Patrick Adams  

Welcome to the lean solutions podcast where we discuss business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for true lean process improvement. I am your host, Patrick Adams. Hello, and welcome to the lean solutions podcast. Today’s guest is Tony Hayes. Tony is an executive lean leader, responsible for the Wabash management system, continuous improvement and quality at Wabash. you support the CEO and executive leadership team. And you’re driving customer value creation. Welcome to the show, Tony.

Tony Hayes  

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Patrick Adams  

Absolutely. So Tony, you have extensive experience in the continuous improvement world. And I have to imagine that over the years that you’ve had some pretty serious challenges along the way, I’m curious to hear, you know, maybe some of the challenges that you faced when driving lean transformation across an organization?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I will share a few challenges. And I’m sure everyone and you know, the listeners obviously have probably come across several of these in their travels. But one of the things I always come across and I think about is the overall adaptation and buy-in to the transformation itself. I know that sounds pretty simple, you know, just generate some buy in and adoption. But it’s typically easier said than done. And the adaptation when driving, any transformation, quite honestly, is really key to the scalability to really the traction that you can start to gain over time. And once you have it, it is quite contagious. I’ve seen transformations go really, really well. If you have high levels of adoption, and I’ve seen them not go so well, when you have mediocre adoption. So that’s one of the things I think about is how do I drive that? How do I drive some sustainability with the adoption? And it’s really one of the first things I think about is, you know, when I tried to drive a transformation, absolutely

Patrick Adams  

sure, yeah. And what would do, would you have any advice for anyone that’s listening in around buy in, you know, if they have a team that’s maybe maybe a senior team, and they’ve been around for a while, and this is something new to their organization? Any advice or suggestions for someone that’s listening around, you know, how they can get that buy in from the team?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I think one of the easiest things to do is start with leadership. executive leadership support really starts to drive transformations at the right levels of the organization, when folks on the team, whether they’re senior or new members of the team can see that you have executive leadership support, that almost immediately drives high levels of adaptation, because then they can understand the why behind it, they can see that the leadership believes in it, it’s usually aligned with some sort of strategy. And that and that’s really, for me, the easiest way to drive that. And that would be the advice I would have anyone listening today.

Patrick Adams  

Okay. And what would you say makes a good lean leader in an organization?

Tony Hayes  

Wow, if it was only three things, right? Like these, these things, I think from a lean leadership are very important. And one of them is respect for people. I start with that one, because leading with humility, and respect for people is very key, as a lean leader, sure, easy to, you know what I would say, manage a task, or quite honestly manage a transformation, but it’s very hard to capture the hearts and minds of folks. And the only way I know to do that is to lead as if you don’t have all the answers. You know, try to lead a transformation from a servant leadership perspective. But then ultimately, respect for people, making sure you understand where they are, where they are, and meeting them where they are, help them understand why the transformation is going on at all, and where they fit in. And I think that shows a high level of respect for people when you do that.

Patrick Adams  

That’s great, great advice. Great, great thoughts. On the on the leadership side, what would you say on the flip side of that to Tony, I’m interested to hear, you know, maybe a few characteristics that would maybe make a leader not so good in a lean environment, maybe, you know, some some negative aspects of leadership, or what some would call leadership that maybe could create, send people down the wrong road, I guess, or create chaos in our organization. Any thoughts on that?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I’ve got several thoughts on that. One of them is just having a fixed mindset. I think leaders that have a fixed mindset aren’t open to change, necessarily open to listening and support in an atmosphere where people can make mistakes. That’s key and any transformation, that the folks that are going along on that journey, have to feel comfortable solving problems, but then ultimately being able to make mistakes. And the opposite of leading with humility, and servant leadership is acting as if you have all the answers, and not listening to the teams that you support, right. And so that’s the difference between having a fixed mindset, right, being very traditional in your thought process versus more progressive and having a growth mindset where you’re open to that type of, you know, line of questioning and seeking to understand seeking to listen, and allowing your folks to make mistakes, and then learn from them. I think that’s really the difference. 

Patrick Adams  

So true. And there’s so many people out there that I think that are shaking their heads in agreement with you, because they are either in a position where they’re leading an organization, that’s that’s, you know, on their Lean journey, or maybe they’re working for a leader that, you know, has some of those characteristics on both sides. And so, you know, I appreciate you, you laying those out there. You mentioned scaling earlier. And I’m just curious to hear your thoughts around effectively scaling improvements during a transformation, you know, across an enterprise. Any thoughts for the audience on that?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I think when I think of scaling, I think the most difficult part is it’s sometimes it’s very easy to make a localized change in a very small area, maybe one area or one department. But it’s very hard to scale thinking across an organization. It’s sometimes easy to scale tools, right? If you pick up a lean tool, and you want to scale that across, you know, several different plant locations as an example, it’s a little bit easier to do, it’s harder to scale thinking, though, it’s harder to scale behaviors. And I think that one of the most difficult things in a transformation is to drive that level of thinking across a vast enterprise. And have everybody think and solve problems in a similar fashion. It’s hard to scale. But one of the things I think about often is how can I do this? How can I show the organization that this does work? How do I even bring them to this improvement, so they can learn from it locally, and then go back to their respective functions? Or, or plant locations? And actually do it? So I think about that a lot, I think it’s more of a, see the improvement, right? Do or replicate that improvement, and then ultimately, you can teach it to your teams? So it’s kind of a theory to teach approach? Sure. And I think that drives a high level of scalability. When you’re able to do that, can you create more of a learning, culture learning organization when you do that? Sure.

Patrick Adams  

Sure, if that makes sense. I had a question. Actually, earlier today, someone asked me for larger organizations, with, you know, hundreds of employees across multiple shifts, you know, how do you spread a lean culture? How do you, you know, sustain small improvements, even within an organization, and we talked about the leadership structure and, you know, developing the right number of direct reports per leader, and how to do that, and what, what does it mean to have, you know, development opportunities for leaders so that, you know, leaders have the ability to eventually move into the next position, or whatever it might be? And I’m just curious to hear if you have any thoughts around that, you know, with when it comes to leadership development, and even, you know, direct reports, how many direct reports should a leader have? What’s optimal in your eyes? Or what you’ve experienced?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, the smaller the ratios, the better I mean, as the easy answer, right? If you’re one to 10, one to 15, maybe maybe one to 20 Max, right, from a direct report perspective, that allows you to have a high level of, you know, what I would call intimacy, and communication with your team. So they understand what your vision is, they can latch onto a strategy very easily the larger those numbers are, as you can imagine, the harder it is to have a consistent, meaningful, you know, vision that everybody can latch on to, it’s just harder to do because of the sheer numbers. It’s just math at the end of the day. That’s right. But I kind of think about this in kind of a model line type scenario, right? Most of the listeners have probably heard of the model line approach, model plant approach. And that’s typically how I like to develop learning and develop leaders. Show them what good looks like, implement at a very high level, show a high level of lean, you know, competency or proficiency, and then have them learning in a safe environment, right where they don’t feel compelled to immediately go back, right and implement this in their own areas. But they can learn as they go along, they can participate in the Kaizen activity, they can participate in the continuous improvement activity. And then once you do that, and you feel comfortable, then you can go back to your function of your organization, and then work with your teams. Sometimes you have to work with, you know, a subject matter expert. That’s more versed and, and the facilitation of an improvement event. Right, that always is helpful. But I think one of the the other pieces of advice I would have for the listeners, you don’t have to do this alone, you should rely on and have a little bit of humility that you don’t have all the answers, and rely on folks in your organization and have done this and can help you along in the journey. I think that’s key.

Patrick Adams  

I agree that I don’t know if you’ve had any experience with having a dedicated lean team versus, you know, having lean embedded in the organization, or a hybrid of both. Any recommendations or any thoughts around, you know, what does it take to, you know, really spread a lean culture throughout an organization? You know, should someone have a lean promotion office or an operational excellence team that’s embedded in an organization? Or should you know, I don’t know. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I have many thoughts. This is a great question. I actually get this quite a bit. What’s the best structure? Yeah, when you’re trying to create and drive a lean transformation, the one that I know that works, the best, and I actually prescribe to this is having a Kaizen promotion office or lean office that is very well versed, very competent, high skill level, can develop standards, can help to develop training programs, can also reach out to the organization and actually facilitate events themselves, right. So you have this KPI Oh, and they really are the center of excellence, right? There is no ambiguity in training and teaching people about Lean or a management system, if you have a KPI, oh, what you also need to have because I think it is also a hybrid or both, you have to have folks that are embedded in the organization, I heard you say that a little bit earlier, that actually are versed and understand and can align to the KPIs vision. So then they can deploy, where they reside, whatever locations 15 1620 locations, they then are, typically dotted line to plan operations. And as an example, then solid line back to the KPIs. So you can make sure you ensure standards and consistent deployment at those locations. And that’s what I’ve seen work the best. There is also an opportunity if you have strong lean leaders. Inside the plants or the shops, you could also have lean resources, as an example, report directly to the plant leadership because they obviously would lead with humility, right, and they would use those resources in the most effective way. And then you don’t probably have to have as close a tie back to the Kp O. But I would say in less mature organizations having a Kp O is key.

Patrick Adams  

Yeah, that’s been my experience as well. One of my favorite practices that I’ve that I’ve been a part of in and have watched happen in a few lean organizations is the practice of when a Kaizen event or an activity or a project or, you know, some type of improvement leads to you know, maybe a reduction in a work area of, of labor, those individuals that, you know, maybe you go from five people down to four down to three people in an area, they celebrate that improvement, and those individuals who maybe were removed from that area, are moved to the kpl and are given opportunity to develop their, their lean skill sets even more by, you know, helping to other teams to continue to improve in other areas. And then, you know, through normal attrition, they end up shifting back into the organization now with a new skill set, that they’re able to help support, you know, further improvements, you know, in different areas. So that’s been one of my favorite practices that I’ve seen, you know, seen and been a part of, have you seen similar activities, or?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, Patrick, I’ve seen that exact scenario, where I’ve been part of boot camps or events of that nature where we reallocate right, to work on things. It can even be a water spider, sure, within an area right. As we develop more efficient, standardized work, you create an opportunity where you can create betterment, flow back to the operation. So I’ve seen that happen as well. So, you know, it made me think about when you were mentioning that, you know, at Wabash, we actually have our Wabash management system University. And it allows us to bring leaders into a learning environment and learning the principles and tools of lean apply into real business problems that we would handle during the week, right in the safe environment. So it’s kind of a learn-application scenario. But it is the intent that when they come out of the back end of the W mess, or Wabash management system University, that they go back into the business with a different level of training, with a different level of understanding as it relates to problem solving and waste elimination. So it really is that same model, and each time we run one of the university sessions, we’re developing this learning culture, that we can enhance our ability to drive transformation at a very high level.

Patrick Adams  

I love that it’s great that you guys are doing that internally. And that your team is definitely thankful that that’s a part of the organization that they work in. So amazing hats off to you guys for that age old question here, Tony, I’m going to throw it out. Yeah, there’s a lot of statistics out there, around, you know, what, what I would say call in quotation marks here, lean failure, or lean transformations that fail. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on why some lean transformations fail and others succeed.

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I think the first thing I think of when I think of lean transformations, actually not achieving the results that they intend to achieve is lack of an aligned strategy. If you don’t really understand the purpose of the change, or the transformation, and there isn’t really a clear vision, it’s very hard to drive any level of transformation, because people inherently typically don’t like change. And if they don’t understand why they can’t see how it’s attached to the overall vision of the organization, it’s very hard for them to support the transformation at all. And so we need when you start with this, you know, lack of clarity around vision, and connection to strategy, it doesn’t set you up for success. Typically, that’s been my experience. And then just coupled with that, if you do have a good aligned strategy and vision, you cannot under communicate that you have to over communicate that to your teams, they have to be very clear, and in very non ambiguous ways of how they fit into the overall vision and how they fit into the transformation, then, ultimately, the why why are we doing this in the first place? We sometimes don’t even tell people why we’re doing it. So they don’t even understand the need for change. Right? Firstly, they mostly think well, we probably hear this a lot, too. This is just the flavor of the month, we’ve done this 10 years ago and it never works. But it’s probably because we never told people why. And I think that’s one of the keys when you think about which transformations do really, really well, and the others that fail.

Patrick Adams  

Absolutely, that’s a great, great point. And it’s also something that I talk about very frequently, when I call it a compelling story, you know, being able to be as a leader, an executive leader in a company, especially being able to create that story around why we’re changing, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s a, you know, something with a customer, it’s a quality situation, it’s maybe you’re an innovative company, you know that and you want to drive innovation through that. I mean, there’s so many different ways that you can, you know, tell a compelling story and a story that people are willing to get on board with. And yeah, you know, get excited about it. Right. So I appreciate that very much.

Tony Hayes  

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if, you know, if you can get excited about the story, and you understand where you fit in the story, and it’s very easy, then follow along with what needs to happen inside of a transformation. Absolutely.

Patrick Adams  

Yes. And I’ve heard you talk quite a bit about learning culture, you know, the importance of creating a learning culture. Can you talk a little bit more let’s expand on that. And, you know, really, maybe for someone that’s listening that doesn’t, is maybe never heard that term before. They don’t understand what it is to be a learning culture or what a learning culture is. Maybe talk about the definition of that and also the importance of it, you know, when your organization is going through a transformational journey? 

Tony Hayes  

I think the definition you know, as I see it, is creating a culture where learning is the norm and the attribute of a very good lean leader is always learning. They’re always challenging the status quo. And so they go into every situation, every event, every problem that they tried to solve, with an open mind, and the opportunity to learn something new. And I think that learning culture is very key inside of a transformation. We know that folks learn in different ways. Mostly, we learn through hands-on application, right. And so when I think of learning culture, that’s a lot of what that would represent. And so when I think about the culture, and I think about Lean, it’s not about the tools, it’s about the behaviors. And so when I think of learning culture, it’s very synonymous with the behaviors that we’re trying to drive which ultimately creates the learning culture. So that’s, that’s the definition of that. And in my mind, and I think why that says that’s important. You know, people ask me a lot, you know, what’s the most important thing you focus on? In a lean transformation, it’s absolutely learning the the foundation and platform you create when you train others, to expand the KPI, oh, think about it, the KPIs typically are not huge organizations is not, you know, hundreds of people inside of a KPI, oh, typically, you have a small group, law group of folks that have a skill set. But wouldn’t it be really nice if you could expand that knowledge beyond the kpl that began in the center of excellence through this application of lean tools, right, this whole learning, and so this learning culture becomes very important in the journey. And that’s why and example I talked about earlier, our W, Ms University is very key to that, because ultimately, we’re trying to create other leaders as teachers, other folks that can back and lead from the front, show, by example, problem solving, teach their teams, these these methodologies. And so ultimately, you drive towards this, you’ve probably heard this number, maybe one to 3% of the organization that’s dedicated to lead, right, is dedicated to problem solving waste elimination. And I think the only way you can really do that is to create this this learning culture, as we’ve been talking about,

Patrick Adams  

absolutely. I would like to hear your thoughts around eating, you know, problem solving, specifically just based on, you know, being in a learning culture. Any thoughts around problem solving, as far as is there? Is there a specific approach that your team takes to problem solving? Do you have multiple problem solving methodologies that are used? And what part of your problem solving methodology, you know, allows for reflection and learning?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, that’s also a great question. You know, to me, it always depends on the complexity of the problem you’re trying to solve. It depends on, you know, the more complex obviously, the more rigorous your problem solving activities typically are. Maybe it leans more towards the Six Sigma, or the maic type approach. But if it’s something that is a little less complex, it takes a little bit less resources. Now maybe it’s just a five, why? Maybe it’s a simple approach to, you know, using PDCA. And your thinking process. I always tell people, it really depends on what problem you’re trying to solve. But then that also goes into how we educate people on what tool to use for what problem, right? It’s not a one size fits all, one tool fits all approach as it relates to problem solving. But if you ask me what mindset I typically prescribe to, when I think of problem solving is define measure, analyze, improve control, I very much believe and DMAIC approach as a relates to problem solving, and experimentation, fail, fail fast, learn from your mistakes, you know, fast iteration, agile thinking, and problem solving is very important in any lean transformation. Because I tell people a lot, lean helps you to identify problems, it brings problems to the surface. And if you bring problems to the surface, you absolutely need a problem solving methodology to address the things that come to the surface. You can’t do one without the other. If you start a Lean journey, and you don’t have a problem solving methodology, you’re probably on the path to failure, or at least some typical challenges as you go through the process.

Patrick Adams  

Right. And earlier, we talked a little bit about challenges that you faced. And I’m curious too, as we as we start to wrap up today, I am curious to hear your achievements, or maybe even one specific achievement that you can think of, you know, that that you’ve been a part of. Over the years, you’ve I’m sure been part of many different teams, and many Different lean transformations. And I’m just curious if you have one that stands out or you say this was, you know, one time when we celebrated. And we felt really great about the achievements that we were able to make. Do you have any examples?

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, I think one that sits with me, in the previous slide, the previous organization, I got an opportunity to work with a volunteer organization, Holland rescue mission. And we actually did a lean learning event with the Holland rescue mission. And it was quite amazing, because it wasn’t something I thought that we could apply lean thinking to. And it was really an opportunity to teach something that in some people’s eyes is a very complex thing to folks that had never had any exposure to it. And one of the problems that they were trying to solve was that they needed to get more clothing to some of the stores that support, you know, the homeless community. And so to me, immediately, it was a lean problem to solve, yes, they had to get more velocity through their system. And they had to get more close to each one of the individual stores, right. So it was a number of racks of clothes. And so we worked with them during the week. And one of the statements from one of the folks that was in the event said, I never knew my mind could look at a problem this way, or even think this way. And the light turned on for me at that point, because it probably was one of the better Kaizen events I’d ever been to, even the hundreds of plant shop floor enterprise office events. This was one that was so important, because these folks didn’t even think they could think that way. And their behaviors changed. And that actually switched on the life for me as a related to a lean transformation, that was an awesome thing to be part of an awesome thing to recognize some of the team, you know, the teams that were there for that level of thinking. And they were really excited at the end, because they just never thought that they could achieve the results that they did was awesome. That’s amazing.

Patrick Adams  

What a great project to be a part of, you know, transformation, exciting to hear some of the work that’s been done and is being done in the the social sector and nonprofit areas, because obviously lean is applicable, you know, not just in manufacturing, right. And we think that the lean community has done a good job at communicating that over the years, because it was so heavy manufacturing, but being able to see how lean and continuous improvement is being applied and used across different industries, you know, in the healthcare world, and obviously in nonprofit in the social sector is always fun to hear the stories and achievements that you know, people like yourself are being a part of when it comes to that. So thank you for your work there.

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, absolutely one of the shining achievements that I can remember over the years. Yeah, and

Patrick Adams  

That’s actually right down the road from my house. So not too far. You and I are both in the state of Michigan, and Holland is just south of where I live. So I know, I know them very well.

Tony Hayes  

Yeah, absolutely. You should stop there. If you ever get an opportunity. It’s such an awesome place. 

Patrick Adams  

Yeah, I will definitely do that. Tony, last question that I have for you. For those that are listening in any key, you know, maybe one key learning or one, one last item that you would share with our listeners, something important that you think just needs to be said, before we close up today, what would that be? Yeah,

Tony Hayes  

yeah, I think the one thing I think of is, and I talked about this earlier, it’s really the respect for people along the way, when you’re when you’re going through a journey. You cannot underestimate the level of engagement you get when you start the day with respect for people. I think it’s underestimated. I think it sometimes gets talked about, but in many cases, it’s something we sometimes forget about, unfortunately. And I always start today with how am I respecting my teams? How am I giving them the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them? And how can I support them? So that would be my one key advice as we, as we’ve kind of wrapped up for today.

Patrick Adams  

Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, thank you, Tony. This has been great. And I’m sure you and I could chat forever. We’ll have to get together for lunch or breakfast sometime. I’d love to hear some more of your stories, especially with you being so close. But thank you so much for your time today and really appreciate the work that you’re doing at Wabash and for our lean community and just the people that you work with. So thank you.

Tony Hayes  

Absolutely. Thanks, Patrick for having me on. And I look for a connection soon.

Patrick Adams  

All right, take care. All right, thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe. This way you’ll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined. Please give us a review. Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai