Lean Six Sigma: Beyond the Belts

Speaker A: Welcome along to the Ever Saline Podcast. I'm Matt Sims and this is where we get into the real stuff that drives great leadership, high performance, and a thriving culture of continuous improvement. I chat openly and honestly with people who've been there and done it. The kind of leaders who create real impact, not just in numbers, but in the way their teams think, feel and perform. If you're after honest insights, practical ideas and conversations that challenge the way we lead, you're in the right place. Because where people thrive and performance follows.

Speaker B: The everSolean podcast with Matt Sims. Because where people thrive, performance follows.

Speaker A: Welcome back to the eversolene podcast, where today I am delighted to introduce Stacy Franklin or Tacy Franklin, because the S key is not working on my keyboard today. So she is now to be known as Tacy. She. She is a recognized leader in lean thinking and one of Ireland's most respected voices in the continuous improvement community. Stacy is the founder and CEO, uh, of Canso, a consultancy inspired by the Japanese concept of simplicity, where she helps organizations and individuals cut through complexity and create real clarity in the way they work. Her career has spanned healthcare, technology, retail and beyond, always with a focus on people. People first. Stacy lectures on the Master Black Belt program at the University of Limerick and she's also the 2025 winner of the Emerging Businesswoman of the Year. In Limerick itself, she has a reputation for challenging the way it's always been done and guiding teams to find fresh, practical ways. Forward now. Today, Stacy will be leading us into a thought provoking conversation about the lean belts. We've all heard of them, white through to master black belt and many of us hold them. But what should we be looking out for in the awarding bodies? And most importantly, what might learning in continuous improvement look like in the future? Let's find out. Stacey, welcome to the Ever Saline Podcast.

Speaker B: Hello, how are you? Thank you very much.

Speaker A: I am very well. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm, um, good. Delighted to be here.

Speaker A: I know it sounds really bad, but someone with different accent, I love it. It just makes the show absolutely perfect because people can definitely tell who we are and where we're from.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And any day to come on and talk about lean is a good day.

Speaker A: Yes. Do you know what? I've been really impressed with Ireland. Like, uh, Ireland is massively into lean. Yeah, it's blown me away huge.

Speaker B: There's a lot of activity over here and there has been for, for quite some time, but a big emergence of it in, I suppose, broader areas of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the last couple of years as well. So a lot of really, really good activity happening.

Speaker A: Yes. It's like a tidal wave.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's just been. Because I've found since I've left the corporate world and gone out on my own, what I found to a certain extent that I've been around is that there is not much knowledge on Lean and continuous improvement. You say it, you talk about it. I go to networking meetings, people just stare back at me blank, like, what is this guy talking about? I talk about waste. And I go, no, we have our bins collected twice a week. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not what I mean.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: With Ireland, I just feel like everybody's engaged and inspired with it. Uh, it's probably not like that, but it feels like that.

Speaker B: Uh, no, it is very much like that. I think when you're in the space, you can see very quickly how far it reaches across the country. There's such a good emphasis on networking, communication and a community of lean across the country. Um, and I suppose Ireland has been playing its part for quite some time in winning Shingo awards as well in different companies across the country, that there's much positive work done in the lean space, that it's getting to the point now where a lot of people, you know, do know what it is, and people in companies or people look at their careers are asking for lean skills. You know, they're putting their hand up and saying, I want it, rather than being told to, to be the person in the company to do it, you know, So I think it's. It's only going to get bigger. You see it nowadays with. Even with job specs over the last couple of years, all the job specs are asking for someone that can challenge the status quo. You know, look at the waste, find the, the efficiencies in the process, and, um, that seems to be tagged on to most jobs now. Whereas I suppose, go back 10, 15 years ago, it was probably a role in. Of itself that someone would come in and support. But now the skill to be able to, I suppose, spot the areas of inefficiency and bring the structured common sense to life is a skill that's been looked for across the board.

Speaker A: It's so good. Is it becoming part of the culture? It's just the way you do things now in Ireland.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. In a lot of spaces, I suppose, is there's a lot wrapped up in what Lean brings to an organization and what Lean will bring to individuals in terms of their performance. And we Hear the word performance an awful lot in, you know, especially in the corporate world, bigger businesses, where there's a lot of people at play doing different tasks, and it's all performance management. But I was. I was thinking, you know, when we were talking about having this conversation a lot about performance management, typically it's stats, it's numbers, it's, did you hit your KPIs? Did you do this? And that's. That's the quality of the conversation you're having. And there's a certain place for that. Right. Because the numbers are what keeps the business rolling around. Right? To a certain extent. But if you put the lean hat on then, and you think about the customer experience, the customer quality, and then off the back of that, the quality and the engagement of the staff inside, it becomes more about, well, what are the behaviors that are enabling the performance to happen, you know, And I think that's where Lean really comes into play from a people perspective, is the behavior side of things. And having that mindset of being able to, you know, stand up and say that that's not good enough either for me or for our customers, that that's not the way we should be doing things, we should do better. But then not only when you say we should do better, there is a mechanism and a support function in the organization to allow you to go and do the better thing, whether that's problem solving together as a team, being able to make your case and get, you know, a business case over the line to make a significant change. So there's. There's a lot of that, I think. And, you know, there's. You go into the challenges businesses have with staff retention, the challenges businesses have with sustainability these days. All these things are making it harder to be successful in business. But I think lean answers an awful lot of those questions when it's utilized in the right way.

Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely does. And it's so refreshing to hear it being embraced rather than being forced. Yeah, it's almost like, um. Excuse me. It's almost like, um, Ireland turning into a mini Japan. You're morphing.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of talk about that recently. Make Ireland the next Japan. And I think we'll dive into this, I suppose, in more detail, but with the traditional way that Lean, I suppose, would have been taught and how we would have understood it through the belt structure and through the tools and techniques that came directly from Toyota. You know, kind of our. Our generation of learning Lean was. Was that route. And. And there's a lot of robustness in that. And there's a lot of, you know, raw ingredients in that learning. Whereas nowadays we're seeing the move to what we were talking about as being the more modern lean, which is the two second improvement, the, the everyday, the mindset. And that's hugely tied into the culture. And you have people like Ryan Tierney with Seating Matters, you have Tom Hughes with Gemba Docs, you have those types of people that are leaders now for the next generation and for the current people that are studying lean or trying to get into that space that are saying we can do more and you know, it's, it's really not that hard. Like it doesn't have to be the big 6 month, 12 month journey from an academic standpoint and the belts and all that stuff. There's, there's other ways and means of, of bringing lean to life. But I think no matter who you talk to, at the end of the day, everyone will come back to saying it's about people, the people and their behaviors and how you as an organization are supporting and enabling the right behaviors to take place.

Speaker A: I just, you know, I moved to Ireland. It sounds like my sort of place.

Speaker B: We'll have you. Not a bother.

Speaker A: Sounds like, definitely sounds like my sort of place. Just jumping back into something I mentioned during your introduction. So you're the founder and CEO of Canso. Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I suppose I've been working with lean for over 10 years now. I started in telecommunications and that's where I got my lean training at green belt level and moved into the black belt level and I went on then to run different kind of lean training academies across healthcare, different sectors that, uh, all that type of work. And I suppose for a long time I was teaching other people's version of Lean, which was great because it was fantastic for me in my career to be able to take on programs and deliver them and have such, such good impact with people and to learn those skill. But I suppose over the last few years I've just been thinking a lot about what's m. My interpretation of Lean and what's my thoughts around how this should be taught. And I suppose outside of growing up and becoming a lean subject matter expert myself, I then moved into the space of teaching and learning an awful lot of my career and gained the skills to effectively be able to design training for specific audiences, that is at, um, a high level on the qualifications frameworks, be it, be it Ireland or the UK or globally.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think once I kind of had all the Skills. I kind of said to myself, you know what, now is the time for me to put my stamp on what I think Lean should look like from M A training perspective. And the reason we created Kanzo was to, I suppose with Lean training in a lot of instances because it lean originated in manufacturing. The training that first came out was manufacturing based and that's the predominant audience that utilized it for quite some time. Whereas the last 10, 15, 20, 30 years it's moving out into service industries. There's a lot of work happening in healthcare. Um, all those back office support teams are now looking and saying, well, we can do lean as well. It's not just for manufacturing, it's not just for pharmaceuticals. And those kind of, what we see is those, um, those, those manufacturing lines type environment we're seeing that actually can be applied everywhere else. But I suppose in my time of seeing a lot of training programs that are out there and training different courses, the materials I found, the examples, the case studies were still leveraging the original manufacturing material in a lot of cases. And it just became very hard. When you have a mixed class of, you know, grand. You still have a lot of people that are coming from manufacturing environments, but you have people from service based industries, you know, like the Amazons, the on post, um, the banks, that type of transactional environment or very heavy rich customer experience environment that are very into customer engagement that's not seen in a manufactured environment. And I just felt that the training was very hard to be related. So if you're looking at a fishbone diagram on a screen and it has the six M's for manufacturing as the headings, it's hard to understand how does that relate to me on my computer every day when I'm sitting here processing expense claims or I'm sitting here putting a sales order together with Canso, uh, what I wanted to do was be able to say, right, let's take the core learning and the core principles of Lean, but let's pad it out and fill it with the relevant examples and case studies and language and terminology for those industries. So we've created a whole host of training courses. We have sales, we've HR it, we've finance, legal, there's a whole load of them there and loads more to come where we can make the learning as accessible and relatable to you, the individual, as possible. And I suppose when we looked at the name, creating the name for Canso, we spent a lot of time thinking about, well, how do we want people to perceive us when they're dealing with us. And I, uh, kind of said that a few different people working with me on setting up the business and I said whatever we do, however people interact with us, it has to be straightforward. The process of interacting with me as the head of the company has to be really simple. It cannot be convoluted. I cannot go out there and not practice what I preach. So that's where we kind of came from. The name of Kanzo, which is a Japanese name for simplicity. And it kind of fits really, really well. And there's a lovely play on word as well in a lot of places across the website and our writing and stuff. So we're, we're very happy with it and great to give the nod to the, the origins of Lean.

Speaker A: Yeah, very clever. Very clever. And it just sounds different and I think if people who, people who see it who are not necessarily know anything about Lean, it would make them question, oh, what is that? Or what do they do? Because it is so different sounding, isn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think what you've done is very, very smart. I think it's a. It's a gaping hole that's been in our faces for so long. And I find that nothing switches people off more when they've committed to a development opportunity of going on a course or, you know, doing a virtual course, however they're doing it. And then you whack in front of them of things about production lines where a car part has failed or something like that, and they're sitting there thinking, why the hell are you teaching me this stuff? Because they, they don't get that it's the, the methodology behind it. The logic's correct.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's meaningless.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's great. And I think as time goes on and more and more industries are engaging in this stuff, more and more industries are practicing and delivering case studies. There's going to be more evidence that you can then showcase and use to create better trainings. It's only a positive thing. So it's wonderful. Let's have a look at the belts then. Belts are that. They're out there. Everybody, if you're going to go into. It's normally Lean Six Sigma that people will go into initially. I have my views on that. I'm so sure you do. They normally go that way and people. Do they still want belts? I don't know. They tend to go for the belts. And everyone knows that from martial arts. A black belt or a master black belt is the top.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Then you go into your green down to yellow down to your white. And it's a progressive way of showing that you have reached a certain level of knowledge and ability in Six Sigma. I think the problem for me, and I'm going to, I'm going to let you answer the question, but the problem for me is that it demonstrates that you've done the course. I don't think it demonstrates knowledge and experience in it because it's like driving. You don't get it till you do it. Where are you on this? What do you think about the belts?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the idea of the concept structure is good in that there's a learning pathway, there's a route of practice progression. And the idea being that the more you go up through the belts, the more you learn, the more competent you become and the more you can demonstrate those skills in an environment that requires them. So that's, that's great. On the face of it, um, I think that the difficulty can be that there's no one definition of what a white belt is or a yellow belt, a green and a black. And I think we all have a general idea as to where they sit in terms of, you know, a white belt is the general population. It's a knowledge and awareness belt. It's not a skills demonstration belt. You're not going to learn a skill, another project at a white belt level. You're just learning the lingo. You're learning, where did lean come from, what were the origins, what was the history, what are the belts and some of the language and the concepts of waste and value At a very basic level, then if you move up, you're getting into a place of yellow belt. Right. We're talking about taking on maybe the DIMIC roadmap or A3 problem solving at a very basic level to run a small project in a, a local environment where you're not dealing with cross functional change your green belt, that's where you deal with that. You deal with complex issues that are in the organization for quite some time. You deal with more advanced statistical analysis, you deal with more advanced techniques and tools. And in your black belt, you're throwing the whole thing at it. You're learning a wide variety of skills and tools. But in practice, they say the black belt sits in a place where they are mentor the green belts and they support the running of the project. So it's not necessarily the more difficult project the higher up you go, but it's more the position you fall into. And that's kind of generally how we understand it, um, in my mind anyway, and from what Kind of Raiden and the whole lot. But from a training certification perspective, there isn't one piece of paper that says for a yellow belt to be certified at, ah, yellow belt level, here's what that looks like. They need to demonstrate X, Y and Z. They need to have learned this tool, that tool, this behavior needs to have changed. They need to demonstrate this. And that's, that's an issue globally I suppose. So where you run into trouble is depending on, you know, the different companies that are out there and there's, there's loads of them, you can go to one company and get a green belt that could be a level seven or a level eight on um, the qualifications framework. Right. Pretty good sitting around where your degree, maybe your master sits at and you could get a really good quality green belt that's quite robust and comprehensive and you get a certificate from an awarding body that is recognized and that's really good. Or the other side of it is you go to ilovelean.com and you get a green belt after two hours of watching a YouTube video and uh, multiple choice exam, you know, so how do you stand those two up beside each other and say they're both qualified green belts and they're both competent to go into an organization and run what we expect them to do, which is a large scale project that is of significant importance to the company and the customer, you know, so I think the lack of the standardization, um, funnily enough, we don't have standardization there exactly. At a global level or even national levels in different countries. You know, it is, it is ironic that, and I suppose back when it was in its, in its infancy, you know, and it was within the control of the Toyota production system, I'm sure they had standardization, I'm sure they knew exactly what it meant and everybody had a very clear understanding. But as anything grows and evolves, you know, I suppose, not that it's diluted, it's its purpose or its intention, but there's just been different interpretations of it over the years. So for an individual that is looking to take on an academic journey with Lean, I think that's something they have to be really, really mindful of is, you know, at what level Take the belt as the first point of view and say, right, what kind of belt am I looking at? But then look at who am I going to learn from, you know, what are they giving me? What are the, the elements of the course that I'm actually going to get and take away afterwards and will that be recognized by anybody? You know, Anybody, um, can print off a certificate and sign it and say, you know, that person signed me off. But if that person isn't recognized as an expert in the field or, uh, linked to a, uh, recognized accrediting body, you know, it's not really much good to you. You'd still learn. I think there's still learning there. But if your goal was to improve, enhance your career, certifications and accreditations do matter to a certain extent there to demonstrate the learning.

Speaker A: It's hard, isn't it? Because if you're someone that's invested your career, many years of your life into this stuff, and you're a great example of that, to have somebody go off and buy a blue stripe, green belt or black belt off of ilovely.com if that does exist. By the way, you might do good training on ilovelean.com, i don't know. But we're just making it up, right? But if you go and buy that for, you know, under quid, and then you get this certificate of a little gold stamp in the corner for me, it diminishes the value of what you learn. Can you imagine going to, going to a martial arts class, right? You walk in on the first day and you're ready for your first lesson and you're in this dojo and then they go, right, watch these videos. And you watch a load of YouTube videos and they give you a multiple choice question at the end and they go, right, black belt for you. Then you've got all the question. You walk out of a black belt tied around your ghee. Yeah, it's the same sort of thing really, isn't it? You don't learn until you apply.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Belts give you the foundational knowledge, they teach you the language and the methodology. But it never runs like it does in the textbook. No, you can't say that's what it was. So now I'm going to go and run a, you know, a Anishikawa. I'm going to do it with this team. It doesn't work like you'll spend three days debating what titles you're going to put on. Um, on each part.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: And it's not the same, is it?

Speaker B: And that's the thing I say to all my students with the tools in particular is yes, we're going to learn them in a particular format and yes, we're going to run through a methodology because I think it's like anything, like learning to cook. You need to know the basics, you need to know the raw ingredients as to how this thing generally works. But then when you're in application mode and you're in an organization and they're saying, well, we don't have six months to do, to make you have four weeks or you have five, you know, whatever it is, I think any of the tools that are there are there to be picked up to support you, to understand. And it's all about understanding, understanding what's going wrong, what's the impact on the customer, on the business. And like you say, if you had five days to solve a problem, you'd spend four days understanding it and then it would be very clear what the solution needs to be to solve it. You know that we jump to solutions too easily, but with the tools, they're there to be used to support you, to understand in whatever way suits you. Like they don't have to be used in a certain order, in a certain way, at a certain point in time in a methodology. Yes, you learn them that way because you're learning the broader picture to be able to run like an improvement project end to end, or you're learning how this, this, this tool or technique works in the broader sense. But for individuals, I just say to people, pick it up and use it whatever way you want, adapt it whatever way you want. You don't have to do it the way it's done. I'm a big fan of that and I love when I see people, when I see assignments coming in and there's some adaptions done or there's some inspiration here, but it's slightly different. It's fantastic because that's, that's the essence of it. It is. If you take the continuous improvement term, it doesn't matter what we're doing, as long as we're trying to do better every day. Whatever tools help us to get that way is great. It just so happens that Lean has a whole toolbox for us. That's, that's, that's, that's purpose built and tried and tested, but it doesn't mean we have to use it exactly that way all the time.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was kind of, it's that perception, isn't it, that I must do it this way, I must do this, must do that, and people get stuck in it. From the other side of things, though, I, I've been into organizations and I've actually worked for organizations where the senior leadership's perception, perception of the belts has actually changed the way that lean and continuous improvement is adopted within that organization. And I'll give you an example. There's one company. There's multiple companies actually, but the one I'm thinking of, their senior leadership basically saw people with green belts and black belts as program managers and project managers.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they would give you solutions, identified roll this out projects, and expect you to go off and do it. But because you as a black belt or a green belt, that means you're an experienced project manager. And there's nothing more disheartening and frustrating as a, uh, you know, an experienced practitioner of continuous improvement than you're given a solution and told to make it fit.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And there's a couple of things in that that, like, it's just so funny because that, that is the reality in an awful lot of cases. And I suppose the thing just from the lean learning perspective, it's, it's something that comes up all the time. A lot of programs are designed in that you go through your learning, and as you're going through your learning, you're running a project. Because the idea is that the individual gets the learning and the company gets the project and gets the win. Right. And there's an investment in the learning. The company pays for the learning for the person, and they get a project back and they might get 10, 20, 30, 50 grand back in a saving or an improvement for their customer. Right. And that's, that's one way of teaching, and that's fine. But in that instance, we're expected as an individual to learn a new skill set, apply it. Right. Because these aren't small projects that you're probably running, but you need to be a project manager, and lean doesn't teach you how to be a project manager. The amount of people that have come to me and said, I'm thinking about doing project management, will I do your lean course? And I'm like, no, it's a completely different discipline. Like you go over and do prints, two, go over and do PMP or pmi. You know, do those disciplines if you want to become a project manager. They're two very different things. Um, but I think we've been caught as continuous improvement professionals where we've had to wear both hats and we've just done our absolute best to manage projects. And that's been my career. I'm not a project manager, but I'm very organized and I filled the role of a project manager on all the projects that I've run. But then when I see an actual project manager at play, I'm like, oh, geez, I don't have any of those skills at all. They're dealing with Way bigger things. You know, they're really looking at risks, they're really looking at budgets and constraints and dependencies. Whereas we're over here going, now in this phase, we just need to do these three workshops and if we can organize to get these people in the room and project manage that, then we're flying it, you know, and, and then the other side of it, as you say, you become the person that just gets responsible for roll out, roll out of change. Because you did roll out of change as part of a continuous improvement project one time, you know, um, whereas again, that's a very different skill set. And in Lean, typically, yes, you will learn some change management aspects, but the change management is massive. That's a whole another discipline in and of itself that requires the right skills and there's loads of models and loads of supports there to help change management. And if you're doing all of that in the corporate world where, you know, it's busy, it's busy environment, you know, expectations are high, you know, numbers are looked at, there's a lot on there, there's a lot on the shoulders of the CI person that's just learning their skill at yellow or green belt level.

Speaker A: It's hard. It's a lonely position to be in half the time because of the, the frontline folks don't particularly like you if it's not been rolled out properly because they feel like you're sort of carving their jobs up and, and the people above you don't particularly, uh, welcome you of open arms because you're not delivering money quickly and you're just sort of stuck in this limbo, aren't you, in the middle? It's a real tough role. And I, and I do think that it's down to people like us to change this perception going forward and real really say, you know what, I'm not a project manager and if you know the solution, I've had this argument, give it to somebody who can roll it out. Just because you've done 25 minutes as part of your black belt course on change management doesn't make you a project manager. Yeah, there's definitely a massive gap I found in all of the lean courses or the Six Sigma courses in particular that are related to belts that I've looked at their curriculum. Very few of them actually focus on people. They talk about tools, they talk about methods, talk about frameworks, all of these words that switch people off, but none of them go into depth on the people side.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that opens a big question as to what does the organization want, does the organization want to be just delivering projects and hitting numbers, or does the organization want to create a culture where. I've said this a few times, if you were in an organization that fully embraced the continuous improvement spirit and the culture of Lean, you would say to yourself, right, Imagine you come into work, you know what you need to do today, you know how to do it, you have the tools in front of you to do it. And if anything happens along the way that's not quite right, or some problem pops up, you have a mechanism and a support function to be able to problem solve that. Like, that's, that's the dream, you know, that that's a lovely place to work. And if, if that's what organizations want, then it's a different type of learning and it's a different way of learning Lean, and it's very much on the culture and the behavior side. Whereas if organizations are looking at it from an efficiency perspective, and I'm not necessarily saying the reduced jobs perspective, because to be honest, I won't even entertain that conversation, but if they're looking at it, if their view is to be able to get more to our customers faster, we need to be more efficient, right? If you're taking the customer value perspective and saying, well, let's get it out faster to them and let's create efficiencies, and they know that there's, there's probably some redundant tasks and stuff happening and they want to do projects to fix all that, that's, that's another way to do it. But that's just fixing the problem one problem at a time. It's not. And you're fixing the problems that were created probably 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that have built up and built up and built up now to the point where the whole thing is breaking, that you have to fix it, and you fix that and you'll go in a firefight. But if you're not changing the culture, there's new problems that are starting now that will be a problem in five years time or six years time that you have to do this all over again. So you're constantly in that mode. So I think, I think there's place for, for both approaches at certain points in time. But yeah, the better thing would be if you can do both, if you can have the organization, cultural change and have that, uh, that engagement across your organization while also systematically changing some of the really big things that just need to be changed, you know, for everyone's benefit, then, then you're flying it, you know, but that is, that is hard.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's rare.

Speaker B: It is rare. And with how businesses go and how leadership teams change and the cycles, you know, CEOs, every three or four years, that, that type of cycle that can go on, you might have someone at a CEO level that is fully on board, has done lean in another company, is there 100%, this is the way we're going. And you go hard at it for two or three years and then they move on and the cycle changes and you know, what's required of the leadership team and what the shareholders want is different at that point in time because the context we're all living and working in is different. Uh, you know, and the economy drives an awful lot of that. Then you go a different route and CI gets thrown out the window, you

Speaker A: know, uh, so often, doesn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah. Because you see, you see a department will be created. Like there'll be, you know, finance and operations and all these departments and then there'll be a little department for CI and a few, few green beds and black beds, siding there, you know, doing Trojan work, doing their absolute best. But then when the shit hits the fan, I suppose it's true, you know, they kind of. First thing is let's cut CI department because all these other functions are really important. Whereas if your CI was everyone's responsibility, it just becomes ingrained in what you do and how you work. And uh, it takes serious leadership to make that to work effectively. Still to, um, come on the Eversolene

Speaker A: podcast, it's not engaging and it's not designed with the user experience.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very blunt with people. My students, you know.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: M. Almost too blunt. You know, I'd be saying to them, like, lads, that's never gonna happen. You know, says it in the book. Never gonna happen.

Speaker A: I get so paid off. Sometimes you go on YouTube and LinkedIn and there's some utter crap that is spouted by people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they create little. They don't create them, they get chat GPT to create these little visuals that uh, infographics that uh, are factually incorrect. And it's absolute crap. And it really annoys me because people will take that as gospel. They go, oh, yeah, that's how you do it.

Speaker C: 13 time Shingo Prize winner Dr. Jeffrey Leiker and Toyota Kata author Mike Rother have created the improvement kata and coaching Kata, uh, online course. This inexpensive, this immersive, compact program is designed to transform your thinking and approach, making you a, uh, highly skilled learner and coach. Engage in deliberate practice to turbocharge your progress, you also get lifetime access to the materials, including all of the bonus interviews. Uh, why pay up to 10 times the price elsewhere listening to some consultant when you can gain direct insights from the masters themselves? Skip the rest and go with the best. Join us today and embark on, um, your journey to excellence. Just click on the link below to start your journey.

Speaker B: Want to take your leadership, team performance and business transformation to the next level? Then it's time to think differently. With lean thinking and a people centric focus, we reshape the way people think, lead and um, perform. Because where people thrive, performance follows. Visit www.eversoleane.com.

Speaker A: Are you ready to elevate your team's ways of working? Are you seeking fresh insights and growth opportunities? Our experts will assess your team's practices, providing valuable insights for improvement and celebration. Reward and recognise your team with this certification. Tailored specifically for creating an improvement culture, the BQF Academy accreditation acknowledges your journey, outstanding outcomes and future plans. Whether you utilise lean six Sigma, project management or continuous improvement techniques, this certification celebrates your incredible work and positive impact. Propel your team's performance to new heights with the BQF Team Excellence Culture certification. Visit www.bqf.org today and let's celebrate your success together. Yeah. Someone said to me the other week, like, you've been doing this for a long time. Like, you know, what's the biggest thing that bugs you about what you've done over the last 25 years? And I say the biggest thing that bugs me is every day of that 25 years I've been trying to justify my existence. Like all I do. You don't get like a plant manager go in and have to justify that they have a plant manager. You don't get cleaning staff going and justify that. You have cleaning staff, you don't get shift managers go in and justify that. You have to have someone managing the shift. But if you're a continuous improvement leader or a change manager, you have to justify your existence every minute of every day.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think for me it's been decision making or lack of decision making has probably been what I've struggled most with with this work is when you go through analysis. You know, you define measure, analyze, you do all the work, you do the investigating. You're saying, here, here's the evidence, here's the data, here is what I'm recommending. With all of the knowledge that we've put into this, and you know, we've been doing this with multiple people across the business for the last six months. And maybe an investment is required, maybe an investment isn't required, but there's. There can be fear of decision making, of making the wrong decision, you know, and again, in different organizations, depending on where they just come out of, where they're heading into, what their strategic objectives are, there can be fear of decision making. And that can. I find that can be the most disheartening for a CI professional is you've done all the groundwork, you know, in your heart of heart that it's the right thing to do and it will make such a big impact for your customers, for your staff, but you just can't get it over the line. And I suppose going back to the, the belt's perspective and the formal training and that, and when you do training with a project, I see it all the time. I could have 100 students doing projects and of course probably 50%, maybe more, um, will come to me and say, but Stacy, the report is due, the assignment is due, project's not over the line. And I'm like, yeah, that's, like that. That's. I know. You know, that's the reality now. I don't let them worry about it. They still have to tell me. I, uh, said to people, but if you get the green light, what are you going to do? What's the plan? You know, what is the plan? You still, you still work that through. But that's, that's been the hardest part for me, I think, is the not getting the decision making at the right time.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's frustrating is probably the, the politest way of putting it. Yeah, it's the frustration we were saying before about the, the governing bodies and how there, there isn't a, uh, governing body of continuous improvement. There are all these other bits and bobs knocking around. There are some good ones out there that are credible. And what I've noticed, and it might just be me, and I might not have noticed it before, but I've noticed there's a lot of universities now and you lecture on a part of it, don't you? Yeah, that there is, there's lots of universities that are coming on board with this now, and they're either teaming up with consultancies that offer this to give some credibility, or they actually run courses and offer qualifications themselves.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it is. It's great because again, that brings the robustness. So if you're, if you're looking at a university, you know, and you look at how do they justify their courses or what is the Evidence of learning there. You have things like in Ireland, it's the National Framework Qualifications. I know in the UK you have the, it's rfq. Um, and you kind of have eight levels, we have ten levels that will bring you right up to your doctorate. We'll say, um, so if you're going through a university and they're taking that on board, you have a system there that says this is what this person should look like, you know, when they come out of it. Um, and if you look at how courses are designed and developed in universities, it's quite a rigorous process as you know, some of the recognized awarding bodies. You can't just throw in a course and hope for the best and teach. You can't just say, I know all about Fishbones, so I'm going to go out and teach it. And um, that's not the space for that. But as you look at the different levels as well within those frameworks, you know, and you start to look at some of the language that's used to describe the learning outcomes and what's going to come from it, like if you're down the lower levels, levels 1, 2, 3, you're looking at having a knowledge of. Right. And that's, that's quite general. If you move up through the levels, you're looking at demonstrating a broad range of knowledge and a broad range of skills and then if you move right up the top, you're looking at a systematic understanding of knowledge, being able to critically assess and understand and synthesize information. So there is, there's an awful lot of benefit to universities coming on board with this. I think from an academic perspective and for the people that want the robustness of the learning and want certification on their cv, they might have a career path in mind they want to go. And that's part and parcel of it. Um, same for some of the organisations that take this on board and put people on these courses. They want to know that they're getting the best learning for their people so that they can apply it and take the learning back to the organization. So it's great to see universities there. Um, so yeah, as you say, some universities will build and design their own courses. They'll bring people in house to do that. Other universities will partner with established consultancies and training companies that, that kind of know what they're doing in this space as well. I know from our perspective in ul, you know, they're really, really big on the lectures being industry led, while it's an academic course and there's Academic aspects, in terms of, you have assignments, you have due dates, and there's requirements of those assignments that are formally assessed. It's more about the practical aspect of lean and that, the industry aspect of the. I, uh, suppose. How do you apply that in reality? And that, that, that very much works for me in my own kind of, I suppose, way of teaching is. I'm very blunt with people, my students, you know, almost too blunt. You know, I'd be saying to them, like, lads, that's never gonna happen. You know, says it in the book, never gonna happen. And here let's have a conversation about why. And there's learning in those conversations and there's a lot of sharing in those conversations. I think you, you have to not be afraid to say, this is hard, you know, And I think, yeah, again, like I'm saying earlier, if you're an individual looking at training, if you, if you want good training, you need to be looking at the, the certification and the awarding bodies and, and there's plenty of them out there, you know, and, and look at, you need to look at things like, well, what. So what's the level? Where's the level at? How, how high is that? Is it degree level? Is it master's level? Um, is it lower than that? You know, what's the level? And then what are the credits associated with that? And the credits kind of generally equal your hours of study and demonstrate how much you would have put into it. And you kind of have to just trust then that the academic system is robust. You know, it's designed to be robust to say that the assessment methodologies and the way that you're being assessed is robust and comprehensive enough to. Then when you get that certificate and you get that piece of paper, it does actually mean something.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, uh, completely agree. So I have courses that are accredited by two different bodies. And for me, as a, as a business that is giving that training, I have to demonstrate that not only is the body of knowledge that I'm teaching reaching their high standard, I then have to demonstrate that my testing process, so my assessment process, how do I monitor, uh, the coursework element, how do I give feedback? All of that is measured. So I think if you want to do your belts, look for an accreditor that is of high standard and got great credibility. But then look at the consultancy company or the training company that you use. Off of them, you've got peace of mind that they are very well governed because they have to meet that high bar as well.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm in the same Boat. My courses are quite double accredited as well. So we have partnership with UL to accredit on the NNFQ at level 8 and we have CPD accreditation as well. That's been worked through for the courses. So both of those, you know, have a framework and like that you'd be the same. When you're starting to design a course, you have to put down like a description of the whole thing and you've to really think about your learning outcomes. So what is going to change as a result of this training for the individual? What is the learning going to look like? And then, right, that, then you decide, right, that's what we want them to learn. And then you go, right, well how do we test that and how do we assess that? There's, there's an assessment methodology behind it and you go through that and you work that out and then you look at, right, well how are we going to deliver the training to be able to achieve the learning outcomes and then effectively assess it and then you say, all right, well what are the resources that are needed to support the learning? Be it in the classroom, be it online, be it self guided, whatever the methodology is that you choose cues for the learning, there's a huge amount that goes into that. That's not a small piece of work. And I've gone through it at all different levels on the NFQ with different governing bodies. On one hand, as a, as you know, as a consultancy provider, you're kind of going, oh God, it's a pain now to have to go through this. But on the other hand, you say to yourself, you know what, actually this is really good because this is forcing me to make sure that what I'm putting out there is of really, really good substance and quality. And these guys are the gatekeepers of that and they're going to hold me account to that. So yeah, whether it's a university that you go to or whether it an individual company, um, consultancy firm or training academy, it all comes back to, yeah, who are they governed by? You know, what are the awarding bodies? What, what's the certificate going to say at the end of the day for you as an individual? I think that's just, it's so important. A lot of work goes in behind the scenes to create those courses. You know, an awful lot of time

Speaker A: and effort as a provider. Uh, it's not a copy and paste. If you've got virtual classroom, face to face classroom and self guided, it's not copy and paste. For all three deliveries of that green belt course no, it's not. Yeah, it's a totally different way of delivering that information. If you do it face to face, you can use lots of activities that you know, get people engaged and involve games and stuff. If you do it on a virtual classroom, you've then got to create different types of games that people can play to keep them engaged. If it's self guided, it needs to be self explanatory. It's got to be sort of really simple and that's hard like to create all three versions.

Speaker B: Yeah, like Covid hit us hard. I felt with Lean in particular, like Grant, we all had to move to online training when Covid hit. But Lean in particular I found was very hard because I found myself saying how am I going to do a process map with, with these people? How are we going to do a fishbone, you know, digitally? And then you move to like sketchboards and virtual whiteboards and all that stuff. And I like tried all the tools to be honest. Some of them I just find they're, they're not even worth the hassle of doing and you don't, you just don't get the right outcome. So you do have to consider, yeah, in an online environment, uh, or as you say self guided, self paced, where people want to learn in their own time and not come into a classroom for the learning, how do you make sure that the materials they need and the information they need is there and readily available for them to take on that learning themselves? Yeah, yeah, it's hard. And I think I'm probably going to preempt your next question, but I think that brings us on to a good question around accessibility and inclusivity. I think there's exactly big piece there that, that um, still needs to be navigated. You know, I think from I don't know if my Lean side still early days as in, I don't, I don't necessarily see all the training providers going out there updating all the training, you know, um, and updating all their systems to make their training more accessible and, and all that. But if you look at the way learning is going and the context in which our lives are in, you know, it's fast paced. You know, we're all consuming so much information, so much media. I think you were probably saying it on the last podcast you had on as well. Like you know, you could be sitting there watching the tv, you're on your phone, there's, there's the radios on over there and it's all really, really fast. And that's like some of Us, maybe our age and upwards, you know, we're used to an older way of doing things and we're used to the textbooks and we're used to that type of thing. And some of us still want the paper to be able to learn and consume, whereas the, you know, the next generations are just, they want, at their fingertips, they want it now, they want it on a podcast, they want it, you know, while they're out running or they're at the gym. They don't learn in the same way. And if you look at even the way things are going with microlearning, you know, there's so many apps out there around, uh, microlearning, you know, listen to this 15 minute kind of piece of learning to get something into you rather than sitting down and taking on a three, six, nine month course. I think there's a lot of thought to be given to, if we're, if we were to not, not teach lean in the way that it's traditionally been taught in the belt structure with the project application, with the to make roadmap. If you were to not do that, you know what, what does lean teaching and learning look like? You know?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really good, good question. What does it look like?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Where can this go? It's hard to think of. I'm trying, I was trying to think last night, I was trying to think of like a, a similar sort of thing that's progressed and maybe ahead of lean and continuous improvement in terms of how it's moved on. And I guess like you go from jumping out the traditional safety training, it was just such boring questions. I remember riddles, learning about riddles. My God, those boring thing in the world. Used to do it every year. It was a refresher and then it moved to like videos. He'd watch little videos and they got cottoned on to people. You just go next, next, next to get to the questions. Whereas then they stopped you being able to press next text and you had to watch the entire video all the way through. And my wife, she looks after children at the weekend in like a social care environment. And then, um, she had to do this, this training on what? You know, first aid for children if something comes up.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm sitting there watching this training and I'm thinking, this is absolutely horrendous. Like, horrendous. Like I'm sitting there thinking my training is far better than this kind of stuff. It's not engaging and it's not designed with the user experience. Yeah, part of it. Yeah, it's designed to lecture a message.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Not.

Speaker B: And it's gaslight. Because isn't that just lean all out? Like if the, the process, the product service isn't designed for the end user, for the customer to give them the most value and the way they need it, you know. And um, you see there's a lot of examples nowadays of augmented reality playing a part in sops. So you'll see, um, someone might come along to a workstation and there's you know, kind of a projector overhead and it's, it's video relaying over the process for putting something together or whatever.

Speaker A: It is brilliant.

Speaker B: And you can follow that and that, that's really, really cool and like really kind of, you know, up to date. But then that person, if they're going in a training course is going backwards and, and not getting that, that learning experience, you know, slides, you know that. Yeah, there's, there's an awful lot to be done. And is it learning in the belt structure, you know, yellow belt, three months black but or green belt six months black belt a year, two years. Is at that, that length of learning sustainable over time? It brings you back to a very good question of is there a continuous improvement cycle to be done here with, with lean training and lean learning? You know, and I think there is. And we mentioned earlier about modern lean and the 2 second lean and that approach. And again back to the behaviors. Like a lot of the, the people I talk to, uh, in industries. It's struck me when I went out with Canzo myself last year and I kind of, for a couple of years I had been out of the, the lean networking and stuff. I was just, just busy, you know, working in uh, coven and stuff. A lot of the, the conferences and stuff like that just, just kind of died away for a couple of years. But last year I really got back into it and started asking a lot of questions of businesses. Like I'm going to be coming out now with my company, like what do you expect? And a lot of them said we don't care about the tools, we just want the behaviors. We can teach them the tools ourselves, we just want the behaviors. Um, when I was starting to put the training courses together for Canzo, I really like had to think about, yeah, what is my take on lean? What am I saying here? Am I going down the, to make route? Am I going down the behaviors route? What is it? You know, And I kind of settled on my description of lean being three things. Like lean is the people aspect, the culture, the respect in the workplace. Right. That that's one part of Lean that is so important. There's a second part of Lean which is the problem solving, the DIMIC, the A3, the DEMADVIES, the roadmaps and that's the big projects that need to be done in big environments and they have their place and they're very good when they're done. Right. But then the other side of it is just efficiency tools. So your handbags, your jit, your tools that are there that they don't have to be done in the methodology, they can just be rolled out. And I think that's where the 2 second lean sits very well between there and the culture. I think that that two second lean piece is bypassing the methodology in the demaic in a sense and saying well if we just do loads of the efficiency all the time and we have a culture, have been able to do that quite regularly and we support that and enable that, then we will reduce the risk of getting to the place where we need to bring in the big guns and roll out the methodologies. You know, so there's. Yeah, uh, there's a lot of that movement is happening and I think better overall, I think is more encompasses the original spirit of what was there from Japan and, and the idea of that contin improvement in a way that works in their specific environments.

Speaker A: Do you think we over complicate it?

Speaker B: I think I have no regrets about the learning pathway I took right in that I got. My first introduction was a green belt. It was a lean Six Sigma green belt. It was very Six Sigma M heavy. Definitely challenged me on the data analysis side. We were using jump, not minitab at the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Loads of new skills. I was a total nerd for it. Loved it. Right. So that was great.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Really soaked it all up and really got into it and then went on to mentor, mentor on that course, you know, for years and just consumed so much of it that I feel that was a really good basis for me as an educator in Lean and I went on to do the black belt as well. Um, and kind of get, get a broad range of skills as well. And there's a lot more of those manufacturing type kind of tools and efficiency tools in that space as well. So that's put me in a very good position as an educator to step into any industry and educate effectively on what lean is and, and be able to flex and adapt and understand the lingo of the processes of any industry having directly worked in it.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So that's ground in my Career progression. Um, if I was someone that wanted to be working actively in an organization on Lean all the time, I think probably 70% of what I would have learned, it would be redundant.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, but I, I think myself, I will always say it's still good to have context in the background. And I, I, a person that likes, know the ins and outs of everything. So the context was all there, the building blocks were there. But if I was actively practicing running Lean projects in an organization in the morning, I wouldn't be pulling out the full roadmap, I wouldn't be pulling out all the tools, I wouldn't be so rigid in the application. And that's something I've had to think a lot about from Canso's perspective. If we're going in, doing consultancy work, how does that roll out look when I'm going into an organization? And it's, it's, you know, it's very much the pared back version. And I think you really have to understand the context of where you're at. You know, again, understanding the problem, the impact of the problem. And that's something I feel is missing an awful lot. Um, is the quantifiable impact of a problem to even know that it's something we're going after in the first place. I think it's great people putting their hand up and saying, be great if we do this. And I, uh, hear an awful lot of wouldn't it be great if cool? Like that's grand. But is there a problem to be solved or is that just a really cool idea? And Lean is all about solving the problems and getting down to the real root cause and eliminating the waste and stuff that all goes with that. So the definition of the impact of a problem I think is really important. Um, but are we over complicating it? I think it depends on the organization and the context in which Lean is to be utilized. You know, I think, uh, if you want to be an organization that has a culture of continuous improvement, bring it back to basics. And there's a lot happening in Ireland with Lean Tours that organizations are now opening their doors and saying, we always want to be tour ready. We're so confident that our standards are, you know, the way they are. We can bring people in and showcase it. And you know, some of the tours you'll see, they'll tell you from the very first moment you step into the business, they'll say, we started in the toilets and the kitchen and that's where we set the standard and the behavior for what was acceptable in this organization then when people were able to clean up after themselves properly and put things back and keep the place neat and tidy, then we brought it out onto the shop floor or then we brought it into the office. I think there's, there's an awful lot to be said for that. And there's, that's where we're seeing a lot of that success with the modern lean. Um, particularly in Ireland at the moment. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: We used to spend weeks preparing for people to come and visit. You had someone coming to visit, but for two weeks you'd be cleaning stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You'd script every member of staff that might bump into that person. This is what you say. You'd roll out the storyboards. It was a pantomime, absolute pantomime. And, and I'm same as you, I, I absorbed, I got well into it. I came in through the WCM route. So it was like world class manufacturers. It's very lead orientated.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we, you know, we were given lecture notes that were Japanese, translated to English slides. Didn't make sense where they translated it. It was a mess. You had to decipher what it all meant. And back in them days Internet was fairly new. You didn't have YouTube and stuff to get any knowledge from. You just had the original like Womack and Jones and the uh, Toyota Way from Jeffrey Leicher. You had those books and you have to read them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it was a real different way of learning. And I just look at my kids now and I think if my kids in 10 years time had to take my learning journey in this subject, would they stick it? And I don't think they would because

Speaker B: no, I don't think so.

Speaker A: They're different. It's different now.

Speaker B: But you know what I think is the context in which we're all living is different as well. And it's. When I get a new cohort of students in, it's probably the first thing I say to them is, you know, to put you at ease, you all, you've all opted to take on a piece of learning at, you know, at university level. This is not a small piece of learning. And we all have families that are our number one priority. We all have jobs that take up a significant portion of our time and everything else, you know, families, events, occasions, everything else, financial stress, all that stuff is happening. And now you're going to do a level 7, level 8, level 9 course on top of that that requires you to do X amount of hours of study. Here's all the books that you need to read. Here's all the videos to watch, you know, and I say it to everybody. Look for coming in the door. First and foremost, hats off to you because that's not a small thing to do. And yes, it's going to be hard. Yes, there's a lot involved. But I suppose the way I see my role is to facilitate that learning journey for people and to be as supportive as possible. And I think there's, there's probably just on the learning perspective and facilitating learning. There's probably just a bit of a difference between someone who's very good at lean and is a subject matter expert that's thrown into a classroom to teach people versus someone who's an educator and is aware of educational styles and learning styles and all of that and how to manage a uh, learning journey that's also, you know, a subject matter in a discipline. And I think just, I meant to say that a while ago that's something just to be mindful of as well is who are you learning from and what are their credentials to be a teacher as well. We can all go into a classroom and talk about Fishbones for the day, but how do you know the person on the other end is. It's as I say, it's not about what I say, it's about what you hear and what sticks with you as an individual. And huh. That's, that's really, really important as well. So yeah, if, Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: I, I get so peed off sometimes you go on YouTube and LinkedIn and there's some utter crap that is spouted by people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they create little, they don't create them, they get chat GPT to create these little visuals that, infographics that uh, are factually incorrect and it's, it's absolute crap. And it really annoys me because people will take that as gospel. They go, oh yeah, that's, that's, that's how you do it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And there's, there's AI then in the conversation, you know, where, where does AI play its role? And I was only preparing for the next semester there last night and on the learning platform, doing my little bit of a blurb on AI as well to say, you know, my thoughts on it are, yeah, it can help research, it can help your learning, it can support your learning, but it can't be your thoughts. Thoughts, you know, your own thoughts are yours. What, what you interpret and understand and how you contextually apply that information is yours. And that's what needs to go down on your assignments for your certification, you know, that's. Yeah, that's what I want to hear is what do you as an individual think, um, based on everything that you've learned? So I think AI will play a part for sure. And the likes of ChatGPT can help you to refine and understand information, can disseminate down information. But for you then to be able to take all of that and decide how best to apply that, uh, in a given situation, that's the gold, you know, that's. That's what your organization should want from you, is they have the basic skills and they have the groundwork, but they have the context. They know how we're operating, they know what's important, they know what our challenges are and they're seeing the best way forward with utilising lean.

Speaker A: Right, Stacy or Taycy. Well, it's time to move on to the yes no game. It's your opportunity to put Ireland on the map.

Speaker B: Oh, uh, God.

Speaker A: This is the moment you've been waiting for. It's the people listen, just for this bit, you know that they actually skip to this bit of the show. So the way this works, I'm sure you've heard it before, but is I'm gonna play, uh, you some really scary music. Whilst the scary music is playing, I'm gonna ask you questions and do my utmost to get you to say the words yes, yes or no.

Speaker B: Okay?

Speaker A: And your simple task is just to not do that. Just don't say yes or no. I'm not completely cruel. You do get to choose the subject and you've got the option of card. 1, 2 or 3. Fancy 2.

Speaker B: Go down the middle.

Speaker A: Go down the middle. Yeah. Middle for diddle number two is creatures of the deep.

Speaker B: Oh, God. Yeah.

Speaker A: Doesn't really matter what the subject is. Just don't say yes or no.

Speaker B: Yeah. Doesn't matter what the answer is.

Speaker A: No, it doesn't matter. Just don't say yes or no. If you hear the gong, that means you are out and you did say yes, no, or a variance of yes or no.

Speaker B: Okay?

Speaker A: If you hear cheering and clapping, that means you lasted the full 60 seconds and you're a winner.

Speaker B: Excellent.

Speaker A: Right, are you up for this? You ready for this? So just do not say yes or no. Okay?

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Right, we are locked in, loaded. It's Stacey's time. Can she put Ireland on the map in the yes yes no game? Stacey, where does the reported Loch Ness monster live?

Speaker B: Scotland.

Speaker A: Yeah, Loch Ness. What colour is the sea?

Speaker C: Blue.

Speaker A: What does whale spell?

Speaker B: I don't fully know what that spell

Speaker A: is there sunlight in the midnight zone of the sea?

Speaker B: I have no idea.

Speaker A: Even. I had to think for a minute. I. I thought you said something then, but did it click? And I'm trying to think it through. I'm thinking it through. And she did definitely say no.

Speaker B: Yeah. No idea.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I had the other no in my head from the previous question.

Speaker A: Ah, they did really well.

Speaker B: Yeah, that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yes.

Speaker B: Serious questions. Jesus.

Speaker A: They were good questions, actually. I don't like the sea. I'll be honest with you. I've got a real thing. Like, I don't. We don't know what's in the sea.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I don't like it. It gives me. Gives me the willies. I'm not keen on the sea. I'm not. Yeah, I. I do know. My worst nightmare is we. When we was in Spain, we'd go out on, like, the little pedalo boats and it's got a slide on it.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: You slide out and you land in the seat. But, you know, you look down because you can see everywhere. You can't see the bottom.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's just this, like. I just. I just feel. I can't stand it. I feel so exposed. And I literally go down the side and quickly climb back up. Like, it's not for me at all.

Speaker B: A little bit of seaweed will touch off your leg and your stone. Yeah. No.

Speaker A: Yeah. I can't be doing with that. Put me in a big swimming pool and I'm fine because I know what's in it.

Speaker B: Put you in a controlled environment and you. You operate just fine.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, Stacy, so where can people go to learn more about you and Canso if they want to look at some of your courses or where they can see you in person?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So our website is www.canso.ie and that's k a n s o ie. Um, there's loads of information there about the courses. To be honest, what I'd say is I'm always open for a chat about Lean, Podcast or otherwise. I'm always happy to chat about it. So if anyone doesn't necessarily have an intention to buy anything, I'm not bothered about that. I'm more interested in just having a genuine conversation with someone that wants to learn or understand if there's a pathway for them. So always open to those conversations. We're on LinkedIn, quite active there, and sharing my thoughts and information around all things Lean.

Speaker A: Right, Stacey, thank you so much. You've been an absolute superstar and it's been a pleasure having you.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Speaker A: So m my key takeaways then, from my conversation with Stacey. Lean is more about people than it is about tools. The tools are brilliant and they have a place and Lean wouldn't be lean without them. However, you have to start with people. It all starts and begins with people. Because if you haven't got people engaged and involved and participating, you're not going to generate a culture and you're not going to create that longevity that you want from your Lean or Six Sigma program. The belts themselves signal learning, not mastery. They create a structure that can be followed for that learning path. But in all honesty, the real learning doesn't start until you apply. It all comes through application. What runs smoothly in a classroom or online, if you're doing your course online, very rarely translate to that smooth process when you go to apply. And the reason for that is because it's real life. People are the biggest variable that you'll come across when you you use any kind of continuous improvement without any of this, a belt just becomes a badge rather than a measure of impact. The same belt can be vastly different, dependent on where you get it from. And this creates confusion, confusion for employers and confusion among people who are taking part in the programs themselves. My advice to you is go with one of the reputable recognized providers. That way you've got confidence and you know that what you're learning is the right thing to be learning at the right time. And my biggest bug bear of all is Lean roles are so often misunderstood. Quite often, as Stacy and I discussed, people that have got qualifications in continuous improvement are used as deployment managers to roll out solution already identified projects. This is such an underutilization of the skills of a continuous improvement practitioner. It's waste number eight under utilization of skills. And that's exactly what's happening. If you have a team available to you of CI experts, the real value in those people is them being able to use the right tools at the right time to identify solutions to problems. Building a culture beats project to project improvement. Now what I mean by that is if you build a culture, it survives. You create other CI practitioners, you build confidence and you create longevity in your business. It creates a culture. If you're only looking at project by project and there's a team that are released to do this, and when I say released, I mean released from their day jobs, they're going to get quick, quick wins, but they don't survive and rarely does that help create a culture. It's a slow start, but momentum builds very, very quickly when it's done in the right way. Engage people, involve them and empower them to solve problems that bug them every single day. And lastly for me, we got to walk the walk. Talk about continuous improvement must evolve. We must evolve in how we deliver the learning, how we frame the learning, and who we're delivering that learning to. Gone are the days where we read textbooks from COVID to cover. We now have an on demand. We have a society and an infrastructure around us that gives us the ability to be able to get answers very, very quickly. What that doesn't do is it doesn't take that human side. It doesn't help us understand what we're seeing, why we're seeing it it and what's occurring within our own individual environments. That's where we come in. So use the tools around you. But as providers and coaches, we need to adapt and move with the times. There you go. That brings us to an end of this episode of the Ever Saline Podcast. Thank you so much to Stacy for joining us today. She was an absolute inspiration. Some real good insights offered there and some great advice. If you are looking to get into continuous improvement or Lean Six Sigma and the belts and some good advice to follow. If you're looking for more inspiration and guidance to drive performance in your organization, head over to eversaline.com there you will discover our tailored leadership and operational excellence coaching. We've got consultancy services and we've got a number of accredited programs including belts, hands on workshops and inspirational keynote talks. All designed to empower you and your teams to build that bridge to high performance. Take a moment to like and review the Ever Saline Podcast because it makes a huge difference. I'll see you on the next episode. And don't forget where people thrive. Performance follows. The Ever Celine Podcast is researched, produced and recorded by Matt Sims. Visit eversolene.com to find out more.