This week I’m chatting with Paul Dunlop, a Lean expert and Principal Consultant with over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience across a broad range of industries.
In this episode we talk about focusing on accountability and performance management to improve your overall productivity. We also chat about why it’s so important to build your improvement on a solid foundation so that you can move from chaos and lack of structure to calm productivity.
What You’ll Learn This Episode:
- How to build improvement activity on a good foundation
- The importance of accountability
- Performance management and why it’s needed
- The idea of perfection and why it may be stopping you
- Fear and leadership
- Making behavior visual
About the Guest:
In his operational management roles Paul Dunlop has led successful Lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System and is green belt certified. Paul’s passion for operational excellence using Lean tools and methodology has helped drive sustained continuous improvement and financial performance at many businesses.
Paul’s human centred approach focuses on engaging the ongoing support and commitment of both frontline staff and senior management through effective Lean leadership to facilitate engagement and inclusive problem-solving cultures.
Paul supports and encourages organizations and individuals to go from chaos to calm productivity.
Important Links:
https://www.dunlopconsultants.com.au/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dunlopconsultants/
Full Episode Transcript:
Patrick Adams
Hello, everybody. Our special guest today is Paul Dunlap. And Paul brings with him over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience in a broad range of industries. In his operational management and consultancy roles, Paul has led successful lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System. And Paul, you I think that you’re well known for supporting organizations and individuals to go from chaos to calm and that’s kind of the the tagline that Paul uses from chaos to calm. But Paul, I’ll tell you, I’ve been watching you on social media and your posts, your videos are just amazing. And I’m so excited to have you on the show. So welcome to the show.
Paul Dunlop
Now. Thank you, Patrick, I appreciate you having me on. It’s been a while I think we’ve sort of touched base a little bit over the years and great to finally be well, somewhat face to face anyway. That’s right.
Patrick Adams
And obviously it’s, you know, for those of us that are missing hair with glasses, you know, we have to stick together. Right, Paul, that’s it, it’s a very select group, gently in the lane community, anyone? That’s right. But as I said, Paul, you know, I again, I’ve been following your social media posts, I love your videos, you know, just the simplicity of the tools, the way that you present them, that just everything about you know, just how you lay out. Your take on lean methodology is just super powerful for me, and I am excited to have you on the show. So what I did today was we’re going to go about this a little bit differently. I actually went out and I grabbed a couple statements from some of your posts out on LinkedIn. And I just thought we could have some conversation around some of these statements or these questions. And so the first question that I went and pulled from one of your posts was, are you building your improvement activity on a solid foundation? So can you walk us through that a little bit? Just on kind of what that means. And to you as far as that question goes?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, good question. Um, I think, I guess coming back to the chaos question is that the chaos really happens where there is a lack of structure. So you know, it’s like the house of TPS, it is somewhat like building a house, building a good continuous improvement program. So that foundation for me is really all about building that structure, giving an organization form. And that doesn’t necessarily need to be lean tools, per se. So I’d say, you know, clients come to people like us, because they have a lot of issues. They generally don’t come to us when things are going really well. And they died, but it is what it is. And it is a state of firefighting, reactive behavior eats a lot of time and effort and energy wasted on all of the wrong things as we know. So for me building that foundation means many different things. And it gets client by client that has a different starting point, depending on their needs. So again, I always come back to Tai Chi nose start from needs. So my approach is never a cookie cutter approach. It’s always touching the points that need to be touched. So building that foundation, I mean, ultimately, we have something like a hoshin kanri in place where we have strategic deployment and we have that cascading right down to a granular day to day level. But for me, those foundational things can be things like daily tier one and tier two meetings. It’s having, you know, perhaps basic fibers in place. It’s the latest Standard Work, it’s having standard operating procedures or All sorts of things, visual standards in terms of air quality, all of those, I guess what we term is very basic things. But ultimately, I think an organization’s success is predicated on doing those simple and basic things well, and doing them every single day. And in my mind, and in my experience, probably 80% of the journey is simply those things. So I think we can get a little bit carried away with perhaps some of the more complex and fancy tools because they are fancy, and they are shiny objects. But ultimately, I think, with continuous improvements, just doing the basics well, and sticking to that, and I guess for me, that is the foundation. Absolutely.
Patrick Adams
I love that you said there’s no cookie cutter approach. And I think that’s so important, because so many organizations get get stuck thinking that, you know, just because, you know, maybe another organization use these 10 steps, or, you know, maybe they think about Toyota and the tools that Toyota use, well, what we have to understand is that every organization is different, every team is different, the time is different, and there isn’t going to be a cookie cutter approach, you know, we have to approach every organization, as you said, in looking at what is the need? And you know, yes, there are definitely some foundational tools, there are some foundational actions, like you mentioned, and those are definitely a great starting point. But as you start to deploy, those organizations are going to learn and going to need to be open to start adjusting, right, and, and creating their own way of doing things, not necessarily the same way that other companies or Toyota did it right. And I always have to, I always ask, you know, what, what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve? And sometimes that can help also to point you in the right direction around what you’re, what you’re trying to deploy? Or what tool you need to use, or how you need to develop it.
Paul Dunlop
yeah, absolutely, Patrick, I couldn’t agree more. And I have a lot of clients that will ask me, What did Toyota do and what to Boston, I don’t really care what they do, I’m not really interested in that. And you shouldn’t be interested in that either. It’s really about how to make it better for you, for your business, for your culture, for your product, for your customers. And, you know, I sort of, you know, have a bit of a laugh, but so just make it up as you go along. That’s what these organizations have done. And, you know, I really like my brothers work out a camera, and the lessons learned around that, I think, totally in the West, we’ve, we’ve tried to pick up those, those templates, if you will, and try to cram those into our business, and it just doesn’t work. And, you know, again, I’m sure you see the same are walking after, you know, at least one failed implementation. And there’s, you know, a lot of, you know, sometimes difficult conversations that happen off the back of a lot of the work that I do probably is talking about what lean isn’t, rather than what lean is. And so there’s, again, a lot of misconceptions, a lot of mythology around that. And often what people think lean is the complete opposite of that.
Patrick Adams
That’s right. I agree. 100%. So one, and we could probably talk about that topic for a full hour. But I have a few other items here that I wanted to pull out here and just talk through. So the next one that I had was I saw you post a comment that said, any positive change, growth and development requires accountability. So what’s your take on accountability? How do you feel that that ties in with, with the kind of work that we do in the continuous improvement world?
Paul Dunlop
Oh, it’s all about accountability. I think you start using the word accountability and people freak out of it, because it has negative connotations that has, I guess, punitive conversations because it’s about I think often it’s about catching people out. Always, I think early on in my career, I heard the phrase catch people doing it right or doing well, which is, you know, the right kind of accountability. But yeah, accountability can be, I guess, if we’re looking to implement lean, lean is all about discipline. So yes, it’s all about simple things. But it’s about turning up and showing up and doing those simple things. Well, each and every day, and even when it’s it’s difficult and it’s hard and we want to resist doing those things. We have to do them. There’s no getting out of it. So that’s accountability right there. Again, turning up on time at a daily meeting, going through the agenda in the right way, asking the right questions, all of those sorts of things, accountability to follow a standardized work procedure to follow leader Standard Work, whatever it might be. So that accountability. I think he’s absolutely fundamental and fiddly for leaders. It is for them to drive that accountability for them to be accountable again, Lane knees, lane has many things, but it is predicated on the right quality leadership. And those leaders leading the way in terms of one creating the direction and the expectation and clarifying that and communicating that well, but also again, being there to serve and support and ensure that their people are cared for and set up for success. So, again, the accountability mechanism, I talk, I guess, organization, by organization, I find probably three common threads. And I think this is a global thing is that communication is always an issue. So you speak to anyone in an organization, they’ll say, communications rubbish, it doesn’t happen often enough, it’s not the right kind of communication. They’ll talk about the fact that people don’t have a voice or there’s a lack of engagement in the environment. So we’ve told them 100 times, and they never do anything, and then ever fix it. And also, performance management. And I think that’s part of the accountability tool is that there’s no, there there lacks positive feedback in the environment where there’s simply a thank you or Well done, or acknowledgement, but also poor performance or behavior doesn’t get dealt with or manage either. And that really frustrates people to the day they know that that’s happening. So I guess that accountability touches all of those things. But again, if you if you can’t turn up on time, if you can’t follow the guidelines or the procedure, then we’re really going to struggle to, you know, produce good quality, be efficient and have a great culture. So all of those sort of things. I mean, you talk about accountability, again, my job as a consultant is simply an accountability tool. I’m like a personal trainer for an organization, right. And ultimately, the answers to the problems are already there in the organization. It’s like, again, getting fit, you can do it, but you’ve got to show up every day and follow, follow the form and follow your nutrition and sleep well and do all those sorts of things. So it’s the same thing on the alternative every month or every couple of weeks. And yet I’ll hold people accountable to what they said they were going to do. Right, and that has habits ensures people have integrity and all of those sorts of things. So accountability is absolutely everything.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, I agree. 100%. And I, you know, I’ve heard leaders that have, you know, said, inspect what you expect, right, and I think that that’s a, that’s a really good thing to remember as a leader is that if you if you’ve laid out expectations, you know, you mentioned communication have to be clear, people have to understand what your expectations are. And a lot of times leaders will, will think that their team knows the expectations, but maybe they haven’t been clear enough. So understanding that you’ve put clear expectations out but then also the accountability piece, and making sure that you inspect what you expect is also a big piece of that, you know, making sure that your team understands how important it is to you. Right? If they see you out there looking into it or asking about it, then they know that it’s important to you. And so that, you know, something as simple as that is just popping out to say, hey, how’s this going? You know, and I think that can go a long way.
Paul Dunlop
yeah, absolutely, Patrick, I love that. Inspect what you expect. I’m going to take that one. That’s a good one. All right.
Patrick Adams
So another question that you threw out there in one of your posts was, are you stuck in a rut due to the myth of perfection? I saw this one. And I thought it was really interesting. I wanted to put this out here and just kind of see if you could give us a deeper dive into this.
Paul Dunlop
Yes, I could get myself in trouble here. But look, I think a lot of people for whatever reason, just in life in general, just get stuck. Because things. I think in our modern society, we want perfection. We’re always I guess how I put it is we’re looking at the top of the mountain and we’re not necessarily worried about the next step. So that’s again, probably a bit of Paul Akers influence there is really just to make it better. Don’t Don’t worry about perfection, we’re probably not ever going to get to perfection. However, take a step and take a little step. So I say often, so yeah, we have to be data driven, but we can’t sit there and look at numbers all day. That’s, you know, there comes a point where you know, enough data, enough data to then take action and do something, we have to have that bias for action. And I think, again, we get stuck in either perfectionism or we can be really overwhelmed and not really understand what what the next movies and again, coming back to the Carter type stuff is Yeah, experiment, find do something and find out do that in a in a logical and backbase way and ensure that that’s the right priority, but just do something and learn. And I think again, we probably are a little too focused on goals and targets. Rather than the process itself. So, again, I try and work with my clients to focus on the process of improving the process and bind. The reward in that the reward isn’t in hitting the goal. I’m not. Yes, yes, of course, I’m interested, ultimately not. But, you know, most of the time, my focus is just on that process of learning or incremental improvement, or both of those things. So, for me, perfection, I think gets in the way. And we just need to worry about better.
Patrick Adams
sure. Do you ever see leaders that get maybe discouraged? Because the process maybe does take a little bit longer than what they would like, you know, because I agree with you 100%, that incremental, small slow improvements lead to large and sustainable change. But sometimes it can be tough for leaders to accept that or, you know, they want to see it happen overnight? Or in that that can be difficult. Have you what’s been your experience in that?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, that’s probably every other client. I think I’m very upfront, and understanding why you want to do this, and what are your goals and objectives. And really, you know, for me, clarifying that communication that yeah, this is a long journey, disease, three to five years to really get anywhere and sustain and build that foundation. And then you have to be patient in that. There’s sort of, you know, there’ll be times where you’re, you are climbing the mountain, and it’s going to plateau, sometimes it’s going to dip, it’s definitely like any change process or anything you’re going to do differently in life, it is going to be hard, and it’s going to be awkward, it’s going to be very frustrating, it will take time, all of those things. However, there’s a, you know, a really big reward and a sustainable reward that continues to give, you know, for ever, in a day, at the end of that. So, you know, a lot of my coaching is, again, coaching leaders through that journey. And often there’s a, you know, a personal journey running in parallel with that, and they’re confronting a guest with some of their own challenges. So that could be things like letting go of that sort that’s always a big one. countability is another one and having, you know, perhaps difficult conversations or those sorts of things. So I think all of the above, there’s definitely a personal parallel journey in there for them as their organization is changing also. Sure.
Patrick Adams
absolutely. Here’s another one that I thought was pretty powerful, you said, is leadership in your environment being driven by fear and avoidance. And this this one, you know, I, again, I’ve worked for a lot of different leaders and with a lot of different leaders, and I’ve definitely, I’ve seen this, and I’ve experienced it personally. So I just want to hear your take on this one for you know, environments, or organizations that are being driven by fear and avoidance, and what that can do to a company or to a team, it ultimately, it kills. Basically, it destroys any desirable culture in the environment.
Paul Dunlop
I think it was my brother talked about sucking the fear out of the environment. It’s really, really important that we are creating psychologically safe work environments for all people. And I guess that comes back to, you know, my why’s all about giving to the frontline employees, meaning and purpose and a good quality day’s work. That’s ultimately what I’m trying to achieve through what I do. So, fear, fear operates at all levels in the organization. I think that post was primarily talking about leaders. But if we have an environment where, again, there’s punitive action, people are reluctant to speak up, they feel like they are, you know, just being told every day and pushed every day, then, you know, we’re not getting the best out of human beings. And ultimately, that’s what lanes are trying to do. We’re trying to create an environment where people want to engage, we talk about, and always look at the waste of non use of skills. So the experts in our environment are the people who are hands on doing the work each and every day, again, whether it’s a factory, it’s an office, whatever. And the answers to our problems in the organization live with them. And our job as leaders is to get that out to extract that. And if we have an environment where we have fear, then we’re simply just not going to get that people shut down. You know, they literally avoid, they’ll go through the motions each day, but again, they’re not engaging in any meaningful way. Again, if you’re looking at that, from a leadership point of view, well, they’re being pushed from above, they’re being pushed to hit certain times. gets. And again, there’s negative consequences for them, if they don’t keep those. So again, it’s peer driven, and it drives people into, again, the wrong psychology, we don’t want that we want, you know, I know open, safe environment where people are operating in their prefrontal cortex again, you know, what’s what’s we’re doing to people’s brains that literally does shut down their their high level thinking, it becomes unhealthy, it becomes stressful. It literally does kill people, saying a lot of things, middle managers into the later in their career, they’re not healthy. Well, people because of that continual, you know, cortisol pumping through the body because of fear in the environment. So bit of a long winded answer. But yeah, it’s really something that pervades most environments. Sometimes it’s quite subtle, sometimes. It’s not, but it’s definitely something we need to work on. And I think, again, the antidote is those, you know, open communication, you know, developing servant leadership or those sorts of things.
Patrick Adams
Yes. So in in your, the work that you’ve done it, I’m sure that you’ve helped develop and then and visited and have seen experienced companies that have those safe environments where there are servant leaders, and you’re, you’re seeing, you know, open communication, and, you know, just a learning environment, right, an open learning environment, in your experience, what what are the results of that? What have you seen or experienced in those organizations, as the results that come out of that type of environment,
Paul Dunlop
smiles on people’s faces, people like coming to work, they enjoy their work, whatever it is they’re doing, I think workplaces, these days, still dehumanize people I hear very often. I’m just, you know, people really value, who they are and what they do. So in those environments where, you know, again, doesn’t need to be lame, but where we’ve opened up communication, create those safe workplaces where we have servant leadership, where we have very clear objectives day in day out. Yes, it makes for a happy, it’s not a utopia, but it makes for a happy workplace, it makes for a workplace where people are legitimately engaged. And that engagement then translates to improvement, and means people will take ownership and responsibility over what they do. It means that leaders can actually focus on strategic outcomes, rather than being stuck in the weeds, so to speak, because so often, we say that, whether it’s through micromanagement, or it’s just through continual firefighting, and reactive behavior, so it allows that, again, to come back to structure but allows this structure to have integrity to stand up and for people to be able to be focused on the right things. You can feel it when you walk in, you know, how the environment is, I walk into businesses that I’ve worked with for a few years now. And people will come up and grab hold of me and go, Hey, Paul, come and come and look at that thing that I’ve done, that improvement that I’ve made, and that’s often, you know, sometimes that’s things that people have done in their spare time that are then brought to the workplace, and then that energized and excited about it, and can literally feel that, you know, again, when you’ve been consulting for a few years, you know, you can, as soon as you walk in the door, you know, what’s, what’s going on in the environment, you’ve got a sixth sense for it. So you can really notice the difference. And again, you can, one of the indicators for me, when transformation really starts to take hold is you can hear it in the language, the way people the words they use, the way they communicate, you can really, literally hear it and say it. So yeah, that those are sort of some of the things Oh, yeah,
Patrick Adams
it’s powerful. I agree with you, 100%. And in my own experience, as well. So thank you for sharing that. All right, another question that I saw you posted, and now we’re getting maybe down the line of structured problem solving, but you said, Do you have a method to improve your process and solve problems? So what would you say, you know, from a structured problem solving process, what is your what’s your suggestion to companies that maybe, you know, don’t have a process in place or a method in place to to solve problems,
Paul Dunlop
you need a method. That’s it have a method? So obviously, PDCA is the go to and that’s the mantra, I sort of want to talk about that most companies will just again, are stuck in that firefighting and reactive behavior. I said, I have a doo doo doo doo methodology instead of plan, do check, adjust. So they, again, spend a lot of time and effort just running around trying to think they know what the Problems are, thinking they know what the solutions are. Some of that may well be, but a lot of it can be misguided. So a lot of effort is spent on the wrong thing. So, yeah, definitely, you know, I definitely start with PDCA. I drive that through, you know, daily visual management, daily communication meetings, but, you know, I really embed that first. And then we start looking whether it’s using an improvement, kata model, as a as another relatively simple first step, whether we use a three, whether we, you know, again, the fishbone, and five, why all of those sorts of things, but at least start with a very simple approach to plan, do check, adjust, you know, posted yesterday on, prioritize, and execute. So, you know, have some data, have some analysis, first, you know, understand your current state, again, whether it’s through value stream mapping, or, you know, just some very simple metrics around the key indicators in your process. And I always say, the data will tell you, the data will tell you what, what you need to do next, but I have some data, and then you can start to work through PDCA, and PDCA. Again, that can play out in 10 minutes, it doesn’t need to be, I think, as soon as you start using the word plan, people freak out and think it’s too hard out, you know, I’ve never done a plan, I don’t know how to plan well, that’s as easy as, as me scrapped out on a bit of paper, it doesn’t matter. You can do these things very simply, but just not just follow a methodology. So for me, you know, PDCA, I mean, that that’s really all you need, right? Ultimately, I think sometimes, again, the lean community, we get a bit carried away with all sorts of different tools, but it just needs to be kept as simple as that. And that will carry you a long way forward.
Patrick Adams
Yeah. Agreed. That said, you know, obviously, there are lots of other methodologies out there. And I think your point, you know, of just just get something in place, some methodology. But you know, I would echo what you’re saying to Paul is that PDCA is, really the simplest. And really, you can tie back, you know, most of the methodologies to PDCA. As long as you understand those simple four simple steps and you’re following them, you’re going to have a good method at driving to the root cause and solving problems. So thank you for that. Appreciate that. So the last, the last comment that I pulled was kind of along the same lines, right, you just made me talk a little bit about problem solving and making problems visible. But you said in one of your posts, you said, we make everything else visual. So make behavior visual, too. And so I thought about that, and I was thinking, you know, I, you know, I’m I’m thinking of some different ways that you know, in my own personal experience, and how I can make the right behavior visible. And I just want to hear your thoughts on this. And, you know, where would you go around making behavior? visual?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, it’s an interesting one. So everything has to be visual and visual environment and visual workplace, what I was talking about there, so recently become accredited to do disc assessments. So I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this. So yeah, it’s a great behavioral profiling tool. And I’m using that in many of my clients to great effect. So that has a visual component to that, and it creates, you know, a common language within to their leadership teams, it’s really driving self awareness and awareness of the other behavioral traits of the team and helps really helps people to understand themselves as well as be able to communicate and interact in a more effective and meaningful way with their, with their team with their peers. But I think probably Further to that, it’s, you know, it’s really important, again, as part of that accountability, those, you know, whether again, that’s from a personal point of view, because, again, as a as a lean person, that’s not just, you know, nine to five, lean guy, and then you know, it all goes out the window, and I’m a lean person, 24 hours of the day. So whether that’s building accountability metrics, or your own behavior, whether it’s your exercise routines, what’s your sleep routines, whatever it might be, you know, we’ll have different apps and things on our phone, I use visual apps on my phone to track all sorts of things. So I think we can, again, there’s a wider conversation about implementing these tools and techniques and principles into day to day life. Even. One of the things I always have on visual boards in client companies is an attendance component. So you know, green if you’re if you’re present and you’re on time you get a green mark. If you’re late or it’s an unplanned absence, you get a red mark. Then you go there’s visual behavioral accountability and people don’t like to see too many red marks against their name. Now on top, we don’t talk about it, but it’s there. So it’s just those sorts of things, I think, all of those sort of things, because again, tools aside liens all about behavior, it’s all about habits. It’s all about people. And if we can, again, visualize as many of those things as we can, again, it just creates the right mindset, if you will.
Patrick Adams
Sure. And the one area that I think of is, you know, with leader standard work, a lot of times we, you know, we talk about the behaviors that that are going to give you the results that you want in ensuring that you’re, you know, you’re blocking time, or you’re developing some type of habit or recurring time each week, where you’re doing certain actions or behaviors that are going to give you the results that you want. But taking that one step further and actually posting your leader Standard Work, you know, making it visible to your team. So that, you know, again, there’s that visible accountability there to say, I’m committed to this, I’m committed to attending or you know, leading tier one meetings, tier two meetings, I’m, I’m committed to, you know, daily audits, weekly audits, daily Gimble, walks, whatever it might be, I’m committed, I’m putting it out there and making a visual, you know, and that’s another way I think that you could make your behavior visual, right?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah. 100%. And that’s a tool that I spend a lot of time on, totally up front with clients and leaders and clients. That is a, it’s a non negotiable tool, that one and not negotiable developing your non negotiables. But yeah, the latest Standard Work is incredibly powerful. And yeah, absolutely. I agree. That’s always visual in some form. I’m not really bothered how it is visualized, whether it’s a laminated sheet, or it’s commission II card, whatever. But yet, later, Standard Work. he’s a he’s a great one. I will talk about that. Yeah, let’s talk about it. Yeah. So labor standard works as an interesting one. Because again, I think like every leader, I, you know, Tilly, frontline and middle managers in an organization now always say they’re busy. So the first thing I get is I’m too busy. So it’s like, Paul, you want me to do all of this lean stuff, and I’m doing meetings and this and that, and I’ve got to get product out the door, you know, when I’m when I’m going to have time to do this. So then we start having the conversation around, looking at what you’re busy doing. And then obviously, part of the conversation is okay, let’s let’s start to develop some latest Standard Work, again, the structural tool to give, you know, the latest day form. And my starting point is always around not negotiable. So what are the are categorized into master should do nice to do? So. So what are the must do not negotiable tasks you’ve got every day? And at least, let’s start with that. So when do they happen? How long do they take that another day? And for me later, standard work in the beginning is often quite difficult to implement for that leader. And so part of, for me, part of that latest Standard Work process is actually using that as a mirror to highlight the noise and the interruption in the wasteful activity. So, you know, sometimes they’ll start on it, and they’re not getting to the master activity to two o’clock in the afternoon. So that will hang on with we’ve got a problem here. So like any standard, and again, for me, the standard is the mechanism to highlight the waist, and the deviation is to highlight what’s working well. But it’s also to highlight the deviation, no different with leader standard work. So I think there’s a lot of power there, when we can start to then highlight that, hey, you’re, you’re spending time outside of your lane. So you might be again, leaders, who are technically good enough for being promoted, because of their technical skill will tend to gravitate back to the happy, comfortable place. And so time can be eaten up there, that can be dragged sideways and upward. They can be again focused on all of the waste as a result of the chaos and environment. There’s some at some point, they have to resist those urges. And the latest Standard Work tool is one really great way to start to, again, it’s it’s like a mini hoshin. Really, here’s the true north every day, where am I at in relation to that and helps pull people back. So it’s really, I think one of the foundational and fundamental tools in any organization is having leaders there. It also stops becoming less about the leader too and more about the role. So it’s also about building the role for that position in your organization. no different to a sporting team.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely. Agree. 100%. One of the things that I think about too, with leaders Standard Work is if you don’t have a plan, you know, then then you’re just kind of coming into work every day and you’re you’re wishing and you’re hoping that get the results that you’re looking for right leader Standard Work is also it’s it’s, it’s the behaviors and the actions, but it’s the plan that’s going to give you the results that you’re looking for. Right if you just keep coming to work every day with no plan, you’re gonna get bombarded with fires and your manager coming to you with something and this person wanting that and you’re going to get pulled in all these directions. And by the end of the day, you’re going to look back and go, what did I even accomplish today? Did I did I get anything done? Did I move the needle closer to that truenorth? Or no? Right? So that that leader Standard Work gives you that plan that, again, that you mentioned those those non negotiables that have to happen in order to drive us forward and get us closer to the results that we’re that we’re looking for.
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it sort of comes back to the Toyota principles of finding stability that for me, that’s the car. The problem is in many environments, though, we’ve rewarded that behavior, the sort of hero mentality and riding on the white horse and solving the problem and, and senior management will reward that behavior. And there’s also, I think, you know, activity in Australia, I say this a lot, there’s this real badge of honor, of, of Look how busy I am. And, you know, marking sweat from the brown. It’s just rubbish and on. When leaders transition through that journey, like I’ll hear the comments. So Paul, I don’t know what to do with all these spreads. Okay, that’s a good problem to have, yeah. Now, we can be proactive. And we can start focusing on improving your business and developing your people and doing all the things that you you want to do that you’ve never been able to get near. And, again, air environments traditionally conditioned leaders to behave like that. And we almost have to, you know, decondition, and get rid of that programming. And the latest Standard Work, again, is a great tool to start that journey again, restarted. Yeah, absolutely.
Patrick Adams
This has been great if, if someone wanted to get ahold of you, and was interested to ask questions, or, you know, reach out to you about your consulting or anything at all, how would they get ahold of you?
Paul Dunlop
Probably the best place is LinkedIn. So as you said, I’m sort of there every day. So yeah, LinkedIn is the way to go. Also my website. So www Dunlop consultants.com.au can sort of have a look at more of what I do. I do a few other different things as a bit of Lego series play and a few different tools there that I offer. So yeah, but link, LinkedIn is probably the best way. So feel free to message
Patrick Adams
and we’ll drop, we’ll drop a couple of those links into the show notes. I have seen your Lego play too. You know, maybe we can have you back on another show. And we can talk through some of your Lego play and some of the benefits and of you know, and some of the exercises that you put together for that. That’d be great.
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, that’d be fantastic. And really complimentary to the lane work. And again, it’s a fantastic tool for engagement and problem solving. And really, like any lean tool, it drives a conversation and opens up the conversation. So yeah, we’d love to do that, Patrick.
Patrick Adams
Great. Well, thanks again, Paul. I appreciate it. I know that you’re, you’re in Australia, and I’m in West Michigan. So I think it’s I think you mentioned that 6am where you’re at, it’s late in the afternoon here. So it’s always fun to have a conversation on two opposite sides of the world. But I appreciate you coming on today and talking through, you know, some of these comments and questions that you throw out there and LinkedIn. And again, I just really appreciate all of the content that you put out on LinkedIn, please continue to share that content, it’s super powerful. And I know there’s so many listeners out there that are agreeing with me in just just loving the posts that you put out, love the videos, the pictures, all the great content. So thank you for that.
Paul Dunlop
No, I appreciate that. Thank you, Patrick. And trust me that the feeling is mutual. I think you’ve certainly been an inspiration for me, and I’ve watched you for the last few years. So yeah, keep up. Keep up the great work, man. Thank you.
Patrick Adams
Appreciate it, Paul. All right. Have a good day. 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
Hello, everybody. Our special guest today is Paul Dunlap. And Paul brings with him over 20 years of management and manufacturing experience in a broad range of industries. In his operational management and consultancy roles, Paul has led successful lean implementation and transformations using the principles of the Toyota Production System. And Paul, you I think that you’re well known for supporting organizations and individuals to go from chaos to calm and that’s kind of the the tagline that Paul uses from chaos to calm. But Paul, I’ll tell you, I’ve been watching you on social media and your posts, your videos are just amazing. And I’m so excited to have you on the show. So welcome to the show.
Paul Dunlop
Now. Thank you, Patrick, I appreciate you having me on. It’s been a while I think we’ve sort of touched base a little bit over the years and great to finally be well, somewhat face to face anyway. That’s right.
Patrick Adams
And obviously it’s, you know, for those of us that are missing hair with glasses, you know, we have to stick together. Right, Paul, that’s it, it’s a very select group, gently in the lane community, anyone? That’s right. But as I said, Paul, you know, I again, I’ve been following your social media posts, I love your videos, you know, just the simplicity of the tools, the way that you present them, that just everything about you know, just how you lay out. Your take on lean methodology is just super powerful for me, and I am excited to have you on the show. So what I did today was we’re going to go about this a little bit differently. I actually went out and I grabbed a couple statements from some of your posts out on LinkedIn. And I just thought we could have some conversation around some of these statements or these questions. And so the first question that I went and pulled from one of your posts was, are you building your improvement activity on a solid foundation? So can you walk us through that a little bit? Just on kind of what that means. And to you as far as that question goes?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, good question. Um, I think, I guess coming back to the chaos question is that the chaos really happens where there is a lack of structure. So you know, it’s like the house of TPS, it is somewhat like building a house, building a good continuous improvement program. So that foundation for me is really all about building that structure, giving an organization form. And that doesn’t necessarily need to be lean tools, per se. So I’d say, you know, clients come to people like us, because they have a lot of issues. They generally don’t come to us when things are going really well. And they died, but it is what it is. And it is a state of firefighting, reactive behavior eats a lot of time and effort and energy wasted on all of the wrong things as we know. So for me building that foundation means many different things. And it gets client by client that has a different starting point, depending on their needs. So again, I always come back to Tai Chi nose start from needs. So my approach is never a cookie cutter approach. It’s always touching the points that need to be touched. So building that foundation, I mean, ultimately, we have something like a hoshin kanri in place where we have strategic deployment and we have that cascading right down to a granular day to day level. But for me, those foundational things can be things like daily tier one and tier two meetings. It’s having, you know, perhaps basic fibers in place. It’s the latest Standard Work, it’s having standard operating procedures or All sorts of things, visual standards in terms of air quality, all of those, I guess what we term is very basic things. But ultimately, I think an organization’s success is predicated on doing those simple and basic things well, and doing them every single day. And in my mind, and in my experience, probably 80% of the journey is simply those things. So I think we can get a little bit carried away with perhaps some of the more complex and fancy tools because they are fancy, and they are shiny objects. But ultimately, I think, with continuous improvements, just doing the basics well, and sticking to that, and I guess for me, that is the foundation. Absolutely.
Patrick Adams
I love that you said there’s no cookie cutter approach. And I think that’s so important, because so many organizations get get stuck thinking that, you know, just because, you know, maybe another organization use these 10 steps, or, you know, maybe they think about Toyota and the tools that Toyota use, well, what we have to understand is that every organization is different, every team is different, the time is different, and there isn’t going to be a cookie cutter approach, you know, we have to approach every organization, as you said, in looking at what is the need? And you know, yes, there are definitely some foundational tools, there are some foundational actions, like you mentioned, and those are definitely a great starting point. But as you start to deploy, those organizations are going to learn and going to need to be open to start adjusting, right, and, and creating their own way of doing things, not necessarily the same way that other companies or Toyota did it right. And I always have to, I always ask, you know, what, what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve? And sometimes that can help also to point you in the right direction around what you’re, what you’re trying to deploy? Or what tool you need to use, or how you need to develop it.
Paul Dunlop
yeah, absolutely, Patrick, I couldn’t agree more. And I have a lot of clients that will ask me, What did Toyota do and what to Boston, I don’t really care what they do, I’m not really interested in that. And you shouldn’t be interested in that either. It’s really about how to make it better for you, for your business, for your culture, for your product, for your customers. And, you know, I sort of, you know, have a bit of a laugh, but so just make it up as you go along. That’s what these organizations have done. And, you know, I really like my brothers work out a camera, and the lessons learned around that, I think, totally in the West, we’ve, we’ve tried to pick up those, those templates, if you will, and try to cram those into our business, and it just doesn’t work. And, you know, again, I’m sure you see the same are walking after, you know, at least one failed implementation. And there’s, you know, a lot of, you know, sometimes difficult conversations that happen off the back of a lot of the work that I do probably is talking about what lean isn’t, rather than what lean is. And so there’s, again, a lot of misconceptions, a lot of mythology around that. And often what people think lean is the complete opposite of that.
Patrick Adams
That’s right. I agree. 100%. So one, and we could probably talk about that topic for a full hour. But I have a few other items here that I wanted to pull out here and just talk through. So the next one that I had was I saw you post a comment that said, any positive change, growth and development requires accountability. So what’s your take on accountability? How do you feel that that ties in with, with the kind of work that we do in the continuous improvement world?
Paul Dunlop
Oh, it’s all about accountability. I think you start using the word accountability and people freak out of it, because it has negative connotations that has, I guess, punitive conversations because it’s about I think often it’s about catching people out. Always, I think early on in my career, I heard the phrase catch people doing it right or doing well, which is, you know, the right kind of accountability. But yeah, accountability can be, I guess, if we’re looking to implement lean, lean is all about discipline. So yes, it’s all about simple things. But it’s about turning up and showing up and doing those simple things. Well, each and every day, and even when it’s it’s difficult and it’s hard and we want to resist doing those things. We have to do them. There’s no getting out of it. So that’s accountability right there. Again, turning up on time at a daily meeting, going through the agenda in the right way, asking the right questions, all of those sorts of things, accountability to follow a standardized work procedure to follow leader Standard Work, whatever it might be. So that accountability. I think he’s absolutely fundamental and fiddly for leaders. It is for them to drive that accountability for them to be accountable again, Lane knees, lane has many things, but it is predicated on the right quality leadership. And those leaders leading the way in terms of one creating the direction and the expectation and clarifying that and communicating that well, but also again, being there to serve and support and ensure that their people are cared for and set up for success. So, again, the accountability mechanism, I talk, I guess, organization, by organization, I find probably three common threads. And I think this is a global thing is that communication is always an issue. So you speak to anyone in an organization, they’ll say, communications rubbish, it doesn’t happen often enough, it’s not the right kind of communication. They’ll talk about the fact that people don’t have a voice or there’s a lack of engagement in the environment. So we’ve told them 100 times, and they never do anything, and then ever fix it. And also, performance management. And I think that’s part of the accountability tool is that there’s no, there there lacks positive feedback in the environment where there’s simply a thank you or Well done, or acknowledgement, but also poor performance or behavior doesn’t get dealt with or manage either. And that really frustrates people to the day they know that that’s happening. So I guess that accountability touches all of those things. But again, if you if you can’t turn up on time, if you can’t follow the guidelines or the procedure, then we’re really going to struggle to, you know, produce good quality, be efficient and have a great culture. So all of those sort of things. I mean, you talk about accountability, again, my job as a consultant is simply an accountability tool. I’m like a personal trainer for an organization, right. And ultimately, the answers to the problems are already there in the organization. It’s like, again, getting fit, you can do it, but you’ve got to show up every day and follow, follow the form and follow your nutrition and sleep well and do all those sorts of things. So it’s the same thing on the alternative every month or every couple of weeks. And yet I’ll hold people accountable to what they said they were going to do. Right, and that has habits ensures people have integrity and all of those sorts of things. So accountability is absolutely everything.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, I agree. 100%. And I, you know, I’ve heard leaders that have, you know, said, inspect what you expect, right, and I think that that’s a, that’s a really good thing to remember as a leader is that if you if you’ve laid out expectations, you know, you mentioned communication have to be clear, people have to understand what your expectations are. And a lot of times leaders will, will think that their team knows the expectations, but maybe they haven’t been clear enough. So understanding that you’ve put clear expectations out but then also the accountability piece, and making sure that you inspect what you expect is also a big piece of that, you know, making sure that your team understands how important it is to you. Right? If they see you out there looking into it or asking about it, then they know that it’s important to you. And so that, you know, something as simple as that is just popping out to say, hey, how’s this going? You know, and I think that can go a long way.
Paul Dunlop
yeah, absolutely, Patrick, I love that. Inspect what you expect. I’m going to take that one. That’s a good one. All right.
Patrick Adams
So another question that you threw out there in one of your posts was, are you stuck in a rut due to the myth of perfection? I saw this one. And I thought it was really interesting. I wanted to put this out here and just kind of see if you could give us a deeper dive into this.
Paul Dunlop
Yes, I could get myself in trouble here. But look, I think a lot of people for whatever reason, just in life in general, just get stuck. Because things. I think in our modern society, we want perfection. We’re always I guess how I put it is we’re looking at the top of the mountain and we’re not necessarily worried about the next step. So that’s again, probably a bit of Paul Akers influence there is really just to make it better. Don’t Don’t worry about perfection, we’re probably not ever going to get to perfection. However, take a step and take a little step. So I say often, so yeah, we have to be data driven, but we can’t sit there and look at numbers all day. That’s, you know, there comes a point where you know, enough data, enough data to then take action and do something, we have to have that bias for action. And I think, again, we get stuck in either perfectionism or we can be really overwhelmed and not really understand what what the next movies and again, coming back to the Carter type stuff is Yeah, experiment, find do something and find out do that in a in a logical and backbase way and ensure that that’s the right priority, but just do something and learn. And I think again, we probably are a little too focused on goals and targets. Rather than the process itself. So, again, I try and work with my clients to focus on the process of improving the process and bind. The reward in that the reward isn’t in hitting the goal. I’m not. Yes, yes, of course, I’m interested, ultimately not. But, you know, most of the time, my focus is just on that process of learning or incremental improvement, or both of those things. So, for me, perfection, I think gets in the way. And we just need to worry about better.
Patrick Adams
sure. Do you ever see leaders that get maybe discouraged? Because the process maybe does take a little bit longer than what they would like, you know, because I agree with you 100%, that incremental, small slow improvements lead to large and sustainable change. But sometimes it can be tough for leaders to accept that or, you know, they want to see it happen overnight? Or in that that can be difficult. Have you what’s been your experience in that?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, that’s probably every other client. I think I’m very upfront, and understanding why you want to do this, and what are your goals and objectives. And really, you know, for me, clarifying that communication that yeah, this is a long journey, disease, three to five years to really get anywhere and sustain and build that foundation. And then you have to be patient in that. There’s sort of, you know, there’ll be times where you’re, you are climbing the mountain, and it’s going to plateau, sometimes it’s going to dip, it’s definitely like any change process or anything you’re going to do differently in life, it is going to be hard, and it’s going to be awkward, it’s going to be very frustrating, it will take time, all of those things. However, there’s a, you know, a really big reward and a sustainable reward that continues to give, you know, for ever, in a day, at the end of that. So, you know, a lot of my coaching is, again, coaching leaders through that journey. And often there’s a, you know, a personal journey running in parallel with that, and they’re confronting a guest with some of their own challenges. So that could be things like letting go of that sort that’s always a big one. countability is another one and having, you know, perhaps difficult conversations or those sorts of things. So I think all of the above, there’s definitely a personal parallel journey in there for them as their organization is changing also. Sure.
Patrick Adams
absolutely. Here’s another one that I thought was pretty powerful, you said, is leadership in your environment being driven by fear and avoidance. And this this one, you know, I, again, I’ve worked for a lot of different leaders and with a lot of different leaders, and I’ve definitely, I’ve seen this, and I’ve experienced it personally. So I just want to hear your take on this one for you know, environments, or organizations that are being driven by fear and avoidance, and what that can do to a company or to a team, it ultimately, it kills. Basically, it destroys any desirable culture in the environment.
Paul Dunlop
I think it was my brother talked about sucking the fear out of the environment. It’s really, really important that we are creating psychologically safe work environments for all people. And I guess that comes back to, you know, my why’s all about giving to the frontline employees, meaning and purpose and a good quality day’s work. That’s ultimately what I’m trying to achieve through what I do. So, fear, fear operates at all levels in the organization. I think that post was primarily talking about leaders. But if we have an environment where, again, there’s punitive action, people are reluctant to speak up, they feel like they are, you know, just being told every day and pushed every day, then, you know, we’re not getting the best out of human beings. And ultimately, that’s what lanes are trying to do. We’re trying to create an environment where people want to engage, we talk about, and always look at the waste of non use of skills. So the experts in our environment are the people who are hands on doing the work each and every day, again, whether it’s a factory, it’s an office, whatever. And the answers to our problems in the organization live with them. And our job as leaders is to get that out to extract that. And if we have an environment where we have fear, then we’re simply just not going to get that people shut down. You know, they literally avoid, they’ll go through the motions each day, but again, they’re not engaging in any meaningful way. Again, if you’re looking at that, from a leadership point of view, well, they’re being pushed from above, they’re being pushed to hit certain times. gets. And again, there’s negative consequences for them, if they don’t keep those. So again, it’s peer driven, and it drives people into, again, the wrong psychology, we don’t want that we want, you know, I know open, safe environment where people are operating in their prefrontal cortex again, you know, what’s what’s we’re doing to people’s brains that literally does shut down their their high level thinking, it becomes unhealthy, it becomes stressful. It literally does kill people, saying a lot of things, middle managers into the later in their career, they’re not healthy. Well, people because of that continual, you know, cortisol pumping through the body because of fear in the environment. So bit of a long winded answer. But yeah, it’s really something that pervades most environments. Sometimes it’s quite subtle, sometimes. It’s not, but it’s definitely something we need to work on. And I think, again, the antidote is those, you know, open communication, you know, developing servant leadership or those sorts of things.
Patrick Adams
Yes. So in in your, the work that you’ve done it, I’m sure that you’ve helped develop and then and visited and have seen experienced companies that have those safe environments where there are servant leaders, and you’re, you’re seeing, you know, open communication, and, you know, just a learning environment, right, an open learning environment, in your experience, what what are the results of that? What have you seen or experienced in those organizations, as the results that come out of that type of environment,
Paul Dunlop
smiles on people’s faces, people like coming to work, they enjoy their work, whatever it is they’re doing, I think workplaces, these days, still dehumanize people I hear very often. I’m just, you know, people really value, who they are and what they do. So in those environments where, you know, again, doesn’t need to be lame, but where we’ve opened up communication, create those safe workplaces where we have servant leadership, where we have very clear objectives day in day out. Yes, it makes for a happy, it’s not a utopia, but it makes for a happy workplace, it makes for a workplace where people are legitimately engaged. And that engagement then translates to improvement, and means people will take ownership and responsibility over what they do. It means that leaders can actually focus on strategic outcomes, rather than being stuck in the weeds, so to speak, because so often, we say that, whether it’s through micromanagement, or it’s just through continual firefighting, and reactive behavior, so it allows that, again, to come back to structure but allows this structure to have integrity to stand up and for people to be able to be focused on the right things. You can feel it when you walk in, you know, how the environment is, I walk into businesses that I’ve worked with for a few years now. And people will come up and grab hold of me and go, Hey, Paul, come and come and look at that thing that I’ve done, that improvement that I’ve made, and that’s often, you know, sometimes that’s things that people have done in their spare time that are then brought to the workplace, and then that energized and excited about it, and can literally feel that, you know, again, when you’ve been consulting for a few years, you know, you can, as soon as you walk in the door, you know, what’s, what’s going on in the environment, you’ve got a sixth sense for it. So you can really notice the difference. And again, you can, one of the indicators for me, when transformation really starts to take hold is you can hear it in the language, the way people the words they use, the way they communicate, you can really, literally hear it and say it. So yeah, that those are sort of some of the things Oh, yeah,
Patrick Adams
it’s powerful. I agree with you, 100%. And in my own experience, as well. So thank you for sharing that. All right, another question that I saw you posted, and now we’re getting maybe down the line of structured problem solving, but you said, Do you have a method to improve your process and solve problems? So what would you say, you know, from a structured problem solving process, what is your what’s your suggestion to companies that maybe, you know, don’t have a process in place or a method in place to to solve problems,
Paul Dunlop
you need a method. That’s it have a method? So obviously, PDCA is the go to and that’s the mantra, I sort of want to talk about that most companies will just again, are stuck in that firefighting and reactive behavior. I said, I have a doo doo doo doo methodology instead of plan, do check, adjust. So they, again, spend a lot of time and effort just running around trying to think they know what the Problems are, thinking they know what the solutions are. Some of that may well be, but a lot of it can be misguided. So a lot of effort is spent on the wrong thing. So, yeah, definitely, you know, I definitely start with PDCA. I drive that through, you know, daily visual management, daily communication meetings, but, you know, I really embed that first. And then we start looking whether it’s using an improvement, kata model, as a as another relatively simple first step, whether we use a three, whether we, you know, again, the fishbone, and five, why all of those sorts of things, but at least start with a very simple approach to plan, do check, adjust, you know, posted yesterday on, prioritize, and execute. So, you know, have some data, have some analysis, first, you know, understand your current state, again, whether it’s through value stream mapping, or, you know, just some very simple metrics around the key indicators in your process. And I always say, the data will tell you, the data will tell you what, what you need to do next, but I have some data, and then you can start to work through PDCA, and PDCA. Again, that can play out in 10 minutes, it doesn’t need to be, I think, as soon as you start using the word plan, people freak out and think it’s too hard out, you know, I’ve never done a plan, I don’t know how to plan well, that’s as easy as, as me scrapped out on a bit of paper, it doesn’t matter. You can do these things very simply, but just not just follow a methodology. So for me, you know, PDCA, I mean, that that’s really all you need, right? Ultimately, I think sometimes, again, the lean community, we get a bit carried away with all sorts of different tools, but it just needs to be kept as simple as that. And that will carry you a long way forward.
Patrick Adams
Yeah. Agreed. That said, you know, obviously, there are lots of other methodologies out there. And I think your point, you know, of just just get something in place, some methodology. But you know, I would echo what you’re saying to Paul is that PDCA is, really the simplest. And really, you can tie back, you know, most of the methodologies to PDCA. As long as you understand those simple four simple steps and you’re following them, you’re going to have a good method at driving to the root cause and solving problems. So thank you for that. Appreciate that. So the last, the last comment that I pulled was kind of along the same lines, right, you just made me talk a little bit about problem solving and making problems visible. But you said in one of your posts, you said, we make everything else visual. So make behavior visual, too. And so I thought about that, and I was thinking, you know, I, you know, I’m I’m thinking of some different ways that you know, in my own personal experience, and how I can make the right behavior visible. And I just want to hear your thoughts on this. And, you know, where would you go around making behavior? visual?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, it’s an interesting one. So everything has to be visual and visual environment and visual workplace, what I was talking about there, so recently become accredited to do disc assessments. So I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this. So yeah, it’s a great behavioral profiling tool. And I’m using that in many of my clients to great effect. So that has a visual component to that, and it creates, you know, a common language within to their leadership teams, it’s really driving self awareness and awareness of the other behavioral traits of the team and helps really helps people to understand themselves as well as be able to communicate and interact in a more effective and meaningful way with their, with their team with their peers. But I think probably Further to that, it’s, you know, it’s really important, again, as part of that accountability, those, you know, whether again, that’s from a personal point of view, because, again, as a as a lean person, that’s not just, you know, nine to five, lean guy, and then you know, it all goes out the window, and I’m a lean person, 24 hours of the day. So whether that’s building accountability metrics, or your own behavior, whether it’s your exercise routines, what’s your sleep routines, whatever it might be, you know, we’ll have different apps and things on our phone, I use visual apps on my phone to track all sorts of things. So I think we can, again, there’s a wider conversation about implementing these tools and techniques and principles into day to day life. Even. One of the things I always have on visual boards in client companies is an attendance component. So you know, green if you’re if you’re present and you’re on time you get a green mark. If you’re late or it’s an unplanned absence, you get a red mark. Then you go there’s visual behavioral accountability and people don’t like to see too many red marks against their name. Now on top, we don’t talk about it, but it’s there. So it’s just those sorts of things, I think, all of those sort of things, because again, tools aside liens all about behavior, it’s all about habits. It’s all about people. And if we can, again, visualize as many of those things as we can, again, it just creates the right mindset, if you will.
Patrick Adams
Sure. And the one area that I think of is, you know, with leader standard work, a lot of times we, you know, we talk about the behaviors that that are going to give you the results that you want in ensuring that you’re, you know, you’re blocking time, or you’re developing some type of habit or recurring time each week, where you’re doing certain actions or behaviors that are going to give you the results that you want. But taking that one step further and actually posting your leader Standard Work, you know, making it visible to your team. So that, you know, again, there’s that visible accountability there to say, I’m committed to this, I’m committed to attending or you know, leading tier one meetings, tier two meetings, I’m, I’m committed to, you know, daily audits, weekly audits, daily Gimble, walks, whatever it might be, I’m committed, I’m putting it out there and making a visual, you know, and that’s another way I think that you could make your behavior visual, right?
Paul Dunlop
Yeah. 100%. And that’s a tool that I spend a lot of time on, totally up front with clients and leaders and clients. That is a, it’s a non negotiable tool, that one and not negotiable developing your non negotiables. But yeah, the latest Standard Work is incredibly powerful. And yeah, absolutely. I agree. That’s always visual in some form. I’m not really bothered how it is visualized, whether it’s a laminated sheet, or it’s commission II card, whatever. But yet, later, Standard Work. he’s a he’s a great one. I will talk about that. Yeah, let’s talk about it. Yeah. So labor standard works as an interesting one. Because again, I think like every leader, I, you know, Tilly, frontline and middle managers in an organization now always say they’re busy. So the first thing I get is I’m too busy. So it’s like, Paul, you want me to do all of this lean stuff, and I’m doing meetings and this and that, and I’ve got to get product out the door, you know, when I’m when I’m going to have time to do this. So then we start having the conversation around, looking at what you’re busy doing. And then obviously, part of the conversation is okay, let’s let’s start to develop some latest Standard Work, again, the structural tool to give, you know, the latest day form. And my starting point is always around not negotiable. So what are the are categorized into master should do nice to do? So. So what are the must do not negotiable tasks you’ve got every day? And at least, let’s start with that. So when do they happen? How long do they take that another day? And for me later, standard work in the beginning is often quite difficult to implement for that leader. And so part of, for me, part of that latest Standard Work process is actually using that as a mirror to highlight the noise and the interruption in the wasteful activity. So, you know, sometimes they’ll start on it, and they’re not getting to the master activity to two o’clock in the afternoon. So that will hang on with we’ve got a problem here. So like any standard, and again, for me, the standard is the mechanism to highlight the waist, and the deviation is to highlight what’s working well. But it’s also to highlight the deviation, no different with leader standard work. So I think there’s a lot of power there, when we can start to then highlight that, hey, you’re, you’re spending time outside of your lane. So you might be again, leaders, who are technically good enough for being promoted, because of their technical skill will tend to gravitate back to the happy, comfortable place. And so time can be eaten up there, that can be dragged sideways and upward. They can be again focused on all of the waste as a result of the chaos and environment. There’s some at some point, they have to resist those urges. And the latest Standard Work tool is one really great way to start to, again, it’s it’s like a mini hoshin. Really, here’s the true north every day, where am I at in relation to that and helps pull people back. So it’s really, I think one of the foundational and fundamental tools in any organization is having leaders there. It also stops becoming less about the leader too and more about the role. So it’s also about building the role for that position in your organization. no different to a sporting team.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely. Agree. 100%. One of the things that I think about too, with leaders Standard Work is if you don’t have a plan, you know, then then you’re just kind of coming into work every day and you’re you’re wishing and you’re hoping that get the results that you’re looking for right leader Standard Work is also it’s it’s, it’s the behaviors and the actions, but it’s the plan that’s going to give you the results that you’re looking for. Right if you just keep coming to work every day with no plan, you’re gonna get bombarded with fires and your manager coming to you with something and this person wanting that and you’re going to get pulled in all these directions. And by the end of the day, you’re going to look back and go, what did I even accomplish today? Did I did I get anything done? Did I move the needle closer to that truenorth? Or no? Right? So that that leader Standard Work gives you that plan that, again, that you mentioned those those non negotiables that have to happen in order to drive us forward and get us closer to the results that we’re that we’re looking for.
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it sort of comes back to the Toyota principles of finding stability that for me, that’s the car. The problem is in many environments, though, we’ve rewarded that behavior, the sort of hero mentality and riding on the white horse and solving the problem and, and senior management will reward that behavior. And there’s also, I think, you know, activity in Australia, I say this a lot, there’s this real badge of honor, of, of Look how busy I am. And, you know, marking sweat from the brown. It’s just rubbish and on. When leaders transition through that journey, like I’ll hear the comments. So Paul, I don’t know what to do with all these spreads. Okay, that’s a good problem to have, yeah. Now, we can be proactive. And we can start focusing on improving your business and developing your people and doing all the things that you you want to do that you’ve never been able to get near. And, again, air environments traditionally conditioned leaders to behave like that. And we almost have to, you know, decondition, and get rid of that programming. And the latest Standard Work, again, is a great tool to start that journey again, restarted. Yeah, absolutely.
Patrick Adams
This has been great if, if someone wanted to get ahold of you, and was interested to ask questions, or, you know, reach out to you about your consulting or anything at all, how would they get ahold of you?
Paul Dunlop
Probably the best place is LinkedIn. So as you said, I’m sort of there every day. So yeah, LinkedIn is the way to go. Also my website. So www Dunlop consultants.com.au can sort of have a look at more of what I do. I do a few other different things as a bit of Lego series play and a few different tools there that I offer. So yeah, but link, LinkedIn is probably the best way. So feel free to message
Patrick Adams
and we’ll drop, we’ll drop a couple of those links into the show notes. I have seen your Lego play too. You know, maybe we can have you back on another show. And we can talk through some of your Lego play and some of the benefits and of you know, and some of the exercises that you put together for that. That’d be great.
Paul Dunlop
Yeah, that’d be fantastic. And really complimentary to the lane work. And again, it’s a fantastic tool for engagement and problem solving. And really, like any lean tool, it drives a conversation and opens up the conversation. So yeah, we’d love to do that, Patrick.
Patrick Adams
Great. Well, thanks again, Paul. I appreciate it. I know that you’re, you’re in Australia, and I’m in West Michigan. So I think it’s I think you mentioned that 6am where you’re at, it’s late in the afternoon here. So it’s always fun to have a conversation on two opposite sides of the world. But I appreciate you coming on today and talking through, you know, some of these comments and questions that you throw out there and LinkedIn. And again, I just really appreciate all of the content that you put out on LinkedIn, please continue to share that content, it’s super powerful. And I know there’s so many listeners out there that are agreeing with me in just just loving the posts that you put out, love the videos, the pictures, all the great content. So thank you for that.
Paul Dunlop
No, I appreciate that. Thank you, Patrick. And trust me that the feeling is mutual. I think you’ve certainly been an inspiration for me, and I’ve watched you for the last few years. So yeah, keep up. Keep up the great work, man. Thank you.
Patrick Adams
Appreciate it, Paul. All right. Have a good day. 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
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