I really enjoyed hosting the latest webinar in the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinar Series:
Introducing the Connections Between Habit Science and Continuous Improvement
The recording is available now and you can get it via the link above.
It was presented by Dr. Greg Jacobson and Morgan Wright from KaiNexus.
Greg and Morgan have been studying three books on the science of habits:
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
- Atomic Habits An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
- Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
They're synthesizing the best insights and lessons from these books in the webinar. The first webinar is an overview of the connections between habit science and continuous improvement. Later webinars will take a deeper dive into the concepts and their application.
Here is a short 8-minute preview of the webinar that I hosted with Greg and Morgan:
You can also listen to the podcast version:
Transcript:
Mark Graban
Hi everybody, welcome to the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast.
I'm Mark Graban from KaiNexus and today we are doing a quick preview of a webinar that's going to be presented February 23rd at 1 o'clock Eastern.
So today we are joined by our two co-presenters for this session.
They are Morgan Wright. She is a customer marketing manager for KaiNexus and we're also joined by Dr. Greg Jacobson, co-founder and CEO of KaiNexus.
So Morgan, Greg, thanks for being here.
Morgan Wright
How are you today?
Greg Jacobson
Good. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Mark.
Mark Graban
So, you know, we will, I think in the discussion here today is a preview for the webinar. We'll set some of the context, you know, we'll start with why.
That's something we all like to do. You know, why this topic of habits? Why is this something that you've both been, you know, digging so deeply into, reading about, thinking about, discussing?
You know, Morgan, what do you say?
Morgan Wright
Yeah, I would say kind of the first thing that comes to my mind is, you know, as the customer marketing manager, a big part of my responsibilities is communications, right?
How can we get our customers to utilize the platform more and really… value in it and to make it a part of their daily routine.
Right. And so that's when it kind of clicked for us. I remember Greg talking to me last year after our user conference about this concept of a habit loop.
And we really started diving in. We've been reading different books. We've been listening to different things. Um, really how can we create these quote unquote habit loops for our different types of customers within our organization?
So, you know, what is that routine? Is it, you know, submitting ideas every day and how can we set people up for success where they're reminded to, you know, submit that idea and where they're rewarded.
So is it, you know, a pat on the back? Is it they're, um, you know, nominated to do, you know, further honor roll monthly.
So we've really been excited about this concept of, you know, habit loops and, you know, I'm sure we're going to keep learning more as we go along.
But I think at this point, we're really excited to kind of share what we've discovered with our customers. And we think that everyone will be really excited about.
Mark Graban
Yeah. Have you found a bit of a learning habit loop as you're learning about this? Does it kind of apply to learning about habit loops?
Morgan Wright
Absolutely. And even just your personal life. You start reading all these books and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, there's so many things that you could be implementing that kind of helps you in all facets of your life.
Mark Graban
So Greg, I mean, why is this topic so important to you?
Greg Jacobson
Well, I'll say, Mark, I haven't been this excited about a body of knowledge probably since we did the leadership behavior talks over those four or five years ago, which are, by the way, great podcasts or webinars that are still in our library.
But what are we doing here at KaiNexus? We're trying to help organizations create cultures of continuous improvement. What is culture?
Culture is, I think, best defined by Seth Godin. People like us do things like this. So do things like this are behaviors.
I was initially introduced to these concepts. I just immediately gravitated towards them because there are ways in which you can design and become very intentional about your behaviors.
I applied them to my own personal life and started talking to them. I started talking to people at Kinexis about these concepts and musing on them on our Friday talks.
There was this moment that, wait a minute, we are trying to help organizations do behavioral organizational changes. What if we could be intentional about designing the habit loop of every type of person at an organization?
It just clicked. I'm excited. We've been talking about this. We've been reading. We've been studying this. Morgan and I, for the last, I don't know if I've ever prepared more for a couple webinars.
It's going to be obviously way more than that. I think in three to five years, Looking back at this is the beginning of being able to tap into kind of habit science, and then applying that to an organization in an intentional manner, and in an intentional manner to produce a culture of continuous improvement.
So I, I can't, I more highly recommend. Or what? Yeah.
Mark Graban
Yeah. Well, I love how you're both connecting this concept to what our customers are trying to accomplish and what others who, you know, people in our community who come to the webinars and they enjoy them and participate, of building a culture of continuous improvement.
And I know you're going to cover this more in the webinars, or I guess we're calling it a webinar series.
But we'll put you on the hook for that, but it's not enough to have education or intent. It seems like those two things alone don't create the habit of really just perpetuating where it becomes the way we do things now.
What are your thoughts on that?
Morgan Wright
Yeah, I would completely agree with that. And I liked that you pointed out, this isn't just for our customers.
Of course, that's where our head went, but I think this is gonna be super helpful for people beyond the KaiNexus world, whether they're in CI or beyond that.
So I think we're just really excited to share there.
Mark Graban
Yeah. So before we wrap up, what are those three books real quickly? I know you'll show them and talk about them in the webinar, but if people can't wait for the webinar and they wanna go digging into at least one of these now, what are those three books?
Greg Jacobson
So the three books that we're gonna be taking most of our knowledge from and kind of synthesizing it into the world of CI are Atomic Habits by Clear, Power of Habits by Duhigg, and Tiny Habits by Fogg.
And that is a great order to read them in, but they're all very good. I think by the third one, whichever is your third one, you'll… you'll see that there are some themes in there. And then there are some nuanced differences that I think are probably all applicable.
But I think if you are a CI coach, CI lead at your organization, then certainly the education, knowing how to do a domain or an A3 or whatever kind of root cause analysis and or problem solving tools you're using, those are table stakes, right?
That just knowing what you need to know, getting to that next level of being able to change the hearts and the minds of people that you're working with to where you're gonna get this kind of self propagating culture of continuous improvement, you're gonna need to tap into some of this behavioral science and this habit science that we're gonna talk about.
Mark Graban
Well, thank you, Morgan. And thank you, Greg. Again, we've been joined by Morgan Wright and Greg Jacobson from KaiNexus.
The first of these webinars is titled How to build organizational habits that create a culture. of continuous improvement, you can register at KaiNexus.com/webinars, or again, you can look for a more specific link in the show notes.
So if you're not already making it a habit to tune in for our webinars, we hope you will. There's a meta point maybe you can make in the webinar.
How to start attending KineXis webinars every month into a habit loop. And if you're not listening to the podcast, we hope you'll make that a habit as well.
So Morgan and Greg, thank you in advance for what you're gonna be sharing with us. And thank you for giving us a preview and some of the background today.
Morgan Wright
Thank you so much.
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