GA 295 | What’s New at LEI with Jean Cunningham

I really feel that audio is a future that we are yet to see in terms of using it for safety, for work instructions, really making it easier for people to engage with work.

A few weeks ago, we attended the AME conference in Chicago, where we got to meet many listeners of the podcast. So a big thank you to everyone that stopped by to say hello. During the conference, we actually set up a podcast recording booth and recorded seven. Seven different episodes, including the one you're about to listen to today. And today's episode was extra fun, since it was totally unplanned and spontaneous. Here's what happened. My longtime Lean thinking friend, Gene Cunningham walked by the booth and stopped to say hello. After a brief chat, I asked Jean if she'd be interested in coming onto the show, and she agreed. Now, as many of you likely know, Gene Cunningham is the chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute. So, on today's show, Gene gives us an update on the latest happenings over at Lei, including an introduction to a new podcast they've recently released. Now, show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything we talk about, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 295. Finally, if you've struggled with any aspect of your Lean journey, Gemba Academy would be honored to help you. And while we're best known for our videos and this podcast, we also offer a variety of coaching services. Put another way, we're far more than a Lean and Six Sigma video production company. Please visit us over at gembaacademy.com to learn more. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. All right, well, Gene Cunningham, welcome back to the show. How's it going?

Fine, thanks, Ryan.

Yeah.

Good to talk to you.

We're here at ame and you, I guess you guys have a nice booth over here. Ellie does. So, first of all, I don't know if I've actually seen you face to face since you were new new position at lei. So congratulations.

Thank you. Yes, I was, you know, really pleased to become the chairman of LEI this year.

Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. So what? I just thought maybe it'd be fun to kind of catch up on the latest and greatest of what's going on at LEI and with Gene and so what's going on with lei? What's new?

What's going on? Well, a lot's going on. We have some new leadership in place, and our focus has really been to revive some things that we used to do as well as create Some new things to engage people in lean thinking and practice. So a couple of things I thought I would share with you. One is we've restarted the WLEI podcast. So we had launched it, I don't know, a year or so, and had some nice interest in it. People were listening, and then we got a little bit away from it.

I was going to say, I didn't know you've done that, so I'll start listening.

So we've just restarted. We had our fifth new episode this week, and the way we're doing it is we have three hosts that will repeat. So we have Josh Howell, who is focusing on being a leader, being a manager, because he's our new president at lei, and so he's wanting to learn from other leaders and managers, how do you lead and manage? So he thought, why don't I podcast on this? The second person that's doing them is Deb McGee. Deb is an LAI employee, but she does a lot of teaching on coaching, and so she's doing a coaching podcast on how do people coach? What's it like to be coached? What's it like to be a coach? So she's doing that. And then Matt Savas is our other team leader, one of our other team leaders at lei, and he is focusing on problem solving, talking to people that have had problems, how they solved the problem. And so they'll have ongoing. And then we'll have one a month that's just sort of open, you know, whatever topic.

So is it like a weekly podcast? Is that the plan?

Yes, it's a weekly podcast.

What day does it come out?

It usually comes out on either Sunday night or Monday morning. So, like, this week's came out this morning.

Okay.

But we have a very large number of people that are connected to wlei, and we were like, wow, we should be communicating. This is how people want to be communicated with. So we've got that restarted.

Great. So what's the name of the podcast that people are going to search for it?

Yeah, W L E I so go.

If they go into the podcast thing.

Okay. Yep, they go. They just search on wlei and please, please join. We'd be happy for that to happen. So that's one thing. Another thing that we're doing that's interesting is we're trying to learn about lean thinking within the food industry. So you think about the food industry. It's a really interesting value stream. Right. It's from the ground to the plate, you know, the farm to the fork. And if you also think about that value stream, there's a lot of waste in it. Both waste of food, food itself, but also waste of human talent. There are a lot of really bad jobs in the food industries. I think we've all read about some of the challenges in the food industry. There's also bad food.

Yeah.

So it's an interesting. We said, you know, let's really focus on a new industry. You know, we've always tried to further lean thinking and practice. Right. Not just keep doing the same thing over and over. Because there's a lot of good people in our space who are helping people learn about lean practice and lean thinking. Well, we want to try to always be moving that forward.

Yeah.

So we're focusing on the food industry and trying to learn and find partners in that space and learn from them. So we're at the very early stages. Maybe we could say the seeds have been. The ground is getting plowed. Right. We haven't. We don't have anything flowering too much yet, but there are some stories about some of the work that we've done with a local restaurant in Boston and it's pretty exciting. So that's one thing furthering lean thinking and practice in a new industry, and then another thing that we're doing is trying to really create more opportunities for people to tell the stories about lean thinking and practice. Like where what has happened when they've tried to apply lean thinking and what happened in practice, what did they learn? And taking it beyond sort of a project orientation, but really more towards a lean management system and stories of how to make that transition. I think most of us started their lean activities in more of a project orientation, Kaizen orientation. Really powerful, really valuable. I mean, my experience Atlantech with Kaizen approach was just amazing of how we changed the company. But at some point you've got to move beyond that or else when the people that are leading those efforts leave things fall apart. And so how to really move more towards really that lean management system that's embedded within the organization. I think we, all of us in the lean community know how hard and challenging that is. So we want to keep looking for stories of that and telling those stories so that other people can, you know, learn from that and, you know, make better jobs, focus better on customer value, improve outcomes of companies. So, you know, those are. Those are some of the things that, you know, we're really focusing on.

You guys are continuing to publish books and whatnot. So what's the top. Wow. I shouldn't put you on the spot. You know, it's not fair. But what are not. What are some good newer books coming out from Lei that folks should look into?

Well, you know, it's funny that you say newer books because I. We do have some new books out.

We have the old but goodies. Right. The red, you know, the red book, the green book, the workbooks. Right. Yeah, We've all grown up with.

Yeah. And so we do have some new books. We have Getting Home, which is a story about the St. Bernard project.

And I want to get them on the podcast.

By the way, Zach, I'm sure is. Zach would be willing to. I know there's. Unfortunately the weather continues to create opportunities for new housing to be created. So he's a busy guy, but we would love, you know, we would love for that to happen too. I'm sure he would. We have four types of problems. Art Smalley that came out that's been very popular. Designing the Future, which is about Lean product and process development work with Jim Morgan and his work at Ford and the work there. But I think. And we have Lean Sensei, which is a book by a bunch of authors in Europe, including Michael Ballet, and that's been popular. But I think one of the things that I think about the books when I come down New to Lei, fresh Eyes to Lei, is that there continue to be a lot of very new people to Lean.

Yeah.

Like we are not saturated and so we're not like a normal book business. Right. We have new learners about Lean all the time. So we need to continue to bring forward the existing information about basic information to know about Lean that is in some of the books that have been around for a while and continue to make those available and clear that these are basic tools to help you as you begin to learn about Lean and then begin to mesh that with the management system. But you need the tools too, right? We sort of badmouth tools, but we need tools. We need tools.

You could have all the respect for people in the world if nobody knows how to do anything. Like what are we going to do? Disrespect each other?

So I'm not so much focused on new books, but focused on bringing the learning that we have in our books to the increasingly bigger market, bigger audience of people trying to learn.

Last year I actually had the. I think it was last year. All this time gets away from me. When Learning to see had its 20 year anniversary, it was at Katakan. I was actually very fortunate to be able to kind of share a testimony to Mike and Mike Rother and Jeffrey Leiker was there as well, talking about Toyota Way, which I think was 10 year old at that time. But you know, I told Mike that that blue book, man, learning to see it changed my life. Yeah, it really did. Yeah. You know, because as a young engineer, I mean I, I had my. I still have my original copy and.

It was so cool.

Marked up and almost falling apart, you know, but. But yeah, everyone listening. If you're new to Lean, if you don't have. You still sell the bundle.

Yeah, we sell the bundle. That's a great way to buy Many.

Of those I bought over the years. You know, creating continuous flow, creating level pull, managing to learn. Managing to learn and learning to see, obviously. Yeah.

Fulfillment. So one of the things we are doing with the books that is new is, you know, look at us, we're doing a podcast here, right? Like audio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think audio is really important. So we are starting to put some of these books on audio.

Good.

We have only had two books on audio and we already now have. Getting Home is now on audio. We have a new book coming out in January. Steady work that will be on audio. Four types is in process right now to be on audio. So we are going to do more and more. We've got about 18 of our books that we plan to put on audio because this is the way a lot.

Of people like, I mean, I listen to audible, I mean like religiously, you know, the audiobooks on Audible.

And then you might, you might read something on audible and go like, oh, well now I want to get the book. Because there are things you can't do in audible that can be in a book. But that doesn't mean that people can't get exposed initially. How many of us have said, oh, I'm going to go back to that book or look at that at display. So you might still need a physical book. But more importantly in. Our mission is to expose people to ideas. It's not just about selling books, it's about, you know, sharing information.

Well, in the younger generation, let's be honest, you know, the median age of people walking around this conference right now, you know, sadly isn't, you know, 25 years old, you know, it's. They're much, you know, I don't know what the median age is, but, you know, I can tell you my kids still read books, you know, they have to with school, but they consuming way more in their ears and their eyes, you know, than they are, than they are reading. Right. As far as videos and podcasts and things like that, you know, it Brings.

Up an interesting topic. It's a little off topic, but, you know, I. A couple years ago, I needed to get hearing aids and my life of the hearing aids, the way that they have Bluetooth now, everything is just amazing.

Yeah.

You know, I can hear my phone ring anywhere I can. Well, then we went to this wonderful display here in Chicago. Since we're here in Chicago with Amy, there was a music show. I'm drawing a blank of who the artist was. I'll remember it later, of course, but as you moved around the exhibit, music came on that was relevant to that exhibit. I really feel that audio is a future that we are yet to see in terms of using it for safety, for work instructions, for really making it easier for people to engage with work. And I think there's a lot to come. I think audio is not yet fully is really on the beginning stages of how we can use it for meaningful, meaningful work and make work easier.

Yeah. We just got back from in Seattle visiting the Lighthouse for the Blind, Brent Weickers, he's here actually running a workshop. He's leading that whole charge. And so obviously these are blind and. And they had 27 deaf, blind, can't see or hear. And so. But to your point, you know, the folks that are just blind that can hear, you know, everything's talking, their calipers are talking, their machines clearly talking, you know, and that's how they're. They're getting around, you know, and they're functioning as well, if not better than fully sighted and fully hearing employees at other companies, you know, so. But yeah, all these tools can help all of us, whether we're fully sighted and hearing or not.

Right. Because we can. I really just think it is one of an additional ways that we can learn and be exposed to new ideas. So lean thinking and then taking practice. Right. Then actually doing something. You can't just be learning all the time. You've got to go and do some practice, see what happens, then share the story.

Exactly. So I'm sure everyone listening knows, but the best way to get the lei.

Is@Lean.Org yeah, lean.org and for those that know me, you probably, you might know me. Related to my work with Lean Accounting, I'm really proud to say that Lean Accounting is also part of lei, and we have embraced that as well and can get information about Lean Accounting there as well. So for me personally, you know, coming to LEI and being able to bring the work that I've done, I'm really, really pleased about that as well.

Great.

Yeah, thanks.

Again for coming on. Keep up the great work.

Thank you so much.

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