GA 428 | The Power of Discovery with Colin Baird

And then you break down those barriers and the employees realize that they have the ability to create better tomorrows for themselves. And that's what he told me. And I've never forgot that, Ron. I've never forgot that story. It was one of my very first events. It was a powerful moment because it made me connect with my dad.

Today I'm excited to welcome Colin Baer to the show. Now, Colin's been at this Lean game for quite a while and brings a lot of knowledge about sort of the history of Lean. And he's also a fantastic storyteller. In fact, Colin opens up things by telling a pretty personal story and how his relationship with his father impacted the way that he approaches continuous improvement. And so I thought it was really interesting. Then we get into lots of interesting things. It's a very dynamic interview where we go from one topic to another. So I think you're going to enjoy this one. The show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 428. Again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 428. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Paul, and welcome to the show. How are you?

Hey, Ron, thanks a lot for having me. It's great, great honor to be on, on your show.

Oh, well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. Well, I'm excited for the conversation today. We've got, I got a general idea of the direction that we're going to go, but always exciting to, to get going here. So I know you've listened to the show, Colin. We do like to have our guests share a quote or two. So what do you got?

So I think the two quotes that I've kind of enjoyed the most throughout my career. I'm a student of Deming and also a student of Dr. Richard Feynman. And Deming's explanation of costs are not causes, but rather costs come from causes. Combined with Feynman's statement about science is a belief in the ignorance of experts kind of go hand in hand with discovery and motivation and this curiosity, it just piques our interest. And I think those two quotes are. They give us reason to reflect on what's around us and what problems we need to solve.

Yeah.

And a reason why.

Exactly. Good. All right. Well, hey, Colin, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff and then what you're up to these days.

Sure. So I'm, I'm a convert to continuous improvement from Command and control, I learned the hard way, had a very, very controlling relationship with my father. And I was looking for a way to improve it, frankly. My father and mother were both history teachers and professors, and my father always taught me that history had some value to it if I would learn to understand it. And so to understand my father, believe it or not, I started studying Japanese history and the relationship between emperor Hirohito and MacArthur. And I found guys like Charlie Pratzman and Homer Saracen, which led me to Dr. Deming's work. And when I started discovering the way the Japanese were thinking about people and process and engagement and what Deming was teaching them about his systems of profound knowledge, I started understanding what it was like to be my dad, believe it or not, because it put me in his shoes growing up without a father. During World War II, his dad died in the battle of Kasserine Pass when General Patton was fighting with General Rommel on the hills of North Africa. To understand my father, believe it or not, I pursued continuous improvement. Just by accident, one thing led to another, and one day I had a client. I spent 25 years in the workers compensation business as a risk manager. I had a client who was a Lean manufacturing guy, and I didn't really know what that meant, but he was getting some pretty amazing results on the $700 million company. So I asked him one day, what is this Lean thing? And I remember one statement to me he made to me about a year later. He said, you know, I never thought you were a workers comp guy. I always thought you were a chief operating officer in Dragon. You just happen to carry around a worker's comp blanket. And one day I basically, you know, I. I wanted to learn. I mean, I'm a continuous learner. And I just think learning, it's. Learning is meaningful and it's purpose driven. So I actually asked him if he would teach me lean.

When was that again?

That was about 2008.

Okay.

And 2008, 2009. And he kind of laughed at me. He said, you know, you make far more money as an insurance broker than you'll ever make as a consultant, and you're crazy for thinking about what you're thinking about. And I don't really have time, but you can call my friend in Arizona because he's crazy enough to field a call like yours. So I cold called a guy in Arizona and said, hey, look, I'll carry your bags for free if you'll teach me some basics. I had already started studying Shingo, so I knew A little bit about med and things that managed mattered to flow. I flew to Phoenix and I told this guy my story that I carry his bags for free if he would cover my T and E and take me on projects around the country. He looked at me like I was nuts, but I convinced him to do it. And so I spent three years carrying his bags. He's a shingazitsu trained guy with an incredible pedigree. Today he runs a very well, the largest aluminum company west of the Mississippi as their chief operating officer because I told him, somebody's going to pluck you out of obscurity someday. And three years later, I started working, did work for TBM for a couple of years as interim chief operating officer and shadow plan manager and just turned to my. To my own skills about three years ago.

Nice.

And I've been consulting ever since. So that's. It was an intentional run.

Right, right, right. And I'm curious, and I don't mean to pry, because it's obviously a personal thing, but you mentioned your father earlier, you know, and just maybe some complexities, for lack of a better word. I'm wondering what you're willing to share there because it seemed like it was something that's. That's on your heart and that you were at least a little open to share. But. But it sounds like that's a foundational part of your story here.

It really is a foundational part of my story because I think people, a lot of folks in that generation, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, they learned operant conditioning theory because that's all that was really available. They learned command and control was how you got things done and that the answers laid with your parents. Not there wasn't an ant, there wasn't. Like I said, when I write stories, I don't use the word the. I use the word because that is implicit. That there's only one answer implies that there are multiple opportunities to find an answer. So my dad was a. The guy. I was an A guy working with a thug guy. And so I had to figure out how to deal with how do you manage that relationship and how do you accept what that other person has gone through to get where they're at in their life? So I started studying things like operant conditioning theory, inductor Skinner's work, and then I started looking at what Deming was saying about his system of profound knowledge and psychology. That led me to Dr. Deci and Ryan's work on self determination theory, and DC and Ryan's work on self determination theory fits so nicely within that system of profound knowledge that Deming had created, that we are more motivated when we are learning and we are. We are engaged and when we're turned on to doing something. And while my father loved to do a lot of things, he was never really that. I don't want to discount it. He wasn't that engaged. He had times and moments in his life when he was very engaged. But I think he was more engaged in him rather than us. And I was trying to be an us guy in his world. So as I discovered the work of. I mean, I studied Frederick Winslow Taylor's work on command and control and the pig iron experiment. As I read all of the background of what was taking place in the early 20th century with industrial engineering, I became more fascinated with the why. And when I discovered what the Japanese were doing, I realized I have to understand my father and his problems and be patient with him to understand if I want to have a relationship on a going forward basis.

Yeah.

So my journey in Deline is more psychological. And so the tools, you know, the tools I learned. I learned smed verley very early on. As you know, the Japanese were just, if you can't reduce the cycle time in a changeover column, you're going to have a hard time with flow. And it became a guiding principle. When I studied Shingo's work, I was just. This just made so much sense. Not just because of the tools, but because I saw what they did for people. My first project was a SMED event where we had nine CNC machines that this company had purchased. And our job was to basically, you know, reduce cycle time on the cement. Simple as that. They were at 45 minutes and our target was 10. And by Tuesday, I mean, by Tuesday, my sensei had done it. I'm like, what this? My whole mind just was blown in one day. We've proven this theory. You know, Deming's PDCA plan. What's the plan? What's the theory? We've proven that it was possible. After I was done with that event on Thursday, I decided to videotape. One of the participants in the event was a young kid, 21 years old. He had come across the border with his family. This was down in San Diego, and he was here legally, but he had started as a janitor in this company, and he was really excited about working there. Even three years later, he was still very excited about being a machinist. And I interviewed him and I said, so what did you get out of this week? This Kaizen event. And he says, you know, Colin, I'll tell you what happened on Wednesday night. After we did this 5s and did a little work on this med, I went home and talked to my wife, and I said, you know, we need to organize ourselves so that we have more time together. So we spent the next night literally cleaning up and reorganizing our house from what we Learned in the 5s event. And I got to tell you, I appreciate that from you guys very much, because my sensei was about breaking down those barriers to our excellence, right? And here were all these barriers, this theoretical, you know, theoretical capacity. We need nine machines because the tool room is over here, and all the other things that go into the theory. And then you break down those barriers, and the employees realize that they have the ability to create better tomorrows for themselves. And that's what he told me. And I've never forgot that, Ron. I've never forgot that story. It was one of my very first events. It was a powerful moment because it made me connect with my dad. It was like, hey, wait a minute. Just because Dad's telling you that there is the answer doesn't mean there is the answer. There are answers. And the most interesting thing is the questions. Where do those questions take us? I mean, the questions from trying to figure all this stuff out with my father, Ron, believe it or not, I mean, it took me to doctor, it took me to Taylor. It took me to understanding Lewis Terman's work on the standardized IQ test and how we put people into buckets so they could. The smart people would work here, and the not so smart people would work for the smart people. And this way we could create this identity. And then you see all of this, all of this fitting into Taylor's work. And then all of a sudden, Deming comes along with the work of Charlie Pratzman and Homer Stares in Japan and MacArthur and Hirohito and says, that's nuts. That's nuts. All of us are individuals. We all have something beautiful to bring to the table. And when I started doing that, I mean, you know, for example, I'm 57. My daughter. This is not public, so I guess it will be. Now, I don't know if my daughter will watch this, but my daughter's getting married in September. Now, she got married last year for tax purposes, but she's getting married in the church in September. And I've been a pianist for, I don't know, since I was 8. Not a very good one, but I like to write music. I have a piano in My office right behind me. So I write music a lot. It's kind of a way to get away from everything. So at 50, at 56, I decided that I would write the music to my daughter's first dance. And so I knew in order to do that, however, if I was going to be playing piano in front of 200 people, I think I'd better go get better. So I actually hired a teacher and I've like, right after we're done with this podcast, I've got my one o' clock piano lesson that I've had for the last eight months that nobody in my family knows. It's supposed to be a great secret. And so I think the discovery side of continuous improvement puts you psychologically into so much bigger and better shoes. For me personally, it's an emotional journey. It's, it's just a way of life. It's a way of thinking about a better tomorrow in everything you do, and seeing the flowers and everything grow and people and how they all come together. I mean, I've got an organic farm at home, for crying out loud, that I, you know, I raise tomatoes and peppers for market gardens. And am I applying all the lean principles on my farm? My composting system is right where I'm going to plant. The composting process is parallel processed with the seed start. So when the compost is starting, the seed starts are starting at a similar rate. So we're doing parallel processing. We don't call it parallel processing. It's common sense. Right. We're using worms to aerate our soil so we don't have to do the work. Right. We're separating the man from the machine. I've got a machine over here that they don't even have to worry about showing up every day.

Right.

So, you know, I guess this is very personal to me, Ron.

Yeah, well, that's, that's awesome, man. I want to, I want to sort of circle back. You've mentioned MacArthur and sort of his role in helping the Japanese people transform themselves and in really just their, their, their industry, if you will. I wonder if we could maybe circle and hone in. I know there were some other folks as well that you've mentioned along the way that also played an important role. I'd like you to talk about that a little bit more because, I mean, many of our listeners are familiar with, you know, things like TWI and training within industries and whatnot. But. And I don't know if that's part of what you're going to the direction that you're going, but talk a little bit about MacArthur and his role and, and some of these other folks.

I will, I will. So. So General MacArthur was faced with a real dilemma in 1946. And the dilemma was very simple. While we had just dropped a couple of very important weapons on the people of Japan, it pretty much decimated their entire communication system. So while MacArthur's goal in restoring Japan was because, you know, MacArthur spent much of his life in Asia, I mean, and his father, I mean, his father lived in the, they lived in the Philippines. So they understood the Zen culture, the culture of who the Japanese were. And MacArthur was fascinated by it. You know, it was a completely different culture than what the Americans were dealing with, especially in European, the European wars where you had Eisenhower and, you know, you had the whatchamacallit plan. So MacArthur understood the Japanese people and he knew the one thing that they had that was so, was so important was their curiosity and their creativity, their ability. Like my Japanese sensei used to say, Colin, creativity before capital, curiosity before capital. So MacArthur knew that about the Japanese people, but he had no way to communicate that. He really meant he was coming in peace to rebuild the community. And so they discovers that the communication systems are all done. There aren't any. And Homer Saracen and Charlie Prachman and Charlie Prostman's son, I hope he gets to watch his, his grandson with, gets to watch this podcast. He's in Texas. Charlie, you know, Charlie's grandfather was working directly with Homer Saracen to actually convince MacArthur that we need. They needed a management system to train leaders in how to do management. That was the big thing that 29 year old Charlie, 29 year old former Saracen needed to teach MacArthur or convince MacArthur of. And MacArthur had a problem. He had no way to communicate. We come in peace to the Japanese people. So his job was to find somebody like Homer Saracen and Charlie Prostman to rebuild the communication system. And Homer Saracen actually was a radar engineer, I believe at Bell Labs, which coincidentally is where pretty much everybody of that era came from. And homer Saracen convinced General MacArthur that Homer Saracen was the right guy to help him lead the transformation beginning in 1946, so before Deming even got there, you know. And so with Homer's work and Charlie's, Charlie Prostman's work, they basically went around Japan teaching the Japanese that MacArthur was a good man and teaching them the management principles, which a lot we know now as lean manufacturing. The controversy, which was probably not much different than it is today. The American team that was supporting MacArthur wanted nothing to do with what Homer Saracen was offering. Homer Saracen was offering a program of continuous improvement. And the Americans who were supporting MacArthur were fighting against it, saying, we need command and control. You will never get this passed. This will never work if you go the continuous improvement route. And it got to the point where General MacArthur actually called Homer Saracen in for a meeting. You know, here's this 29 year old kid meeting with this five star general, telling him that continuous improvement is the way and you should listen. And ultimately MacArthur listened to him and he ignored the advice of his own United States government and put continuous improvement into play in 1946, with the help of Homer Saracen and Charlie Pratzman. And curiosity and creativity won over capital.

Yeah, exactly. What about Deming then? So talk to talk. Tie Deming into all this now, because he obviously plays an important role.

So Deming was. I think Deming had made one visit. I'm not sure. I'd have to call my friend Bill Bellows at the Deming Institute to ask him. But I think Deming had made one visit to Japan on behalf of MacArthur in the late 40s. But in 1950, Deming was actually over in Japan to help US government with statistics and understanding how many people we have alive in different areas. So we can actually start utilizing statistics to figure out where do we need to focus our emphasis on rebuilding plants and everything like that. Deming was of course, a disciple of Dr. Shewhart and the PDSA model, which of course later became PDCA, but I think many people still refer to as PDSA. So Deming was a fan of Dr. Shehart's work on SPC as well as PDCA, PDSA. And Deming got an opportunity to speak to some of the Japanese leaders. And at one time in 1950, Deming had 90% of all of the capital in Japan in one room. I think he had 300 leaders from the Caribbean. Botsu, I think that's how you pronounce it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm forgetting my Japanese Rod. He had them all in one room. And he basically told them pretty simply, flat, flat out, if you will follow the principles of continuous improvement, you will change the world within five years. And I think it took them three. And that's where Deming took over. Now the ironic part is MacArthur, when he went to Korea, the reason Homer Saracen's work did not continue, and I think one of the reasons MacArthur's work did take place, my understanding is that General MacArthur took Homer Saracen with him to Korea, and so he was no longer available in Japan. And basically that's when Deming really kind of started shining along with Duran.

Well, it's also. Yeah, yeah. From timing, perspective, you know, are you from. I assume you're. You are familiar with the sort of four. Four Horsemen that went over as well, from. With a. To. To implement twi. Job instruction. Job methods.

And I'm a little. I'm not as familiar with the Four Horsemen. I mean, I know I've hear the story here once in a while, but I have never really.

Yeah, I was just. I'm just kind of Googling around a little bit, just looking at dates, you know, as far as, you know, like Saracen, you know, as you were talking about, was looking in here. Raytheon, actually, he was with. Raytheon was his original. His original thing. And then. Yeah, so he was like. Yeah, he was right at that same time, because I believe. I believe the. All the. The. The. The TWI War Commission, you know, Rosie the Riveter, you know, the group that was over here working. And then. And then they deploy these same folks in Japan to essentially help them, you know, along the same way, which heavily influenced the Toyota family with a D. Toyota family and Toyota as we, you know, those programs. So it's happened. All this stuff is happening around the same time. So I was just curious. It'd be interesting to do a little bit more research to see if Proxim and Saracen and those guys, you know, rub Dubos with these other folks, you know.

You know, and there's the great video on YouTube and you could probably Google it while we're talking Homer Saracen live on YouTube back in, like, 1998, talking about his experience with MacArthur and the Japanese. It's a great, great. You know, it's a lost piece of history. And I've always said, just like I said about you, Ron, thank you for, you know, what you've done for me personally as well as the lean community. I mean, it's kind of the same thing. I think you have to pay. I hate the word pay it forward because it's just such an Americanized way of saying, you know, I really appreciate it, but, you know, I think Homer Saracen's story needs to be told as well as Charlie Prachman's. I mean, when I got an opportunity to connect to Charlie Prachman's grandson on LinkedIn through Nigel Thurlow at Toyota, I'm like, oh, my God, really? This is pretty cool. And then I got to meet Dr. Shingo's. You know, I got to meet Richie Shingo through my connections with Norm Bodek. All these guys, all these people made such a big difference and continue to make such a big difference in my life. Why wouldn't I want to make sure that. I say, Ron, you know, Gemba Academy is really. It's great because you're. I was telling Jim Hudson, a friend of mine, actually one of my business partners, you know, having this conversation with you today, and he goes, well, so how are you going to handle it? I said, well, I got to make sure Ron knows how much I appreciate what he's done. I said, because, you know, I learned a lot. I'm learning every day from what he does, and he doesn't ask anything of me, just gives. And I think that's what makes this lean community that we're members of and that I'm so proud to be. I hate the word pride, but I'm. I'm grateful for how much the lean community has adopted some of the things that I want to talk about, like self determination theory and how important DC and Ryan's work is today in culture. So I think Saracen and Proxman are two guys. Look, Deming got all the glory, and rightfully so. He got a lot of. Don't get me wrong, I love Dr. Deming. And Bill Bellows, the former head of Deming Institute, is a friend of mine, lives about 30 minutes away from me, so I have to be careful what I say. But here's two gentlemen, right? Kind of like the Four Horsemen. Those of us in the community probably know these names, right? We bury. You know, we talk about Toyoda, right? And Shingo and.

Oh, no.

And the other names that we know. But I think what's the story. The backstory of is the power of what they were teaching about people. That's the part that we need to explore. I mean, here's Harvard Business Review, right? So designing work that people love. Boy, isn't that. Isn't that perfect for this month, Right? Yeah. How do you do that? Right? I love the theory, I love the P part. Right? But I want to see the D part, the C part, the A part.

Right, Exactly. Yeah. You know, there's a. Have you ever heard the poem the Bridge Builder?

No.

Try to pull it up here. So your story, just everything that you've been sharing is. Is. It reminds me of this. I'm hoping I can find it here quickly, see how.

Yeah.

It says I'll just read it. You know, why not? I mean, I think I've written a blog article about this, but it's very similar to what you're talking about. It says it's called the Bridge Builder by William Allen Drum. Ghoul. Okay, sorry, probably got that name wrong, but. So here goes. An old man going a lone highway came at the evening cold and gray, to a chasm vast and deep and wide, through which was flowing a sullen tide. The old man crossed in a twilight dim. The sullen stream had no fear for him, but he turned when safe on the other side and built a bridge to span the tide. Old man said a fellow pilgrim near. You are wasting your strength with building here. Your journey will end with the ending day. You never again will pass this way. You've crossed a chasm deep and wide. Why build this bridge? At evening tide the builder lifted his old gray head. Good friend, in the path I have come, he said. There followed after me today a youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been is naught to me. To that fair haired youth may a pitfall be. He too must cross in a twilight dim. Good friend, I'm building this bridge for him. So, yeah, yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty powerful. A good friend of mine named Jim Bowles, he retired, well, many years ago, back at a last company that I worked at. And he loved this poem. We actually, in his retirement party, we printed it out and put it in a nice frame for him and presented it to him and read it and all that because that was his thing. He was also just. Just genuinely invested in people and making things better. But then, you know, leaving a legacy behind him of. Of continuous improvement and trying to help. Trying to help them make the world a better place, you know, and he's lean and whatnot, you know, as part of the way. So. Yeah, I thought that was.

I'll tell you, I'm. I'm a big reader. So I read a couple, you know, when I'm working on the farm. Usually I spend a couple of hours every morning on the farm. I've got animals and, you know, we've got composting responsibilities and planting responsibilities, harvest, selling, all the kind of good things that go into small farming. You know, how to become a millionaire as a farmer. Right. Start out with 2 million. That's kind of me. Yeah.

Yeah.

I take my lean consulting practice money and basically bury it in my farm. And my wife keeps trying to look for it under the corn, but no such luck yet. But I'm a big reader and that's Another thing, I was a horrible student in high school. I mean, I was just, you know, they were paying. The teachers were paying my parents to get me out of school. I mean, that's really what it boiled down to. And when I started discovering that I had. I don't want to say this in an arrogant way. I don't hope the audience doesn't take it that way. When I discovered I had something to say, and I guess. I guess a better description is when I had music to play that people wanted to hear, I was like, hey, wait a minute. This reading thing is cool. This learning thing is. It truly does motivate me. It truly does. Deming said it right. The joy of learning offsets any motivation. When we're engaged in doing something we love to do, you don't have to pay us. It's just baked into our DNA. It's just. Nigel calls it flow. And when we talk about flow in a technical term, balance, flow and balance, cycle times to tack time and all the other things, we talk about flow, but boy, the emotional flow that's attached to intrinsic motivation. You can get rid of all of the cycle time to tactile balance and all the other charts and all that stuff that flow. When we are emotionally engaged and we are connected to what it is we are doing, it's an incredible amount of flow. Time flies by so rapidly, it's unbelievable. And we can't wait to get to the next task or what I would say is the next discovery. And that's where Deming's work on SPK and psychology is. Look, we all talk about Variation Sigma. We all talk about systems thinking and looking at the entire process and understanding it from the beginning to the end, order to cache. I get it. Right? That's great. No questions about it. But Demi's two other parts of a system, the theory of knowledge, epistemology and psychology, are the two missing links in today's journey. We need to connect more wise. I mean, the tools are common sense. Yeah, right. The physical tools, but the emotional tools, the things that Nigel talks about with flow and emotional flow, like, Maya, I can't pronounce him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly.

Just passed away, right? I mean, his work on emotional flow and connection, which I know Nigel was a big fan of, and I feel it. I know what that feels like. When I'm working on my farm, for example, I'm trying to revolutionize the way compost is done. I'm doing small batch composting, which no one says you can do. I Turn my compost with an auger, which most people do by hand, and it takes them. I've reduced the cycle time of my compost from 30 minutes per bin to. To 2. Now does it matter? Yeah, it does, because actually, my plants grow better and I don't have to spend any money on fertilizer or pesticides. I use insects to take care of. I use good bugs to take care of bad bugs on my farm. So I buy things like ladybugs and lace wings and parasitic wasps because they eat the aphids. I never knew that in high school, had no interest in that stuff. Well, what was that? Yeah, and so here I am this, you know, doing management consulting. But when I'm engaged, you don't have to. You don't really have to pay me, man. I'm like, let's go figure it out, because we're gonna have a blast getting to the bottom of this.

It's interesting you mentioned school and just like education, our system for our kids and whatnot. And. And we actually. Little personal side. Some people know. Maybe. I don't know how many people know, but we've actually. My wife and I, we. We homeschool our kids. We have. Some of them have gone to traditional school. But. And, you know, what we've learned is, you know, like. Like in some situations, there's a kid who might just really thrive and just, you know, literature and great books and reading, you know, the. You know, just incredible literature, whereas other ones are just like, stab me in the neck if I have to read Homer or whatever, you know, like, they just can't do it, you know, so, like. But give me a wrench and let me work on a car, you know, like. And then they're in their deal. So I feel like what the. The travesty right now in our education system knocking it is that, you know, you try to force every. Every student, you know, into this. Into this round hole, you know, and they might be a square peg, you know, and. And that's the challenge right now. Many good schools have, like, vocational programs, which are fantastic, right, kid? Into the automotive program or into the, you know, medical program or whatever it might be. And that might just be a way better journey for them rather than forcing them into algebra one, algebra two, geometry, you know, and all the rest of it.

So, you know, I was just looking at one of the books that I love that's along the same lines, and it's. It's called Shop Craft for the Soul Class, and it's written by a PhD whose PhD in. I believe his PhD was in philosophy. So when he got his PhD, he realized it was pretty useless. Now, I wouldn't say it was useless in the sense of understanding, you know, philosophy, but, you know, he realized his. His real love and desire was to work on Harley's.

Yeah.

So after five or six years of working in philosophy and working for a couple of firms, he decided to go back and open a Harley shop and turn a wrench.

Yeah.

And he writes this book, and I'm just trying to find the exact title of it, but I believe it SOP Class for the Soul Craft. And it is a fantastic look at doing things that inspire us. Right. My. My old friend John Perry, God rest his soul, if you ever saw them. I don't. Did you ever see Hidden Figures, the movie?

No.

With the three ladies in NASA back in Langley Air Force Base who would do the wind tunnel testing for NASA. They were black women. They were just heavily discriminated against because they were working in a man's world in a mathematical context. It's a great book about. This is a true story based on three black women who work in. At Langley Air Force Base. And they're responsible for doing wind tunnel testing while we're building the Apollo rockets. Well, they were sending their data out here to California at Edwards Air Force Base, to my friend and colleague John Perry, who was also in the book. And he was a mathematician for NASA. And I got to spend seven years of my life every Monday morning with him, listening to the stories of Apollo. And, you know, he, he, you know, he worked with Neil Armstrong every day. I mean, every day they said he was the head of flight simulations at 21 years old. For NASA to put a man on the moon. They didn't even know, how do you put a man on the moon? How do you even get a man into space? They didn't even know they couldn't do it. That's what John used to tell, you know, we didn't know what we didn't know, so it never got in our way.

Right, right, right. Unconsciously incompetent.

That's right. Unconsciously incompetent. And so I've had such great, you know, I've been a benefactor, Ron, of so many wonderful people in the lean community and outside the lean community. I'm just forever grateful for the time I have left. People like you, people like my friend Jim Hudson, like Matt, my friend Matt were two of my business partners. I mean, Matt's a great example. I mean, Matt was one of the 12 guys at Toyota, at TSSC, who. Who taught Gary Convus, for crying out loud. And. And now Matt's a partner of mine. I mean, I don't deserve something like that.

Yeah.

You know, and. And so I've got these people that I've been surrounded by that have made such a big difference. And. And that's. I guess that's one reason I sent you the emails, just to say thank you. You know, I didn't have any plans on being on your podcast, and I'm honored and grateful that you gave me an opportunity to just share my story.

Well, I appreciate it. And I think that I'm sure the people that have worked with you are going to say the same nice, kind things about you, you know, and the work that you've done to pay all that goodness that you've received forward. And I feel like that's what life's all about, right. Is that we, We. We learn from others, we're humble and we try to do our best and learn from others, and then we. And then we take that and we help other people. And if we all do that, the world would be, you know, an incredible place. Right. And. Yeah.

So it's going to. It's going to be. It's going to be an incredible place as we continue to make a difference. Right? That's.

Right.

That's really where we have to go with these things. I mean, we have. The way I look at it, Ron, the lean community has the ability to change the universe.

Yeah.

If they will, you know, if we will get off of the tools, technical tools. I'm not saying they're not important.

Yeah.

But if we will get onto the emotional tools of psychology and the theory of knowledge and understanding, the power of psychology, when the human mind is engaged in something it's interested in doing, it's just like this, you know, designing work that people love. Right. Designing things that make people interested, giving them their curiosity. John used to say to me, he said, there's a difference between leadership and management. Management enforces compliance within a specific set of rules and boundaries and make sure everybody follows the rules. Okay, well, maybe call that standard work. I don't know. Leaders, however, inspire people to bring and give their best by breaking down the barriers to their excellence and giving them the belief in a better tomorrow. So, Colin, you don't need managers. You got to have a couple. But the more leaders under that term inspire people to bring and give their best by breaking down the barriers to man's excellence, the more we can design those work opportunities that People love. Yeah. And there's going to be some standard work that, you know, the research does show. Hey, look, with some standard work, the only way to get more work out of it is with money. But with most standard work, having people make the changes to bring about the better standard work is the opportunity to engage the mind. Now we have to prevent people from becoming robots with the standard work that we've created. Which akio Toyota. In 2014, I wrote a story for Chief Executive magazine. I've written quite a bit for them. And the story was how Toyota got its groove back. And it was basically how Akio Toyota basically recognized that one day the robots weren't learning anything and it was time to fire them. So he fired the robots and brought the humans back. And what they found was they were able to rapidly improve productivity, bring people's engagement levels back, because the robots couldn't think. They didn't have the theory of epistemology. They just had what man had programmed into them to tell him what to think. And so things like that, when we start to, you know, and I'm not pitching, you know, I'm not pitching this as, you know, something revolutionary, but intrinsic motivation is extremely powerful. And that psychological aspect of Deming's SPK is something that just. We're not exploring it enough. And DC and Ryan are blowing. They're blowing up Dr. Skinner's work on operant conditioning theory. And if anybody, you know, in your podcast wants to start learning a little bit more about stt, certainly Google, DC and Ryan and self determination theory and what it teaches us about motivators. Right. Extrinsic and intrinsic and what money does under many circumstances to actually destroy our motivation.

Yep.

A simple example, and it's not really a financial example. If I say to you something, I make the statement of, you know, Ron, great work, walk away. Right. You get a feeling that you appreciate right. Now. Let me change the state and let me rephrase it. Gron, Ron, comma, great work, comma, you should do that more often. We have now changed the dynamic from one of continuous improvement. Ron, great work. Right. No attachment to it, no controlling statement to. Ron, great work. You should do that more often. Now we've changed the obvious statement of non controlling to a controlling statement, and we've changed the intrinsic motivation to extrinsic and we've actually hurt the intrinsic motivation. Those are the little nuances that DC and Ryan are discovering that go well beyond any financial issues related to motivation.

Yeah.

And yet we've got a country that everything's driven by grades. Everything's driven by money. And if you, I'm sorry, Farmers hands are. This is as clean as they get. So don't worry.

We just have the cameras on for me and you. Nobody's seeing it. We're not even recording the video.

So I like the top of my hands. I realize they're just, you know, about as clean as you get.

I got the same thing from lifting weights. I got, my heads are all tore up. So. Yeah, you know, I, that, that, I love that Ron, thank you story or Ron, great job. I would say, yeah. Add thank you at the end and then it's even perfect, right? Ron, great job. Thank you. You know, and, oh, you know that we have appreciation, we have gratitude. And, and yeah, that's awesome.

And so when I, when I started researching what D.C. and Ryan were teaching on intrinsic motivation, it really opened my eyes to understanding my father, you know, circling back to understanding. How do you phrase things? In a pot, in a meat, in a meeting. Like, I'm not this positivity, you know, everybody's got a sing Kumbaya nonsense. I'm not part of that crowd. I, I, you know, we have to have some, we have to have some modicum of, you know, respect. Respect. Just like the Japanese would say, respect for people. But that statement was like, well, I started thinking about it with my kids and my grandkids and how do I, you know, how do I get them to eat their cereal in the morning, right? Do I give them a candy bar at the end? Like, you know, if you read Dr. You read Alfie Cohn's Work of Punishment Rewards, you realize they're two sides of the same coin, just like that statement, right? Ron, great work. Thank you. That's it, we're done. Or, Ron, great work. You should do that more often. All of a sudden I don't know what to think of you as the parent or as a boss or. If you do this, I'll give you that. If you don't do this, you'll get that. Which cone says is makes the confusing part that this or the that.

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Wow, Calen, this has been fun, man. I, I really appreciate your, your honesty and your, your vulnerability and willingness to share some personal stories there. So maybe we could wrap things up with, if you have any final words of wisdom for the listeners out there. But then definitely I'd like you to share, if folks wanted to connect with you directly, what the best way to go about that is.

Sure. Well, I'm an old fashioned guy Remember, I built my risk management practice knocking door to door. So I think the easiest way to reach me today is just pick up the phone and call me. Okay? And my number is pretty easily accessible, but I'll give it out to everybody. It's 661-332-0382. If they're old, you know, new school and they want to reach me via email, they can just send me a note to Colin at C o L I N at the number 5w h y leader.com 5y leader.com for your lean guys. They'll know what 5y means. Obviously my wife still doesn't know why I called it that, but that's a good way too. I think that's a good way to reach out to me and kind of wrap things up. But Ron, just in all sincerity, for what you've done for the Lean community, thank you. I appreciate it.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Colin, this has been fun. You take care and keep up the great work, okay?

Thanks Ron. You too. Be well.

All right, you too.

Bye. Bye.

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