Patrick Adams  00:04

Where do you strike a balance between standardization and flexibility?

Adam Lawrence  00:09

So we put in standardization to remove variation, so we’re using the flexibility as in your creative

Andy Olrich  00:14

problem solving. So again, it’s that it’s a key part around whatever process we’re in that that people piece that you talked about it, are they we’re connected? Are they doing it just out of compliance, or they’re all in saying,

Adam Lawrence  00:26

I am going to empower my team to solve a problem, and then I’m going to have their back in every step of the way of this process. So if you don’t believe in your people, you don’t have that true leadership, you music.

Patrick Adams  00:49

Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. I am your host, Patrick Adams, and I’m joined by another one of our hosts, Andy Ulrich from Australia. Andy, how’s it going? Good night. Good to be back. How are you I’m doing great. We are currently in the middle of a big snowstorm here in Michigan, so we got a lot of school closings going on right now and and the snow is coming down. It’s we’re supposed to get quite a bit over the next 24 hours. So it’s, it’s a little chilly out there right now.

Andy Olrich  01:17

Okay, sounds nice.

Patrick Adams  01:21

I’m looking forward to spring break. Not too much longer. Here we’ll be, we’ll be heading out on spring break, and we, lot of us, Michiganders, go down to Florida for spring break, so kids are off school, and that’s always a good time.

Andy Olrich  01:34

Great.

Patrick Adams  01:36

Yeah, so today Andy, we’re going to be talking about process, specifically the process perspective. And I’m excited about our guests that we have coming on today. But before we bring our guest to stage here, I want to ask you a question, process or people, where do we focus first? Or is it both? What are your thoughts on that,

Andy Olrich  02:02

definitely, definitely, I lean to, yeah, quite in the middle. But I am really people focused. I’d put people first, put them in the lead, and then, yeah, how we can then support them to come into the process or create a better process or a new process. So, yeah, I really, I’m really passionate about putting the people at the heart and then, yeah, getting them involved in the process to help improve it. So that’s all my thoughts. Love it. Well, I’m excited

Patrick Adams  02:30

to hear from our guests. Do you want to do a quick intro as we bring our guests to the stage?

Andy Olrich  02:37

Absolutely. So he’s back talking earlier, before we came on, that it’s, it’s kind of like an annual thing to have this guy out. And we love having him. We get a lot of good feedback. It’s Adam Lawrence. And Adam is the creator of the wheel of sustainability. And he’s also the manifest, the managing director our process improvement partners, decades of experience all over the world. He’s done some really cool stuff, and I’m going to throw it to you. Adam, welcome to the to the show again, and I’ll let you go tell us a bit more about you. Well,

Adam Lawrence  03:07

first of all, thanks for having me back on, Patrick and Andy. It’s great to see you guys again. Always a pleasure. So a little bit about me. So you can see I call myself a Kaizen ninja, right? So I love running Kaizen events. I am totally focused on very focused improvement, with teams trying to solve problems they’ve never solved before in a very short period of time. So I’m an inch wide, a mile deep love to just do that done hundreds of them around the world. Never cease to it never ceases to amaze me what people can do. And so the way I look at it is I help businesses grow their profits through sustainable process improvement. And the image of a ninja comes from the fact that it’s all them, not me. So I empower the teams and give them voice and give them ways of thinking so that they can solve their problem and own the solution and then sustain it.

Patrick Adams  04:02

Love it, love it. Adam, can I? Can I just jump in and kick us off with maybe a first question we’re going to be talking about process specifically, just process optimization, process improvement in general. I kind of hit Andy with a question the beginning, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on people or process. Where do we focus, first and and then after that? Let’s start. Let’s let’s unpack this a little bit. Talk a little bit more about just process optimization. So what are your thoughts on that people or process? So

Adam Lawrence  04:39

I’m going to edge way over towards the people. So here’s where I am on this if you get people excited, aligned, engaged, inspired, they can move mountains, right? So if you can help them see a process and make them feel comfortable and psychologically safe about hey, we can. Be something about this, then they will and you just, I know we’ve all seen these amazing breakthrough results, but it’s all about engaging those people to feel like they do have a voice, and they do have a say and and will have their back so that the changes they make will help not just them, but their company, their their co workers, their customers, then let’s focus on the process that we want to improve, right?

Patrick Adams  05:26

And just to expand on that a little bit too. So in past prior episodes, we’ve talked a lot about your book The Wheel of sustainability. Where would people fall into? The wheel is, do they Is there a specific area that they would fall into, or is it all encompassing? Where do they fall?

Adam Lawrence  05:46

Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, there’s some obvious spots, but everything we do in the wheel is to improve the experience for the people doing the work. Okay, so the wheel is all about sustaining a change. That’s a change for the better. That’s what Kaizen is trying to be changed for the better. So of course, that impacts the people that do the work. Now it’s more obvious in a few spots, clear benefits, the bottom the fifth spoke of the wheel. Basically what we’re saying here is the change we make must be seen as beneficial to the person doing the work, or they’re not going to follow the change, right? So it’s very clear and very quick to find out, are they really doing it, or are they doing it just when the managers or the leaders are watching, right? But all the other spokes are doing this, the leadership commitment piece, this piece in the middle saying, I am going to empower my team to solve a problem, and then I’m going to have their back in every step of the way of this process. So if you don’t believe in your people, you don’t have that true leadership commitment. So again, I could bore you with every spoke of the wheel and how it fits people, but I think those are the two areas that are perhaps the most obvious to me. Never

Andy Olrich  06:53

boring. Adam, never boring. But yeah, and we’ve had in previous episodes too. We’ve talked about soft skills in this season, this year in particular, around failures and learning from or reframing failures. So again, it’s that, it’s that key part around whatever process we’re in, that that people piece that you talked about it, are they, yeah, if we’re connected, are they doing it just out of compliance, or they they’re all in and and you do a lot of great stuff with with getting people on that journey. So certainly, certainly not boring in my in my book, all right, we love to talk about case studies and examples. I’d love for you, if there’s one. Now that we’re into this topic, is there something that jumps out from you and your experience in your career around this, this topic of getting that balance right, or a key learning, bringing people into the process and showing them, you know, showing others the power of the person. Can you can you talk about one of those for us? Oh,

Adam Lawrence  07:51

absolutely. So had many, many experiences. So I’ll just do something very recent. The last few months, I’ve been conducting a number of what I call center lining and reliability Kaizen for some clients. So basically, in a manufacturing facility, as you guys know, we fight our process all the time, right? We were, we work with what we’re given, and we do our best, but we’re fighting. So this particular manufacturer is an extruder of a product, and it’s a it’s supposed to be a straight line. Okay, it was not so I’m teaching how to straighten the line up, lock things down, get the same heights, level equipment, level rollers, all these things. So at the beginning of these Kaizen events, you know, the team, which is made up the core group, is the people that run the process. So the operators, the hourly technicians, and I always have a couple mechanics, because we’re going to do some work on the equipment. We’re going to do it very quickly. So they’re very skeptical. Hey, we’ve been fighting this thing for years. Our OEE, I’m going to make an assumption that people know what that is. Maybe I’m wrong. Was like 50% which is chaotic. Okay, this is not a good number. This is not a good number.

Patrick Adams  09:00

Most organizations shoot for over 85 right? I mean, that’s, that’s what they dream for, yeah. So 50% is quite a quite a ways from there. Let’s call that chaos

Adam Lawrence  09:10

so I could buy eyeballs tell that the equipment wasn’t lined up, it wasn’t level, it wasn’t square, it wasn’t straight, it wasn’t centered. All that kind of stuff. They, however, would keep fighting, jams, twisting, bowing, etc, things like that. Okay, so I’m teaching them these methods, and of course, day one, they’re skeptical, right? Why would you think that this guy comes in with all this energy, ball of twine, a plum Bob, a level and some various other old school equipment, and we’re going to get major improvement results. Well, now I’ve taught them some ways to look at their line. We go out and we’re looking at it running, and now they’re seeing all these issues. Hey, this doesn’t look straight. This doesn’t look square exactly. So we shut the line down. We run a string from the beginning of the line. All the way to the end. We find out the end is eight and a half inches out of center, and the products not 10 inches wide. So this is not good. So now they’re seeing it, right? So all of a sudden, we’re squaring up equipment. They’re seeing the things that they’ve been fighting they can do something about. Nobody is stopping us. We’re physically moving equipment, leveling equipment, you know, doing all these things. And by the second day, the line’s running better than anybody has ever seen before. And now they’re fighting for locking it down, pinning it in place, putting it in their pm system, creating audits, doing all these things. So where am I going with this? So I took in her third day, one of the gentlemen that was working with us in Mississippi. So I’ve been to five of these one client’s locations. I’m teaching him this so they can do this themselves, because anybody can get a ball twine, right? Not a hard thing to do. He comes up to me and he says, You screwed up, you gave me hope. And I looked at him, I’m like, What do you mean by that? Because he goes, now I believe they really do care about what I think they are really listening to me, we can make these changes, and it’s going to help me. I said, well, then if that’s what’s screwing up is, let’s screw up some more. So we just just had so much fun with that. And what’s, what’s very, you know, heartening through all of this is that this company is now taking this strategy of, we’re going to fix all of our lines. There’s dozens of them around the country, and they can do this. Anybody can get a strain, anybody can get a plum bum, anybody can do this? It was, I was their first guy to kind of prove it out to them, and now they’re all believers. And what are we waiting for? We can do this. They’ve got our backs. It doesn’t cost money, it just costs time, and it’s going to be well worth it. So the up shop, 50% went to 75% and they’ve held that as the minimum since then. Wow, jams went from 55 a month to less than five a month. Anything over zero is bad. I get that, but things are still going to go wrong, because we didn’t get to 85% and I’m hearing all these other numbers, and it’s just what’s so cool is they’re seeing it. They’re feeling it. It’s different. We’ve had people say I hated to run this line. Now I don’t dread it anymore. This actually is the best running line in our plan.

Patrick Adams  12:30

Wow. Yeah, that’s awesome. And

Adam Lawrence  12:34

the key is to not make them feel bad about how it was that really is most important, because you can feel really bad about the fighting that you had to do with your process. Now they don’t.

Andy Olrich  12:47

I’m sorry to lead in with another question, but when we’re talking about the people like you had this, you know, they’ve run the string and got it running, well, how? I’m really interested for you to share how you captured the people aspect of, you know, how did we get out of that spec? How? How have we shown that having those people given the time and space to go into that kaizen event has really demonstrated the value of having them in the room. Instead of just bringing someone in with a, you know, with a laser alignment, we’ll just line it up, and then we’re back on and let’s go. So, how did Can you, if you wouldn’t mind sharing just a few simple ways that you’re able to point to leadership. For example, if there was a couple there was like, we haven’t got time to do this. Like, let’s just keep going. How have you really been able to show the benefits realized from having those core people given time and space to contribute to such an amazing improvement?

Adam Lawrence  13:37

So here’s what you guys probably know. Well, first of all, I want to step back for a second. First of all, continuous improvement. Kaizen should be like bowling. Anybody can bowl right? Four year old can bowl underhanded, right? That

Patrick Adams  13:50

as a challenge. I don’t know. I might Yeah,

Andy Olrich  13:55

Adam, let’s

Adam Lawrence  13:56

say you have to be a good bowler. I’m not a good a four year old can bowl underhanded, right? A 94 year old can bowl underhanded. In the middle is somebody who’s going to attempt to do it with proper techniques and so on, right? But the way I try to make Kaizen and continuous improvement is so that anybody can play as simple as possible, right? So anybody can find the center of something, pull a string, right? And, and, and kind of eyeball it and say that looks straight right now, lasers are fine, but when you have equipment in the way, the laser doesn’t actually find its way all the way through. So, so my joke has been, this is the same ball of twine I’ve had since I flew kites when I was eight years old. And I might not be that far off. So think about this one though. When I first sold this concept to my client, my sponsor, I happened to be doing a strategic planning session for them, and I said, Hey, I’d really like to understand your process a little better, because you’re going to speak all these terms. I don’t even know what. You make. So let’s go out. So I’m walking the line with my sponsor, and I see people fighting and jamming, etc. And I said, I think we can do something here, and I don’t think it’s going to cost you much. This is not a capital issue. So the good news for him was, he said, Well, show me what you’re talking about. So I go over and I show him. Well, this clearly is out of level. This is not straight. This is jamming here. Look at the equipment here. And he got so interested in it that he brought the plant manager over. Plant Manager starts asking me questions. Well, what do you think you can do about it? I can run a string. I can find you the center. We can level stuff. And guess what? You’re going to take variation out of the process so that the people can work on the harder stuff, which is, what are the temperatures and what are the speeds and feeds, and, you know, various other quality aspects, and we can take away the variation of the equipments all messed up, right? So, so that’s convincing enough. Now, the next thing I know, if you’ve been doing this long enough, is, what is that worth? I mean, I can, I can get you in a range. I knew that one Kaizen could easily save them a quarter of a million to half a million dollar lot annually. Okay, it didn’t take long to figure that out. They’re running 24/7, I know what the product is, you know? I know what the crewing level is, so it didn’t take long. So is it worth investing in the consultant for a week and taking people off their jobs for a week? I know what that costs as well. So it’s a 10 to 120, to one type of return. So unless you don’t believe it’s possible. So the good news is this guy thought it was possible. It became part of their strategy. I was their first guy in in all their locations. Now they’re accelerating. The strategy was, finish all the lines by the end of 2026 now they’re doing all their highest value lines by end of the first quarter this year, with every line done by the end of the year. So, so we’ve taught them, it’s it’s simple, it’s just high level of detail. And anybody can do it, anybody can pull a string, right? Anybody can drop a plum bog. So I’m showing mechanics how to do this type of work and operators so that they can now do it themselves.

Patrick Adams  17:17

Love it. Now, that’s a great story. Adam, where does Where does so? Whether we’re talking about the story that you just told about the equipment you talked you know, you mentioned reducing variation, right? Think about variation with the story that you just talked about, also in just process, in general, the process of facilitating a Kaiser event, the process of straightening a line, the process of, you know, putting out good product, whatever, whatever it is, where does standard work or standardization fall into this? And do you, you know, do you is that, like number one priority when it comes to reducing variation is, you know, making sure that the standards are correct. That’s my first question. I have a follow up. But what are your thoughts on standard work or work instructions when it comes to process optimization?

Adam Lawrence  18:12

Yeah, absolutely. So once you optimize, now you want to standardize right, so that nobody ever loses that setting right. So what we’ve done where we can physically optimize and standardize, we’re drilling holes in the concrete and pinning the equipment square centered at proper heights where we can’t. So for example, we had to shim some equipment so factories aren’t always in the best shape. I’m just going to say that. I know that’s a shock to you all factors and so where we’ve had the shim can be quite challenging. Sometimes it’s under entire framework, sometimes it’s under bearings on rollers. Sometimes it’s you got to get really creative, okay, so that shim is going to fall out. Okay? So what are we going to do? We’re going to standardize by putting preventative maintenance routines in. We’re going to standardize to say, every 2000 operating hours, we’re going to verify heights and levels of these four critical pieces of equipment, or four rollers, right? But what we’ve also done is we’ve standardized a daily audit so the operators, I let them decide what are the eight to 10 things you’re going to check every day to keep keep it from going back to the way it was on your watch. Because once they own it, like the guy that said, You screwed up, you gave me hope. And I always create an area owner. So if you read my book, you’ll hear all about area owners. And so it’s always an hourly operator. They know it’s coming. They don’t want to be it, but by the end of the week, somebody volunteers, which is really cool. And so they and their little operations team say, here are the eight things we’re going to check every day that way, if those things are right, we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine. We’re controlling the standards are set, and we’re controlling to standard. We’re following standard. We’re making it visible, visual, easy to follow. A pin in a hole. It’s easy to tell I’m on standard or I’m not on standard. So standard work doesn’t have to be this complex type of thing. Another thing I like to do is create some visuals that show what good looks like, right? So what are the three most important things to know on this piece of equipment? What does good look like? I’ll have photos, description, arrows and the explanation of why it’s right, not what it is, and I always show it with respect to the person doing the work. So it’s not this button is pushed. It’s me pushing the button, me turning the handle. This is what it looks like. It’s my right hand going clockwise, or my left hand going counterclockwise. So that way, if I’m walking by and somebody’s doing the work, I can tell immediately if they’re following standard. If they are, thank them, if they’re not coaching.

Patrick Adams  20:51

I like that. Yeah. And so you mentioned area owners, and I wonder, Where do you strike a balance between standardization and flexibility in processes to more empower those, those area leaders, versus restricting them. Because I’ve heard from a lot of people like, well, when you put standard work in place, it makes me feel restricted, like I can’t do anything. I can’t come up with new ideas, you know? And that’s as far, that’s far from the truth. So what’s your take on that?

Adam Lawrence  21:19

So we put in standardization to remove variation. So get get everything set and optimize. Now you can use your brains for solving the harder problems. Why did the color change of this product? Why is the width going you know, problem solving gets a lot easier because we reduce variables. So now we can focus on the deeper dives of what really changed in this process. Go upstream and figure out, did a did a shim fall out? Did a bearing? Sees What, what changed. So we’re using the flexibility as in your creative problem solving, right? So why do I have to worry about things like, Is my tire round on my car? We always want round tires on our car, unless you’re Fred Flintstone. But if you’re driving the car, why do I want to worry about it? Now, what I want to worry about is, how do I deal with the traffic? How do I decide what route to take when the variable of, there’s a really terrible driver, or, like you said, Michigan, you’re having a snowstorm. Well, we had some pretty for Pennsylvania. We’re kind of wimpy when it comes to snow, but it was hard to see. So okay, that’s the variable. So I have to change how I drive based upon that variable. And I don’t have to think about whether the air conditioner is going to work or the heating elements are going to work. Question,

Andy Olrich  22:39

Adam, I’ll just put this. May put you on the spot, or I might have to pull you up for time, but I’d love to know, when have you gone too far with people, like leaning way too far in the people, that just becomes like a revolution, where it actually starts to throw all of that good work away. Have you got a case study or or something that you’ve learned from someone else around, how, hey, actually recognize, you know, we had too much of that soft skill that people saw in this

Adam Lawrence  23:10

Okay, so you’re asking me Tell, tell us about when you screwed up. Okay, so that’s good. So as a facilitator, sometimes I push a little too hard. Okay, so I’ve done so many of these, so part of this is almost a challenge for me to see how far I can get teams beyond whatever our objectives are for the week. Well, sometimes I might push and challenge a little too hard and potentially disengage people. So I know you find that shocking, as charming as I appear to be, right? But there are those moments people say, Gosh, you’re patient. No, I’m not patient at all. In my head, I’m dying, right? Because people are having difficulty seeing beyond right. So I have been known to push some people harder than they will tolerate, and they feel like I’m kind of shutting them down in their creativity. So that is and I regret that. Of course, the other side of that equation is as much as I try to prepare leadership for their responsibilities, sometimes other things get in the way, and the team doesn’t feel nearly as supported or empowered as they should be. And typically, you know, I can’t take the place of their leadership. So, you know, I try to do my best around that. So let me give you a good example of this, though. So you said almost a revolution, right? So we had an area owner in North Carolina in one of these reliability events, and he basically said, I am the new sheriff in town, right? We’re not messing with this line. This line is the way we’ve always wanted it and beyond. So my sponsor. Who is a VP of Operations, happens to be visiting and he walked he’s, of course, curious about his investment in Adam and these teams, right? So he comes by and area owner says, Hey, you’re responsible for this. Do it. You’re doing an audit with me right now. I want to show you what we’ve done, and I want to get your perspective on it, and I want to show you why this is so important, and don’t ever let us screw this up again. So he grabs the VP. I wasn’t there. I was told about this, so I can only picture it because I met the guy. I met both of them so I could see it happening. And he basically was saying, We will not accept anything to go back the way it was, and we need you to continue to support us in this way, and don’t let whoever the next plant manager is let it go back to the way it was. So I love that. I mean, will it stay that way forever? I don’t know, but at least at that moment, the passion of it, and and, and being willing to speak to top leadership in that way. Say, this is bigger than the both of us. This is the right thing, the safe thing, the productive thing, the quality thing, whatever you want to call it. Don’t ever let us go back to the way it was.

Patrick Adams  26:20

Love it Adam, in regards to that same question around going a little bit too far, or maybe, I don’t know if it’s too fast, but I’ve had some experience with a few organizations in the past where they you know, automation is this new big buzz, and of course, there’s a lot of valid areas for automation. There’s a lot of valid, you know, places where automation is definitely necessary. But I’ve had a few experiences in the past where process optimization conversations led to and this excitement for automation led to, let’s just bring in an outside company, and let’s automate this whole process. And then, when I was on site, I see that that that the automation wasn’t being used. They this company spent a lot of money to automate this process, but now they’re back to, you know, manual and and it was a mistake, because they they actually ended up, when they did the automation, they automated waste, a wasteful process, versus, you know, taking the time to optimize the process properly ahead of time. And then maybe there’s an opportunity for automation. But I guess I just to come back around to my question, what should organizations do as they’re thinking about optimizing a process, and maybe there’s conversation about automation in the future, but what should they do ahead of time in order to, you know, not go too far, too fast, and do the right things to make sure that the process is optimized properly before spending the money?

Adam Lawrence  28:06

Well, it’s a great question. I think you already know the answer. So, right, automating waste is a horrible idea. I’ve seen it many times myself. I’ve actually done Kaizen, where we actually took out the automation to simplify the process. So clearly, if I’ve got a 15 step process that I can turn into three and then I want to automate, I’m all for that, right? So let’s if there’s things that are just repetitive, repetitive, that are putting people at risk, I’m picking up a 90 pound sack 40 times per hour. Okay, we could. We could probably automate that. But do I need to pick up the sack? Is there a better way to do so? We have to be willing to ask those tougher questions, to say, what do we really need to do? What is truly the essence of what we’re trying to accomplish with this process? If we can get to the essence. So if you guys are familiar with production preparation process 3p the whole idea is to understand the true essence of the process, design the waste out of it from the beginning, right? And then you can make decisions about where you want to invest in automation. I think a lot of companies have money in their budgets, and they see something that looks really cool, and they think that it’ll just solve all their problems. The reality is, people are your best asset here. They are so creative. They are so amazing at solving problems. You know, I’ve started to dabble a little bit of AI, okay, not in how I run Kaizen events, but basically to systematize some of the work that I do, sure. But to be quite honest with you, work with your people first, you know, either work internally with some CI coach or get a Kaizen ninja like me or somebody else to help really step back and solve and simplify your process, then decide where you want to throw capital at it. I mean. People can throw millions of dollars at things like you said, you’ve seen it. I’ve seen it where they’re not using or it actually works worse than the process that they automated, right? So why would you do that? And it continues to happen. This is not this is not a unlikely occurrence. This happens all over the world, so I think this is where we add most value. Is where we can help people solve problems in a way that they can own that is actually very inexpensive. I mean, I know I’m not cheap, but let’s be honest, hiring one of me is a lot cheaper than putting in a multi million dollar automated line, right? So why not make that type of investment with you guys or others like us, to give it a shot, right? And then, just then, make those choices. So it’s almost like doing good due diligence.

Andy Olrich  30:53

Yeah, that would hope, an experience, if I can share, is having conversations about improving this particular piece of equipment. And one of the operators, he’d been there nearly 40 years, he stood up and he said, Look, what’s the point? They’re going to automate this. I’m just going to come in every day. I’m going to do the bare minimum. I’m just going to turn up, do my job, go home, and I’m not going to try anything different. And he said, because we’re going to be replaced by robots. And I just said to him, I said, if you want to be replaced by a robot, turn up and behave like one. That’s probably the quickest way to get yourself automated out of a job. But all these other things from your experience, the way that you can, you know, you can see which way the wind’s blowing and and all of these amazing things from your experience working in this environment that we can’t program that. And really, if you can help us put some of this up on the wall, it, it could potentially delay or even divert them away from thinking about that, that software solution to just try and get rid of some of these difficult conversations that they’re having with their workers. So I just think that that’s, yeah, what you said, there’s so important, if you can go from 15 steps to three, etc. Do we ever need to automate it? But when we do, we know, and the people have been part of that. So, yeah, great, great share mate. Really, really passionate about that one myself. Good, hard, so, oh, go ahead. I was, I was just going to jump in with another question, Patrick, but if you had a no no no, go ahead. Okay, cool. So we talked about, I just sort of led into a bit there. But when we talk about optimization, you talked about standards, we’ve touched on that that creativity. So creativity over capital. You know, what would be your one hot Kaiser ninja tip when it comes to having a space or a place for creativity amongst all of the critical need for standards for certain things, what’s you go to? Like, how do you do you have, like, a, I don’t want to put you on a percentage, but it’s like, how do you make sure that that’s kind of baked into the standard, that there is room for that creative moment,

Adam Lawrence  32:56

right? Okay, perfect question. I love that. So what I do, clearly, let my teams decide what they want to work on. So my job is to expose them the new ways of thinking and see a problem as a problem that they can actually do something about. So if you’re passionate about a specific area, you’re going to put more energy into it, be more creative about it and own it right. So when I’ve done these reliability events, just staying on that, I’ve done so many different style events, but this is just more current. We know we’re going to center line, we know we’re going to square but there’s other parts of the line that they’re very concerned about. Hey, this doesn’t do what it’s supposed to be doing. So for example, and I didn’t pick it, but it was a big thing for them. There was piping that was improperly sized for a piece of equipment, so it was clogging the equipment and it was bugging them. So what did they do? They redesigned all the piping like in the moment. So that’s where the creativity comes. I would have never guessed that was an issue or a hot button for them, but they picked it and, man, you should have seen what they did. So 10 inch diameter became six inches. I mean, did they engineer it? I don’t know how they figured out, but it didn’t clog anymore. And these were hourly maintenance and production employees, and it was just brilliant. I wouldn’t have figured that out. I mean, you could go into your thermodynamics books and maybe have figured it out. Nope, they so what I do is I give them the space and the opportunity to try stuff. Try it. See what you learn. If it didn’t work, try something else. So how many learning cycles during a Kaizen can we create? The other thing I do is I start off with some really ridiculous sayings that get right into their heads early, because I don’t want them to get scared off by perfection here. So I say things like, hey, but ugly by Friday. What do you mean by that? It just means it doesn’t have to look pretty. It just has to work. So if you want to duct tape and and bailing wire it until. You figure out what the final thing is. Do that. Then figure out what it is. Now turn it into the thing you want it to be, to be permanent, so it gives them that space, it gives them that confidence. I have to be right on the first try, I had a guy grinding a line in the floor of which he thought was the center line. It was not. So what did we do? We came up with, Hey, let’s make him an eraser for the grinding he just did, you know. So don’t make people feel bad about it. Yeah, this is the line. Okay? So paint put pain inside the right line, and then we’ll take a picture of that so that people don’t use the wrong line, you know. So, and we’ll just name it after you, right? Just so we can have fun with it and but that way, you make it memorable. You make it fun. Nobody feels bad about it. They might give them a little ribbing about it, but at least they know this is the right line. And hey, I own that line, you know? So that’s how people get creative. You got to have some fun with it. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be a death march. It should be. It should be a fun experience, a winning experience for them, even if they don’t hit all of their objectives. Sure.

Patrick Adams  36:09

And so you you mentioned an example of when you’re running a Kaizen event or doing any kind of process optimization, how you embed continuous learning into that by having multiple like multiple like rapid PDCA cycles or experimentation that’s happening during these events. You also mentioned that you let the participants choose kind of the topics a bit. How do organizations design their processes that will promote things that maybe employees might not think about, like psychological safety or adaptability or things like that. Are there, are there any strategies around just ensuring that we’re designing some of that stuff into our processes?

Adam Lawrence  36:59

Right? So, you know, I can’t tell you what the organizations do when I’m not there. What I can tell you is, first of all, not everybody hires me, right? So we’ve got to be aligned in approach, right? If you don’t like my approach, ain’t hiring. You like my approach, you’re hiring so chartering is where I start. So we’re defining the thing that we want the team to work on and but when I’m charting with a sponsor, we’re talking about, what would that look like? We don’t know what the answer is, but what does it look like when the team engages in it, and what is your role in that? So if they’re not going to have their backs, if they’re not going to participate, if they’re not coming to the the Kaizen newspaper check ins or the team dinner or the report out, then it’s not there. They just want an answer and they don’t care about their people. If they want an answer and don’t care about their people, we’re not going to engage anyway, because the team has no chance of winning now psychological safety and creating that safe space that’s kind of embedded in, I will say that probably what, five years ago, I didn’t even know what that meant, sure, right? But what I can say that is, it kind of aligns very well, because people should have their voices heard and feel like they’re listened to, and have the opportunity to share their knowledge, their thoughts. So I use a lot of techniques to do that, so that no one gets overwhelmed by anybody else in the room. It’s very post it note oriented. So it’s just techniques that I learned over many years to try to give everybody that equal voice, using specific ground rules, making it fun. Let no one be any better than anybody else. Everybody’s thoughts and opinions are valued. Not everybody’s ideas are going to get used at least they know they’ve been heard,

Patrick Adams  38:50

right? No, that’s that’s key for sure. And as we kind of come first full circle here and start to wrap up our conversation just around process optimization, I want to tie, I want to go back to your book, The Wheel of sustainability, because I think it’s important that through all of obviously, there a lot of this is very intentional in creating that sustainable, long term improvement culture, but after a Kaizen event, or after any kind of process optimization, maintaining that that long term is important, and that’s where the the spokes for the wheel of sustainability come into play, right? So can you give us, just as we wrap up. Last question here, you give us just a feel of, Okay, we just finished a Kaizen event, and we were able to optimize this process that we were working on. Now, what? Now? What, in order to ensure long term sustainability, and, you know, not just, not just with that, but what’s next? Right? How? Do we how do we maintain that going forward? So

Adam Lawrence  40:03

this might or might not surprise you, but we actually implement the wheel during the Kaizen event, so I introduce it on the first day, and every spoke is actually actioned on in the optimization of the process. So the notification, the why did we do it, and what are the benefits? So that they can speak to other people? How are we going to train people, one to one? So the training and review portion, what’s the what’s the visualization of the standard? So it’s all built in the tools that we need. The benefits have been identified. We’ve been getting people’s feedback and ideas. We’ve created the layered audits. We know what accountability looks like, and we’ve been telling the stories of it. We’ve created the leadership commitment by having the Kaizen chartering it. I also add what I call the check act, so the team now they own it. They are not beholden to me at all. I have been included in some cases and not in others. Every two weeks, they get the team back together for a while, and they are reviewing where are they and where they need help, etc. So creating that ownership at the team level and at the site leadership level is critical. So one client is basically managing this across all locations. Now that is a given. That is the standard. We talked about it before the first Kaizen to say, hey, here’s the best way that I know. And if that aligns with the way your organization wants to work, that would be awesome. So I’ve been hearing stories. They don’t have to report back to me. Sometimes I get photos, you know, I get the whiteboard with all the green numbers, where it used to just all be red, but mostly, you know, they got to own it. So it goes back to that Kaizen ninja idea, the idea that the Ninja is there getting stuff done, but what’s never really there. Because in the end, if they don’t own their solution, there’s no way for it to sustain So, yeah, the benefits of these things are just outrageously helpful that as a business owner, unless business conditions change, right? I mean, I can’t stop a business from closing a factory, but why would you want to go back to less safe and less productive and less efficient and more costly. It just doesn’t make sense. So the things we’re putting in make it so obvious that it’s better and what standard is that it is. I can’t say it’s impossible, but one of my statements I make is make it almost impossible to do it the wrong way. So how do you do pin in a hole. The pins in the hole, we’re running. The pins not in the hole, we’re still running. Oh, let’s start problem solving, because pin in a hole is the optimal location. Everybody knows it. You don’t have to teach that. It’s like, there’s a pin, there’s a hole, there’s a visual. We’re on, we’re on standard. So why are we off standard? Let’s start problem solving before it causes an upset, right? So I can’t guarantee it, but it’s just the best way I know, sure, and we’ve had some really good success, not always. I don’t want anybody to think this is 100% sometimes leadership does change. Sometimes leadership has their way of doing stuff that is something that I will never be able to change, nor should I try to but at least if you create the groundswell of this is the right way to do it, you’ve got a better chance to keep it that way, regardless of who’s in charge,

Patrick Adams  43:31

right? And obviously, if, if anyone is interested to hear a little bit more about sustainability, they can go back they like what they heard today, and go back to previous episodes with Adam and hear a little bit more in depth about some of those spokes in the wheel of sustainability. But also, obviously they can get your your book, which is available out on Amazon, and we’ll, we’ll throw the link in in the show notes. If anyone has any questions, I’ll add, where should they go to connect with you,

Adam Lawrence  44:04

right? So, couple thoughts. So my website, pi, dash partners.com, I’ve now put a link to a free chapter of the book. It’s nice. I buy the book take a test drive, right? So I put what I thought was the most important chapter, which is leadership, commitment, right? Because it’s really what everything revolves around. So there’s that. There’s also a button if you want to set up a quick call with me, right? So just pi, dash partners.com, that’s an easy way to get to me. I do have a LinkedIn profile. I have a I have a tight knit network of folks, right? So look me up at Adam Lawrence. You’ll see the little ninja images everywhere, right? If you want to check me out on prior podcasts, if you if you’re not tired of my stories by now, you can hear more of them. I’m pretty sure they’re different because this, oh yeah, today, we’re more recent vintage. So that’s cool. I. Yeah, but yeah, I think that the good news is we have a really nice community, and we’re here to help each other, right? I mean, I love just having conversations and exposing people to new ways of thinking, without any obligation, of course. I mean, this is we’re here to help each other, so that’s the way I think this community should act.

Patrick Adams  45:19

Love it. Love it. I love the the the process ninja, the Kaizen ninja. I actually have my ninja up here on my shelf that you gave me as a gift, right next to my globe, showing Australia my friend Andy there. Alright, so yeah, but no, we so much appreciate you, Adam, and just you know, we’ll love to have you back on again to talk, talk again about another topic. As I mentioned before, we always have really good feedback on on your interviews. So thank you for being on the show, and best of luck to you this year.

Adam Lawrence  45:57

Well, thank you, and thank you for having me. Andy, great seeing you again, Patrick, always a pleasure, and I appreciate you guys. Good

Andy Olrich  46:03

morning, mate, see you next time.