GA 251 | Lean in New Hampshire with Heather Barto and Tommy Lencki Jr.

As with any new sort of profession or new wave of business operation changes, you really need to be able to press restart a fair amount of the time and be ready to press restart, meaning there's going to be points where things aren't going so well or that you need to take a break or that you need to find a new strategy.

Today, I'm honored to welcome Heather Bartow and Sergeant Tommy Lenke to the show. Heather and Sergeant Lanke work for the state of New Hampshire and have both played pivotal roles in the success of their Lean and Six Sigma initiatives. On today's show, we talk about how the state of New Hampshire got started with continuous improvement, how a number of New Hampshire state agencies have leveraged Lean to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and ultimately benefit the citizens and clients of their state services. A show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything we discuss, can be found over@gemba podcast.com just look for episode 251. You can also check out Gemba Academy's Lean Learning system over@gembacademy.com with a fully functional trial. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Heather and Tommy, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Great. Thank you so much for having us on today.

Yes. This is awesome. Thank you.

All right. All right. Well, you know, by the title of this podcast, I guess, people, it's pretty obvious where you are, but I don't want to make any assumptions. Maybe you're traveling or something like that. So where are you guys calling in from?

We're calling in from Bedford, New Hampshire.

Okay. All right, so what's the, you know, we're actually recording this here in early part of January. So what's the. What's the temperature like right now there in New Hampshire?

So I think it's about like 30 degrees where we are, and it's actually flurrying right now, which is pretty cool.

That's not too bad. That's not too bad. Yeah, we, my daughter and I are headed up north next week for some. Some for a little trip, and we're here in Texas, so my daughter's frantically running around trying to find a winter jacket. So.

The ski conditions up here are excellent, and the snowmobile conditions are excellent as well up here right now.

Nice. Nice. Beautiful. That's a beautiful part of the country. So you guys are super lucky. All right, well, hey, thanks for coming on. You know, Heather and Tom, you know, we like to begin all of our shows with our guests sharing a quote. We or Two of something that possibly inspires them. So do you guys have something you want to share?

Sure. So over the last year, we've done a lot of time to reflect on all the great work that we're doing here in New Hampshire. And I think the quote for me that stands out the best is by our friend Mr. Deming. And it goes as follows. If you can't describe what you're doing as a process, then you don't know what you are doing. So for me, that really goes back to basics and our foundational work that we're doing in process improvement and lean across the state of New Hampshire and really trying to onboard all of our staff with lean thinking and lean doing. So for me, that that's a quote that really stands out.

Nice, nice.

And for me, I actually like to quote lean as a way of thinking, not a list of things to do by Mr. Shingo. And I really like this quote. Prior to my current job, I was in the Marine Corps. And I like this quote because it's about mindset, and I'm all about like, let's do something for a long time. Let's sustain this. And that's what I think of when I think of this quote. It's a mindset. Not just do it and be done, but let's make this part of our life.

Yeah, I love it. Kind of like fish and water, right?

Yes, sir.

All right, Good stuff. All right, well, Heather and Tommy, before we jump into the state of New Hampshire's lean journey here, I want to learn a little bit more about you both as individuals. So, Heather, why don't you start and just tell us a little bit about your background and then maybe just the very beginning of your exposure to lean, like how you first came to learn about it.

Sure. So I've been with the state of New Hampshire about 18 years now, and it had various roles with Department of Health and Human Services. I worked for quite a number of years at our state hospital at New Hampshire Hospital as a rehabilitation therapists using recreation therapy tools and approaches. From there, I worked in public health for about 10 years, have worked in Medicaid and sort of this has been a natural transition with process improvement as my career continues at Health and Human Services. The point that I got involved with lean was right around 2011. I was completing a Certified Public Manager program. And at that time, we were called Continuous improvement practitioners, or CIPs. And so through the program, we received training on change management, sort of the Lean 101 philosophy. And from there, our program built out where we eventually ended up with belts. We have white belt, a yellow belt, green belt and a black belt. So for me, hearing the word change agent was a light bulb that went off in my head as I've always been one for efficiency and innovations. And this lean Journey has really just added a framework and some structure around the way that I sort of operate a person anyway and certainly professionally. So being able to be part of this movement really from the beginning has been pivotal for my career. As you continue on as a state employee, there are certain things that you can work on and have influence on. And I feel like that lean creates a paved road to be able to look at the things we can improve on from first line staff all the way up to administration. So I feel very fortunate to be part of these positions. My most current role in the last two years has been our department hired a full time process improvement specialist position. So that was me and I've been doing this for two years now. So I live and breathe lean every single day with every single person that wants to talk about change and where we're at, from projects down to mentoring and coaching. So it's every day, all day. So I like to say that I'm a lean therapist most days.

Oh, that's awesome. Very good, very good. Thank you for that, Tommy.

So I have been a state trooper for coming up on 20 years. And prior to that I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I started my lean journey in 2003. I was actually stationed up at our headquarters and I was in charge of the field training program for state police. So new troopers graduating the academy, heading out to the troops to learn how to become a trooper. And I was actually the project manager for the FTO program. And basically what we looked at is we would send a trooper out to the road and we'd have to call him or her back to do some trainings. So what we recommended from this program was let's do all the training at the start and once we send them out to the troop, it's more efficient. We don't have to call them back. They get everything they need. One stop shop. So that was really my first taste of lean and I really became intrigued. And just like Heather said, certified public supervisor, certified public manager, we got some more lean classes in that. And then I was tapped Department of Safety, State police wanted to build a bigger bench and I was tapped with starting my lean belt journey and I received my black belt in 2018.

Nice. Congratulations.

Thank you. Very quickly I met some fine folks like Heather. And very quickly, they sucked me in and started asking me to do different things. And I became a member of the lean executive committee with Heather. And so not only am I working with state police department of safety employees, now because of this executive committee, we're looking at the whole state of New Hampshire.

So I don't want to jump ahead. It's pretty cool. Speaking to a state trooper who knows about lean, that's not always common, I don't think. So, like, if I get pulled over by some state trooper there in New Hampshire, I could talk about 5s and all this kind of stuff. Or is that. Is that how it's rolling there or what?

So, actually, because you brought that up, I was going to talk about this very shortly. Part of my black belt project was to create a positive lean culture in state police. So what I did is we have 566 employees, civilian and sworn, and I offered white belt training to every single state police employee. And as of to this date, 92% of all state police employees are white belt certified.

How cool is that? That is amazing. That is amazing. Very good. Very good. All right, well, let's jump in. Heather and Tommy, and both of you kind of touched a little bit about some of the early happenings there. But talk about the beginning of lean just within the state of New Hampshire. How did it get started?

That's a great question. And before I jump into that, answering that question, I want to tell you, little bit of culture to sort of set the stage here. So at Health and Human Services, we often say that, you know, we're really about meeting people where they're at. We're really about a community of support and lots of please and thank yous. And however we can sort of wrap around a person to support them, to get them the services and items that they need in the community. So recently, Tom and I presented at the 2018 New Hampshire Lean Summit, and we opened up our presentation, which is kind of a fun way to describe our different cultures. And so we talk about getting on the bus. We have a bus with lean. It's a very large coach bus. So please, you know, get on the bus with us. And our strategy at Health and Human Services is, please, you know, the bus is here. We'd like to invite you on the bus. We have a lot of great things. Let us open the door for you versus the Department of Safety. And I think Tom would be okay for me saying this, it would be, get on the bus now or we're going to run over with you. Get on the lean bus now. So, so that kind of speaks to our culture differences. But understanding where your culture is at, your business is everything and anything. That is absolutely step one. So to answer your question, New Hampshire got involved with Lean in 2009, where we had several commissioners wanting to bring Lean on board, including the Department of Safety and Health Human Services. And so we brought a colleague from the state of Maine to come down and train some of our folks and get involved. So we really started 10 years ago. So it's our 10 year anniversary this year, which is outstanding. We're so proud of that. And so at Health and Human Services, we really talk about meeting people where they're at and understanding the culture components behind it. And so we have another saying at Healthy Human Services saying, we're on every channel. So with Lean and process improvement work, we need to understand every person in the agency, from the person who is answering the phone for our Medicaid clients, all the way up to our executives. So understanding people, where they are and being on every channel is essential to what we're doing. So being on every channel, what does that mean? That means being everywhere and anywhere. So you were sort of on. You have an on button with Lean. You need to be on at all times. And that means that we're in the training classrooms, we're meeting new supervisors. We're part of Lean projects. We're part of, we call ourselves the Lean Help Desk. So if you have a question, we're happy to help answer it. We're helping prepare students for facilitation of projects. We're helping mentoring and coaching anytime, anywhere. We're working on strategic planning. We're offering sessions for training with facilitation tips and tricks. We bring creativity to the, to the board and really talk about how we're able to offer Lean services at any part within a project here at Healthy Human Services. But also that we want people to really be lean thinkers. And so our clients benefit directly from our staff being trained with lean thinking and lean doing because their applications are coming through a little faster, their support services are coming in a little faster and smoother. We're really trying to sort of clone lean thinkers around the department, so we have them in every program in every single area. So understanding our culture is pivotal. And when we go in to do lean projects, we don't get the door closed. We get the door open. People want to work with us. There's two of us that do this full time, John McPhee and myself. And when people say that they want help with a lean project. They know they're going to get someone that's going to respect their work with what they're doing, spend the time to understand the value that they're adding, start picking apart what's working, why it's not working, and then come up with some ideas on how to make it better. We are so proud with all that we have completed at Health and Human Services. And, you know, we were talking earlier about projects, and one particular project that comes to mind that sort of seals the deal with all the great work that we're doing is our division of Child Support Services has embarked upon a lean journey where I worked with them to do some case initiation, sort of investigation of what's working, what's not working, and why, but also now that they have another rollout of lean within their area. So it's not just at the project level. They're training their managers and their staff to get lean training so that they're lean thinkers, so that they're operating in a program effectively and efficiently. And that's what we really want across our department, is our programs operating in that. In that role.

Okay, that was a lot. Thank you. So. So. But I want to. I'm just going to. I'm going to push back a little bit. I want to know, like, when did this, when did this thing start and where and how, like, you've talked a lot about all the good things you guys are doing. Department of Health, is that where it started? The Health and Human Services, were they the first folks to kind of get on the lean bus, so to speak, or was it somewhere else?

Sure. Yeah. So in our state of New Hampshire, there were several departments that came to the table to attend this first training in 2009, and that was really Department of Safety, Department of Health and Human Services, and Environmental Services were really the kind of departments that paved the way for the rest of the agencies to jump on board. And from there, we rolled out and expanded our training program and brought other folks on board over the past 10 years. It's hard to think about what you do in 10 years time spent. We've done a lot. We've done a lot, and we still have a lot more to do. Yeah, 10 years ago was really our starting point.

So when you look back on those early days, what were you doing? What were some of the things that you were learning and trying? And obviously, I'm sure there were some success and some setbacks. Talk about those early days in particular. I want someone's listening to this right now. From another state who maybe they're not 10 years into their journey, maybe they haven't even started and they're not sure about it's the beginning is the scariest part. Right. Of any journey is you're just uncertain of what's going to happen. So talk a little bit about those very early days. I know you did training, but then what?

Sure, that's a great point, a great question. So folks, when they're coming on board with Lean, should really be able to be ready for some setbacks, as you pointed out, and be ready to experience resistance. And we have worked through some of those pieces. As I had said earlier with my journey, I felt like the term change agent really struck home for me. First of all, what does the word agent mean? And then, yes, we're supporters of change. And so we talk a lot about being able to press a restart button. So as with any new sort of profession or new wave of business operation changes, you really need to be able to press restart a fair amount of the time and be ready to press restart. Meaning there's going to be points where things aren't going so well or that you need to take a break or that you need to find a new strategy. So one of the things that we started several years ago was lean sprinklings. So if a program is not quite ready to do full on Six Sigma or in depth Lean training, but really to understand the program area is just start talking about it. Just start talking about improvements, just start talking about efficiencies. We spend a lot of time with people and try to relate their components of their home life with their work life. So sometimes people just aren't able to quite connect the dots yet and giving them some examples to relate, you know, things at home, what does your closet look like at home? How does, how do you load the dishwasher? Things like that. So training is the foundation of where we all started in, where we continue, sort of need to retouch upon at times, but also investing in the people and empowering people to be able to make. Be able to make decisions. So I think any new program starting out with Lean needs to kind of have some tough skin and be able to be pressing restart, but then also working with your colleagues. And that's where Tom and I have come into play and worked really well with each other, is that we're continually learning from each other that if strategy one, two and three isn't ready to go, well, let's try seven, eight and nine in a different way to kind of Approach our people.

So Tom, do you want to. Do you go by Tom or Tommy?

Either one. Either one.

I know, it's like your mom calls you Tommy and all your colleagues call you Tom or what, you know.

Yeah. So my dad was Tom. I'm a junior, so my dad was Tom. So even the colonel calls me Tommy. So Tommy is okay.

Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's funny, I go back home in Ohio and everybody calls me Ronnie and my wife looks at. What are they calling you? Ronnie. Yeah. So. So why don't you. Kind of the same question for you, like the, the Earl. You know, you came into this journey, you know, a little bit later, the formal continuous improvement side than. Than Heather. But what was it like for you when you were first kind of exposed to it? Were you like, you know, kind of like welcoming, open arms or you were like, what is this stuff?

So when we started, it was 2009 and it was actually now the Colonel, Chris Wagner and Ms. Roberta Whittem, they're the ones who really started the lean journey for Department of Safety. And the way we do it is there's a trooper assigned and a civilian because for Department of Safety State Police, we are a team. We are troopers and we are civilian. But together that's how we get the mission done. So the assistant commissioner at the time wanted there to be a uniform and a civilian leading this lean journey. So in the start, they were very, very successful. When I came into it, they had completed about 40 projects. Very successful.

Let me stop you there. Like when you say a project, is it like a three day Kaiser event or is it a big six month black belt project or. Or combination?

So the way we do it is we do a four half day kaizen event. So basically nine to 1234 days and then two weeks later we do the cell. So we always want to do the cell within the two week time frame. So that's the way we do it. Not that it's right, wrong or indifferent. That's just the way that works for us. Okay. So we found that taking civilian or troopers or any staff away for many days just wasn't work effective for us. So trying to steal those people, if you will, from different places, it was an easier sell to say, look, we're only, we're only stealing them for the mornings for four days and you can have them in the afternoons.

Yeah. So can you give us an example? Or maybe. I don't know. Don't. Obviously nothing confidential because I know you're dealing with, you know, some sensitive areas. I'M sure, but examples of like, some improvements or some problems that you were. That you have been faced with and that you've been able to counter.

Yes. So one of the ones that Roberta and Heather and I present this at the UNH Lean Summit. So dmv, Department of Motor Vehicles was. Is part of Department of Safety. So we were returning licenses or trying to get people licenses, and we were resending envelopes and mail back and forth to people. So they did a lean event, and we were spending, and I don't have the figures in front of me, so hundreds of thousands of dollars sending these correspondence back and forth. So they did a lean event and there was a piece of software that was about approximately $2,500 to purchase. So when folks come into the DMV, now, this piece of software basically confirms that the postal Service is delivering mail to this residence. This is actually a residence. And they confirm with the employee. Basically, this is really where I live. So we have gone from hundreds of thousands of dollars back and forth to now hundreds of dollars because we're not getting this mail returned. So that was just one. One piece of millions of dollars that the Department of Safety has saved doing lean projects.

Now, everybody, I don't know, I'm sure, I don't know how it is in New Hampshire, but everybody, you know, listening to this right now is in their mind. Or when you think stereotypical DMV go to get your license or whatever, you have the horrible visions of sitting in a chair for eight hours while you wait for your number to be called. Like, what is it about that? Because it's obviously a very challenging job, right? And there's lots of things that need to happen. But. But what can we do, or maybe what have you guys done perhaps to. To improve that experience? That's probably one of the tougher experiences to. To go through as a civilian, right? Is.

So what we did is. And. And believe it or not, it's just a customer service. So when you. When you go into a DMV now, there is a greeter, and there are different windows, and there are different things that you do while at the dmv. So when you first walk into a New Hampshire dmv, you're greeted and you're greeted professionally, and you have a conversation of why you are here, and you are assigned a certain window. So window A, example, does licenses. Window B does registration. So you know you're getting in the right lane. The greeter is making sure you're getting in the right lane. And we've Actually done customer satisfaction cards. And our customer satisfaction, knock on wood, is really good now. And it all just comes down to customer service, listening to the customer. When that customer fills out that customer survey, we're trying to get back to them with a response within three days. And we're really taking what they take into account and what they say into account, and we're making those changes. Lean process improvement. Just because we're doing something today and it's working doesn't mean two weeks from now it's still going to work. We're constantly looking to evolve, and we are public servants, so we want to serve the public in the best way we can. And building this culture with, for us, the police, having the Colonel as a lean black belt, that definitely helps motivate the troopers and the civilian to really get on board. But our assistant commissioner, who is in charge of the whole Department of Safety, he is really a huge proponent as well as the commissioner. So every Department of Safety employee knows, hey, even though I'm doing this job today and I'm just starting, like Heather said, I am a change agent. And the work that the Colonel and Roberta did definitely made it easier for me to come on board. And I just worked on the marketing a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, so Heather, maybe same question for you. Can you share an example of a problem that you guys faced in the Department of Health and Human Services and how you overcame it with whether a project or just do it, something like that?

Sure. I think we, like Tom had said, we have completed in the vicinity of 85 plus projects over the time that we have been running lean as a tool. And we're sort of ever evolving with where we started and sort of where we're going. So I think one of the pieces that I wanted to mention and share with folks that really understanding, again, we can't underline that enough, but understand your customers or your people that you're working with is pivotal. So a couple years ago I was hired into this position and I sort of was noticing people would go to training. We have a training classroom and Health and Human Services supports the training. They supply funding for it, and people would go to the training, come back and have lots of great things to say, but not really sure how to implement the components of process improvement or lean thinking in their program area. And I was calling it the now what time. So they come back from training and they're coming back to their work area. Now what? So I developed the lean wraparound services and so I began meeting with people before they Go to training to give them a preview of the training. And this has been the best investment for our staff that they have a person to go back to after they've completed training and come back after three days and then trying to figure out how to implement lean thinking or projects or any of it in their program area. And so the wraparound services model is really built on meet people before training and sometimes it's 15, 20 minutes, it's not a long period of time. Facilitate their project or help them find a facilitator for their project in the classroom, and then meet with them afterwards to see if they may want to go on to further training or if they want to run projects in their area, what they need help with. And so this support model has helped evolve our department even more from a cultural aspects. So when you ask the question, it's a great question about our projects. We've had so many projects that every program area in our department has been hit with some kind of lean project. And so I'll go back to the child support project, that Ben Fresh project. And that program area has done exactly what we want them to do, which is reach out, get a lean project with us. So this particular project was working on case initiation. So. So folks that are applying for child support services along the steps of the process was applications were incomplete, errors on the applications, illegible, incorrect information. So you're sort of dead in the water, so to speak, when an application comes in and it doesn't have everything on it that you need. And so until there's a feedback loop to the customer or within the department to say, gosh, is there another way to do this? Then we don't know how we're doing. So we can pull the data and the data speaks to it, but we don't know how we're doing this work consistently. And so what we developed in that project was really around standardization of workflow, which we have district offices around the state and each district office is running things a little bit differently. So step one of this is really just establish how is the process being run and what can we pull out for some common practices to start dusting off and being a little faster at things or getting rid of some of the waste that we have. So the child support program has done a fantastic job of building out their culture for empowering their employees to be change agents. But also the multiplying factor of this is that they're getting staff trained and then they're changing their culture again to be efficient, innovative in the work that they're doing. So this was not really about the one project per se. It's about the build offs from that project and the great work that they're doing. And we're in sort of the mentoring, coaching, support role because they're doing such a fantastic job.

Yeah, that's really great. Hey, so Heather, I want to circle back to your, I believe you call it the wraparound program where you're meeting with folks before and after training. Talk a little bit more about the mechanics of that. Like what do you do? I mean, surely, you know, a lot of times people are entering into something like going to a training class and they're uncertain. Maybe they're, maybe they're fearful or maybe they're, I don't know, sometimes maybe even negative about it. Like they're not excited. Right. Like, how do you overcome the varying emotions that you might encounter before someone goes to training?

That's a great question, Ron. And I think my training in recreation, therapy and human services field has tremendously helped sort of advance my skills along. I have facilitation training that I had to complete as part of my undergraduate program and certainly being able to work with folks that are mentally ill. When I worked at the hospital, all of those pieces were the foundation of. I already had the facilitation skills of working with people, but understanding where they're coming from is everything. So again, at Health and Human Services we're sort of in a support role for our colleagues and we really want to understand where they're at and where they're coming from. So to start the wraparound services, the first roll of it was really just sending an email out to our training department asking them who is enrolled from Health and Human Services for your training coming up next month. So the list would come back and then I would send electronic notification to folks and just ask them how are they doing? Introduce themselves, let them know that they're heading to this three day great adventure in the training program and that we have a lot of other ways they were doing lean programming beyond the yellow belt that's offered through our beer of education and training. And so I think that opened up the door for communication. From there I started scheduling sort of open office hours and would set up blocks of time for people to drop in a conference room and to come in and ask their questions. You know, we're going into lean. I'm worried I'm not going to be able to produce change when I come out of the program. What strategies do you have? So we sort of pre Talk them through some components with it, but then also assure them that we're there for after the training, because they'll have questions, they'll go to the training and they'll have a lot of questions about how things work or how to apply certain tools or frameworks or how to kind of be a problem solver in your business area. And so opening up that door for communication and support has been pivotal for the work that we're doing. And so facilitate with them in the classroom or find someone in their work area that has a lean greenbelt that needs a facilitation project. So I sort of match up the skills with the project. And so there's a lot of careful orchestration behind the scenes that is happening. But it's all to benefit our programs and our staff. And then the last part of that is, how's it going? So following up with them after training, seeing if they want to continue on with their lean green belt or if they're on that path, see if they want to continue on their lean black belt and then offer coaching and mentoring sessions. So that's also a big part of our wraparound services. It's not just one and done. You go get training and you're finished with everything. We want them to be an active problem solver. We want them to be a lean thinker in their immediate work area. And this may be something like they're changing their filing system electronically or they're changing their paper filing system. And then we certainly want them to contribute to projects and all of those pieces. But it's really about being the lean thinker and the lean doer. So the wraparound services has helped tremendously in our department.

Oh, I really like that. I mean, I think that could be a useful tool for anyone in any kind of company or organization. And, you know, even with your children thinking about it, you know, like before they go into something, talking about it, it reminds me of, you know, within TWI and the job instruction program. You know, we spend a lot of time put the learner at ease, you know, is one of the things we want to do early on. And if the learner's not at ease, then it's going to be difficult for them to learn. Right. So sounds like you're really doing a wonderful job with that.

Well, we're thankful for all the support that we have to have this flexible model we also call it. We have a menu of options so we can make a project as large or as small as whatever the program area needs. But being able to Be flexible with the menu of options. And we do that through our partnerships from learning from Tom at the Department of Safety. We learn from our partners at Transportation and the judicial branch and Environmental services. So without those partnerships where we meet or meeting monthly on a basis with our lean executive committee, we're just able to advance ourselves so much more because of these collaborative partnerships where we're coming together and seeing each other once a month, and then also the in between conversations that are happening.

Yeah. Beautiful. Hey, so the last question I have for you guys is every time I speak with with folks that work in the government, one unique challenge that you folks all face is that every few years there's going to be new leadership of some manner. Right? And with thinking about a traditional company, when you get a new CEO, sometimes, boy, I've seen continuous improvement programs just disbanded because the new leader didn't believe in that. You guys have been at this for 10 years, and obviously you're sustaining it. So what's the secret to making it last no matter who's coming in?

So I think having a strong culture definitely helps. So that was one of the things as part of my black belt program is, like I said, building a positive lean culture. So one of the things I did is, I'll just give you an example. Newsletters. The newsletters that went out, you know, once a month, quarterly, whatever. That was big, maybe 10 plus years ago. We have a lot of staff now that aren't going to read newsletters. So how do you get them engaged? How do you get the information to them? And we have, at least for state police, we have a New Hampshire State Police Facebook page, and we have a woman who is dedicated to social media. So I created a couple with my friend, created a couple pictures of the cruiser, and we did Lean Wordle and we overlaid the picture. And we get the word about lean out there as much as we can because we know that a certain percent of employees are gonna be looking at that Facebook page, they're gonna be looking at the Twitter page. So we need to get them the information, and they really need to understand it, and it needs to become a way of life. So one of the things I instruct at any new supervisor training, and as a supervisor, I'm looking at my trooper's gear, I'm looking at their cruiser, and our trunk as an example is pretty important. So what I do is not only on my shift, but now I tell every supervisor that I'm able to train is lean out that trunk in an emergency. God forbid, there's an active shooter. Can your trooper, can you get to the gear that you need efficiently and effectively so you can go in and do what you need to do for the job to make everyone safe? Same thing for us. Right now, it's snowing out as we're looking outside. We cover a lot of accidents on the highway. Our troopers need to be able to get to flares to warn the motoring public that there's an accident ahead. Use caution. Move over. Can your troopers get to those flares? So that's one of the things that we're trying to really build the culture, and I think everyone has done that really good. We're just tweaking it a little bit now. But if you have a strong culture and everyone believes in it and you keep the data and you show we have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have saved man hours. You hired this person to do this job, and because of this lean event, they're actually able to do their job. They're not doing all the BS stuff on the side because the process is broken. So when you have that and you build it together and then you have collaboration like we do, we're a little state, but the collaboration that we have is amazing. And we all share different things, and we can talk to different directors, we can talk to different supervisors, and we help each other out. That's what I think we have going for us in New Hampshire. We do deal with businesses as well in New Hampshire, but that collaboration, I think, is huge. When you form a team and you have the nucleus like we do, that's very hard to break even if you have new leadership coming in, it's hard to say no to that when you show how successful we've been.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. So build the culture. And I guess it can withstand changes in leadership, right?

Yes.

Beautiful. All right, well, hey, guys, thank you so much for coming on and spending some time to share your journey. If folks want to learn more about your work, what's the best way? Do you guys have, like, a website or how's that working?

Sure. That's a great question. Thanks, Ron. So folks can reach out to me directly through email. So it's Heather, and that's B as in boyartohhs.nh.gov. folks can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. And another way that we've built out our communication is our New Hampshire Lean State webpage, and that's lean.nh.gov lean.nh.gov that's easy.

Okay.

And for me, if people want to reach out. I also have a LinkedIn account, Thomas Lenski, L E N C K I Junior and my email address is Thomas Lenski, L E N C k I@dos.nh.gov Great. Great.

And we'll put that in the show notes. So this will be episode 251. So folks can go to GembaPodcast.com go to episode 251. We'll link everything that Heather and Tommy just said. Case you didn't write that down. So. Yeah. Well, thank you again, Heather and Tommy, for taking time and thank you for your service to our country and to your great state there in New Hampshire. And hopefully the snow doesn't get too crazy today for you, Tommy. But if it does, I guess you'll have great snowmobiling experience, right?

Yes. Yes. And great skiing weather. And thank you for this opportunity. This is awesome. And I wanted to to thank Heather for teaming up with me and being my partner in crime and lean as well.

Thank you, Ron.

All right, you guys take care.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye.

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