GA 142 | How to Engage People with Jess Orr

You're listening to episode 142 with Jess Orr. 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@gembacademy.com, we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, today, I'm excited to welcome Jess Orr to the show. Now, Jess and I first began communicating over LinkedIn a month or so ago and came to find out that Jess has quite the background with Lean and Six Sigma. She's worked at ge, she's worked at Toyota, the Georgetown, Kentucky facility, to be exact. And now she's working at a company called called Westrock, and she practices both Lean and Six Sigma. And so what we decided to talk about today was really focused on the topic of engaging people and how important it is to really the success of any kind of continuous improvement endeavor, how important engaging people is. And so we get into many different topics. And we also do talk about her time at Toyota and what it was like to work there and even how it was as kind of having a Six Sigma background first, then going to Toyota. So it was really, really fun to discuss those things with Jess. She's extremely well spoken, and I really had a great time chatting with her. Now, show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 142142 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 142. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Jess, well, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from?

Oh, it's my pleasure, Ron. I'm calling in from Winston Salem, North Carolina. So we're about an hour north of Charlotte here and a few hours from the beach and a few hours from the ocean. So it's kind of a nice location.

Beautiful. Big Tar Heel fan, I guess, or.

You know, I'm just really not into sports.

Oh, really?

I've tried. I went to Virginia Tech, which is a huge football school. Just never could get into it. I know I'm missing out.

It Frees your time up, that's for sure.

There we go.

I like that.

I'll go with that.

All right, Very good. All right. Well, as you know, Jess, we like to kind of begin our shows with our guests sharing a quote that possibly inspires them. So do you have one?

I do, actually. This was a tough one for me, just to narrow it down to one because I'm a big quote person. I find that I've just learned a lot from the wisdom of others. But the one that I picked is from Shingo and he said that a relentless barrage of whys is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.

Wow. So what's that really mean to you?

So this one, to me, I joke sometimes at work. I probably sound like a 4 year old with all the questions that I ask. But really, questions I find are one of the most powerful tools that we have to actually kind of fight against complacency and to, like he says, to pierce that veil of thinking caused by the status quo. So to me, it's just, it's so easy just to get caught up in, well, these, this is the way things have always been. You know, I can't. I wish I had a nickel for some. Every time someone told me, well, it's always just been this way. There's nothing we can do do about it. An example I can give you was I worked at a rubber manufacturing facility and it was just commonly believed that during one of the processes of cryogenic deflashing where they remove the excess material from the O rings, that the O rings would break during that process, some of them. And there was just nothing you could do about it. That was just part of the process. It had always been this way. And my team and I went in and we kind of just didn't have any assumptions. We went in and we looked at the process and we actually found that the O rings were coming to the cryogenic process already broken. So something had been happening upstream to break the rings. And we were able to countermeasure that. But just by going in and asking why and trying to dig a little bit deeper, we were able to actually find the true, true root cause. So that quote just really resonates with me.

So in that situation, like, what was the reaction of the, I don't know, the naysayers, the folks that said, you know, there's nothing you could do, how did they respond to that?

It was kind of funny. We actually just showed them the Data and showed them the proof. I took them out. I took one of my biggest naysayers, I remember him, I took him out and we actually counted the broken parts at each step of the process. I went with him and we counted them after they demolded, before they went in the cryo. And he just couldn't believe it. I mean, it was almost, he wanted to almost deny the reality in front of him. It was kind of funny. But he couldn't at that point. So it was just very eye opening for him and for myself as well.

So how did you respond to it? Because obviously, I mean, I guess the human nature is that, you know, you want to say I won, look, I'm right. But how did, how did you respond to that?

Yeah, so it was just, you know, what I did was I focused on just the process. So I wasn't focusing on being right in that situation. It was just, hey, isn't this interesting? Look what we found in the process. So kind of just let the sense of wonder and curiosity take over, if that makes sense. And so that kind of helped it. And so it didn't come across as being confrontational.

Yeah, that's beautiful. You know, and you mentioned earlier how, you know, you said you felt you feel like a four year old sometimes. I often wonder why, you know, what is it about the adult person? Or maybe it's just starts in adolescence and as a teenager and so forth, where we stop asking why, we stop asking questions. What is, why is that? Do you know? Do you have any ideas?

Yeah, I wondered that myself too because, I mean, like most, most kids, I was a big question asker and it kind of died down as I got older and it's starting to understand the power of it again. And I think it's because we have this. Whether it's self imposed or imposed by society, I'm not sure. But this idea that we have to come across as being the experts and that asking questions means that we're not an expert in a particular area. And to me, I think asking questions is actually a sign of your intelligence because you're acknowledging, hey, the world's a complex place, there's no way you can possibly know everything.

Right, Right. Awesome. All right, well, good stuff. Well, I can't wait. We're going to talk, you know, this episode about employee engagement really getting into kind of the human side of continuous improvement. But before then, Jess, why don't you kind of catch everybody up to speed on your background, maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement and then Definitely what you're up to these days.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's been kind of an interesting journey for me. So, like a lot of people that you've talked to on the podcast Lean and Continuous Improvement kind of found me. I didn't go out looking for it, but it started when I was an engineering student and I co oped at ge. And at ge, they were just a tremendous company to work for. And that's where I kind of got introduced to some of the very basic concepts of continuous improvement, like kaizen and visual, that sort of thing. And I got to kind of thinking, all right, this stuff's kind of cool. I can understand it. I like it. So that was my first exposure to it. And then after I graduated, I worked as a manufacturing engineer for a rubber manufacturing facility. And during that time, I had the opportunity to go for my Six Sigma black belt training certification and didn't really know a lot about it. Just thought, this seems like something that's probably good for my career. Well, I was right. It was. And it was absolutely transformational for me in terms of the way that it helped me to solve problems and to distinguish fact from fiction. And just the process and way that it just changed the way that I thought about things. It really was just an amazing experience. And I saw the effects of it very quickly as I started to apply the tools in my daily work, became very much more effective than I had been previously. So that's kind of how I got introduced to the Six Sigma side of things. And then I had the opportunity to work for Toyota, and I was like, oh, Toyota, you know, the company that I read about. And I was a little starstruck. It's like, I would love to work there. It'd be wonderful. So I took the opportunity to work there, and that's kind of where I got introduced to what we call lean manufacturing. Of course, they didn't call it that at Toyota, but the Toyota production system. And it was a little surreal to actually be at the place where you see andon cords along the lines and you're like, hey, I read about those in the Toyota way, and look, there they are. Yeah, that was kind of. Yeah, that was kind of cool. But it was just. It was. Honestly, Toyota is the real deal. So everything. Go ahead.

Which Toyota facility or location were you at?

Yeah, so it was the one in Georgetown, Kentucky. Kentucky, where they manufacture Camry and Avalon vehicles.

Nice, nice. So one question that I have. You know, it's interesting. Our backgrounds are similar. I mean, I actually learned or was I Guess introduced to Six Sigma really before Lean. It's just that's how it lined up for me and the job that I had, and I think I'm better for it. You know, I mean, I. Lean was introduced to me later and, you know, I would say deep in my heart now, Lean is, you know, what I truly love. Right. And I still love and appreciate Six Sigma, but, but Lean is been, I guess, far more transformational for me personally. But I think it's critical to the success that I've had that, that I do have that Six Sigma background. So when you went to Toyota, like, how, how did your Six Sigma background impact your work there? And did you see, I know they don't call anything Six Sigma, but did you see any, oh, I don't know, kind of six behavior there at Toyota?

Yeah, that's a great question. It actually, it impacted me greatly. I remember one of the first projects I worked on, I was trying to use like the DMAIC problem solving methodology, and they said, no, no, no, you have to use the A3 methodology. I was like, okay. So, you know, and I look at it and I'm like, they're basically the same thing, right? It's just a different way of attacking problems. But I found that I definitely used the Six Sigma approach there. Toyota had some concepts related to Six Sigma, but not really the traditional Six Sigma type thinking. So it was a little bit difficult to apply some of the things there. But I definitely found some limited success on what I was able to do with the previous training that I had had. So that was kind of exciting.

What about things like design of experiments or anything like that? Is that ever going on in Toyota that you saw?

Not that I saw nothing formalized in terms of design of experiments. So they did like more PDCA type things where you would get feedback through actually trying different things out, but not as much formalized design of experience. So I kind of missed that while I was there. So I'm glad to be getting back into that again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Good deal, good deal. Okay, well, back to our topic of employee engagement. Kind of just start at a high level and we hear those words a lot, employee engagement, but what's it really mean?

So if you had told me at the beginning of my career that I was going to be so passionate about this topic, I would not have believed you because I was your typical engineer. I had all the tools and the technical knowledge, and I figured those are what we needed to be successful at work. And I soon found that that wasn't Completely wrong. But the people side of things is really what drives effectiveness. So employee engagement is different than employee satisfaction. So it's much deeper than that. So when I think of an engaged employee, I think of someone who finds intrinsic value in their work and they seek to act in the organization and their customers best interest because of their motivation and their sense of purpose. You know, Daniel Pink talks about the three things that motivate people, right? Autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Yeah.

And I think that one of the key components of employee engagement is purpose. So people need to understand the why behind what they're doing. And I'll give you an example. I had a supplier at Toyota and we were just talking. He was a quality engineer. We were talking one day and he said, yeah, you know, I wish I was doing something meaningful with my life, you know, not not making door frames for Toyota. And I said, well, hold on a second. I said, you're making, you know, a critical component that's part of the structure of a vehicle that people put their family and their loved ones and their children in. I was like, the way that you make these door frames matters, okay. It's affecting the safety of the vehicle, the integrity of the car. And you could just kind of see the light bulb go off on his head and he's like, I never really thought of it that way. And so it's just really helping people understand the meaning behind their work and the value in what they do. I mean, from the CEO to the guy who empties the trash cans at work, everybody is a cog in the machine and they've got a purpose, and they need to know what that purpose is and the value that they have to an organization. That's really what employee engagement means to me.

I love that. You know, my father used to tell me when I was kind of growing up and was in college and so forth, he just said, you know, whatever you do in life, whether you, you know, like you said, you're sweeping the floors or you're the CEO, just do the very best that you can. And I've never forgot that, you know, and I try to. I try to teach my kids the same thing. It doesn't matter what it is that you're doing, but do your very best, you know, and add value to, to whatever, you know, God puts in front of you. And I think that's tremendous advice.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's just something honorable about work itself. Regardless of what exactly that work is. There's a sense of just honor in it.

Yeah, yeah. So why do you think this engagement concept is so important to Lean or Six Sigma or really any form of operational excellence?

I just, I can't understate how important it is or overstate rather, because really I've seen in my personal experience, when continuous improvement initiatives have failed, it's usually in the sustained phase. And it's usually, you know, as soon as I left the process or I was no longer leading the event, people kind of reverted back to what they were doing before. And I think that really the reason for that was the lack of engagement that I had gotten from those employees in that process. The lack of buy in, that's really, that's what's going to actually cause these to succeed. You need to have the people who are the experts in the process involved in the improvement from the very beginning. You need to communicate with them, you know, any upcoming changes that are going to happen and help them understand how it's going to affect them and let them be part of the solution as well. And I think that's really what's going to actually help these changes sustain. To give you an example, I just recently finished a project actually where we identified the solution as being basically an automated method of handling all of the paperwork that was being done manually in this department. And the project was a resounding success. And the reason why it was successful, in my opinion, was from the very beginning we started with the employees and what their needs were. I said, what are your pain points? What's causing you the most difficulty in your daily work? And from those pain points, we developed the ideas for the solution. The team members, we had regular meetings, we talked with them so they understood the changes that were coming and they were the ones who had the ideas for implementing the changes as well. So we thoroughly communicated, we thoroughly did training prior to rolling out the the new system. And then when the system actually rolled out, you know, when employees had feedback and comments, we were very quick to incorporate those, you know, where appropriate and to make modifications as needed. So really, I think ultimately having that employee engagement was part of the reason that that project was so successful. And honestly, when employees are engaged, things like Kaizen and changes, they don't have to be driven from the top down. They become just a part of their way of life like it was at Toyota.

Not to put you on the spot, so you've mentioned a few success stories, but has there been any times where you maybe didn't do as good a job at this employee engagement and if so, what happened and maybe what did you learn?

Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, early in my career, especially when I really didn't understand how important this was, I definitely made some mistakes. And one that comes to mind is I was tasked with basically deploying this new to industry manufacturing method. And it was going to be great. You know, it was what one of our customers demanded. We had to deploy it, you know, and I figured, well, I'm the engineer, right. I've got all the skills and this is something that we have to do. So everyone's going to listen to me. Right. And they're just going to go ahead and implement this. You know, I was wrong. I was very wrong. So what happened was I didn't take the time to actually understand the current process and understand the challenges that the employees were currently having before. I just came in kind of with guns blazing, just saying, hey, this is the new thing that we're going to do. You guys don't have a choice. We're going to do it. So really by not gaining understanding and also letting the people know that I understood that they were the, the process experts and trying to learn from them, you know, going back to that, those asking questions, things like that, I didn't lay the groundwork like that. And ultimately, you know, as soon as I walked away from the project, they stopped doing the new method. I mean, it's predictable.

Yeah.

Because I didn't do the work up front to gain their buy in.

Yeah. You know, and I bet I don't want to put words in your mouth or assume anything, but, you know, I could imagine you're younger at that time, you're kind of hungry to prove yourself a little bit. So you come in there with that mindset of, like you said, asking questions is weakness. Right. Like, or shows that you don't know what you're talking about. So you want to kind of prove yourself. And I think this is a real problem, especially for folks early in their journey, to not have that humility to not ask those questions.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a gap partly in education because I don't recall, you know, in engineering school anyone ever really kind of helping me learn that. You know, it was something I had to learn on the, the job. And you come in and you think, just like you said, oh, I'm supposed to be the expert, I'm supposed to be the one who knows everything. Instead of realizing that it's the people who do that process every day who are the experts and we have to gain their insight and their information because they're honestly the ones who understand it the best.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe they're playing this podcast right now with a group of engineering students, and maybe they can learn from our failures. Right?

Yeah, There we go. And it would be worth it.

Exactly. Exactly. So let's wrap this section of the show up, Jess, with maybe giving some, I don't know, some best practices or some. Some. Some tips that folks can kind of take into action for how to better engage people.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to kind of get down to the practical level here on some things that I found that have just worked really well for me and that I would definitely recommend. So the first thing is just get to know the names and the personalities of the people on your team. So, you know, just. It just shows respect. It shows that you're trying to get to know them as people and start there, you know, just understanding who these people on your team are, like I failed to do with my failure that I just talked about. I'm going grasp the current situation. So really get. We had this concept at Toyota called genshike and bootsu, which we kind of shorthand called get your boots on, but go to the floor. Go and understand the process. Go and see. Don't make any assumptions, and talk with the people who are engaged in the process. That's really how you're going to gain information about it. Acknowledge that they're the experts. They're the ones who do it day in and day out. So that's definitely helpful. And then I also found that by focusing on the process and not on the people, you'll tend to get better results. So sometimes I would get these countermeasures from suppliers that would say their countermeasure for this defect was that they retrained the operator. And I would always reject those countermeasures because I said that's not the true root cause. You're not digging deep enough if your countermeasure is only to retrain someone. And I tell people, when I go into projects, too, I say, you know, 95% of the time, I think it's usually the process and not the people.

Yeah.

So what I want to do is I don't want to be looking at the people when we're making, you know, improvements. I want to be standing side by side with them as we look at the process together. So I want to be focused on the process. So that's really critical for me. And then I find that, as I talked about before, you know, involving the team members in the process of. At every step, you know, from when you're defining the problem, to measure it, measuring it, analyzing it, improving it, controlling it, Just involving those team members and gaining their input at every single stage. Because honestly, there's been times where I think I understand a problem and I present it to them and they're like no, actually you got that all wrong. So that's happened to me so many times. So really involving them not only helps with their buy in and the sustainment later on, it helps me as a project leader too because I need their insights and their input.

Beautiful.

And then I'd say finally, the last thing is that make sure at the end of the project that you give credit to the team. This is so important. So one of the things that I like to do when I run a Kaizen event is instead of me being the one who gives the kind of the report out at the end, I have each one of the team members talk for one to two minutes about an improvement that they made or something that they learned.

Yes.

You know, they're usually kind of scared to do it, some of them. But it's. What I want to do is put the focus on the team members and not on me. I'm just the facilitator. They're the ones who are out there making the improvements every day. So I find that really helps with engagement.

Oh, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. You know, so I. I've been making notes. I'm going to run through these again just for folks benefit. But the first one was to get to know people's names and learn about them. The second one was grasp the current state. Get your boots on. Genji Genbutsu. Right. Go to Gemba.

That's right.

Third one, focus on the process, not the people. Very Deming. Like I love it. The fourth. Yeah, fourth one is involve the team members at every step of the way. And then the last one was make sure to give credit at the end. And I tell you, the one that really struck me the most. And, and I've. I don't know, honestly, I've never really heard anybody kind of talk about that was the very first one, get to know people's names. And I couldn't help but think of Dale Carnegie and his book how to win Friends and influence People. And he has a chapter. I think it's the second part two, where it says if you do this, you're. You're. You're. If you don't do this, you're headed for trouble. And it's that you have to remember a person's name, and that to that person, their name is the sweetest and most important sou in any language. So I just can't. I guess I really can't emphasize how important that probably is. And something that I've not done a great job of is really making sure that you learn who those people are and not just their name. Like you said, get to know them a little bit and connect with them on a. On a human level. And then I think everything else is going to fall into place much easier.

Oh, absolutely. And people can tell when you're. When you're being genuine and when you genuinely want to get to know them and understand them. And it doesn't work all the time, but it certainly, I think, increases the odds that you're going to be more successful with the project and especially with sustaining it.

Yeah. You know, and I've, you know, we've all been in events where you come into Monday morning and there's the person sitting in the very back row with their arms crossed and a scowl, you know, and, you know, getting to know their name on day one's probably not going to work. Right. But you chip away at it. Right. And then, you know, those can be some of the most transformational people, as you kind of respect them throughout the, you know, the week. And when they turn and then on that report out and they're the ones up there telling the story. That's powerful. Right?

Oh, that's. It's so funny you mentioned that. We actually just had a setup production Kaizen event that I led, and we had this guy, we'll call him Brian, but he was, you know, he was my problem child right from the beginning. And I remember I just. Throughout the week, I would try to gain his input. And I realized that part of his resistance to the event was that he was. It was fear. He was afraid that of his, you know, his power and his knowledge, you know, being questioned and that sort of thing. So, you know, I tried to just engage him throughout the week and, you know, say, hey, Brian, what do you think about this? What should we do about this? And at the end of the week, he said to me, he goes, you know, you came in here and we. We were. I was ready to just shut you down. He's like, I didn't want to be part of this. I didn't want to do anything. But just the fact that you didn't come in thinking you knew all the answers, but instead asked me for my opinion. He's like, I think you're all right, Jess. You know, and that just meant. It meant a lot to me.

I was like, okay, that's awesome. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead, Jess, and transition into the reflection section. And I think we have a kind of a perfect setup for this first question.

I know.

You know, and it's that it's the famous, what does respect for people mean to you?

I love this question and I love just hearing how different people have answered it. I've always learned something a little bit from each, each person who's answered. But for me, respect for people, I mean, obviously that was a core concept at Toyota, along with continuous improvement. And to me, it stems from belief. So your behaviors are going to reflect your belief. And if you believe that every person is unique and has a valuable set of skills and experience and a way to contribute, then I think that the respect for people that you have, the behaviors are going to flow from that. So you can't fake respect for people. You either you value them as human beings or you don't. And if you do, it's going to be very obvious in the way that you treat them. And the behavior can manifest itself in so many different ways. You know, it can be as simple as just smiling and making an eye contact, contact with people when you walk through the production floor on your Gemba walks, maybe saying hi to them, asking them how their day is going. Or it could be something more formal, like a concept we had at Toyota called nema washing. And that basically meant, it was a term that meant to pre discuss. And so the way that this is respectful, in my opinion is anytime before you are going to be discussing, you know, an important topic, say in front of group or something, you want to identify who those key stakeholders are who are going to be affected by whatever it is you're going to say and talk with them one on one about it ahead of time. You know, to me, this is Nemewashi is a sign of respect. And it just shows that, hey, your opinion and your thoughts are valuable. I want to understand and I want to make sure I'm communicating with you ahead of time so you're not surprised later. And then another manifestation. I find myself not doing this a lot. But to be respectful for people is not just to do things for them, okay. It's to actually take the time to show them how to do it for themselves. And it takes a little bit extra time, but it's showing respect because it's saying, hey, I know that you're capable, I know that you can do this. I know you can learn this. So I'm going to invest this time in you to show you how to do this. And to me, that's. That, that's respectful. And one of the things that Toyota really taught me, that I've tried to carry forward with me was respect for those on the production line, because those are the individuals who are actually adding value that are changing the product, meeting our customer needs. So what I do, what we do as continuous improvement practitioners, we're support. And I always remember what my role is. My role is to support those people who are actually adding value to the product, to the customer. And I think that that's very. That's a very good manifestation of respect for people. But, I mean, ultimately, if you've got this fundamental belief in people's value, the behaviors that show respect are going to fall from that.

Yes. Wonderful. Jess, what's the best advice you've ever received?

This one really sticks out in my mind because it has such a big impact on me. So for those of you who are familiar with, like, the disc profile, the personality profiles, so I'm a high C, low D. So that means that I'm very analytical, I'm very susceptible to analysis paralysis. And one time I was at Toyota and I was working on this regression model for a defect that we had, and I was just trying to tweak it, get my R squared up really high. It was going to be great. And I kept working on it and working on it. And my manager came over to my desk one day and, you know, he asked me what I was doing. I said, I'm still working on the shock line model. And he looked at me and he goes, jess, perfect is the enemy of the good enough. And that really stuck with me. I just. I started to realize that these perfectionistic tendencies that I had where we're actually getting in the way of me being effective. And I learned that sometimes, you know, being 80% correct is good enough, as opposed to waiting, you know, two months down the road and being 95%. But now you've missed your opportunity. So at that point I realized, you know, my model was good enough to be useful. And we took it and we ran with it, and it actually ended up getting selected for one of Toyota's top projects that year. So, you know, it really was just a lesson for me that I could choose to either be perfectionistic or I could be effective.

So there you go. Your Six Sigma background really helped you, right?

That's right. There we go. I like it.

What was your R score at the End. Just curious.

It was actually, I think it was 0.98.

Oh my goodness, girl.

It was pretty darn good. I don't know what my problem was.

Yeah. Goodness. All right.

Pretty good.

All right. Well, that was an experiment that actually turned out well. But I'm curious, is there anything that maybe over this last year or so of a project or experiment that didn't turn out like you've planned?

Yeah, there was one, actually. And this was. I made such a rookie mistake, but I think it's just an easy one to make if you're not watching out for it. So what we did was I was assigned a project and it was one of those. It was kind of. It was called a Six Sigma project, but the improvement had already been identified. Okay. So. And so we went in with this kind of. This preconception of what the improvement was going to be. But, you know, I did my due diligence, did the analysis anyway, and the analysis just did not justify that improvement. You know, it wasn't going to have the cost savings that we thought it was, and we had some alternatives, but the cost savings just weren't there. So by the time we're already in the analyze improve phase and we've sunk two months into this project, and what I should have done was I should have pushed back more in the beginning and said, you know, part of the methodology that we have with Six Sigma is that we don't assume improvements ahead of time. We let the data. Data drive it. So I think I made a mistake and just kind of went with it. And I really should have pushed back more in the beginning.

Wow, I love that. You know, when we have folks going through our green and black belt programs, that's exactly what I say. It's okay. You know, it's just human tendency to have some ideas right early on, but put them in your back pocket, they have no place on the charter. I don't want to care what you think might be the answer. Right. Just put it in your back pocket for now and let's let the process lead us to those countermeasures. I'm so glad that you said that.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. And you would think six, seven years after getting my black belt, I wouldn't make them a. But I have to keep reminding myself.

Yeah, well, it's good to be humbled every once in a while.

Absolutely.

All right, so what are you most proud of as it relates to your continuous improvement journey?

So the thing that I'm most proud of definitely has to do with mentoring. So I've been the recipient of just some absolutely phenomenal mentors during my career. And I had the opportunity to mentor this individual and he was actually a production worker who was recruited to come into quality engineering at Toyota. And he was very, very knowledgeable. You know, he'd been. Been in production for about 20 years and body Weld, but just he wasn't very confident because, you know, the engineering role was kind of new to him. You know, he wasn't really sure exactly how to go about it. And so I kind of just. We kind of clicked and I kind of took him under my wing and we kind of worked together on some of the engineering things. And, you know, he in turn taught me a lot about Body Weld, so it worked out really well. But to see this person just transform from being not very confident to one of the, honestly, one of the best specialists easily in our department was just a really rewarding experience for me. To make that investment in a person and see it pay off like that really meant a lot. And he actually, when I was promoted, he took over my job, so it worked out pretty well.

Nice. Nice. Is there any good books that you've read this year or maybe you're reading right now?

Yeah, so I've actually, after I left Toyota, I found that I actually had a lot to catch up on because a lot of the things that I had just kind of taken for granted and assumed in lean manufacturing, I didn't really have the formal background or understanding to really understand it more from an academic perspective. So I began reading a lot of lean and continuous improvement books. And actually that's when I found the Gemba Academy podcast. So you've had a huge, huge impact on my Lean journey.

Oh, thank you.

But the book that I read was actually, it was just 2 second lean by Paul Akers. And what I loved about that book was that he made it so accessible that anybody could make continuous improvement efforts and be successful with that. And just the small things, I love the story that he has about how they kind of leaned out the bathroom there at his company. And just to me, that I just loved the way that he made it accessible. And I really tried to take his approach and incorporate it into my own as a continuous improvement practitioner, just so people can understand, hey, this stuff doesn't, doesn't have to be complicated. Anybody can do this. Anybody can be part of this. So that was a really impactful book for me.

Yeah, it's funny, I was actually, I spoke at one of our customers locations this this week and during the Q and A, someone you know, I know I've met Paul several times and known pretty well and, and they said, is Paul really like he is on those videos? I said, I said, oh yeah.

Really?

Oh yeah, he's even better.

I'd love to meet him.

Oh yeah, you need to go. So Paul listens to the show sometimes. So Paul, listen, you got to get Jess over there and I would love that. Yeah, he's a, he's a tremendous, he's obviously a tremendous lean thinker, but I think he's even a better person and he's just, I leave so inspired for life, you know, not just continuous improvement or lead or whatever. I just. You want to live a better life. After you've spent 10 minutes with Paul. He's a great person.

After reading his book, I went and five esqued my kitchen. I was so excited. I'm not even kidding.

That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, so with all that said, you've been at this for some time, Jess, and you got a lot of experience, worked at Toyota. I don't know what better training you could have than that, but is there an area of continuous improvement, Lean Six Sigma, something that, that you feel you want to get better at in order to become a better continuous improvement thinker?

There definitely is. There's quite a number of areas actually. But the one that comes to mind I think is really strategic thinking. So I tend to get down in the weeds very easily. Part of that high C personality. And this is something my manager has been helping me a lot with. But working on the why, what's our big goal here? Where are we trying to, to move in one, two, three years? Our long term strategy. So really working on that big picture type view is something that is definitely a gap that I have that I'm working on.

So what's your plan?

So my plan is to basically one of the things I want to do is start talking with different business leaders within my company to try to get an idea of what their vision is for our company for the next certain period of time. So I can kind of help that'll help me understand kind of their big picture thinking and kind of how that trickles down to my daily work. So really it's again, how I usually solve gaps in my knowledge is just by going out and finding people who have more knowledge than I do and asking them questions.

Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Jess, I really enjoyed talking with you and so glad we connected over LinkedIn. And thank you for listening to the show. And for anybody that's listening right now and you're a lean thinker or you practice Six Sigma or any kind of continuous improvement, hit me up. Because these are the folks that we like to have on the shows. You know, we love having everybody from the gurus and the book authors and all that on, those are great. But hearing from folks like you, Jess, who are really doing the work day in and day out, that's, to me, the true value of this podcast. So if you're listening and you have something to add, hit me up on email to pretty easy rongembaacademy.com and you can come on and tell your story just like Jess did. All right, well, Jess, let's go ahead and wrap the show up, maybe with you sharing some final words of wisdom and then tell people how they can connect with you.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the wisdom that I've kind of learned is people think I've worked at Toyota. I must know a lot about Lean and all that. And honestly, I. The thing that Toyota really imparted on me was humility. So what I've learned is how much I don't know, and that it's okay with that. I'm okay with that. It's okay to not be the expert on everything. It's okay to ask questions and to take the principle of continuous improvement personally. So it's something that I try to apply to myself in my daily life. You know, I'm always developing, always learning, and kind of like one of the things that from Paul Aker's book that I learned, too. Just get in there and try. So it may not be perfect the first time, but don't be afraid to go out and try something, learn from it and move on and try again. And then the final thing I would say is don't get so caught up in your own agenda and what you're trying to do that you neglect to take the opportunity to help other people when you have the chance to. So I really benefited from men and women who have invested in me, and it's something I try to do in others as well. So as far as getting in contact with me, you can find me. You can just search for Jessor on LinkedIn or you can email me at jessor11mail.com I love meeting other continuous improvement thinkers and sharing ideas. So please feel free to connect with me.

And Jess, is J E S S and or is O R r correct?

That's correct.

All right, Jess Orr on LinkedIn. All right, well, very good, Jess well, hopefully we get to connect in person, maybe at a conference or something coming up this year. But really enjoyed chatting with you and let's definitely keep in touch.

I would like that, Ron. Thank you very much.

All right, take care.

Bye now.

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