GA 224 | How to Apply Lean in Different Countries with James Newell

I love having that mentality to actually want to look at a problem, make a problem transparent, and love looking at the roots and getting to the roots of that problem because the solution is a result of that.

Today, I'm excited to welcome James Newell to the show. Now, James is originally from New York, but as you'll hear, after serving in the military, James decided to make Germany his new home. And what's especially interesting thing about this situation is that James has lived in Germany for so long and spoken German for so long that he sometimes struggles to find the correct English words. But make no mistake, James has a really interesting story to share about how he first came to learn lean thinking principles and how this American managed to help many different German based organizations continuously improve their operations. Show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything James and I discussed, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 2, 2, 4. 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, James, well, thanks for coming onto the show. How's it going?

Good. Thanks, Ron, for having me. I'm enjoying our. I'll be enjoying our talk, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, hey, I know you listen to this show, so thanks for coming on. And what I always like to say is for regular listeners who have been practicing Lean, man, hit us up. And we'd love to have you on the show too. Our favorite episodes really are our people out in the world doing, you know, real lean work, you know, really getting after it. So, yeah, it's great to have you on. I'm glad we connected. I guess it was over LinkedIn, wasn't it, James?

Yeah, it was through LinkedIn. Yeah. So I basically listened to the podcast for, I don't know how long, about a year or so. And through the invitation that you sometimes send out to other listeners, I said, well, I'll shoot you an email through LinkedIn and say, hey, maybe interested in talking with me as far as my lean endeavors here in Germany?

Yep, very good.

How we connected, basically.

Yeah. Nice, nice. So, okay, well, you're in Germany, so tell us about where you're at there and what's going on around you.

Right. Well, actually I live in a. In Bavaria, Germany, about an hour south of Frankfurt. Most listeners probably remember or probably heard of Hogan's Heroes.

Oh, yeah.

And where they used to go through the tunnels going into the town of. Going into Town and town of Hammelburg. That's where I live. I live five minutes away from Hammelburg. And most people know Hogan's Heroes. And that's how I made the connection. I live in a very hilly, mountainous area. And you have to excuse, I usually speak German 95% of the time, so I might throw in some German words.

Okay, okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Well, good stuff. All right, well, tell us a little bit about your background, James, how you first came to learn about continuous improvement. And then obviously you don't sound like you're originally from Germany, so maybe talk about that transition and what brought you to Germany.

Right. That's kind of part of my story as I joined the military, which brought me to Germany eventually, which put me into Bosnia for a tour in Bosnia. After the tour of Bosnia, I got out from the military and stayed in Germany. And that was end of 1996 and 1997, and stepped out of the military. My first really. What do you call my first experiences with lean was actually in the military.

Okay.

Going through basic training, picking up our equipment. There was, you know, I look back now and say those are all lean principles that they were using to get us in and out very quickly with our equipment and also the turn in. So that was my first impressions. Our first experience was lean and then been in Germany for the last 20 years, basically trying to find a way for an American who spoke very little German to find a way to stay here in Germany. And it was very. Had a very lean approach to looking for business. I was a business consultant looking for business, doing cold, cold calls and businesses looking how I can consult them to sell better. And it was for me a very lean approach because I had no business and I had no leads and I just did cold, cold calling and cold show ups and was working basically for free, saying, I'll get paid once we're successful.

Wow.

And then years after, moved on to more consulting, business consulting, started a few small startups. And recently, for last four years, I've changed into completely a crossover, I think you call it a crossover in English and went from sales and sales world into industry and production. And now I'm with a huge production company that's one of the biggest suppliers for automobile.

Wow. Okay, so. So when would you say you kind of. I mean, I know you've always been kind of dabbling with lean concepts, even in back in your military days, but when would you say you kind of, kind of really got into the. What we would call formal lean. Lean manufacturing, lean office. What Would you? Whatever you want to call it.

Right. I would say very clearly, four years ago, as I was brought on to a industrial plant to help support the plant in their lean endeavors, into basically a lean trainer or lean coordinator for the plant. And they're looking for somebody with a background, a business background, entrepreneur background, and a workshop coaching background. And I was doing lean in different areas of my business before, but not very, very clearly aware, calling it shop floor management or office floor management, but it was very clearly. Or working with KPI's continuous improvement. Kaizens. These are all things that I was using in a very. What do you call it? In a very active manner. And consulting. But the terminology wasn't in my vocabulary at that time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what would you say before we kind of jump into more of our topic of the day? Give us the state of lean in Germany as far as you're concerned.

Wow. My experience in the state of lean in Germany and what I've seen is that in the industrial areas or in the production, big production companies, lean is sometimes in the starting phases, I've seen it in the mature phase, but then often an issue of implemented but not stable, and always between, should we start this again? Should we revive this? Should we try this again? So it's kind of like a back and forth. I haven't really experienced a real through and through lean culture at a lean company, but my experience is limited. But from a lot of my colleagues and my connections, they're telling me they've heard of Lean. I've heard of the different methods, they've tried to implement them, but they were never stable.

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. All right, well, hey, James, I know you listen to the show, and at the beginning of each show, we like to allow our guests to share a quote or two, something that inspires him. So do you have anything to share?

Yeah, I have actually two quotes. I think I got one. I heard one of them from, I think your podcast. It's coming from. Actually, I don't even know who it came from, but it's called Love the problem and not the solution. I love having that. The mentality to actually want to look at a problem, make a problem transparent, and love looking at the roots and getting to the roots of that problem, because the solution is a result of that. And the second quote would be from Jack Welch. Willingness to change is a strength. Even it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

Okay, what does that mean to you?

Willingness to change for me, is key. And if persons don't have a high level of willingness to change, a desire to look at continuous improvements. How can I get better? How can I get better one day at a time? That willingness to change, that willingness to self reflect or reflect on my business, reflect on what I'm doing on a daily business or on a daily basis. If that isn't there, then you're going to run. I don't know the word in English, in German, but when you have the horses with their, they only see the tunnel in front of them. Tunnel vision, I think it's called in English. And sometimes you have to have a bold decision to take an area or department of a huge company and question everything, question all the processes, break it down, bring a bit of confusion. That way people are woken up, get away from the tunnel vision and start looking at what could they do to maybe change or get better at one day at a time, get better at something. You have to have that willingness to change, the willingness to have the desire to take that tunnel vision away or take the in German from the horse and you have to sometimes shake them up.

Yeah, okay, got it, got it, got it. All right, well, good stuff. James. Hey, so I guess that really the topic of the day is talking about maybe jump starting our lean activities, lean tools. I think you've even used the phrase reanimation. So first of all, talk a little bit about what you mean by just that word reanimation before we even worry about jump starting. What does that mean?

Right. For me, reanimation is a visualization of taking a method or a tool that we've implemented that has either not really anchored in the culture, not anchored in daily business. There's no real usage of the tool, the culture, the team use the tool because they have to versus because they want to. I think it would come back down to why are we using the tools? The real benefits and the advantages of using the tools. And sometimes I call that reanimations. I think about a doctor who reanimates a patient who's had a heart attack. That tool is the heart. And sometimes you have to run a paddle on and reanimate that tool to realize and to look at why isn't tool running? Why isn't it working? Ask the question to the employee, you know, we have a tool, but are we using it to its fullest extent? Are we using it to not only for technical usage or practical uses, but also do we also have the aspect of culture? Can a tool that you're using be also applied to improve the culture and reanimation is why jump starting like in a car. Sometimes those tools have been implemented and they're not showing the results everybody wants. And before taking the tool away and starting with a new tool, sometimes maybe just do reanimation to analyze why the tool isn't being used versus replacing it or using something different.

Got it.

Reanimation.

So do you have any maybe examples?

Yeah, shop floor management in a production area. That's one of my. Or pdta. I mean I love talking to people who have a PDTA board. And an example would be kind of like I would call it. My kicker is pdta. PDTA is a methodology. It's not really a tool. Tool could be used as a card or PDTA card. But I often find that the PDTA are problems versus our problems. I would call a glorified PCs list versus the real methodology of planning against a problem or looking at a process that's not working very well and planning to improve that process by bringing a team to look at it through a PDTA versus having a problem, using the PDTA to fix a problem. But it does become stable. It ends up being a tool versus a methodology.

When you say pdta, what's the T? I'm familiar with pdc.

Yeah, it's my. Just because my German PDCA plan, do, check, act.

Okay, no worries.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah.

PDTA is this plan duty, check, act. And often we find that the act doesn't really become what it's meant to be and doesn't end up being a new standard. Doesn't mean that we tell our production areas, we change certain processes, certain structures. There's no real stability. We're not acting upon those things that we checked through the implementations of DO or lessons learned aren't being taken. And we're not using PDC as a preventative tool.

Yeah.

So that would be for me on my. Anybody who. Anybody from my. Any of my colleagues are probably smiling when they hear the podcast because they know my. In German Steckenfeld, which is my. My kicker. I have that off. One of the biggest topics I use to help coach people is to look at what tools are using, how they're using it.

Well, give me. I want to. I'm going to push you a little bit here. So that's a nice high level answer. But let's dig in. Give me a real practical example of you've gone in and you know, higher level, just deeper dive than PDCA in general. Give me a real example.

Okay. We had. Every year there's. We call in German bruckentagen which is the days where you have a Thursday national holiday and Friday a lot of people take off and have a four day weekend.

Okay.

Now these days are planned every year. We know in the schedule when these things are planned every year. And every year on that Friday or whatever the day is, that weekend, there's a huge production loss. And the result and the people are using excuse we had production loss because of the fact that we had this day in between and everybody took off. So that's kind of like a real life experience. My team and I with the plant leader, we looked at this, I looked at him and said, you know, we've been saying this the last two or three years, where's our lessons learned? And this would be perfect topic to reanimate PDTA and to really look at the next, the next days that are coming, the next possible weekends that are coming, which we've known in the past. And let's plan against this. Let's look at how we can bring a team in, all the responsible parties, implement, check, did it work? Did we keep our numbers up at a high level? And if that's the case, if we actually solve the problem with these four day weekends through broken days or bridge days, let's put that into a standard, put it into our management handbook and it becomes a standardized way of dealing with this problem through our lessons learned.

So what were the results of approaching that specific problem?

Well, we had three months later, numerous of bridge days and we had no loss, no loss in production, not in comparison to what we had in the past. And we approached not only the tool, but we approached the team that they were asking to work because usually the day off, usually they're used, not working on this day, approach them with the problem. We approach them with the numbers showing the transparency of what we've had the last three years. And we'd like to reduce this, we'd like to refrain from this type of repetitive losses. And we basically went down to the team, showed them respect, showed them the transparency of the problem, involved them and asked them for their help on this bridge day, that a team would stick around and produce the numbers that we needed to produce. And it just became, you know, it was unbelievable to watch the senior management smile as they saw their team saying, yeah, I'll help, I'll come in. And that was one of our things that changed our culture. We used a tool not only technically but also culturally in that we involved, went down the shop floor and involved the people through transparency, showed them the problem, asked them We've got a solution. Can you help us?

So how does it work? You know, I've done some business in Germany and past lives and been in many different German plants and, you know, working with, I believe it's called, like the work council, like kind of the union, if you will, in America. Yeah, talk a little bit about that. And in that relationship or that. Oh, that collaboration. Because I found that, you know, they could be difficult to work with, but they could also, you know, you got them on board and they could be right beside you and working together. So talk about that relationship a little bit.

Well, that's actually very good. It's a very good topic. As I came to the plant where I first started, that was a huge issue. There was a big separation, big issues between the plant and also this union in Principa protects their rights and makes sure the employees. We have a very big union structure here, very proactive and very, very good for the employees. And we actually, for me, it was very important to see that we increase the relationship to them, that we make it better. And one of my goals was to get them on board, get them the buy in that through Move or, sorry, through lean. That's what we call it. We call it move through Lean and through the principles of engaging our culture and through using tools the way that we're going to be using them, I want to get them on board. And the result was, is that they started supporting, supporting the management and these requests, because some weekends that you ask them for work or these bridge days, going back to the initial example, you have to get approved through them. They have to approve the extra hours being worked. And the approval structure became easier because I knew we were transparent with the team, they were involved. And when we came to the decision, yeah, we'd like to work, and the union allowed us to allow us to work. And that was a huge response or huge effect in the culture, because when the union is behind you and behind the senior management, then everything works smoother.

So how did you do it, though? Someone's listening right now, and they live in America and they're dealing with some big, strong union who might not be supportive of their lean activities. What advice do you have for those folks?

Get them involved. Be as transparent as humanly possible. I would call do a side POC with them and bring your. Put yourself in their shoes as union, what they have to protect their responsibilities and create your voice, the customer, what you think that they would expect. Then bring them on board. Show them what you assume for them is Important, you know, versus voice of customer. You get the voice of the customer, you ask for it. My biggest advice is to put yourself in their shoes. Answer the questions that you think they would answer, how you think they would answer, and then get them on board and show them these are what we think is important for you. Please let us know if anything you'd like to, if you'd like to add anything to that. Just the fact of putting yourself in their shoes was one of the biggest success stories that we have and one of the commons. Any of the union people who might hear this podcast from me, they would agree that's exactly the method we use. We put ourselves in their shoes and say, hey, this is what we think is important for you. This is where the issues that we think you're hearing and is there anything to add to this, anything to adjust and that becomes a partnership versus them. Coming with a list of requirements.

Right, Right.

Kind of a change in the voice of customer. Just a little bit about a nuance change.

So if we go back to that whole jumpstart kind of concept talk about, you know, how we might. Obviously having to jump start something isn't ideal. Right. So what can we do to avoid those situations in the first place?

I have to take a perfect example. The golden circle, like Simon Sinek. Start with I think it's the right. I think it pronounces his name correctly. Start with the why. If you don't have the buy in from the tool to start with. If people don't understand why you're input. If they don't see the benefit for them, how the tool benefits them in the respect for people aspect, as far as also what it brings for numbers. If they don't know why they're using a tool or the method and you start with what it is and how to use it and then try to clean up the why afterwards. It's a lot of work. Start. Right. Start with the why, get them to buy in. Because the what and the how fall into place afterwards.

Yeah, I often find that we're really good at the what and most of the time we're really good at the how. We do jump, we jump over that second one, the why. Right. And I wonder why that is. Any ideas why is it natural for us to go from what to how?

I think because of the numbers game, we're pushed, I think the businesses are pushed to produce qcd, quality, cost and delivery. We're pushed by numbers or pushed to deliver, what do you call it, numbers and financials. I'm translating my head right now. So it's crazy.

Like you have perfect English, but then that's like. It's weird.

Yeah. Most people ask me for my passport because at some stage I switch into German or my German accent comes out and like you're not from New York. I'm like, I am, I am. I show you my passport. So I think, you know, I think we, we don't start with the why because we are in the tunnel of always having to deliver the qcd, the quality and the cost and delivery and those numbers. And we're also result orientated versus the why is a process behind the result. If you understand why you're doing something, you'll be able to figure out the process behind it. You'll be able to. That's key. You know, most I use when I'm trying to sell the why. Why I call it when I do my workshops for coaching, lean coaching. I, you know, it's all about the why. It's about selling the why, about selling that concept, selling that tool. Get to buying, get people to buy the tool because the more value for them, then the what and the how becomes easy. And it's all because from, from a, from a background of. I'm not even taking, I'm not even a technology guy, I'm not an engineer. I would, I'm a, what do you call a. In German, behavioral science.

Okay. Yeah.

So knowing how people think, we're driven by results. We're driven by, we're driven by that. But you know, people either bring results or don't bring results.

Yeah.

And most people don't bring results because they really don't know why.

Yeah. Yeah. What's like bigger big transformation for, for me personally over the last few years is you know, thinking about things like scientific thinking, whether it's Toyota Kata or just PDCA or Domic done properly. Right. I would say is, it's, it's not about solving problems. We don't, you know, we should stop worrying about, focused on problem solving and just start thinking about learning and discovering. And the more that we learn, the more that discover the more problems that will just, they'll, they'll be solved right on, on their own. It's like Paul Aker says, quit, quit trying to make money and just go fix what bugs you. And if you fix what bugs you and you make things better and better and better, the money will come. Right.

Exactly.

When you go out and try to make money, that's when problems can happen.

I often say to my colleagues or my People who I didn't consult or coach is. If we look at the process behind every problem, every result. If you focus on result KPIs, you'll always be firefighting. If you concentrate on process KPIs, what is the KPI? What is the process behind these result KPIs? You focus on getting better at your process and measure through a process KPI, your result will have to be better.

Yeah, exactly.

And that mentality, to have that mentality to look at the process is extremely difficult when we're being pushed from financials and being pushed to have results.

Yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, hey, James, let's go ahead and transition into the reflection section. I got definitely a few questions I want to run past you, and I know you're a regular listener, so you may be ready. So I got to throw some new ones at you, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you got an interesting career, interesting background, you know, newer guy, military, go to Germany now. You can't barely, you know, struggle with your English words, even though you got perfect English accents. I'm not sure I've ever met anybody like you, man. You're. You're very interesting fellow, but if you could go back and look at your career, you know, is there anything that you know based on what you know now, that if you could go back and change anything, would you?

I'd actually go back and slap myself at a certain part of my life where I wasn't. I was looking at results and looking at the what and the how. And now that I understand the why and how important understanding the why is and how, it really motivates people, help them understand their own why. If I would have known that 20 years ago, I would say 10 years ago, that would have made my life much easier.

Yeah. Yeah. Simon Sinek is like. He's been. Maybe we needed him 30 years ago, I think, you know, but. But he gave what he came, and I think he really did a lot of good. So here. Here's a. A tough question, and I'll follow up with a softball. But the fastball here, that's baseball. Okay. There was a game we play, you know, in New York, they play a little baseball, you know, so, so, so, so. Talk about a time. I suppose it would be there in Germany. That's where most of your professional experience has been, where you failed to sell someone on the idea of improvement, continuous improvement, lean, pdca, whatever you want to call it, you failed. Talk about that time and what happened.

It was. I have A very visual. I can see myself sitting in the office talking with him. I was trying to. I was just getting started in the plant, and I was trying to get the production leaders behind me into reinstalling or reactivating, reanimating, shop floor management and to install an oe, an OEE management system, Lean Performance Management system. Trying to get them involved because I didn't want to roll it out myself. I wanted to have more of a group rollout. They take responsibility for their tools as well. And I had two on board. Two were eager because they saw the benefit. The third one was not very happy with Lean tools. It was one of those. He's been affected the last 20 years from different variations of the same tools. He's gone through it. He's seen him come and go. So he had a lot of baggage as far as lean and the methods and the methodology behind it.

All right, good stuff. All right, well, let me give you the softball now and talk about a time where you succeeded and maybe transforming or turning someone towards lean who was against it.

Okay. Well, based up. Based upon the last example of the one where I made the biggest failure, I didn't give up on them. I didn't give up on myself and didn't give up on Lean. And I basically worked with the other two very hard to get them involved to show the benefits. And we actually brought some really good numbers through the different tools we're using. Much success has been gained. And at some stage, he came to me, asked me, could we also look at implementing in my area as well? And at that stage, I was speechless. And it was basically what happened.

It didn't just happen overnight. What turned him.

It took months. I think it's a pull effect. He saw the other two production leaders, the benefits coming out of this tool that was being used. It was being discussed all the time. And he wasn't. He wasn't part of the discussion. And, you know, there was kind of like a pull effect that happened. And, you know, we end up talking and now we have a great relationship. It's unbelievable how we. How we now discuss things. And sometimes I think he's probably my best advertiser out there.

Yeah.

So, you know, based upon the same story, for me, it's the success story. I didn't give up on them. I said, at some stage, I hope I can get him. I hope Lean can. And the Lean principles can. He can re believe in the lean principles. And, you know, from being a burnt, you know, having experiences of more negative experience with lean and at the end of the day, the tools he's using, the tools that we basically implemented with him at the end, he's still using them and he's actually a shining light in the new area where he's gone to. He's one of the only ones with that tools actually working and running very well. He's like a best practice for the entire area. And that would, you know, I enjoy the fact that he and his team has actually been multiplied and that he enjoys something. And I was just the mediator, I was just the one that helped jump started.

Hey, so I got an interesting question here. I've never asked this before, but it's something that I want to, I'm curious to get your thoughts on. So you, you again, American guy goes to Germany and he's lived there now and you're fully immersed in their culture, understand their culture, living their culture. What, what, what's one thing that we Americans could stand to learn from the German people? And then the flip side, what do you think the German people could learn from Americans?

Wow, that's a tough one. I would say I'm going to reverse it. The Germans can really look to the US regarding the capitalism mentality, having a desire to really achieve something and the work habits behind that, working effectively as possible towards a goal and to be, to be the real entrepreneur at heart. That's one of the reasons why I was brought into the company, is to also help their engineers become entrepreneurs. And the flip side that the Americans can learn from Germans would be the down to earth, down to earth, stable, red oak type of roots that the Germans have. We have a very strong family orientated, strong, stable, often humble way of doing business. And it's very stable. Very. Sometimes you walk into the office, you don't. You just feel how deeply rooted the history is. And I think a little bit of being in the middle between American so long in the US and so long in Germany. I've often asked this question. I think it's a mixture between flighty and jumping from one project to the next or one company to the next, or having a CV or resume.

Resume.

Resume, yes, thank you. A resume that has 30 jobs listed on it. Whereas Germans, they might be in a company for 45 years and they're extremely happy now. There's a balance between both sides and that stability that the Germans have sometimes is very good to have off the other side. What they're missing is the entrepreneur heart that the Americans just definitely have much more of. So it's kind of like finding A balance between both those worlds.

Yeah. No, exactly. What does respect for people mean to you, James?

It means I have to. I'm not going. I can only tell you how I. How I practice respect for people.

Yeah.

As I coach other leaders and coach myself, I always ask the people on the floor, regardless of who. Who it is. Manager, team leader, operators matter, cleaning lady. I coach, advise and practice myself, asking them how could I serve you better? You know, trying to get them to understand that my management style is a product that the customer, the employee receives. So I had to figure out how is my product being experienced and asking for that feedback helps me self reflect. So I advise that to many, many in the coaching sessions I do and a lot of the coaching trainings I give is go out there. It doesn't matter who it is, no matter your position. All I can do is ask the question, what can I do to make your job easier today? And just accept what they say and give them feedback within 24 hours if possible. Even if it's no feedback, no solution at all. Give them feedback. Hey, I took your, I took your comments seriously. I have no feedback for you today, but I'm looking into it.

Yeah.

Just giving that feedback.

Yeah. No, I didn't forget about you. Right. Like you're still there and you know, I think it's even more respectful to admit a more, if you will, humble to say that. I don't know yet. Still thinking about it and need some more time, but. Or flip it back to them. What do you think? Right.

Yeah. Get them engaged, engage them.

Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff, James. Well, hey, I really enjoyed talking to you. This has been a fun episode. We kind of started down one path, but then I. I'm sorry, I kind of got off track a little bit, but I was just really curious to learn more about the German culture and get your perspective on it as an American living over there now. So really, really, really fun episode.

Yeah. Myself, I enjoyed it as well. Thanks for having me. And I hope the hope. The hope, the leisure. I'm sorry, I hope the hearers could take something from it. I love listening to them. And it's another listener, the other speakers in the voice podcast.

Yeah.

I've learned so much from the podcasts and so many books I've read.

Good, good, good. Hey, so how can people connect with you, James? What's the best way?

Yeah, LinkedIn is best. I think Eric James Newell on a LinkedIn is probably the best way.

And Newell is N, E, W E L, L. Correct. Yeah, yeah. Correct. Yeah. And then we'll link to it in the show notes so people can find that@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 224. So anybody in the, I guess, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Germany. Germany area, we need to. To all crash at James's house there and.

Fair enough. House.

All right, let's stay at a hotel, but you can show us around.

How's that exactly? I live in the wine area, so it's. Oh, nice.

Nice. Very good. All right, well, thanks again, James. Mino, if you. Do you ever get back to the States much?

Yeah, I'm back to play golf or I'm back to visit family.

Okay, good stuff. Good stuff. All right, well, if you ever get down to Texas, come and swing on by and we'll go buy you some Texas barbecue.

Ah, brilliant. I'm already hungry already.

All right. Okay. Take care, James. Thank you.

You too. Thanks for having me. Talk to you soon. All right. Bye. Bye. Ciao.

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