Patrick Adams  00:17

Music. Welcome to the Lean solutions podcast where we discuss business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for true Lean process improvement. I am your host. Patrick Adams, today, I want to talk to you a little bit about fueling the fire of continuous improvement. I love this quote from Dante, it says, From the little spark may burst a mighty flame. Some of you know that I volunteer for a backpacking program in northern Michigan, and I’ve spent many summers teaching the art of fire starting going all the way back to the time that I served in the United States Marine Corps. Actually went through a training program for for military members called sere school. And during sere school, we learned how to start fire, even in the snow. So a very not an not an easy task, to say the least, but when these kids working, you know, and working for this, this backpacking program, we teach these kids how to how to start fire. And when you first start teaching kids about starting a fire, building a fire, without any type of instruction, they’re normally going to begin collecting and stacking these large logs, right? They’re going to go out. They’re going to collect these big logs and sticks, and they’re going to put them into a pile. Normally, they would grab a pocket lighter or some kind of an igniter, and they would just hold the flame under a thick piece of firewood, hoping that the flame will spread and start the fire. However, those of you that know about fire building that that approach is never going to be effective. There are many ways to start a fire. However, there are three ingredients that are really necessary to get a good fire going. The three ingredients are fuel, oxygen and heat. So when any of the three components is absent, the fire will go out. There are only there are also three types of fuel needed to ignite and keep a fire lit, right? So the order of of these types of fuel are very, very important. The first type of fuel is Tinder. Okay, so Tinder is the smallest and the easiest burning materials usually used to get the fire started. So examples of Tinder would be wood shavings, you know, some type of wadded up paper or wax, dry or lint. Sometimes you use breach in your pocket and pull out some lint. But the next type of fuel would be kindling. Okay, so kindling is not only a fuel, but it’s also the next step after you’re you’re putting in your Tinder. Okay, so kindling is also, it’ll, it’ll be the next size up from Tinder. So usually these would be twigs or small branches anywhere from an eighth inch to a half an inch in diameter. And then the final type of fuel is firewood. And firewood can be, you know, anywhere from one inch to five inches in diameter. It could be the logs or the split sticks or split logs that come that are split down from a larger piece. So when following this proven approach, anyone can ignite a fire even with the smallest Spark, right? So similarly, there are ingredients necessary to fuel a mighty flame of continuous improvement in any organization, many times I see leaders add, you know, what we would call fuel, but they add it in the wrong order, or they miss certain ingredients, and the result for an organization can be a smoldering mess. We can build the best looking, you know, fire with a bunch of firewood, but without the Tinder or the kindling, the fire will never really start and take off in a mighty flame. In other words, if I was to try to deploy tools and techniques, some proven solutions before I have a stable process, then the fire right, the flame of continuous improvement, it will not burn if I try to empower my single team for success with no long term vision or connection to mission, then I will surely fail. Leaders cannot just add firewood right before applying the Kinder the tinder in the kindling. The result is going to be a really great looking maybe. Be if those of you that know fires, sometimes you build like a log cabin, right? So it’d be a really good looking log cabin, but that log cabin will never actually light. So what is the Tinder, the kindling in the firewood that’s needed to build a mighty flame of continuous improvement? So let me tell you, the Tinder, or the first step, is really stability, stability and processes and leadership, right? You cannot improve chaos. There needs to be stability. The vision must also be clearly communicated. The third thing is standards, accountability, expectations. These have to be clearly stated. And then the fourth thing are that targets to achieve business goals need to be set ahead of time. One of the biggest reasons that people fail to maintain a robust, lean system is their desire for complexity. This desire seems to be human nature. We begin simple enough, but then we just add more and more levels of complexity until eventually we have a system that takes far too long to maintain clear and simple communication throughout the organization is key. Okay? So that was Tinder, stability, vision, standards, accountability and targets to achieve business goals. Okay. Now the kindling, the kindling, we want to choose a model area. All right. Number one, choose a model area, empower committed employees for change leaders enable action by removing roadblocks. That’s number three. Number four, deploy structured problem solving. Constant learning has to become the norm. All right. Number five, General, generate small, simple improvements, and then number six is celebrate success on small wins. Every single win needs to be celebrated if you’re familiar with the iceberg of ignorance, organizations miss a golden opportunity when they fail to ask employees for their ideas in solving issues, but instead rely only on the information inside a computer or hiding in the minds of managers, executives and supervisors may not have the up close perspective and inside knowledge as employees who are experiencing the problems firsthand, so employees may know how to fix the problem and may even offer a cheaper solution if they’re consulted. This is a win, win approach. Employees feel valued, and the problem is solved, and the root level, they’re solved at the root level in a way that makes sense. So if you if you’re not aware of the iceberg of ignorance, I would suggest going out and taking a look at that. All right, so that is kindling. There were six of those. The first one was to choose a model area. The second one is to empower committed employees for change. The third one is that leaders need to be need to enable action by removing roadblocks. The fourth one deploy structured problem solving. The fifth one generate small, simple improvements. And then the sixth one is to celebrate success on small wins. All right, so now we’re to the firewood. All right, so the firewood is has four areas that I want to talk about. The first one is continuous and frequent touches. Okay, continuous and frequent touches. That is the first one. The second one is hard work. The third one is to inspect what you expect, right, or audit and the in the fourth one is to sustain, replicate and integrate the improvements. Improvement is like a mighty flame. You must continue to add firewood to keep the fire burning. If you stop, the fire will surely burn out lots and lots of repetitions build the fire of improvement. Improvement capability and culture, small, simple improvements are much easier to get repetitions on, then larger, complex improvements. So Lean culture change requires continuous and frequent touches between people and processes. Although these touches can be can have different purposes, small improvements every day with frequent touches from leaders can have a huge impact. And this is a is usually pretty simple. In practice, only takes a few minutes, but nevertheless, it is very hard work, because it requires an enormous amount of diligence and sometimes a little bravery to have uncomfortable conversations. Hey everybody, this is the firewood so continuous. Yet four of these continuous and frequent touches hard work, inspect what you expect, and then sustain, replicate and integrate the improvements. As I said, those three areas are important to start a flame of continuous improvement, a mighty flame of continuous improvement, you need to have your Tinder. The Tinder was stability. The vision has to be clearly communicated, standards, accountability, targets to achieve business goals, right? That’s the tinder that comes first. Then you add the kindling. You got to choose a model area, empower committed employees for change, leaders, enable action by removing. Roadblocks, deploy structured problem solving, generate small, simple improvements and celebrate success on small wins. Finally, we need to add the firewood. This is continuous and frequent. Touches hard work, inspect what you expect, which is auditing, and then sustain, replicate and integrate the improvements. All right, everybody, keep it simple, keep it visual, and continue to improve.

10:23

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Patrick Adams  10:34

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