Ep 137 Jared Thatcher (and the Global Lean Summit)

Speaker A: Continuous improvement comes in lots of different flavors and styles. I'm Bella Engelbuck, and I'm inviting you to journey with me to the Edges of Lean. Episode 137, Jared Thatcher and the Global Lean Summit. Jarred Thatcher, welcome back to the Edges of Lean.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: It's nice to have you back. And for those of you who are longtime listeners to the podcast, you may recall that Jared was actually a guest on one of my very first episodes, and we had a wonderful conversation about using Lean in family life and with kids. So I highly recommend, if you have kids or, you know, people with kids, that you go back and take a. Take a. Listen to that show, because that was, um, it was really interesting to me, and I wish we had done it about 20 years earlier in my life.

Speaker B: There's a lot of relevance right between the two.

Speaker A: Yeah, always. Always. Now it's grandkids, so. So, Jared, can you just introduce yourself to the folks who don't know you yet? Yeah.

Speaker B: So, uh, my name is Jared Thatcher. I, um, have been doing lean for almost 20 years now. Um, and I think in some ways, I've always. I've always done it in. In the. The. I was always looking for ways to improve, to make things better, to work smarter, not harder. And, uh, it wasn't until I started, uh, working at a manufacturing plant that, um, really, I started realizing that there was a lot of inefficiencies. There was a lot of things that just weren't working, and started developing ways of improving those things. And then a few years later, I ended up, uh, getting my mba. And during that, I was actually introduced to the concept of what Lean was. I was like, wait, wait, that's what I was doing back at the factory, uh, without anybody showing me. It's just. It was. It was just a natural way of. There's got to be a better, easier way to do what we're doing. And, um, my first job out of, uh, getting my MBA at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland was coming, uh, back to the US And I took a job at Daimler Trucks North America. So at Daimler, I worked in the office, but it was about, um, what we call continuous cost improvement, or cci. And it was this idea of continuously trying to find, uh, better, cheaper, um, more effective and efficient, keeping the same, um, form fit and function of the parts, um, but increasing the quality as well, uh, and doing that for a lower cost. So that was my job. I was hired as, uh, what they called the Mexico sourcing coordinator. And so I was working with, um, plants from around the world and looking to move them closer to our production facilities in Mexico. And so that's where it kind of started. I was spending a lot of time in the factories, I was spending a lot of time, uh, with engineers. I was spending a lot of time with purchasing and, uh, with our suppliers. And that, uh, first year, I think I did six point, uh, three, four million dollars in year over year savings, which wasn't bad.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was good. Um, and then purchasing said, hey, would you like to come join us? And I said, well, wait a second. Um, this guy over here just saved you $10 million more than my 6.34. And yet his goal was 11 million. And you're chewing him out and he's getting in trouble because he didn't hit his target. And it's like, nah, that doesn't sound fun. You know, I got a big congratulations, you know, because I didn't have a target, you know, no, I'm not going to do that. And, um, we, we switched from that to then starting to work with uh, the major components like the, you know, the engines, the, uh, you know, drive lines, transmissions, um, and uh, the. After burning a fuel system. And, um, again, we saved quite a bit of, uh, money in the terms of millions. And, uh, I ended up being brought into a program where they had worked with McKinsey Consulting to bring Lean into the office side of the environment. And that started, I think, this love affair with Lean, because all these things that I had been thinking, hey, what if we did this? What if we did this? Um, it started making sense. They started providing the tools, the methodology, and really the thinking around what Lean is and how it can be applied into the office. That's where it started. And we would do these waves every four months. We would move in from one process into another, uh, one department into another. And it was pretty exciting to see. Um, I remember the very first project I did, uh, this team was telling us that, hey, we need two more people. We have to have these two people, and if we don't get them, we're not going to be able to deliver for the customers. We're already over capacity. They need things within a few days, within a week. And it's taken us three weeks to deliver. What they need were way over capacity. Um, and so we started doing some voice of the customer interviews. We asked some questions. And what they had told us was that the supplier was, um, or the people requesting. Right. Um, that they loved the information, they loved everything that they got them. But Just they needed more people to be able to process more of these, uh, requests. And, uh, what we found out from the voice of the customer is, yes, they love the information. In fact, they gave them so much information, it was, it was just unbelievable and fun to read. It was like, when did this part first come into existence? Who was the first supplier? Who's the current supplier? What was the original piece, part price of that, uh, that part, what is the current price? You know, all of this really cool information, none of it which was valuable to the client. And so as we were talking to the client, they said, really, we just need, like these five, six things. And so I went back to him, I said, how long does it take to put together this report? Oh, that takes us somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half, each report we have to put together. So how long would it take to put these five, six things together? I said, uh, that probably take like 10, 15 minutes. Right, from now on, you're going to do that. Oh, no, no, no. But they love our stuff. It's like, no, they think your stuff is cool, but they don't value it. So please just give them the things that they really need and if anybody requests more, note it down and then go ahead and do the full report. But just give them the minimum viable product, give them these five things. And, uh, something magical happened. Within, I think it was about, uh, two and a half weeks, they completely got rid of their backlog. They actually freed up two people to then start working on other things that were more valuable and important that they never had the time or the resources to do. And, uh, they were able to start, um, sometimes within the hour, getting, you know, the information back to the clients that they were expecting and, you know, like two, three days. Um, and instead of two, three weeks. So, yeah, and that was my introduction to Lee. It's like, wow, there's, you know, there's an easier, better way to do this.

Speaker A: And I love that you said that, like, something magical happened. And, and I, uh, can imagine for the customers it was exciting, you know, okay, suddenly we're getting it much faster. And for you it was exciting. How did, how did the folks in that office react, though? Was, ah, they had to get over that hump of, no, people really need this stuff. How f. It for them to realize, yeah, life is much better for us by working in this way.

Speaker B: Yeah, like I said, it took about, you know, two weeks or so for them to kind of clear out that backlog which they thought, you know, they had to have two more people they needed to hire just to keep up with the current, um, requests. Uh, so for them, it was like. It was magical. It was like, this is. This is. This is great. We, you know, and their job became more enjoyable. So instead of doing these. These, um, you know, things where they were just looking up data and then putting it into this, uh, format that they had created and this form that they would send out, uh, it actually was real, usable, minimum viable product, the things that, uh, the customers needed. And, uh, for them, it was this revelation of, wow, hey, we were overproducing. We were providing them more than what they needed. Yeah, it was exciting. And then as I continued to move from team to team and group to group, um, we continued to do those sort of things. Um, I started, uh, had a little bit of it, uh, background and knowledge. I ended up working with it and learned a bunch more, um, from there. Um, I don't know. We did a lot of projects. In fact, one. I remember one time I was walking by about six months a year after I, um, had helped this one group, and this guy comes running out of the hallway, and he's like, oh, Jared, Jared, I haven't seen you for a long time. You got to come check out. You remember that project we did together? I'm like, yeah, you got to see what we're doing now. He goes, remember how it took, like, three, four days for us to, uh, you know, process all of these things every week? And then, you know, it was just taking so much time that we hated it. I was ready to quit. Everybody was just really frustrated with the project. I remember that because guess how long we've got it down to now? And I'm like, I don't know, two days a day? It's like, no. We figured out how to automate it. And so it's now down to 15 minutes, uh, every week.

Speaker A: And it's like, wow, really? Uh, and then you see them so happy, right? So that makes you happy, and that makes your job.

Speaker B: I think that was where I really knew this is what I wanted to do. Because you had people flat out telling me I was ready to quit. The job was. I enjoyed the job. I enjoy the work, but I no longer enjoyed it because I was doing these things, you know, just meaningless, you know, tasks that, you know, anybody could do. It didn't. It didn't challenge me. It didn't. You know, it wasn't fulfilling me in the way that I wanted to be fulfilled. And so, uh, really, for the last, um, almost 20 years now I've been, you know, helping you know, teams in the office, you know, fix things. So from there I, um, ended up being hired by uh, Slalom Consulting. And that was a great opportunity. I got to work for like Nike, I got to work for Mercy Core, I got to work for um, Standard Insurance and Portland General Electric and you know, a bunch of different companies, Kindercare and things where um, again I got to come in there and, and help. And it was, it was great to see, you know, the value that I was able to add as a, as a management consultant going in and helping these teams. The frustration or the problem was half the time I was used as kind of staff augmentation. So I didn't feel like I was, was like, hey, that's great that you're doing that. We need you to do this other task. And it did not feel like I, um, consulting. I didn't feel like, you know, they were utilizing me in the way that I could best help them. Um, you know, we still had, you know, good success but uh, it was, it was a little frustrating at times

Speaker A: and uh, when you, when you knew you kind of had this magic in your fingers and you weren't getting to use it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, well, I would try. Like there was a good um, example. So I was brought in. They just needed a project manager to handle uh, a couple of um, uh, things at this one organization. And so I go in there and it was, it related. And so what was cool is I had just gotten certified as a, you know, a certified Scrum Master. So that, that was, that was great. It's like, you know, kind of parallels, you uh, know, lean in a lot of ways and, and uh, this Agile methodology. And I go in there and I realize that in order to have the project completed by the date that we needed to have it completed by which was the end of the year, uh, we had to have the P.O. in about three days. Um, and so not familiar with their process, I go out and I ask how long does it take to get a po? And they're like, well, anywhere from about a week to uh, maybe three. I'm like, uh, that's not going to work because if this gets delayed, they may take on another client. If they take on another client, they won't have the bandwidth to handle us. We won't get this um, project delivered when we need to have it delivered by. So I reach out to uh, Finance, I say, look, here's the situation. If we don't have this done by the time, um, we're expecting it to have it done by the end of the year. We could be faced with about a million dollar fine. So we have to get this done. In order to get that done, we have to have the PO to them in about three days. They're going to be giving me the information tomorrow. Um, I know it's a fast turnaround. Do you think it's possible? And what can I start doing right now, today to get you information that you can start working on, you know, before we get the, you know, the information from the, UM vendor that we're using? And they, they told me what they needed, I gave it to them. Um, you know, we were waiting. As soon as I got that email, I mean, you know, 30 seconds later, I was forwarding it to, uh, Finance. By the end of the day, a little less than six hours later, they had approved the po. And so the next day I am, um, uh, you know, and again, this is communication, right? This is, this is the one thing that fails, I think, in most large organizations is different departments do not talk to each other.

Speaker A: So, right, it's inbox to inbox, and then you wait till it comes out of the inbox.

Speaker B: Exactly. And typically what happens is, um, you have the PMO group complaining in it, complaining that, um, finance never approves those POs in a timely manner. And finance thinking they're doing a great job because not only are they doing it for that group, but they're doing it for all these other groups. And they think that they're doing fine because they don't go out and ask, how is this delivery time? And the other group doesn't complain to them. They just complain internally about that group. So you have this silo mentality. The next day I have the, um, vice president of the PMO group. He comes down, he's like, jared, what the hell did you do? And I'm like, oh, crap. You know, I'm working for this company and trouble. I forgot something. I didn't do something. Oh, m. You know, what is it? I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what I did wrong. And he's going, how the heck did you go ahead and get, um, a PO approved in less than a day? And I'm like, I asked. And he's like, what is unbelievable thought, um, but we got the project done. Everything worked out great. Um, but that's been one thing over and over I've been able to do. So after working for Slalom Consulting, I did another stint with it. Another, um, friend of mine that Had a small boutique, uh, consultancy. Um, when it rained, it was awesome. It poured, it was great. Uh, and then there was a lot of dry spells. So I decided I needed something a little bit more, um, secure. And so I went back to corporate America, started working at, uh, Alaska Airlines. And I remember there was one project where I'm doing a voice of the customer with operations. These are the folks that do day of flying. And what was fascinating is they tell me that they have been asking it for over a year. I'm sorry, over a decade or up to date information about who's actually on the flight. I'm like, wait a second, you guys are responsible for the day of flying, right? So if a flight gets postponed, if a flight gets delayed, if a flight gets, um, canceled, you're the ones that are doing that. And what do you mean you don't have, like, up to date information? They're like, yeah, what we have is about three to five days old, depending on the day of the week. I'm like, that's insane. And they're like, exactly. That's what we've been telling it. And they still haven't gotten us the information that we need. And, uh, they said, you know, we know it's probably out of scope, but could you help us? And I said, well, it is out of scope, but I'll think about it. So I thought about it that night. Next morning, I'm having a meeting. There's a finance guy there. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a second, Finance loves numbers. They eat, breathe, dream numbers. I'll bet you they can actually tell you in real time how many seats are sold on each flight. So I asked, I said, hey, do you have a current count of how many people, how many seats are sold on a plane? I'm like, yeah, not only that, I can tell you who they are. I can tell you, um, if this is their first flight, if this is a pass through flight, I can tell you what membership, uh, level they're at. I can tell you all of this really cool information. I can tell you what they paid for the seat, I can tell you where they're sitting. I can tell you anything and everything you want to know. It's updated, um, every 30 seconds. I'm like, wow, that's fantastic. Can you share that with operations? Yeah, who needs it? Told them who needed it. Within 45 minutes of us having like a five minute conversation, they had what they had been asking it to develop for them for over a decade. And about a month later, the head of, um, operations. He comes to me and he's like, um, you realize this is going to save the airline close to a million dollars a month because we used to look at it and say how there's more people on this flight and there's fewer people on this flight. So we're going to cancel the one with fewer people, not realizing that the one with fewer people, they're on a pass through, which means we're going to have to put every single one of them up overnight. Whereas those, you, uh, know, the full flight, they're all local, which means they can go home and we're probably not going to have to put very many of them up overnight. So, you know, just in looking at the data where they were looking just at the numbers of kind of what they had, now they had the, you know, the information to actually make meaningful decisions. Uh, so, you know, that's, that's really the power of breaking down silos, um, you know, talking.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and also I think the power of understanding your numbers. There are so many, like in manufacturing, people know their tak time. They know how long it takes. They know how many widgets they need to produce. They have the numbers and they know what they need to do. They know, um, you know, what their quality errors are. They should, um, and yet in the office, they don't, they don't know how long a task takes. I think it takes about this long. And then when they actually look at it, it's like, oh, it took three times what I thought it took. Um, they don't know because they've never bothered to measure it. It's just I've got all these things to do and I have to do them. And half the time they don't even realize they have a process for those things. Um, it's just right.

Speaker A: And, and it feels like when you, when you ask them to measure it, it feels like you're asking them to do another task and they say, I don't have time for that task. So any way that you can help them measure without it feeling like another test, like, you know, if somebody else is actually doing that measurement, that is brilliant. I mean, that really makes, it makes a big difference. Yeah.

Speaker B: And it's just, it's just helping them figure because they have the data, they have the information. It's just, you know, how do they quantify it? How can we make it simpler? Like, like you said that, you know, especially if someone else is doing it or if there's a, you know, a report you can run. Um, there's a lot of different ways that we can help people in the office to improve. Um, and there's a lot of ways to automate. And that's, that's the thing, especially in, you know, today's technology. Some of the things that are coming out are just absolutely phenomenal. And if done right, I don't think this is something that's going to take jobs away. It's just going to actually, um, if the company is smart, they're going to be able to reposition those people to do more meaningful tasks, to improve customer value. And by improving customer value and by improving quality, you're going to actually, you know, um, increase your brand awareness, you're going to increase, you know, the brand quality, you're going to increase, um, the product and, and have more loyal customers that are, um, you know, buying from you more frequently than they otherwise would have. So I think there's, there's a way to leverage technology to make your job less mundane, less boring, less repetitive, um, and actually help both the company as well as the employees to, to prosper. Um, and, and a good example is I was working for a company and they had these chargebacks. So, um, you know, somebody decided, hey, I don't want to pay for this. And so they would just call in and say, you know, the credit card companies say, I didn't, I didn't authorize this. I didn't pay. The reality is they did. But, um, the company would get this charge back and they would get thousands of these a day. And this one team had a high turnover rate and they were working a ton of overtime. They were working somewhere between 10 to 12 hours a day, uh, to try to process all of these things. And they came and said, hey, can you help us? Just try to reduce overtime by even a couple hours would be great to get us back to balance. And so we go in, we do a, you know, a process mapping event. And then I said, hey, I would like to see this, you know, at the Gimba. I would like to see this, you know, where it's actually happening. Have you done this task today? And they're like, actually, no, I was going to head back and do it. So we sit down and I'm like, okay. You said the first step is this. And they're like, yeah. And so we're going through it. And then they did something that was interesting, right? They did, they downloaded the CSV file, um, from the company, from these, um, merchant services, credit card companies, and then they printed it out. Well, they didn't Tell me they printed it out. So now I'm kind of like, huh, this is interesting. Why'd you print it out? And I said, oh, well, because now we've got to enter this into our database. Like, you've got all the information as a CSV file. Why do you have to retype it in? And like, oh, that's our problem.

Speaker A: They were re entering what was in the CSV file.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, oh my goodness, that's really interesting. I said, I think I've seen everything I need to see. By the way, um, do you have like, a lot of errors that happen where, you know, fat finger errors and you have. Oh, yeah, all the time. In fact, sometimes it takes us up to three days at the end of the month to, um, you know, to audit our files and find those, those errors and fix them.

Speaker A: I'm like, rework.

Speaker B: I go, yeah. I go, you guys are gonna love me. So I, I come back, uh, you know, I think it took me about two and a half weeks to find somebody that could help automate that process of taking the CSV file, which, you know, essentially an Excel file, and then just converting it right into, and entering it directly into the database. Now they had to take the information from that and then go look into, um, another system and pull some more data out of a different, um, system. So they would take the ticket number, uh, and then they would, um, line that up with our other system and have to, you know, pull out some more data and do some copy paste operation there. But, um, by simply taking half of their work and not having to manually type it in and just automating that, it, it reduced their time from, you know, like I said, uh, you know, 10 to 12 hours. It reduced it down to five to six hours. Well, that actually freed up their time that they could spend an extra three to two hours going ahead and doing what they enjoyed doing, which was talking to the customer. So not only did their workload become a work life balance and they actually were able to get things done quicker, but they got to do what they actually enjoyed doing, which is why they originally got into it. And because they were talking to the customer, which is something they never had time for before, they ended up, uh, bringing in an additional million dollars where people are like, oh, that's a mistake that shouldn't have happened. My credit card was stolen. And so the credit card company thought everything was, um, you know, fraudulent charge. I will let fraud. Yeah, it's not. So they brought in an additional million dollars. They had better, happier, satisfied Customers, and they were satisfied because they. In fact, one person had carpal tunnel syndrome, and they were getting ready to go in for, um, uh, surgery. And because they weren't typing, guess what happened? Their. Their hand, it got better, and they didn't have to.

Speaker A: That's great.

Speaker B: So, um, yeah, that's, again, that's the power of Lean. That's the power of, uh, you know, looking. Always do it better.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, but. And, Jared, it's like you have, over the years and all your different experiences, you really hone that vision, right, of being able to. To go in, to look, to ask the questions. And one of the things that, um, you said when we were talking the other day, that I just love that really a core principle of Lean is teaching other people to be able to see and solve those problems. Um, and I think that's actually a perfect segue to the other thing that I'd love to talk about today, which is the Lean Global Summit, which is this opportunity for a lot of people to learn and share all of the skills. So can you give us a little bit of a history of the Lean Global Summit and what's happening this year, which is. I said a little bit, but that's probably a long conversation.

Speaker B: So we're calling it the Global Lean Summit, um, and that's, uh, a derivative of the virtual Lean Summit. So, um, shortly after working for, uh, Alaska Airlines, I ended up switching over and, uh, working for a, uh, local government agency. Uh, what was great about that is, for almost the last six years, I've gone from the private sector to the public sector. And, uh, in the course of doing that, six months right after, um, I had just gotten through my probationary period, um, and then I think, like, three days later, they did a hiring freeze. And, you know, so, uh, I just got in by the, you know, skin of my teeth and was able to, you know, oh, wow, that promotion and get everything. Um, yeah. And then Covid hit, and one of the things I had been looking forward to was actually going to a Lean conference. I've been, you know, practicing Lean for a long time, and none of the companies had paid for, you, uh, know, going to a conference. And so here was my opportunity.

Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Wow.

Speaker B: Finally getting ready to go. And I was so excited. And then it just ended. And then I had this idea because I saw a lot of my friends on Facebook that had small businesses, um, that were on the verge of bankruptcy because of the lockdowns. And what was exciting was, um, I had something that I knew could help Them. And that was, you, uh, know, lean how to think differently about your. Your process, how to, uh, you know, try to adapt it to fit the need of what the customer is wanting. Remember, at the time, people were afraid to, you know, grab a door handle because they might get Covid and die. So, um, how do you.

Speaker A: I remember that. Yeah.

Speaker B: How do you. How do you change the process so that maybe you have the door, you know, propped open so they don't have to touch the, you know, the door? Or you install an automatic, uh, you know, door. Or you, um, you know, do something where you've got, you know, kind of a person standing at the door to open up a. Invite people in. And there's a lot of ways that you could change your process, change the way that you were doing things to then meet the need of what the customer was expecting. And so this idea popped in my head. Why don't I go ahead and do a virtual, uh, summit, a virtual event where we're talking about what I would do to bounce back from the shutdowns, because we were just about ready to be released. Uh, I was like, that is a great idea, but I don't know how to do that. I don't know anybody. I don't. You know, I mean, I've read all these books. I. But I don't know any of the speakers. I don't. I don't know any of the authors. I don't know anybody. And, um, I was. I was like, for about a week, week and a half, I kept on. Every day, this thought would come to my head and I would come up with, like, probably 10 more reasons why I couldn't do it. You know, didn't know how to build a website. Didn't know how to do that.

Speaker A: Talking yourself out of it.

Speaker B: I was. I was trying. I was trying really, really, really hard. And none of that happened. Uh, none of, uh. It just. It wouldn't go away. So after about a week and a half of this, I'm like, okay, the idea is not going away. I need to do something about this. So if you don't set a date, it's not going to happen. So I said, okay, in six weeks, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to put on this, uh, this virtual event. That's really kind of a crazy thing. Somehow in six weeks, um, I started reaching out to all these speakers, um, that I read their books, and they all said yes. Um, I figured out how to do some, uh, create ads and market that. I figured out how to um, build a website, um, to be able to host it. I figured out all of the information that I needed in order to run this summit. And it worked. And I was like, oh, this is great. So I, I thought I was helping small business owners. Um, unfortunately or fortunately, um, the majority of people that signed up and came were actually, um, lean professionals, you know, and so it was a good event. But I'm thinking one and done, right? Covid's over, everything's fine. And then I had a. One of our people that signed up and was at almost every single session was um, Adi and he's uh, from Finland. And he, he reached out to me day and he's like, hey, when's the next one? I'm like, next one? What are you talking about?

Speaker A: Oh, good.

Speaker B: And then I also had a couple of the, uh, the speakers, I mean these people, I'd read their books and you know, looked up to them. And then they started calling me and asking me for advice. Because during that time I had figured out how to do, uh, virtual Kaizen events. And so I was, I was running and facilitating, you know, sometimes one, two of uh, these Kaizen events. You, uh, know, a week.

Speaker A: And um, that was so hard that. Particularly for people who were, you know, stand up facilitators to m. Yeah, I mean, I mean I know lean professionals who were proud of not being able to use their computers. Right.

Speaker B: And that to me was something that was actually kind of sad. So we did. During that time we saw um, a lot of frustration, right? A lot of lean people were laid off because you, you know, they couldn't work in the factory because they weren't actually producing anything. So um, they, they were not seen as an essential worker, therefore they weren't allowed to be there. So they, they laid them off. Which is actually when you needed the lean professionals there. You know, kind of helping people to think through problems and to solve them. Um, and then the other thing that happened is you had a lot of people that flat out refuse to try. Oh, you can't do it, you know, virtually. You have to see their face. You have to, you know, do this, you have to do that. What I found is actually doing an event virtually, um, makes it better. I was shown when I first started. You know, with Lean, it's like, okay, you get everybody in the room, you talk about it, you have them put sticky notes up on the board. Well, you can only have like two, maybe three people up at the board at any given time because, you know,

Speaker A: there's a limited MHM you can't see the sticky note if you're sitting at a table across the room.

Speaker B: That's true. And you also can't read the handwriting afterwards because you're using the big felt tip markers. And so, um, they kind of all blend together. And at the end you're taking, um, so you have everything there. Uh, you're getting ready to roll it up because the next uh, um, conference room is being used by somebody else. So you have to quickly roll up everything. Sticky note falls off, you're not quite sure where it goes. Then you come up with a developer system to number everything and take a picture of it just in case it does fall off, then you know where it goes. Then you get there. Um, and you have to re enter all that information into um, Visio or some sort of other format to capture the process map. Now let me ask you, I never thought about this, and I don't know why, but I did not think about this. But what do we call something when you do something and then you have to do that same task over again.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I know a word for that. It's reworked rework.

Speaker B: Right. And so I'm shown a process and I follow that process religiously because that was the process that I was shown. And, and it never occurred to me that we're doing rework, we're teaching people to avoid rework. And yet here we are, we're doing rework. And um, and then you know, there's, there's errors, there's defects. I can't read this. Hey, I'm sending this out to everyone who wrote this. What does it say? You know, and mhm. It was frustrating.

Speaker A: It fell on the floor. Where on the process map is that supposed to be?

Speaker B: Yeah, and so what I found in, by doing it, virtually a couple things happen. They're typing, you get a red squiggly line, red squiggly line says click here and spell it correctly. Right. So you can, you can make sure everything's spelled correctly. Um, the best thing you have introverts, and the introverts in the room sometimes never speak. And they have a lot of great ideas. And in a virtual setting, all of a sudden that inhibition kind of goes away. And so what I found is not, can you have one, two, maybe three people up at the board? You can have all, you know, 15, you know, 20 people that are at the Kaizen event putting stuff up at the same time, making comments, you know, attaching notes, brainstorming, um, thinking of things. Uh, and you don't have a difference between those that are, you know, extroverts versus introverts. They're all putting it up there because it can be anonymous and it's great. So you have bigger collaboration, better collaboration, more ideas. Everybody feels involved and heard. Uh, at the end all I do is I go ahead and say, okay, here's the process map they developed. Um, I just select the area, I say save as a PDF and guess what? I'm done. There is no rework. Uh, I'm actually in the process of, uh, writing a book on how to do virtual Kaizen events. Even today I'll still occasionally do. Um, we've kind of gone back because some people like the touch and feel of the sticky notes. And uh, at this point I'm fine with interns going ahead and then like, ah, you know, doing the rework piece of it. But um, I don't do that anymore. So if I have to do it and I don't have any interns, then

Speaker A: if you have an intern to do it, fine.

Speaker B: But uh, again, yeah, yeah, if you

Speaker A: have that intern here.

Speaker B: Um, but what I typically do, if something is just going to be me, I will go ahead and, and do kind of a hybrid version where we'll all get out our computers and I'll project it up on the screen and we'll start building it virtually. Um, even though we're all in the same room together.

Speaker A: Even if you're in the same room. I love that. I love that. And that's so great for the introverts. And that's.

Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. So there's, there's some cool things. And so what was frustrating to me is I had, we went into lockdown on a Wednesday. On a, on a, um, a Thursday I had this, uh, this meeting and it was supposed to be a half day workshop, uh, that we were doing. I had to cancel it because, you know, I was not going to share my screen and in Vizio, try to create this and, and no, no, move this here. Uh, no, not there, over there. You know, my other left. You know, it's like, no. So I, I canceled the event. But I'm like, there's got to be a better, easier way to do it. And so I started doing some research all day Thursday and I found something. And so on Friday I was able to do a virtual workshop. And that's where I started realizing, wait, this actually works better, quicker. What I thought was going to take us like two hours, we got done in about an hour. It was like, this is great. Um, so anyway, that's kind of the impetus of how everything got started. What ended up happening then is because these people were reaching out to me and asking, you know, hey, how are you doing this? That got me thinking, well, maybe I should do another, you know, virtual event. And so I did the next virtual event. And, uh, this one was a little bit bigger. We went from 21 people to, I think about 68, 69 people, um, over the course of a week. And we ran that, that was good. And then we did it again. Uh, so 21, 22, we did it. And then as I'm getting ready to do the next virtual event in 23, uh, I had a couple of different companies come to me. So I had Costco, I had, um, Albertsons. Albertsons is, uh, I think they've been bought out groceries. Yeah, ah, grocery store. Um, you know, safely now, I think. Um, but what, what ended up happening was they said, we're tired of virtual. If you did an in person event, we would come to your event. I'm like, cool. So I did, I did an in person event.

Speaker A: Oh, nice.

Speaker B: And I didn't want to take too big of a risk, so I just did it local. And, uh, ah, by the end of it, I think we had 50 some people show up. But, um, I lost a couple thousand dollars putting it together, um, which was okay. I mean, that's what I would have paid to go to a conference. So it wasn't like I felt like I really went in the hole. Too bad. Um, so it's a good experience. Told my wife, I'm not doing that again. I'm just going to stick with virtual. And then she's, uh, like, no, that was amazing. That was the most amazing event I've ever been to. You can't stop. I said, okay, I just don't have the time.

Speaker A: Oh boy.

Speaker B: She said, well, let me help you. So my wife ends up taking over kind of the project management of running it because I've got my full time job. And then I do this on the evenings and the weekends. And what, uh, happened was she, um, reaches out to Toyota. They said, hey, we'd love to host you, um, for one of the days. Um, and so next thing I know, she's saying, hey, we're going to Indiana. I'm like, indiana? She goes, oh, well, because I reached out to Toyota and uh, they're going to host us at their plant for, um, for a day. I was like, wow. Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So last year, uh, we went, uh, to Indianapolis. And uh, we had our, our second uh, in person event and we had almost 90 people there. Um, it was pretty good. And uh, what was even better was um, Toyota called us up, said hey, we want to show you some other things. There's this new tool that we've been using. It's called weak point management. We want to show that to you and to all of your people. Um, would you guys mind staying like an extra hour, hour and a half? Um, because there's all these other things we want to show you. We want to take you to our obeya room we want, they call the adrenaline room. We want to take you to our um, you know, our training dojo. And I was like, oh, uh, that'd be, that'd be fantastic. Um, and so would we mind? Yeah, would we mind? We're like no, I don't think anybody would mind staying an extra couple hours at Toyota. And so instead of your typical you know, one hour hour and a half tour, you know, you're in, you're out and that's it. We spent the entire day at Toyota. Um, and it was amazing. Um, and the place that we're at is Toyota Material handling and it's where they make forklifts. Uh, and I didn't realize they were the number one forklift producer in North America and they even have developed technology that is anti tip technology that doesn't exist on a lot of the other um, forklifts. So there's a safety element to their forklifts that don't exist on others. I mean again it's all about customer value. What can we do that's going to help know, create you know, a better, safer product for our customer. And so it was absolutely a fabulous time. Everybody loved it. Uh, we had some amazing speakers that came from all over the world to uh, to talk to us from M. Japan, from uh, Germany, um, all over the U.S. uh, and so you know it was, it was a, it was a well attended conference. We had a bunch of people from um, Europe. Um, yeah, it was good. This year we're getting ready to do it. It's going to be September, uh, 20, uh third through the 25th. Uh, we are doing a pre summit day on the 22nd on Monday. But um, what's really cool is we already have people coming in at this point literally from all over the world. So we have people coming in from uh, New Zealand, Canada, uh, Mexico, Switzerland, Germany, where else? I think France, uh, uk, Japan, uh, again so I mean we've got a really big um, Very international, very international group that's coming. Uh, and this year my wife1 upped herself again. She uh, had invited some people, uh, from um, the business school at ah, Indiana University to attend um, our workshops. And they loved it and they had reached out and they started talking. And so now they're a sponsor of ours. In fact they're hosting this on their campus at Indiana University at uh, bloomington, ah, about 40 minutes, 45 minutes south of uh, the airport there. And uh, so we're going to be on campus and they have uh, this really fun hotel that's connected to the um, largest student union hall in north, uh, America. And uh, it's, it's, it's really, it's a cool building. Kind of reminds me of living in uh, Scotland with you know, the, the castles and stuff like that. It's, it's, it's going to be really, it's, it's a cool venue. It's, it's a neat place. And uh, and then the medical school found out that the business school was, was sponsoring us and they came in and said hey, we'd love to have our students attend. And so anyway, now we have like uh, the business schools.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Medical school students. We've got, you know, all of these people that are going to be coming. We're opening it up to the students to attend for free. Um, and then you know, we've got all these um, these other um, you know, businesses and places coming in from, from all over. So we're really excited. It's the fact we're almost uh, full on the capacity that we can bring to Toyota. So that's uh, that's going fast. Um, so we've opened up another track. So while we're at Toyota we put in a cheaper option for people to stay behind and it's all about how to create uh, run and facilitate Kaizen, uh, events. And so while part of us end up going to uh, check out the tour at Toyota and spend the day at Toyota, uh, those that weren't able to make that or um, like the cheaper option, they're going to get trained on how to um, do a better job at facilitating and helping their customers, their clients to go uh, ahead and uh, really take advantage of a,

Speaker A: those people on the other track, they'll still get to hear from the folks who went to Toyota and they'll have those opportunities right at breaks and things to chat with each other and find out what happens. So.

Speaker B: Exactly, in fact we're most likely going to have somebody um, from Toyota come Again and kind of speak to us a little bit during lunch, um, that, that next day. So it's, it's, it's really a cool thing. We've got, um, a lot of really cool people. We've got Phil Wickler. He is the, uh, Chief Transformation Officer at ge, um, aviation or aerospace rather. And um, they're, they're um. They've kind of developed this, uh, this management system, this management model, and they call it the flight, uh, path. And so he's going to explain what that, that looks like and how they've been able to integrate that, uh, within um, GE Aerospace. And then, uh, we also have the CEO of City Furniture, uh, Andrew Koenig. He's going to come and, um, he, in college learned about, um, Lean, came back, told his uncle and his dad, hey, we should integrate this stuff into what we're doing. They're like, go away, kid. You know, just, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. And he kept on pushing it. He's like, I really think this will help. And finally they said, okay, go, go play over here. Just, you know, just leave us alone. And so he starts playing and it starts working and they're like, oh, this is cool. And he continues to build it and develop it. And so for probably the last decade or so he's been building up and now he's the CEO and he is really integrated, uh, lean into his entire organization. In fact, I was just there in January, I got a chance to visit his plant. And in the headquarters there, there are so many obeya rooms and so many, uh, different things for each one of the, you know, from the marketing team to the, you know, the sales team to uh, you know, the, the plant, um, you know, distribution team, I mean, finance team. Everybody has their Obey A room. Everybody is working, you know, on their goals and the metrics. They have, the daily standups. They have all this stuff and they've really integrated it into the office probably better than any other place I've seen. So it's, it's really.

Speaker A: That's inspiring. Wow.

Speaker B: It is. And so, so we've got some really good people and, and I think the best thing is we're going to take, in essence, the first day is all about what are the things that you have to have in order to have a successful lean organization. And so there's five elements, right? Um, there's more. But the gist is you have to have strategy, deployment, kind of your Hoshin Kanri North Star. What are we trying to Achieve, how do we align that with uh, the customer and what their wants and needs are and where are we going basically? And then from that you also have the respect for people, the people development side. How are you developing your people? How are you teaching them to think a little bit differently so that they can problem solve on their own, that they can move forward? Uh, from there you have your workflow development, your workflow optimization. How are you really achieving this, uh, pull versus push system and single piece flow and changing the way in which you work. But you're not batching big things, but you're actually providing what's needed, when it's needed, how it's needed. Um, and then you have to have a problem solving mechanism because if you don't have a way of solving problems and pulling that on down cord as problems uh, arise, which they will, then you really don't have a good system. And finally you have to have a daily management system to be able to pull all of these pieces together and keep everybody um, communicated and so that you're breaking down those silos between, um, the different silos and the different organizations, people are communicating. They know what you're doing and you know what they're doing. And so we're going to talk about each one of those. We've got some great speakers coming in again from all over the world to address each one of these topics. So basically like this is what you need to do to have a successful organization. Uh, we've even added a healthcare track which we're uh, really excited about this year that it's also going to be talking about how to take those elements and put that into healthcare. And then day two we go to Toyota. We actually see. So here's, we learn about it, this is what we're supposed to do. Then we go see, this is how it's supposed to run. This is what it looks like. And then we have some other people come and talk about, you know, for the first half of the day what it is that they're doing also to implement and create the same sort of uh, you know, lean vision and be successful. And then the last part of the day I'm going to run everybody through a workshop where we're going to take the learnings, kind of a hansei or a reflection at time. What are you going to take back Monday morning when you go back to work? What is that? So we're going to develop um, their lean management roadmap. Ah, of what are they going to do, what are their next steps? Where are they having obstacles, how are they going to overcome that? They're going to actually go back. Everyone's going to go back with a working plan of what they're doing. Then for me, the biggest thing that's been a frustration with, um, things unless you take the time to do that reflection yourself, that never happens. So we're giving that time at the very end of the work of the summit. Plus follow up is huge. If you don't have follow up, if you don't have sustainability, it usually goes around if you're not held accountable. So what we're going to do is we're going to be doing a 30, 60 and 90 day, uh, virtual follow up with everybody that they can join or if they can't join, they can watch it later and we'll go through, we'll talk about the success stories that people are having by implementing the things that they learn. We're going to talk about, hey, I don't quite understand how I'm supposed to implement this in this setting or with this. And so it's an opportunity to continue the conversation of the learnings that you got and to be able to continue to apply it. Because I believe I should be running these summits, uh, these Lean summits in a lean way. Everything from having, um, we're going to have an obey room at the summit where you can see the progress, the speakers will be able to see what's working, what's not. We're going to have these conversations, you know, a couple times a day as we're going through and uh, it's going to be a really cool thing where we're going to take lean, put it into practice, not only what we're doing and how we run the summit, but also continuing to support the customer even after we're finished.

Speaker A: So that's, so it's not just, it's not just a conference. Right? This is, I mean, this is if somebody wants to come and learn, all right, how do I transform my organization? You come, you're going to learn some principles, you're going to see those principles in action, you're going to have an opportunity to see other people who applied those principles. And then you get to create a plan and then you get some support going forward with the plan. I mean, so, um, so you should be charging, I don't like, $5 million for each M. Attendee. No, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But, but, but it is, I mean, I mean it's not just a conference. It's, it's it for uh, organizational transformation.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And in fact, the other thing that I'm doing along that lines is, uh, in November I'm going to be taking a group to Japan and uh.

Speaker A: Oh, nice.

Speaker B: You're absolutely welcome to uh, come join us. But, um, I used to live there when I was younger, speak the language. Uh, so we're going to go see some things that are a little bit atypical of your typical tour. And I don't even want to call mine a tour. It's a learning mission. So we're calling the Japan Kaizen learning mission. And you're going to go and really understand why it is that Toyota does the things that Toyota does. And a lot of that is a cultural, um, impacts of how they think and just the way that the Japanese are. And so we're going to kind of deep dive into those elements. We're going to look at a lot of cultural things while we're there. Um, everything from, uh, visiting some amazing temples, uh, to participate in some really, I think, cool things. So, um, you know, have you heard of Kintsugi? No Kintsugi. You probably know it once I explain it. But like, you know, a pottery, you know, favorite dish breaks and instead of throwing it away, the Japanese will take that and then they will, um, you know, put it back together, but inlay it with kind of gold. And so it actually becomes stronger than it was before and more valuable because of the gold. Um, and so you take something that was broken and you make it actually better. And uh, so that's just one of the concepts we're going to talk about. Um, but we're actually going to go through a workshop where we are going to create our own Kintsugi. Um, and then, uh, you know, an element, right, is this samurai culture that they had. So how does that, um, play on business people today? And so one of the things we're going to do is we're going to go to a dojo, um, akin to a dojo. And we're to going, going to actually have the opportunity to take a real katana, uh, salmon eye sword, and be able to, um, see how many, um, bamboo mats we can cut through. And so everybody will get that opportunity to actually hold one to learn the proper form for you, uh, know, making a strike. And then everyone will be able to, you know, try that. So we're going to be doing some really cool things, uh, you know, tasting some amazing food, um, and uh, having some amazing experiences on the way. So I'm really looking forward to that. It's going to be a lot of fun. That's going to be what uh, is it November 16th through uh, the 22nd.

Speaker A: That sounds incredible. So Jared, I think it's really important we tell people how to get connected, um, where do they go? Website and um, to learn more about this.

Speaker B: Well of course you can follow me on LinkedIn. Jared Thatcher J A R E D Thatcher T H A T C H E R um, and the website is the. I'm sorry, the website is www.globalleansummit.com so globalleansummit.com and uh, from there you can find out more information. I'll make sure that there is a link um, to the actual Japan uh, trip that's there. Um, I think that's Japan mission. I think that's how I have it. But um, yeah it's ah, it's going to be a great experience both the Japan trip as well as the uh, the, the Global Lean Summit. It's coming up quick and like I said, um, you know I think the price goes up on um, to full price goes up on uh, August 15th. But uh, okay, but that said if you're bringing a bunch of people, you know give, give us a call, uh, send us an email and we can uh, we can definitely um, you know offer you some discounts for, for uh, bringing people to. So it's going to be a great experience and I know everybody last year just absolutely loved it. Uh, we did a lot of fun activities afterwards. We went to a um, an ice cream parlor that was 120 years old. Um, that's been in business for 120 years and that was like just absolutely a lot of fun. We uh, did a walking tour of Columbus which is where um, Toyota is located and it's also one of the architectural meccas of the United States. Uh there, there are some amazing people have built some amazing buildings. Just it's a lot of fun architecturally you know to look at this stuff. Um, and so we talked about how the town has done something to better the community and how that is similar to what like uh, you know, Ford did in bettering the communities that he built around uh, you know, the plants and what Toyota is doing with Woven City in Japan right now. So some really cool things that we're going to be talking about this year.

Speaker A: Wow. Well I um, going to make sure that uh, we have this in the show notes for folks so that they can find um, find you and connect and come to the summit and maybe even come along to Japan. So this has been really interesting. And I'm looking forward to the summit and, um, hope to see a lot of good friends, old friends, and new friends there, too. So thank you. Jared, thank you so much for traveling with me to the edges of Lean.

Speaker B: Appreciate it.

Speaker A: This is Bella Engelbuth, and I'd like to say thank you to Jared Thatcher for joining me at the edges of Lean. And thank you for listening. What did you learn? Let us know by commenting. Wherever you watch or listen, you can find Jared and the Global lean Summit on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn and@leanforhumans.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Ages of Lean. This is a Lean for Humans production.

Speaker B: Sam.