Bruce Baker and Ron talk about Lean - his latest blog

So what the heck are you trying to do with us that lean is no longer valid? That's nicely put and really appropriate. One of the things that you might have seen in blogs that I've been writing and some of the podcasts is we've got too many people working in the business and not enough people working on the business. And the status quo seems to be something that we want to protect. And the premise, I'll expose myself a little bit here. In my university education, industrial engineering is one of the subject matters, one of the tracks that I followed. And that's the root behind Deming and Duran's continuous quality movement or total quality. initiatives. And what you've got to do is document the process, identify where the bottlenecks are, identify where you need additional elements, either labor or information or document or system or what have you.

And the way that you've explained your blog relative to lean and it being challenged is we've lost sight of that. We're not identifying. the process anymore. We're just continuing the process, good, bad, or indifferent. And that's wrong. So I think that puts a nice bow around the point you were trying to make on lean is no longer applicable because we've strayed. So how do we address this?

Well, how are we responding? Well, what I'm nettering, all that I'm doing, starts without.

Yeah, it's interesting because that all relates back to the same thing. Yeah. I believe in almost every aspect of society, we are understaffed. So the crush that a problem creates has to be dealt with right now so that we get past the problem, we get the customer back on track or the situation back on track. Yeah. With the thought in our mind, we'll come back to that. We'll circle back and we'll fix it so it doesn't happen again. Because fundamentally, that's what we want to be able to create, a circumstance and a situation where you're going to have problems, but you're going to have them once. And they will not be repeated because we will have adapted triage. We will have modified. We will have adjusted. We will have corrected things. Today, we don't have time because we've got so many of these events, one after the other. We don't seem to have enough staff so that we can circle back to fix it so it is not repeated. And that cycle never ends.

Yeah. They tend to convincing yourself, the way I'm responding is the same way I got the helping, the way that.

It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because it makes us feel good. Like dopamine. We fix that problem. Boy, I'm good. And that's why you keep me. So I don't want to solve the problem. It's the characterization. Matt Spremer and I talk about this in the digital dealership where we use the illustration of a fireman. About 5% of the time of a fireman's shift is spent putting out fires. working in the business, and 95% is trying to avoid fires from being created in the first place or working on the business. We do just the reverse. Yes. And psychologically, that's going to be, you know, this is an assumption on my part, and I think it's reasonably solid, but it isn't anything I can scientifically prove. Most of the headcount metrics, or what is lovingly called productivity measures,

were

created in the early 1980s,1979,80,81,82. And that's when, and I think you're old enough, but maybe not, to remember that's when interest rates went as high as 22%. That's when inflation was 13%,14%,15%. And what businesses did in order to survive, they had this interest payment they had to meet. And the only variable expense they had was headcount. So they got rid of people. When the interest rates went down, they decided, well, I'm not sure this is going to last, so I'm going to keep the headcount the way it is at the reduced level. And we haven't come out of that. It drives me crazy. I have real battles, as you probably might have remembered, executives to allow me to add people. And an illustration I use is, you know, we've got to be disciplined. We've got to change habits. And I've got to lose weight. So I've got to go on a diet. And somebody says, no, no, I like how I eat. I like what I eat. I'm not going to do that.

Why don't you just amputate my left leg? And that happens. And he goes back and he says, look, Ma, I met my new number. You know, I lost all that weight. But you can't get around anymore. And that's essentially the same thing that we're doing by being in this problem-solving mode, which we've been forced into because we don't have enough time to do things right. And that's in itself something that drives me crazy. Imagine not being able to exhibit your skills and talents to the best of your abilities because you don't have enough time to do anything right.

Yeah. Wow.

Wow. That's something that requires, you know, put some time to that, Bruce. You've got a good mind and good experience with a lot of different people. I'm going to ask this of everybody that does blogs with us and everybody that does podcasts with us. There's got to be a path that we can find or at least talk about so that we expose different options to people that they can think about themselves. If we continue to do what we are doing now, it's not just Einstein, you're going to end up getting the same results. But we don't have that much reserve anymore. In 1980, actually 1970, the market share in parts to 2020 has dropped by 50%, similarly labor by 50%. We don't have that luxury for very much longer. So we've got to get to the point of fixing this or our customers are going to find people that will solve their problems without there being problems elsewhere. That's a big burden I'm putting out there.

What the heck am I going to deal with when I get the opportunity to deal with them? And of course, it got to a point where, like many, I've got to get to a point where of what those companies need to change the word or term, the time that they have or the time we have. get it done. Why is it our many will come and say, well, show me why the problem is not the same. And like clockwork, it's over and over again. Problem isn't exactly that. There are a few nuances there. Problem in itself is not that why am I thinking or why am I seeing this is so much bigger. Having that experience dealing with the emotional components that are doing exact get through, but having giving yourself a little bit more space.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. In classes for service managers particularly, they tell them they're enabling bad behavior. And of course, they don't like that. They're getting back up. I think I'm insulting them. I said, no. Well, what happens? You've got people come to your door and they ask you a question. You give them an answer, right? Yeah, of course. They ask the question. I've got to answer the question. You're enabling bad behavior. Well, what do you mean? Don't answer the question. They're being lazy. Tell them to bring with them a solution, what they think the answer is. If it's not the right answer, then engage with them and walk through it and use it as a teaching moment. But 99 times out of 100, they've got the right answer. They just are in an environment where they don't want to make a mistake. Perhaps because your style will kill them. Perhaps that'll affect their ego.

We don't know what it is, but everybody has to stand up on their own. And it is psychological. It is in our heads. We're comfortable doing what we do now. Don't change that. That's not the answer, is it?

Not. Well, there is no need that you can get more reward from it. To express that all the long-term reward, again, is something that I want the reward now. In the beginning, where...

And with the pandemic, giving people a change... methodology of working, working from home, for example, many people have re-evaluated their situation in life. Yeah. And that's, many of them are saying, well, gee, I don't want to go back to that quote, quote, rat race. It's a trap. There's no way out of this. And it's, it's, it's an intriguing conundrum, Bruce. So thank you for, for. poking that out in your blog about, you know, leans over, it's dead. It's not. It's a provocation. Good work. Well, I think we've satisfied that particular conundrum. I responded to you saying, boy, you're opening a can of worms, but I think you emptied the can and closed it back up again. That's good. Have you got any comments you want to make in closing so that we can get you on to your next appointment? And that's a really appropriate way to close this. Desmond Tutu had a famous saying.

He was the archbishop in South Africa, a black man at the time of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and also his release. But he's famous for saying, if it is to be, It is up to me. And that's exactly what you told that CEO. If we're going to change the tone, if we're going to change the style, the culture, the methodology, whatever terminology you want to use, it has to start with the leader. Bruce, as usual, it's been wonderful. Let me close this off and thank you very much and thank the people that have been listening. And I look forward to having our next. candid conversation in the near future. Thanks for having me, Robert. Aloha, Bruce, and thank you.

Thank you.

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