GA 054 | The Five Guiding Principles with Jonathan Escobar Marin

You're listening to episode 54 with Jonathan Escobar Marin.

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 Perera from Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy podcast. Now, as you can hear, my voice is pretty much shot since I've been battling a cold. And the good news is I hadn't lost my voice when I actually did the interview you're about to hear, so we'll just need to fight through this intro a bit. In any event, as always, I do want to thank you for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the podcast and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, today, I'm excited to welcome Jonathan Escobar Marin to the show. Now, Jonathan is a global head of Lean Management for the Paul Hartman Group. And as you'll hear, Jonathan has an extremely strong, lean thinking background. Now, during this show, Jonathan and I explore the five principles that guide his work. And the reason I'm excited to share these with you is because I believe these same principles can benefit each, every one of us. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com 54 and that's 5, 4 for 54. So gembapodcast.com 54. Okay, enough for me, especially since I can barely talk. Let's get to the show.

All right, Jonathan, well, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from today?

I'm calling from Barcelona.

Barcelona. Beautiful. So are you a Messi fan? I guess.

Yeah, I'm a Messi. Well, a fan of Barcelona, let's say.

Okay, okay. All right, well, that's fantastic. It's a huge sport around the world, so my kids play soccer, so I love the sport as well, so that's great. All right, well, Jonathan, why don't we start with you sharing a little bit about your background and then what do you do today?

Yeah, today I'm global heat of Lean Management for the Hartman Group. It's a multinational that is working for the healthcare system. So we are producing incontinence products, medical products, and disinfection products, different products, all for the. For the healthcare of people. So I'M leading this global lean transformation for this company today. Before working in Paul Harmon, I worked for Procter and Gamble for almost three years there. I was really lucky because by that time Procter and Gamble was doing a benchmark with Toyota. And yeah, I had the opportunity to learn all the, I would say all the learnings that came from Toyota and to deploy all these learnings into renew it system for product Procter and Gamble. So I was really lucky to experiment all this in our Gemba. And before working for Procter and Gamble, I work in different companies. I collaborated with companies like Boswaven Group, also Honeywell, Burfin Group. Different environments, different sectors where I implemented lean thinking and lean strategies.

So you were familiar with Lean before joining Procter and Gamble?

Yeah, I was. I was familiar before joining Procter and Gamble. In fact, I had contact with Procter and Gamble before joining Procter. And Gamble. So I was familiar with all lean management strategies.

Got it, Got it. All right. Well, Jonathan, something that we like to do on all of our shows is kind of start things off with a quotation that that inspires you. And later on the show here we're going to go through five other quotations. But I'm curious if there is something that stands out for you or that's particularly inspiring.

Okay. Well, I feel a deep respect and admiration for Akio Toyoda, the president, the today president of Toyoda Motor Corporation. I do remember some of his words in written evidence at 2010 ahead of the US congressional that were tough times for Toyota. We all know that. And it was incredible for me he made self reflection and he brilliantly appealed to the Toyota basic philosophy. During that written evidence, he said things like regarding quality and people development. He said things like at Toyota we believe that to making quality products is to develop quality people. And he said that each employee in Toyota thinks about how to continuously improve the work and how to make even better cars. I think it was an incredible written evidence. And he also explained what was the commitment of Toyota regarding people development. And he said that one of the root causes of the problems that they had had was that they had pursued growth over the speed at which they were able to develop their people and their organization and they should sincerely be mindful of that. So it was also a brilliant reflection from Eki to Yoda. And finally, I don't really remember the words that he said, but it was incredible also how he appealed to the commitment from the management team regarding the go and see attitude in quality assurance. He said that he will make sure that the team members, or, sorry, the management team will actually drive the cars and that they will check for themselves where the problems were. And he said that he was himself a trained test driver and as a professional he was able to check on problems in a car and that he could understand how severe the safety concerns were in a car. He deeply believed that by examinating the problems on site, one could make the decision from the customer perspective and that he didn't think that it was respectful to rely on reports or data in meeting rooms. So he said that his management team, from that point on will really be committed in the Genjigenbutsu principle to understand customer problems inside the cars.

Yes. Love it. Love it.

Yeah, I think it was incredible. All his words in a very tough moment for Toyota.

Yes, exactly. All right, well, Jonathan, what we're going to explore in this episode, we were talking before the show started. So five principles that guide your work. And what we're going to do is we're going to kind of step through some quotations that you've actually posted. I first saw them on your LinkedIn page. But before we get into those principles, I just want to start with a really general question. With all of your experience, I'm curious if you could just share, what does this lean management in general mean to you?

Well, for me, lean management is the journey of human development. Let's say this. It's a journey of human development that is fueled by learning systems that aim to create the knowledge required to continuously deliver superior customer value and high performance in all areas.

Well said, well said. Now, before we came on, we were also talking a little bit about human resources. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about your opinion on how human resources department plays into this lean journey.

Well, I think the primary role of human resources is to build organizational capabilities that enable the creation of workplaces where human development takes place every day in all sites and at all levels. When I refer to organizational capabilities, I mean organizational processes like recruitment, onboarding processes, career development, education and training, leadership development, business development, reward and recognition policies, communication policies. I think HR has to make sure that they build the capabilities in all the people so that this organizational process ensure people development at all levels.

Now, have you seen this done well in any of your past companies or current company?

I have seen it in Toyota. I have seen it in Toyota. I think Procter and Gamble has been for years working to make this also really consistent. For instance, Procter and Gamble started in the 70s and 80s to understand high performance organization and what was behind high performance organizations. They also benchmarked Toyota in the 90s. They benchmarked again Toyota four years ago, five years ago in 2010. And I think they are not like Toyota, but they have made really good progresses in this sense.

Can you share an example of something they've done?

Well, I think, for instance, all the elements or the processes that happen since you joined Procter and Gamble are a really good example of this. Since the first day that you joined Procter and Gavel, you are given a clear responsibility. You are given a clear responsibility with coach that helps you to develop your capabilities. And you can develop these capabilities through real problem solving and helping the front line to develop capabilities. So, for instance, when I joined Procter and Yambala, I entered as a manager. And my first responsibilities was to work with the frontline members in solving the most important problems at the line where I started to work. So, I mean, this is a culture inside the company and starting with the onboarding processes, this is something that happens every day at all sites and at all levels and all the departments of the company.

Wow. Fantastic. All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into these principles that again, I discovered on your LinkedIn page and we'll just kind of step through each one then. I'm just curious if maybe you can just share some stories and maybe some experiences of how these things have come to life for you. And so the first one that you have is a quotation by AG Lafley and some of these folks, I'm not sure who they are, so maybe you can share those background on that as well. But the first one is the consumer is boss at the heart of everything we do.

Yeah. Aggie Lafley is the current CEO of Procter and Gamble.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. He's someone that has changed the company completely from 15 years ago. And even though he left the company five years ago, but he came back because the company needed him again. And one of the main things that he did was to link the company, to link the inside with the outside. And this means to link the employees of Procter and Gamble with the customers in everything, in everything we do. I mean, again, I came back to my days in Procter and Gamble. One of the main things that I did during my first months was to go to the supermarkets to understand how was, for instance, the value understood by our customers in the supermarkets. We were continuously, even though you were in a manufacturing environment or in a manufacturing role, you were continuously involved in understanding the customer problems. What were the customer complaints? What was the things that our customers and consumers valued in the products and the products that we were delivering to them. There was a concept that we refer to as supply driven. That meant that even though, again, you were in manufacturing, you had a real commitment to increase the value for the customer and that it was a real responsibility to work on improvements across the supply chain to increase this value creation for them. So he was someone that put customer really at the center of our organization. And along with the employees, we were all at front and center of the organization.

All right, so I'm curious, I want you to take us back to the first time you ever walked into a supermarket to explore and talk to customers. What did you do? Did you just stand in the aisle and wait for someone, or did you speak to the management of the supermarket, or what did you do?

Well, one of the things that Procter and YAML had is they had, like, virtual. It's not only in real supermarkets, but they have. And this is something that we spent a lot of time they had, like virtual supermarkets where you could understand what was, for instance, their perception of the customers and the consumers when they saw our products. So they really work with high technology to understand, for instance, the perception what happens when they see defect, for instance, in a case, what happens when they see some artwork that is not well positioned in the case or in the back or whatever the product is. So this is something that not only happens in the supermarkets, but also they have, like I said, virtual supermarkets where you can really understand the human perceptions with the products. This is to do with more the moment of getting the product, of buying the product. And after that, we were also involved in this. How can I explain this? In this test where we work with the consumers getting the feedback, for instance, of products that we were innovating for. After getting some samples of new products or products that had some innovations, we were involved in the feedback of consumers. There was a panel of consumers that they tested the products, and we were involved in these panels to really understand firsthand what were the. Their feedbacks for these innovations.

Got it? Okay. The second quote that you had, or the second principle that guides your work is from Toyota and is to add value to the organization by developing your people and partners. What does that mean to you?

Well, I strongly believe that one of the main outcomes of a lean journey is the achievement of flexibility, responsibility, responsiveness, and adaptively that are needed to cope with ever changing business conditions and customer requirements. And I deeply believe that these business capabilities are mastered mainly depending on how people are developed. All the way to the front line. And in this sense, I deeply believe that the first and the largest source of waste that the Lean Journey should try to eliminate is the underutilization and under development of people, minds and skills. So we cannot add value to an organization without developing our people and partners. And by partners, we understand our suppliers and also the communities that are around the companies.

Yes. All right. The third quotation is from David Hanna. I believe it's a D. Hana. I think it's David, right? David Hahna is all organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get.

Yeah. And this is a quotation that might sometimes create some confusion in Lean Community because we don't talk that much about design, organizational design. When you understand what David Hanna does and what is his work. He worked also for Procter and Gamble. He talks about organization more in a way of organizing, let's say organizing for learning, for creating a learning organization. I mean, again, how do you develop all your systems, all your people systems to make sure that leaders are grown organically in the company? And if you understand organizational design like this, it's really, really, really important in any organization that wants to deliver high performance and superior customer value.

Okay. The fourth one is from my favorite people of all time in business world, Peter Drucker. Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

Yeah, I'm inspired by this quotation because sometimes you work with some cultures where we are always in this. I wouldn't even say in this plan do status, but only in this plan plan, plan, plan status. And nothing happens. And of course not, it's not only that nothing happens. And that, I mean, there is no learning because you are always in this planning stage.

Yes.

You are always in these meeting rooms, discussions, PowerPoints, and. Yeah. No execution. No learning from what has happened versus what you expected to happen. And of course, I mean, this is a real problem for organizations today.

Yeah. You know, my wife and I are actually talking about doing some remodeling in our house. And so we had a nice talk and we, you know, drew up some plans and I'm ready to go, you know, and my wife is, no, no, no, no. Let's talk some more. Let's plan some more. It's like she wants to plan and plan and plan. I'm like, honey, we need to do something. Come on. But, you know, with all that said, I think it's also maybe important to realize that sometimes, and I'm guilty of this myself, you know, maybe we don't plan enough. Right. In pdca. It's like we want to get so excited about going out and solving problems where we just jump straight into do and we don't spend enough time planning. So I guess there's a balance, isn't there?

Yeah, I think so. And I think that you can plan also through experimenting. I mean this is when you think about planning. I don't think I want to step big planning. I think that in order to make a good plan, you need to experiment and then you need this small plan to check adjust cycles where you can learn and when you can set the best plan. But you have to execute, you have to experiment, you have to solve things one after the other and to check if those things that you expected to happen have really happened. And then you can learn and you can be more precise in your next plans. But there is no other way. I mean, this is I think to do is a lot to do with scientific thinking. And if we think about everything that has happened in our lives, I think it's a lot to do with this.

Yes, exactly. No, I agree totally. Okay, so the last quote is from a really, really brilliant person that I've heard a lot about is you. And his quote is, the success of companies depends on how capable they are of unleashing the talent of their people to win the hearts of a growing number of customers.

Yes. And again, I think it is connected with what we were saying before. I mean in a lean journey, people growth and customer satisfaction comes with action, comes with experimenting, testing, reflecting, learning and building our abilities to solve problems, to coordinate teamwork, to prioritize on the workplace, what things we have to do first and to improve the value creating workflow. So the success of companies depends on how well they are in unleashing the capabilities of people, of teams to do this, to grow through action. And through this action and through this value driven experimentation is the way to win the hearts of a growing number of customers. So this is what I mean with this quote.

Yeah, it's an awesome quote. I like it.

All right.

Okay, Very good. All right, well Jonathan, let's go ahead now and just kind of transition into the next part of the show and is what we call a reflection section. And so the first question that I have for you is that, you know, we lean thinkers spend a lot of time talking about, you know, the importance of continuous improvement and respect for people that you have to have both. And continuous improvement is pretty easy to put our finger on. It's tools, you know, it's one piece flow, it's jidoka it's these things that we can read in a book. But what about respect for people? What does that mean to you, respect for people?

Well, I think respect for people means valuing humanity in today's world of technology. I'm sure you can go to a lot of companies, regardless they are manufacturing companies or other companies that they are treating people as robots, they are treating people as computers. They are not valuing their human capabilities. They are not holding precious what it is to be human. I mean the managers themselves are not respecting themselves first to be able to respect the others. And when I refer to respect, I mean respecting these human abilities that people that we have and that technology doesn't have. And this means putting our cognitive, our sensory, our analytical and creative abilities to work and to work to always find a better way for our customers, for our partners and for the society because we have a capability as humans that technology doesn't have and is to work human to human, is to work with customers, is to talk with them, is to experience how they appreciate our products or how they don't feel comfortable with our products, our solutions together. And this is something that technology cannot do today and I hope never can do it, to be honest. And sometimes we lost the sight of how we use our humanity to understand all this and to really work together to create this value. And this is what respond for meeple means for me.

Yes, very good, very good. Jonathan, what's the best advice you've ever received?

Well, I have received a lot of good advices, but I would say my father sent me something when I was 13 years old or yeah, 13 or 12 years old. And he said to me that there is no shortcut to any place worth going. And this has been very, very important in my life. I wouldn't only say my career, but also in my life. My father was mold maker for plastic parts for the automotive and home appliances sector. So by that time he worked for companies like Sony, Panasonic and yeah, he worked 24 hours, seven days per week. So yeah, and at that time I didn't really understand why, you know, because why my father had to work that much. And yeah, and he always explained me why and he always explained me that there was no shortcut to any place worth going. And actually I learned a lot from him because he sometimes during the weekends when I didn't have homework from the school, I went with him for the first trials where he get the first samples of new product releases. Sometimes there were some Japanese engineers there with him because there were first trials, first samples of new TV or something. And the Japanese engineers were here in Barcelona to get these samples and to see what happened. I was really, really impressed and inspired by the behaviors of these guys. It was incredible at that time, for instance, how they helped my father at that time, giving him feedback about product quality, helping him, for instance, to set or discussing with him, but in a very productive and active way, about the best parameters that the machine needed in order. The mold making machine needed in order to get the best product. So they were engineers coming from Japan, but they were discussing with my father, you know, on the Gemba, really, about temperatures, pressures, variables. And I was amazed at, you know, at the respect that they had for my. For the work of my father, you know, and. Yeah, and I always said to my father that someday I wanted to be like these guys and to work with people to get products or to. Yeah, at that time I was amazed at automotive products or home appliances product, because that is what I saw with my father. And he always said me that, yeah, again, that there was no shortcut to any place worth going. And if I wanted to work like they worked, I had to commit to a strong education and I had to commit to the effort of working with the industry, with different industries, and learn about the art of monothecary. Let's say this.

Yes. Well, your father must be proud of you today then, I guess. Jonathan.

I don't know, but I'm really proud of him.

Fantastic. All right, so do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Well, Ron, my personal productivity habit is going to the Gemba and it's very powerful because it's where I always get my true north. It's my most powerful productivity habit because it provides me the understanding where I have to work, first of all, to build my capabilities, to increase my capabilities, and also to build the capabilities that will enable my people to solve customer problems faster and in a more efficient way. When I am at Gemba, I get pulled by the frontline people. They are working to understand how to get closer to a one to one flow of value to customers. They are working to understand how to solve customer complaints, how to solve quality products that they are having. And when I take this challenge with them, I do understand what to do and how can I help, how can I work for them. And working for them means that I am productive because that's the only way I can add value to an organization.

Love it. Love it. All right. Do you have one thing that has surprised you during your last year? Of practicing or implementing lean.

Well, it's something that I have seen a lot of times but I'm always surprised about how strong is the influence of leadership behaviors on the culture of organizations. Regardless, we are talking about a manufacturing site, a department or a shop, whatever we are talking about. But it's incredible how the behaviors of leaders are influenced the culture of this organization and how are influencing the way people think on the front line and the way that the people supporting the frontline think. So I am always surprised about this. I think there is Toyota within the walls of Toyota. You heard something that is that the Gemba is a reflection of management. And I think that's absolutely true for the good and for the bad things. I was also at Toyota some months ago, Toyota uk. I was there with Jeff Leiker and I was completely amazed how all the people in the organization were focused on developing frontline members. I was there with the deputy managing director Tony Walker and I was amazed at how he understood the things that were happening at Gemba, how involved he was in standard work and Caythen, how involved he was about the team members development processes, including the processes of new employees. And of course I was amazed at how how the whole organization and the whole factory was organized around the development of team members. And yeah, again this is a key learning the culture. Sometimes we are talking about culture and. Yeah, and what's culture? Culture is what people do every day. If you put a fly in the wall of a company, what this fly is seeing the behaviors, the decisions, how people work together, how people collaborate, how people react when there is a customer problem. I mean this is the culture of a company and it's very, very, very influenced by the behaviors of leaders.

Yes, absolutely. All right, so do you have a routine or ritual that you follow when things aren't going well and and you need to recharge and possibly refocus?

Well, I follow a routine regardless things are going well or aren't going well. I try to follow my own PDCA cycles to learn from the processes that I follow to overcome obstacles. I set my challenges in a yearly basis which is not a long term challenge, but it's a time frame that engaged me, that engaged me and it's okay for me for my challenges then on the basis of my actual situation and the challenge, I continuously set my target conditions for every quarter, more or less. I try to follow these three months cycles and I continuously work towards achieving these target conditions. And of course in the process of achieving these target conditions, identify obstacles and for each of These obstacles, I try to define processes to overcome them. I try to continuously learn from what actually happened versus what I expected to happen to overcome each of these obstacles. Learning from this and reflecting from this helps me to understand how can I define next steps that are more efficient against this obstacle or similar obstacles that they can find in the future. And sometimes I reflect with. There are some people that I trust and sometimes I also use them in order to have these reflections and to see if these beliefs or these learnings are really the learnings that they will take. You know, in my situation, it's always good to have this reflection with someone else.

Yes, definitely. All right, I'm curious, do you have. You've obviously got a lot of experience and you've learned a lot over the years, but is there one knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become better and more successful at practicing lean?

I would say languages. To learn languages.

Well, your English is great, so you've got that one.

But I need German, I need French, I need Czech. Any Russian. Okay, yeah, to be honest, I mean, it's all to do with human to human relationships. So it's all to do with working with people and sometimes to have fruitful dialogues, to have deep dialogues about the value creation, about the problems that are happening in our organization and to build mutual trust. Speaking the same language does help. And to be honest, it's something that I would really like to be able to learn and to speak almost any of the languages that we have in our planet. This is something that will really help me.

What languages do you speak today, Jonathan?

Today Catalan. That it's my native language because we are in Barcelona, you know, Barcelona speaks. Catalan is our language. So Spanish is the language of Spain, English. And I'm starting to learn German, starting to learn German as my next challenge.

Very good. So the last question I had for you, and it just was just coming to me as we were talking, I'm curious if you could just share a little bit about the Lean movement, if you will, within Spain itself. How is it?

Well, I think in Spain, I'm very well connected with the Lean Management Institute here in Spain. And they're working in different areas, not only in manufacturing, they are also working for healthcare. You know, the healthcare system in Spain. Spain has a lot of opportunities and yeah, they are really doing a good work, working to improve or to develop the capabilities of frontline teams in the hospitals and to help them to understand what are the problems of patients and how can they improve their processes and Their capabilities in order to ensure the satisfaction of patients in hospitals, mainly.

Very good, very good. All right, well, Jonathan, I know it's late there, so thank you so much for taking time out of your evening to visit with us today. Why don't we just wrap this show up with you sharing some final words of wisdom and then why don't you tell people how they can connect with you via social media?

Well, I mean, just as a conclusion, I think we are all in a journey that it's all about winning the hearts and minds of the people that we have around and to build trustworthy organizations where we can all learn and enjoy together, delivering excellence and delivering value to our customers. I think we are in a beautiful, beautiful journey and I am very happy to be with, with a lot of people in the world doing this. So for those who want to connect with me, I have a Twitter account which iscobarmarin. I'm connected with a lot of Lean practitioners there and I try to share also my reflections and my learnings. And you can also follow my blog, that is Jonathan Escobar.com so there I also share some articles, reflections and things that I like to share with others.

Yeah, and we'll link to all of your accounts and your blog at the Show Notes, which everybody can access@gembapodcast.com 54. So hopefully everybody will go and connect with you. And you forgot your LinkedIn profile, so that's where I was learning all about you as well. So I want everybody to connect with you there too.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, yes. In my blog there are also the links for my other social media accounts.

Great.

I would be happy to connect with as much people as possible because the dialogues with people around the world are really, really fruitful and help us to learn even more.

Yeah, well, thank you. I've never been to Spain, so one day I hope to visit and if we do, perhaps we can go watch a football game or something.

We will. We're invited from now on to come here in Barcelona and to see all Barca team to win, let's say, against Madrid.

There you go. Okay. All right, well, thanks again, Jonathan, and have a good evening.

Thank you very much, Ronan. Thank you to all your audience.

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