Episode_11-Dave-Ready

In this podcast episode, Liz and Marco interview Dave Cloutier, owner of StratTech Consulting, about leader-standard work. Dave explains that leader-standard work is a process that maximizes management performance in a lean environment, ensuring sustainable improvements. He distinguishes it from operational-standard work, which focuses on best practices for daily tasks. Leader-standard work is a document carried by leaders, outlining their regular activities and serving as a training tool for new managers. It helps modify leaders' behaviors, clarifies expectations, and rationalizes activities. Dave also discusses the benefits, implementation timing, and challenges of adopting leader-standard work. He notes that while it can benefit all industries, some cultures and individuals may resist its structured approach. Dave recommends a structured approach to deploying leader-standard work, including individual coaching. Welcome to Lean into Excellence, a Workstream Consulting Podcast. I'm Liz Crescenti. And I'm Marco Bonilla. And we will be your hosts as we embark on our continuous improvement journey. Welcome back to another episode of Lean into Excellence. I'm Liz Crescenti. And I'm Marco Bonilla. And today we have Mr. Dave Cloutier, who is the owner of StratTech Consulting, and we are going to dive into leader standard work. Hey, Dave. Welcome. Thanks, Marco. Glad to be here. Yeah. So real quick background. Dave and I, I got to meet Dave about three or four years ago when I joined Workstream Consulting. He was one of the master black belts on hand out of California, correct, Dave? Yeah, that's right. I'm from Northern California between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. Fantastic. So, Dave, let's get into your background and how you got to here, right, to this point in time. All right. Well, background, I'm an independent consultant. I've been doing consulting now for about 13 years. And as Liz said, I'm the owner of StratTech Consulting. My background is I'm a former Army Ranger. And then I got a Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington. Worked for a variety of different companies. Started off in aerospace and defense and chemical manufacturing and engineering. And did a variety of different engineering roles in engineering management. And then also got involved in facilities. And then got into a role as a Lean Six Sigma black belt full-time role and really enjoyed that. So went on to become a certified Master Black Belt. So I have certifications as a Master Black Belt and a Lean Leader. And I've been doing that now for a little bit over 25 years. I'm working with Lean Six Sigma. That's fantastic, Dave. You got a lot of experience under your belt. So, you know, when we started this podcast, Liz mentioned that the topic of the day is leader-standard work. Do you mind explaining what leader-standard work for those who don't know what that is? Sure. So leader-standard work is a process that enables organizations to maximize management performance in a lean environment. So it also ensures that they sustain the gains that they've made through their improvement efforts. It's a layered approach that each leader-standard work supports the layers below them. And it's standard in that it covers activities that are repetitive on a regular basis. So that's a bit about what leader-standard work is. And can you give us an example of the difference between leader-standard work and operational-standard work, Dave? Sure. So leader-standard work differs from operational-standard work in that, you know, when we talk about operational-standard work, we talk about, you know, the combination of best practices, people, and machines that we know of to do work today. Whereas with leader-standard work, the concept is similar, but it has to do with making sure that we are using the best processes and people to manage in a lean environment. So it's typically a document that is carried with leaders, so it's point of use is with them throughout the day and the week. And they use it as a living document, which is annotated on a regular basis, and then revised as needed. Dave, I have a question. Who would use leader-standard work? Great question, Liz. So all leaders in an organization can benefit from leader-standard work. So from front-line team leads, supervisors, managers, all the way up to the C-suite. So one of the major things that differs is that, depending upon the role, is the percent of what we would call standard work versus non-standard work varies throughout different levels in an organization. We tend to find that at the front-line team lead supervisor level, most of their work is standard and repetitive. But as you get further up the management levels, up at the C-suite level, it may be that only 15%, 20% of their work is really standard, and they do a lot of non-standard work. Dave, I'm glad you mentioned that this can apply all the way up to executives. Sometimes we lose sight that we need strong leadership, right, and how this applies to them, and how will it benefit the organization? Sure. So some of the benefits of using leader-standard work is that it allows an organization to modify the behaviors of leaders to incorporate lean into the culture of management within the organization. It helps to sustain the gains that are made by improvements or projects or activities. And it also helps to clarify the expectations of what managers should be doing in a lean environment. It's a great tool to quickly train incoming managers that are coming into existing roles or positions that other folks have left the organization. It also allows us to rationalize the activities of what folks are doing so that we can remove activities that shouldn't be done and supplement them with behaviors or activities that we want to support the lean culture. So, Dave, we talked about some of the benefits and who would use this, but when is a good time to implement it? Great question. So leader-standard work can be implemented at any time, but I've had the most success in implementing it once we've begun implementing improvements and started visual management. So that approach ensures that managers have something tangible to look at when they go out to the Gemba. And in doing that, it helps to support the importance of those improvement activities, which helps to sustain the gain. Dave, you know, we talked about this before in other podcasts. Cracking that nut, getting executive leadership or even middle managers to start adopting standard work. That buy-in. That buy-in. How often do you run into that? And what do you think the biggest struggle is? Well, you know, as I said before, leader-standard work really applies to all levels of the organization, so from the C-suite down. So in some cases, executives benefit the most because they've not been around a lean culture and they've not managed in a lean culture, so they're very set in their ways of the ways that they manage now. And they've risen to the top, so they're, you know, successful. But at the same time, they may not know how to manage in a lean environment. So sometimes, you know, they've gotten into the position that they're in through heroic activities. As you know, in a lean environment, we don't want to be firefighting on a regular basis. We want, you know, steady, efficient processes. So oftentimes, they benefit the most. So, Dave, what type of activities show up for leader-standard work? Well, some of the activities that would regularly show up on leader-standard work are regular demo walks. So getting folks out to the place where the work is done. Attendance at tiered meetings. So from frontline all the way up to, you know, C-suite tiered meetings. Review of improvement activities. So sometimes that's incorporated into the demo walks, too. And that, again, that helps support our culture of continuous improvement. Regular employee recognition. That's a key element that I've found oftentimes leaders need help with remembering to recognize folks that are doing great work. So adding that on has been a great win. Tiered review of leader-standard work at different levels of the organization. As I mentioned before, leader-standard work is layered and having this tiered review process of reviewing leader-standard work helps drive the accountability and ensure that everybody's doing it. And then reflection on improvement opportunities. As you're conducting your leader-standard work, what are some behaviors or things that you see that warrant some improvement and reflecting on that? So this reflection process is important as well. Dave, I'm glad you mentioned that because we keep iterating in all the podcasts that this isn't a one-and-done thing, right? This is not a static, we hit a mark and we check it off and we're done, right? That's right. Yeah, we're shifting the culture. Right. Continuous improvement is a fundamental constant vigilance of what we can do better. That's right. Dave, what industries benefit from leader-standard work? Well, Marco, I really believe all industries can benefit from leader-standard work. I've worked on deploying leader-standard work in mining, healthcare, aerospace and defense, electronics, medical device, pharma, and it's worked everywhere that I've deployed it. So the concepts are applicable everywhere. Dave, have you seen any industries embrace it easier than others or vice versa, any industries that have challenged the notion more often than not? Yes, I would say that operational manufacturing type of cultures are used to some of the repetitiveness and rigor that you find in leader-standard work. So generally, it's embraced fairly quickly there in comparison. But some other industries, maybe not so much. Or even functional areas, for example, deploying it in finance or human resources, they're not as used to continuous improvement type activities. So sometimes it's a little different for them and new. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I can only imagine that there's always some kind of uphill battle, right? It also depends on the culture that currently stands in the facility, right? That's right, Marco. I would agree with that. So let me ask you this, Dave. Does it work for everybody? Unfortunately, no. I have found cases where leaders are too close-minded to really accept that they can benefit from a structured approach to managing in a lean environment. I have, unfortunately, seen cases where it has not worked well and that leaders have refused to adopt leader-standard work. Not surprising, right? There's always one in a bunch. There's always one. You can't convince them all. That's right. Dave, how do you go about deploying leader-standard work? Well, you know, based on my experience, I like to use a structured approach to deploying leader-standard work. I use a creation and coaching approach where each person receives individual coaching on creating their leader-standard work and then the use and modification of their leader-standard work as time progresses. I found that to be the best approach. And then oftentimes we will use a train-the-trainer type approach where once you've got this rigorous methodology, you're able to train others to continue to coach and sort of expand the deployment of leader-standard work through the organization. So the organization really decides what element should be standard on everybody's leader-standard work. Some of those activities that we mentioned before, like demo walks and recognition and that type of thing, the organization can decide, yes, these belong on everybody's leader-standard work. Dave, that's interesting. So if I understood you correctly, your approach is really a one-on-one basis, right? And you really take a look at the individual and their style? That's right. So, you know, Marco, I use a guide that I've created, a coaching guide that helps with making sure that we're doing it the same way with everybody. But it is customized to the individual. So we have common elements, but each role and each person is a little bit different. So you come up with standard elements, for example, that all supervisors would use. But then you tailor it for the individual and what's unique about their role. At least that's what I found to be the most successful approach. Do you ever have to go back and re-coach? Absolutely. You know, this is an ongoing process. And, you know, when we talk through the idea of reflection that I mentioned earlier, oftentimes you find that those reflection processes lead to better results, right? They lead to a modification of leader standard work. And after all, we consider this a living document. It's something that evolves as a person's role changes, as they reflect on benefits and different approaches. It does evolve. Dave, I'm really curious. Have you implemented this? And what kind of industries have you implemented it in? Well, Marco, I've implemented this in a variety of different industries. So some of the more interesting ones, I've worked in health care, where we deployed leader standard work through over 30 clinics, all the way from the clinical leads up through the C-suite, including doctors in the medical group, which was very interesting. And then also in mining, so underground mining from the VP all the way down through the crew leads in the underground mine. And it's worked great in a lot of different areas. But as I said before, not everybody is willing to adopt. So there are isolated cases where you run into that. So one specific example of deploying leader standard work is in health care, where I've worked with a regional director, called a regional area director, and he started using leader standard work. And in doing that, we discovered that he had quite a few activities that he did on a regular basis that were really legacy over from a prior role that he was working. And as we got through the development of leader standard work, we were able to rationalize out a lot of that type of activity, which enabled him to focus more on the types of lean activity that he wanted to be participating in. Since we're coming to the end of our time together, Dave, what are some benefits, if someone's listening and they want to incorporate leader standard work in their company, in their culture, and they want to essentially explore the benefits with their leadership, what would you recommend to them? Well, Liz, one of the major benefits of leader standard work, we talked briefly about before, is raising the bar on management performance throughout the organization. So that's one of the main benefits. And the other thing is that leader standard work is a fantastic tool to sustain the gains that you are implementing through your continuous improvement activities. So leader standard work really helps long-term to sustain the gain. And as MBBs and lean practitioners, we know that that's one of the most difficult parts of the continuous improvement journey is sustaining gains long-term. Yes, absolutely. Dave, it's been an educational discussion regarding leadership and their role in continuous improvement. If anyone wants to continue this conversation with you and find better ways of implementing some of these techniques, how can they reach you? Well, thanks, Marco. And I can be reached through LinkedIn. My name is David Cloutier, C-L-O-U-T-I-E-R. Or my website, which is StratPakConsulting, and that is S-T-R-A-T-A-C-Consulting.com. Perfect. Thank you so much, Dave. And if you need to get in touch with Marco or I, we are at WorkstreamConsulting.com or info at WorkstreamConsulting.com. And a reminder that new episodes are released every other Wednesday. And we will see you next time. Thanks again, Dave. Thank you, Dave. Thanks. Can you envision a scenario in your operations where, despite your team's best efforts, there are persistent inefficiencies or bottlenecks that seem resistant to change? What kind of impact would resolving those issues have on your bottom line? Here's where the team at Workstream Consulting can help. We are a small but mighty group of 10 master black belts, each who pack 25 to 30 years' experience. Our consultants have seamlessly navigated all 11 GICS stock market sectors. And together, we've delivered cumulative savings exceeding over a billion dollars for our clients. Our approach is designed for immediate impact without the need for lengthy hiring and onboarding processes. Contact us today so we can help you in 2024.