GA 140 | How to Use Your Lean Skillset in Different Settings with John Chacon

You're listening to episode 140 with John Chacon. 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 look 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 today. I'm excited to welcome John Chacon to the show. Now, John has been a Gemba Academy customer in the past and got to meet up with him at the AME conference recently. And John's going to kind of share his journey with Lean really, today. And we're not going to really talk about any one particular topic, but really just kind of following his journey. So he started with Lean in the Marine Corps. He was in the Marines for, I think he said, three or four years or five years or something like that, and he practiced Lean for around three of them. When he left the Marines, he started in the civilian world. And he kind of just walks us through his evolution. Some funny stories of when he first got out of the Marines and he walked up to someone and said, your area is a mess. You need to clean it up. And they said, no. And he was like, what do you mean, no? Because in the Marines, I guess most folks don't say no when they're given an order. So he kind of talks through that about his experiences, and I think it's. There's a lot of good benefits in there, even for folks that haven't been in the military, but just kind of the importance of respect for people and how that's such a critical aspect of what we Lean thinkers are all about. Now, show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 140. 140. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 140. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. All right, John, well, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to the show. Where are you calling in from?

I'm calling from Overland Park, Kansas.

All right, very good, Very good. Well, appreciate you coming on. I'm really excited to kind of talk about your journey here. With lean and continuous improvement. But as you know, we like to start with our guests kind of telling a little bit about their background and maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement.

Well, I first come, you know, to meet with continuous improvement. I. I'd say in late 2005, early 2006, I was stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, with the United States Marine Corps. And the initiative they had was to start rolling out lean through the units to help us with our combat readiness and, of course, any kind of cost. And that's really where the journey started there for me.

Good, good, good. Well, I want to dig into your journey there with Marines here in a little bit. So let's just kind of, you know, how we like to start these shows. We like to kind of begin with a quote. So do you have one that possibly inspires you?

Yes, I have two. I couldn't decide between two, but the first one I just heard from one of my attendees in one of the classes we do, it looks like it comes from Albert Einstein, and it goes, if service is beneath you, leadership is beyond you. So I think that one there, the way that that one struck me, it struck a chord that, you know, you have to have that service leadership, and it's really a fundamental piece of leaders to be able to serve the folks that they're working with, and they're working directly from them. Right. You know, the. The second quote comes from my old wrestling coach. He would tell us, you know, it's okay to talk to yourself, but don't lie to yourself. You know, and that would be after a match that maybe I thought was called unfairly or, you know, something that maybe didn't go my way. And I was trying to rationalize it via, you know, maybe deflecting it somewhere else, but that was always a way to humble and to kind of be reflective of what are the things I could. I could have done better.

So you wrestle your.

All the way through school, all the way through. Through high school. Didn't quite make it into the college ranks.

Yeah, yeah. I also. I grew up in Ohio. I was a. I was a wrestler as well. So I was just a little guy. Couldn't really do anything else back then, so. So I wrestled too small for football.

It is an excellent, excellent sport. You cannot beat some of the mental toughness and grit that you gain from wrestling.

Exactly, exactly. All right, well, let's jump into. Into your journey, really, with. With lean and continuous improvement. And let's begin. Like you. You mentioned the Marines. So what did that look like. What was. What was lean continuous improvement like back when. Back when you were there?

Well, it was funny because it started out and I initially felt like lean was being done. To me, the way that it looked initially is, you know, in the Marine Corps, you get pulled for a lot of additional duties. You know, I been with the police augment team, or I'd been with the nuclear and biological warfare team, and all that stuff is you end up doing something painful. So when they said, hey, we need you to take a look at this lean thing, I was like, oh, that sounds really painful. So that was one of the things that. The way it was introduced to us, I think it really clicked for me. I was really a resister initially. I honestly couldn't stand it because I never could see how someone just by evaluating a process, could tell myself and my fellow Marines how to do our jobs better. I just couldn't understand that concept until I really saw the way that it wasn't really just trying to improve us, but it was trying to make things easier for us so we can accomplish things just that much easier.

What was it that made it difficult? Why do you think that was? Just because you guys are so kind of trained to be strong and know the answers kind of thing, or was it something else?

Well, that's. That's one of the. That's one of the funny things about it, because in the Marine Corps, you know, through. Through my reflection, the lean was easy. In the Marine Corps, you know, it's okay, here's the task or the mission at hand. You know, we're going to do it. There's not much of a discussion. And so I felt that a lot of times we lost some of the voice of the Marines doing some of the work or being the front line folks that are delivering downstream. So that was one of the things that was really rough. When we put together our rapid improvement teams, it would usually not consist of any of the experts that were working. We brought in folks from different divisions, different shops. Just, I think the intent there was to get a cold eye and have things fresh. But I do remember talking to some of my fellow Marines that that was some of the heartache, too, that there wasn't always a lot of questions being asked to the professionals doing the work. I think that's where a lot of the heartache came from, you know. But on the other hand, the strategic alignment that the Marine Corps offered was probably second to none. I mean, everyone can get around the rally that we need to improve our combat readiness, and that's something that, you know, that our higher up officers were able to deliver to us. And it was cascaded down to where we needed to focus. And I thought that, you know, again, in my reflection of the experience is really, really valuable. You know, we kind of missed the boat on the inclusion of the experts, but strategically we were very strong.

Mm. Can you give us an example of maybe one of the, I don't know, a success story or something that you did in the Marines without sharing, you know, top secret information or anything like that, but just curious, like, what did you know, some examples of lean in action?

Sure, sure. So one of the ones that comes to mind was we were hanging around a lower percentage of combat readiness when it came to some of our fighter jets. And it was due to some of the turnaround times to get our engines up and running again and back on the planes ready to fly. So what we were able to do there is we went in first. We went in, I believe, for maybe a week or so and went and did our gimbal walks. And a lot of the analysis, mapping, identifying issues where there was obstacle, obstacles or any kind of interruptions to flow, identified waste. And then I'd say about two weeks later, after there was a maybe a consensus of what we saw and it was confirmed, then about two weeks later, we would come back in for a whole week. And if you'd ever seen a plane hangar or a jet hangar, it's pretty large space. So in a week, you know, it wasn't really surprising for us because Marines are able to do some pretty amazing things when they get the call. So we would totally clear out a hangar, redesign it to help contribute to the flow or so as we thought it was contributing and just bring everything back in. So it was a total transformation done in a week. And as you can imagine, moving around F18 engines is not a small task and the equipment and the workstations to be able to do that. But again, we're able to do some pretty amazing things in some short time.

That's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, combat readiness, you think about like in a business perspective, you know, it's like, you know, are you ready to ship your product? But here in the Marines, you're like, are you ready to go fight if you need to fight? Right.

And exactly. Yeah. And you know, the success from it was we, I. It's been a while, but I thought we were somewhere in the high 70 percentage as far as combat readiness. And we actually got to the low 90s, if I recall that correctly. But There was success there.

Good. Okay. So how long were you with Marines again, practicing lean?

I served probably about five years, and I'd say probably about three of those years. I was within the group that get called up for lean, rapid improvement projects.

Okay, so what was your move after the Marines? Where'd you go?

Well, that's a little bit of a funny story, because when I first came out of the Marines, I put everything on my resume that I learned in the Marines, and I really left out any kind of lean or continuous improvement.

Huh. Why was that? Was that all, like, just didn't think about it or.

I just didn't think it was something that was going to be transferable. I just didn't. I just didn't know I was really going. I was a collateral duty inspector, so I was really going after the quality jobs. And my executive officer happened to call me in, and they're doing a pretty good job of getting us to where we transition back into the civilian world. And he said, aren't you in this lean stuff? And yes, sir. And he would say, we should put that on the resume and see what happens. I think there's something to this. And so he went ahead and did that. And within a week, I was on the phone, I was still in uniform, and I got a commitment to come on over to a company called tic, the industrial company. So it was funny because I had never planned to put lean or continuous improvement on that resume. And it was one of those things that, I mean, it got me to where I was and to where I am. It was awesome. It was an absolute blessing.

So you went to the industrial company kind of as a lean practitioner type position?

Yes, yes. Went on over to be a lean practitioner. And, you know, I was really nervous for the interview, and I went and, you know, made sure that I had all my P's and Q's right, and that I was ready to go for this interview. And one of my early coaches, mentors, and TIC asked me this simple question. Hey, do you know what a 5s? And I was like, well, yeah, he's okay. Be here February 4th. And I was like, oh, okay.

Okay. So that was the interview. Do you know how to do 5s?

That was the interview.

Nice. Okay. All right. So you showed up and you did some 5s, or is that kind of how you got started or what?

Well, initially, you know, heavy industrial construction is quite the culture shock from a new Marine entering back into the civilian world. And so right away, I just didn't know what I was Getting into, You know, as I mentioned earlier, in the core, there's not much discussion about doing things.

Yeah.

You know, we find the problem, we figure it out, we do it. Yeah, well, it wasn't like that in the real world, you know, and there was a little bit more. The soft skills that had to be applied, people wanting to know why we were doing things. And then that was one of my big learnings, is I'm not in the core anymore. It's going to be a different approach, different set of skills to be able to help folks out.

Did you struggle with that initially, with the whole idea of, no, just do it when they were like, well, no, I'm not going to do it. Do it. Why? Why would it? Why should I do it? Is that was that hard for you?

That was extremely hard for me. I think I'd still have hair now if it was simple, but it was definitely a.

Give me an example. Can you remember a situation where it came up and you struggled?

Oh, yeah. I think one of my first few days, I went on my. My Gemba walk and just walking around the area and there was a place that was just. Just a mess. And, you know, I just thought to myself, you know, safety wise, aesthetics wise, you know, being able to find anything you need. This place needs to be cleaned up. So I pulled over a welder and a helper and said, hey, let's get this area cleaned up. And he told me no. And I was initially shocked. I wanted to yell, maybe a little bit more of a typical style in the Marine Corps, but I was so shocked that it took me about a 20 minute walk around the site to really just digest that, that that was an option.

Yeah.

You know, and so it was one. It was one of those lessons, it was lean life lessons that was taught, you know, the hard way, I guess you could say.

So what'd you do?

Well, initially went over to kind of my mentor and mentioned what had happened, and he just took me down that path as to that. I am in a different world now. And you know that we have to take small steps to be able to accomplish where we want to go. So maybe my first conversation with that welder and his helper probably shouldn't have been, your area's a mess. Yeah, go clean it.

Yeah.

So there was a tip there that, you know, to be able to go and start working with these guys that I needed to come across a little bit different and. And show a different side of myself that maybe showed that I cared about them as well.

Yeah. So how Long were you with tic?

I was with Tic just short of around six years.

Okay.

Tic. The people at TIC are just incredible. It was an incredible company. They're still doing good things. Things. Now they're partnered up with Kiewit. And, you know, I really was. It was a real challenge to take a look at another opportunity leaving tic. I think one of the things that I reflect on from TIC is we had such a great culture of people that would submit ideas and they were willing to try things totally different than the Marine Corps. You know, there wasn't a lot of asking the experts and professionals on how to improve their own process. But at tic, that was really easy to do. I think where we had some trouble or some challenges at Tic, in retrospect is a lot of times we just didn't have things aligned to the right strategy. And we were looking at ideas that maybe we can do but not necessarily need to do, and that was the real difference. You know, I always tell the story that, you know, we received, you know, 1600. We called them Opportunity for Improvements, or some folks may call them Idea systems or Kaizen Cards or something to that effect. We received that in. In eight months. And how many?

How many?

1600.

Oh, my gosh. Okay.

And so that was a really good indicator of the participation and people willing to voice their opinion. But at the end of the day, I was only able to really implement, if I remember right, about, you know, less than 20% of those ideas.

So was it just. But so was it just. Yeah, you doing the improvements, or were they able to kind of jump in and help out with their own ideas?

Well, they were able to jump in and help out with their own ideas, but a lot of it was put on, you know, myself and some other folks, you know, we did have a little taste of folks doing things themselves and having that type of autonomy. But, you know, a good point. Portion would fall on myself. Okay.

Okay.

So it was just funny. I remember back at TIC, we'd come all excited with this great A3 on some of the things that we're able to do are from. And to state that we wanted to get to and we accomplished. And I would have folks say, oh, that's really cool. I wish you could have did it in this area, man. We're really hurting in that area, you know, so it just taught me the lesson that folks really shouldn't have to guess what the strategy is.

Yeah. So if I'm hearing you right, sounds like maybe the biggest differences between say your Marine experience and, and your first civilian experience was first of all the people side, you know, respect for people and making sure that you kind of talk about the why and build, build relationships. But also the Marine sounds like you had a really strong strategic vision. You knew what you needed to do, namely be this incredible core. Right. Of, of men and women to protect our country. Right. I mean, so you had that, that alignment and so everything kind of served to support that. Whereas maybe in the, in the civilian world you may not have had that, that vision.

Is that fair that that is? That is absolutely fair.

Well, and I think many people listening to this, even here at Gemba Academy, we practice ocean connery to the best of our ability, but we're far from perfect. And it's so difficult and it's so easy to get distracted or to just kind of run off and fix this fire or some fun experiments. Even though is that really what we should be experimenting on? You know, so it's, it's far easier said than done.

Oh yeah, that's, that's definitely. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, everything sounds really nice on paper after you come out of your annual strategy meeting or your hosting meeting and then you know how Mike Tyson says, you know, it goes something like everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.

Exactly, exactly.

That's definitely, definitely a good way to look at it there.

But yeah, yeah, the X matrix looks so pretty and so nice. You know, that A three or whatever it is, you know. But yeah, so. Okay, well, so after tic, you went to our friends at Aero Energy. We've had several folks from ERA on in the past and great company. And what was your experience like there?

My experience at Aero Energy was it was a great way to see. I've been pretty blessed to see a version of Lean via the Marine Corps with the top down approach and with TIC being a bottom up approach. When I got to era, it was really noticeable that the group that I was working with was very much so a top down, bottom up. So there was the expectation from leadership and then the group of folks that we had, the experts, it was the expectation that improving their day to day work is a part of their job. And so that was something that was really, really different and nice to see. I don't think that a lot of folks were able to appreciate that without having seen, you know, the top down or bottom up only approach. But there were some, some really great things at ERA and some just outstanding people. And I was very, very blessed to be able to be a part of that group. And of course, you know, you know, Greg Williams really helped and mentor me to. Through everything there. But I think that that's probably been the closest I've seen to the way it ought to be done. Yeah, they are a leadership group that is going and seeking to remove obstacles and to help their folks.

Yeah, yeah. We had greg on episode 130 so people could go back and listen to that. He's a outstanding lean thinker there. Greg, so tell us your favorite ERA story or. Or maybe improvement or something that you were involved in there.

Well, so there was just a lot of fun at ERA because we started out doing a little bit of firefighting, excuse me, trying to get our lean practices and our daily routines as far as leadership and professionals go down. We were very, very low on the amount of ideas that were being put in and the number of problem solving A3s was a little bit down compared to previous years. And just with being able to coach and have the support within the leadership there with Jeff Dittman and Mike Oman there at Arrow was just amazing to get the turnaround. And we were good, but we got, I mean, great. You would go. I think we had at any one time, you know, anywhere from 25 to 30, just standing huddle boards going to where people are collaborating, having good conversations. And I think one of the funnest things that we would do there is a. We'd call it our monthly boardwalk, you know, so we'd gather all the owners or contributors to the huddle boards, you know, that would be suppliers included. And we'd pick four to five huddle boards that we would go and visit and assess. And it was a peer to peer coaching. It was an opportunity to ask leadership for. For help or a way to identify upstream and downstream customers of each other. And, you know, we're really hurting in this area. You know, is there anything you can do on your huddle board to help us alleviate that? And I just thought that that was something special that we had there at era.

How did you pick which board you went to?

Well, we had this kind of a running tally. We didn't want to go. We didn't want to have any boards just go untouched for long periods of time. So we would have our weekly step backs amongst the group and a lot of times I would be involved in doing some coaching there. But what we would do is we take the list of huddle boards to the leadership and they would, you know, they would give some direction. Okay, let's. We Touched this group last month, let's touch this group this month and see where they are. And so really it was a little bit of voice of the customer and voice of the leaders out there to what they wanted to see. And of course if we found someone or a group was doing something really solid and we wanted to highlight that point, we would put that team on the agenda for the day.

Nice. And how long were you with era?

I was with AARA about three years.

Okay, so where, so let's talk about present day. Where are you now and how's your lean journey going?

So the lean journey is going. I mean it's going great. You know, I had an opportunity outside of ERA and I was able to take it with an EPC company called Black and Veatch Engineering Procurement Construction Company. And you know, we have a good group of folks doing project based type of improvements at a large scale. But one of the goals for Black and Veatch was to get the frontline professionals doing frequent improvements and being able to be agile and take control of the their own process. And so that's what I'm walking into now. And I always thought to myself like, you know, just all through my journey with my different organizations, always thought to myself like, man, if I could do it over again, I would, I would do it this way. And now I have a little bit of that option there and it's really tough. You know, be careful what you wish for.

Yeah.

But I think that we have a group here that has a lot of potential. We have a executive team that is on board, you know, the senior and frontline supervision. They're going to be our challenge. But they are also, you know, really, really happy to hear about the things we're doing. And you know, we just have to go out there and make it to where it's providing value to them and it's helping them out. And I think once we get that group engaged and we really show them what this becoming lean is, is really going to be the differentiator in the core. They always mention the NCOs or non commissioned officers are the backbone or the spine of the Corps because the senior leadership can be the brain. And the non NCOs or lower ranked Marines were almost like the extremities or the limbs. And that message can't get to the limbs from the brain without that spine or that spinal cord. And I believe that's where we can identify at Black and Veatch. You know, it's going to be that senior and frontline Leadership that's going to be our backbone for our organization. And they're going to drive the culture of the strategy that's provided by the executives. And we will be successful as long as we continue on that path.

I love that analogy. So is it safe to say that your plan is to kind of take the best of the best best from all your various stops, the Marines Tic era, and try to try to form it into one, the ultimate CI machine?

That is the plan. That is the plan. You know, it's a constant strategizing and taking a look at the gaps in our process, but also taking a look at a lot of the capability, you know, gaps that we need to build within our frontline experts to where we can build them up to where they can understand, you know, our new common language for problem solving or the reason why we want to do collaborations and why it's tied to our strategy. So, yeah, we'll get there. And I'm, you know, that's the plan is to take every lesson learned from this journey because Lord knows I bumped my head several times. I want to help them, this organization, with a lot of those trips and falls.

Yeah, the best. I've been in your shoes. And, you know, I've gone to back in my corporate days when I worked for kind of traditional companies before Gemba Academy, I would always catch myself saying, well, at such and such previous company, we did it this way. And eventually I remember one day some guy said, you know what? But you're not there anymore, so stop talking about them. Right. So I think that's probably the one caution point is to even though you want to say at the Marines or in the Corps, you know, you just say it without saying where it came from.

I continue to bite my tongue there with the pieces, but eventually we'll make it our own.

Yeah, no, that's exciting. Well, maybe we'll have you come back onto the show year or so from now and tell us, give us an update on how it's going.

Hey, that's the deal right there.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and jump into the reflection section. And so we've got a few different questions that we're kind of actually debuting here today on the show, and you haven't even seen these yet, John. So you're my test case here to see how it goes. So we've got a couple of the old mainstays that we can't do away with just because they're too good. But so we'll start with the first one Here, and it's an oldie but goodie. But you've talked a lot already about the people side and kind of how it worked in the Marines, how it went at tic. So really, we were kind of touching on that respect for people aspect of lean. So I'm curious, what does respect for people mean to you?

I was listening to a lot of the podcasts. I always would ask myself, you know, if I ever had the opportunity to have Ron ask me this question, you know, what would I say? And there was no real quote or catchy theme to it, but if I could, I would just take everybody back to where they had a coach or a teacher and they thought enough of you to set a challenge for you and to come back and coach you and really help you with any kind of obstacle. And, you know, and that was the times that I felt most respected, you know, through any kind of sports, through the Marines, through, you know, my professional life today was there was. Has been always someone who thought enough of me to put a challenge out there and to build me. And those are the times I felt just really just most respected. And, you know, that's not an easy way to say it, but if you could go back, and I hope that everyone has had that person or those type of people that have thought enough of you, you know, that's the type of respect for people that I film, you know, defines.

I love that. You know, even I find that with my. With my own kids, you know, as they speak, kind of, you know, have their own athletic careers, you know, with sports and whatnot, it's just really telling them to go for it and to believe in themselves, you know, that they can do it. And I think that's really what you're getting at, is when people kind of give you that task and say, you can do it, trust yourself, try, and if you fail, that's okay. Get up and try again. I think that's a wonderful example of respect. So, John, I'm curious, what are you most proud of as it relates to your continuous improvement journey?

Well, I would say that the thing that I'm most proud of is the connections that I've been able to make through the journey. People are, for me, what lean is. You know, I'll tell you the truth. The tool side of lean, that stuff's easy. Yeah, you know, that stuff's easy. We could do that. We can teach that. But making those connections with people, seeing someone that has had a trouble with the process for years, finally being able to come through and be A part of the solution that's really going to help them out on a day to day process. You know, for as many failures I've had in my journey, we've had some really, really just great successes and just have done some really great things. And that's always been about the people and what we were able to do for them on a day in, day out basis.

Yeah, Love it. All right, so what's the best book that you've read or maybe you're reading maybe over this past year or so and it doesn't necessarily have to be continuous improvement related?

Well, I do have a couple. There's the Mike Martin book Own the Gap. That is a pretty simple read, but it does challenge a lot of the ways that we traditionally think about lean, continuous improvement. So that's a good solid lean book there you take a look at. But I always really fall back to the Carnegie book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I've read that one three times now. And not so much for the aspect of the influencing people, but there's a lot of techniques to really not make things about yourself and make them about the person that you're interacting with.

That's a great one. Yeah, we actually, I did a podcast where I reviewed that entire book. It's episode 17, so people want to check that out. Gembapodcast.com 17. 17. It's. Yeah. That's one of the most powerful books that you'll ever. That you'll ever read. Timeless.

Oh yeah, definitely timeless.

Very good. All right, well, John, it's been great chatting with you. How can people connect with you?

Well, I do have a LinkedIn. I'm there at John Chacon. I need to do a little bit of better job of keeping that up to date. But I also do enjoy a lot of the lean conversations and continuous improvement conversations on Twitter. So my Twitter handle is at Lean like a Chacon.

Say it again?

Lean like a Chacone.

Okay. And Chacon is C H A C O N. Right?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Yeah. And we'll link to everything in the show notes. So we'll find you over there on Twitter. You and Mark Graben. Powerful Lean. Do you follow Mark?

Oh, yeah. Me and Mark been able to have some conversations. I finally got a chance to meet him a couple weeks ago at the AME conference.

Yeah. Mark is one of the most power Twitter users that you'll ever find. I was like, I don't know how you have so much time to spend on Twitter. Twitter, Mark, come on.

Yeah, that's what I was telling him his Twitter game is.

Yeah, it is on. Not mine's horrible. So don't follow me. You can, but I don't expect much out of you. I just still I have to pick my battles and Twitter's not one of them. All right, well, very good, John. Well, hey, thanks for coming onto the show and let's, let's hopefully we get to meet up again. It was great seeing you at Ame and we'll, we'll chat soon.

All right, man, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

All right, John, take care.

Take care.

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 Gemba Academy.com gain immediate access to to more than 500 Lean and Six Sigma training videos free of charge at GembaAcademy.com.