The Seamus Fox Podcast.
This podcast has been created to share real life experiences from inspiring people in all walks of life, those who have engineered change in their own lives through a shift in thinking and beliefs. I want to share my own journey and have others share theirs so that it can help inspire others to crete the internal changes thats needed to create long lasting life changes.
The Seamus Fox Podcast.
Leadership Insights from a Lean Perspective
Discover the transformative journey of Ryan Tierney, a visionary in the world of lean manufacturing, as he recounts the unexpected rise of his podcast and the pivotal shift to authoring a groundbreaking book. Ryan candidly shares how a challenging period in his family's business paved the way for embracing lean principles, turning their factory in Limavady, Northern Ireland, into a beacon of operational excellence. His story is a testament to the power of strategic pivots and the global impact of lean methodologies.
Experience the unique dynamics at play when three brothers combine their strengths in operations, finance, and sales to redefine business success. This episode highlights the influential role of mindset pioneer Bob Proctor, alongside the audacious spirit instilled by Ryan's parents, in shaping a business ethos that challenges norms and embraces broader markets. Learn how this forward-thinking mindset became the catalyst for adopting lean strategies, fostering creativity, and unlocking growth potential.
Join us as we explore the nuances of leadership within a lean culture, emphasizing humility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. The episode shines a light on the balance between competition and community, drawing inspiration from Japanese giants like Toyota, and underscores the significance of shared ownership and open communication. Concluding with a heartwarming exchange of admiration between Ryan and Seamus, we leave with a sense of optimism and anticipation for future collaborations, underscoring the powerful connection between thoughtful leadership and sustained business success.
Hey guys, so welcome back to the podcast. I'm looking forward to speaking to today's guest, Mr Ryan Tierney. Ryan, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, ecms, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of stuff that I want to go into in today's podcast. There's a lot of value that I think the listeners are going to get from yourself, but I suppose where I wanted to start was you have a podcast that has a quarter million views. It's been listened to and viewed in over 100 different countries around the world in just 30 episodes, but then you decided to stop. Tell me why.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I started the Lean Made Simple podcast in August last year, 23. And there was a guy that approached me, a guy on a tour, a guy, matt thompson, and he said, oh, you should do a podcast. And I said who's going to listen to it? Like who really cares about, about lean manufacturing? And he kind of came back three or four times and said, no, there's a real message here. You really should do a podcast. And he eventually talked me into it and I said I'll do it if you do it with me.
Speaker 2:So Matt is the host and we do the podcast jointly and we said let's do one or two and see how it goes, see if anybody listens. The first two podcasts went to number two in the Irish Business Podcast and number five in the UK. It was absolutely, was absolutely crazy. Once we'd on tier three, we said, well, there must be a need for this information. So we kept going. We recorded over 30 episodes, brought on famous lean manufacturing guests from all over the world and the podcast was absolutely flying yeah, and then you decided to stop.
Speaker 1:What was it? What was the major decision there, ryan?
Speaker 2:Everybody was a bit shocked and surprised that I stopped and I like the numbers were just going up and up every week and I stopped just when it was, you know, growing. Um, and I done it for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that I've been working. I had been working on my book for about two years and I launched the the book and, again, similar to the podcast you know, I've never written the book before I didn't know what the response was going to be and as soon as the book came out, there was like people from all over the world wanting the book, wanting to do podcasts like this today, and I said, right, hold on a minute, I need to focus and really focus on the book launch.
Speaker 2:So we stopped the podcast, took a break on the podcast to focus on the book launch. The book has just been as crazy as the podcast was, at the start as well. Thousands of copies sent all over the world. Uh, there's hundreds of companies that have bought a book for every person in their company and they're working through my book and and changing their culture of their, of their business. It's really, it's really exciting and, uh, really surprising, because I had no idea it was gonna be like that yeah, amazing man, brilliant, fantastic.
Speaker 1:It was actually a client of mine, shane mclaughlin, who recommended. He says you need to get this man on the podcast and have a conversation, um, and he's got the book. He was in the factory and stuff as well too. Um, so, okay, let's take it right back then, ryan. Um, I like to kind of get a wee bit of a background with my guests and figure out, kind of like, what were the blocks that actually kind of created the, the foundations to get you to where you are right now? So what was it like as a young Ryan growing up? Where did you grow up and what were those early inspirations for you, ryan?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I suppose, if we start where the lean journey started, 10 years ago, our business was an absolute mess, an absolute disaster. Operationally, we make chairs for nursing homes and hospitals. The company is called Seating Matters, we're based in Limavady in Northern Ireland and we were new to business. My mother is an OT, an occupational therapist no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I was only 18. I'm the middle of the three, so very, very young, didn't really know what we were doing, jumping in the business and the first seven or eight years was just absolute chaos. And I went home one night and I said there has to be a better way to run this business. I was managing the factory, managing operations, and orders were going out late. There was a very high staff turnover. There wasn't a really good culture in the company, the place was dirty, the place was dark. It just wasn't a nice environment for working.
Speaker 2:And I went home one night and got my iPad out at my kitchen table and I typed in really generic terms like how to run a factory, how to manage production, how to run a business really generic stuff. And this thing called lean manufacturing came up and I sat up all night. I didn't go to bed that night, I sat up all night watching these videos over and over and over, and that was something happened that night and it let a spark that has never went out. That's over 10 years ago and that's where my passion for lean came from. And I come in the next day and we started turning our company around, one small improvement at a time, to the point now where people fly. Thousands of people fly from all over the world to see our factory in limbo valley in north of ireland to see what was done.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, man, brilliant, some change serious change, famous yeah yeah, did so. Did your mom start the business around 10 years ago as well?
Speaker 2:ryan, is that right? So our mother is an OT and she had an assessment centre very early on in the early 2000s and then she was providing chairs locally to the local area. But then Seating Matters started in 2008. That's when myself and my two brothers, along with our mother's design input and support support on her father's help as well. He was around at that time. He was very influential in getting the first designs of the chairs made and that's when it launched.
Speaker 1:So 2008, yeah, brilliant was that something you were interested in even in school, coming through ryan? Was business a feature for you. Were you inspired by that, or what was the early inspirations for you in those years?
Speaker 2:it was. Actually we were fortunate that both our parents were very highly motivated, very positive, always were kind of. You know, my father had a construction business, done building contracting, that type of work. Our mother done the occupational therapy. But her mother always said, you know, our house was a b&B, growing up with a bed and breakfast. My mother done a Unislim. She used to do a Unislim course for a while. She was always doing things in the side. They were also involved in a thing called Amway Network Marketing, an American network marketing business. Marketing, an American network marketing business.
Speaker 2:So growing up we were always kind of exposed to business and exposed to positive thinking and during the Amway days we used to travel to seminars and everybody else in the audience were in their 30s, 40s, 50s. There's these three young boys sitting in the audience, age seven, eight and nine, and we were taking it all in writing notes and we were kind of brought up with you know, if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. You know you can do anything, anything the mind can conceive and believe you can achieve. That's the way we were brought up. So growing up we always wanted to have a business. We just didn't know what it was. So when the chair idea came along, we ran with it.
Speaker 1:It's not the normal household, let's say, where you're getting introduced to a lot of that information and maybe those books, especially around mindset, and if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand.
Speaker 2:You get a lot of good seeds planted down at that time. Right, absolutely, we did, yeah. And then, back in 2006 I think it was we uh, we came across a movie called you're familiar with the secret and, uh, like everything myself and my two brothers do, we reached out to Bob Proctor. You know who was on the Secret. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We found out that he was doing a cruise, a Caribbean cruise, which was a week long of seminars. So straight away we booked the flight, went to see Bob Proctor, used our credit card but didn't have the money to pay it up front, went on a week long trip with with Bob Proctor and we ended up going to Bob Proctor suite on the top deck of the cruise ship and we had a one-to-one meeting with him the last three years, and that's the moment that Satan Matters was born.
Speaker 1:Ah, fantastic man. What an experience. Okay, looking at that then, ryan, when you're being open to all that sort of stuff. But then your father's in business, your mother's in business, he's an entrepreneur, she's starting this and starting that. What were some of the challenges that you also seen kind of growing up and around that at that time, ryan, that you learned from and that you were able to take on the business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what I really learned is that business is hard, it's hard work. What I really learned is that business is hard, it's hard work. You know people. I think there's this culture out there and there's a lot of Instagram and a lot of social media showing maybe a fake side of business that in reality it's not as easy as it looks. And I think growing up we heard around the kitchen table all the challenges, the people issues, finance issues. We heard it all around the kitchen table growing up. So I think we grew up with the understanding that, yes, you can be positive, you can have goals, you can keep your thinking right, but it's also bloody hard work. You know you have to put the effort in and you have to persist and nothing happens without action. So the positive thinking is brilliant and it's it's really good, but it absolutely takes takes action as well. I think that's one of the lessons that we really internalized, that I really internalized growing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it coincides with also having the negative aspect of it. You can't avoid that. I think it's learning to embrace that and understand that and use that in a positive way. So it drives you forward, exactly, yeah, yeah, so at that time you you started to move forward towards Seating Matters. What were some of the early challenges that you faced, ryan? You discussed a couple of thems. What were some of the early challenges that you faced, ryan? You discussed a couple of them there. But what were some of the early challenges that you faced, especially going into business with family? They say the things that you don't do, don't employ a family member and don't go into business with family, and there's three brothers that are connected, plus a mum and dad. What were some of the challenges that you faced? Setting up the company at the start in a family dynamic?
Speaker 2:Yep, great question, and sometimes we reflect back on it and wonder how it even got off the ground in the first place. You can join the dots looking back, but when you're in it at the beginning it's hard to see how. You know, we look back and often wonder how did we even get going? You know, we didn't know what we were doing at all. We had no experience in manufacturing, We'd never developed and launched a product before, so it was a massive learning curve.
Speaker 2:But I think one benefit that we had at the start was that the three of us the three brothers fitted into our respective roles quite easily. I always loved making stuff and I was always hands-on. I loved working with my father on the construction side, so the operations and manufacturing side was the perfect fit for me. Martin's natural home was the finance side of things and the more business side of it, and Jonathan is just a salesman he could sell you anything, so his natural home was sales. So the three of us, we were lucky in a way that we all fitted into without any, you know, without trying to position somebody where they didn't fit. It actually worked really well. I think that was a big plus at the very beginning.
Speaker 1:You knew, knew each other's strengths and each other's roles kind of straight away, which, if you look at a lot of businesses, especially businesses that have partnerships, there's usually a conflict in those values a lot of the times that make people crash because people aren't in the right role and they think they should be doing something else, and then they think you should be doing things the way I'm doing it. So you just kind of understood each other from the offset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we did, and that's not to say we didn't have the other eye. We definitely, we definitely did, because the the flip side of that is that you have three really strong personalities and three really strong egos to manage. So, uh, that was definitely a challenge and something we're still working on, to be really honest, but we're we're finding a way through it and we, uh, we're getting better at it every day yeah, I don't think that ever stops.
Speaker 1:Really, if you're totally honest, it's always the next challenge the next challenge and you just progress the different challenges, isn't that right? That's right, exactly, yeah. Yeah, going back a wee bit, ryan. What was the thing, then, that you all kind of took away from having a conversation with Bob Proctor? What was it that you kind of learned and went okay, we're implementing that, or we didn't even think of things that way. What was the big lesson you took from him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think Bob Proctor confirmed everything that we kind of believed growing up. It started to bring out all the Amway thinking that our parents exposed us to and it started to make it very real and I think Bob Proctor gave us the confidence to go ahead and do it. He actually invited us to his home and we spent two full days with Bob Proctor on two separate occasions actually, myself and my two brothers in his home in Toronto in Canada, and it was just an amazing experience, you know, being exposed to somebody who was at you know the best of the best. And I think Bob Proctor is renowned. He's known all over the world for being a mindset guru and he's worked with Aaron Nightingale and Lloyd Conant and you know you can't get any higher than that and for us to get the opportunity to spend so much time with him was a real privilege.
Speaker 2:And I think he's seen something in us. He knew that we were serious about this. He's seen here's three rollers. They're all similar in age. They're really energetic, massive drive. They want to do something big and he genuinely wanted to help us. He really did. Still, the teachings of Bob Proctor are ingrained in my thinking. I could rhyme out 20 Bob Proctor quotes.
Speaker 2:Right away that thinking was very important for us through the challenging times and my thinking. I could rhyme out 20 Bob Proctor quotes right away. Yeah, that thinking was very important for us through the challenging times at the start of setting up the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love Bob's work too. I did a course of his years ago with Kim. It was the thinking and the results of a course that he had I think it was 2018 or 2019 or something and it opened again a lot of his ways of thinking, which is fantastic. But again, having that close connection and being with him again it'll open up your mind to something, uh, completely different. What were the big? What were the big mindset shifts in that you needed to have coming from limavady and coming from northern ireland, let's say as well too where, let's face it, not a lot of people are open to that type of information or even aware of it More. So now, definitely, what were the mindset shifts that you had then to go right? Okay, this is what we need to do, and we need to stop, maybe thinking about where we are in order to really grow and expand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think our mindset was at a good place. Our biggest challenge was because we did grow up in a very different environment from most you know, most people locally. We always kind of thought different. We thought outside the box. We're always looking for opportunities. So one of our challenges was actually, you know, attracting like-minded people that are, you know, because in the local area that wasn't a common thing to think like that. Our parents were almost. They definitely thought different. They absolutely did, and they translated that thinking to us and I think that was a big thing.
Speaker 2:But there's a book that I've read a few years ago called the Contrarian Leader, and it's a brilliant book about whatever people think, the opposite is almost true. So if normal thinking is we have to supply our local area with products and get that going first before we move to the UK, that's normal thinking. Contrarian thinking is let's launch the product in the UK first. So we were always contrarian thinkers. We're always thinking outside of the box. How can we skip three steps? How can we take a quantum leap? Can we, um, you know, really be creative in our thinking? And that that really helped us to get the business started at the on the outset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, okay, so the business is going and it's not going exactly how you think it should be going, and when you come, was it yourself, ryan, that looked at um lean and the principles of Lean, and then took that to your brothers. Give us a wee bit more context again around. What was happening then, what was the next steps, what did you do and what did you start to implement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as soon as I found out about this thing called Lean Manufacturing I just came across it on YouTube that night. I come in the next day and I got all excited and I gathered two or three people around and I said you have to see this thing. It's called lean manufacturing. I have no idea why nobody told me about this before. I'd never heard of it. I didn't know what it was, and it was like this, just this big, huge light bulb moment for me. And I found it very challenging at the start to get off the ground because nobody locally had done this. And as soon as I got more into it, I went to Germany, I went to America, I went to Japan, I traveled all over the world to find out what this lean thing was and we brought it back to our company. To find out what this lean thing was and we brought it back to our company.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that I realized as I looked more into it was that lean manufacturing was always seen as this really complicated theoretical type system. It was developed in Japan by Toyota, the car company, so typically called TPS, the Toyotaota production system, now more commonly known as lean. So like, if anybody, any of your listeners right now just google lean manufacturing just to see what comes up. It's all this jargon and big, massive words and all these charts and graphs and all this boring stuff. To be honest, and I I couldn't behind that. Yeah, enough to put you off straight away. Exactly, it would put you off, yeah. So I realised quite early on, right for this to get up and running in Llamavati I need to translate this to Llamavati language. You know I need to make lean simple and that's where Lean Made Simple came from. If taking this really complicated business philosophy and broken it down in such a way that every single person in our company can get on board with it, and what that really means is that we come up with these really simple terms.
Speaker 2:Like wherever you ask the question, that's where the answer should be right. So if I'm at my desk right now and I'm asking, where is the calculator there? The calculator should be right there. What's the password for my computer? The password should be right there. Where is the phone number for carry or accountant? The phone number's right there. Where is my phone number for carry or accountant? The phone number's right there. Where is my phone charger? There's my phone charger. If I'm at the workstation in the factory, where is my drill with the M8 bit? There it is. So wherever you're asking the question, that's exactly where the answer is. And this really it's so simple and you go for somebody that you don't need to know anything about lean, anything about TPS, anything about Japan, but you can get on board with that straight away because any, any of your listeners right now you sit at their desk or going for a walk, or they're in their kitchen at home, they're making dinner. They're like where is the knives? That's exactly where the knife should be. Where is the whatever? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wherever you're asking the question, that's where the answer should be, and if you only use that one concept, you will create so much efficiencies and increase your productivity, and that's all we're doing at our company. We have just encouraged all 60 of our people to make small improvements like that every day.
Speaker 1:So how is that actually then applied, ryan? So is that like right, well, there's a sign with X, y and Z on it, or is that where right, all the appliances are actually there fitted, so you're not actually going looking for it.
Speaker 2:How is that actually applied? Yeah, so we run our company very, very different from a typical business. That you would see, and this is what I learned by all the stuff that I've gathered up from around the world and brought back to our company. We talk about and it's a Paul Akers, another famous lean guy, that I learned a lot from. Paul Akers talks about this concept of fix what bugs you. So if something bugs, you go ahead and fix it.
Speaker 2:So yesterday I made an improvement yesterday. So we've got we've got three, uh three vans for doing deliveries and collections and I could never find the keys of the van. So I said, right, that really bugs me. What am I going to do? So I went on Amazon, bought air tags, apple air tags, set the air tags up. We've got an air tag on each of the key rings on the van. So now I'll never lose the keys of the van again. So I fixed what bugged me and that's all we're doing at our company. We have 60 people and we give them the autonomy and the freedom and the go-ahead to just fix things that bug you okay, so you're giving the employees that leadership and ownership as well, too.
Speaker 1:To go and do that, ryan, yeah, absolutely yeah. Can I ask again at the start, what was that like? Was there challenges coming up? Were people afraid to do that Like? What was that implementation like at the start?
Speaker 2:That's actually a great question because this is really getting to the crux of where my book comes in, and at the start I found it a real challenge to get Lean off the ground, because Lean is about building a culture of continuous improvement.
Speaker 2:It's not one or two Lean experts going around the company doing all this stuff. It's about building a culture where every single person in the organization is empowered to create changes, and that's one of the hardest things to do is to build a culture you know, to get a culture that's going this way and absolutely do a 180-degree turn and tell them right, we're all going this way now. That is a massive challenge and over the last 10 years I've been keeping loads of diaries and notebooks and gathered up all the information and that's why I wrote the book, because the book is called Lean Made Simple 12 Steps to Creating a Vibrant Lean Culture. We took at our company to create a lean culture from absolute chaos and disorganization and mess to order and efficiency and productivity, and those 12 steps is is the steps we took to do that.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, because the thing that sprung up to my mind straight away was people might want to take that ownership. No, there's definitely an element of fear there, or what if I do it wrong? Or what if I've done it wrong, or so? There's definitely going to be a transitional period there. How long did that kind of take for you, I suppose, to implement that and then put that as part of your training when you're onboarding new employees, that this is how we do things?
Speaker 2:yeah. So it probably took about a year and a half to two years at the very start to get it really up and running. But it doesn't have to take companies that long anymore because we've been through all the struggles. I've got a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos on it. We've got the podcast, the Lean Meat Simple podcast. I've now got the book Simple Podcast. I've now got the book. So we have all this information that's out there and people can really fast track it. They don't have to take a year and a half or two years like we did, or you can also come.
Speaker 2:We invite people from all over the world to come to visit our factory in Llamavati for a Lean Made Simple tour. It's a four hour tour, eight o'clock to 11 o'clock, and when people leave after the tour their mind is absolutely. Their head is spinning with ideas and people travel because they learn more about lean in those four hours than you would reading 20 business books. It's an absolute brain dump on lean manufacturing and it's a four-hour tour and it's it's an absolutely amazing experience and it's brilliant that it can happen here in lomavati yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's fantastic. Can you give me, like an outliner, like a wee snapshot then of what those 12 principles are, for people that are listening to the podcast, right?
Speaker 2:absolutely so. It's a 12-step process. I've actually got a book here. I've actually got a book here beside me. So step one of the 12 steps is absolutely the most important step and they are in order. So I do encourage people to start with step one and go to step 12. Step one is that the leader must be fully on board with the change the leader must embrace. The leader must say we're doing lean, this is the direction that the company is going, and they must be fully on board. So it's like all or none. You have to be all in. Yeah, because it is a big shift. Yeah, people love the results. People come here all the time on tours. They travel from all over the world to see what we've done and they love the results. But a lot of people aren't prepared to put in the work and it's only possible if the leader of the organization says yes, let's do it. Fantastic, okay so all in number one.
Speaker 2:Well, the number one. Another really important step is that we do something very different every single morning and it's that we have a morning meeting. It sounds simple, but it's the most powerful thing that we've ever done, and we tried to do lean without this and it failed. We tried and failed, like for the first year we were kind of playing about with this, trying to get it off the ground, but it wasn't until we had a morning meeting with our entire company. So we'd love you to come sometime to experience our morning meeting. Love to 100% and it's a really high energy. It's a brilliant event. It's for 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:Each morning A different person from the company hosts the meeting. It just goes alphabetical. It could be a welder holding the meeting this morning, or a company accountant is on tomorrow, the sewing machinist is on the next day. It's just alphabetical and it gives everybody that chance to grow and develop, to develop their public speaking skills, to present in front of everybody. So the morning meeting is one of the most powerful things and it's the reason why we've been able to sustain this type of thinking and embed lean for so long. That is sorry, go away around. We're up there every day talking about what we improved yesterday. Where do you? We do stretches up there every day talking about what we improved yesterday. We do stretches in the morning, we talk about what we're grateful for and we give people shout-outs. It's a real high-energy, brilliant start to the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's absolutely powerful man, bringing everybody in and making them just part of everything as well too, and, as you said, getting themselves out of those comfort zones and overcoming those fears and having them go. All right, I'm up next week what I'm going to talk about exactly. Yeah brilliant what's number three right?
Speaker 2:there's 12 steps. So the first one, number three, is to have a lean leaders group. So it's something that was very important at the start of a group of core people who really like, loved this stuff. So we set a group of four or five people at the very start and we called them lean leaders and they were people who kind of helped and coached and worked with people at their workstations, at their desk to kind of say, you know, is there anything you can see that's bugging you, any improvements you can find?
Speaker 2:So that leader script was very, very important to instill lean thinking throughout the entire company because I tried, you know, to get around everybody in the company and encourage them to do lean and do improvements, and it was really, really hard work. The thing that I thought was going to make the business easier to run actually became a burden for me, you know, trying to get lean off the ground. But once we set up a lean leaders group, everything changed. It took the burden off me, spread it to more people and now we had five or six people go around with that energy instead of it all coming from me. Fantastic man.
Speaker 1:We'll do one more, and if anybody else wants to know the rest of them, they have to go and get the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, another really important one. If we're just doing one more, I would say the most important, or another really important one is this Japanese term called Yoko Ten. So Yoko Ten is Japanese for sharing ideas laterally across an organization. So it's one of the steps in the book and it's introduce Yucatan. And I can't stress how big of a deal this was for us and I'll just show you.
Speaker 2:I know we're not using video on the podcast, but if you're listening to this now, I'm getting my phone, I'm going on to a company WhatsApp group that we have and I'm just going to show you all the improvement videos that we're uploading onto our WhatsApp group.
Speaker 2:So this is a Japanese term called Yoko Ten sharing ideas laterally across an organization. So if somebody has an improvement in their area, they pull out their smartphone, take a quick video, upload it onto the WhatsApp group, the Yucatan group, and then everybody in the company can see it. So if somebody in the accounts department makes a really good improvement to their computer or how they've laid out their desktop or a shortcut on their keyboard, they put the video on the group and somebody else from marketing can say, oh, I really love that idea, I could try that in my department, so we're sharing ideas laterally across the organization on a daily basis. So, as people come up with an improvement, just hear a ping and it's on the whatsapp group and everybody's talking about it. It's a man, brilliant, brilliant way to encourage everybody as well, because people are saying great job, love that improvement, never thought of that. Brilliant.
Speaker 1:You know it's a. So what I'm seeing there is how that's actually building the community and, as you said, to start building the culture and bringing everybody in. What I'm also thinking, then, is in the flip side, what else does that create? Is there a competitive element there then at that time? Have you found any challenges around that as well, too, and trying to keep that within an even balance?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's probably a healthy competition between a few people. They're trying to see who can get the most improvements in a week and we used to count them and see who was getting the most. But we kind of stopped that because it got too competitive, because it's not the number of improvements, it's the quality of the improvements, so somebody could do one improvement. You know, that changes the whole company and we've had those ideas and I think the key message here is that there is so much talent and ability locked up in each one of our, you know, in each of us, and especially in the people that work with us. It's such a waste not to ask them their ideas and ask for their improvements. So Toyota talk about, there's 8 wastes, the 8 wastes of lean, and these are famous 8 wastes. If you look it up you'll see it straight away. But one of the wastes and the most important waste of all and it's in every company potential.
Speaker 1:So it's such a waste for us to have 60 people working in our company and not asking them for their ideas 100%, and it makes so much sense really when you think about it, but it's just not what a lot of people do. So the next question then, ryan I suppose it kind of really ties into this is in your mind then, what creates a great leader within a company and a business? Do you allow this type of culture to be built?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, brilliant question. Because it all starts with the leader. And if the leader doesn't get on board with this, you might as well not even bother. And the biggest leadership trait that I have seen that's a common theme through companies who have implemented lean successfully is humility. A lean leader needs to be so humble, open to feedback, open to change, open to somebody saying actually, the way you're doing that isn't probably the right way, I think there's a better way. And then when they agree and say, yep, I get it, let's look at a better way.
Speaker 2:When you have a leader who has a fixed mindset, a leader who doesn't want to let his guard down, a leader who thinks their way is the best way, then lean will never take root in their organization. And the best lean leaders that I've seen is men and women from around the country and around the world that are saying there's a better way and I'm open to looking at it. And one of the best things that I do and I purposefully do this at our morning meeting I will say put up my hand and say I made a mistake yesterday. I made an error that I you know we overspent on a purchase or we sent a product to the wrong customer and it was my fault because I wasn't clear with where it had to go. I purposely be open with my mistakes, which creates an environment in the whole company that are open and humble and willing to share when they've done something wrong, and that's the kind of environment that we have created at our company.
Speaker 1:Fantastic and just that type of environment. As you said, coming from a leader. We've got that bit of vulnerability to know that. Right, I don't have all the answers and that's why I have everybody on here anyway. They help us create the answers, but it takes a certain level of person to allow that to happen for sure, because, as you mentioned already, a lot of those leadership skills might be driven from fear, maybe driven from insecurities and maybe driven from oh my god, are people going to take this and run with it? And all these different things pop up. So, um, was it? Was there certain things that you shifted for yourself in order for that to happen? Or like levels that you had to go through and try and progress through when you were beginning to implement that round, like in your thinking, let's say, specifically as a leader?
Speaker 2:absolutely yeah, because at the start, I came across lean on youtube and I was the lean expert and I was the one that knew all the answers and and people started to come to me to say, what do you think of this, what do you think of that? And one of my challenges, something that I had to work on a lot, was not giving the answers. And if you look, if you go back to the Japanese, I've been in Japan five times. I was there just two weeks ago, learning from Lexus, learning from Toyota, learning from Japanese schools and how they think, toyota learning from Japanese schools and how they think.
Speaker 2:And one of the common themes that I've seen through all of the Japanese companies that I visited is that they coach instead of telling, they show instead of you know giving the answer. So it's this coachability, where, if somebody comes to me with a question, I turn it right back and ask them a question what do you think? Brilliant, but how do you think and do you think you should try that and what do you think the next step is? So my biggest challenge being really honest and open on this podcast my challenge was changing my mindset from I'm the person with all the answers. I'm the lean expert to what do you think? And it seems like a long way to go around it when you know the answer. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're so tempted to just give them the answer and get the thing done. But coaching is not a distraction. It's actually a shortcut, because the day that I'm not there and they can't come to me with the question, they're able to answer it.
Speaker 1:It's that principle give a man a fish and feed him for a day, show him how to fish and he can feed himself for life. Exactly, and I learned that from the japanese.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, fantastic, ryan. Um, there's so much stuff that we can go on there in this podcast around lean, and I'm really, really, actually interested in and understand these principles more. But I'm also aware of your time. For people that are really, really interested in understanding lean and understanding the principles and finding out more about it, where's the best place for them to get in contact with you and where's the best place for them to learn more about lean?
Speaker 2:And'm going to put the, the book in the show notes etc as well, too yep, I think the first easiest step and it's accessible to everybody that has access to the internet is youtube. You know we have hundreds of videos on youtube. It's all free. We just put all our content out there to help and inspire people and it does help and inspire people, and it does help and inspire people. The second thing is the podcast. The podcast is on all the normal platforms Spotify, apple, amazon. It's on YouTube as well.
Speaker 2:If you want to go a bit deeper, you can buy the book. The book is on leanmadesimplecom, on the website, and if you've came across this podcast and your mind is absolutely your head's spinning the way my head was spinning 10 years ago when I came across this podcast and your mind is absolutely your head spinning the way my head was spinning 10 years ago when I came across this, you can absolutely book a tour and come and see what we're doing here in lombavati and, uh, you'll fast track your learning. So, depending on the interest level, I would say that's the four steps fantastic, ryan.
Speaker 1:I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's opened up my mind to a lot of different principles. I've been taking some notes here and just what you seem to be doing out there seems to be just fantastic and the attraction and the attention and the podcast growing, the book growing and people coming to visit. I don't think it's a coincidence, because you're implementing something different into business and how people can run their businesses more effectively, and I think even listening to what you're saying is enjoy that process more as well too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ryan, thank you very much for the conversation. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Thank you and I love all your content, Seamus. I love everything you're doing and listening to your couple of podcasts over the last couple of days that you've done and really learning a lot from you as well. So thank you for everything you do, fantastic man.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ryan, chat soon. All the best, thanks, seamus, all right.