GA 396 | The Barriers to Developing a Lean Culture with Sara Ann Todd

Helping them understand my journey. And you know, that where that I am today is not. This is not how I started. You know, it's a lot of hard work and dedication that I've put into this role and that if they're interested in growing in that way, that they can absolutely do it, because anyone can.

Today I'm excited to welcome Sarah and Todd to the show. Now, Sarah has a military and also healthcare background, and today we really kind of honed in on the top of organizational culture as it relates to lean to continuous improvement. And so much of the podcast is really just about how we might go about helping people build this culture. And Sarah's got a lot of experience training and coaching people. And so she talks about it from her perspective as a trainer of people and how she goes about that. We really got into some interesting stuff later on in the podcast where I was just genuinely curious about how she felt about different things, like best way to respect people and how she goes about coaching people one on one. And one thing that popped in my mind just randomly throughout the podcast was, you know, there's some times when people doubt themselves and they don't believe in themselves. And so when she sees folks like that coming through her training programs, I was curious to hear how she went about that. And so Sarah, as you'll hear, is a very well spoken, very knowledgeable person, and I really enjoyed talking to her. And I think I'm going to like this show. She's mentioned that she's listened to the show for a long time time and was happy to be on. So that's also really cool. So if you've been listening to the show for a long time, reach out. I want to have you on as well because those are my. Some of the best episodes are just people who are. Who are doing the work. They're in the trenches, they're listening to the show, they're practicing, they're learning, and they're trying to make the world a better place. That's what we're all about. Okay, well, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 396 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 396. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Sarah, welcome to the show. How are you?

I am doing very well, thank you very much. I'm excited to be here. It's a pleasure to speak with you. So thanks for having me as a guest.

Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure. All right, well, Sarah I know you've listened to the show in the past, and we do like to kind of get going with our guests sharing a quote. So do you have one?

I do, I do. My quote is by Dante, and it's from, a little spark may burst a flame. And, you know, it kind of reminds me to start small and to never give up. Tuesdays is my pay it forward day. Not that I limit my acts of kindness to one day, but I'm more intentional kind of about those acts of kindness on Tuesday. And I believe that one act of kindness can lead to many acts of kindness. You know, just like one small idea can lead to an innovative solution, or one step in the right direction can lead to an amazing outcome. Also kind of reminds me, I guess, of a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. Which is, faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see where the staircase is or the whole staircase. And for we walk by faith, not by sight. Corinthians 5, 7. So, you know, there are so many factors outside of our control and understanding, and if we don't take that first step, we'll never reach that destination.

Oh, I love it. I love it. You know, as a little inside joke, some people will say, hey, when they're talking about 5s, you know, they'll say, hey, which one is the hardest S? And I say, start.

Yes, yes. The struggle is real.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, especially when you're, you know, you're trying to be right, you know, and you, you approach it with, you don't want to fail, you don't want to, you know, have things not turn out well. You know, you have to go into it with that, like you said, sort of that blind faith. And. But if you go into it with the mind of an experimenter and that we're learning, then there is really no failure. Right. It's like, hey, we're just learning and as we go. So. Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful. All right, well, hey, Sarah, tell us a little bit about your background and how you first got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff and then, you know, kind of what you're up to these days.

Yeah. So I've been practicing lean to some degree for about 13 years. I guess my first experience with continuous process improvement was back when I was in the army. And that mainly consisted of kind of developing a standard work, visual management, daily management, 5s, some of the simpler things like that. And after changing careers, my lean practice kind of developed more into department and facility level process improvement projects and kind of growing that lean Daily management and visual management. That was after I became yellow belt and Green belt certified. But for the last year and a half, I'm fairly new to kind of the official professional role as a Lean practitioner. So I teach and I certify yellow and green belts within my organization. My background though is in healthcare. I mentioned when I was in the Army I started on the clinical side. However, when I got out of the army, I went back to school and I obtained my Master's in Healthcare Administration. I was hoping to transition to that administrative side, hoping to have more of a positive impact on change and system improvement. Right now I'm currently finishing up my Doctor of Healthcare Administration and looking to continue my journey further after that, hopefully more into the lean and continuous improvement world. After that I've experienced kind of practicing, facilitating and teaching Lean along with mentoring and coaching Lean students and practitioners. Just recently I've completed my black belt training and I'm working on that certification project now which is centered on developing Lean culture, focused on continuous improvement within my organization.

Nice. Very good, very good. All right, well, you've mentioned culture a few times in there, so I wonder if we could just maybe sort of open things up. I'd like to have really just a conversation about your ideas on how folks might go about developing this so called Lean culture.

Yeah, I wish it was easier said than done, but we all know that culture change is very difficult. So I do that one student at a time. You know, some organizations, they really support continuous process improvement and some don't. And so knowing that that culture change is going to be difficult, I explained to my students that and I try to help them understand that Lean is not a tool or a project that we're going to do once or twice a year. I think that's a lot of times where Lean culture can fail. They think it's something that you pick up as you're transitioning to something else or to make a brief improvement versus how you're going to go about doing things. And so I want them to see Lean as a process improvement methodology, leadership style and management system. And for them to understand that Lean is a way of thinking and it's not something that they should do in addition to their work, but it needs to be how they work. And I also try to warn them, you know, that, you know, if that said that that's not something that they can learn overnight or, you know, in a week long course. And so like many things, the application of Lean and the degree of failure kind of come down to practice and Practice is really, really important. And I tell them, you know, that basketball stars, you know, they're not born overnight, they don't develop or they're not born and they don't develop overnight. And so that they shouldn't assume that they as students or any other lean practitioner in the organization is a lean star overnight. Especially after a week long course. Lean really takes practice. Basketball player, they don't become a star if they don't practice. And if they're practicing an hour once a month, that's not going to do it. They need to practice on a regular basis and with intention. That's what I really tried to get them to do is setting aside short bursts of time throughout their day each day that can then set the foundation for them to apply that lean thinking throughout their day and become more familiar with that and have it be more of a natural path that they take.

Yeah. And what's interesting about in your situation where you're training, you know, individual folks and you're trying to instill these, these good behaviors and these good ideas person to person, one at a time. Obviously, for an organization to have an organization wide culture, everything from your leadership through throughout the organization sort of needs to be on, on board. And so a lot of people don't have that, right? They don't have, they don't always have leadership. It doesn't mean that the leaders are bad. They just might not be familiar with it and they just, they don't even know what they don't know. Right. And so, you know, where sometimes I've even heard the analogy that where I felt like I'm pushing on a rope, right? Like no one's pulling the rope, I'm pushing on it. And that can be frustrating as a practitioner. But I suppose my thoughts, and I'd like to get yours are really all we can do as individual people is our very best, right. Control what we can control and then hopefully then we can share these ideas and this way of thinking with others. And then we start multiplying it across the organization, this multiplier effect. And then when there's enough people on board, that's when the culture almost can't be stopped. Unless you have just really rotten leadership who for whatever reason like puts a stop to it. But I'd be curious to get your thoughts on that. You know, as far as, you know, those folks who might not feel like they always have that top level support.

Oh yeah, that can be very difficult. And truly, you know, a lean culture is dependent on that leadership support and that Change in participation from every employee within the organization. So, you know, the larger that organization is, the more difficult that culture change becomes, Especially if that organization has been, you know, performing in a certain way for a very long time. And you're then trying to introduce Lean versus a newer company that's trying that from the beginning. But kind of like you're saying, the goal is really to educate and empower every employee to be those problem solvers and to try to be that change agent, to spark that energy throughout the organization, to hopefully catch like, wildfire in a good way and make that change. In my experience, developing that lean culture is really slow and can be a painful process. But again, again, like you said, if we focus on kind of developing one student, one employee at a time, that hopefully they will lead to that growth at the individual and that organizational level.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So we touched on it a little bit. But I'm curious to get maybe some. Some of your thoughts on some of the barriers that you've experienced or maybe you've seen in other organizations that have trying to develop this culture. Like, what's stopping people?

Yeah, I think there's lots of different barriers. They can be specific to the organization, but I think there's a lot of general barriers that people face. We touched a little bit on leadership. I think a lot of practitioners probably struggle with that as well as culture. One that I see a lot is that people are afraid to fail. So that fear of failure, or they're afraid to be vulnerable. But if we look at that, I think that failure is our path to success, and great things are achieved through failure. Without that vulnerability, people are reluctant to say, I don't know, or they're reluctant to learn. And so that's really going to stop that progression of lean within an organization, because it's all about learning through failure and discovery, experimenting, all of those things. And so that fear of failure, as well as not wanting to be vulnerable can be major barriers.

Now, when we think about lean from an individual at a practitioner level perspective, which obviously you've got a lot of personal experience yourself, can you think of some sort of setback that you've experienced as an actual practitioner?

As a practitioner, I'd say one of my biggest setbacks is that team engagement and that team participation. There's a lot of people that seem to be in constant firefighting mode. And to get them to pause and to ask them to be reflective and to evaluate the current state, that's like asking them something that they can't even comprehend because they literally don't know what they're going to be doing, you know, their next step. It's just constant firefighting. And so as a practitioner, that's probably been my biggest hurdle is getting the team engagement, the involvement, not necessarily the buy in or the awareness. People know that that change needs to happen. It's just getting them to kind of, I guess prioritize what's going on in their daily operations to make the time for those things that seeing kind of that long range growth, the potential that we may have versus that short term situation that they may be dealing with. You know, I kind of remind my students as they are going through their projects that that's probably going to be one of the things that the barriers that they'll face and to really kind of utilize either that process owner, that champion, or myself as kind of their mentor to work through that. And I think sometimes too as a practitioner, you know, we go back to trying to get our team to understand the entire process of lean thinking. A lot of people automatically want to, you know, jump to those solutions where there's a lot of foundational work that we have to do ahead of time. So once we actually then get them to the table, we then have to slow them down even more. So sometimes that can be difficult.

Yeah. People wanting to jump the countermeasure right, right out of the gate sometimes even in our problem statement, you know. No, no, no, no. There's no count measure. There's no potential solution in your problem statement, you know, because you don't know yet. So that, that's. That I have also seen that a lot.

Yes.

Over the years. Hey, how do you go about. Once you get people trained up and maybe they're. That person is working through some sort of a project. How do you handle like the coaching of it and stuff? Do you do like kind of like weekly meetings or how do you go about that? I'm curious to hear your approach.

Yeah. So you know, each student is different and so there are students that I'll meet with on a weekly basis, a bi weekly basis, a monthly basis. Unfortunately, some that won't reach out at all. And they kind of, you know, the spark fizzles out. There's always one or two of those, unfortunately. But really I try to meet with them as often as they are available. Going back to those frequent bursts. You know, I tell them the, the faster we can work through this project, the more regularly we're touching it, the easier it's going to be for those students that aren't working on this once a month in between things, they're then spending the first half hour of that meeting trying to figure out where they left off and so really practicing that good time management, that plan. And I think going back to your thing about a problem statement is if we're picking the right problem, then this is something that's a higher priority. And so the drive to work through that is much higher than a, a problem statement that maybe doesn't have a higher priority in that area. So picking the right problem and prioritizing that for sure and then kind of, you know, when I'm meeting with them, there's going to be struggles along the way that they're going to face. And so I just let them know that, you know, they're going to learn by doing and you know, lean again is that active way of thinking and to make sure that they're kind of being vulnerable and having that safe learning environment when I meet with them so they can understand that, you know, they're not failing. I think a lot of people, especially when they have their met and their problem statement and you know, we do, we want to shoot for a great goal, but if we don't get there, you know, that's okay. How do we go back to those rapid experiments or those PDSA cycles to figure out how we can get there or to identify this, some barriers that maybe we hadn't really seen. And I like to use fail as an acronym, which is first attempt in learning with them.

First attempt in learning. I like that. I love that. I never heard that in all the years. You'd think you'd hear all these acronyms, but that's the first time I've heard that. I like that. That's really good. You know, it's funny you mentioned about the coaching and the frequency something that we, I remember when Gamba Academy we first started sort of our green belt, black belt, master black belt program many, many years ago. And we used to have this sort of approach where we'd be like, hey, welcome to the program, Sarah. So you know, our mentoring works like this. It's poll based mentoring. I remember I used to say poll based mentoring. So when you need help, we're here. And we were, you know, if they needed help, we were there. But then, and man, I can't tell you how many times, you know, to your point to be like, hey, it's been a month, Sarah, since we last talked. Everything okay? You know, so now really our approach is we've really pivoted big time. And now it's sort of like this, hey, welcome to the program. Here's how it works, Sarah. We gotta talk every week, you know, and if we don't talk, then, you know, let's communicate electronically or something like that. And we've personally experienced just sky, sky high, you know, completion rates when we've sort of gone through that and we just made it clear up front. Even when the person was considering whether they're gonna buy from Gemba go with Gemba Academy, it's like if you do plan on weekly meetings, you know, they're 10, 15 minutes. So it's not a huge time commitment. But yeah, just that frequent communication is so important. We even tell people, hey, if you don't have, didn't make any progress or you have nothing to say and you feel horrible, you know, you're not horrible, just come on and just say hello and we'll reset for the next week. But, but I agree with you that having that frequent communication is so, so important when we're coaching people.

Yeah, that's so interesting that you said that. I started the same way where I'd have them, and I still do have them sign a mentoring kind of mentee agreement that it tells them that as the mentee kind of, they're the driver of the meeting. They are supposed to be coming prepared, have those questions, work through those challenges that they may have, schedule the meetings. And that was not unfortunately effective. And so kind of like you, I had to redesign my entire program. In the past, it was, you know, three days or a week long worth of training and then they would just kind of be set free and they would work on their project and meet with me kind of as they determine the need to where Now I completely redid the program. It's a eight week long program. We meet for like, the first session is four hours, the second session is four hours. And they're then released and they have, their homework is taken to complete box one and two. We take the, you know, nine box A3 approach with our projects. And then they have to do that before coming back to that third session. And then after that third session, they're released and their homework is to complete box three and four. And so it's more of a kind of, I guess a handheld active approach to work them through that project and to make sure that they're staying on track and helping them kind of discover that ownership and responsibility that goes along with project management.

I like it. I like it. Helping people. You know, people want like clarity, you know, and they'll get stressed out. They don't know what to do next. I remember when I first went through training many, many years ago, it was back in the day where you sat in a class for two weeks and, you know, and for green belt, another two weeks for black belt, and even many more weeks for master black belt. But I remember we left when we had these huge binders full of PowerPoint slides. You know, that's like, whoa, that was our takeaway, you know? And I remember feeling like. Like, what do I do now? I've got hundreds of slides of PowerPoints here. Like, what am I supposed to do? And it was like almost a helpless feeling. Luckily, I had some good mentors back then as well, who sort of helped me navigate my way through, but, boy, that can be a scary feeling, especially if this stuff's brand new. Right. So I like your approach of, you know, fill in these two boxes and, you know, and holler at me if you have any questions. And at least they know what they're supposed to do and where to go if they need help. So that sounds like that's a great approach.

One, two. Like your, you know, the binders that you mentioned. Yeah. It's a lot of material in a very short, condensed time. And, you know, some of the students, they're not used to that. They come to work and maybe they, you know, have a very kind of narrow scope of their job that they do. And so this experience is brand new for them. And it's not only a new way of thinking. It's. It's difficult for them. And so giving them an. It kind of in short bursts, little bites, and then this is the information. Take it and process that and turn it into something. So you're right, that can be overwhelming. And I've. I've found that it's helped kind of making this shift.

I love it. I love it. So I want to go back in the archives here of our podcast. This is a question I used to ask a lot of people for many, many years, and I thought people were getting sick of it, so I stopped asking it. But I want to ask it to you. So the question was, it was always towards the end of the show, and it was, what does respect for people mean to you? So I am curious to hear your take on this question.

Yeah, well, I think everyone in the lean community knows that respect for people really goes just beyond being nice to them. I think that's people's general conception when you just say, oh, respect one another. Okay, I'm going to be Polite, I'm going to be nice. But to me it's about demonstrating that you respect people by listening to, understand and develop those diverse teams within your organization to make process improvements, including those perspectives, you know, truly maximizing on that human potential. You know, I'm not a fan of any type of organizational waste, but non utilized talent is one of the worst types of waste. And some people say, you know, we'll fit into every single type of waste, depending on what WASTE acronym you're looking at there. But you know, so many individuals, they just, they don't know their full potential and they're really underdeveloped, which honestly breaks my heart. And so, you know, as an organization, developing those tracks, to develop those employees at every level, I think is how an organization can show respect for people that, you know, developed employees are valued employees. And who doesn't want to feel valued? And so I really believe that lean should be a part of that development track from an organization. You know, going back to thinking about, you know, listening to understand and adding in on that curious inquiry, I think not only demonstrates that a person is valued, but that their insights are as well. So taking the pause, not just asking them to show up to check a box as they're there for that meeting, they're member of that team, but really to get their perspective on what's going on in that current state within the organization and how as an organization, as a group, we can change together. And so I really try to demonstrate that by just including everyone that I possibly can, you know, making sure that those stakeholders are represented, those frontline employees. That can be a little bit difficult sometimes. Leadership will want to cover down for them. And I'm like, nope, that's not going to work. We need that frontline perspective. They're the ones that are, you know, in that work every single day. They know the struggle, 100% of that struggle. You know, they're living it. And so just making sure that they're included. I believe that people are the heartbeat of an organization and we really need to treat them as such. I just want to make sure that as I'm working through projects, as I'm teaching students, as I'm mentoring, facilitating whatever that may be, that they feel seen and that they know that they matter.

What do you do when you're faced with a team member or just maybe even somebody that you know in your personal life who lacks confidence? Sometimes they don't believe in themselves for whatever reason. I don't know if you've ever come across that. And if so, like, like, how do you, how do you get those people to say. Because it's one thing to just say believe in yourself, Sarah, you know, but you know, those are. Words are cheap. Like, have you ever come across that to where people were sort of doubting their abilities and themselves? And if so, how did you approach it?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question and I think can also be a delicate question as well, depending on the individual. So I generally would fall into my old habit would be to kind just tell them and to, you know, let them know what my experiences were and to hope that they'd see the light that way. But a lot of times, you know, that doesn't work. It doesn't resonate with them and they can't connect with that. And so really trying to, in most cases it could be hard, but to figure out what the root cause of that insecurity is or that fear of failure, whatever that may be, and provide, you know, the support and the resources that may be associated with that or just, you know, listening. Maybe they are afraid that, you know, their, their ideas don't matter or that they're not going to be as valued as other people. But then when you have that conversation and when you can explain to them like the majority of people are feeling the same way, you know, you're not alone here. And a lot of times connecting them with someone. I'm a huge person about connections and networking and you know, there's another student out there that's feeling the same way or maybe had felt the same way and has grown past that and so connecting them so they can have that, that more kind of raw conversation at that level. And then also, you know, just leading by example the best way that I can, helping them understand my journey. And you know, that where that I am today is not. This is not how I started. You know, it's a lot of hard work and dedication that I've put into this role and that if they're interested in growing in that way, that they can absolutely do it because anyone can. Yeah, comes back to that practice.

Yeah, exactly. Deliberate practice. Right? Being really intentional and deliberate about the way we practice.

Absolutely.

Hey, so Sarah, somebody's listening to this right now and they're just getting started with this whole continuous improvement world and they've got some ideas and maybe they read a book or two here or there, something like that. But do you have any advice for that person? If so, I'd like you to speak to that person that just, just getting started with lean with Continuous improvement.

Yeah. No, absolutely. So, yeah, it's only been about a year and a half since I've officially been in the lean field, and when I did, it was post Covid. So everything that I've done has been in a virtual world, which can make things a little bit more challenging, too. Not the typical approach to systems redesign or lean. And so the advice that I would give to someone who's new again, especially during virtual time, is that, you know, if their organization is lacking that leadership support or that continuous process improvement culture, or maybe it's just not a robust program that they have, would be not to count on anyone to show you the way. You know, if you're not provided with that support with those resources, find them, you know, network, connect with lean practitioners and resources outside of your organization. And that's what I did. So this podcast, Patrick Adams Lean Solution podcast, Brian Hurley's Lean Six Sigma Burst, and Lean Six Sigma for Good podcasts have all been. And then, oh, there's the lean blog. Interviews that I listened to by Mark Graben as well have been value added to me for sure, and has helped me grow as a lean practitioner. So I can't thank you and them enough for opening doors and providing resources to me. You know, three reminders that I put that are on my laptop frame. I meet them with a label maker. Pretty fancy. Um, but there be intentional, perfect the pivot and choose how you show up and respond. And so it's that continuous process improvement cycle that can really be applied to every aspect of our life. So just kind of be curious, stay humble and keep learning.

Perfect a pivot. I like that. I think I know what it means, but tell me more about that. Perfect a pivot.

Yeah, well, it kind of reminds me, you know, I have a. I grew up kind of playing basketball, and so.

Yeah, you've mentioned basketball a few times. I can tell.

You know, you're kind of stuck in a spot, and it may not be the spot that you need it to be, but if you take that pivot and, you know, you pass that ball to someone else or you pick something up from someone else or connect with someone else, that's going to restart that kind of that trajectory that you're looking, looking for and to just to be ready. And so, you know, change, especially in healthcare, is continuous, and there's a lot of people that are resistant to that change. And so, you know, you know, kind of being ready for it and understanding what you need to do in that situation is kind of what helps me to be Flexible and adaptable is kind of what I use that for.

I love it. I love it. Hey Sarah, this has been fun. If folks want to connect with you, what's the best way?

Yeah, no, thank you. It's a pleasure and I appreciate being a guest and you know, I want to take a moment just to thank you, you know, not only for the podcast and the positive impact that you've had on the Lean community, but truly for the difference that you're making in so many people's lives. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for all that you do. And the best way to probably connect with me would be through LinkedIn. Pretty easy. Sarah and Todd, you'll find me there. And I'm interested in connecting with anyone who wants to reach out.

And it's S, A R A and then A N, N. Two words, Sarah and Todd. And we'll link to, to your LinkedIn and everything else in our in a show notes. This is episode 396, so folks can go to gembapodcast.com look for episode 396 and we'll, we'll have everything linked up. But. Well, hey, thank you Sarah for those kind words that you said. I really appreciate that. And it's always, it's always, always awesome just to hear how, you know, things like podcasts can, can really add value and, and those folks you mentioned have had a huge impact on me as well. So, yeah, kudos to, to, to those other folks doing, doing their podcasts and everything else in between, blog articles and all. There's lots of stuff out there for folks, you know, to, to learn. Right?

Eat it up.

Yeah, exactly. Be intentional. Right. Go get it. It's there.

Absolutely.

Good, good, good. Thanks again, Sarah for coming on. It's been fun and I look forward to. Maybe we can do it again down the road sometime.

Absolutely. Thank you, Ron. Take care.

See ya.

Bye.

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