GA 051 | The Lean Transition with Ashley Bailey

You're listening to episode 51 with Ashley Bailey. Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Pereira. Hey there. This is Ron Pereira from Gemba Academy and I'm very excited to welcome you back to another episode of the Gemba Academy podcast. Now, I know I say this on every episode, but I do appreciate the listeners of this show as well as all of our Gemba Academy customers and followers. Now then, today I'm excited to welcome Ashley Bailey to the show. Now, I've known Ashley for a few years now. I was introduced to him by our mutual friend and acquaintance, Paul Akers from FastCap. Now, Ashley is from the UK and he's running a business that, as you'll hear, he's kind of taken over a family business from his father. The business was, I guess, as Ashley explains it, kind of managed in an old school manner in the beginning. And Ashley has transitioned to a more of a lean thinking organization. And Ashley really kind of dives into some of the struggles that he's had, including, you know, his father used to run the business the old school way. And so Ashley and I kind of explore the challenges, even some personal challenges that Ashley faced as he transitioned the company to a lean thinking organization. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com 51 and that's 5, 1 for 51. So gembapodcast.com 51 okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. All right, Ashley, well, thank you so much for taking time to visit with us today. Where are you calling in from?

Okay, so my name is Ashley Bailey. I'm from Climb Easy and I'm in the uk. We're right in the centre of England.

Right in the center. Where at in England?

In Derbyshire.

Derbyshire, okay. I've never been there, but all right, is it, see, it's what, three o' clock in the afternoon for you right now? I guess there and nine o' clock for me. All right.

Yeah, that's right.

Good deal. So, Ashley, we've known each other for several years now, but why don't you share with us your background and, and how did you first get exposed to continuous improvement?

Okay, so I'm a software developer by trade. Since I was about 11 years old, I had a computer and started programming and writing games and things and developed that side of My skills. So the first job at about 1718 was software development. And that's what I continued in. Built a company around it over a few years and then sold that off because I had a different views to the other partner that I had wanted to go different ways. And I came to fix the email at my dad's company who it's a light steel fabrication specializing in manufacturing access equipment and warehouse steps. Came to fix the email after six months. I was still here. So I was roped into doing the sales and a bit of marketing had a bit of a graphics flair as well. So I kind of ended up on that side and then a little on the managing some of the production things. So one thing led to another and my father ran the company, what's called old school. So I always say more stick than carrot and it's not my kind of background. So he wanted to retire and he wore every hat. So it wasn't really a management team. He was just responsible for doing everything. There's around 12 employees at the time, 1012 employees. So reasonable high turnover, labor, all the things that go along with that. And he'd pretty much retired off. Wasn't coming in as much and I was left running everything I bought into the company.

When was. When was this Ashley?

Around 2006, I would say is I took control, full control of the company, the remaining shares. So it's got a lock stock mine. And I was literally spent a lot of time putting out yesterday's fires. So, you know, it's the same problems every day. Lots of that didn't sort of realize at the time but a lot of it was cultural. But I've no kind of business background really. It's just, you know, got on and just done the job. So there's not things. Things and terminology and things like that and now identify with speaking to people like Paul Akers and Greg Glebe and things. I identify with that now. But I didn't really have names to put to this, just problems. So that's it. I then literally spent probably the next year, two years sort of 2008 working things. Still the same problems. And then we're trying to find a better way.

Okay.

Knew there must be a better way, but didn't know what. And that's when I came across Paula's videos on YouTube.

All right, so I want to. Let's hold it there for a second because I want to really get into this and explore your journey here. But you mentioned the name of your company just in the opening climb Easy. Tell us a little bit more about the company. What do you guys make again?

Okay, we manufacture warehouse steps. I think you guys call them aircraft steps. So for us, if you're in a warehouse, you need to get up some racking to retrieve inventory. Then. These are like a steel staircase, but it's mobile.

Okay, and how many employees do you have now?

We now have 14.

14, okay, very good. All right. So, Ashley, as you know, we like to start all of our shows with our guests sharing a quotation that possibly inspires them. So do you have a quotation that you like?

I do, yeah. It's quite recent that we've heard it and I unfortunately don't know where it's come from. But it was one because we make our own T shirts in the fact, just for internal purposes, you know, a bit of morale things. And it came up as an idea form which was what makes you think that your future self has any more time than your current self. And that's because. But I don't know where it's from. But that's because every time people procrastinate or say, yes, I'll do that later, it comes from Paul's thing of, you know, do it now action this day. So I quite like that at the moment.

Love it, love it. Okay, so now I want to get into your journey. So you're. Let's say you're moving along, you're stumbling along, kind of managing old school way. And then what is it? You're searching YouTube and for what? And you come across this lunatic named Paul or how did that work?

Yeah, pretty much. I think it was because we press our own treads and I was looking for something with the press tool and thinking it seems to be one of the bugbears that takes a lot of time. And I was looking for a faster way to do things and I think just some of the keywords came up that were then triggering things like Lean and things.

So had you heard of Lean?

No.

Okay.

Nothing like that. As I say, I'm not, you know, right now I'm a software developer that's running a fabrication company. So. Yeah, no, it's not my kind of terminology, but yeah, as I was typing certain things in, all the other keywords kept popping up. So the lean side of it came up. And then the two second lean and then Paul Akers.

What was the first video you ever saw of Paul's?

I think it was the classic two P10 one about the 30 minute one of how they totally refined a process down. Yeah, I think that was the first one and then a few. Then with Paul in just himself. I think the next one was the one where he goes around the factory and talks to everybody about their improvements for the day. The Morning walk.

What'd you think of that? I mean, first impressions, did you think, oh my gosh, this is amazing or these guys are a little bit crazy?

Yeah, I mean that's the difference in the English and American culture. I think it's the American what we view the English probably view as the American gung ho kind of way. But yeah, that was one that probably made the most impression on me was the morning walk because of seeing people's engagement with employees. And that's what we didn't have. Everybody sort of works, work, homes, home, they come here and then go back home again. And there's no real engagement of enthusiasm, building a better company. It's just do my job and go. And so any of the problems were always other people's problems, never their own. So seeing that and the engagement of people, that was the first thing that I saw.

Okay, so you watch these videos, then what? Then what?

Then the fun started happening. We demolished our house kind of accidentally on purpose. So at the time, so we'd moved in with my mother in law, we told them it'd be three months and I think two years later we were still there, but we were still building a house and it was late at night. I'd gone onto Paul's FastCap website and started messaging them in their chat window. You know, you can talk to the sales staff. I was talking to Sandy and another lady there and asking some questions about sort of quick firing questions about Lean, about the book and some of the cultural things and simple questions. What did you improve today? You sort of testing them. Do they really make improvements every day? And they were firing back what they'd been doing and said, well, you're asking a lot of questions. Really, you need to speak to Paul. Are you on Skype? Said, yeah, the next minute my iPhone's ringing, Paul's there. He came on and I don't need to hit the voice call. So he said, look, if I can't see you, I won't speak to you. I only speak to people I can see. So, okay, so switch the video on. And obviously it's late at night, I'm sat there in my dressing gown and leaning on the kitchen countertop, chatted to Paul for about 30 minutes. Good talk. And he said, I'll speak. Ring me next week, same time next week. Ring me back Let me know how you've got on this week. And he gave me a bit of advice. And then from then on, every week, give him a call for a couple of months. And then it's literally now we speak pretty much every day. Wow. So, yeah, he became a great mentor to me.

So obviously Paul had written the book Two Second Lean at this time when you're having his conversation.

Yes.

So I gather you read that next quickly and.

Yes, yes, gone through that. Yes.

Okay. So, all right, so you've got some initial knowledge, you've got some encouragement. Maybe you have a mentor in Paul. What did you. What did you do?

Well, his first piece of advice was distance yourself from anyone negative. So unfortunately, at the time, that was my father because, say, because he was old school, a lot of the things that he saw that I was doing or started to implement, it was, you know, I don't want. Why you. Why are you wasting time doing that? If you can't hear welding machines, you know, welding, you're not making money. Why have you got people stood around cleaning?

So how did that make you feel, Ashley, when you're, when you heard that.

From your dad, it's difficult because you're trying to justify, you know, what you're doing and think there's a better way. Especially when he's built the company up from nothing.

And it's your dad too, right? I mean.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I can distance that out work, I can distance myself from him, you know, but the, the personal life was separate. It is personal. So, you know, we're still, you know, we're still friends and everything, but during the working day, if he came into the office, I maybe move out of it. If he came into the factory, I'd come out of it. And things like just. I didn't, you know, Paul said it's hard, but just avoid the negative vibe from people, from anybody. So, yeah, and he picked up on that. And it was difficult. It was difficult and it's made an impact on him anyway, personally, I think, because he. He does call in now and again, and I don't think he feels as comfortable as he should do when he visits. Technically was his own company, so it is very difficult. And I think he's retired, but he's quite emotional about it. But looking back, it probably was the hardest but best decision we had to make.

So is your dad, would you say, obviously, you've made a lot of progress, right, with improving the business? Is he proud? Do you think he's proud of you for what you've done in the business that you're building or.

Yeah, yeah. He's very proud of him. He said that to me. What he says is he doesn't understand any of it, but he can see the end result. He can come in and see that everybody's happy, everybody's smiling. You can see the difference between the previous sort of version of his company because one of the things I did when I was first changing things around was he rented the premises that he was in and I found a factory and bought it. And that was the start of building the company forwards is, you know, we want to own our own premises so there's an immediate physical relocation anyway and I think that helped probably.

Now, do you have any aspirations of maybe teaching your dad about Lean? You know, I know he's retired, but it's about people, right? Respect for people, right?

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. I mean, he gave him Paul's book, but he's read that. Like I say, he recognizes some things that he used to do when he used to run other companies with people. But yeah, I think he fishes a lot. He's happy doing that.

Yeah.

I don't know if he's leaned out his fishing set. I don't know. Help him.

Five S's Bach tackle box.

Yeah.

So what do you, what would you say has been the hardest aspect Lean for your organization as a whole to adopt.

Changing the mindset of people. What do you mean? Building the culture? Because we've been doing it for just over two years now and the changes are phenomenal. You can see it physically and mentally in the company. You can see the changes, you can see it financially, everything. I don't need to tell you, you know, it just works. But we're kind of at another tipping point again now. I'm in a lot of discussions with Paul and Greg at the moment because we've done. You can get past your low hanging fruit. You get the easy changes for people. One of the first things I said when I implemented Lean to get buy in from everybody was I don't want any improvements that will save me any money. I only want improvements that will make your life easier, you make your job easier to do and make it easier to go about your day and do your day more enjoyable. Don't look for improvements that save you money. And I'm certainly not incentivizing the improvements. So you only look for money saving ideas. So I think immediately I had buying from everybody. We had the morning meeting. Every day since day one, we've had the Morning meeting. So it's all been great and it's still an amazing journey. But the tipping point in the minute is still cultural and maybe that's some of the English things. And I talked to Michael Althoff in yellowtools quite a bit about the cultural aspect because he's changed the minds of his German guys, which he said it's very difficult. So I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. I just know that we've come a long way but there's still a lot, not a lot. There's still aspects like bickering and things about just the most petty schoolyard things that you think would be passed by now. And I know something like Paul, he's got 50 odd employees. It's easy for Paul to say, well you just fire the guy and you get somebody that's 10 times better. Every time we get somebody new, they're always better. But one employee being changed in 50 is a different impact to having one change when you've only got 14. If I have four welders in here and one goes, that's 25% of my welding ability gone in one day. So it's not always as easy. But that's when I see it as a failing in myself that if somebody isn't changing then that's me as a lean leader or teaching and training. It's my failing, not theirs that I can't change. That mindset. Yeah.

And obviously the lean thinking approach isn't ever to try to fire somebody, you know, develop them and work with them. I think so. I think you have that right, Ashley. I wouldn't ever change that. So. So let me switch the question up just a little bit. So what's been the hardest aspect of Lean for you, the leader of the.

Organization to adopt initially it's that letting go, letting people make the mistakes that you know that they're going to make. But that's what Paul said. If it's only a two second improvement, it's not something that's going to be difficult to fix again or change back, but letting people giving them that responsibility. Because I said my dad had everybody accountable to him so nobody would do anything because it's always his money they're spending. I think the difference now is that I let people do it and change it and spend it and not free reign of whatever you want to do because it's discussed in a morning meeting if it's anything big and have lean leaders that take care of it. But it's that relinquishment of control. It's a big leap of faith doing that and paying people to stand there and have a morning meeting. Paying people to 3s dedicating that cleaning time, half an hour in the morning, you're not allowed to work. You've got to clean your 3s and do your improvement. It's a lot of money and investment from us, especially at the time we started it. We were on 12 hour days for some of it. We were on overtime because the amount of work that we had and it's a big thing with people saying to you, questioning in the morning meeting, great, we're all still here doing this but there's work to be done. We're getting behind while every studio we're getting behind. But it's the that stake in the ground moment and saying, well, you'll always be behind unless you stop address why and fix it.

If the Ashley bailey of today, 2015.

Yeah.

Were sent back in time and you had to spend one hour with the Ashley Bailey of when you first started your lean journey, whenever that year was.

Yeah.

What, what would you, what would that look like? What would you do? What would you say if anything?

I'll tell them all the results, the Formula one, the national lottery.

That's only continuous improvement, not that type of improvement.

Yeah. Okay. So sort of if I was going to do it again, what would I do differently.

If anything?

If anything, I would probably try and spend more time with one on one with people. I probably guess and assumed too much. You know, it's easy when you're influenced by, you know, people like yourself and Paul and you have all these, you're watching all the videos, it's easy to guess and assume people have this other level of knowledge as well. So maybe explain myself a little bit more and spend more one to one time with people maybe would have got us where we are faster. But everything else, I think people that look at leaners that can do it, it's a quick fix and then once they, they are lean, they fixed it and just carry on like that is the wrong idea. I think it's that you never, you never get to the end because you're always improving. And it's that realization that there isn't an end to it, you just get better. So I don't know what about time.

Would you given that younger Ashley Bailey any other advice as it pertains to your father?

No, I don't think so. I think I did the right thing. Yeah, I think the right thing, as hard as it was, I Think I did the right thing?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. All right. So, Ashley, what we're going to do now is we're going to. We're going to transition. We used to call it the quick fire questions, but after some looking at it, these aren't really quick fire style questions. So we're actually going to change it up. This is the first episode where we're changing the name of this section and we're calling these the reflection questions because we really. They're more about self reflection than anything instead of. They're not really quick fire. So. But the first question is. Is about respect for people. Because, you know, we lean thinkers spend a lot of time talking about continuous improvement and respect for people. So what does respect for people mean to you?

For people is there's a quality in the organization now. Nobody's above or below anybody else. We still have a management hierarchy, but everybody's opinion is of value. That's the main change here in terms of respect. Before having the morning meeting and letting everybody have a voice and speak out, then everybody's opinion is valued as opposed to management just making decisions without other people being involved. So we respect their input.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

That's a tough one. I think we had this on one of Paul's round tables. I can't remember what I said. Distance yourself from negative people. That's probably the start of the change. Yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty powerful.

I mean, that is a tough one. I don't know. You can kind of look for one big thing that's changed everything. I think what I've been doing, very fortunate and lucky with over the past two years is having a peer group of people I've connected with through Paul. And the lean community is having very good advice every day and a way to draw on that from everybody rather than one big thing that changes everything. I think I've had a nice, consistent input from people.

Yeah, yeah. No, you're part of a pretty incredible little mastermind there.

Yeah.

Do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

My latest one is using the iPhone for a reminder location. So I'll say, remind me when I get to work X. Remind me when I get home X Because I always think about on the way home when I get there. As soon as I walk through the door and the kids grab it, I forget it. As soon as I walk through the door in the office and grab the coffee, I just forget everything I was supposed to do. Wait.

I didn't even know you could do that. So you're you really. You could set a reminder to chirp when you go get it to a certain spot.

Yes.

I didn't know that.

As long as on your iPhone when you've got your personal information in there. So the contact that you've set as me.

Yeah.

If you put in your addresses, home, work and wherever you want different locations. Then when you use Siri and say remind me when I get to work, I've got to fix the cables or remind when I get to home, I've got to clean the rabbits out or something. Whatever you need to do. As soon as you get to that spot, I think you can set it in your series settings proximity. So as soon as you're within say 100 yards, it will beep. Then all the reminders pop up on your screen.

That is so cool. I did not know that.

So I can walk into the office and then work through all those without getting distracted by everybody else.

That's a fantastic tip. Thank you. I'm going to personally use that because I didn't know you could do that. All right, awesome. All right. What's one thing that surprised you this last year while you were practicing or implementing Lean?

The creativity of the people that I've got working with me.

Give me an example that somebody can.

Have been doing the same job for 16 years with the same problems, and then in 15 minutes use a piece of scrap metal to change something on a machine. That now saves me five hours a week in labor. That no amount of design engineers looking at things I think would ever resolve.

One question that I kind of wanted I was going to ask you earlier and I forgot to. And I want to ask it Now. Of your 14 employees, are any of them say, like old timers have been there for a long time?

Yes, I think around nine, I think.

Have been there for what, 10, 10 years? 20 years.

Most between five to 10 years longer that about 10 or 12 years. The when we move. When relocated, I had around three Polish people at work for me, Polish guys. And when we relocated, they'd. Their plan was once they made enough money, they were going back to Poland because it was setting up together with a automotive company. Repairs, maintenance. So they pretty much that was their kicking point to kind of do it. So they went back. So I had to recruit new people then. But everybody that when I took the company over with father it's all the same people. I didn't have anybody leave because of doing lean.

Yeah. So I guess just to explore that even deeper then of those folks that have been there for a while.

Yeah.

Has there been a. Obviously they're, they're on board now with this lean thinking mindset, or mostly on board, I would, I would reckon. Can you think of a. Of a specific time when you saw the light go off in their eyes or is it just a slow, gradual change?

It's different for different people. But I would say coming back to the question about being surprised. Yeah, that's the same thing, is that the people I thought would get it straight away didn't. The people that I didn't think would get it, would perhaps leave or wouldn't be engaged were the most engaged people as part of it. But you see people at different levels engaging. So when we first started then, yeah, a couple of guys that I thought, you know, I concentrate on a couple of people and start to try to cheerlead it and roll it out. Didn't force it on anybody. It was a bit of a softly, softly approach initially, but it just gained momentum so fast. Everybody getting, getting on board. I didn't really need to worry about it too much.

Yeah, very good. So. So, Ashley, when things aren't going well and you need to say recharge and refocus, just yourself, do you have a routine or ritual that you follow to do that?

You mean within the company itself?

Yeah, whatever. You know, Starbucks, Is that it? Starbucks.

Yeah. Coffee. There's occasions when I have a bit of a rant in a morning meeting and everything goes very quiet, but the next day everybody pulls it back. But we've actually had a meeting today where it's the first time we've got management together because one of Paul's initial things was stop any sort of meetings and things like that, which we did. And it's literally kind of two years since we really had a pow wow together. And yeah, today's the first day we've re instigated some of that, but on a completely different level. So it gives people a forum for it.

So you are kind of half joking about Starbucks, but we're friends on Facebook and I know you do go there from time to time. So do you really think there's something to that? Like just kind of separating yourself?

Yes. Yeah, definitely. Going to a neutral place. Going to a neutral place, taking that half an hour out and just getting your mind reset. Go with somebody, have a chat, just clear your mind and then go back to it with a fresh mind.

So the last question I have for you, Ashley, is, is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to be more successful at practicing lean cultural development.

Yeah, Understanding people. And that's what I speak to Greg quite a bit about at Xylem Design because I know he's big into the cultural side. That's, that's where I say let people down, but that's where I want to increase my skills and knowledge. And Greg's coming over to see me in about a month, so hopefully I can tap into that as a resource.

Very good, Very good. All right, well, Ashley, I really enjoyed talking with you. I love hearing your story and you know, one day we've talked about Gembe Academy coming over there and bringing our video cameras and documenting your story. And I want to do that. I want to do that someday. So we need to get that, get that set up and have you guys featured in our Gimbal Live episode. So why don't you tell, just wrap up the show with maybe some final words of wisdom for someone that's listening to this. Maybe they're just getting started on their journey with continuous improvement. And then why don't you tell people how they can connect with you on social media or your website?

Okay. So as far as lean goes, it's the best decision we ever made. As a very quick, practical example, I know a lot of people want to look at numbers, but that's the last thing we looked at initially with Paul's advice. But some of the numbers are this. January and February is the best January and February we've had in business. We've produced over 50% more product than we did last January and February. Last year we were on 12 hour days. This year there's been not a single hours overtime to produce 50% more product with the same people. Everybody's a lot happier than they were last year. So it's a no brainer. It's. You just got to do it.

How can they connect with you?

We're on the climb easy on Facebook, I'm sure on your podcast side, I'm sure you can put links for it. So we've got podcast. I'm on LinkedIn. The I'll send you all these links through. I'm on LinkedIn. We're on Facebook. I'm on Skype for time. So if you want to message me, there's no problem. I can talk to you on Skype, video calls, whatever you want. Email can be on there as a link as well.

Yeah. Awesome. All right, my friend. Well, you only have a couple more hours of work there, I guess. So enjoy your afternoon and I look forward to connecting with you again soon, Ashley.

Okay, that's great. Thanks, Ron. It's a pleasure.

All right, thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now it's time to take a free, no strings attached, fully functional test drive of Gemba Academy's School of Lean and Six Sigma. Over at Gembaacademy.com gain immediate access to more than 500 Lean and Six Sigma training videos free of charge@gembaacademy.com.