This week I’m speaking with Crystal Davis, an experienced business process improvement consultant and certified leadership development coach and CEO of The Lean Coach, Inc.
Crystal and I talk about how leaders and businesses can shift to efficiently working during the pandemic and how leaders can help their team members with the adjustment of returning to the workplace as we come out of the pandemic.
What You’ll Learn This Episode:
- How the pandemic has shifted how Crystal works with clients
- Project management focus
- The importance of meeting the client where they are at
- The importance of taking a break and reflecting as a leader
- How leaders can help team members as they return to work after the pandemic
- Why leaders should continue the learning process
About the Guest:
Crystal Davis is the CEO of The Lean Coach, Inc. and an experienced business process improvement consultant and certified leadership development coach with over twenty years of experience in the design, development, and implementation of Lean Business System solutions across a wide range of industries.
Crystal is a sought-after international speaker, host and podcaster with International Business Growth Radio (IBGR), and has spoken at numerous conferences around the world.
Crystal’s work and thought leadership has been published in The Journal of Cost Accounting, and Lean Six Sigma Review.
Throughout Crystal’s career, she was fortunate to serve as a Master Black Belt, to be mentored by two Toyota sensei in the Toyota Production System, and to lead three teams to receive awards and recognition from lean organizations. Crystal serves on the OPEX Board of Directors, and Lean Six Sigma and Data Conference board for the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). Crystal served as the conference chair in 2019, introducing Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to the conference. She also serves on the editorial board for ASQ’s Lean Six Sigma Review publication, where she served as guest editor for the inaugural all women’s special edition.
Important Links:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystalydavis/
Full Episode Transcript:
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, everybody, and welcome to the lean solutions podcast. Our guest today is crystal Davis and crystal is an experienced Business Process Improvement consultant and certified leadership development coach with over 20 years of experience in the design, development and implementation of lean business system solutions across a huge range of industries. Crystal is also the CEO of the lean coach, Inc. Welcome to the show Crystal.
Crystal Davis
Hi. Thanks, Patrick, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. I’m excited to have you on obviously, you and I are connected on LinkedIn and and always love seeing your posts and your live videos that you put out there. And obviously helping to spread awareness around the lean community and just continuous improvement in general. So thank you for what you do. Well, thank you. Same here, same here. I love learning from you as well.
Patrick Adams
Well, thank you. So tell the audience a little bit more about the work that you do specifically.
Crystal Davis
Specifically, I work primarily with manufacturing and or supply chain and a lot with their with their leadership on strategy, lean strategy, and how that connects with some of the business challenges that they’re having. So a little bit different of approach that I grew up in, you know, kind of just lean for lean sake. And then also I do a lot of work in leadership development and supporting those leaders that are driving the transformation. One of the things that I learned probably halfway through my career was that, you know, I was that one that was always like, well, the you know, it feels like the leadership buy in feels kind of loose. And what I really started to understand was, it wasn’t that they didn’t support our buying lean, it’s that they spoke a different language. And their language was about business impact and business challenges. And so I had to find that sweet spot to marry lean language with the business language and make sure that the things that we were focused on, were helping to solve those business problems. So that’s kind of the lane that I play in.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, and I think that’s such a key point that you made about being able to speak the language. And I worked with a lot of mid managers and executives that are struggling, not because they don’t have the right strategy that they’re, you know, working toward, but because they don’t speak the same language. And so helping them, you know, to helping mid managers to understand what executives are looking for. And you know, vice versa, is such an important part of the process improvement journey.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. And at the end of the day, what I found out is we all have the same desired outcome, just a different way of getting.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely for sure. So what what would you say that you enjoy most about your work.
Crystal Davis
So this day, it’s that moment when I’m working with someone, and they have this lightbulb moment that all the things that I’ve been preaching and talking about and really encouraging them to, to stick with. They have this aha moment, this moment of awareness and enlightenment that helps them see how it all flows together. And then the amount of momentum that follows that moment, or that realization, that still to me, to this day, it gives me the most joy. I can see good metrics all day long. But the moment I realized someone truly gets it, it’s just it’s I get this tingling feeling. You and me both.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, you and me both. That’s definitely the benefit of the work that we do for sure. I mean, could you give us maybe an example of a time when that happened, maybe your favorite experience when that light bulb went off for somebody and just kind of walk us through the details of that?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. My favorite moment was I was working with this was before I started my consulting practice. I was working with a VP of supply chain and her name was Stacy, I won’t give her last name. But her name is Stacy. And I can remember just telling her and being relentless about how we needed to implement level scheduling. We really needed to implement level scheduling. We were carrying excessive inventory. We were having to bring inventory back from the market. And because it was outdated, this was a product that had a shelf life. And she’d be like, yeah, yeah, Chris, I know. And so this was during a time when fuel prices were extremely high. And so she was talking to the logistics director about our fuel spin was just way out of whack. And, and so I took that as an opportunity. It took me a few moments to figure out this connection. But I took that as an opportunity to Patrick to say, you know what, it would really help if we didn’t have to transport all of this excess inventory, and bring all this product back from the field. And after a few sessions, he said, Oh my god, we’re carrying dead inventory. I say yeah, we’re spending expensive fuel to do so. But Right, right, figured out how to match the pain point that she was experiencing. But that moment, that moment was a significant shift for her. And she truly started to lead the lean transformation and understood why having the right amount of inventory in the right skews in the right locations was critical to being able to increase our ability to deliver orders on time and in full, and to bring less product back from the field and to have the freshest product on the shelf. So that truly was the driver to her being able to see. Okay, now I get it. I may not know all of this lean lingo. But now I understand what I’m being asked to lead. Right. And it was a huge learning experience for me as a lean professional. And why I talked about I talk to a lot of Lync professionals about you know, don’t make Lena thing, right. It truly is the essence of lean thinking, and learning to meet people where they are versus kind of forcing our lean language on them, help them understand how these tools, these principles and methodologies help them to solve the problem that plagued them and keep them up at night.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely. And I love to invest in your story. I love that you said right size, the inventory, because a lot of times people get a bad taste in their mouth about Lean when you hear about, you know, cut inventory, get to a point where you have zero inventory or you know, whatever it might be, I’ve heard lots of different practitioners and consultants talk about, you know, zero inventory and the benefits there. But really, depending on your industry, your company, your team, you need to focus on right sizing the inventory, it’s not that you have to have zero inventory. That’s it that you have to have the right size inventory, right.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. I came up in Delphi, and we used to call it the right part, right time, right quantity.
Patrick Adams
Yep, exactly. And that’s so important. And I think it’s important for people to realize the difference between, you know, zero inventory versus the right inventory and eliminating the waste of excess inventory, right, not just eliminating all inventory. All inventory isn’t necessarily bad. Again, depending on your industry and your team, your work there.
Crystal Davis
you know, when you have constraints, when you do need to carry excess inventory, it was our constraint.
Patrick Adams
That’s right. Absolutely. No, thank you for thank you for that story. I love it. Great, great story of that light bulb going off. And definitely again, you know, something that I love about the work that we do as well. So this last year has been a difficult year for so many companies for so many people, you know, based on the pandemic, but I’m curious to hear you as a lean practitioner, as a consultant as an expert in your, in your industry, in your work, how is the pandemic shifted how you work with clients, or your area of focus specifically?
Crystal Davis
Absolutely. Great question. So it significantly shifted my approach to supporting clients in continuous improvement. So of course, when everything shut down, I was really trying to find the right pivot to be able to help, you know, companies manufacturing, pretty much for essential items, really didn’t shut down. And so to be able to support those clients in a way that I could do so remotely, or from a distance. And so I found that the personal shift that I had to make where I found success was moving from the lean practitioner, to more of the strategist, and then more of driving and setting up or standing up a program management approach. So it’s less about, you know, very specific Kaizen plans and more so about we may have some recurring incidents, how do we bring that to the PMO? How do we assess risk? And how do we understand what the business continuity plan was, and now needs to be? Sure, and it was, it was a constant, a constant iteration of small PDA see, our PDCA excuse me cycles, but not in that nomenclature. It really was. This is brass tactics. This is about getting back to some level of stability. Sure. So for me, I just literally just had this conversation on my previous call, but it literally required me to step back from some of the stringent rigor that we have in some of our lean approaches, and really just say, you know what, the world has been disrupted. And there are lots of nuances that don’t just automatically allow our standards to operate as they once did. So I’ve got to think about this as a stable environment. Typically, in a lean situation, we will say you can’t do continuous improvement, until you have some level of stability then you improve And then there are these iterations where you continue continue up in this instance, it really was about trying to put as much rigor and standards around crisis management and achieve small iterations of stability. Sure.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, that makes sense. What and what would you say, you know, over this past year, you said, You shifted to more of a project management focus, what would you say is your approach to to project management, you know, maybe just walk us through, you know, some of your projects that you’ve been working on, or how you, you know, what your project management focus is?
Crystal Davis
Yeah, so one pretty large project that that I’ve been working on our was working on, we’ve kind of wrapped one phase of it, and we’re starting to move into into phase two, one was around warehouse stability, okay, was understanding the problem, in essence started from them not being able to ship on time. And this creating significant anger or anxiety with the sales team, okay. And this two, as I mentioned, you know, essential products, so this product sits in the grocery store. So it started with me going to do an assessment. So I did go there and kind of assess the situation. But it really was about me figuring out how to be that advisor, how to be the strategist, and then drive through coaching, which is very difficult through coaching the actions for the plant manager for the warehouse manager through this process of program management. So we had weekly meetings about the challenges that they were facing, then we had a weekly meeting with all functions that support the site, making sure that they were focused on the right aspects, and then we managed risk. And then risks that could not be managed or the risk that needed to be escalated, we did that through a monthly steering committee meeting with the senior leadership of the team, or the executive leadership for the company. So just creating that infrastructure that gave very, I’ll say, very much a, b attention and support needed to solve just in time problems. That’s probably the easiest way for me to explain it. Okay.
Patrick Adams
And how do you start working with a couple clients right now, one that uses Excel, you know, to track projects and tasks and things like that. Another one uses a visual board and another one uses a three, what would be your go to for documenting projects and action items that are following a project completion through project completion.
Crystal Davis
So I’m going to answer with this kind of equip whatever works for them. That’s the one I use. Now, my personal preference are tools like Asana, or Monday, I like the combined board view of what you should be focused on. But if that doesn’t work for folks, I’ll use Excel, I’ll use Miro, I’ll post notes and put them in the mail as we hit the focus and attention on the problem. And, and honestly, Patrick, that’s another lesson that I learned midway through my career as a lead professional, I used to be very, very rigid about the tools. Nope, we must use an eight, three. And so I lost a lot of people and fighting for the tool instead of fighting for the concept, or the outcome that the tool helped drive. And that same lady Stacy, she hated an x matrix. Okay, I don’t understand it, you know, I just hate looking at it, you know, and so it taught me to be flexible, because the ultimate objective and goal was, what does it take to get people to move forward and to take actions around the actual problem? And so yeah, this particular Excel was their, their tool choice?
Patrick Adams
No, I love that. I love that answer. Because it’s so true that you have to meet and you mentioned this earlier, too. You have to meet your client, where they’re at, right, if the meet whoever you’re working with, where they’re at. And, you know, again, maybe you suggest some different tools or things that you’ve seen, but if the team has something that is working for them, then you know, why wouldn’t you help support that right? Instead of trying to introduce another tool or another way of doing things that may or may not take, you know, some some amount of time to learn and adjust to and, and it may not even work for them, if they have a tool that’s working for them now, and it’s make sense, you know, then then why not support that right? And I’ve worked with a lot of lean practitioners that have tried to push certain tools or things like that and I’ve seen it failed miserably, you know, and there’s no sustainment in that because the buy in isn’t there and so definitely support that way of thinking for sure. Absolutely makes our jobs a lot easier. Yes, it does. Absolutely. So let’s, let’s shift a little bit to maybe on the personal side, I’m interested to hear crystal, you know, what, what do you do for fun? What as a lean practitioner, professional consultant, what do you do on? On your days off?
Crystal Davis
Well, great question. So first thing I got to find ways to have days off. in the, in the pandemic, or coming out of the pandemic, I’ve actually found joy, I love to travel anyway. But I found joy and traveling again, and just going to beautiful locations, beautiful places that allow me to think you know, to rest, to relax. So that’s become my new hobby. And I made a commitment to myself this year, because of working in the house and being in the house and through the pandemic, having to establish new boundaries for my house so that my whole house didn’t feel like an office, I made a commitment to myself that I would find a beautiful location to travel to once a quarter, even though it was just for a long weekend. Right getting back into like, into that. So that’s become my new hobby. Prior to that, I would say I really enjoyed discovering new restaurants, new twists on foods and different cultures. So I enjoyed that before. And I would say that that was probably my most favorite thing I used. I play golf, I play tennis, but those aren’t necessarily like my favorite things to do. Sure, sure.
Patrick Adams
And I agree with you on the relaxation and the taking a break piece when it comes to personal development, you know, for any leader, you have to take time to step away. And we actually have a friend in common Katie Anderson, who talks a lot about reflection, right? And for me, when I take a break when I step away from the day to day grind, you know, I put my focus on, yes, relaxation, but also reflection on what’s been done in the last month or the last year. And you know, what went well, what didn’t go well, what can I do to get better so that this next year or week or month, is going to be even better than the last. And so reflection is a big part of what I do, you know, in my relaxation time. I don’t know if you have similar thoughts on that.
Crystal Davis
I actually do. So every day. I read the book, the morning miracle. Patrick Adams
Okay.
Crystal Davis
Yeah, so. So long story short, the author had a really bad accident, went through this period of time of healing and trying to get back to, you know, his normal. And so he started establishing these mindfulness practices that start first thing every morning. And it’s really about getting into this space, right reflection, meditation, setting the intention, really raising your level of consciousness around the things that you want to accomplish, that you use those practices to help heal. Right. So instead of saying, I have taken on this victim consciousness, there’s really bad thing happened to me, I may never, you know, walk again, or whatever the situation is, you use this level of this morning miracle practice to actually increase his ability to think about the infinite possibilities of what he could become, and what he could will his body to do, to heal. And so that was one of the things that I found very pivotal for me last year, you know, as all of these really bad things were happening, you know, this constant focus on death and sickness and not being able to leave your home and not having social connections. So I found that to be very, very pivotal for me journaling. And then another great book is the 5am Club by Robin Sharma. Okay, another great practice around mindfulness and setting your intentions and you know, increasing your level of consciousness. And what I found is that the more I raise my level of consciousness and awareness, the better my reflections become. So I and what I mean by that is, I could reflect and not be so caught up whether or not I made a poor decision, or I failed at something or something didn’t work out exactly as I planned it, and I could then move on from it. Mm hmm.
Patrick Adams
I love that. And this last year, you know, has been such a struggle and a challenge for so many people. And I just think about the leaders that are listening today. I think about the fact that as employees and team members are starting to return back to the office, these are things that we have to consider leaders that, you know, they’re coming back with some baggage from a really, really difficult year. And again, how do you coach? How do you lead? You know, those team members that are coming back with some struggles and some challenges from this past year? Maybe the loss of a loved one, maybe, you know, coming out of depression or, you know, whatever it might be. So what would I don’t know, if you have any suggestions for any leaders that are listening right now on, you know, how they can maybe suggest a couple of those books or, you know, what can they do as leaders to just help team members as they’re returning back to work?
Crystal Davis
Oh, this is why I’m so glad you asked this question. So this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. One, I talk a lot about companies that are seeking to return to the office, whether that’s, you know, bringing everyone back, a hybrid solution, allowing some people to still, you know, work remotely. So, essentially, what I’m encouraging leaders to do is to really sit with where, how the pandemic impacted them. And I asked them to sit with that, because it’s important that they don’t transfer their experience on to other people. And also, they need to as much as they can, without invading, invading people’s privacy, they need to understand where are the members on my team, like, how has the pin pandemic, impact them in a way that I might need to consider where I need to give some flexibilities to this person so that they can perform at their peak level. Sure. And then last thing is they need to then coach the people on their team to have that same level of awareness and understanding of the people that are, you know, on the next level, next level down. And so collectively, by assessing and understanding where people are, and then engaging them in the solutions that help them perform at their best, and be able to stay focused. That to me is a true Win win. So it’s not necessarily about bringing people back to an office and expecting things to be as they were pre pandemic, it really is about trying to identify the win-win solution and scenario that allows the workers to engage in how work gets done, when they can work synchronously to drive collaboration. And when they need to work asynchronously. And then therefore, can have some flexibilities about when and where that work gets done. I think it is that simple. It’s complex. Should I think it’s that simple?
Patrick Adams
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it definitely can be simple. And I think just the word empathizing in the US that, I think that’s, that’s such a key phrase, when it comes to, you know, working with team members, you know, probably not just in post pandemic, but at any time, you know, just being empathetic and listening and understanding, putting yourself in their shoes, but also taking care of ourselves to as leaders as well, and, and being able to make sure that we’re in in a good place is definitely important, to give us the ability to coach and be empathetic to other team members. So thank you, I appreciate that. I think that’s gonna be a big topic over this next year is, you know, how, as people are coming, returning back to the office?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. And if I can add one more piece, I think that the leadership, you know, it’s gonna be tough as people are trying to make up a lot of lost ground, but I think, as much as possible, if they could be realistic about their stretch goals, and leave room for continued experimentation. Sure. And again, going back to this kind of business continuity and resilience, it’s fine to be to have a high level of agility and make changes, but I think they also have to be mindful that as you change, there’s going to be some additional unknowns. And so you need to be give a little bit of leeway, you know, if you don’t achieve the outcome, stay committed to continuing to experiment, because who knows what additional disruptions will come this year?
Patrick Adams
That’s right. And obviously, that, you know, nobody could have expected what happened this last year with COVID and, and, again, there could be other things that come out of it. And so I love that you mentioned being flexible with those goals. And yes, you still want to drive your team you know, towards their stretch goals, you know, moving closer to your long term vision, but also being understanding of the fact that you know, when things drop in that were are unexpected, you can’t just continue to hold your team to the same goals or the same, you know, metrics that you may have set out before that happen. You might have to be, you might have to as a leader, you may have to make a tough decision and make some adjustments or, you know, be flexible with some of that stuff. So So, absolutely. Good. So last question that I have for you today, I’m curious to hear about, you know, what you are most proud of over your Lean journey. You know, you both have been working in lean for a long time. And we have lots of different stories, I’m sure that we could share with the listeners, but I’m curious to hear what you’re most proud of over or you know, your journey.
Crystal Davis
Hmm. You know, there are a lot of moments that come to mind, probably the most proud moment that comes to me at this moment, is that I have remained a student and I know that sounds very cliche, it’s cliche for, for our community, but I continue to learn every day, you know, from my clients, I learned more and more about how to improve as a coach how to improve as a confidant or consultant, constantly learning and, and the reason that I’m kind of smiling or laughing about that is because I can remember working with Mr. Yamada, and he will tell me, you know, at his age, he’s still learning. And I was like, you know, yeah, right. You know, you’re just saying that, you know, you have this guy from that who grew up into a Yoda. And he’s saying that he learns every day. And so I’m having kind of this euphoric moment right now, because I understand what he really meant. And last year really, really challenged me as a CEO, you know, wanting to continue to stay in my business, not just for the business sake, but because I actually love what I do. I love helping clients, for me to continue to make pivots, experiment, learn, not make judgment on myself, for those decisions grow in mindfulness practices, and continue to still say that I’m a small business that survived. I mean, I recognize how huge that is, and how there are a lot of businesses that did not survive, a lot of people just had to make that tough decision. So I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud that I didn’t give up and that I continue to learn and to grow and to shift and to meet the problems where they are.
Patrick Adams
Love it. Love it. I agree with you. I am also a lifetime learner. And I think, to be completely transparent with everyone with you, crystal and with the listeners, last year, during when COVID first hit, I ran a series of webinars. And you know, while I was trying to help other people, I have to be transparent and say that that was also for me too. And even this podcast, I mean, just talking to people like you and other lean leaders that we’ve had on the show. It’s it’s not just for the listeners, it’s also for me, like I’m learning every single time that I sit down and talk with someone like you, I’m learning little things that I’m able to continue to add to my tool belt and just to become a better a better lean practitioner, a better lean leader, a better person all around. And so, you know, I would agree with you, I think that that’s something we can hang our hat on, you know, lot of lifetime learners and just continuing to grow as a person and as a lean leader in whatever industry we’re in.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. I’m glad to hear you say that. I really am. Last year was challenging. Yes. How much? I can remember having conversations with a lot of lean practitioners and saying, you know, how can we go to gimbal when we can’t leave our homes, and I’m like, you know, it, just we have to use our imagination, we have to actually do the things that we coach, other people so that we have to, I said, this is a great problem for us to figure out how to solve.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, and you mentioned a couple of the different tools that you know, that I’ve also been using over this last year, but even just something as simple as FaceTime with a client and you know, or an iPad out on the production floor or wherever it might be in the in the operating room, you know, to do a quick walkthrough of, you know, the five s or you know, a problem that they’re working on or whatever it might be zooming into a you know, a kata coaching session. You know, there’s so many different ways that leaders can use technology and use some of the tools that are out there to continue to engage their team members and go to the Gemba without actually physically being in the Gemba. I don’t know, I don’t know if you have any other recommendations for people about how you’ve been engaging people, you know, over this last year and going to the Gemba without actually physically being in the Gemba. But maybe that’s a good place for us to wrap up today.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. So really quickly. One of the things that I learned about going to the Gemba is that if we’ve done an effective job of teaching others how to observe, then I don’t really need to go. I need to hear and listen to what they said. They observe and then post them on additional opportunities to learn to see.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, like that. That’s great. And, and, you know, obviously you serving as a coach to someone and someone that’s listening here, you might be in that coaching role where you could do something similar to what Crystal just said, or you may be that person that’s on the production floor, or in the office that’s actually doing the gimble walk in either position that you’re in, you know, get being creative, and figuring out how to utilize some of those tools and just technology in general, to continue to drive process improvements within your organization is so important. And just because something like this happened doesn’t mean process improvements. And you know, continuous improvement never ends. It’s a continuous process. And so, but sometimes we just have to do it a little differently, right? That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Well, Crystal, thanks so much for being on the show. It’s been great to just learn a little bit more about the work that you do through the lean coach Inc in and you know, just some of the leadership development work that you’re doing with leaders in the industry and and obviously some some stories about the work that you’ve done. So thank you so much for being on and and being open about, you know, some of the struggles over this past year and how you’ve been able to adjust your consulting practice because of it. Thanks for being on the show, is there a website or somewhere that people can go if they want to learn more about what you do and how they can connect with you?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. Yes, the lean coach, Inc.com. Okay. And it’s been a pleasure.
Patrick Adams
Yes. Thank you. Absolutely. And we’ll drop that link into the show notes. If anybody’s interested as well as the transcript from the show. You can download that right on the web page for relief solutions podcast. So again, thanks, Crystal, and have an amazing day. Thank you, Tim. 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
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, everybody, and welcome to the lean solutions podcast. Our guest today is crystal Davis and crystal is an experienced Business Process Improvement consultant and certified leadership development coach with over 20 years of experience in the design, development and implementation of lean business system solutions across a huge range of industries. Crystal is also the CEO of the lean coach, Inc. Welcome to the show Crystal.
Crystal Davis
Hi. Thanks, Patrick, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. I’m excited to have you on obviously, you and I are connected on LinkedIn and and always love seeing your posts and your live videos that you put out there. And obviously helping to spread awareness around the lean community and just continuous improvement in general. So thank you for what you do. Well, thank you. Same here, same here. I love learning from you as well.
Patrick Adams
Well, thank you. So tell the audience a little bit more about the work that you do specifically.
Crystal Davis
Specifically, I work primarily with manufacturing and or supply chain and a lot with their with their leadership on strategy, lean strategy, and how that connects with some of the business challenges that they’re having. So a little bit different of approach that I grew up in, you know, kind of just lean for lean sake. And then also I do a lot of work in leadership development and supporting those leaders that are driving the transformation. One of the things that I learned probably halfway through my career was that, you know, I was that one that was always like, well, the you know, it feels like the leadership buy in feels kind of loose. And what I really started to understand was, it wasn’t that they didn’t support our buying lean, it’s that they spoke a different language. And their language was about business impact and business challenges. And so I had to find that sweet spot to marry lean language with the business language and make sure that the things that we were focused on, were helping to solve those business problems. So that’s kind of the lane that I play in.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, and I think that’s such a key point that you made about being able to speak the language. And I worked with a lot of mid managers and executives that are struggling, not because they don’t have the right strategy that they’re, you know, working toward, but because they don’t speak the same language. And so helping them, you know, to helping mid managers to understand what executives are looking for. And you know, vice versa, is such an important part of the process improvement journey.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. And at the end of the day, what I found out is we all have the same desired outcome, just a different way of getting.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely for sure. So what what would you say that you enjoy most about your work.
Crystal Davis
So this day, it’s that moment when I’m working with someone, and they have this lightbulb moment that all the things that I’ve been preaching and talking about and really encouraging them to, to stick with. They have this aha moment, this moment of awareness and enlightenment that helps them see how it all flows together. And then the amount of momentum that follows that moment, or that realization, that still to me, to this day, it gives me the most joy. I can see good metrics all day long. But the moment I realized someone truly gets it, it’s just it’s I get this tingling feeling. You and me both.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, you and me both. That’s definitely the benefit of the work that we do for sure. I mean, could you give us maybe an example of a time when that happened, maybe your favorite experience when that light bulb went off for somebody and just kind of walk us through the details of that?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. My favorite moment was I was working with this was before I started my consulting practice. I was working with a VP of supply chain and her name was Stacy, I won’t give her last name. But her name is Stacy. And I can remember just telling her and being relentless about how we needed to implement level scheduling. We really needed to implement level scheduling. We were carrying excessive inventory. We were having to bring inventory back from the market. And because it was outdated, this was a product that had a shelf life. And she’d be like, yeah, yeah, Chris, I know. And so this was during a time when fuel prices were extremely high. And so she was talking to the logistics director about our fuel spin was just way out of whack. And, and so I took that as an opportunity. It took me a few moments to figure out this connection. But I took that as an opportunity to Patrick to say, you know what, it would really help if we didn’t have to transport all of this excess inventory, and bring all this product back from the field. And after a few sessions, he said, Oh my god, we’re carrying dead inventory. I say yeah, we’re spending expensive fuel to do so. But Right, right, figured out how to match the pain point that she was experiencing. But that moment, that moment was a significant shift for her. And she truly started to lead the lean transformation and understood why having the right amount of inventory in the right skews in the right locations was critical to being able to increase our ability to deliver orders on time and in full, and to bring less product back from the field and to have the freshest product on the shelf. So that truly was the driver to her being able to see. Okay, now I get it. I may not know all of this lean lingo. But now I understand what I’m being asked to lead. Right. And it was a huge learning experience for me as a lean professional. And why I talked about I talk to a lot of Lync professionals about you know, don’t make Lena thing, right. It truly is the essence of lean thinking, and learning to meet people where they are versus kind of forcing our lean language on them, help them understand how these tools, these principles and methodologies help them to solve the problem that plagued them and keep them up at night.
Patrick Adams
Absolutely. And I love to invest in your story. I love that you said right size, the inventory, because a lot of times people get a bad taste in their mouth about Lean when you hear about, you know, cut inventory, get to a point where you have zero inventory or you know, whatever it might be, I’ve heard lots of different practitioners and consultants talk about, you know, zero inventory and the benefits there. But really, depending on your industry, your company, your team, you need to focus on right sizing the inventory, it’s not that you have to have zero inventory. That’s it that you have to have the right size inventory, right.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. I came up in Delphi, and we used to call it the right part, right time, right quantity.
Patrick Adams
Yep, exactly. And that’s so important. And I think it’s important for people to realize the difference between, you know, zero inventory versus the right inventory and eliminating the waste of excess inventory, right, not just eliminating all inventory. All inventory isn’t necessarily bad. Again, depending on your industry and your team, your work there.
Crystal Davis
you know, when you have constraints, when you do need to carry excess inventory, it was our constraint.
Patrick Adams
That’s right. Absolutely. No, thank you for thank you for that story. I love it. Great, great story of that light bulb going off. And definitely again, you know, something that I love about the work that we do as well. So this last year has been a difficult year for so many companies for so many people, you know, based on the pandemic, but I’m curious to hear you as a lean practitioner, as a consultant as an expert in your, in your industry, in your work, how is the pandemic shifted how you work with clients, or your area of focus specifically?
Crystal Davis
Absolutely. Great question. So it significantly shifted my approach to supporting clients in continuous improvement. So of course, when everything shut down, I was really trying to find the right pivot to be able to help, you know, companies manufacturing, pretty much for essential items, really didn’t shut down. And so to be able to support those clients in a way that I could do so remotely, or from a distance. And so I found that the personal shift that I had to make where I found success was moving from the lean practitioner, to more of the strategist, and then more of driving and setting up or standing up a program management approach. So it’s less about, you know, very specific Kaizen plans and more so about we may have some recurring incidents, how do we bring that to the PMO? How do we assess risk? And how do we understand what the business continuity plan was, and now needs to be? Sure, and it was, it was a constant, a constant iteration of small PDA see, our PDCA excuse me cycles, but not in that nomenclature. It really was. This is brass tactics. This is about getting back to some level of stability. Sure. So for me, I just literally just had this conversation on my previous call, but it literally required me to step back from some of the stringent rigor that we have in some of our lean approaches, and really just say, you know what, the world has been disrupted. And there are lots of nuances that don’t just automatically allow our standards to operate as they once did. So I’ve got to think about this as a stable environment. Typically, in a lean situation, we will say you can’t do continuous improvement, until you have some level of stability then you improve And then there are these iterations where you continue continue up in this instance, it really was about trying to put as much rigor and standards around crisis management and achieve small iterations of stability. Sure.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, that makes sense. What and what would you say, you know, over this past year, you said, You shifted to more of a project management focus, what would you say is your approach to to project management, you know, maybe just walk us through, you know, some of your projects that you’ve been working on, or how you, you know, what your project management focus is?
Crystal Davis
Yeah, so one pretty large project that that I’ve been working on our was working on, we’ve kind of wrapped one phase of it, and we’re starting to move into into phase two, one was around warehouse stability, okay, was understanding the problem, in essence started from them not being able to ship on time. And this creating significant anger or anxiety with the sales team, okay. And this two, as I mentioned, you know, essential products, so this product sits in the grocery store. So it started with me going to do an assessment. So I did go there and kind of assess the situation. But it really was about me figuring out how to be that advisor, how to be the strategist, and then drive through coaching, which is very difficult through coaching the actions for the plant manager for the warehouse manager through this process of program management. So we had weekly meetings about the challenges that they were facing, then we had a weekly meeting with all functions that support the site, making sure that they were focused on the right aspects, and then we managed risk. And then risks that could not be managed or the risk that needed to be escalated, we did that through a monthly steering committee meeting with the senior leadership of the team, or the executive leadership for the company. So just creating that infrastructure that gave very, I’ll say, very much a, b attention and support needed to solve just in time problems. That’s probably the easiest way for me to explain it. Okay.
Patrick Adams
And how do you start working with a couple clients right now, one that uses Excel, you know, to track projects and tasks and things like that. Another one uses a visual board and another one uses a three, what would be your go to for documenting projects and action items that are following a project completion through project completion.
Crystal Davis
So I’m going to answer with this kind of equip whatever works for them. That’s the one I use. Now, my personal preference are tools like Asana, or Monday, I like the combined board view of what you should be focused on. But if that doesn’t work for folks, I’ll use Excel, I’ll use Miro, I’ll post notes and put them in the mail as we hit the focus and attention on the problem. And, and honestly, Patrick, that’s another lesson that I learned midway through my career as a lead professional, I used to be very, very rigid about the tools. Nope, we must use an eight, three. And so I lost a lot of people and fighting for the tool instead of fighting for the concept, or the outcome that the tool helped drive. And that same lady Stacy, she hated an x matrix. Okay, I don’t understand it, you know, I just hate looking at it, you know, and so it taught me to be flexible, because the ultimate objective and goal was, what does it take to get people to move forward and to take actions around the actual problem? And so yeah, this particular Excel was their, their tool choice?
Patrick Adams
No, I love that. I love that answer. Because it’s so true that you have to meet and you mentioned this earlier, too. You have to meet your client, where they’re at, right, if the meet whoever you’re working with, where they’re at. And, you know, again, maybe you suggest some different tools or things that you’ve seen, but if the team has something that is working for them, then you know, why wouldn’t you help support that right? Instead of trying to introduce another tool or another way of doing things that may or may not take, you know, some some amount of time to learn and adjust to and, and it may not even work for them, if they have a tool that’s working for them now, and it’s make sense, you know, then then why not support that right? And I’ve worked with a lot of lean practitioners that have tried to push certain tools or things like that and I’ve seen it failed miserably, you know, and there’s no sustainment in that because the buy in isn’t there and so definitely support that way of thinking for sure. Absolutely makes our jobs a lot easier. Yes, it does. Absolutely. So let’s, let’s shift a little bit to maybe on the personal side, I’m interested to hear crystal, you know, what, what do you do for fun? What as a lean practitioner, professional consultant, what do you do on? On your days off?
Crystal Davis
Well, great question. So first thing I got to find ways to have days off. in the, in the pandemic, or coming out of the pandemic, I’ve actually found joy, I love to travel anyway. But I found joy and traveling again, and just going to beautiful locations, beautiful places that allow me to think you know, to rest, to relax. So that’s become my new hobby. And I made a commitment to myself this year, because of working in the house and being in the house and through the pandemic, having to establish new boundaries for my house so that my whole house didn’t feel like an office, I made a commitment to myself that I would find a beautiful location to travel to once a quarter, even though it was just for a long weekend. Right getting back into like, into that. So that’s become my new hobby. Prior to that, I would say I really enjoyed discovering new restaurants, new twists on foods and different cultures. So I enjoyed that before. And I would say that that was probably my most favorite thing I used. I play golf, I play tennis, but those aren’t necessarily like my favorite things to do. Sure, sure.
Patrick Adams
And I agree with you on the relaxation and the taking a break piece when it comes to personal development, you know, for any leader, you have to take time to step away. And we actually have a friend in common Katie Anderson, who talks a lot about reflection, right? And for me, when I take a break when I step away from the day to day grind, you know, I put my focus on, yes, relaxation, but also reflection on what’s been done in the last month or the last year. And you know, what went well, what didn’t go well, what can I do to get better so that this next year or week or month, is going to be even better than the last. And so reflection is a big part of what I do, you know, in my relaxation time. I don’t know if you have similar thoughts on that.
Crystal Davis
I actually do. So every day. I read the book, the morning miracle. Patrick Adams
Okay.
Crystal Davis
Yeah, so. So long story short, the author had a really bad accident, went through this period of time of healing and trying to get back to, you know, his normal. And so he started establishing these mindfulness practices that start first thing every morning. And it’s really about getting into this space, right reflection, meditation, setting the intention, really raising your level of consciousness around the things that you want to accomplish, that you use those practices to help heal. Right. So instead of saying, I have taken on this victim consciousness, there’s really bad thing happened to me, I may never, you know, walk again, or whatever the situation is, you use this level of this morning miracle practice to actually increase his ability to think about the infinite possibilities of what he could become, and what he could will his body to do, to heal. And so that was one of the things that I found very pivotal for me last year, you know, as all of these really bad things were happening, you know, this constant focus on death and sickness and not being able to leave your home and not having social connections. So I found that to be very, very pivotal for me journaling. And then another great book is the 5am Club by Robin Sharma. Okay, another great practice around mindfulness and setting your intentions and you know, increasing your level of consciousness. And what I found is that the more I raise my level of consciousness and awareness, the better my reflections become. So I and what I mean by that is, I could reflect and not be so caught up whether or not I made a poor decision, or I failed at something or something didn’t work out exactly as I planned it, and I could then move on from it. Mm hmm.
Patrick Adams
I love that. And this last year, you know, has been such a struggle and a challenge for so many people. And I just think about the leaders that are listening today. I think about the fact that as employees and team members are starting to return back to the office, these are things that we have to consider leaders that, you know, they’re coming back with some baggage from a really, really difficult year. And again, how do you coach? How do you lead? You know, those team members that are coming back with some struggles and some challenges from this past year? Maybe the loss of a loved one, maybe, you know, coming out of depression or, you know, whatever it might be. So what would I don’t know, if you have any suggestions for any leaders that are listening right now on, you know, how they can maybe suggest a couple of those books or, you know, what can they do as leaders to just help team members as they’re returning back to work?
Crystal Davis
Oh, this is why I’m so glad you asked this question. So this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. One, I talk a lot about companies that are seeking to return to the office, whether that’s, you know, bringing everyone back, a hybrid solution, allowing some people to still, you know, work remotely. So, essentially, what I’m encouraging leaders to do is to really sit with where, how the pandemic impacted them. And I asked them to sit with that, because it’s important that they don’t transfer their experience on to other people. And also, they need to as much as they can, without invading, invading people’s privacy, they need to understand where are the members on my team, like, how has the pin pandemic, impact them in a way that I might need to consider where I need to give some flexibilities to this person so that they can perform at their peak level. Sure. And then last thing is they need to then coach the people on their team to have that same level of awareness and understanding of the people that are, you know, on the next level, next level down. And so collectively, by assessing and understanding where people are, and then engaging them in the solutions that help them perform at their best, and be able to stay focused. That to me is a true Win win. So it’s not necessarily about bringing people back to an office and expecting things to be as they were pre pandemic, it really is about trying to identify the win-win solution and scenario that allows the workers to engage in how work gets done, when they can work synchronously to drive collaboration. And when they need to work asynchronously. And then therefore, can have some flexibilities about when and where that work gets done. I think it is that simple. It’s complex. Should I think it’s that simple?
Patrick Adams
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it definitely can be simple. And I think just the word empathizing in the US that, I think that’s, that’s such a key phrase, when it comes to, you know, working with team members, you know, probably not just in post pandemic, but at any time, you know, just being empathetic and listening and understanding, putting yourself in their shoes, but also taking care of ourselves to as leaders as well, and, and being able to make sure that we’re in in a good place is definitely important, to give us the ability to coach and be empathetic to other team members. So thank you, I appreciate that. I think that’s gonna be a big topic over this next year is, you know, how, as people are coming, returning back to the office?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. And if I can add one more piece, I think that the leadership, you know, it’s gonna be tough as people are trying to make up a lot of lost ground, but I think, as much as possible, if they could be realistic about their stretch goals, and leave room for continued experimentation. Sure. And again, going back to this kind of business continuity and resilience, it’s fine to be to have a high level of agility and make changes, but I think they also have to be mindful that as you change, there’s going to be some additional unknowns. And so you need to be give a little bit of leeway, you know, if you don’t achieve the outcome, stay committed to continuing to experiment, because who knows what additional disruptions will come this year?
Patrick Adams
That’s right. And obviously, that, you know, nobody could have expected what happened this last year with COVID and, and, again, there could be other things that come out of it. And so I love that you mentioned being flexible with those goals. And yes, you still want to drive your team you know, towards their stretch goals, you know, moving closer to your long term vision, but also being understanding of the fact that you know, when things drop in that were are unexpected, you can’t just continue to hold your team to the same goals or the same, you know, metrics that you may have set out before that happen. You might have to be, you might have to as a leader, you may have to make a tough decision and make some adjustments or, you know, be flexible with some of that stuff. So So, absolutely. Good. So last question that I have for you today, I’m curious to hear about, you know, what you are most proud of over your Lean journey. You know, you both have been working in lean for a long time. And we have lots of different stories, I’m sure that we could share with the listeners, but I’m curious to hear what you’re most proud of over or you know, your journey.
Crystal Davis
Hmm. You know, there are a lot of moments that come to mind, probably the most proud moment that comes to me at this moment, is that I have remained a student and I know that sounds very cliche, it’s cliche for, for our community, but I continue to learn every day, you know, from my clients, I learned more and more about how to improve as a coach how to improve as a confidant or consultant, constantly learning and, and the reason that I’m kind of smiling or laughing about that is because I can remember working with Mr. Yamada, and he will tell me, you know, at his age, he’s still learning. And I was like, you know, yeah, right. You know, you’re just saying that, you know, you have this guy from that who grew up into a Yoda. And he’s saying that he learns every day. And so I’m having kind of this euphoric moment right now, because I understand what he really meant. And last year really, really challenged me as a CEO, you know, wanting to continue to stay in my business, not just for the business sake, but because I actually love what I do. I love helping clients, for me to continue to make pivots, experiment, learn, not make judgment on myself, for those decisions grow in mindfulness practices, and continue to still say that I’m a small business that survived. I mean, I recognize how huge that is, and how there are a lot of businesses that did not survive, a lot of people just had to make that tough decision. So I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud that I didn’t give up and that I continue to learn and to grow and to shift and to meet the problems where they are.
Patrick Adams
Love it. Love it. I agree with you. I am also a lifetime learner. And I think, to be completely transparent with everyone with you, crystal and with the listeners, last year, during when COVID first hit, I ran a series of webinars. And you know, while I was trying to help other people, I have to be transparent and say that that was also for me too. And even this podcast, I mean, just talking to people like you and other lean leaders that we’ve had on the show. It’s it’s not just for the listeners, it’s also for me, like I’m learning every single time that I sit down and talk with someone like you, I’m learning little things that I’m able to continue to add to my tool belt and just to become a better a better lean practitioner, a better lean leader, a better person all around. And so, you know, I would agree with you, I think that that’s something we can hang our hat on, you know, lot of lifetime learners and just continuing to grow as a person and as a lean leader in whatever industry we’re in.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. I’m glad to hear you say that. I really am. Last year was challenging. Yes. How much? I can remember having conversations with a lot of lean practitioners and saying, you know, how can we go to gimbal when we can’t leave our homes, and I’m like, you know, it, just we have to use our imagination, we have to actually do the things that we coach, other people so that we have to, I said, this is a great problem for us to figure out how to solve.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, and you mentioned a couple of the different tools that you know, that I’ve also been using over this last year, but even just something as simple as FaceTime with a client and you know, or an iPad out on the production floor or wherever it might be in the in the operating room, you know, to do a quick walkthrough of, you know, the five s or you know, a problem that they’re working on or whatever it might be zooming into a you know, a kata coaching session. You know, there’s so many different ways that leaders can use technology and use some of the tools that are out there to continue to engage their team members and go to the Gemba without actually physically being in the Gemba. I don’t know, I don’t know if you have any other recommendations for people about how you’ve been engaging people, you know, over this last year and going to the Gemba without actually physically being in the Gemba. But maybe that’s a good place for us to wrap up today.
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. So really quickly. One of the things that I learned about going to the Gemba is that if we’ve done an effective job of teaching others how to observe, then I don’t really need to go. I need to hear and listen to what they said. They observe and then post them on additional opportunities to learn to see.
Patrick Adams
Yeah, like that. That’s great. And, and, you know, obviously you serving as a coach to someone and someone that’s listening here, you might be in that coaching role where you could do something similar to what Crystal just said, or you may be that person that’s on the production floor, or in the office that’s actually doing the gimble walk in either position that you’re in, you know, get being creative, and figuring out how to utilize some of those tools and just technology in general, to continue to drive process improvements within your organization is so important. And just because something like this happened doesn’t mean process improvements. And you know, continuous improvement never ends. It’s a continuous process. And so, but sometimes we just have to do it a little differently, right? That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Well, Crystal, thanks so much for being on the show. It’s been great to just learn a little bit more about the work that you do through the lean coach Inc in and you know, just some of the leadership development work that you’re doing with leaders in the industry and and obviously some some stories about the work that you’ve done. So thank you so much for being on and and being open about, you know, some of the struggles over this past year and how you’ve been able to adjust your consulting practice because of it. Thanks for being on the show, is there a website or somewhere that people can go if they want to learn more about what you do and how they can connect with you?
Crystal Davis
Oh, absolutely. Yes, the lean coach, Inc.com. Okay. And it’s been a pleasure.
Patrick Adams
Yes. Thank you. Absolutely. And we’ll drop that link into the show notes. If anybody’s interested as well as the transcript from the show. You can download that right on the web page for relief solutions podcast. So again, thanks, Crystal, and have an amazing day. Thank you, Tim. 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
0 Comments