GA 158 | The Importance of Employee Engagement with Deondra Wardelle

You're listening to episode 158 with Diondra Wardell. 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, this is. 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 at Gembacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, today, I'm excited to welcome Diandra Wardell to the show. Now, I actually met Diandra at the Katacon Conference that was held out in San Diego a few weeks ago. We. I sat down at a table with some of my colleagues for lunch, and a nice lady asked if she could join us. And I said, well, sure. So she sat down beside me and we just started kind of chatting it up. And come to find out she's a longtime listener of the podcast and liked what we had going on. And so I basically just asked her right then and there, hey, how about you come onto the show? And she was like, what? So she agreed to come on and we had a great chat. So, as you're going to hear, she's a corporate Lean director for a pretty big company and 9,000 employees at at the company's name is Multi Packaging Solutions, or MPS for short. And they've been on a journey for a few years. And today we spent quite a bit of time talking about employee engagement. And in particular, we talk about, you know, what does employee engagement look like at nps and how do they go about it? They've got some really interesting strategies. One thing that they talk about is their C program SE sustainable employees, employee engagement. And so Diandra kind of walks us through what that looks like and how they go about that, and, you know, how they share best practices across 9,000 employees and multiple facilities around the world. So some really good stuff. I really enjoyed talking with Diandra. She's got a really good personality and she's very well spoken, as I told her at the end. So show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 158158 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 158. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, d', Andre, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from?

Hi, Ron, thank you for having me today. I am calling in from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Nice, nice. All right, well, I mentioned in the intro that we actually got to enjoy lunch together a few weeks ago in sunny San Diego, and we just kind of started chatting it up a little bit and come to find you're a fan of the podcast. And so naturally I had to ask you to be on the show. So it was great meeting you and even better having you here on the show today.

Well, that was just an amazing opportunity and sure happenstance that we got to meet. And I have been a huge fan, not only of the podcast, but of Gemba Academy in general. So it's a privilege to be on today.

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. All right, well, so I know you know the drill, so we're just gonna kind of jump right in. We're gonna talk a lot about employee engagement today. It's kind of our theme, but as you know, we'd like to kind of begin with our guests sharing a quote of something that possibly inspires them. So do you have one?

As a matter of fact, I do. My favorite quote that inspires me not only for Lean, but, you know, for life in general, is by Shingo. And it's the most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.

What's that mean to you?

Well, what that means is that it's important to always have, you know, to be paying close attention, to be observant in everything that we do. No matter, like I said, if it's in your personal life or in your work life, and always look for. For opportunities to maximize on whatever it is that that experiences. And furthermore, don't take anything for granted. But specifically in the workplace, it's really important to understand what is productive and what is wasteful. And if you really don't have a clear understanding of what's counterproductive or what's non value add or what's waste, then you might ignore it. And if you don't recognize it, there is an opportunity to produce more waste. So, you know, that's my interpretation of that quote. And that's what that's always meant to me.

I love it. It also reminds me of the old saying that sometimes we're unconsciously incompetent, right? Like we don't even know what we don't know. Right. And so really, the first stage of discovery is to at Least become consciously incompetent. Right to.

That's so true. And just overall, the importance of awareness and that consciousness. So I agree with you.

Great, great, great. All right, well, DeAndre, let's kind of get things going with you telling us a little bit about your background and maybe how you first came to learn about continuous improvement.

Okay, well, my background, I have a pretty diverse background. I have worked in a number of different industries. I'd say my career immediately out of college I sold insurance. And then from there I went into the banking industry and I was a branch manager for a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. Then I went into retail and I was a store manager. I managed two retail clothing stores and two of the top malls there in the city. And then from there I went into human resources. I was an on site staffing manager at a staffing company. And then I started, I became a buyer planner for a company that's part of the electronic repair industry. And once I joined that company, I started to gain more experience in operations. And that's where I was really introduced to. To continuous improvement. Specifically, we had a campaign focusing on 5s within our facility. And that campaign was led by our operations manager. And I served as a source of support to launch that campaign. And so the more I began to learn about 5s and how that is a fundamental lean tool to help, you know, not only operators, but, you know, people in the front office and any aspect of the workplace identify, you know, anomalies in the work or things that shouldn't be there. So that's what really started my experience with continuous improvement.

Now you were, you were HR at that time, is that right?

No, at that time I had transitioned from HR to, to purchasing to a program manager. I was in operations.

Okay, okay, okay, Good, good. So it kind of began with 5s and now you're the corporate lean director for a massive company. So that's a pretty big, pretty big jump.

It really is.

Yeah. Well, fantastic. All right, well, tell us a little bit about Multi Packaging Solutions and in particular the lean journey of the company.

Okay, so Multi Packaging Solutions, we are a global company and we specialize in packaging solutions for both branded and healthcare markets. And you know, we are. What we're known for is our innovation and our technical capabilities. And I am based at our facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I'm relatively new to Multi Packaging Solutions, also known as mps. I've been with the company for about. It'll be three years this September. But we have been on our lean journey for almost 10 years.

Wow.

We Started out there was our vice president and as a matter of fact, our members of our senior leadership team, our president and our vice president recognized the importance of continuous improvement. So initially they brought in a consultant and gave our organization guidance on how to build a continuous improvement program. And we started out with identifying that we needed to have someone dedicated in the role to spearhead all of our continuous improvement initiatives. So that's when the corporate lean director position was created. So our previous corporate lean director attained new responsibilities and ultimately became a facility manager. So it was difficult, you know, to do both corporate lien, be the corporate lien director and a facility manager simultaneously. So then the position was posted and then that's when I came on board.

Got it, Got it. All right, well, very good. So as I mentioned earlier, we're going to kind of spend some time today talking about employee engagement and really kind of the importance of, I guess, putting lean in everyone's hands. So it's not just a select few of gurus or experts running around, but it's everyone. So let's kind of begin with maybe connect how employee engagement and your lean vision and strategy kind of work together.

Okay, so as a part of our lean vision and strategy, and there are, it's really important that our organization is focused on exceeding customer expectations and delighting our customer and producing a world class product. Well, a key part of that is having talent, you know, developing our talent that we have among our operators and, you know, members of management. The entire, you know, we have almost 9,000 employees worldwide and we want to ensure that all of our employees are actively involved, working together as a team, looking for ways to reduce and eliminate waste, create continuous flow and to, you know, daily work on solving problems on all levels of our organization. So as a part of that, you know, that employee engagement, linking in with our vision and strategy, the foundation, what we believe is that, you know, it's important to have to develop people and make sure that people are engaged. We want to make sure that we lead with humility, that we have collaborative and cross functional teams, you know, working together, not only making decisions, but to address issues that our customers bring to us so that, you know, we can have satisfied customers.

So what is it? I mean, let's dig a little deeper. Like what does it, what does it look like? I mean, what is, when you say your employees are engaged at nps, what does that mean? Like, what does that look like on a, maybe on a day to day basis?

Okay, so what that looks like? For one, it starts with our training program so here at nps, we have something called an NPS Lean Certification training program. And the foundation of that is that we want our employees to learn about the Lean tools. We want them to be able to take what they learned and do it in their work areas and create value by implementing changes on a daily basis. So with that, with the training that we offer, it's actually four modules. The first module is Introduction to Lean. The second one is the introduction of 5s and visual management. Our third module is Introduction to Standardization. And the fourth module is Introduction to the Daily Kaizen. So the goal is for, you know, employees to really understand, you know, all aspects of the value stream and how the work that they do impacts what's taking place with the product that ultimately will be in the hands of our customers. So as they go through the training, it's not a matter of, well, I've sat through this classroom training, I now know all these Lean terms that, you know, I can define. But we want them to be able to take those, what they've learned and apply it to their work. So where the engagement piece is critical is we offer or we have a program called the C program, and that C program stands for Sustainable Employee Engagement. And the foundation for that is we want the employees to take what they've learned in training, you know, how to identify waste, what the key Lean tools and principles and philosophies and methodologies are, how to take the lean problem solving tools, specifically like the pdca, the plan do, check, act, cycle, and use their creativity, their knowledge and their experience to look for ways to make improvements and solve problems daily. And they communicate those ideas for improvement through the seed program, and they're rewarded for the improvements that are completed.

So does that look like Kaizen events or is it just like Paul Akers kind of simple Kaizen kind of concept or a mixture?

It's a mixture, but it's primarily the simple Kaizens, or what we call Kaizen Blitzes, or just do it. And in some of our facilities, they even refer to it as two second improvements. But the foundation still ties back to that PDCA cycle where they really understand what the issue is. They get to root cause as to what may have caused it. They want to establish a target and then come up with countermeasures to implement that improvement. And so the difference is this may be something that can be identified and completed within a few hours or within a day. In most cases, it's something that the employee can do on their own without much, you know, additional need for support. Or supervision. But it's an idea that they see that's affecting their productivity. That, you know, based on their understanding of waste, is something that can be eliminated to make their process run smoother and ultimately make, you know, whatever it is that we're producing for the customer that where they'll be satisfied with it.

I love it. I love it. You know what? I. It's obviously that you're taking. You're learning, but then you're taking action. It's kind of our. Our mantra here, again, the academy, is when people would say, well, what should we do and what videos should we watch? And we're like, okay, yeah, we can direct you in some areas, but realize this is not get rich quick. This is not elearning. Right where you check a box. Oh, I watched a Vibe s video. So I got it. No, now you know, enough to go out and practice. So go to your Gemba after you've watched a video, or in your case, you sat through a class or whatever it is, but take action, and sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.

Exactly. And that's the whole point, is that we want to empower our employees to be able to take action as a result of the transformational training that they receive. And the other piece to that, too, is that, you know, we do have members of our lean department who are, you know, regional lean specialists, and we have lean coordinators who are assigned to each facility, as well as members of management who serve as coaches and help provide guidance and direction with the see improvement ideas and tying them back into what that employee understood to be waste and what it is that they're trying to do to eliminate that waste.

So 9,000 employees across multiple sites or facilities, how do you share best practices?

Well, we share best practices in a number of ways, but our primary tool that we use to share best practices, we have our intranet that, you know, different events, events, and even the see improvement ideas that we want to showcase and focus are shared on the Internet. We also have best practice calls that are currently managed by our senior vice presidents, you know, by commodity. And we also have a Lean newsletter where we showcase the events and improvements that have been made globally that we publish bimonthly.

So a question I often ask folks when it comes to their journey is if Deondra could jump in a time machine and go back, what was it, three years to the day you started at NPS and you had, I don't know, five minutes to spend with yourself, and you could give yourself some advice as it relates to this lean journey and the in continuous improvement. You can't give yourself stock tips or anything like that, is what I'm saying. Would you give yourself any advice or would you just say, let's just play it out, Just play it out?

You know, that's an excellent question. And actually, I don't need a time machine for that. It's something that I have to remind myself of daily, and that's to be patient and trust the process. As a lean practitioner and someone who sees the value of all that lean has to offer, oftentimes I want to go fast and speed through the events and get to the next experiment that we want to complete. But what's important is that we're patient and we take our time, take our time to work with others, especially others who may be at varying levels on a lean journey, and then understanding that with continuous improvement, it is a process. You know, this is. Although we do have the just do it and, you know, the two second improvements and the Kaizen blitzes that I mentioned earlier, it's still a process to get from whatever our current state, our current condition is, to our future state. And it takes, you know, many iterations of, you know, working through the PDCA cycle to see those improvements. So I think having patience is an extremely important tip that I would give to myself if I have that time machine and that I give to myself, you know, in real time.

Yeah. Love it. I love it. Last question for this section. D'. Andre. So someone's listening to this podcast right now, and perhaps they're just getting started with their journey. In addition to have patience and trust the process, what other advice do you have for that person?

The primary advice that I would give to anyone starting the lean journey is that you want to make sure that people who, you know, whether it's a department or a team or a small group, whomever you're working with, it's really important to make sure that time is invested, to build a lean awareness that people understand the fundamentals of what is entailed in lean and in continuous improvement. When they have that good foundation or that good knowledge to start out with. It helps to provide a starting ground for people to work together to make sure that they're using the same terminology, that they have the same understanding of what some of the key lean tools are like 5s and visual management and push and pull intact. You know, no matter where a person is in terms of their title or their experience or their tenure in the company, you just want to make sure you have A good foundation of learning before you get started.

Got it, Got it. Very good. Very good stuff. All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into the reflection section, DeAndre. So this first question is the oldie but goodie is, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about those two pillars of lean, continuous improvement and respect for people. But respect for people can be a little bit harder to wrap our arms around. So I'm curious, what does it mean to you to respect people?

Okay, so what it means to respect people. And I have to use an analogy that my mom shared with me as a child. So, you know, this isn't from a quote unquote, lean expert. This is from an unofficial lean expert, my mom.

Yes.

But, you know, she always has reminded me to treat others in a way that I would want to be treated. So the golden rule, so to speak. And then the other thing that she would always remind me of is that a broken clock is right twice a day. And what she meant by that is that everybody has value and everybody has input. And, you know, don't make any preconceived notions about what someone can bring or what some value a person can bring, because everyone has something to share. And if you think about that, you know, a clock that isn't working, it is right wherever the hands are stuck, it is right twice a day. And so with showing that, you know, that humility and appreciation and respect, you know, you want to treat others the way you would want to be treated, recognizing that everyone has value, everyone has something to bring to a process that everyone has some type of information or knowledge to share as a result of making decisions. And then, you know, it's important to appreciate whatever differences individuals may have and recognize how those differences can bring value to the overall process.

Man, I love that clock analogy because you could take it even one step farther. Yeah, they're right two times a day, and they're almost right even more times than that. Right, Right. So that's a great piece of advice. Your mom sounds like a bright, bright lady. So good stuff. What's the best advice you've ever received?

The best advice I've ever received, I would say this is from my grandmother, as a matter of fact, my great grandmother. And that advice that she gave me is never give up. If you have a goal or something you want to achieve, no matter how long you may think it may take to actualize it or come to fruition or reality, don't get discouraged by that. Continuously work towards whatever it is that you want to Accomplish and never give up.

Mm. You know, did you hear Brandon Brown at the Katacon conference?

I did.

You know, I don't know. I don't know if he shared it in his kataka talk, but I heard him on the TWI side, and. And he. He shared that quote, the man in the arena from Theodore Roosevelt, where he's just basically just talking the same thing that you just said that, you know, it's the. It's the person in the arena that's fighting, you know, and trying and failing, but this never quits, you know, and that's. That's who we need to be respecting, not the person who sits on the sideline and never even tries. Right, Right. So, yeah, pretty. Pretty powerful stuff. Do you have maybe an example of an experiment or project that. That, I don't know, maybe in the last year or so that didn't quite turn out like you had planned, and if so, what did you learn from it?

Let me think. As a matter of fact, I do have an example. There was a lean event that we were conducting in one of our facilities in Belgium. And so going in, you know, I had the agenda set and our plan to execute. Of course, we started out with some fundamental training, just making sure that everyone was aware of some of the key lean tools that we might take under consideration to help us through the countermeasures that came out of the event. But as we were. We started out completing a process map, we wanted to get a good understanding of how the process flowed in the current state, and we kept getting off topic, and we spent more time with having side discussions than I had originally planned in the agenda. And what I learned from that is as a result of us going through that process map phase, because we have people from different backgrounds within the organization. And not only that, it was a joint event with the customer. And at one point, even though I was facilitating, the participants sort of stepped up and almost took on a facilitator role during that discussion. And what I had to learn was, although I had a schedule and an outline, that you always have to allow room for flexibility. Because even though I felt like we were getting off topic and, you know, we did have to be mindful of the key goals and objectives that we were trying to accomplish in that event, but from those discussions and from the discussions of what took place as they were completing that process map, we were able to take into consideration some different challenges that both sides weren't completely aware of and had different interpretations of what those process steps look like. And so, as A result of having, you know, taking the time to allow them to have that dialogue and to flow out the process in a way that made sense to them. It opened up, you know, so many opportunities later on in the event for the. During the brainstorming session that ultimately led us to actions and countermeasures that actually, you know, that really addressed the problem that we were experiencing, and we were able to. We actually ended up saving time in the long run because of the time that was allowed to be spent for the team to really talk through some of their frustrations and misunderstandings. So what I learned from that is, again, showing that respect for people. The other piece is making sure that there is clear, concise communication and allowing for that flexibility, realizing that ultimately the event was for the people who were in the room and they were engaged and they were participating. So it was important for them to let them to go through that process and have that learning.

Yeah, I mean, you just never know what's going to come out of a conversation. I meant we mentioned you and I sat down together at lunch, didn't even know each other, and just started chatting it up. And next thing you know, we're. We're talking about all these amazing Lean things and on a podcast and whatnot. So you just never know what's going to come off. Just a basic conversation. Right. And you have to be open. Right. And just open to what's going to happen.

You really do.

Yeah. Good stuff. What are you most proud of as it relates to your journey with Lean?

I'd say what I'm most proud of. What I'm most proud of is anytime someone has an aha moment, and especially for someone who's new on their Lean journey, or if they've ever had reservations about, you know, what can be accomplished by implementing Lean, and to receive feedback on how they took, especially through that NPS Lean certification program during that training, you know, different things that they've learned and can apply it to what they're doing in their work to make their work life easier. So, you know, anytime that light bulb comes on where a person has, you know, they really understand it and they understand how it can be applied. And then you get the feedback that, you know, something in their work life is simpler. You know, that's what gives me, you know, the most joy.

You know, I just can't help ever think about yet. Last night, I actually coach one of my daughter's soccer teams, and we were teaching the girls some fancy moves. This Maradona, it's this crazy spin Move on a soccer ball. And this little girl didn't think that she could do it. And we kind of stepped through the, kind of used my ji, you know, and first important step, you know, and it kind of got her through it and she did it. And the look on her face was just, man, it was worth a million bucks, you know, and. And that's just a little, little girl playing soccer. But it's the same thing, you know, in the workplace, when someone really gets it, there's that spark in their eye. It's pretty infectious.

It really is. It really is.

Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Hey, so have you read any good books lately or. And they don't even have to be continuous improvement related, just any kind of good book.

Yes. As a matter of fact, I just finished reading for the second time Toyota Kata by Mike Rother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's. I think that's probably been the most suggested book on this podcast for a good reason. It's a fantastic book. I can't wait for the new one to come out. What is it? Come out in a couple months, I think.

I think it does.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's your favorite part of. Of the whole KATA methodology?

Well, my favorite part is pretty much all of it.

Yeah. Right.

You know, from the employee engagement standpoint and what KATA teaches about, you know, how to lead and develop people and, you know, really relying on the. The scientific thinking process and really encouraging that and coaching people, you know, through the process to identify, you know, ways to improve whatever challenge they're facing. And the other part too is, and this goes back to why employee engagement is so important to me, I have always, you know, jokingly told members of my team, you know, currently with NPS and other teams that I've worked with and lean, is that my number one goal is to turn them into scientists. And, you know, in that whenever scientists come across something that they want to address or fix or remedy, you know, they really apply, you know, detailed steps in addressing whatever that problem is. They really think things out. They don't want to just jump to conclusions as to what they think the solution would be, but they really want to take the time and understand what the problem is, have an idea of mind ultimately where they like to be and take the steps and of course, reviewing the data and making strategic experiments on what needs to be done to get them to where they ultimately want to be. That's what I have enjoyed and appreciate so much about the KATA because it really gives you guidelines and directions in how you can you know, coach people into where? Into the. How to coach people to understand how they can take that scientific thinking and become problem solvers and address, you know, whatever challenge it is that they're facing, you know, no matter how complex it is.

Yeah. And, you know, and there's something powerful about the methodology because we, you know, we practice it here even at Gamba Academy. And my colleague, Steve Kane, who you met there in San Diego, you know, he's been practicing for a long time. Right. And. But even still, we'll coach each other. Right. And it's just having the fact of having someone kind of walking you through some questions, even though you know what the questions are because you've done it yourself, but someone's asking you, what's your next step? Oh, well, I think my next step is this great. When can we come back together and talk about it? You know, and we kind of joke about it with each other, but we still do it because it's so powerful. Right. And you just. You can't short. Shortcut it because the process, it just.

Works if you follow it, and it really does. And then, you know, it just goes back to, you know, that, you know, even, like, to your point where, you know, you know, what the questions are. But having a coach or mentor and someone to work with you and. And step you through that process, it helps you during your time of reflection to where you can even have a deeper understanding. And sometimes there may be, you know, something in the data or something in the experiments that, you know, where you have your own aha moment as you're going through that coaching cycle. So I think it's really powerful, and I'm a huge fan.

Yeah, I think. I think it is important to almost free your mind of the coaching cycle when you are the learner. Right. So you don't have to worry about that side of it. I just need to focus on, like, what it is that I'm doing. Right. So, yeah, good stuff. Hey, last question, Deondra. Is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve on in order to become a more successful lean thinker?

You know, for me, as a lean practitioner, it is something that I need to work on. And again, it's that patience. Because like I said, I have witnessed over and over and over the positive outcomes of what takes place when Lean and Six Sigma are applied to processes and challenges and problems. And so because of that, sometimes, you know, I may want to accelerate that process faster than, you know, the team may be ready myself or the team may be ready to move in. And that can be counterproductive. So, again, it's that, you know, hold patience and trusting the process and the timing and making sure that, you know, all of the steps are specifically followed to ensure that, you know, the positive outcome that we're hoping for is achieved.

Wonderful. Love it. How can people connect with you? Are you LinkedIn, Twitter, all that good stuff, or where can people find.

Yet people can find me on LinkedIn and I'm Diondra Wardell, and the first name is spelled D, E, O N, D R A, and the last name is spelled W A, R D E, L, L, E. Yeah, very good, Very good.

Well, I know that you're into conferences because that's where we met. Are you going to go to Ame or any of these other conferences coming up this year?

As a matter of fact, I'm looking at them. There are a number of different Lean events that are taking place within my company, both in North America and Europe, that, you know, I want to make sure that I can support and participate in with my regional lien specialist. In addition to that, we are in the process of rolling out and introducing the CADA here at nps. So, you know, that that has kind of earmarked quite a bit of my time, but when possible, you know, I definitely hope to attend more of those conferences.

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, well, I'm so glad that we got to have lunch together, Diandra, which led us to this podcast. I can't wait to stay in touch with you and hear how your journey continues. Keep up the great work and, and thanks for taking time to visit with us today.

Again, thank you for taking the time to to have me join on the podcast today. It's been a great experience.

All right, you take care.

You too.

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