Empowering Teams Through Behavioural Change: Inside SSEN’s CI Journey

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to PMI's Leading for Business Excellence podcast. I'm Rich Seddam, CEO at PMI M, the performance improvement consulting and training firm. This podcast in our series brings you inspiring stories from across the globe and a multitude of sectors as leaders share their experiences and insights into how business excellence has helped them achieve outstanding results. Talking of outstanding results today, I'm delighted to be joined by Alex Donaldson and Ben McCready, process improvement managers and um, winners of the BQF excellence in continuous Improvement Award from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks which is part of sse. Sse for those of you don't know them, ah, are the leading generator of renewables and flexible energy and one of the world's fastest growing electricity networks companies. Alex, Ben, I'm absolutely delighted to have you with us. Perhaps we could start by uh, you introducing yourselves. Alex, could I ask you to go first?

Speaker B: Yep. Um, hi everyone, I'm Alex Donaldson. I worked at national uh, Express previously, uh, where I worked in service delivery and transformation and then business excellence which is probably really where I found my passion for continuous improvement. I moved to SSE about two years ago now as process Improvement manager.

Speaker A: Thank you very much. Um, Ben, would you like to introduce yourself?

Speaker C: Hi, yeah, my name is Ben Macready. I first started working for SSE 22 years ago, uh, this October I think. 23 years in October. Uh, initially started off in customer service and I've worn a number of different hats since then with uh, complaints teams, team manager, summary billing teams. But about 10 years ago I was uh, asked to be part of SC's first um, foray into continuous improvement and have been involved in continuous improvement ever since and have been with the network side of the business for the last three years or so.

Speaker A: Okay, fantastic. So in my intro guys I mentioned that you were uh, the uh, winners of the uh, Excellence in Continuous Improvement Award. First of all, congratulations. Would you guys start by taking us through the project, uh, give us a high level overview of the project that you entered for the award. So we've got something to anchor the discussion off today.

Speaker B: Yeah, so um, what we entered the award with was a program called perform, which is a, ah, behaviour change programme. It's delivered in 12 week waves and we target individual business areas in turn. Um, so over the 12 weeks managers within that business area are introduced to 10 elements that will all support them and help them to help their team to really be at their best. And through perform, each manager within that has their own dedicated coach from our team, the PERFORM team, who helps them to sort of implement whatever that element is. So for example, it might um, be huddles or we do a standards and process check suite where we introduce standard ways of working for some of the key processes. Coach will work with the manager to really take the principles from that element and then figure out how do we best use this to support you and your team and really sort of tweak it to make it personal to that team.

Speaker A: Okay, so I'm really interested in diving into some of the detail on that and also I think some of the outcomes and tapping into your collective experience to share with our listeners. Um, you know, what the challenges, what were the successes that you guys had? And also uh, as award winners, your top tips as well I know people be very interested in. So before we get to that though, Ben, could you give us an idea of why you, what the driver to start this project was? And in other words, what was the problem you were trying to solve?

Speaker C: Yeah, of course, the energy industry, the energy distribution is where we work. So basically at risk of teaching people to suck eggs. We are responsible for moving electricity uh, around various areas of the country, making sure it gets to your homes. Um, anybody take a look around their home and compare the number of appliances and electrical appliances that you have in your home today to what you would have had even 10 years ago, but certainly 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. The amount of electrical appliances that everybody has in their home now is massively increased, which means that demand for electricity in our homes has increased as well. What that means is that we have a network which was originally built an extremely long time ago, but uh, is trying to deal with modern demand. Um, and so what that means is that means that there is a need for change and the need for change to happen quickly, um, but to happen as efficiently as possible as well. And looking around ssen, it was felt that we weren't perhaps as ready as we could be, um, for the change that was coming. Certainly not for uh, it to happen at the scale and at the pace that we're going to require it to happen as. And so really what we were looking to do was was to empower managers and empower their teams, um, to not be victims of change, I guess to be complicit and to be part of change that was coming. And their day to day performance is something that they can be in control of, that it's not just something that happens to them, but that they had the ability to be able to be in control of some of those things. And um, perform was a set of tools that we could use to help facilitate that. So by taking the managers through step by step, by helping the managers take their teams through it as well, we were giving them a set of building blocks to be able to cope with that change without that necessarily being the headline of what perform was.

Speaker A: That's a really useful, uh, really useful summary. One of the things that struck me, um, Alex, just to come back to you, almost your first words you said in describing um, perform was it's a behavioral change program. Why did you pick those words?

Speaker B: I guess because it's not about it being. It's not about let's just all get together and do this project. It's about having some sort of sustaining, lasting sort of change that is about the way we work and the way that we're going to work from now on.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And so that's why it's more behavior changes. It's really how do we. We've got um, what we call critical behaviors at sse, which include accountability and empowerment. And it was really thinking about how do we actually make those become more than just something we say we do to actually how do we help managers have the structure and the way to, in the way they work to do that? Makes sense.

Speaker A: Yeah, it does, it does. And it's interesting to hear you describe it. And I picked up on it specifically because it's fairly unusual for people to start from that angle in this field. That could explain why you've been successful of course. Um, and you guys know what it's like. You, you get a tool in your hand and it's uh, pretty intriguing. You want to go, every problem looks like a nail, doesn't it, when you're equipped with a hammer. And um, there's a tendency to become very tool focused. And I think one of the causes behind your success in my opinion has been that recognition, this behavioral change program. And Ben, you mentioned it also in your description there, uh, describing the background that you know, this is about taking the audience with you and taking the team with you because ultimately, let's face it, it's not successful nor sustainable if you don't. But it's amazing how often that's missed in change programs. Um, um. And you know it's, it struck me from day one that you guys were uh, approaching this from, from the right angle and from, from a different angle.

Speaker C: But it's a, it's a different, it's a different approach to how I. Perhaps so when I was first taught continuous improvement a uh, decade ago now, continuous improvement was small projects, it was small, sort of 12 weeks, a three type methodology.

Speaker A: Uh-huh.

Speaker C: Diagnose the problem, get in quick changes to process and out you go again. Um, and that's sort of what I thought continuous improvement was for the longest time, even right up to getting the job in network sort of three or four years ago. But what working through perform has, has helped me to see is actually there are, there are other applications of that learning, there are other ways that you can use that. And perform is as much a continuous improvement project as any change to processes that I've made in the past. You are still determining the problem. You are analyzing the problem. You are um, determining what the root cause is. You are working with a team of SMEs and experts to try and understand where these issues are occurring and to try and um, uh, to try and find a way to spin up potential solutions, sizing those solutions and then going out and trying them. And if they don't work, you go around that loop again. And it's not something that I would necessarily. And indeed when perform started, it felt like I was being asked to do something different from what continuous improvement was. But the more time you spend with it and the more you're sort of engaging with that uh, process and the methodology that we, that we have in place, the more you sort of start to realize that actually uh, this is just a continuous improvement project and not just perform as a whole, but each wave that we're doing with each area of the business is a mini continuous improvement project. Or uh, um, like improvement events happening, but consistently happening one over the other.

Speaker A: Take me back then to uh, you've described the problem that you were trying to solve. Take me back to the first days. What did first contact look like with the teams that were going to be involved and who were those teams?

Speaker C: So we started off with our connections and engineering department or C and E is what we refer to them as inside. Not the most imaginative of names, but C and E. And they are our front door for a lot of customers, uh, coming through. If there is a job that's required, if there's a new electricity connection that's required, or wherever it is, the connections and engineering department is where our customers tend to come to. So there is a lot of work coming into that department. They are, um, uh, there is communication coming in by email, by telephone, there's a lot of calls back. They're having to deal with payments and things. There's a lot of different work types in there. So it was deemed to Be a good place to start. We thought there was a lot that we could do and obviously in terms of sorting out the process downstream made sense to start with that initial part. Uh, and then if what they're passing on is clean, then you can go on to the next step in the chain and look at improving that next step in the chain as you, as you move on down. Um, initially there was a lot of resistance from the business. An awful lot of resistance. Um, had uh, HR were involved, we had unions involved at points and what we were. So the reason for those teams involvements was basically that one of the elements of perform that we introduce is a daily huddle. So every single day ask the teams to get together for 15 minutes a day and to talk about among other things, how they're feeling, if there are any comms that the team might need to be aware of, but also to discuss their performance. Uh, not necessarily from a, uh, from a performance management point of view, but more to sort of say what was it you were intending to do yesterday? How did that go? Did you manage to do that or not? And if you did manage to do it, what went well? What can we all learn from you and your good day that you had yesterday? And if you didn't manage to um, to complete what you wanted to, what got in the way of that? What stopped you doing that? Is there a problem there that we can go off and we can solve? When it was first communicated to teams, I think that the message that they heard was you're going to have to justify your performance in front of everyone. And obviously that caused an adverse reaction from the outset and so there was some reluctance from the business. I think the key thing in that first trial was that we didn't let the quality of it drop. We didn't say, okay, yeah, you're probably right, okay, we won't worry about doing that on this occasion because I think if we had done that first time in that first one, it would have been really easy to not have that again in the future and to keep making that concession. But that engagement with the numbers, that owning of their performance from the follow up from the previous day, sorry. And being able to look at it objectively and say my day went as I expected or it didn't go as expected. And I know why that was, is such a key part of perform and about them being able to take control of their performance. And so we held that line and we were strong, we were determined, we kept on making sure that that was what they were talking about. The elements that we wanted them to talk about in the huddle. But what we also made sure of, and the bit that often gets forgotten, I think is we were celebrating those successes and we were making a really big deal about when went well. But we were also making a really big deal when the things didn't go well. But they were able to tell us why and they were able to identify those opportunities and give us some things as a team we could all then go away and try and find a solution for in the future. So it was rocky, the first one. That might be an understatement, but it was absolutely worth sticking with. And by holding that line and being clear on what it was that we wanted to do and what it was that we wanted to get out of that, it made it much easier to stick with those activities no matter how much uh, how many barriers were put in the way.

Speaker A: And you know, it's interesting you say that because I, it's not an uncommon situation to, to encounter that, but for me it's, it always strikes me as uh, you know, poor science if you haven't, if you haven't gained the evidence base in the first place by at least trying. And you know it is difficult because obviously pragmatism is an important part of, of application. But there's certain things that you do need people just to give a, give it a go, make it a safe environment. And you know, the situation of hesitancy around it is, that you describe is um, you know it's disappointing isn't it? But not uncommon and it's certainly not unique to your environment. Thinking about the furthering this concept of uh, communication, it's something we hear a lot about from uh, customers. How much of the end to end program, so the 12 week view did you reveal uh, up front, how was that story told?

Speaker B: You reveal pretty much all of it up front. Really. It's not a secret because we would get all of the managers that are about to go through the program together for a two day bootcamp where through a simulation um, we would take them through all of the elements that they're going to go through, introduced at a really high level and sort of bullet point, you know, the key messages I guess for each element and then they would take those messages, use them to apply to the simulation um, that we're going through in the day and then hopefully leave the bootcamp, um, feeling um, I guess less scared of what's to come. Because they've got that understanding, they should be able to talk to their team members about actually what perform better is and what they're going to be going through. Hopefully a little bit excited about the opportunities that the, you know, it should trigger some thoughts, I guess, as you're going through it. The aim is that you're already starting to think about, oh, how could I use this with my team and where might I see benefit in this? So by and large, it's not a secret what they're going to go through. We try. And it's a really fine balance between not overwhelming people and giving too much information all at once. And sometimes I would forget that at bootcamp. Um, that actually that's not that week's element. And you need to find that level of what is the level of understanding that we want them to leave with.

Speaker A: Particularly when you get someone that's engaged on a particular point or is interested in a particular point, you do have to strike that balance, don't you? So I'm really interested in the simulation you mentioned there. Uh, tell us a bit more about that. What's that look like?

Speaker B: So that is, I mean, Ben loves getting into character for, uh, this simulation. Um, but we tend to, tend to have a CEO whose main aim in, in life is to make lots of money. And we essentially work through where we split the group into teams and every team is, you know, a team of that business. And then they get to make decisions and make changes to the. They essentially process insurance claims.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And it's quite painful. And the first, first round of the simulation everyone absolutely hates. And then they're all instantly coming up with ideas of improvements they can make and then we gradually sort of make those. There's always a bit of competition between the teams in the room and we try as much as we can to link it back to the theory of the elements and try and sort of get people to think about how can they use that specifically to actually drive improvements.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay, fantastic. And I often describe that as the simulation type exercises as being useful to develop the social proof. Um, and you're trying to get people to understand that, um, you know, that context by telling them about the whole journey and then applying it within a sim. Yeah. Seeing it applied within a simulation that is safe environment. And I have to say, um, I'm a big advocate of revealing the end to end story. Um, I think drip freed processes are proven to be flawed. Yet we see, we do see people trying that quite a lot. And to be honest, I think if you flip around as, ah, you guys clearly do naturally, and you think, well, here we've got a pool of talent here who know these processes much better than we do as CI people. Um, and what we're looking to is to tap into that knowledge and experience rather than you guys tell them how it should be done. For me, why wouldn't you tell them the whole story? The drip feed approach, I think, um, you know, it's a bit. It's a bit like sometimes, uh, maths used to be taught. I'll just teach you these parts of the equations, then when you, when you do your A levels will tell you the rest. But actually, you do need to understand where you're heading sometimes to know whether you're on the right track.

Speaker B: We had that. That was a lesson from one wave, actually, which Ben and I were both on, where we didn't do a bootcamp because we were trying to do a faster version of the programme. It was just before Christmas, so we thought better time to start, um, a wave. And, and we don't have time to get everyone together. And actually just meant that every week of the program, you're then trying to still do that scene setting and context setting that normally is just done at bootcamp and everyone's on the same page. And then it really slowed progress down. I think I would say by not doing that day and a half up front, it just made every week more painful after that.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. That's interesting lesson, isn't it? As well? If you, if you've got a theory and you think something's worked, maybe recognize what has worked. Yeah. Cool. But it's, you know, it's a natural challenge that people encounter, isn't it? Why wouldn't you want to do it faster? Can you smooth stuff out? But the fact is you tried, it didn't work and move on and put it back. Yeah, that's okay, isn't it?

Speaker C: What we've actually, uh, been doing in recent boot camps is we've expanded the boot camps a little. So the boot camps used to just be team managers, the people that we would be directly coaching through the program. And then a lead, a sponsor or something like that would normally come along as well. But for the last. Probably for the last year or so, I would say we've been inviting some team members to come along as well. So that, uh, there are, uh, advocates in the team that can help to sell that throughout the team as well. It's not just the manager who spends all day every day saying, do what I've asked you to do, delivering that message again, but you've got someone in the Team excited might be a strong word, but who knows where we're going and what we're going to be doing to get there. Who then can also act as an advocate for us and the manager as well as the program as a whole, throughout the whole team. Sometimes that's a deputy, sometimes that's ah, just somebody else from the team. But that also helps us out where we are. A fixed 12 week program and some of our staff selfishly have outside lives. Um, if they need to take leave or something like that, it makes sense to have someone there who has seen that full picture, knows what it is we're trying to create, and can help to continue to drive that even when managers happen to be off.

Speaker A: Um, so, um, you think about challenges that you've experienced and encountered along the way. Um, give us an idea of some of the challenges that you've uh, come up against. You talked about the initial skepticism and how you breached your broach to uh, that challenge. What have you come across and how have you dealt with them?

Speaker C: So one of the challenges that we've come across I would say we probably didn't realize was a challenge at first until someone else was watching us deliver the training. It might have been in a bootcamp, actually, but it's a 12 week program. And so it's a little bit like being in groundhog Day every 12 weeks. Because what happens is you're coming, you're coming in contact with a group of people who haven't been through that perform journey. But we as coaches have been through that perform journey on a number of occasions. And so what happens is as with Change curve, whether you like Z Model or Change Curve or House of Change or whatever it might be, there is often a drop off. The enthusiasm for that change isn't present all the way through. And so what happens sometimes is that we'll go in and we'll do the bootcamp and we will explain the change that's coming up and some people will see that and go, yeah, that's worked for all those other places, but that's not going to work for me. That's not going to work for my business area. That's not going to work for the way that we do things. And what we found is that we were over justifying and trying to over answer at that moment in time, right at the very start of the project. And it was described to us as we sounded a little bit like we were trying to sell a secondhand car rather than, rather than trying to introduce this is this program that we're going to be trying to take you through. And we were doing so much trying to cover it, and the coaches all felt so passionately about it. And everybody's seen the benefit that can be got from this, that, uh, it's coming from a good place because you want people to be on board from the first moment. But I think what we learned from that was you have to give people the space to be able to go through that change in the way that they want. That there is, there is no golden sentence that you can say in that moment that's going to change their mind and make them get on board with that change. Um, what we had to do was be patient, let them feel insecure about it, let them feel worried about it, let them think that this wasn't for them. But knowing that we've given them the picture of where we want them to go, of where we would like them to be in 12 weeks time, if we genuinely believe that we can get them there, that the lead has called us in because they believe they can get there, that then that's enough for that first step of the journey. And if they want to be on it at the moment or they're not keen on being on it at the moment is neither here nor there. What we need to make sure is that they just keep taking those steps forward. And as long as each step is followed by another, followed by another, followed by another, we get them there. And we always get them there. With very few exceptions, we always get them there and to get to the end of the program. And they can't believe how far they've come by the time that we finished. But it's, it's important that they have that moment to not feel secure about it and to feel worried about it and to be able to work through that with their coach in their own way rather than us trying to convince them en masse in that first meeting that this is the right thing for them to be doing.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I guess it's, it's part of the refinement of your own consulting and coaching practice, isn't it? That, uh, that is great to have your eyes open too, because. Especially when, as you say, every 12 weeks you're starting again, of course you know what you know and it's difficult to keep track of what your audience know at the same time.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. We said trust the process a lot as well. Because I think as a coach you can, uh, you sit there and you're hearing all the reasons why something won't Work. And it's easy to start thinking, actually, maybe it won't work for this person.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: But actually, no, it will work. Uh, you just, you know, there's maybe some adaptations you need to make. Make. And I'd say for me, that's one of the biggest challenges is really figuring out how. What's the sweet spot in the huddles in terms of KPIs and things that will actually make that huddle useful for that team? Um, it's m. Not something that always you get right immediately. You really have to sort of figure out what are the things, what are the topics and how do we arrange it so that. Yeah, they're getting utility out of that. That session.

Speaker A: Yeah, because the teams you've been working with on that point, Alex, have been very different, aren't they? But it's not it one set of standard measures that you're, uh, rolling out, as is sometimes the case in a diverse workforce. You know, a remote operations team, every team has something that looks similar. That's not the case in your world, is it?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And some of the teams are, you know, very data driven. Like the contact center, for example. There's data on everything in terms of the phone calls, the number made, the days we spend on responding to things and things like that. So. And that's all at your fingertips. But then some of the other teams that are maybe working on, for example, our system planning team, are creating really long, complex documents to support engineers on how we're going to deliver a massive project. It's about then think, okay, what are the milestones within that, uh, what can we talk about in a huddle that's useful for that? So, yeah, really sort of varied work types, but it does work.

Speaker C: You've got some people who sit like me most days we're sat in front of a laptop. And so a huddle for those teams is quite easy because you could do that daily. Everybody's in pretty much the same space. Whether you're in an office or at home, like Alex is, you're in front of a laptop, you can have that meeting. But then we have our operational staff. Um, we operate regions in the north of Scotland and the south of England. People who are out obviously, keeping your lights on all day, every day, who are going out and responding to emergencies or to planned work, and they aren't at a desk all day every day, or they aren't necessarily at a place where they're going to have phone signal or Internet signal where they can join a huddler, a Set time every day. And so what does huddling look like for those teams and is it appropriate every day? If it is every day, do we expect everyone on it all the time? So it's about being flexible and about adjusting to, to each team that we're going into as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm being realistic with that stuff, isn't it? Because I remember the very first time I led a project, ah, similar to yours, um, was with a van based service field team in the utility sector. Those problems came up. How do you ensure, do we take people off the jobs? Do we say you're not fixing that customer's immediate problem? And it's about being practical and pragmatic with that. The answer I always gave was if the, if you make the huddle matter, it will happen. And we need the right people, whoever those right people are there and attending and then running and, and yeah, it takes maturity and practice, doesn't it, as well, to get them really, really embedded in so that people do value, value them because it's how they do their job, not because it's another thing I need to do as well as my job.

Speaker B: If that makes sense. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker C: Continuous improvement. Right. It's, it's the same. It's one of the big things that I've sort of, that's changed in my way that I look at things, I think over the last 10 years is it's much more value driven now. What is the value of this thing? And does the value of this outweigh the value of something else? And obviously if you're doing it. Exactly. Yeah. But uh, if Mrs. Jones is sat in the dark and is worried and is cold, having a 15 minute meeting probably isn't more valuable than getting Mrs. Jones's supply back on. But actually if we've set Mrs. Jones up with a generator, uh, and everything is okay and everybody is comfortable and everybody is safe, that 15 minute meeting might help to get Mrs. Jones back on or might help someone else who's struggling with their own version of Mrs. Jones. There might be something we can share in that place. So everything is a value proposition. And is there more value in this thing than in that thing? Or as you say, in nothing at all.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Thanks for that, guys. So let's think about successes then. Um, first of all, big question. What's the business got out of this? What's been the difference to the business

Speaker B: customers responded to more quickly? So I guess lots of stuff from that sort of productivity point of view. Then other benefits. I'd say some of people's general pain points through work have actually been resolved, or they feel able to resolve them now, rather than just sitting there saying that always happens, they're actually sticking their hand up and saying, this isn't working for me. This is slowing me down today. This is getting in the way of my work. Or they're actually talking to the manager about, how can. I've got an idea for how we fix this. Can we do this where I think they wouldn't have before? So we do a survey in every wave as well, where we survey all the people that are basically getting touched by perform, um, in that wave, and then we survey them at the end as well. And I think there's a big difference there in the way people answer questions. Like, I feel like I know the pathway to solve problems.

Speaker C: I think a really big improvement that I, uh, uh, don't necessarily know that I would have expected to come out of it is just how connected or engaged to the company staff feel as we're coming to the end of perform. I think it's really easy to undersell the importance of that. And I know we've spoken about the huddle a lot on, um, already on here, but the huddle is really the central part of it. It's where a lot of the things come out for the team. Team. But having that 15 minutes of uninterrupted time a day with your manager to talk about what's going on and to be able to say, these are the problems I'm having, or this is what I'm doing well, or this is how I feel today, or this is what my capacity looks like. It's such a simple thing, it's such a seemingly small thing, but it makes a huge difference. And I think that staff engage better with us as a company as a result of that, because the managers are able to own those messages, they're delivering those things to their staff themselves rather than it being on an email or it being just unspoken about. They've got that opportunity to really engage with their team and to be there for their team uninterrupted for 15 minutes a day. And the fact that they're all together and they're all doing that and they're all sharing in those things, I, uh, just think makes a massive difference to the way that the team then go about their work in the future as well.

Speaker B: Even the team. Sorry, I was just gonna say even the teams that are based in the office together, often they'll say, oh, we don't need to huddle because we Sit next to each other. But then the difference that they see as well on that connection point that Ben talked about, you know, they actually are, uh, communicating more and about different things than they would be and in a consistent way where everyone's getting that same message rather than it being, I don't know, I heard it from such and such. Or sat next to them in the office, so.

Speaker A: Or yet another email.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And, you know, the thing you're touching on is sometimes the, uh, you know, one of the unmeasurable elements of a program like yours, where problems avoided are really difficult to measure because they've never happened. Yeah. You know, it's some measures, you can see it, you know, we've got less error rate in whatever the process may be. But that communication you're talking about, that improved and consistent communication, which fundamentally is the underpinnings of performers, that, uh, you've got errors that never happened and you don't know they never happened because they never happened. Um, that stuff. So the other thing you struck me, just while it's on my mind as well, I'm writing thinking that you introduced a structured problem solving approach. Didn't you as well? Tell us a bit about that, because I think that's something that people are often interested in and it's the step that people often don't make.

Speaker C: What we do in perform is A three. No more difficult than that. Um, we spend a week on it, same as with every other element. We teach the absolute basics of A three and what you need to get into a problem solving session. So we start that prep work with the managers. Well, actually as coaches, we start that in our diagnostic weeks before the problem even begins, when we're in with the managers learning what they do, what their teams do, talking to the teams about what, what they like about their role, what they don't like about their role, about what's easy, what they find difficult, um, and everything up until the week beforehand. Then what we're starting to do as coaches is put together. Where do we think there might be opportunity for change? Where do we think some of these, um, root causes might be coming up? What are the processes that we might be able to highlight for something we can tackle in a problem solving session? When it comes to the problem solving week, we teach the managers A3 methodology. By that point, we will have worked with them to have a problem statement ready and to understand the current state and the desired feature state as well. So that what we're then Doing is we're working through, basically we're working through with the teams the root cause analysis and then generating some ideas for improvement as well. We teach them, um, fishbone diagram and we careful to refer to it as fishbone diagram and not Ishikawa trying to strip out as much of the jargon and Japanese words as possible because we're not taking them through a green belt course. It's literally a, you know, how can you take your problems from being a problem you don't know how to deal with to having some potential solutions to that? And then we take the team on the exact same journey. The team have an hour where we take them through problem solving and then we encourage the team managers. Every single week from that point onwards, there is one hour in their calendar at the exact same time every week. That is an hour just reserved for problem solving. And that isn't everyone in their team on every single session, but it is making sure that all of the team members have that time booked out so that we don't. They're not booking other things over the top of it. So that if it is, is something they're interested in or it's something that we feel like they can make a difference in helping us solve that they can come along to that session, they can be part of that session.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So it is one of the few elements that we do the cascade with the team members as well. So it's not just the managers that have the training, the team, their team, um, members all go through that as well. And then, because then we also look to elect a uh, problem solving champion from the team. So someone generally tends to really enjoy it, gets a bit passionate about it. We get them involved as a champion.

Speaker A: So thanks so much for your time today guys. What we've heard here is about your value driven, human centered CI program perform and how you've improved engagement, interfaces and ultimately service for your customers. Thanks so much for sharing your insights, your lessons, your challenges. Uh, it's been great to have you with us. Thanks both.

Speaker B: Thank you.