Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more
My guest for Episode #511 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Sam Yankelevitch, a distinguished global operations executive who has dedicated his career to advancing Lean principles, effective communication, and innovative problem-solving. Sam's journey began with managing international projects and optimizing processes in various industries. His expertise and passion for continuous improvement have made him a sought-after speaker, workshop trainer, and corporate coach.
Sam is one of the speakers and facilitators at the upcoming Global Lean Summit Event, being held in Indiana this September.
Since 2014, Sam has leveraged his vast knowledge by producing popular online courses that have reached over 500,000 students worldwide. His contributions to LinkedIn Learning include highly-regarded courses such as “Root Cause Analysis” and “Improve Communication Using Lean Thinking.” Sam's ability to distill complex concepts into actionable insights has earned him a dedicated following among professionals seeking to enhance their skills.
In addition to his educational endeavors, Sam recently ventured into fiction writing with his debut book, An Interview with Failure. This unique narrative explores the lessons learned from setbacks and the value of embracing failure as a stepping stone to success.
Before establishing himself as an influential educator and author, Sam held several key positions, including Vice President and General Manager at a German-based automotive supplier and President and CEO of Ideace, Inc., an international manufacturer and exporter. His diverse background and hands-on experience provide a rich foundation for his teachings.
Sam holds an Industrial Engineering degree and an Executive Master's in Financial Management, further solidifying his expertise in operational excellence and strategic leadership.
In this episode, we discuss the pivotal role that effective communication plays within the framework of lean thinking. We also explore how clear, concise, and consistent communication can significantly enhance problem-solving capabilities, streamline processes, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Sam shares his insights on the common communication pitfalls that organizations face and offers practical solutions to overcome these challenges using lean methodologies.
Additionally, we preview Sam's upcoming workshop at the Global Lean Summit, where he will be leading a session on lean communication. This workshop aims to equip participants with hands-on tools and techniques to improve communication within their organizations. Attendees will learn how to adapt lean principles to enhance clarity, reduce misunderstandings, and ensure that everyone in the organization is on the same page, thereby driving better results and fostering a more collaborative work environment.
Questions, Notes, and Highlights:
- Tell us about the workshop you're doing at the Global Lean Summit.
- What are some core communication problems that Lean thinking addresses?
- Can you explain the concept of operational definitions from Dr. Deming?
- How can Lean methods improve communication in an organization?
- What's your lean origin story?
- How did your international experience influence your Lean approach?
- What were some challenges you faced when implementing Lean in the automotive industry?
- What advice would you give to someone leading a Lean transformation?
- How do you reframe failure as a learning opportunity?
- Can you tell us about your book, “An Interview with Failure”?
- How do you build trust in a coaching relationship?
- What's the importance of commitment conversations in leadership?
- How do you handle the word “accountability” in a positive way?
- How does communication serve as a precondition to quality?
- What can leaders do to improve their communication skills on the shop floor?
- What are the benefits of standard work and 5S in a high-mix, low-volume environment?
- How can Lean tools like Smed and Andon be applied to communication processes?
- What lessons have you learned about leading and motivating people throughout your career?
The podcast is brought to you by Stiles Associates, the premier executive search firm specializing in the placement of Lean Transformation executives. With a track record of success spanning over 30 years, it's been the trusted partner for the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare sectors. Learn more.
This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.
Full Video of the Episode:
Thanks for listening or watching!
This podcast is part of the Lean Communicators network — check it out!
Episode Summary & Related Info
Lean Communication: Enhancing Corporate Efficiency
Introduction to Lean Communication
Effective communication is the cornerstone of any successful organization. In modern business environments, poor communication can lead to misaligned objectives, errors, and ultimately, lost opportunities. Lean communication, a concept derived from lean thinking, provides structured methodologies to improve communication efficiency within an organization. This approach is particularly valuable in international settings where diverse cultural backgrounds may complicate interdepartmental interactions.
The Importance of Doctor Deming's Operational Definitions
At the core of lean communication is the concept introduced by Dr. W. Edwards Deming–operational definitions. Dr. Deming emphasized that clear and standardized definitions are crucial for efficient operations and quality management. This principle encourages organizations to invest time in establishing clear expectations and definitions to avoid misunderstandings.
For instance, in international projects, terms and instructions must be explicitly defined to cater to the linguistic and cultural differences of team members. As an example, merely sending an email might not suffice for effective communication, as seen in the experience of a project manager at a German company working with colleagues in Mexico. The email was sent, but the message was not effectively communicated. This highlights the distinction between sending a message and genuinely communicating, necessitating a more robust approach.
Lean Thinking Applied to Communication
Lean thinking is typically associated with manufacturing and operations. However, its principles can significantly enhance communication processes. Traditional lean tools such as Andon cords and Jidoka can be adapted to improve communication visibility and accountability.
By mapping communication processes, lean thinkers can identify gaps and inefficiencies just as they would in a production line. For example, an organization might decide to map out the communication process related to project updates. This mapping can reveal when an email might better be replaced by a direct conversation to ensure clarity and immediacy of feedback. Lean ensures that these processes are not only visible but also measurable, allowing organizations to refine and improve them continuously.
Hands-On Workshops and Practical Application
Workshops centered on lean communication are invaluable for embedding these principles into an organization's culture. These sessions often feature a mix of theoretical instruction and hands-on activities. Participants engage in exercises to experience firsthand how lean tools can apply to their daily communication processes.
Activities might include role-playing scenarios where participants practice clarifying expectations and confirming understanding before tasks begin. These workshops allow employees to practice new skills in a risk-free environment, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and mutual respect. Through these engagements, employees learn to identify when a more interactive approach, such as a video call or face-to-face meeting, is necessary instead of an email.
Commitment Conversations for Accountability
Effective communication is not just about the initial exchange of information but also about establishing and maintaining accountability. Commitment conversations are a vital component of lean communication. These are structured dialogues aimed at setting clear expectations and commitments before any actions are taken.
For example, a leader may use a commitment conversation to ask team members how confident they are in their understanding of a task on a scale from one to ten. This approach promotes transparency and allows leaders to identify and address uncertainties proactively. By doing this, leaders can ensure that commitments made are realistic and achievable, thereby reducing misunderstandings and enhancing overall accountability.
Cultural Nuances and Global Projects
Managing communication in global projects involves understanding and respecting cultural nuances. Different cultures have varied communication styles, and what is considered straightforward in one culture might be deemed rude or unclear in another. Lean communication stresses the importance of cultural sensitivity and adaptability.
In practice, this involves creating a communication strategy that considers these differences. For instance, in a multicultural team, using more inclusive language and providing multiple communication channels can help bridge these cultural gaps. Additionally, having periodic check-ins to ensure that all team members are on the same page can prevent issues that arise from cultural misunderstandings.
Daily Management and Visual Tools
Daily management practices such as visual controls, kanban boards, and standardized work processes are powerful tools for improving communication. These tools serve as constant reminders and real-time updates for teams, ensuring everyone is informed and aligned with the current status and expectations.
Implementing daily huddles or stand-up meetings where team members briefly share their progress and challenges can significantly enhance team cohesion and understanding. Visual aids such as charts and graphs make complex information accessible and transparent, thereby facilitating better decision-making and problem-solving.
Enhancing Communication in Lean Thinking Events
Lean thinking events, such as summits and workshops, provide opportunities for learning and networking. Events focused on lean communication not only disseminate valuable knowledge but also offer real-world examples and case studies of successful implementation.
For instance, a lean summit might include a day dedicated to visiting a facility known for its excellent communication practices, like the Toyota Material Handling plant. Such visits offer attendees a practical glimpse into how lean communication strategies are implemented in high-performing organizations. These experiences inspire participants to adopt and adapt these practices within their own teams.
Effective communication is a vital skill supported by lean methodologies and practice. Through operational definitions, practical workshops, and commitment conversations, organizations can bridge communication gaps, ensuring clarity and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Building Trust through Incremental Accountability
Trust within an organization is vital for open and effective communication. A cornerstone of lean communication is establishing trust, especially when delegating tasks. It is crucial to start with smaller, manageable tasks when assigning responsibilities to team members for the first time. For instance, asking a new team member to gather and share information rather than tackling a complex project helps build their confidence and competency. This incremental approach not only aids in better performance outcomes but also nurtures trust between team members and leaders. Trust is, after all, foundational for accountability and effective communication.
Communication as a Precondition for Quality
One of the perennial truths in lean communication and lean manufacturing is that quality begins with communication. As the old adage goes, “Do it right the first time.” This principle underscores that effective communication is a precondition for achieving high quality in processes and outputs. Without this groundwork, misunderstandings proliferate, leading to errors and inefficiencies. By ensuring that communication is clear and comprehensive from the get-go, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of defects and reworks.
In the realm of international projects, for instance, this means painstakingly ensuring that all technical terms and project expectations are clearly understood by all parties involved. This practice minimizes miscommunications that might arise from cultural and linguistic differences, thus reinforcing quality.
Continuous Improvement through Standard Work and 5S
Standard work and the 5S methodology (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) are critical components of lean thinking. These principles ensure that communication around processes is clear and accessible. Standard work establishes consistent methods of task completion, reducing variability and misunderstandings. Meanwhile, 5S ensures that workspaces are organized, which supports more efficient communication by making necessary tools and information readily available.
For example, a manufacturing plant implementing 5S might organize tools and materials in a way that reduces search time and confusion. This organizational strategy translates into clearer communication about where tools are located and how tasks should be performed, thereby enhancing overall efficiency.
Application of SMED in High-Mix, Low-Volume Environments
Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is a lean tool that reduces setup times, making processes more flexible and responsive. In high-mix, low-volume environments–common in aftermarket production–this tool becomes indispensable. SMED allows for rapid transitions between different product setups, thus supporting the ability to meet varied customer demands without excessive downtime.
Effective implementation of SMED demands excellent communication. Detailed procedural documents, well-organized workspaces, and real-time feedback loops are essential. For example, if a manufacturing plant needs to perform multiple machine setups per day, clear and concise communication ensures that each setup is done correctly and efficiently, minimizing downtime and maximizing productivity.
Visual Management and Real-Time Updates
Visual management tools such as kanban boards, value stream maps, and visual control charts enhance communication within teams. These tools make complex data easily understandable and accessible at a glance, aiding in better decision-making and problem-solving. Visual tools can also serve as constant reminders of goals, standards, and current statuses, keeping everyone aligned and informed.
For instance, a kanban board in a production facility can show real-time progress on different tasks and flag bottlenecks as they occur. This immediate visibility supports quick decision-making and promotes proactive problem-solving, thereby maintaining the flow of production and reducing delays.
Leadership in Lean Communication
A successful lean transformation necessitates leaders who are committed to continuous learning and improvement. Leadership in lean communication involves spending time on the shop floor–often referred to as going to the Gemba–to observe processes and engage with team members. This presence ensures that leaders understand the ground realities and can provide timely support and guidance.
A leader's role includes coaching team members rather than merely judging their performance. Continuous learning is encouraged by fostering a culture where employees feel safe to share their insights and feedback. This open dialogue helps identify issues early and devise more effective solutions.
In conclusion, effective communication is the backbone of lean methodologies. By implementing principles such as trust-building through incremental accountability, treating communication as a precondition for quality, leveraging standard work and 5S, applying SMED in diverse environments, utilizing visual management tools, and fostering strong leadership, organizations can enhance their communication strategies. This leads to greater efficiency, higher quality outputs, and a more cohesive, productive work environment.
Employee Engagement through Gemba Walks
An integral part of lean communication is the Gemba walk, a practice where leaders go to the “actual place” where value is created to observe and interact with employees. Effective Gemba walks involve more than just casual observation; they require genuine engagement with team members across all shifts and departments. This includes not only the visible day shift but also those working late into the night or early morning hours–the “unknowns” who are indispensable to the overall process.
Leaders should strive to create a culture of openness and inquiry by asking questions such as, “What's going well?” or “What are the challenges you're facing?” This establishes a foundation of trust and demonstrates that leadership is committed to addressing employee concerns and improving their work environment. By engaging employees in this way, leaders can uncover hidden opportunities for improvement and innovation.
Cross-Departmental Insights
Diverse perspectives from different departments like finance, HR, and operations are crucial for a well-rounded understanding of organizational challenges and opportunities. Each department brings unique insights and priorities, and engaging with them fosters a holistic view of the business.
For instance, finance might highlight cost-saving opportunities that are not immediately evident to the operations team, while HR can shed light on employee satisfaction and retention issues that could impact productivity. Leaders who invest time in understanding these varied perspectives are better equipped to make informed decisions that benefit the entire organization.
Customer-Centric Approach
Understanding customer expectations is another cornerstone of lean communication. Leaders can achieve this by directly engaging with customers to gather feedback and understand their needs. This “voice of the customer” approach ensures that the organization's efforts are aligned with customer expectations, thereby enhancing service quality and customer satisfaction.
For example, conducting regular customer surveys or feedback sessions can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and pain points. These insights can then be used to fine-tune processes and products, ensuring that customer demands are met more effectively.
Integrity and Accountability
As the story of the sales executive's dishonesty illustrates, maintaining high ethical standards is imperative. Leaders must not tolerate unethical behavior as it sets a precedent for what is acceptable within the organization. When unethical actions are overlooked, they can become the new norm, eroding trust and diminishing overall morale.
To avoid this, leaders should clearly communicate the importance of integrity and hold everyone accountable to the same standards. This means that all employees, regardless of their position, should be expected to adhere to ethical guidelines. Regular training and transparent communication can help reinforce these values.
The Importance of ‘Soft Skills' in Lean Communication
Although often dismissed, soft skills like empathy, active listening, and effective communication are critical in a lean environment. These skills enable leaders to build strong relationships with their teams, fostering a culture of mutual respect and collaboration.
Leaders must be comfortable engaging with their teams on a personal level, showing genuine interest in their well-being and professional development. This can be achieved through regular one-on-one meetings, team-building activities, and open forums where employees can voice their thoughts and concerns.
Reframing Failure
Failure is an inevitable part of any innovative process. However, how an organization views and handles failure can significantly impact its culture and success. Instead of perceiving failure as an endpoint, it should be seen as a valuable learning opportunity.
This reframing can be achieved by encouraging a fail-fast, fail-safe, and learn-forward approach. When employees are not penalized for their mistakes but are instead guided to understand and learn from them, it fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Leaders should regularly discuss lessons learned from failures and implement strategies to prevent similar issues in the future.
In conclusion, by integrating practices like Gemba walks, cross-departmental insights, customer feedback, ethical accountability, and reframing failure, organizations can foster a culture of effective communication and continuous improvement. These strategies are essential for achieving long-term success and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.
Reframing Accountability
Accountability often comes with a negative connotation, seen as synonymous with blame, but at its core, it's about the ability to account for actions and results. This perspective shifts the focus from who messed up to understanding what happened. It's a vital aspect of effective team dynamics and systems thinking.
In practice, accountability is about measuring and explaining outcomes in a fact-based manner. This means breaking down what parts of a task were completed successfully and which were not, without attaching blame. For example, in a project debrief, the team should aim to dissect the factors that influenced the results – both positive and negative – and discuss these openly to learn and improve.
Different cultures have varied approaches to the concept of accountability. In German, for instance, the same word encompasses both responsibility and accountability, emphasizing a collective focus on outcomes rather than individual blame. Similarly, in Spanish, the phrase “rendir cuentas” implies a duty to report or explain, rather than to be chastised.
To reframe accountability positively, leaders can focus on supportive, non-judgmental communication. This aligns with Deming's philosophy, which advocates for helpful leadership aimed at understanding and improving processes rather than punishing people.
The Role of AI in Enhancing Accountability
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in enhancing accountability within organizations. AI tools can provide detailed analytics and insights that help measure performance, identify trends, and highlight areas for improvement.
AI allows for the interpretation of vast amounts of data, enabling leaders to make informed decisions based on comprehensive reports. For example, AI-driven dashboards can track project milestones, deadlines, and resource allocation, presenting a clear picture of team performance. This aids in transparent communication and objective assessment, fostering a culture where accountability is based on data rather than perception.
Moreover, integrating AI in routine operations helps demystify the process of accountability. When team members see that assessments are data-driven, it reduces the fear of unfair blame and encourages openness. For instance, AI can be used to conduct code reviews in software development, pointing out bugs and inefficiencies without attributing fault, but rather highlighting opportunities for learning.
Encouraging a Culture of Continuous Improvement
To move towards a culture of continuous improvement, it's essential to focus on the adaptive and learning aspects of accountability. This means setting up regular review sessions where teams analyze both successes and failures in a constructive manner.
Key practices include:
- After-Action Reviews (AARs): Structured debriefs that focus on what was intended, what actually happened, and how to bridge the gap.
- Kaizen Events: Short-term focused improvement projects involving cross-functional teams to solve specific problems.
- Learning Logs: Regularly updated records where team members note insights gained from project experiences.
These practices help in changing the perception of accountability from blame to growth. By regularly reflecting on performance and openly discussing mistakes and achievements, teams can foster an environment of trust and continuous learning.
Building Trust through Transparent Communication
Transparency is the cornerstone of building trust within an organization. Leaders must be clear about expectations, openly share information, and involve team members in decision-making processes. This approach ensures everyone understands the rationale behind actions and feels part of the collective mission.
Effective communication strategies include:
- Town Hall Meetings: Regular sessions where leadership communicates progress, challenges, and future plans to the entire organization.
- Open-Door Policy: Encouraging team members to share their thoughts, ask questions, and raise concerns without fear.
- Feedback Loops: Structured methods for collecting feedback from employees and acting on it visibly.
Transparency also extends to recognizing and celebrating achievements publicly, as well as acknowledging mistakes and discussing how they will be addressed. This not only strengthens trust but also solidifies a culture of accountability where everyone feels responsible for the organization's success.
Leveraging Data for Better Decision Making
Accurate, timely data is crucial for making informed decisions and improving accountability. Organizations must invest in robust data collection and analysis tools that provide actionable insights into various aspects of operations.
Benefits of Data-Driven Decision-Making:
- Objective Evaluation: Basing evaluations on data helps remove biases and provides a factual basis for discussions.
- Predictive Analysis: Using historical data and AI to predict future trends and prepare accordingly.
- Resource Optimization: Efficient allocation of resources based on precise data insights, ensuring maximum impact.
For instance, using data to track customer interactions can reveal satisfaction trends, enabling the company to refine its service strategies. Similarly, analyzing production data can uncover bottlenecks, leading to more streamlined processes.
By leveraging the power of data, organizations can enhance accountability, lead with transparency, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. These strategies, when implemented effectively, help create a resilient and agile organization capable of thriving in an ever-changing market landscape.
Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)
Mark Graban:
Hi, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Mark Graban, your host and our guest today is Sam Yankelevitch. He began his career as a global operations executive, focusing on lean communication, problem solving, and managing international projects. Since 2014, he's produced popular online courses on these topics, reaching more than 500,000 students worldwide on LinkedIn and other platforms. Recently, he wrote his first fiction book titled an interview with failure, and we'll be able to talk about that here today. So Sam's a dynamic conference speaker, workshop trainer, and corporate team coach. So before I tell you a little bit more about Sam's background, welcome to the podcast. How are you, Sam?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having this. Great to see you.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, thank you for being here. And tell you a little bit more about Sam. He's author previously of walking the Invisible Gemba and four other continuous improvement books. He's developed and taught LinkedIn learning courses, including root cause analysis and improved communication using lean thinking. He was a vp and general manager for a german based automotive supplier, and he was also president and CEO of an international manufacturer and exporter. Is that company pronounced idacreous?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Idasi, right.
Mark Graban:
Okay. I was taking too literally of like it was products that sounded like acre, but no international pronunciation. I got that one wrong.
Sam Yankelevitch:
It's good. It's good.
Mark Graban:
No, it's. Sam is an industrial engineer like myself. He also has an executive master's in financial management. One other thing I want to mention here, I want to thank Jared Thatcher for getting Sam and I connected here like myself. Sam is going to be there at the global lean summit event, speaking and leading a workshop. It's going to be held southeast of Indianapolis, Indiana, September 17 19th. So we'll put a link in the show notes. Sam, tell us about the workshop that you're doing there.
Sam Yankelevitch:
So the workshop is on Monday, the 16 September, and the workshop is going to be about lean communication and how to adapt our lean thinking to use it to improve communication in your organization. It's going to be hands on, a little bit of PowerPoint, but a lot of hands on stuff, activities that people actually experience, how to use what we already know in lean and implemented to improve that. Because definitely communication is a big topic we talk about, but doing it, we leave it sometimes to the human resources guys. So that's what that workshop is going to be about. I think it runs like 3 hours or something like that. And it's very powerful, effective, and a lot of how to. So looking forward to that. And since you mentioned Jared, yeah, I'm very thankful that he invited us to participate in the summit in September. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, it will be. You're going to be there for the whole event all of the days.
Sam Yankelevitch:
I will be, yeah. I have another presentation related to culture change. We can talk about that during our conversation later. And then I understand there's an evening event and I'll be doing a quick, like an eight minute presentation there to sum up a little bit of what we see in. Remember, we're going to be doing this Toyota walkthrough and learning from there. And so from that, Jared asked that I perhaps do some kind of a summary, but I'm going to do it in a fun way because it's going to be after we have a whole day's work, traveling and all this other stuff. So I'm going to make it a little bit of fun, engage the folks and. Yeah, so looking forward to that, too.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And that day is, that entire day is going to be spent at a Toyota motor material handling, not Toyota Motor. I always, I want to say not Toyota Motor, but Toyota material handling. They make forklifts and industrial products there. So great opportunity to see the culture and see the factory and networking with a lot of great people. People can scroll back in the podcast feed. I did a bonus episode with Jared Thatcher a little ways back, about 15 minutes or so, if you want to hear Jared talk about the event. And I'll be there. I'll be participating and speaking, learning and networking and really looking forward to that. So again, look for a link in the show notes. I was going to ask you, Sam, what are some of the, I don't know, core problem statements related to communications? I imagine if we're putting lean thinking to it, we're going to talk about the problem statements and causes of communication problems.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah. So I always refer back to Doctor Deminge and something that he talks about is his operational definitions. And it's interesting because we talk about Doctor Deming as far as the 14 principles and the quality and all this other stuff, but tucked away out of the crisis, I think chapter nine, he brings up this thing about operational definitions and the fact that we pay very little attention to it, and yet it's one of the most important things, especially in business, because we transact with others. And so talking about opportunities and problems, the biggest problem gap is the fact that we all live in different worlds in our heads. We think we're communicating, but we don't even know often what that means. I'll give you an example, the german company that you mentioned I was working with. We worked on a lot of international projects. I was responsible for some of the project managers, mostly in their relationship with our plant in Mexico. And I would go back by and say, hey, Todd, did you communicate with your colleague Francisco? And he said, yeah, I sent him the email. And I said, well, then you didn't communicate. You sent him a message. And that's the problem there. That's a problem statement itself. That's the gap. That, or one of the gaps is we don't get it, that, you know, just, you know, if we want to really confuse the heck out of folks and create the chaos, send an email or text someone, you know.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, I mean, there's a popular expression or a meme these days, people say, or there's coffee mugs or t shirts. This meeting could have been an email. I think corollary to that. Sometimes this email could have been a live conversation, whether that was face to face or a phone call. I think earlier in my career, email was new, and there were times where I made the mistake of using email when it should have been a discussion or a communication. I think if the receiver of the message misunderstood, I'm like, well, like, that's the fault of the communicator, I think.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Right? Yeah, I think it's a both. You know, it's a two way street. Also, the person listening has to have enough understanding to also ask questions. But, you know, sometimes there's psychological safety issues, hierarchy and whatever it may be. But I think the core of this is that communication is invisible. You can't see it happening. You can see the results. Right?
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And, you know, going back to lean thinking, we're good at making invisible things visible by mapping things out. So that's one of the things that. Yeah, that's one of the beauties that we have that knowledge to map a process and start mapping it out. And when we do that, we start seeing, ah. Oh, this is where I messed up. You know, that should have been like what you just said, that that could have been okay. The way you structure the email or even before that thinking, should it be an email or should I pick up the phone? Right, right. You make those decisions. So you start putting that together as a process, and then you start realizing, making it visible and say, oh, we. We got a lot. A lot of stuff going on here.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And. And, you know, and we say, we say, we have no time for this. We. I was very clear to that person. He or she should have known what I what my expectation was, we have no time for that. Well, we have to find the time for that because we're creating a mess at the beginning. So.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah. Well, and hopefully part of, you know, thinking through communication as a process, now you're, you're prompting me to think, you know, hopefully there's an environment where if somebody's talking to you and you don't understand what they're saying, that you could pull the and on cord, if you will.
Sam Yankelevitch:
That's right.
Mark Graban:
Ask for some clarification or just ask a question.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, that's right. So you just mentioned the. And on, so thinking about all the, in my course on LinkedIn, I have a lot of these, let's say we call them methodologies or tools or whatever. A lot of them are communication tools. And on for sure is jidoka, is Yokoten, is Nimawashi, is, you know, all of these are communication devices. And if you really pay attention to TPS or within TPS, the Toyota production system, a lot of what they do is based on that. You know, it's just making sure everybody's on the same page. Everybody knows what's going on, the standards are clear and, you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, so, yeah, the Anton, you pull the Anton, you say, hey, wait, wait a second. But what did you mean by that? You know, yeah, explain, explain a little further.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah. And when you think of Judoka and, you know, built in quality or, I mean, what is that a matter of kind of preparing and thinking about the, I'm trying to think like an application. I mean, if, if I stumble and say the wrong thing, do I stop automatically, like a weaving loom or. No.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Well, that's one way of, you know, I mean, when you're talking about the communication process itself, you could certainly do an analogy and say, you know, because you can also poke yoke your communication with the Andon or by pausing to reflect and do some handse and stuff like that. But for me, like, in the sense, in the sense that Judoka itself, the concept is there to communicate that something has gone awry, that something is not according to standard, and therefore you have to stop, you know, and so, so that, so all of those things, you know, our visual tools, our daily management, for example, is a tremendous methodology that is all about communicating the vertical with horizontal, making sure that people on the front lines are participating in solving problems at their level, you know, all that, all that sort of thing. So, so, yeah, that's, that's where I think we have quite honestly, you know, this is why I'm very, let's say, dedicated to this because I see an advantage that we have as lean thinkers, that we have these opportunities to see things from this perspective. We have the tools and methodologies and it's just an additional, let's say, set of skills that we can apply when we go in to help clients and get them through this, the mess that that gets created from misunderstandings and stuff like that.
Mark Graban:
And thinking back, one other thought on this theme, when you talk about operational definitions, the and on cord poll that I end up doing a lot is conversations, and this is mainly with healthcare leaders. And they'll say something like, well, we need to hold people accountable. We need to check in to on the operational definition of accountability because I don't hold the definition that others sadly, often have of like, well, that means we're going to blame people for things that are systemic problems. To me, that's not accountability. There's a number of words, and I'll try not to curse.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, that word has become kind of a bad word. Part of, part of what I teach and what I train and some of the workshops I do, it's about accountability. The workshops are called commitment conversations. So originally this was kind of something that I learned from an executive coach on getting things done through people. And the commitment conversation is one of those opportunities that you have to start coaching folks, developing people and establishing trust. So the commitment conversation is that setup that you do before people go out there and take action, so that you have the clarity of the expectations upfront before the muddah begins, before the tangible muddha and before the waste gets started. So a lot of folks rush into commitment conversation and say, all right, I want you to do this, this and that by such and such a date and the way that it's presented, you don't have any way but to say yes. And you know what that means. Yes can be I'm avoiding you. That yes. You know, I don't really get it, but I'm afraid or whatever that yes means.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
So the commitment conversation trains leaders to communicate in a certain way, to ask a no question, to open up the space so that the other person can then ask or relate their side of the story. And, you know, I'll give you one of my favorites, Mark. It's so on a scale from one to ten, Mark, how confident do you feel that you understood exactly what I want and then you are able to get it, and then you shut up and then Mark is going to come back and say, well, you know, I got these other projects here. You know, you start that conversation, you open up the space to have respect and, you know, and so this is a perfect vehicle for us to practice our servant leadership, develop people and say, okay, I need to train this person on this. I need to help them on that. But it's really a great communication tool. And then after you go through this whole, it's a five step process. Once you have that five step process, you, you reach a standard. The standard is clear expectations up front. There's no misunderstanding there. And that's when you can hold somebody accountable fairly. And you can bet because you don't have to say anything, you don't have to get emotional and say, what the hell did you think we're doing? Or, you know, how could you mess up so bad? You know, it's like, look, you and I agreed to this. This was our standard, and yet you agreed to this and that we had this conversation and we're still here. And the only thing that comes out of people's mouths after that is our excuses. And so you go back and forth and this is how you start showing people how to, you know, how to set up a really good commitment, a can do commitment, something that will make you successful and the other person successful and then the whole organization can succeed. So, yeah, that's part of the, it's part of the stuff that I'm going to be training in in September.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, I hope people will come check that out. I was going to ask you when you did that one to ten question and you're talking about commitment. Do you have formal training in an approach called motivational interviewing?
Sam Yankelevitch:
I don't. I actually, I'm not sure if it's the same, but probably not. But I do. What I do is it's a coaching process that is based on solutions, focus. So what is what you're talking about?
Mark Graban:
Well, I was wondering if you had been exposed to it because I know there's some former Toyota people who've been taught that method and have done some workshops. But in a nutshell, one of the things that made me think of that as well, motivational interviewing approach is really focused on not trying to jump to the action planning too quickly and making sure first that the commitment and the confidence level are high enough. So if you're trying to help somebody embrace change and decide to do things a new way, like adopting some of these daily management practices, you would ask classic motivational interviewing. There's some past episodes on this topic with some real experts in this field, but you had asked on a one to ten scale, how committed are you to this change? And they might say six. And then you say, well, why did you say six instead of one?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Exactly.
Mark Graban:
Now they're articulating the reasons to do the change. You never ask, why didn't you say ten? Because now the excuses or the barriers come out. Then the second question is how confident do you feel on a scale of one to ten? Because it could be the commitment is strong and the confidence is low or they're both middling. But anyway, that sounded close enough to motivational interviewing, that's why.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, exactly. And what you just explained, Mark, is bingo head on the opportunity that you, as a servant leader that serves you as a coach to understand where the gaps are, what are the strengths that this person has and what are their gaps. And this is where you can go in and select what you're going to develop that person with. And the other thing with this process, and I think it aligns with the motivational one that you mentioned, is that you start building trust. So if you try to hold somebody accountable by giving them a very difficult task from the beginning, you don't know them, you don't have a relationship with them just because of their role or title. You say, well, go out there and do this and they fail or they come back and it's not complete, then that's an issue. What I like to suggest is usually, well, start with small items, start delegating, can do things. Just tell them to go out there and gather some information, come back and share that information with me and see how they learn, see how they go out there and do that and then start building that up. You know, sometimes we just go out there and set people up to get things done wrong. And it's our, you know, we are at fault as well.
Mark Graban:
So, and I'll maybe end this part of the discussion with a different demingism, that the job of a leader is to coach people and help them. I'm paraphrasing. It's, you know, to help people instead of just judging them.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Mark Graban:
Especially if the judging is a once a year review.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Exactly. So, yeah, so that's, you know, that's all part of this whole communication and lean thinking and stuff like that, that I think we could be doing a lot more of as lean and continuous improvement practitioners. And also because of this, I mean, you know, my background is lean, but we tend to get involved in a lot of quality stuff, I think, from the lean perspective. And one of the things I remember from, well, years, years ago. I mean, I'm talking way back when, when quality is free came out, Philip Crosby's book, you know, and it's about write the first time. Talking about write the first time. And I've, you know, I've really, I've realized that in order to get things done right the first time, we first have to communicate right. Especially in the environment where we're, you know, I'm not talking about when you're at home in your garden doing your, you know, you're mowing the lawn, you make all the decisions about your lawnmower and about what you're going to do. But in, at work, we are interdependent to get things done, and so to get things done right the first time. And a couple of weeks ago, I started using the phrase communication is a precondition to quality. And I've made some posts on LinkedIn, and I'm trying to really drive this to say, before you can succeed in quality and getting things done right the first time, then pay attention to communication. And it's both ways. It's not only how what you say or how you say it or whatever. It's that dance between the supplier and the customer of the message.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, as we're getting to know you a little better, Sam, I'm going to ask you a question that I often start episodes out with of asking people, what's your lean origin story? Or for you, was it first a deming origin story?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Oh, no, not really. Not really. Just to clarify, so don't get fooled by the Jankelovich. By my irish last name. Yeah, I'm kidding. So I am colombian, if you notice an accent. I am colombian, so Spanish is my mother tongue. I left Colombia when I was nine years old, roamed the world. I lived in French Canada. I then moved to the Middle East. I came back to the US to study, and I graduated as an industrial engineer in Texas at the University of Texas in Arlington. And then I went back to Columbia to work for Id Asi. You know, the. What you mentioned at the beginning, we were making locks.
Mark Graban:
I butchered their name.
Sam Yankelevitch:
But, yeah, that's fine. But sorry, it's difficult. It's a difficult name, and that's just an acronym for the name of the company is Industrias de Aceros. We were making locks and hardware. So nothing to do with the other stuff that goes on in Colombia. And. And so I came back as an ie. Remember 1981? This is 1981. All right. Before the word lean was coined, which was in 88, right? And I got back and I, you know, the plant was. Had been set up by my grandfather who had a plant in Europe. And he said everything was a batch. You had the die casting machines in one area, the die stamping machines in one area. It was batching. There was no pull. It was just make so many per month machine utilization, you know. And I didn't know much better, Mark, to be honest, because, I mean, I mean, most of the stuff the curriculums then were tailor and kind of batch was okay. And, you know, yeah, we had a lot of quality problems and a lot of scrap. And then, I don't know how, through a magazine, I found a. Some of the first books that were coming out that, you know, Shingo had put out there, the Pocaoke cellular design. You know, those books, I ordered them. And the people listening, or most of the folks listening to your podcast are not going to know what surface mail is. Surface mail is when things arrive by boat, okay? Which means months later. But I did get the books. I was very fortunate that I spoke English, and so I was able to read these books, and especially the cellular design one and the Pokeyoka. The Pokeyoka. So, heck, I just got my engineers and I said, let's go and try this out. Let's just try this out. So we built a u shaped cell in one of the problem areas where we had huge scrap. And, you know, I'll tell you, this was a plumbing line. We were die casting some plumbing, and the water was coming out from everywhere except from where it should have been. That's how bad it was. 50% rejects. And so it was low hanging fruit. And just by putting the processes together, the problems started popping up immediately. The problems were made visible, and we were able to reduce the scrap by, you know, almost all. I mean, we had like two or 3% scrap at the end of this. So this was a trial and said, oh, it works, so let's start doing some more. And we did it in the die stamping. We got into some smed. We got into doing some single minute exchange of dyes, which was a little more difficult because it was expensive at the beginning. But we got through that first hump, which is like 50% reduction, just bye. Watching the, you know, by doing the changes and setting up before while the.
Mark Graban:
Machine is running, doing the external setup.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Doing a lot of five s. So I tell you, I mean, I think a lot of that. So a lot of that, which was only sustainable because. Because the engineers and we were focused on this, and I was part of the leadership team. So we were driving this. We did so well for so many years. We started getting requests from mexican lock manufacturing companies for us to Maquila to produce their locks in our factory in Colombia and ship it to Mexico, which was five times the size of the market, of our market. So that, for us, was kind of big. And the question was always, our labor costs were almost the same as in Mexico. How in the world were you able to compete and make a buck in Colombia and shipping to Mexico with their brand name, we were branding it with their, you know, with their names and be more efficient, effective, and cost, you know, and cost effective. And it was. I think it was because a lot of this. Yeah, let's say it was improvements and stuff like that that we were doing before the word. That word sure came well, you know.
Mark Graban:
But these, these books, a lot of which were published by Norman Bodak in the early days of productivity press. Norman, you know, my guest, you know, this whole podcast was his idea back in the day. I've told that story a bunch. So he was the guest in episode number one and was a guest many, many, many times and still Miss Miss Norman. But, you know, the. The books and the contribution, the books that he translated and the books that he wrote. But, yeah, you know, these shingo books were focused on, like, you know, people get. Maybe I fall into it, get dismissive of lean tools. I'm like, lean tools are great, but they're part of, if you will, this complete nutritious breakfast.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Like, exactly.
Mark Graban:
If you go do all the great Smed setup reduction or some pokeyoke. And that could all fall apart if the culture is further from a doctor deming or Toyota style culture. So I think we've learned more over time that a factory doesn't really become truly lean just because of the tools. And if anything, the use of those tools is made possible or sustainable because of the culture.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Exactly. Exactly. So I'll tell you. I'll tell you what, you know, just to kind of put the story back into how I got to the US after this, because, I mean, Colombia, you know, from what you read and, you know, at that time, it wasn't a good place. A lot of issues, local issues, political issues, you know, with all the drugs and all the stuff that was going on. Right. So I had to leave. I had to leave Colombia and a couple of times because I had to leave, and then I was in the US for a little bit, then we went back, but the second time that we left, I had to look for a job. And lo and behold, the interesting part was, like, two years before I left, I was selling. We were selling to this mexican company. The CEO was an American. He actually flew in to Medellin, Colombia. I think you know the name Medellin from, you know, from. From the news.
Mark Graban:
Famous city. Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Famous for many. For many good things. And he came to visit and to tour the plant and to see what we were doing. By that time, the word lean had already become part of the lexicon. And so he came to see how we were doing. Lean, and he told me, hey, if you're ever in the US and, you know, you need a job or whatever, look me up. So I did. And he brought me into this, to this german company that he was running. He was the CEO. And they were under a lot of pressure. It was an automotive company, automotive supplier, tier two. They were in trouble, quality wise, delivery wise. And so this guy brought me in. He said, hey, I want you to do what you did in your. In your facility. Can you do it here? And I stupidly said yes.
Mark Graban:
Why stupid? Turned out to be a mistake. Why?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Well, not. I mean, I. Let me tell you something. Automotive, you probably know, automotive is a different animal. It's fast paced, high volume, no profit margin. Crazy. You know, it's just completely nuts. It's got to be right the first time. Everything, all the time. Otherwise you're in deep doo doo. And this company was set up as a batch. You know, batch and queue silos. It was difficult. And so here is this colombian immigrant guy shows up to share the german to the german engineers how to run their business. Okay. Yeah, it was tough. The beginning was very difficult. Very, very difficult. So. But it. But little by little, it started working out. Unfortunately, the price pressures pushed all of the high volume to our plant in Mexico. So the plant in the US was left with very little manufacturing volume. However, we had the opportunity to bid on worldwide aftermarket product for one of the tier ones. And I'll tell you, this is where I believe a lot of folks miss the opportunity with lean, because aftermarket is not a continuous production. It is almost like job shop.
Mark Graban:
Is it more of a build to order as opposed to building to schedule?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Exactly. It was built to order. And the problem with aftermarket in many sectors is that the tooling is old. You can't even find the tooling for a lot of the things. It's stuff that was manufactured or done for 20 years ago. They put away the tooling somewhere. So it was very interesting because we said, and we have to make money at this to keep the plant alive and make a profit. I'll tell you what we ended up doing, Mark, because this was like, for me, this was like before I left the industry. This was kind of the legacy of what I learned and say, this is what you could do with lean. We went in there, I had a team. This is not stuff I was doing. I had built an incredible continuous improvement team in the company that believed in lean that really was able to drive and use the. Use the mindset and the tools we ended up doing. So you had, we went from 40 finished good products that were sent to Mexico to 1250 skus.
Mark Graban:
Wow.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Each of these required a changeover.
Mark Graban:
Mm hmm.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Each of these, I mean, you can imagine. And so you have these old specific machines that are supposed to be made to run, like, high, high volumes. You have now changeover city. We were doing, you know, let's say 40 changeovers a week. Now you had to do 40 changeovers an hour or whatever. So this is where Smed comes in.
Mark Graban:
Right.
Sam Yankelevitch:
You know, so we have to then do our Smed. But before you do smed, you got to have good standard work. And with standard work, you have to have your five s. So you have all your materials and all your tooling and everything that you need. Now, the idea was to set this up in six months, to do this transformation. Now, it took us 18 months because there was a lot of communication issues with the drawings we were receiving. They were old. There were handwritten notes on there in German that you had to translate. But at the end of the day, we got through the hump, and we weren't charging OEM pricing. We were charging aftermarket pricing, and we were what I call flawless execution. There was very little scrap. Quality was top notch. Deliveries were on time. Yeah, there were a few hiccups here and there because of tooling that you couldn't get because it was just very old. But the team clicked and with, you know, with the standard work, with the. With the teamwork, with the smed, with, you know, all of that stuff and TPM for four years, we made. We made a lot of money for the company, kept the company alive, and we learned a lot. You know, we learned how to implement these things for low volume, high mix environments. So it can be done? Yeah, it can be done. And we had a lot of fun doing it. And, yeah, it's a great story for. For me to remember. I don't know why I left. I do know, but, yeah.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. So through your career, I mean, it sounds like, you've seen the range of perspectives from being a shop floor industrial engineer to being a senior leader as a vice president, general manager.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Graban:
So, I mean, what advice, thinking back to some of those later roles or people you coach today, I mean, what, what are, I guess, what are some of the key lessons learned for somebody who's really trying to lead, whether it's a lean transformation or an ongoing lean culture, to, you know, to a serious extent, what are some of the greatest lessons from your experience?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Well, so I would say learning, continuous learning. And believe it or not, or I think, you know, this, go to the Gemba, spend time with the people that do the work, go and see it being done, and talk to the folks and establish a relationship with them because they're the ones that I tell you what's really going on right at the end of the day, it's not the data that you see. It's not your EBITda, you know, it's not your financials that's already old, stale. It's, you know, it's not specific. You go to the Gemba. So that would be number one advice is really just go out there, walk the floor, speak to the folks, get to know them, go to third shift. If you have a third shift, go speak to the, to the unknowns, those folks that are, you know, burning the midnight oil, you know, spend time with, with, with folks and then spend time with the people in the, in all, you know, all the departments. Everybody's got their perspective. The finance people will have theirs, the HR folks will have theirs. You have to get that sense of how every, everybody sees the, the whole picture and. Yeah. So, and then obviously get to know your customer.
Mark Graban:
Mm hmm.
Sam Yankelevitch:
You know, and, and really understand their expectations and stuff like that. But for me, it's really, that first thing is get to know the folks that you're working with and establish that relationship by asking questions, especially, hey, what's going on here? What's, what's, what's not so good? How can I help? How can we make your job better? You know, what are your suggestions? You know, stuff like that. How can we make it easier?
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And it's simple stuff, but it's untapped.
Mark Graban:
Potential in some workplaces where leaders don't put in that effort, they're putting in different efforts, and that perspective is lost, and it gets frustrating for everybody involved. And like you said, the way out of that makes me think of Tom Peters, a previous guest management author. And, you know, he would say the, the soft stuff is the hard stuff.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Oh, yes.
Mark Graban:
I mean, these soft skills of, like, you know, not, not every, I've heard stories and I've met some of, some executives are not comfortable going out to the shop floor, and some are incredibly comfortable.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah.
Mark Graban:
And I don't know, some of that. I mean, like, is that a skill or comfort level that can be developed?
Sam Yankelevitch:
I think, I'll tell you. So going back to Columbia, I had the opportunity to be mentored by a very important person in my life, my grandfather. And he was a people person. He was a very tough business person. I knew him as my dear, sweet grandfather until I met his business side. But as far as negotiation, but when he was with people, he was amazing. And he told me, he said, the most important part of the business is always the people care for them, and they will care for you.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And so from the beginning, that was, that was one of the lessons that, that I learned. And, you know, and by the way, another, another leadership lesson, since you asked mark. So, and also going back to Colombia. So you see my gray hair and, you know, you're poking at the, at, you know, at these, with these questions that some past. But here's an interesting story that I, that I remember. I was being groomed to be, you know, for a manager for management position in the company. So my grandfather put me out there on the shop floor. He wanted me to know how to make a die, you know, how to, how to use a stamping machine, how to, you know, he, he wanted me to know the trade, and then 30% of the time, I would be learning some management, sales and stuff like that. The finance manager called me into his office one day, and he said, mister Yankelevich, come, come, come sit down. Close the door. And he says, the sales executive is stealing from the company. And I said, what? How is that? And I've been stealing from the company. How could that be? Remember, I'm about 19 or 20 years old, right? And he says, yep. He's going on these sales trips, and he's bringing back these fake receipts. So when we pay the reimbursement, he's pocketing some of this money.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And he's stealing. And I said, well, his name was Ignacio. I said, ignacio? I mean, how much are we talking about? He told me, you know, it wasn't a lot of money. And I said, well, you know, Ignacio, it doesn't really matter. I mean, the guy's going on these sales trips. He's selling the heck out of the business, making a lot of profit for us. Let's just look the other way. Ignacio came back and he said, okay, Mister Yankelevich, I get it. Is it okay if I steal, too? And so that lesson there is, you know, for me, has stuck with me because you get what you tolerate and you train what you tolerate. And so from the leadership perspective, that's another nugget that I like to always coach. Folks said, watch out what you tolerate, because you tolerated from one team member, everybody's going to see that that's a message you're sending. It's okay to do. Yeah, yeah. You know, and that's a. So that's a no no. And. Or you get what you tolerate. The leader walking, the gamba, walking around, and they see something and they ignore it.
Mark Graban:
Right.
Sam Yankelevitch:
You get what you tolerate. Yeah.
Mark Graban:
Billy Taylor, who's been a guest on here a couple of times, says something similar. What you tolerate becomes the new standard.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Exactly.
Mark Graban:
What you ignore or what you excuse becomes the new standard. And hard to ever kind of pull back from that. You think of things that should be really non negotiable. PPE and safety glasses. You know, leaders might not want to confront somebody or, you know, someone's got a bad reputation or they're a good, good employee. Otherwise, you don't want to piss them off. And then, you know, there's some sort of really bad injury, and then those leaders would blame the workers of, like, say, we told you to wear your PPE, except, well, except you didn't.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, that's it. You know, it's going back to this thing with your soft. You know, with the soft skills. I hate that word because, I mean, when that word is associated with. With what we do, it's really evading or ignoring that. Yeah, it's dismissive. And you're kind of delegating that to say, well, if it's not your problem, then whose problem is it? And it ends up in the HR department. And it's almost like saying quality is the responsibility of the quality department, you know, which is kind of nonsense. So it's kind of the same thing, because, I mean, at the end of the day, this is. This. These soft skills.
Mark Graban:
It's so important.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, it's. It's the backbone. Right. It's the backbone. So, yeah, we're just. We're denying something. And you know what happens when you deny stuff. You know, it just grows and grows and grows and then it explodes. Right. That's what happens with problems. Right.
Mark Graban:
Very true. Well, sam, tell us about your latest book. The first one you wrote is a novel. Again, the title is an interview with failure, not with a vampire, but with failure.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Right. Yeah, this is so. Yeah. So before this bookmark, I had been writing all business and mostly related to culture and communication. And those books were, you know, they're all thought leadership books, and I use them mostly in conferences and then to teach and train from. But for whatever reason, I said, okay, I'm going to give it a try and get out in the fiction world and write something. And one of the things that I learned by coaching, because I do a lot of coaching in my work now as a consultant, as a trainer, and I did a lot of coaching while I was a leader in the companies. And a lot of folks would come in and be very candid with me and say, I just don't want to make that decision because I'm afraid to fail. And so that's always kind of stuck with me. I said, okay, what's this? Failure, failure, failure, failure. And now we have this thing in the world where fail fast, fail safe, fail smart, fail forward. But speaking with these folks, it's a word that echoes in their brain and just drives fear, and it freezes people from actually participating and being themselves and doing stuff that is value added. So I said, well, let's go to the gemba. Let's go to the horse's mouth and talk with failure. So just like what you're doing, I pretended I was a podcast host, and I interviewed, I anthropomized failure and asked it questions. And that exchange was very interesting because when you start writing, as you know, you go in very deep and all kinds of things start popping up. Well, the first thing that popped up is that failure is a word. And then I remembered that words don't carry meanings. You and I, Mark, we carry meanings. People carry meanings. And it's the meaning that you imbue in the word based on whenever you learned it that is going to be stuck with you until you realize that and you know what to do with it. So that's what this book is. It's really a. It's a. It's a quick, fun read, and it's got a lot of little nuggets and stories on. On the power of words and how words impact folks. And so I put it out there, and I actually recorded an audio version of the book. It's out on audible as well, because it is a podcast, so, you know, it's a nice way to do it.
Mark Graban:
And did you voice failure for the audiobook, or did somebody else I did.
Sam Yankelevitch:
One voice, and I hired a voice author. Like, an author that does that, you know, female voice actor. And she did. She did failure. I was the interviewer.
Mark Graban:
Okay.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And it's interesting because before I. Before I published, I didn't want to have a gender specific for neither. For neither the interviewer or the interviewee. And I would ask people, is failure a female or a male? If I ask males, they would always say, it's a female. And if I ask females, they would always say, failure is a male, of course. You know, and, I mean, I should have put statistics together, but the book. So when I. When I decided on putting names out there, I think the. The name of the person that runs the interview is Robin Finch, which could be.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Male or female.
Mark Graban:
Gender neutral name.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Gender neutral. Yeah. But it was. Yeah. So I hired a female to do the. The failure side. And, you know, it's, uh. So it's. Yeah. It's just something that I wanted to do. I'm working on a sequel for that. You know, people laugh, and they say, well, now that I read your book, will you do an interview with perfection? Will you do an interview?
Mark Graban:
I was wondering.
Sam Yankelevitch:
So it's like a series, you know?
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And, you know, so we'll see. Yeah. You've probably done better than I have selling books. You know, books, for me have not been a.
Mark Graban:
No, I don't know.
Sam Yankelevitch:
You know, not being the thing for me, LinkedIn learning is really where I'm at with. With publishing. It's got a wider audience. Yeah. You know, and. And the books are great because it's a. You know, it's the thought leadership thing. You get recognized, and. And you get to talk about what's in there, to share it, and the book is really. Was really. So an interview with failure was really. I wrote it with this. With this. With this in mind, if I can help one person that reads the book move past their thinking of failure as a bad thing, right. Then I've done my job, and, you know, and it's. It's. It happened, so.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And, I mean, how do you think about. I don't know. I froze up trying to think of a question because I thought, so interesting to me of, like, how to reframe failure. I mean, there are small failures, there are catastrophic failures. I'm a big believer in not repeating mistakes or making sure we use a small failure to prevent a big failure. What are some other ways to try to reframe failure?
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think to reframe it. So when you. So the way I see it is when you think about failure, typically, typically, you go back to, you know, a mistake that you've made or something that happened in, you know, decision you made and stuff like that and how you talk to yourself about that. And so to flip that is really, you imbue it with things that we know from lean, for example, is it's about learning. It's about feedback. It's about trial and error, you know? And so then instead of thinking of failure as a, as a, as a negative thing, you use it as your guide to tell you what you shouldn't do again, you know, something like, something like that. And by the way, as I'm a, I'm a nerd for words. You know, I've been exposed to so many languages and had to learn languages along the way. I became a nerd. So I like to look up etymologies and origins of words. So the word failure, which comes from the word from French, failure originally, did not have that meaning. It meant something incomplete, challenge you, challenging people to complete something they didn't complete. Like, you know, that was a lot of the, a lot of this because you have, when you go into the old dictionaries, you see so many different types of explanations. And unfortunately, you know, words evolve, our circumstances evolve. People start using that as a, you are a failure. All of a sudden, we're nominalizing failure and calling people failures. And it happens in families where, you know, the dad or the mom are talking about, hey, he or she is a failure, and that sticks. Or a teacher that says something like that, and that's when it becomes a negative word, to be honest. And because words come and go and we have new words coming into the dictionary and some words get removed and archived, I do believe that should be a word that is archived. And, in fact, I recommend that inside the book, it's one of these things that it doesn't work anymore. We need a different word of to challenge us instead of, you know, beat us down.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Well, that reminds me of what you said earlier, Sam, about whether we're thinking about a problem or somebody not doing, not reaching the goal, not doing what they said they were going to do, we could be very fact based about it. And like you said, you know, it's what we infer or what we imply with the word that matters. So, you know, Toyota's thing, pretty famous for saying things like, you know, the Toyota leaders say, no problems is a problem is a fact. It's a gap. It exists. We're not rushing to blame, but in some workplaces the word problem gets everybody freaked out because it has been associated with, as they might say in healthcare they do say naming, blaming and shaming. Well it's the same word but in two very different cultures and contexts.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Right. Right.
Mark Graban:
Has a different meaning of what's scary or not. Right.
Sam Yankelevitch:
And so. Oh by the way, so coming back to the, to the scaling question on a scale from one. So you would ask on a scale from one to ten, how confident do you feel that you will not make that mistake again?
Mark Graban:
Let's look at.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Right.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. So 1010 would be. I've perfectly mistake proofed it.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah. Yeah. Where ten is that you're 100% confident that you won't do it. And then one. And depending on where you are on the coaching scale with this person establishing trust, you wanna be careful of what the answer is. Cause if they're at a seven and what you mentioned earlier, if this is an operation in a certain surgical situation or a pilot, then it's different than when you're on the ground and in a factory or something where it's not accident related. So. But yeah, it's a. So it's all stuff that you can work through, but, yeah, so yeah, I.
Mark Graban:
Mean I dug up the, I think some of the roots of the word accountability. I don't know what the root origin, other language, but I mean it means when you break apart the word, when you, when you do stop and think about it, account, the roots are to give account to explain what happened. So accountability, I think of it as your ability to give account, your ability to explain. That's different than thinking of causes yet alone blame, it's different than taking responsibility for something. But sometimes those words get thrown around and where it's kind of lost the meaning or the meaning is drifted, it is because you can explain what happened in a very fact based systems thinking team dynamic where we're trying to figure out the facts as opposed to figuring out who messed up.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Right, so. Exactly. But if you go back to that word account, it's also counting something. So it's measurable what you just said. So you can actually measure whether it was or it wasn't and what part of it was or was not completed.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
You know, so that, so there's no.
Mark Graban:
Blaming counting and the same.
Sam Yankelevitch:
It is. Yeah. And by the way, it's, it's, it's really, that word is a very english word. In German, accountability and responsibility is the same word.
Mark Graban:
Hell yeah.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Ferrand, fortliche. And they have that same sense of accountability and responsibility. In Spanish, you could say rendir cuentas, which is almost accountability. And it actually comes from a similar. But we don't use that word. Accountability is a very, really, very American term. And unfortunately, it's taken the wrong turn. Anytime I go into training and coaching and do workshops, I mentioned that word, mark, and it's, people just, oh, wait a, wait, wait. We didn't bring you for that. We want you to talk about good things, you know.
Mark Graban:
So how do we reframe that to be a positive? And I think it's when leaders are back to the Demingism, when leaders are being helpful instead of being judgemental.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. So again, again, back to communication. Right. Because these are words and. Oh, so I, we talk a lot about AI these days, Mark. And I've told people, I said we have a different definition of AI. AI is always interpreting, and that's what we always do. That's the communication. And so, you know, accountability, we just said failure is something. So we're always interpreting what those terms mean. And I guess, to your point, reframing each of these for the benefit of adding value is probably a better way to look at these things.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Cool. Well, Sam, this has been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing you in Indiana again. People encourage people, look for a link in the show notes to learn more about the global lean summit in Indiana, September 17 to 19th. And Sam's book, again, the most recent book, 2022, an interview with failure. So, Sam, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you for everything that stories and thoughts and insights that you shared here today.
Sam Yankelevitch:
It's been lots of fun. Mark, thank you again for inviting me. A lot of good stuff.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, we'll do it again sometime. We'll drag more stories out of you, maybe.
Sam Yankelevitch:
Very cool. All right.
Mark Graban:
Thanks again, Sam.
What do you think? Please scroll down (or click) to post a comment. Or please share the post with your thoughts on LinkedIn – and follow me or connect with me there.
Did you like this post? Make sure you don't miss a post or podcast — Subscribe to get notified about posts via email daily or weekly.
Check out my latest book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation:
