GA 083 | Getting the Board on Board with Lean with Jamie Flinchbaugh

You're listening to episode 83 with Jamie Flinchbaugh.

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 with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over@gemba academy.com Now I do want to give one quick Gemba Academy update, namely that in November we are running our free DVDs promotion. Again, we do this a few times a year and it's always extremely popular. Basically, if you buy this online subscription to either the School of Lean or School of Six Sigma or a combination of the two, you get all the videos that go along with those schools from free of charge. Now, a full set of DVDs to our school of Lean or School of Six Sigma costs $1,295 and to buy a combo is $1,995. So it's definitely a great deal. Additionally, this year we've added a twist to the promotion and if DVDs aren't your thing, you can replace them with 4 Lean Enterprise Institute workbooks, namely Learning to See, Creating Continuous Flow, Creating Level Pool, and Making Materials Flow. Now these are some of the most useful Lean workbooks that I've personally used over the years. They're fantastic books. In fact, we had Rick Harris on the show a few episodes ago. He wrote the red book. Learning to See is the one on value stream mapping and so forth. So fantastic workbooks. If you want to learn more about it, just go to gemba academy.com and you'll see all about that promotion. Now then, in today's episode, we're going to have Jamie Flinchbaugh onto the show. Now Jamie's been on the show earlier. Jamie is he had founded the Lean Learning center out in Michigan and he's also one of the co authors of a fantastic Lean book called the Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean. And I caught up with Jamie a few weeks ago at the Lean Management Summit in Jacksonville, Florida and we wanted Jamie was actually going to be doing a talk on how the board board of a company can impact continuous improvement and so thought it was really interesting. Jamie led a session on this very topic. So in this episode, we kind of talk about the board of directors and how they can influence a company's lean journey. But we also get into some other stuff, namely what practitioners can do when maybe their leadership doesn't quite get it and they have to kind of manage up a little bit. So Jamie's got a lot of experience throughout the industry, and he shares some really valuable tips. So no matter where you are in your organization, I think you'll find value in what Jamie has to say. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com simply look for episode 83 and you'll find Jamie's notes there. All right, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, so I'm here with my.

Good friend Jamie Flinchbaugh, who first came onto the show in episode 16, July 2014. So it's been a while, but thanks for taking time to catch back up with us. We're here in beautiful Jacksonville, Florida, on the beach. You wanted to go out near the beach. He wanted to go onto the beach, take our shoes off. But, you know, might have been a little awkward.

Got a busy day.

Yeah, busy day. So, Jamie, just to catch back up, why don't you tell people a little bit about your background and what you're up to these days?

Yeah. So been inside the corporate world. Startups. Kind of. Best known for being the co founder of the Lean Learning center, which I'd run for 14 years, and co author with Andy Carlino of the Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean. Probably best known for being about Lean principles and behaviors instead of tools. I've advised probably over 300 companies on their Lean journey in some instance, and either as a co founder, investor, or board member, helped build about almost 20 companies. Wow.

Great. All right, so you know the drill. We like to start all of our episodes with a quote. Do you have one?

Yeah. So just a little thought into this since I'm here today, we're going to be talking about boards. A quote that I think has a lot to do with being on the board is first ponder, then dare. And the reason for that is that, you know, boards have to often be. Be thoughtful in sometimes very high pressure situations. And sometimes it's their job to be the thoughtful ones in the room, but they also need the courage they have to be that courageous. And it doesn't matter how successful you are in life, sometimes in the boardroom, the courage wanes. And so you need that dare part too, to have the courage to Say what you need to say, do what you need to do in the boardroom.

Very good. All right, well, this afternoon you're going to lead a session focused on the board. So we're not going to videotape that whole session just because I think there's probably going to be some confidential information. So we want to be respectful of that. But why don't you give us the rundown kind of the, I don't know, the theory, if you will, behind your session?

Yeah. So I think there's three parts of how Lean and the board intersect, and there's not much on this, certainly nothing written on it. Not many people get to even interact with the board, but we're getting to that point where Lean is more involved in the strategy of the company, and so it's starting to intersect with the board itself, and people with Lean experience are starting to be on boards, and so it's coming into the boardroom that way. So there's really three buckets in which I think about this one is which how do you actually sell the board on Lean? You know, it's not an ROI easy. You know, bring it in, do some capital allocation. So how do you actually sell and engage the board and let them know what's even appropriate to let them know about your Lean journey? So that's one. Number two is how does the board utilize Lean for themselves and their processes? So a board can be a tremendous creator of waste, especially within a management team. Not intentionally, but just by the request that they have and the processes that get set up. And then lastly, what's the role on the board in helping drive the Lean journey? And they don't really own it. So drive is probably the wrong word, but to support, enable and not inhibit. So what can they do to help make that happen? So those are the three categories, and we're going to have a discussion around each of those and out of it. Hopefully we'll have a couple papers coming out to share some of the conversation with the world.

Yeah. So. So what do you do if you're asked to come in to speak to a company, consult with a company, and you can tell, maybe the board, maybe they don't get it. Like, what do you do?

Yeah, so I think it's very rare that the board itself is the inhibitor. They might be an inhibitor, but above all else, the management team still has to lead. And so to me, I think if the Lean journey isn't going well, you don't look at the board as the reason why it's not going well, now you might look at the board as a reason, as a lever to help move it forward, particularly if you already have on the board some people with lean experience. And we've seen that quite often where it might be the CEO of a company that's had a very successful lean journey and they're on the board of another company and without overstepping their balances, board member, which is a very fine line, trying to at least encourage what good looks like. And they can't lead it, they can't own it, they can't run it, but they can at least say, here's what good looks like. And it looks like window dressing to me. Maybe you guys need to take a harder look at this so they can be an impetus to at least get a stronger engagement.

Yeah. So what are some of the biggest challenges that a board faces as it relates to influencing the lean journey?

So I think the two, and I've been putting more and more thought into this just from my own role as a board member to what others are doing, and just thinking about this as a process. But I think number one is CEO succession and leadership team succession, because we've seen some very famous examples, but many others that don't make the lean press, so to speak, of a CEO who owns it and leads it and runs it, and then they retire or are asked to leave or whatever happens. And then the board just picks some other random guy that came, not random, but came from some other place, comes into the company and they're about something else. And even if they're not anti lean, if they're not pro lean, everybody's sitting around going, hey, what's this guy about? And the journey stalls. So I think in order to the board should be a longer horizon than often the management team and certainly those in the company. And so if they can have that long horizon as applies to CEO succession planning. And then number two, I think is we've had increased conversations in the circles of governance around not just holding the management team accountable for the, the performance of the company, but also for its future strategy. So here's what you say your future strategy is. Here's the thing you say things you say you need to do to get there. So are you doing those things and holding them accountable to it? But you know, Drucker said, we've had this quote for a long time. The culture eats strategy for breakfast. It trumps it every single time. And so why aren't boards holding CEOs accountable for culture? And lean is culture in many ways that's at least been my premise for a long time. Lean is about behaviors and culture. And so if we're going to have a successful lean journey, the management team has to take some ownership over that culture. Board has to find some mechanism to hold them accountable for that culture.

Yes.

So I think those are the top two ways that boards can maintain their role as in governance and not overstep it, but still have a very positive influence on the lean journey.

So I want to pivot for a second. We were visiting with some folks yesterday. I don't want to say who they're with, but out of respect for them, but they were facing a challenge. This is not a board question, but I know with your deep background and experience in operations and whatnot, I think you might be a perfect person to ask this question to you. But they're facing. They work for a big, big, big company, okay. And they. They're middle management, if you will, not senior management. And their senior management is kind of on board, you know, But I mean, they have this organization, okay. That's continuous improvement, if you will.

Right.

But this team is. Their job, as they said, was to kind of coach and mentor their leadership, to help their leadership flourish and get lean, if you will, and help them drive it. But they're struggling. And my heart, part of it was breaking. I was like, that's a tough, tough battle, you know?

But what advice?

There's a lot of people listening to this right now would probably. Yeah, that's me.

Yeah, that's not an uncommon story. Right. And I think there's a couple of things, and there's a lot of people that are trying to coach up. And I think the two biggest pieces of advice I give in that situation, one is that coaching is about the other person's success, not yours. And to be a successful coach, the person you're coaching can't be the enemy, can't be someone you don't respect. And so often when I see people coaching up, it's like, well, that. That guy doesn't get it. Yeah, He's. He's clueless. He's wrong, and I gotta fix him because he's screwing everything else. And we don't come at it from a place of respect. We don't come at it as for that other person, that person turns out to be the enemy in that case. And there's no way we can be a successful coach in that circumstance. So you either need to. And this will lead into the second piece of advice, but you need to come at that from A position of respect. If I'm going to coach up, I have to do it for that person's definition of success and be genuinely interest in their success. Because if I'm doing it for myself, I'm not going to be an effective coach. So I think that's number one and number two, which kind of leads into it. If I can't respect that person, I have to find someone else. And that's not the only reason I would find someone else. But there's a lot of cases where I'll talk to someone and they're trying to find the right technique to coach someone and then I'll go talk to that person they're coaching and they say, yeah, they just don't get me. They don't get my world, they don't get what I'm dealing with. They're just not the right person. And it's not about technique. They're the wrong person. Person to be doing the coaching. So for whatever reason, even if it's a bad reason. There was a long time ago, a case where I was very young, I was acting as a consultant, and the company I was coaching had a very, very strong ageism issue. They did not. Basically, you had to be at least 55 to be worth anything.

Little gray hair, a lot of gray hair.

So. And I still had enough that they could. They didn't know it. They knew it wasn't gray yet. So now nobody knows, but. So we just swapped. We just swapped. So Andy Carlino, my partner, stepped in. He instantly got their respect. It was going to take too long for me to earn the respect. Who cares? I'm not in it for the glory. So if the other person's going to be more successful, then great. So I think sometimes it's like, well, I'm going to try to coach this person. Well, really the problem I'm trying to solve is not how do I coach that person, it's how do I get that person to coaching. And so if we reframe the problem statement, sometimes it's about improving my technique as a person trying to coach up. Sometimes it's about finding a different coach inside the company, outside the company, on the board, wherever it might be. But sometimes that's a better more.

Well, that's why things like not to give a plug for conferences and whatnot. But that's what I think is something so valuable about coming to these types of things. You know, you meet and network with other folks and talk to people like you and.

Absolutely. And we've had, you know, I've had many people in classes where, you know, all they could. They couldn't convince their. They couldn't convince their executive to adopt lean behaviors, but they could convince them to come to my class.

Yes.

And then they went back and they were like, well, didn't you tell them all the things I did? Yeah, but it just came from a different angle, a different mechanism, different source. That's great. That's great. So who cares? Another quote, just to revert back to an earlier question, is, Truman, is you can accomplish anything in life if you don't mind who gets the credit. So do we have to be the coach, or do we just want the person to get to where they need to get to?

Well, I guess humility is a big part of it, right? That you've got to be humble.

You do. And so there's a lot of people that want to say, I led that lean journey.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, no, that was a successful lean journey that I was a part of, and that's a much more productive ambition.

Well, even when Sam was talking. Sam McPherson this morning was talking about Special Forces and how they. You know, it's fascinating.

You know, they give the A team.

If you will, the mission, and then the guy, the miss. They figure out how they're going to do it. I mean, that's pretty incredible.

Yep. Yeah. And it takes. It takes being beholden to the mission more than to yourself.

Yeah.

Beholden to the team more than yourself.

Yes.

And those are. Those are behaviors that are essential and, of course, require. Require purpose. You know, so humility is part of it. Purpose is also part of it.

Yes.

And if I don't have a purpose, then I'm about whatever. I'm about the job, I'm about the task, I'm about the credit. But if I have a purpose, like, well, what's. What's the best way to accomplish that purpose? And whatever it is, we'll find it.

All right, well, back in episode 16, I ran you through some of the reflection questions, but we've changed them up a little bit since you came on. So I'm gonna do my best to ask the questions that I don't think I asked you last. I don't have the exact notes in front of you.

Probably wouldn't remember what they were last time.

So, wait, last time you said, respect for people.

Hopefully, I've learned something since then, too.

There you go. The first one I don't believe I asked you was, what's the best advice you've ever gotten?

So this one probably hasn't changed, although you gotta go back and listen to. See, I don't think I asked you, but maybe not. So I think. I don't know if it tightens down to a pithy little statement, but it was really about learning from every situation. And it was a mentor of mine who started me very early. He worked with me when I was still a teenager. And. And so it didn't matter how bad things had happened. I had had some rough professional times, and I'd go to him and share my tales of woe, and he'd basically look at me very unsympathetically and say, what'd you learn from that? And he just ensured that didn't matter how bad things got, didn't matter how good things got. He wanted to make sure I was clear about what I was learning out of that. And I've made that a huge filter on everything I've done. I've taken jobs for pay cuts because I was going to learn more. And today, as I look at whatever I do in the future, a lot of it's around making sure that I'm close to my own learning edge. Where can I learn more? Who can I surround myself with? That's advice that really has never left my side.

What about a personal productivity habit? Do you have one that you think others might benefit from?

So I think personal productivity comes down to. Comes back to that word we mentioned earlier, which is purpose, meaning why am I here this week, why am I in the office, why am I at a client, why am I here? And whether it's a very crisp, objective statement for that day or it's just something I need to accomplish, or it's a reason for being there. You have to be clear about that purpose of your event or your day or your week. And why am I doing this thing? It doesn't sound like that's about productivity, but what I find is that it clarifies. None of us have enough time in the day to do all the things that we're supposed to be doing or want to be doing for certain. And so being clear about the purpose becomes a great filter. Where do I draw the line? What makes it in and what makes it out? And if I know what my purpose is, much more likely on those days, the right stuff stays in and the other stuff gets out.

Yes, yes. Let's say that you're having a bad day and things aren't going well and you need to recharge. What do you do? How do you go about that?

Well, she'll take my call. I usually call my wife. So we usually don't talk about whatever's bugging me at the time but it recenters me, it grounds me. She's not one to have a lot of sympathy for me and since we met a very long time ago, she's kind of always been my muse, my inspiration and I've always wanted to be better for her. And so even just a short conversation, usually I don't want to say picks me up but at least regrounds me and stops my little self pity and reminds me what my duty in life is.

So you've got a lot of lean experience Jamie, but I'm curious, is there an area within the lean body of knowledge that you feel that you need to get better at?

Well there's probably a lot. I think one of the most interesting exercises and what lean lean frontiers has been about a lot is the discipline within different functions. Sales and marketing, IT finance and accounting. And I was at the first lean accounting summit 11 years ago. I was at the first lean Product Development summit. I was at the first lean HR summit. And I think that there's two. I think there's an area that the lean community as a whole and me in particular have been very very much behind on and that is we all like to say that the customer comes first but what is really the mechanism to do that? What's lean marketing which is not what lean sales is and they're both different and even lean strategy to say where are we going? Into the marketplace. But you know we say lean is about customer first often I don't want to say who we is but that's not uncommon to say we're about customers. But do we really change that customer interaction, that customer conversation, that customer sale, that customer experience and so no. Do we just make a better product? And there's so much more than just making a better product, higher quality, cheaper that I think how we actually engage with the customer, I think we've just scratched the surface. I think there's so much more to go there.

And the most important question of the day, how the soccer team's doing.

Mixed but all of them are improved. So I'm coaching two and watching one so with three kids but they're all improving.

Good. Do you practice your lean leadership skills with the soccer or is it the other way around?

It's a little bit of both. I try to do very good pdca. I always do reflection after matches and look at both my self improvement. So when I do written Self reflection on my matches. I always look at myself as a coach. I look at the players, I look at the system and so I try to look at it from many different lenses and I write out my own reflection which is only shared with other coaches, if not just from myself. But I do try to practice PDCA and I also really try to focus on situational leadership. So what does the team need? And I don't always have a halftime speech. Sometimes halftime is if the team is able to fix its own problems, I just get out of the way. So I always try to adapt my style to the situation, which I believe is. I don't want to say something I learned from lean, but it's certainly something that's consistent with it. So I do try to let them cross over.

So yeah, as we've talked about, one of my daughters is a big soccer player and she's 11 now, so she went select this year but she interesting story. So I'd like to get your take on it. She played kind of pretty high level when she was younger and then she got a little bit burned out. Want to try other sports. So we put her more in like a recreational soccer league and let her play there and do some other sports. And then she's like, yeah, cheer is fun and all that, but gosh, I want to go back to soccer and I don't want to play at the recreational level. I got to get back to the tougher games. So we found a team for, it's a new team and they, they qualified for kind of a second level league, you know, in Texas and so far they've lost every game. But what I'm so proud of is she's kind of a leader on the team and she's excited to go to practice, she's excited for the games and she tries and she's constantly picking up her teammates. So she's won a lot of games, you know, in her young life, you know. But I have to say I'm not sure I've been more proud to see her and her leadership right now. And they've lost every game, you know.

Well, I always tell my parents that part of my coaching is to coach them for their lifelong relationship with the sport. And so, you know, I'm not just coaching for the game of the season. I'm trying to coach for them to have a lifelong relationship with the sport, whether they turn into a coach or they're just a parent or whatever that or they're a fan, I don't care what. But there's a lot of lessons that go beyond the field that come out of that. And, and I'm not trying to be their guru, but I do want to have a positive impact on who they become as they grow.

Fantastic. Awesome. Jamie, always enjoy talking to you.

Thank you.

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