GA 222 | How to Sustain Improvements with Brian DeVries

There's a bigger meaning to what we do as Lean practitioners. And even in a work environment, the things that we do make people happier. They don't have to deal with the same stuff that they've always had to deal with.

As hard as getting started with Lean is, I think most would agree that sustaining improvements may be just as difficult. This is why I'm so excited for today's show, since our guest today explains how he goes about this important aspect of change management. His name is Brian DeVries, and as you'll hear, Brian has a diverse background across several different industries. He currently works for a company called Zlin Services. On today's show, Brian and I talk about how change sustainment issues are often the result of a buy in problem at the very start. We also explore the importance of showing empathy within the change process. Now, show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything Brian and I discuss, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 222. 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. Welcome to the show, Brian. How's it going?

So far so good. I appreciate you having me. It's exciting to be a part of a show that served me well and advancing my career and learnings and being a part of a show with some really great lean minds. So appreciate you having me.

Well, yeah, thank you. And you're welcome. So how long you been listening to the podcast?

It's been. I can remember some of the earlier episodes. I can't remember even some of the numbers, but I know we're talking when they're kind of double digit numbers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah. I love doing this podcast. It's so fun.

Yeah, I can tell a lot of people appreciate it. So. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Awesome. All right, well, hey, kind of begin at the. At the start, Brian. Tell us a little bit about your background, how you first came to learn about continuous improvement and then what you're up to these days.

Sure, sure. So originally I spent about 10 years in the golf course maintenance industry. So before I got into lean and continuous improvement, I spent some time in the golf maintenance industry. So taking care of the grounds of golf courses and actually went to school at Michigan State University for that and moved around the country a little bit and finally got back closer to home here. And I live in Michigan now and so does my wife. She was originally from Michigan as well. So got back closer to home and kind of realized, you know, my passion for that really wasn't, wasn't, wasn't there. And so I wanted to try to find something a little bit different to get into. And it kind of suited my, my personality and the kind of the things that I like to do. And decided to go back to school and get an MBA and kind of try to figure it out. And I took a job as a manufacturing supervisor to local office furniture manufacturer. And from there I was when I first started was placed on a lean quality team and really focused much more on lean. And that was kind of my initial introduction to it and got exposed to some projects and my two weeks that I was supposed to spend on this team turned into about seven months before they finally said let's get him out on the floor for what he's hired to do. And it took a lot of those learnings and those tools and was able to actually apply them to the couple different areas that I worked there. And we really, you know, I always say we really changed the way we did business and just the engagement level of the people. And so from there I just, you know, seeing that energy and that transformation, wanted to try to find some, a way to really do it more full time than what I had there. And it was a great learning for me and took an opportunity with Hayworth also office furniture manufacturing and was neat because I got to be part of their global team and travel the world and do lean assessments and help talk about strategy and just a really a neat position. And then from there changed industries into the kind of the food and agriculture industries. What led me here to Zeeland and Zealand Farm Services where I'm at now and just leading the organization here. We're brand new to it. So it's, it's a unique position. It's a great opportunity for us and it's just been a lot of fun and it's been a really quick journey but it's been a lot of fun as well. So I finally found that passion, something I really didn't have way back, you know, six, seven, eight years ago. And the energy is there. I love continuous improvement. Everything that it's about.

So what is, tell us about Zealand Farm Services. What do you guys do?

Yeah, so we are, we're a company, we've been, it's a family owned company, been around since 1950. I've been here actually just over a year now with this organization and they do kind of a, just a plethora of different things. Matter of fact, it's probably taken me all this time to figure out everything we do, to be quite honest, but we do soybean processing, corn processing, ethanol fuels. We have a green power division where we work with our local landfill to convert some of their methane gas to energy for our operation. We just purchased a plant in Iowa that does soy flour, do edible oils, vegetable oils, different things like that. We have an export business, a freight division. There's a lot of different arms to our organization and it continues to grow with the purchase in Iowa recently. And we got a new plant that will be starting up here within another six months or so here in Michigan. So some really neat things, A lot of growth, an exciting time for the organization.

And how old is the company?

They've been around since 1950.

50. That's what you. Okay. And. Okay, so. Well, I think really the nature of today's episode is going to be on kind of change and sustaining and all that kind of stuff. But before we get into that, talk a little bit about Zealand's lean journey. Like, how did it get started and where would you say it's at today?

Yeah, sure. So about a. About a year ago or so, I saw the opening, to be honest with you, and applied for it and started to kind of learn the story after taking. So really what happened is that the organization is at a point now where the. There's enough growth, where there's a realization that the processes, the things that we do today, whether it's in the processing piece of it or whether it's here in the support functions, is the stuff we do today really just it's not going to work. As we move forward, it'll be much more difficult to handle that type of volume moving forward. So really, it came out of a couple of different things. One, they're updating, we're updating our computer system, our whole business operating system, our software. So we wanted to take a look at, you know, from a process standpoint, what are the things we're doing today we can do a little bit better, you know, and also identify opportunities as we implement the new software to be able to, you know, work with that company to kind of tailor some of the things to us to help us in our processes as well. So it's kind of a mixed role, mixed bag. But it really came out of this thought of we're growing. The things we're doing today are going to be a lot more difficult as we continue to grow. So some changes have to happen. And that's where I enter in. It's an organization that's brand new, blank slate, hadn't done anything as far as lean or continuous improvement to this point. So. Really neat.

Well, as Stephen Covey says, we kind of begin with the end in mind. Right. So I guess if you're at the beginning of a journey, I think it's interesting that we talk about sustainment when you haven't even done it yet. But I think if you don't think about it at the beginning, it's probably going to be difficult to do at the end. Right. So, so let's dive into that topic because obviously you've got a lot of experience even before Zealand, where I'm sure you practice many of these things, but for sure, but, but, but talk about, you know, what, why do we struggle as organizations with, you know, you know, sustainment, maintaining the gains, whatever you want to call it. What is that? And why, why is it always a constant battle?

Yeah, it is something that, you know, even when I first started here, kind of getting the lay of the land, interviewing folks, getting around talking to different business functions, you hear that even here in a growing organization, there's, there's some of this, you know, we've done a great job in the past of finding some improvements, we've done some, even some good work of making some improvements. But it came back to sustainment and how, you know, really just unable to maintain these improvements, kept falling back to kind of the way things had always been done. And even I'm actually an elected member of the Michigan Lean Consortium, a statewide lean networking organization. And being a part of that organization, you get to see a lot of feedback from our events and things that others struggle with. And that seems to be one of the big, I guess the common themes, if you will, is, is just how do I sustain my gains? And even in the same breath, quite often you hear, how do I get the buy in? And a lot of that kind of really started to trigger a lot of what kind of what we experiment with here and what I've experimented with in the past of just doing the work upfront to maintain that, to get the buy in, to help with that momentum. And I find a lot as we move forward, if we're doing upfront work, getting that buy in, building the business case, building that dissatisfaction that has really seemed to be very, very helpful. And follow really, it's just a simple recipe, as we're calling just the recipe for success for buy in. And we just look at it for three elements. One, we need to create that need for change. Some of that's understood. The other piece of it is some of it needs to be created. Getting folks to see and have a dissatisfaction with today is not always easy. We have a great ability as human beings to be able to adapt to our surroundings, to our environment, and we become blind to opportunities that are out there to make things better. So some of that comes down to just the way you use empathy, the way you use just kind of your own self and understanding who you are and some of the potential biases you bring as a CI or lean practitioner, how to keep those things in the forefront as you're engaging with different folks and then also creating this environment where the improvement is done by them, not to them. You know, you could sit in a room full of people and you can ask how many people have ever experienced that? And a lot of, lot of hands will go up. And so that's, I think that's a well known fact. The same thing with all levels of the organization. You hear quite often it's top down or needs to be bottom up. And I think both are right. And we've done some of that here. We've taken a value stream at all levels of the organization, a full cross section of a value stream all the way to our customers and our vendors, and are really kind of building that model value stream using kind of this upfront work of buy in and this dissatisfaction with the way things are today and building that case. So I think there's a lot to be said for those elements.

So like I'm famous for taking notes while I'm interviewing. I'm supposed to be focused on interviewing, but I'm too busy typing notes for my own selfish learning desires. So you said that there were three things and the first one I picked up on was that you needed to create the need for change. So was the second, then I was trying to figure out the second one. Was it the create, you had to create it sometimes or what was this? What are the first, second and third things that you talked about there?

Sure, sure, yeah. The first piece of it is exactly that. Creating that need for change, the dissatisfaction of today, and utilizing true empathy, self awareness, that kind of those approaches. And we can talk about that a bit. The second element is the improvement needs to be done by them, not to them. So it's taking that next step. They understand the need for change, now they get to initiate that change. And then thirdly is all levels of the organization have to be involved, have to be bought into this to make sure that it's going to be successful in the long run because we do hear that top down or bottom up, and I think both are correct. All levels of organization at a certain point have to be involved at a certain level.

Yeah, I love it. All right, so three things for all you note takers out there. Don't be taking notes if you're driving in a car, though. Wait till you get back or we'll put it in the show. Notes gotta have a need for change, improvement done by them, not to them. And all levels have to be bought in. You know, it's kind of funny. We're actually going through an interviewing process right now for a position here at Gamba Academy. And part of the interview is we asked them to kind of teach us back, you know, some on some topic. And today one of the guys got up and kind of talked about change management. And it's funny, he had a. He had a similar thing and he's exactly like this. You know, start with what, what it is and why, and then, you know, do some training. And he had a cool acronym. I can't remember now, but. But it was basically this. So, yeah, it's really good stuff. Really good stuff. So let's talk a little bit more about those empathy tools and techniques. I think that's really interesting and probably something that we Lean folks, you know, don't, don't, don't get into enough. So talk, talk a little bit about what is it and maybe how has it helped your team?

Yeah, for sure. So really what sparked my interest in kind of the empathetic part of improvement, I think some of it really is intrinsic to the process itself. What you do is you're naturally putting yourself out there and showing vulnerability, you know, and some of that's kind of baked into the process. But really what I loved was I had an opportunity early on in my CI journey to be a part of a design thinking workshop. And empathy is really called out as its own step, as its own. It's explicit that this is something, this is part of the process. And I found that very interesting. And ever since the couple of those workshops, I've had a chance to be a part of. That's been a big part of CI for me and Lean and, you know, for me is just. And I think really the reason why initial success has been there is because of being able to call out really truly understanding. It's more than just bringing even an operator or somebody in the office, bringing them in, into an office and talking to them. But it's really Going out and immersing yourself in the work and understanding it. And I think that can be done at all levels of the organization, whether you're at the top of the organization, setting your vision, your direction, having those real strategic talks, really getting in and understanding what leaders want the business to be or what the real true direction is, all the way down to that grassroots level where potentially it's a local CI person or it's ultimately somebody on the floor, it's a mid level leader that they're able to go in and really just understand and immerse themselves within the work. Because you find so many different things when you're out there in the environment. And some of that's in our Gemba walk and in the process that we might use here. Some of that's within interviewing and shadowing techniques and the notes that you might take and the things you might take notice of. But when you're really out there in the work, you really begin to understand and see things that, that you don't see in an office when you're just talking to somebody or mapping out a process. So I think it's to go out and really get that initial understanding. Whether it's the beginning of a Kaizen event, going out and doing that, or just the day to day. I think that that stuff is extremely important.

What does empathy mean to you? Like really as a lean thinker, like what? I mean, there's so many, you could google it or whatever. But like what do you think it means?

That's an awesome question. For me, it's I want to be in their shoes. I want to know what it's like. I think often back to some of my times as a supervisor on a manufacturing floor and being able to spend 10 minutes a night with, with my operator. I work second shift mostly as taking 10 minutes a day or 10 minutes a week with an operator to just talk about their process. Teach me how to do this product or teach me how to run this part of the machine, or just walk me through it just so I can have a better understanding. And so for me it's really just that deeper level understanding of a process or deeper understanding of, of an improvement opportunity.

Sounds like you're also trying to really get at, you know, when we talk about kind of respect for people, better, better, better, afraid, respect for humanity. Like really trying to understand how processes impact people. Right. At the end of the day, it's somebody out there, right?

You know, exactly.

Dealing with this.

Exactly. When I stood in front of this organization, when I first started. I asked for an opportunity at one of our meetings. We're still, you know, we're a $750 million company, but we still operate here locally, mostly with about 40 or 50 people locally. So to be able to. I asked for some time to get in front of everybody. I wanted to talk about what this is, what our journey is, and how it's gonna, you know, we're gonna do it our way. And one of the elements, it just honestly was just kind of, you know, we're gonna. We're gonna look at it from. From just. I want to understand. You want us to understand the business, the way it works today, and. But to be able to stand there in front of them and just, we're gonna do it our way. It's. I wanted to make sure that the message was very clear and succinct.

So what happens when. And I don't know if you have this at Zeeland, but, I mean, many folks have this situation where we, you know, we approach a continuous improvement effort or movement or whatever with an organization. And from time to time, you come across someone who's, you know, maybe they're sitting in the back row of the room, they got their arms crossed, they don't necessarily look like they are excited to be there. And, you know, sometimes they're even downright hostile, you know, for sure. So where.

What.

What tool is that? How do you balance empathy with the need to, you know, survive? You know, once in a while?

You're right. Absolutely right. And there's several instances in my past where I can think of coming across that and adding to that the fact that being kind of a millennial, if you will, added to that some of that, honestly, some of that initial challenge. But I have a great quote that I use quite often, whether it's in a presentation, I put it on LinkedIn, but I use it often. And I know that on your show in the past, you've done that, but for me, it comes from Alan Watts, who is a British philosopher, and he said. He talked a lot about. He said, if a person believes the earth's flat and you can't talk them out of it, they know it's flat. They look out the window. Look, it looks flat. You can see it. The only way to convince them is to say, let's go find the edge. And so you start walking, and you walk in a perfect, straight line. You go around the world. When you come back to where you started, then you'll have convinced them. And I think there's been times in My career so far, even where I've had to do that, where I've had to ask for trust, I've had to ask for, you know, let me show you. And whether that's, you know, literal of let me just go out and help you do the work and show you the value, or whether that means I'm going to help you create this business case or I'm going to help show you the opportunity that's out there. But just asking for that trust, let me show it to you. Give me that opportunity.

The only problem with that experiment might be you. You walk in and all of a sudden you walk off a cliff and a dude's going, I told you.

Yup, exactly, exactly. Make sure you have your parachute. Yeah, exactly. Climbing gear, all that stuff. Yeah. Yes, the road is very.

No, that's great. I love that. That's a great quote though. That's a great quote. Hey, so last question for this section, Brian, is I've seen from time to time that you use a tagline. It's pretty interesting. And you don't see this tagline a lot with the tough lean thinkers out here, but the tagline is spread the lean love. So talk a little bit about the. What does it mean? What's the significance and what's it mean to you?

Sure. A lot of this really started, I think it's probably been three or four years ago now. I had just taken a role with Hayworth and I had an opportunity to co lead with a lady over at the Holland Rescue Mission. So it's a local not for profit organization that works with people that struggle with chronic homelessness, different life issues. It kind of helps people get back on their feet. And we did an event together that was kind of they take in donations of clothing and anything you want to donate, but just taking in donations, sorting through them and getting it out to their thrift stores which really supported their operation. And so it was a week long event in the true empathetic form. I went out and worked on the clothes sorting line with them, which was. We joked about it and I still even joke about it to this day with them, but I'm allergic to cat hair. And we opened up this big old Gaylord which is a big 3, 4, 4 foot by 4 foot box of clothes and there's just all sorts of stuff and I'm sneezing, my eyes are watering. But I'm out there working with them. I'm just understanding their process and what they go through every day. And we created a week long Kaizen event and training up front with a paper airplane simulation and kind of trained the folks there. But to see them, you know, the folks there go from day one, why am I here? What am I doing? I'm never going to be able to understand this. To the last day watching them go out to the, to the floor and you know, walk through the improvements, walk through the improvements on the board with their leadership in the room and then to have one of them come up to me afterwards and say, you know, I didn't know I could think like that. I feel so much smarter. And to be able to kind of really make that connection of you've had this. But we've given them a tool to kind of bring that out. And that just that event in itself was kind of the start of that. That there's a deeper purpose, that there's a bigger meaning to what we do as lean practitioners. And even in a work environment, the things that we do make people happier. They don't have to deal with the same stuff that they've always had to deal with. We developed their way of thinking to begin to challenge status quo's and be able to change the way that they work and go home and live happier lives because of it. And that event really started it. And I continue my partnership with them. We starting to develop their lean curriculum to continue to work through that and how it really fits into their greater organization and how it fits into for their students that are going to be going out into the work world again and. But it really is just, it goes beyond just the work results. It's that deeper purpose. It's creating happy people through what we do and that's what it's all about for me.

Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. You know, it's so crazy. When I remember it was probably 10 years or so ago, there was a here in the Dallas Fort Worth area, there's a shelter for battered women and their children. And they had the exact same deal where people donate clothes. So I remember I went over there to help them for a few days, you know, kind of pro bono type thing. And, and we walked into this room and it was just mountain of, of garbage bags just packed to the ceiling. And I'm like, goodness gracious. You know. So yeah, we did a little 5s but, but you know, there's so many examples and I think if everyone listening to this right now, you know, went out into their, their, their local, you know, neighborhood or city or whatever it is, I promise you there's some Shelter there with bags packed to the ceiling, and they would love a little support, you know, and I think, you know, like you said, spread the Lean love, if you will.

That's.

That's.

And what that's done. I just was there a couple weeks ago, and to see the continue just from that one event and then the continued partnership and with the skills that have been developed throughout their organization and just to see the changes in what they've done, it really shows the power of what. What. What one small event can do it. Just like you said, he walked in. There's just stuff everywhere that kind of made us think, well, we can help, you know, and partnership from there. It's just been. It was. It's pretty amazing what it can do. It's very powerful.

Yeah. Very good, Very good. All right, Brian. Well, hey, let's go ahead and transition into the reflection section. I got a couple questions I want to run past you, you know, talk about, you know, you've been on this journey for a little bit, you know, for. Even from before Zeland there. But I'm thinking into the future. What do you think Lean is going?

Yeah, that's an awesome question. I really see the people side becoming a bigger component. Just all the stuff up front of what you do to really involve the person, to involve the individual. And you see different models out there. You know, the shingle model is becoming very popular from kata, where it's coaching. It's. But you look at all those pieces, and what's making them successful is that personal connection and building the trust and rapport. And I think as we move forward and as generations change and as organizations change and as I really always think that every day, organizations and leadership are being held to higher standards, and the more and more we can incorporate empathy and really the people side of things, I think that's. I really see the business moving in that direction. I see the ones. I see the businesses who are really successful are building the culture, and they're building it around people and those who don't. Some are successful and others. Others aren't. So I see it really transitioning to what are we doing for our people? How are we. How are we helping them help themselves?

So if you think back to the. To the nonprofit work that you were just describing, and if those folks that you were dealing with, and I'm using them as just an example so you can speak, generally speaking, it doesn't have to be just them, but where do you think most people struggle with Lean? Is it. You know, I'll Give you three high level ideas. First one being kind of the content theory philosophy. The second one could be maybe the deployment implementation, like what to do and when to do it. And then, you know, maybe, maybe last one could be like, like who should do it? And you know, those two are kind of similar, I guess. But where do you see people struggling the most?

Yeah, yeah. I guess for me initially what my, what really pops into my head immediately is just, I think oftentimes we get bogged down in the thought of I need it to look like this company or I need it to look like that, or I've worked here and that's how we did it. So we want it to look like this. I think organizations really get stuck sometimes in doing it a certain way because others have been successful doing it that way. When I got in front of this organization, I said one of the key takeaways was we were going to do it our way and we're going to learn from others. And I think that's absolutely important to benchmark, to know what's out there, how others have handled challenges that we may handle. But it's important to also understand your own organization, understand your own people, your own processes, and just know what you do. Do it your way. Just like a self diagnosis on the Internet, it might give you some guidance, but you probably should see a professional and to get your own unique understanding of what's going on with you. Same thing with the business. I think it's important for organizations to really look at themselves and do what's right for them. Not just because others have done it, learn from those things, but then also develop it your own way. Then it gives you the ownership and it's your product, it's what you've developed. So I think that for me initially, my thought is what pops into my head. Got it.

Is there an area of continuous improvement, lean, whatever you want to call it that, that you struggle with, or maybe you wonder, does it, does this really work?

Yeah, there's, you know, that's, that's, that's a good question as well. I think for me it's. Sometimes it's. I guess it's difficult to kind of talk about it, but I guess it's how stringent sometimes things can get. I love standardization and I love things to be the exact same. But there's a song by Depeche Mode and they say, people are people, people are people. And it's that to me, there's certain things we have to change. One of the things that I came into was the thoughts of it always has to be pen and pencil. I have grown up with a cell phone or a tablet. I have all these different items that I interact with data differently. So I think sometimes that's a bit of a struggle even for the. Just the thought of how we interact with data. And you know, you've got your lean management boards that are pen and pencil and you know, creating automated ones and then there's the arguments. So there's always. It's just a funny thing that's out there and I don't know is one's better than the other. But it's just that I guess that's the one little piece of it. But I love that. I love everything about it. So it's difficult to pinpoint anything crazy.

So I'm going to debut a brand new reflection question I've never asked anybody before. And it's, you know, maybe it's looking at the glass half empty kind of thing, but sometimes I ask people, what's the best advice you've ever received? And it's always, you know, grandma gave me some amazing wisdom back in when I was 8, but I'm going to flip it around. Can you think of any terrible advice you've ever received? You don't have to name who gave it to you obviously, but right.

This sounds, this sounds wild and crazy, but at one point in my past life, my past career, I had somebody tell me when I first started this job wasn't CI was in the golf business. But I remember sitting down and day one I was told, what you need to do is go out and assert yourself and don't be their friend, don't be nice, go out and just, you know, be difficult, be, you know, strong headed and then dial back from there. And I just thought, gosh, that just does not seem like a good idea. I didn't follow that. And we and the crew itself is still very successful that way. But just that advice to me always kind of thought what? That just seems completely backwards from what I would do and that was early on in my management career. So I just kind of thought, is that really what I've got to do? Wow. Yeah. So no, I did not follow that advice and I'm glad I didn't.

That's good, that's good, that's good. All right, Good stuff. All right, well, hey Brian, it's been great chatting with you. Let's go ahead and wrap things up, give some final words of wisdom to the folks listening and then definitely tell everyone how they can best Connect with you?

Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest thing, the big takeaway for me is to really begin to take a look at, at the approach that you take where you struggle. If it's in sustainment, look to the root cause potentially it's the stuff being done up front. We can do all sorts of things from standard work and audits and different items like that where we can try the sustainment, 30, 60, 90 day checks. But really look up front and see how, you know, have you built the trust, have you built the rapport, have you really brought the individual into it? And then yeah, for me there's plenty more stuff to talk about and actual different tools and concepts that we'll use here locally. But yeah, for sure can connect with me. Like you said, spread the lean love. I've got my website, spread the leanlove.com I've got spreadtheleanlovemail.com if they want to email me and same thing on LinkedIn and I'll provide links for those as well. Well, because I just love to talk about this stuff and looking forward, certainly not a full time consultant or anything like that. Obviously I have my day job here so it's just a matter of more, just passion sharing really what we can do. It's going to make work, lives and regular life better. So I appreciate you having me on the show today and look forward to maybe sharing more in the future and maybe some more specific tools or systems that we use. But really excited to be able to share kind of the general overview of the approach and we've been very successful to this point. Fantastic.

All right, Brian, well thanks again and keep up the good work, my man.

Yeah, I appreciate it. You take care.

All right, Bye bye. Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now we invite you to take a no strings attached, fully functional test drive of gembacademy.com. gain immediate access to more than a ,Thousand Lean and Six Sigma learning resources, all free of charge at gembacademy. Com.