Inside NHS Leadership: Driving Everyday Excellence - with Richard Best, NHS

Speaker A: Thank you for joining PMI's Leading for Business Excellence podcast. We talk with great leaders who share their experience and um, what business excellence means to them. They share inspiring stories and this episode is a fantastic example of how to inspire change. Hi, I'm Susanna Clark, Managing partner of pmi, the performance improvement, consulting, training and apprenticeship firm. Uh, and today I'm joined by Richard Best. Talking with Richard is like enjoying a, um, masterclass in improvement. It's really interesting to understand what's inspired him and what's influenced his leadership style and those things that are shaping the great results he's achieving in the nhs. It's a wonderful demonstration of how rewarding and joyful this improvement work really is. I do hope you enjoy this episode. Thank you for joining me, Richard, today. It's really great to have you on this podcast and I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Speaker B: Thank you for uh, inviting me, Suze. It's really great.

Speaker A: You're welcome. Um, I'd like to start off with just, if you could just introduce yourself to our audience, um, a bit about who you are and what you do at the moment.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, I'm Richard Best, I'm um, Director of Improvement at ah, University Hospitals Plymouth. Um, and also have a role now nationally for specialized commissioning, which is very new and interesting. Uh, I've worked mostly in manufacturing industries for 22 years of my working life and some really great experiences and for the last 20 years have worked in healthcare in operational or improvement roles. Uh, more recently just working on a management system and lean based system of operational excellence, uh, called People First.

Speaker A: Fab. Thank you. Um, and you know, interesting that you've had both the manufacturing and now a healthcare um, career I'd like to start with sort of really. What were the pivotal learnings, inspirations that you've had that have guided your career to where you are today?

Speaker B: Yeah, there's quite a few. So, um, very early in my career I was exposed to quality circles at British Aerospace and M. I'm talking very early, I'm talking, uh, 19, 84, 85, 86, um, and really quite loose arrangements about ideal quality. But I was very lucky to work after that for a really great employer. I don't mind mentioning the name if that's okay. Clark Shoes, Um, uh, which invested, I would say really great training in staff. So there I encompass. Actually it's not just a plug for your company, but that's where I first encountered PMI and the uh, 500 series and process leaders. But also it's where I encountered performance associates and management coaching, um, and that was really influential to me. And later on I think my other third really big influence was meeting Mike Rother at a Lean Lean Enterprise Academy event, um, and listening to his story about Toyota Kata and a, ah, subsequent workshop on it. And uh, I think all three of those have been really beneficial in determining my approach um, as opposed to my knowledge. But actually what affects your style and what affects the way you are? Um, I found them really, really influential.

Speaker A: So can you tell me a bit more then about that? So, so, so what is the style and what is it about what you learned through those different examples that have informed it?

Speaker B: So I think the 500 series and I think you, I think there's still some dusty manuals sat in a cupboard somewhere that um, describe uh, them and I know they might be, seem quite dated but they're actually fundamentally demaic and really interesting around how detailed you can be and what you can learn from real data and proper process. Um, I've always thought things can be better and things should be better but it added a skill and a way of thinking. In some ways it's almost templating the way you think. Uh, so for me it added a lot of skill and insights and real deep thinking. And I would say ever since I did that 500 series I've always looked differently around process and data. Um, and obviously I've done subsequent courses and more information but it actually, it really added some structure to an innate sense of surely this can be different. Which very much. When I first did Quality Circles, um, it was quite a rambling, qualitative, conversational, not necessarily database. Let's get on with these three things. Whereas actually the process leader series really informed me with uh, very decent approaches and tools, um, which uh, were really beneficial and actually subsequently applied. So if people looked at my CV they suddenly realized it turned from a storybook into a data book. This fact, that fact, this improvement, this percentage. So it really changed the way I both view myself and our way, the way I view leadership and management.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can really sympathize that for someone who works in pmi. You know, it took me a long time, a relatively long time to get the process question to really see work as a process. Once as soon as I got it it was like oh my goodness me, okay. And the number of times I now sit and listen to people talking about all of the things that uh, they're doing, you know, and people are super busy doing some really wonderful work but they still can't get. They can't get the work right. And I know that if I simply say to them it's because it's not defined as a process that's not going to be sufficient, that won't land with them because there isn't a single sentence. You need that experience, like you've said, of, of all of that, bringing through the complete change in thinking.

Speaker B: So I, I completely agree and I guess if I went on to my second, what I thought was my second most important influe, it was working with Sir John Whitmore and uh, uh, David Hemry. Um, applying coaching to me was a vital skill alongside process knowledge and statistical knowledge. So you can be a really great analyst and improver, but can you, um, help people in a daily workplace in their context, in their language and help them? So what I learned from Performance Associates was, uh, the grow coaching model and it was, by the way, it was really fab to be coached by people of such a high level and blessed. John McMoy is now late, but it was really great to have both their input and the seriousness of their input invested. So let's talk about the principle. A big company, a relatively big company might not be big by all standards, not big by the NHS standards of 14,000 employees, training most of its senior management throughout the organization. You know, a real great investment. And not just any bit of coaching done by what I would consider is best in class. And I've found it really pivotal, bit like the process leader moment. Pivotal in. This is just a really great way of having nearly all your conversations. Yeah, you can't fit in all the time, but a really great way.

Speaker A: And the um, and the productivity that you get out of it is, is transformative as well, isn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess it goes to that patterning again over mindset and approach, which is go reality option will, you know. And actually what it's actually seriously templating is scientific learning, but actually which I learn later. So to me it's really, really important.

Speaker A: Yes. And watching leaders who have those skills and I think, um, many leaders have coaches, but many leaders aren't good coaches themselves. They haven't had that skill developed. But when you come across someone who is, it's a whole different way in which they work with everybody. And, and you're absolutely right that your point about how you then build that into this work, this business excellence, this continuous improvement work is, is fundamental to success.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess this comes back to. Is the task in front of you to improve an individual Project or a thing. It depends what level you look at stuff, and that's obviously important. Or are you trying to change the way the organization thinks and works, in which case your patterning done by your leaders, the behaviors we exhibit. Um, and I fundamentally believe that if you're in a leadership and management role, you are a teacher, whether you like it or not. People will follow, people will admire, people will reflect on how you behave. Um, and it's interesting because I know I've worked for some really great bosses and I know I've templated some of what they do well and badly, but I do, I do think the way you behave and the way you think comes across to everybody. So the more you can make that empowering, which I think coaching is fundamentally empowering if done well actually the better that is for the culture of the organization.

Speaker A: Yes. And that whole philosophy and belief that everybody has it within them to do a great job and therefore the job of you as a leader, as a coach is to reveal that, uh, enable it. Because it's just hidden. That's all it is. It's not that it's not there.

Speaker B: And to me my third example is another, another example of pushing that on further. So I was really lucky to go to one of the Lean Enterprise Academy series of workshops and days where they invited Mike Rother across the uk. Uh, people don't know Mike Rother. Please look him up, he's uh, fabulous, ah, and shares all his content freely. But what I witnessed there and learned there was someone with a fundamental study approach of uh, Toyota and their behaviors and took what I would call productive coaching to a whole different level in terms of not just being one coaching encounter, but actually a structured routine of interactions that helps somebody work on their process. And I've witnessed it in visiting Toyota in the uk. So um, you can actually see the, it isn't just a bit of glossy book that says, oh, this might work if you apply it. If you go back to Toyota and watch and see their organization work, you can see it palpably in the organization. And for me, um, gave me uh, an idea about not just skilling a few people in grow coaching, but actually how um, people on the front line, uh, in charge of process, leading process, can actually think more scientifically and deliberately about improvement in a very regular routine and have encounters with a boss that feels as empowering as a grow coaching session. Yet it's about detailed nuts and bolts of work and to me it's a fabulous tool. We, we do an awful lot of cater coaching Here and try and roll it out. It's still not uniform, but it's actually a really great addition to the Armoury of Improvement.

Speaker A: Okay, interesting. So can you tell me a bit more about that? Because I love that reality of how not only has it inspired you, but also actually you're now using that to make change.

Speaker B: So, um, it's really interesting, isn't it? So, um, why is it difficult when a lot of this stuff is taught in schools, junior schools in America? So why should we find it difficult to apply and work? Well, of course it's difficult to apply because I guess the patterning in the way we think, it challenges that way we think. So it challenges you to see really simplistic, focused and scientific around the thing you're trying to improve in your workplace and not trying to do everything at once, which we all like doing, don't we? So even in our home lives, we'll do everything, ah, all at the same time, but actually focus on one thing simply. So we've created a really simple, uh, only, uh, only done here, probably simple belt system of like, levels of how well you're getting on. Because we also have people doing kata, people coaching kata, second coaches coaching coaches doing kata. And it's all just a big learning pool. Um, and I think, uh, I've lost count of the number of people we've got, but I could probably talk about the number. But we have storyboards in various places that people work on and use. It's not everywhere, it's not the department practice, but a lot of people actually working on their process in a really scientific way. Which comes back to your process leader, which is using data, understanding barriers, working on PDSA style approaches, um, but always being focused on a big challenge. So I think it encourages them to be very courageous and very hopeful about what they can do m. Which I think is important.

Speaker A: Now, everyone who's watching this rather than listening to this, I need to say that there is an improvement huddle board behind Richard Ye. Can you tell me a bit about how you're using that improvement huddle board?

Speaker B: So one is we, um. Before we. So we've got huddle board. It's our standard huddle board that's used throughout the organization, not in every department, but it's the one standard we have. We've borrowed, stolen and learned from lots of organizations on how to huddle. Uh, but essentially for our team, that's our twice weekly huddle board that our team uses to reflect on how they are. The key item, there is a column for all about purpose, uh, and numbers and metrics. There's a middle section which is all about improvement and I call it hope. And there's an end section which about respect and reflection and what went well. And we include a bit of team health. But the middle section, just for your interest, is currently in our team how we're using grow coaching as a team of improvers both with each other and with people when we're out doing improvement. Um, and we've. Everyone's recording their metrics on personal competence. Their view, not my view. So their view about whether they're um, still uncomfortable even in the office environment doing grow coaching or they're feeling really fluid in that and actually have tried to use it with improvers or they're fully fluid and can run through a two way coaching session in 15 or half, 15 minutes, half an hour following the structure and get an improvement out of it. Um, so we're following our own metrics. Uh, it'll probably stay there for another three or four weeks before we move on another topic. But we're also doing buddy work as part of that. So each month we change our buddy, um, and do different coaching with different person but very much expectation to lift the skills of the improvement team. Um, and there will be a different feature I guess in two months time we'll work on something else. But it feels really topical because it was raised from the team as we like to grow coaching in our training day but we don't use it enough. So that's why we're doing it.

Speaker A: Fantastic. I love that. And I tell you something else that I really like. When we were talking about this is your um, the 15 minute piece. So when I was taught to be a coach, um, a lot of the John Whitmore tools and techniques and so on, as you can imagine. Um, and we did it in 15 minute sprints, I suppose you'd call it today when I talk to people about let's do it, we're going to have a 15 minute coaching session. For instance, when I'm teaching others. Again the initial sort of reaction is doesn't coaching take hours? You know, that's what people are expecting. And, and you know my experience is it can be hugely effective done rapidly if you're following a method.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, I completely agree. I'm uh, we, we coach work challenges mainly and encounter challenges. Like I had a difficulty with this encounter. How can I help and think about it differently? Um, we don't do life coaching.

Speaker A: No. All right.

Speaker B: And I think there is a difference. Um, But I completely agree and in some ways 15 minutes is quite a ring to me. That's also the maximum length of which we huddle for. So, you know, so it's, there's something being really respectful, I think, about people's time and improvement environments. So when you go as a guest to someone's productive area, you know, they've also got the worries of theater operations, Ed, uh, lots of areas. And actually, you know, in some ways you are asking of their time and their time is not just a free gift. They have patients waiting, they have their own reports to write, they have all sorts of things to do, they have other staff to look after. So I think you have to be, I think as improvers we have to be productive with our process.

Speaker A: I like that very much. Now tell us a bit about. You've got two jobs at the moment. So let's talk about your original, um, work at Plymouth. I know that you've been doing a lot of work on standardization and the results I think you've been achieving are fantastic.

Speaker B: So I guess the key thing of our learning this year, and in some ways I'll be thankful for my master black belt coaching as well. So I'm, um, not plugging the company too much, but it was great. So thank you very much. Um, um, but most hospitals have a huge admin setup for us. Um, it probably accounts for about a tenth of all employees, so it's considerable. Um, we've been working, we did some exemplar work and improvement and people would identify that easily, how great can we make this office improve? And we did two last year and what we learned was each team have got some really great workarounds and ways of doing stuff. But we have 42 admin teams and every team was doing something different. Every team was in a different work environment and it was quite easy to spot some really great productive routines. And so I would almost call them a process in their own. So what we ended up with after we worked with two exemplars completely different, one surgical, one medical, one linked to cancer, one not, um, we actually came up with a set of what we thought were the best known ways, the standard work, uh, of ten routines, but also the set of the oversight routines. So I guess what really pushed me in my black belt and my master, uh, black belt was not just thinking about the process, thinking about the support process and the leadership routines that go alongside them because I guess everyone works in improvement and we all love it. But then it's quite disheartening when you Go back six months later and find atrophy and it's gone back to halfway back to the old process or completely gone back and it's. You think well why did that happen?

Speaker A: And because also they were so enthusiastic when we did it originally.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and I guess things will resort to the norm until the leadership behaviors change. If people aren't interested in those routines or not interested in dropping into the huddle or seeing daily plan control from an admin team happen and recording data and reflecting on it, they make a difference. So we've ended up with 10 very straightforward from the team. So this has come from people who do the work right, uh, practices which help our admin teams be really productive. And the result of this isn't just money by the way. So there is some big financial saving. It is actually it's better to work in. Teams are happier, there's less stress. But actually patient letters, patient uh, actions are done speedier and we can find notes. One of our big statistics we drew at this we have almost had a competition of the bad. Um and by the bad I mean the amount of filing sat in one small space. Uh we started off with very small metrics like 3 meters a lamppost. We quickly um, came up to the equivalent of one team having um Plymouth is very famous for its ex divers. Tom Daly he has a, the life Center's got a 10 meter board in one office or one set of office. We could stack the paper um flat for 10 meters high and that was the height of the filing. But we've beaten that because on Plymouth hose it's a really lovely lighthouse used to sit on the eddystone called smeaton's tower. It's 22 meters tall, red and white stripes when uh argyle win. It's green and white by the way. So um, uh this is a local reference but in one, one other specialty we found 21 meters of filing. You know and it just, it was almost like um, a symbolic of guys we've lost our process here and are ah we right. So most teams have been really relieved that uh, that pressure of stuff around them has also gone so far to date I think we're close to 700,000 pound of saving in a year and we're hoping next year to make that even bigger. Um and that's by I think cementing our approaches to standard work, measuring it daily, having data teams doing a ah day both daily productive huddles and weekly improvement huddles. Um, but also that standard work around leadership routines. Because if it isn't important to the leaders. It doesn't maintain. So, um, I've taken a lot of learning from that and it's, I think the first time we've properly applied. I would say standard work right across the system. Because if you think about the system, this is a system process of admin, not just an individual specialty because we should own it. And I think we've learned lots and that's what I'm taking into my. Hopefully into my new role.

Speaker A: So just there's a lot of people who will completely agree with this and that they're, that's what they're aspiring to achieve. But can you just give us a little bit more detail on that leader standard work? What is it that you have actually done? And I guess the second question, very bad coaching tool. But is the. And how have you approached it with the leaders to get their buy in? I don't mind which order you answer those in.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, I think the leaders standard work, it's still formative. It's not 100% everywhere, but it's working in most places. What have we done? We just observed from our exemplars what routines and bear in mind we have to. We have a bit of armoury, don't we, as improvers, we know some day routines really help people. So what we created was I think a list of five from the exemplars. We made sure they worked first of all. And we've been quite, I would say just before I talk about the indie routines, I think we've been quite disciplined and fundamental of not being, not going down every rabbit hole, uh, keeping true to some big principles. And it's a bit like when you process map, you process map M the 80%, not every single route down. Uh, by sticking to those, we've been able to communicate quite clearly with all teams. In one or two teams, there's a different routine, only very small. All right. But the five routines we expect teams to do daily plan control, you know, to reflect on quality, safety, staffing, kit and the target number. Every single day takes about five minutes at the start of the day, you know, so what's our routine to say? Are we okay? Are we doing okay? Have we got a plan today? Um, and what did we learn from yesterday? We expect every team to do an improvement huddle once a week with their leader. All right? To really reflect on what they're working on. We expect, um, leaders to have regular one to ones with staff. It might surprise you that in all work environments when people are busy, that doesn't happen sometimes. We've got some terrific leaders, but we've also got some leaders who are really pressed for their time. And sometimes the one to one stop. We expect people to be really clear about the delegation of work. So who's responsible for this, who's doing this today? And the segregation. So for example, we've been much more decisive about protecting typing time. The fact that secretaries can feel important when they put the sign on the door saying protected typing. I'm typing for the afternoon and I'm clearing this work, um, and giving them that importance of time as opposed to just interrupting them all the time. And lastly, and this comes back to the uh, filing dilemma and the office dilemma and how people feel at work doing the UM5s success in their working environment. Make sure their environment isn't a shrine to whatever cuddly toy they've got at the moment, but actually is a really productive flow environment that makes it work. And showing the reality of that and those five routines and I can translate to my manufacturing environment all feel like really productive stuff, but are sometimes inconsistent applied. And so applying them consistently has really

Speaker A: helped us and the leaders buy in. You know, encouraging the leaders to, to make that change.

Speaker B: I would say we've done a bit of two things. Um, one is we've been very lucky that the things that we've talked about are all in existence, aren't new to some teams. They exist in the exemplars in other places and are part of our general leadership training package for improvement. Um, so one is people are encouraged because they see it working elsewhere. And there's nothing like good healthy team competition when they see that actually a certain specialty is getting all its typing out, getting the letters out to patients have reduced over time. Uh, have nice happy staff who are smiling about the routines. Oh, I want some of that. But we've also done some sitting down with leaders as a collective and going, you um, invented this routine but you're not actually practicing it anymore. You know what's. So there's something about um, supporting them as a peer group to uh, help them get to the right direction. Some of that has also been, we've got a dashboard that says, how you doing? All right. So I think a bit of oversight and a bit of encouragement.

Speaker A: Interesting, interesting. Because that seems to be one of the areas that most people struggle with. It's that there's a leadership team where there is nearly always support, but there seems to be sufficient other noise from the non supporters. That means that they stall. They can't get them to move forward.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I guess one of the keys is how far you take leaders standard work. So we create leader standard work at the front line, but the front line's boss needs leader standard work.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And ah, we operate in care groups or divisions, um, to some people. But what's the routine? Uh, I guess if it's not important to your boss, why do you do it? All right, so where's the moment in the day or in the week when your boss comes and reflects with you and go. Actually this is um, how you're getting on with your admin standard work and where is it and can I see it? Ah, those gentle go sees and going out to places actually really reinforces behavior. We're not exemplary on that. We're still working hard at it.

Speaker A: Great. Okay, so let's talk about what you've moved into the national role. First of all, just tell us a bit about, you know, what are the goals of that.

Speaker B: So, um, I won't talk about the particular service, but I've been very lucky to be offered and in the NHS we call it the comments or on temporary loan for three days a week to national Specialized Commissioning. Um, there's a particular area of service which is very important, uh, to patients and service users, but clearly from a high level has lots of opportunity from being delivered in slightly different ways across the country. And the net effect of that is got big waiting lists, productivity, potentially not where it should be, but also it doesn't feel like it's got a learning system environment around it. So I've got a very nice job being able to set up both, uh, a change in how we approach that work, uh, but also, uh, how I create a, and I was about to use the word thrusting, which might be too fast, too far, um, but a dynamic system QI network program around it. So the opportunity for me is how we create and think about really, really early on understanding current state people's individual positions on work and how we create a platform for people to have that sense of we can do something better together. And very much aiming at system, uh, standard work just for the audience. I unashamedly don't use a lot of the jargon. When I work with clinicians and staff, I'll generally use the word best known way, but it is the best known way. I'm quite often challenged about. Oh, but you need to go further. And I don't always go for the golden egg that I don't have. I'll go for the thing that people knows, works and it's the best one. Um, because just actually, even in hospital examples, but even in this example, I know there's a huge potential, just if everybody did one process the same way, everyone would be four times better.

Speaker A: Indeed.

Speaker B: All right, so you don't really have to invent lots and lots of very pushy, edgy stuff. You just have to implement what's being done. And I guess that's my learning from the admin work, which is, aside from helping them with a bit of dictation stuff, we've actually only implemented things that were actually being done in teams, but consistently across 42 teams. So I guess the approach for me is going to be very, it's going to be very principled in terms of data observation, voice of staff, voice of patients, voice of the process in every location, bringing together a big network and how we can capitalize on that to encourage people to face into a system standard work and the opportunities for it.

Speaker A: Yes. So there are numerous scenarios where I see other customers who are in similar situations. It may be that their other offices are overseas or their other plants are overseas, or that they're just all around the uk. Um, but essentially one of the challenges they have is leveraging the, what they've learned in one location, much like your 42 admin teams, but, you know, just on a bigger scale and with the difficulties of travel and location within that. How can you share with us some of your base series for, you know, how will you manage that diverse location challenge?

Speaker B: I, uh, think, um, this is where. And I don't. I'm not going to set myself up to fail here, but, um, I'm quite challenging over. If it's a location and your team, I don't make many allowances for it. If it's a complete difference in customer mix and the environment, because you need to serve the customer and you need to serve the patient. Uh, in our environment, um, if it's distinctly different, then the same thing might not be applied. But if it's just about the way we do stuff and the way we think, then my comment would be, no, it's system standard work. Um, and I think that sometimes we might not stick to that principle. So I guess I have, I kind of have seven prints. And it's not like a golden rule book, but I kind of have seven principles that I always apply. One is making sure that everyone gets that capacity equals work plus waste.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And really making sure people understand and see it. All right? Um, and sometimes we're just so busy in process, we forget what value Is. And value is obviously what the customer or the patient want. And I think understand that. Making sure that the teams that do the work design the work, you know, and actually so their involvement. Um, and I'll come back to the process bits. We've already talked about making sure process thinking and the support and the supporting process and the leadership processes and standard work. So that bundle of three things in there are really paramount in the improvement. I think it's really easy, particularly in this pressure that exists in the nhs, to just do things individually and not just think that actually this admin is being done. For example, our admin program now is touching out to London and other places to learn from the people who are five years ahead of us. But, uh, every hospital has an admin process and we all have the ability to use AI, et cetera. So making sure the process, the standard work is there, making sure that there are leadership routines and that the leadership routines promote good behaviors. So there's modeling. So I think if you put all those ingredients together and they're kind of very large in terms of my approach, but I think being very principled about it, because actually once you start putting data, observation, uh, challenges and opportunities from patients and staff, you've got a rich mix of improvement there. Um, but I think always with that process thinking in the center of it,

Speaker A: I think, um, I mean, I want to come work with you, Richard. I loved your approach to this. I love also some of the things that you're saying that are just describing things in ways I haven't heard before, which is always a joy. Um, I love that. Capacity equals work plus waste. Really. I will be stealing that and using that myself.

Speaker B: I've done. I'll stole it off. I stole it off somebody.

Speaker A: Um, I, uh, wanted to ask you, particularly you mentioned value. I find it interesting that that is often something that people find difficult to describe. What is the value to the customer, the patient? How do you find that works for you in your environment?

Speaker B: This is where the value in having really great people of improvement is helping people see value. Uh, because it isn't natural because people are busy, um, and I would say most staff are busy working in sometimes really tough environments. Not necessarily of all the things that they want and not necessarily with the flow that they want either in terms of. So we all work in constraints and some people do an amazing job with that. Uh, but actually pausing and reflecting on process. So we're doing some work upstairs now just on, um, how we look after medical outliers on different wards. And it's really interesting spot, a really complex process and then go, but which is the value step, which is the actual and ah. I think that's partly the role of improvement, helping people focus on value and therefore also then identify waste.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: It's just one of the key jobs. So it's not easy by the way. So when we process map, it is generally a eureka moment when you actually then go, yep, you've just put five value points. But actually we think there's only one. And we have a really good conversation. It's not about being right and wrong, just the enabling people to think differently about value is part of your process. And so they start questioning, but why do I do those steps? Uh, uh, I only do those steps because you want that piece of paper or that information. But we could do it differently, you know, and actually could we just take it all out or there's a much better way of getting there. And I think there are some really great examples when people really understand value and I in my, in my current initiates about patients, but for customers and design the service wholly around it, then you know, you're getting really slick process and really slick service, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And you're right, that whole also the coming together with the people who are making the. And defining the work that they do and the aha moments of somebody sensing why on earth do you do that? I don't want that. I don't want it like that. It really bugs me that you give it to me like that Is, is um, astonishing that, that from the get go we. It's not natural for those people in those process steps to be together on a regular basis to review how they hand over and what they do.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Yes. It's in. We are. We were talking the other day about the sort of, you know, living in the 21st century with 20th century, you know, management processes and, and 19th century leadership, uh, behaviors and trying to shift and transform all of that to make that more current and bring it up to date with where we are stand and what, what we know about how we, we can work more effectively.

Speaker B: Isn't that the challenge, Susie, for organizations? Because, um, I've witnessed without any improvement, input, some amazing leadership. And what I call amazing is they're very generous to their staff, they set clear direction, but also they have just this innate sense of improvement and making things better. And they create hope and lovely environments around them. And I always come back to hope as the key core of leadership. But I think in most organizations and the organizations I'VE ever worked in making that a, uh, more consistent approach at your front line is the key to unlocking your organization. And I think the organizations that are really great at that and I would say health is in places, but it's not consistent. And there are various ways of doing that. But the teams that really make the way we do business far more consistent and hopeful, inclusive, but also challenging and productive, um, uh, will really flourish. Um, because one is they'll retain staff. Staff will feel great. The people, either customers or patients they serve will be served better. So I think that's the key challenge of this is where is improvement od or is OD in charge of improvement? This is the big overlap because actually the routines we create have such a massive, or can create together have such a massive impact on culture and on organizational success. If we're great at it. And there are some areas where you see it being done really well, it's fantastic. In others that inconsistent, the consistency just isn't there. And you think, oh, that's interesting.

Speaker A: Yes, I think that, you know, you describe it beautifully because the outcomes of people who are happy in their work, motivated and challenged in what they do and look forward to the next day is, is. It is such a gift to enjoy and to give to others. It's fantastic.

Speaker B: My last example probably maybe is um, I was very fortunate to um, run a distressed shoe factory in Exmouth, uh, on behalf of Clark Shoes. It was on kind of its make, um, it happen or we'll close it kind of thing. Um, we turned from a piecework environment. There's only 200 and something staff there, um, but a piecework environment with lots of management to a team self directed environment in about 18 months and became at the time the most productive shoe factory in Europe. And not based on lots of big tech capital investment or anything, based on how we work. Yes, we rearranged the work in place so that people could feel in charge of spaces. But less management and more empowerment, uh, and much higher quality and obviously using the lean stuff to make sure that there wasn't big piles of work everywhere that was partly done badly or great. Uh, eventually the factory closed for all sorts of other reasons, but for two years. What an amazing place to work in where people went home knowing how well they'd done and knowing what they could improve for the next day. Really fantastic.

Speaker A: Richard, that's a great story to end on. Thank you very much. Because I think that really sums up everything about you and how you work and that's, you know, I'm Um, delighted. Thank you again for taking the time to talk to me today. It's been really fascinating.

Speaker B: Thank you, Susan. I hope there's something there of interest to people. So, uh, thank you very much for

Speaker A: the opportunity and I wish you very well in your. In your new project.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you.

Speaker A: Take care. I hope you enjoyed and feel inspired by this Leading for Business Excellence episode. If it's inspired you to think about the challenges you face, then get in touch. You can contact us@, uh, teammi.co.uk or you can have a look on our website for more information. We use our contact form. I'd really love to hear from you, so please do get in touch.