Patrick Adams  00:00

Hello, and welcome to the Lean solutions podcast. My guest today is Chad bareither. Chad at quickly found his passion for continuous improvement as a quality engineer. Now with years of experience as an internal change agent for larger organizations, including three fortune 500 companies, by the way, he takes that operational excellence mindset beyond the shop floor. As the owner and Principal Consultant of birther group consulting, He enables continuous improvement through the application of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. I first met Chad at the MLC annual conference, the Michigan lien consortium annual conference up in Traverse City, Michigan, this was last year. So he was actually this is we can kind of say, Chad, that this is your second time on the show, because I had a small interview with you while we were at the lien conference. But welcome to the show. Welcome back.

 

Chad Bareither  01:23

Oh, thanks a lot. It’s great to be back.

 

Patrick Adams  01:25

Absolutely. And so I did also hear that you, you are going to be speaking at this this year’s annual conference for the Michigan lien Consortium. Is that correct?

 

Chad Bareither  01:35

Yeah, great, great opportunity. They asked me if I’d be willing to lead one of the active learning sessions. So we do and one of the breakouts during this conference.

 

Patrick Adams  01:42

Nice. What do you know what you’ll be speaking on? Yeah.

 

01:46

So I’d say generally, Leader Standard Work. But really, I think it ties into some of our conversations today is really talking not so much about the tactical application, but more systemically like what is Leader Standard Work, and how does it help sustain improvement?

 

Patrick Adams  02:03

Yeah, I love that. And it’s such an important concept for so many organizations that, unfortunately, is is not taken as serious as it as it should be. Right? For those who are listening in that maybe are meeting you for the first time, you know, kind of E meeting or virtual meeting. What’s your approach on continuous improvement? Chad? What what is continuous improvement in in your mind? And how would you explain it to some of our listeners?

 

02:32

Yeah. So I think we can start off with kind of what it’s not like what is not continuous improvement. And it not, it’s not, or it shouldn’t be just a program, like a bolt on program or a department, this group is in charge of continuous improvement. It is both a philosophy and a methodology. Right. So what we’re looking for in continuous improvement is both a structured way to manage the business and then actually make changes and improvements to optimize processes, products and services that you deliver. What we want to whether you cut your teeth and Lean or Six Sigma, ultimately, what we’re trying to do is identify like systemic changes, we can make that we’re going to either reduce variability, so we’re more consistent or eliminate waste and delivering that service. So ultimately, what that does for your business is it makes it more predictable for you as a leader, and more successful, you know, depending upon which metrics you want to look at there. So we do need this, this common thinking way. And then what continuous improvement also helps with to build some of that muscle. Muscle memory is like common tools that are promoting the involvement of, of all the employees. And that continuous portion, right is really implying that it’s never ending, not in the context of like a death march, but in the in the sense that it’s both that first step of transforming how we run the business to achieve our goals, and then putting something in place to sustain that in the long term.

 

Patrick Adams  04:06

Absolutely. Great, great definition of continuous improvement. In would you say that continuous improvement is, you know, does it work best in certain industries or with certain people or is it universal? I mean, what what would be your your thought on that?

 

04:25

Yeah, so I’ve been fortunate enough to work in six different industries applying this and the approach that I take. So it’s transferable across industry. I think the individual client or practitioner or leader is really one who brings the industry knowledge or their business and process knowledge, the philosophy and the systems are transferable. You know, we were talking a little bit before we hit record about, you know, Japan and their culture and Toyota and so like, there’s a good fit there. Right? So the continuous improvement, culture might not look identical, you can’t just cut and paste Toyota and put it into a different organization because there’s a cultural mismatch. So it might look a little different. But the concepts and the principles are definitely transferable.

 

Patrick Adams  05:17

Yeah, so true. And since you brought it up, you were just in Japan recently. Right? You took a trip out there with your family?

 

05:25

Yeah. So it was a it was a leisure trip, right? So we’re there took our kids that are for a vacation, great experience. They saw some of the when he wants a little bit of culture, shock and expensive, a very, very different culture. But it was a wonderful experience for all of us.

 

Patrick Adams  05:45

Absolutely. So what would you say? What were some aha was, you know, when you when you think about, you’re talking about culture, you think about the Japanese culture, and you know why that helped Toyota, you know, be such a, you know, so successful in the work that they were doing, and are doing, how do you think that or what things did you see in the culture that you think maybe were part of that or are a part of that?

 

06:13

Yeah, I’ll try to make it brief. But I learned a lot there. If you do like a gallop, string finder, like learnings, my number one, so I was excited to learn all of this stuff, both about history and culture. And so if you go way back, there was a, there was a period of time when Imperial Japan like closed its borders. So like the first Christian missionaries come there, and, and they shut their borders down to kind of keep some of that, that out. And when they’re isolated, they developed a lot of unique cultural elements. But they also became very congealed in terms of like one family, if you will. And I even was talking to one of our tour guides, who was a retired chemical engineer, and he talked about how the culture there is, is, is very much like a, like a community culture. If you that old adage of like, it takes a village to raise a child is saying, even in training children like how to behave, he says, it’s not uncommon to see a stranger and older Japanese individual that would like dress down in individual line, you know, like school, the child on the subway for misbehaving. And so that kind of like cultural a similarity, right, they have common ideals and common thoughts is one thing that I noticed. So there’s like kind of this group dynamic, that’s really powerful. And also just the affinity for process. Like, everywhere we look, I remember watching the train conductor come through, and we were taking one of the bullet trains and coming through and doing the safety check. And like comes, stops in between the cars. And there were clearly as I watched five things he was supposed to check out on his checklist, and you see him and he goes, and he points out and looks and points out and looks and points out and looks because that’s how he was taught to do it. And that’s, and there’s probably a reason behind them. And it’s important to do it that way. And I was just thinking, I don’t know that you would see the same response, you’d probably see set on the car, quick glance at five areas, move on. It was a little things like that, that I saw that says there’s a lot of pride in the process, not just the job that you see there. And beyond that this more community cultural adaptation that I think really helped. The way the Toyota production system was designed, thrived.

 

Patrick Adams  08:32

Powerful, I’m excited as you know, I’ll be I’ll be heading to Japan in May with Katie Anderson and her group. So I’m looking forward to witnessing some of the same, same same elements of the culture and and hopefully, you know, we can connect it after and maybe exchange stories and other things that we we’ve seen and learn. So yeah, that’ll be great. Absolutely. So just coming back to the conversation that we started with around continuous improvement. Would you say that continued? The continuous improvement mindset is anchored more in the hard skills such as like the tools the systems? Or would you say that a continuous improvement mindset is more anchored in the soft skills like behavior thinking that type of thing?

 

09:20

I think yes. If I think about tools, so my father grew up in central Illinois in like farmland, and he kind of had a foot in two worlds like his his father, my grandfather was a college educated professor, and his uncle still ran the family farm. So he spent a lot of time of his youth kind of with his grandfather on the farm. So you’ll learn to do quite a bit with his hands. And from firsthand experience, he definitely knew how to use a hammer, right? If you think one of the most basic tools if we’re using the literal term tool here, and you might say everyone knows knows how to use a hammer I think that’s true, most people understand what a hammer supposed to do. But if you’ve seen someone who’s proficient like a carpenter like that knows how to set the nail, use the proper grip, the proper strike, you can, you can definitely tell a difference of who knows how to use that tool. And I remember building a barn on my parents property with my dad, when I was in, like middle school, and watching him drive like 16, Penny nails with two or three strikes, yeah, clearly, very proficient in using the tool. So you can get really good at driving nails. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can build a house. Right? So I can use the tool individually. So the tool is important of building those hard skills through muscle memory and repetition. But thinking behind that the behavior that, as you mentioned, is what’s important. So I still need a blueprint, I still need a build sequence or a process. And then, so kind of bringing all this together is where you need, I need the tool use and the plan to get the end result that I want. You know, so continuous improvement is the same way that analogy. So I say yes to both because without the thinking and the behavior, you know, what I have seen in some organizations is, is lean or continuous improvement is just a lot of pounding nails.

 

Patrick Adams  11:19

Yeah. So true. And I love that analogy that you used, you know, of the hammer makes make so much sense in the house. And so, and obviously, you’ve had a lot of experience with this and working with different companies. What do you what do you think is the the greatest challenge that companies have when they are only focused on let’s just say, the hard skills or the tools and they they don’t take into consideration that those soft skills, the behavior, the thinking, but they just say, you know, here’s five tools that Toyota used, apply them. And let’s become lean. What challenges do you think come with that?

 

11:57

Well, one thing that’s a challenge is why so I have seen organizations and been an organization at one manufacturing site specifically where they said, We’re going to deploy, say, five s, and maybe you experienced, we’re going to find this the shop floor. Now, if we don’t have a good understanding of why, why are we doing that, to clean it up and make it look better? Is there a performance metric that we’re trying to go for? Are we trying to establish a sense, like, but if we’re just driving right to the tools, I think we’re losing a lot of the workforce and why we’re doing this at all. So not understanding the why and connecting back to I’m using, you’re asking me to do my job differently. But I don’t understand what that supposed to gain for me, I think is one thing that we lose. The other thing is kind of this point optimization, right? So I can get really good, I can throw tools at different problems. You know, whether we use a production environment, or whether you just like service delivery, I can make certain things, scheduling of service delivery, I don’t know maybe something people are, are painful, like you’re gonna get your your cable or internet service, like I can get really good at scheduling. But I can’t get people there on time, because they can’t transact the work when they’re on the residence. Like, it doesn’t help me that I’m point optimized versus value stream optimized. Try not to throw too many buzzwords in there. But yeah, another thing if we’re just tools, tools, tools, is we’re not thinking about a broader picture of like, okay, where do we need to improve, it might not be required that everyone improve? Because just like a simple, like, workload balance chart is like, if I get faster at my fastest step, I’m just creating a lot more waiting. Hmm,

 

Patrick Adams  13:39

sure. Makes sense. So if if someone’s listening in and they want, and they want to do it, right, they they, you know, or maybe they have tried, and they and they, you know, maybe went down the wrong road and just said, Hey, let’s let’s apply these five tools. And they and they’ve had some significant challenges with that. What What would be your suggestion around, you know, how does an organization get started? Or how would a team How would a leader you know, even within their own area, you know, how would they get started with continuous improvement? What would be the right steps from the beginning? Yeah, so

 

14:15

I’d say the right first step is understanding your why. So whether you’re are the leader of a small to medium business, or your leadership team and maybe a medium to large business of why are we even doing continuous improvement? What are we trying to accomplish? So there could be some sort of market change, like threat of competition or a change in demand and external influence, like a new regulation or a technology change? Or maybe your business is growing? Right? So you’re trying to step up, you need to step into more of a leadership role in a tactical transaction, and you don’t know how to create that stability. So you’re still making all the decisions, like your team, not just you needs to see continuous improvement. As a change in the way we’re going to run the business. Write a system to manage my business, not something in addition to. So we said up front, like it’s not a program, it’s not just this bolt out of like through osmosis, we’re going to become more improved because right we do CI some of the time. So a great place to align is even going back, you know, we talked about soft and hard skills is kind of like your mission, vision and values of like, so what are you trying to accomplish, and then say, let’s tie that to a goal and say CI is going to help us get there. And then maybe, then maybe the tools make sense, then maybe five US makes sense because we say, to get where we’re trying to go, we need to free up some cash flow, we’ve noticed we have a lot of work in process inventory. This is the tool we’re going to deploy this is how we’re going to measure success. Now if I’m the leadership team, I understand, okay, we’re going in this direction, to invest in new product offerings, we need to free up cash flow. This is the tool we’re using to get there. Now I can also understand so how are you going to measure success on the floor? I’m not gonna measure success in terms of is everything where it’s supposed to be in the tape, because that’s gets a little bit clouded.

 

Patrick Adams  17:08

Right, yeah, and you know, what you’re what you’re alluding to is really, obviously the lie, like you said, but also identifying the problem that you’re trying to solve before deploying tools, just because someone said that they were the right tools. Well, are they the right tools for your team? Or your company for your industry? Maybe, but maybe not. Right? It depends on the problem that you’re trying to solve. So that kind of goes back to your why, right?

 

17:38

Agreed. And so whether we say problem or goal, right, so what do we want to accomplish? Right, because problems can be a little bit further down the tree about saying, If goal is something at a high level, like we have, you know, Alcoa did this with safety, right. That was the top level goal. And that kind of permeated down to our goal was zero last time incidents. So you could be at a high level, and that’s the goal that we want to accomplish, then the changes that you make the individual problems, as you mentioned, that you’re solving can be lower in the organization. But now it makes sense, I’m doing this tool to solve this problem, because that’s the goal that we want to achieve. So kind of starting off with my vision and a short term goal that we’re trying to accomplish. Now, some of the changes you’re asking to make to the business you can tie back to, we’re changing this because that’s what we want to accomplish. Right?

 

Patrick Adams  18:29

Now, I will say, I do see many organizations who start out on their, on their Lean journey, their continuous improvement journey, that do start with some foundational Lean tools that you see from back from Toyota, like five s standard work, you know, there’s certain things now, the reason behind that, that why that does make sense for many companies is because you can’t improve chaos, right. And so by having an organized clean, you know, well lit work area, by having good standard work in place, these are things that help create stability, and stabilize the operation so that you can then start to develop some improvements on top of that. So I think that, you know, for many organizations, they go, Oh, well, you know, we always start with, we always have to start with five s. Yep. It’s, there’s probably a good chance that that if you don’t have, you know, good, a good well organized, clean area that you can, you know, be efficient, because you’re not stepping over things and working around stuff that isn’t necessary in the area. Yeah, that that definitely makes sense, because that creates a level of stability, or do you are there any other you know, maybe foundational items, tools, systems or, you know, things that you see, you may be being the starting point for some organizations.

 

19:53

So, I mean, I’ve, I’m a big proponent of value stream mapping, and sometimes I don’t know micro level, if you will just do we even understand how long it takes to get a product or deliver a service? Do we understand? Do we understand how much work we actually have in process? And sometimes that work can be measured in dollars? So do we understand how how long it takes us to get from customer order to deliver product or service? Because back to back to the question about tools is like, why would we be working on the steps that aren’t giving us an improvement? A recent client engagement I was on, they’re trying to dramatically like over the next five years, six to 10x, depending upon the product variant, their capacity. And I look at where they’re investing in some of the equipment upgrades. And I say you don’t need that upgrade, like this is your bottleneck over here. Like we should be fixed this first, like, you might need to fix that five years down the road. But like, why are we investing in that right now? And if they there’s there wasn’t an awareness of what the capacity actually was, and where they were losing some of that, or getting some of the losses in that? Yeah, I think having the awareness so that you can prioritize and say we don’t need to fix everything, we need to fix these two things. I like your I like your point about five SF stabilizing chaos. I still go back to why like, what is the chaos preventing us from achieving? Sure?

 

Patrick Adams  21:23

Absolutely. Yeah. Makes sense. So so once someone gets started, and they, you know, are off often running on their continuous improvement journey, which again, like you said earlier, is never ending. It’s continuous, right. But we also want to make sure that we’re able to, to sustain the gains sustained some of the benefits that are coming from this continuous improvement journey, any recommendations to our listeners on how, you know, an organization that starts continuous on their continuous improvement journey? How would they sustain some of the efforts that are being put in place?

 

22:01

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a good question, a challenge for a lot of organizations. I think maybe it helps, again, by analogy, to look at a personal example, like, I know, I know, we’re already in the second quarter. But let’s say you were at your New Year’s Eve party with friends and the ball drops, it’s December 31 2022. And you’re, let’s just say 20, friends or family. Now, if you just look at statistics, about half of those people probably made some private or public resolution to either lose weight or get in shape. That’s just statistics about half of the people. And since we’re US based, make some sort of resolution, I want to get in shape and lose weight. So that means 10 of those people, they’re less than 212, maybe two of those friends will actually achieve their goal, the rest, either give up on it or fail. Hiring a personal trainer actually shows to increase your odds by up to 50%. So taking, taking your success rate away from from one to two friends, so like six or seven friends. What why is that? Because they have a system? That’s right. When you first meet with a trainer, they help you set goals, right? Because they’re in a sense, that’s how they get paid. We don’t want to help you achieve your goals. What do you want to accomplish? So you need to understand why they understand what your current state is, in terms of your diet and exercise. They change your process, right? They five s or whatever you say, is going on, they change it, and then they hold you accountable to it. And then they also if you think about PDSA, they don’t just say, okay, great, we’ll see any gear, weekly or monthly. They’re checking and adjusting your progress against your goals to see what do we need to change. So they have a system. The statistics in that example, are striking in their parallel to corporate environments, where about two thirds of change initiatives fail, they fail to achieve their desired outcome, so they fall short of the goal. Having a system in place dramatically will improve those odds. So putting a business management system so depending upon what you want that to look like tiered huddles, review meetings, cascading metrics, right. Having a business management system in place to achieve your goals is the same thing that’s going to help you sustain performance. So back to the analogy, if I achieved my fitness goals, I wouldn’t say okay, now I’m done. I’m gonna go back to the way I was acting before. That’s crazy. I’m just gonna backslide which a lot of organizations struggle with the system, the cadence, the rigor that you go to achieve your goals. You need a system that stabilize that over the long run, this now becomes how we run the business. That’s right.

 

Patrick Adams  24:48

That’s right. And you mentioned a little bit earlier about Leader Standard Work. Can you talk to us a little bit about how leaders can utilize their own Leader Standard Work? To help, you know, create some structure around that system that you’re talking about.

 

25:06

So, in any company, we’re delivering a product or service information, potentially, there are processes that deliver that. So we execute certain processes they they achieve or deliver our product service or information, understanding what our critical processes are, and where they tie to either, you know, cost or quality or delivery lead time of that product or service is incumbent on leadership to know. So these are the critical processes that I need to check on. So then leader center work is process confirming that those are operating, when we manage only by results, right, it’s like driving down the road looking in the rearview mirror, it’s like that already happened, right? If we have a poor quality rate, we already produced defects. If we missed the delivery date, we already missed the delivery date. We talked a little bit about this with that the Japanese culture and an affinity for process, understanding the importance of process, and reinforcing that with the leader below you and the leader below you and ultimately, the frontline employee is the leaders job to understand the importance of process and how it ties back to the goal. And so then the Leader Standard Work is what is the cadence that I’m going to go actually put my eyes on or hands on that critical process or process step to reinforce with the worker or the manager, why it’s important, and whether or not it’s being done correctly.

 

Patrick Adams  26:36

Powerful. And there’s, there’s lots of different forms of Leader Standard Work that are out there. So if anyone’s interested, you know, you can literally Google Leader Standard Work, and you can see, you know, lots of different Leader Standard Work that’s being utilized. I don’t know Chad, if you have any favorite formats that you’ve seen that you think work well, for leaders,

 

26:58

while in this, you know, digital and virtual age, I still think it’s really powerful to have it like on a something that you can carry with you. Yeah, a piece of paper, or a laminated card that’s like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing every day, every week, right? We have implemented with a client and done it virtually through like a Microsoft Teams planner, it’s a little bit out of sight out of mind, right? It gets stuck, it gets stuck is somewhere in my phone, and I gotta pull that up to have the accountability. So I do like the options that are actually writing it down. I have the tactile accountability of like checking it off, right. That’s what I’ve personally gravitated toward and seen successful. But in terms of the format, you’re right, you can Google and you can find a bunch of different formats. I think what becomes more interesting for me is like the content of what do we consider Leader Standard Work? And it’s not just checking out your performance boards. It’s really that that’s coaching and reinforcing of process. Yeah. So I like the physical format, because I think it has accountability, and it’s portable, and keeps it in front of mine.

 

Patrick Adams  28:11

Absolutely. Now, we earlier you mentioned, a couple of challenges with you know, companies, organizations that maybe are more heavy on the hard skills or the tools, then, you know, maybe the cultural change or the behavior change, things like that. What are some of the other challenges that you see in the world of continuous improvement, as you have traveled around to different companies and worked with, you know, different organizations in different industries?

 

28:41

Um, challenges. I think one challenge that I’ve seen is, is access and that sounds interesting, because it’s a noisy marketplace. So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of information out there. So access. And look, I’m not going to sit here and sound elitist and say like right and wrong information, but understanding where I should go to learn having access to that. But then on top of that, if a lot of this is difficult to learn just from a book, and that might sound self serving as a consultant, but being able to coach and hold someone accountable is important. So access in terms of costs, and the right resources to do that is a challenge. So that means you either need to bring someone in house that has experience with this right? Or do you need to pay for someone to come in so the first one is access anything, and that can be a challenge, one that I’m interested in trying to resolve here in southwest Michigan. The second is kind of this diluted meaning of like you if you look up Lean or Six Sigma within that it kind of branches out dramatically in terms of like, what is lean, what is six sigma, and I feel like those terms are becoming more of like brand names or marketing terms. So the breadth of what’s offered so this kind of ties back to the first one In a noisy marketplace, knowing what to pay attention to, like, what is the answer versus like productized 10 steps to become lean, it can be attractive, but it’s a challenge for an organization that doesn’t really know where to start. So that’s kind of the first one, I think is more like, knowledge based, and then resource base to get that knowledge. Sure. The second is more challenging, I think. And I know you’ve had some conversations with Bob and Giuliani. And so I’m going to use his term of classical management is like, I don’t find most organizations alike have the desire to change. So if I’m a leader, and I came up through a system, I’ve been promoted up through a system, and I’m in the leadership position now, what’s my incentive to change the rules of the game? Because the role of leader does pivot in more of a lean or continuous improvement type environment to more of that, that coaching and that process confirmation, Socratic questioning, empowering the people versus command and control and make the decisions and, you know, school people to work harder. I’m being dramatic for effect. Yeah. So I think that’s kind of the other challenge, seeing in the world of continuous improvement of folks that want to bring it in and maybe see it as a cost lever, versus a fundamental change in the way that they operate and manage their business. And I think that second one is the challenge that I’d also like to work on, and I can work on that one organization at a time, is actually changing the mindset of like, Yeah, this is a different way of running your business. But the desire has to be there somewhere in the leadership ranks to say, I want to change the rules of the game, I want to change the system of how we manage our business away from classical and more progressive management types.

 

Patrick Adams  31:55

Yeah, those are some pretty significant challenges, obviously, but very much possible to overcome. And obviously, you and I both have worked with many companies that are overcoming those challenges. And and it’s always fun to be involved and see those those light bulbs going off those aha moments, seeing the results come from the companies that are, you know, really committed to developing a true culture of continuous improvement. And I appreciate everything that you’re doing with with the clients that you work with, you know, all over the you know, not I think you’re outside of Michigan, even right to you. We’re primarily in southwest Michigan, but

 

32:38

primarily in southwest Michigan. Yeah. But I have clients that are outside of the region as well. So yeah.

 

Patrick Adams  32:44

If someone was interested to learn a little bit more about the work that you do at birther group consulting, where would they go to find more information about some of the work that you guys do?

 

32:55

So I’m most active on LinkedIn, kind of sharing my thoughts and some real world case studies reflections on engagements with clients. And then what our website is, brighter group.com var, e i th er group.com. I’ve taken the approach that I’m using with clients and honed over 15 years of practicing this and codifying that into a book. So I’m in final manuscript now. That’s, that’s going to the editing. But I know you’ve been through this. So yeah, I’m a newbie. So I’m like I, I did not have a good appreciation for how long that process was after you have words on a page to get it to print. So right. I’m kind of navigating that right now. But my expectation is that will be published in third quarter.

 

Patrick Adams  33:42

Oh, that’s great. Well, we’ll have to have you back on the show. Then, when that publishes. And we’ll talk we’ll dive into the the content of that book, and definitely have some good, good discussion around that. But we’ll also drop your website into the show notes as well. So if anyone’s interested, they can go to the show notes and click on there and get directly to your LinkedIn or to your website and send you a message if they want to get any more information. Chad has been great to have you and I’m looking forward to seeing you in August at the Michigan lien consortium annual conference up in Traverse City. Looking forward to your presentation there. And obviously, you and I are connected. Now through our mastermind group that lien solution runs for independent consultants. So I’ll see you probably what do we have a couple of weeks here. We’ll be back together. Yeah. Yeah. So again, thanks again for being on the show. Appreciate your time and all the great value that you’ve shared with our listeners, looking forward to having you back on the show in the fall when you’re when your book is published.

 

34:46

Oh, Patrick, I think the pleasure was all mine and would love to come back and talk about it.

 

Patrick Adams  34:51

Perfect. All right. Well, have a good week.