How Can I Sign New Hampshire Banking Presentation

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[Music] let me introduce our presenter for today John batten John is president of New Hampshire industries a company that he has worked for for more than 22 years he served in a number of roles during that time from technician to Quality Manager general manager director of operations and now president so John thanks so much for being here with us and I'll go ahead and turn things over to you I want to thank everybody for joining me this was a good exercise for me to kind of put together in order what we've gone through so far we're you know we're about a year in a year and a half into our lean transformation here since I took over that's been a focus of mine so I'm going to start with a little bit of an introduction of nhi I just I don't want to put a plug in we're we're an OEM manufacturer so we don't sell to the public but I think it instructs a little bit of where we're coming from and I and then where kata fit in to our you know we're caught a fit into our process as well as the the four key lessons that I've taken away thus far and it's instructed where we're going to go from here so New Hampshire Industries was a company founded in in the 1960s actually in 1960 and it was spun off from a bearing company and we made basically either pulleys for outdoor power equipment there were several acquisitions throughout the years of smaller competitors and we basically operated them as standalone units until we were able to start a facility consolidation in 2016 here in New Hampshire the main headquarters was already in New Hampshire but it was in a much smaller site and it wasn't laid out properly it was really tough to move around material handling was tough so when we got this new building it was a good opportunity for us to do an improved layout with a much safer facility and then start our Arleen transformation on the rest of the businesses that we brought into New Hampshire from the other standalone sites the real reason that I was focused on on lean or lean you know continuous improvement was as I moved up through the organization and really landed in quality for most of my early career we relied on a very seasoned workforce mature products and processes so not a lot of things change so it was real easy to kind of maintain the status quo but shortly after I started with the company in the mid 90s we started to see a lot of pressure from low-cost countries the type of product we make is considered a commodity product in in the OEM world because it's something that they can buy obviously from all around the world and we did start to lose business and at that time we did not embrace change well because of that seasoned workforce a really mature processes so it was really there was a resistance to changing and like the slide says I call it the nhi Benny I nai H effect which is not invented here because everybody would walk around and say ah we've always done it that way we make you know we make good money doing that so there's really no need so one of my main focuses when I was going to take over as president was I was going to make sure that at the top level we had support for lean transformation we started little by little back before I took over with 5s and things like that but they never stuck so I put you know a plan together to begin training on all the tools we were going to need and you know basically really was a heavy focus on operational excellence and all the things that other companies have done to achieve that or move toward their way so there was you know that the normal things like value stream mapping success 5s success whatever you call it inventory improvement in consolidation set up production all the key areas and tools that have been developed over the years to really work on operational excellence and I figured if all these companies and experts do this why why should I do some different let's just make sure that we have a good plan to teach and implement these tools throughout the organization and and I thought how can I go wrong you know and as long as we have top management support and all these tools we should be you know we should be in a very very good place so I have a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and one of the things that I it's fraught with tools right there's tools all over the place and I've never had a great opportunity to use them so we started out with that that really nice timeline plan to teach these tools but it quickly became evident that those are other people's tools and our problems we were trying to apply them to and it really didn't work well at first it really people were confused they were just going through the motions because that's what the you know that's what the process was but they didn't necessarily see the value because it really wasn't addressing our issues because every company really is an individual you can't just look at yourself as Toyota and just cookie-cutter those tools in and think it's going to work that way so you got to have the right tool for the right problem and at that time I read the book Tulio Takata by Mike Rother and it really hit me like a like a an epiphany that here's here's a process or a pattern that you can apply in your company that will let you address or bring in the proper tools to address the obstacles that you uncover on your way to your challenges and that was really eye-opening to me unfortunately I was already six months to a year into the delayed transformation and I felt like I'd be taking a kind of a 180 with the team if I change things but I then attended a Twi Institute the Toyota kata ten-hour training program and then subsequently the 40-hour program a few months later and I was convinced at that point that this was the the right way to go for the organization to to be able to solve their own problems and use and create tools by following the pattern of the improvement kata in the coaching kata so the I broke down the lessons that I learned thus far or we have learned thus far into four different lessons the first one is Authority alone does not compel an organization to improve or change I thought from my quality background that if I supported everything with top management support unlike some of my predecessors that we would be successful and unfortunately I misunderstood or underestimated what the leadership position takes as far as guiding the company top management support alone doesn't is not enough by itself you've got to you've got to make sure that there's a compelling reason to change so really global competition and our our lost business really became the focal point and top management support was there to support that but it wasn't the guiding principle the other thing that I learned is the more involved I got because I was a practitioner for years and then moved into the leadership position that I was providing what I thought was guidance and all the people who work on the floor who see me as the president heard mandates they didn't take them as guidance they took them as well he must have the answer so therefore I'm just going to go do what he's what he's bringing up so I had to back off and really take a different look at my approach in my position and where I fit and then again people focused on what they thought I wanted to hear versus what they needed to do to address their obstacles so that was a pretty a pretty reflective lesson for me to have to just to take because I thought I was providing a lot of support and guidance and and it really was being viewed as dictatorial almost and and really not giving them any freedom to solve their own issues and identify their own issues so the second lesson that really stuck out was setting challenges you need to know what makes a good challenge for your company I read the participants guide or the practice guide for Toyota kata and I started to apply what my co-author lays out as the process analysis portion of that and I basically wanted to set challenges and said we need to meet our customers we need to meet our customers requirements so that we the first challenges need to be set by the planned cycle time what do we need to hit in order to satisfy our customers but the way it was worded it made it made it almost unachievable even though it was what we needed to get at it always felt like they were failing current condition was nowhere close to the planned cycle time and the people felt like even though I was communicating and the other coaches were communicating that where we are is not good or bad they still felt like they were failing so they they would come in and and they just felt demoralized from the start so it wasn't a good place to kick off you know the Toyota kata because at that point they really should be empowered not not be motivated so that was another key lesson that that we had learned and that we need to needed to address with some action items the third real key lesson was grasping the current condition is not easy and anybody who doesn't necessarily know or have any background in kata current condition is just where you are right where you are today and it's in its and it's again not good or bad it's where just where you are but there's one thing that I learned people don't understand necessarily what data is telling them as easily as somebody who's worked in quality for 20 years or an engineering or or in a technical position that are used to dealing with data and in it in the common sense approach that I was putting out there with the process analysis was laying out these charts and graphs and good data but if you don't understand what the data is telling you it's really difficult for people to grasp that current condition themselves the learners and not just not just the coaches and then the early coaching missed the opportunity to really ensure scientific thinking was going on at the improvement kata level the the coaches that I launched with we're so focused on on following the pattern of the five questions that that are part of the code gingka um they really were missing opportunities on coaching the improvement kata to happen and getting people to really look at their target condition and understand their current condition and how they're going to get from there to their target condition and identifying obstacles and all the things that that come into play with with Toyota kata really the coaches missed the opportunity they were they were really robotic and following the process and really not seeing those coaching opportunities including myself and and that was something we missed early on that was a pretty pretty painful lesson because we had to go back again and restart some of those early kata Boortz but but it's still nonetheless was a lesson that we had to learn and and all learning is good so you know in lesson 4 is pace setting is hard and what I mean by that is if as the president I have it I had that product that project plan that I wanted to achieve you know world class manufacturing facility by three to five years and I followed the typical Toyota you know production system launched Skype they know cycle and I thought we had it all set but at the end of the day you can't change a culture at the rate you want I can set a goal but at the the organization is only going to be able to stand a certain amount of change at a time and Lina the leadership can have that goal but can't force it and it's it's really more like I have to view it as the president is looking like I'm pressing on the accelerator and vehicle and I need to keep even pressure to keep you know to keep moving forward more than forward but I can't just step on the gas all at once it will overwhelm the system and the culture will push back and so if my team was overwhelmed the pace setting I was putting out there although I viewed it as reasonable and achievable they felt like it was beyond what they could actually change in the pace that I was trying to accept and then the other thing I needed to learn personally was sometimes it's hard to see and recognize how much you've already improved one of the things we see on the boards is the cotta boards is you know how many target conditions have we hit or you know what target conditions have we met and you know you see that current one but if you don't take time to look back and actually see where you started from which is part of the the pattern of kata to is look back and see what you've improved versus you know trying to set out this this hard project plan because you need that you need to recognize the team and that's part of respect for people and I missed that opportunity early on and personally felt like we weren't going as as far and as fast as we could and again another be motivator not intended to be but it turned out to be that way so based on all that learning I put together kind of if anybody's knows Maslow's hierarchy of needs I kind of did the same thing with the steps we needed to take in order to get us back on track and really start moving forward so first thing is clearer more appropriate challenges making sure people they're there what the company needs to support our business needs but it's there clearer and more appropriate to make people feel like they're achievable and they feel good about where they are according to that challenge coaching scientific thinking is the second thing after we have the challenge we want to make sure that we're coaching scientific thinking we're not just following the pattern so so parochially that we're not we're missing opportunities to coach the learners and that goes for beyond kata any any improvement you know process needs to have scientific thinking going on you know data analysis all sorts of other things so we need to be coaching that throughout the organization to really help push that culture change celebrate the failed experiments in learning so you know part of the the the look back for kata is understanding what you learn whether you whether your experiment was successful or or considered a quote-unquote failure but celebrate the failed bugs it's a recognizes a step forward an attempt at trying to overcome an obstacle instead of just standing pat and staying you know where you currently are and make sure i'm steady on the axillary through all that as the leader making sure I'm applying that steady pressure on the on the gas pedal per se to make sure that and I have a good feel for the pulse of the organization that that's going to be acceptable and and we can keep the culture change going at that rate still challenging the organization to change at maybe at the edge of a comfort level but not not being herky-jerky over from the accelerator you know and then it's really using cotton learn solutions to our problems at the end of the day that was you know I go back to we focused on tools tools tools tools and more tools and really you know this four step part of the improvement kata really is the Epiphany that I need to kind of keep my mind straight you know you need to understand the direction that's my job as the as the president and then beyond that I need to I need to really help the organization get through steps two three and four of the of the improvement kata and and with the help of the coaches right so understand the direction I said that they need to understand it clearly they need to be very clear on their current condition which takes into account all the data analysis all the other things that you that seem to be common sense you have to make sure that your coaching and helping those learners understand that that data is there to help them understand where they're at where they're currently at and so that they can then set that next target condition the key there is that gray area that's on that poster is that that's the you know the gray zone or the unknown zone and you can't have a project plan to get through there and I've argued this with people who are project management experts you know that's an area you've never been before so you cannot have a step by step project plan to get you through there you have to take a step experiment toward that target condition understand what you know your obstacles are that are in your way and address them as they come up you can't you can't predict that so being okay with that and embracing that within the organization is really part o the the biggest challenge of both the coach and the learner and the leader who's setting the so that's something that you know as we go forward over the next year we'll be really focusing on this model to really make sure that it's all working within a you know a nice predictable and almost a predictable but a nice manageable pace of change because at the end of the day if they know they can get to their challenge by their due date there by Wendy then really that's the pace of change they've got to determine how many target conditions they need to meet what they need to do to get there and then the coach has to help them get there as well so this is a really I know this is a short program I didn't have a lot of time I one thing I'd leave you with is I have to go back to this this is one thing I do in my mind a lot is it's a marathon and not a sprint I'm a tend to be a sprinter type in a personal work in my personal work but as a leader had to learn that you know it is a marathon you need to keep the goal in sight but you need to you need to understand that you're not the only person that's making this change happen you got to do it within the you know the confines of your team and and have respect for people's differences and their different appetite for change and learning new things because once they get it obviously you've heard all the good stories that come along with a lot of lean transitions and transformations let's say get it and that grassroots effort starts to burn from the bots you know from the bottom of the organization off that's that's how it's sustainable that's how it's powerful and that's where you know you get your you know your huge change it's not coming from the top it's it's really coming from from the grassroots of the organization you [Music]