GA 484 | The Importance of Communication with Boris Kajos

Today, I'm excited to welcome Boris Kios to the show. Now, Boris is actually from Slovakia. I'm not sure if we've had anybody from Slovakia on the show before, so it was really interesting to have him on. And so Boris works in the construction industry for a company called yit. Come to find out, it's a Finnish company from Finland. And so we had a nice chat about Finland. And I used to work at Nokia many, many years ago. And total funny story about how I almost died in a Finnish sauna. One, not literally, but, well, maybe literally, it was so hot. So we had a little fun story about that. But then really the show is all about Boris's experience using Lean in the construction industry, and in particular his company yit. They are using this Last Planner system as we've had some folks on in the past, Andrew Pilon and a few other folks talking about the Last Planner system. But really what we did, we. It wasn't necessarily just like a big commercial for Last Planner System, but just more about. About the importance of, you know, collaborating with your. The partners who are your subcontractors or whoever it might be, and how you can work together to sort of stay on task. And we just had some really good conversation also about just the importance of communication and told a story about how my wife and I are going through a little home improvement project. And it's been pretty painful working with these guys. You know, they're just terrible communicators. You never know what's going on. And so I feel like, you know, the construction world, if they learn anything from, you know, Lean, it's just that to communicate and keep everybody up to date and to work together and harmonize and don't work in silos. So, yeah, really good stuff. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Now, show notes can be found over@gemba podcast.com look for episode 4. 84. And also be sure to connect with Boris. Just scroll down on your app there and you can connect with him on LinkedIn and all that kind of good stuff. And finally go over to Gemba Events.com we're starting to do live instructor training. Not really known for live instructor training. Gemba Academy isn't. But. But we're really putting a lot of effort into this and we're having a lot of fun and a lot of success, you know, complementing our online platform, obviously. But all the information is over on gemba events.com okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Boris, welcome to the show. How are.

Hey. Hi. I'm great. How are you?

Good, good, good, good. Hey, so where are you calling in from today?

Well, I'm sitting here in Wyatt, Slovakia. So it's capital of Bratislava, and I'm currently in our offices.

Ah, very nice. I've never been to your country, so. But I know it's a beautiful place. Have you lived there all your life?

Yeah, I lived here all my life. And we are really small town, small country, only of 5 million people, and we like to call ourselves, ourselves, the heart of Europe.

The heart of Europe. Oh. How does the rest of Europe feel about that?

Since we are hard, they have to feel great.

Yeah, that's right. That's great. That's great.

Wonderful.

Awesome. All right. Well, hey, Boris, I know you've listened to the show, and as you know, we like to get things started with our guest sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Well, I've got one that's really personal to me, but I learned it mostly here in my time here in Yit. And it goes that the worst part is when you do perfectly the one thing that you don't have to do at all.

What's that mean to you?

Well, it's connected to my Lean story that, you know, everyone's trying to do everything perfectly, but sometimes with better planning and with better thinking about your work, you don't have to even do the work at all.

Got it, Got it. Okay, well, hey, tell us a little bit about your background, Boris. Tell us how you got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff, and then tell us about why it or. And what you're up to these days.

Yeah, gladly, gladly. Well, for me, it's for now or for now. Just a pretty short story. I've pretty much only came to Lean, or knowing Lean as soon as I started here in Yit, which is probably around two years ago. And before that, I worked in IT or various IT jobs, but I studied management. And Lean was always a fascinating story because. Or fascinating thing for me because I. From, you know, from when. From my childhood, I've tried to make things simpler for me and for my father because he was also electrician. So, yeah, I've seen the open position here in Yit, and I've applied. I've came here working as a trainee, but really only after a few months, I became Link coordinator, and. And I've learned a lot. And right now I'm here full time as Lean coordinator, and I'm responsible for implementing various Lean methods.

Okay, why it? What does the company do?

Well, we are Finnish based construction and development company. So we pretty much built everything you can think of. But our Slovak unit specifies only in residential buildings.

Okay. Did you say it was a Finnish company from Finland?

Yeah, from Finland.

Nice.

Okay. We right now, I believe are in nine different. Nine different countries across Europe.

Funny, funny Finland story. I used to work at Nokia many years, many years ago. And I traveled to Solo. Right, Solo, Finland.

Is that right? Solo.

They have big Milkia factory there. I don't know if they still do or not. And you know, I don't know if you guys take saunas there and it like they do in Finland, but these guys are crazy for their sauna, right? I do a sauna every day now as well, but it's not like as hot as in Finland. So I never forget it was a work meeting, you know, and it was Friday or whatever and the, the day was over and we were in these trailers. They had these trailers all over this Nokia campus. And in one side of it they had these saunas. And the guys all were going to go to the sauna at like 7 o' clock and then the ladies come later for 8 o' clock or something like that. And Eddie how I was the only American and all these Finnish guys, you know, they go, hey, let's go into the sauna. So. Okay, let's go. I had never really gone to saunas before, you know, before that. So I saw. Oh, gosh. So you know, you go. I go in there and get my little towel, you know, to sit on it. I put it down and I open the door and I walk in and I swear to you, I have never felt heat like that ever my life. I thought I was going to pass out, but I had to go in, you know, it'd be rude and embarrassing. So I sit down there and I thought to myself, these guys are all relaxed talking, you know, and I'm just thinking to myself, just keep breathing. You just keep breathing and you won't die. And so I'm sitting there and I'm breathing. I, I think I lasted maybe five minutes or so and. But the, the funniest thing was I, I, as soon as finally I said I'm gonna die, literally, if I don't get out of here. So I got, as soon as I left, all of a sudden all these guys followed me. But they were not gonna leave until I left because they can't have the American guy beat them, you know.

Okay, so you're a trendsetter. You know, you were setting trends in Finland as well. But yeah, that's a long time. I. When we were in Finland, they were telling us that, you know, you know, it's around three to four minutes. And after that, did they make you also to do the deep water?

Well, they had it. I didn't do that, but they had it. They, these, some of these guys did it. They went and they jump in the water. I'm like, yeah. So now I actually, I love. I do a sauna every day and. But it's not as hot as the one in Finland. I know. And cold shower after, but it's not the same as the cold lake, you.

Know, so in Finland, when we were. It was also completely different than I can take in here in Slovakia.

Eddie. Yeah. Well, hey, good stuff, man. Good stuff. All right. Well, hey, what I want to talk about today, not about saunas, you know, as interesting as that is, is I'm curious to hear about this yit and your, and your, Your journey with. With Lean and, and like, where are you? Where did you guys start? And. And what did that look like? And then maybe where are you now?

Well, great. Yeah, we can definitely talk about that. Well, here in Slovakia, Lean is not so popular in construction. So we were starting really from the ground up. And everything began when our general director, Milan Murcutko, just, you know, learned about Lean and started to be more and more interested. And after that, he was talking with. Talking about Lean with a few of our then construction guys, and mostly about Last Planner and implementing it here in Slovak unit. But we didn't have anything like that before. So from the beginning there or at the beginning, it was, you know, just the talks. But after that, two of our guys really liked it and they've started to implement it on our construction sites. So that was, let's say, the first step or the first major thing that happened that they've started implementing mostly Last Planner, but various Lean methods as well on our sites. And there's a funny story that one of them said after the implementation, and it's that before he started using Last Planner at his construction site, he needed a power bank to go through through the day with his phone because he had so many phone calls with his subcontractors and the guys at the site. But after implementation of Last Planner, his smartwatches started telling him that he needs to move more and he didn't need the power bank anymore. Yeah. So that may be how it all began. And after they've seen, you know, the fruits of this tree called Lean, our general director created an official Lean team here in Slovakian unit. And we were the first to have it. We were the first Lean unit of yit and we focused ever since on, you know, continuous improvement and improvement of processes, etc. But from the beginning, I cannot say from the every exact beginning because I've joined this Lean team, let's say three to four months after its creation.

But.

From the beginning we've started with various Lean methods, but since then we've distilled down our strategy and right now we are focusing mostly on value stream management and the Last Planner.

Yeah, so interesting. So I'm curious to hear, you know, anytime that company is starting something new, whether it's Lean, introducing something like Last Planner or whatever, it's a change, right? It's a big change. Like, was there any. Was everybody sort of like happy for the change or was there maybe some, some, some pushback, some resistance or some uncertainty or fear, anything like that, as you were beginning to introduce these new ideas?

Yeah, there definitely was, I'd say something from both camps. You know, you have in every company you have people that will like every change or most of the changes that are being made, and a few of them that so like the way of their doing or they work that they don't want to change it. So of course there were those two camps and to the first one we didn't have to explain pretty much anything, but we still did. We still explained what is lean and how will it affect the company and where will it help us and so on. But the second camp was much more difficult because we had to persevere, our colleagues, to understand the methodology. And yeah, there were definitely a few setbacks. Definitely. I remember one time it wasn't our employee, but when we've started monitoring the crane usage of. On our construction sites and the crane operator destroyed the device that was hooked or magnetically attached to the hook because he thought that we are trying to measure his daily performance. So yeah, both camps.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm curious, I don't know a lot about your, your, your country or your culture, but is. Is. Is change something that is genuinely difficult or, I mean, I think it's worldwide change is difficult, but maybe in Slovakia, do you have any ideas of how, how it compares to say, you know, the, the US or I don't know, Germany or Spain or something like that?

Well, I don't have any comparison and I wouldn't say that the Slovaks are, you know, not so open to changes that other people or other countries. I believe that we are as much open as anybody would be. But we all know that construction business is not really, you know, innovative. And here in Slovakia, the guys are used to something, used to their way of work. So it was definitely a challenge for them to get used to something new. And especially when we are, or maybe we at least were from the beginning, the only company that was our only construction company that was implementing Lean.

Yeah. Okay. So I mean we've had, you know, Andrew, I know you've, I introduced you to Andrew, I think over email and we've had some other folks over the years on talking about Last Planner. But just in case people don't know even what the heck we're talking about, just give like a 30 second explanation of what is Last Planar system and then maybe transition into what were you doing before Last Planner system? Like how were you actually doing it?

Okay. Okay. Before that, if you don't know what Last Planner system is, I definitely advise you to go and listen to Andrew's podcast, Andrew Gilland, because he claimed Last Planner excellently, like it was really great. I listened to it. But since you're already here, I will tell that last one is great because it has two major features that we really like it for. One of them is visual feature. You have all the tasks in front of you on a scale that all of the tasks are on one big wall. Everyone can see them, everyone can see the dependenc, every trade can see what will they be doing that day or that week. So it's really visual. And the second biggest reason or second best reason why Last Planner is that it's collaborative. You don't plan anything at your own. You plan with your colleagues or with your subcontractors, with whoever, whomever you're working with, you plan with. So that's why I asked her and yeah, to, to transition it to how it was before we've started implementation or implementation process. Well, as I said, no one here in Slovakia knew about it. So for everyone it was something new, something they had to learn. But there were maybe two to three major things that were the most different and it was that our guys, or guys here in Bratislava were using various planning methods across all the construction sites. So let's say one of them were using Gantt chart and one of them flow lines. And everyone was just piecing their own plans and it worked because they didn't have to coordinate anything between themselves. So that was maybe the one thing. And the second thing, as I've said, they were not planning with subcontractors, they were planning for them. They were creating the plans or schedules and our subcontractors were just working as they were told, let's say like that. But there was no detailed planning for short look at periods or non scheduled meetings with subcontractors or not in so much detail that are right now, but after or after the LinkedIn has formed. We knew from the very beginning that we have to implement Last Planner. So that was our main focus from the beginning. And the implementation started in a few steps like with of course, you know, if you, if you try to implement something new and some new methodology in the whole company or whole unit, you have to start with training sessions. But we've really quickly learned that the training is not enough. You, it's, it's not enough to just tell someone how to do something and expect them to be, be doing it. So we've not only told our guys how to facilitate the daily huddles or daily meetings, but we've also been helping them with that ever since. So if we are on every daily huddle that's happening and we are trying to, you know, get them the correct information and maybe if they have any questions about Last planner or any, anything that you know, you just, there are things that you just cannot say in a training. They, they don't just are in any training materials, but if you're daily on the construction site, they will come up and we are there to help them with. And as I've right now said that that's the second biggest thing that that has happened. We've created daily meetings. So each and every morning our guys at construction site have these, we call them morning huddles. And it usually takes around 15 to 25 minutes depending on the, on the task in the day or, or how many guys are there, but around 25 minutes let's say. And they go through all of their work in two steps. The two steps that we've identified being the most efficient, let's say like that the first one, they will look at previous tasks and they will, you know, think about reasons for variance if the task were, tasks were completed or incomplete and they will mark down the reasons for, for why they weren't. And the second second step is to look at your work for that day. So every, every subcontractor or every tradesman looks at his planned work and will tell us if he, you know, can make it that day or if something came up. And if something came up, he will replant it. And in, in this same, you know, step they will try to look at, say Six weeks of look ahead plan. So they will try to look six weeks ahead of today and think about what can be done and if there are any reasons why the work should stop or should be replant and something like that. So that's maybe after the implementation what we've done.

One question I have about Last Planner. I think I've probably asked this before on previous episodes, but honestly, I can't remember now. Maybe I haven't. So obviously I know a big part of it is as you mentioned, that collaboration between, you know, contractors and subcontractors and everybody sort of working together. Right. And having a, having, you know, a say in how the, how the schedule is looking. What about the, the customer, the end customer? Are they ever involved in like knowing what's going on with the, with the plan?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, in different construction companies, I believe they could be, or even in different units of iit but since we only construct or you know, since our only way is to create residential buildings, we cannot have all the residents or future residents, then we, so we only create residential buildings. And that's why the customer in that case is the project manager of that specific project. And he himself has also meetings with last planner, but project meetings. So. Yeah, so he's not attending the daily huddles, right?

Yeah, but I, but obviously, you know, maybe once a, once a week or you know, once a month or something, they come in and get an update from this very, very dialed in process, right?

Well, they, they get it once a week. They get it on their own meetings, project meetings. And they, they will not get the daily, let's say performances or daily the last Planner. But we, we also do weekly last planner for every construction site. And the project manager representing the end customer in this case gets the update from weekly last Planner in every week. So he can see the critical role and he can see the tasks that are happening and then when the construction is expected to finish.

Yeah, yeah. My wife and I were actually doing a construction project at our, at our house, a little remodeling thing. And, and it's a very frustrating experience. You know, we have like a superintendent who's great and the superintendent is trying, but the superintendent is at the mercy of all the different trades, you know, that electrical guy and you know, this guy and that guy and the painting guy or whatever. And, and you know, he, he doesn't have necessarily control over all of them. So you know, we're just like, hey, what's going on? You know, all we want to know is like, what's the status. Right. And. Yeah, exactly. You know, and, And I feel like construction companies, if you just do that, talk to your customer and let them know how things are going. Are we a winning or are we losing?

Right.

And just. And if you're losing, what's the plan? To. To. To.

To.

To. To come back, you know, to. To win. Right. And so many construction companies just don't do that. But the folks that are doing like Glass Planner and this type of thing, I sense that they, they're very. They're far more able to, you know, keep their customer up to date and with confidence. You know, like, here's where we are and here's what you should expect.

Yeah. And greatly said because a lot of times construction companies can't tell you or cannot tell you that they're not going according to plan. Because if you would ask them, okay, so what is the new plan and how will you mitigate this thing? They don't know because they don't have the second plan. But if you're using Last Planner, you always have it. Because if you know that, okay, this task won't be done today. You just simply take it and put it where will be, where it will be finished. And okay, there's always some milestones and always some critical role that you would want to move the task, let's say three weeks ahead. And the milestones won't let you. But that's planning. You have to work with resources then, and you have to, you know, manage it so it will work.

Great. Great. Awesome. Well, Boris, this has been fun. If, if folks want to connect with you personally, what's the best way? LinkedIn? Something like that?

Yeah. Yeah, LinkedIn would be great.

Okay. And so B O R I S and then K A J O S just for those listening. But also just scroll down on your app and we'll have everything linked up, up to everybody. Go connect with, with Boris. And especially if you're in the construction world or something like that and you want to learn more about this, this Last Planner, maybe these Last Planner guys need to pay you and Andrew some royalties or something, man, you know, for all the advertising you're giving them, Right?

Hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah. But it would be great if someone would reach out. I can talk. Could definitely in a bit more depth if someone would want to.

Yeah, wonderful. Awesome. All right, well, hey, thanks for coming on Boris, and you have a great rest of your day.

Okay, great. Thank you for inviting me.

Yes, take care. 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 with While we're best known for our more than 1500 Lean and Six 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 certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.