Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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
How do we adjust the way that we've always done it to create learning to the new way of doing things?
Patrick Adams 0:12
Learning is what we need to do all the things we want, which are continuous improvement, problem solving, innovation and adaption. It's not it's not replacing it, but it's like the running system. We have all the hardware, you could say, but now we need the running system because a learning organization, first and foremost, consists of learning individuals.
Patrick Adams 0:42
You Hello
Patrick Adams 0:47
and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. My name is Patrick Adams, and today's guest is Tilo shorts. Tilo, this is not your first time on the show. Welcome back to the Lean solutions podcast.
Patrick Adams 1:00
Hi Patrick, thank you so much for having me. This is going to be fun. We already talked a little bit to warm up, and I'm looking forward to get things rolling
Patrick Adams 1:10
here. I'm looking forward to it as well. And as you said, we did have some conversation prior to hitting record, just about kind of where you are, because normally you have this really nice chalkboard behind you that you're writing on and and you're actually in a hotel right now. So you've been traveling the world lately, right coming, coming out of Seattle and currently in Germany,
Patrick Adams 1:33
yes, so I just came back from Seattle, actually, Michael to with the catasco Cascadia Qatar, together for this year, awesome learning week. And now I'm Germany, and then we'll fly on to Vietnam next Saturday. And Patrick, you mentioned it's one of your favorite countries. Did I get that right? It
Patrick Adams 1:55
is one of my favorite countries. I love, love Vietnam, actually, Asia in general, just any, any countries over there, I love to visit. It seems like things are always like people are moving so quickly. And you it's, it's just a different, so different than so many other places in the world, you know, and I don't know how you feel, but when, when you like, when you're come out of Asia and coming heading back to Germany, is it, is it any different for you, or how do you
Patrick Adams 2:24
feel? So, I mean, you asked me about Germany, so I only speak for Germany, and you can speak about the US. And so, I mean, it's always the same feeling. And I mean, on the one hand, it's very clear that in many countries and in many many businesses, we are critically challenged in our business model. May it be because there is arbitrary things happening, chaos, crisis, wars? May it be because there is new competition growing elsewhere, as you mentioned, may be because there is some disruptive technology, whatever it is, okay, and we know that, and we feel the pressure, and our people feel the pressure too. Now, What astonishes me each and every time, back to your question. When I step off the plane coming home to Germany from Asia, it's like, you feel like somebody's, you know, on the throttle and and it's just like, speed goes down.
Patrick Adams 3:34
Okay, right, right.
Patrick Adams 3:37
I thought we had a problem, and we're moving slow that doesn't match. Yeah, but is that something? How do you experience it?
Patrick Adams 3:47
Yes, it's very similar. It's, it's, this, this the same feeling. It's, it's crazy, because it obviously things are changing so quickly anywhere in the world, right? But, yeah, coming coming back from Asia, normally feels the same way. Everything seems to move a lot slower and and actually, I think for a lot of companies, to your point, it probably creates some issues for them when they are moving so slowly, and the rest of the world is moving so quickly, and things are changing. And you know, if you you know, if you try to do complete a project, let's just say, and it takes you eight months to do that, when it really should take you one month. Think about how many things are changing, just just all the variables that are affecting that project in eight months time. By the end of that time, is it still relevant? You know, I work with a lot of companies where there's a, you know, they they lay out a problem and, you know, four months later, I'm like, hey, whatever happened with that problem? And they're like, oh, it's not a problem anymore, you know. And so, I mean. I feel that same thing all the time, where things are just moving so quickly, and I wonder, in your experience, do do companies get in trouble if they're if they're not paying attention to all the moving parts, or the quick changes that are happening all around them? You know, could, could they be getting in trouble?
Patrick Adams 5:19
So the where I'm now. I can't tell you exactly where I am, but where I'm now. The issue here we're currently working on is that it's high end electronics, and basically the challenge for the company and the team here is that they now have two competitors that do in eight weeks what they need four to six months for, okay, now, yes, there is still, I'll put it still a difference in quality. Okay, sure. But do customers get, do customers get that when they sign the contract, or do they get it on the go and then the contract is signed for a long period, because it's, you know, model launch just every four every couple years, sure, um, and they will catch up. Okay? Also, yeah, there is a bit of advantage in innovation. Technologically. But it's not big and it's not moving fast. This is, this is an issue, super issue, yeah, so in a way, you could say, or if you if we take a step back now, coming out of what was artisan work, okay, this is how, like last century, the companies that are now big companies started, and their achievement, like Henry Ford and others, was to bring that to an industrial level, which of course, led to systems that are very good at upscaling and replicating what we what what is working and also preserving what is working. Hence, Clayton Christensen the innoves dilemma. Okay, I mean, we've built systems that are made for and amazing at scaling and preserving Yes, now I'm not saying we're not producing innovation. Okay? I mean, that would be wrong. Of course, there has been amazing innovation in the past 100 years, no question. But the system in itself, the systems we built, are focused on scaling and preserving the status quo that's important for them to run. That's what they're built for right now. The issue with that is that that, of course, spills over or in depth, is that, like from, you know, I'm an engineer, so kind of how people act and think. It creates habits and thinking patterns, absolutely and also, of course, I mean, it creates knowledge. Fine, that's awesome. And you could say we have a body of knowledge that is amazing. It grew in the last 100 years. Amazing. Now, the issue with that is that, of course, you could say expert knowledge or gut feeling, which is kind of this, the sum of experiences is very good to make quick decisions, and often better decisions than other do that kind of do long analysis. They're slower. Now, there's one precondition, and that is that experience expert knowledge is always context bound, so as long as the context does not change, or does not change substantially or just, or just changes slightly, going by gut feeling an expert knowledge, so kind of extrapolating is the way to go, you will win the game. And I think we're seeing now where the where the issue comes in, that is in a world that is rapidly changing, so when context changes, yeah, that still tells us do this. And we've built system that that amplify that, right? So it's not that people don't want to be innovative, but we've built system, and that's, that's kind of the experience, and we've built systems on top of that, and that leads to a situation where it seems like we cannot keep up with the with our current approach, with the speed of change that is happening, right,
Patrick Adams 9:37
right? Yeah, that's, that's a that's a huge concern, because we think we're making the right decisions. But in reality, because the decisions are being made on certain things that we we were used to, in the status quo, in the in the way that things always were, the things that all the way they always been. You know, even. I make a decision today, it things have changed by that point. I mean, especially in technology, and if you're, if you're a company that's dealing with anything technology, I mean, tomorrow, things will be different. So if you're making decisions based on stuff happening yesterday or today, it's too late. So how do we, you know, we've heard the term learning organization. We've talked about that a lot. It's a it's a term you hear thrown around all the time. You know, let's develop a learning organization. First of all, first question, what does that even mean to be a learning organization? And then second question, how do we, how do we adjust the way that we've always done it to create learning to the new way of doing things, because things are changing so fast, how do we still have how do we still develop our knowledge and learn at the pace and the speed that changes are happening now? Does that make sense?
Patrick Adams 10:58
That makes total sense. Yeah. So talking about the learning organization, what does that mean? My favorite. It's not a definition, but my favorite realization and a good starting point, I think, for our discussion here, Patrick is what Jeff leiker says and wrote in his book The Toyota, way that Toyota realized that a learning organization first and foremost, consists of learning individuals. And I mean, you could add learning together how to conquer the challenges in front of them. Okay, so that's kind of but it starts with the learning individuals. So learning organization starts in the mind, okay, now the good news is, it's possible. I mean, sometimes when we're, you know, in a discussion, it seems like we're saying, Oh, the times we live in, they're changing so fast, faster than ever before, kind of like, you know, history was slow and easy. Well, if I think of my grandparents and parents having to rebuild after two world wars, if you go further back, if you think of the invention of the steam engine, I don't know, it seems more like cycles. Okay, sure, and mankind could do it. Okay, so it's that's, it's not like we're doomed. No, no, no, it's totally possible. We can do it together. I think what we need to understand here, or what we need to get our heads and kind of our hands, our actions around is that it is hap what is about, what is happening in the mind. So it's the thinking patterns, it's the habits, it's how we address things, and of course, it's also the resilience. You could say we can train ourselves to get more used to change. Last 40 years were more like, Hey, easy going. Not easy, super easy. But, you know, it's like not. People were not so much confronted with this immediate danger of being unemployed and, you know, big crisis and low light at the end of the tunnel. So because that's the result of business, business plans and business strategies of companies being challenged, right? Yeah. So also, I think we've been working on that kind of underneath this buzzword of learning organization already for many years. So basically, companies have implemented tools that foster a more more, you know, PDCA, iterative, exploitative way of working. I mean, everything that's going on in Lean community is around creating flow of work and flow of value to the customer, which is in more rapid cycles, okay, and that, of course, reflects also now into the administrative work, the project work that's done. It's not only just about production, right? You could think about agile project management and everything that's going on in that community. So there's lots of tools and methods already in place. Good. Keep it. It's not wrong. The second thing, I think, in addition, or alternatively, companies have worked on is on roles and structures, bringing decision making more to the front line, flatter hierarchy, diverse, independent, autonomous teams. You could think of, you know, orientate along the flow, Value Stream manager. You could think, orientate towards the customer, like scrum master, product owner, things like that. So we've Good, okay, we need faster decision making silos and, you know, decisions taking three months to be taken that's that's just not feasible. No. Now what I think is key here. To get that system running now is that there is a third field which we haven't been addressing so much, and that is thinking patterns and habits. Because, I mean, you can put any all the Agile methods in place you want. You can put all the lean methods and tool in place if people are still thinking in a mechanistic, upscale past solutions way things will not continuously improve and will not get agile right, adaptive. And I mean, in the world, not in the methods on, but the word of agility, of moving right,
Patrick Adams 15:33
sure. Well, maybe it will in the short term, but definitely not in the long term. I mean, maybe they can do it for a little while, because they're, it's, it's, it's on mind, it's, it's right there in front of them. But you know, over time, they'll just fall right back into their same ways of doing things. Because if
Patrick Adams 15:51
you think of these, of this kind of Venn diagram, of the three things, yeah, methods and tools, roles and structure and thinking, patterns and habits, when under pressure. When a company gets under pressure, we don't fall to our methods and tools or to our workflows and structure. We fall to the lowest level of thinking patterns and habits. That's where we fall, and that is what happens when the weather is not so nice, the heat is on, the waves are high. So the question is not, how can we do everything different, but how can we get the right thinking patterns? And I'd like to offer here the term of a more scientific, expirative way of thinking, a more scientific way of thinking into the organization. And that would leverage what we already have in method, methods, of methods, tools, structure and roles. It's not it's not replacing it, but it's like the running system. We have all the hardware, you could say, but now we need the the running system, because a learning organization, first and foremost, consists of learning individuals, another aspect, just Just to riff on that. Because you asked, What does learning organization mean? Well, I like to put it that way. Learning is what we need to do all the things we want, which are continuous improvement, problem solving, innovation and adaption, like adapting to a crisis or an unexpected change. So it all comes down to learning something that will address, remove this obstacle, solve the problem at hand. So innovation doesn't happen as a breakthrough innovation, and that's what outsiders call it. Actually, it was, you know, Thomas Edison trying 10,000 different alloys and metals and whatever to find out. Okay, Wolfram will do the job. So that's how break iteration out. And so it's rapid iteration and learning, right? And that is why I think, and I really like to post that as a hypothesis here, speed of learning is key to success in this rapid changing period we currently live in, okay, compared to compared to leveraging expertise or speed of scaling of solutions that worked in the past, which was fine, it's not wrong, which was fine, but probably now the pendulum needs to swing more to the other side, sure, because the solutions that were successful in the past will not solve the problems we have now and in the future, right? So, but
Patrick Adams 18:52
they may, they may, they may provide value in the learning process, potentially, but, but falling back on those as solutions may not be the right way, so utilizing that in a way of like maybe again, just boosting your learning. But the rapid learning cycles have to happen very quickly in in order to move forward and learn as much as you can, but and not rely on what the way things have always been, is that, am I explaining that? Right? Yeah, absolutely.
Patrick Adams 19:25
And I mean, you could, like, if you now think, what does that mean in leadership role? Sure. And it means, like, you could start going in in the morning, telling yourself it's not about speed of implementation. So the question in the morning huddle is not, oh, we have a problem. What do you do? The question for yourself with you go in with is more like, How can I increase the speed my team is learning with so as. Ask about the obstacle. Ask not about the solution. Does that make is that? Does that make sense? Yes, yeah, absolutely. And interestingly, you could, you could now, and maybe we can move towards, how can we get that into our culture? Or, yeah,
Patrick Adams 20:15
that's the next question. Is, what needs to change? And, well, I guess actually, I'll ask another I'll ask it a different way. Is there anywhere in the world that is already doing this really well? Have you seen anywhere that where it's they're doing it right? And, and if so, what does that look like? What are they doing?
Patrick Adams 20:35
I think there is several companies that are that are doing a good job. Okay? To say we're all doing it wrong, that I don't like that approach. Okay? That is like some consultant needs to sell something wrong. This is what you do, okay? Magic one, right. On the other hand, I also think every company needs to increase their speed of learning, okay, in their market, in their competitiveness. I mean, I see so many companies, and each of them goes like, we're unique. Nobody else is like, yeah, I just heard the same thing the other week. Okay, so it's all relative, but I think we all because the world is the way, the way the world is in our in our lifetime, obviously, now we all need to to kind of amp that up. Yeah. So the question that for me is more not if we should do it, and who is doing what, but more. How can we do it in our organization? Okay? Now, one thing that has helped me greatly when we started experimenting with that is what goes kind of the foundation of my growth as research at Toyota. And I know I'm dodging your question here a little bit, because I don't want to put Toyota out there as you know, an answer to the question you asked me. That's, that's yeah, because they, they obviously nobody will know how the automotive race ends and who will be the ultimate winner, okay? Or the winners? Yeah, sure, it will be consolidation, obviously, yeah, in the market, but, but betting on one company there is, I don't feel like this is, this is a good way to go. Who knows? However, what Mike found in his research, and especially on how to develop a learning culture, you could say, through developing a more scientific way of approaching things and how we collaborate, what he found there, how they do that might be worth considering, okay, because for Me, it it really links with what we know about change management and how to, I don't like the word culture change, because culture evolves, how to evolve our culture to the next level, or to what what we need now. And because if we, if we understand culture that in that way that we say culture is the common sum of habits and thinking patterns. Then we understand if we want to increase speed of learning, if we want to become more innovative, all the buzzwords we want to have, then we need to develop new habits. Now new habits don't develop by what goes through the ear. So we can tell people so many times they should be more innovative. They should use this to do that or whatever. We can have so many nice posters in the end, habits developed by what we do, just like in sports, in music, wherever, okay, it's what we and that is the first thing that really was an aha moment for me in Mike's research, that Toyota does not, first of all, puts the collective habit of addressing things in a scientific way on a high strategic level. I mean, that is what for me, the sentence before cars we build people means, right? So that's the abstract, that's the meta, that's the shiny level. But what it really means is we don't basically train people in the classroom, but we have them practice the way we want work to be done on the job, and we practice a scientific way of doing it, because we know we don't have all the answers. So the best we can do, actually, same for our kids is to train them how to find out new stuff, because we don't know what the future will need, right? So don't, don't train them the solutions from the past. They're a good starting point. They need to know about them, right? The main thing we need to pass on, you could say, to the next generation. Position is, how do I find out scientific way of working? And the second thing, because management behavior shapes behavior, thus shapes culture, managers need to be the ones that do the coaching for that on the job, which gives us, coming back to your question, two distinct interventions for if we aspire that kind of culture, evolvement towards a increasing speed of learning, becoming a true learning organization, and that is practice scientific thinking. And how do we practice something? Well, with a practice routine, like, you know, playing scales, or like, you know, holding the golf record. It's all it's the set of steps, sure, and he's a Kata, right? So one intervention is the improvement kata for practicing scientific thinking, on the projects, on the topics, on the challenges, on the Hoshin goals we have. And secondly, have the managers coach that, because that shapes culture with a very powerful coaching model. Most people talked about the questions, which is the starting point, the coaching kata, questions, training pattern for managers. But what is underneath that is a powerful coaching model that has a dual purpose, and that is a, of course, help the team, help the person to solve and reach the goal at hand, yeah, but certainly, practice this scientific way of working, collaborating, so we can achieve even greater stuff in the future, right? So this has, you know that is what, fascinates me. So if you ask me, What is something we should look at, it wouldn't be a company, but it would be this kind of intervention, dual intervention of two practice patterns that are not big words, but really hands on. Roll up your sleeves. Let's go. Let's practice this for real in our organization,
Patrick Adams 26:59
right? Yeah, the I think it's important what you said about the two outcomes, or the two aspects that you're looking at solving the problem and then also developing a new way of thinking. I think it seems like many organizations get stuck on just solving the problem, and they don't realize the value of what they're actually getting when they are coaching this, this new way of thinking, and they're doing it properly. It's not so much about solving the problem, although obviously, we're definitely trying to do that. We want to solve the problem. But the real value is what people are learning while they're doing it, so that they can apply that same learning on the next problem and then the next problem and the next problem. And I think sometimes that's missed, the focus seems to get only on the problem. Yes, would you agree? I
Patrick Adams 27:49
fully agree, and and I'll go black and white here. But one thing, because if culture is habits and thinking patterns, and if these these two are influenced by management behavior patterns, then we can ask ourselves, How did this happen? And have you ever heard this, these, this set of questions, so you could say we were we've always been coaching as managers. We've just used different questions. And I don't know, have you heard these questions? What's your goal? Where are you now? Have you heard them and then, like, Oh, you have a gap. What's the next question?
Patrick Adams 28:31
How are we going to close the gap? Or what do you do? What do you do? Right?
Patrick Adams 28:35
Close the Gap. Yeah. It's like, who does what? Until then. Okay, ever heard these five questions? Oh, yeah, what target were you now? Who does? What? Until when? Yes, what kind of mindset? Not mindset, sorry, what kind of thinking pattern? Because mindset is emerged, emergent. So what kind of thinking pattern does that foster?
Patrick Adams 28:57
Yeah, I mean, it's, well, in my mind, it's almost like there's an opportunity to to blame. There's solution based you're looking for the solution to the problem, and there's, there's nothing, nothing about the process of how you get there exactly, exactly,
Patrick Adams 29:19
even if I'm not, if I don't intend to blame out of the game for a minute. Okay? This is fostering solution oriented action thinking. Who does what? One right? There's nothing to be learned, right? Obviously, we might get lucky. Okay, so, I mean, that's that's an easy thing, by the way, we can do from tomorrow on in our meetings. So yes, we have a goal, we have a current, we have a gap. And okay, let's stay with what do we do? But at least, at least ask. What do we expect? Yeah, to happen, so that next time we not only ask and are you done, but we can rather that would end in blaming, likely. I. But we can rather ask, so what did you learn? No matter if it if it worked or not, the decisive question is, so what do we learn from this? So that's just one, one to explain that, and that is why I think this is where we need to start changing. Sure. Should start with us coming in in the morning telling ourselves it's not about action, it's about learning, speed of learning. How can I maximum? Let me find opportunities today, how I can increase learning per se and speed of learning in my team, and then start asking questions like this, what do we expect? Huh, you did that good. Didn't work out so well. Okay, so what did we learn? And that is something the coaching kata helps us to learn, so we can use it more and more in our interactions every day. Right now, this might seem super small, and you go like, hey, you know, we have a big we need to turn around here. Sure, fine. How many big scale announcement, announced changes have you seen stick? Okay. So again, the question is, sure, if you, if you're going under and you have to do cuts and restructuring, sure we have to do it. Yep, but hey, if we want to compete for the future, I think we need to address this at its core, and that is habits and thinking patterns
Patrick Adams 31:32
right right now, based on, based on all of that. Tilo, I think there are probably some leaders who are listening, who might say, but do we have time for that? Because you're talking about speed of learning, and if I'm giving someone time to experiment and work on this, and then what did you learn? And it seems like that could take longer than us, just like relying on what always worked before, or someone knew something, so they just put a solution in place. What would be your response to them that? No, no, no, it's not. It's not about that, because I just think about when I in my experience, when I've seen organizations do that, it actually ends up taking a lot longer for them, because the solution that they put in place based on what had happened before or what had worked before didn't work. And now they're back to the drawing board again, and they're trying something else and that doesn't work. And now they're trying something else and and then we go back to the question of, What did anybody did anybody learn anything here? No, we're just throwing stuff at the wall hoping something sticks. No one learned anything, so I guess I'm throwing that at you as well. Like, what, what would your response be to anyone that's listening, that would say, it seems like it would take longer if I spend the time letting people experiment on things, or, you know, asking them to what did they learn? What do you think
Patrick Adams 33:02
there's a lot to unpack here? And, well, we always like to hear and of course, you could also say, I mean, I'm I'm working with companies. So you say, You're a trainer, you're a consultant. We always like to give simple answers, or one dimension answers. This is the button you press. That's not how the world works, right? So one thing is, of course, each situation is different. So we need to understand, on an on an organizational level, where are we now? Where do we need? Where do we want to be, and what is kind of the next target condition, the next state we need to achieve quickly, and that will inform us about how we can approach this. Okay? And it's, it's also a next. Next thing is, it's also not like black and white, okay, like if the house is burning, the fire brigade is out, the new guy on the team is struggling to get the host to the hydrant, the commander will not start coaching. Okay, so now don't take that as an excuse, please, to always tell people what to do. Okay, so, but what I'm just saying is it's not black and white. Okay, we want to move the pendulum more towards scientific thinking, instead of jumping to ready made solutions and assumptions. We want to bring the pendulum more towards coaching in the leadership role, less giving answers and telling people what to do for various reasons and speed is only one of them, leaders, burning out is another, okay, and being the bottleneck. But it's, it's, it's, it's a pendulum, and we've, we've been too far on one side. We need to move it more to the other side. Okay, then let's talk about speed. That's another thing to unpack here. Our brain. And has it has a lot of amazing functions. A flip side of that is that we sometimes mistake speed of action or movement for progress. Here's the test. If you drop a small object like a needle or a coin or a little nut, you see it while it's moving right. This is why you go like and by the way, our dog is the same. When I throw something a little treaty, as long as it's hopping, he finds it if I put it somewhere, and then he has to look for it. It's much harder, because that's moving, which means, I mean this, this makes total sense, because if, when you live in a world of predators, you need to see the line moving, otherwise you're dead, okay, but that's the world we live in, business wise. So our brain often mistakes movement for progress. That is why. What do you do until when? Okay? And then we go, like, wow, we this meeting was a good meeting. We've got some action. We've got some action items on the on the on the list, okay, no, no, no, it's not if we have action, it's if we're understanding what's really happening, and that will inform what to do. And then, okay, so I think when I hear people saying, Oh, this is slow, I wonder, are they talking about movement or progress? And that's two different things. So how do you know your team is making progress while you can't with four weeks steering committees or with weekly status checks, you have to coach them on the job, because then it will tell you every day what they learned. If they're not, we're in trouble no matter what. But if they're learning and we're not yet seeing the results, we still can't sleep well, because we're understanding today we understood more and more and more and more. Okay. I mean, that leads to completely different from the outside. It might look super strange, like you think of that SpaceX tweet like on that one launch, like, I think a year back when they first launched a big rocket and exploded, and then the tweet was, congratulations, SpaceX team, we got all the measurement and data we wanted that is focused on speed of learning right now, not every I mean, I'm not saying blow it up, okay, right, right, but that shows from the outside. It looks super strange. And now we got all the information we wanted. We learned everything we needed, right? Competitors, bye, bye, you have no clue. Okay, so again, let's let's go back to your question. Now, the decisive factor here is coaching, because there is a misunderstanding also between trial and error and experimenting. We're not talking about trial and error. It's not about error. It's not about you try until you until you succeed. This is, this is this doesn't make sense. Will take too long. It's, I mean, that you might be lucky, but probably not. Okay. So that is also why this relationship, or this combination of coaching and scientific thing is so important, because the the success heavily depends on the performance of the coach, helping the team to learn fast and learn the right things, rather than just arbitrarily trying out stuff. So when people say, when you, when I hear you say, people say, it's slow, it might be slow because they're they're not coaching, or they're not coaching well. And then things are, you know, scatter tooth, yeah, then sure we get nowhere. Okay, so here's, here's, no, let's wrap that up. We need speed, yes, so do what you've always done, but pick a pilot area where you say, I want to, I want to pioneer this new way of working. Okay, it won't be worse than what you do now, for sure. Okay, if you do nothing, it will be worse. But pick a pilot area, a pilot project, where you say, I want to pioneer this, because we need to learn, first and foremost, how to coach this, because that is the decisive factor. And sure we want to understand how do we need to implement it, so that it's really faster in progress, and that it is an alternative to what we do today, which often only might be creating movement, action, but not progress. Right? That I it's not a black and white answer, I know, but, but the world is not black and white. An organization is not black and white.
Patrick Adams 39:52
No, it's, it's, it's a great answer. I think it fits perfectly, absolutely, and I. Obviously, this is a, this is a massive subject that we could, I mean, we could talk about this forever. I'm sure so many different areas that we could go into with this. But I want to change gears just a little bit, because we're, we're talking to individuals at any level in the organization, right? I mean, anybody that's listening right now can be, can, can think about how, how to be supportive of developing a learning organization, right? It doesn't, it doesn't need to be an executive, it doesn't need to be a frontline leader. It doesn't need to be a mid It could be anybody, right? This, this applies to, to anybody in an organization, would you agree?
Patrick Adams 40:42
Yes, yes,
Patrick Adams 40:45
yes. What I want to talk specifically to executive leaders, and I'm wondering, what is their role in this, you know, if they they say, Well, I don't, I don't have time to be, you know, out on the production floor or at the gemba, or in the office, or whatever the gemba is for your organization. I don't have time to be out there every day, every hour coaching. Is that their role, or what would be an executive leader's role in all of this? Is it different? Is it the same? What are your thoughts?
Patrick Adams 41:18
Well, a good starting point might be, what are you doing today? What's current state, and is that adequate of the role you have and of what your team needs you to be and do now and for the future? So everyone can answer this question for themselves, okay, but here are a couple of patterns maybe to watch out for. Like, if you think of a, you know, reporting cascade, a shop floor cascade, whatever it is you could take a look at what types of problems and what size of problems are we discussing on which level? And if everybody along the chain of command is discussing which screw we need for the machine at the shop floor, we're in trouble. This is not leadership work. Your calendar is full. Have lots of meetings, but they're the leverage you have is like zero, right? Forget it. Yeah. Another thing is, and that became very clear to me, 2008 the kind of 2008 dip when I was working at a German powerturf manufacturer as a plant manager. And that was the first time I was quite young then, and that was the first time I had to lay off people in larger numbers. Okay? And what became very clear for me at that time was, now, if I make a mistake as the plan manager, sure they fire me, but I get a new job. It's not, not a problem. The people that we lay off, they don't get a job tomorrow. So here's the deal. We nobody speaks about the deal, but the here's the deal. We have people come in every day, do the best we can. They can do the best they can so we can deliver top notch quality in time at low cost to the customer. They trust that we as the management team make sure when they come back tomorrow they still have work. So that's another question to ask yourself as a leader, am I working on today or am I working on tomorrow, right? And I'm not talking strategy papers, okay, yeah. And then the third thing, like, you're probably familiar with that chain we often use. It's like, good results. Every company needs good results, positive results. It's like breathing. Otherwise life is short and quickly over. By the way, breathing is not the purpose of life that was for company. It's a mean and it's not the end. So how do you get good results? Yeah? Well, through improving your processes. How do you improve your processes? Through developing your people so they can find new solutions, which happens in a more sign through a more scientific way of thinking. That's how you're innovative, that's how you learn, that's how you problem solve. So how do you develop your people? Well, that's a leadership task. So if you're the CEO, besides, of course, the longer term direction, what will be the winning business tomorrow? Absolutely. The second question is, how do my next level managers need to work so they prepare their teams that they can find these solutions for tomorrow, right? Or are they totally stuck in the, you know, in the trenches, and are solving problems themselves? Yeah, and then the role of the coach, and then we're back to what you said. Yes, they should do the same, but they should coach their next level. And. To get them one level out. Okay? Or, as David Marquet always says, each level needs to think one level higher. That's how what you develop them to. That's what coaching is about on the C level. Now, how do you learn it? Well, you probably start practicing it on the shop floor, fine. But ultimately, you're the coach for your leaders to develop them personally to the next level. Yeah, I love, love
Patrick Adams 45:29
that answer. I think that's so important. Because I do think that so many times executive leaders in organizations, when they think about this learning culture, and they think about, how do i What's my role in this? They immediately are thinking about the specific problems that are happening, you know, at the shop floor, or whatever the frontline business is. But in reality, they need to think about the next level that they're coaching, and what are the problems that they're dealing with versus, you know, the for example, I think about an organization that that I'm working with right now, and I was in a meeting with executive leaders, and they Were talking about a specific problem on a project site that was not a conversations that should have been happening in that room. What they should have been talking about are, what are the what are the systemic issues across all projects, and how can we solve that here, so that we don't continue to deal with this across all these projects? Right? So think about the problem that you should be dealing with, and then you're coaching your leaders in the same way, but at that level, right? So that I love that answer. It's perfect, and that
Patrick Adams 46:53
is exactly why, or where the power of the coaching kata model lies. And again, I'm not saying there's just one correct way of coaching for me, coaching is like a pie. It has different pieces. There's different coaching approaches, systemic coaching, there's business coaching, there's partnership counseling. There are different models. There's the GROW Model. There's other models all have in common that we aim to help a team or person to solve a problem or reach a goal, even in partnership counseling, the coaching kata has that too. But on top, the coaching kata has a second purpose, aiming at developing the person and thinking in a more scientific way so they can grow to the next level and solve taking your word can solve the system obstacles, right? And that is the power that lies in this kind of coaching. And the coaching kata model, I love
Patrick Adams 47:53
it. Yeah, I love it. We're going to be talking more about this at the Lean Solution Summit coming up here in September Tilo last year, you were one of our keynote speakers, and I mean, you just blew us away with some just amazing conversations around scientific thinking and the power of improvement kata. I know you're going to be running another kind of Kata workshop at the summit, and you're also going to be working with our executives that will be in attendance. So we have this year, we're actually adding another aspect to the Lean Solution Summit, and that's going to be the this executive track that we've, we've we're kind of running experiment with we're going to, we're going to see how this goes. But what we're looking for is we're looking for executive leaders and organizations that want to be part of a deep learning experience with yourself, Katie Anderson, Billy Ray, Taylor and myself to be this will be a curated experience based on the the problems that the problems, the challenges that you're experiencing at your level, and it'll be very focused on on that aspect. And so I'm excited about it, because for the last few years, we've had executives that have said, you know, hey, is there something that that can help me with this issue that I'm having. And it's kind of always been like, well, I don't know, or we've had individuals who have said, you know, oh my gosh, this was such a great Summit. I wish that our CEO was here. I wish that my director was here. Whatever it is. Well, now this is an opportunity where they can come and network with other executive leaders in this experience, discuss challenges at their level, and have a deep learning experience where we're going to be diving into some of the challenges and issues that they have. So I'm excited about I'm excited for you to be part of it. Tilo and. I'm just curious, what are your feelings on it? What do you what are you looking forward to with with this executive experience that we have coming up at the summit?
Patrick Adams 50:08
So first and foremost, I'm excited about executives taking time to reflect on what they're doing, because it always starts with us. It always starts with us, sure, and just to think about, what do I need to learn, what do I need to improve so I can be at my best and can do what my team and my company needs for the future. Because, as I said, it all comes back to that deal. Our people come every day, aiming to do their best, trusting that we take care and prepare the system and the people for the future, right? And I think stepping away to a retreat like you're offering here and we're putting together is the least we can do. So I'm just looking forward to meeting people that have made exactly that decision for themselves, and say, hey, I want to become better and like you know, to learn and to practice for yourself. I think you know, the pride, fear and self satisfaction are the three main obstacles to learning and becoming better. And as Chip Heath put it, he said to the to practice or to to you know, to say I need to learn is not to declare I'm bad, right? It's to declare I want to be better, because my team needs me to be better. That's right. And meeting these kinds of people that have that kind of spirit, it's all for everyone. That's okay, fine. If you think you're ready to rock and then you're the best, sure, go ahead. We don't want to blame anyone. We don't want to judge. But those I expect, those that will come, I'm really forward, looking forward to meeting that group and just spending time together, and then we'll dive into the topics, sure, yeah, but it's about the group of people that has this kind of spirit and aspiration and challenges themselves so they can be at their
Patrick Adams 52:30
best. Yeah, so true. I it's unfortunate sometimes when you go to organizations and the frontline team or the mid managers are super excited and energized, but the executive level is not. And it's like, if it's not important to leadership, it's not going to be important to your team. So you can't just declare from the office that we're going to be alert, we're going to develop a learning culture. You can't declare from the office CI is important. Or, you know, whatever, you have to get involved. You have to be there coaching. You have to be visible to you, to the team. And it's things like this where, you know, maybe this is the opportunity bring your team. And it doesn't matter how, what the size of your organization, either, by the way, this is small businesses, large businesses, director level C, suite level, you're going to be having conversations with others from different industries, and it's going to be a really, really great experience. So I'm excited for it. I'm looking forward to it. This is going to be a great year. It's September 24 25th in Detroit, Michigan, and it's going to be an awesome experience. So we'll drop some some information into the show notes as well on that, and we hope to see in Detroit. So
Patrick Adams 53:58
it's like you could, you could say the learning starts with you.
Patrick Adams 54:02
That's right, absolutely. Tilo, it's been great to have you back on the show. Always love chatting with you, and I know it's late. You're probably tired after long travels and different time zone, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today, and as always, we walk away from these conversations with so much value. So I so much appreciate it, and I look forward to seeing you here in September.
Patrick Adams 54:27
Patrick, thank you very much for having me.
Patrick Adams 54:30
All right. Take care. Tilo. You.