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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.
Kelly Mallery 0:04
There are many different techniques that leaders will default to to try to work through resistance, but the question I will ask them is, is it a sustainable path for them? What I often see is that approach that you choose and you default to many times creates more resistance, and you're always going to find that. So it is about who are the right people that you need to get on board. And that's really what I think is key. And so I will always advocate for at least go understand what's happening for those people, because at the very least, even if you don't shift their thinking, you make a connection, and that connection will help you later on.
Catherine McDonald 0:53
Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. My name is Catherine McDonald and I'm joined today by our guest, Kelly. Mallory Kelly, how are you doing?
Kelly Mallery 1:06
I am all right. How are you Catherine, I am very well.
Catherine McDonald 1:09
Kelly, I'm looking forward to this episode because we're going to talk about a very popular topic, not always for the right reasons, but a popular topic. We're going to talk about change in particular, how to manage change and how to stop fighting resistance in the workplace. So you're going to tell us all about this.
Kelly Mallery 1:30
Kelly, right. Oh, yes, good.
Catherine McDonald 1:33
Okay, so before we get into it, is it okay? If I let our listeners know a little bit about you, I'm just going
Kelly Mallery 1:39
to read your bio. Yes, absolutely perfect.
Catherine McDonald 1:42
Okay, so just for our listeners out there, Kelly helps teams and leaders navigate change, not by pushing harder, but by making the processes easier, smarter and even enjoyable. As the operational excellence leader for two viand medical sites in New Hampshire and Michigan, she drives continuous improvement in high stakes manufacturing environments, but her real passion is helping female change leaders overcome resistance and create lasting impact with less struggle and more confidence, and that's the reason she launched her coaching and consulting business, as we've just established Kelly about A year ago, right? Yes, yes. And Kelly is also a proud kata geek, and we're going to talk about that, if somebody doesn't know what that means. In 2020 she joined kata girl geeks, and in 2023 she founded Carter school north east to spread the power of scientific thinking even further. So Kelly, this might the last bit there might be a new topic for some people, so we're going to go into that in a little while, but first, I want to go back to our topic and talk about change and resistance. So Kelly, tell me resistance, it seems to be part and parcel of change these days. What are your thoughts on why it exists and why fighting it is the wrong approach. I love
Kelly Mallery 3:03
that question. And Catherine, I'm so happy that you mentioned that it is part and parcel of change. Because here's the truth, resistance is human, and humans are not great at changing. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you think you're really good at it. Like I as a change agent, like I love change, not true. Nobody likes it. And every single human has that natural reaction to resist anything that is new, because it is uncertain and scary. And so that's the root of it, right? All resistance stems from the place of fear of losing something, some safety, security, capability, autonomy, any, any basic human need. That's where it comes from. And so the problem with fighting that is we essentially are saying that you are wrong about being human and having that natural response. And the minute that change agents, you know, armor, up to fight resistance. And this comes in a myriad of different ways that they can do this, whoever we're working with immediately sees that we're doing that and puts up a defensive wall, because that's just the natural reaction. And so by trying to push and fight through resistance, which is how we think and see a lot of change management happen. It immediately puts up defenses from other people, and it ends up just being this vicious cycle of fight harder, defend harder. Fight harder, defend harder, which erodes relationships trust, and you just don't get anywhere. Your change doesn't really get anywhere, even if you force it through. People don't want to sustain it and engage with it long term. And that's where a lot of changes fail.
Catherine McDonald 4:50
I'd love to say I have never seen that happen too many times. And actually, as you were talking there, it made me i. Always come back to this when you talk about fear, right? Have you heard of the learning zones model, zygotes model? So he talks about where we move from our if we want to move from our comfort zone, we have to move through the fear zone to get to the Learning Zone and growth zone, right? So it's natural. It's a natural step in the progression towards learning. But what happens is, when people dip their toe in the fear zone, if they then are treated a certain way, when they're going through that sort of fear zone phase by leadership or the organization, what will they do? They will just want to run straight back into their comfort zone.
Kelly Mallery 5:35
Right? Exactly, exactly, and that is exactly what happens when we're trying to help shepherd people through change. You're right the moment people dip their toe into that fear, and we aren't there to appropriately support them and like, take them across that river to the Learning Zone. That's where we push them back into comfort, and that's where they dig even deeper to stay because of the bad experience we've given them, trying to bring them through fear into learning.
Catherine McDonald 6:03
Yeah, yeah. So this is just so important for every leader to understand that their approach, their interactions with people, matter so much. And you know, we hear a lot about trust and psychological safety, but that psychological safety is really, really key here in all of this as well. So I'm wondering. Different leaders have different approaches to change and to resistance. Some leaders seem to get through change simply ignoring the resistance, or maybe fighting through it, but not getting too worried about it, just working, let's say, working with the people who will work with them and sort of not being too bothered about resistors. What would you say to those people?
Kelly Mallery 6:47
I agree there are many different techniques that leaders will default to to try to work through resistance. And in some conditions, those work, or they have worked in the past. But the question I will ask them, is, is it a sustainable path for them? Because what I often see is that approach that you choose and you default to many times, creates more resistance, like exactly what we've talked about, and that ends up creating more burden for the change leader, because they're fighting harder, which means they're exhausted, they get burned out, and they don't want to keep doing this work, and then they take it home, and it's it's not a good situation. To the question about the people who kind of let people resist and avoid that it works short term, because generally a population, right? You have early adopters, people kind of wait and see, and then that other bell end of the tail, or tail end of the bell curve of people who are just like, No, I'm just not going to go there. And you're always going to find that. So it is about who are the right people that you need to get on board. And that's really what I think is key is when you ignore people who are resisting, how important are they to the change? Because if you just ignore them, and they're the social linchpin of the organization or the team, they hold a lot of social capital and respect and credibility, it's going to be even harder to pull other people along who are kind of waiting until their peers make the move. On the other hand, I don't know that it's necessarily always bad to allow people to feel that resistance, because, again, it's it's natural, it's human. The problem it can create if we don't work with people who feel that is then they feel isolated, rejected, alone, and that will breed disengagement from you, from the team, from the organization. So I will always advocate for at least go understand what's happening for those people, because at the very least, even if you don't shift their thinking, you make a connection, and that connection will help you later on?
Catherine McDonald 9:02
Yeah, no, definitely. I agree with that. Because I think, as you say, it's, I think this, all this approach, has to start with the mindset, the mindset that resistance is not bad, it's not negative, and it's not something to fight. It is something to understand, I think. And then once you have that mindset, that then shapes what you do and how you interact with those people. And it doesn't always mean giving in or, you know, changing things because one or two people don't, you know, want to get on board, but it does mean trying to understand and protect and preserve the relationships, and that's all very important as well. So yeah, I like that approach. That advice, I think is very, very good to use your curiosity. So, you know, seek to understand that. Word has come up so many times this year. You know, be curious. It's just so powerful, isn't it? So, okay, you are, as you mentioned earlier, a coach Kelly as well as everything else, let's say a. Peter came into you, and he or she mostly females you work with, isn't it as a coach, so probably she is struggling with a change initiative, and they don't know what to do to reduce the resistance that they are coming up against. And is there any kind of specific advice you could share with that leader, or I know as a coach, maybe not advice, but try and help them to see their own behaviors and understand them and challenge them in terms of what other behaviors they could try. What approach would you take there?
Kelly Mallery 10:38
Yeah, I love this question, and I am going to bring in what we mentioned earlier with kata and scientific thinking into this. Because what I were, what I do with women and with clients that I work with and coach is I take them through this scientific thinking methodology, where what we do first is, you know, getting out of this? Well, hey, there's resistance. It's bad. There's a problem we frame. What do they really want to achieve by getting through this together? What about their relationships? What about their impact, so that they can have a really clear target and vision for what what we're even trying to do here, and that also helps kind of pull them out of of the negative spiral they might be in mentally. And then what we'll do is probably one of the most important steps that we do together, is we really dig deep into what is currently happening, both for the people they're working with, which means, what are the deep observations of behavior, language, body, language, all of those pieces, even interviewing, if necessary. And then what is the current condition for that leader? So how are they coming into the situation? And by that we really dig into what are the thoughts that are happening? What then are the feelings and beliefs about the other people in the situation, in themselves? So we do a really deep dive on their current condition, both internally, how they think, believe and then act, and then the impact that has on others, and how other people's behaviors then, in turn, create that, think, feel, do cycle for their leadership, and we do that with as little judgment as possible, because we just want to understand what's happening. And the minute we start to peel that layer, peel the onions, layers back and have a look at what's really going on in the context of what they want to achieve, and how those interactions, how they want them to go, they start to see patterns in the connections between what they do and the reactions that people are giving. And through that process, that's where the light bulb can happen, because they can start to see, oh, I can make the connections and see the pattern of, here's what I do, which is driven by what I'm thinking and feeling. Here's then the reaction of the people I'm working with, and then what they do, and then how that, in turn, affects what I think and do next. And so they can start to see how the cycles of their own thoughts and opinions of resistance are negatively impacting those interactions and relationships.
Catherine McDonald 13:20
That sounds so great. And for anybody listening again, they may not be familiar with the words you know kata, or even anybody who, let's say, who isn't overly familiar with lean or even somebody who is because actually, kata doesn't come into lean practices for a lot of people. So I'd like to know a little bit more your approach sounds amazing. I love it. I heard you mentioned deep thinking. I heard you mentioned current understanding, the current state. So is that what makes kata coaching very different to other kinds of coaching? Do you think? Or what am I missing there?
Kelly Mallery 13:57
So let me give a little bit of background about what Kata is. And you know, Kata is just the name that we've put on to this pattern of thinking that Mike Rother who did research back in like 2009 when he coined this operating model he saw at Toyota that defined how Toyota leaders like think and teach others how to think. But it all stems from this idea of scientific thinking, which really means that we, as people, know we don't know everything. We assume that the best way to learn is through experimenting and with everything we do, we set a hypothesis, because that's where learning can happen. And so the practice of Kata is a model that Mike Rother found, and it's four basic steps. So understand the direction or challenge, grasp the current condition, establish the next target condition, and experiment your way forward. And so kata coaching, right, is the the method that Coach. Will use to take somebody through that thinking model. And I think the big difference between kata coaching and other coaching is mainly that there's kind of a script for coaches when they're practicing kata, and it's really a method to not only teach scientific thinking and that model, but the way that it's structured actually teaches people how to coach that thinking as well. Where I feel like other coaching methods don't really follow as much rigor, there's, you know, the general thinking and structure, but there's not like, here's here are the questions that you start with. And so it's a really nice way to learn how to coach, and really that means asking open ended questions, really listening to the answer, not putting your own thinking and bias into it, letting the other person lead and not leading them to answers. And so it's really just a nice it's like training wheels to help a person learn how to coach, but specifically toward helping somebody think more scientifically,
Catherine McDonald 16:07
that is quite possibly the best answer anybody has ever given me to what is kata coaching, or what is kata
Kelly Mallery 16:16
well done? Don't tell Mike.
Catherine McDonald 16:19
Mike, hope you're not listening. I won't tell him, Listen, that's that's excellent. I have one more question on kata, and then I want to talk through about how it actually works in practice. So with kata coaching, Kelly is, does this happen in the place where work happens, at the gemba? Does it happen off site? Where does it happen? These in these kata interactions, coaching interactions,
Kelly Mallery 16:43
ooh, well, I think that probably it depends on who you ask. I'll give my answer, though, which it happens everywhere. It can happen everywhere. So I use the kata coaching model with clients and in my work, and don't tell my family, but I do it at home, but I use it as a container to have a conversation, and it's really just the structure of, okay, I kind of want to flow through these elements of a conversation, because that will help me see, how is this person thinking about the problem or about the interaction or about the project, right? It's, it's the way that helps me understand their thinking so that I can best support them. And so I'll use it when I'm on the floor talking to a team leader or an associate, because the questions work everywhere. Hey, what are you trying to do here? Awesome. What have you tried? What's happening now? Okay, what's in your way? Great. What's the next step? It's very easy to go through, and it helps me not give answers and not tell and stay curious, and it allows me to not have to think, oh, shoot, what's the next question? Because I've practiced it so much, it's now natural. I'll use it at home when my stepdaughters are fighting over anything, and I can say, Hey, ladies, what's the problem here? What are you trying to do? And I can walk through the same thing so that they can come to their own resolution. So it's really anywhere
Catherine McDonald 18:15
Do you ever get your step kids thing to I'm not your client. Stop trying to coach me, because I I hear that sometimes, which means, oh, gosh, I have to get better.
Kelly Mallery 18:25
They, they haven't noticed. And I think I've gotten good enough with practicing on my husband, who did call me out. We were on a walk one time, and he he paused, and he was like, Wait a minute. Are you practicing on me? Busted. So honestly, when you practice enough and it just becomes the way you structure a conversation, it becomes really natural and fluid, and it doesn't ever feel like, Okay, I'm getting this question, then this question, then this question, it's just a conversation.
Catherine McDonald 18:56
Yeah, no, I love it. It's great. I think it's an amazing approach. And like that. I think so many elements, different elements of lean as well, just filter into your personal life. It becomes, really does become part of who you are, not just your work approach. It really does, doesn't it? It just seeps in. And it's so helpful. It's so helpful. So I had another question. Then on, let's say a client that you've had or have, and without giving away any names, can you talk about a time when you have coached somebody, maybe using Carter or otherwise, around change or dealing with resistance in particular? And can you talk about how the Cata has approach has specifically helped them to deal with something. If you have any specific examples that will be great for our listeners, I think Kelly,
Kelly Mallery 19:50
yeah, so I'll talk about a woman that I recently worked with who was a continuous improvement specialist at her organization, and she. Wanted. So first we worked on, what do you want to do? Like, why are we here? Let's get clear there. And she really wanted to shift from doing all of the work herself, and I think this is going to speak to a lot of other CI people doing, to leading and coaching, because she really believed that by the other people in the organization learning how to problem solve and implement the tools. It would mean that that organization would be more successful long term. And so that was her goal. So we looked at what was happening, because she had been trying to do this, and was seemingly she came to me, said, Hey, I'm facing resistance on doing this. I don't know what to do. I need help. And so what we started with was we had set her direction or challenge. So we had that, and then we went to grasp her current condition. And the way that I the questions I asked during that phase of the improvement kata, which is what I use as a foundation, are really things about not only, Hey, what is the observable stuff happening? But I ask things like, what is happening in your head when this occurs? What what are you feeling? What are the beliefs that you have about yourself and why you have to act this way? Because what I often find is it's not enough to just grasp the condition outward, we have to look in ourselves as well, because, like we've talked about earlier, when we go and fight resistance, it generally stems from internal instincts and our own fears that then lead us to be acting in a way that is not productive. And so we spend a lot of time grasping their initial mental condition and emotional condition with respect to the resistance. And so she and I worked on that and discovered that she had this intense feeling that she had to control the situation. And digging a little deeper under that, we uncovered that she was afraid that she would become a burden to the people she was working with. And I see this all the time with women in particular, because we have this caretaker, either it's inherent in who we are or in the social environments we grow up in, but we feel like we have to be liked and accepted and not feel like a burden. And so often, what will happen is that leads us to these behaviors of either over analyzing, taking actions and control when we shouldn't, or bending over backwards to be liked, which I've had experience with that one. And so with with her, we found she was controlling the situation because she thought if she did that, then she wouldn't create burden on others. And so then the question that I love to ask is, how do you know that to be true? Like, what truth is there? Because often what we think is not true. Our brains lie to us all the time. And so she went and found out, and that was one of the experiments, was, how could you go find out in a safe way that's not going to affect relationships, what is really happening? And she learned they love working with her, and actually they don't feel like a burden. And so it was this amazing shattering of this perception that she had that wasn't real. And so she realized, I can let go, and in letting go, free myself up from stress, anxiety burden on her, because she was exhausted from doing all this extra work, and then she was able to really show up in the way that she wanted to and the way they needed her to. And that was a switch for her, after just understanding, hey, I'm lying to myself. What's really happening here?
Catherine McDonald 23:41
Yeah, that's that's such a good example. And I think it's often where kata coaching gets us, because of the experimentation piece, it is challenging people to reality test their perception of themselves. And I think that's just not always done. Sometimes, if you think about nothing against counseling, it's great, it just it's for a different purpose, but that helps us to understand ourself, our thoughts, our feelings. It doesn't necessarily look for data or evidence, right? So the type of cat or coaching is just very, very different, and I think that's a very powerful element of it, where you're bringing in, whether it's feedback or data or whatever it is, that kind of scientific thinking and experimentation. It's, it's great for those people who really need that, and not the counseling side, isn't it? Maybe they need both, but it serves a different purpose, and I think it's great for people to be clear about that as well.
Kelly Mallery 24:32
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Catherine McDonald 24:34
Okay, so great. So just, we're nearly have our time up, but we have time for one more question, and I am really interested in the work that you're doing with women, as well being a woman myself and having I said to you earlier, you know, it can be a struggle. You have all these Well, I have all these conflicting values and priorities, and sometimes they clash, and I have a home life and a work life, and, you know, the friends and family. Family, and it sometimes feels just there's so much it's it can get a little bit overwhelming, and sometimes we all need a bit of a helping hand or a coach to help us put clarity on our own thoughts and give us time to think and plan and reflect. So you've worked with a lot of women change leaders. Kelly, you mentioned that the a couple of things there about how we can feel like we don't want to be a burden, or we can feel, you know, we don't want to put too much on other people, of course. But what else are you seeing? What kind of challenges are women facing today, especially when it comes to, I suppose, change and resistance, but in general, what unique challenges do women face,
Kelly Mallery 25:41
yeah, you know, I've spent the last few months actually having conversations with women in continuous improvement roles in my network to kind of to understand this a little bit more. Because as we go into 2026 I really want to think about what do we need right as women in this community. And it was surprising, surprising and unsurprising, unfortunately, to hear that the main thing that came out of those conversations is that women in these roles and the wins I talked to were mainly in male dominated environments. They aren't being heard, and they don't know why, and they're there. Everything comes back to him. I was hired for this job, but then when I say we need to do something, I'm not being listened to. And a thing that kept coming up was credibility. I don't have credibility. How do I build credibility? And I know, right? Katie Anderson also has talked a lot about influence, and that's what we do, right? We influence without authority. But to build that capability, we need to have built credibility with people so they will listen to us. And for me, I think that that is the cornerstone for us going into 2026 to support and lift women up, which is, how do we help women understand how our own thinking and those models that we have get in our way of building trust, and therefore get in our way of building credibility, because all of those negative thoughts and things that lead us to that over analyzing and thinking we need to be liked that gets in The way of us being able to build that trust. So I think that's the big, the big thing that we need to support other women in being able to do and how to how to communicate to those male counterparts in a way that is going to get across to them.
Catherine McDonald 27:35
Yeah, yeah. No, I know. And I do hear that as well myself. I do know it is 100% an issue. Do you think men some men face the same issue, though? Or no,
Kelly Mallery 27:48
I do, because it's a human issue overall, right, credibility and trust happens to all of us. What I think is different, though, is the social implications of being a woman and then being in a male dominated environment where men who are more assertive is accepted women who become more assertive, it's counter to what people see us as. And so we end up in situations where we don't know how to make sure our voice is heard. And so we reach for these other tools, but then they never actually bear fruit and get us where we need to, because we're stuck in these own mental our own mental models of doubt and over analyzing, and it takes away from our ability to really cut through and communicate the way we need to.
Catherine McDonald 28:36
I think your point is so spot on about it's not what people see us as, see women as, I mean, even if you think about Lean In general, as a profession, you know, I think a lot of women did not go into lean originally, because lean, if you think about was manufacturing, it's a male dominated environment. But also the perception of Lean was pretty wrong a few years ago in terms of what it was, you know, it was all about being, I suppose, far more on the technical side than the people side, right? So a lot of women went into nursing and teaching. So did men, but a lot more women went into those roles because they were people focused. And actually, it gives me a little bit of hope now, because I think the understanding behind Lean is changing. That's drawing more women into this kind of work. If you think about it, any type of work that's technical, that also involves people is probably people first anyway. So we need more women in these roles who have that may be natural people first kind of mindset, not saying men don't, but traditionally, women have done and I think it does make a difference having women on a team of men, they just bring a different perspective, you know. So I am delighted to hear about the work you're doing. I am. I think it's fantastic that women have those supports to be able to build confidence competence and just be able to talk out loud about what is challenging them, and to be able to reflect and to be able to have somebody else there as a sounding board to help them, you know, move forward with their with their careers and professions. So well done. You. It's amazing. Thank you. Okay, so our time is just up, Kelly, but if anybody wants to learn more about you, about your work or about your coaching, where will they find you?
Kelly Mallery 30:32
So they can find me in a couple of places, one on my website, which is just my name, Kelly mallory.com, I agonized over a name, and I realized that really doesn't matter. So I just want my name, and then can also connect with me on LinkedIn or email me, which is just Kelly at Kelly mallory.com I'm open to just having a conversation, hearing what's going on, anything I can do to support that's right. This is the the woman in me, and the the pleaser supporter coming out. But I really do, genuinely. I agree with you. Catherine, I think women are key in these roles, and so I want to lift up as many women here as possible, because these are the people that are actually going to change our organizations.
Catherine McDonald 31:12
Yeah, absolutely. Kelly, it has been a fantastic conversation. I loved it, and hopefully I will see you again another day, but for now, we will say goodbye and to everybody out there thank you for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode of the lean solutions podcast.