GA 338 | Gamifying Lean with Bruno Pesec

People don't really care if you say yes or no. They care that you tell them something. So kind of just telling them, hey, your idea didn't go through because A, B and C, that's so much more respectful than just ignoring that silence. And then when it comes the time to do the same thing again, people don't want to participate.

Hey, everyone, this is Ron Ferreira and today I have a really, really great episode to share with you. My friend Bruno Pescit joins us from Norway. And as Bruno will explain, he's originally from Croatia, but he's been practicing lean for many years. He's got a lot of experience with just traditional lean manufacturing, but now he spends quite a bit of his time working within more of the lean startup movement. So really into innovation strategy, different things like that. So what we talk about on the show is just really, we open up with talking about that intersection of innovation strategy and Lean and how they all work together. We then get into respect for people, which is obviously one of the key principles of Lean, and talking about how respect for people, innovation intersect and the importance of respecting people when we're trying to innovate and learn. And then we get into a really interesting discussion on gamification and how to gamify the lean learning experience. So that was a lot of fun. And then we kind of wrapped things up by talking about the state of the union for lean in Croatia and also Norway. It's two different parts of the world. I was genuinely interested to hear about how the lean movement is going in those two parts of the world. And so Bruno shed some light on that as well. And as you're going to hear, Bruno has just incredible energy and passion and excitement for Lean. And, you know, it's. Let's see, it's 10:16 in the morning here for me and I feel like I've had eight cups of coffee after listening to Bruno. He really pumped me up and energized me for the day, so I think he's going to do the same for you as well. Lots of links for this particular episode and we're going to share those over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 338. Again, gembapodcast.com, look for episode 338. Enough for me. Let's get to the show. Bruno, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm excellent. Very happy to be here.

Yeah, thank you. We were talking before. We've had some technical challenges here in our audio studio. We've got some new equipment, and so we had to reschedule a little bit.

So.

I appreciate your flexibility there, Bruno, but we're ready to rock now. Good things come to those who wait, right? I mean, our listeners aren't waiting because we're, you know, we talk about lean all the time and overproduction and. And sometimes I wonder, we.

We're.

We're like, I don't know, maybe eight podcasts ahead, you know, so I saw, oh, is this overproduction? But I said, well, we know. We always use the inventory, you know, so. So we never. We never let any inventory go to waste. I could tell you that. But thanks for your fle. I know you've listened to the show, and what I want to do is just kind of kick things off with a quote. So do you have one?

Yes. I've been thinking, because I have always, like, a set of quotes I repeat to myself and others almost like morning affirmations. And I think that one that fits really well for today is the oldie, but Goldie from AG Toyota, along the lines of squeezing water out of a dry rag or towel, depending on which translation you go with, which I think is extremely fitting for the challenges we are facing today.

Yeah. So what's it mean? Let's talk a little bit about that. That's interesting. What do you mean about the challenges? And how does that relate to today, you think?

So the way I choose to interpret this one is that kind of making the most out of everything that we have at hand, like, even when we see that there is or we believe or feel like there is nothing else that we could give a try or try out, this kind of quote or way of thinking reminds me, hey, let's just take a look at everything we have and try to create something new. And that is. I know it's a silly story, but kind of the connection I made is with my grandmother. So when I was young, my grandmother used to make this amazing stews, and I really love them. And when I was a bit older and a student and I moved out of the country to study a little bit in Norway, and. And one cold day, I wanted to make a stew because it's a cold day and I wanted something warm. And I call my grandmother, and I asked her like, hey, Grandma, can you give me the recipe? And she's like, what? What recipe? I'm like, well, the recipe for your magical stews. And she. She starts laughing, and I'm like, what are you laughing at, Grandma? And she tells me, well, the recipe is, take whatever leftovers you have. And whatever is in the fridge about to go bad and put it in a big pot and cook it together. Yeah. And I was like, okay. That's why it was always different, but always great. Yeah. And I know maybe this sounds like a trivial example, but this is where I see it, especially today. It's kind of, we think that we're in the corner, but just look around and kind of all the assets, all the knowledge, all the talent that we have and try to find new uses for that. And that is kind of human. Creativity is endless.

I love it. Oh, that's such a great story. Such a great story. Well, now maybe the problem was you're a young university student and your fridge is empty. So now what, Grandma? Right?

That's a bit too close to truth, I must admit.

I have beer, I have cheese. That's great. That's great. Okay, well, hey, Bruno, obviously tell us a little bit about maybe where you live and maybe your background as far as your heritage. You don't sound like you're from New York or anything like that. So tell us a little bit about your background.

Yeah, so I'm a Croatian. It's a small country in Eastern Europe and I grew up there. And while I was studying, I was studying industrial engineering. That's how I got to meet the world of Lean and Toyota production system. And I just absolutely loved it. And while I was studying, there was a scholarship from a big Croatian company and Norwegian company. Their intent was that they get the best engineering students that would study in Norway and work in Norway and then work in Croatia because they had a collaboration and their idea was that they wanted students that would experience both cultures. So kind of that's how I got to meet Norway. And you know, Europe is small, but it's still diverse. Some things are similar, some things are different. And what I immediately noticed is kind of when you go between high context and low context cultures, and what that means is, for example, in Croatia, when someone offers you, I don't know, a drink, coffee, tea, you first have to politely, you know, it's playing a game like, oh, no, no, thank you, but please, I insist. No, no, no, no, but please, I insist. Okay, I will take it. But Norway is low context. Would you like coffee? No. Okay, bye.

Okay, so it's like a lot of.

Those small things, I got to explore, experience. So I had good fortune getting a scholarship and everything. I work in defense, I work in some challenging industries, and I got to, you know, experience a lot of manufacturing and engineering and R and D challenges. And working with that. And over the years, I kind of. The way my career developed is I moved from engineer to being independent expert, working with large organizations, primarily applying lean to the world of innovation strategy, trying to innovate profitably without sacrificing the human in the process. And that was kind of where I am today. It was amazing. Journey. Yeah.

How many. How many years have you been in Norway?

Oh, let me just count. In total, seven. But I think it is five now in a row because I was, you know, going back and forth as a student and a scholarship, so it's kind of going there and back.

Nice, nice. Very good, Very good. All right, well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, I know you're passionate. I've read some of your articles on your website, and we're going to link to your website in the show notes. This will be show notes gemba podcast.com go to 338this for the show Notes. A lot of good articles on there, Bruno. And I know you're passionate about innovation. You're passionate about strategy and obviously lean. So tell me a little bit about maybe how you believe these. These innovation strategy and lean, how they intersect with one another.

I'll try to make this as short as possible because I'm really passionate about all three of this. And we could probably together speak for hours and hours and hours. It kind of started while working as engineer, so my background was industrial engineer, and it was primarily improving processes, which was both R and D processes and manufacturing processes. But what I started noticing is kind of when there is lack of alignment with the rest of the organization, it's really becoming difficult. So it's kind of, you know, just a team of people trying to improve things. It's very uphill, and it can be very disappointing and disheartening when you pull your heart and soul into projects and then they, you know, they don't then move forward. They really don't contribute on the big picture, because you don't see the big picture as one person in the company. And that is somehow when I started broadening, I asked myself, okay, what is really happening here? And one of the things that both innovation strategy and lean have in common that everybody can notice and maybe laugh a little bit when it's not punching you in the face, is that all three of these words are almost meaningless because they have so many different definitions. So it's kind of. If he has 10 people to define lean, we would probably get 20 definitions. The same goes for innovation and strategy. So it's kind of. We have three words that are quite broad in their meaning. And what I come to experience and had some difficulty for some years for accepting, but now I accepted it, is that it doesn't really matter how experts define them. What matters much more is that everybody in one organization agrees what these words mean. So you and I, we can probably define lean much better than an organization that never set out on the journey, hasn't been doing it maybe for a few decades. But what matters is that everybody in that organization agrees, hey, this is what lean means, this is what innovation means and this is what strategy means because that is alignment. And alignment really creates value even if we are not as experts satisfied. And the reason I'm going with that is because when I realized that, that was kind of liberating for me because you know, in, in all methodologies, and Lynn is guilty of this as well, is kind of sometimes we don't act as people that are helping others, but as gatekeepers and gatekeeping, I don't know, that's not a fun activity. Why would you want to gatekeep beautiful methodologies like Toyota production system, Agile movement, Lean movement, Lean startup design thinking? Pick your methodology of choice. And that is kind of why language people sometimes say, come on Bruno, it's just words. Yes, but no, there are many different languages. But you know, English is still the leading language in a lot of business spheres and it's good to have agreement on what means what and not academic, but just you and me as two humans working together.

Yeah, I love it.

That was a bit of a digression.

No, that was great. So next question I have for you Bruno. Obviously one of the key tenants, key principles of our lean movement is respect for people. So talk a little bit about how you believe respect for people can manifest itself when it comes to the world of corporate innovation.

Well, I wanted to say I have great example. It is a great example. Story is maybe a little bit sad, but and I will say here, unfortunately I fear that at least half or even if not more than listeners that will listen to this will recognize the story. So I was working with one client and they were preparing to launch several new products or they had a desire to enter existing market but with new products and the way they decided to approach it is to organize a three day event where all employees were invited to submit their ideas. So they were really smart and good in the regards where they said that it doesn't matter from what part of organization you are, so it doesn't matter what's your position. It doesn't matter what you're working on. Everybody is allowed to submit an idea. And then it was like a traditional competition. You submitted an idea, if it was selected, you would be invited to the event. There would be talks, there would be a little bit of workshops. People will be working on them. And at the end, it was roughly 80 ideas. And then what happened is something that happens quite often and is to me one of the most disrespectful things that can happen. So the ideas were taken and people were sent back to their regular job. And then a team of experts or specially dedicated team was looking at these ideas and prioritizing them and saying, okay, we will take these ideas and we will drop these ideas. Now what happens is that team continued working on some ideas and dropped others, which is perfectly fine. That's exactly what innovation and prioritization. But what they haven't done is they haven't informed people that have submitted these ideas. What actually happened with these ideas. So you had people that poured their heart and soul and time and creativity, and you could argue, come on, it was just three days. Yes, but what kind of message are you saying? Like, we've taken your idea and now go back and you know, maybe someone tells you something or someone doesn't tell you something because people think that they're doing sometimes a favor. It's like very weird thinking. It's kind of, hey, this is bad, but we don't want to hurt their feelings. What again psychology proves, and I have come to experience as well, is people don't really care if you say yes or no. They care that you tell them something. So kind of just telling them, hey, your idea didn't go through because A, B and C, that is, you know, that's so much more respectful than just ignoring that silence. And then when it comes the time to do the same thing again, you know, attrition is much higher and people don't want to participate. So that's one story that's easy to fix. So if this is happening in your organization, please take care that you inform everybody that contributed idea. What was the fate of that idea? It's so simple. And to me, that's a very simple demonstration of taking respect from people, which is great. It's. It's really something to really live for and kind of put it also in the world of innovation and other movements.

I love that example. You know, the traditional suggestion, Bach has so many, so many flaws, right? And you know, how many times have we seen a lock, you know, on the Wooden box, you know, it's like, why is it a lock? You know, like top secret or what? You know? But I love that. Just, just people want to be heard, they want to be acknowledged. Right. And when. Not, not just like you said, not just when it's a great idea and it went through because a lot of times they won't go through. Right. And for various reasons, or maybe, maybe, maybe not all of it will go through, but some of it, some of it did go through. But if you never communicate with the person, they, they don't even know that. Right? So I love that. I love that. So you've been writing or blogging for many years? How many years have you been blogging, Bruno?

It feels like a long time, but it's actually since 2016.

Okay.

But I really picked up the tempo because I started blogging because I wanted to improve my writing. I'm obviously not a native speaker. And what I noticed was because I came out from faculty with masters and everything, my writing deformed, that it was quite academic. And I said, people don't react very well to this. You know, it's passive voice. It's like third person, very impersonal. It's just facts. Just facts, no stories, nothing. And I said, I want to change that because people don't react to that. I cannot move hearts if I cannot speak like, like a human being.

Yeah.

And that's the challenge I put forward and was just like writing and writing and writing. And I think I just published 100 posts this year. It's already at 120 now. And yeah, it's kind of. It helped me really clarify my thoughts, hopefully develop the language as well. And also what's sometimes called give me a voice.

Yeah. Well, you know, quick side story about blogging and my personal journey. I remember the day very well. It was an evening and I sat down in my chair in my living room and I took out my laptop and I remember going to Blogspot, whatever it was, to create a free Google blog. And back then I called it, I was like, what should I call it? So I call it Lean Six Sigma academy.blogspot.com It's like the longest URL in the history of URLs. But anyhow, I remember I just started writing, I started a blog and like you said, I just wrote, like I talked and I didn't know any better. I wasn't a classically trained author or anything like that. And next thing you know, I got this little following and then I moved off of Blogspot. And changed the blog to LSS Academy. And one thing led to another and Gemba Academy, you know, really spun out of that. And so, yeah, I really encourage people, if you're passionate about not just Lean, just any topic, start a blog, you know, and, and start sharing your ideas because you'll be amazed at how many people, especially if you're telling stories. Right. And, and I think that's the best way to communicate is through story. Not necessarily. Like you said, oh, academic. I mean, I had a lot of academic stuff like this is a control chart. I mean, how many stories can you tell about a control chart? You know, but, but, but, yeah, mixing that in. So I'm really glad that you, that you fell into it. And I love the way you write, Bruno. You, you, you would never know, obviously, reading your articles, that you weren't a native English speaker. I mean, you write. Right. Very, very well and you speak very well, by the way. But, but one article in particular that I want to kind of hone in on, I believe it was from Planet Lean, and we'll link to it again in the show notes for folks to go back and read. But it was an article about teaching Lean through games. And I'm a big believer in this as well. I love gamifying the learning experience. And so I wondered if you could just talk a little bit about that article and what you talked about and why you are also patented passionate about the whole gamification of the learning process.

I also experienced the games both during, well, while I was a kid growing up playing games myself, but then later also at the university with not just games, but also simulations. And there were, of course, there was a simulation for Lean as well, which was mostly to demonstrate the flow principle, work in progress, how it builds up. And it just piqued my interest and I got curious. Why do games work and extremely simplified games work? Because even though it's a fake context, fake scenario, the emotions are very real. So emotions are genuine, even though the scenario itself is not. And that was important for me because it helped me understand, okay, this is why it works. And I started exploring different games and where I got a little bit surprised, I wouldn't say disappointed, but definitely surprised, is that a lot of those things aren't really games and simulations. So if it's a game, that means that it should be possible to play it without the intent of learning, for example, Lean manufacturing or Lean Startup or something like that. So that was something that Simon and I made a game that's called Playing Lean, and that was What I was also writing about in Planet Lean article like explaining what, why gamification works and how we use the lean process to actually make a game itself that's good at teaching. Yeah. So we started, we started from the need. It was in this case our own need to teach a specific stream of Lean. Lean startup. It's like a small grandkid of the old grandpa.

Yeah.

And we were looking into. There weren't really that many games in the market. So we decided, okay, we like games, why don't we try to make one ourselves? But let's follow the process, let's start from the value, let's start from the customer, and let's start building from there. So it's kind of for those that are familiar with the lean startup movement and the jargon you probably heard like minimum viable product pivoting, abstract words like that. So I'll make it really tangible with this one. So the first version of the game was literally a cardboard cutout. So it was, you know, colored paper with hand illustrations. Because the point was not to make perfectly polished game. The point was to try out game mechanics and if people are actually learning what we're trying to teach them. And then slowly over time, we were adding more and more fidelity, more and more professionalism. And the pivot, the famous pivot that people are mentioning is also very simple concept. So first big launch we had, we failed. It was crickets. No one came, no one bought. Okay, not no one, but so few people bought that it didn't make sense really to continue. But what we realized and what we learned from that failure is that initially we were marketing to wrong customers. We thought that our customers are players. But what we realized in our launch and learned is that our customers were other coaches and experts who want to teach players. When we realized that, then we could add even more value. Because what's not so important to players but is important to experts and consultants is that the game looks really professional, that it's a highly polished product. Remember how many Lean games did you play that have like a clip art? I mean, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you're making something to sell, if you're making a product that's supposed to deliver value, that's sometimes not enough. So we used all that knowledge and iterated over and over and over and over again. And I'm happy to say today that it's a reward winning game. We won several awards, it's number one in several categories. So I'm very happy for that, especially since it's a fun side project.

Yeah. I mean, you didn't ask for this, but I genuinely want people to be able to get their hands on it if they want. If folks want to go buy that game or learn more about it, where do they go?

Playing lean.com wow.

How did you get that URL? That's a pretty good URL. I'm surprised that wasn't taken.

We were also surprised.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My, my business partner, Kevin Meyer, he's got a second job. Sometimes I joke at Gamba Academy. He just goes up and buys up URLs, you know, and keeps them, you know, in case one day he wants to have them. So he, he missed that one. Maybe it wasn't even available when he looked. But anyhow. No, that's great. That's great. Hey, you know, we've talked a lot about innovation and strategy and different things. I want to take a slightly different direction as we, as we things up. I'm curious to hear from your perspective, maybe the state of the union for the lean movement within maybe two parts. Croatia, your. Your. Your original home and Norway where you're at now. I would be curious to hear how, how the lean movement is going in, in those two places.

Okay, so in Croatia, I have to tip the hat to my former professor, Nel Kostefanic. So he is almost solely responsible for bringing the world of lean to Croatia. So he established. I'm not sure what's the correct terminology in English, but the chair at the university, so it's under industrial engineering, so he brought in a lot of experts. While I was a student, he actually brought in Toyota and that's how I got to, as a student, work with Toyota. So he brought in different projects, different speakers from Toyota motor corporations to really introduce and show us what Toyota production system is and what lean is. So he's a really big proponent and he's still active. I'm happy to see that he's still active. So he set up conferences, events, and that is still going strong. So I'm happy for that. How mature is that on a whole national level? I mean, there are always improvements to be made.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's normal. But what's good is that it's alive and kicking and moving forward and there are both young students and new practitioners coming up. I wish and I hope to see in the future more of communities. So not that he has to pull the full weight of the movement, but that there are more communities popping up. And in Norway, in Norway, it's. It's also Going strong. There is several forums that are operating. There was, there was. There is a group of young researchers like Daryl Powell and Torbjorn Netland. They published also a book that was published by Rutledge. Well, you'll need to cut this out. I cannot remember the name of the book.

That's okay. That's okay.

Yeah. But they were the editors of great publication that collected a lot of leading authors in the live movement. So there was Michel Bodin contributing parts. There were other leaders contributing as well. So it's quite a healthy movement in Norway and a lot of events happening here as well. There is another book that was also part of collaboration. It was Michel Ballet, Oyvind Recke, Daryl Powell and few other authors. I think it was something related to Gemba and Senseis. But that was also another collaboration that involved Norwegian authors. So it's quite healthy, I'm happy to say.

Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. That's what I love about this movement, is it really knows no boundaries. Now it's all over the world. You know exactly how it should be. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, hey, Bruno, this has really been fun. You know, I love your energy. I love your passion. You know, I can tell that you. That you really believe in this, you know, and it's. It's fun to. To. To get motivated by. By folks like you. So thank you for, for your energy and your. And your passion for our movement. Maybe let's wrap things up with maybe share some final words of wisdom and then why don't you tell folks how they can best connect with you over social media, your website, whatever it might be.

Yes, and before I jump into that, I just want also to express gratitude. So you already mentioned how you started blogging, and I actually do remember those early days. So I was a student, just a pure student. Couldn't afford the most expensive lean books and everything, but Internet I could. And I remember following your blog, Gemba Pantare from John Miller. I don't remember what was Kevin Myers, Evolving Excellence.

Evolving Excellence is what he called it.

Perfect. So all three of these I was following, including many, many others, and it was really inspirational. I learned a lot because for me, I always felt like I had the benefit and disadvantage of being a little bit outside of the community and being able to see what you guys are experiences, how you're struggling with all this while at the same time combining it with what I'm reading and what I'm seeing my. And what I'm really thankful and grateful for is that that didn't Disappear. So you actually collated those historical materials on Gamba Academy blog. It's a bit difficult to find it, but I encourage everybody to go in the archives and just pick random articles. You'll find great grid.

There's over a thousand articles on our blog now and we're constantly working on the search engine because to your point, it's so hard to find stuff, but the search engine is very powerful. Just go to gembacademy.com and then search box. Just type in any word. And then, then once you get into the search page, you can say, oh, I only want videos or I only want blog articles or something, or only one podcast, something like that. And it. And it helps that way. But yeah, yeah, well, yeah, we, we. Gosh, you know, it wouldn't. Gemba Academy would not be here, I can safely say 100% it would not be here today if John, Kevin and myself, in that order, because John. I think that was the order. John and Kevin were blogging before I was. And then all three of us, you know, had a nice following and then we kind of joined forces and so we weren't really a new entity. People already knew who we were. Right. And I think that was why Gemba Academy was able to succeed, you know, in those early days, is because we weren't, you know, this brand new group of people.

So.

Yeah. Well, thank you for that, Bruno. How can folks connect with you?

So the easiest way is just to come on the website. It is my surname, I'll spell it out. P, E, S, E, C. No, you'll find everything there perfectly fine to connect on LinkedIn. Just drop me a message. I love discussing practical stuff. I love discussing both methodology and results. So it's kind of everything goes. And I'm sure that whoever is listening to this podcast is a good company to be in.

Yeah, and I. And I stole your thunder. As far as your final words of wisdom. Did you have something that you want to close with?

Well, let's keep it simple. Let's keep it simple. We already touched upon it a little bit with the creativity and gatekeeping. So I just want to give a reminder to all the experts and consultants and coaches, Sensei's, however you want to call yourself, just always keep asking yourself, am I gatekeeping or am I helping my clients and my people get really better every day everywhere, and to those that are practitioners that are trying to implement that in your companies, making better results. Just remember, it's kind of think and act on that, think and act on that. It's good to have bias for action, but what you always want to reflect and think about. Okay. Did things turn out as I hope them to? If they didn't, what can I do different? That's it. It's not rocket science. That's it. Keep doing that every day and you will be in a better place.

Think and act.

Right? Exactly.

Think and act. I love it. Let's make T shirts. Think and act. Very good. Very good. All right, well, thank you again, Bruno. Maybe we'll have you back on and we'll talk about a different topic or something. I love your energy and you made me. I know it's afternoon for you, morning for me, but you made my day start off great. So thank you for that.

Thank you for having me. It was absolutely spectacular experience.

All right, you take care, Bruno.

Bye. Bye.

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