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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.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 00:04
There is improvement and efficiencies that can be found in state government.
Jason Jackson 00:09
If the program was going to endure, everybody participating had to experience value, right? And it doesn't really matter where you're situated in an organization, you don't want to be doing work, and you don't want to be doing work that isn't value added to the customer.
Andy Olrich 00:24
Some people hear the words Lean Six Sigma, and they kind of get a bit of a shiver, or something like that. We don't need to go to that level. Or That sounds hard, the leadership and and those types of other things that come through, the training and doing the projects, you know, getting them to do the work and apply and show that value. It just can be quite transformational.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 00:54
Hello and welcome to another episode of Lean solutions podcast. My name is Shane, and I am jazzed to be here with my special friend Andy, coming in from Australia. How are you today? Brother,
Andy Olrich 01:06
going great, mate. Good day. How are you
Shayne Daughenbaugh 01:08
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I want to introduce you to a concept you may not have heard of yet. Now let's, let's just confirm, build a little context here Silicon Valley. Heard of it? Maybe, yeah, yes, kind of, kind of a big deal, right? Yes, okay, did you know that there was also a Silicon Prairie?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 01:32
No, I didn't. Have you heard about
Andy Olrich 01:34
that? No. And leading into that, is there a silicon mountain?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 01:38
I that part. I can't answer that yet at some point maybe, but here in the Midwest where I am from, this is beginning, beginning to be called the Silicon Prairie, because of the innovation that tech companies are coming in and finding here, it is a great place to be. But I also want to say that Nebraska isn't just known for its tech innovation, because sometimes the most impactful innovation can happen outside of tech companies. I just want you to know that it's possible that sometimes the most impactful tech and innovation, or the most impactful innovation, can come from the way we do government, and that's what I'm jazzed to talk to you. We've we've talked about this before. Our guest today is going to be talking about that as well. Now I do have to give a little bit of context again at the at the time of this recording, the state of Nebraska has shifted from Lean Six Sigma, which what it used to do, into using other methodologies. But the ideas and principles are still there. There is improvement and efficiencies that can be found in state government, and we have a great team of people that are helping us do that. So not only are we going to be looking at, you know, what kind of drives innovation, but looking at the leadership that is within government, so that we can understand that there is innovation that's happening that is not just bringing us AI and bringing us other really cool tech and other gadgets, but there's also innovation happening that's bringing us better services and a better work environment. So let's talk about our guest today, Andy, who we got going on?
Andy Olrich 03:18
All right? This is where I'll jump in. We've got Jason Jackson. So who is Jason Jackson? Well, let's meet him. He's a leader who brings together Midwestern grit, military discipline and a passion for public service. Now, Jason's a proud Navy veteran and is currently the vice president of ficer, a financial services company. And previously to this most recent role, Jason was the HR manager of the State of the State of Nebraska, and that's what we're going to talk a little bit more about today. Now, Jason has led transformational efforts in government by applying lean principles, servant leadership and a relentless focus on people and process. Now, Jason's career spans public and private sectors, but his values remain rooted in simplicity, hard work and continuous improvement, whether he's optimizing HR systems for 1000s of state employees or streamlining processes to better serve Nebraskans and even in his current role, Jason shows how operational excellence and compassion can coexist and not only coexist, but thrive. So he's got a no nonsense get it done approach. Jason is proving that innovation just doesn't live in Silicon Valley, like you said, it lives in the heartland too. So that's a that's a cool intro. Shane, can you bring our guests to the stage? G'day, Jason, welcome mate. He's
Shayne Daughenbaugh 04:29
he's in here. Come on, Jason. Hey. Good afternoon. Gentlemen. Good afternoon. So I worked under Jason when I was here at the state and one of the things that I loved about working under Jason is his amazing leadership ability. And in that in Jason and I probably have have mentioned this before, but what I've what I really appreciated in working under you is your as as a leader, you may not have been the most you. Um, know, all the expert like tools and lingo and all of that. You knew the principles, but you also knew how to manage people. You also knew how to inspire teams. And I love that about you. I'm jazzed to have you here on the on our on our podcast here. Thanks so much for coming in.
Jason Jackson 05:21
Well, Shane, thank you. The affection is mutual. It's very kind words, and it's a pleasure to be reacquainted with you. And congrats on all your success since leaving the state, and congrats on the show.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 05:32
Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, we're both pretty jazzed to feel pretty lucky to be able to be on the show as well. Now you, Jason, you've had, let's start this off with, you've had a fascinating career working with, you know, being in the Navy, working with some Marines and a whole bunch of, you know, probably other service members, moving into, shifting into state employment and working at the highest levels of our state government, And also then shifting into like the financial technology areas as well. So how has your leadership evolved as you've as you you've worked through these different stages in your life, or different stages in your job? How would you say, what are some things that that have evolved for you, and maybe, what are some things that have always stayed the
Jason Jackson 06:20
same? Yeah, yeah, fascinating question. I just feel enormously fortunate for the diversity of the experiences and the leaders that I've had an opportunity to work with over the course of my career, because they've certainly imbued me with a lot of different stylistic perspectives and approaches to leadership, a lot of different types of organizations. And so if there's anything that characterizes, I think, my current leadership style, it's that, or at least, you know what? What about my style has been influenced by those different stops along the way. It's I tried to take an element of agility into any role that I have, because you know any, almost every organizational culture is going to have different nuances, right? And being able to impact change and lead an organization through change, you have to meet that organization where it is culturally and stylistically and just and so that you can influence because otherwise the bull in the china shop approach will only get you so far, and rarely will that approach engender enduring change. It might. It might. It might be a catalyst for short term change. Sure, yeah. But if you're going to have enduring change, you need to work within the culture and influence a culture that sustains whatever changes you're trying to implement. So I mean just a few examples from my career. You know, of course, you know, you talked about some of my formative experiences in the Navy, driving ships and landing Marines on the beach and boarding pirate ships and all that type of cool stuff. You know, the military is a very hierarchical, you know, type of organization where it's very much an emphasis on positional leadership. And, you know, not a lot of, at least at the time, not a lot of you know, the the soft skills weren't necessarily a requirement for success influencing across, less of a requirement for success than just in the moment operational execution, you know, conversely, going to intuit, you know, really had to, you know, in the technology sector, really had To be able to to influence across, had to be expert in change management, had to understand the soft skills required to lead and understand, you know, the motives of different folks, and try to appeal to those motives and our common interest in achieving a result. And so just really influencing across became a bigger part of my kind of leadership portfolio, and, you know, I think subsequent to those two experiences, I, you know, I tried to have a personal style that's a blend of those two different approaches.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 09:09
What would you say? Just kind of going off of that, you mentioned soft skills a couple of times, I'm curious, from your perspective and the different I know, avenues you've been or experience you've had. What do you think is the most underrated soft skill? Ooh.
Jason Jackson 09:28
The most underrated soft skill, self awareness, understanding your own limitations, having a growth mindset, knowing where you have personal gaps in your expertise or your ability and just walking, you know, having a an element of humility about that, so that you can be the beneficiary of other experts around you. That's a great
Andy Olrich 09:54
point. Jason, that that vast bit about, you know, that self awareness. It then, so you can have the benefits of expertise around you. You know, if you you very much that top down and you just kind of blinkers on, yeah, I think you do miss out on a lot. That's a great call out. And I just think along the way in this chat here, can we get a bit of dirt on chain while we're going? That'd be great. We can from you some shame. We might have Shane stories in the middle somewhere. We might just break it on intermission. But, well, what a fascinating career. And, you know, again, it's, it's, it's interesting, you know, talk about, yeah, the military with the very much the top down type approach, and then having to come in. So, yeah, what's, I guess, in transitioning your leadership style to come in and kind of fit into that other part, other side of the world, what's been the biggest challenge for you to adjust? Or have you got an example where you found yourself, you know, three steps into the moment in, you know, the military way, and then you've had to sort of pull back and and reshape your approach.
Jason Jackson 11:03
Well, well, moving to the civilian sector was definitely a challenge for me and an adjustment, because I, you know, I felt pretty comfortable in the military hierarchical type of environment. So, you know, again, I, you know, I kind of glossed over the different stylistic leadership approaches that I experienced in those different settings. But you shouldn't construe that as having, you know, in any way that that transition was easy, or that I easily adapted to that more kind of influencing style with an emphasis. So I think, you know, there was, there was definitely some battle wounds that were born, you know, kind of, you know, learned that approach.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 11:41
Yeah, yeah, sure. I believe that. Now, let's, let's, let's shift into just a little bit, tapping into either continuous improvement. When you were here at the State, you know, I don't know all that was behind the scenes. I understand that the story behind the COE, but before that, when, when you and the governor started talking about this, started dreaming this, like, what, what were some of the things as a leader that you thought of, hey, if we're going to try to implement something, we should probably, based on my experience, you know, debt to debt to debt. Was there anything that that you were able to contribute to the guidance of standing up a continuous improvement, you know, effort here at the State, at the scope and and, you know, size that we have. I mean, it's not a huge state, but we are able to get, you know, all the the main state agencies had a, at least one continuous improvement process, you know, coordinator in there, and there was a lot of dotted lines connecting, and a lot of synergy going on between different agencies. But to stand that up, what were you thinking intellectually or as from the leadership side of things?
Jason Jackson 12:56
Yeah. I mean, wonderful question. I mean, so one of the ways I was able to make a contribution to that, yeah, you know, to Governor Ricketts, his credit. I mean, he really had the vision for this right from the jump in terms of what he wanted to do. And of course, he was proficient in Lean Six Sigma methodology, and knew that that was the continuous improvement methodology he wanted to bring into state government. And so he already had a conceptualized idea of what he wanted the impact to be. He was more agnostic, I think, about the how and but one thing he was laser focused on right from its inception, was that it had to change culture, right? And so that was kind of our true truth. I think, was a recognition that culture change had to be both tops down and bottoms up. And it had to be resourced. And it had to be, you know, somebody's day job, right? And so, you know, my contribution to that, in partnership with many others, including yourself, Shane, was, you know, just conceptually, how we were going to design the organizational supports. And one of those ways was, and just to give everybody a sense of scale, we're talking about a 16,000 employee organization, and so one of those ways was basically creating a shared services type of team where we had dedicated experts that were deployed to our agencies that could really drive at a local level the application of lean principles to small teams, right? And, you know. So that was Component number one was, you know, just how we were going to resource it, and how we were going to apply it, you know. And there was a couple decisions within decisions there, like, you know, could, were we going to go consultants, or were we going to insource? And, you know, again, we wanted to change culture, and so that informed a decision that, hey, we need to insource this expertise so that it would be an enduring feature and an organic feature of our organization. And then, you know, how do you really get purchase at the frontline level? You. Uh, you know, that was, again, you know, I think with, you know, in partnership with the governor's office and some of the experts that we already added on the team, we really want to kind of, there's my words, not not anybody else's, but kind of democratize it, really make it accessible, you know. So there was a very purposeful effort to not make lean too heavy, you know, and so that it would be accessible to the frontline employees. And so really, what that meant was we kind of broke up different levels of proficiency and targeted, you know, training and resources depending upon where you were situated with organization, right? So, you know, any new hire the state government got what we characterized as white bulk training, which was basically just, hey, what's the vocabulary of lean and what, how do we expect all frontline employees to contribute to continuous improvement, which is really just, hey, if you have an idea for how something could be done, better, raise your hand, right? You know? And then we had, you know, we, we worked with this at the small team level with yellow belt training. And, you know, could you run a huddle? Did you understand how to measure your outputs, right? Did you have an idea of what your throughputs were and what your system was? Were you engaging in, you know, just and again, not being overly draconian about methodology, but were you engaging daily with some visual representation of your team's workflow? Right? That was the minimum expectation and and that was something that was accessible to everybody. And then, of course, we went up in proficiency to there, from there, you know, all the way up to kind of an executive level offering, so that our agency executives could, you know, just understand the program, how it was applied, and how it could be brought to bear on their business problems.
Andy Olrich 16:48
Yes, that that balance. But the key word, the key words there, for me, is about the support around it. So there's a program that was being deployed. Governor Ricketts had some experience in you. Yeah, was dialed into what, how it kind of wanted to run, but, yeah, you definitely find without that support for the here it is, and what's next type thing, it's tough. So I think that's, you know, 16,000 employees just to land on our listeners, that the scale and what would be the scope of functions and roles and experiences, that's all got to, got to come together there. I think that's a it's an impressive story and and for anybody out there listening, there is a really cool video on YouTube of Governor Ricketts recently explaining the benefits, you know, some of the returns and things that you guys got from that. It's, I encourage people to look that up, because, yeah, some huge benefits from structure, method, support and, and again, leadership and how, for me, you know, like when you bring in Lean, or something with a harder edge, like Lean Six Sigma, yeah, how do we in that government setting? So it's very much, you know, lean, in its essence, is about people, but when you're bringing this in, and maybe it's causing a bit of disturbance in a government type industry, how do you do that? Or some examples of how you did that without losing that human element there, really connecting it to the to the person, and bringing in some of that measure twice, cut once.
Jason Jackson 18:10
Yeah, it was, you know, I think government isn't, I mean, it's all people, right? So it isn't that foreign to what you would encounter in a private sector organization. You know, it was about showing value for everybody that was participating. And we really, we really placed an emphasis on, if the program was going to endure everybody participating had to experience value, right? And it doesn't really matter where you're situated in an organization. You don't want to be doing mundane work, and you don't want to be doing work that isn't value added to the customer, you know, and there might be places where you you encounter resistance, because there's a presumption that something's valuable. But really, as you kind of peel back the onion, you learn it's not. But when you do that by leading with data, you assure people that their personal circumstances are jeopardized, and you enable them to be a part of the change. Again, with imbuing them with all the methodology, there was no mystery, right? Because, you know, I walk you guys through how we kind of did it from a cultural perspective and a holistic perspective across the organization. And again, we in sourced it, right? So there was a couple elements there that I think made it non threatening, so that, you know, everybody could experience value without feeling like, hey, it's this, you know, outside other type, you know, of organization, bringing some foreign methodology to bear on my work product, by bringing everybody into the methodology and into the culture of the change. I think that over helped us overcome some of those pockets of resistance that may have otherwise been present,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 19:47
right? Okay, yeah, oh,
Andy Olrich 19:49
sorry, Sean, I just want to clarify. Coe is the center of excellence. I don't know whether we unpack that acronym. So COE Center of
Andy Olrich 19:57
Excellence, yeah, Center for operating. National Excellence, Center for operational excellence. Thank you. Thanks.
Jason Jackson 20:03
I spoke about, hey, how we were doing it in sourced and with a shared services type of approach to organizational design around that it was, that was kind of the moniker that we have, that team was the center for operational excellence.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 20:16
So I have, I'm creating a list of all the things you're talking about, Jason and and to just kind of recap for the listening audience, you know, when it, when it comes to how this was, what were your thoughts in standing this up? You know, in sourced resources, shared vocabulary, small steps, engaged daily. And then I really appreciated that the idea, and I saw it, but the scaled proficiency, the way you're able to scale proficiency from the white belt to the executive green belts that we had, you know, all of that. So let's have a little bit of fun with this one. Now, what's a leadership moment that didn't go according to plan? So you got all of these things. Hey, we, you know, there's a there's a there's a methodology to this, or there's at least a framework that we're trying to do to win people's hearts and minds, to move them forward. But can you think of a time that just kind of fell flat on its face in regards to leadership? And, you know, you were supposed to be leading people in it, but it didn't work out that way. And what'd you learn from that?
Jason Jackson 21:21
Um, I mean, that sounds like a fun question for you, I'm not sure for me. Do you have an example in mind? You know, I will say, you know, that it's on directly, on point for your question. But what was kind of, what was unexpected. It was the degree, you know, when the, I mean, the pandemic intervened in the middle of all of this, right and right, you know, which completely unexpected, unforeseen, and the degree to and nothing about that went according to plan. But what was interesting, that might be too, too large a statement, because we were, we were pretty proficient in terms of emergency response and how we managed through that. In fact, got national recognition for Nebraska in terms of how we managed through that. And one of the keys was, and what was, perhaps, you know, a pleasant surprise, if you will, was the degree to which our work on Lean Six Sigma gave us a repository of business acumen and managerial acumen and project management acumen and just intellectual it just kind of agility to navigate through all of the challenges associated with that. Like, hey, how do you, how do you stand up a team of contact tracers, right? How do you, you know, deploy testing kits across the state. You create the logistics chains for all the PPE that would be necessary to for first responders across the state. You know, all of those was very much a startup operation, but we didn't really feel like a startup team, because, again, we had imbued the organization with this repository of a skill set around continuous improvement that we were able to deploy against the problem, and I think, but for having had that expertise on the team and that kind of bench depth of you know, practitioners and these methodologies, we might not have been as well served.
Andy Olrich 23:19
Yeah, that is, that's such a great share there. And definitely, you know, some people hear the words Lean Six Sigma, and they kind of get a bit of a shiver or something to go, oh, that we don't need to go to that level. Or that sounds hard. It's but the the skill and the the leadership and and those types of other things that come through the training and doing the projects, you know, getting them to do the work and apply and show that value. It just can be quite transformational, just to have that structure around it. So regardless of the challenge, it's great to put your hand up with an idea and just go and do it. But yeah, when it's really on and you need that structure and that you know that framework to help you not just jump in and potentially make things worse. I Yeah, you see that. You see those that that really walk through that door. You've got a team of not only problem solvers, but there's, yeah, there's some leadership capability there that's developed along the way, and coaching and all those sorts of things, and that it's definitely coming through in your your example there. And yeah, well, in that, that period in time, really put a filter through with how agile we truly were and what we could make hit and stick, or we just got to do it for a while and jump out, and hopefully whatever normal used to be comes back. But it's a great share Jason and the learnings through that. So Shane, you touched on at the start that you know the center of operational excellence was very much Lean Six Sigma focus. What else is, is the the state government transition to, or incorporating into that, from when you're you were there Jason, that you can talk to.
Jason Jackson 24:53
Well, you know, again, I think we, over the course of the Ricketts administration, we matured it into. You know, a pretty mature, lean, shared services organization where those skills and leadership practices were applied up and down the organization such that, you know, the enduring feature is a culture of continuous improvement endured right that everybody understood that they had a role to play in terms of making state government better and improving, you know, services for our constituents. You know, another enduring aspect, which, again, I think, was a benefit of bringing these methodologies and this mindset into state government. What's kind of foreign in the public sector is even just thinking about, how do I measure my outputs? Right? You know, government is often very kind of compliance focused and not particularly kind of customer focused and output focused. And so that was another enduring feature. Was really challenging the organization. How do you measure your success? What are your What are your benchmarks? How are things improving and striving for that continuous improvement? I think that was another enduring feature. And I served. Feature. And I served into the pill and administration, that was certainly an enduring feature, and consistent with Governor pills approach to continuous improvement as well, you know. And then Governor pillow migrated away from Lean Six scene Six Sigma and more towards a kind of what he would characterize as a systems approach, which I really think reflected just kind of, again, the maturity curve of the organization, and where he wanted to apply his stylistic influence. But what was common across both of those approaches was an expectation that we were measuring results from Nebraskans and that everybody in the organization was empowered to influence change that would improve outcomes.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 26:44
Yeah, I love that, that that everyone was empowered to influence change and and I think that's, that's, if you're making lists, ladies and gentlemen, that should be on your list, that's, it's one of them that that should be there. Jason, when it comes to working in the public sector. You know, as we're kind of wrapping up this interview, when it comes to working in the public sector, what is a myth that you think needs to be blown out of the water when it comes to the public sector?
Jason Jackson 27:18
I would say there's a myth that prevails that, certainly I was guilty of harboring, that, you know, public sector workers are, you know, lazy or mal intentioned, that the work isn't particularly challenging. I don't know how pervasive, but it's common to hear, you know, politicians, for example, talk about public employees in a pejorative, right and what I experienced in terms of myth busting was, you know, nine out of 10 people, very similar to any other organization you're in, are very altruistically motivated. They want to serve their community. They want to do their a good job. And there's a and what's more is there's, there's a lot of intellectual horsepower and very capable, talented people that have chosen a career of public service. But it shouldn't be looked as as less than, or less innovative than other other sectors of industry, and in if anything, I found that some of the challenges are harder, like in private sector industry, it's very easy to be innovative, because you can experiment without the public eye upon you. You know, your mistakes aren't in the newspaper. And you can have minimum viable products. You can have experiments. You can have cohorts of one. You can go, you know, try, you know, startup, you know, ideas or products, too often in the in the public sector, those types of things, if, if they fail, right in the in the private sector, we would say that's not a failure. That was an experiment in the public sector. It's just a little too early, too easy to characterize some of those things as failures if they don't, you know, mature into an actual product or an idea that sustains and so I say all that because I think one of the myths about the public sector is, you know, that innovation isn't isn't present, and that people aspiring to innovate aren't, you know, working in public industry, but rather that there's some headwinds there that are unique to the public sector in terms of of just the oversight and compliance regime that's required that can make the degree of difficulty harder?
Andy Olrich 29:30
Yeah, so true. Jason, so true. And thanks for sharing that. So radio, we're getting to the end now, and Jason, let's, let's imagine we're designing a billboard. All right, what is the one Lean leadership message that you would like every government agency to see, and outside of that, but we are talking a bit more around the government as we as we go. Yeah, what would it say, and why it
Jason Jackson 29:58
would say? Measure? Sector, and I think I touched upon this, or I think I touched upon this earlier. But, you know, just measuring outcomes is sometimes foreign in a public sector. Is public sector context, and it's something that has to be trained. It's something that has to be imbued. You need to think about, hey, what are the outcomes that we're trying to drive for our clients or our customers, or our citizens, or whoever the stakeholder is that we're delivering for. You know, what is our current benchmark? Because that's the bedrock of any continuous improvement. You can't continuously, continuously improve if you don't have a target that you're shooting for. So, you know, in my in my practice, that's where I always, you know, started, my point of emphasis was, hey, what? How? How are you measuring your results today? Is that the right things to be measuring? Is it outcome focused or activity focused, and then using that as kind of the bedrock to jump off from going forward? Right?
Andy Olrich 30:56
Excellent. Yep, no, no standard, no improvement. What new measure matters? Yeah, that's so, so great. Shane, I'll throw it over to you to wrap us up, mate.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 31:04
All right. Hey, thank you so much, Jason. We've had a great time, and it's been a fun reminisce for me to talk about the good old days. But if, if people wanted to get a hold of you to talk about it more, are you on LinkedIn? Is there, is there a better way? Or maybe that? Hey, I'm just not on the socials. So sorry,
Jason Jackson 31:26
no, yeah, LinkedIn would be a great place to professionally connect and always welcome expanding my network on that platform. So
Shayne Daughenbaugh 31:33
okay, okay, we will put that in the show notes. Anything else are we good to to wrap this one
Andy Olrich 31:40
up great to wrap up. And I think also what we'll do is we'll put the governor Ricketts YouTube video link in there. That'd be great for people to look and hear some of those incredible results. And it certainly inspired me, at the time, working in state government, to watch and see that. I sent that through to leadership across the board, and they're like, more. Okay, so Jason, it's been great to meet you, mate. Wish you all the best. Thanks very much for being on the show. That's all I got. Shane, all right, been great again, mate. See you later.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 32:06
Okay? I hope so. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. Have a great day. Thanks, gentlemen,