Hello, and welcome to another episode of Management Café. I have been very quiet on this feed. I'm mainly working on 21st Century Work Life, where I do talk a lot about leadership, but mainly in remote teams. It's delightful to be here with you.
And also, I'm very happy to say I'm not on my own today. I'm doing a special one. So I have with me Anish Indotra, and he will tell you all about what he does. And we're going to be talking about lean, lean leadership.
So how are you, Anish? I'm good, Pilar. Thank you. I actually have a real coffee in my hand.
So I'm going to help you. Excellent. Good. How should I introduce you to our listeners?
You are a consultant and you specialise in change. Would that be more about what it is? That would be pretty much bang on, I think. Yes, absolutely.
So I would describe myself as a lean consultant with a slight bend towards culture transformation. So that's probably the best way I would have thought. When I asked you if you wanted to have coffee, and by the way, record our conversation, and you suggested, of course, lean thinking, and you attached it to lean thinking and developing a culture of continuous improvement. So what I'd like to start with is, what is lean thinking?
Lean thinking is taking what Toyota, so Toyota is where lean thinking started, but moving outside of automotive assembly. If you go back several decades, the practice of problem solving using particular type of methodology started in the automotive industry and became very, very popular and is now being used all over the world in lots of different industries. So Toyota call it the Toyota production system, the TPS for short. Others, myself, would like to think of it as a thinking production system.
It isn't about Toyota, it's where it started, but the principles are absolutely universal and used to transform organisations in any sector at all. A thinking production system, what does that involve when we're looking at lean? Everything from looking at how you orientate strategy for an organisation, down to how individuals and teams can problem solve. You know, the classic tale of failure of strategy execution is there's a big two, three-day off-site, and all the leaders get together, and there's a lot of blue sky thinking, and then suddenly they go down to the minions and say, right, now go and execute this wonderful strategy that we created, this blueprint, only for the expensive branding to, you know, warn off several months later, and then they realise, hang on, we're behind track on this master plan.
And what lean thinking does is it almost takes the traditional hierarchical notion of an organisation, the CEO at the top, and then the executive directors and so forth, on its head. And it asks this very basic question, which is, who knows most about where the organisation's problems are? And it embraces that. And of course, the answer is the people doing the work.
Now, it originates in Japan, so the Japanese word for the word workplace, as far as I know, is Gemba, G-E-M-B-A. So, it means going to Gemba, it encourages leaders going to the workplace, observing what's happening, and not observing from a micromanaging perspective, but really trying to understand where are the problems in the organisation, and how can we get our people to help solve those? So, it's so much more than what people typically think, which is process simplification. It embodies trust, it embodies teamwork, and it's not a top-down way of organising strategy.
It's neither a bottom-up way of doing it, it's both. And I think those organisations that get it right absolutely have that solved throughout their leadership, in terms of this is really about trust and teamwork at its core. So, I suppose from my point of view, it could be, we just adopt it as a mindset, also. I mean, I know there's all the stuff that's behind it, but also the mindset piece is very interesting, and it's on its own.
Yeah, definitely. Sometimes the word lean organisation is intertwined with a learning organisation, and so it predates a lot of the stuff that's come into mainstream culture, like fixed and growth mindsets. It predates a lot of that, too. So, yeah, you're right.
So, if we look at lean thinking, the mindset, and everything you've been talking about, and especially like that bit where you said, who knows more about the work, and how the work is done in the organisation, and it is usually the people who are at the front end, rather than the people who are looking at strategy. So, if we are, if we're in charge of a team, for example, how can we take this to help us have a better team, whether that's more innovative, whether it's more productive, whether it's stronger teamwork, how can we take some of these concepts as a manager and use them? What lean offers us is some fantastic principles, and one of those, the first principle of lean, in fact, is define value from the point of view of the customer. That's really gold if you think about it, because how many times in organisations do we find ourselves doing tasks that we're not sure why we're doing them?
Maybe they're historical, maybe they're just, maybe it's the way we've always done it, but I think I was just challenging the stakeholders quote, and wherever I've done this kind of work, one of my basic requirements for hiring somebody into a team or looking for people in an organisation, is that they're curious, is that they're wanting to kind of just push on the edges a little bit to ask, why are we doing this the way we're doing it? You know, because within any process, you'll find areas where there's waste. I mean, take what we're doing right now, for example, right, where we're recording a podcast, so we do this, we schedule a date and time to do it, we do the actual recording, I'm guessing there are some tasks at the end where you edit it and top and tail, maybe do some podcast notes, et cetera, and then we publish it. Now, as you get more and more familiar with the task, you get quicker at it, and you find efficiencies.
But if you look at each step and you break it down, you'll find there's what we call waste within each of those steps. If you now can appreciate that there's a problem-solving technique that you can apply to finding waste and eradicating it, then imagine you do that through tiny, tiny improvements across a very, very large process, which may end up taking multiple weeks or months even. You know, I use this with financial planning processes in organisations, where it can take months to align all stakeholders around the process of coming up with a financial plan. Taking the waste out of that is, A, fantastic for the people who are now recognising they're not doing this meaningless report for no reason, but also gets you to go and stay quicker.
So there's lots of benefits in breaking down the problem into its smaller parts. Your example as well, and the example you used about the podcast recording and all the steps and where's the waste and stuff, it makes me think, we're recording in July 2021, where many teams and organisations have learned to work in a different way to how they were used to, whether it's from home or whatever, a hybrid approach. And I think that taking this approach could be very useful when we start to look at the next steps of how we're doing things, because we're probably just trying to transplant and transpose some of our team processes just to a different context. But actually, it's a real opportunity to look at that and go back and go, okay, let's really look at this and where to use the terminology, where is the waste?
Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that people get wrong about lean thinking is that it's all about process, it's all about tools and techniques. And yes, there are fantastic tools and techniques that come along with the framework. But actually, it's about, it's actually more fundamentally about people as well.
So you start to think about what you just said about hybrid working. And lean brings a refreshing honesty to conversations, which is problems aren't there to hide. And this goes back to fixed and growth mindsets. If you think about somebody's in charge of ways of working program, if they're reporting on metrics, which might be employee satisfaction score, you know, a fixed mindset would say, well, actually, most of our employees are quite happy with the hybrid situation, everything's working fine.
And, you know, you can do all sorts of fudges and things with data, can't you, to make it look good? What's going to make us look good in this instance? What lean thinking advocates so strongly is that if it's not going well, then you've noticed something. And that's brilliant.
It means you can do something about it. And this takes a long while to get people used to the idea of saying that something is red, for example. So, you know, because it's almost like, well, we're going to look bad if we report something as red. But no, I mean, it's actually an opportunity for us to problem solve together.
And this is the basis of where trust comes from. Can we solve this problem together? And getting people used to the fact that it's okay to say that something's behind target is actually really, really powerful, because it gives you an opportunity to say, and these are the things we're going to do to get it back on track. And I think this is one of the things I look for in an organization where it's an early indicator that they've got it, that they're actually starting to practice this stuff.
And it starts to not become a way of punishing people, but actually a way of embracing the fact that we are on a learning journey here, and we're learning about how we can get back to where it is we want to go. That's a huge mindset shift, to look at problems as opportunities for improvement, and actually something, I won't go as far as to say to be celebrated, but something that is actually, well, one, it's part of organizational life. It's part of life to find problems. And two, that we can actually do something about it, and we can do something about it together, and then it's okay to flag it.
Absolutely, completely. And it requires leadership to be very present with that. And this is why it collapses the hierarchy of it. I'll give you an example of something where, in this real department, so imagine about four layers deep, from head of division down to the ground floor workers.
I remember holding a meeting with the ground floor workers with the head of department, and they never had half an hour just with him before, because he was too high up. So you're not getting that proximity that you would get if you were direct report, for example. Anyhow, so I remember the pre-meeting I had with this group, and they were at the operational level, so that they were looking at data and putting into reports, almost clerical, if you like. And I said, I'm not going to organize a meeting with you guys, and just ahead.
What do you mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, just us? You mean you're not even going to include our manager in this? No, we're not. We're just going to be you guys and the director, and they go, well, he won't have time for us.
But it happened, because I was outside of their departments, unable to be objective, and he came away from it, long story short, going, you know what, that was, I had no idea some of the frustrations these poor people are under, simply because we are trying to produce a scorecard every month, for example. I had no idea what they have to go through to make that happen, and I had no idea that the solution that they were suggesting hadn't come to light to me before. You know, this is the sort of thing that lean thinking will advocate, which is those closest to the problem can solve it. So, I don't know how we got there, but I'm pretty sure there's something around how to transform organizations.
Yeah, and flagging problems, and it's okay to see problems, yeah. So, let's begin to wrap up, actually, because I have coffee. Is your coffee going cold? Mine is.
Almost at the end. So, we've got some of the principles, so you've mentioned about the flat organization, the people who are closest to the problem, thinking of problems as things to be looked at, and room for improvement. Are there any other principles that we're missing that are at the core of lean thinking? There's one which I think is attain perfection, which is the fifth principle, and the thing is that you never get there, because as soon as you reach one milestone, the next one comes into view.
But it's this idea that if you can create a culture of continuous improvement, then, and that's the clue in the title, right, it's continuous improvement, so, you know, you have to continually keep looking for problems and finding ways to solve them. So, yeah, that's the fifth one, attain perfection. Where do you think lean thinking, where do you think is going to be most prevalent, or where can we see it in raising its head more in the future of work? I mean, you can see the benefits, I can see the benefits, many listeners will, but is there a particular way of working or a particular area where you think it's going to gain a little bit more strength?
I couldn't, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do feel that this, yeah, but I do feel that this push for sustainability and purpose-led organisations, because lean is all about connecting people, process and purpose, is hopefully going to give this way of thinking, this way of organising a real boost. I think that's something that could be the future of where lean thinking goes. So, not sector-specific or domain-specific, but more purpose-led. And I say that because when you think of how organisations are waking up to the fact that actually, you know, their employees are their biggest asset and they become employee first as much as shareholder first, then I think lean has a very strong place there.
Excellent. Great. So, before I invite listeners to connect with you in some shape or form, are there any books that people should read or any publications or where can people who are interested in the concept of lean thinking especially, where can they find out more about this? Oh, definitely.
So, the book that really set this way of thinking, for me anyway, this is The Machine That Changed the World, written by Professor Dan Jones, who is a leading light in this field. So, The Machine That Changed the World, Gwomack and Jones. There are many other books. I'm turning around looking at my, you know, a more than one.
A more than one is Black Box Thinking by Matthew Saeed. Now, this is not about lean necessarily, but it's all about learning from mistakes. So, from that perspective, yeah, I would recommend Matthew Saeed's Black Box Thinking as well. Excellent.
That is in my Kindle, waiting for me. That's amazing. Honestly, in the first few pages, it's an incredible book, yeah. Excellent.
And he's also got another one that I really like, the one that I did read about diversity. Is that Rebel Ideas? That's the one. I mean, that one also, I highly recommend it, yes.
And so, where can people find you? JigsawConsulting.com or what's their URL? Almost, almost, yeah. JigsawConsulting.co.uk.
Oh, yes. JigsawConsulting. Or LinkedIn, of course, yeah. LinkedIn, of course.
Well, that was lovely to have a coffee with someone else rather than having coffee with myself and hoping that someone is listening. So, yeah, thank you very much for stepping by. Enjoyed it. Thanks so much for that.
Thank you. Stepping by? I think that's stopping by. Stopping by, stepping by, yes.
Thank you very much for stopping by. Thank you for listening to Management Cafe. I'll be back at some point, but meanwhile, you can find me over at virtualnotdistant.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn.
My name is Pilar Ortiz. Do tell me you're listening. And if you want to connect with today's guest, just a reminder, his name is Anish. In your chat, it was delightful to talk to him.
Until next time, business. I'll see you next time.