GA 505 | Values vs. Principles with Steve Kane

Well, the following week we had another coaching session and he said he started off with Steve. I have to apologize, I was so wrong. I thought I knew the process, I knew the waste. And he said, I made one observation to me that was just enormous and I couldn't believe it.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Steve Cain back to the show. Now, Steve is a Gemba Academy team member. Steve is our director of certification and coaching, and he's been with Gemba Academy for, for a long time. He talks a lot about in his bio, I believe it's nine years coming up on 10 years. So he's been with us for quite some time. And so today on the show, we have a really interesting conversation. We talk a little bit about the Lean Practitioner certification program we have, and it's not meant to be a big commercial or anything like that, but the reason I wanted to talk through it is because I feel like there's a lot that all of us can learn in the continuous improvement community of how to sort of learn and practice, learn in practice. And that's sort of the, the essence behind the Lean Practitioner certification program. And then Steve is a excellent, excellent coach. And he's actually been through some formal coaching training to learn how to actually coach because it's a skill. And so he brings an incredible amount of experience to the table. And so we talked a lot about how to work through the coaching process with candidates and, and this led into a conversation on the difference between values and principles. And that was really important part of the conversation because values and principles are complementary, but they're very different. And, but they're both very important. And so Steve was able to sort of tie all this together. And I think you're going to really benefit from this because in the end, almost all of us in a continuous improvement program, no matter what our jobs are, we are going to be interacting with other people. And whether you see yourself as a coach or not, you probably are. And especially if you have family or children or something like that, then we're coaching every day, whether we like it or not. So there's, there's a lot, a lot to learn about this craft of leading others and coaching others. So show notes for everything that we talk about can be found over@gembapodcast.com look for episode five. 05. Also, we're going to link up a bunch of the different things that we talk about, in particular our Lean Practitioner certification. And if there's something that you'd be interested in, check that out. And yeah, enough for Me. Let's get to the show. Steve, welcome back to the show. How's it going?

Hey, it's going well, Ron. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's good to talk to you. We were just looking it up right before we hit record. It's been been a little while since you've been on August 17, 2022. So I've had a few sleeps since then, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

All right. Well, Steve, you're not a stranger to the show, so, you know, we like to get going with a, with a quote. What do you got?

Don't let perfection get in the way of progress. I don't know where that came from. Yeah, I've heard it from many different sources, but, man, does that really hit home in the continuous improvement world.

Yeah. What do you think, though? Like, I mean, aside from just a high level statement of it, like, what's the deeper thought behind that? You think?

Yeah, you know, it always pulls my mind straight back to Toyota Kata. Right. It's, you know, it's an iterative approach toward a target condition, multiple target conditions toward a challenge. But it, to me, it emphasizes the progress. Right. Take a step, understand where you are, where you want to go. Right. Do that gap analysis, take another step. And the reason that it takes my mind there is because. Perfect. If perfection is on our minds, we tend not to take a step. We get stuck in analysis paralysis, that sort of thing. Making sure that everything is just right before we move forward. And I think there's a lot to be said about, you know, taking a step forward and learning from that step. And if we discover a flaw with what we've done, great, let's take a step towards closing that gap. And then. Great. And then the next and the next. But, but progress.

So, I mean, as a company, we, we really got serious about scientific thinking. Gosh, I don't know how many years ago it was, but, you know, the book had been out for a little while and, and I had read it. I know, I'm sure you read it as well early on when Mike first wrote that book. But I remember for me personally, like, just being honest, I was, people would call us up, you know, many, many years ago to be like, hey, you got any Toyota Kata content? And we were like, nah, yeah, Toyota is nice, but, you know, it's edca. You know, you don't problem solve it. You don't need a, you know, good for Mike. He wrote a book, he'll. He'll give some nice talks and all that kind of stuff. But eventually we really got serious about making content, so we wanted to practice it. And for me, my eyes were opened, you know, they really were because I didn't give it a fair shake early on. Maybe it was intellectual jealousy or something, I don't know what it was, but I didn't give it a fair shake. And then we practiced it internally, you know, as, you know, the sales team and then you and your team and you know, we, we, we really got after it. And I was like, man, where was this when I was a, you know, 20 something year old engineer running through factories trying to, you know, if I would have known this or had this framework, how much more effective I could have been? Like, what, where would, how. I don't know. I genuinely don't know the answer to this. Like, what were your early thoughts on scientific thinking? Toyota Kata when you first learned about it?

I deeply misunderstood it. So. Right. Because I looked at it and said, okay, there's a long, there's a challenge. Where are we now? Right. Understand the gap. Take a step like, yeah, duh, obviously, like I, you know, why is this a big deal? And it took, I think it took a few approaches for me coming at, at it, reading the book, and then I went to a workshop put on by Beth Carrington and then kind of opened my eyes a little bit more. I think my mistake was like, I think I was looking at the concept in terms of myself. Not that I'm a master of scientific thinking or coaching or anything like that, but I think it's, it's a much greater issue when we're looking at things organizationally, like how do we all take a step forward, we should be moving in the same direction and how do we know that we're aligned with our approach? Just how do we do this? And you have to admit, within any population, we're going to have different approaches to things. So. Right. Jump to countermeasures, the really common one. And I have to admit, I mean, I'm guilty of that and I've done it countless, countless times. Yeah. So scientific thinking, it took a while for it really to sink in for me to understand that, oh, I am doing this jump to countermeasure thing. I am making assumptions and I am making bad decisions and redoing my work as a result of it. And you know, I think what I've come to learn and actually what I teach people in our certification programs, like the fastest way to get from point A to point B is by taking the time to think it through. Use, use this Kata approach, pdca. Slow down a little bit and understand where we're going. Deeply understand the obstacles we're trying to overcome. Select. Right. Just that one step. And the key thing, and you and I have talked about this so many times before, the expectation, what do you expect? What's really going to happen here? And then weighing that against what actually happens. I think that that piece right there is. That's where we learn. Right?

Yeah.

And. Right. So. And truth be told, that's the piece that's missing.

Yeah.

Right. From when you jump to countermeasure, there's no learning.

Yeah. Because it's so interesting that you said that when you first saw the four steps, you know, challenge and current condition, it's like, man, we've been doing that with value stream mapping since the very beginning. You know, like current state, future state, you know, all the rest of it. And so. But to your point, what?

Almost.

If they're being honest, Almost no. Continuous improvement practitioner who's not thinking about scientific. One thing that I can almost promise they are not doing is. Is making a prediction.

Yes.

On what they think is going to happen before they take an action.

Yes.

I mean, I suppose I could be wrong. Maybe there's some folks out there, I'm like, I do that, you know, but. But really, every time. Do you write it down and then did you compare it to what actually happened? You know, and.

Yeah, that's. I think that's. That's the key that you mentioned right there. And that's really easy to miss. Did you write it down? Because I tell you what, I don't know about you. I don't know if this is a human nature thing or if it's just me, but I think differently when I write things down. Okay. What do I expect when I write it down? There's so much more thought going into it than if I don't.

Yep, yep, Exactly. Good stuff. Hey, man, we've been all over the place here. But just in case folks don't know who you are, Steve, I'm sure they all do. But. But give us a rundown on who was Steve Cain and why should anybody care?

Yeah. So I'm the director of coaching and certification here at Gemba Academy, so my primary responsibility is our certification programs, and we have a team of people doing that. I'm the primary coach for our Lean Practitioner program and some other programs we've got in the works that'll be coming out in the next year or two. And I came to Gemba Academy nine years ago from the Medical device manufacturing industry where I. I learned lean the hard way, you know, like so many people do. Right. Made my, my mistakes, read a book that, that led me to like, the next book, the next idea and. Yeah, yeah. So it's been a fun road over the past couple of decades.

Yeah, sure has. Sure has. Well, so you talked a little bit about that Lean Practitioner certification program. I mean, I've been, it's been so fun just to see. I remember when we, I guess it was your idea initially to sort of have this and it's like, how's that going to go? You know, we've always had the, you know, traditional green bell, black belt, master black ballot sort of thing. But, you know, lean certification just in and of itself, just starting there, there's some potential to rub some purists a little bit wrong. Like, why are you certifying? You know, it's. You're never done learning and this and that. So how do you sort of overcome those objections to the idea of certifying someone and, and really any topic, but in this case, lean.

Yeah, yeah. So I think about any other types of certificates and licenses, and I've talked about this before. Yeah. I fly for fun, you know, recreationally. And I remember going for, you know, my, after all of my flight training, going to the FAA examiner and going on the check ride and the interview. It's a very lengthy process, takes about five hours. And at the end of it, this examiner filled out. Now, the pilots aren't licensed in the US you don't get a pilot's license. It's a pilot certificate. So here's your certificate. And he said, this certificate is your license to learn. And that always stuck with me, like, you are not finished now. Now you begin. And the certificate says that you have sufficiently understood a defined body of knowledge and you've demonstrated some very specific skills that say you're proficient with this as a novice. And I look at continuous improvement certifications the same way, whether it's lean practitioner, green belt, black belt, etc. You got to remember when we get those things, that's where we begin. And now it's like we've got a strong enough foundation that now we can really begin applying this and learning from that experience and continually learning. Right. We should always be studying this stuff.

Yeah. So, I mean, high level, and it's not meant to be a commercial for our Lean Practitioner program. But I'm curious, like, from your perspective, how are things going?

The coin. They go. Yeah, things are going very well. Very well. The program you know, it's challenging. It takes most people about 9, 10 months to get through it. And it's very in depth. A lot of coaching is involved with it. So it's not just, you know, watch instructional videos and take a test. It's really watch instructional videos, go off and apply it in your business. Make a real world improvement. Right? And we help coach people through that process. And we do that in 10 specific areas like lean thinking, workplace organization, understanding, value and waste, etc. So we have a list of 10 sections. So the people who go through have to demonstrate proficiency in each of these sections in order to earn the certification. But it's going well and we've got quite a few people going through it. And some of the improvements, I have to say, Ryan, some of the improvements that have come out of these deliverables that we have, you know, in applying the methods that we teach have been. Some of them just been enormous. I mean, for example, we have a client in, in Ireland working for a global med device manufacturer. And it came to the stand in the circle exercise. So that's the assignment. Stand in the circle, record your observations and counter one problem that you see. And he was like begging and pleading with me to not have to do this. He didn't. He thought it was a waste of his time. He's like, really? Come on, you know, I know what the wastes are. Can you just sign me off? And it's like, man, yeah, you've got to actually do it. Well, the following week we had another coaching session and he said, he started off with Steve, I have to apologize, I was so wrong. I thought I knew the process, I knew the waste. And he said, I made one observation to me that was just enormous and I couldn't believe it. So I had the operators in the area and they're looking at a production line of catheters. Had the operators stand in the circle. Didn't prompt them for anything, but just stand here and watch. And then operator after operator made the same observation. And he told me, with that one observation, they were able to counter a problem that increased their throughput by a million units a year, 247 operation. So like, okay, well let's increase capacity. Soft savings, right? And he's like, no, no, no, we have the demand for it. So this is all hard savings and it's a top line increase, right? And, but it was like one, one simple thing. And yeah.

Program, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, right, right. But you know, but those sorts of things are happening. They're happening in all of our certification programs. But you know, at the same time, you know, they're happening, you know, all over the place in the continuous improvement world. Yeah, right. But one of the things that happens in with the certification programs is like we, it does require the candidate like to pause and actually work through the assignment. And a lot of times like this is only one data point, of course, but this is just an example of I know what the wastes are and I know what's going on in the process. I should be looking elsewhere and. But kind of forcing yourself to slow down and actually perform that exercise can lead to great things.

So talk a little bit about your style of coaching. And I know John Knotts I think is probably similar and myself as well. I think we all have some differences, but a lot of similarities and how we're going about it. What's that approach like, the coaching process?

Well, the framework is based partially on Toyota Kata, although the questions don't sound the same. The structure doesn't quite work because we're on these kind of weekly coaching sessions. But there's a portion of basically, where are you in terms of your goal? Working through the learning content and completing the assignments. But then really quickly it turns into more of a sometimes philosophical discussion or principle based discussion about what are we really trying to do here with the use of a particular tool and what's the bigger picture? Right. So we're trying to, with my coaching style, I want to help people broaden their view of understanding the business. Right. Because we can get really excited about Lean, but really what we're trying to do is help make the business perform better for our customer. And so how do we really understand the business? And I've said so many times over the years that lean is 10% tools and 90% people. Yeah, right. And how do we help people really grasp these concepts? And it's not a matter of like one's ability to learn is, I think about making that connection with the deeper principles of what we're trying to achieve. How do we go about improving? How do we go about caring for the customer?

Yeah. So something that you and I have talked about before is you've mentioned principles a few times now, but we've talked a lot about. You and I have talked about the between values and principles. So I'm wondering if we could maybe explore that a little bit. Like what's different between a value and a principle?

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What'S different between a value and a principle?

Yeah, so what are values? Right. They're, they relate to our core beliefs and the standards by which we conduct ourselves, I think on a personal level, but also as an organization. And values also tend to be somewhat vague and principles are more specific and they speak to how we do things. So values speak to who we are and principles speak to how we do. And Prince. And again, principles are more specific. So an example for values might be integrity, customer focus, respect, teamwork. Like, okay, let's peel back the layers of the onion on respect. What does that really mean? And we can have just a really long conversation about that. Right. Where when we start getting into guiding principles or they get a little more specific, like to borrow from Toyota and Deming, adopt a long term view, right. Make your decisions for the long term health and success of the organization, even at the expense of short term financial gain. Like, okay, that's more specific and that's something to really stop and think about. Right? Because like, oh, hey, I can do this really quick thing that might hit the P and L, but over the long term we're going to end up paying for it. Yeah, boy. Yeah.

And that's a hard one, you know, That's a hard one.

It is, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the key is will it cause a long term effect that you're going to end up paying for that? At least that's like the question that, that comes to my mind and I don't think that I have the answers on it, but it's really making me think, how do, how do we balance? And let's face it, in the reality of business, there is a short term need.

Yeah. You got to pay the bills, you know.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But at the same time, we need to be building, helping, building the machine. Right. Making that bigger and better.

Yeah.

So how do we find that balance?

Yeah, yeah. Like there's a dichotomy. Right. Between the two. Right. Yeah. So when you think about values and principles and your work as a, as a coach of a continuous improvement learner, like how do you work that into your day, you know, day to day Operation.

Yeah. So take a simple example like 5s. So when the candidates are challenged to either establish 5s as a practice in their workplace or improve an existing 5s practice. So we start getting into, okay, what are the five S's we understand those. What problem are you trying to solve with 5s? And that's where that question there is, where it kind of takes a turn towards principles. What do we, what problem are we trying to solve here? We want to make things, I want to make it easier to find things. And that's like a common explanation. Okay, why is that important? Well, so I don't waste time. Okay, great. But what else about that? Why is it important for a workplace to be organized? There's, you know, we can get into the safety aspect, etc. Etc. Etc. Well, part of it is, well, how do we call ourselves an organization if we're disorganized? Right. It's in the name. Right. But, but I think it comes, comes down to simplicity. Like what are we trying to do with continuous improvement? Right. Remove complexity everywhere. We can remove the complexity of trying to find problems. If we're highly organized, they're on the surface, we can see them. But if we're highly organized, then all other aspects of work are easier. And what, what's the value of that? That. So we really, so that's where things start to get into a deeper discussion. And then, okay, so if this is important, how are we going to go about that? I mean, how are we going to get everybody in the organization to participate in us and to support this idea of keeping things simple?

Hey, so someone is listening right now that they, they are coaching other people, you know, as part of their, as part of their job. Do you have any sort of like, maybe some practical tips, just general, general high level tips for what they might want to consider as they're going into a coaching session.

Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind is meet people where they are. Right? Don't try to get them to where you are or where you want them to be. You've got to figure that out, what's going on. I like to use the word client in terms of coaching, right? Because it says I, you know, I'm here to serve my client and I need to understand where my client is, not where I think I want the client to be. And then, you know, stand shoulder to shoulder with that client and then, you know, help lead the way, you know, one step at a time. So first thing, meet the client where the client is. And the second thing is listen and listen deeply. And what are you really listening for? You know, we talk about in kata obstacles. Right. We list the obstacles on the board, all of that. And sometimes, you know, if we're really catch the client properly, maybe we get just a quick glance in the eyes or some expression and something in the tone of voice that kind of says, ah, there's something else there. Right. There's some other obstacle. Like, you seem apprehensive about moving forward with this. Let's dig into that. You know what's going on. And remember, right back to, you know, lean. And this is just my opinion. Lean, 90 people, only 10 tools. Right. So. So what. What's keeping people from being successful or keeping this client from being successful? And quite often it's. It can be deeper than the superficial things like, oh, I'm really busy or I have too many things to do. Okay, well, let's dig into that. You know, where's that coming from? Because there's so many places that can go. Yeah.

So I know, like from your. You didn't mention it on your. Earlier on in your bio, but I know because I know you, like, you have like, you were trained in like, psychology and that sort of thing, like in like university years, correct?

Well, yeah, I have a. I have. My degree is in philosophy. And I think the great gift that course of study gave me was to not have the answers so much as coming up with the questions.

Yeah.

And that's really driving me with like, what's. What's really happening here?

So what do you do when you're working with a client in this case and you sense that they don't. Maybe they're dealing with some imposter syndrome, or maybe they've got just some limiting beliefs in their ability or they've got a difficult situation with. Maybe the boss isn't completely bought in.

They're.

They're allowing him to do it just because it looks good that they're doing it, but they're not really, you know, so maybe they've got some things going against them. How do you, as the coach, sort of build them up, you know, and encourage them to take that step? Because it can be scary, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fear. Fears are your primary obstacle. So what I would want to do as a coach is ask the questions that will reveal the information that's going to inform the client. So this might sound a little bit silly, but the client, clients inform themselves, Right. They don't get knowledge from me. I'm just bringing up question. They reflect on it a little bit. So for example, you mentioned fear. Dig into that. Where's the fear coming from and what's intimidating about this? What's the worst case scenario? How can you move forward without the worst happening, asking these kinds of questions. But the more light we can shed on the issue through those questions, then the more we can bring the fear down. And once we do that, people are able to, to take a step forward. And it's not that we just, you know, we're trying to push people forward and. Because that's not what we're trying to do as coaches. Right. We're helping people understand where they are, where they want to go and how they'll move forward. But it's because they're the ones doing the work. So, yeah, I want to ask questions that are going to maybe cause for pause, really reflect on what's the issue and help move forward. So for the listeners who haven't really studied coaching, professional coaching, and I'm not talking about like sports, you know, the coaching in the workplace, one of the things that's important in the coaching world is we meet the client where the client is, and we have no preference about where the client goes.

That's going to be difficult.

Yeah. And, oh, it kills me. Right. Because like when I'm working with a client and it continues, especially if they're in manufacturing, they get a little bit of a view into what they're doing. It's just so easy to say, oh, do this and then do this and then they do this. Right. Call me when you're done. No, that's not my role. So if that's important, then I want the client to discover it. What should we be considering here? We're going to make a major change. What should we be considering? What's involved, who will be involved, how is this going to affect your co workers? Is there a management consideration here, know all that sort of thing. But it's about, you know, asking the right questions that again, just going to shed light on the situation so the client can make their own informed decision.

I guess what makes that especially difficult is if you are, if your client in this case is a subordinate to you and you together as a department or something like that, need are tasked with moving forward and making things better or whatever it might be, having that, that ability, that courage even to understand that this may not go the way we want it to go, but in order for true growth to happen, it's got to go that way.

Right? Yeah. My own personal example of that, my first plant manager job, we decided that we were going to make a major shift in the way that we lead people in this plant. This plant had a long history of kind of rough morale. Quality that the customer received was always excellent. But internally we had scrap rework and all these costs. But we had some issues to figure out. So as the leadership team, we got together and we agreed we're not telling anybody how to do anything. And when they come to us with questions, we're going to respond with questions and we're going to help them basically fulfilled their purpose, you know, with their job through asking these questions. Now, if we tell people what to do, it's just that everything just becomes a matter of compliance, right? So when someone came to me and said, steve, I have this problem. How do you want me to handle it? I don't know, what do you think we ought to do? And right now we're changing the way, you know, the thought process. And here's the thing with, with that kind of question, people are coming to the boss with that kind of a question. They don't want the boss's advice. They already know what they want to do. They just want the boss to be responsible for it. So we established a relationship with our workforce in this plant where we said, hey, look, you're 100% responsible for your choices, and you're going to make all the choices related to your work. You know, here's the thing. Help the customer be successful, help your team be successful, do the right things for the right reasons, and you're going to be just fine. And I'm going to have your back. Now, you go outside of that, we're going to have a different conversation. But once people saw that and they came to leadership and leadership stopped making their decisions for them, then they started moving forward. Little steps, make a mistake here, make a mistake there. But nothing bad happened. Like, okay, we made a mistake. What did we learn? Right, Great. Now we know. Let's move forward. And the fact is, you know, as a manager or a leader or a coach, your decisions may not be any better than the people who do the work every day. Right?

Yeah, exactly. That's why I love the question, how soon can we find out what we have learned?

Right?

Because neither of us know.

Right, right, right. But, you know, and I think that also says something about the coaching process. Right? You're going through this coaching process and use katas for that, that example model. We're working together. So you go off and do. It's your decision. You go off and do. But it's not like you're doing it behind my back or I'm going to be surprised at the outcome. Yeah, right. Because I'm the leader, I'm fully informed. Now, I do think there are three. There are three reasons to stop somebody from taking a step. If it's going to harm somebody, if there's a safety concern, anybody, if anybody can get hurt, stop. We'll adjust that. First, if it's going to have any kind of an adverse effect on the customer, you're going to delay a shipment quality problem, stop. You have to intervene. And if it's going to cause any kind of unnecessary expense or problem for your company, then you've got to step in. And it's possible that somebody may not have visibility of all the surrounding issues that have that, that, that understanding, and that would be your role as a leader. But, you know, just understand that those are three reasons that you'd step out of the coaching role and into the manager role.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh, good stuff, man. Yeah. And what's funny is, as you were describing all that, I was like, yeah, values and principles. Right. It circles all the way back to our earlier conversation.

Right, right. Yeah. You know, and as you're working through things, you know, something comes up and like, oh, hey, you know, we should, we should do this, you know, in response to this problem, like, oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. Which, which of our values and principles are at play here?

Yeah.

Should we think those through before we decide on our next step?

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Good stuff. Wow. Well, good stuff, Steve. Hey, if people wanted to connect with you personally, what's the, what's the best way?

The. Yeah, the best way is, I think, email. Stephen S T E v e n stevenbaacademy.com okay. Yeah, okay. I'd be happy to interact with you. I'm on LinkedIn and LinkedIn.

Yeah, all that. Yeah, yeah, good stuff. All right. Well, man, I appreciate you coming on and this is, as always, it's been a good conversation. I said last time it was. What was it? 437. It was like, last time you on talk about virtual training. So I'm glad we could connect again. So, hey, man, keep up the great work and I'm sure we'll do it again down the road.

Looking forward to it.

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