GA 216 | How to Reignite a Continuous Improvement Program with Casey Johnson

So I really take it as a personal challenge when I go into an organization to really find that 1, 2, 3 people that's going to be that elephant and really seek to utilize them to change the tide.

If you were tasked with reigniting a continuous improvement program that had initially tried and failed to get things working, what would you do? What questions would you ask? What promises would you make? Well, my guest today walked, walks us through this exact scenario as he explains his approach to this very situation. His name is Casey Johnson, and as you'll hear, Casey's been practicing lean for many years in the manufacturing world, and he now spends his time helping other organizations through his consulting company. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 216. You can also check out GEMBA Academy's Lean Learning system over@gembacademy.com with a fully functional trial. Now let's get to the show. All right, Casey, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Ron. Thanks for having me.

All right, where are you calling in from?

Currently, I'm in Paris, Texas.

Paris, Texas. All right, Good, good, good, good. All right. Well, we got a ton of rain over here in Keller, Texas, but I don't know how it's going out there in Paris, but we're.

It's raining here as well. Supposed to all night and some tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I suppose in August we'll be wishing for rain.

That's right.

Yeah. All right, well, hey, I'm excited to have you onto the show. And, and I think we got a really fun, fun, fun topic, kind of, kind of rejuvenating previously unsuccessful CI program. So, you know, I think many folks listening whether, you know, they might have a thriving program, but there's chances are good that everyone kind of stumbles once in a while. So I think this will be a really fun episode to dig into. But before we get into the, the major topic there, Casey, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first came to learn about continuous improvement and then what you're up to these days.

Yeah, sure. So I've been in the industry for probably a little over 12 years out of college. I was, I did a lot of defense work, dabbled in Lean and CI a little bit then. But really I came to know Lean and what it's about and flowserve coming up through that, that company and them taking themselves through a lean journey that was three, five years, specifically in the Sulphur Springs location. So really came to know what Lean and what it could do for an organization there. Fell in love with it, had the passion behind it, and I found myself in a Lean role pretty much ever since. I've juggled around from plant management back and forth to a lean regional role leading multiple plants, and now currently kind of out in the avenue doing the consulting world, taking my career experience and trying to help small to medium sized businesses really understand what Lean is and help them utilize those methodologies into their organizations.

Yeah, that flow serve, I think I've heard of them. I don't know.

I think so.

Yeah. I used to work there in case people haven't looked at my LinkedIn profile lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So know a little bit about their Lean program, I guess you could say.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think I came in just a little bit, a little bit after you had left. So you're familiar with their journey. It was a really good success. It was a great program to start my Lean journey and understand real world, really, how Lean can help an organization. So I was lucky and fortunate to be able to fall into that spot early in my career.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Good stuff, man. All right, well, hey, we're gonna go to old school here. Something we used to do on our old podcast before this newer format. But I want to. Want to jump back into it for this one and see if you have maybe a quote or two that speaks to you.

Yeah, sure. So I've got a couple. I like to use ones that really center around implementing Lean. So one I like to reference a lot is Benjamin Franklin. Right. By failing to prepare, you're ultimately preparing to fail, and we find that a lot. As we go around to different Lean programs, we fast forward in the implementation phase and really don't take the time up front to really prepare for what's about to happen within the organization. Another good one is General Patton. This hits home a lot. To implement Lean is don't tell people how to do things, but really just tell them what we're doing, what the vision is, and let them surprise you with their results. We find that a lot on the floor. We have good technical expertise out on the floor, and it doesn't go over very well if you show up and tell them exactly how to do things, but rather give them a strategy and a vision and let them use their expertise to carry out that vision with the knowledge that they already have.

Good stuff. All right, Casey, let's go ahead and jump into the topic of the day, which is the rejuvenation of previously unsuccessful CI programs. And let's just start maybe looking back at your experience, you know, over the years. Can you maybe give us some, maybe just some bullet points on just high level forces that you've seen that might be at the root of some of these problems of organizations that have maybe failed to thrive with their program?

Yeah, sure. So I would say there's really probably four to five points that I come across throughout my travels and career. One probably started too complex. The vision and strategy was really too complex and the simplicity wasn't there to actually gain the momentum. A lot of times you find that companies and organizations go down the CI path without dedicated resources in place. So you find that people are trying to juggle a full time job as well as dabble in CI. And as you know, that's a really hard thing to do because CI becomes a big full time commitment once you commit to it. Also, I think two way street lack training bottom up and the support top down to drive it. And then the opposite side is lack training top down and the lack of support bottom up. So that works both ways as well. Again, that kind of correlates to your topic that you really want to prepare before you implement the program. And some of that preparedness is through training along the same lines. It started too complex. A lot of times we try to bowl the ocean with a CI program and I think it's really hard to gain momentum and drive culture change when you're trying to commit to something that's too big and you can't get the small wins which correlates really reaching for the big wins from the start is a way to really drive yourself to an unsuccessful attempt. Just really not focusing on getting small wins to really get the momentum to move the needle forward. So I'd say if you sum all that up, it really comes to put a program in place that was really too strategically complex from the start without the resources to support that complexity now.

Without getting again any names or anything like that will protect the innocent. But do you have any examples of this complexity that you've seen an organization attempt? What does that look like?

Yeah, sure. So you find some organizations that, let's say they get a new leader, leadership come in that's been around CI but didn't necessarily have the committed resources at the plant level to carry it out. So then with that comes a vision and a strategy that gets adopted there. But then you look back a month or so later and realize that you don't have the resources to carry it out. And it really creates a negative vibe within the Program, just an example, without naming names, went into a company, had great top down support of the program, good vision, good strategy, but didn't really have the capability at the plant level with the knowledge and the training to really carry that strategy out. So it was really tough to drive that change through that organization without making a resource commitment at the plant level.

Yeah, yeah. Now when we talk about dedicated resources, you know, it's almost like, almost a play. Somewhat of a contrarian, but not really. Because I do agree that you really do need some folks who are, who are dedicated on this. But I think that the flip side of that is you can run the danger of having what I would call, you know, air quotes. You can't see me because I'm talking to a microphone. But the Lean team, right, you know, and this Lean team, you know, they're going to come in and fix all of your problems. But the problem is the Lean team might swoop in and, you know, whatever it is, run an event or run a project or whatever and make some things better. And then they. They leave. And then, you know, entropy takes its place and tears it all back down versus having that team kind of come in and build folks up and, you know, and empower the workforce and all the rest. So how do you. How do you balance that, you know, like, versus having the Lean Guru who's going to fix everything, versus making sure that that Lean Guru is empowering the people around them and, and, you know, giving autonomy and freedom to think and experiment.

Yeah, exactly. That's a great question, and there's several answers. But I would say overall, what I would say is really, to your point, you've got to build it up from the ground, ground roots up first. I would really hesitate to take a Lean Team, as you say, go into a Kaizen event without the preparation. Right. Going in to train the team, the plant, the workforce on the floor, whatever environment you're talking to really, you have to go in there, ground up, really train what Lean truly is about. Because there's a lot of myths out there around Lean to really get everybody centralized on and aligned as to really what Lean is about for an organization. And then you step into Kaizen and form teams to really drive process improvement through the different Kaizen mentalities. But I would say it's a very strategic approach where you really need to concentrate on training up front to really get alignment throughout that organization or that plant or that office.

Yeah, got it, got it. Makes sense. All right. Hey, so let's say that, that you, Casey, you've been called in and to an organization that has, that has, you know, had tried to make it, make a go of it on their own and just they weren't successful for whatever reason, started too complex, no resources, whatever it might be. What are you going to do? Like, like how are you going to approach that situation?

Yeah. So just to reignite the CI into these types of situations where there's been previously unsuccessful attempts, really number one is you uncover the empty promises. I find a lot that when you have an attempt at CI that wasn't too successful, a lot of times there was promises that made that couldn't be kept. So really at the grassroots of that is trying to uncover what those promises were and understanding why that, that we failed to commit and deliver on those promises. So that's really number one.

Give me an example of that. What do you mean by an empty promise?

Yeah, so I've been in organizations where we promised CI would garner certain results financially that didn't come to fruition. I've been into organizations that promised CI results that would take changeovers down to a level that was probably in the forefront, uncapable. So that's a few examples. But most, most of them, if you really look at them, most of them are a financial commitment that couldn't be actually attained.

So when you say you uncover them, like, what does that mean? Like, are you just like have a sit around and talk about it and get it off your chest or like, what do you mean?

Yeah, so the four tells you a lot, right? So just an example here. Recently I went into an organization, did some LE methodology training and always ask, have you guys heard what lean is? Do you know what lean's about? Have you heard of the term continuous improvement? And I really try to pull that honest response out of them. And most of the time you'll get that from a group of mechanics or operators out on the floor. Right. They're always going to be honest with you. They'll say, oh yeah, we had a guy come in a year or so and try to do this very thing. Right? So we say, okay, that's great. You guys know the term, you know, kind of what we're talking about now tell me why there's a negative vibe or tell me what made that attempt unsuccessful. And we're here talking about it again today. And most of the time your floor level athletes, I like to call our floor athletes. Right. If you think about a football team, really the guys on the floor is what's driving our business. And as leaders, we're there to coach them and equip them for success. So if you think about our athletes on the floor, a lot of times they're going to be almost brutally honest with you when you ask those type of questions. So that's typically how you can uncover any empty promises that were made within these programs.

Got it, Got it. All right. What else are you going to do?

I try to motivate through training. I use a lot of simulations and hands on type training. A lot of times when you get in front of a tough crowd and put a slide deck on for an hour or two, it's not going to go over too well.

What? Come on. Everybody loves PowerPoint.

Yeah. I like to use tennis balls and get into some examples with tennis balls. And at the end of the day, Ron, at the end of my training, I try to make it undeniable that these processes work through those simulations. So I use a lot of simulations to motivate the crowd. I really talk about accountability and how accountability starts with, you know, at some point during my training, I always say, everybody point to where accountability, accountability starts. And when you first start it, right, the fingers kind of of pointed everywhere. But by the time I end the training, I really like, when I ask that same question, everybody's pointing back to themselves. Right. So that's kind of the motivation I like to get to through the training. And I utilize simulations and employ those lean methodologies in those simulations to really make it really hard to deny it that if you simplify these things, they truly do work.

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Anything else?

You know, a lot of, a lot of it comes down to emotions. As, you know, as you, as you go in and out in organizations and in and out of Kaizens and Lean events, emotion plays a big part. So if you can go into these organizations that there's a negative vibe or previously unsuccessful attempt, you need to get some emotional wins from the start prior to concentrating on any financial pain points. And I really think that emotional swing is really key to rejuvenation of these programs. So to give you an example, because that's probably your next question.

You know me. You know me.

Yes. So to give you an example, you know, I talk about a story about I had what I call an elephant in the room, right? The immovable object. And really digging down and finding what drove that emotion to be so negative was.

Are you talking, you're talking about the guy in the back room with his arms crossed?

That guy?

Okay. Yeah.

So I started pouring into this guy and really trying to understand what was driving his emotional negativity? And come to find out, he had been asking for a certain tool for months and months, right. And how that worked was he asked his immediate supervisor. So his immediate supervisor had two options, right? He had to deem it as important or not important. In most cases, that tool to that supervisor became unimportant because he had more firefighting going on than he could handle going to get the tool. Right. So these things kind of come up during, during the training and say, hey, you know, if we, if we had this extra wrench or a socket wrench or whatever it is, we could. We could have done some things that had. Employed these techniques. And like, okay, well, let, let's leave the Home Depot and let's go get you a socket wrench. So it's really, really small things like that that you really uncover and find that you can do to really change that emotional swing.

Man, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I, you know, I've, I've told stories on this podcast and speaking and videos and whatnot of, you know, there's always that person, you know, in the back of the room. Not always, but most times, most cases with arms crossed, sour look on their face. But, man, if you, like, you, you've, like, you've said, if you can get them and turn their hearts towards continuous improvement, they're your best advocates, man, because chances are they probably know more operationally than anyone in the room. Right, Abs?

Absolutely. No. And, Ron, to tell you the truth, just as you were alluding to, once you get that person on board, everybody's gonna follow suit. So I really take it as a personal challenge when I go into an organization to really find that 1, 2, 3 people that's gonna be that elephant and really seek to, to utilize them to change the tide.

Yeah, we used to call them cave people, maybe kind of mean citizens against virtually everything.

That's a good one, too.

Yeah, but you, but, you know, like you said, I mean, a lot of times this negativity is, you know, there's a part. There's a reason for it. Right. And, you know, if we, if we truly are going to respect people and respect humanity and the humanness of people, we got to understand what that is. Right? And, you know, there's some people who just aren't going to change, right? They're just, just, you know, they're just unhappy people or whatever it is. And there's only so much you can do. But I haven't seen so many folks out there that are Too many folks out there who, who really won't come along and they, people come to work, they want to do a good job in most cases. Right. We just got to figure out where we have failed as a, as a leadership team because chances are, you know, why didn't you buy the socket set? That's a failure of leadership. Right. It's not that person's fault.

So, hey, I'll tell you another story if we have time.

Yeah, absolutely.

So another that comes to mind as I was doing a changeover reduction event, we call it quick changeover at this organization, I was doing because the reality is they'll probably never get to a single minute. So I like to term it quick change event. So I'm in. Doing a quick change event. Right. The elephant in the room is making his voice loud and known. So through uncovering really that negative emotion, I find out that that staff had been working 14 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week. The emotion behind that was the fact that that team, that maintenance team used to have a bowling league that they bowled on every Wednesday night. Right. And when I start to uncover and figure out where this emotion was coming from, it was really boiled down to the fact that they didn't get to do their league night bowling anymore. So it was really easy to get buy in to say, hey, let's work as a team to reduce these changeovers, create more flexibility within your organization and, and the ultimate outcome is you're going to get the bowl.

Well, I mean, hey, man, it's real. You know, that's real. And that's the reality that many people are dealing with. And again, leadership often fails to think about how important people's lives are. Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, listen, let's say that, let's say that you've gone through and you've begun to, you know, kind of get some, some, some ignition, if you will, into the, into the program. What are you going to do differently to ensure that, you know, again, entropy doesn't come right back in and suck us all back down and, and kill the thing nine months later. What are you going to do to ensure the outcomes different?

Yeah, sure. So first off, going back to what, what created the unsuccessful attempt is we're not going to make promises that we can. That means if there's a commitment made, it's going to be something within our control. Whether that's a financial commitment, we're going to ensure that's a financial commitment we can stand behind. If it's a You know, emotional commitment, if it's a physical commitment through equipment or tools, it's got to be something. It's got to be a promise and a commitment that we know we can stand behind. And we're not going to to look back in six months and say, hey, we're not going to be able to fulfill the commitment we made. So that's number one.

Let me ask a follow up question on that one. I assume that these promises, when you say we, I'm assuming you don't mean Casey the consultant necessarily. I mean, maybe you're part of it, but I would assume you're also talking about the leadership of the facility and the people who are kind of driving this change from the top. Is that right?

That's absolutely correct, Ron.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, got it. All right. What else are you going to do?

Yeah. So another big one, I think is to really simplify the program, to show them through simplicity that the program actually works. I always use the phrase make tomorrow better than today was within your given control, within your given operation, your process, your maintenance tasks. Just make tomorrow better than today was. Right. So really try to simplify that program. Another good point is to ride your momentum early. So once you get that swing of emotions that's going to happen early when you try to reinvigorate that program, you really want to ride that emotional roller coaster as fast and as often as possible early while you've got the momentum again, you want to ensure you have the right resources in the right places for that sustainment piece that could look different from business to business, depending on the type of business and the outcome that that business is looking for. But the main point there, and you alluded to it earlier, is you can't fly in, put a program together, do a Kaizen flout, and expect everything to stick right. There's got to be someone that's left behind that really drives that change through that leadership team, or appoint someone on the floor that's really going to take it and move the needle through that momentum early and then follow up. I think follow up is a big one. Right. Because as leaders, sometimes we get tied up or we get busy and we forget to follow up on the little things. Ron and I find that following up on the big things is something that is not as important to our workforce as following up on the very small things. Whether it's buying a wrench, letting a guy off early when you said you would do it when he met a certain task, the small things, that follow up is crucially important. To get that emotional swing early. I think it's important to establish relationships with your key stakeholders early, too, and prove that support. So first you've got to identify who are your key stakeholders going to be when you're trying to reignite this program. I like to use the example, like charcoal. Right. When you first try to light charcoal, it's kind of difficult, but once you light it, it sticks and it spreads. Right. So you've really got to figure out who your stakeholders are going to be when you first go to light that charcoal, because they're going to be really key in this process. And then, of course, as leaders, we. We have to lead by example. Right. And really do what we say we're gonna do.

Yeah. No, that's really good stuff, man. Really good stuff. I mean, it sounds like, you know, kind of at the beginning, just kind of been taking some notes here. I mean, we talked about some of the problems where complexity, not dedicated resources and so forth. And then as you talked about reigniting things we wanted to. I would just almost sounds like, get real and invest in people. Right? Like. Like, get. Talk about those. Those failures and don't hide from them. Right, yeah, exactly.

A key part of it, you know, Ron, is just acknowledging reality. You go, a lot of us, even as I've traveled around different career paths and different organizations, a lot of time, we're scared as an organization to acknowledge reality, and we tend to think we're a lot better than we really are. Right. So the first step is really acknowledging reality and being truthful with yourself and your organization. And that's the point where you can seek to get better.

Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. Very good stuff. Very good. Well, listen, before we. I definitely want to have you close things out with some final words of wisdom. But before that, I want to jump into the reflection section. I got a couple questions I want to. Want to fire off at you.

Sure.

So. And we went old school with the quote. So I want to go old school again. First few hundred episodes we did, we always ask this question. These pillars of lean we have, continuous improvement is the one pillar. And it's the things that we can do, the tools. Right. We can put our hands on those. But that other pillar, respect for people, that one's a little bit harder to wrap our arms around. So I'm curious, Casey, what does respect for people really mean to you?

Yeah. So I've listened to several podcasts with you, Rana. I've heard that. And we hear this a lot. Lean is really hard to define. Right. But for me, I've always tried to simplify the definition to basically just a relentless attack on waste being number one and number two. Equally as important is that respect for people. To me, that respect for people means that they've got a seat at the table to make strategic decisions for that organization based on their technical knowledge. A lot of our guys on the floor, as you go around from facility to facility, you'll find that they've got 20, 25, 30 years of technical experience. As you alluded to earlier, they know the ins and outs of their machineries and processes more so probably better than most of the leadership in many organizations. So that respect for people is giving them that dude respect that they do know that processes and machinery inside and out. And to garner that respect, we give them a seat at the table to help us get better.

Got it. What's the best advice you've ever received?

Follow up. I had a mentor tell me one time, follow up when people least expect it. And then the second thing is always do what you're going to say. You find yourself making commitments from to time, time, time to time. I always try to write those down. Just to give you an example, a couple months ago I was at an off site event. One of the elephants that I dealt with in the past was actually at that off site event as well. Through conversation he had asked for me to drop by the plant and I committed to it. Right. I made myself a little personal note there. Go visit so and so at such and such plant. And he even asked for a certain week because they were going to be doing a certain task that he really wanted me to be involved in. So little things like that that you say through conversations that oftentimes you overlook or forget about. It's vitally important that you follow up on those little tasks because those little small things is what people are going to remember about you and the program. So if you can do that, those things, you're going to have some really good wins along the way.

What are you most proud of as it relates to your journey?

You know what makes me proud, Ron, is if I step into a facility after implementing a program or being a part of a successful program, what makes me proud is going back to that facility, walking the floor and having four to five people walk up to me, want to grab my arm and lead me to their area and say, hey, check out what I've done since you were here last. If you get those things immediately, the impact is felt, right? You can say that the program is successful even with Their mentality that has changed to be more open to continuous improvement concepts. So that makes me proud to be able to step into a facility and know that the culture has changed. And I see that change through people coming up to dialogue with me about different things or talk about improvements that have been made and sustained since they last seen me. So those, those moments are irreplaceable when it comes to a someone with a lean back background in a career.

Yeah, I love it. All right. All right. Well, hey, Casey, it's been great having you on. I've really been really, really enjoyed visiting with you here. So let's go ahead and wrap things up with you, sharing some final words of wisdom and then definitely tell folks how they can connect with you.

Yeah, sure. So, final words of wisdom. Look, we. We just need to make lean, simple. You know, we talk about 5s. Sometimes 5s really gets watered down. But really, look, we just want to remove the clutter of the things that aren't needed, what's left over. We want to make it replace repeatable and accessible to eliminate wasted time. And then one of my biggest ones is shine. We want to shine as a proactive event. A proactive maintenance event. Right. We're cleaning as an audit. It's not just a broom and mop activity. So when we talk about that, we're looking for things that can really create reliable equipment through that shine piece. So I like to simplify 5s in those terms. The other thing I would say is versus putting a big strategic vision program to start with. Look, just have offensive and defensive huddles. I think of plants a lot like football teams, right. You know, you can have defensive huddles or offensive huddles. In your defensive huddle, you're really going to pick a pain point that's really a pain point within your process. Designate a leader off the floor to coordinate couple a quick, you know, Tim woods waste identification discussion around that pain point. Right. That's what I would call a quick defensive huddle. If we can do that once, two times a week, 15 minutes, you'd be surprised at the outcome of that. And then again, offensive huddle. Right. Maybe it's not a pain point, but it's something that we want, a focused area of improvement. You can have an offensive huddle as well. I think it's important to rotate that leadership role during that discussion so everybody's kind of got a seat at the table to lead that discussion. And again, that's easily repeatable. Offensive and defensive huddles within your organization that starts at the floor level and could be done all the way through executive leadership. These huddles, I think it's something we don't do often enough. And then again, just make. Make today better than yesterday and then make tomorrow better than today. And I think the system has to be in a way to where you hold people accountable. Top down, bottom up, and then both lateral. Laterally as well.

I love that. Top down, bottom up, and laterally. Yeah, that's great stuff. Great stuff.

So that would be my just real quick, final simplistic words to really make or start a continuous improvement culture in a simple way that can really stick and hold and then you can put the strategic and the vision behind it as you move forward.

Yeah. All right, well, how can people best connect with you, Casey?

Yeah, so I've got a website, www.moveconsultingllc.com. we also have a face Facebook, which is OvConsulting, LLC. I can also be reached through email with info at Move Consulting, llc.

What's the story behind the name Move Consulting?

So move, it's spark of movement through opportunity, vision and excellence. So movement, opportunity, vision, excellence, puts together the move.

Nice.

I like it.

Good stuff. All right, well, hey, Casey, thanks again for coming on and stay dry out there in Paris, Texas, and hopefully we can connect again or maybe we'll run together on some conference or something like that. That.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Ron.

All right, you take care.

All right, thanks.

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