GA 166 | How to “Win” at Lean with Paul Critchley

You're listening to episode 166 with Paul Critchley.

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 Pereri with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day in your week to listen to the show and for watching Iralene and Six Sigma trading videos over at gembacademy.com we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now today, I'm excited to welcome Paul Critchley to the show. Now, Paul has a vast lean background and on the show we spent some time talking about some really interesting topics, namely within the lean community, there's, you know, a lot of debate on, you know, what is lean and what's real lean and Kaizen events aren't lean. And lean is all about this or lean is about that. And really kind of, I don't know, putting lean in a box, so to speak. And so Paul and I really explore that. That angle. And we also talk about some of the roadblocks that he's seen over the years for organizations trying to maybe get started with Lean or perhaps take Lean to the. To the next level. And then one of the last questions we talked about was kind of like, what does winning look like when it comes to lean? And really, really enjoyed talking with Paul. He's got lots of, lots of passion for the, for the topic and I think you're really going to enjoy the show. So show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 166 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 166 again on that show notes page. If you scroll down a little bit, there's a link over to our itunes page. If you are listening to the show for a while and you enjoy the show, we, we'd really appreciate feedback over on itunes. I mentioned a few episodes ago that really helps the show grow and reach more people. So if you could go over there and just leave us a 5 star rating if you like it and give us some good feedback and we really, really would appreciate that. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Paul, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from.

Hey, Ron, thanks for having me. I am calling you from a very chilly and overcast Hartford, Connecticut today.

Nice Connecticut. All right. What's the temperature this morning?

Today is 57.

That's not that bad.

Come on. Well, true. But three days ago it was 95.

Okay. Yeah.

That's a pretty big drop. Yeah. Yeah. That's New England for you. I mean, it's. You know, we all complain about it, but it's like, you know, I was born and raised here. I grew up in Maine, so it's like. It is what it is, you know, It's. It's. You know, it hasn't changed yet, and I don't think it's going to.

Right.

So we just kind of suck it up, you know?

Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, hey, I'm excited to have you onto the show. Thanks for. I think we were another LinkedIn connection. Right. Or something like that, I think. I don't remember how we. How we came across each other, but. But yeah. Appreciate you coming on.

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. Hey, so I know you listen to the show, and you know how we like to roll, so let's. Let's get things started with a quote of something that possibly inspires you.

So. Yes, I do. Faithful listener. So in planning for this, I do have a quote that I like to use. It has nothing to do with Lean. It's from Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys.

Okay.

And he said it was, beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you'll suck forever.

Oh, my goodness. That may be the best quote ever.

Say it again. I wish I could take credit for it, but when I first read, I'm like, you know what? That's perfect. And it's true. You know, it's true for so many things, and certainly Lean, you know, fits that bill, too.

Say it one more time.

Beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you'll suck forever. So. Right. So to me, that means, like, you know, if it. If it's one of those things where it's like, you know. What? Good enough. This is good enough. You know, I'm capping it right here. That's kind of like you're kind of giving up a little bit. And that's what that quote means to me. And I use that quote every now and then to help, you know, inspire people a little bit. Say, no. You know what? Sometimes good enough is good enough, and I get that. I'm a career operations guy. I grew up you know, on the shop floor. But at the same time, it's like, if you ever give in to that temptation, it's really dangerous. It can be a real slippery slope.

Mm. Awesome. All right, well, very good. Good start. Hey, Paul. So tell everybody a little bit about your background and maybe how you first got started with continuous improvement.

Sure. So I'm a degreed mechanical engineer. Like I said, I spent my life on the shop floor. I moved up through the ranks. I spent most of my career as a manufacturing engineering manager, A small, short stint as a plant manager. But so that's kind of how I approach lean, you know, from. From that perspective. And I like to tell the story. So every once in a while, well, you know, some people will ask me over dinner or whatever, like, how I get started. I like to tell the story of when I was in fifth grade. So as a kid, I didn't really get in too much trouble, you know, no more than I think, you know, the average kid. But my achilles heel has always been being kind of an extrovert. So I used to get busted a lot in elementary school for talking in class. And Mr. Fuller was my fifth grade teacher, and he was the first. He was the first and only one to really kind of bust my chops about it to the point where I actually lost one of my recesses. It was the only time in my entire educational career that he said, all right, Critchley, you're done today, so you're going to stay in for recess. All right, fine. So the time comes along, and he says, all right, so all the rest of you kids, you get to go. Mr. Critchley, you get to come up here. And this is back in the day we had actual real chalkboards, Right? All right, so I want you to write I will not Talk in class 100 times on the chalkboard, okay? And as you know, and I know now, looking back, that that whole thing is just right, to spend that all that time. Right? Because there's no possible way in the. Whatever it was, 20 or 30 minutes that recess was going to last was that I'd be able to do that. So really just an effort in, you know, the whole punishment, the carrot or the stick. So he says, all right, so you get going. I got to go to the office and make copies or do something. I'm so. Okay, fine. So I kind of get going. And. And like I said, this is back in the day with real chalkboards. Well, we used to have these things. They're a little piece of wood, like maybe a Foot long. And out of that were five kind of like paperclip looking things. And what these were for was you put a piece of chalk in each one of the paper clips, and the teacher could drag it across the chalkboard for when you were practicing your penmanship. Right. So you could see the center line and the top and the bottom. It almost looked like a little mini control chart.

I don't have a good feeling about this, Paul. Or I have a great feeling. I have a great feeling. One of the two.

No, it ends well, Ron. So I'm like, you know, I'm writing this sentence over. I'm like this, you know, and even at tenure, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Right? So then I eyeball this thing. So I go over and I pick it up, I put five pieces of chalk in it. So now I'm writing five sentences at a time. Right. So you can, you know, I'm like. And they're not coming out perfect, but it's. I'm sure. Right? It's good enough. So Mr. Fuller comes back into the room 10 minutes later, and he's. He's looking at me. He's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, what? I'm writing on the board. Now, mind you, I had, like, half the board filled up by now. So I'm thinking, hey, if I hustle, I can actually still get some recess out of this. And he just kind of puts his head down. He's like, just go. Just go outside. All right, that's cool. Thanks. And actually, I'd run into him. So where I grew up in Maine was pretty small, so I actually ran into him years later when I was in high school. And he. He mentioned that story. So even he remembered it.

Work smarter, not harder. Right.

You know. Right. Exactly. So I was quite proud of that. But. But so, officially, to answer your question, probably in the. In the mid to late 90s, I was working as an ME down in South Carolina for a Tier 1 automotive supplier to Toyota and others, as a matter of fact. And that's really when I first got my. My chops for lean. That's when I first got introduced to it. You know, I can remember the, you know, the Kanban cards getting put into place. And it was, you know, it was kind of a mind blow. I'm like, what is this? You know, this is kind of a new thing. So I, you know, I dug into it and it was really interesting. And I guess the rest is history. Yeah.

Awesome. And what are you up to these days?

So now I am out on my own. I opened up my own Lean consulting business. So, you know, we've grown over the past few years, four or five years, and we have a few consultants that, that work for me. And, you know, we target small to medium sized manufacturers, which here in the northeast, there's, there's plenty of. So, yeah, it's, it's been fun. It's been a lot. You know, I've spent my career, I worked for Pratt and Whitney here in East Hartford for about five years as an Emmy manager and a few other places that nobody's heard of. Yeah. But, yeah, so it's been, it's been fun. I enjoy, I enjoy the work. I get to see so many different things now instead of just going to the same place making the, you know, making the same stuff.

Yeah, good stuff.

Yeah, it's good. It's fine.

Awesome. So first question I have for you, Paul, is, you know, we, this lean community of ours is an interesting one, you know, and there's always, there's always hot sports opinions about, you know, what Lean is and what it's not. And I'm just curious if maybe you could share your thoughts on the lean community and what Lean is and isn't.

Sure, that's a good question because I see it too. Right. And I think I certainly follow you guys on Twitter as well as a host of others, and it seems lately that that's been kind of a topic that's bubbled up. And I certainly, you know, some of the folks that are that debate it certainly, I have a lot of respect for. They're certainly passionate for Lean and what it, what it means. I'll say that for us here, you know, we talk a lot about it in the office. And for me personally, I'm not what I deem a Lean purist. So I don't, you know, and I don't advise our clients to get too bent out of shape if, you know, if they want to do a Kaizen event for three or five days and if they find that model works for them, that's okay. You know, I don't, you know, kind of preach to them. Well, you know, Kaizen's really about engaging every people every day in their, you know, you know, making small. And we certainly talk to that. And some of that does happen. And that's okay too. You know, I like to quote Shakespeare and I say, well, listen, a rose by any other name still smells as sweet. Or that's, you know, probably not exactly the way it goes. But for me, it's It's, I always say too, don't let best get in the way of better. So if you find that, that you want to do something in a certain way and it works for you and your team and it makes things better, yeah, by all means, do it. Now I will say, you know, what I don't approve of certainly is, you know, using Lean as a, simply as a, a measure to get rid of people.

Sure.

You know, because, you know, that's the cardinal sin because the first time you engage your folks with Lean and something, you know, good happens and you lay people off, you know, people are pretty smart, they're going to figure out that connection and they're not going to support it anymore. Yeah.

You know what I think it is? I think, I think a lot of, you know, if you wanted to call, label someone a purist, you know, and most common example is like the whole Lean versus Six Sigma, you know, world out there. And the Lean guy will always start with, I don't have anything against Six Sigma.

Right.

But, you know, then he commences to trash Six Sigma. Right. What's always I found interesting is I don't think in the heart of hearts those folks have bad intentions. I think they see some things, if we're picking on Six Sigma within a Six Sigma community that maybe are less than ideal. Like maybe the elitist attitude or only a few people get to go through or, or something like that. But, but it's Six Sigma in and of itself isn't bad. Just like Lean in and of itself isn't bad. But if Lean is ever used to lay people off, well then, and that's the only perception someone has of Lean, well, they're going to think Lean sucks. Right. But it's not Lean. It was just Lean, you know, applied poorly. Right.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah. And it's, it's tough, like I said, because like I said, I don't get too, too wrapped around the axle as far as what definitions should be. You know, because we have clients that are, that are new and they'll ask us, you know, what does this mean and what does that mean? And of course we give them, you know, the definitions that, that we interpret those to be and those to mean. And that's true. You know, I think it's because Lean is a kind of a movement, just like Six Sigma is. Like a lot of things are. And there's a lot of people, I think, out there trying to do the right things and at the same time, you know, it's always A little tiny bit different, you know, because some, sometimes it works in a certain context at a certain place, and other times that context won't work at a different place.

Yeah.

And I think that that's okay. Like, you know, like I said. And that's where I kind of get a little defensive.

Yeah.

You know, when those conversations come up on social media.

Right, right.

You know.

Yeah. No, I'm so, I totally agree with you. I mean, I, you know, my, my perspective is, are we, are we trying to make things better? You know, and how does, and better for you? You know, I think this is why, like, Toyota Kata has been so popular over the last few years is, is it takes a, you know, the, you know, let's say the eight steps practical problem solving, which, you know, there's eight steps. Right. And quite a bit to it, but kind of, I won't say it simplifies it, but it does. It breaks it down into rapid PDCA cycles and it makes it digestible. And maybe that's why people like Paul, Paul Eggers two Second Lean Right. It's, it's, it's, everyone can wrap their mind around that and, and then you get momentum, you know, whereas if you, if you try to take on these huge projects and then, you know, entropy comes in and pulls you back or, you know, chaos ensues and next thing you know, it's like, ah, we're done with that Lean stuff because we got a business to run.

Right. Exactly. And like, for instance, if, you know, because we're consultants, right, so we have to overcome that roadblock for some right out of the gate. So, you know, if I go into a new client and I start talking to them about employee engagement and, you know, kind of the philosophical side, they're going to look at me like, you know, that I have two heads on my shoulders. Because, because it's kind of an earn the right thing. We go in and usually the burning bridge is cost or efficiency. They'll look at their process and say, this has got to be a better way. And that's when they call folks like us. So we'll go in and that's where the conversation starts. But we try to quickly turn it to say, okay, the part of this is the lean Culture piece, that's really where you're going to get a lot of acceleration to this. And this is how, this is why, you know, engaging your people and you know, because the best people. Right. To improve their processes are the people who do it every day. And it's about engaging their brains not just their hands and that kind of stuff, but that's like a third, you know, that's like a third date kind of conversation, not like, not a first one.

What kind of roadblocks are you seeing out there with folks in engaging with Lean?

I think it's probably got, probably the culture piece more than anything. That's where we see a lot of folks struggle.

What do you mean? What do you mean by culture?

Yeah, so the tools is easy, right? By and large, most of our clients are manufacturing, so we deal with a lot of engineers and a lot kind of like process minded people. So they get tools like this does, you know, a wrench does this, a hammer does that.

Yeah.

For culture, though, it's the piece. It's hard because it's a, you know, it's something that the day always is going to come. And this is what we tell clients. The day is going to come where you have to make a decision. You know, are you going to do the continuous improvement thing or are you going to do the production thing? You know, invariably that day comes and how you pick your path from that point on is going to dictate, I think, how successful you are with your Lean transformation. For instance, you know, if you're a frontline supervisor, you know, you have to be able, you have to support your people having time to do continuous improvement. That's, that's where we see a lot of people say, you know, that'd be great, but I just don't have time. It's like that cartoon with the cavemen and, you know, the dragon, the cart with the square wheels and the caveman behind him is holding up two round ones and the caption is, right, sorry, but we don't have time.

Right.

You know, so it's, it's that part and it's, it's encouraging openness and fear of reprisal and, you know, that kind of thing. It's, you know, that culture of it's okay to make a mistake as long as you're trying to do the right thing.

So how do you, I mean, I guess the million dollar question is how do you assess an organization's culture? Let's say someone hires you to come in and help them and they say, yeah, we're going to bring you in for, for a year. You know, we want you to come in. And so it's a nice, nice, nice job for you. You got a little time still not a lot of time, you know, a year. But you know, got, you got to, you know, it's not Just a one week deal. What are you going to do? Like kind of go in and how are you going to assess that situation?

Well, so it's a good question. The. So typically what we do is we start with the tool part and we say, okay, well, you know, and we talk to the people. You know, we start out on the shop floor. We don't, you know, set up camp in some conference room and you know, send EDEX out and we try to, you know, we talk to, we make sure we engage the folks at the top, you know, make sure they understand what's going to happen, how it's going to happen and what, what role they're going to play in this whole thing. We do encounter some clients that want us to come in and fix, you know, air quotes. Fix it?

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, can we. Of course, of course we can. But guess what, you know, we, we're gonna leave in three or six months. Down the road, you're not gonna be any better. So, you know, it's really about making sure they understand what this whole process is. Process looks like. You know, we can help with the tools and teach the tools and that kind of stuff, but we're also gonna be here to help you guys understand, you know, how do you change, you know, you got to the point where you are today by doing something. Not all of that is necessarily bad, but some of it might be. And that's the reason we're here. You called us for a reason, so that we're gonna address that part too while we're here.

You know, what was it stat that I recently read that something like 90, 95% of all so called lean transformations fail? First question, do you agree with that statement? And if so, what do you think we need to do to counter that problem?

I don't actually agree with that because here's what and here's why, right? Because that's anecdotal information. And I hear that we go to a fair bit of lean conferences and so we see that thrown around and you could Google it and it's all over the place. I have yet to see anybody put any data together to say, this is why, this is why we say these things. This is where the 90 or 95% comes from. The other thing is because to me it's like, all right, well if say 95% fail, so you're saying 5% succeed, well, what does that success look like? Can you point me to a company and you know, theoretically isn't, you know, if they Succeed through lean in there. And they're, you know, they're quote, unquote, lean. That's perfection. But I thought perfection is never attainable. So how do you know? Where are you coming up with this? So I don't know exactly how or why that. Where that ever came from.

So let me ask it another way. How do you define winning? Like, how do you win with lean?

How do you win? I think. I think if you're engaged in the process and you buy into, you know, reaching out to everybody and engaging your people, you know, that's. I think that's winning. If it's. If it's better today than it was yesterday, I think you're winning, and I think it's really that simple. I think a vast majority of companies, certainly people that are listening to us today are engaged in trying to make things better, and I think that's winning. You're probably never at the end of the race, right? It's continuous improvement, and it's called that for a reason. But if you're continually improving, it's one step in front of the other. You guys had a podcast. I forget which number it was. Somebody had done a tough mudder. Steve. Obstacle course. Steve Kane. Steve. Yeah. And that's actually my hobby. I do that a lot, too. And, you know, we always tell each other out on the course, it's like, listen, it's one foot in front of the other. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to be first. You don't have to make it on the podium. If you finish, that's a success. Lean to me, and it's the same thing. You're putting one foot in front of the other, and. And as long as you keep doing that, then you're winning.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. Very good. Very good. All right, Paul, well, let's go ahead and transition into the reflection section. And I know you know these questions already, but I'll ask them anyhow. So that first one, what does respect for people mean to you?

So this is. So, yes, I did know this was coming. So I. In thinking about it, it's funny because, you know, there are those of us who oversimplify, I think oversimplify this. And they say, well, it's the golden rule, right? It's. It's treat, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. And then there's other people that delve into this, like, you know, to certain, you know, the nth degree. I'll point you to my wife Actually, she's a. She's a buyer at a very large multinational corporation. And she's kind of my rock. She's, you know, whereas I'm very driven and, you know, scattered sometimes. She's very steady. So we were talking about this way before I knew I was going to be on your show. And they. So as a multinational, they go through cycles of layoffs and full disclosure, I actually worked for that same corporation in my history. But so. And they're very, you know, it's very widely known that they are driven by the quarterly numbers because they're a publicly held company. So if they're not going to make the numbers they have, you know, they'll lay off 2, 3, 400 people at a clip, and invariably, six months later, they're putting the call out to replace all those people, which is, obviously, you know, it works for them. I don't think it works, you know, from a lean guy perspective, certainly in it. And it. It frustrates me to the point where I quit that particular place. Right. But so anyways, so. So when they go through that, you know, and this is the part that always irks my wife, she says, you know, so these people lost their jobs for no good reason. Right. There are certain people that, you know, should get fired if they do bad things, if. Right. They embezzle money or that. Whatever it is. But if you show up to work and you do your work every single day, I don't think you should deserve to lose your job. Right. It's not that person's fault that the company, you know, potentially isn't doing very well. Now, you know, I'm a business guy. I get it. Sometimes the numbers don't support. But at the same time, it's like, if you're going to need these people six months later, where's the, you know, where's the yin and the yang to this whole thing? Yeah, but, you know, so when that happens, you know, of course you have. You have fewer people, but there's still the same amount of work that gets done. So she points to, you know, herself and people in her group to say, well, you know, we lost Susie last week, and they have a small group, so instead of six people, they have five. Well, all that work still has to get done. So they're taken at home. They're trying, you know, we'll rearrange our schedules so she can stay late once or twice a week. And that's not, you know, that's not respectful because, you know, that's her time. You know, that she's, you know what I mean? It's like they're kind of infringing on that whole work life balance thing. That, that's, I think, where the respect for people come in. Another quick one. So there's a manager in her office who routinely takes a vacation day and still comes into the office because they'll say, well, I'm on quote unquote vacation, don't bother me. And they'll go into their office and close the door and they just try to get caught up on all the stuff that they can't do while they're really there.

Wow.

And it's like, well, part of that, you know. Of course. Yeah. I think part of that is, you know, the time management maybe too, but, but they're clearly being asked too much of.

Yeah.

You know, and that to me, that always pained me. You know, I've had a lot of, you know, engineers and technicians and stuff report to me and I always tell them, listen, I will never come to you and ask you to make a decision between helping to make a shipment, your kids baseball game. That's, to me, that's, that's, that's a non negotiable. You know, we rent people's time and it's up to us as leaders and managers to make sure that we are utilizing that time while that, while we have them.

Yeah.

You know, because, you know, and of course again, I'm an ops guy, so I understand some, sometimes bad things happen and you have to rally, but those should be the exception and not the rule.

But if you do, if you have that back to that culture piece and if you've, if you've built that culture and it's a strong culture and people, you know, care for each other and they trust each other, you know, both ways, leadership down to the shop. Then when you do have those tough situations, they're going to rally, they're going to come, they're going to want to be there to support you and to support the organization. Right. You know, for the times where, you know, and I thought, you know, you may have to miss a baseball game once in a while. But you know, if you do it, here's why, you know, but it's not the norm.

Right.

Because you've built this strong, lean, thinking organization.

Right, Right, exactly. We had at my last place of full employment before I went on on my own, we implemented SAP. And that was a, you know, that was a really large implementation. And part of it was that we had to have coverage from the ME staff all weekend. So we kind of, you know, so we knew it was coming. And I kind of pulled the folks, you know, I said, all right, you know, who's got what this weekend? And it was just that, you know, there were soccer games and baseball games and dance recitals and all kinds of stuff. So, you know, we worked through it, and some people, you know, but the same token, you know, they knew that they'd get it on the back end too, you know, so. So we did the best we could. We had the coverage we needed, and at the end of it, you know, everybody got to what they needed to get to that was important to them, you know, because I never. I always tell him, you know, I don't want your son, you know, to look back and say, all right, you missed that game, and that was the game. I got the winning goal or something. And then, you know, it's gonna be, you know, Paul Critchley's fault that. That you miss that. They'll remember that their entire lives, you know, So I never wanted to get down to that. So after we were done with. With that weekend, and thankfully, it went pretty smooth, you know, I thank them all. I, you know, gave them a little extra time off. I gave them all gift cards. You know, I. It's just little things like that. So if people know. To your point, if people know you care, they're gonna care too.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

All right.

Hey, what's the best advice you've ever received?

So I gotta give my mom a shout out for this one. The best advice. And she. She kind of beat this into me at a young age. She always said, anything worth doing is worth doing right. And that has stuck with me for. Well, obviously, Right. Forever. And I do catch myself every once in a while because I do a lot of stuff here around the house as a. You know, I'm a typical engineer. Right. So I do all this stuff and. And I'm looking around, you know, like, this morning, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. I got to do that trim. I got to do this. So I have a whole bunch of stuff that. That isn't quite done, but. And I think that's a big reason why, even though it drives my wife crazy.

Yeah.

You know, I like to do it, but I want it done right. And I. You know, and that, to me, is like, that's where I get a lot of intrinsic value. It does take a little bit longer, but it's one of those things where it's. You know, you do it and it's done. And it. But, you know, I'm settled. Kind of like my soul is happy, you know, where it's like, okay, that's done. And I'll never have to worry about it.

Right?

Right. Versus if I just kind of like, you know, slap it together and hope for the best. You know, sometimes that'll work. Oftentimes it doesn't, and then I have to do it again. Which. Right. We do. Right. In operations, too.

Did your mom listen to the Beach Boys as well? Just kidding.

Yeah, she was an Elvis Presley fan.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Hey, so speaking of engineers and. And. And. And whatnot, can you think of maybe an experiment or project that you worked on that didn't turn out as you planned? And if so, what did you learn?

Yeah, so this one, I'm going to pull the. I'm going to pull the curtain back on the consulting business a little bit. And so I will admit that we do not get every client that we pitch. What I know I'm the only consultant that. That is true for goodness. Every other consultant that I ever talked to is. Right. They're booked for the rest of the year. It's like, what, turning people down? Yeah, right. I've been making so much money, I lost track. Yeah. You know, come on, you know, so, so. And I'll tell you. So we didn't really follow our own advice, so we got contacted from a potential new client that said they needed help. And the short version of the story, we spent eight months going back and forth, working our way up through the ranks there. We had initially gotten contacted by a senior me. They brought us in. We talked about, you know, with them and the owners. The owners weren't quite sure about it. So we, you know, we. We scheduled the tour at another client site. We could bring them in and kind of show them what we're talking about. So it gets, you know, eight months down the road and after the tour, and everybody seems to be nodding in the right direction. They say, all right, well, there's, you know, there's just one more approval we have to get. I'm like, really? I didn't. God, I think I thought I talked to everybody in your company by now, but, okay, so we help them. You know, we didn't get invited to the meeting. It was an internal thing. But the plant manager goes, the CEO goes, the senior amigos. And we helped him put the pitch together. And the report back was, you know, we got two sentences in and they just. They shut it all down. They said, no, not interested. We're not, you know, we're not interested in bringing in outside help. We're definitely not interested in lean. This is, you know, it's, you know, insert right here. It's, you know, it doesn't work. You know, we've been around for, you know, half a century. We'll figure this out. We can do it ourselves. And it's like, boy, you know, so as, you know, which was disheartening, you know, and again, as a business owner, I have to take a look at it and think, you know, if I was making widgets, you know, would I have spent this long, Right. Trying to pitch a customer to buy my product? And, you know, the honest answer is no. So when I personally kaizen this, you know, so now when we engage a new client, we're very, you know, forthcoming to say, okay, are you guys here in this room? Are you. Are you all the decision makers? Are you the right people that we have to talk to? Is there anybody else that we should be talking with, you know, to try to, you know, make it a little bit easier and not waste everybody's time? And it's funny because, you know, as all that unfolded, you know, I kind of had that V8 moment where I'm smacking myself in the forehead. Like, you know, we. We have all this, and we do a fair bit of training, and in practically every presentation, we talk about the importance of having the folks at the top engaged and on board.

Yeah.

And in this case, it's like, you know, we failed. We failed at that. We, you know, we thought we had the people that we needed, and we. And we didn't. So now, like I said, we make sure that we ask those questions up front. Yeah.

You know, it reminds me of, you know, Gemba Academy. We've never lost any business, obviously. We've. We've won everything that's ever. Ever come into us. There was. There was a time. Oh, gosh, it was four or five years ago, and. And we were talking to the organization, and I had, I don't know, five or six facilities. And so we've got this deal where you get a little tier discount, you know, if you have more than one site. And back then, I think our prices were. Were lower, much lower than they are now. And it was like $795 for a year for everything at a site. And it was kind of a ridiculously low price. And anyhow, these guys were like, you know, and with the multiple sites, they get a discount on top of that. So we're talking, like, I don't know, 600 bucks or something. Whatever it worked out to be, you know, per site for one year. Do you have access to Gemba Academy? Well, we must have. And this is a large. Another large company. And we must have talked to these folks, I don't know, six or seven times. And each phone call maybe lasted 30, 45 minutes. And finally I just said, I just kind of. I know you haven't hired you to bought anything, but I'm going to offer some free consulting here. Guys, we've talked this many times, and these are pretty senior folks, and I'm like, if you kind of added up your salaries, we've paid for these subscriptions already, so let's do this. Or maybe it's just not a good fit kind of thing. And then they ended up coming on board. But golly, just in your story, you know, those engineers, probably pretty highly paid, you know.

Sure.

And how many hours did they put into, you know, these proposals or the meetings and so forth? And just like, guys, are you going to do this or not? You know, and, yeah, it's a. It's a. It's a tough situation, but, you know, tough for them, too, those engineers, because they've got these leadership folks who they know aren't on board, and so they got to. They got to pitch them. Right, so.

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, we were disappointed because, you know, Ron, when we walked out of there after our first meeting, we're kind of looking at each other and we're like, this is a slam dunk. I mean, these guys need. Need lean so bad. They're. They're drowning in inventory. I mean, you name it, they were doing it wrong.

Right.

So we're like, this is going to be great. You know, and it was so disheartening for A, to take so long and then, B, at the end of the road, not to get it.

Yeah.

And. And to your point, I talked to the ME later, and he was pretty upset. You know, he's like. For that very reason. He's like, you know, we put so much work into this, and it's just, you know, they didn't even listen. They wouldn't even listen to, you know, the reasons why. That's really, really frustrating.

Yeah.

So I kind of. I felt bad for him.

Yeah. All right, well, let's.

Let's.

Let's stop feeling bad and feel good a little bit. What are you most proud of as it relates to your journey?

I enjoy. The best part of our job is when, you know, after we've Engaged a client. And we have the. I call them the converts. These are the ones that are, you know, not quite the dissenters, the ones that you're never going to get on board, but the ones that are really like, dissenter adjacent. Yes. Right. So they're. So when those guys or those folks come back and say, you know what? I wasn't too sure about this, but now I've seen it, and now I believe. And they're your biggest proponents. That's the stuff that lets me sleep well at night.

Exactly. You read any good books lately?

I did, actually. I've been on a tear lately. I don't know why. With two little kids and a house and wife and the whole thing and building a business, it's hard to find time. But I just finished a book called hillbilly elegy by J.D. vance. It's really interesting. It has nothing to do with Lean, but it's very interesting from the psychology. You know, you see, like, this guy grew up in Appalachia, really poor, you know, lot of discourse in his life, and he ends up going to Yale and becoming a lawyer. And the whole book is about how the odds were so stacked against him coming from where he came from to make it to where he is today. It was really very interesting. So it's one of those you can't judge a book by its cover kind of a things.

What was it called again?

Hillbilly Elegy.

Okay. Hillbilly Elegy. Okay. Well, we'll find it. We'll link to it in the show notes.

Yeah, it's great. I highly recommend it. And also I did just finish the Stranger in the woods, which is a biography of Christopher Knight, who's. The North Pond Tournament. I don't know if you guys. Because you're in Texas.

Yeah.

So you probably didn't hear about this guy. This guy walked into the Maine woods, actually about an hour from where I grew up in the 80s, and he lived by himself with no human contact whatsoever for 27 years. So it's. So the book, I was really anxious. I bought that the day it came out.

Wow. Okay.

And it's kind of a main thing, being a Mainer, I can say this, that it's one of those, like, sometimes you just want to unplug from society. And obviously this guy took it to an extreme. But I mean, he, you know, literally, you know. So the controversy is he would break into a lot of summer camps in order to steal food and that kind of stuff. So that's where some people are A little upset with him, and rightfully so. Yeah. But the simple fact, I mean, you think about living in. I mean, basically lived in tents in. In Maine in the winter, and I can attest to the fact that, you know, there are parts that get a lot of snow, it gets very cold, and yet he was able to sustain himself for that amount of time. It's quite a thing.

Interesting. Hey. So you've obviously learned a lot and been around for quite a while and got a lot of great experience, but is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become a better lean thinker?

One of the things I like to. I guess, as evidenced by the books that I read often here, it's the psychology portion of it. And I'll refer back to the. To the client that we didn't get. You know, to me, it's like, it's so obvious that they should have, you know, not necessarily just gone with us or. But they need to engage in the lean process and lean tools, you know, and I'm sure, you know, if you or any of the listeners did, you know, they'd think the same thing. So I often, I'll lay in bed at. At night and think, you know, what could I have done differently? What could we have done differently? Why didn't they get it? Why couldn't I. Why couldn't I get them to see it like I see it? You know, that's the part that even, you know, I struggle with today as a consultant. I struggled with when I was in industry with Direct Reports. It's. It's that piece of it. Like, you know, is there a magic phrase or something that I can use that will make this person understand versus something different for this person over here?

Yeah.

You know, and. And I'm sure I'll never find that answer, but, yeah, you know, I. It's just interesting to me what makes people tick and, you know.

Yeah.

And trying to figure out what that is and tapping into that, because I think that's the key, you know, relative to the culture piece of, you know, if you can connect with somebody on that level, then I think that it's all the better down the road.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not the magic answer, but I always remember, I think it was Zig Ziglar who said, and I'll mess it up a little bit. But the gist of it was that if you help enough people get what they want, then you'll have everything in the world. So maybe that's just what we've got to do is just keep trying to figure out how to help people. And you're not going to win them all, but if you keep focused on them and. And where they're at, then perhaps that's our best shot. But. But, yeah. Not going to work out every time. But we gotta. Gotta keep trying, I guess. Right?

Right. Yep. You keep trying. You don't give up.

Exactly.

You don't. You don't lick the lollipop of mediocrity.

That's it. Exactly. Are you gonna suck? Yeah. All right. Hey, final words of wisdom. And how can folks connect with you?

So final words. I won't call it wisdom. It's just my two cents. Just keep trying. And like I said, keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you're continually improving, then you're winning. And it's just keep going. To get in touch with me, you can always hit us up@new englandlean.com okay. I'm all over Twitter. I'm @ne lean guy. So, like, New England Lean guy. I'm on LinkedIn. So, of course, you can hit us up there at our company page or my personal page. Paul Critchley.

And Critchley. C, R, I, T, C, H, L, E, Y.

Correct. I tried to get a few more consonants in the middle, even harder, but that's as many as I could pack in there.

Got it.

Got it.

All right, well, we'll link to everything up in the show notes. So, Paul, hey. Great, Great. Great chatting with you. Hopefully we'll connect at a conference or two this year. And. Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you. I was gonna ask, are you guys headed to AME in Boston this year?

Yeah, no, we'll definitely be there. We'll definitely be there, though.

So that'll probably be our. I'm gonna be there. I'm actually gonna be speaking about employee engagement, oddly enough.

Yeah.

Because that's the whole. The whole, you know, full. I'm on the board for the northeast region of ame, so we're really excited to have it in our region. Yeah. And the whole motto of this year is get engaged. And I don't know if you get a chance to go to the AME website. It's ame.org and look at Paul Akers. He's keynoting. He did a. He did a phenomenal opening video, you know, and I'm a big fan of his, so I'm really looking forward to meeting him. And of course, now that I know you guys are going, so. Meeting you guys.

Yeah.

It's gonna be a good time.

Yeah, a lot of fun we're gonna do. Last few years we've done a little cocktail party thing and last year we had about, I don't know, 2, 300 people. We think we're have even more this year we're gonna even have live music, man. So we're stepping up our game, man, this year.

Awesome.

I think that's gonna be Tuesday night, so you need to free your calendar.

I will be there.

Awesome. All right, Paul, well, thanks again and we'll talk soon.

Awesome. Thanks, Ron, very much.

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@Gembaacademy.com gain immediate access to more than 500 Lean and Six Sigma training video videos free of charge at gembacademy.

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