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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Patrick Adams 0:04
Some of the best leaders out there surround themselves with the right people that have the answers and hire sometimes, you know, leaders are hiring people that are way smarter than they are in certain areas, and that makes a good leader.
Brian Meyers 0:18
How often have you seen leaders where somebody comes to them with a problem, and they immediately kind of bulldoze the person take over, and I'll just do this myself, type of thing. You know, often you think you have to be the one that stands up and talk all the time. You have to be the one that's, you know, telling everybody the direction and the vision and this and that. But really you don't need to. It's good for the leader to not talk and just so listen.
Patrick Adams 0:50
Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions Podcast. Today, we have a special guest, Brian Myers, a good friend who is just down the road from us in the state of Michigan here, but he is the founder of Lean by doing, and the author of the new book, The Lean leadership action guide. You're going to want to get your hands on this one. We'll talk a little bit about that later. But Brian, welcome to the show. Hey. Thanks for having me. I'm excited for you to be on the show. I was recently on your podcast, so you actually have a podcast as well, and that was a ton of fun. I came out to your shop and toured and was just blown away by the work that your team is doing. The engagement level. Loved your your stand up meeting that you guys held at the beginning of the day, and was able to be a part of that. So that was pretty amazing. But for those that are just tuning in, can you give them maybe just a little bit of your background? Those that don't know you or have not got their hands on on your new book yet, just give them a little bit of history of how you how you got to where you are, where you know, where'd you start?
Brian Meyers 1:57
Yeah, absolutely. So it all started out of my mom's single car garage, and that would have been in like 2001 range. I was making parts for Jeeps because I couldn't afford to buy them, and I had a Wrangler. So I got a welder for my 21st birthday, and just sort of FAB parts for friends. And it just kind of kept scaling and scaling and scaling, and eventually it turned into what it is today, which is about 40 employees. We're getting ready to move into a 56,000 square foot brand new facility. And yeah, we rip a lot of product out for 20 but 24 years of this, I did it without lean. Discovered lean about a year ago, and just went full in on it and did a full transformation of the business. And what you saw, actually, if you came back now, you'd be shocked at how much further we've made it in such a short amount of
Patrick Adams 2:45
time. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, the little amount of time from the point that you start when you got introduced, to lean to the point that where I was touring, I mean, I was blown away when you told me, I don't remember what it was, but it was a short period. Was it? There's a eight months? Eight months? Yeah, I couldn't believe it. So I can only imagine where you're at now, that's pretty amazing. And you're, you're a big two second, lean guy, right? Is that that we're kind of how you got introduced? Or
Brian Meyers 3:14
really, what happened was I went to Japan with me, Zach and mayzax, a laser cutting company, and they invited me to come to Japan, and they did this style called, it's called mimta, and it's like, it's like a promotional tour to show off who they are. And since I've been a good customer there for a long time, they took me. And when I got there, I was like, Holy crap. This is crazy, and we're building a new facility. So I saw this organization, and I wanted to bring it home. And I was like, Yeah, I don't want to be a mess. I don't want to carry a mess forward. My plan all along was to just make all the changes when we moved, and then just have everybody just accept it, because it's new building, a new place. So when I got there, I started to see that, and then about a month later, they took me to Europe, and I went on an automation tour with a company called remmer, and we went to all these other businesses. I started to see it there, and then I didn't even know what it was and tell I got home, was like way behind on chores. So I started digging in on chores. Figured, instead of listening to like, Formula One podcast or something, I should do something worthwhile. So I did a little searching. And somehow I got onto Ryan Tierney's lead made simple podcast, and then from there, it just, you know, and it was like light bulbs going off from what I saw to what what they were talking about. And it started to make a lot of sense. Got into two second lean that weekend, went through improvement starts thigh, sort of just ramming through books. We started with gamba docs that following week, and then just off and running. We went it just for everybody here. It just makes sense. It makes our life easier. It's not a mess. We enjoy being here. The culture is freaking so good. And, yeah, it just, I mean, the culture is better now than it was four months ago. I can't even believe I can say that. But, I mean, it is incredible what we're doing. Imagine
Patrick Adams 4:55
where you're going to be at, like, you know, one or two years down the road here, because you're actually in the process. Moving into a new facility as well, right? Yeah,
Brian Meyers 5:01
actually, just a few weeks. I mean, we're going from like, here to here in like, one big swoop, and it's a ton of work. We're just burning the candle right now, so hard. But no, we know that, like all these improvements that we're making into our new building are going to make us so much stronger and so much better that it's worth just, you know, dealing with the burden right now to get it done
Patrick Adams 5:23
right exactly. That's, that's amazing. I'm excited to get back out there and, you know, once you get into your new facility and just kind of see how you take that and just really expand and grow from there, that's, that's, that's great to hear. Let's talk about your book, The Lean leadership action guide. I mean, for those that have not got their hands on this yet, I know you just released it, so, yeah, fairly early, right? I mean, yeah,
Brian Meyers 5:48
it's been a maybe a month since, yeah, so it's okay.
Patrick Adams 5:51
For those that are listening in, if you didn't get your hands on it yet, it's okay, but, but I will tell you, there is an opportunity for you to get this book for free when you sign up, register and attend the Lean Solution Summit. This book is actually going to be in every one of the bags for everyone that's coming to the Lean Solution Summit. So Brian will be speaking. He'll be one of our breakout speakers, and this book will be yours when you attend the Lean Solution Summit coming up in September. We'll drop a link to that in the show notes. But let's dig into this book, Brian, because not everybody can make it to the summit, and they're probably going to want to get their hands on this. I personally have. I just got it in the mail, and I just opened it up. I actually, I read the preface, and so I so I knew a little bit about, you know, kind of the why behind the book? But I got to the Lean leadership pre assessment. And I was, I mean, super simple, great assessment. Talk us through that. Why did you put in a Lean leadership pre assessment in the beginning of the book? What was the, what were your thought behind that? I
Brian Meyers 6:56
was really just trying to drive thought as they dive into the book, like, what do I really look like? And you know, maybe as you go through the book, it kind of helps you identify the areas that you maybe should work on a little better. Each one of the pre assessments kind of ties to a chapter. So if you scored you know yourself poorly in chapter seven, then in chapter seven, you can really pay attention and and try to take away some good takeaways that could potentially make you a better leader and a stronger leader.
Patrick Adams 7:22
I love it. No, I think that's great. So it's, there's a and this is something that you can, you could take this assessment before reading the book, and then, like you said, focus in, maybe heavily on a couple of the chapters. But it seems to me like this is something you could, you could take annually, or even, you know, by annual or quarterly yourself, just to kind of assess yourself and kind of see, you know, what areas you need to, you know, put some work into. So I think it's a, it's a really great, you know, a good assessment. And to, you know, at the bottom here, it gives you kind of, hey, if you fell into the 10 to 16 range, you're just getting started. At 17 to 23 is a solid foundation. And then 24 to 30, you're already leading with intent. So it's a, you know, again, a good barometer, just to kind of figure out where you're at and what specific areas that you need to improve on.
Brian Meyers 8:16
When I wrote this book, I really was targeting everybody who is in leadership. I didn't want to just be the CEO and C suite people. I wanted somebody on the shop floor who's managing people every day to look at this book, be able to read it and get some takeaways and develop themselves further when it came to like, what people noticed about me and within the last year is I've been, you know, more out in the public space, talking about Lean and talking about everything that we're doing. Is everybody always talks about how good of a communicator I am and how good my leadership style is. And so I really just felt, you know, God was putting it on my heart to write about leadership and try to, you know, give some of the hard, hard, hard fought lessons to people. The stories in the book are super short. I'm I'm just telling a story and getting to the point I think it's one of those books where you read it every year, and each year you get a different takeaway, because it's, you know, you're in a different stage of your leadership journey. And you know, your takeaways now versus what your takeaways might be from a year from now, are going to be very different, sure,
Patrick Adams 9:15
sure. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, every year you could go, you could make this your annual thing, where you go through this and every year you pick a different point to work on, you know, or every quarter whatever, whatever it is that you want to do, I mean each each year, depending on what's going on in your organization, things could be a little different. Let's, let's, let's look at these real quick. So there's 10 of them. The first one is, you must change and grow. Number two is people first, always. Number three, listen more, talk less. Number four, stop making decisions alone. Number five, recognition and appreciation are everything. Number six, become a Lean Expert. Number seven, become a mentor. And I'm going to I'm going to keep the other ones a secret. People had a. You gotta buy the book if you wanna know the rest. But okay, let's focus in here on listen more, talk less. What was your motivation behind that? One?
Brian Meyers 10:09
You know, for decades, good leaders are often looked at as people that can make decisions quickly, and usually what'll happen is the firefighting that you have going on in your traditional business that comes right to your office door, and people walk in and they need you to make a decision. So you often are the one that's doing all the talking. You're often the one making all the decisions. You're not engaging anybody else. You're not listening to anyone else's opinions. And for me, personally, within the last year, when I just stopped talking and start listening to what everyone else has to say, we came up with such better ideas than what I just had.
Patrick Adams 10:44
Yeah, I love that and that, that actually even ties into the the next one, that number four, which is stop making decisions alone. So obviously, if you're listening to your people, you're no longer the sole decision maker. And you know, for a lot of organizations that we go into, you know, I normally find one or two people that are running around like a chicken with their head cut off just solving problems everywhere, and they're the sole problem solver for their team or their organization. And you know, I can see why they get burnt out so fast. I mean, I spent, you know, many years as a production supervisor and a plant manager and Operations Manager. So, you know, I understand. I know that things are being thrown at you from all different directions, and there's all these problems that pop up throughout the day. I mean, I I'll admit, like, I used to kind of pride myself on being able to get into the office, you know, like, hit hit on my way in, I'm kind of taking note of all the problems that happen throughout the night, and then I get in and I'm just solving problems. The problem with that, though, is it, when you're the sole problem solver for one, you can get burnt out, which I mentioned, but also you're probably not. You may be solving problems the right way, but you might have all the answers, and you might might take you longer than someone who's who's working you know, on the front lines, or has more visibility or better understanding of that particular problem, who could solve it quicker? And also one problem solver versus an army of problem solvers. I mean, which one's better, right? Yeah,
Brian Meyers 12:10
right. I mean, I think, like, how often have you seen leaders where somebody comes to them with a problem and they immediately kind of bulldoze the person take over, and I'll just do this myself type of thing. And, you know, often you think you have to be the one that stands up and talk all the time. You have to be the one that's, you know, telling everybody the direction and the vision and this and that. But really, you don't need to, you know, it's good for the leader to not talk and just to
Patrick Adams 12:35
listen. Yeah, yeah, you that is a, that's a really good point. You know, many, many people think that they need to have all the answers, like people come to them and they have this for some reason, they feel like they have to have an answer, and if they don't have an answer, then that's bad. That's not necessarily the case. I mean, some of the best leaders out there surround themselves with the right people that have the answers and hire sometimes, you know, leaders are hiring people that are way smarter than they are in certain areas, and that makes a good leader. So why would you want to be the sole person with all the answers? Like, surround yourself with a team of people that can help, you know, create the solutions and come up with, you know, innovative, great ideas that you may have never come up with, yeah. What was it like when you first started? I mean, you, you started in your parents garage, yeah? And, I mean, like, let's think about the first employee, or couple employees that you hired. Was that difficult? Like you, oh,
Brian Meyers 13:39
yeah, extremely difficult. I can remember just failing. I I can remember once, well, I was welding. I was the guy that was in charge of welding and grinding, and I burnt my hand or something. And I grabbed this like magnet that I had, and I chucked it across the shop. And when I looked up, I missed the guy that was working for me, Jim. I missed him by like a foot, hitting him with this magnet, and oh my gosh, like, what am I doing? You know, I was just a young, hot headed kid, and you know, I just, you know, I had a temper or frustrations would bleed out, and I'm just, I'm so different now. But you know, this is what happens. You start a business. You don't know how to be a leader. All you do is you have a good idea and you're going to try to sell something, and, you know, try not to go bankrupt in the process. And maybe you find yourself with a handful of employees, and you better learn quick, how to, how to lead, because otherwise you're just gonna have, like, it's like herding cats, you know, as I'm running around trying to get a plan, and you you're not delivering the plan. Yeah, it's, it's hard. I mean, it's, it's learning as you go, it's learning as you do it. And, you know, hopefully you're smarter, smarter than I was, and you get into books and start learning younger than I did.
Patrick Adams 14:42
Yeah, well, and you know, you created lean by doing. You kind of mentioned that learn by doing. So I love that, that name, explain, talk about that a little bit. Why is it important that we learn by doing versus like trying to figure? All out on paper and put all the plans together and then hope that that things work out. You know, is it better to have more time in the planning phase less time? A good average. I mean, should we just get out there and do things like, what do you think? Yeah,
Brian Meyers 15:12
well, this is a, you know, what I've recently kind of discovered is, this is personality types. Now, when you're starting to drive into stuff, you can have people that are really quick to have an action, and me my personality type, as soon as I have an idea, I have an action. And there's other people that can have an idea, and then they need all this research in order to make an action. But what I've discovered with Lean is that if you just get started, you're going to make it so much faster, so much quicker. So it's like having the idea and putting into action as fast as possible, whether it's cardboard or paper, whatever it is, just start. And that's kind of what we did around here. You know, people are like, Wow, you did this so fast. Well, we, we didn't sit around and, you know, get analysis paralysis. We just made decisions and moved and then we continually improved. Right? That's the point of it. It's not plan it out one time. Improvement. Boom. It's, you know, put it on the floor. Try it, try it again. Keep updating, keep updating, keep updating. Eventually you get something that's really
Patrick Adams 16:10
workable. Yeah, yeah. So many times, and especially, and I think it's probably in all organizations, but definitely in some of the larger organizations that I've worked in, that paralysis by analysis is, is happens so frequently. And it's, you know, it's, it's like, I understand because, you know, nobody wants to put something out there that doesn't work. You know, there's something inside of us that just wants us. We want to succeed, right? So to put something out there knowing that it's probably going to fail is almost like it's the, you know, it's the opposite of what anybody wants, but the value, the benefits of doing that, of trying something, if you, if you work in an organization where leadership is promoting that, where they're actually celebrating it, and they're saying, you know, hey, great job. What did you learn? Oh, that's amazing. You know, what's your next step? You know, that type of organization is going to surpass the other organizations. You know, again, maybe, maybe they're a smaller company, a little bit behind, but over time, I mean, they're going to surpass because those are going to they're those people are learning as they go and they're developing and they're becoming active problem solvers in the company versus another company. That's like, you know, I don't know. I want to wait and, you know, make sure everything's going to be okay before I do anything. I mean, think about how slow they're moving in comparison to the other company, right? I mean, you've experienced that, right?
Brian Meyers 17:35
You have to make it safe for people to fail. And, you know, if you can create an environment where people are are safe to try stuff, and even if it doesn't work, you know, what do we learn? What can we take away from it? You know, it's that the first idea is never the best idea, but it's the most important idea, because it's a start. And, you know, you can always adapt, and we're practicing continuous improvement. So let's just start. You know, I'd rather try something before. You know, we make up some crazy, elaborate plan, then we spend money on capital to make it work, and and then you realize, Oh, this isn't that good. Yeah,
Patrick Adams 18:08
so true. What are some things that you do as a leader to create a safe environment? Are there any or maybe even, what are some things that you do now that you never used to do? You know, maybe some things that you learned over
Brian Meyers 18:20
time? Well, one of the things that I've really learned is I'm not a really good listener, and I have to be a very active listener. I have to, you know, really like, listen. And when I've gotten some feedback from my team who said that that I don't always listen, that was, like, hard. It kind of stung, you know. And this goes back to personality type, you know, it's one of, not one of my strengths, isn't listening. So I have to make sure that when I'm when someone's talking to me about an idea, I keep my mouth shut. I'm not throwing out my opinion. I'm letting them talk it through, and then I'm just kind of encouraging them that one's such a such an important one. But you know, once one chapter further in is recognition and appreciation, or everything. And I mean, like just sending a message on a Friday to somebody who really worked their ass off Friday night. You just pop off a voice message or a little short video just telling them how much you appreciate all the work they did. It changes everything. You know what I mean? Like, they they're like, this is great. I can't wait to get back to work. And, you know, they feel appreciated. They feel they feel like they've been seen. And when people start to feel seen, they show up. They show up differently. And I think that's like some of the main takeaways. I always just ignored the people. Ignoring is bad word. I if I wasn't, if I wasn't paying attention to you, it meant everything was good. And I flipped that around now, and I make sure that I send, you know, these appreciation messages regularly to people, so that they can hear straight from me, because it means different coming from your leader than it does, you know, hearing it through a co worker, or whatever it may be, or even if I throw it in a in a public chat that we have, or something, you know, it just means so much more when it comes straight from the person, straight into your inbox. And, yeah, that's one of the things. The other one is mentoring that you know, become a mentor as I'm. Seven. Chapter Seven, I've never had mentors in my life, so I'm very active in trying to be the mentor that I never had, and trying to shape people and grow people, and spending the time to coach.
Patrick Adams 20:11
I love it. Going back to the recognition chapter, what's your feel on private recognition versus public recognition. Do you have a preference or what is? What's been your experience with that? What's better?
Brian Meyers 20:27
I try to figure out what people like, because some people like it public and some people like it private. And so the people that want it that seem to glow when you give it to them in public, I'll do it in public. The people that seem to glow when they get it in private, then I tend to stick to private. So I'm really kind of tailoring it to the people I'm taking the time to get to know, you know, each person and how they kind of interact, and then I just kind of go from there. And sometimes, even if you're if you don't know, just ask, you know what I mean, like, just ask them, Hey, do you prefer to get this in public or in private? And they'll tell you, and they may be caught off guard of, I guess, a weird question, but you know what I mean? You're trying to tailor it to them.
Patrick Adams 21:06
That's right, yeah, that's, I love that you answered it that way, because so many times leaders think like that. Well, you know, either I'm 100% public recognition or 100% private, or I'm a hybrid of both, and I do it with I do, you know, this is my approach, and this is just the way that I do it, you know? Well, let's flip that and let's it's not so much about what you do or what you should do, but what how they receive it, like everyone's different, yep. So if you know that someone doesn't like public recognition, then stop doing it and do it different for them, right? And that's I love. I love that because, you know, great leaders get to know their people. And I experienced that a lot in the military, you know, where there were certain leaders that knew the names, you know, knew that knew my wife's name, knew the names of the kids on the you know, for those of us that were working together regularly, know knew the kid, their kids knew, you know, when we had doctor's appointments, things that were going on, it was like, you know, those are the people that you respect so much because they genuinely care. They really do. And if, if I hate public recognition, but you just keep doing it, because that's just the way that you do it. You know, it's common form of disrespect, I guess, in a way, right, even though you're trying to be nice and give recognition.
Brian Meyers 22:22
Yeah, it's not about you, it's about them, and that recognition is for them. It's not to build up you, it's to build them up. So you want to do whatever you can to make the best deposit into their bank account that you can. You know, if they don't have an ATM machine, then you better find a way to walk inside the lobby and hand it to them. Yeah? You know, just thinking about things a little differently.
Patrick Adams 22:42
I love that. Love that. That's funny when you just said that. It made me think about I was a value stream manager at a company years ago, and this was back when they printed paper checks. And I remember one of my bosses prior to that, used to come around and hand, hand us our check and say thank you. And so I applied that, and I would do the same thing, because I learned from them, and I knew that how much I appreciated that, like, I know it's just a little thing, but I appreciated the one on one, shake my hand, thank me, and you know, so that was a that was a really cool thing, that that, you know that I appreciated and I don't know, maybe, maybe it's that's not something that's possible today. But you know, there are other things that you can do as a leader to try to figure out, you know, what your people appreciate, and how to show them that you genuinely care for them.
Brian Meyers 23:34
Yeah, they just want to be seen. You know, they're showing up every day, they're working hard, they're putting part of their life into your business, and they just want to be seen. So even if your message is just thank you, I mean, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, you know what? I mean, you don't have to send them a 10 minute thing, and you don't have to cry or whatever. But I mean, the more transparent you can be with your people, the more they're going to jump behind you and and move mountains.
Patrick Adams 23:59
Oh, yeah, for sure, you mentioned, I think it was chapter seven on becoming a mentor. Be a mentor. What does that look like? You know does? Because I think, you know, again, you and I, I think, understand the importance of this, but I'm just thinking of, you know, the leaders that I see that spend the majority of their time in their office. And if anyone's listening in and you're feeling a little squirmy in your chair right now, that might be you so key into this, because the the time that you spend, you know, of course, there's things you got to do behind your computer. I completely understand that. And, yeah, sometimes you got to close the door, get some things done in private. And that's fine, you know, block some time for that, whatever. But what about getting out and spending time with people? What about gamble walks with people? What about one on ones with people? Brian, what does it look like for you and your team when it comes to mentorship?
Brian Meyers 24:54
So this is something that has really become a thing in the last year. And I. You know, talk about it in the book, and where I never really had a mentor in my life. And Tom Hughes, who I met. He's the author of improvement, starts with I founder of gamma docs. He came to visit us last December and to see what we were doing with gamma docs, because we were, you know, just ripping with this thing. And when he got here, him and I really hit it off, and he just kind of filled that void that I never had. And, you know, he's the reason that I wrote this book, is because he's like, You need to write a book. And I was like, I don't have a clue how to do this. And he's like, Nah, you're going to do this. And he's the reason I have a podcast, and he's the reason that I'm out here sharing content, is because he challenges me. And I've never had that, you know, I've always, you know, I always made the joke that, you know, people other businesses would be like, you know, you keep operating like that, you're gonna put yourself on an island. And I'd always make the joke that, well, I'm in a peninsula already. You know, it wasn't like I was trying to make connections or help anybody else. It was just what's going on in my building. And, you know, a lot of times, like, there are certain people that I was kind of mentoring, you would say, but it was just because I liked them more, and I like spending time with them. They were more of a friend than anything else, and because of it, they got some shades of, you know, learning from me, but, you know, like 24 years of experience doing this stuff, and it's a wealth of knowledge that I can help a ton of people learn here. So I definitely spend most of my time coaching. And anytime I'm on the shop floor and I'm working on something, I'm always pulling somebody in to coach them on something like, there's no reason for me to be on the shop floor if I'm not going to spend the time trying to coach somebody. So I make that a huge priority every single day. So I feel like that's kind of like micro mentoring in a way, with some of your staff, you kind of spread yourself. And then I really focus on four to five people right now, I've, you know, four or five people that I work pretty regularly with to try to develop them into the next line of leaders, and after that, you know, I'll probably move on to another group. But we're kind of actively trying to look at it like leader leader, not necessarily like student, teacher. You know, we're all kind of equal, and we can, you know, get shades of leadership from everybody. And, you know, there's people in my building, like Chris, for example, he works back in the laser department. Everybody loves Chris. There's times where Chris has mentored me, you know. And just because he works in my laser department and he's not the president of a company doesn't mean that he can't influence how I, you know, go about my life,
Patrick Adams 27:17
yeah, yeah, that's so true. And and so I want to go back and talk about Tom real quick, and then I do have a question about Chris. But So Tom, I know Tom as well, and he's a great guy. I'm trying to did you mention how you met him? I don't. I don't know if you mentioned
Brian Meyers 27:37
that or not now. So we were doing gamma docs, and that's, you know, one of his companies, and we ripped off 1000 SOPs and 1000 Kanban Cards in like, six months. And he was like, What in the world are these people doing? Like they never, never seen this. So he flew from Ireland here to Michigan in the middle of the winter, and it was a crappy time to visit. I mean, some snow was blowing sideways. It was freezing cold outside. And you know, he just showed up on my doorstep, essentially. And hey, I'm Tom, I want to see what you're doing. And you know that that was how I met Tom, and I got to spend, like, I think he was here for four days. We spent four days together, and really, got on really well. And then last May, I went out to Ireland and spent a week out in Ireland with him. And you know, just one of those things where him and I, we talk every single day, and, you know, he's always challenging me. He's always seeing the things that I'm you know, he saw the rough draft of my book. He's seen all the rough drafts of my my videos and all kinds of ideas, and he gives me a lot of feedback and helps me, kind of, I don't know, do a better job.
Patrick Adams 28:36
That's amazing. And it's not like Tom's getting anything out of that. I mean, you know, yeah, maybe you use GEMBA docs, maybe you bought his book, whatever. But, man, the amount of time that he's investing in you is pretty amazing, right? What? What an awesome guy. And that's that's also why I love the Lean community as a whole, because it does seem like everyone is that way, right? I mean, you and I have had some amazing conversations. Love meeting your leadership team. You know you came out here to our office, actually dropped off some really cool, Lean tools that you guys make at your facility. I just, I think, like, I just appreciate, you know, hearing that story and knowing who Tom is, and and, you know, just how amazing. You know people like that who invest in people like you and and now that the ripple effects of that, right? I mean, you're doing the same thing with your team, and I'm sure you're teaching them the importance of mentorship, and they're probably mentoring others on their team, right?
Brian Meyers 29:34
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Adams 29:37
And Tom actually is going to be at the summit. I don't know if you know that or not. Yeah, hell yeah. I heard Okay, yeah, he's he's coming. So he'll be at our Lean Solution Summit this year in Detroit. So I'm excited to see him. And we use gamba docs at our office as well. So if you're not familiar with gamba docs, go check it out. It's a, it's a pretty cool application. Yeah, you'll talk about. Ireland. So you were just in Ireland not that long ago, Brian, did you visit Seating Matters? Then
Brian Meyers 30:06
I did, yeah, we did. We were there. If we did five days and seven shop tours and city matters was one of those tours as well. Ireland is incredible. And so I've been to Japan, and I've been to Ireland, and I can tell you that, like Japan in itself is crazy. It's just really hard to make it relevant. If that makes sense, it doesn't seem like there's no Western culture in Japan. So you're like, it's an excuse, right off the bat. Well, we don't have the culture for this. We can't do this. And everything in Japan is like so high and so unreachable that it makes it really hard to relate to it. But when you go to Ireland, you start to see how they're doing Lean, and it's almost like the new wave of lean, if you will. It's not Toyota lean, it's just kind of this western adaptation of it, where we build a culture and we're doing continuous improvement, but we're working our way through it. And in Ireland, all the shops that you see, or these companies that you visit that are doing this, it's so relatable that you're able to come home immediately and put things into action.
Patrick Adams 31:10
I want to, I want to, like, Hold on this for a second, because you said something that I think is really important, that I want to, I want to make sure we spend some time on there's some, there's some consultants out there that I see, you know, on LinkedIn or wherever, that are posting about you know, well, if you, if you don't use TPS, if you're not a TPS purist, if you don't, you know, if you're not a Toyota person, you're not doing Lean right, or you or if you use the word lean, or if you use the word continuous improvement. You're not doing it right, you know? And I think to myself, I always struggle with this, and I might, I might lose some followers here, but that's okay. I don't. I'm just going to throw it out there. I struggle with that, because I think about Toyota, and I'm like, yeah, they're doing some amazing things, and they've had some amazing results and but they're also an automotive manufacturer in a certain culture in a certain part of the world. And you know, they've been around for a certain amount of time, they have a certain background in history. You know, a company like one here in West Michigan, you know, might not be in the automotive industry. They might not have the same background, they might not have the same history, but they're dedicated to continuous improvement, and maybe they're not doing it exactly the way that Toyota does it, but they're getting real, measurable results. Are they wrong? No
Brian Meyers 32:34
thoughts on that. Now, you got to do Lean your way. I'm very adamant about this, and Tom is very adamant about this. Your your waste isn't Toyota's waste. You know what? I mean, like, that's just the bottom line. We're not Toyota. We're not running, you know, hundreds of 1000s of vehicles through an assembly line. You know, for me, my top selling skew might be 300 items in a year. So how do you set up? You know, how do you set stuff up? I kind of find, like, we just deal, we're we have a very different culture in Western cultures period, right? Our employment laws are different. People don't get assigned to a job and then stay there their entire career. People leave, people come, you know what I mean? And you can't, you can't just say, Well, I see there, you know, I better do training within or I better not do any training at all. I mean, that's just ludicrous. I think you really need to look at your people and and start to do some of the things that work, and then things that don't work, dump it. Just get rid of it. You know what I mean? Like a Kanban is a signal. It can be a signal for anything. It's not it's not a two bin system. It's nothing. It's just a signal. You can use a combine to signal anything in your entire factory or your office. You know what I mean? And, and people get so caught up sometimes, and you know what they may or may not know, but at the same time, like, as I say in the book, you got to become a Lean Expert. You got to have some of these answers, and you have to learn what works for you. And there's some tools that are out there that are really cool, and they're just not applicable to you. You know, for for us, like a con whip card. You know people what's a con whip, right? And, you know, it's a recirculating Kanban to hold a spot in production. Maybe that doesn't maybe that's not relevant to you ever. So therefore, don't mess with it. You know what I mean, things that work for you and do Lean your way and and improve your way. And, you know, make it yours.
Patrick Adams 34:20
Yeah, no, that's so so true. And I love that, that you, you said that, and even using Kanban as an example is it's a great example, because, you know, again, if you don't have this lean, is all about solving problems, learning by doing right, developing a learning organization. And if you don't have the same problems that Toyota had, then the solutions that they came up with to those particular problems might not be applicable to you, and a lot of the tools were created as solutions to problems that they were experiencing. Now can if you have a similar problem, can you take the tool and try it and then to use. Point, adjust it to make it work for you. Absolutely it does. Toyota give us a good starting point for a lot of things, you know, understanding what's behind the tools, the mindset that Toyota had that was embedded in the culture, that continuous improvement mindset. I mean, that's applicable. All of that makes sense. But, yeah, I think, you know, many times it's a it can be an inhibitor. If you're you're trying to push something that just doesn't work. You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It just doesn't work. And for a lot of organizations, unfortunately, I get into a lot of organizations, and, you know, they have a bad taste in their mouth from lean because of past consultants or past internal individuals who tried to push, who tried to push that square peg into that round hole, and it's just the wrong way to do it. You know, continuous improvement, process improvement. It applies to every industry, to every job, and it'll be, it's timeless. So don't think that it, you know, just because you're in, you know, whatever a textile industry or you're in, you know, you're building parts for Jeeps that lean doesn't apply to you. It applies whether you're in manufacturing or you're in healthcare or you're in the office. The lien applies to you. And actually, as I look through this, I know you're a manufacturer, you know you but you know, just looking at your assessment here, you know, really, every single one of these chapters that you have in your book here apply, no matter what industry you're in. It's all about leadership.
Brian Meyers 36:32
Yeah, and it just has a lean bin, because, you know, that's kind of like, I do feel like in order to lead a lean organization, you have to be a very servant leadership and that is a huge mind shift for people, because, you know, the people on the floor are the ones adding value to the customer, and they're the most important people. You're at your expense. You know what I mean? Unless you're actually creating product too, you're just expense and non value. And so you should be out on the shop floor trying to make their lives easier so they can produce more efficiently, and they can produce with less defects, and they can go home and their shoulders don't hurt, or their arms don't hurt, or their back doesn't hurt, because they're not dealing with a crappy process. And, yeah, I mean, it's, it's really different, like, you know, you mentioned the two second lean thing, right? I think two second Lean is a great a great way for companies to start. I just feel like there's so much more value. And just looking at two things, burden and flow, you know, and if you just go out into your shop floor and look for where the product stops, and figure out how to get it moving without stopping, and then start looking at your people and what they're doing. And you know, if somebody's lifting over their head like this all day long, find a way to make them lift here. You know what I mean. If they're bending down something off a pallet on the floor, get a cart so they're not bending over. Start removing the burdens from your people, and you'll start to see efficiencies. And then start getting your product flowing, and you'll see efficiencies, and then from there, you can start to pull people in with morning meetings and coaching and training and all that stuff. But, you know, I'm not caught up on somebody making a two second improvement every day or they're going to get fired. I mean, I just, it's not, it's just not who we are, you know, we it's great if someone has a great improvement idea, let's go. But if you don't have an improvement idea, it's okay, as long as you're not, you know, actively trying to sabotage the culture we can grow
Patrick Adams 38:24
you Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, that's, I think that's all you know, so relevant, and it really is that simple. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, whether you're identifying a burden or you ask your team, like, what? Sucks, what problems do you have, or what? Yeah, what do you hate about your job, or what's causing you problems, you know, and then just start going after those things. Like, is that easy? I mean, people appreciate it, and the payback will be there.
Brian Meyers 38:55
It's like art burns the Lean turnaround, you know, they just showed up with Japanese consultants, and immediately would start tearing stuff apart. Immediately, they weren't, they weren't worried about building a culture. They were worried about improving the process. And then all the people would buy in, because they're like, oh my gosh, my job's so much easier. Now I hated that, and this is so much better. So there's two different ways to kind of go about that, and I think both are, both are okay, you know, you can, you can go with the two second approach, if that's what you want, or you can go with a more aggressive approach with Kaizen events, but you're going to have to do both if you want to be a world class business. I mean, you have to make lots and lots and lots and lots of improvements, and you really have to, like, you know, be an exceptional example if you're if you really want to be there.
Patrick Adams 39:34
Oh yeah, yeah. 100% I Yeah. I like that. You said that it's that, that you really need to do both. But starting out, just start out with some simple things, and then, as you say in, can't remember what chapter it was, but become a Lean Expert. You know, listen to podcasts. You know, read some books like this one, talk to people, go visit tour a few places that are doing Lean you. And, and it doesn't have to be world class lean. Anybody that's just working on continuous improvement, talk to them about the challenges, you know, and then just get started, right? Don't, don't wait, don't try to look for perfection. Just get started with a few things, and it'll pay off big time.
Brian Meyers 40:16
Yeah, I mean, you go on tours, and you'll get there, and you might be disappointed because you thought it was going to be better than it was. I I can learn from anywhere. So at that point, I just started asking them what their struggles are, and then we just talk about their struggles, and you learn a bunch from that. And you know, it's a lot of fun. It yeah, there's just so much, there's so much that you can do to really, like grow. You know yourself, change yourself, and once you start to change yourself, everyone around you is going to be willing to be willing to change as well, because you're setting the example
Patrick Adams 40:45
Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to dive into the rest of your book, Brian, I can't wait. I wanted to get into it last week, and I wasn't able to, unfortunately, but I'm looking forward to getting through these chapters. I'm a lifelong learner, so I can't wait to dive in here and just, you know, look, look at this. And as I said before, this book, you know, anyone that comes to the Lean Solution Summit, you're going to receive this book in your summit bag, along with many other amazing things. And Brian will be there. We actually have an author showcase where Brian will be there to sign this book, along with Mike Rother Dr, Jeffrey leiker, Katie Anderson, Billy Ray Taylor, John Dyer, myself, I mean, so many other authors that are going to be in attendance at the summit that will be available to sign books. So you will have a bookstore, you can grab a book. Obviously, you'll have Brian's for free, and that you'll be able to kind of pull up a chair and chat with a couple of the authors and get your book signed. But the cool thing is, right now, we actually have a an offer going for I think it's 30% off if you use code catalyst 2025 now I think this episode we're recording, I think it's going to air next week. So this, this special pricing should still be available code catalyst 2025 that's 30% off the the pricing to come to the summit in Detroit. It's going to be amazing. Obviously, we're going to have some amazing speakers like Brian, but we're also, we also have a couple of really good tool tours, the rouge, the Ford Rouge factory. We're going to be touring that. We're also going to be touring Zingerman's Menlo. We got our Lean world competition for teams competing against each other for the trophy and bragging rights until next year. So many cool things. We got some great speakers. So you're gonna you're not gonna want to miss this year's lean Solution Summit in Detroit, Michigan. We're right at the airport, so it's easy in, easy out for those that are outside the state, and it's just going to be a great experience. Brian, I'm excited to see you there with your team. You guys are actually competing in the global lean competition, right?
Brian Meyers 43:07
I don't know that we're signed up, but we're game. We'll we'll do it. Oh
Patrick Adams 43:12
yeah, oh yeah, you guys are going to kill it. Yeah, it's going to be really fun this year. I can't give any details. We change up the competition every year, but each of the four teams will get the same information, and they're going to compete against each other. And the cool thing about this year is, last couple years we've we've had a product that we built as part of the competition, and then at the end of it, we took it apart, loaded into a truck and sent it back. This year, we're actually going to donate the the output, I'm trying not to give too much away here, the output of the competition to a local nonprofit that works with the homeless in helping with transitional housing. So so they'll be on site, and we'll be donating some pretty cool stuff, you know, as part of the summit. So that'll be kind of a new addition to the summit this year, but we're excited to have your team there, and part of it.
Brian Meyers 44:09
Looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it as well. I'll be doing a breakout session, and I'm gonna focus on developing your next line of leaders. You know, who's on deck, and you know how to bring them forward and get them some at
Patrick Adams 44:21
bats. So important, such an important topic. And right along with the theme catalysts developing the next generation of leaders, it's going to be a great event with a lot of really, really great networking and some great speakers like yourself, Brian, it's great to have you on the show for the first time. I'm excited to have you back again, maybe next time we pick a chapter and we dive in a little bit deeper, maybe I think I didn't share eight, nine or 10, which are actually, I love 10. So maybe we'll dive in in Chapter Nine is my best chapter nine. Okay, let's do that. We'll get you back on the show. Oh yeah, that's
Brian Meyers 44:58
a good one. See what was happening. I've, you know, the people have really enjoyed this, people have really enjoyed this book, and the takeaways people have from it have been awesome. And, you know, I just tried to go at this a different way than a normallean book. And, you know, I wrote dumb stories and funny stories, and I talk about my failures and some of my successes, but a lot of the failures, and they're so relatable, because we've all been there. And you know, we can all see ourselves in those same exact situations as leaders, and it's nice to know that other people are also having those same problems. And you know, we can all adapt from it. That's
Patrick Adams 45:29
right, absolutely. Well, Brian, if for hopefully, everyone's coming to the summit, but if they're not coming to the summit, where can they get your book?
Brian Meyers 45:38
You can go to lean by doing.com and you can pick it up there. I ship throughout the United States. If you're international, you can get it right through Amazon print services, and you can get it delivered anywhere in the world. And at this point, about 50% of my books have been International, which is actually pretty cool, and have a pretty big audience that is in the UK and Ireland, and they become great friends of mine, and I'm a honorary Irish person.
Patrick Adams 46:02
Wow. Okay, we should talk after the recording here. I'd like to know how to get that. Yeah, no, we'll throw that in the show notes. So again, if you can't make it to the summit and you want to grab Brian's book, you can go to the show notes and you'll find a link to grab that book. And also, I know Brian's very active on LinkedIn, so if you're not already subscribed to his podcast, make sure you do that and make sure you're following him on LinkedIn as well. Where do they get subscribed to your podcast? Or how do
Brian Meyers 46:35
they find? The easiest way to do is either go to YouTube or go to lean by doing.com or go to YouTube and search lean by doing pretty easy to find. Also, we're moving into a new facility in the first of September, so we're going to start tours up again in October. And you don't want to miss it, I mean, oh yeah, it's going to be absolutely world class. And, you know, people are going to travel from everywhere to see what we're doing, because we've made some really, really big strides.
Patrick Adams 46:59
Nice. We Dang. We should have, we should have set that up for a tour, for the for the summit, but we'll get it another year. Well, yeah, either way, we're, we're definitely coming to check it out. And for anyone else that wants to do that, make sure you reach out to Brian. If you can get into the Kalamazoo Area, you you can go see his facility. And it's, definitely worth the tour. So go do it, Brian, again, thanks for for being on the show, and I appreciate it. I will see you in just a couple of weeks at the summit. Yeah. All right. Take care, Brian, see ya.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai