, write it down, document it and then share it with at least one person. And of course, you can explore this topic further.   

In Jamie’s new book, People Solve Problems: The Power of Every Person, Every Day, Every Problem. Find the links to the book and to connect with Jamie at our show notes processplusresults.com/podcast. Until next time.

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