John Chacon on Continuous Improvement and the Dangers of Paying People to Think

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/429 My guest for Episode #429 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is John Chacon, the Director of Construction Excellence at Black & Veatch. We've been connected on social media for a while and John's reply to a tweet led to this podcast conversation, where he said: “If you have read this blog post and are still thinking about incentivizing folks for ideas…stop…give me a call and I will tell you some stories about paying your folks to think.” Today, we discuss topics and questions including: John's Lean origin story? In the Marine Corps. Deployed to Japan – painted a different picture – in what way? Cultural differences? A different level of respect? Why didn't you like it at first? How do you define Kaizen? Not just the process, it's the people Continuously improving the people Later company — “The work was to improve the work” How do you foster that culture? Curiosity and genuine wonderment What does Kaizen (what does John) suggest about how to incentivize people to submit ideas? DO we need to incentivize? What happens when you run out of rewards funding? Improvement stops How do you tap into in intrinsic motivation? Kaizen and Kata? Putting things into plain English? Working in other countries – Thailand, India, China — how does the Lean/Kaizen message get delivered differently? Marine Corps like Kaizen — the way you are vs something you do The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.