GA 614 | Getting Lean to Stick with Joel Hugghins

People are looking to short circuit the system and get results without effort. And the big problem I see with that, the big scare there is that the struggle is where we become strong, right? Muscle is not built unless struggle is included.

Today I am excited to welcome Joel Huggins to the show. Now, Joel lives maybe about two, three hours away from our Keller, Texas office here. So he actually made to drive in. I think he hit some traffic along the way. The DFW traffic's not always fun in the morning, but really appreciate him driving all the way in. And so we were able to do it here in person in our studio. So it's always fun to do. And normally I'm interviewing people over the Internet kind of thing. But yeah, we did it in person today and we had a really good conversation. Diving a lot into, as you'll hear, Joel's got a really strong, deep, lean background and he's seen a lot and worked with a lot of different companies. He has his own consulting business now. But so we kind of get into what are some of the common impediments that he's seen people experience and companies experience and how they've overcome those impediments in order to, you know, build a strong lean culture. And we get into, also get into the whole idea of vision and culture and what we need to do to sort of keep, you know, sort of the energy high and get into like a lot of the personality types of people. You know, you have some people who are, you know, gung ho for continuous improvement and you know, the, those folks who are resisting and in some cases they don't want you to succeed. Like what do you do in those kind of situations and how do you work in those environments? So we cover a lot. It was a really good conversation. I think you're going to enjoy it. Show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com this is episode 614 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 614. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Joel, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Oh, it's going great. Thank you very much for having me.

Yeah, man, it's fun to have people here in the, in the studio. I was telling you we don't do a lot of in person interviews, but it's always, it's always fun to look across the glass here and see someone sitting there. So I would normally ask where are you calling in from? But you're calling in right here next to me, but where are you from? Maybe that's a better question.

So we relocated to Tyler, Texas, in East Texas, not too long ago.

Okay.

Spent a lot of time in Houston and a lot of time in College Station.

Great.

Grew up in the Waco area. Great.

Yeah. Well, we, my, my kids have, over the years played a team out in Tyler. The Tyler Heat.

That's right. Yeah. Orange.

They're orange and black, if I remember right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's a little bit of a hike, man, when we had to drive out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

Well, Joel, you know, sort of the role here. We like to begin all of our episodes with our guest sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Well, I've got two things for you. One is an ancient proverb and the other is a quote, if you don't mind. On the proverb. It's nations that for lack of vision perish, the people perish. And it's something I've always thought a lot about because basically without vision, without some direction on where we're going, people tend to go their own way and fall apart. Same thing is true for companies. And so the idea of vision is critically important for the long term success of any organization.

Like it?

I like it.

And you got something else?

Yeah, it's from Deming. It's not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. Yeah. And those two things work together. Well, in my opinion. Yeah. As I've been doing continuous improvement for almost 30 years, one of the things I've learned over and over again is that the change is the inevitable. Right. A lot of times we get fixated on things that have worked in the past and they don't always work in the future. And so we have to be flexible and willing to change.

I love it.

I love it.

All right, well, Joel, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background and how you first got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff.

So when I left college 30 years ago, I got drafted, if you will, into to train air conditioning, back when it was owned by a different organization. And they were just experimenting with lean at the time through John Costanza Institute of Technology, if you're familiar with them. And at the time it was all mixed model production, and they were trying to figure out how to optimize production schedules. That was really what. What everything was built around. And of the. The 14 different train plants throughout the country, they were all having pockets of excellence that were trying to develop these skills. And I got picked from my plant to kind of be the. The guinea pig if you Will to play with the technology and see if I liked it. Now I was trained as a mechanical engineer. So I came in combining their mechanical engineering with product development and also with industrial engineering and fell in love with the idea of continuous improvement. And so they would send me all over the country to the various plants to to help them learn some of the techniques and also to help them solve problems with a fresh set of eyes. And I loved that. I ended up leaving and trained and working in academia for a little while, working consulting for a while. Then I got involved in oil and gas, which is big in Texas. Did that for a dozen years, then did high tech for a little while and ended up eventually going back to train for a short stint.

And now what are you up to?

So I'm consulting now since I left train here recently. I do performance consulting primarily for small and medium sized businesses that don't feel like they really have the critical mass to do this on their own. Also to get familiar with it. And I try to work for parachurch ministries and non governmental organizations and things like that too. The groups that tend to get forgotten.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, that's fantastic. All right. Well obviously Joel, you got a lot of experience, a lot of seen a lot over the years, I'm sure. I'm wondering if we could just maybe kick things off with if you have any ideas on some of the most common impediments to getting lean to stick. Getting lean adoption.

So there are two things I tend to lean towards. The way Shingo looks at things and there's kind of a three legged stool to think about there. In America we tend to think if you have the tools, you're good to go and you give somebody a hammer and everything looks like a nail. There has to be these three different legs. You have to have the vision of the company, basically the management of the overall vision, the vision, the mission, the values, all of that together. And then you also have to have a culture that supports it. If you think about culture and a lot of times culture is toxic. People don't work together, it's not cooperative, it's us versus them. There's other things that go on there. If you don't have all three of those in balance, it tends to fall apart. Companies that, that like the bright shiny tools, they adopt them, it works while for a while it gives you some immediate benefits. But in the long term it doesn't tend to stick. There has to be, there has to be good vision, there has to be good culture and there has to Be good competencies with the capabilities of skills.

So what are your thoughts then for. You know, we've got vision, capabilities, culture, these are all critical. But find. Finding a way to sort of keep them in balance is challenging for many organizations, for many people. How do you go about that?

Well, certainly it is. And when you think about a lot of the work that Gallup's done over the years, only about 30% of people are actively engaged in their jobs. And the latest numbers show it hovers between 15 and 17% that are actively disengaged. And by actively disengaged, I don't mean they don't care. I mean actively disengaged means it's bordering on sabotage.

Yeah.

Where people are.

They'd like to see you fail.

Yeah, correct, Correct. It's people that are there for a paycheck, but they don't believe in the company and they. They almost actively undermine it. So we have to build that level of culture back up. And only 30% of people are actively engaged and really care about where the company is going. Part of that falls on management because they're not even aware of where the company's going to. That lack of vision, or at least there might be a vision, but it's not communicated throughout the organization. If it doesn't cascade, people tend to be disengaged. And I wrote a paper some years ago about the ninth Great waste, because I think misalignment within the organization is a huge opportunity for waste, because when people are pulling in different directions, you're never going to get the optimal energy. You know, I tend to think about, like the old Roman ships, right. The slave ships. And it's kind of the idea where tact comes from. Right. There's somebody beating the drum and everybody rows in sync, supposedly. And there's somebody that's at the rudder. The people who are rowing, they can't see where the boat's going. They don't know where the boat's going. As a matter of fact, they're pretty sure when they get there, things are going to be miserable. Right. And so people are growing. Sure. And you're making progress, but there's a complete disconnect between the destination and the people who are getting you there. And when I was at mit, I used to walk across the Harvard Bridge every day, and the crew team practiced at the bottom of the bridge, and I enjoyed watching them. I had a couple friends that were actually on the crew team, and they would slice through the water like nobody's business. There was a. There Was somebody in the back, the coxswain, who was keeping tempo, and he would make small adjustments. The rudder is not very big on. On a crew boat, but what would end up happening is, you know, they would work together and achieve some. Some incredible things. And so MIT's crew team, you know, competed with Harvard regularly since they were just next door. And I think about those two. You juxtapose those two kinds of boats. Right. The same activities are going on in both of them, but one, you have a team that's working for a common goal. There's no impediments to vision. Everybody can see what's going on, everybody knows where they're going. And the other, where people are forced into cooperating, but there's no common vision. And so one has, you know, a very positive culture, and the other, of course, is a very toxic culture. Yeah, yeah.

So what do you think? Are we getting better or worse as a. Maybe just as a society? I mean, obviously, you know, we're involved in business and, and seeing, you know, how operations work, but, you know, even just as a humanity, are we. Are we getting better, like, as far as engagement, or is it getting worse?

You know, you gave people. Yeah, it's definitely getting worse. And, you know, it's funny to see technology being kind of the root of a lot of this, but when I first got started in lean, there were no cell phones. Right. And now not only are cell phones a problem, but you have AI and other things that. That tend to interfere, and also things like social media. But people are more connected than ever before, but they're more disconnected and disengaged with other people than ever before. Mm. It's an interesting paradox, but it's. It's lent itself to really dismantling a lot of the engagement that we see in companies nowadays.

So what do you think's the remedy? Like, throw our phones away or. You know what I mean? Like. Like, what do we do? Like, I. I worry about my children, you know, and the next generation and that sort of thing.

Yeah. I've got six kids that face different problems than I ever faced at their age. Yeah. And I do think part of the problem is discipline. Right. We just lack discipline. Western culture in particular, I think, has a. Not just an affinity for, but an addiction to technology. And it does worry me, particularly in the realm of AI, not because I think AI is going to take over the world, which is a different topic altogether, but the fact that people are looking to. To short circuit the system and get results without effort. And the big Problem I see with that, the big scare there is that the struggle is where we become strong, right? Muscle is not built unless struggle is included. That's why people work out. But with AI, it has the promise of solving your problems without any effort. And so we lose the capacity and the capability of solving problems ourselves when we start over relying on technology. And I see some companies even encouraging it to an alarming level. When I was working in high tech, we were not only encouraged, but we were expected up to the point of being monitored to make sure we were availing ourselves of enough of AI. And AI is great. One of the problems, one of the deficiencies of AI, though, is it will give you a successful answer, but it will never give you an innovative answer, which is one of the big problems people have with AI Getting into entertainment because stories become safe. It'll give you a satisfying movie for you to invest two hours and dull your brain, but it'll never give you something that's cutting edge or challenging or maybe even provocative. Right. That's not how AI works or thinks. It gives you something that's safe and profitable. And so with solutions, we run into that same problem. And if we surrender that skill, if we give up that skill, I don't see us going in a good direction. Right. I know there are even companies that are promoting digitized solution systems that help you come up with solutions. You basically put your problem in and it'll solve it for you. And that undermines the whole A3 thinking. Right? Because we want to build this capability in people. We want to develop people. We don't want them to be good typewriters. We want them to be good problem solvers. And so we don't want to surrender that skill to anything. Mm.

Yeah. I mean, I guess I agree first of all, then I. But in my mind, I try to. I don't know, I try to stay open to the fact that, you know, our parents probably said the same thing when the personal computer was invented.

Oh, certainly.

You know, and, you know, you and I wouldn't be here recording this thing, and people wouldn't be listening to this over there, their AirPods or whatever. You know what I mean? If it weren't for the innovation of humanity. And in the end, I guess maybe something that gives me a little bit of peace, but I still worry is it is humans who came up with it.

Correct? Correct.

Right. And so it's possible that, you know, I mean, our kids. Kids are gonna look back, you know, in 2025 and giggle, right? Like, oh, yeah, Remember that little chat TBT thing they had? That was cute, you know? Yeah. You know, so I. I don.

Well, it's funny. I heard an interesting story one time and basically a guy had proposed. If you went back 200 years, what would you really have to offer anybody there? All the technology we have, all the knowledge we have. We're supposedly so much wiser than we were at that point in time. But if you were to help somebody cross the Rocky Mountains to settle in Oregon, what benefit would you be to them? Right. Could you help them build a house? Could you help them plant a garden? Could you help them survive? Could you help them teach their children? People were so much more capable in those days and rounded. They had to know everything. They had to know math, they had to know how to read, they had to know some science. They had to have basic understanding of so many different things. And we have the luxury of being very, very narrow but deep. Right. We have our specialty and we stick to that. Yeah. But if we were to go back in time, even with all the benefits of technology and learning over the last two centuries, what would we have to offer somebody? Nothing. You know, they could come into our time and survive just fine. We would go back into their time and we would.

Well, I mean, I think probably have to. I don't know about. They could come back into our world.

Well, fine, maybe not in our world, but in our time. Yeah, right. They could still go out in the country and build a house. They could use their skills.

It wouldn't be part of civilization. No, no, no. They would be the, you know, but.

They would survive just fine.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could even see it in, you know, there's parts of the US even, you know, the Amish community and whatnot. I mean, they're still driving trucks around, you know.

Yeah, right.

But, but it's not, you know, they're not streaming Netflix at night, I don't think.

No. You know, and you know, innovation is an interesting idea because I think when companies lose one of those, those three parts of the stool that I was talking about earlier, innovation tends to suffer. And innovation, I think, is really what is the driver for success in most companies. So where does that innovation come from? You know, we need to be able to innovate. Innovation is inextricably linked with creativity. Two of my kids are adopted from China. One of them when she was very young and one of them when he was 12 years old. And my 12 year old, who's 19 now, really smart, very strategic thinker, very cooperative. But he was robbed of all creativity. Like, if you were. If you give him Legos, he will stare at him until you give him directions. Right. He can't play. He can't pull things together in his mind and just create something. That's a skill that was never developed. And it was even discouraged while he was in China.

When did you get him?

He was 12 years old.

12 when he got him.

So that was seven years ago. Okay. But it's interesting to look at the two, because my daughter, who we got when she was 2 years old, extremely creative. Extremely creative. She wasn't burdened by the few years that she was in China. But for my older boy, it's definitely an issue. And you can see how it's one of those skills that has to be developed, it has to be nurtured. We all have it in us, some of us more innately than others. But we all have a creativity gene, so to speak, gifted to us by our designer, and it's whether or not we develop it. So innovation tends to be. It's either something you cultivate or it's something you discourage. And a lot of companies don't realize that. But if you're going to cultivate it, you've got to have, first of all, you've got to have a pipeline, a process, a system to bring it in and to develop that in people. And so, you know, one of the problems companies tend to have is they invest in a small group of elite people to do all the. Whether it's the engineering or continuous improvement or whatever, but they neglect the larger population. I think that's a mistake. I think that you're missing out. Right. Wouldn't you rather have an army of change agents and creative people as opposed to a department of those? And so it's helpful if we figure out a way to make sure that we're democratically developing everybody. We want to democratize that kind of people development.

What are your thoughts on when we're trying to develop people for those folks who are, I don't know, sometimes you call them cave people. Citizens against virtually everything.

Right.

Like, what's your style or your approach when you're engaging in a workforce and you see someone, you know in the back, back of the room, their arms crossed, and this is not going to be a good, you know, good experience? Like, what's your thoughts on that?

Well, in some organizations, that's the norm, not the exception. Right. But in either way, people have to see how change benefits them. And too often we don't sell it Right. That's part of that change management that we don't do well at. But if people understand that change benefits them and people undergo change their whole lives. Right. That's what growth is all about. But not changing is comfortable. They like to stay in a comfortable place. So you have to be able to convince them that we're not changing to get rid of you. We're not changing to just make more money. We're changing to make everything better. Right. We want to make life easier for you. Because when life's easier for you, you're more productive and you're happier, you're less likely to leave. All of those things work together for us to make more money and do more good. Mm. And that takes time.

Yeah, yeah. Impatience.

It does, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So I know you have some thoughts on. I'm really curious to get into this, the. The role of intellectual property and how that sort of, I don't know, plays into building culture, being innovative, that sort of thing. What are your thoughts on that?

So intellectual property is interesting because when we talk about innovation, right, inherently in that intellectual property comes out of it. And when people think of intellectual property, they tend to think of patents, just patents. And let me say that no, it's patents, it's trade secrets, it's copyrights, right? It's discoveries, procedures, formulas, solutions, recipes, designs, techniques, improvements, tools, code, sequences, objectives. All those things can be intellectual property, but we have to recognize it. And most companies are very cavalier with their intellectual property. They don't appreciate it fully. But harnessing that intellectual property, recognizing it, and then using that as a means to develop your people, inviting that, instead of saying no, your job is at this machine, you just push those buttons and we'll be good. We say no, you are a valuable partner in this entire enterprise, and we want to figure out how to extract some of these ideas that you've got. Now, some of them are going to be patentable, but I'll be honest with you. Patents should be about the smallest part of intellectual property. The largest part of intellectual property is going to be the know how and the trade secrets that can be generated that give you leverage over your competitor. We do something different, we do something better, right? We know how to do it without being so wasteful. We know how to do it without being so cumbersome. And those. Those internal tricks and hacks and things like that, that gives companies lots of leverage. So first of all, you've got to elicit it. You get it from people, and you have to kind of harness it. Now you also have to appreciate it. And a lot of organizations fail to do that very well too. Right. So you want to. You want to make sure you incentivize innovation. I know companies that have maker spaces. I know companies that have moonshine teams. I know companies that have competitions internally on new ideas that the company can use. Those are incredible ideas. Right. But you need to make sure you're rewarding and acknowledging people appropriately for those ideas as well. So whether it's bonuses or, you know, spots on the wall or special parking spaces or other things, you know, there's. There's lots of different ways to do rewards and recognitions, but make sure you've. You've spent some time thinking. No, it's not my engineer's job to come up with great ideas. It's everybody's job to come up with great ideas. And then we're going to work together. It's a huge sign of respect. You're not just a machine operator, you're not just a janitor. You're not just whatever. But you're a part of this team. And as part of this team, you've got something to contribute, and you have a perspective that's unique to you. Right. Whatever job you do, you have a unique perspective on that job that nobody else has. I'm not familiar with that job. There's no way I could come up with any good improvements.

Have you. Do you have any. Don't have to name any names or anything like that, but any maybe examples or things that you've seen over the years of companies that are doing this?

Well, I have seen some companies do it.

Well, what does it look like? Like, even. Even some examples would be awesome.

Well, so the makerspaces that I've seen at some companies, they have ongoing projects. They have people that manage the makerspace. And so part of the job of those people is to help, not only cultivate and help people bring ideas to life, but to kind of manage those ideas and bring them to the attention of executives as well, so that you have complete freedom. Whenever the clock's off, lunchtime or whatever, you come in here and you doodle and you play with things and you try to develop something, but there's somebody kind of coaching you and looking over your shoulder, but they're also making sure that you get the recognition of it. Right. So good ideas don't escape. I think that's an excellent approach. Another idea is just to make sure that you do kaizen, and when you do kaizen, it's just not the same people Every time. But you're bringing in new people, fresh people, and you're asking for ideas. Most people, if their experience is that, yeah, I give an idea, but there's either no follow up or they do something with it and I don't get recognized for it. You've prevented it, another idea from ever coming from that person. Right. You've just. Yeah. You've just seared that person.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

So maybe to wrap things up, I'm wondering if you have any. I don't know, like, we've talked a lot about things we're both worried about and all the rest of it. But what, what, Is there anything going on that gives you hope for the future as far as, like, where do you think, where things are going in the right direction?

I do have hope. I have hope because. Because people have endless potential. Right. I get nervous when, when the solution is automation or technology. Right. When people just automatically go to that. But people are innovative and that's one of the things that, that America stands apart from all other countries. We do celebrate innovation. I wish we celebrated collaboration a little bit more as a, as a culture. But I do have hope because people have incredible potential. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Good stuff. Well, hey, man, again, I appreciate you driving. I know it probably wasn't fun this morning with the good old DFW traffic here, but it was fun to record it if folks want to connect with you. Joel, what's the best way?

Probably the best way to connect with me is over LinkedIn and I do have a peculiar name. Yeah. So if you spell it H U G G H I N S U S. Definitely find me. Yeah. And I also have a consulting company, Huggins Performance Consulting.

Okay.

And you can find me there as well.

Good. And we'll get everything linked up in the show notes so folks can go connect with you that way. All right, well, thanks again for coming in.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

All right, take care. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started started, Gemba Academy is.

Here to support you.

And 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 Gemba Academy.

Com.