GA 408 | Lean and Life Coaches with Sarah Tilkens

I don't ask for permission, I just fail loudly. And I learn a ton from it. I've had some really great recognition from our leaders and I think it's just been great because building confidence in myself, like now I turn around and I'm a people leader and I get to empower others to really just kind of explore that for themselves.

Today I'm excited to welcome Sarah Tilkens back to the show. Now, Sarah was on the podcast a few years ago and she works for GE Healthcare and wow, we covered a lot, lot of ground in today's podcast. So we sort of started by just kind of catching up on what she's been up to over the last few years and over at GE and talking about some of the, some of the, the things that they've learned, some of the things that have worked well, some of the things that didn't work and, but all of it, lots of learning had to happen. So that's sort of how we kick things off. And then last year in 2021, they had a big focus, Sarah and her organization, on problem solving and finding the right solution based on understanding the problem and so forth. And so we walked through that a little bit and we talked about some of the tactical approaches that they use. So we get into some tool talk and paretos and daily management system and cycle time, tact time, some good stuff there. Then we got into leader standard work and hour by hour boards and so lots of really good sort of tactical cultural conversations. And then towards the end was probably my favorite part. We've, we just started talking about Sarah's interest in learning more about being a life coach. And as it turns out, she's had a life coach. GE offers this to some of their employees and she was fortunate enough to be able to, to have one. And, and really talking about what's going on when you're working with a life coach and, and maybe a lot of misunderstandings out there of what that is and, and, and really the, the harmony that, the way that a life coach goes about their work and a lean about our work and how they're actually very similar. And, but Sarah, like early on kind of really tells some really inspiring stories and she really finishes with some really inspiring words and a message to everybody out there who maybe battles a little imposter syndrome. Because Sarah, as she'll mention, battled that early on in her times, in her time at there at ge. So she battled some imposter syndrome. So she talks about how she overcame that. And so, yeah, really, really inspiring and yeah, I think you're going to like it. So show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode four. 08. Again, gembapodcast.com, look for episode 408. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Sarah, welcome to the show. How are you?

Hey, Ron. I'm great. How are you?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well, thank you. All right. Well, it's fun having you back on the show. So we were chatting before we hit record that you were last on in July 11th of 2019. So it's been a bit, a little time since we last chatted. So a few things have happened, I'm sure since then in your life and in the world, for sure. So how's everything been going?

Everything's been going pretty great. So, yeah, lots of changes. Probably the biggest for me is I became a mom. So that's really exciting.

Congratulations.

So, big personal change. She'll be 2 in April. So was born the first month of COVID So it has been a new sort of adventure, but one that, you know, I've just been loving every day.

Oh, well, congratulations.

Couple years.

Oh, that's awesome. Congratulations. Congratulations. All right.

Thank you.

Well, as you know, Sarah, we like to get things rolling with a quote. So do you have one?

I do, and this is one. Honestly, I think it's anonymous or I'm not sure of the exact source, but the quote is, as the tide rises, the boats rise with it. And I heard this probably a couple months ago and just became really obsessed with it. We'll talk about it probably a little bit more as we go through kind of what I've been up to. But to me, this is just really like, if you elevate yourself and if you set an example of what's possible, kind of everything else comes along for the rise. So you raise the standards and expectations for those around you and just really living the behaviors that you want and leading through example and leading through coaching. So it just means a tremendous amount to me. But I really like the quote.

That's a good one. I love it. I love it. All right, well, hey, Sarah, tell us a little bit in case folks don't remember from episode 275. Tell us a little bit about about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first got involved in continuous improvement and then what you're up to these days.

Yeah, so background is super weird. I was a biology major in college, ended up doing biomedical research for a Couple years studying platelets and clotting disorders. Science. I feel like I fell in love with the scientific method and learning and problem solving when I was younger doing science research. The company I worked for was going through a process of certifying their lab quality folks as Six Sigma Black belts. So that was kind of my introduction to Lean and Six Sigma as, you know, like technically understanding what it was and not just using the tools kind of without a name. So I went on to do a lot of different stuff. Project management, kind of customer service. Ended up getting certified as a black belt. Oh, geez. Like five years ago now. And really through that process and listening to this podcast, I developed a love for Lean and a better understanding of what it was and the application and how you really kind of coach and lead effectively through the use of just Lean as a operations management system. And started doing a lot of volunteering to just really flex my muscles and figure out how to apply this stuff. And then after about a year or so, I got hired as a Lean leader for GE Healthcare. I'm in Milwaukee, so out of one of their plants in West Milwaukee, I started really not knowing a ton. But I had a phenomenal coach and mentor who was well versed in the Toyota production system. Worked for Toyota, worked for gm. Really kind of like the old school way of using and applying Lean. So an unbelievable person to learn from. So that's where I was last time we talked. Kind of just figuring out really how to turn my love for Lean into actually solving problems for my organization and coaching effectively. And since then I actually switched to serve a different part of our organization. Same building, but just kind of a different widget that I'm manufacturing. But I really took over more of like a strategy role for this part of the organization. And now I'm actually a lean manager. So I am leading a team of Lean leaders to really just again, deliver solutions to our shop floor, to our operators, really just helping to execute strategy and daily management to serve our customers the parts when they want, when they want them and what they want. And yeah, it's been a really fun couple years.

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Sounds like you've been busy.

Yeah. And, and effectively having a newborn, so, you know.

Yeah, right.

That's up for hard working women, right?

Yes, for sure. That's great. That's great. All right, well, hey, well, maybe let's. I thought, I'm curious. I mean, I remember our podcast on episode 275. I remember actually really well. And even though it's been been a little while, but I remember just like the excitement and the anticipation, if you will, and your voice and just all the ideas that you had and whatnot. So I'm wondering if we could sort of now look back on just the last few years and talk a little bit about how things went, you know, what went well, what didn't go well, what have you learned along the way?

What went well. So again, a couple years ago, so if people haven't listened, like one of the big things that I was working on in addition to just number one, learning, number two, learning how to serve is I think that we talked a lot about of just really understanding kind of what your customers needs are so that you're delivering value to them and really like your solutions take root. A lot of what I've learned has just been like continuing on those principles. So I was applying the Daily Management system or kind of introducing that as a program a few years back. So we were really just kind of saying, you know, across the organization we wanted to implement tier boards, we wanted to use the kind of SQDCP to monitor what had happened yesterday, use paretos to understand kind of what contributed to Mrs. And then really drive problem solving at the Gemba. It was really cool in that I learned a really good sales pitch on how to kind of sell the Daily Management System and what it all incorporated, but it didn't necessarily stick the way that I believed it could. So that's one of the things, really great learnings. Now we're actually going about doing it again and I think having a tremendous amount more success because it's not a thing that's coming from the top, but it's actually something that we're kind of couching at the shop floor because it's the right solution to solve our problems today. And I think it's driving a lot more sustainability. So when we started we kind of had like a blueprint for the right way to do it and there was a moderate amount of flexibility. But we really kind of had an idea of we want to, you know, there always has to be a measure for delivery, there always has to be a measure for quality, there always has to be a measure for cost. But what we were identifying is a lot of the problems that were rolling up were just a lot of problems. So as it came to transitioning into the problem solving, not every performance indicator was created equal. So we were struggling to have all of these different problem solving activities going on and it was not really giving us the results that we wanted. Because it didn't align necessarily to the specific strategy of that area, if that makes sense. So something that we're doing a little bit differently is again, less structure on what we're doing and more focus on just picking the right areas and trying things and failing fast and really learning from that again, instead of me just telling them what they need to measure and where. So coaching people on the value of the system, so it doesn't take a lean person to sell it, but kind of the entire operations team understands and can sell it and just believes in it and then just empowering those people to kind of use it to serve them in the area that they support in a more meaningful way.

I love it. So it almost sounds like, you know, we're always preaching here on this podcast, you know, don't be so sure, right? Like, learn your way forward. Because in the end, nobody really knows the answer to a particular problem. You might have a lot of good ideas, and that's fantastic.

Keep.

Keep those ideas in your back pocket. But then let's. Let's test them. You. Let's experiment our way forward and see what actually works and what doesn't work. That sounds like kind of like what you guys are doing instead of just saying, hey, we're going to go do this, xyz, go do it, because I said so. Right. Is that sort of what you're talking about?

Yeah, absolutely. Just last week I was talking to one of our groups and they were trying to establish one of their defect codes that was coming up a lot for a specific production area was that they didn't have the right amount of WIP or work in progress to actually run that specific cel. So every day they were red, but it's because they didn't have what was necessary to actually do the job. So instead of continuing to have that as a reason for missing, they decided that they were going to establish run rules around what do we actually need? What should the standard work in progress be? Such that I can run this cell at full rate. They eliminated the defect code. They set up really great again run rules, and they're able to now see what's actually shutting down the more effectively just because of a little step like that. So again, they were talking about, well, what's the right number and how do we get started? And the coaching was just pick something because if it's too high, you're going to learn. If it's too low, you're going to learn. So just pick something and see what happens. And you know, that's Hard, I think, sometimes because people want the answer. But I think a lot of the valuable learning comes from just being willing to get it wrong and then figure it out from there.

Take action, right? I mean, I did a solo podcast a few weeks ago, and one of things, the points that I made was just about the importance of sort of being intentional and quit wanting things to happen and then actually do something. You know, it sounds crazy, but many times we sit around and be like, oh, my gosh, I wish we had this or that, or if only this or that. You know, but we don't do anything. We just sit there and want and. But instead take action. Even if it's the wrong action. Like you said, you're going to learn. So I love that. I love that. Hey, so talk a little bit about maybe some successes that you've had. So, I mean, obviously you've had a success there by transitioning, but has there been anything else that that's been working for you?

I think, you know, maybe it sounds soft, but really one of the big successes over the last couple years was just the leadership journey that I've been on. So I think that walking into an organization like GE for me was scary just because there are a lot of really, really smart people here. So it took me a long time to kind of find my confidence and find my contribution. And for a while, I think that I tried to be what I thought the organization wanted me to be. So I tried to fit in a specific mold. And then with this newer role, after I came back from maternity leave, I just decided I wasn't going to and do that. So I really just embraced what made me unique and different. And I think in doing that, it really just accelerated my career and kind of got me to where I'm at. So I decided not to be afraid of what I was saying. I decided that, you know, I got hired for a reason and my contributions are valid and not fitting into a box is what makes me so special. So I think just doing that and being an example of that type of leadership being possible, just, you know, like, I don't ask for permission. I just fail loudly. And I learned a ton from it. And I think, again, a lot of those things that in a previous life, I was so nervous to do because I thought that it brought the wrong type of eyes on me. I've had some really great recognition from our leaders, and I think it's just been. It's been great because building confidence in myself, like, now I turn around and I'm a people Leader, and I get to empower others to really just kind of explore that for themselves and really just become the best version of yourself. And that might look a little different for everybody, but love what you do and do it your way and show up every day and be contagious and be excited for other people. And it just has really changed a lot of the culture around here, and I think that's just something that I'm really proud of.

Do you think that you had, like, when you first kind of joined the company there at ge, like you said, with all these smart people walking around, did you feel like you had, like, imposter syndrome or what was going on in those early days? You think?

Yeah, I do think it was imposter syndrome. I think it was just a big part of it was, like, maybe not understanding my craft and so being afraid that I didn't have the tenure to have an opinion, you know, in the same way that others might have. So I think I just was so scared to fail that I became kind of scared to talk. And for me, that's relative because I am a talker, and I do vocalize my opinions, but I don't think I was doing it in the most impactful way. So I think once I realized, like, well, the worst case scenario if I'm me and I'm a big version of me is people don't like me and I get to go somewhere else. But that's actually not what happened. It was just really kind of empowering and freeing to be able to just come out as, like, this insane version that I am and have people really embrace that and get excited about that as a leader in the organization. And, yeah, it's just been really, again, fun learning, like, with every little step of, like, out that I came, I feel like I was embraced, and it just gave me a lot more permission to just lead the way that I wanted to lead.

I mean, what. What made you decide when you came back from your leave? Like, what gave you the courage or the. Like, what pushed you to take that step? Because that's a big deal, right? Like, changing the way that you work and almost, like, believing in yourself more or whatever. What made you do it?

I think it was a journey, and again, I think it was a little bit at a time. But for me, I think after I had my daughter, I had to kind of figure out who I was and what I wanted. I think it's really easy, and not that it speaks for every woman, but, like, I lost a little bit of, like, okay, am I mom, or am I like a working mom or like, what does it mean to like, be me? And so through some of that self discovery process, like, I just got a lot of clarity as to, like, what I wanted and who I wanted to be. And I fell in love with myself. So I just gave myself permission to be me. I did little things, like, I put more structure into my life. I lost some weight. Like, I just took accountability for the things that I wanted. And again, with all of the little confidence that I gained, you know, people saw me showing up in the world in a different way and I was inspiring people and I was happy and people liked that. And again, it was contagious. And I think that, you know, as I started getting recognition for just like showing up, it kind of just continued to roll down the hill. And, you know, again, it was just like this freeing experience of just learning that it's okay to be unique and it's okay to, like, want what you want because that's what makes you special.

Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. Well, listen, when we were sort of chatting before planning this podcast, we were talking a little bit about in 2021, you guys had a pretty, pretty big focus on problem solving. And I'm wondering if maybe we could walk through a little bit about just looking back on 2021, which was just crazy in and of itself, right? Just from the world perspective. But what about problem solving there at ge? Like, talk about maybe some tactical, some cultural things about how you guys went about that.

Yeah, so I think tactically. So one of the things I actually worked on personally at a request from our gm, when I came back, he asked me to kind of launch like an A3 or a problem solving initiative with the intention of, like, we need to really engrave problem solving skills within the organization at all of the levels. So I spent a lot of time, like, thinking about and designing a program for it. Really. We were doing some new stuff, like organizationally with GE as far as, like, the type of templates we use and kind of how they were teaching top down. One thing that was really important to me was finding the right coaches. So I just, you know, had this fundamental belief that, like, if you knew this stuff, but also you knew how to teach this stuff, it would make it a more meaningful experience from those that got to learn from us. So it was a lot of my effort was kind of figuring out, like, okay, who do I think are the right people to like, go out into their area of the organization and teach Problem solving because you know, they know how to live it. Like not only do they technically do it, but they lead by example and they're really effective coaches and they're people people. And I know that if someone needs help, they'll show up for them. So we invested really heavily into this specific group, just deepening their knowledge again with the intention of rolling them out and letting them free on the world. Unfortunately, then I think of like the six of us that were kind of going through this intensive like coaches, coaches type of thing. Three of the people left for different roles. So that was a major blow to kind of the initiative because then a lot of the burden fell on those of us that were still there and still had like other full time jobs to kind of pick up the slack and do the things. So it just wasn't ultimately that successful for those reasons as far as again, like the program initiative. Now that being said, we solved a tremendous amount of problems as an organization last year. Our new kind of methodology, it's just a problem solving report really, but it's just again the way that we're teaching it where you have to have a coach you really like, have to follow certain standards that kind of gives it a little bit something different than what we've done in the past. So I think learn some stuff failed a little bit ultimately still are using the template, but really it's still just like we've been focused on how to identify problems. So whether that is through like Paretos, through the daily management system, whether that's through like a tool that my organization has been using a lot in the last year is like tact cycle graphs, so when does the customer need it? And then comparing like the demand to the actual capability of the system, just as kind of like a rough back of the napkin direction of where you pivot next. So really focused less on, I shouldn't say less on problem solving, but we really focused on solving the right problem with kind of our tactical people who knew how to do that really well. Because what was happening is we were trying to either do way too much stuff or we put a ton of energy into solving a problem just to say, oh, that wasn't the actual problem that needed solving. So the focus on tools, the focus on development and really just again like first identify what the problem is and really understand the impact of solving that problem and then look to one of our problem solving experts and we're going to help you find the right solution to that problem and again make sure that it sustains once you Kind of put the solution in place.

I'd like to hear more about your taktime cycle time sort of monitoring system. So are you like, how often are you calculating takt time in a particular work area? Is it like set it and forget it or do you adjust it daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly? How does takt time look in your organization?

It depends on the line. So I have just in one of the plants that I support, we have everything from processes that have like a, you know, 40 day lead time deal with some chemical processing. We have manufacturing lines where the TAK time is like 2 minutes per part per widget. You know, sometimes like our volumes obviously fluctuate, but we usually aren't recalculating TAK time for our processes much more than like once a quarter, once a month maximum. But that's really just because our demand, even though it shifts a lot with the amount of available time that we have in a week and with how small most of our TAK times already are, it might go from like, oh, today you have, you know, 200 seconds and then we recalculate it for Q2 demand and now you have 202 seconds.

Yeah.

So while that matters over the legacy and we do do the calculations like a lot of the. We're still more at like the macro mean and standard work application. So we're not quite to the point where like a two second difference, like makes a tremendous impact on the type of process improvement that we're doing, if that makes sense.

It does. Now how are you going about the cycle time monitoring? So you'll have a two minute TAK time or something like that for a particular. How often are you going out and timing, you know, individual manual process steps? Is that something that's like all the time or just you spot check it? How does that work?

Yeah, so when we were building a lot of our models, it was just, you know, like we got out there with the standard worksheets and we did a tremendous amount of time observations just to make sure that we really understood how the process was performing. And so we use tax cycles in two different ways. We have like the process tax cycles where again, like on a macro level, you're just looking at like, is my process capable in my amount of working time? So like, do I need a second machine or a significant Kaizen around cycle time reduction type of deal? We also use operator tax cycle graphs looking at just like, is there too much manual time stacked up on a specific operator that they can't deliver to TAK time? A lot of at least what we've done in the past year has been focused more around that process tax cycle. We have had a tremendous amount of capacity growth and capacity requests for growth in the last year. So really, I think on some of our product lines, like, we increased output by like 40% last year. In a world where like, we were also short logistics and supply chain, like, it's just, it's been a really hard year, but we're still cranking out a lot more parts than we were in the past. But again, just really understanding like, what is the process capable of, like in an optimal situation and then understanding all of the different kind of factors that go into like overall utilization and what our customer demands, and then thinking strategically around what type of solutions or like what type of problem solving can I do to fix that process. So sometimes it was I need a second machine. Sometimes it was like we could do some 3P to actually modify the process to maybe increase its inherent capacity or reduce its cycle time. So it just again, kind of depended on where we were problem solving, but we did all of the things.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Now I know you guys are practicing leader standard work. Talk a little bit about that. How are you guys using leader standard work?

Yeah, so that's been really fun. This past year. We probably, where we started last year, we didn't have very good live monitoring of what our process is doing. So again, as you can imagine, if I have a two minute tech time, it's pretty quick that I need to be pacing. And if something happens during the day, it's pretty quick to get off pace. So our leaders, kind of our frontline leaders didn't have very good visibility like hour by hour as to whether they were winning or they were losing. So we found kind of like shift notes and you would look and you would say, holy crap, I missed. Missed by, you know, 50%. And when you ask why, a lot of times the question was like, I don't know or it was an answer, but it didn't seem to be an answer that would support that type of a myth. So one of the big things that we did was put what we call like hour by hour monitoring out on the line or just like, you know, tact monitoring. So every hour, like based on the pace of the process and the available time, in that hour, an operator has a specific production target. So first step in leader standard work was just creating the standards. So in order to teach our leaders what to look for, we needed to make sure that we understood like what the standard should be for. The process. So we put out those hour by hours, and we just started doing that in the areas that were kind of like burning the biggest fire, right. So we just picked a spot and we started and we got the hour by hour out there. And then once we understood what the standard was, we were able to more effectively train our production team to respond to things in that area. So from setting the standard came. All right, now you need to monitor this standard every other hour. You need to walk by and you need to see if you're pacing or you're not pacing. And again, the intention is just to ask and understand if you're off pace, what's going on. So instead of it's the end of the day and you don't have a chance to recuperate if something's going wrong in the morning, you can actually problem right there, right with that operator, and you can figure out how to get back on track for the rest of the day. And that's where kind of leader standard work really took off for us. So understanding the standards, teaching the people, just through bringing them out on the floor and really helping them to figure out, like, what this means and not just, you know, checking a box. Hey, I looked at this monitoring system, but, like, I looked at it and it was red. And therefore I am going to take an action. And then once we had kind of our frontline leaders doing that, we built in like the layered audit. So now those of us, you know, like the business team leaders, the senior operations leaders, now they walk and they understand what the standards are and can effectively audit at the different layers just to really create good sustainability around the system.

Nice. I like it. Hey, so maybe to wrap things up, a topic that I'm really interested to hear about here. And I know it's, it's, it's. It's a big part of what you hope to accomplish here in the future is your interest in becoming a life coach. So I'm curious. Let's talk about that. Like, first of all, just for folks that aren't sure, like, what is a life coach? And then how is that? Is there any relationship or collaboration or harmony, if you will, with Lean?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think so. So this is Sarah's definition, and I encourage everybody to look it up because I don't know how accurate this actually is. I have been privileged to have a life coach in this last year. It is just kind of part of something that GE is doing for leadership development. So I got firsthand experience with a coach kind of just helping Me, again, to become like this better, more awesome version of myself. But really, it is just someone who helps you reach your goal. So the person who is being coached is really bringing everything to the table. So the things that you want, the things that have worked for you in the past, the things that haven't worked for you, and the coach is just helping to kind of hold you accountable, to help, like, believe in you even on the days that you don't believe in yourself, to kind of hold space for you to fail. But it really comes from this kind of foundational belief that you already know how to do everything that you need to know. Like, you know how to solve all of the problems that you have in front of you. You might just. Just need a little help kind of steering through the weeds. So it's not someone who is going to kind of tell you, here's what worked for me. It's not someone who's going to tell you how or give opinions. It's just someone who's there to guide you and help you see that you're super capable and you can do all of this and really just again, empower people to understand their own possibilities for their life and their business and their role in an organization and to kind of seize that. So I think anyone who's a lean coach, I think that's kind of what we all want. Right? And it's funny, I think last time we talked about the differences, I don't remember how you asked it to me, but, like, the differences maybe between, like, a teacher and a coach. And you remember talking about this, do you remember the categories you dropped it into?

Kind of. Yeah. I mean, it was sort of like the differences in leadership relationships, you know, sort of, I think how we went about it. I can't remember exactly how it went. I have to go back and listen to now. I mean, curious.

Yeah. Well, since I actually. So maybe. Maybe these are the right categories, maybe not. But I heard. I don't know if it was my coach or someone else I heard use this. But in terms of baking a cake, so like, a consultant is going to say, all right, I'm here. Give me your ingredients, Give me your kitchen. Get out of the way. I'm going to bake you this cake. A leader might say, like, okay, I've baked a cake before, so I'm going to write down the rec recipe. I'm going to tell you, like, what to set the oven to. I'm going to tell you how long to bake it and exactly what you do. Because I have the experience, but I will give you that. I will give you the recipe and empower you to go do it yourself. And then the coach kind of says, I have no idea how to bake a cake, but that sounds like a lot of fun, and I bet you can figure it out on your own. And I'm going to be there because I want to watch you do that. So I think that's. Again, this thing that I love about this idea of just life coaching is anyone who knows me, I really like solving problems. It's really hard for me not to solve problems, but figuring out how to help people without telling them how to solve their problems, but just by, like, empowering them to do it themselves, I think is this, like, tremendous gift that we can offer other people. Because you're not creating dependence on you. You're actually just like, I don't know, creating self sufficiency and confidence. And I just think it's great.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, in a way, like going back to your bake a cake analogy, it's like, it's almost like it's not even about the cake. You know, like, the cake is what we're focused on right now. Sure. But if I go and tell you how to bake the cake, then, yeah, you probably can figure it out and be successful, but you won't really have grown own. Right. Whereas to your point of, even if you do know how to bake a cake, you'd be like, hey, I have some ideas, but don't worry about me. What do you think? Like, go out there and. And then allow them to figure out how to bake their own cake? Because then they'll be able to go out and figure out lots of things after that without having it handed to them. Right. So I love it. I love that analogy. I mean, it's even like, you know, well, now with your daughter. Right? Like, thinking about, you know, as daughter. Right? You said daughter.

Yep.

Yeah. So as your daughter grows older, you know, like, I have. My oldest is 19, and she's probably editing this podcast right now. She's. She's interning here at Gemba Academy now, you know, and, you know, like, over the years with our kids, you know, where there's this balance between kind of telling them what to do and then letting them sort of figure it out. And it's hard, you know, because you want to tell the kid, now this is how you bake the cake. All right? You know, and you kind of give them all the tools and all the, the. All the Bits and all the pieces and then kind of guide them. But eventually you got to kind of let go and let them figure it out, right? And it's really hard and same thing in business, right? It's really hard to let go when you, when you think you might know how to go about doing it, but you're not really serving that learner when you, when you. We call it sometimes stealing their monkey, right? Taking the monkey off their back, right? And don't steal people's monkey, right?

So yeah, talking about kids, I think I heard once, like, we all, all of us with kids. Well, I guess, I don't know yet. She doesn't tie her own shoes. But someone was talking about like teaching your kids how to tie shoes and how frustrating it is because you're like, oh my God, we got to get in the car, we gotta go. And they just wanna do it like so badly themselves. And I think that's like the ultimate test of poaching. Like you wanna empower them to be independent because it's slow and they're gonna figure it out their own way and you're gonna have to help a lot. But that like, aha moment when they actually learn how to do it for themselves and how proud they are and just how they feel about that, like that. That's why you have to be a great coach, because you have to be able to give that to other people. Like, I think it's our responsibility as those who want to serve is just figuring out how to build people who, you know, can feel that much pride and that much power and accomplishment.

Well, and I also feel like it's just a really cool last thing going on in my mind, like thinking about the relationship between practicing and playing the game, right? So like, think about like I remember like looking back on some of my kids and their experience with, with youth sports, one of my daughters played pretty high level soccer when she was younger and she had this one coach and this guy is like national, national team level kind of coach with, you know, he's really good coach, right, this guy. And boy, he'd be after him in practice and not a yeller, but like really teaching them in practice. But then during the game he just goes sit on the bench. And this is youth soccer, okay? And it's not normal for a youth soccer coach to just go sit on the bench, but he would just sit on a bench and watch, you know. Meanwhile, the other coach is standing there, robo, coaching the kids. Go over there, go to the right, go to the left. You Know, and, you know, and then once in a while, this coach would get up. My daughter's coach would get up, and he would. He'd give a little bit of feedback here or there, and. But it was like, I was always taken back, like, and he always said. He told us, he told the parents, he said, listen, if I got to go out and, like, tell them and robocoach them during the game, I haven't done my job in practice. So it's almost like, you know, the coach really can just deliberate the idea of deliberate practice. Like practice before the actual game. Right. And I don't know. So maybe there's a. There's an analogy in there, and that's okay to kind of show, but don't play the game for them. I don't know. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. No, I really like that.

Yeah. Well, my gosh.

Want them to learn the skills before they have to apply the skills. Skills on the field.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh, this is fun. This is fun. Well, hey, I think it would be. Everything would be fun to come on back down, come back on the podcast down the road and maybe dig into the whole kind of life coach concept a little bit more, because I'm sure there's a lot more that we didn't unpack. But maybe for the sake of time, let's wrap things up right now. Maybe just leave people just with a. Maybe a practical tip on tip or two for what they can do to sort of. I don't know. You're really inspiring, Sarah. Like, thinking about, like, early on, in the beginning of the podcast, I just stepped out in faith and courage and took action sort of thing. Like, what advice do you have for folks listening to this who maybe they're doubting themselves a little bit, or maybe they're battling some imposter syndrome or something like that? What words do you have for them?

One of the things that I just think is the best advice I can give is just like, love yourself and the things that you're doing, and just if you don't love yourself, figure that out first. Right. Like, you have to be okay being okay for people to be influenced by you and be empowered by you. So just like, take care of you first and everything else kind of comes because as you build confidence, you know, that is inspirational and it's, you know, everyone has their own way of doing all of that stuff. But I just think, like, be happy, you know, if you love what you sell, people will buy. And I think a lot of us are selling ourselves, especially in the lean world. Like you're selling yourself as a coach, you're selling yourself as a consultant. So it's easier to do those things and it's easier for people to kind of buy your solutions if they believe it. And in order for others to believe it, you have to believe it. So just like you deserve it, get to a place where you're good and you love yourself and then like, like God, the world just opens up to you.

I love it. Fantastic advice, Sarah. What's the best way for folks to connect with you personally right now?

Probably LinkedIn. So, Sarah Tilkins, and I'm sure you'll have my name spelled out for folks.

Yeah.

And yeah, I am currently being certified as a life coach. So maybe some big things coming. So stay tuned if you might be interested in working with me or kind of just want to learn more about it. So I'm really excited obviously to share what this has done for me and I think what it can do for other people. So I just love having conversations about it and would be happy to interact with anybody.

Love it. Yeah. And so this is episode 408. So GembaPodcast.com, look for 408 or just literally scroll down on the app. You're listening to this podcast too, and you'll see Sarah's LinkedIn connection information right there. So, yeah, thanks for coming on, Sarah. Let's do it again down the road. Maybe let's not wait two years or whatever it was. Three years, whatever it's been.

Sounds good.

All right, take care. Thanks, Sarah. And take care of that.

Congratulations on that. I appreciate it.

Yeah, congratulations on that, baby girl.

Thank you.

All right, take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 lean and 6 Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching, as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma. So certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.