Patrick Adams  00:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. My name is Patrick Adams and I am joined by another host, Catherine MacDonald. For the Lean solutions podcast today. It’s just me and you, Catherine. So I’m excited for for this conversation. You and I have been talking a little bit just about, you know, our past guests and having some really good conversation about what that’s what that experience has been and how, you know, our different guests have have brought, you know, lots of different strengths. But also we’ve been able to identify some some gaps and in what our our guests or you know, the different people, even clients that we’ve worked with, have had been struggling with. So we started to have that conversation, Catherine, and I just wanted to, you know, maybe open it up and have this conversation live in front of the audience for this episode. So it’ll be a little bit different for our audience. But, Katherine, before we dive in, welcome, welcome back to the show here and excited to chat with you. Hi,

 

Catherine McDonald  01:30

hi, everyone. Hi, Patrick. Yes, it’s very strange being back on this site. Are you? Are you sure that Patrick, you don’t want to swap? You know, I’m quite happy to do the interview. And I’m getting very close.

 

Patrick Adams  01:41

Sure, no, we can. We’ll we’ll, we’ll do a little catch ball back and forth. You ask me some questions. I’ll ask you some questions. And I think at the end of this, it’ll be it’ll be a lot of value add good content for everyone. Okay, okay. Let’s do that. Good. Good. So, Katherine, we had some conversations before we hit record. And we and we’ve had some conversations with the other hosts as well. Shane and Andy around, you know, just as, as we’re bringing guests on, we’re starting to hear, you know, kind of the some some repeat things and maybe even identify some gaps or some things that, you know, maybe aren’t being talked about, or struggles, repeat struggles, things like that. And so what are some of the things that you’ve seen in in, you know, just the last few months of recording with some of our guests? Yeah,

 

Catherine McDonald  02:31

so if I think back just aren’t even on season three, one of the things I’ve noticed about a lot of the guests we have on is their passion for Lean, combined with their ability to actually turn and transform organizations into lean organizations. And we know that that’s not easy. You know, we we’ve worked in the area of ourselves for long enough, we’ve worked with managers who struggle with this. So I was really thinking to myself, well, what is it they have? And I think one of the behaviors that I would describe that the that our guests is having would be something called strategic influence. Yeah, yeah. So strategic influence, I think the reason that our guests have it, and I think the reason any great leader hazard is, it’s something that starts from within yourself. So it’s a belief in something in an idea or in an improvement. And it’s something that you are so passionate about that you can’t help but influence other people to see what it is and learn all about it and do something different. Okay. So that’s kind of what I see. So if you want to talk about that for a few minutes, I can kind of elaborate on that and talk about because actually, I think it’s a really important trait in anybody who goes about, you know, transforming an organization or bringing in any sort of lean intervention. Sure. No, I

 

Patrick Adams  03:57

think that’s a great, great topic for today. In obviously, yeah, I think they’re they’re obviously the people that we’ve had on the different guests that we’ve had on they they have influence within the organizations that they’re working with. Some of them are authors, some of them are consultants, some of them are internal, internal prac lean practitioners within their organizations or, or supervisors, plant managers, whatever it may be. But they have some form of influence. So I like the term strategic influence. And I’m interested to hear a little bit more about that. So yeah. Can you expand on that talk to us about what it what exactly is strategic influence? And also, you know, like I said, the guests that we’ve had on had have a level of influence. Does everyone do all of our listeners have some form of strategic influence? Or can they develop that? What does that look like? What are your thoughts on that?

 

Catherine McDonald  04:54

Yes, so I think that’s something maybe people need to ask themselves as I go through what strategic influences until skipped maybe questions themselves to see? Do they have it? Do they need to develop it? What is it they’re doing that is working well in terms of influence? And maybe what? What are the gaps? Okay? So when we talk about strategic influence, what we’re talking about is setting up really planning ahead, setting up opportunities for people and teams to think differently. So it’s not an ad hoc approach to change and improvement and wanting things to happen. And you know, having side chats with people, it’s a really intentional effort to get something across the line, okay. And really, it’s required, I guess, in any team departments organization at any level, and it can happen, maybe at the start of something when, you know, we’re trying to get people to see the benefits of changing, or maybe it can happen when we’re in the midst of change, or we think we are and people have maybe agreed to this change and improvements and doing things differently. But maybe when it comes down to it, their habits and behaviors get in the way, and actually they’re really struggling with change. Okay, so that’s where strategic influence comes in, and setting up these kinds of opportunities for people to develop, and to learn, and to actually understand how and why they need to change. So that’s really what it is. And I would always describe it as I guess, modern leadership. Because if you think about it, old style, traditional leadership that we often talk about is very much a push system, it’s very much, you know, I’ll tell you what to do, or that it’s the leaders job to tell people what to do. And but these days, I think it’s very much about asking people, you know, showing respect for people, involving people in change and improvement, and really trying to stay away from telling as much as possible. So that’s where this whole skill of strategic influence comes into play.

 

Patrick Adams  06:52

I love it. And I love that you use the word intentional, because it’s not like, you can just go out there and just, you know, just kind of ad hoc or just hope that you’re gonna do the right things. There’s some planning, there’s some strategy, there’s some intentionality that goes behind this, you have to know your people well enough, you have to also know where you’re going, you have to understand your your trout, your struggles, your challenges, one of the things that I talk about in my book is flexibility of mind that leaders need to also be willing to it again, it’s an intentional action, but be flexible with how they approach every situation, things change constantly. And if we if we get into this mindset, where we’re just set in our ways, and we’re stuck, and this is the way I lead, and this is the way I teach, and this is the way we’re going and nothing is going to ever change from that. Well, that becomes very difficult for teams to be able to adapt to that or that that the it’s the leader, I think that needs to be willing to adapt to be flexible in how they approach the team. And sounds like that’s a big piece of this as well. Would you agree?

 

Catherine McDonald  08:04

Oh, huge adaptability is huge within there. So even though we can see that something needs to change and improve, it doesn’t mean that we have all the answers in terms of how it’s so important that we get that piece right that it’s so for example, if you know, if you are a new manager, and you’ve taken on a new team, and I’ve seen this happen myself, it’s happened me as well, myself, and we go in and we see okay, nice team, good team performing well, everything seems okay, you know, the job looks OK, the team, the team seems to be getting on well, but we can see that the team are probably capable of doing more than they are in terms of their, what they’re producing, you know, how they’re working together, what they’re delivering. And, you know, we can see that there’s definitely potential there individually and as a team, but yet we can feel that there’s this sense of comfort within the team. And you know, if people are seeing happy, so that’s often a dilemma for managers and leaders, you know, how do we work with teams and build trust and get to know the team and keep everything hunky dory within the team? And but yet, at the same time, you know, get change and improvement happening, and get people doing something differently? You know, so that’s kind of a common example of what a manager needs to do. And if we go in, and we tell people have to do we break that trust, you know, we there is no relationship. It’s very one sided relationship, and we need to sided relationship all the time with our teams. So strategic influence is about creating that poll, you know, shining the light on the opportunity and pulling people towards it and getting people to want to change and changing with them, as opposed to being the one telling them what to do. Sure.

 

Patrick Adams  09:55

Now, let’s let’s take this and we’re going to break this down. For our listeners, so hang with us here because we are going to break this down into into some rules that that Katherine has put together that kind of help to lay some guidelines behind this. But before we do, I want to talk a little bit more about for those of us that are working in organizations where we’ve adopted lean as our business system, you know, we’ve we’ve, we’re committed to continuous improvement as the way that we manage. And so I want to know, how does this fit in helping to enhance the adoption and the implementation of Lean practices of Lean thinking into organizations? Where does this piece come in? And actually help to support that?

 

Catherine McDonald  10:44

Yeah, good question. Okay. So if you think about it, what can go wrong and from, you know, everything we’ve heard from our guests as well, what can go wrong and lean is this idea that it is this big, shiny thing that we introduce into teams, we bring in the tools, we explain, you know, we’re going to use these tools, everything’s going to change, we’re going to become more efficient, all we have to do is do X, Y, and Zed. And we know that that doesn’t work. So we know that there is a piece of work almost groundwork that we have to do with the team and with people and with the culture of the organization to ensure that people are ready to change. And, and we’re not forcing change on them. So we want them to be to be willing to change. So a big part of using strategic influence to I suppose help with the adoption of Lean is to show what Lean can do for your business, first and foremost. And I think it was right into your knees example of that really stuck with me in terms of how he displayed those competencies within his team when he was on the Lean solutions podcast. So I remember him saying he just found lean himself, you know, and he was blown away by this whole concept. But he started watching videos and reading up and just filling his brain to the brim about Lean and becoming really knowledgeable on that. And what he did was he brought information into his team, and he showed them, look at these videos, look at what Lean can do. So he provided the the rationale, and he got people excited about it without tell ever telling them to do something differently. So I think that’s where strategic influence comes in, at the very start of any sort of lean, lean adoption, or any sort of lean transformation, it’s really getting people to understand it, and how we can benefit the business and getting excited about it yourself. You know, that’s a huge thing. As a leader, or even just someone in an organization who wants the organization to believe in, you know, it’s just getting excited about yourself. And that’s part of influence is how you speak about something, the passion, you know, that you that you speak about it. So yeah, I think Ryan is examples really, really good there. And then as we go through, obviously, lean, I suppose the work you have to do to embed lean in an organization, whether that’s value stream mapping, process mapping, whether it’s kata, whether it’s Kaizen, whatever it is that we then set up in terms of the management systems and structures to help embed lean, we can come to any sort of a point where people can become a little bit resistant, or maybe maybe they are agreeing to change, as we said earlier, and not actually changing. And then that’s, again, where we have to come in, and we have to really get to know people get to know, their, their, their motivations, and then we use our influence to help, you know, those particular people or teams actually make the changes, you know. So it is about, again, relationships, that comes back to I guess, you know, you can’t influence without relationships.

 

Patrick Adams  13:51

Absolutely. Love that. And that that definitely helps to give us some framework around this. So let’s actually break it down now, in a little bit more detail, because you actually teach your clients five rules for strategic influence. And so I want to kind of walk through these you already kind of started to touch on the first one, which is show not tell. And I want to hear a little bit more about that. And I think I might have an example to that that may be able to help with this based on just what you just said. So tell us a little bit more about the first principles show not tell.

 

Catherine McDonald  14:28

Yeah, brilliant. Okay. So show Natella as far as as it as it suggests, is not is about not telling people what to do. It’s about leading the way you know, it’s about standing up and walking the path yourself and being putting yourself in people’s shoes. And it’s about understanding people’s maybe reservations or feelings about change. And then it’s about going out trying something and showing people how it worked out for you as opposed to going and telling somebody to do something that maybe you’ve never done Are you they don’t see you doing. So that’s really, really important when it comes to change and improvements, you’ve probably seen that Patrick, that that’s, you know, works when it comes to whether it’s a new team, or whether it’s an existing team, that approach works with the team, doesn’t it? It

 

Patrick Adams  15:15

absolutely does. And, you know, the couple things that came to mind while you were talking that empathy, right, so putting yourself in the shoes of the people that you’re leading, or the people that you’re working with your peers, or even the people that are leading you, I mean, putting your yourself in their shoes, and really understanding the things that they’re dealing with, or the feelings that they have, or the Y that they might have, I think is key to that, based on what you just said. And then the other piece that came to mind was leading from the front, being willing to, to do what it is that you’re asking your team to do. Right And to your point, showing, cutting the path, showing them the path. And I just thought about so the example that I mentioned earlier, I’ve talked about this example in the past, but when I was in Marine Corps boot camp, there’s drill and the drill instructors in the Marine Corps are pretty pretty hard on you. And as you can imagine, they, but during, when we were issued our M 16. A to service rifle, the first thing that they did was taught us how to break it down. And then they also impressed on us the importance of keeping our rifles clean. And the thing is, is they didn’t just scream at us and yell at us and tell us how to clean the rifles. Right, they actually took it apart themselves. They they huddled us around, they showed us which areas needed to be cleaned why they needed to be cleaned, they showed us you know, and also talked spoke from experience from their own experience of when they had had rifle jams, and when they had had things happen to them because they didn’t clean the rifle properly. So they used real examples. They showed us how to do it, they explained the why behind it. And then it was time for us to actually do it. And it was a lot easier for us to understand a lot of what they were asking us to do after they had showed us. So I just thought that was a good example, as you were, you know, talking in, in my personal experience of what I’ve seen for that that first rule of show and tell. Yeah,

 

Catherine McDonald  17:24

perfect. Yeah, perfect example. I mean, absolutely. I think that’s kind of the mentoring role that we’re talking about there as well of managers. And it’s, you know, we talk an awful lot about mentoring and coaching and when to use it and what the differences are. And I think when you are sort of establishing, you know, a team and and trying to drive team performance, the first thing you do is is you apply that sort of mentorship piece whereby you’re there for people, you especially if they’re new and young, you know, so you give them guidance, you don’t put them in positions where you expect them to do something that they don’t know how to do it. So this whole idea of developing people and sharing your own, you know, expertise, and tips and tricks. And whatever it is, that’s such an important part, to get people to the point where they feel confident and comfortable and skilled enough then to maybe participate at a different level, you know, or a deeper level, which we’ll talk about, you know, as the steps go on. But absolutely, I think that that sort of mentorship piece is really, really key. There is another piece to that as well, that kind of show when I’ll tell and sometimes I think that this part is missing as well in organizations. So I think sometimes managers think they have to be the ones to do all the showing. And it’s not always the case. I think sometimes in team not all the time in teams, we’ve got, you know, great resources and great knowledge that isn’t shared well enough. So people do things in their own way. And you know, maybe one person is more productive than another. And that person who’s productive doesn’t really talk to the other person who’s really struggling, you know, so managers, great managers, when they have their one to ones, they can figure out what’s happening pretty quickly in a team. And they can see where’s that sort of lack of shared knowledge. And I think what one thing that great leaders do, and this can really help when it comes to, you know, the lean side of things as well and bigger changes. One thing they do is bring people together to facilitate that kind of shared learning. So if they see a pattern of let’s say, productivity, being low targets, you know, not being here to actions not being done accountability law, that bring people together, and they’ll just start to even informally bring up these topics and say, let’s have a knowledge sharing session. Let’s talk about you know, how we work and let’s share our tips. So I think it doesn’t always have to be your experience. You look at what you have within the entire team, and you get people sharing collaboratively. So I think that’s another important part.

 

Patrick Adams  19:52

Love it. Love it. Thanks for sharing that. So rule number two. Rule number two is to celebrate the small stuff. So But tell us a little bit more about that.

 

Catherine McDonald  20:01

Yeah. So I mean, again, it is, as it suggests, but it’s something that not every manager does. So even an eye when I say all the small stuff, I mean, all the efforts, not just the, I suppose accomplishments, so when somebody does turn around and try something different, regardless of the outcome, the first response should be brilliant, well done for trying, you know, that’s okay, we’ll go back to the drawing board, we will work on what it is we need to do differently. But I see you’re trying, and that’s fantastic. You know, it shows me that you’re committed to this, it shows me that you’re interested. So as much as much support as you can, especially for people who find it difficult to change, or who are just not used to doing something in a different way. So definitely celebrating all the little things. And I know, there’s a saying out there, you know, catch people doing something, right. And I think that’s really important. And I would just add that and say just catch people trying things, not just doing something right, but just catch people trying things new and say, Wow, tell me about what you’re trying there, you know, instead of maybe the old traditional style, where we’re used to saying to people, what are you doing there? That’s not in the policy, you know, so I think we have to get used to the fact that, you know, companies have to be innovative and creative going forward. And if we stifle people’s opportunities to try something without trying to understand it, we’re missing a trick, you know, so celebrate all the small things and all the small efforts.

 

Patrick Adams  21:30

Yeah, yeah, that’s a, that’s a really important one, it helps to create the type of culture that is, could because they’re going to, if leaders are doing and if leaders are celebrating the small things, and if leaders are noticing those things, then other people will do the same. So it starts to spread, you know, people like ripples, right? So people start to, if they’re constantly hearing from their leaders that you know, they’re doing this good or great job there, or thank you for trying that, then that it will then start to ripple over into their conversations with some of their peers, or the people that report to them. And that, again, starts to create that culture that we want, where people feel safe to try things where they feel safe to experiment. There’s no fear of failure. You know, they know that if they try something, and it doesn’t work out the way that they expected, they’re still celebrating the fact that they tried. And so the you’re developing that culture that is going to help support a, you know, a continuous improvement direction. Rule number three is to involve people. So you know, this is obviously a big one, when we think about, you know, the Lean principles, one of those principles is respect for people. So involving people in decision making, involving people in, in improvement events or activities, involving people in daily management, involving them in the celebrations, I mean, that that’s I think that’s what you’re talking about here. But help us to kind of learn a little bit more. And maybe I don’t know if you have any examples of what that might look like, but expand on this one a little bit. Yeah.

 

Catherine McDonald  23:46

So if you think about the steps so far, the first step is really, you know, especially if you have new people or inexperienced people on your team, you mentioned them, you show them the way you make, you know, you show them as many times as they need to so they feel confident about things. And that’s really important. It’s a hugely important part of leadership, as we said, you know, the second step is to celebrate that and to give them to help them feel safe, and then help them to maybe move outside of doing what you showed them if you know what I mean. So it’s about, you know, catching them, as we said, trying something different and telling them it’s okay to do that. And it’s okay to make a mistake, and let’s understand it. But eventually, we need to move on from that as well. So we need to move on from telling people, you know, this is how I have done things in the past, you know, maybe you know, you could try that. So we need to start sharp kind of shifting a little bit as we get to know people and as people become more confident in our team. So we need to maybe move from the mentoring towards the more coaching piece and what this next step means in terms of getting people involved. It’s about, as you said, hearing their voices involving their voice in the decision making instead of maybe them hearing your voice. You want to hear their voice a bit more. So again, it comes down to this is very much overlapping with how we talk about Lean and the right way to do Lean In terms of involving people in things like mapping out processes and talking about what happens day to day in their job and understanding from their perspective how things could be done better. So it’s very much about moving now towards a more kind of structured, and a little bit more formal way of involving people and change and improvement. But at this point, people should be ready for it, if we have trained the men in the right way to begin with and help them feel confident. So we’re hoping that people will be ready now to kind of take part in these sorts of activities. So yeah, I mean, it could be anything done, I think it was done, done. Watsa talked about people first, and he talked about Carter coaching. And he talked about how simple it is, if you really just think about it, just stop and, you know, down tools, involve people brainstorm with people, don’t expect them to come in and just do their work day to day and work off a list and tick boxes and go home at the end of the day, you know, so it’s about involving people. And really, if we want change, and improvement, and we want better products and services to come out the other end, and happier customers, we’ve got to have happier, more engaged employees. So we absolutely have to get to this stage where they feel they have control and ownership over what they do, and that their work is valuable. And they understand the purpose. And they’re contributing to all of that. So this is really, really, really important. So I mean, yeah, I think all of the lean approaches and techniques that we use help with this as well. So we’re using strategic influence, as we’re using the tools and techniques. So they definitely overlap there.

 

Patrick Adams  26:45

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, to your point, this is definitely one of the more important aspects, you know, we talk about, I’ve talked a lot about creating the right type of culture. I mean, this one is huge. You know, because I’ve been, I’ve worked at organizations and I’ve worked with organizations where, you know, people do come in, they punch a clock, they run a machine, at the end of the day they go home, you can tell there’s not a lot of excitement in in the people there, they’re, you know, they’re not very talkative, they’re not, you know, that very kind of withheld to themselves. And that’s not the type of culture that we’re trying to create, the kind of culture that we’re trying to create is one where people are excited to come to work where they’re there, they’re looking forward to being able to solve problems, for example, right, we don’t want one sole problem solver, one manager that goes around and solves the problems for everybody. We want an army of problem solvers, people that are excited when they can experiment and try things that are going to help remove some of the headaches that they’re having, or some of the problems that they’re experiencing. And allow them the opportunity to experiment, try things differently, right. So that they can use some of their, you know, creative juices to to actually create success in the work that they’re doing. And that’s the kind of culture that we’re trying to create. So, you know, involving them is is so imperative. And that takes, you know, we talked about this in the beginning, but it takes intentional action. You can’t just sit in your office and hope and think about how to make it happen. You have to as a leader, you have to go out and intentionally involve people in experiments, you have to ask them, when are we running into the experiment? When can I come back out and see how the experiment went? What did you learn from that experiment? What are you going to do next? Right, those are the types of things as leaders that we have to be out there, and really encouraging and using intentional actions to to involve people in the work that that’s happening. Yeah,

 

Catherine McDonald  28:51

100%. And it is, it is about that, it’s about getting out there and dealing with people. And that has a kind of a knock on effect as well, in terms of developing the leadership abilities within the team to do that for themselves without the leader being there. So, you know, we’ve talked about the differences before was it fail, right, that talked about the difference between leaders and leadership, and that what we’re trying to do is, is move away from this idea of the leader, being the one to drive everything and drive everyone but it’s so it’s about setting up these systems, whether it be daily huddles in the morning, you know, and having a structure and that and having great questions and, and a great simple agenda that people follow. And then you know, you have your root cause analysis, you have your boards, you have your system in place to do all of these things. So that when the leader does maybe start it off and show people how to do it, that the leader can also delegate it to somebody else in the organization who can lead it and they can delegate it to somebody else. And as you said, we need to be able to do that then too, so that we have a whole army of problem solvers because that’s what makes the best organizations. Yeah,

 

Patrick Adams  29:54

so true. So true. Okay, so now, rule number one we show into Well, rule number two, we celebrate the small stuff. Rule number three, we involve people. Now we’re to rule number four, which is connecting the dots. So tell us a little bit more about this one, what does it mean to connect the dots?

 

Catherine McDonald  30:13

So we might have thought that the previous step was the most important step when we were on that step. But it’s not. There is this step, which is connecting the dots. So if you think about it, if we have all these great ideas and great intentions and great actions, and people are going out and actually doing something differently, we tend to celebrate and go, yes, we’ve we’ve done it, we’ve got it across the line, right. But what happens most of the time, is people will try something, maybe it won’t go to plan, maybe it will, but maybe we don’t follow up, maybe we don’t know, maybe we don’t have data on it, maybe we don’t ask. So we don’t know, people made the change. But so what so what happens, people go back revert back to old habits, things just fall back to the way they were, I’ve seen it over and over again, from the simplest things to, you know, an organized workspace and tidy desk to the much bigger processes that you know, involve production and operations. So I’ve seen it so many times where we don’t connect the dots for people, what that means is we need to show people the impact of the change. And we need to be a couple of on a couple of levels, you know, we need to help them understand that what this means for for them themselves, you know, that question? What’s in it for me, you know, we have to bring that back to people to help them to understand, look how much you know, the impact of making this change, going out making this tweak doing this differently, look at the impact that had on you, you were able to finish up your work earlier, you know, this week, you were able to leave whatever it was half an hour early, and you had less errors and defects to follow up on less stress, whatever it is, bring it back to the person, then we need to look at also the different levels, what’s in it for the customer, what’s in it for the team, what’s in it for the organization, and we need to make sure we set up the systems right in the first place to capture the data, you know, you know, ask the right questions, get the answers, and then be able to present it back to people in a way that shows them that connects the dots for them to see. Ah, now I understand why there was such a big push on this change and why Catherine was so you know, passionate about this change being needed, you know, so then it makes people much more likely to get involved in the next piece of work, and so on and so on. So people get more use to change and improvement when they can you know, when we can connect the dots for them. Because not everybody has the ability to do that themselves. They need to be shown. So yeah, and I think there’s plenty of ways to do that, you know, I’ve worked lots of the organizations, I work with us and obey a room, they have a clean room, they’re the main wall, and they put up the charts, the graphs, the metrics, and they gather people around regularly to say, Well, look, we tried this. So here’s what’s happening as a result. So you know, our sales are gone, oh, our complaints are gone down as a result of making this change whatever it might be simple other things, dashboards, Visual Management, or visual management is obviously key here. Yeah.

 

Patrick Adams  33:13

Yeah. And the other piece of that is, is once you’ve connected the dots, and these people, you know, see the connection, and they understand it, and they’ve been part of it. I love to do best practice sharing between departments or areas of the business, or even bringing in people from the outside to come see. And I always encourage the team members who were involved in whatever that improvement or that change, or whatever the experiment or whatever they were able to do to be the ones that are actually talking to the group about, you know, what they did. So here was the problem we experienced. Here’s some experiments that we ran, here’s what we learned, here’s the solution. And you know, the excitement is just like pouring out of them. Right? Because they were able to accomplish something. And it’s not me that’s telling the group, it’s the people that actually did it. And when when groups are sharing like that, and they start in, they start to get into this mode of feeling comfortable with doing that not everybody is comfortable speaking in front of groups and things like that. So so, you know, some of this you have to be careful with but once people start to feel more comfortable, and they’re able to do that, then it’s no longer the push of me pushing this, this trying to push this continues to permeate culture on people, but now it’s like it’s it’s, it’s become its own animal and it’s growing on its own. And it’s and people are sharing and excited and it’s and they own it, right. They’re the ones that are owning it. And so again, that just starts to to support that, you know, continued development of the culture of continuous improvement.

 

Catherine McDonald  34:52

Yeah, that’s developing people for oh, yeah, absolutely. And that is what it’s all about 100% Because then once people are confident and engaged and excited, they will look for more opportunities for change. And that’s what we want, you know, we it’s not all down to, we might have brought in an idea or floated something with the team. But this is where we want to get to, you know, here where people are connecting the dots and getting excited once they see the dots connected. So that’s really why I think this step is actually, okay, maybe they’re all important. But once you get to this point, you realize that now this is what we need to make, the most important step right now is, is doing this, and that needs to be done very frequently. Not just once a year, you know, not just going back over our goals once a year and seeing the things that we’ve done. And if you’ve lost it by then, you know, it needs to be every week, or at least twice a month, where you go in and you talk about the connections, the impact of the work we’re doing. It has to it has to happen. So rather than jumping on to the next shiny thing, or the next project, and people might feel that oh, gosh, like this, is this all it is, you know, it’s just jumping from one shiny project to the next shiny project. And okay, great. I feel you know, I’m engaged in it. I’m involved in a boat floats around far. So it’s really important regularly that we do that. Yeah, absolutely. So

 

Patrick Adams  36:14

this brings us to the last rule, rule number five, which is to be there for your people. Now, I’ve talked to leaders that are like, Oh, of course, I’m there for my people. Of course, I, you know, I’m there. I’m I support them. But we’re talking about intentional action right now. That’s something that just happens. So what is this look like? unpack this one for us? Because it’s it’s a little bit more complicated than just saying, Yeah, I support you guys. I’m there for you. There’s more to it than that, right?

 

Catherine McDonald  36:43

Yeah, oh, definitely. So leaders need to be able to manage their time to make time for people that that’s the first thing if you don’t make time and manage yourself and your own systems properly, you won’t have time to go out and spend time with people. So I would always look to work with people and look at their time management, first of all, to see where is your time going, and how much of your time is actually being spent with the people doing the work. So that’s the first thing making time for people, when you have time, then you have to invest it wisely and make sure that that time that you have with people is very valuable. I would always always encourage people to have one to ones and to have them at least you know two months whereby, obviously, it depends on your team structure, but maybe that and it sometimes needs work to look keeping teams small enough. So that piece, every person can have a one to one with their manager. I think that’s hugely important. And within that, there’s very, you know, coaching skills come into play here. So we need to be able to ask powerful questions, we need the active listening skills, the coaching skills, to be able to ask meaningful questions, to really understand how people are feeling about the work and about everything that’s going on. So we need to get underneath the surface. So when I say you know, be there for people, you know, it’s not we have the informal is brilliant, gimble walks, checking in with people. Absolutely, that’s one side of it, which is also important. But the second side is most definitely getting to know people not being afraid to ask the questions and maybe put yourself out of your comfort zone. And to really, I suppose be okay to deal with emotions, you know, and to ask about emotions. And when I’m explaining this to managers, I will I always use Vygotsky. He’s learning development model. And if for anybody who doesn’t know what that is just, I won’t go through the whole thing. But basically, what it says is that when people are in their comfort zone, so they’re used to doing things for a long time, and they’re doing it in a certain way. And when things change, and they agree to maybe try something different, they don’t go straight into that learning zone or pay to do something different, they have to pass through what’s called the fear zone. So one of the main responsibilities and jobs of the leader of that team is to go into that fear zone with people because we’re every single person goes through it when they try something new and different. Anybody who says they don’t, it’s not true. Some people just spend longer in it than others, or they feel the fear a bit more than others. But everybody goes through it. So the leaders job is to really be there for people to understand their reservations, their fears, their challenges, especially when it comes to doing something new to have those conversations and to come out the other end, very clear on both sides as to how we’re going to maybe do things differently, or what can you do that will make the 1% difference that will make this easier for you, you know, so it’s not all about the leader taken on the actions. It’s about helping the person to see how they can handle these these challenges better. So again, didn’t get into no people and all the time applying our emotional intelligence and our empathy. Yeah, yeah.

 

Patrick Adams  39:43

I love it. You as you were kind of wrapping up there. I was thinking about a gentleman that I worked with in a manufacturing plant, and he was very on the outside very tough. variation, like came across to be very hard and tough and, you know, didn’t didn’t want to or said he didn’t want to be involved in any of this stuff. And just Just leave me alone, I just want to run my machine, right. And I remember like, you know, inviting him to be part of discussions and things. And he would just stand in the back with his arms crossed and didn’t want to say anything, and was just very quiet. And I remember one day one on one, which you mentioned, and very key, this is important. When I’m one I was having a conversation with him at his machine. And I asked him, you know, what are some of the things that that bugged you about, you know, running this machine, because it’s stark over here. It’s dirty. I mean, I feel like I have a few things that I’d like to fix. And in so I asked him that and he said, you know, he said, Well, yeah, I mean, there’s some, there’s some leaks under the machine. And I hate that every morning, I had to come in, and I got to mop because there’s a bunch of crap underneath my, my equipment and things. And so I said, Well, what do you what do you think we should do? What do you think we could do? And so he, you know, ham hot around a little bit. And then he, he said, Well, you know, I’ve been been wanting to do this, or I’ve asked, so so and so to do this, and nobody ever did anything. And, you know, just complaining, you know, whatever, normal stuff, but, or for him, it was normal, but and then he, you know, he came up with a thought that he said he had tried before or whatever, had asked for help. And I said, Well, let’s try that. Let’s let’s do that, what what can I do to help you? And he said, Well, I would need this or I need that. And so, you know, immediately I went and grabbed what he needed, and like to your point, worked alongside him. And I worked through that whole process with him to the point where at the end, we came out with a solution to this problem that he had been dealing with. And and then we celebrated that and I didn’t, I wasn’t celebrating my involvement in the situation, I was celebrating what this gentleman had done, and the idea that he had and how he had solved that. And it’s in you could see the almost the toughness like falling off of him where he is. And that’s just one very small piece. And sometimes with some people, it takes months or even years of doing that, but it’s intentional action, that will move people in the direction of, you know, involving themselves in continuous improvement without even knowing it. Right. I mean, he he said he didn’t want any anything to do with it. But the moment that you asked him, What bugs him? And what do you think we could do about it? And how can I help you. And then I walked with Him through that and then celebrate it. And on the other end, he’s been in, he’s involved in continuous improvement and doesn’t even know it. And he loves it. You know, I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that as leaders, we have to be looking for those opportunities and walk through these, these rules, intentionally. Not not not walking away from this, but really, you know, seeing the opportunity to work and develop people, and then taking that opportunity and being intentional to follow through with it.

 

Catherine McDonald  43:07

Yeah, 100%. Exactly. And really, it is about making the time to go out there. And to like you said, spend not be in a rush to go back to something having that space. And that time to give to people where they feel you’re there for them. You’re not checking your watch and say no, I have to go in a minute now have a meeting. You know, I can’t remember where I heard it. But there was, where did I read this? I can’t remember. But anyway, it was about a guy. And he was on his way to a meeting with a user talking about this or somebody. And in the meeting, the meeting was pretty important people, let’s say sitting around waiting for him. But the guy on the way to the meeting saw that somebody was struggling with something on a line. So he stopped and went to the line instead of going to the meeting, he went and helped the person on the line. And then he was probably half an hour late to his meeting. And he walked in and he said, they said Where were you? And he said, Well, I was doing what was more important, you know, which is a total shift in thinking you know it the people who are doing the work take priority, not a meeting, you know, so I can’t remember you did.

 

Patrick Adams  44:09

I think that was Don watts. I think that’s stories that he told us Yeah, yeah,

 

Catherine McDonald  44:14

well, I taught that’s really stuck with me. And I just felt that that’s the way to do things.

 

Patrick Adams  44:19

I love it. It’s a good good way to close this up for the day. In I appreciate this conversation. I’m glad I mean, I love to have guests on don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it’s nice to just have a conversation between you know, the hosts about some of the things that we’re hearing and experiencing through the conversations that we’re having with with our guests and for anyone that’s listening in if if you if you are hearing a pattern or if you’re hearing or not hearing a topic that you would like to hear about something that’s bothering you or something that you would like to hear some some insight or some expertise on, you know, shoot us an email and I Let us know you know what those topics are because we would love to to find a guest or just have a conversation amongst the hosts around that particular topic. So yeah, so again, Katherine, I appreciate, appreciate the conversation. I love that this idea of strategic influence and how, as leaders, we should be very intentional about how we approach people development, and the result of that will, the results will speak for themselves. Catherine has been great. Haven’t had an amazing week, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Catherine McDonald  45:34

Thanks, Patrick. See you soon. Bye.