The Digital Age of Lean with Paul Dunlop

The Digital Age of Lean with Paul Dunlop

by Patrick Adams | Aug 30, 2022

In this episode, Paul Dunlop and I discuss the importance of daily management systems and structures as well as the digitalization in and of lean management systems.  This is Paul’s third time on the show.

What You’ll Learn This Episode:

  • The importance of Daily management systems and structures
  • Digitization in / of Lean
  • The importance of leader standard work

About the Guest: 

Paul brings with him over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience in a broad range of industries. In his operational management and consultancy roles Paul has led successful Lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System. Paul’s passion for operational excellence using Lean tools and methodology has helped drive sustained continuous improvement and financial performance at many companies.

Paul’s “people centered” approach is to engage the ongoing support and commitment of both shop floor staff and senior management through effective Lean leadership and to facilitate inclusive problem solving cultures.

Paul is a team player with an understanding of business priorities and committed to managing high performing teams and delivering projects to meet targets. Demonstrated ability to influence and change workplace cultures and develop capability in employees to implement and sustain continuous improvement methodologies long term. Effective implementation of Lean cultures in both greenfield and established organizations, with a passion for engaging, coaching and developing people at all levels of the organization by utilizing Lean tools and Lean thinking.

Paul specializes in:

* Lean Enterprise and Strategic Planning

* Change management

* Grass roots “bottom up” engagement

* Coaching and mentoring leaders, enhancing fundamental management skills and lean leadership

* Implementation of lean tools and techniques

Important Links:

Full Episode Transcripts: 

 

Patrick Adams 

Welcome to the Lean solutions podcast where we discuss business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for true Lean process improvement. I am your host, Patrick Adams. Hello, and welcome to the Lean solutions podcast. Our guest today is Paul Dunlop. And Paul brings with him over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience in a broad range of industries. In his operational management and consultancy roles, Paul has led successful lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System. This is actually Paul’s third time on the show. The last time that he was on was back in episode 38, when we talked about fear in leadership. Welcome to the show, Paul.

 

Paul Dunlop 

Thank you, Patrick. It’s great to be back. Once again. It’s been I think, nearly 12 months or over 12 months since I was last time since we last talked.

 

Patrick Adams 

Yeah, it’s been a while. For sure. I’m excited that to catch back up with you. And and actually I was going to ask you, Paul, I don’t know if the last few episodes that you are on if we ever dove into your background or not. But I know that our listeners would probably love to hear a little bit of history on you and your background, just how you how you were introduced to lean. You know what, where you grew up in what industry? And now obviously, I’m sure a lot of people that follow you on LinkedIn, see a lot of the amazing work that you do. But it would just be helpful. Maybe first, you know, a little bit of your background if you if you’d be open to share that.

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, absolutely. It’s not shrouded in mystery. I guess, pretty, pretty humble beginnings. And it’s probably a good story to share in many ways, because I think people will look at you once you’ve established yourself and your business and think all sorts of things and assume all sorts of things. But I guess I have been in manufacturing, guess all of my working life. I fell into that. So there’s there’s really no design behind it. But my beginnings were really starting out as a machine operator on a shop floor and in a food business. As it happens, that business was a Japanese business, and it was a greenfield business. So I learned and had a very steep learning curve in terms of learning, manufacturing, and what it took to build a manufacturing facility from the ground up, literally. Now, being a Japanese company doesn’t make you lean by any stretch of imagination. However, you know, I was introduced to some of the basic concepts. So so five s was something I was introduced to very early on. Probably like a lot of the people I interact with these days, when I introduced five s I’m like, Well, what do I need this for I know where everything is, and so on and so forth, but started to embrace the tools. My boss at the time, handed me a copy of gamba kaizen. And I sort of read that cover to cover and back and forth and really started to take some of those principles and some of the tools and apply them. I’m just that sort of a person. And really, in many respects, just self taught. So read, read lots of books, practiced learn. And I was with that business for about 10 years. It was a relatively small business. And I still look back and think Wow, a lot of the a lot of the things that I implemented, I’m sure will still be there to this day. But it was cool. And it was a it was a really good little sandpit for me to learn in. And then I’ve gone on to work in functional management for for national and global businesses up until seven years ago where I started Industry Training and Consulting. So I guess most of my working career has been as a as a production operations manager, as well as somebody who’s almost in every company I’ve worked for has been the, I guess, the catalyst for change and implementation of Lean tools and techniques and thinking, which really primed me for, I guess, the career path and journey that I’m on now. So fortunately, later in my career, I, you know, got to work alongside some some really good consultants and had exposure that ways. So that that helped and, you know, in recent years have been close to people who have, you know, been, you know, at the source at Toyota, so, a couple of mentors in that space too, which is really sort of I think rounded me out and given me some some sounding board so bit long winded there. But again, very, very practical, a lot of self teaching, which is I think, for me, it’s been a really a really good journey. And I continue to learn every day.

 

Patrick Adams 

And I would say just from from following you on LinkedIn, I mean, you’re, you have a very people centered approach, right to engage, you know, ongoing support and commitment. You know, from both shopfloor staff, and senior management. And I guess, I guess I learning a little bit more about your background. Now, I wonder, did that come from your experience as a lineside? Operator? Or was it taught to you, you know, from leadership, or from, you know, the different companies that you worked in? You know, where do you think that came from that people centered approach,

 

Paul Dunlop 

probably a bit of both, but mostly, I guess, my, my early experiences as a, you know, a shop floor operator or a frontline operator, I saw, you know, from a leadership point of view, I saw a lot of not so good leadership, I saw good leadership and sort of, you know, had the emotional experience of, of both of those things. You know, being on the front line, I think, you know, my heart and soul is on the shop floor. And, you know, I’ve got a very good appreciation for what people go through each and every day, I guess, the frustrations that they encounter, often the the roadblocks and barriers that they have to getting their voice heard, and their ideas heard. You know, I appreciate that. And I think in many respects, I really fight the fight for them internally, from a leadership point of view, again, I’ve walked in their shoes, I understand, again, what they’re going through, and their limitations and their barriers, their, their perhaps fears, as well. So, you know, I think in many respects, you know, from a consulting point of view that the shop floor, for me is the the easy part, or the easy sell, because ultimately, I think those people just just want some help and some support, they want some, some clear guidance and leadership and direction. And I think when we can give people that and build the trust, when that moves, and I think a lot of my time these days is spent really coaching leaders, Frontline, middle and senior leaders in different ways, but just really teaching them how to lead. And I think that’s, that’s really the key to unlocking. You know, that culture of learning improvement in in any organization, getting the commitment, getting the discipline, getting the, you know, creating that psychologically safe work environment to then get that conversation to happen, essentially.

 

Patrick Adams 

Sure, sure. And speaking of that, too, there’s there’s obviously structure that can be embedded into an organization that that helps to support that type of culture. And you know, a lot of that comes with a good daily management system. What would you say in your experience with with, with deploying daily management systems? What do you would you say, would be maybe one of the best structures that you’ve seen, or the best deployment of a good daily management system, maybe that you’ve experienced in your years of working with these different organizations?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, not? And that’s a really great question, Patrick, because I think, you know, it’s probably the first tool that I deploy. And I think I’m very cautious around a prescriptive approach to implementation, but there are some fundamentals. Sure. And that is a fundamental. So, you know, in terms of daily management, I really see that as the hub or the driver of improvement, it’s really where, you know, talk about giving people a voice, creating that psychologically safe environment, building trust, taking genuine action, that that’s how it happens. So, you know, daily management, I look at a tiered structure, so, and that tiered structure can start, you know, you know, from hourly management, or, you know, at least having milestones through a day or through a shift to one is really your frontline shop floor daily meeting. Again, that’s going to be speaking to a visual board, facilitated by the local leader. We’re going to be looking at a, a suite of process metrics. Again, it could be one it could The three could be five, whatever it is, but you know, just very simple metrics, and meaningful metrics, very easy to interpret and understand for the people on the front lines, but really to gauge where their process is at, are we winning? What does a good day look like for us, you know, whatever, again, those metrics and parameters are. And that should really, I think, drive the granular day to day, a lot of that will be reactive, but there will be proactive ideas and things like that come out of that meeting, that’s then layered with a tier two. So you might have that meeting at a start of the day 7am in a factory. A tier two would be then you know, something a meeting that might happen at nine 930 10 o’clock, perhaps that would be the a leadership meeting, a site leadership meeting. So that would be at a high level. So, you know, tier one would be hourly, daily, tier two would be more of a weekly type focus, again, that I guess what’s important in Lean is that we are visualizing what’s going on and there is a, an escalation. So the right problems are getting to the right places at the right time. Sure, and we can have a conversation. So to then should be anything that’s coming from that to one. So think information communications flowing up, that could be just a need to know basis that could be then you know, decisions that need to be made or resources that need to be allocated, you know, then we’re looking not only at the vertical movement of communication, but a tier two, then it should be horizontal. So we’ve got, you know, business to business, we’ve we’ve got a bunch of different functional areas, traditionally, that they are, can be quite siloed. So we want to connect people in that way. And so, again, operational at tier one, a bit more tactical at tier two, that also allows the flow of information and communication to come back down to the tier one level. So again, questions can be answered feedback can be given, because I think a lot of the time, you know, and I’ll hear this, and I’m sure you hear this as they will, on the shop floor in particular will say, Well, we’ve told them 100 times and nothing ever happens. And it’s not to say that those conversations don’t happen at a higher level, but they often just don’t get the feedback. And that’s important. Then at a tiered level. So then you’ve got tier three, which is then strategic focus. So that’s where we’re sort of looking at, you know, implementing, or deploying our Hoshin Kanri. And so, tier three, again, should be depending on how you want to do it, but you might do it weekly, or fortnightly or monthly, you’re going to be looking at your your high level strategic goals and how they link again, through the tactical and through the dailies. So you’ve almost got this virtuous loop at every level and holistically, again, of PDCA just playing out at each of those levels in a tiered and connected way. If that all makes sense.

 

Patrick Adams 

Does. Absolutely and what would you with a with this tiered system? Maybe at the tier one? Would you? Would this be supported by some kind of visual? Some people call them glass wall? Some people call them tear boards, standup boards? Would would you support? Would you suggest supporting a tiered meeting with with some kind of a visual management system?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Get always? Okay, so that’s yeah, just that yeah, not not not negotiable. It has to has to it has to be visual. We, you know, as you know, every lean tool for me, needs to be visual. And again, you know, building that visual connection, people actually seeing how our process is performing. And again, it’s all about the driving the problem solving conversation. Again, if we’re looking at what continuous improvement is all about, it’s about problem finding problem solving. And then I think it’s that respect for people component. And the only way we’re going to find the problems is to literally see them. So yes, visual boards at all of those levels, or some sort of visual management of all of those levels is a is critical. It’s a must.

 

Patrick Adams 

Absolutely. And the other thing I was going to mention, too, is, you know, for anyone that’s listening that, you know, does not currently have any kind of structured daily management system in place and maybe wants to experiment with some kind of a tiered system. There are different ways to do it, too. And you have to figure out what’s going to make what’s going to make the most sense for your organization for your culture. I know there are some companies that find value in having a tear one meeting in the morning and then it I’m also having a daily tear to where the leaders of those departments or areas come together. And then the tier three is on a weekly basis. So again, you may, you may find value in a daily tier one and a weekly tier two and a monthly tier three. But at the end of the day, you got to figure out experiment, you know, just try it, run some experiments, figure out what’s what works best for your organization. And to Paul’s point, identifying the problems and solving the problems is really the key, right, being able to improve and get better. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, that’s exactly right. You know, the visual board itself, or the visual boards themselves, you will play around, they will evolve multiple times, that’s fine, you will, you will land where you need to, you know, most of my clients will, you know, the big 10 different versions of that visual board before they get to the point that they’re happy with, again, the cadence, sometimes the, you know, there’s two to one meetings in a day, they might book end, the day with a startup meeting, and one near the end of the shift or the day just to close it out and plan for the next day. Definitely recommend the tier twos are daily, because, you know, I’m really focused on bringing leadership closer to the, to the to the shop floor, I think I think that’s important. But again, you know, business by business process, by process, you know, you’ll find the right tension, you’ll find the right cadence that works, like you said, be be open to experimenting and playing around. There is no hard and fast rules around this, you have to find what works for you.

 

Patrick Adams 

Right, right. And then for those leaders that are listening in, you know, tear meetings can become part of your Leader Standard Work. So if you’re not familiar with that term, Paul, do you want to talk a little bit about Leader Standard Work? And maybe how that can even support a good daily management structure?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yes. So I could talk at length about Leader Standard Work. So Leader Standard Work is again, probably one of those fundamentals that I talk about. So alongside daily Visual Management Leader Standard Work is probably the next thing that I go to and work with leaders because you know, I’m talking about that calming, you know, chaos to calm journey. What we’ll see, and again, I’m sure you and everybody out there says frontline, right through middle management, we see very busy people, we see people that are very overburdened their stress, they’re very reactive, and spend a lot of time firefighting, and dealing with waste or the products of waste every single day. And that’s essentially where they spend their time and energy. And they’re not not working perhaps on the things that they should, the intentions are good. They’re trying their best and often that firefighting and reactive behavior is because they’re dealing with broken processes, or no processes. And you know, it’s almost this sort of daily arm wrestle than they go through every day, they you know, what, excessively hard to deliver the product or the service. So, leader, standard work for me is just drawing a bit of a line in the sand and really, you know, distilling down, you know, we should have a good quality position description, and I think Leader Standard Work is then really just a distillation of that. So on a day to day week to week basis, what are the high value activities that you should be spending your time and energy on. And it’s as simple as that actually having a daily standard or a daily process to work to so important. So it doesn’t need to be certainly I think people get a little too prescriptive around this. And it’s sort of like, well, at 1001, I need to be doing this thing for the next 25 minutes, and then move to the next that it’s not about that. It’s not about filling up every single minute of your day. But what it is, is, you know, if it’s five things that are key activities for you each day, some of those things might need to happen at a particular time. Well, you do those things, and you stick to those things. And you have that discipline around it. So at least at the end of the day, it I mean, then it’s a simple checklists, really. So I’ve got that checklist. The other part of that is that it starts to then with that discipline, and with that standardization around some of those tasks, it starts to highlight all of the reactive behaviors, that’s the highlight the the interruptions, all of those sorts of things. And then, like any standard edge, it should expose the waste. And so then it starts to drive another conversation. Okay, what’s the nature of those interruptions? Why am I being asked that question five times a day? Why am I getting pulled away? Why can’t I spend 30 minutes concentrating and focusing on one thing without the phone ringing or, you know, whatever it might be. So I think that’s, that’s to drive that conversation and literally, for leaders to see very clearly, how they’re spending their time, what they’re spending the time on, versus what they should be spending their time on. And, you know, it’s never just because I’ve got Leader Standard Work, it doesn’t, you know, fix all of those problems tomorrow, it is a transition, and many leaders will take, you know, many months or sometimes close to a year really to transition because, again, there’s, you know, saying no to certain tasks, there’s, there’s delegating, there’s a whole bunch of stuff there, that they need to work on to change that. But when that they’re prepared to go on that journey, and is often uncomfortable, because, you know, always sort of say, well, you know, what, what got you here won’t get you there. So a lot of those things that they’ve been doing over a period of time, you know, ingrained in them, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve brought them success. So they’re often hard habits to let go of, but in order to move forward, and in order to move forward in a better way, where you’ve got time and space, that you’re thinking more strategically and proactively, you need to engage with standard work and ensure that again, the right work is in the right place. And the right work is done at the right time.

 

Patrick Adams 

Right, right. Now, speaking of the right work done at the right time, what what would you say to somebody that has put they’ve put together their Leader Standard Work, and they’ve established maybe some, some inputs, some some action items that are that they’ve prioritized as something that’s important to them. Let’s just say one of them is a gimbal walk and they want to do one gimbal walk a day or two or three week, whatever it might be. Let’s, let’s say that they get to the end of their day, and they look back and they go, man, I didn’t I didn’t do my gimble walk. What would you say? did? Did they fail? What do they do? They gotta reset? Do they? Did they do it wrong? What What would you say to someone that says I didn’t get to it? What do I do now?

 

Paul Dunlop 

All part of the latest standard work process, I always recommend that there’s a a daily, or at least a weekly reflective practice involved in that there’s always got to be and so yeah, so whether it’s at the start of the day, reflecting on the previous day, or at the end of the day when it’s fresh. No, there’s no wrong or there’s no fail, but there’s a learning opportunity there. So did I over commit myself? Did I perhaps plan to do it at the the wrong time? You know, was the opportunity to what was the roadblock? What stopped me doing that thing at that time that I wanted to do? So there’s there’s a bunch of questions then to be asked. And again, you know, any any lean tool has to be a an improvement has got to drive improvement. So then, okay, what what is the adjustment I need to make the next the following day? So again, should I move that gamble walk to a more appropriate time? Or, again? Do I need to address those problems? Is it something I should have delegated? isn’t something I should have pushed back? Or said no to at the time, whatever it was that got in the way, I need to understand that and then need to have the, you know, take the appropriate action and then go again. So yeah, again, that’s really important for me that that standard work is something like the visual boards and the tiered meetings, it’s something that evolves, right, and it will change and evolve. Because the the, it will take a long period of time often to get to that perfect day. And there’s a lot of trial and error again, involved in that and we need to and it’s critical for leaders that they spend time reflecting and learning every every day.

 

Patrick Adams 

Yeah, I think that’s such a powerful point, Paul, because I think so many leaders, they they try to deploy this tool, this Leader Standard Work tool, and you know, after a week or a couple of days, they they miss a couple of things and then they’re like, well, this this didn’t work, you know, this tool didn’t work, but I’ll just throw it out. And I think that that’s it’s such a big miss in the fact that the end goal is that you’re you’re trying to create a learning organization and in creating a learning organization, you have to create leaders that are constantly learning as well and that reflection, looking back and not kicking yourself because you know, because you You know, quote unquote, failed, but really asking yourself, what did I learn from this? And how can I get better next, you know, tomorrow or next week or whatever it might be? And that’s the difference, you know?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, that’s exactly right. Patrick, it’s it’s not an easy tool, I think people, again, look at it and think, oh, that’s, that’s very simple and straightforward. It’s not. And, you know, I will say, leaders grapple with this for a period of time, some people get it really quickly. And, you know, it just falls into place, but most people really struggle with it. Because it is the, it’s quite confronting the, again, like I said, they’re grappling with the conditioning and the habits that they’ve had for a long period of time, often those things that have been the things that have made them successful. It’s not something that’s going to continue to move them forward. And particularly if we’re looking to change a culture or improve a process, you need time and space. And I think that’s, that’s the key word is just that, that busyness and people understanding the difference between being busy and adding value. And I think it comes down to that conversation. Because, again, leaders can be doing things for a number of different reasons. But it really comes down at your level, with your, you know, role and responsibilities clearly defined. Are you doing what you should be doing? Again? How is your time and energy being spent to support your process your people? And how does that link to the business’s strategic objectives? And it really comes down to that. I think a lot of the work I do with leaders is self awareness. I think leadership always starts with the self. I think Leader Standard Work is another illuminating tool around that self awareness. So again, what am I focused on? What do I tell you day to day? How am I spending that time and energy? You know, I use, you know, behavioral profiling tools alongside that. So you know, we’re really shining a light, like we are on the process, we’re shining a light on the leadership to show them currently, what’s happening again, no judgement, curiosity, all of those sort of things. But are you focused on the right things to, you know, move you towards those objectives that you

 

Patrick Adams 

have? Right? Yeah, very good. Yeah, I appreciate that. I want to go back to one of the one of the things we talked about earlier with daily management, and the visual management boards. I have had organizations that have been moving their boards, their physical, visual boards over to digital boards. And I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the digital digitalization of lean. And just that, you know, as we move into the future, what does that look like? Do? Do? Are we are you a proponent of that? Do you see value in it? Or no? What are your thoughts?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Okay, um, so I think there’s some inevitability around that, I just think we end up having to move into that space. It’s interesting, there’s, you know, sort of seeing the community, there’s, there’s varying views and opinions on that. I think, you know, you can talk about digital continuous improvement, and some people will see that as absolute heresy. Moving away from the source. But, look, I think digital, in many respects, is a little misunderstood. I think, you know, go back a couple of years. And yet, it certainly wasn’t something for me, but I’ve really started to engage with it and been exposed and seen it really work exceptionally well and very effectively in businesses. So I’d say, you know, buyer beware, in some respects, but I don’t think digitization is not a gimmick, it’s not snake oil. I don’t think it detracts from the principles, I think it actually done well enhances and elevates, continuous improvement. I think often we, we sort of talk about, you know, industry 4.0. But for the most part, we leave technology at the door, particularly at the lower levels of the business. And we really should be if we’re if we’re looking to truly engage people, then I think digitization really is the way to go. And I think as well, it’s not it’s not one or the other. It’s not, you know, a traditional conventional approach or a digital approach. I think both should work happily together. And I think that’s the message for me. Digitize Session is a lot more than just putting, you know, charts and spreadsheets up on, you know, a touchscreen, that’s that’s not digitisation right? You know, but I think we do need to really look at doing things differently and, you know, still look around and you know, we’re doing things in the continuous improvement space, like we were in the 80s and 90s. So, you know, why aren’t we evolving? Why aren’t we talking about those things, I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rules, there shouldn’t be any dogma around this stuff. And where I think digital, or tools can really elevate and escalate. Improvement is that it literally speeds up that process when, you know, in the, the, I guess, the software and the tools that I’ve, I’m using and being exposed to I’m seeing that, you know, people on the floor can and within that tiered structure, people can be raising issues in real time. And, you know, getting action taken so much quicker. You know, conventional tools often can take a lot of administration, so particularly in larger businesses with, you know, sites, all over the place all over the globe, it’s very difficult to tie everything in together. And to have that seamless, even an on a one site operation with, let’s say, multiple visual boards, multiple departments, all the rest of it, it’s very difficult to connect, you know, those departments connect individuals connect teams, in a digital space, we can do that. I see a lot of businesses that are trying to cobble lots of things together. And there’s, there’s teams, and there’s Messenger, and there’s emails, and there’s all sorts of stuff, there’s a SharePoint, whatever it is, but none of its really kind of talking to each other. It’s very disconnected. Again, it takes a lot of administration, and I think, you know, a good digital tool will be able to cut through all of that. So not sure if that answers the question, but there is absolutely a place and there needs to be a place for digital Lean tools. You know, and again, I’ve seen the power of you know, particularly getting alignment within an organization being able to deploy and translate and implement strategic tools right through to the shop floor. It’s so easy doing it in a digital space, rather than bits of paper, and whiteboards, and notebooks and all the rest of it. Sure.

 

Patrick Adams 

Yeah, I would say I would add that one of the things that I’ve seen fail from a digital perspective, is when when we try to completely replace the people, the people side of things, the engagement side of things and try to replace, you know, everything with with digital, and just take the human component out of it. And I think that that, that can actually harm the, you know, the development of a continuous improvement culture, rather than utilizing the digital tools in a way to enhance by still including the people side of things. And in a lot, you know, getting creative about how we can engage people’s minds, you know, use the data, use the digital tools, but still continue to engage people in that process. And I know there’s a fine line there, but I just want to, I don’t know, just be careful with that, because I have seen it where organizations just completely replace, you know, for example, an hour by hour board with an electronic tracking and the people don’t even ever they don’t never even see the numbers, they don’t know if they’re ahead or behind. You know, it just takes the the information and rolls it up into some chart somewhere in the in the people don’t even know anymore. And that’s that’s not the right way to use the digital tools. Any thoughts on that? Paul?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, I think a good digital tool should be an enabler for people not not the opposite. Yeah. So you know, I’ll Name Dropper the software. I’ve been partnering with his team assurance and sort of in in the name is that it’s, the software was developed to really lower the barriers to entry for people on the front line. Like I said, we we leave technology at the door. So people these days, you know, everyone has a smartphone. Everyone’s familiar with using digital technology, but we come to work and often we’re sort of back in the industrial revolution. And so when we when we can put technology in people’s hands in the workplace and have their And like I said, you know, if you’ve got a tablet or a smartphone where you can be on the line or in the workplace, and recognize a problem or have an idea and immediately put that into a digital continuous improvement system where, you know, there’s a notification immediately to your line leader, or whatever it might be, then, you know, improvements happening immediately. And I can, I can see, you know, where that things that I can see the conversations that go on, I can see the activity happening. That’s powerful stuff. And I think that’s really what a good digital tool should do. It should enable people it should bring people together and connect them not not the opposite. Again, this is about an enhancing the principles and philosophies not going backwards.

 

Patrick Adams 

Right. Yeah, I agree. 100%. And that’s the that’s the key is the enabling piece. And, and, you know, using it to actually add value and help the team members to solve problems quicker, potentially, or whatever it might be. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that. And we’ll definitely take maybe if you could share, where would someone find that that software? Is it? Is it out there on the internet? Is there a link we can throw in the show notes for that?

 

Paul Dunlop 

Yeah, definitely. I’m throwing a link to the website. Yes,

 

Patrick Adams 

perfect. Yeah, just send me that over. So if anyone’s interested, we’ll we’ll drop that link into the show notes. Paul, as always, it’s it’s always great to have you on the show and just chat about some of the different work that you’re involved with. Always appreciate your stories, and just the amazing work that you’re doing to help support continuous improvement, you know, throughout the globe. So thank you so much for being on Paul, what if anyone wants to get a hold of you? Where would they go? Where could they connect with you?

 

Paul Dunlop 

LinkedIn will be the best place to find me. So yeah, just connect with me there. You’ll see me there every day. And yeah, happy to have people message and reach out. So yep, that’s that’s the best way.

 

Patrick Adams 

All right. And we’ll throw that link in the show notes as well. Paul, again, I appreciate having me on. We’d love to have you back here. And you know, who knows, a couple couple more weeks month? Well, we’ll have you back on maybe maybe we can dive into a specific story around some of the work that you’re doing on the other side of the world.

 

Paul Dunlop 

Absolutely, Patrick, and again, thank you and appreciate you having me on and love your work as well. I think you’re doing really, really important work. I think that the podcast is, you know, the best, the best one out there. So, recommend people check out the back catalogue. There’s a lot of amazing guests on there. And, you know, you asked lots of really, really interesting and good questions, Patrick. So thank you.

 

Patrick Adams 

All right. Thanks, Paul. Have an amazing week.

 

 

Right, you too. Thanks, Patrick.

 

Patrick Adams 

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the lien solutions podcast. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe. This way you’ll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined. Please give us a review. Thank you so much.

Meet Patrick

Patrick is an internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, and professional speaker, best known for his unique human approach to sound team-building practices; creating consensus and enabling empowerment. He founded his consulting practice in 2018 to work with leaders at all levels and organizations of all sizes to achieve higher levels of performance. He motivates, inspires, and drives the right results at all points in business processes.

Patrick has been delivering bottom-line results through specialized process improvement solutions for over 20 years. He’s worked with all types of businesses from private, non-profit, government, and manufacturing ranging from small business to billion-dollar corporations.

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