GA 384 | Parenting the Lean Way with Jared Thatcher

I have done some workshops with parents and with teenagers. The teenagers come in kicking and screaming and the parents are like, yeah, fix the kids. And what's interesting is it switches. By the time they leave, the parents realize they've got a lot of work to do themselves. And that the way that the kids, especially the teenagers are acting is actually dependent upon their behavior. And so they have to do some changing themselves as parents.

Today I'm excited to welcome Jared Thatcher to the show. Now, Jared and I had an interesting conversation talking about how lean and parenting can work together. In fact, Jared wrote a book on this topic. And so that's what we spend the majority of this episode talking about is how different things like KPIs in the home and how you can get your. How we can so called lower the water. Right. You know, we always talk about lowering the water and seeing the rocks and seeing the defects and how can we do that as parents to better help form our kids and turn them into critical thinkers and problem solvers and all that kind of good stuff. So really, really interesting episode. I think you're going to like it. Show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 380. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 384. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Jared, welcome to the show. How's it going?

It's going great. Really pleased to be here.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm excited for this topic and, you know, talking about lean and parenting and all kind of good stuff. So I'm sure we got a lot of different folks out there who are parents themselves or interact with young people and families and whatnot. So I think it's going to be a fun one. But as you know, Jared, we do like to kind of get things started with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one?

I do, in fact. Yeah. Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said something that I think really resonates for me as a lean practitioner as well as. As a parent. And he said that that which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased.

What's that mean to you?

Well, I think, you know, there's no playbook that comes with parenting. There's, there's, there are playbooks, I guess, that come with, with lean. But even when we first start out, you know, it's, it's trial and error and really that that's what this whole thing is about. And as we practice, as we persist in doing, you know, continuous improvement, as we persist in being a parent, it gets easier. You know, it never gets perfect because we're always going to be, you know, throwing curve balls. But that, that ability to be agile and flexible and change and to continuously improve, it becomes easier to do and it becomes less stressful. And so as I've trained people at work, as I've worked with parents and kids, it's something that it becomes easier as you do it and sometimes it's hard. There's that change curve. It really does exist.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, hey, Jared, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first got involved and all this continuous improvement stuff and then tell us what you're up to these days.

Wow.

Yeah. I guess the short version is I started off by working in my dad's steel fabricating business when I was 12 and I would go there after school and sweep up the floors.

And from the iron workers I ended.

Up learning all of the swear words I didn't even know were swear words until I started working there.

So, you know, working in the shop.

You know, cleaning up after these guys, I always thought there's got to be a better way to do the production. It was a very, you know, job shop oriented, you know, business. They did a lot of, you know, structural steel for bridges and sewage treatment plants and dams and, you know, high rises and things like that.

And so it was, you know, every job was different.

There wasn't necessarily a standard way of doing things. And so it was just something that I always thought there's got to be a better way to do this.

And so I ended up being in.

Construction for almost 20 years, decided to go get my MBA and get into the world of corporate business. And so I went to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and studied there.

Even did a one term abroad. Not like I wasn't already abroad, but we went to a out of business school. Anyway, when I got back from getting my mba, I took a job at Daimler Trucks North America. And so I worked in corporate and I was part of the continuous cost improvement group. And really I started off by working with our Mexico sourcing program. So we had a new plant that we had opened up in Saltillo, Mexico. And it was, it was really working with our suppliers, making sure that we, we went ahead and were coordinating with them, looking for opportunities for part reductions in terms of maybe redesign, keeping the same fit form and function, but maybe redesigning it for cost improvement, looking for logistic cost savings. So a little bit of Lean principles kind of went into the work that we did there, but it wasn't until probably about two years after being there, McKinsey Consulting was brought in to bring Lean into the office side of Daimler. And so this was a global initiative, and they ended up picking a bunch of us to go ahead and be part of that program. And so I ended up coming in and working with McKinsey, and we would roll it out in these waves, and we would go into a department, and for four months, we would work with them, we would teach them, we would train them, we would help work on one of their major processes in each one of the groups in the department, and then we would help them sustain the effort afterwards. And then, of course, we'd go on to the next program. So that's really where I got my first real taste of doing and using Lean at work. And what was cool is, as I was doing that, I'd come home and just really excited because it's like, wow, this is all that stuff that I had from the time I was a kid. I recognized that there's got to be a better way of doing it, and this is that better way, and I'm loving it. So I'm talking about how team morale was improving, how we were able to accomplish some huge process improvements and save a ton of time and all of these really neat things. A couple years after that, I ended up leaving and starting to work for a management consulting company that had been trying to recruit me for a number of years. So I worked for some cool companies like Nike, Mercy, Core, Kindercare, Portland General Electric, Standard Insurance, a couple others. So that was a good experience. But I missed being part of an organization, so I ended up looking for work, and I ended up, while I was looking for work, ended up writing my book, which is Parenting the Lean Way. And then I took a job at Alaska Airlines. And so I was brought in as one of their Lean consultants, I guess, internal consultants, and worked with the operations side of the business. And so I started looking elsewhere, and I ended up coming over to the Port of Seattle. And so now I basically work about two blocks down the road at the airport most of the time, at least before the pandemic anyway. That's, I guess, kind of the long, brief history of my career.

Good. Got it. Got it. Well, let's. I want to dig in on this whole parenting and your book and all that. So, like, why did you. What made you want to write a book on parenting? Just to begin with.

So it really goes back to that question that my wife asked. Why can't you take the things you're doing at work and use that to help at home? And in my mind as a guy.

Like, oh, you want me to create.

A parenting course using these tools? I think that can be done, really, what she was saying, and I had to read between the lines. It took me a little bit to figure that out. She's like, hey, can you help out a little bit more at the house?

And so, yeah, I can do that, too. Just a word of caution to anybody thinking about writing a parenting book. Don't your kids and your spouse will definitely use that against you. So, yeah, no, that's been the one downside of the whole thing.

Right. Hold you to a high standard, right?

My heavens, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, talk a little bit about, like, what, what. I mean, I know from talking to you before that you guys are. Are using some. Some principles. Obviously, we all, everybody listening is very familiar with principles and manufacturing and, you know, even in the office now and hospitals and whatnot. But. But talk a little bit about how you guys are leveraging some. Some lean thinking principles at home.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot. And actually, really the entire book and everything that came about as I was writing it came about because my wife would ask a question, which is a great place to start. Right. And it was like, hey, how can we go ahead and get the kids to actually do their chores? Hey, how can I improve the morning routine? Because I'm really stressed about it. Hey, how can I get the kids to clean the bathroom? Or to do this or to do that? And so with each one of those, it was. It was usually a challenge, too. So what lean tool is going to help me with this one? You know, I was like, okay, well, let me think about it. Okay, well, here's something. And what was amazing was all along the way, there was. There were things that.

That popped out.

So I'll give you an example. And I think you can appreciate this story, and I think this is one that you're like, don't forget to share this one. But you're familiar with lowering the water level.

Yep. So you can see there all the rocks.

Yeah, you can see the rocks below. So, you know, usually if you think about it, you know, there's a ship passing, passing along, and it goes fine across the water as long as there's plenty of water. Well, if, as, you know, the lake or the, you know, the water table starts to go down, they have to kind of move around because there's rocks, and so they don't want to run aground, so they'll move, and they'll have to adjust their course because of all these rocks that get revealed. And so the water actually represents any number of things. It could be time. So if you have plenty of time on a project, you don't recognize some of the issues that could come up, because, hey, if those issues come up, it's no big deal, because we've got a lot of time baked into this project. It could be money. Hey, before the pandemic, we had tons of money. All of a sudden, we have to watch our budget, and so, ooh, crap. I didn't realize that we had all of these different things out there that were potentially problems. It could be space. So if you have a huge inventory, huge warehouse, that could actually be a blessing as well as a curse, because, hey, we've got plenty of space to put things. Not realizing that now we're forcing people to go much further distances to get things, and we don't see just how much inventory we have because it's so big. So as we're forced to go ahead and shrink our constraints, whether it's people, time, money, resources, whatever it is, as we shrink, shrink that, it starts to reveal those rocks, those. Those things below the surface. And so the question that my wife had asked was, how do I get the kids to go ahead and set the table? Because I will ask them, and they will say, yes, mom, and then they won't do it. And then I yell at them, hey, you know, you need to get out here and do this. And they will say, yes, mom, and they won't do it. And then finally, we sit down at the table, and I have to set the table, and then we eat. And I'm really frustrated with how that interchange went. I was like, totally get it. And, you know, just. Just to be perfectly frank, I did say yell. I don't want my wife to, you know, be portrayed in a bad, you know, way. She is just absolutely a phenomenal person. I love her. We've been together for 22 years now, and this. This has been a, you know, kind of a fun thing for, I think, both of us as we go through this. But she does get frustrated, and I get frustrated, and I think all parents get frustrated, as do the kids.

Sure.

And so in this particular case, I said, well, you know, you're the water level. You are filling in for them when they don't do it, so they don't see the Issue. The issue being that they're not, you know, because they're not setting the table, there's a problem. They don't see that because they know if they just ignore you or they don't do it, then you're going to do it for them. And so we've got to. We've got to change that. So we've got to show them the rocks. And so this is what we did. We went ahead and we cleaned the table really good. You'll see why in a second. And so she asked them very politely, hey, boys, in 15 minutes, we're going to eat. Can you please set the table? Oh, yeah, mom, you bet. We'll do it. Great. And about five minutes before we're ready to eat. Boys, I really need the table to be set now. Can you please do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it, Mom. Don't worry about it. Okay. Hey, boys, it is time to eat. Let's sit down at the table. All right, great. Yeah, yeah. So they come and sit down. This is normally the routine where then mom will bring out the, you know, the utensils, the plate, you know, that sort of thing. Now, I knew what was coming, so I actually set my own plate. And before they knew what was happening, my wife comes and slaps over their shoulder onto the table, a big, huge thing of spaghetti. Boom, boom, you know, and they're like. I mean, their eyes get big. They don't even know what to say. They're just like, what? And then before they can really respond, you know, here comes the, you know, the next spoonful of, like, you know, the noodles or the sauce and the. Yeah. And the meatballs and stuff. And it's like, at this point, they're losing it. They're like, mom, what are you doing? What are you doing? It was like, hey, I asked you to set the table. Clearly you didn't think that plates were important, so I figured you didn't want them. And like, no. What are you talking about? This is crazy. At which point she goes ahead and says, who would like milk with this? No, no, no, we're good. We're good, we're good. And so they. They proceeded to eat the spaghetti and had a little bit of fun with it once. Once they realized that this was an object lesson.

Right.

But the cool thing about that was it revealed to them that they were asked to do something. It's not that difficult. They know how to do it. And by them not doing it, there was a consequence.

Yeah.

And so they saw that. They saw those rocks and they saw where they were falling short. And so guess what? Mom has never had to go ahead and ask them more than twice to go ahead and set the table because they're afraid mom might actually do that again. And they don't want to have that happen. So, yes, that was one thing that worked.

Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. So I also know you guys are into some KPIs, key performance indicators and whatnot. So obviously at work we all have got our KPIs, and we're monitoring them and, you know, making adjustments accordingly. But what about, what at a, what about a home? Are there such a thing as a KPI at home? What do you think?

Absolutely. Yeah. So KPIs are, you know, a great, great way. And of course, you know, we all know, we all know the quote that.

You know, if you don't measure it.

You can't, you can't, you don't improve it. So you have to know what the baseline is. You have to know what you're doing.

And so one of the activities that we did is we went ahead and identified as a family our current state and the future state and the way that we did that. And just before I get to kbl, I'll explain that kids, you have to work with them where they're at. And so we did this activity. I've done this activity actually at work as well. But basically we have a bunch of pictures. You ask them, hey, pick three pictures that best describe your current state, and then pick three pictures that best describe the ideal future state of what you would like it to be. And then explain to the group, to the team, why that is. And so what we did, since I didn't have the cool cards that we have at work, I went ahead, I bought a bunch of magazines. I had them cut out a bunch of pictures that they thought were really cool from family magazines, from the National Geographic, from just a bunch of cool architecture magazines, things like that. Went down to the bookstore and picked them up for 5, 10 cents each. We did that as an activity one night, and we were just talking about the pictures. Then I had them select the pictures. And so we got some really interesting things. And the cool thing was our two and a half year old at the time, she explained just as good with using the picture, what the future state was, what the current state was, as I've heard some adults do. So it was really cool to be able to have those conversations with the family. And one of the things that we realized is that As a family, we were yelling too much. So the boys would get in a fight, they would yell at each other, mom would yell at them, I would yell at everybody for yelling. That's typical cycle of a family.

Right.

So we decided, well, let's do something about that. And it's, how do we do something about that? Well, let's go ahead and create a KPI around yelling. So what we did is very simple. You know, the columns were every day of the week with the final one being a total and the rows were each one of our names. So what happened would be if somebody started to yell, you would go put a tick mark on the day of the week. And for the person. Well, let me tell you, Ron, it is very, very difficult to yell at your child when the moment you start, they run away to the, you know, the family board to go ahead and put a tick mark on there that you are yelling at them.

Yeah.

Or if the brother starts to yell at, you know, the brother, the other brother runs away and puts a, you know, tick mark. And so that was like instant, like realization of, oh, I just raised my voice, you know, I got frustrated and, you know, let that come out as in terms of, you know, loud voice. So it took about two weeks for the, for the family to understand what a baseline is. Of course, I realized what it was right away and so my numbers look, look really good. But I'm glad that they did not figure out, hey, wait, Dad's not at home as much as we are. So if they had probably like averaged that out, I might have actually been yelling more. You know, they did not figure that one out. Please, nobody told them. Yeah, but what ended up happening was after several weeks, they started kind of watching what they were doing because they didn't want to be the one with the most number of yells that week. At one point I was on the final day here it was coming up on Saturday, hadn't yelled all week, and my boys start pushing every button that is imaginable. They knew what they all were. In fact, when my daughter was a little older, I actually came on a conversation kind of around the corner and I stopped. They were explaining to my daughter every button that my mother, that their mother, my wife has in terms of, hey, if you do this, this will bugger, and if you do this and say it this way, then that'll bug her. And so they know, they know they were explaining it to the two year old, you know, and so they start just, you know, cajoling me and trying to get me to, you know, get upset. And finally, I just lose. I'm like, guys, knock it off. They're like, ha, ha, ha. We got you.

Yeah, set you up. That's dirty.

It was.

Yeah. They didn't want me to be the first one. It took us probably about two and a half, three months. And by that point, we got to the point where maybe we would get frustrated and yell once during the course of the week instead of multiple times a day. It was a huge improvement. And at a certain point, we said, okay, this is looking pretty good. Let's continue this. And we stopped tracking it for a while. I would say probably about a year later, we ended up deciding that we needed to bring that back because we'd noticed it was starting to creep back into our habits. We brought it in. Honestly, it was about two and a half weeks, and we're right back to where we were. Because we were tracking it, we realized that we were doing it, and we started being more mindful of what we're doing. And so you can do that with all sorts of things. You can do that with weight, you can do that with exercise. You can do that with. Are we cleaning our room on a consistent basis, cleaning the restrooms, whatever. It happens to be something that you want to do, homework. It could even be that we're showing gratitude to each other. How many times did you reach out and do something nice for somebody? There's a million little things that you could do, and you start tracking as a family to improve on those items.

There's actually an aspect of visual management in there when you're tracking things and checking things off. But are there other visual management examples that you guys are also using at home?

Yeah.

So one of the groups I worked with at Daimler was the IT department. And as I was working with it, I was kind of like, thinking, there's got to be a better way to help them as well. And I ended up discovering there's something called agile, very similar to Lean. And so I actually incorporated. Became a certified Scrum master. And I actually have incorporated some of those things into our parenting as well. So, for example, I do something called the Mini Sprint. And what this is kind of like your, you know, Saturday, it's time to do chores. And typically, what would happen is my wife would have, you know, the list of honeydews. Here's all the. Here's all the lists. Here's all the things that we need to get done. And she would say something, oh, it's only going to take us an hour. And of course, you know, four or five hours later, we're still working on all these list of things to do. And so I introduced a couple of concepts. One was time boxing. If we say it's going to take a half an hour, or if it's going to take an hour, then it takes an hour, and that's it. And then we stop. And she's like, well, but what if we're not done? Well, if we're not done, they're going to see that we're not done. They're also going to, you know, start to realize that when mom says an hour, she means an hour. So I don't. I can't delay it because, you know, we've got to get all this work done. And so what actually happens is they start figuring out ways to do it faster because they know they have a limited amount of time. And so was that the Parkinson's law that says, you know, as your time increases or you do increases, you know, the operation is going to, you know, end up fitting it. So we time box the activity, and then we use a simple Kanban board. Here's all the to do items. Here's, you know, the doing. And we talk about, you know, keeping that whip and the work in progress very, very small. So you're working basically on one thing at a time. And then the done item. And so we would actually do different things where maybe we would assign points. Hey, you know, here. Here's all the things, you know, in the person that gets the most points gets this prize at the end. Or, you know, we would do kind of fun things like that. Or maybe we wanted to work in cooperation between our kids. So, hey, for every project you guys do together, you know, without fighting and arguing, then you get like X number of prizes or points. And as soon as we get to a certain thing, we'll go have a pizza party or we'll go do something fun. And so we could use that and make that happen. And so some of the tasks would be. We'd use sticky notes and we would go ahead and, you know, write out the task. Our daughter at the time was, you know, too young to read, so we would draw pictures. And so that was kind of fun. Like, okay, how do I draw a picture to show her putting the books back on the bookcase, you know, so I'd draw a picture of the bookcase with, you know, empty books and then like one on the. On the ground and picture of a book open and say, you need to take all of these and put them in there. And then once we explained what the picture was, she understood and she got really excited because now she could do tasks too. She can do what her older brothers were doing. And so that really worked well. And then we ended up adding another element to that, which is user stories. And we don't do this all the time, but occasionally to really help the kids know why we're picking up. It gives them the ability to really manage their own time, manage the projects and what they're doing, and us not having to tell them how to do everything. So a good example would be my father had a stroke about a decade or so ago and he has a difficult time walking. And so the user story was. And the typical format of a user story is, as a customer, I want so that I can have something. So basically it works like this. So as your grandfather, I want to come and have a safe time at the home and be able to move around without tripping so that I can enjoy my time with.

With the kids.

And so we formed it that way. And so now they know what they need to do. If we say, clean up a room, the first thing they're going to do is make sure that everything is picked up off the floor and stuff like that so grandpa won't trip as he's walking across the floor. And so that was kind of like a key element. Right. And so by giving them, and giving them the insights into helping, making it visual for them, helping them see what needs to get done, they're able to do that without us having to say, well, hey, you didn't pick this up. You didn't pick this up and you didn't pick up this with them not knowing why it's important they pick those things up. So giving them that, that like, insight as to why we're doing something, hey, we're having friends come over for dinner or we're doing this or that. Now they know what needs to get done so they can go ahead and make things better.

Yeah, it's kind of like the old saying, you know, are we winning or are we losing? Right. You know, if you walk around a factory and if you, if you can't tell if you're winning or losing, probably means your visual management's not up to, up to par there. So. No, this has been, this has been really cool. J. Jared. I mean, I'm wondering maybe we could wrap, wrap it up a little bit with. I'm just, you know, again, we got a lot of parents listening right now. Got a lot of elite lean thinkers and Maybe some of us have all implemented aspects of it here or there, but for those of us that want to do a little bit more, like, are there any practical tips that you have, like, for. For kind of making a start with it in? Change management's a big part of any movement, right? Like, how do you go about that with your. With your own family?

Yeah, that's a great point. So the biggest thing is we have to get buy in, right? We have to get the kids involved. And that requires work on our part more than just typically saying, hey, you need to do this. You have to let them know why. So that's kind of why the user story came into play. Also, making things as visual as possible, right? So one of the cool things, we went ahead and did a process map of the way that we did laundry, and we realized that, wow, look at all this waste that we have, you know, and so by them actually seeing the process and kind of like creating the, you know, the diagram of how we actually do laundry, we realized that we probably had somewhere between like, you know, 12 to about 20 steps, depending on, you know, which path they took in doing laundry. And we realized, hey, this doesn't work. And so we were able to, you know, make it visual and say, hey, if you do it this way, look at how much easier it is. And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, makes sense. So again, making a visual. A great example of that was, you know, coming to the boys restroom or to, you know, their bathroom. And I'd say, no, this isn't clean. Like, yeah, it is. Look, it's clean. You know, you can't see anything. And it's like, yeah, but it's not passing the smell test. You know, I can tell you guys didn't use the cleaner. You didn't. You didn't really clean the toilet. And so after arguing with them for a little bit about it, I went out, I bought a black light, came back, you know, brought them in, turned off the light, and it revealed all of the stains and the other things that it's like, you really did not clean this. Do you see this? And they're like, whoa, that's so cool. Now they actually looked forward to going ahead and cleaning the toilet because, you know, they could come in, hey, dad, dad, you gotta check this out. Look, there's nothing, you know, yeah, good job. So making things visual, making it fun, making it engaging, you know, just part of parenting, especially kids, they're sponges, right? They will pick up things so quickly, but they'll also lose interest so quickly. So we have to be willing to adjust what we were planning on doing to meet their needs. So one point, my son was really interested and he noticed, hey, there's the stars, there's the moon. So I went out and I bought some books. We started identifying different constellations. We got a telescope, and he got really excited about that. And that lasted for a few months, and then he kind of lost interest.

And I was like, okay.

And then later he ended up, you know, playing with an ant or, you know, some bug. And I said, hey, would you like to, you know how we could look out and we could see the moons around Saturn and Jupiter? Why don't we go ahead and get a microscope and then we can actually look and see what an ant really looks like? Oh, yeah, it'd be cool. And so we're able to, like, expand their mind. We're able to introduce different things to them, you know, and we have to be ready and willing to do that. And so having a family board is huge, you know, so you can actually, you know, do the soccer mom thing and figure out, hey, how do we, you know, do the transportation? Especially as they start to, you know, before they start driving. There's a lot of activities. There's a lot of things, you know, school, carpool, friends, house. And so having that and not finding out about it the day of, and then again, holding them accountable. If you tell me the day of and we've already got a plan worked out, it's going to be up to you to find an alternate transportation. It's not going to be for me to go ahead and go out of my way to do that for you. Yeah. And so trying to teach them some responsibility because ultimately we're trying to move our children from, you know, relying on us for everything to being fully functional adults. And so that's what we want. And my youngest son, he just graduated high school, worst senior year ever. And yet he's actually employed a lot of these. These tools with, you know, having a Kanban board and moving things across as he did his homework, you know, so that he could visualize what he had left to do. As he was studying for a test, he actually used this because I showed him what I was doing virtually. And he went ahead and implemented that with a company that he was working with and kind of helping out with some social media stuff. And they were so impressed. They're like, wow, we haven't been able to pay anything, but would you be interested in having some shares in the company? Simply because he was introducing some of these lean concepts to them, and they'd never even seen this. And so it helped their organization, their business. And so they were so impressed that they offered him that. That's awesome. So, yeah, he's doing great. He's actually saved up more than enough money to pay for his first year of school and extra expenses. And in fact, the other day he came home, he's been doing sitting flyers out in the neighborhood and just, hey, mow the lawn, do whatever you need. I'll go ahead and do that. And he came home the other day, he's like, yeah, dad, I worked 10 hours a day, made 750 bucks, making more than I am. That's pretty good. And I think our job as parents is really to set them up for success. And if we can teach them how to problem solve and figure things out for themselves versus relying on us, versus us being the helicopter parent, where we figure everything out for them is they are going to be much further ahead than their peers. They're going to be much further ahead than anything else. So when they actually get into the workforce, when they actually go out there and start being adult, they are going to be in a much better spot than without it. And so I think as we translate these things that we do at work, translate it and teach it to our children, it's really going to benefit them a lot.

Love it.

Hey, tell us about the Virtual Lean Summit. What's that all about?

Yeah, not sure if this will be coming up before that, but you'll still be able to access it afterwards as well. But Virtual Lean Summit is something that I started last year just as a start off as the Bounce Back Summit. It was just kind of a way to help businesses to bounce back using lean tools and principles at work. And so if you think about it.

Before COVID no problem touching the doorknob.

Going into a business establishment after Covid, as we're coming out of lockdowns, you're going to die if you touch that doorknob. So how do you go ahead and quickly adjust your practices to meet the needs of the suppliers or the customers? And that was kind of, I guess.

The impetus for going ahead and starting this whole thing to begin with was how do we help businesses? How do we help people? What ended up happening was we had probably about 80% of people were actually lean practitioners, and maybe 20% were actually small business owners, entrepreneurs, managers, that sort of thing. It was so successful last year. We had some really great people, from Paul Akers to Karen Ross and Katie Anderson. Dan Markovitz, a whole bunch of people that came out for that doing it again this year. This year we're going to have a little over 60 people over six days talking about all sorts of things and it's going to be about visual problem solving. And that's actually kicking off this coming Monday. Yeah, that's awesome. July 19th through the 24th. And so it's going to be really cool. We're going to be introducing not just Lean tools and methods, but anything that will help us to visually problem solve. So design, thinking, storytelling, agile, twi. I mean, there's going to be a lot of different methodologies that we introduce. And all of this is just in a effort to try to help people that are problem solvers by nature or by profession to realize that there's other things out there that might be able to help you and help your teams to be able to visualize and solve problems.

Yeah. So this episode will come out way after that. So there will be recordings and stuff like that that folks can latch onto.

Yeah, yeah. So it's free during the week of, but afterwards there will be a small fee for it, but you can find it out all that information on www.virtualleansummit.com.

Got it, got it. Awesome. Well, Jared, what's the best way for folks to connect with you on LinkedIn or something like that?

Yeah, absolutely.

So LinkedIn.

And so I think it's like LinkedIn.com in Jaredbacher. That's J A R E D T H A T C H E R. Okay.

Yeah. And we'll link to it in the show notes. This is episode. What is this? This is episode 384. So gembapodcast.com look for episode 384. But yeah, it's been fun, Jared. Keep up the great work. And, and it's always fun to see how Lean knows no boundaries, you know.

Absolutely. On this final thing, I have done some workshops with parents and with teenagers. The teenagers come in kicking and screaming and the parents are like, yeah, fix the kids. And what's interesting is it switches. By the time they leave, the parents realize they've got a lot of of work to do themselves and that a lot of the way that the kids, especially the teenagers are acting is actually dependent upon their behavior. And so they have to do some change in themselves as parents. The kids, on the other hand, learning these tools and these methods, man, they've never heard anything like this. And so they, they grasp onto it. They're coming out saying, mom, dad, we got to do this, we got to use this. This is going to help. This is awesome. And so it's, it's fun, it's exciting when you go ahead and share, you know, these simple problem solutions tools that we use and the kids really do get it and they use it and it's awesome. Great.

All right. Well, thanks again, Jared. Keep up the great work.

Thank you, Ron.

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