Shayne Daughenbaugh  00:04

What happens when companies move beyond treating lean as like a collection of tools and checklists and procedures and start embedding that into their I don’t know. I guess you could say organizational DNA. Think

Cheryl Jekiel  00:17

it’s oversimplified when we make it sound like there’s tools and something else. My last several years have been focused on, how do you understand continuous improvement from a behavioral perspective? And what I see over and over again is people don’t think behaviorally. We think conceptually, because people think they get behaviors. But it’s that our minds are almost jumping over the idea of what a specific observable behavior

Catherine McDonald  00:40

is. A lot of leaders, I suppose, don’t understand that they wear two hats. It is about taking off that, let’s say, guide our hat, and being able to step in with the team and roll up your sleeves and work with the team and see the work the way this team sees it.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  01:02

We’re remember learning to drive at first you focused on the mechanics, the pedals, the steering wheel, the mirrors, but becoming good driver wasn’t about the car. It was about developing awareness judgment and habits. Hi, I’m Shane, and this is my co host, Catherine, and welcome to the Lean solutions podcast. We are super jazzed that you’re here. Catherine, yes. How are you today? Sorry about that. How are you today? I’m

Catherine McDonald  01:29

good, Shane, I’m good, I’m good. I’m listening to everything you’re saying there. That’s a great opening for the topic we’re going to be talking about today. I think cars and learning to drive. And, yeah, it’s a good point, because when we were both experienced drivers, so we’re pretty clear that, you know, we don’t consciously think about how we’re driving anymore, right? Because that’s when you were saying there, you folks, you just zoomed in there on a topic, and I’m just picking up on it. So yeah, so we don’t start, we don’t think anymore about how we drive or how we use our indicators or how we check our blind spots. We just do it like it’s just second nature to us. And I think that’s a really good opener for today’s show, because that’s really what needs to happen with Lean principles, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Because organizations, I think, often get stuck in that sort of just frozen beginner stage, like really just following the checklist or checking every detail and procedure and standards, and they don’t sort of have this natural instinct if they don’t keep working at lean. So I think that’s what you’re saying. Shane,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  02:37

yeah, yeah, exactly. Today we’re going to be exploring kind of what happens when companies move beyond treating lean as like a collection of tools and checklists and procedures and start embedding that into their I don’t know. I guess you could say organizational DNA. You know, our guests bring, from my understanding, our guest brings decades of experience. I’m very excited to have Cheryl here, because I’ve never met her before, and I’m always excited to meet new people, but she’s had decades of experience helping leaders make this crucial transition from doing Lean to being lean or becoming lean.

Catherine McDonald  03:11

Yeah, so yes, I’ll introduce today’s guest. So everybody knows who we have. So today we’re joined by Cheryl Jekyll. So Cheryl is founder of the Lean leadership center, and she works with people centric organizations that require the right people strategies and systems to achieve their business vision. So Cheryl has developed expertise in optimizing lean manufacturing cultures while working with various different organizations on their transformational journeys. And just so you know, before opening the Lean leadership center, Cheryl had numerous senior leadership roles, including leading operations and HR and COO and as the author also of Lean Human Resources redesigning HR practices for a culture of continuous improvement, she illuminates the role of HR and how organizations optimize people’s talents. Not only that, Miss Jekyll has also a best seller called let’s go to lead six habits for healthier, more independent teams with less stress and more time for yourself. And I’m really hoping we can talk about some of those habits in today’s show. So welcome to the show. Cheryl,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  04:20

hi. Yes, welcome. Very happy to have you here. And HR specialist, really like you wrote the book on it. Literally, when can you tell me? When did you write that book? How long ago was that years?

Cheryl Jekiel  04:36

And when I wrote it? It did well, and they it just keeps selling. And they’re like, because you’re 20 years ahead of your time, I still think I’m ahead of my time. This topic has just remained elusive to people. Why Lean is basically a people issue, why the Department devoted to people would not need to be involved? I’ve never understood.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  04:56

But right, right when you first wrote that book. 20 years ago, did you have lean in mind with it, or were these just general good practices for definitely lean.

Cheryl Jekiel  05:08

I first of I came across continuous improvement in my mid 20s, and once I felt like that book, I mean, I just it like changed my life, my soul, and that was it. Ever since I’ve never done anything else, I will do it till I drop. I’m never not going to be doing this for

Shayne Daughenbaugh  05:27

yes, for those, as an indicator, for those who are watching this on YouTube, you can tell by the way things are color coded in the background, you can see the graph and the chart, the arrows going around the cycle in the background there. Just awesome. I from your perspective, in writing that book, and then we have, we’ll just jump into these questions. But in writing that book, How well has that aged from 20 years ago, and what you wrote, what you believed, then, How well has it aged, you know, till, up till now, like it’s still selling, so it’s got a great message.

Cheryl Jekiel  06:02

Obviously, nothing’s necessarily changed. I still am surprised how much HR teams still maybe aren’t getting engaged or involved when they need to be, because it’s a lot of change management issues. It’s a cultural issue. I always said, you know, to people, it’s not so much, whether, how much? Yes, it can be a big help. It could also be doing quite a bit of damage if they’re busy on their own agenda, heading in another direction. The problem with Lean, a lot of times, is some messaging is going one way, and a lot of messaging is going a different way, like how we bonus people, how we hire people, right, any number of things. So if they’re not aligned, it means they could be damaging it. Not even know. They’re not close enough to know, right, right?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  06:46

So that book still, still a great one to have on the shelf. Good, great to know. Good to know. So let’s jump into this. Here’s, here’s our first question for you, what is one of the common misconceptions you know? And you’ve kind of mentioned a little bit about this already, but common misconceptions you’ve encountered about Lean especially when it comes to relying too heavily on the tools. Boy,

Cheryl Jekiel  07:10

that if I could first I’ve been hearing that question for decades, I think, already, but my learning on it has been coming along a little bit, because my first thought is, I don’t know. I think it’s oversimplified when we make it sound like there’s tools in something else. I think my last several years have been focused on, how do you understand continuous improvement from a behavioral perspective? And what I see over and over again is people don’t think behaviorally. We think conceptually like I don’t think it’s a weakness in humans. It’s just we don’t really understand that. We don’t think that way. So we think I want to see more proactiveness. I want to see a greater sense of urgency. I want to see continuous improvement. Except there’s oodles of behaviors that are in there, oodles right? And so we use terms that are packed with lots of little things in there, so tools are still literally big chunks of behaviors. They’re not another thing like use the tools or don’t use the tools that we just we don’t necessarily do a great job understanding them as behaviors. And so I think we didn’t necessarily mention I’m a Shingo fellow, and the Shingo model is heavily based upon the idea that behaviors or systems, drive behaviors drives results. The thing that behavior piece tricky, very tricky because people think they get behaviors, but it’s that our minds are almost jumping over the idea of what a specific observable behavior is. So in been working with groups. More recently, we’ve been focusing on, even when we work at a tool, how do we really unpack it enough and get down to because there’s nothing. Let me ask you a question, how many new behaviors in a month’s time do you think a typical person can adapt? I do my job the way I did last month, and I’m going to do a few more things. How many new things, behaviors can I adapt at a stretch?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  08:57

Very few. I’m going to say two to three. Catherine, what are you

Cheryl Jekiel  09:00

very few, very few, right? Most of these tools are like that many behaviors. So we put in a stack of them, like a stack. Humans don’t adapt that way. They don’t learn that way, and they don’t change behavior that way. They change it every so slowly. So the other thing is, don’t move around for the next 20 to 40 of them, if you don’t have the first five down. So become a bigger believer. Don’t go so fast and see if whatever you did works like I think Kata is the name of the game around this, in terms of where my heading, behavior change, especially either landing or it’s not landing If not, try something else, but don’t keep going down the road if nothing’s sticking yet. And so you think a lot of this is we’ve just always done too much too fast, by actually not thinking or appreciating how people learn, how they change. They’re complicated. They’re kind of complicated. But just slow this stuff down. The idea of what’s culture compared to a tool. If we make a tool cultural, it just means the behavior is now embedded to be an everyday pattern. It’s not a separate animal. It just means it’s fully embedded.

Catherine McDonald  10:11

Yeah. And so I have a question then, Cheryl, so I totally get what you’re saying there about the difference, actually, the lack of difference between tools and behaviors, because, really it should, a tool should come down to behaviors, but it doesn’t. So oftentimes, if you take the example of 5s for example, and it’s quite simple to explain to a team, you know, you go through the 5s as you the team gets it, everybody understands it, because it actually is quite simple. And then, let’s say Good leaders will break it down to, okay, well, actions. What does that mean for who in what time frame? And let’s come back and check in. But do you think then maybe, like you mentioned, kata there? Do you think there’s a piece where we just need to go a step beyond that again and look at individuals and teams and actually go beyond actions and talk more about behavior. So I’m wondering how this translates in practice from your experience, like, how do we actually bring it down? So

Cheryl Jekiel  11:08

that that cycle behind me would partly tell you. So it’s what I call a performance cycle, and it talks about the elements from an HR perspective. It’s what we know about. How do people perform? Basically. So performance improvement cycle, the first one is set up for success, which means our expectations clear, and do people have what they need to do the work. But it’s the thing you do before that is make sure we have a clear vision of whatever it is that we’re doing. So a lot of times, usually when things aren’t sticking, the first thing off track is the Vision’s not clear. What are we doing and why? And whenever people aren’t really clear about that, now the next thing it’ll be off track is that cycle is fairly different at every layer. So from the, let’s say, a plant manager to a department manager to a supervisor, to a team lead to a team member who’s doing the work, same topic, completely different things. First top layer is much more set the vision for 5s what are we doing? Why are we doing it? And then I’ll need to have my own behaviors around this each tear down. So it’s much different to coach 5s than to be the immediate coach to 5s like that on track, like is the stuff put back to where we said it was, compared to, like the team members doing it. So a lot of that, what I keep finding is, when I get in diagnose it, you’re going to see it’s all collapsed on top of each other, that everybody is trying to help. Do the team members do five us instead of pull apart. Tends to be teams are working, usually two to three layers under their levels, really. And that’s an unusual I mean, it’s not like I’ve just found it once or twice, or just United States and not in Australia. It’s like, it’s the same. I think it’s like that, that subtle difference between, how do I coach the coaches, of the coaches, compared to coach the work, they just have had a tendency like, well, that’s what this book is, probably the let go to leave part. Once there’s a problem, they just jump on it, like it’s a football, by the way. No sports backgrounds. I use sports analogies, but I have almost no interest in but it does remind me for what I’ve seen when there’s a football on the field and they all just jump on it. I’m like, they all, yes, that is, you just all attack the thing. Yeah, they’re like, the plants dirty, so we’re just all going to, like, help them get cleaner at one time or something. We want discipline. Now,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  13:35

can you, can you share, like, let’s just throw a story in that that you’ve experienced, of that that kind of teases that out. What did that look like? That moved from that kind of, how you’re you’re explaining it kind of that it’s all mashed together, you know, focusing changing that mindset over the the methods that brought a positive outcome. What kind of story do you have for

Cheryl Jekiel  14:00

it? Like it’s a safety one? So one of the first times I saw this, as clear as I saw it, was we were working on, working on doing different improvement projects, and we had a group of senior leaders who wanted to work on safety. They were very unhappy about the safety results. And we’ve had these accidents that keep repeating, and we want to fix it. So they, of course, five layers up, want to, like, get people to be safer. And as they sit down and really go over it, they realize they themselves have not been involved. They themselves have not gotten clear on a vision for how they want safety to operate. There’s no clear expectation coming through the plants about what is to happen. So they said, well, first of all, we haven’t done our job. And so then they start realizing, like in the layers in between, it’s not clear what they’re to be doing, and then it’s obviously what we have is team members doing the work who are following this very unclear process this, you know, there’s just no clear messaging around what we’re to do, how we’re to do it. So as they pull. A part. And they finally said, well, we need to do our part first. We need to get a vision for how safety should be operating, what is the way it should be. They went and got help from the outside, and got great help, and then started to get clear. And then from there, they said, We have to make sure it’s clear to what everybody so like, what’s my department managers doing around safety, and they also realized they had a way over dependence on a safety department. I’ve seen one thing, and I think it seems very far off track, is the idea that departments, like subject matter experts from the outside, can do something outside the chain of command, so to speak, meaning as if it’s a side show, instead of like, what we do, how we work, so, who we are, okay, yeah, who we are. It’s like, it was like, No, that. There was a lot of like, well, the safety department is supposed to do the analysis, and the safety department is supposed to do this. It’s like, that’s No wonder nobody owns this thing. It’s all off track. Now, who’s going to change that? It’s a senior leadership thing to recognize the fallout track you’re going to change that in the middle.

Catherine McDonald  16:04

It also reminds me of just a common problem, I suppose, with leaders and their role. So a lot of leaders, I suppose, don’t understand that they wear two hats. It’s not just about you are leading, aside from the team, telling the team what to do and setting. You know the vision, it is about taking off that, let’s say guide or hat, and being able to step in with the team and roll up your sleeves and work with the team and and see the work the way this team sees it. And I think that for Lean a lean mindset, a lean approach to be successful, that’s so key. And have you seen that? Cheryl, in terms of,

Cheryl Jekiel  16:39

yeah, just quoted me this morning. He said, Cheryl would tell you, the team will bring you home every time. Just leave it to the team. Listen to them, ask them. They will let you know what they need. They don’t need as much, near as much help as we think we do. That’s why, really, I would say, the more I keep monitoring my last few years have been very much spent on what style of leadership does this really require, and it’s much less help than they do, a whole lot less than you’re doing. Just get out of the way more often. Get people what they need and give them a little room to have weight of themselves there. Go ahead.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  17:15

There’s so much like, there’s like, my head is just spinning right now because I love that idea, you know the team? And I’m playing this out in my head, the team will lead you home. That requires a level of trust. But before that trust, you have to empower. You have to let them know, Hey, this is, this is an expectation of you or and that’s not a it’s not a bad word. I’m not like laying more things on you. I’m just saying, Hey, we believe in you as the team. You know what you’re doing, you know your stuff. To have that level of trust and empowerment and whatever else you might be able to fold into that is almost profound in my head, because I don’t know, you know, I’m not in every business, I’m not in every organization, so I don’t know if they, if, if, how, how regular this kind of mentality exists?

Cheryl Jekiel  18:07

No. I mean, what got me interested in the work partly is, I mean, it’s been known for decades. All right, we’ve all been saying we need to be more coaching like and more empowering and all of that, and we’re not doing it. I believe one of the missing elements is we’re not recognizing how almost completely hard that is. I call it. It’s like scaling a mountain straight up. This is not we do not naturally let go. We just don’t we’re not wired for it. There’s these leaders that come into the workplace that were born this way. They’ve got the right DNA. They exist. They’re just not the norm, and it’s never going to change. So I’ve been really studying, well, what would it take? Well, it’s not going to help if we keep making something it’s not that big a deal, just be more empowering, and they’ll be more empowering that I always say to people, when you feel really uncomfortable, you’re probably there, it’ll feel really like not comfortable. And so you need to start to start to understand, if I’m not really uncomfortable, I’m probably not empowering anybody. I’m doing it so I’m comfortable in here. So I think there’s a rewiring that needs to be done, a different definition of what it means to lead. Now, the biggest thing that I’ve have found that I kind of knew intuitively, I think leaders need to stay connected and bonded with each other about that change. Like, if I’m uncomfortable and you’re uncomfortable and you’re uncomfortable, we all talk about being uncomfortable, then we’re going to be okay being uncomfortable because we’re all uncomfortable, we’ve all decided to be uncomfortable. As

Shayne Daughenbaugh  19:35

a leadership team, you’re saying, yeah, the community

Cheryl Jekiel  19:36

needs to be more create time and space to talk to each other. Here’s the one thing leaders never talk about over lunch. I don’t care how good of friends they are, they do not say I am too controlling as a leader, and I need to let go more of the time. They don’t talk about that. They talk to their spouses about it. I don’t tell their friends that. They don’t tell themselves. You know what? I need to let go. They don’t. So once they’re given an opportunity, they do, but I just think our organizations aren’t conducive to the vulnerability to say what the leader I want to be, compared to how I’m showing up in that struggle.

Catherine McDonald  20:12

And that’s a good point, because often we go straight into lean, like the company hears of this, we get consultants, and suddenly everybody wants to be lean, but we don’t talk about the behavior. Back to your point at the beginning, the behaviors that are important for people and leaders, for the organization, to become lean. We never talk about that. You know, we focus on the processes and the tools, even though everybody, and we’ve said it so many times on this podcast, we have to go beyond the tools, but yet comes into practice. When do we do this like it really is like mind blowing that we know what we’re supposed to do and we don’t do it. But back to this whole point on mindset. Cheryl, I suppose, can you tell us a little bit about your experience in terms of working on mindset with people, and the impact it can have when we get people simply into the right mindset, as opposed to bringing in tools. If you know, how do we how do we move people’s mindset to just thinking about the way they need to lead, the way they need to be without any tools at all? Well, that’s an

Cheryl Jekiel  21:17

interesting question. So I think I mean by mindset, we’re talking about maybe the beliefs that guide your behaviors in some ways, and one thing we know that drives that is experience. So how do we have different experiences? That’s why a lot of groups that you know have gotten on and gotten some momentum said, Well, we worked off some successes, and then we use that for momentum. And that’s because it created a different experience for people, and then they want more of that experience, and that’s a natural motivator. I still think we separate a lot of continuous improvement from the work or the pain, so to speak. Like I just had a team this morning. They’re like, how do I motivate my group to want to do this stuff? And I’m like, Well, what’s on their mind already? What are they already losing sleep about what’s bothering them. You know how to use it as a tool to get somewhere they want to go, instead of just a tool. That’s a tool. I don’t even I mean, it’s not a tool, so to speak, me and so mean tools, what we’re calling tools, are like routines, you know? Okay, yeah, they’re kind of routines, but when they’re applied abstractly, like, we’re going to come in and teach you 5s because, you know, like, why do I need 5s what’s the problem I’ve got that I need 5s to fix. Now, I first put in 5s in a bakery, and they made cookies, and so we need the right salt and sugar and honey, and we need the right stuff, and it was never where we’re supposed to be. And that makes them insane, that when they go to get the right piece for that part, made 1000 different kinds of cookies. That’s a lot of parts, by the way. Yeah, so when they got a chance to clean everything up, so it’d be where you want it to be, when I go to make my cookies, they’re all over this thing, and have to make them get all over it. I had to line up what’s bothering them. And this is the answer to getting to somewhere you want to be,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  23:05

because, you know, I’m thinking about myself, but also myself as some of our listeners, you know, a lot of our listeners are lean practitioners. Might be already embedded in the organization, or they might be like freelancers and have their own like Catherine and I have their own business or organization, and we’re called in to, hey, fix this problem right now. And they expect us to come with a big old toolbox. Hey, here’s all the shiny things that we can do. We can do the 5s you know, we can do the SOPs. We can redesign your process. But what you’re talking about is, from my understanding here. Correct me if I’m wrong, slowing down like, hey, let’s slow down before we bring those out, you know? And I have, you know, I did. I we didn’t go through your whole cycle behind you there. But level zero, Hey, what are you doing and why? And then level one is, how do we set them up for success? For this? Have you found I almost wanted to say, where did you find clients that allow you to take the time to be able to do this

Cheryl Jekiel  24:09

thing about getting older, I’m like, here than I used to be. I’m more cranky like, I’m more like, if we want to do it, let’s do it to work. I mean, here’s the thing all of us know, is, much of this is not working. It’s fails much more often than it’s succeeding. So we already know the thing you’re describing, which is just bringing the tools to go fix it just doesn’t work. It’s almost a complete waste of time, and I’m too cranky to keep doing it that way, just right. So I haven’t actually found anybody going, No, no, no, let’s go the fast way that doesn’t work at all. It’s not that hard to talk them out of it. They’d slow down if they had a better idea of what they’re slowing down for. The slow ways, The sure way there’s gotta be. There’s some fable that goes with them. Yeah.

Catherine McDonald  24:55

And can you tell us a little bit more? Cheryl, you mentioned Cata and I think that. I know people use different terms for it, what coaching or cat or there’s different types of Yeah, but tell us a little bit about how you use that, maybe, or introduce organizations to what it looks like and how it helps to, again, move beyond just the typical Lean tools to result in some good improvements in organizations. Yeah,

Cheryl Jekiel  25:20

so want to be clear how I’m using the term here is to use kata on the tool implementation or the tool use of the tool, okay, means if my idea of five US is I want to see an environment that’s been cleaned up, doesn’t have a lot of stuff here that doesn’t belong here, and everything’s put back away at the end of the day or the shift, and our people have learned the discipline of doing this, and the place is neat and organized, which helps a lot of things happen, right? That’s what I want. So now we’re going to do some things, and then I’m going to check to see if I’m heading towards that target or away from that target. Like slow down more in our in the things we implement, and just get more clear what the hypothesis is, if we run this training, well, they start doing this. And if we run the training and they don’t start doing this, there’s nothing wrong with your people. It means your experiment showed you that’s not the right steps to get that behavior to change.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  26:12

So in, in shoot, in doing that, Sheryl, you’re now, you’re just wiggling now, now you’re starting to step on toes as well, because the way, well, right now I’m going to say, you’re on my toes, because the way that we do training, when it comes to lead training, is we’ll do like, a two day workshop or something like that. Maybe it’s a, you know, maybe it’s a five day or, yeah, five day workshop, or whatever it is for Lean yellow belt or something like that. And we’re piling on tools and tools and tools, but not giving them the opportunity like you just said, Hey, let’s just take one. We’re going to take 5s and we’re going to we, here’s our hypothesis, here’s what we’re shooting for. Let’s try it. Step back, watch, didn’t work. What’s in the way? Oh, well, let’s overcome this obstacle, you know, going through that caught of that scientific thinking a tool or practice or behavior at a time. Rather than let me pile all of these on. Here’s your booklet now. Go get them. Like what my I have bruises on my toes right now.

Cheryl Jekiel  27:13

Like so many things happened, which part didn’t if you think of scientific thinking, we don’t know which part didn’t work. We tried to look until we’re like a monk down the road and going, I don’t know why it didn’t work. I’m like, Well, it’s hard to tell, because the experiment had so many phases. Instead of, let’s just work a little at a time and then learn. I became first. I didn’t do kata or use kata thinking until maybe 10 years ago, and when I got it, I was like, oh my god, it’s so obvious. Just this more, I guess, basically scientific thinking, what is it we’re trying to make happen? Did it happen? Didn’t it happen? If not change, change the approach, one thing at a time, typically,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  27:56

and so, and you have seen in the past, and I guess, like, how have you how well have you seen this using this? I can’t think of a better word than methodology, or just, you know, your framework for how you’re how you’re talking about this actually drives more sustainable change than the alternative, the typical, because this, what you’re describing, is a little bit atypical from at least my experience, and probably a lot of our listeners, the way Lean is approached. But what, what you’re promoting here is saying, hey, it actually, doing it this way drives sustainable change. Even better.

Cheryl Jekiel  28:34

I mean, basically that’s interesting. Where I can find little some people that want to talk about this stuff are people have already failed a couple times. What do you say that they don’t know what five is. They know it well. They know they can teach it. They can put the training together. But yeah, we’ve tried it twice or three times. It hasn’t worked any of the times. What’s wrong? And so that is like, Well, then let’s slow down and go back through some of this stuff, and then go slower. I also learned to quit telling people like, I have this formula, just follow my recipe, and I’m going to get you in because, like, no, everybody knows it’s not true. And it’s like, let’s just slow down and we have some experiments I could think of. Let’s try some experiments. And then that makes sense to people. They’re like, oh, let’s try some stuff, and let’s see what works with this team and what doesn’t work with this team. Let the group decide what its experiment should be. I mean, Cathy was something you said, Yeah, but making it something we sit in the continuous improvement office and decide what to do, like, what do you think we should try next? You guys, do

Shayne Daughenbaugh  29:33

you? Do you have a specific story that our listeners can hear and go, Oh, yeah, that makes sense, because it’s similar to our experience. Well, one of the current

Cheryl Jekiel  29:40

groups I’ve been working with is putting in an entire, whole new production management system, I think round three. And they’re like, again. They’re tired of doing it wrong too. They’re like, plus, every time you come back up to bat, they’re like, there’s only so many times this workforce is going to literally give us your heart and soul to try. It one more time, so we gotta get it right. And so we’ve been trying this much more piece at a time, month at a time, just a few behaviors at a time, and it’s coming along, and you’re just it’s not so much. I could say, oh, the whole thing’s in, and it’s working so much better. But everything that’s been put in is holding, and everybody’s still attaching, and everybody’s still kind of running a PDCA almost as the days and hours go by. So there’s more of a sense like it’s being implemented fairly cohesively, layer by layer all together, a step at a time. And

Shayne Daughenbaugh  30:34

when you say layer, you’re you’re saying, is that meaning, like leadership, layers from

Cheryl Jekiel  30:40

so one of the things, again, that would be different, we have the leaders doing any of the implementation. Teaching is done by the leaders. Continuous Improvement Group Designs it trains them to train it. But by the time anybody’s standing in front of the group to say, here’s what it is and how we do it, it’s someone they already look to for leadership.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  31:01

Get out of town. I know,

Cheryl Jekiel  31:03

have you ever heard this phrase, you learn what you teach?

Shayne Daughenbaugh  31:07

Uh huh. It’s true. It’s true.

Cheryl Jekiel  31:12

Yeah, now and they’re excited to see we can make a change. We just need to get out of the front of the room, so to speak. We need to work from the side,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  31:21

what might be some of the unique challenges, one or two of of those layers that you have noticed, just for again, our listening audience, who’s chewing on this, thinking about it, you know, as they’re imagining what this might look like. Here’s some things as you were talking about, you know, sustainable change, again, driving sustainable change with something, some things you know, each layer, or some of the layers, might be able to just be aware of that wheels could fall off because of,

Cheryl Jekiel  31:49

well, as I said, probably going one too fast. So really name the behaviors at any one stretch you’re going from and be careful of a word like problem solving that’s got about 90 sub behaviors. Like a behavior is a specific observable behavior, so usually there’s some piece to make sure you’ve learned behaviors, how to identify them, and then start working incrementally that way and get it separated. So if I’m the supervisor of a team lead, what’s the team lead doing? And then what am I doing? So everybody’s clear at every tier for even just the next 30 days. What are we working on? How do we get that broken down? I think is super helpful. And then how do I get myself reminded and then support whatever? I would say, the number one thing that changes the ball game is Get everyone, I think it’s an hour a month, get them an hour a month to spend their time talking about what is and isn’t working, and get support from each other, and you can change the energy of the place like become people start to feel supported. We’re in this together. What’s bothering me? First of all, they are not aware that the other ones are having the same problem, and to think I’m the one that feels all alone and frustrated and stressed out and tired and overwhelmed, and the rest don’t when they find out. They all feel like that. They all feel better. They’re all more ready for more, because they know they’re not alone. Yeah, and just share that. So that would be one of the next

Shayne Daughenbaugh  33:11

so kind of what I heard, just to sum was it was about watch out for going too fast, understanding your behavior and that that’s above you, kind of how that interplay understanding, what are the reminders that you may have to keep this new behavior? Is what I’m assuming, why you need to be reminded, because it’s new behavior, and then the space also to support each other, understand or review, I guess, however you want to say it, what’s not working? Oh, what is working? Great, because I’m stuck. Cheryl, can you tell me what’s working in your side of things? Something like that? Fantastic,

Cheryl Jekiel  33:48

yeah, by the way, that comes from. Actually, I went back to college, really, in my age, I went back to get a degree in this work because I was so interested in it. And there is a fairly well known piece of work that they call training transfer. The successful training. Transfer, just really what our work is three things drive it. One is peer support. It’s to the degree people around me and we are all supporting each other in these new behaviors. Second is top, up and down alignment. When I look to my boss or my boss’s boss, do we all look like we’re on the same page to the degree anything feels like it’s a one off, or it’s just us, or I don’t see things line up, like this layer says one thing and this layer does another. But once that lines up, that’s a big piece of go ahead and invest my heart and soul in the change, because this must matter. Third thing is, Apply. Apply, practice, practice, practice, repeat, repeat, repeat. So those three elements alone, when anything is missing, some of those elements, you’re missing a key lever that would drive a successful transfer. When, the more you think about these, they make perfect sense. Yeah, we don’t normally have all three in place.

Catherine McDonald  34:58

I think a lot. Lot of it is, is we, just, as you said, don’t make space to talk about these things. And that’s probably a problem in every organization. Well, I wouldn’t say every, most organizations out there. I know when I when I coach, and I go in and I meet a client for the first time, and I would first of all work with, let’s say, HR or manager before I start the coaching program to understand what this person’s role is comprised of, and what are the really important competencies that you know this person must develop to succeed in this role. So that’s a conversation I’ll have before I ever meet the person, and I’ll put together a competency wheel then so that talks about the knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors that are really important in your role. And honestly, when I present this to people, it’s like they’ve never seen it before. Sometimes it’s like they have never had a conversation in any in any discussion with a manager or anybody about the fact that these are really important things like delegation and time basic things, time management and leading change, simple things broken down into behaviors that they just have never had space to talk about before. And I’m wondering, how can we do more of that in organizations without taking, let’s say, too much time, because I like your approach, Cheryl, of you know, the kata piece, and integrating that into the way we work. But sometimes, when we’re on the floor, as we call it, and we’re working that’s still not the right space to have these really deep discussions about what’s needed in terms of behavior. So how do we get that balance right in terms of those discussions and and continuing with the work at the same time? I mean,

Cheryl Jekiel  36:35

generally, the way of instruction, I’m always clear. You don’t need a consultant, you don’t need a trainer, you don’t need a specialist. Mostly, I put them in groups of three, I leave them alone for 45 minutes, give them a couple discussion questions, and the rest is like magical it comes from humans. It’s like the thing that goes on between them, we don’t have to make happen. We just they need a little privacy, not too much interference. It’s more like you create a space for them to make a meaningful connection that their typical workday wouldn’t allow just a little privacy and a little prompting to share about something like, what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing? You know, even in your leadership over time, when they’re ready about it, where would you wish you were a better leader? You know, and they would be talking about that, then leave them alone, and I’d never make them debrief at all. You don’t need to tell me what you talked about. They just come back and you can just feel the lift on. You can feel the lift. It just pulls up. Yeah.

Catherine McDonald  37:33

Do you see? So sometimes, when I work with leaders, they just, they don’t know how to start doing that. So sometimes we actually have to take out their Leader Standard Work. We have to build it into their day and their week, to actually make a space to go and have these, do these demo walks, and build these conversations in. So first of all, we build in the time, the 30 minutes, or, you know, whatever we start with, and then we work on the questions you ask. It’s, it’s, it’s very difficult for some leaders who have never gotten to this level with the people they work with before, who’ve never asked a question that has a little bit of emotion in it before. It’s very difficult, I think, like I work with groups of four men and groups of guys on sites who were, you know, trying to get them used to this kind of leadership, which is really, really important in this day and age, to be able to have these conversations, but not easy at all. So that’s like, they do need a lot of support in terms of how to change their approach to build in these conversations. Does that make sense? Like it’s

Cheryl Jekiel  38:36

not easy, yes, but I have found as soon as they get a taste of it, you just need to get them in once. And they get they get picked, they find what that feels like. And they’re like, they want more of that. Yes, yes. So what about behind closed doors? I don’t know what they talked about. Yeah, yeah. They like

Catherine McDonald  38:54

but, but often it’s about the baby steps, isn’t it? It’s about like, one step at a time, building the time to just go and chat with people. Then let’s, you know, talk about, what did you chat with about? Then let’s revisit that and reflect on and say, Could we ask better questions? It’s a process of training leaders to be able to have these do this kata work. I think

Shayne Daughenbaugh  39:16

I will say, as I’m thinking about this, you know, because you mentioned Catherine, just how hard it is sometimes just to get that time. And there’s a good chance that there’s some non value activities, that they’re doing, a great chance, in fact, for just for my small experience, limited data set, but there’s a great chance that there’s non value activities, non value add, activities, things that they could re delegate to someone or just completely cut out, even for just a little bit of time to start catching this and understanding, you know, what you’re talking about, Cheryl, you know, as those. And again, I’m always thinking about how I can present this to other. People, our listening audience as well. You know, when they come back and they’re hearing all the things you’re saying, saying, Yes, great. Where in the world am I going to fit this in my day that it already has 10 hours of work smashed into eight. Again, as

Cheryl Jekiel  40:13

I said, Try an hour a month. And I, by the way, I have a two page exercise that is obvious. Happy to share that with the audience. Oh, please. And it’s meant to be like, follow the dots, and here’s how to structure it. And the reason why I hand them out as an exercise like, just follow it. And it was meant like, you know, you don’t need a specialist. Just follow the instructions, right? The rest will happen.

Catherine McDonald  40:35

And I’m I still want to go back to your book, Cheryl, as well, in terms of the six practices, and I know you’ve obviously put so much work into this, and it’s a very popular best seller, so maybe we could finish up with you telling us a little bit about what those six habits for happier, more independent teams, with less stress and more time for yourself. Maybe tell us a little bit about that, and we’ll finish up on that.

Cheryl Jekiel  41:00

The book is not represent my best thinking on the topic. It really came from I did this type of work for about five years, and of this basics around leaders doing this basic work behind me, and this is what I learned. I stopped at the end of that and said, What is it I’ve learned from this? And so the six habits I would not have designed by like they would not have been what I thought the answer was, and telling you what I found them to be. The first habit, by the way, is to be clear. The first major issue is we are not being very clear about a lot of things. So most leaders are stuck in some amount of lack of clarity about what they want. What would it look like? How would I get it? And they tend to be very task basis. They’re moving and not stopping to see if what I’m doing makes is working. So we need more pausing and reflecting before we’re just working. You know, many of us are working super hard, but given it all they’ve got, and they’re just not quite getting where they want to. Second one is, you know, it’s about teaching people to fish rather than do it for them. A lot of leaders get stuck in an almost reflexive you know, if you need help, I’m here to help you. I understand my role as a leader is to, like, remove your barriers. I’m here to solve your problems, right? Well, we know where that goes, and then take responsibility for the part that is for them to do. A lot of times leaders, if they thought about it, they haven’t met the responsibilities that are the leaders. Like, do people have what they need to do their work? Are they being effectively trained? Do they have the support they need? Being able to like, one other habit is be more motivational and less helpful. That’s what I’m saying. Do a little less motivate, more, help less and last I last one is I call level your team. I’ve been able to see some work environments that are super engaged and highly productive, and they don’t look up at all. So I realized we’ve kind of trained people to look up a lot, like do what your boss wants. Like you have to know what does your boss want you to do, and do what your boss wants. And part of it’s where we erode their taking their own initiative, is we’ve trained them to be like that, and we all live in that environment. So it’s like learning how to undo it. What do you guys think you should do as a team? Make a decision. What do you think this should we, you know, have them train them out of that so it’s moving by level up. But the all those habits, I found four things make them sustainable, and that’s part of we’ve been talking about some of them. One is community. So when leadership, community is created, many things are possible when it’s not otherwise, drills. I call it practice. Everything you’re doing, we need more practice of it, being able to change how you understand what it means to lead like it means to empower and develop and get other people to do things without you. And so it’s got to rewire what. What does it mean to feel like a great leader? And last I call it be on your own side is a lot of leaders are. They’re way too hard on themselves. Nobody’s going to make that much change, okay, being themselves the whole way. It’s got to be like I think that’s part of what the supports about. It’s very discouraging to make that much change by yourself. You won’t, won’t have enough. You know, we need to create a place. They’re getting enough TLC to make those changes.

Catherine McDonald  44:20

So the more sensitive thing, what I’m hearing is it’s not really about it is about measurement and change, of course, because that will always be looked at, but really it is about creating the right environment for change to happen. And that’s our main job, and really our main measure as such, because the changes, changes take so much time, but the environment can probably be be shaped, and it’s maybe something we should focus on more, how we help other people to think and experiment and develop and improve. Maybe we should focus on that a bit more.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  44:53

I couldn’t said it better. That’s a great way. I think that that’s a that’s a whole nother podcast, Catherine like right there. I. Are we create environment for change, not manage change, but before the change has to happen, how do we create that environment? I’m

Cheryl Jekiel  45:11

sure we’ve all had that feeling when we break the list of everything these leaders are going to have to do differently. That’s like, It’s too scary. It’s too much. You know, there’s nothing they don’t seem to ask of the leadership group, especially the supervisor level, like we want the sun, the moon and the stars, and they’re just human beings, right? Yeah. Anyway, it was delightful. That was very fun.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  45:40

Yes. Thank you so much. You’ll really appreciate it. Can we assume that you’re on LinkedIn, that people can I’m on LinkedIn? Okay, Cheryl, with A, C, C, H, E, R, Y l, and then Jekyll, j, e, K, I, E, L, for those that are listening on LinkedIn, should be some great resources there as well. Now you also mentioned in, and I don’t know how we would provide this, but you also mentioned that two pager, if you’re going to talk about it, how can we where can we find that? Do you want to you want to put it in the show notes? Is it on your LinkedIn somewhere?

Cheryl Jekiel  46:13

It should be out on the website, but I want to make sure I say something that’s not where we are. I will certainly make sure we have it in the show notes. And the better place to go is my website, by the way, which is Lean leadership centers. So there’d be quite a few resources from there, by the way, if you said I heard this thing and you mentioned this thing where you send it to me, all you have to do is send me my email is see Jekyll at Lean leadership center, or send me a message on LinkedIn, and I’ll send

Shayne Daughenbaugh  46:39

it to you. Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Been great. Thank you so much, Catherine, for all that you’ve been able to contribute here for the fun time. Cheryl, it’s been a great and incredibly fast last 46 minutes. So we hope you guys, everyone has a great day. Thanks for stopping by. You.