Patrick Adams  00:00

Hello, and welcome to the Lean solutions podcast. Our guest today is Michael Bremmer. In addition to being an author and Shingo research and publication award recipient for his book, How to do a gimble walk. Michael has been involved in a variety of experiences over the years including director of productivity and later Director of Information Systems for Beatrice foods. He was the financial the chief financial officer and board member for the Association of manufacturing excellence are ame and president of the Cumberland group in Chicago for 28 years, Michael served as an adjunct at an adjunct faculty for the University of Chicago’s grad school for about 15, a 15 year period and also served as a senior mentor at a new business startup incubator focused on manufacturing in Chicago. So welcome to the show, Michael.

 

Michael Bremer  01:18

Thanks. Thanks a lot for having me. Patrick was looking forward to the conversation.

 

Patrick Adams  01:21

Ya know, I’m looking forward to it as well, you and I have connected here and there over LinkedIn. And it’s great to finally you know, be face to face and, and kind of face to face, I guess, but it’s good to get to have you on and chat with you. I’m excited to talk a little bit about today about the topic of gimble walks, and maybe look at some different techniques and things and, and just kind of pick a pick apart or go and dive into your book and a few different areas. But I’d love to to just start out today by getting your perspective on what what is different about organizations that are highly effective at improving in comparison to those that are not right. So I mean, let’s just get it’s a that’s a very high level question a lot unpack there, I’m sure. But, you know, what, in your experience, what would you say is different about organizations that, you know, are considered, you know, highly effective in comparison to those that are not?

 

02:19

Well, I mean, it’s, there’s a number of different things, obviously. But it’s funny, because the, I think it’s safe to say that every organization does a better job of improving today than they did when I started doing this type of work. Inside Beatrice foods in the 19, actually, the late 1970s. And the and so when organizations go about this, they they, I mean, these tools are powerful, the tools are old, I mean, most of these tools come out of the world of Industrial Engineering, they’re used very differently today than they were used, you know, 5100 years ago. But they’re the same basic analytical tools are when we talked about this PDCA, you know, that was, you can attribute the shooter to Deming with the plan, do check, act or adjust. I mean, that there’s so many variations that that that exists in the world today. I think the difference lies in the fact that the you can use these tools and you can make improvement happen. And what people don’t understand is how much that how much improvement is possible. The so one aspect is they they really don’t understand the depth of these, these tools. And so they use them and they get some improvement, but they don’t realize they could possibly get certainly a fivefold, maybe even a tenfold increase in what it is they’re doing. And there’s a tendency to believe that not possible. So so one is the the lack of understanding, I think the second one, I’ll share three, three things. The second one is the it’s hard work to really be effective in improving the discipline that it takes to, to stay on top of this to be, you know, open to, to, to, you know, to learning and going it is really difficult to to be hard. And most of us I mean, if you think about professional athletes, and most of us do not have the discipline to to maximize our capability in whatever sport that it is that we do. I mean, even if we’re not going to make the majors and you know, that that that particular event, I mean, most of us could get I mean, I play golf. Sure, yeah. And at one time, it went time I was at 95 to 105 Guy and now I’m kind of an 87, two to 93 type guy, so I’m playing better, right, I might gain but I but if I really wanted to spend the time to do it, I could certainly be a high 70s low 80s player, but I don’t want to work that hard. I mean, I go out I want to have fun. You know I want to enjoy myself and in within the world of improvement, there’s so much stuff that’s going on. They don’t realize the gap that they’re when, when they’re, you know, when they’re when they’re going about this. And then I think the third thing, and this will touch on some of the other questions that we talked to, is the lack of clarity of what it is we’re trying to accomplish. And why it is that we’re trying to do that, then I’m sure I have an opportunity to share a story of something that happened just this past year that pretty much illustrates that. But really, over the last 10 years, I focused more and more on, on clarity of purpose, I love care and Martin’s book where she talks about clarity first, and the and so that that whole idea of being crystal clear what it is you’re doing. But the reason you want that clarity, is because if I’ve got that, I can begin to measure myself and test myself against that. So So in fact, if I wanted to be a golfer that could shoot, let’s say, a 78, which in my world today would be an impossibility. The that that I mean, if that was what I was really striving to do, then there’s things I would need i There’s work I would need to be doing to to make that happen. I’m perfectly set by shooting 88 I’m a happy boy. And the end if I shoot 95, and I’m unhappy, but it doesn’t change a whole lot of the way that I approach my game.

 

Patrick Adams  06:17

Right? Well, and I think you bring up a really good point. And this is a question that I always ask people, you know, what problem are we trying to solve, right? Because if we’re just get, we’re just out there working our butts off and trying to be busy to be busy. But but you know, we have no idea why we’re doing what we’re doing, then what’s the point? Right, we’re just creating waste and what we do, right? I mean, you wouldn’t just, you know, go to the golf course and be really busy driving around the course, you’re not going to get any better at golf that way. Right? See, I think you have to understand, like, what problem are you trying to solve? And right. So I think that that kind of helps create a little bit of clarity around, you know, why we why we’re doing what we’re doing. Would you agree?

 

07:02

I would agree the that. I mean, he’s sure the story. Now, I suppose the earlier this this earlier this year, I was doing a site visit for the Association for manufacturing excellence, to know it’s in my retirement, I love being involved with ame, because it kind of keeps me engaged in this world that that I care a lot about. Yes. And and we were at a site that the leadership team was I mean, they were very, very good. They had done some outstanding things over the last three years, I think, to make some major changes to that business, to continue to move it forward, to allow it to prosper. But But what we were evaluating what we were assessing at this point in time, was how am EAS processes focused on how effectively is an organization going about the business of improvement. So that whole idea of what’s the difference between average and new? Very good, right. And so one of the things they it’s a big facility, about 3000 employees, they had five different buildings. And so during the, during the site visit, one of the things they were going to do, the leadership team was going to do a gimbal walk. So we went to observe their gimbal walk. And before they started, I said, well tell me the purpose of your gimbal walk. And they said, well, the purpose is to show the people that we care, and we want to do something on safety. And so the general manager who was an outstanding leader, I mean, just really, really impressed with what she was doing to run that business. The VP of Ops is there several, several younger engineers and department folks. And so we go, they start their walk, and what they really were doing was an inspection and where they’re going into all the nooks and crannies of this building and looking for things. It could be safety, you know, related, they did not talk to one operator, they, when they came out, they had a list of things that needed to be changed. They didn’t introduce me to anybody that was there within within that facility. And so, and I don’t want to contaminate the process when we’re doing an observation. So you know, so they’re able to do their whole thing. But when they were done, I said, so let’s go back into the purpose that it was that you know, you said you’re trying to accomplish, you’re gonna show the people we care in their minds, because they were focused on safety, that the belief was that that shows people we care because the leadership team is is concerned about safety, and I get that, but but if I’m an operator in that building, or even if I’m a first line supervisor in that building, and these people come in, and they’re going in all the nooks and crannies, and then they’re gonna give us a list and our building of stuff is we need to do to fix there’s a couple of things that are out of alignment with a highly effective improvement practice. Number one, the that that what that purpose was not being fulfilled. I mean, it was the people were not feeling really good that these folks are in here, you’re doing this so they’re, they’re they’re missing on that. The and the they’re really doing work that the people in that building should have been doing. And so what what they should have been looking at and I think this is another challenge because You talked about problems. So we’d like to go and solve problems. But what I really need to be focused on continuously if I want to be highly effective improvement is processes, which Deming talked about, you know, in the 1950s. Deming was talking about looking at processes. And the got to answer the question for the leadership team is Why did our process allow this, this this fire extinguisher need to be, you know, blocked by a buyer or whatever, it’s not to somebody needs to go remove the obstacle that’s in front of the fire extinguisher, which was that something that that was not something that was going on at this facility, I’m just making that up. But the they, they’ve got to be making certain that the processes are stable, and in an alignment, and they’re developing the people and the awareness, their awareness of processes is all and I think that’s where the hard work becomes doing this, because it’s so much easier to go fix the problem, or define the problem and, you know, and assign somebody to to fix it. The that’s not being highly effective and improvement. I mean, that’s that that’s the normal thing that, you know, it’s an average thing that we I mean, if there’s a problem, of course, we’re gonna fix the problem. Sure.

 

Patrick Adams  11:12

No, that’s, it’s so true. And, you know, if you have for many organizations that that that I go into, I see, you know, they have one or two sole problem solvers at their organization that are kind of the two leaders, you know, you normally in a leadership position, and they’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to take care of everything, right, when they have this whole army of potential problem solvers, that they could be engaging and involving, in the process, to your point, right, developing their skill sets, so that it’s not all the problem solving isn’t isn’t dependent on one person. Right. And to your point that they’re, they’re really getting to the root of, you know, why did that problem occur? What what is behind that problem that’s actually causing it to happen? And solving solving that? Right?

 

11:59

It really is? Yeah, there’s a I mean, your comment reminds me. I mean, during my life, people periodically gave me gifts, to help me. That whole idea of learning to see up to see things that I previously didn’t understand. I mean, when I was working at Beatrice, I ran a department that had people that working for me, I was a reasonable manager, I got my people promoted, I was good at giving them the credit, then, you know, and all of that stuff. Then when I started consulting, and the, I guess, mid 80s. The, I mean, I knew that it was important to engage people and do all this problem solving stuff. Now, all these themes. And in the early 90s, I was really just beginning to have more of that Toyota focus on the work that it was we were doing in a consulting organization, and I was at a manufacturing plant in Shreveport, Louisiana. And the, I was teaching them how to do Kaizen teams. And so we had, we had done a Kaizen team on a relatively complicated manufacturing line made some changes to it, we presented to management, everybody loved the changes we’ve made, and we’re back in the room, and I’m getting ready to fly back to Chicago, where we lived at the time. And they, so I said, Will you eight folks, you know, you spent a week of your life, you know, you know, working at this thing would you get out of it, we go around the room, and everybody says really nice stuff, and it’d be coming to poorly and poorly gave me a gift that really changed my life. Poorly said that I worked for this company for 25 years. And it’s the first time they ever asked me to think and I really liked it. And in the gift that Perla gave me at that moment is I had an intellectual understanding of the importance of engaging people. You know, and I mean, I knew about that I was totally obtuse, it having an emotional understanding of the drain that is there on the people inside an organization from not being able to to be fully engaged and fully respected for those talents and capabilities that you were talking about that are there and it it forever changed the way that I talked about improvement the way I talked to leadership teams the way that I did I did my work as I tried to create more space for more pearlies you know, to to be able to grow and use their capabilities and when that happens, I mean it’s you can see the people grow before your eyes it’s absolutely fascinating. It

 

Patrick Adams  14:27

is it’s such a such a blessing to be part of teams when you know an organization’s when that happens. It’s great. Love that story. And also I want to backup to to your previous story as well. Because you mentioned a term gimble walks which, which is what you wrote your book on and you’ve had several articles published around the topic. And there’s probably the majority of people that are listening have heard of a gimbal lock before been part of one. But just to kind of level set in, you know our listener Bass, can you define what is a gimbal? Lock? If you were to? If you were to answer that question, what would you say?

 

15:06

Sure, but two things. First of all, given the locks are also not new. There was something called management by walking around that Peters and Waterman and the book In Search of Excellence, made famous one of the very first business books I ever read about business improvement. And the and again, the walk is Walkman is management by walking around with a purpose. And so the gamba term gamba again, good Ichigo, Ambu, wow, whoever that is, I mean, these are Japanese terms. And I try not to use Japanese terms in the work that I do. But, but that’s a particular thing that people attribute to Toyota. And they and so when I wrote that book, if I wanted people to understand what I’m talking about, I kind of needed to use the gimble walk term. And all that it means this most simplistic definition is to to go to where action is happening inside your organization. And you want to see with your own eyes, rather than looking at a report what it is it’s going on. So again, the walk is simply going to where work is being done. A lot of times people say just value adding work. And then then there’s this whole definition of well, what adds value are the people in the accounting department that are doing the financial stuff, not adding value to our organization, is the engineering department not adding value to the organization. I really want to go and I want to see within the organization, you know, what, what is it that’s happening? The and I can learn a lot. This is another thing though, where when I do this walk, I need to let I need to learn to let go with the biases and the assumptions that I’ve made. And and it’s one of the few things I need to do where I got to slow down, which was difficult for me to learn. I always wanted to go fast, right? But slowing down so that you can you can really begin to see what it is that’s happening. And so that gimble walks, the thing I like about them is it’s one of the one of the few improvement tools that when we talk about culture change, as I’m going and I’m interacting with people and I’m talking and asking questions, I can also directly impact the culture of my organization and begin to to shift it in a new direction. Sure.

 

Patrick Adams  17:17

Yeah, that’s, that’s so true. And so with gimble walk, we always like to, you know, gamba, like you said that the place where the action is happening, or the work is happening, you know, some examples because like you mentioned accounting, even, you know, a car salesman has a has a gamba, right, which is out in the parking lot where the cars are being sold, right? And, you know, an accounting person has their own data, and it could be in the computer, potentially, if that’s where all of their work is being done, or whether

 

17:49

the case of software software development. Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Absolutely.

 

Patrick Adams  17:52

So, you know, everyone has a gamba. And the gimble walk obviously happens at the gamba. You know, I’ve been involved in so many organizations where, you know, they’re sitting around a room or a conference table, and, you know, not calling it a gamble, walk, but kind of acting like they’re, you know, discussing things that are happening, and they have really no clue what they think is happening, and what they’re putting down on paper. But what’s actually happening really is only known when you go out your point and actually see with your eyes, what’s really going on. Right? Well, when you gone out and saw something completely different than what you thought was the case. Yeah,

 

18:32

right. Yeah. The end. And when you first start doing these things you need to be and those early walks, the one thing you’ll see, usually, first of all, you see things that reinforce your beliefs. And so you gotta, you gotta be willing to let go of some of those and say, Well, I’m going to be I’m going to be open minded and try to see what it is that’s really happening. And and you do you get that seeing by conversation. The end. And the other thing that there’s a challenge when people start doing gimble, walks, they that very often think the purpose of the walk is to go find waist. And, and, and if you’re a first line supervisor, and you’re doing walks, and every time you do a walk, you’re finding more problems in the organization need to be fixed, what typically happens is you say, Whoa, I don’t I don’t have enough time to deal with all these problems that it is that I’m coming up with. And so they’ll they’ll stop doing them because they’re overwhelmed with, there’s more than they could possibly possibly do. And so to keep those things fresh and meaningful, they’re there shifts that need to get made to the process.

 

Patrick Adams  19:35

Absolutely. And I want to talk about those. But first, if someone who’s listening maybe that they’re hearing about gimble walks for the first time, or maybe they’re maybe they’ve done them, you know, frequently and just kind of not sure if they’re doing it the right way. What would you say are the basic steps to conducting a good gimble walk? What would the steps look like?

 

19:56

I bucketed into three Three distinct buckets. The first one is preparation. So So So Where where are we going? Who’s going? If there’s if there’s two or three people? How are we going to have conversations that are there in the workplace? So we’re not overwhelming the people that is we’re looking at is one person going to be talking? Or could we all talk and play off one another, I mean, there’s no right or wrong thing here. Let’s just Let’s just plan where we’re going, how long we’re going to be there. What we think we’ll be doing with the anything that it is that we find. So it’s a preparation preparation phase. The the second step is do the walk. And the reason that I wrote that book, How to do a gimble walk, is because at that time, all of the literature that I could find, just talked about doing the walk, it didn’t talk about this preparation, or this third step that I’ll go to. And when you’re doing the walk, I mean, the classic stuff that they say is I want to show respect, I want to ask questions, I want to I want to see that’s where I’m seeing what it is that that’s happening. And I have the dialogue, the and then the last step is, I after every walk, every walk, I should debrief you, and I did it just by myself. So I’m just doing a debrief where I’m taking some notes and what it is that I saw, there should be a debrief that that takes place when the walk is is complete. And were there any decisions that were made during the walk? Are there any actions that is that need to be be followed up on? Is there anyone that I need to be communicating with our to as a result of what it was that we learned here? Are if I’ve got a group of people, you know, what, what did we learn? You know, from we’re doing it? What are the decisions in the group? Where is it that I’m still taking actions? That’s not the same thing as going out and looking for a laundry list of problems? I mean, it’s, we’re always going to be seeing things that that is that needs to be dealt with. But the I think the perspective shifts for people to do this a little more effectively. Yeah, yeah,

 

Patrick Adams  21:59

I completely agree. And you mentioned this a little bit earlier. And I think about some of the companies that I’ve seen doing gimble walks, and sometimes they end up with this big laundry list of items that, you know, becomes overwhelming very quickly, and maybe they don’t have the capacity to complete the action items that they’re finding. And again, a lot of them end up just stopping just they just stopped doing jemalloc because they’re like, well, we just too much, you know, here. So what would you say to what would your advice be for those that do? Like, should we what should we do with this laundry list? Should we continue just adding to it? Or is there something, something else we can do? Well,

 

22:39

I’m not, I’m not a fan of adding to the laundry list. Well, it goes back a little bit to the example that we talked about earlier, where they were in doing the inspection and finding all this stuff. And then they kind of they got this list that somebody who’s execute our your example of where you had two people, and so we do the walk. And then there we got these two people to do stuff. And so we you know, we hand it off to them to, you know, Mac and Mary, you know, Mac and Mary, you know, there’s more work you just need to do. This is where you go back to purpose. And so the, let’s say you were my first line supervisor, and I’m going to be tonight, and they’re typically doing multiple walks, if they’re in a manufacturing environment, or even in a software development environment. You know, you could be doing this in so the so on on Tuesday, I’m gonna take a walk and on my Tuesday walk, I want to look at 60. And so I’m just going through to look at the, you know, things that are going on the layout of the facility, and you know, what is it that that’s happening there from a safety perspective. And then typically, we’re doing huddle meetings, some sort of meetings. And so if there’s things that are coming up, there’s, there’s not necessarily as list of problems, but there’s conversations I can have with the team or things in news we need to be addressing, we need to be careful, we need to be careful about the on Wednesday, when I do my walk, maybe I want to do a walk focused on our standard work practices. And so are people following what it is that are the whatever guidelines it is that we’ve laid out for standard work. So I’ve got a very, very clear purpose on this walk. Today, I’m going to look at this specific element, or even within safety, I’m gonna do a safety walk. But I know we’ve been having some ergonomic issues. And so my walk on Tuesday is going to be to look at ergonomics with what it is we’re doing some substance, you know, within that world of safety. And so if you get focused on these things, that really helps us with what it is that we need to see. Cuz I got this laser like, look, and I’m very conscious of what it is that I’m trying to do. I’m not looking at this big, general thing. And when you start doing the walks, you kind of need to learn how to walk and you learn how to conversations, you know, and so you really don’t know what it is you should be doing there. You’re figuring it all out and that’s okay. But you don’t want to get trapped where you you know, I just going out, keep adding to the laundry list. And I think you get out of that by having much more end and the purpose is related to issues that it is that we’re having. And it’s not just some general thing that is that we’re doing I mean, I’m doing a safe You want for recent I’m doing, I’m looking at Leader Standard Work for a reason. Because it’s, you know, we’re having some issues within the organization. When I do a walk, I’m typically going in to look at the way value flows through an organization. And so the sort of the purpose of my walk is pretty clear, I want to look for it. And when I do the walk, it’s unlikely I’m going to see an issue. I mean, it’s but but when you have conversations well, is this what typically happens is do any interruptions ever take place? If I’m in software to I’m looking at a group doing software development? I mean, the question you can ask them, that’s always an issue is did you have all the information that you needed when you were starting the the assignment, you never do. And sometimes that’s due to the nature of the processes, I’m sorry. And sometimes that’s due to the nature of the project that you’re working on Did you gotta go through learning, and you got to figure things out. And so you, there’s no way you couldn’t know this at the beginning. But other times, it’s the process was, you know, the longer that it takes to develop the software, the fuzzier the whole process is going to be so that whole idea of moving toward agile, and in using Scrum teams, that sort of thing, its whole idea is to compress the time that is taking to do a deliverable, which again, makes the cycle easier knowing what it is or should be doing. So as I if I get this purpose to be really clear, the i I’ve seen that thing give a lot more meaning to the walks that people are accomplishing, and re energize them on, on what it is they should be doing. Although I’ve got to test in, like the example that I talked about where they were, they thought they were focused on showing people that they cared, I need to test my purpose. So the thing that I’ve got to be doing with whatever the purpose is, and I believe you can do this with any of the main Lean tools, I got a purpose for doing Leader Standard Work, I’ve got a purpose for doing it again, but walk, how am I going to measure what’s the target that we’re moving toward, and how we’re going to measure my progress toward that target. And so the when I talk about keeping these things fresh, I think if I’ve got clarity of purpose, and then there’s a way that I’m measuring this in in, I suggest that we we publicly post the these things that are important to what it is we’re trying to achieve. Because what I’ve seen we’re a publicly post this is it can drive, it can drive more collaboration and cooperation and engagement of the team. The first discussions are, do people agree with the data that I’ve got on the board? Are is that you know, do people have a different perspective. And so let’s get something reposting that people agree with the metrics that are going on there. And then as I drive that progress, people see these things, it inevitably they want to do things so that it’s a positive trend. And so that it can be very, very powerful. And then once you begin, guess another difference between an elite organization and an average organization, is the stability of their processes. They so often early in an improvement journey, your processes aren’t stable, so you implement an improvement, and the improvement doesn’t get sustained. And people say, Well, that’s because people are resisting change. But that’s, that’s not usually what’s happening. Usually, there’s other stuff that’s going on, and it’s undermining this, it’s this phenomenal amount of variation that’s taking place and people trying to deal with stuff. They and so if I get those processes stabilized, then that makes being able to see what is going on and all sorts of things, you know, much, much easier.

 

Patrick Adams  28:31

Absolutely. No, that’s completely completely true. And I love that, you know, that clarity of purpose part for a gamble, walk, instead of some of the things that you talked about, you know, just to kind of, I think you talked about, you know, walking the flow path of a product or service. You could be, you could be doing a five s maybe it’s an audit or you know, call it whatever you want. But it could be a safety audit, it could be a wastewater, you mentioned that mean all of the in, in defining that purpose ahead of time. And to your point, you know, I think you said someone you worked with did one on one day and then did a different type of gimble walk on another day. What do you think about when you’re doing gimbal walks? Should they be done alone? Should should you have you know, should be you engaged with I think we talked about engaging with the people that are at the gamba. But is there opportunity for coaching during a gimbal walk as well?

 

29:28

Well, let’s say you’re again, let’s say you’re a first line supervisor. And you’re probably doing those walks by yourself or maybe there’s one other person who’s doing the walks with you. But I think there’s power in the periodically and periodically to me would be let’s say quarterly. The that I have one of the other supervisors that in the area observed my doing the gimbal walk or even my boss if I’ve got a good relationship this there have my boss come in and observe me doing a gimbal walk. And and from that observation I share with them you know, here’s here’s the purpose of this walk And then get some feedback then for my peer are from my leader, on on what’s going on there, they there’s another very, very powerful tool, I’m actually doing a new book called this, we’re gonna be talking about learn to see the invisible, that whole idea of, of practicing to be able to see things tomorrow that we don’t see today. And there’s a, there’s a super simple feedback thing that project teams use all the time called Keep stop start. And so I can do a keep stop, start with my team. So So hey, you know, we’re doing these gimble walks, I’m not hopefully not just doing them to you, the what should we keep? What do you think we should keep doing? Is there anything you think we should stop doing? Is there something that you think we should start doing, which is another way that I could get some, and whenever I’ve done that with project teams, you know, you get a one, a two by two posted, so it’s not a phenomenal amount of feedback, you know, hit the red report, you know, you don’t have to give me one of all three, you know, if you just got to stop or start or whatever, you know, just pop it up there. And the end. So using that, to get some coaching, you know, you know, from from your team, there’s, there’s lots of simple ways that we can go about doing this. But I think periodically having somebody observed what it is you’re doing, and then you know, then you you go observe what it is that they’re doing. That’s pretty simple. And you don’t have to hire a consultant or you know, any of that stuff to come in and come you know, come in and make something happen. Absolutely.

 

Patrick Adams  31:27

I was just thinking as you were talking about, you know, just doing a gimbal walks with your with your boss or with a with a fellow supervisor or whatever it might maybe I was at an organization one time where they had a gimbal lock board. And some some of the I was reading through some of the action items. And one of the action items on the board was pick up the trash in the, in the middle of the floor. And you know, and I looked at the area, and there was some crinkled up paper in the middle of the floor. And I remember because I you know, I’ve worked at many different organizations on on the spectrum, both sides. But I also remember walking through a plant doing a gimble walk with an Executive leader one time, who saw some trash on the floor. And instead of writing it down as an action item, she actually picked it up.

 

32:17

Yes. Which would make sense, right,

 

Patrick Adams  32:19

but I guess I want to ask you like, where do you draw the line? What goes on an action item list? Because I think you and I would be in agreement that the right thing to do is just to go pick up the trash. Right? At what point when you put something on an action item list versus taking care of it yourself when you’re out doing a gimbal walk?

 

32:37

Well, let’s go back to the story that I used earlier about the very good leadership team that was really impressed with what they were doing. The but they were doing work that should have been done by the by the folks in that building. And so the so part of it is what what what is it they were trying to do to to sensitize the people that are on my team are in this case in this building to our processes. What are the things I’m trying to do from from a development perspective, certainly with the trash example, I mean, there’s a, just the mere fact that the executive reaches down and picks that up that that you’ve got a role model that’s there that shows that this isn’t acceptable. And here’s the behavior I’m looking for everybody to be doing. That’s very, very powerful. The and so so doing that, but but you don’t want to trap the leaders into doing things that should be done. I hate talking about from a hierarchy, but by the people that are doing the work in that area, whatever, whatever it is that’s going on. And so from my perspective, the leader is responsible for thinking about why did our process allow this to happen. And the the they were solving the problem or doing the fixes generally 80% of the time should be done by the by the folks that they’re doing the work. And then I’m responsible as a leader to make certain that they’ve got time to be able to do that, that they can’t be. You know, I mean, the problem was notice first line supervisors is number one, we’ve decimated the ranks. So there’s many fewer those and there used to be they’re under there under really phenomenal time pressures. And so if I wanted to be doing these other things, I mean, what is what is it that we’re doing to allow them time to help the organization move towards stabilizing the processes, the you know, to help them have time to be developing their team members. So I’d so I can’t just look at the problem that’s there, but it keeps me I keep needing to go back to the context the situation of the problem. And that’s the challenge. That’s again, the difference between the organization that’s the league and those those that are doing you know, most organizations are not dysfunctional because the dysfunctional organizations disappear. They are most of them do an average you know, okay job of improving they’re not a terrible place to work. The Uh, but they’re there. I mean, the first time I went into an organization that was highly effective at improving it, and I had been doing this work for quite some time. So I think I had enough seasoning, to be able to, to grasp what was going on, I was amazed. I mean, people visited Toyota for, what, 50 years, but very few of them came back to emulate the holistic Toyota system. And that’s because most of them didn’t understand the depths, and all of the things that are going on. And they saw the artifacts. So they saw that they’re doing these, they got these little boards, and they got these, they do these gimbal walks, and they do the standard work thing. And so we come back, and we use those tools. But that isn’t the same thing. That’s not what Toyota is doing. That’s the surface stuff that these guys see. And the, it takes a while I think to you just it’s impossible to deeply understand this stuff at the outset. And so you go through a bunch of learning cycles. And that’s, that’s, that’s part of why most people aren’t elegant and doing it. So, and again, and again, it’s no different from the professional athlete and professional athlete became a pressure because a whole lot of learning cycles, you know, that went on as a long journey that’s there, and we see something that looks elegant. Oh, it’s just a thing of beauty. Oh, that’s where it started.

 

Patrick Adams  36:19

That’s right. Well, and for every organization, they’re learning cycles are going to be completely different dependent on, you know, whether what industry they’re in, what if we’re out in the manufacturing plant versus in a, in a, an operating room or in an office? I mean, the learning cycles are going to be completely different. So understanding that, and the fact that so, you know, again, looking at how Toyota did things versus maybe how other organizations are doing them, just because their gimble walk process maybe ended up a little bit different than Toyotas? That’s okay, because maybe that’s where they’ve developed their toolset based on various learning cycles that they’ve went through.

 

37:03

Absolutely, I mean, I think that learning is what’s that that’s the part that’s so important. I mean, you see these other things, and you can certainly learn from the those things, but the idea isn’t to take them and just, you know, copy them, you know, and hope to do that you need you individually. And then I got to be doing things for the people in my organization to help them develop because at the end of the day, it is culture change. We are it’s so much is the culture change comes from behavior change. And so going through and figuring out what what are the behaviors that I need to change as a leader to move toward this new target that it is that that we’re trying to do. And if I, I think that the, the people that I know that have done this, the most the best, all went through your personal transformations of the way they did what they they did, and and so they made changes first and they made changes, then then they were able to begin to influence others on making change. I can’t just dictate this stuff and have it happen, which is a bummer. Because we’d like to be able to dictate, but I mean, if you’ve ever been a parent, and you tell us talk to your kids, like you’re talking to, like you’re talking to a walk, but if you’re consistent, and if you’re role modeling what it is you’re talking about you you have more influence, you don’t have absolute influence, but you’ve got more influence, if the thing that I’m suggesting to I mean, our our children, understand the values of my wife and I, and they they’ve developed their own similar values that and what they’re doing these parents and the way they’re going about it, I mean, the world is different. There’s tons of stuff that different for their parenting today, you know, from us, but the things that were important, you know, the right, maybe we’re fortunate, but they, we they came away with a reasonable understanding. Right,

 

Patrick Adams  38:56

right. Well, and there’s so much complexity in you know, in everything that we’re talking about, it’s it’s not easy. And this is I’m just bringing it full circle back to what you talked about earlier is that this is hard work. It’s it’s not easy, it does take a lot of intentional effort and consistency. And a willingness to be flexible as learning cycles happen to end up or I guess you never really end up you, you know, become whatever it is, you know, because again, to your point, as things are changing, even our behaviors may need to change in order to match up with where the organization is going, where you know, where things are going. from a technology standpoint. I mean, things are changing continuously. And earlier you mentioned in You’ve also written a couple articles on this, but about keeping your gimble walks fresh. So as we’re working through all of this, and it’s difficult and we’re dealing with people and you know things are happening, how do we keep them The gimbal walks fresh and what do you mean, when you say keeping gimbal? off fresh?

 

40:04

I don’t know, it comes back to something that we’ve touched on previously, the That, to me, if you really go back and have this clarity of purpose of why am I doing why am I doing the walk that that all by itself could give more meaning to what it is that I’m doing at the end. So the, when I’m trying to keep them fresh, I’ve been doing these things for a while. So I got the basic idea of Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to figure out what I’m doing. You know, we go do the walk. Hopefully, I’m doing them in a halfway decent way where I’m showing respect, I’m asking, I’m asking, Okay, questions, the end, and we’re doing these debrief. So that’s kind of the basics that are there, right. So I’ve got this basic set, that’s, that’s going okay. And somebody, somebody does a LinkedIn, Slideshare search for my last name and gimble walks, there’s a deck that’s in LinkedIn fights here, that’s it’s had like 110,000 views that they can they can pull something out that talks about that basic stuff. But what I really now start to do with this laser focus with the so so why is it that I’m going through and doing this, and then just just making it two steps here, the and then how are we progressing toward that, that can really help to keep these things, I think, much more powerful. As you’re doing this, and so you’re, you’re getting very almost laser like things that is that we’re we’re focused on within the organization, to progress us toward what it is that we’re trying to accomplish. At the end of the day, I need to be achieving the results that are important. So this this organization, that we did a site visit earlier this year, they did not become an ame Excellence Award recipient, but we gave them a feedback report, we talked about the gimble walks and a couple of other things. The what they did, though, with this laser like focus is they took the top five recommendations from our report, one of which talked about their things that they could have been doing to increase capacity of the, the the work that they’re doing, talked about the way that this idea of purpose, the they adopted, within a couple of months, they adopted, implemented the top five recommendations that we had, and they on boarded five new customers for their business and onboarding a new customer for their business is a big deal. I mean, it’s, and they’ve got a very good process for onboarding, world class process for doing that. But the, but they didn’t have the capacity for doing that. And so going through and doing that. And I think when you keep these things fresh and meaningful, I’m, I’ve got this laser like focus, and I’m seeing the results that are coming from that. And so there’s a reinforcement there that oh, this this is worthwhile. The way you know that this is working or not is is Do I look forward to doing this? So So if I’m looking at this, and I think oh my goodness, I gotta go do this gimble walk, it’s 10 o’clock in the morning, and I gotta get out there. Well, there’s something wrong with the way that it is that I’m approaching this. So so if you cannot look at this as something that is a worthwhile use of your time, the then then how can I modify this tool in a way that that is going to make it more meaningful for myself and the people that it is that I’m interacting with? And if I get to that spot, and to me that that purpose is one of the things that that helps, and then the feedback loop is keeps keeps me going, that they can become more meaningful? And I’ve seen people do it. Yeah. What a great measure of determining whether or not you’re doing it right or not.

 

Patrick Adams  43:38

Right? Are you finding joy in going out and interacting with with team members and identifying opportunities? Or is it is it a does it cause you you know, headaches? Is it a? Is it a burden? Does it feel like a burden to you? You know, maybe it needs to be refreshed? Love that? Michael, if if people want to get some more information about gimble walks, I’d love to get them access to your book. Where should where should they go to? To get your book?

 

44:08

I Katie Anderson, I’m not a good marketing machine. Katie Anderson, my friend, I know you’ve interviewed Katie Katie’s case, the nominal marketing. So for me again, if you do if you do gimble walks in my last name, and you go to Amazon, you know, the the the book is there. I think it’s I just self publish it. But I think it’s sold more than 10,000 copies since 2016. So for self published thing, it’s not. It’s not it’s not it’s not a New York Times bestseller, but it’s done. Okay.

 

Patrick Adams  44:34

No, that’s great. What we’ll do is we’ll we’ll actually put it in the show notes with a link directly to the Amazon page. So it listeners want to go and grab a copy of your book. They can go right to the show notes, click on the link and and find it there. And then you’re pretty active on LinkedIn. So if someone wants to reach out with a question, would that be the place that they would go? Totally,

 

44:54

totally. I’m happy to do that. You know, I am retired but I’m still quite passionate about the middle what is going on here? I would also suggest if people are not familiar with the association to manufacturing excellence, that I’ve learned a lot from the network that I built there over the years. And one of the exciting things that once we started doing the physical meetings again in the last two years, was how many young people were there any organization? I think we had 1200 attendees at the conference in Cleveland a couple months ago. Yeah. And the there were so many young people there. And when I first got involved with ame, I was in my late 30s. And I formed a network of people that that I know, to this day, and it was invaluable to my learning journey. And so it was the most diversified group of ethnicity, men, women age, I mean, it was just, it was phenomenal. It was, it was I just loved seeing it. Yeah, it’s so to get involved with there are somewhere else where you can go and you can, you know, you can learn that can be very, very powerful to helping you progress in your learning journey.

 

Patrick Adams  46:00

Absolutely. And we’ll put a link to Amy’s page in the show notes as well. So listeners can go there and check out ame Well, thank you for you know, being part of ame you know, for the volunteer work that you did there and you know, just for your continued supportive of the lean community and appreciate you continuing to but you said you have a new another book coming out. So thank you for just sharing your knowledge with with all of us and as we continue to grow and learn. Thanks for being on the show, Michael.

 

Michael Bremer  46:29

Thanks a lot, Patrick. I enjoyed the conversation you take care. Have a great day and best wishes to you for the coming holidays in New Year. Appreciate it.