Catherine McDonald  00:04

Because Lean is changing, the role of the leader is changing. We’re not just going

Andy Olrich  00:08

to flip the switch and expect miracles, and leadership’s such a huge part of that, because it is hard. Change is hard, and if the leaders aren’t there on board as well and going, Oh no, I know this is difficult now, but we need to keep going. I think that’s where it falls apart.

Catherine McDonald  00:19

We know that nothing stays the same. We can’t expect lean to stay the same, I think, for a lot of people to understand how to go from their paper and post it and their written notes, and using those on the floor to transfer to each other to maybe actually in a pretty efficient system in their mind, to understand, well, if we did this digitally, it would be more efficient. But then they struggle with the digital part, with the skills, stock and reflect and look to see where were we, where are we now, and where do we need to go? And we definitely just need to do that more often to be adaptable. I think you Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast led by your host Andy Ulrich and myself. Catherine McDonald, Andy, how are you today? I’m great night. How you going? I’m good. I was just saying to you, I was very busy day. I was a little bit scattered there. I think you were a little bit worried about for you for a second there, but I’m okay. I’m okay, I can do this. Um, we’re here today, and the and it’s actually it’s going to be a good conversation. We’re going to talk about key shifts in Lean and Lean leadership over the past decade or so, and then we’re going to look at trends shaping the future of work for the foreseeable and big topics. And this is actually episode two of this topic. So myself and Shane had a had a chat last week about this particular topic. So today we’re really just going to expand on some of the things we talked about last week. And I just, I was thinking about Lean and my, I suppose, first introduction to it and what I thought lean was, and the difference in what it was versus what I thought it was when I first actually saw lean in in practice, you might say, by people. And I just, I wondered about you and your experience, because I think all of our experiences are different when it comes to lean. So did you have, like, a moment where you just saw lean in practice and went, Oh, that’s what they’re talking about. You know, did that happen? You

Andy Olrich  02:28

Yeah. And it happened a couple of times, which may resonate with some of the listeners. Like, I went into a place and we were, we’re doing Lean and Lean Six Sigma. And I was like, Okay, this is what it is, great. And then went on to and work within that. But then went to another organization, and they went into that deeper, more human cultural side than the previous place. I was like, Oh, wow. Okay, this is what it is. This is what it looks like, and this is how in particular, leaders behave and interact with each other and ourselves. So that was a really good moment, because each step was great. Like, each time I was a step change from how I previously worked in conventional type organizations, but yeah, and how that may resonate with you, Catherine, did you have that moment where it was like, Oh, this is really what this stuff’s about. And then I guess, along with today’s topic, how has that changed? Like, what am I observing now from lean leaders compared to, say, 10 years ago, or when I Yeah, 15 when I had that aha moment? So yeah, that was really it. For me. Was just not just around, yeah, the first one was really tools heavy, and more about, like, we’ll have the tools and we’ll talk to the boards, which was certainly positive in most regards, whereas the second time around, where I really had that light bulb, it was very minimal on the tools, but very strong on the cultural and the time spent in the leadership development. So yeah, there you go. So I’ve had a couple of

Catherine McDonald  03:53

dips similar, I guess you know, when I first started out, I would have obviously spoken with people who were in the the lean business, the lean industry, and and heard stories from them about what they were doing. So I got this kind of mixed bag of what Lean really was, and there was no structure to it at all, and I hadn’t a clue what I was getting myself into. I really found like I sort of have to figure it out for myself along the way. That’s how I felt starting out. And I remember going in and shadowing people and seeing this, I suppose, still happens in practice, because probably is an important part lean, but the whole post, it’s on brown paper, and mapping out a process which is, which is fine, which, you know, I still do sometimes, but it was what happened after that, or what didn’t happen after that, which, which really, I suppose, gave me a false impression of what Lean was about. It’s kind of when I first started, I felt that’s where it sort of stopped. It was this whole mapping it out. This is lovely, and then you come back and the actions and the post its have fallen off the walls, and there’s no documentation anywhere of what was talked about, and everyone’s going, oh yeah, we did that great exercise. And what were we supposed to do? Since there was just, I felt I. Not as much structure as there is now, because we have technology now, because we have even simple, free systems. We have Trello, you know, even if people don’t have their own software systems, and we have places to keep information, and it’s so much easier to go back to what we’ve done and revise it and look at the impact of what we’re doing, because we have better systems. So for me, that’s the biggest thing, it’s this organization around our Lean approach. You know, that’s what I’ve, I guess, witnessed and probably practiced myself. So

Andy Olrich  05:32

it’s a great example, gosh, you know, you almost used to dread leading workshops. You put the stickies up, and then at one place, I was like, Oh, gee, every hour of this in the room, I’ve got an hour in Visio or something, you know, because if I don’t document it now and well, well, how am I even going to distill that to leaders? And if I just tell them, Oh, we kind of talked about this. So that was a little aspect there, I think, to when we talk about technology and things, maybe, maybe I’m jumping ahead here. Sorry, but

Catherine McDonald  06:00

yeah, let’s stick to the structure Andy, definitely, and I do see there’s less of me being, I guess, in conversations with the CEO and senior leadership team, and more of a collaborative approach there with leaders working with teams at tables tops and in on the workshop floor to actually understand what’s happening and and plan together. I do see more of that, which I find very encouraging. So I know our organizations are not perfect. There’s not enough of that happening, but I do see more of it happening, so I’m glad of that. So yeah, definitely some some shifts along the way, in how things are done. So I guess I mean in terms of the last decade then, and how lean has evolved. And myself and Shane talked about the key principles of Lean, and we talked about things like, you know, we know the principles of Lean, and we know about importance of value to the customer, the importance of pool systems. All we know what the principles are, and they’re all still relevant, but we did talk about how those principles may need to evolve or be adapted to take into account just the pace of change and the importance of, I guess, innovation in organizations, and not just problem solving. So that was kind of where we were going, myself, in shame when we talked about the changes. Andy, what do you think when it comes to, let’s say, Lean principles, or what we’re teaching people about lean or what people are picking up? Do you think what we’re doing there needs to evolve in any way or change? A lot of people say we get it wrong as well, and we should be looking at Toyota Production System and not separating lean out from that. So what do you think on on all of that?

Andy Olrich  07:44

Yeah, so it’s ongoing and very active conversations. And if you sort of follow this stuff, look, I’ll just talk about sort of how I see it and what I kind of think about it. Also, listeners come at me with your wet newspapers, if you will. But I really think, yeah, there are some things in the essence of speed and tech and trying to maybe sell it to some parts of the world that have never been interested before. We may leave some things behind, those core foundational principles that really what the difference was between the Toyotas and those who called it lean and kind of pushed it into the into organizations, and left some of that behind. I think more adapt, I think is the word. So I think you know that there’s going to be evolution in a lot of ways of working, but I think the way we adapt it, I think having things, you know, disruption, disruptors like COVID, the how we interact, utilizing the principles, the tools, the methods and the approaches that some of that stuff got tipped on its head. And, you know, for example, if the daily stand up meetings very paper based if people physically couldn’t be in the room, we still wanted to follow the process and the outcomes and get those cultural benefits. But we had to shift how we actually, you know, utilize things at our disposal to still make that happen. Okay, so I think there’s some adaptability there. I think the other thing that’s that’s in some ways, made it a bit easier for for other, I guess, crafts or industries, to connect with this is like when you’ve had the rise of things like agile and and Scrum, for example, a lot of those more physical, tactile things, you look at that and go, Oh, yeah, we do that in Lean, like the mapping and the all those things that do collaborative workshops. I think a lot of them have risen up in a lot of other areas of business that we can then go, hey, yeah, and we just add a bit of this, and look, we’re working it’s integration of lean, not just we work lean, and then we do Agile. So I think, yeah, definitely, the last 10 years has been some disruptors that have forced us to innovate in how we do it. I think there’s examples of, yeah, where we’ve left behind some of the slower burn cultural things that really made lean organizations close to you know how Toyota’s really been able to hit. Stick with this stuff and and make it their way of working in a standout but, yeah, there’s, I think, yeah, for me, coming, looping back on that. For me, the word is more adaptation, not so much evolution, because I still believe in all of those things before Toyota, you know, got, got into it, respect for people, you know how servant leadership, all of those things, I think you go back 1000 years, those those cultures that really thrived and did well and made really big change. They had all that there in my in my opinion. So there you go, there’s a there’s a dump, and maybe LinkedIn will light up and people will come for me. But there you go. You are. I mean, everything you’re saying makes sense in

Catherine McDonald  10:39

terms of what we need to be doing is looking for the parallels, the things that work, no matter what you call it like. I know a lot of people now wouldn’t be calling it lean or what they’re doing anything related to Toyota, because they’re not Toyota, but they call it, you know, the McDonald’s business system, or the, you know, whatever. But they, I mean, we can, we can use the word lean if it’s a positive thing and it helps us to understand, you know, a certain way of doing things, that if it works for you, fine, if it doesn’t, don’t use it. Find another way. But the main thing is that we do those, I suppose, fundamental principles that work across that we know to work across every organization, like respect for people and a focus on continuous improvement, and all those things you talked about that we are not ignoring those that we are building on those, and that’s definitely what’s important. And there’s lessons, of course, that we can learn from the likes of Toyota, who you know, did did that very well. So, yeah, I mean, there’s lots of changes that are happening. I like the word adaptability, because I think that’s what we’re going to have to do definitely over the next 10 years, because we’ve had to do it over the last 10 and we know that nothing stays the same. We can’t expect lean to stay the same. I think your point on yes more going digital, that’s been a big change for a lot of people. It’s been a struggle, I think, for a lot of people, to understand how to go from their paper and post its and their written notes and using those on the floor to transfer to each other to maybe actually in a pretty efficient system in their mind, to understand, well, if we did this digitally, it would be more efficient. But then they struggle with the digital part, with the skills to use the technology, and that then holds everything up, and people go, Well, this is not efficient at all, but it was that it’s that gap of that change in knowledge how to make the change. So I do think that’s definitely been a, been a been a shift. I think as well, we’re seeing more organizations go, I suppose, interested in Lean and the idea of Lean outside of manufacturing. So there’s definitely more organizations. As I said to you guys before, in Ireland, we have this Lean for micro and there’s hundreds of our small medium organizations, 1000s, I should say, availing of these government incentives to become lean and have lean mentors and all of this. And it’s actually coming out of a really good, good impact at the end. So definitely, definitely things are changing, and you’ve already mentioned what I was going to say about the people side, and more and more focus on that as well. So it’s good to do this, isn’t it? It’s good to just stop and reflect and look to see where were we, where are we now, and where do we need to go? And we definitely just need to do that more often to be adaptable? I think,

Andy Olrich  13:21

yeah, I think if we’re, we’re real about this, the plan, do Check, Act cycle. It’s, yeah, I know that there’s, you know, we do naturally as humans. We hold on to those ways of working because that work do you if we change? You know, this is why I think change management is such a fundamental part of what we do. And it’s, it’s just showing that connection, you know, talk about it more from outcomes. And this is what the culture looks like. This is how you may, you may feel, and what your behaviors and how you treat it. All of that, for me, is, is part of the value proposition. But then the other parts are showing those case studies to say, you know, I always have some some really good conversations around, if it’s with healthcare, it’s like, oh yeah, we’re not we’re not making anything is usual. Things that get tossed up in, you know, when talking about lean to people who may not be that familiar with what it is. It’s like, Yeah, but, you know, it’s linking it to what we have a finance department, we have a human resources department, we have supply chain, we have, we have customers, internal and external. It’s just, we’re just doing some different things with it. So I think I find to have a lot more cut through, especially in the leadership space, when we talk and tie to outcomes, and in particular positive ones, and say, yeah, that’s, that’s really what we’re talking about. And like the digital piece, yeah, some people, they go all digital, and we have, we plug it in, and no one’s trained. So it’s like that. It’s with this continuous improvement stuff. It’s look, we’re going to have a change of how we do this, but we’re going to make sure before we do that, that we have the right skills. We have some support there. We’re not just going to flip the switch and expect miracles and leadership such a huge part of that, because that it is hard. Change is hard, and if the leaders aren’t there on board as well and going, Hey, no, no, I know this is difficult now, but we need to keep going. I think. That’s where it falls apart. So yes, it’s that change piece and, and how, as humans, we find that hard. But what’s in it for me, and that’s I think that helps keep people interested and and even go on to want to do it. So, yeah, definitely.

Catherine McDonald  15:16

So yes, I mean the role because Lean is changing. The role of the leader is changing. And just wanted to go back to the point on the on how Lean is changing. I think it’s overall. For me, it’s this move away from Lean is about eliminating of waste. You know, it’s about all about streamlining and efficiency. It is about those things. It’s not just about those things. And I think that’s the mistake that’s often made. When people just hear the word lean, they just think of that. And so it’s just going way beyond that. Now it’s, you know, it’s taken, it’s taken a much more holistic view, which is great, but now the role of the leader who wants practice lean in a certain way has to change as well, doesn’t it doesn’t like it makes the I guess, if the role was originally about just efficiency and driving efficiency and streamlining processes, that is quite I guess, let’s say a little bit command and control ish, because you’re just looking for outputs and cuts and results, whereas it’s not just about that anymore. And do you think Andy that, you know, there are lean leaders out there who maybe struggle a little bit to see their role beyond the driving of efficiency.

Andy Olrich  16:32

Yeah. So I think couple of things there, you know, there’s some leaders that are very much in the technical space. It is about hard numbers and, and, of course, yeah, part of it is delivering results and positive outcomes. There’s a couple of things moving around, though, in more the human side of things, like I said, with the change piece. But also, I mean, here in Australia, it’s very tight labor market, still amongst inflation and all those sorts of things. So the value proposition for employees in some organizations has changed compared to, again, talk about competitors. Other organizations may be offering some things there. So I think it’s really, yeah, there’s, there’s more of a look. We might be the highest performing organization on paper. However, that may not be enough for someone or the the leaders being directed to. For one example is psychological safety legislation that’s now in place in Australia, okay? There is a lot of, yeah, it’s law that organizations shall not should have these things in place, and there’s actual some harder governance around that. So that’s where I say, Oh, well, when you talk about inclusion or respect for people or things. Here is a bit more of a stick now to say, look, if we’re doing some of that, we kind of have to if it feels, looks and feels a bit fluffy or fuzzy, and we’re spending more time to have those deeper conversations, or we’ll get them to help us as leaders understand how we should communicate and what some of the other measures could be that may drive the right behaviors. Yeah, there’s, that’s one example of where it’s, it’s, it’s not just about the dollar and the numbers, which are important, but it’s like, there’s a real human part of the workforce that’s that’s legislated, that you can’t just, yeah, command and control, I think is a term that you use there, like lean forces us to be collaborative. It’s not top down. It’s bottom up as well, and and everywhere in between. So that’s where I think, yeah, it is a bit of a shift for some leaders, where they go well, that I won’t go to lean because what I saw over here was, Oh, we’re all, you know, we’re going to do all these walks, and I have to be out there holding their hand every day. And that’s what I think it is. Whereas the organizations that we’ve mentioned, some of it’s like, how are you guys, what? What’s your secret? Like, why are you powering on, and why are people coming here for less money, or why are people sticking around and all of those things. And again, it’s kind of like the integration of, you know, we are comes with the company’s got to get here, and we’re losing money, for example, but it’s like, yeah, this is also here, if we can stick with it, or introduce a bit more of that. So it’s such a Yeah, again, the human aspect of Lean is what I love about it, and that’s really not so much of a choice now for organizations that may have been in the past.

Catherine McDonald  19:18

Wow, I’m I did. I’m just amazed. I don’t know what how I feel about that. I’m sort of disappointed that we had to make it to do I actually kind of get it because I don’t. I think it’s not working. People are leaders. I guess there’s a lot of leaders, like I said, struggling with that aspect of leadership. But I guess if you make something a rule, you have to abide by it, maybe you will learn how to do it. I just, yeah. I’m just, it

Andy Olrich  19:49

is, yeah. It’s kind of like, Oh, do we really need that? It’s like, we have work health and safety legislation. Come on. We should be looking after each other. But I think it sort of points more back to an agreed in force. Standard is a lot of that legislation, it’s like, well, here’s some actual guardrails. Instead of Bob thinks being psychologically safe is tipping a bucket of water on someone, because that means that I like you mate, as opposed to someone saying that you will provide an EAP, you will have, you know, XYZ training, it per year, all these sorts of things. I’m not across the legislation, but that’s really more about psychologically safe. We define it like this, and it means this. So as leaders like the Work Health and Safety, if you don’t do that, you could end up in front of a magistrate, in some cases, so eyes on. I know you may not want to do it, but yeah, we’ve had to put this in because you kids aren’t playing nice. That’s how we work. We

Catherine McDonald  20:44

are struggling. I mean, we look at Gartner’s research every year, and, yeah, the results are getting worse every year. People, according to them, people are are less engaged, less committed. It’s, I don’t know. It’s like we know more. We know what we should be doing. We’ve got great understanding of all this, this research and concepts like psychological safety and trust, but the implementation of it is just declining. Even those more focus on it. It’s a hard one to understand. Well,

Andy Olrich  21:15

it could be, you know, in some cases, like with digital we could be throwing too much of it at it, or we’re doing trying to do too many things and try and be too clever with it, and we over govern or over legislate. You know that could be happening, but it’s just, yeah, it’s that, it’s that pendulum, right? We never know until we take it for a walk in an organization of how it’s truly going to react. And that could be positive or, gee, hang on. We’ve kind of, we’ve for where we were. We’ve taken, you know, we’ve taken a sledgehammer to the organization, when really, we’ve we Yeah, now, knowing what we know, we could have maybe staged a bit more. And that’s, that’s again, but I just think, yeah, it’s um, maybe too much is not enough in some cases,

Catherine McDonald  21:58

yeah. And then, so that’s, one aspect that we’re maybe the maybe the law will help in your case, but we don’t have that. We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes in Australia, and we’ll see if we’ll take it. What’s your thoughts on digital lean? Right? Because we have these programs in Ireland. We have lean, lean for micro, and then we have the digital, let’s say Digi package, whatever, for Lean, and that’s all about digital transformation. But the messages that I’m hearing back are the companies that are going for the digital because they want to be digital, should be doing the Lean programs first, but they’re not. They’re skipping that, and they’re going straight into digital. And what’s happening is then they almost have to go backwards and take a step and use Lean to understand their processes, standardize their processes before they can actually, you know, understand what the best possible process looks like, and, you know, roll it out so they’re trying to, as we all often hear about, take processes that are inefficient and digitize them. I don’t know. I mean, it just seems overwhelming in in terms of the amount of time that that I hear that’s happening. What’s it like over in Australia? Oh, yeah,

Andy Olrich  23:06

we do it well. And it’s one of those things, again, what you know, the core thinking and the foundations around Lean is about, you know, just take that time to understand the customer and current state, where you are now. Yeah, yeah, the old saying, measure twice, cut once in particular. When it comes to, let’s say, digital tools and resources, it’s so amazing you can, you can have so much more visibility, connectivity and efficiency. However, if you’re just jumping in and just automating it to be, you know, showing that we’re progressive, oh yeah, there’s some really good examples of where we miss that, whereas, if it’s just that little moment before, and I personally get turned away in some of these spaces, because it’s like, Oh, here he comes. We’re gonna have to, he’s gonna get the sticky notes out. We look, we’ve got the software. We want to just start putting it in, and we’ll adapt be agile over time.

Catherine McDonald  23:58

Oh yeah. People are skipping me as well to go to the Yeah.

Andy Olrich  24:02

They go, Oh, here comes, you know, someone, here comes, Mr. Green Belt. I’m like, hang on a minute. That’s it’s like, it’s like getting an apprentice. And this is no disrespect, like I need to be treated like this, right? It’s like, when they turn up on the job, yeah, as an electrician, I was given a pair of pliers and two different types of screwdrivers. And they said, we’ll see how you go with that, before we start throwing other things at you. Okay, if you can’t handle these things, and I, you know, just to see where you’re at, no way am I going to let you loose on all these other things, because too much, too soon. Or yeah, this guy gets it away. He goes, so, and I think that’s with digital too, is it’s infinite, the amount of things that we can do, and we should be using it, okay? I find it’s such a help to me in my role as a practitioner. Yeah, but there’s other things there, where I go. We look, we do, we jump straight in and we don’t do that. Get Fit piece that before we transform. It’s like, well, hang on, is our data clean? Are we just kind of, are we sure that this is the right thing to do without bogging down too much, either? Again, lean is like, well, hang on, let’s just recognize that the things for what they are. Now, why are we even doing this? Do we even need to automate or we just have no standard, and no one’s been trained in one way, and that’s the Lean thinking coming through. So, oh yeah, you’ve got me started now, but I everywhere, and I think, yeah, it’s an issue. When they try and reverse engineer it, they’ve got some great bas where I am, business analysts, and one of their big gripes is we get told to automate and we get a time put on us. We deliver it’s not what they wanted. And then we’ve got to reverse engineer the process. Then, as you said, to find out where the bugs are, and then we discover that there’s five different spreadsheets that feed into this data set that we’re pulling from and creating the nice dashboard for. So it drives and bonkers, and they they always feel like, I wish we could have more time to do a little bit of this thinking. So when you get the Yeah, that’s that’s, I’ll stop. That’s a yes that’s consistent with what happens down here in parts or

Catherine McDonald  26:02

in the same boat. So, yeah, okay, all right. Well, look, I mean, it’s good to talk about this, because if we do have listeners in the same I guess situation, they’ll understand maybe that. Okay, well, we have options, you know, and there is a path. And actually one of the things I’ve started using which is really helpful. So I used to use this maturity matrix when I went into an organization, and I used to ask them questions to figure out what level of maturity they’re at. So one being, I guess, totally disorganized, no systems, no SOPs, no nothing happening when it comes to a kind of a quality management system, and all the way up to level 234, and five. And I realized lately that I didn’t have much in my maturity matrix to take into account the digital side, because it all happened really quickly over the space of, like, really a couple of years. A lot changed. And so I went back to my matrix, and I’m starting to try and ask the right questions. And really the questions are to help organizations think about where they’re at, what they don’t have and what they need. And I think sometimes that’s just what’s missing, taking me and my approach out of it, but we don’t ask the questions to help us understand where we’re at and what we need. We just see the shiny objects and we go for them. It’s like we need people on our teams who who play that devil’s advocate role, who say, Hold on here. You know, let’s work. Let’s talk through this. Let’s look at our options. Are you sure that’s the right option? And again, that’s back to psychological safety, where we feel safe enough to put our hand up and go, What are you thinking going for this? We’re not ready for this. If it seems like nobody’s saying this,

Andy Olrich  27:48

yeah, and I think, where does you know we’re on the digital lens at the moment? But how this is tied to Lean leadership? Absolutely, it’s such a critical thing a because of how much it’s coming in all areas of business, and leaders need information at a glance. They need to be, you know, the rate of change, and what are our competitors doing? So I think it’s such a key thing, and that maturity is so important, like this, projects or companies that come and deploy lean or we need to save this much money in 12 months, and there’s no Well, hang on, where exactly are we now and don’t have that opportunity to discover that we’re not even measuring things, that we’re putting targets on, you know well, and all those sort of we’re setting expectations without, actually, yeah, knowing those numbers even and too little. Yeah,

Catherine McDonald  28:34

it sounds like I’m separating lean and digital. I’m actually not. I’m actually I’m just making the point that a true Lean approach stops and looks at what’s currently happening. It looks at the measures, it looks at the options. It involves people to understand people’s capabilities and competencies, and if digital is the right thing, we go for the new software or whatever app or whatever AI, we can bring in and automate parts of our process. If we can do that, we do but when you skip all of the basic, you know, lean stuff, fundamental of involving people and asking those questions, and that’s where the problems lie, really so it’s not about one versus the other or seeing them as separate. It really is just doing it properly, which I feel is is not so well, yeah.

Andy Olrich  29:25

And just looping back to that, how everything else is moving around. It like we don’t really have a choice anymore, whether we go digital or not in some way. You know that it’s just happening with everything else. And if we’ve got bespoke boards out on the floor, and they don’t talk to any other ERP, or anything you’ve got in the that might be good for a training, you know, sort of a thing that needs to be some sort of transition, and that that that involves digital, whether we like it or not, and it’s absolutely leadership in this space, is so important to not only recognize that, but if we’re going too far into digital, I can spot that and go, hey. Getting away from what, you know, our magic is in this organization, with our culture and our people, and that’s we’ve got to find. We just got to integrate this, and we’re going to stick with some of this old, boring stuff whilst we work that out. So, yeah, no, it’s such a critical thing. And yeah, I know exactly where you’re coming from.

Catherine McDonald  30:16

It’s like, it’s discipline to, you know, follow the right process. It’s the same way you would invest in anything big in your life. You follow a process of looking at, you know, options, looking at reviews, working it out. But, you know, you don’t just jump in and hand your money over. But businesses seem to, you know, not always get that. So look, for the most part, I think a lot of companies are doing really well, and they have made some really good changes. It’s, I guess, just a reminder that look, if you’re making the change, follow the follow the right steps in doing so, and save yourself the hassle and save employees the stress of not doing it the right way. Because when senior leaders, let’s say, decide to invest in something without involving the rest of the team, without, you know, asking them what they think, without understanding if they have the skills to work it, then that is stressful, and we don’t need that. And that creates well being issues and health issues and people not showing up for work, and all of the things that distract us away from actually doing work, proper work. And so, I mean, just, I guess, Andy, just to finish up, on, on, on the the Lean leadership side when it comes to people then, and our approach to people and taking into account everything we’ve talked about, about changes and technology and the new, all of the new things we have to learn and train our teams in, and involve our teams in. What do you think going forward lean leaders should focus on, on the people side, so to maybe improve for where, where we’ve got at this point with, with trying to involve people, what’s, what’s, what’s the next level up for us in terms of people, involvement and respect for people?

Andy Olrich  31:57

Yeah, I think it’s just again, there is that little touch point about, well, where are, where are we now really, and whether that’s within an organization or, you know, as a country, or not going there, but it’s just like, Yeah, I think recognizing the rate of change in other aspects, outside of what these People come to do every day and and what an emerging trends like, what are people using in other spaces to assist them with, you know, connecting or keeping up with some other things? I just yeah, the next level, really, as I said, it’s being adaptable. Yeah, not, not leaving things behind in the in, just in the essence of progress, but, yeah, how are people doing? Because it’s not just the workplace that I think we’re having a lot of things pushed onto us, change wise. And you know, what’s the next big disruptor? I just think it’s keeping your eyes open as leaders, being really connected with your people still getting across thing, yeah, trying to unpack. But why do we need things like this legislation? What are we doing so wrong? And how can I sit as a leader, detect when that’s maybe starting to occur here, or my own behaviors? Uh, yeah, I think it’s more connectivity and adaptability with the people. How are they is there an easy way to interact with my people and connect with them? Or actually, we’ve got too excited. And, yeah, we’ve got to dial it back a little bit, but we can show why that’s important. So it’s not really a, probably a great answer, and then probably can’t put my finger right on it, but it’s, that’s how I feel. I mean, what? What do you think

Catherine McDonald  33:33

the word adaptability is really important? I think, you know, you mentioned it at the start, and you’re back to it now, and I agree with you like we and we have to understand that everybody’s different, and everybody’s needs are different, and when it comes to lean and change and improvement and all of these things, we have to understand how it’s affecting each person. And the only way to do that is to spend time with people. Know, our people, like you said, for sure. And I get all of that, you know. I think it’s, it’s really, really important, and I think that’s where, probably where our coaching approach comes in, and maybe the structure around ensuring that we have one to ones with people regularly. I know I talk about this all the time, but I just can’t emphasize enough the impact it has when you as a leader, just make time for person people, each person at least once a month, and you check in and you say, look, how are things going? How are you getting on with that issue? Since we spoke last? Did you try that? Did it work? Okay, let’s, let’s look at a note from another angle. What else do you think? I think if we’re not stopping to do these things, it people are finding it very hard to develop themselves, and in light of everything that’s going on around them, they’re just trying to get through work. They’re not making time to develop themselves. So I think the biggest job of the leader right now is this whole spending time with people and developing them, so developing a whole team of problem solvers and innovators. And it not just being on the leader to lead us through all this, whatever’s going on. In life. So I do think that’s important, and I do think probably a better understanding of what wellbeing looks like for people, what it means to people, and asking people those questions, because very quickly, I was running a strategic planning meeting the other day, well, it was like a workshop, and we were trying to put a strategy together based on a few key goals. But one of the goals that we decided to put into the strategy was this building a high performing team, because there was goals around profits, those goals around marketing, those goals around a lot of things. But you know, I suppose my point to the team was, if we can’t communicate and we can’t collaborate, we can’t work together and get on together professionally and be productive together. We’re never going to achieve any of these other goals that are going to, you know, be the important results for the business. But you know, this team had never stopped to talk about things like trust or constructive conflict or accountability. They never had these conversations. And they’ve been working together 10 years. So when we talk about what this looks like in practice, it’s about bringing these goals around, how we work together and how we collaborate and communicate, and what are we going to do? What are we agreeing as a team, the behaviors that are in, the behaviors that are out. It’s actively working on these things and making them a concrete goal, which I think is not happening. I think it’s all pie in the sky and talk about engagement and trust, and I don’t think it’s filtering into strategy and actually actions for teams. I don’t know if you find that, but that’s what I’m finding. And I just think if we if we want things to change, we have to look at that part as well, and we we have to be the kind of leaders that are not afraid to get into those uncomfortable sometimes conversations. So that’s my thinking on it.

Andy Olrich  36:50

Yeah, that strategic alignment piece. So, you know, if an organization has values, yeah, traditionally, they can be a poster on the wall or something that we we talk to potential employees about or, Hey, that’s not in line with our values, but that’s kind of whatever I think it might mean. Or I think I’m living the values, whereas, yeah, how we actually make that more deliberate and becomes part of assessing projects, or whether we even start or even stop something is like, okay, there are ways that we’ve applied some weighting around a particular value or a driver in the organization that may not be a super tangible number on at the top level, but it’s like, okay, we really recognize that we may not be as collaborative as what we need to be, and we can show a link that this thing’s going wrong over here that may put us at risk. Right? So what we want to do is, there’s five projects financially, you know, customers all want them. Which one are we going to do first? Well, this one here has also got some things there that are actually going to force us to work on our collaboration. And there should be some additional benefits. Maybe that one gets a higher score overall. And I think that’s absolutely right as some organizations, you know, I’ve been in organizations where they put the values up on the first slide, and I’ll have people in the room going, Yeah, I’m out there busting my butt, right? It’s, it’s so yeah, that we are, I think we are moving forward in that space. But, yeah, you’ve got to connect it into some strategic, deliberate activity or initiative that it’s not so much a choice anymore, but we make sure that we show what good and bad looks like. So yes,

Catherine McDonald  38:27

I agree. Yes, yes. And that’s probably where your government are going with psychological safety. We actually and that’s probably how they came to that conclusion. So yeah, I’m starting to get it. Okay. So Andy, had you anything else you wanted to add into the discussion, because I think our time is nearly

Andy Olrich  38:44

up. I just for Lean leaders. I consider myself again LinkedIn land, or whoever come after me, I consider myself a Lean leader. It’s just I don’t know. My key message for myself and others I talk to is like, just relax. No Who knows what’s going to be happening in two years time? We’ve done a lot of good things to get to this point, when it comes to Lean leadership and all those things that we’re talking about, just be Yeah, just try and be open to new ideas. Make sure that you’re connecting. But also, yeah, don’t feel like we have to be absolutely the first to take everything that’s shiny, either it’s yeah, just recognize that you’re going alright. And if you’ve got the core foundations and principles and you’re doing it somewhere consistently, that’s that’s a lot better than some other places out there. So keep going. And yeah, hopefully in a few years time, we’re all still here talking about it as passionately as we are now. So yeah, that’s how I feel. Well

Catherine McDonald  39:41

said. Well said, yeah, absolutely agree. Andy, it was so lovely talking to you as always, and thanks to our audience for listening in, and we will see you next time on the Lean solutions podcast. Bye for now.