0:00:11 - Betsy Jordyn
Well, hey there everyone. Welcome back to a bonus episode of the Consulting Matters podcast. We're still the show that empowers and inspires consultants to own the power of what they do, and I'm super grateful that Katie Anderson has decided to join me on a bonus episode where we are going to talk about a really big challenge that we both really want to solve but she really more than me, but I also really want to solve it which is all around why lean practitioners in particular really need to level up their positioning and how they write and talk about what they do. So we are just going to have a sloppy discussion that we're allowing you to be a fly on the wall and hear us just talk about it. So there's no real agenda outside of really getting clarity on you guys do amazing work writing and talking about it and how you're positioning yourself, maybe standing in your way, and maybe we'll come up with some cool ideas to overcome it. So welcome back to the show, Katie.
0:01:08 - Katie Anderson
Thanks, Betsy. I'm excited to dive into this conversation and want to say, you know, one of the reasons I'm excited for this conversation is I don't have the answers either, and this has been a struggle in the 20 years I've been working in the space of lean and continuous improvement about how much do I use the word lean versus not use the word lean? How do I position the work that I do? How do I talk to people who aren't already bought in and you know, aren't one of us, right who aren't already? Like a lean convert or the Toyota production system, Like how do I talk about the work that I do that's compelling? How do we bring executives and leaders on board? And what do we do about the word lean, Like, use it not?
0:01:45 - Betsy Jordyn
use it.
0:01:52 - Katie Anderson
And the sort of the or you know, or how do we just embrace it where it is? And so, anyway, I'm excited to dive into this because it's something near and dear to not only my heart but all of the people that I work with as well.
0:02:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So I think that there's a difference too, around you know, internal and external too. Because an external consultant you could position yourself however you want. You know you don't have to use. I didn't use OD. I didn't even mention that I was an OD consultant in any of the years that I had a. You know that I was doing OD consulting and I had learned very, very early on was when I was a Disney consultant.
I was told, like if you use any of your OD lingo, like we are just going to like tie you to the, you know, to the chair and we're going to push you off to the side. Like they literally told me that. So I knew I had a Trojan horse. But let's talk about lean in particular, because so I've been working with you for like for three years and I'm literally now just getting exactly what you do. So when we first started working together, I just made the assumption, like everybody else, like, oh well, you do process improvement. That's reinforced by you have Six Sigma, black Belt, and it's like oh well, you do like hardcore process improvement, you know. And so if I were going to compare Lean to somebody else, it's like, oh well, you're a version of industrial engineers, because that's what I would associate you with. So that's how I saw it. Am I alone in that, or do other people see it that way?
0:03:07 - Katie Anderson
Yeah, you are 100% not alone, because and I talk about this with Jim Womack, whose research team actually created the word lean and lean manufacturing you can go listen to my podcast Chain of Learning about why leans failed In part, is because not only the word lean we do talk about was that a good word or not, and we can talk about that in a moment but that it was the focus of the. Yeah, we it was doing more with less, but we we focused on the doing less and on the tools, like the great process. Improvement is a huge component of it, but it's, it's enabled through this foundation of people in learning. It was like this, like the secret sauce that Toyota has, and that's why I didn't care. People could steal all the tools they wanted, which we did in the West we took all those tools and we did all this process, but it's not sticking because we're not focusing on the, the people and the learning as the, as the source, and so we're trying to use the tools in our old management, my command and control framework, so we can dive into that too.
But it has definitely been a challenge in talking about what we do. So the reason you associate Equate Lean with process is because that's how it got introduced in the West and the focus of it and is a core component and you and I always talk about. We don't want to throw out all the lean, technical process improvement side. That is what differentiates it and the work we do as lean and continuous improvement practitioners and enthusiasts from just the organizational development side, but it's marrying the two together and so it's a unique.
It's a unique value proposition and also, like for years, my husband still didn't understand what I did. It's like because we get stuck in the jargon or trying to explain things, and so this has been a challenge I personally have had and I want to highlight too. You said you know, as an external consultant, you didn't use OD in your title of what you do. I have tried, as an external consultant too, to not use the word lean on my website, however, and I didn't want to have that in my podcast title either or subtitle. But the reality is, the people I work with, my people, are the lean people, and so I have had this push, pull about how do I can like, have all the SEO and all the? You know the, the, the use the term, but not use the term Right, because, um, so it's. It's been a challenge from a positioning side.
0:05:41 - Betsy Jordyn
You're in a different place. So it's kind of like now I support consultants and coaches, so I will say OD consulting or organization development consulting, because it resonates, because these are my, you know, like this is my background. You work with me specifically because of my organization development background. You are your ideal clients, are lean consultants in that space. So that makes sense. That's fine.
It's the people who are working with like, who are not working with lean people, who are working with regular people in the organization you know, and leaders who don't have any perspective. And I think that's where it gets confusing is that it seems to me like my experience is it's either it's like it goes high level or super tactical like either it's like we're going to eliminate waste from the system, just like I don't even know exactly what that means Like how are you eliminating the waste? To the super aspirational like, oh, people, respect for people, but it's like I don't know what that means Like. What I do understand is, instead of when you, when you talked about like oh, the heart of lean is getting leaders to not getting leaders to solve problems, but really empowering people to solve the problems.
0:06:44 - Katie Anderson
Like there's a couple of stories.
0:06:46 - Betsy Jordyn
There's a couple of stories that really got my attention. That got me clear is it's like your paint story of you know, like when you talk about the paint story of Mr Yoshino, when he got in trouble for the paint, and it was like I wonder if it's the process like that, like you know, I'm sure other people have heard you say the paint story. There's some people who have not heard it. Can you share the paint story?
0:07:05 - Katie Anderson
real quick.
Yeah, so the paint story is this, mr Yoshino, I wrote a book called Learning to Lead, leading to Learn, documenting and synthesizing Mr Asao Yoshino's 40 years at Toyota, starting in the late 1960s into the early 2000s, and one of the story I tell the most and like from keynote stages to workshops, is a short vignette that shows up in the book that where he made a huge mistake at the age of 22, when he just started, and he poured a can of paint and a can of solvent into a big vat, he'd been doing this for weeks.
This was part of his training and a hundred cars had to be repainted because he'd made a mistake, had done something wrong. But instead of blaming him, his bosses came over and asked him what was the process you took? And then they worked together to mistake-proof for the future and then, importantly, they said thank you. Thank you for making that mistake, because it showed that we as managers had not set up the working environment for you to be successful. And it's so powerful. I'll have to find which podcast episode of Chain of Learning where I share that, but I have that on my website and we'll make sure to link belowage or do something wrong and that that shift from reactive to proactive and creating this cult seeing mistakes and failures and, you know, big process problems as an opportunity for learning, like mind mind blowing.
0:08:39 - Betsy Jordyn
So that was a great story. You told me that and then, but it's like you kept talking about, like this going to Gumba thing. I'm like I don't know what you're talking about. It's like jargon, you know. Like going to Gemba, you know. It's like you know, like I don't know what you're talking about.
But then I spent the day with Mark Ryan and he was telling me about when he was't clean, and so then he talked about like he brought the doctors, you know, into the room to observe what was going on, and then again he said the same story, you know, similar kind of story. It's like, oh, instead of blaming, like what, what people at housekeepers or what nurses are not doing their job, it was like, well, I wonder what the SOPs are that would lead to this outcome. And he brought them to the site and I think some of it is. Is there's all of this intuitive understanding of what you're doing, but it's like there's not the translations, like you have to, like there's not.
The assumption is like I don't know what you're talking about. But I think that their idea is, at the end of the day, is, how do we push problem solving down to the right level and empower the right people to solve it. Like, that seems to be like, how do we get the front lines? To me, I think what, what lean does is my opinion is I optimize performance on the front lines, like period, like that's what happens, like we, the, and this is where the culture gets lived, this is where the customer experience gets lived. We optimize performance on the front lines.
You know, you could say that and that's like. Well, that's clear. Instead of like, I eliminate waste.
0:10:08 - Katie Anderson
I'm like I don't know what you're talking about All right, it's about creating value right, and the value happens by the actual work, which is the front line. The leaders are there to just create alignment of you know. Talk about setting direction, where do we need to go, where is the organization what's important? And then to providing support. So creating the conditions for all that to happen, which is really truly equipping and enabling people to solve problems at the closest level, at the appropriate level of the work, and then develop yourself, is the third part, because that's hard and it's totally opposite than what we do.
But I also want to highlight for listeners, which most people are probably tuning in, are in the lean space, but the word Gemba means the place something actually happens in Japanese, and so when we talk about a work environment, gemba means the place where the work happens, and so to go to Gemba is going to the place the work happens, which, if we translate it to, we just put that in simple terms it means going to see.
So get out of our offices, just get out of our assumptions, go validate, go see, get facts, don't just rely on reports and hearsay. And that is a critical, fundamental part of the people side of the management system, of what we call lean, or what had been developed at Toyota, the Toyota production system, and the word lean was sort of a way to try and capture and translate what was happening in Toyota and other really successful Japanese companies in the late 1980s and early 90s to a Western context. And we had a lot of things lost in translation for sure. And that's I try and unpack that in Learning to Lead, leading to Learn too, from all my years living in Japan to realize, oh wow, we have some big disconnects in terms of how we're applying it.
0:11:47 - Betsy Jordyn
So I think that this is where some of the challenge comes, though, is like as you're explaining it. It's like you're explaining the process and the methodology and it's like that's somewhere that comes later. Like to me, it's like you know, like if I were going to explain lean, it's like. So you know, when you have like all kinds of opportunities and challenges on you know, in the frontline experience, either like there's all these complaints with with patients or customers, or there's like a lot of rework and there's a lot of challenges, you know what we do is we create the conditions to empower the managers, to let the people who are closest to the work solve the problems. You know, and when that happens, when people solve their own problems, like they buy into it and it dramatically increases results, like that makes sense. Like optimizing the performance on the front line is like oh, ok, then you can bring me in and you can teach me all of the skills, but it's like you got to like set the context for, like what is it that that's the problem. Like the problem is is that you know like and that's giving people the choices. It's like well, you know when all of this stuff is happening and you could choose, you know, or you're you know like and, and then you could talk about it from that standpoint or so you know, when you have employee engagement surveys and they're really in the toilet, you know, and there's all these, all these challenges, and employees are getting ready to walk out the door. You know what we do, all these challenges and employees are getting ready to walk out the door. You know what we do is we come alongside these managers and help them do better listening with the employees and solve the problems together so that the solutions the employees actually really like. You know, like you could talk about some of those things as well, but there's, there's a what I love about lean. That is not, you know, like that could be the ancillary, like the intangible benefit is this is like the true respect for people meaning I respect you from an adult standpoint, like this, and this is why in the last couple of podcasts, like I've been talking about, like the only ethical way to improve employee engagement is through the lean approach is because there's this fundamental respect for people and their time as well. So that's where the waste comes in.
Another example like when I went with Mark to. I spent the day with Mark at Disney, which is fascinating because I had like a whole day, like you know, individual lesson. I thought I was going to tell him all my Disney stories and all my Animal Kingdom stories about you know all of that and he's telling me his stories. But we go to Pete's Safari for lunch, right, and it was fascinating watching, like the two of us, of what we were paying attention to. So there was like the, the cast member who was like taking our order, was like earning their ears, so they were like they were new, and then there was the manager who was training them. So I was paying attention to, like oh, I wonder how they're interacting with me, because when I was at Disney, we did a lot of performance theming. So are they going to say, you know, dumbo, and are they going to do any of the conservation messages, or are they doing any of those things they did?
But Mark is looking at the waste. He's noticing like, oh, these people are huddled over here and we're not getting you know, like he's noticing all these other things and that it's like and the waste is about like really also the respect for our time, it's the respect for the people's time. It's the respect for the people's time. It's not just about the efficiency component, but it's like I also got a moment too is like, oh, he's looking at this organization very differently than I am. I need a partner. If I wish, I would have known. I wish I would have known all those years ago when I was doing so many of these guest cast initiatives to improve this. Like why did I not have you guys right there, as I didn't know, I didn't, I didn't know that it had to do with enhancing this experience.
0:15:13 - Katie Anderson
Yes, I.
So there's so much.
So I've been taking notes, Betsy, because there's so many things in here that you you said that really struck with me and I I've loved listening to your most recent podcast, you know, with Peter Block and Beverly Crowell, like talking about, you know, partnership setup and doing good for the world, and also this concept of employee engagement, right.
So you know, too often we're like, oh, we need to have a employee engagement intervention. But if we are really empowered like being clear on what's what someone's purpose is within the organization and empowering and equipping them to solve problems and really like truly respecting them, not just saying you should solve problems, but actually giving them, listening to them and equipping them then that's how people get engaged, right. So it's not engagement, shouldn't be like something where, like an intervention, we do, but it's how we're showing up in the culture that we're creating. So, absolutely, you're going to see that I was just talking to a client of mine who came to Japan with me and and they've already seen, you know, employee retention improve and quality improve as well, because people are improving the work, having seen ownership of the work and engaged in the work, and it's, you know, opposed to a top-down mandate. It's kind of like in creating that, that, that culture as well.
And and I want to get to that concept of respect for people Absolutely. It's all is tied fundamentally to respect for people and the word that in Japanese, that came from the Toyota way. But when they say respect for people, there's two levels, there's different words that we don't have. We have just these two words respect for people. But it's really respect for humanity.
And I love this phrase that Mr Yoshino says and I use this in my book that it means holding precious what it means to be human. So if we can like see that all of the lean tools, methodologies, management systems, processes, behaviors are in service to hold precious what it means to be human, wow, policies, behaviors are in service to hold precious what it means to be human, wow, that's like such a different, um, a different part. So I, I love, I love your framing of how do we like make it better for the front line to do the value added work, but we get stuck in all that jargon too. Looking, I'm even starting to get stuck in the jargon. So that is really hard. And I find, too, that people are talking like we say, oh, we just need to do lean, we need to do lean, but there's so many different ideas of what that is, and then we're still talking methodology rather than fundamental value transformation impact.
0:18:00 - Betsy Jordyn
I feel like I just got an aha. I'm like I know how to fix this. Please tell as I, as I think that it depends on what you reveal when you want to reveal it. You know, like, like. You need to start off like from like. Let's say, you're at the branding standpoint. You know, like either your internal consultant, where you're branding to me is like, how do you educate all the leaders of when to bring you in, you know, or when you're trying to educate your, your people in the market, is you save some of the stuff about, like, the differentiators, what makes the lean approach, like in the very detailed methodology, methodology way. You save that for later. You just talk about. You know, like, so you know when you're. You know you're struggling with rework, engage employees. You know your best people because everybody feels disempowered. You know like this is what we do, we optimize it.
You say stuff like that, like if you were an internal consultant, like I don't even know if you would bring up lean, like, I would say all the internal consultants need to do like meet and greets with every one of the executives that are in your responsibility area and you need to ask them like what's going on in the business and what their challenges are, and say you know when you have that kind of problem, this is when you bring me in.
You know when you have that kind of problem, this is when you bring me in and really identify the problems that you're there to solve, not what you're trying to push. And the same thing from a marketing standpoint is like get clear on that. Then maybe in the proposal, you know, like you know how, when we worked on your proposal, I always have like a success solution. Like you might say you know, here's our success solution of like here's the five steps to get to where you want to go and here's why our approach is superior. But then you get into the details when you get into the work but you save it for later, absolutely.
0:19:35 - Katie Anderson
I always advocate for the people I work with, and I did this even when I was internal and external. Don't lead with the methodology, like you might know that using this framework or a tool or intervention is going to help, but first your role is to frame up what is the actual problem, where are things today, where do things need to be? And then you can work on how you're going to get there.
0:20:00 - Betsy Jordyn
But even how you would say from the company standpoint. So not to pick on, like you know, mark and Tom, but they might say on theirs, is like we're on a mission to eliminate like bad processes, like that's a push phrase because that's what they want to do. It's like we're here to help small businesses grow more effectively and efficiently by optimizing the performance on the frontline. You know, or actually that would be for larger companies. We help larger companies stay relevant and in the number one market leadership position because we are able to optimize and create consistent excellence on the front lines. Like that would be something that that from the client standpoint, what they would want to buy into. And it's like you don't have to like I don't think you're stuck with lean, because I'm not stuck with OD. I promise you I never use the word OD.
I say like I might say I accelerate organizational transformation. Or I might have said other things when I was a consultant, as an external but internal, you know, when I was at Disney I would, when I would meet with the leaders. It's like so you know, when you have like really complex problems and everybody's all over the map, like that's when you want to bring me in. You know, like it's, like it's. Those are the kinds of problems I'm here to solve, or I might proactively advocate. Actually, for internal consultants I would say is you see the opportunity, you find a way to proactively advocate and push yourself into the room. But that's a different strategy.
That's an influence strategy rather than a positioning strategy. But I think that like to me if I had it all my way when I think about some of the clients that you've been working with. Some of them are going in specifically with the tools, or they're trying to sell the tools. They're trying to make the tools sound exciting. Yes, instead of like, creating the value of the transformation of the behavior changes, exactly Like.
One of the things I'm obsessed with ever since I learned more about the ROI methodology is I've gotten really clear on the difference. A lot of times we put value to like. I offer, like my brain messaging, let's say, for example, is I have these. You know it's step-by-step and I offer this many coaching or strategy sessions and you get on-call access and it's like maybe I would have thrown a dollar against all of those and it's all of this. You know you get that, but what I've discovered is it's like no, if I can do the breadcrumbs from you get these things and then this leads to these new knowledge and skills, which leads to these new behavior changes, and then your behavior changes creates these new business outcomes, and then if I could take a couple of those KPIs and turn them into money.
Now we're having a very different conversation because it's showing the ROI of your behavior change. So if I could tell you you and I worked on some of this before we jumped on this call If I can convert your manager's behavior from micromanaging tasks to monitoring more than coaching, to blaming individuals, making decisions solo, not sharing information, rewarding compliance over creativity and punishing mistakes, and I switch it to asking questions instead of giving the answers going to Gemba, you know, in terms of the place of the work.
I would just say go to C or go in C2, facilitating improvement conversations, recognizing team contributions. You know that kind of modeling humility, staying curious when things go wrong. If I could show I'm going to this is where you could say I'm going to convert your leader's behavior from these behaviors to these behaviors. And then, if these behaviors change, these are the KPIs we're going to improve. Like there's the rework rate, the number of the revenue from innovative ideas, you know the cost savings from voluntary turnover. Even if we just can take a couple of those KPIs, put some numbers against it, now we're showing that it's not about lean, it's about your behavior changes that the solution will create.
0:23:47 - Katie Anderson
Absolutely will create Absolutely. And this is, you know about my the catalyst model that I've created and you've been very influential in helping sort of help me sort of have some refinement on this as well. So, catalyst spelled with a K in the very, the K is being a knowledgeable business communicator. We actually I used to call it the knowledgeable business expert, but we should. I shifted it because I realized it was about communication, not about you necessarily being an expert in the business. But how do you communicate with business leaders in a way that residents, so you're not?
0:24:18 - Betsy Jordyn
leading with jargon.
0:24:19 - Katie Anderson
You're not leading with the process. You're leading by framing the real problem and opportunity there, and that's exactly what you're talking about, betsy. And then also, what are the things that matter within the business? And there is ROI from a tangible financial perspective. There are intangibles, but those intangibles do pay off. There's a reason and I think that actually, as we're talking now, this is the crux of where there's been a lot of challenges because we intuitively know right and, like all you folks listening here, you're passionate about.
You know, I just did a survey and I'm going to talk about this in a future Chain of Learning podcast episode of 100 change leaders of all different types of roles external, internal. Some executives wrote back saying you know what are the things you love about lean and continuous improvement in your role and what are the things that are frustrating? People love helping people have aha moments. They love, you know, solving problems, they love seeing system things, they love doing good for the world. The challenge is getting people on board, getting you know leaders to actually get it to, like all these influence skills, and to me, the crux is also coming back to how are we speaking the language of business and going back to a place where we started, and so anyone who wants to learn more about that, go to kbjandersoncom backslash catalyst with a K and you get a self-assessment there and learn more about those and I have more to come on that and Betsy's helping me work with that. But really, if we can think about like what, how are we creating pull for the things that we know, the solutions, we know, the interventions, the countermeasures whatever word you want to use are going to help get a business from here to there, we need to frame it up in the terms that matter to business leaders and not lead with our jargon up in the terms that matter to business leaders and not lead with our jargon.
And one of the challenges I see this so I see a lot of conversation on LinkedIn and in our space and at conferences too is like why are more executive? Why aren't more executives on board with leading, with lean? Why are they still leading in this old management like you know approach? You know you have the. I'm like Larry Culp is doing amazing things at GE Aerospace. I just talked with his chief transformation officer and I've talked with Larry as well. I am so excited to see a senior executive leading with this mindset and he's, you know, explicitly calling it lean. But how do we get more executives to get it? And something is wrong with our positioning. Like if we're, if we're not. If we're like to me, there's like if. If more organizations are not on board with this, why not? And so how can we get better at communicating and framing?
0:27:05 - Betsy Jordyn
Okay, so this I have a different opinion, I have a, I have a, a contra, not a controversy opinion, but like a different opinion, not a different opinion from what you're saying, but it's like a different solution than most people would probably not say. This makes sense from my perspective is so you're talking about like moving companies from like the theory, why of like the command and control kind of mindset is like things need to be controlled and it's like it's a hierarchical kind of thing, versus like the inspire empower and people really do want to, really want to, they want to enjoy work, they love work, you know. So you have these two different, competing mindsets, but then you have like a whole group of people Like it's not just, not just lean alone who really wants to create this kind of organizational culture. It's OD consultants like me, there's HR consultants, there's L&D consultants, there's all of these other partners and we are operating in silos and we're competing with one another. Like to me, I think, like my vision is that we create a center of excellence, that everybody's there and we all kind of play our different roles. Like you are more of the executive coach Cool, you know, you're. You know, because I feel like if, if let's say lean and L&D the part of L and D who's focusing on manager development it's like, okay, work together. Now we have a new thing, those who are working on executive development. You got HR people, you got L and D, you got OD, like y'all. We need to work together and everybody kind of bring their skillsets.
I think the real, the real silo, the real challenge of people-centered organizations is us. We're competing. You know like it doesn't have to be a lean thing. You know like it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be like why is everybody not leading with lean? It's gonna be like how do we, as a internal center of excellence, influence all of our leaders at all of our touch points and how do we make explicit Like, how do we make explicit that this is the value?
To me, there's a difference between this is the value, like. What we're trying to do at a culture change level is we want to convert everybody from the theory X to theory Y period. That's what we want. We believe in. Everybody needs to play a role in this other thing. That's what we're all trying to create. We're doing it from different angles and so so then it's like when we think about, like what is the role of lean?
It's like lean is, you know, in the continuous improvement, in the best sense, like not to say that, like continuous improvement on the ongoing basis, where we look at employee engagement as an ongoing initiative, like I could see on somebody's website is instead of saying, you know sick of employee engagement initiatives us too. You know we make employee engagement a way of life. You know, ditch the surveys forever. You know, like you would never need to do the surveys if you just had listening posts. You know, like you know, and then just kind of figure out like how do we all partner together? Like that's my passion. I think this is why I want to create a global community of purpose-driven consultants who are all in this together, where we are sharing best practices and stop working in isolation. We sit there and whine about our leaders being in isolation, but we're doing the same thing. You know we need to pull out, like the strategic part of HR. We need to pull out L&D, od. You know, industrial engineering, productivity and lean, and we need to be in a center excellent period.
0:30:17 - Katie Anderson
Yeah, so many things in there, what you just said. So the first is I want to just highlight that for people who don't know, like moving from theory X to theory Y. So theory X is more of this command and control type of model to theory Y, moving more to this people-centered learning type of organization. So you might hear Betsy and me both talking more about that, but it's just like that framing there. So moving from command and control to more of this people-centered learning point, absolutely around surveys. There's this moment.
It was many years ago in one of my Japan leadership experiences, one of the global leaders who came with me was we were at a company that is a cornerstone of my program that talks about happiness is their purpose. They're also one of the like, the market leader in their space, so they're getting great results. But you know they can they're like so incredible and share her question what and I've written about this and actually talked about this on my podcast Do you feel like? What, um, what? What survey do you use? You know that was the question. How do you measure? How do you measure happiness, what? How do you know employees are happy?
And the Japanese executive could not comprehend. I mean, he underheard the words but he couldn't understand the question and then finally we reframed it and he's like oh, he's like what do you mean? What survey do we use? Do you survey your family? You don't, because you know if they're happy or not, and your role as a leader, at whatever level it is, is to know if the people you're working with are happy, right, and so if you're actually engaging with your people, you don't need an engagement survey because they are engaged or you know that, and so it like removes the whole survey thing. So I always love that like truly befuddled about why were we asking this question? About surveying like engagement, happiness.
0:31:58 - Betsy Jordyn
And then to your point around like, yeah, go ahead, you survey engagement when you have a theory X mindset.
It's like I treat people like children and they're going to be a number and I want the complaints to go away. That's the theory why organizations like oh, complaints are important data points. I should probably listen, you know, like you see really bad leaders, like there's a recent leader who saw like a number, like an important KPI recently, a very public leader, and his response to the bad information was to fire the person with the bad number.
You know, like, like, that's like, that's the opposite. Like you know, like that's the opposite, it's like. This is important data. You know like we have to look at it as, as data.
So that's where it's like that, of course this is somebody coming out of Theory X kind of organization that it's like, well, of course we have to do this because we have to control the employees. Like that it's like, well, of course we have to do this because we have to control the employees. Like I think about all of the employee engagement projects I've been a part of and and how much it was like the survey and then we're going to do something about it. And I remember like I was working with one organization like I think we should just implement feedback and action planning. So that's what the continuous improvement team did at Disney, which continuous improvement was different than lean, but they did continuous improvement and they would teach feedback and action planning for all the managers to take the surveys and do stuff with it. Do these meetings with the employees, solve the problems and then like bubble up the issues that were more global and then we go and create initiatives around the global stuff.
0:33:27 - Katie Anderson
Yep, I know, and then I really value your point too. Around like we're, we as the different consultants, whether you're internal, external we're creating silos based on our technical expertise. So, like lean and continuous improvement, practitioners tend to know a lot about process and process improvement and flow and eliminating waste and bringing coaching people and around problem solving. Around this, od folks know maybe are more trained also on some of like the, the how to make the transition from manager to mid-level. You know leader and some of these other. You know there's the, there's the tech, there's just the behind the scenes too of how do you manage a budget, how do you do all these other like management types of things's.
0:34:13 - Betsy Jordyn
There's more that's more like lnd okay, that's more like so lnd, that would be more lnd there's all, but there's all these different technical things.
0:34:21 - Katie Anderson
But if we can align again around on um, the, the, the purpose about what we're trying to create in the organization, then we can, can apply, then we can work together and apply the different sort of technical angles and skills that we can bring together on that people side and I have been in some organizations where at least they've been attempting to do that.
So one of the organizations I worked in for many, many, many years, we recognize that the HR department, which did encompass OD learning and development in your traditional, more like HR, truly like HR, functions around, like job descriptions and hiring and firing and all of that career management. You know there's a lot of different technical functions within that department. We needed to partner together to create one sort of management, leadership, training approach, and then there can be other things that support it that can be owned separately. But so we're speaking the same language. It's cohesive, it's a culture that you're trying to create and moving away from all the technical side and using the technical parts when it's important and good. But, going back to again, we're trying to empower, equip people, the frontline, to make the best decisions. And so that you know, yeah, so there's, there's so much, so much in there.
0:35:43 - Betsy Jordyn
So like OD people, l&d people, hr people, they all suck at the. We all equally suck in talking about what we do out of the jargon and I think it's like. I think the answer to the question is it's like how do we talk about what we do in language that everybody gets, not just like the business leaders, but everybody gets, because even you and I are going back and forth. It's like, well, that's not exactly what we do and it's like, well, that's not exactly what we do you know, like.
So if we could say like, like od is much more obsessed with trying to figure out the alignment between the business, organization and people strategies Like that's where OD lives. And aligning the organization like silo busting and getting leaders to work across horizontal levels. And you know, like that cross-functional thing, you know and, and it's like everybody's different and I think this is where I have like a really like. I have a vision and I would like this would not be like a four paid. This would not be like a four paid, this would not be like a paid part. This would part of be my missional thing. I want to have a group and I guess it's like, if we're talking about this, it's like if you're interested in this group, like please like, reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email and let me know if you want to be in a group. But I want to have a group of does to work with one another to, because I think if I get a bunch of OD consultants in a room and say, oh, is this a client ready? You know value propositions, like yeah, probably, like you're talking to each other, you don't know you get your all your lean people together and it's like you don't know, but if I can get a lean person to understand what I'm doing and if a lean person can get me to understand, you know, but if we could start sharing a little bit more around, like here's my passion and this is the angle I'm coming in Like now, how do we partner together? You know, how do I know when to strategically bring in, like I don't think it's.
I think a lot of times people like grow a firm and they want to bring in juniors who are just like them. You know, like I want to grow a firm and I'm going to get, like junior lean consultants, I'm going to get junior OD consultants to come in and deliver the work, because I'm going to just keep getting the same kind of work. Wouldn't it be more interesting is if somebody got in an organization and they brought in the different disciplines and they found a way to bring them together and now we're partnering together more effectively, you know, and then everybody sees it, you know, and then we're going to create the real change. I don't know, that's my little vision. I don't know what you think of my little vision.
And the other thing too is I think that lean is really important for us right now. For those of us who have the values around people-centered lean is really important because you can come into the back door. People are definitely going to be hiring now for process improvement or eliminating waste. How do we get more done with less? You know, like, sure, take that door in. You know, like, don't worry about that door. Like I know it's not everything that you do, but you got that door in that other people don't.
0:38:22 - Katie Anderson
L&D doesn't have it Well, absolutely because we still need to improve process, and through the work you do, you can know that process is improved by engaging people. And so it's just. It's a flip like people, first process and then the results.
The business results will follow, and making but if you get in with a process, you can, then you can do the approach with the people so that it's a yeah, go in for the backdoor. Same thing with teaching tools and frameworks. Like you know, I don't tell people I'm doing quote an A3 in the beginning if that's not going to be something that's going to engage them. I go through the thinking process, because it's a good thinking process. What's the background, what's the current challenge, what's the gap between actual and target?
Let's do some analysis and now let's identify some possible countermeasures and let's do some experimentation. It's the same thing, like we don't have to, we don't have to say, well, we're going to now use it, do an a3 template for problem solving, if that is going to be a barrier to doing the actual mindset and behavior shifts. And so it's really about how do we, how do we get in there and how do we start engaging the people? So, betsy, I want to go back to where we started here too. Sorry, you had a comment and then I think we we should circle back to where we.
0:39:29 - Betsy Jordyn
So I was going to circle back as well, like, because I think it's like, at the end of the day, like, what do we need to do differently in terms of like, how do we write, how does like lean as a profession, or even all of us improvement professionals? Like, how do we, how do we, how do we talk about what we do in a way that's more compelling? I would say number one is that we need to speak the language of the business and we need to talk in language that our clients get. Like that's the biggest thing we got to get out of our jargon and we need to save it for later, you know. But in second, I think that there's the positioning around the work, like, if you're going to go in and you were talking about, like the tools I think this is what sparked my thinking is, if you go in with the tools and if a client asks you for the tools and you go and sell the tools, like, well, now you're the tools person, you know.
So we're shaping thinking by the work that we say yes to and how we say yes to it. If you want to be seen as a strategic partner, you can't say yes to all the requests you have to hold off and you got to talk about what's going on in the business and align to what you need to pitch what you think would make more sense. You can't just say yes to whatever is then. Now you're the tool person, you're shaping thinking by every action you choose to do and what you don't do. And I would say the third thing is, when it comes to your methodology, is you got to decide when it makes sense to reveal it, like when I was, when I think about like my work as an OD consultant, especially you know how I got trained at Disney where it's like you speak OD and you're going to get, like you know, literally tied. But it was like in my, in my marketing.
It's never, I know I don't talk about like you know, the three circle model, like where you know organizationally, you know people and you know like these three have to be explicit in a line with one another and that creates organizational health. Like that might be a belief. I don't put it on my website. I also don't put in my proposal. The only time that I bring up like my methodology or my approach, it was when I did an assessment and said here's what creates organizational health. Here's how I'm evaluating. You know, this is how I evaluated. It's like somewhere else. So if you do have a methodology that it's like, okay, this is why we're doing what we're doing. You got to figure out. Well, where does it make sense to reveal it? So to me, those are the three points.
0:41:38 - Katie Anderson
And, as you said, and you've always said, like we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So it's I want to emphasize especially to all of my fellow lean, operational excellence, continuous improvement folks out there. It's not that we want to not recognize the technical expertise, the technical interventions, the process improvement, the tools we know can help, but it's how do we partner and pair it with influence skills to bring people along? And then part of that is the positioning and framing, and that's exactly what I'm working on is how to help you do that more effectively through my catalyst model. Exactly what I'm working on is how to help you do that more effectively through my catalyst model. What are those skills to influence people to change in part, how do you pair that with your lean technical side? Or, frankly, any of you change leaders out there? How are you an influential change leader and then leverage your OD technical experience, your L&D technical experience, whatever it is, to create the change too?
0:42:36 - Betsy Jordyn
I think that what you're saying is really powerful too, around the influence skills, because that's what all of this is is learning how to influence, and a big part of influence is really just motivating people to act on what's in their best interest. But you can't really motivate someone to act on what's in their best interest, but you can't really motivate someone to act on what's in their best interest unless you really understand where they are and what's in their best interest. I think that that is a core I think is influence skills. But I also would pair the influence skills with vision skills. Like part of what makes us proactive advocates is we see something that's possible for our clients that they don't yet see, and we influence them. So we have to see, we have to see into what's possible, like I think that's the difference between a transformational consultant and a transactional one is I see into it and I think that's a big part of like what I do in the branding work is like what is it that your clients are ultimately trying to achieve? So I think that the principles. I think the answer to the question that we came with in the beginning is you know, first off, why do lean and all improvement professionals like? Let's just answer these questions. Number one why do they need to work on improving their strategic positioning?
I would say, in general, I think we're needed more than ever, like we're in a world right now where our values are getting getting challenged. All of this stuff that we talk about with respect for people, is not politically correct and, in some cases, gets punished. There's some companies who are actually being like under investigation. Disney's being investigated for its DEI. So how do we come in and say, oh, we believe in making this an environment where everybody's happy to do work, where it's like, oh, we believe in in, you know, making this an environment where everybody's happy to to do work where it's like, oh well, that could get you into trouble, you know. So we are needed more than ever, but we have to find a way to talk about what we do in business relevant terms, because even if the values are not popular, the business case does not go away, you know, and we have to really meet clients.
Where we're at, I would say, for for all of us is we need to find the way in, you know, like. So if you're talking about like, like, let's say, for lean at this particular point in time is you just say, okay, how do we, how do we get done more than less? You know more with we. How do we get more done with less while still still engaging the employees in that type of way? You know the org, but there's a structural component and you know where OD people would be asking.
The same thing is like how do you optimize? You know your overall organizational, you know your organization right now. You know you're still asking the same, the same kind of things you know. So why? Why do we need to work on it with? We're needed more than ever and some of the values that we hold are not going to be as popular. So we have to find a way to be sneakier, not as sneakier in a bad way, sneakier in an ethical way, like with our moral clarity around, like this isn't their best interest, but we have to like Trojan horse things in a way that will. You know, it's not like you just can't have somebody go from zero to 100. Like we have to kind of breadcrumb it.
0:45:35 - Katie Anderson
Yep, and the way to do that is not leading with your jargon, your tools. It's about helping frame up the real problem. That's keeping them up at night and then being your, their partner to help figure out how to get there. And that, as you say, bringing it like maybe it's. It is looking at process, but when you're focusing on the process, then you're engaging the people, so you're like, you're showing them. I love this story, like the.
Just today before our call I was talking to you know a client who had taken, who'd gone my japan and leadership experience and brought some, and he said one of the things that was really powerful is that he took away, was he more confident in how to do that as an external consultant.
So it wasn't just this direct group he worked with, but how in another client situation. He knew that people was the way, but going on the Japan leadership experience with me was a way to really deeply understand that and it gave him the confidence to push back a bit on a client and Trojan horse. It a little bit like you said, which was I hear you need this improvement work and other things, but we have to focus on people and he got this leader to realize the power of a people-centered learning culture through the partnership over the last six months. And this leader is saying now I see that this is the way, so it's through your relationship and your partnership. If he had just said, oh, you have to do a people-centered learning culture, that's not going to necessarily convince the leader, but it's like starting to get some results and doing it in a way that's engaging people, got him to realize the power of that and so it's also demonstrating small areas of success and building that foundation and growing from there too.
0:47:14 - Betsy Jordyn
You just gave me an aha. I think the bottom line is that you need to be able to see and quantify the value of what you do and why it's important for yourself, and then, when you know it so deeply, then you'll have the ability to know how to charge and horse it. But if you are not solid in the value of what you do and I think this is why I change I say you know, in my podcast, like this is, this is the podcast for owning the power of what you do. I'm like, yeah, you know and quantify it, put the numbers against it. You know, like think that's, like I don't know if you would say that that's the ROI of some of the branding work that we've done is you know? It's like it drops from head to heart, like I totally get the value of what I do.
Now I can go forth and do better work and maybe, maybe that's the linchpin is that we've got to get out of our jargon. Connect it, really quantify the value of what we do. That's where that's where I come in is. I will help you articulate and quantify the value of what you do. Concurrent with that is then you also need to work on your influence, skills and your ability to to align what you're doing to the specific business. That's where you come in and together, you know, together we'll crack the code.
0:48:25 - Katie Anderson
Yeah, well, I love to hear from everyone who's listening here too, what are your thoughts on this, especially lean operational excellence, continuous improvement, practitioners Like this is a really important conversation and, betsy, I'm right there with you we have to understand the value and like move from just the intuitive sense but like, how do we really articulate that? And and I want to highlight too and we have so much more we can talk about We'll keep having more conversations, but when we talk about ROI, typically in lean spaces, talking about how do we quantify the impact of, like an improvement, a process improvement? And one of the things I want to keep exploring with you, and that's in this, this community too is how do we quantify the impact of the culture change, the behavior change, but also there's something around the culture, and what does that mean? When we're able to, as you said, move from this command and control leadership to more of a coaching culture, what impact does that have on the business from a true ROI perspective? And then, how can we? So that is speaking the language of business leaders, and we got to get more businesses and more executives on board with. This is the way, both from a people-centered but also from a business. You know they may feel the heart-centered but like, oh, but I got to get results still.
So how can we pair the two together and more effectively position and communicate it?
0:50:00 - Betsy Jordyn
And I do have a quick answer for that. And then I don't. You know like I have both. You know like I have both, you know like. So the quick answer is is how do you quantify? How do you look at the behaviors Like, like what we talked about before. It's like these are the behaviors and you don't have to quantify. Like process improvement, like cycle time is only one measure. You know you could look at it, you could hook it to employee engagement, not employee engagement Cause apparently that's an intangible that we're not there to quantify the money. Um, that's an intangible that we're not there to quantify the money. I just went through this ROI training, so it's like that's not one of them.
0:50:28 - Katie Anderson
More to come, but you can track it.
0:50:29 - Betsy Jordyn
But you could track it to like turnover, you know, like voluntary turnover and or revenue. The thing about putting money to it doesn't mean like every aspect has to be converted to money, but there's things that you can convert to money.
0:50:45 - Katie Anderson
Yes.
0:50:45 - Betsy Jordyn
But I think, even if we articulate, these are the behaviors that are going to be different, because culture is really what is culture is. Culture is made up of decision making filters that lead to different behaviors. So how do we? But we have to just get more explicit. We can't talk in general, like oh, we're going to make everybody like people centered and respect for people, like that's too vague. We have to get it down to much more observable type of thing, and I think that's the answer for a lot of us Like. I think this is why I'm so passionate about like the like.
One of the one of the things I'm offering now is like more ROI, framed offers, and it's like even if you can't measure, even if you're not going to measure it, you have to be able to measure it, because if you can measure the ROI and really see at least in some level, that will be the game changer of it. So I think that there's a shorter answer and there's a longer answer. The shorter answer is, though is for lean people, though is take the take the win. That's one of your KPIs that you could easily connect to that Like, let's say, you're dealing with leadership and strategy. That's harder to quantify you. This is what makes me crazy with lean people. When you guys are like, I don't want to claim that I'm like. Why, like what? What's OD going to claim Like? Or, you know, do executive coaching? You try to claim that ROI Like that's harder At least you got something closer to the business.
0:52:03 - Katie Anderson
You're the front line.
0:52:04 - Betsy Jordyn
There's so many KPIs that you can grab Customer satisfaction. If you're in a hospital system, length of stay for patients, patient outcomes all have connected to money. You're close to it. You have so many. So what you guys are doing is you're talking about. So I like the idea of elevating from process improvement to waste, because waste moves it into more of the respect for people. I like the idea of empowering people closer to the work, optimizing performance on the front line. That's the culture change. We're trying to optimize the performance, that experience, that like there's a lot more in there, but lean has so much. There's just you guys have all this low hanging fruit and you guys are like talking, like I just want to talk on this aspiration. I'm like you guys have so much to value, like you know, then I got all crazy.
0:52:55 - Katie Anderson
Well, let's go. I got a question for you, okay, and then we should wrap it up, because into this for a long time, okay.
0:53:07 - Betsy Jordyn
So I want to. I'm going to just you know with my, if I had a Daruma doll, I'd make a little Daruma doll. I want to start attracting more, more lean consultants, specifically to work with the purpose-driven ones. Can you make me one?
Yeah, I'll send you more are what can I do to improve how I'm talking about what I do, to appeal more to lean people who I want to crack the code with you? So I feel like I can be a part of your solution because if I get more clients that I'm working with who are in this space, then we have more track record. Like, oh, you're more articulate about what you do. Like this person will be more articulate. Maybe together we can change the whole thing.
0:53:49 - Katie Anderson
Yes, well, I'd love to hear from people on that as well. So reach out to Betsy. I can validate that she's been so impactful in helping me think about how I frame up my positioning with clients, how I frame up my partnership setup, how I have continued to up-level to the next you know phase in my business and also, because of her OD background, has a lot. Our Venn diagram is, you know, we're very overlapped here and we share that, like purpose-driven learning side and just coming at it from different angles, and so it's been a really great thought partnership as well. So, thanks everyone for tuning in and, please, we love to hear from you. This was just to have a conversation that we could engage with you too. So we don't have all the answers, but we have some ideas and we have some questions too, so please share your thoughts as well. Again, I'm Katie Anderson. You can learn more about me at kbjandersoncom or my podcast Chain of Learning. And this is Betsy jordyn with a Y.
0:54:55 - Betsy Jordyn
With a Y. You can find me on my website at betsyjordyn.com, and obviously you're listening on the Consulting Matters podcast. You don't have to go look for it anywhere, but if you do enjoy these conversations and you want to hear more of them, please hit subscribe so you don't miss any, and please tell your friends. I do want to create that global community of purpose-driven consultants and coaches, so if you care very much about organizations that value people, I want you to be a part of my community and my tribe. So anyway, thank you all for listening to this bonus episode. I hope that it's just inspiring you to take
