GA 646 | Connect Before You Correct with Royden Johnson and Luc van Merrienboer

Today, I am excited to welcome both Royden Johnson and Luke van Merienboe to the show. Now, so Royden has been on the podcast a few times, I think 2 or 3 times prior to this, but this was the first time that I ever met Luke and we had a really fun conversation. So both Royden and Luke are living in South Africa. And so what we did is we really kind of dive into Maybe just on a general theme, it would be, say, 5S, but doesn't sound all that exciting to talk about 5S. However, what we really did is we get into talking about culture and 5S, especially as it relates to the culture, the African cultures, and what is different, what is the same, and really getting into a lot of discussion on organizational change, resistance, how you go about it. Towards the end, we get into the whole idea of what we call cave people, which are citizens against virtually everything. And, uh, once in a while we'll come up against a cave person. And so what do you do? And, uh, so we had a lot of fun discussing that. So, uh, good stuff. I think you're going to enjoy it. I know I did. Show notes can be found over at gembapodcast.com. This is episode 646. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 646. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Royden and Luke, welcome to the show. How's it going, guys?

Yes, thank you for having us, Ron. Doing good.

On my side, also doing very well. Also tuning into the podcast and listening to some other guests. So yeah, learning as we go along, Ron.

Yeah, well, good stuff. Well, Royden, I think, is this what, your 3rd time maybe being on the podcast? Does that sound right?

Yeah, I think so. Third or fourth time. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

And Luc, it's nice to meet you. So, um, yeah, excited to have you guys both on. So where are you? Uh, we'll start with you, Roydon. Where are you calling in from?

So all the way from South Africa, uh, being back in my hometown. Uh, nice to be back. And like I say, just living the life at the moment.

Nice. And Luc, where are you? Where are you from?

I'm originally from the Netherlands, but, uh, I'm also living in South Africa. So I'm a bit like 200 kilometers more north from Roiden. That's where I'm at.

Nice. Nice.

Okay.

All right.

Well, gentlemen, as you both know, we like to begin all of our episodes with our guests, or guests in this case, sharing a quote. So what do you guys have to share?

I will go first. Mine is, because I'm focused on the digitalization field in manufacturing, I chose automating a wasteful process just reproduces the waste faster. And I think also that that's what digitalization is all about, that let's digitalize what's really efficient.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. Well, good stuff. All right. Well, hey, let's hear a little bit about both of your backgrounds. So, Royden, again, you've been on the show before, but it's been a minute. So, why don't you start and tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you first got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff?

Yeah, as you know, we go back years, years back with regards to lean manufacturing. Started out as a normal shop floor operator, got to know about the Gemba Academy podcasts with my operators. I can remember in the graveyard shift listening to, to the podcast. Yesterday, we were also talking about, like, the one-piece flow one, and that one will always remain a gem. Started getting involved in lean manufacturing, also a background in Six Sigma. And like I say, just want to grow people capability and make the world a better place through continuous improvement. And me and Luke's relationship actually started because of the Gemba Podcast, because after my podcast, Luke reached out, and that's how our relationship started.

No kidding.

We have a common interest, and that's the Gemba Academy.

Wow, fantastic, fantastic. All right, Luke, what about you? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, like I said, I focus on digital transformation in manufacturing environments. What I like to do is really build foundations and from there see if we can actually exceed our expectations in terms of personal development of people, but also in systems. I think if you have a solid system, then at some point you can really grow to things like anomaly detection and AI implementation. I've done this. I've actually been working in the automotive industry for the last 10 years across Europe and Asia. Yeah, now I started a new chapter here in South Africa, see how the manufacturing industry is here and how they're looking at digital transformations.

Got it.

Got it.

Okay. Well, today's topic, I guess we're going to kind of dive in a little bit on some, at least we'll start with 5S. And so obviously most of our listeners are probably familiar with, with 5S and workplace organization and safety and all these kinds of things. So, but maybe what we can do is, I'm interested to hear both of your experiences there in the African culture. Talk a little bit about 5S and how it relates to the culture over there.

I think, Luke, you can start and then follow you.

All right, cool. Yeah, my experience in South Africa is very limited, so I would like to draw a bit more on the Asian experience.

Yeah, okay.

I have to say it's amazing over there because the people are very disciplined. So they don't always necessarily see how the environment looks, but if you help them to see, then they're also very proactive by pointing out how they could improve or how things can be made a bit more visible. And then the beauty of it is that the Asian persons are very disciplined, like I said, in executing it. So that keeps the shop floor quite easily, like you get a good insight and oversight of it, so you know what's happening and it stays organized. And I think that's a solid base for everything because as soon as things are transparent, Then you can also start building up on improvements.

Royden, what about from your perspective?

Yeah, from my side, as we have discussed in the past, being from Africa, we lean a lot towards moral authority, not so much formal authority. So any operating system you want to cascade, you need to be very careful in how you do it, especially in the African culture. This is where I've started with a mantra that you need to connect before you want to correct. And then also then you bring in the 4 the formal side of making sure that we drive a level of excellence by connecting what the person is doing and not only connecting it with inside the plant, but also making sure that you take it outside of the plant. So a little bit of a different approach in Africa because of our history, but you need to remain firm. And like I say, it's connecting that why. And I think Simon Sinek calls it the Golden Circle. Make sure that what, what, what the operator is doing is value-adding, and it's going to make his or her life easier. But like I say, you have to, you have to be firm with coming from a formal authority perspective. You have to be firm, but also leaning to the moral side whereby they need to see that you actually live what you preach. You cannot be a shop floor leader and you, you preach 5S, but yet you don't implement or you don't do 5S on your own.

Do you have any examples to where maybe you've done it, uh, Well, maybe we'll start with the less than ideal state. Like, were you— maybe you in your career where you've done it poorly, where you didn't connect before you corrected, something like that?

Yes. Years ago, I worked at Goodyear. Goodyear has actually left the country now. But like I say, with Goodyear, there needs to be— if you come from a formal perspective and you don't attach any value for the operator, Operators just thinking you're giving him work. So usually we would just, because we are a global company and we sometimes assume if it works elsewhere, we just implement it on our side. So we failed miserably in the beginning. And then afterwards, like for instance, we had some learnings like bringing in the union, bringing in different stakeholders and making it an African thing. We call it Ubuntu. So you make it part of everyone is involved, everyone has a stake in it, and this is going to improve our lives as a plant as a whole. So a lot of learnings in the beginning, and afterwards you picked up that when you work with human beings, you, you need to connect. There needs to be a level of connection. And hence, only later on in my career, I started reading, uh, the likes of Bob Chapman and Herb Keller, guys that There's been CEOs of global companies in how you change behavior and how you influence and inspire normal shop floor operators.

Yeah, I mean, I guess my next question is really, I guess, would value both of your opinions on, you know, many times you'll hear the phrase when you're talking in the lean world, without 5S, you can forget the rest, or something along those lines. And I'm curious to get your thoughts if someone's listening right now, and they are brand brand new to the continuous improvement world. And I mean brand new, they barely just heard what 5S is. And do you think for an organization that's just getting started, that 5S is a good place to start? Or do you have suggestions for other prerequisites that should be in place before they start? And I'll let either one of you sort of begin to answer that.

Okay. So, 5S, so basically in manufacturing, we would, we sometimes call it KPIs, we sometimes call it pillars. So, you would have your safety pillar, you would have your quality pillar, you would have your delivery pillar, reliability, which is your engineering, and then you would have your people pillar and your cost pillar. Now, 5S affects all 4 pillars within the plant, because if you do proper 5S, it will improve your safety. If you do proper 5S, it will improve your quality. If you do proper 5S, it will improve your efficiency. So, 5S is basically the tool that gets all the other pillars to be efficient. And like I say, you immediately, you need to start with 5S because as an operating tool, it makes you more efficient, it makes you safe, and it makes you reliable. And like I say, sometimes you cannot, you cannot run it separately from, from anything within the organization. And a lot of companies fail in that regard, in driving that home and say, okay, why do you need workplace organization? Because as an operator, we don't want you to look around for where the tools is. Why do we want you to apply 5S? Because we want you to work in a safe environment, in an ergonomic environment. Why do we want you to use 5S? Because we want you to be efficient. So it's a tool that basically touch each and every pillar within the organization if you want to have an operating system that's hitting at the high level.

What do you think, Luc?

Yeah, from a digital angle, it's quite the same. Like, if we want to improve and we want to be data-driven and improving every day, then you need to be able to rely on your data. And that also means, hey, it needs to be clean, it needs to be understandable, it needs to be foundable, and you need to be able to find it in your systems. And that's why I always said standardization is very important. How are our processes running? What are we doing first? What is the input for the others? And what kind of data do we need in this step to make the next step or give input to the next step? So, yeah, standardizing is very important there. From there, you will also see that the line starts to stabilize because now you know, okay, these are the steps we're taking, and then you can stabilize. And from there, you get a very good overview and you can easily start detecting deviations, seeing anomalies, and from there you can steer then again for further improvements. And yeah, so I do think you need lean discipline first.

Hey, Luc, when you talk about digitalization, what do you mean? Just like I like to start with definitions.

Yeah. What I mean in especially, yeah, you have different gradations, but if I talk about digital transformation, then I really see how can we use digital solutions like applications, MES systems, AI solutions even, even to help us run our processes efficiently. For example, our maintenance process. If you do preventive maintenance, okay, that's quite a planned process. So let's take that, it's easy to standardize. So we plan this preventive maintenance. And what we used to do is we would plan it in SAP, print out the sheets, and then the operator would fill it in, return it. And then we would scan it and store the hard copy in the cupboard. But with digitalization, we provided an iPad to the technicians, and they could tick off there exactly what they did. They could fill in some data for gap measurements or anything. Now this data is also available for us, and we can analyze it. We can see like, oh, this check, we do that every second week or every month. And for the past 2 years, it's always been okay. Why are we actually still doing this check? So, what I mean is you integrate these tools in your daily operations. So, you collect the data and then it makes you operate more efficiently.

And, Naron, just to add, it's always nice when you start implementing 5S, if you can actually show certain metrics of improvement to the operators. So, if you talk from a safety perspective, to actually show how the risks have been reduced. If we're talking efficiency, to actually show the operator that ever since the implementation, look what has happened to our OEE or look what has happened to our OAE. So, it's always good to link it to a metric so that the operator can see that it's value-adding. It's not about keeping things clean for the sake of keeping it clean is making me more efficient in utilizing the resources more efficiently.

So I sort of know Roydane's background, Luke, but I'm not as familiar with you. So maybe I'll start with you on this next question and just curious to find out. So like, where is your passion? Maybe even if you want to use the word love for continuous improvement come from?

All right. Yeah, my background is actually industrial engineering. So industrial engineering is all about optimizing business operations and business processes. So it goes back all the way to my studies where I looked into how can we do things differently, efficiently.

Mm-hmm.

And then I did a master's in innovation management with IT systems. So how can we implement IT systems that help us again to improve. And the technical side is actually one thing, but what's most challenging and in the end also most rewarding is the change management. Can you get the whole organization along to adapt to your new vision, to your new standard, to work in that way? Because if no one does and no one believes in it, then then it was all for nothing.

You have a value.

It will have no impact. And in the end, you don't leave an organization with the systems. You won't be remembered by the systems, but you will be remembered by the methodology and the mindset that you try to foster into the organization. So, for me, actually, the continuous improvement And especially then the change management part is where the love really burns.

Rodion, what about you? I think I know some of the answers, but tell everybody.

Just to add on that, like I say, as I've grown in my career, and it's surprisingly when it comes to change management that we usually rely on certain influencing strategies, of which personal— the personal one is predominantly the one we use the most, telling the guy the why. But as I've grown, I've learned that there's different influencing strategies where you have got your social, your structural, and your personal. And you need to do— you need to have a combination of all 3 of them to optimize the organization. Some guys do have the personal ambition and the personal discipline, to adhere to certain standards. Other guys will look to the guy next to him socially, uh, see, but this guy is doing it, then I need to do it as well. And then you also have to build in strong structures, discipline structures. I always use the example that there's certain things that, that you can do in the Asian countries with regards to discipline, that yeah, you need to build something. For argument's sake, um, in, in, because South Africa has an alcohol problem Over 80% of all our manufacturing facilities, it's compulsory that you, you, you are breath analyzed before you enter the plant. So in a lot of other countries, you don't have to do that because of the level of personal discipline. So this is where I'm talking about that structural discipline built into the influencing strategy. So as I've grown, I've learned that you need to, you need to find the sweet spot with people. You need to understand people, and you need to know what drives and what motivates people. And sometimes in South Africa, a lot of people get it wrong because they underestimate how diverse we are with our 11 official languages, uh, different cultures, different ethnicities. And you might look at one Xhosa guy and he'll, he'll come from the slums, and another, other Xhosa guy comes from the upper echelons of society. And thinking that they are both motivated by the same thing, you'll slowly find out as a leader that's not the case. So as I've grown, I've learned, okay, right, what influencing strategy Should I use? How should I use it? And with who should I use it?

Hey, so talking a little bit about influence, I'm curious to get, I mean, either one of you or both of you can, can comment on this, but there's a, there's a little term that we would use sometimes in the Lean world called the CAVE people, C-A-V-E, and it stands for Citizens Against Virtually Everything. And once in a while, once in a while, you know, we're trying to implement Lean in an organization and we might come across a CAVE person or two, and for whatever reason, this person is just— I mean, resistant isn't even the right word, right? They're just not on board. What's that like in South Africa? I mean, I'm sure there's some cave people there. They are everywhere and all over the world. But if you do encounter one, what's your approach? What do you do?

Yeah, this reminds me actually. So how I did this for digital transformation, it reminds me of the model of Simon Sinek, where he says, okay, you have early adopters and you have late adopters. And then you also have the laggards, which are actually the cave persons you talk about. And you first of all need to start to convince the early adopters. You need to create a movement. You need to find people that are willing to experiment To see, okay, we might fail, but let's try again. And we fail again, okay, let's try again. So they have this relentless energy to keep trying and to keep moving. Without those, you will never get anywhere. And then you get indeed the rational people saying like, okay, what's in it for me? What if it goes wrong? What do we do? Okay, that's the majority of the people, but then indeed you have the laggards, the ones that really don't want to change. And yeah, you have people that are then skilled and motivated, right? And if they are skilled but they cannot be motivated, then in my opinion, they will phase out at some point.

Yeah.

If the majority of all the people are actually going along with the new standard, then, and they cannot like be, or like be themselves with this or can believe in it, then at some point they will leave the organization. Sometimes it's sad to see them go. So you try to put everything in place to prevent that. By a lot of change management, a lot of talking, showing, because in the end you want to have an impact. And if you can find also the leaders in the group, so on, like in, for example, a shift, if there's a cave person, okay, who is the, the informal leader here? Maybe to who are they listening? Like, for example, in Asia, I was the foreigner. I'm Then they see me like, oh yeah, okay, we will just listen to him. So they won't give me as much pushback. But then I need to team up with other Vietnamese managers and say like, okay, I see they are not speaking up to me. Can you please help me? That's the informal leadership and see what are they saying? What are actually, what are their objections? Let's listen to them. And I'm also reading a book now about tiny behaviors. So that's the— maybe people are not motivated, but we still want to have the action. So how can we make it for such people maybe as easy as possible to do it? So it hardly takes them any effort to do what we actually want them to do. So those kind of two 2 principles I would use, the formal leadership, try to trigger that, or make the action as simple as possible so that even if they're very low motivated, they will still do it.

What a loaded question. And like I say, and sometimes when I make the statement, people think I'm purely speaking from an exclusivity point of view that it's only in Africa. But I've been fortunate enough to travel the world, and I think my perspective still remains the same, that in a way there's a level of uniqueness because of our history. So when it comes to continuous improvement, especially in Africa, we always need to be very cautious in how we implement it. And I know sometimes, because I'm an assertive leader, I say things that gets people to think, and sometimes you might agree and sometimes you might not agree. So if you're familiar with the famous fight of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.

Mm-hmm.

So when George Foreman got off the plane, uh, the reason why people supported Ali was they were influenced by something that George Foreman did. So when George Foreman got off the plane and he started to practice, he walked around with a German Shepherd, and the German Shepherd was the dog that was used in the apartheid era to chase the Black people.

Oh.

So immediately the people related with Muhammad Ali because of what George Foreman directly or indirectly represented. So in the past, with, with continuous improvement and the evolution of continuous improvement, we brought in continuous improvement or the CI team kind of like a SEAL Team 6 within the organization. And then they would come in and then they would make improvements and it's not going to be long and then there's a headcount reduction. And because of the unemployment rate in South Africa that has always been hovering between 20% and 30% for the last, say, 20, 30 years, the moment the people saw continuous improvement, to their minds it was, we're gonna let people go. So we had to get rid of that. But first say, listen, you guys, it's all about being efficient. And especially with, with globalization. And this is where, like I say, when I traveled, I would come back and I would show them the bigger picture. and say, guys, if, if we're not going to improve and if we're not going to become more efficient, there is some— someone somewhere in the world that wants this business. And then I would like— I would use different influencing strategies, and especially I would use— because of our African history, there's a lot of respect for elders. So I would, I would make my speech as a leader, and then I would get the oldest guy within the group or the guy with the longest service And I would say to him, we call him— in Xhosa we call him Tata. I would say, Tata, my objective as a leader is to make sure that as you have given the baton to me with these doors open, that one day I will give it to my children or my children's children, making sure that these doors are open. So I would use a lot of influencing strategies, understanding human behavior, also using the uniqueness of our situation and where we've come from. But ultimately, when you say that I've tried the personal strategy, I've tried the social strategy, now I'm going to try the structural strategy, which is built-in discipline. So if you're not going to conform to the standard and you're not going to adhere to the standard, then you don't belong in the company where this standard is being esteemed. If you're not going to conform to the values, if you're not going to live out the values, then unfortunately you can't be in this organization. And this is where, like, I also fell in love with the previous LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner, compassionate leadership, where I will transition you out of the organization and we can still be friends and we can still see one another at sports events, knowing that it was done for the business and to keep the business safe, but doing it in a compassionate way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I was, when I asked that question, I immediately thought back to my own career prior to Gemba Academy, working in industry. And I'll never forget this situation where we were trying to sort of implement Lean in one of our facilities, and it was sort of pretty new. And there was this gentleman, and he was for sure a cave person. I mean, just had arms crossed, Scowl look on his face.

Yeah.

And anytime I kind of came near, he sort of just gave me a dirty look or whatever it was. And I don't know what it was. I was not super experienced back then, but for whatever reason, I felt this call to just be gentle. And what I actually did was I really, and this is gonna sound odd, but I really ignored the person and I just kind of kept going and we kept working with the other people who were involved and this person was there. And they were, again, weren't really involved. The arms were crossed, bad look on their face. And I just sort of left them alone. And then once in a while I would be like, hey, would you mind handing me that? You know, something like that. And they would hand me the thing or whatever it was, just little small little things. And then eventually the person sort of started to engage a little bit. And I was like, huh, look at that. You know, and I didn't ask, but they just slowly engaged and eventually they came fully involved. And come to find out, I was talking to the individual later and he came up to me and he said, Ron, no one has ever treated me the way that you treated me and allowed me to be involved. And I was kind of like, oh my gosh, it was sort of the opposite, right? But it was like, it was because I just, I wasn't pushing it down his throat and I wasn't forcing him or anything like that. But to him, that was was inviting. It was just a really bizarre situation. But he even made a comment that said that no one's ever listened to me before. And it was because I asked him at one point, hey, what do you think? And well, I think this, because he was very experienced, right? He'd been there a long time. But yeah, you just never know, right? What's going on in someone's head and the way that you treat people and the way that you you know, sort of handle yourself as a leader is really, really critical.

It's paramount. And like I say, through the years, I've developed certain things that I would say to myself. So sometimes I would remind myself that there's never a learning disability. It's always a teaching disability. So it's not that that person is not learning. I'm not reaching that person. So let me go back Let me go study more. And like I say, also being socially active, like I would, I would, I would make it not like a game, but it would be intense. Okay, right, what, what strategy will work with this person? And it's very, very that you can't influence. You just need to change your strategy and make sure that you find that connection point. So like I say, Uitenhage is not that big. We have about 300,000 people. So I would maybe go watch a sport game and just see how the— how that operator interacts with his family or interacts at the sporting event or interacts at church. So I would, I would always make sure that I am as empathetic as can be because I will remind myself that the problem is not with him, the problem is with me.

Yeah.

And in most cases, like, okay, in your case, that then you eventually you'll find out that you can, you can, you can reach, uh, just look at your strategy. And be pedantic. But then there are some that unfortunately—

Yeah.

And I think there was a study done with over 1,000 CEOs and they asked them like, what would they have done different in their careers? And about 99% said that they would have gotten rid of low performers very earlier than what they actually did.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Gosh, this has been a lot of fun. I'm wondering maybe as we wrap things up, Did you guys have any sort of final thoughts or final words of wisdom that you wanted to leave with the listeners?

Like I say, Ron, you know me by now, there are certain things that I ponder, and I want to leave our listeners with this thought as we see what's going on, not only in lean, but in the world. So, I have this mantra or saying that I always say to myself when I engage as a leader, speak Without being offensive, listen without being defensive, and always let the other party leave with their dignity intact. I think that's what we need more in the world.

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Luke, any final thoughts?

Yeah, we talked a lot about also the change management, and I I think Royden is summarizing it very well. I contributed today with the digital side as well. So I was thinking, I think my way of approaching digital transformation in manufacturing is to standardize, to stabilize, and then put your analytics in place for anomalies and AI solutions. Um, but all of it cannot be done if, if people are not involved, if you are not listening, or even why don't you use the caveman as the devil advocate? Just let him be there. Listen to him. Listen to all his objections because some of it is true.

Yeah, for sure. Hey, um, if folks wanted to connect with, uh, either one of you, what's the best way? Luke, what's the best way for you? I'm sure you're all over the digital platforms.

Yeah, no, please. I actually tried to centralize it quite well on LinkedIn, so everyone can reach me on LinkedIn if they would like to share a thought or have a talk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Royden?

Obviously via LinkedIn. Like ever since I've been on the podcast, so many people that has DM'd. My dream is one day to host Gemba Academy. Oh, let's go.

Let's go.

That's, that's my— that's— I make— I'll make sure that I'll get the funds, I'll get the investors. And we also want to show the world that, like, like we've been discussing in the past, like, show what we can contribute towards lean as well.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that. I love that. Wonderful. All right. Well, hey guys, I appreciate you both. This has been a lot of fun. And, and we're going to link Look, everybody, just scroll down on the show notes and we'll have Luke and Roydon's LinkedIn there. So please go and connect with them and thank them for coming on the show. But guys, this has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you both.

Yeah, thanks for having us, Ron. It was a lot of fun.

All right, take care, guys.

Guys, see ya. Bye.

Thanks for joining us today. We know the path to continuous improvement can be challenging to walk alone. That's why Gemba Academy exists, not just to provide training, but to be your partner in problem solving. Whether you're just taking your first steps or leading a global transformation, our goal is to help you bridge the gap between knowing and doing. Beyond our library of Lean and Six Sigma resources, we're here to coach and guide you through your journey, whether that's through personalized support or joining us for a live training to get that Immersive, hands-on experience. To learn more, go to gembaacademy.com.