GA 506 | Roles and Relationships in Kaizen Events with Adam Lawrence

Feedback has been quite positive and the results are good. And like you said, I worked myself out of a job. But like you say, the real reason why we do this is to help people. And the thought is, hey, if I could do that with them, maybe this is something that I can offer others and keep working myself out of jobs.

Today I'm excited to welcome Adam Lawrence back to the show. Now Adam's been on a number of times over the years, although it's been a little while since he's been on. So I reached out to him to see how he'd been and what he's been up to. And we got to talking a little bit and I said, why don't you come back on the podcast and we'll talk about that. So the today's episode is really focused around Adam helps companies run a lot of different type of Kaizen events, so sort of his specialty. And so today we sort of dive into the Kaizen event and in particular the Kaizen event facilitator, which you know, Adam will typically play that role. And like, what does that look like and what are some of the skills that the facilitator needs to, to have? And, and then we had an interesting con. You know, oftentimes you'll, as part of a Kaizen event, you'll have a team leader from the business that's also involved. So then how does a team leader and the Kaizen event facilitator cooperate with one another? And what happens if it goes sideways, which sometimes it does, and we talked about that. So it's really a good, good conversation. So even if you aren't into full blown Kaizen events where you might want to give one a try if you haven't, because they're very powerful. But I think many of the things that Adam talks about are just generally good advice for when we're sort of cooperating others, even if it's not in a formal event, that might be, you know, some problem that you're working together with a group of colleagues, you need to be able to facilitate that. And so I think that that's a lot of value that could be had today out of this episode. And then at the very end, it's interesting we talked a little bit about city furniture, which is, I'm actually going to be interviewing one of their leaders here on the podcast in the next few weeks. And so, so Adam's done a lot of work with, with, with them. And so we talk a little bit about that and we talk about their culture. So that's a. You've probably heard of them. It's a large company, large furniture company, and very prolific, lean organization. Well, Adam had been working with them for many years, and eventually he worked himself out of a job, and so we explore that as well. And. And how does that work when you work yourself out of a job? And why is that actually a good thing? So, anyhow, I love Adam. He's a great guy, super humble, and really, really, really smart. So. Show notes can be found over@gemba podcast.com episode 506. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Adam, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Great, Ron. Thanks for inviting me back. Appreciate you.

Yes. Been a little while. I mean, it felt like we had a little run there where you were coming on every other week or so, but. But what did you say it was? 459 was the last time you've been on?

Yeah, the Cave People, episode 459, that was. We recorded in March, I believe.

Okay. All right. All right, well, good stuff. Um, well, you know the drill, Adam. You've been on a number. Number of times. I don't know if you're number one yet, but you gotta be approaching it, man. I don't know as far as number of times on, so I appreciate it, but you. You know what we like to do out of the gate. Do you have a quote?

I do have a quote, and I told you before we started recording, I had to make sure this is not redundant. I'm pretty sure it's not. So the quote I'm using is but ugly by Friday. And the attribution is to the Pensacola leadership team for Armstrong World industries in the mid-2000s. So, as we all know, Kaizen is kind of a messy business, and what we want to do is help teams win and solve problems. And instead of worrying about everything looking perfect, we just want things to get better. So let's just make it butt ugly by Friday. We'll worry about pretty later.

Okay, That's a good one, man. I've never heard that.

Actually, it's kind of like an earworm. So I share that with a lot of my Kaizen teams now, and they'll be telling me that towards the end of the week. And I'm like, yep, I'm in your head now. Yeah.

Yep, Yep. Good stuff, man. All right, well, hey, Adam, in case folks haven't heard you on previous episodes, give us a little rundown on who you are and what you're up to these days.

Okay, well, great. I'm a solo consultant. I run a company called Process Improvement Partners and my niche is Kaizen events, helping teams solve critical business problems in a sustainable way. The system that I use is called the Wheel of Sustainability. And the goal by the end of any Kaizen week is we've not only solved the problem, we've implemented the solutions and we've created a sustainable system around them. So, been having a lot of fun helping teams solve things that they probably could have done without me, but for some reason they brought me in and try to make it as fun and engaging as possible.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I'm guessing most people listening are going to be familiar with a Kaizen event, but just maybe some folks are newer to Lean and I don't want to ever assume anything high level when you talk about a Kaizen event, what do you mean?

So what we're trying to do is make something better. So Kaizen is just make things better. A Kaizen event is a focused effort in a time frame, bringing a small team together, focused on a very specific business problem or a problem that they want to solve. And what we're trying to do is take them through a process to help them think maybe a little more broadly or differently about the problem they're trying to solve so that they can get out of their inertia and try to actually try something, test it, implement something, make mistakes, learn from it. And by the end of that event time, they've actually implemented a change for the better. So Kaizen, the Japanese term, means change for the better.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to dive in a little bit about thinking about when we're facilitating these events. What kind of skills or principles do you believe need to be sort of in place in order to, you know, ensure we're going to have a successful.

Week or few days?

However long it takes.

Yeah, however long it takes. So a Kaizen event can be as short as half a day or even less. Right. And it can be. The longest one I've done is just under five days. So we're bringing a group of people in that currently don't work in this way or haven't worked in this way as frequently. Sometimes they do. And so we're trying to take them through a process. So facilitation is all about helping people expand their thinking, get an equal voice, participate, and help make something better that's meaningful to them. So the facilitator typically doesn't have skin in the game around the problem to be solved. All he or she is trying to do is help the team solve that problem and win. So they're giving of themselves to help the team do something that will benefit the team. And so we get joy and we have passion around helping others win and solve problems that are their own and are going to benefit their stakeholders, their company, their customers, and their teammates.

But I mean, as far as practical skills, I mean, do you have to be a lean expert? Do you need to be great at leading people? Or like, what is the. What are some of the attributes?

So there are a number of attributes and principles that I try to utilize. And you do not have to be a lean expert to be a good or great facilitator or even to be a bad facilitator. On the other side of the spectrum, one of the things is you want everybody to be comfortable, to participate fully and have equal voice. So a big principle around great facilitation is the ability and desire to give everyone equal voice. So we are checking our titles at the door. The CEO can be in the same room with the hourly employee, and they have equal voice to help solve a problem because they care about it enough, they're going to put their titles aside and give of themselves. So as a facilitator, we have to create the environment to allow them to do that and give them that equal voice. The other thing, a big principle that I follow is that this is for them, not for me. So the more of them that get surfaced, the better. The less I talk, the better. So an idea can never be mine. Although sometimes we take our facilitator hat off because you truly want the team to own their solution. It can never be Adam's solution or the facilitator solution. It has to be the thing the team needs to do, wants to do, desires to do, and makes sense for them rather than for you as the facilitator.

Okay, well, that makes sense now. So as far as obviously we have a Kaizen event facilitator. So in many cases that might be you in the examples when you're going in to help facilitate an event. But often we'll have, you know, maybe like a team leader or frontline supervisor, somebody like that. Like, what's the relationship then between the facilitator and say, like a team leader or again, front, frontline supervisor or something like that.

Right. So the team leader, they own the content, they own the problem, they own the team, the relationship, the business issue. So they're. They're responsible to really understand what the things are that are getting in the way of the Team, obviously team members are as well. So they're rallying the team, they're gathering the team. I work with that leader when it's me being a facilitator, this is what an ideal team looks like. The facilitator. We own the process to help them get to solution, so we try to be separate from the actual topic at hand. Although we do find them very interesting most of the time, and it's easy to get drawn into the issue and want to help them solve. But in the end, because of the principle of having the team own their solution, you want clear separation between the facilitator and the leader. Facilitator, again, runs the process of driving to solution, helping the team drive to solution. The leader owns the output and owns the content, so they all have skin in the game to solve the problem. They understand the problem, they understand how it impacts the. The business, the employees, and of course, their customers.

Have you ever. I'm sure it's never happened to you, but have you ever heard of a situation to where maybe the team leader and the Kaizen event facilitator aren't necessarily, I don't know, jiving, or maybe there's just a little friction. Have you ever experienced that or heard about that?

Not only have I heard about it, people have heard about me and my leader not getting along so well. So a lot of times leaders may have an image and a vision of how they think things are going to be solved or how the event is going to go. And try as I might to prepare them for it, I would say there are times when their vision and my image didn't match. So when those things happen and they have happened, they continue to happen. After many years of doing this, you know, we have to take a break. We need to get realigned. We need to make sure that we're driving to the right outcomes for the right reasons. And I have to use. Do my best to build that level of confidence, especially if I'm facilitating an event that is complex enough that the leader is not familiar with. I actually did that about three weeks ago. Something the team had never seen before, but heard about, knew they needed, they were actually right, but they had never really experienced it. So there were a few moments where we had to step away and talk about thought. Okay, why are you doing this? What. What's the purpose of this? This doesn't feel right. And so we, we resolved and aligned around that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

So. So you're a good friend, Andrew. I'm gonna have him on the podcast here in a few weeks. But I know that you've been involved a lot with City Furniture and, and it's always. I'm super excited to talk to him because I've always, I've sort of just followed their company over social media and whatnot and just seemed to be wildly successful and have a really great culture. So what's the story there? How did you get involved with them?

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What'S the story there? How did you get involved with them?

Great question. So all props to Andrew. You will find the man is everywhere and has unlimited energy and is running a fabulous company. So this is an unpaid political announcement for him. So I will say about two and a half years ago, another friend of a mutual friend of ours, Jared Thatcher, I think you've had him on your podcast once or twice. He's not catching me. But anyway, he was running what he was trying to do, a global Lean summit, but he did it in a virtual way. This was in 2021. So he asked me to be one of his speakers. And coincidentally, Andrew Koenig, the CEO of City Furniture, was a speaker as well. So because I was in the furniture industry the first four years of my corporate career, I was very intrigued by a number of things. One was the CEO had brought Lean into his organization 15 years before. Most of my clients don't have that level of commitment or that maturity of culture. And he was also in furniture. So I thought I would listen to what he had to say. And as you do your podcast with him, you will also be impressed and inspired by what he has to say. So on the Tuesday, I listened to him do his thing. I was going to speak on the Thursday, and because I was so inspired, I direct messaged him on LinkedIn and said I loved your presentation. That was so cool. You've inspired me. I'm an old furniture guy. Love to talk to you a little bit more about our furniture experiences and Lean. And I sent off that direct message. And the next that evening he direct messaged me back and said, I'd love to do that. And I was kind of blown away by that. So the next day we are Zoom chatting about our various Lean experience and Furniture experience, and we got to talk about Kaizen a bit. And he said, you know, we did a lot of Kaizen events in the past and we stopped for a few years, and I really miss it. And I said, well, I know a guy who can help you with that. And he did exactly what you did. He kind of chuckled and he said, well, who are you talking about? So we just talked further, and I was describing what I was going to talk about at Jared's session and my approach, and he said, well, we need to get you down to visit us at Citi. And I said, well, sure, I'd love that. And so that was July or something. And in September, I did go to City Furniture, and I spent the day with Andrew just marveling at how Lean has integrated itself into the entire culture at Citi. And then at the end of the day, he took me to dinner and said, hey, we would love to have you strengthen our Kaizen culture. Not resurrect it, but strengthen it, because they clearly had the spirit of Kaizen there. How would you like to come see us and run a Kaizen event for us for the next 12 months once a month? And I was like, wow, I would love to do that. So in 2022, I started that journey with them and basically ran one every month through 2022 and one or two every month through the first three quarters of this year. And just so impressive to watch the leadership, commitment to the effort, the standard work they use to engage leaders in the whole process, how we integrated my Chartering approach and my Kaizen approach, even though it was a bit different from their approach. But they loved the results they were getting, and they loved the engagement and excitement of their people, because that's really what I was trying to do. Andrew said in the background, hey, we want results, but what we really want is to drive and strengthen that Kaizen culture and engagement of people. That's what I need you to help me do. So I said, wow, I would love to do that. And it was just a joyous thing to be working with them.

I know there's probably only so much you can say, but any examples of some of the things that you guys have improved?

Absolutely. So, you know, one thing they're really awesome at because they've been doing this so long is, man, they know the problems they want to solve, and they, regardless of the size of the problem, they know how to charter and get people engaged around. It's something I've had the pleasure of doing with them that I don't usually get quite as much engagement in clients that are much earlier in their journey. So one of my favorites is that parts department. So they are a furniture retailer. They have four huge distribution centers and multiple showrooms. So I'm not even doing manufacturing work here. But they have a parts department. And the parts department, they were, you know, as you might expect, it's a big room with 10 million replacement parts and some that are obsolete, discontinued. They've gone to die. So we chartered an event to reduce loss, reduce the time it takes to find parts for literally thousands of skus of furniture. Right. So we pulled a team together and at the beginning, we took the Gemba Walk through the facility, and the parts storage area was, I don't know, disasters and nice way to put it, but that was one of many topics that would have helped reduce parts loss. So I had a team of nine or 10, I think. And so the gentleman that kind of owned it, an hourly gentleman, he said, we've been trying to organize this thing for years. I said, well, we're going to do it in a week. Three or four of the team members wanted to organize in a week. And he said, there's no way we can do that in a week. But the people had passion about it. And he didn't really say, there's no way, but I'm keeping it for the family members. What he really said. So this hourly employee. So he and three other team members basically 5s'd this massive parts department and took it way beyond. If we had had 10 people doing it in less than a week, it looks like there were lights above it. But we didn't know that until we 5s'd I mean, it was just so amazing. But what was really amazing about that is we use this gentleman as an example. When other Kaizen teams need inspiration, I always Gembo walk them and let him tell his story. Because he always says, I didn't think this was possible, but if you set your mind to it, anything's possible. And it's because Andrew and the city team gave me the opportunity to do this. And so every time I see him, one time we went to visit and out of the blue, he gave me this big old bear hug. So that's. I think you and I have talked about this a number of times. When it gets emotional. Yeah, where people make that emotional connection to change, that really helps. I mean, he's so proud of what he did. And then he talks. I mean, this is. We're not paying him anymore. He's proud. He's the guy. He's the great example of what the spirit of Kaizen is. Doesn't matter what level you are. You know, he's shown Andrew. You know, we texted Andrew, I think during the same week Andrew ran down to check it out and you know, just that level of commitment. Yeah, it's just so nice to see.

Yeah, yeah. Now, when we were sort of preparing for this podcast, you were sharing a. Some anecdotes or some stories of, of where you felt that you had actually become perhaps a bit of a bottleneck in the whole process. So what, what was that all about?

So late in 2022, the COO, his name is Will, you'll probably meet him, said, you know, we love this stuff, but we can't keep bringing you down every week. You're the bottleneck because it is just me. It's me, my wife, my kid and my dog. So don't know how to replicate that or I didn't at the time. So Will's challenge to me was, hey, can you figure out a way to basically scale you up, scale yourself up with some of our internal folks? So I said, okay, let me figure it out. Challenge accepted. So what I did was I said, okay, because really, what are consultants supposed to do? You're supposed to work yourself out of the job. You are supposed to give the skills and the training and the teach them how to fish. Ability to others, teach them how to fish. Right. But there are, there are many, many. I don't want to make this sound disparaging in any way. There's a lot of black belt training out there. There's a lot of lean training out there. And I get that. It makes a lot of sense. But in a facilitation, practitioner way, there's not as much, let's just say that like how do you do what you do, how do you engage the people, how do you, how do you charter, how do you prep the event, how do you do all these, the mechanics of the whole thing, the crazy orchestration. So that was a challenge, like, how do I take 30 some odd years of experience and the ability to get a team further faster? And I get that a lot. Again, I don't want to sound self serving in that way. I just get that experience, like, wow, look how far you got in day one. We don't usually get there till day three. Okay, how do you put that all together in a way that others can do that. So what I did, I talked to Will at length and others to say, okay, here's what I think I can do for you. What I think I can do is create a course for a small amount of folks that you feel can take this forward. So he picked four high potential folks. You know, these were not, you know, these were people that had some skills and desire and all that to perpetuate. And I said I'm coming down every month anyway. So in November why don't I do instead of a Kaizen event, let's do what we'll call Kaizen Facilitation certification training. Okay, but that's not going to stand on its own. But basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach the principles and the techniques, the chartering, the wheel of sustainability, what happens before the event, what happens during the event. How do you tell the story of the event? How do you value stream map? Because we were using value stream mapping in every single event and I do it all with post its go Back to episode 303 or 3 Something or other to find that one. How do you distill it down? So I created three day course where they actually had to try every single thing. They had to do every single thing. In fact I had four sponsors waiting for them to charter real live Kaizen events. So they had to go out and charter with their sponsor, come back and then review it with us and then we would improve the charters because events were coming because that was just one piece of the journey. The second piece of the journey was each one of them individually had to co facilitate with me and then the final and we would do assessments at that point, talk about strengths and weaknesses and ways to things to work on. And then the next event they would be lead facilitate and I would co facilitate with them. And then we would decide together and we would get back together with Will and others to say are they ready? And so I wanted to do that in a way that they chose. They decided with me rather than you got an A on this and a B on that. No, no, no, no, no, no this. And so I tried to give them feedback in the moment during the Kaizen event, before the Kaizen event. So I was with them the entire part of the journey. And in the end it was a big experiment because I said, you know, 30 years, how do you distill that all down in a way that can be transferable? And in the end they don't bring me down Anymore. Those four folks are doing their thing, and I've seen them, and it's really impressive to watch, you know, what took me 30 years to get to, you know, they did three. Yeah, they're still making mistakes, but, by golly, so do I. So. Yeah, but they're learning, and they know what to look for. And, you know, every so often, I get a text with a picture or, you know, look what we did. And it's just so cool to watch that happen. So I realized you don't have to. You aren't the only one that can do these things. You just have to figure out how do you transfer it to others. And that. That was the big challenge because I thought, you know, it's just me. I am the bottleneck, and that's not fair to anybody.

Yeah, yeah. No, good. Good on you. I mean, that's very difficult, obviously. I mean, being frank, I mean, this is your business, right? I mean, people pay you to come and do that, and you just sort of worked yourself out of a job in a way, you know?

Yes, I did.

But, you know, I mean, there's. There's more in. The more value you add to the world, the more, you know, it'll reciprocate back to you. So I'm wondering, in your training that you did with those folks, you know, we talked about cave people, citizens against virtually everything. You know, like, sometimes you'll have the person in the back room of the. Of the. Of the conference room on the day of the. Of the event, first day of the event, and arms across and scowl on their face. Did you talk about that? Did you talk about, like, what do you do when you deal with the cave person?

So, yes, absolutely. So the techniques that I taught and demonstrated and had them do deal with different levels of interest in the team, different levels of participation. So in one of the early episodes, we talk about how I give everybody equal voice. So I'm teaching that. So, as you say, the cave person who sits in the back of the room has to participate because there's no place to hide in the approach. The good news is you can do that very respectfully, but you can do it in a fun way. And eventually they realize, hey, I'm here. I might as well be good and helpful because we're going to keep going. And you know what? Let's not do something bad. Let's do something good. So the techniques and the principles that I. That I delivered to them and let them learn and trial, and they had seen it in action. So, you know, the Reality, Ron, of all of this is everybody's going to put their spin on anything that we teach.

Yeah.

Right. It's got to be comfortable to them. And of course, these four folks, being internal folks, they know how to deal with their folks. And they were. Yeah, they were for very high potential folks anyway, so they, they got some skills and all I was doing was really helping them sharpen the saw, is the old term, or hone the skill or whatever it was, but. But also expose them to, hey, you did this. Now we actually know what it was and we can replicate it.

Right.

So I do get stories back from them every so often. Yeah, you got. You're still going to get some cave people, but now you've got some ways to approach it now. Yeah, some people are a little more direct than others. Some people don't tolerate as much as I do, and then some people tolerate way more than I do because I can be quite direct as well.

Yeah.

So. But in the end, it seems to be working well. The feedback has been quite positive and the results are good. And like you said, I worked myself out of a job, but like you say, the real reason why we do this is to help people. And the thought is, hey, if I could do that with them, maybe this is something that I can offer others and keep working myself out of jobs, but at least help another broader group.

Yeah, well, Citi will tell five other companies and, you know, there you go.

That's what you hope. I mean, that's, that's nice. But even people that I've helped before, it's another offering that I can bring to them and say, hey, do you really want to keep paying a consultant? Because that's the reality. People don't love doing that. I love that, but they don't. Or how about I help you develop four to eight people? I think eight's kind of the top end at a time, or else they really can't use the skills quickly. Especially if you're going to partner with me, because now the eighth person's waiting for the other seven to facilitate with me. You don't want to keep bringing me back every month, every week. That can be quite expensive.

Yeah, yeah. Well, good stuff, man. Well, hey, Adam, if folks do want to connect with you personally, what's the best way?

Yeah, so I'd love to hear from you on LinkedIn. So I have a business page, Process Improvement Partners, and of course, Adam Lawrence on LinkedIn, have a YouTube channel. I have 74 subscribers. So, you know, if we're not monetizing yet. I do have a website, www.PI-part partners.com and, and certainly, you know, go check out my earlier Gemba Academy podcasts. Yes. You know, all sorts of topics and they can read my book on the wheel of sustainability. The reality is if you read it now, you'll hear my voice during the stories. So that's could be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on your point of view.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

And we're gonna everything linked up here in the show notes here. So just folks, just scroll down. You'll find all the links to everything Adam just mentioned and more, I'm sure.

So.

Well, hey man, it's always fun to have you back on and keep up the great work and I'm sure we'll do it again down the road.

Thanks, Ron. I appreciate you having me back on.

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