GA 101 | How to Implement a Lean Culture with Steven Leuschel

You're listening to episode 101 with Steven Leishl. 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 Perera. Hey, 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 in your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, thank you for all the kind words and emails and comments that we've received regarding episode 100 with Matt May where he talks about how he died two times. So if you've not listened to episode 100, I would definitely encourage you to check that out because it's a pretty special episode. Matt was telling some fantastic stories of his life and incredible experience changed him. So just go over to GembaPodcast.com and check out episode 100 if you haven't. Now, today I'm excited to welcome Steven Leischl to the show. And Steven and I talk about a book that Steven's written called Lean Culture Change. And throughout the episode today, we really kind of dig into the people side of Lean and talking about how important it is to understand problem solving and some basic tools like 5why, analysis and so forth in order to really start developing, developing a strong culture of problem solvers. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 101. Again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 101. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Stephen, well, thank you so much for taking time to visit with us. Where are you calling in from today?

Just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Indiana. Pennsylvania.

Ah, okay. All right, very nice. So, well, Stephen, as you know, we to start all of our shows with our guests sharing a quotation that possibly inspires them. So do you have one?

Yeah, I think it comes from Peter Drucker, Culture eats strategy for breakfast. And it's a pretty popular quote out there. But I think it's really important when talking about this book and the methodology and Lean because you have to have a strategy. You absolutely have to have a long term strategy. But on the same token, you've that strategy has to be about how do you affect the culture and how do you change the culture? Because culture eats strategy for breakfast. So I think it goes hand in hand that you have to have a good strategy, but without the culture, the strategy doesn't matter anyway.

Yeah, Stephen, let's go ahead and kind of get going by. Maybe tell us a little bit about your background and maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement.

I first came to learn about continuous improvement at St. Vincent College where I did my undergrad and masters. And there's a guy by the name of Roger Lewis that was associated with the college and he started at Toyota GEORGETOWN Back in 1986, I believe. And he brought with him this long term plan for changing an organization. So when I was introduced to it, he actually wasn't even using the word lean, but he knew it was out there in the literature because, you know, when Lean first got started, it was very tools based and event based versus he had this whole strategy. I think he's saying the word lean more and more, but that's how I got introduced to it, which is little bit different than most people. And Mark Graban, who's writing that book Practicing Lean, he's editing the book Practicing Lean. Excuse me, I've submitted a chapter to him just talking about this story about the long term strategy learned from Roger and how it's a little bit different. But that was my first exposure to Lean, was learning from him.

So something that I know that you're passionate about is this transformation curve. What's that all about?

The way that Roger describes transformation curve or the implementation curve is you've got to change culture first and then there's implementation and daily living. So he's been able to sequence the tools and he's used this over and over. He was teaching it to St. Vincent, teaching it to me and some other guys and gals at the time, about how to sequence the tools to get culture change first so that we can really start to impact results. But without the culture in place, without the behavior in place, it's pretty difficult to have any lasting impact on change, on improvement.

Right. So it's the people side of what we would call lean, or is it something else?

I would say it's all of the above. The book Lean Culture Change really goes into phase one, level A of his transformation curve. So it's making sure that there's long term goals in place, that they're visualized on a balanced scorecard, that there's an improvement system or a suggestion system in place, that using tools such as Master plans to make sure that there's a plan to achieve the long term goals. Workplace organization. So it's problem solving. One is probably one of the better examples where most organizations have started out with the A3, which is a very sophisticated tool that he would say you should introduce a little bit later in implementation. He starts out with problem solving sheets, which is just. It's kind of like a mini A three problem statement on the top left, root cause on the bottom left right is countermeasure and bottom right is check. And the whole point is, rather than. It's not like we're neglecting the huge organizational problems, but we're trying to teach people problem solving at the same time that they're solving problems one by one. And you try to connect that to a daily meeting so that it really starts to impact the culture and the daily operations of I see a problem, I talk about a problem, I have a standard in place to solve that problem. Once people have that culture in place and that's just the way they treat problem, then it's a lot easier to get everybody in a room together and do a Kaizen event and have an A3 as the output. Because people understand the basics of problem solving, they understand the basics of improvement. It kind of sounds the same. But if you don't have that culture in place of people understanding and grasping the five whys and knowing what the long term organization's goals are, you just get them in a room for a week and they talk about a new process. But then it's very, very difficult to go back to their real jobs and do what the new process says to do.

Right, right. No, I totally agree. I mean, the problems that I see with people in particular with A3s involved is that, you know, we'll get the question, do you have an A3? What's the A3 template should I be using? And I'm like a piece of paper, you know. So they're looking for, you know, the golden template that they can just kind of fill the boxes in. When obviously it's the thinking behind EA3 that matters, not the way that the A3 just tells a story. Right. And so I totally agree that you need to understand problem solving before you worry about documenting the problem or the journey towards countering that problem on paper.

Yeah. One time I was teaching A three, we call it one page reports, which is basically the same thing as an A3, but the CEO is in the room. I think it was a mix of senior leaders focused on the quality department to teach them how to do A three and they had problem solving in place for quite a while at this organization. But the CEO looked at me, he said so really what you want me to do is just take out this blank sheet of paper and figure out how I'm going to tell the story of solving this problem. I said yeah, that's basically exactly what I want you to do. And follow the basic problem solving methodology, PDCA cycles. But that was the way. That's what his big takeaway was at that time.

Well yeah, and that it's, you know, the A3 in and of itself is nothing, it's paper. Right. But it's the thinking that goes into problem solving that you then document on the paper. This is the magic, right? And, and that's the problem with some of the books have been written and whatever is like oh, if you do this A3 all of your problems are going to go away. Not so much. You know, it's like he is right. It is just a piece of paper but you gotta, there's a lot of thinking that goes into that process and, and so I think you're on the right track with teaching problem solving first and foremost.

So.

All right, well let's talk about your book Lean Culture Shane, what's it, what's it all about?

It's about. We talked about the transformation curve earlier. So it's really about the first phase of that transformation curve. And you know, it's very tools based this book is. But I'm saying that the system is very cultural based but it's used as a training book. I'm using it as a training book for my hospital. I'm hoping some others are going to start as well. But it just goes through the artifacts of the daily management system like the daily huddle, the balanced scorecard, the six year scorecard, all the tools that Roger's introduced to people who he's introduced the transformation curve and the system to over the years. So I think it's a very good book for people who want to understand the connections of a daily management system and then how to take those tools and adapt them for their organization. Because if you can adapt the tools but if the connections aren't in place, it's pretty difficult to make sustaining change. The connections have to be in place.

Give us a sneak peek about what you write about as associated with a daily huddle.

The daily huddle, the examples in the book. Mark Graban posted a blog about this. It's a pretty good blog that goes over. I think he posted a couple Pages actually. But the daily huddle just talks about huddle standards. Same time, same place, everyone, every day. And they might seem basic standards for people who have been doing a daily huddle or daily meeting for a while. But for organizations who don't have this system in place or have an immature system in place, and I don't mean immature as disrespectful, just one that hasn't been around for a long time, it's important to know what the basics are standing at the balance scorecard being short five to 15 minutes, making sure you have problem solving sheets and improvements. If you're going to talk about something, we don't want you to just talk around a problem and circumvent the system. We want to come and present a problem sheet or present an improvement for your idea, showing that you've done a little bit of work ahead of the huddle so that it's quicker and more effective and everybody can learn the other tools to ultimately impact the results.

Now you mentioned 12 to 15 minutes. Is that your opinion of the kind of the ideal time frame, five to 15 minutes?

Yeah. Especially at the front line level. You want to be able to, you want. In healthcare they have to remain short because there's call bells going off, there's patients that need help. As you move up in the organization, maybe have a manager, director or senior leader huddle, it may take a little bit longer and that's okay because generally there's more things to talk about and they don't have the frontline work that they need to do. So it's just a rule of thumb.

Yeah, it's interesting and that's been my experience as well that they're normally about that long until I went and visited a company called FastCap. Have you ever heard of FastCap and Paul, Paul Akers and these guys?

Yeah. Yeah.

So they do a morning meeting every morning with all of their, that entire, it's, you know, smaller companies, say around 50 people total and they have, they meet for around, I would say a short meeting is 40 minutes every day. And he gets the question, how can you afford to, you know, spend 40, 45 minutes in your meeting? And his response is, I don't know how I could afford not to because what they're doing, which, and I've never seen anybody do this, there's a few people that are out there kind of copying what FastCap is doing. So maybe they do it, but no one on their own, but they study things like the Constitution and I just never seen anything like it. And so he kind of threw me for a loop a little bit on, like, maybe five to 15 minutes isn't always ideal in every case, but, yeah, maybe in a hospital, it's not feasible that you can stand around for 45 minutes talking about the Constitution. But, yeah, that's one time where I've seen someone really challenge the status quo, if you will.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. And if you can do that. I haven't got a chance to read Paul's latest book yet, but I watched the video podcast of Paul and Mark, and I thought that was. I really enjoyed watching that. But you just have to ask yourself, you got to step back and say, is the huddle or the daily meeting bringing value?

Yeah.

And I'm not saying this is what's happening, but if you have 50 people in a room and only five people are the ones talking, then it's probably not bringing value to the rest. But if it's bringing value to everybody, it sounds like that's what it's doing. It's fast, Cap. Then that's. I mean, that's great.

That's great. Yeah. Like I said, I've never seen other companies doing it. So I'm not saying that everybody should just stop and do that, but. But it does give you pause when you see there's more than one way to skin a cat, I guess. But, yeah, you got to find your own way for sure. So I guess as it relates to the book, why did you write it? What's your purpose? What's your cause? As Simon Sinek would ask, the real.

Purpose was it was a little bit selfish. I needed a way to help train the hospital that I'm at. And there's other people that want to be able to learn from us and learn from other organizations that are using the same system. And what better way to package it up than a book that says, here you go, go ahead and read this, and at least they get an introduction to the tool. So that was the. That was the purpose of the book.

Yeah. So let's talk about training in general, since obviously you're using the book for training and, like, what's been your experience? I mean, can you get everything you need from a book, or do you need to do something else?

No, I don't think you can get a whole lot from a book in general. I think it's a basis, it's a place to start. But books, videos, going to see and actually doing. So this book is really established to be a guidebook, so that People can read a chapter and then walk away and say, okay, I'm going to do this. Because that's where the real learning occurs, when you actually go and do it. The way we have training designed at our hospital, and what I've done before, an adaptation of this is you have the basic. If it's a one day or a two day training, and I'm not even saying that that's the best way to do it. It's just a way to do it. We go and see a couple huddles in the morning. We give people a chance to talk to other individuals who have implemented improvements, who have solved problems, who are leading huddles at different layers of the organization. Go and see balanced scorecards so they can see that it's not. But it's not just about training, it's about daily living. And it's not that we're doing everything perfect or any organization is going to be able to do anything perfect. It's about how do we build and how do we teach everybody the simple tools so that they can help solve problems, think a little bit differently and ultimately impact the results. Employee safety, patient safety, whatever the organization's goals might be.

Yeah, no, I totally. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned that. You actually have to take, you have to take action. Like even with Gambit Academy, you know, we've a lot of videos that are going to give you a lot of information, but if you only. I just recently did an interview, I was being interviewed, which was a little weird, being interviewed, but they asked me about kind of our learning approach and what we don't want to be is like an E learning company where you just kind of check a box that, oh yeah, I watched this video and now I know that information. I would rather you not do that. I would rather you just watch one video than go out and do something with what you've learned because it's in the action and going to Gemba and doing something with it, with the knowledge that makes learning really happen. Would you agree?

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And actually what I would recommend. And this is again what we do at our hospital, and this came out of a suggestion. So at the end of the training day, I think at that time it might have been two full days spread across a certain time period. But somebody said to me, you know, you're teaching us about this improvement system, but you're not giving us any time to go and do it. I think you should eliminate a little bit of waste and give us half an hour. 45 minutes to go and implement an improvement. And then pretty soon it took a couple weeks. But the word was out there, hey, you better not go to the training unless you have an improvement idea, because he's going to give you time to go and implement. So people knew that I was going to ask him about their improvement idea. And it's just kind of been, it's integrated into the training now. And I think that's been good because part of there's always this reluctance to start a suggestion or start a problem solving sheet. And when you get people over that barrier of just putting pencil to paper and if you can do it in a training environment, it just makes it a little bit easier for them when they go back out to their real jobs or daily jobs and want to implement improvement or have an idea.

Yeah, got it. So, as you know, most companies, I don't want to say most, but many organizations kind of begin their continuous improvement journey with events, event driven Kaizen, if you will. But you describe in your book that it really should start with leadership teams being involved in something called a pilot hall. So talk to me about that.

I think as you look back over the years and trace different organizations, how they first got started with lean, it was typically through Kaizen events. And not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I think we as a lean community need to ask why and not just propose new ways forward, but we need to try to understand why we really need to focus on leadership in the pilot hall. That doesn't mean it's a cookie cutter approach. So there's always a period where you have to go and see, you have to analyze, you have to understand what the organization is up against. But generally speaking, leadership is so important because if you don't have leadership on board, and I don't just mean buy in like they're going to support the system, but they should pretty much be used in many of the same exact tools that are used at the front line. And then you have to have a pilot hall. Some other organizations are calling it a model sell and, and I think they're pretty similar in concept, but it's an area where you can go and see and learn. You can try new tools, you can try new services, try new products, but it's a place where the system is really up and running so that you can develop people within that pilot hall and then start to move them around the organization. Because many organizations don't have huge budgets to just say, oh, we're going to hire 100 lean guys to Come in and help change us. I don't think that that would work anyway. But that's the purpose of leadership and pilot hall. To get it right on top and get it right on bottom and then meet in the middle.

So let's imagine there's somebody listening to this right now who says, yeah, that sounds great, Steven. Problem is, I don't have leadership support yet. I'm trying to make things better. What can you say to that person?

I think you've got to try to go as high in the organization as you can. So maybe that's only a supervisor, maybe it's one level higher. But generally speaking, if you've got three or four layers in the organization, even if you can get two or three layers up and establish a leadership type committee at the top and then a pilot at the bottom, I think you're going to be okay if you can connect those two. Because eventually whoever that person who's leading that leadership pilot reports to is going to see that it's successful if you're able to scale it appropriately. And then they're going to say, okay, we want this everywhere. How do we get this everywhere? Then the response would be, okay, well, you have to start on top and maybe select another pilot if you want it everywhere in the organization. That's what I would recommend.

Yeah, that's great advice. I've actually done that in previous lives when I worked in industry. Some companies didn't have any top, top leadership support. They were publicly traded companies. So they may talk the talk during, you know, when they're speaking to the street or whatever it was, but they weren't really bought in. And even my direct manager wasn't totally bought in. But all I tried to do was make my manager look good. You know, I would go out and I would try to do all these and I would say, here's three slides that you could use in your next, you know, management meeting or whatever it was, and came to find out eventually, you know, we were really getting real results on our own. We weren't getting a lot of support, but we did it anyhow. Next thing you know, they were like, hey, you got any slides for me this month? You know, and so I think that's not maybe the ideal situation. But if those are the, you know, the cards you're dealt, then I think you need to make the best of it. I think it's too easy to say, oh, I don't have leadership support, I'm quitting, or I'm not going to try, or whatever. This may not be the best career advice for you? No. Maybe if you can find a different job, great, do it. But that's not always feasible for some folks. So I think you can, as they say, when you're dealt lemons, try to make some lemonade. Right.

I think that that is fantastic advice because at some point during any lean implementation or change strategy or whatever terminology you're using, the lean guy or the lean gal is going to come to a point where they're to going, they're going to say, I don't have leadership support.

Right.

And if you don't do that, then you're probably not challenging people enough.

Yeah.

So I think your. I think your advice is. Is spot on.

Yeah. Yeah. The other quote that I love is. I can't remember who said it. The cartoonist guy who said, I found the problem. And he is. I, you know, so, you know, sometimes I think we have to look in our mirror a little bit when we feel like things are going badly.

So.

All right, well, very good. So where can people pick up Lean Culture Change? Anywhere books are sold.

Yeah, pretty much anywhere books are sold. I did the self publishing through IngramSpark. Hasn't come without hiccups, but it's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, I think a number of other outlets as well.

Awesome. Awesome. All right, well, we'll link to it in the show notes. So let's go ahead, Stephen, and transition into the reflection section. So. So, as you know, lean thinkers spend a lot of time talking about continuous improvement and respect for people kind of as two primary pillars and continuous improvements, the tools, the things that we do, a little bit easier to find. But respect for people can be harder to define. So I'm curious, what does respect for people mean to you?

Respect for people means to me. I would actually expand that if I could. I hope it's okay.

Yeah.

To mutual trust and respect. That's what I learned. The definition of. At the time we were calling it all operational excellence. It's Lean Toyota production system. It's really mutual trust and respect. So it's between people and the organization managers and team leaders. Because if it's not mutual, then there's disrespect or lack of respect somewhere. So really, to me, respect for people, it implies mutual trust and respect, but I like that terminology a little bit better because it's just more holistic. And if we're just respecting people and we're not changing the organization to get results, then ultimately we're not respecting the people who are in our communities. If we're healthcare. We're not respecting our shareholders and our customers. So I think it goes beyond that. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what's implied by respect for people as well.

Yeah. What's interesting, you say that my business partner, John Miller, you know, he was born and raised in Japan and speaks Japanese fluently. And he explained many times to me that respect for people is actually a really bad translation from the original Japanese. And it's really better translated as respect for humanity. And there's a big difference. Right. When you think about humanity, the humanness of someone versus just people.

So, yeah, I would be all in favor of going towards that translation. I think that's awesome. I've never heard that before, but I think that's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, Stephen, what's the best advice you've ever received?

The best advice I've ever received is from Roger, and it's really focus on the positive. What he's taught me is you've got to focus on the positive behaviors to help drive out the negative behaviors. It's funny, I was just talking about this last week with someone else and they recommended a book. I wish I could remember exactly what the book was. Maybe I'll look it up and send you an email, but I'm pretty sure it's called the Shamu Effect or something along those lines. I haven't got a chance to read it yet, but the whole book is about that's how they trained the whales was focusing on the positive and ignoring the negative behaviors. So I'll send you that link. I hate to quote something without having the exact title.

Yeah, that's fine. Okay, Very good. All right. Hey, do you have a personal productivity habit others might benefit from?

I'm not sure if it's a personal productivity habit, but it's more of a personal respect habit. I try to, and I don't always follow my own advice, but when I receive an email or I have a tendency to email someone, I try to go and see them if they work within my organization. So I think that's just, you know, things get lost over email. So if it can wait until a Gemba walk, or if you can just go out and see, or even a phone call is better than an email. But always go and see. Along those same lines, if, you know, if leaders are meeting with people in their own offices and they don't have time to go to the Gemba, you could just flip flop and say, well, instead of them coming to you, why don't you Go to them and it'll take the same amount of time. I think anytime that we can go and see over email, phones or meeting in a conference room is very beneficial.

Totally agree. Especially if you're upset. Do not send that email. Right.

Or just send it to yourself and forget about it.

Yeah, exactly. All right. So is there anything that surprised you this past year as you've been practicing and implementing Lean?

I've learned that being the like I wrote about in Mark's book, Practicing Lean, Learning from Roger and learning at St. Vincent and being able to coach organizations as an external coach was very, very different than an internal coach. So I came in knowing what I thought was the plan and the long term strategy. But actually making things work within an organization is very, very different as an internal person than it is as an external person. Focusing on the positive is something that I hope is helping me.

Yeah. All right. Hey, let's say that along those lines, let's say that you're having one of those days that aren't going so well and you need to recharge and refocus. Do you have a routine or ritual that you follow to make that happen?

Yeah, it's really rooted in pdca. And before we just jump into what's the problem? When I'm talking about a problem, I'm talking about whether it's engagement or we're not following the plan of change, or we might not be getting results in one area, drive it back to the system and say, okay, what in the system isn't working? And it's hard, at least for me, because as a lean, internal lean guy, or external lean guy, you never want to tell people what you think is happening. You want to be able to show them and you want them to be able to learn. So I think it's important to reflect and say, how am I going to get the facts in front of this person? How am I going to help them see what I see without telling them directly? Because that doesn't help anybody learn. So I think it's very, very hard to do. I'm really trying to improve on that, but I think it's important that every lean leader is able to do that in some capacity.

So the last question I have in this section is, you've obviously been doing this for a while and got quite a bit of experience, but is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become a better lean thinker?

Probably every area of lean. I love listening to podcasts and reading blogs and getting other people's take on it. Because I think the industry has the tools pretty well nailed and the tools have been pretty well nailed for a while. If we could just get those people to use the tools, it would be so much easier. That's really where I need help and I try every day to do that. And it's not about using the tools, it's about how do we pull in things that have been around for a long time to get results and to help people make improvement.

Yeah, well, with the thing you just said at the end, the people. Right, it's about the people. And when we figure that out, because we've all been tool heads at one time or another, but once you realize that nothing else really, truly matters unless you're able to work with one another and get people to collaborate and help one another, that's when the real magic happens.

Yeah, and you could have, you know, for example, the problem solving sheet which we discussed earlier, you might have a team that's doing very, very good problem solving within that team that isn't using the problem sheet at all. And culturally you have to be able to go in and understand that and you can take them to a place where they can monitor and check and control and follow up. But until the, until the finger pointing goes away and people start to just work together, which that's what the tools are meant for. But that's why when we started out the interview, you asked me one of my favorite quotes, it was from Peter Drucker about culture. Eat strategy for breakfast. And I think everything goes back to culture. If you don't have the culture in place, then and the tools aren't going to sustain and the results aren't going to change.

Exactly. All right, well, very good. I haven't tried your book yet. I've skimmed it, but I look forward to reading it fully here. Steven. So great job. First of all, writing that. I know it's a lot of work to do something like that, so well done. So let's go ahead and wrap this show up with you maybe telling us some final words of advice and wisdom and then tell people how they can connect with you on social media.

I think final words of advice, make sure you have a long term plan. And that doesn't just mean a one year, two year plan, but make sure you really lay out how you're going to affect organizational change in the long term, whether it be 5 years or 10 years. And even if you're not going to be there that long, you should have a plan, a general plan. On how you're going to be able to do that and then communicate that plan as much as you can. Not too much of the plan to drive people crazy, but enough so that they know you know what you're doing, you know what the next steps are. And then really focus on the positive and use positive reinforcement to drive more and more organizational change. That would be my words of wisdom right now.

Yeah. Fantastic. All right, well, thanks again for coming on, Steven. I know you're very busy and appreciate your flexibility. Are you a conference guy? Do you go to any conferences or anything like that?

I'd like to. I'm looking at the Lean Coaching Summit. I think it's out in Minnesota this year. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go, but I think coaching is just a skill that we can all get better at, me especially. So I'm hoping to get out to that conference.

All right, well, if we cross paths, we'll go out and buy a beer and we'll talk about all of our kids crying and all of our challenges.

Yeah. Congratulations again.

All right. Okay. Take care, Stephen.

Okay, thanks, Ron. Bye.

Bye. 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 Sam.