GA 532 | Martial Arts and Continuous Improvement with Chad Senkowski

You can't do a process just one or two times. And when you're trying to train somebody, you have to have that discipline, that standardization. So that way they, you know, they can see exactly why they're doing it too. Right. And it becomes second nature for them. So, you know, there's, I feel like there's continuous improvement in all that we do. And some of these methodologies, we do them, but we don't even realize that we do them.

Today I'm excited to welcome Chad Sinkowski to the show. Now Chad actually came into our Gemba Academy studio here in Keller, Texas for an in person interview, which is always fun. Chad actually has his own podcast and so he interviewed me before I interviewed him and so that was a lot of fun having the tables turned on me. But Chad has a really cool background. So he's got a good, strong, continuous improvement background. But he's also in the military, he's got a martial arts background. And so we had a wide ranging sort of conversation, talking a little bit about his podcast and why he started it and some of the things that he's learning from the guests that he's been interviewing. And then we, we, we really just get into some, some discussion on so like micro learning and how twi and Chad's got a strong background and job instruction for, on the TWI framework. And so we talked a lot about how he's seen that benefit, you know, everybody from, from his daughter learning how to ride a bike to, to, to people within the manufact between. So a really, really good guy. I was really happy that he came in to visit with us and I think you're going to enjoy this show. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 532 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 532. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Chad, welcome to Gemba Academy. How's it going?

Great, thank you, Ron.

Yeah, man. So I really appreciate you coming in. Today was fun. We just recorded a podcast for, for your podcast.

That's right.

So what's the name of your podcast?

It's called the Journey Podcast.

The Journey Podcast.

Okay.

Yeah, so we're going to link to, to the episode that, that we did or just to your podcast as well. But that was a lot of fun. But so Chad, we like to get all of our shows started with our guests sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Well, I have, I didn't come this far to only Come this far.

What's that mean to you?

You're always improving. Right. So as a CI practitioner myself, there's always room for improvement. Right. And on this journey that we're on, whatever it is that you're doing, you didn't come this far. To only come this far. You have more work to be doing.

No, that's good. I, like. I've never heard that. Is that a Chad quote?

No, actually, Tom Brady used it in one of his playoff games, I think it was. And I don't remember the original. Original person that said that. Okay. But that came to me recently. I've heard it many times before, but I thought it was a great quote. And there's. I mean, you could unpack it in so many ways.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's good. So, all right, well, hey, tell us a little bit about your background, Chad. Tell us how you got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff, and then what you're up to these days.

Sure. So continuous improvement is something that I've. I. I would say that I've been doing for a long time. I didn't even know I was doing it. Right. So in the mid-90s, I was a practitioner of Taekwondo for many years, competed a lot, and I've been working in the aerospace manufacturing industry for a little bit over 20 years.

Okay.

And, you know, once. Once I, you know, several of the companies that I worked for, they would offer continuous improvement classes. People would talk to me about Lean Six Sigma, and I was kind of like, what is Lean Six Sigma thing? And one of the companies that I was working for, I really said, you know, I want to take this, what they called CI101, and then CI102, and then continue on this journey. Like, it just. It was very appealing to me because not only trying to, say, improve oneself myself and then improve processes, it was just really appealing to me. And so I'm still on that journey of trying to improve myself processes, try to help people out, and it's been a great time.

Yeah. So I'm curious to hear your Taekwondo background. I mean, obviously in martial arts, you know, there's lots of, you know, kata and different routines.

Right.

But like, how. How did you see or the. The things that you learned and experienced from that, that background? How does it tie into what we're doing here with continuous improvement?

So I was introduced to twi, or training with an industry probably about six years ago, and when I started looking at it, really, like, looking at it deeper, I was like, you know what? This is almost What I was doing in Taekwondo, when we talk about kata, it's a standardized way of doing a form. You have punches, you have kicks, you have blocks. And we're practicing these hundreds or thousands of times to really ingrain that in your. Your memory, your muscle memory, to, you know, be very efficient, and it's there when you need it. And I see that with twi.

Yeah.

Is like, you can't do a process just one or two times. And when you're trying to train somebody, you have to have that discipline, that standardization. So that way they, you know, they can see exactly why they're doing it, too. Right. And it becomes second nature for them. So, you know, there's. I feel like there's continuous improvement in all that we do. And some of these methodologies, we do them, but we don't even realize that we do them.

Yeah, yeah. So I was checking out your podcast. Do a great job, by the way.

Thank you.

So why did you start it? And, like, you know, what problem are you trying to solve? There's a lot of podcasts out there, right?

Yeah. So, you know, I was also in radio broadcasting in, like, the late 90s. I kind of got this bug for it. I really loved it. I love talking to people, communicating with people, hearing their stories. And about two and a half years ago, I was like, you know what? This is something that I really need to start again. And I was like, who is going to be my first guest? And being living in Savannah, Georgia, I was like, you know what? The Savannah Bananas, Jesse Cole, who is the owner of the Savannah Bananas, he took this team that they were selling a handful of tickets, and, I mean, you can't even go on Instagram or any social media now without seeing some, you know, running in. Right. Flipping and pitching and all kinds of stuff. And so he was my first guest on the podcast.

Oh, wow.

And, you know, it's one of those things where I was kind of, like, doubting. I don't know how. What do I have to say? What do I have to do? It's just a matter of doing it.

Yeah.

It's just a matter of reaching out, you know, executing. Because you can plan for weeks and months and years, but if you never execute it, nothing's ever going to happen.

Yeah.

So I sent him a message, and within 30 minutes, he was like, what day, when.

How did you send him a message?

Through LinkedIn.

No kidding.

Yeah, I was just. Just as quick. You know, I made a joke, something that I had read and, like, one of his books or something. And I think it maybe appealed to him, but he was like, once we actually did the podcast, he said, you know, you're actually the first person that came to the studio or to the stadium to do a podcast. He said, I've done hundreds of podcasts online, but you're the first guy to actually come to the stadium to do a podcast. Wow. And I thought that was pretty cool. Wow.

Wow. So, okay, so talk about. I'm curious, like from what I've seen, I'm not, I've not listened to all of the episodes, but I listened to, to several wide weight raging guests. So, like.

Yes.

Like, what's the angle? What are you trying to learn?

Angle is, I would say it's a, it's a knowledge and experience share from people from all different backgrounds. Right. Because we can learn something from anybody no matter what they do.

Yeah.

We can figure out how we can apply that to our life.

Yeah.

Right. Whether it be, you know, self doubt or marketing, just sharing that information from their journey is going to help somebody.

Yeah.

And when we talk about continuous improvement, you know, I think of like pdca, you know, plan, do check, act. There's, there's a way to do that in anything that we do. And sometimes people do that that are very motivated, that are like, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to see what the result is. How do I change this and how do I start that cycle again? Right. And they don't even realize they're doing it.

What are some of the things you mentioned? Self doubt. I don't know why I can't get that out of my head. So did you do an episode on that or.

You know, people talk about it. A lot of people had to become very successful. It's something that affects everybody.

Well, I gotta. Shouldn't say this maybe on a podcast, but I have my youngest son, you know, he's 13 and he's going through that, you know, some friend struggles and.

Right.

Hasn't grown as fast as some of his colleagues, you know, or some of his buddies and all that. And so he's doubting himself a lot. So I'm trying, like, what are some of the things that you've heard or you've experienced for, for that.

Oh, man. Do you have a couple hours?

Yeah.

You know, I think it's like it doesn't matter your age. Right. Because you. Everybody wants to be, they want to be able to be perfect and in continuous improvement. We're striving for perfection. We'll get excellence. Right. We're never going to be perfect. And, you know, I have four kids myself. 10, 7, 3 and 2. And for some of the little older ones, I see the same thing. You know, they're looking at their friends, they're comparing, am I doing the right thing? You know, and it's just a matter of supporting. I think when it comes to your children, it's a matter of supporting them, giving them praise on a daily basis, finding something that they're good at, because when they're doing something they're good at, that's obviously going to help them become more motivated to continue doing that. And, you know, everybody is different. I mean, that's. That's one of the key points, is everybody's different. You are you.

Yeah.

And nobody's going to beat you at being you. Yeah.

Yeah. So can you think of some of some of the guests that you've had on that have been really impactful for you?

Personally, I would say Jesse Cole, the first guest. And the thing about him is, if I had another quote to share, it would be find your yellow tux. Jesse Cole wears a yellow tux at every game. He goes out in public with this yellow tuxedo. He's got multiple tuxedos that are yellow. He stands out. He thought, you know what, I don't know if this is something that I should do, because when they became the Savannah Bananas, he was like, what do I wear? You know, originally it was like a black tuxedo. I think it was basically based off of like P.T. barnum, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Circus production. He took on the yellow suit and he himself had some self doubt, like, I don't know if this is going to work out, if this is what I should do. And he just jumped and he did it, and it's worked out ever since. And when you see him, I mean, you can't mistaken who he is.

Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. I mean, I. I need to go to a game. I mean, it's not that far away, you know, from Texas here, so I would love to bring my kids to that because, golly, it's like a. Now, is it. Is it kind of like a Harlem Globetrotter kind of thing? The Savannah Bananas, or.

I would kind of say it. I mean, I don't know if I would do it justice. I mean, when we did our podcast, this is a couple years ago now, I asked them, do you see it as a Harlem Globetrotters kind of traveling around? And I would say it's very similar. I would Say, take that, take the circ. Put it all together. You know, you have baseball players on stilts, you have them doing flips like you said, and it's really just involving the whole stadium. It is not just. We're just watching a baseball game. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's super fun. That's super fun. So I know with your continuous improvement background, I know you've dabbled in some, some, some coaching and some like micro learning different things like that. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So, you know, we use TWI a lot and I really believe in TWI because I've even applied it with, you know, speaking of my kids, when my daughter was about four years old, she was trying to ride the bike. And we can, we can. If you have kids, you understand, like, that can be frustrating. And, and I came to a realization one day. I was like, why am I not using TWI to teach her how to ride a bike? So in about 10 minutes I was like, okay, what are the important steps, where the key points and why are they doing that so they can understand that. So I went through very standardized, disciplined, had her repeat the steps back. Tell me why she's doing those things and preparing to ride a bike. And within 30 minutes she was riding a bike. Wow. Now she wasn't staying up. Now there's the balance part. You kind of have to.

Another jib.

Yeah, another jib. You have to get the feel for that.

Yeah.

But if in 30 minutes a 4 year old can ride a bike, I mean, that's, that's success right there. Yeah, right. So being able to take that, I think in this modern day where we have, you know, we've been in the information age, how do you appeal to a younger group? And that is through microlearning, being able to take that kind of TWI model, put it into a video that is like a minute and a half, two minutes. It's not a 20 or 30 minute video where we're showing hundreds of steps. If this happens, you're gonna do that. If that happens, very disciplined, very standardized. You can watch a minute video 10 times and it's 10 minutes, but you've seen it the correct way 10 times. Or, you know, also with TWI, you as an instructor can teach them that 10 times in 10 minutes. And, and you're going to have some success there. And we like to do kind of a tiered approach where it's like, let's just get you the basic skills. I would say the five to 10 basic skills that are going to Bring the most value immediately within 24 hours if they can. If you can focus on those skills, that's going to bring value to the organization very quickly versus trying to, you know, say, I want you to know everything. If they don't have any experience in that industry, they're already going to be somewhat unsure of themselves. I'm not really sure how to do this. If you're in a huge manufacturing facility and they walk in there day one and they're looking around like, yeah, I'm pretty intimidated. I'm not really sure what to do. Right. But, but using that kind of methodology, the TWI or the micro learning, I think that it builds confidence because I've seen in locations where they show up, they'd say, I need to use the bathroom or whatever and they disappear and they never come back. Right. But you have to make sure that they're confident. When they're confident, they're going to have more motivation to actually do the job. Yeah, right, yeah.

So in your mention of twi, sounds like you're mostly so far describing job instruction. Have you dabbled with job methods and job relations as well?

No, haven't dabbled with those. My, you know, my passion is kind of is the hands on kind of training, coaching. So twi, that's why that really appeals to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, got it. I'm wondering if someone's listening right now and maybe they're, they're just getting started with the continuous improvement journey, Lean, whatever it might be. Do you have, what advice do you have for them?

Don't give up, learn as much as you possibly can. Yeah, right. I mean with, with Amazon, with the Internet, there's so much information now. You would have to be careful because there's going to be, I think we talked about this before. There's going to be people on LinkedIn and different social media that are going to argue and say, no, it's not this, it's that. But I think you can get a general idea of, of what Lean Six Sigma is. You know, maybe you just want to focus on Lean, but I would say, you know, just it's all about education. You know, there's so many people out there that will get their degree and then they'll stop learning. Yeah. And on the continuous improvement journey, it's educate yourself constantly, learn as much as you possibly can. You know, there's times that you're going to question it, like, does this work? Of course discipline works. Because when you really look at continuous improvement, it's a Disciplined way of doing something. Standardization. You can't go wrong by standardizing something and being disciplined.

I'm curious, not to get too personal, but how do you feel? Like, do you have like your own personal sort of like morning routine or sort of like a discipline aspect? I knew you were in the military.

I have some, some unstable parts of it, but yes, there's a time that get up, go for a run. One reason is energize oneself. Yeah, right. You drink your water, you go for a run, you start getting ready. It's, that's always worked for me. But it comes down to discipline, right?

Yeah. And all things. And I'm curious, like with your Taekwondo and your military background, I gotta imagine there's been a lot of that sort of just ingrained in your.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. When I was, when I was doing Taekwondo, it was an everyday, it's a lifelong thing. And the ex general of the Korean army that actually put that kind of part of Taekwondo together back in 1955 in Korea, he made 24 katas. And the reason for that was he was comparing a person's life to forever. And it's one day. Well, the 24 hours represent one day in your whole life is like a journey. So Taekwondo in that sense is, it's a lifelong journey. It's not, you know, people are so quick to get the black belt and I'm sure you can understand that and lean Six Sigma. But in Taekwondo, it's the same way. It's like I really, I disagree with people that say you're just trying to get to black belt because when you get to black belt, you realize you just started.

Yeah.

Because there's things that you learn there that you, that weren't even aware of. Yeah, right. It's a lifelong journey. You're always going to be learning.

Yeah. Do you ever think about getting back into it or.

I have and you know, I will, I will do work on, you know, bag work and stuff like that and kind of teach my kids some stuff. But it all comes down to time. Right. Because like, I don't want to start something that I can't consistently do.

Yeah.

It's just not beneficial.

Yeah. One of my daughters has really gotten into jiu jitsu and she's little, you know, but she's really good at it and it's kind of a natural knack. I was a wrestler growing up in high school and they keep kids are, dad, are you gonna do it? You know, Cause there's like the grown up class, you know, and I'm like, oh, man, I just. Maybe one day, but not. Not today.

Definitely a good thing for kids.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. All right, well, hey, this has been a lot of fun. If folks want to connect with you, if they want to hear your podcast, all kinds of stuff, what's the best.

Way you could find me? On most social media, The Journey Motivate multimedia.com is the website where a lot of the featured videos are. Or you could just reach out on LinkedIn Chad Senkowski and have links to the podcast there.

Awesome. Yeah, we're going to link it up here in the show notes. Everybody scroll down on your app there and go connect with Chad and say hello. And yeah, man, I appreciate you coming into the studio. This is a lot of fun.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Rob.

All right, take care.

You too.

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