GA 214 | How to Set a Challenge with Mark Rosenthal

So this type of thinking I want to be clear of first is that the purpose of the Toyota Kata is to practice scientific thinking.

If you've practiced Toyota Kata, chances are good you've discovered how difficult it could be to set a good challenge. And if you do manage to set a good challenge and even grasp the current condition, being able to identify good target conditions or those small steps towards the challenge can be extremely hard. The good news is today's guest shares some practical thoughts and ideas that just may help us all. His name is Mark Rosenthal. Now, Mark's been practicing continuous improvement for more than 30 years and currently spends most of his time working as a consultant. Mark also worked with us to develop our latest Toyota Kata course, which we released a few weeks ago. Now, show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything Mark and I discuss, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 2, 1, 4. Again, that's gembapodcast.com and look for episode 214. You can also check out GEMBA Academy's Lean Learning system over@gembaacademy.com with a fully functional trial. Now let's get to the show. All right, Mark, well, welcome back to the show. How's it going?

It's going pretty well. Been a pretty busy year so far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're out doing tons of consulting and everything, so that's great, man. And you know, video, video star now, you know, in Gamba Academy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I almost forgotten about that.

Yeah, no, I know, yeah. It wasn't the, the leanest process, unfortunately, to get that course all done for, for a variety of reasons, but it's out there now. So if people want to check out Mark in our Toyota Kata course, you can. He did a fantastic job. So. So thanks for that, Mark. But listen, I'm really excited about today's topic and definitely Kata esque topic. But before we get into that, Mark, just give everybody a little rundown on who Mark Rosenthal is, a little bit about your background and how you came to learn about all this continuous improvement stuff.

Oh, gosh. I started working at Boeing as an industrial Engineer back in 1989 and so I kind of started cutting my teeth on continuous improvement back then. Got introduced to Shingujitsu at Boeing in the mid-90s. My last couple years there were going to suppliers and teaching them what we knew about continuous improvement at the time. So I kind of cut my teeth in the consulting world that way. From there I hopped over to Genie Industries in Redmond and we were really heavy into continuous improvement there. The culture is really, really based on it. Spent what, four years or so there. Ended up getting recruited as a lean director out at kodak in Rochester, N.Y. took me up to another level there, worked with some awesome people there and then back out to the Pacific Northwest to work with. Now Terex, which is Jeanne's parent company, Corporate Continuous Improvement, which mostly was the other various companies that were part of the Terex umbrella at the time. And from there I kind of hopped over into the independent consulting world and I've been doing that full time since 2011 now.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, we haven't even really publicly announced this, so I guess maybe this will be the most public announcement so far. But Gemba Academy has a consulting arm now and Mark has been doing some work with us there and heck, I even get out from time to time and throw some boots on and go to the Gamba myself. So yeah, I just noticed it's actually linked off of our main gembacademy.com website now. So. So we'll get some traffic over there to that. But been great working with you in that, that arena as well, Mark. So. All right, well that's who Mark is. And obviously you really into all things Toyota Kata. In fact, I've learned a lot from you personally, Mark. And what we kind of were brainstorming yesterday on a quick phone call about what to talk about today and what I was just experiencing as a continuous improvement learner myself and practicing kata myself is it's really difficult to do what, maybe what some might assume some of the basics, namely setting this challenge which is kind of that long term goal. And, and then in particular what I found to be really hard and difficult is this whole target condition. And so I thought maybe what we could do, Mark, is just not to assume anybody's got a huge understanding of what we're talking about. So maybe we can give a quick, I don't know, 30, 45 second overview of what the improvement kata and the coaching kata are all about. And I'll also point people Back to episode five, 52. So it was some time ago. We're on episode 214 here. But episode 52 we brought Mark on and, and that's where he really got into kind of the background of Toyota Kata and, and why he believes it's so powerful. So, so just so Mark doesn't have to repeat himself on that, we'll, we'll point people Back to episode 52 GembaPodcast.com look for episode 52. But so give us just an overview mark of, of Toyota Kata before we we dive a little deeper into the whole challenge and target condition.

Sure. So the genesis, I think, is the best way to describe it. We've known for years, decades, that if you go into a Toyota environment, continuous improvement is done in a coaching relationship between the person doing the improvement and typically his or her immediate boss. And it's often done over an A3. It's sometimes done with a storyboard in the work area. But there's always a conversation between the person who's doing the improvement and their immediate boss. And what we see in those conversations is the coach is there to really push the thinking process and keep things scientific. Just to borrow the term from Mike Rother, we've known this a long time, but we really didn't know precisely how they did it. We just knew that they did it. So Mike Rother made it his point to do some research and to dig into exactly what is the underlying pattern in all of these conversations. And when he boiled everything down, what was left was an underlying pattern that he calls a kata, which is a term we borrow from martial arts, a routine to practice. So we have four high level steps for doing improvement that are always there. One is we have to understand the direction and challenge. Where are we trying to go? What's the bigger picture? We then grasp the current condition and understand how the process is working right now to give us the outcomes that we're getting. Then we establish an intermediate target condition which is on a shorter time horizon than the long term challenge, focusing on the problems or what we call obstacles in kata world. Focus on one of those and then start applying hypothesis testing and experiments to either crack that problem or render it irrelevant. And then one problem at a time, iterate our way toward the target condition. The other half of that is the process of coaching, which Mike really managed to boil down to what he calls the five questions, even though there's actually nine or ten, because there's sub questions. But the coaching process really is a confirmation of the thinking and reflection on what's being learned.

Got it. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that first step that you described, setting that challenge. Talk about why that's important and maybe some practical tips for how to go about it. And then what I really want to focus on is some real examples from your. And we can change the names of places and all the rest of it, but real practical examples that you've seen in the real world.

Yeah. Challenge is really interesting. Because when we're teaching people to do it and in the books, we tend to kind of blow by that and just say, well, there is a challenge. And it's ultimately, it's the job of management to establish what that is because that's what focuses the effort of everybody else on the right thing. So I want to start by. It's important because if there isn't a challenge out there, then all people can do is look for things to improve. And that's cool, but it might or might not actually end up on the bottom line. And I can, you know, I actually deliberately structure the class in a way that what is instinctive, if you're just looking for waste, doesn't actually turn out to be relevant to solving a problem that they're given. So one way to think of it would be what we say is what. What's something you want to be able to do for your customer that today you cannot? Another way to think of it is how would you want this to go? How do you want your process to operate at a high level? What kind of performance do you need from it? And get kind of an expression of, well, if everything was great, this is what it would sound, this is what I'd have, okay, what have you got now? And try to get that sense of frustration out of people. And sometimes that helps. Real world. Real world is often a high level KPI of some kind. One client I'm working with now, they are essentially, they. They know their performance of their, of their systems is not giving them the output that they expect. They're using a high level metric, a version of oee, for example, to say, this is what we need. That's not a bad one. But that's a great example because OEE is something that you can't action. It's got a bunch of different components in it and you really have to analyze them and break them down if you want to improve it.

So taking OEE as an example, would you, Would you prefer to see someone from. Again, we're talking about the challenge. So the long term goal, would you prefer that leader, the senior leader, focus on something like oee or would you want them to break it down a little bit and say, you know what? We're really struggling with the availability piece of oee. So your challenge is to focus on availability or is it okay for them to keep it broad and focus on just oee?

I think that's kind of a judgment call and it depends on the level of the organization that you're dealing with at A high level, you know, OEE is not a bad high level KPI. It kind of tells you how everything's performing. Some organizations strip out things like changeovers and treat them separate and have some other three letter acronym for it. The key is, I think that once the learner has the key is give me a number. Don't just tell me to improve it. Don't tell me to make a 25% improvement. Tell me what you need in terms of output. That's a lot. Something I can get my teeth around. Even OEE is kind of squishy. If you tell me how many units a week you actually need to get out of this process, that gives me more flexibility to try to fix it.

Yeah.

Then it's up to the learner now to understand why we're getting what we're getting. And then a target condition would likely be one of those components if we're going to continue on the on the oee.

I actually will have a couple more questions on the challenge if you don't mind.

Sure.

So talk a little bit about so oee. Right. Let's just stick with that since that's a nice example that a lot of lean. For folks that don't know what OEE stands for. It's overall equipment effectiveness. It's used to look at, you know, know how well you're utilizing your assets within a organization. Whether it be a, you know, a CNC lathe out on the shop floor or some surface mount equipment making a cell phone or something. Right. So that's a really popular lean metric. So. But talk about the importance of not just thinking about or. I don't want to make any assumptions here. Is it also important to really think about not just the number? Okay, let's say I want you to have an OEE of 85 or whatever the number is right by this date. But do we also want them thinking about how will you be working in order to get 85? In other words, the behaviors. Right. The way that the patterns. So in other words, not just the number, the number is a part of it. But do we also want them thinking about what's that going to look like?

So yes, we do. That's kind of a given here. If you're just looking at metrics, people will hit the numbers. There's three ways to hit the numbers. As my buddy Skip Stewart puts it, they'll distort the numbers, they'll distort the process, or they'll improve the process. Any one of those three will work in the short term. Improving the processes, obviously what we want them to do. So the whole purpose of the entire improvement, KATA coaching, kata relationship is a continuous check in to ensure that we're improving the process to hit the challenge. The alternative in traditional management is I'll give you a goal and at the end of the year we'll talk about how you, whether or not you hit the goal. And we're not really discussing what you did along the way to get there. And that can be very destructive. So it's not a matter of setting a goal and then fire and forget. And then at the end of the year, tell me how you did. It's a matter of we're agreeing that this is the challenge that we're striving for. I'm giving you as the learner, the rationale, why it is this is important to the company and what the bigger picture is. And then you're agreeing to accept that challenge and I'm agreeing to support you in reaching it. And that's the accountability from management to the learner. It's not a one way street.

Yeah. And I think that's what separates say kata thinking with, you know, the traditional employee evaluation process that many of us have gone through and maybe some folks still go through where you sit down with the box and, and they give you that challenge air quotes. Right? Challenge.

Yeah.

But then they say good luck. Right. And. And you know, let me know if you have any questions. Right. Which is their way of trying to be a leader. But really they're not, they're just throwing you a really difficult goal and telling you to go get it and your bonus depends on it. Right. Whereas with kata, we may still throw that very difficult goal, but we're going to, you know, engage and collaborate in the process all right. Alongside them. I think that's where, that's where, that's where we depart from the traditional management goal setting.

Yeah. I'll just kind of put in that John Shook's book, Managing to Learn, which came out quite a while ago. But it's a really good narrative of how this process works in a, in a scenario that that makes sense to the reader. So I highly recommend that for folks that want to understand more about how this dialog goes.

Got it. Okay. So let's assume that we've got that target condition or no, sorry, that challenge. Now, now we are going to, we assess the current state and see where we're at. Right. And so now we went, now we, you know, we have a really nice. I don't want to blow over that. Right, because that's also very difficult, right?

Yeah.

To deeply understand your current state. And many times we all fail to deeply understand the current state. So. But let's make the assumption for the sake of this interview that we've done that. Now let's talk about that target condition. What is it? Why do we do it? And again, some practical tips and then maybe we can conclude with a real world example.

Sure. So target condition can be difficult for an action item culture because it's not an action item. And I just want to lay that out. That's really, I think where I see people struggle is they try to, they try to pound this into, well, I'm going to have a series of action items or a series of milestones and if I hit them all, then I will be where I need to be. And they try to make a, make a detailed plan. And that's not what it's about. What it's about is based on your understanding of the current condition, what I ask people is, okay, you have this big picture. Where do you want to focus your attention now first, where do you want to focus your attention? Don't worry about what you're going to accomplish, just narrow your scope of what you're looking at first. Then based on that, now I've narrowed it down. Look at that one piece and what do you want that to look like in a week or two? For example, if you do a classic starter kata of grasp the current condition out of the Toyota Kata starter guide, you'll end up with run charts of all the various cycles and you'll see a variation in the lowest repeatable times for those various cycles that are all kind of tying together. What I'll tell people is, okay, let's focus on one of those run charts. Set the rest aside. Which one do you want to focus on first? Set the rest aside now. What do you want that run chart to look like? And you're either going to say, well, I want to stamp down this variation, or you're going to say, I need to reduce the lowest repeatable time or some variant of that conversation. And then if you make that decision, you're done. People make it harder than they, harder than it needs to be sometimes.

Give me an example that's not time based. Say we're working in a hospital or something like that, and they're not creating a run chart of some sort because it's not a time challenge, perhaps, and.

Perhaps it's a good one because in a hospital, actually there's a lot more that Is time based.

Yeah, that's why I threw that copy out there. I get that not everybody's going to have run charts floating around their office or whatever it might be.

So a real life example that just blew me away was, and I'll apologize to listeners if this gets a little medical, but I have to to do it in context. And this nursing manager in an ICU was really working on a process. She wanted to maintain her terrific track record for the last 18 months on avoiding catheter associated infections. And she grasped the current condition and what she realized was they'd been really lucky because the processes that were being followed were pretty haphazard from nurse to nurse. So her first target condition was every shift they're supposed to do a level of procedure to essentially clean the area, sterilize it, keep it clean. And her first target condition was every patient, every shift, we're going to do this by the book. And just stabilizing that part of the process actually took a while because the supplies weren't necessarily available. You had different nurses with different levels of education that had come into the system at different times that had learned to do it different ways. And so they had to work as a team to stabilize and standardize how it is they were doing this pericare every shift.

So within the kata framework, so I'm gathering, they set that target condition. Do you remember, I'm sure you don't have a storyboard in front of you, but did you remember how they worded the target condition?

They worded it as a great. It was pericare. Every patient, every shift. And she knew what that care was supposed to be, so there wasn't any need to elaborate on it.

Did they have a date by which they wanted to achieve it?

By. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. It was in two weeks. That was always our default is two weeks unless there's a really good reason otherwise.

Okay, so she came up with this excellent target condition, set a timeframe, two weeks. And then I guess did she pull together her team to brainstorm obstacles? Did she do that on her own or how did that work?

So she's a really good leader. And I say that because the other nurses were okay with letting her know that no, we actually don't follow the procedures. So there was no fear. And that's really important for this to work anywhere. And yes, what she did was. Okay, what are the obstacles? Well, the supplies aren't always available, so they fixed that. I don't remember. It's been a couple of years. I don't remember all the obstacles. I remember that one. It was we different nurses have gone to nursing school at different times and learned different things. So they settled on this is the way we're going to do it. And then they taught everybody that. And this system also has a really good TWI background. So boom. Job instruction.

So like as an example. And I wasn't there, so. But I'm just guessing, maybe an obstacle was something like we're not able to achieve this target condition because we all work to different.

Right.

With different ways or we have different. We were all trained differently. Oh, okay. And if that was the one obstacle they're working on, perhaps a next step was to create a job breakdown or something. Right. Is that correct?

Okay, yes, that would be the thinking that they would apply here.

Got it, got it.

And then trained to it. Yeah.

So how many do you remember? Like a ballpark like. Or maybe not just in this example, just. And perhaps it just varies greatly. But you know, about how many experiments or next steps do you see people taking before they. Before they hit that initial two week target condition?

I've seen it hitting one.

Really?

Okay. Not that often. But they get surprised. They realize it's easier than they thought. Okay, I've seen. Well, if you're trying to experiment every day and you have a two week target condition, you know that's going to be ten or a dozen or so experiments, unless you're doing more than one a day and that can be challenging. But I see them get hit as the learner learns to calibrate their own. You know, they learn to calibrate what they're doing. A dozen or so experiments isn't uncommon where they will take an obstacle and they'll usually have to deal with two or three of them.

Okay. Something we. I was at bending ear about just genuinely as a learner myself, you know, asking you as kind of my second coach, if you will, as I'm coaching some folks over here at Gemba Academy, even through the kata process, we find many times that we might come across an obstacle that is going to be. Oh, what maybe some call. Would maybe call a slow burner. Right. It's going to. Maybe it involves getting it involved. Right. Or something like that. That's going to take, you know, a week or two in and of itself to. To accomplish that next step just because it's things that are out of our control. In those cases. Do you suggest the learner. Yeah, go ahead and let that one, you know, cook on the stove over here. But let's not stop, let's go. Perhaps go after something that they can work on themselves. Is that your approach in those situations?

So, yeah. But clear it with the coach. You can park it, let it percolate, pick off another obstacle, start working on it. My. My caveat is you want to make sure that there isn't interaction between the two.

Yes, yes.

That's. But I want to come back around to target conditions because now we're kind of talking about experimenting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

And that's cool. But I want to. You know, one of the big mistakes I see is people try to take on too much. And what I'm telling them is if you can't make it work the way you want one time with one person under perfect circumstances, you're really premature trying to change the whole system. So start small, make it work in the simplest possible conditions as your first target condition. So you learn what you're trying to actually do. Then your follow on target conditions can be working to expand it and expand the scope. And you'll encounter different obstacles as you try to expand it. But start really, really simple.

Let's go back to our OEE challenge.

Sure.

Say somebody does have an OEE challenge of a pretty difficult goal and big number. Right. And they're. They're aiming for 80 and they're at 30. I don't know.

Yeah, it's pretty common.

Right. So let's say that's the reality. What might be. And I know we're just making stuff up right here, but just to give the listeners an idea what might be some target conditions that could be addressed.

So if you break down OE the components of oee, look at where the number comes from. Any one of those would be. When I say narrow your focus on one thing. Maybe I want to deal with micro stoppages. Maybe that is one that's just driving me. When the machine is running, really, it's running at full speed, but it's always halting for a jam up. For example. Okay. So we're going to. Our first target condition is jam ups on this part of the machine. We're going to get to the root cause of those and we're going to prevent them rather than just fix them fast because typically the operators are pretty good at that. So why does it jam up? Then you got to start really diving in and you're almost at another level of grasp the current condition as your first experiment to really focus in and understand what's going on there. Eliminate that, then knock off another one.

Mm. So you're saying they would, they would set that target condition might be eliminate jam ups by in two by, by two week threshold and then would. They would then brainstorm obstacles. Right. Like before they took an ex. Took a step in an experiment. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. So why does it jam? And again you, sometimes there's layers here. Sometimes you end up with going back around through grasping a current condition. And that's okay. It gets the real world sometimes is complicated. If it's a big complicated machine, I might end up jams on this one component of this machine and then end up having to now break those down again and address those separately.

Hey, so last question I have for you, Mark, is you've obviously been in the kata movement from really the very beginning and you've learned a lot and you've seen a lot and you know, you yourself have done a lot of work in the field. What's the most? I don't want to say the most. That's too extreme. But can you give it a really interesting place or an environment where this type of scientific thinking was practiced? And perhaps it was some case study you heard at a conference or a white paper that you read. Maybe you didn't even work in it. But can you maybe just give folks an idea of the power of this and that? It's not just a manufacturing thing, and I would say it's not just a healthcare thing.

Right.

I mean, healthcare is very popular now within the lean movement. But can you maybe give us some other examples where you've seen this type of thinking benefit?

So this type of thinking, I want to be clear first, is that the purpose of the Toyota Kata is to practice scientific thinking. So if I, I want to expand your question. Where has scientific thinking produced awesome results? If you ask that question you can look at throughout history.

Yeah.

And see it. You know, one of my favorite examples these days is Wilbur and Orville Wright. If you look at how they actually worked between 1899 and 1908 when they had a practical airplane, it was very methodical. It was very methodical and it was step by step by step, cracking one problem at a time and then running an experiment and discovering the next. And in the end, they invented the science of aerodynamics, they invented coordinated turns, they invented the movable rudder. And all of those things came together as a comprehensive system on something that's pretty complex.

They were practicing kata before. Kata was cool. Is that what you're trying to say?

What I'm saying is they were practicing what kata is trying to Teach us to do.

Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. Very good. All right. Well, Mark, I can't let you off the line here without asking you a few reflection questions. I got a couple that I don't think we've discussed in the past. So I'm really curious to hear your thoughts. So this first one is again, you've been practicing. How many years have you been practicing? I know you were practicing it before it was even called lean, but this way of working. How long you been at it, Mark?

Coming up on about 30 years now.

Okay, so been at it quite a long time. Is there an area of continuous improvement, let's just call it generic continuous improvement that you struggle with, or maybe you wonder, does this really work?

I don't know. Does it really work? I know it works. If people are striving to get better. Where it might not work is if there's so much fear in the organization that even bringing up problems has the perception of repercussions. And if you're not able to bring up problems, it's going to be really hard to solve them. So getting the fear out is probably a prerequisite. And I have been in organizations where people were afraid to bring things up, and so that's kind of a non starter.

Yeah. If you had access to that time machine, you know, you can just jump in and hit a button and you could go back in time anytime that you want and you could shadow anyone, a person. You could sit beside them, talk to them, work with them, ask them anything that you wanted to ask. You couldn't ask stock market advice, that's not fair. But you could talk to anyone. Where would you go? Who would you talk to? And what would you want to really learn?

You know, I suppose the default answer for people like me would be Taiichi Ono. But on the other hand, I've spent a lot of time with people who worked for him. So I might pass on that those historic figures. I'd love to spend time with Wilbur Wright, for example, and just to understand, because here's a man who was driven to accomplish something great and change the world and to understand more about what was motivating him as a guy who finished four years of high school but didn't get a diploma to push into territory that was completely different for him and just keep going with the motivation on it.

Would you ask him some specific questions or would you want to just spend time silently observing or both?

I'm going to be inclined just to spend time and participate as best I can and Just fast forward to the present. For example, when I had the opportunity to spend time in Menlo Innovations, I spent two days pretty much just sitting in the room and paying attention to what everybody was doing. And that's kind of my style, is to sit back and pay attention before I start diving in and trying to influence things.

Yet timing is very, very interesting because we literally just had Richard Sheridan back on the show.

That's awesome.

Matter of fact, I think this one is coming the week after. So there you go. That was a nice, nice, nice setup. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, there's some amazing folks over there at Menlo, even if they are on the University of Michigan campus.

Well, I will say that just continuing the conversation, I am making it a point to learn more and to get to know better. His. His associate, James Goble, who's a little harder to get to know just because he's more of an introvert. And he's a great guy, too.

Yep, yep. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, Mark, thanks for coming back onto the show. It's always great chatting with you. Maybe let's wrap things up with you. Just maybe sharing some final thoughts as it relates to. To Kata, to lean, to scientific thinking, whatever you want it to be, and then definitely tell folks how they can connect with you. Talk about the lean thinker, that sort of thing.

Oh, sure. So the thing on KATA is it's going to be hard and stick with it. Persevere and don't be stuck. If you think you're stuck. If you think it's not working, get a hold of somebody else. You know, write to me. I'll respond. And let's sort through it. The process works, but it's not as intuitive as it seems to be when you read it. So that would be the advice there. Okay. What was the other question?

Yeah, how can people can best connect with you?

Hello. So markeleanthinker.com is a really easy email to remember, or you can just go to the website theleanthinker.com and over on the right somewhere, there's a little button that says Contact Mark if you don't remember the email.

How long you been blogging, Mark?

10 years now. It's over 10 years. I started in the spring of 07. I was in China when I started it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yours is one of the first blogs that I ever kind of stumbled upon. I didn't even know if it was. There was a thing called blogs back then. I guess it was, but I don't know. You and John Miller and a couple other guys have been writing forever, it feels like, so. Yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, thanks again, Mark. It's great having you back on and keep. Keep doing the good work that you're doing, and I'm sure our paths will cross here in the coming months.

Well, sure. Anytime. Thank you. All right.

You take care.

Take care.

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