What actually makes change stick?​

Is it:

• the tool? 

• the process? 

• the storyboard? 

• the training?

•  

Or is it something much deeper?

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In this episode of Thoughts on Change, I sit down with Mark Rosenthal and Laurel Martin to unpack one of the biggest challenges in Continuous Improvement:

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Why organizations can implement Lean tools… and still struggle to create lasting behavior change.

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And honestly? This conversation gets to the heart of what real change leadership actually looks like.

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What We Explore

We dig into:

• why psychological safety matters in Continuous Improvement 

• how leaders unintentionally reinforce the wrong behaviors 

• why curiosity is more powerful than blame 

• the difference between compliance and genuine engagement 

• how Kata and TWI are often misunderstood as “tools” instead of leadership development systems 

• what it really means to “integrate, not implement” 

• why unresolved disagreement at the leadership level quietly kills transformation efforts 

• and how sustainable culture change happens through repeated responses—not presentations 

 

One of My Favorite Moments

One of the strongest themes in this conversation is this shift:

 

Instead of asking: “How do we get people to comply?”

What if we asked: “What kind of response are we reinforcing?”

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Because every leadership reaction teaches people something.

 

When leaders respond with:

• blame 

• defensiveness 

• pressure 

• control 

 

People learn to:

• hide problems 

• avoid risk 

• stay quiet 

• protect themselves 

 

But when leaders respond with:

• curiosity 

• experimentation 

• safety 

• learning 

 

People begin to think differently.

And that’s where culture shifts.

 

The Power of the First Reaction

We also talk about how important those first few seconds are when something goes wrong.

That moment when:

• a standard isn’t followed 

• an experiment fails 

• someone raises a concern 

• resistance appears 

 

Your first reaction matters more than you think.

Because leaders are constantly teaching people:

• what is safe

• what gets punished

• what gets rewarded

• and what kinds of thinking are welcome

 

Compliance vs Commitment

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode:

Compliance is not the same thing as commitment.

 

If your change effort depends entirely on:

• convincing harder 

• presenting more data 

• pushing people toward agreement 

 

You may get short-term compliance...but not real ownership.

 

Real teamwork requires:

• trust 

• safety 

• involvement 

• and genuine alignment 

 

A Powerful Reframe

One line from the conversation that really stuck with me:

“Integrate, don’t implement.”

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Because sustainable change doesn’t happen when we drop a Lean tool into an organization and hope people use it.

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It happens when:

• people understand it 

• it fits their context 

• it solves a meaningful problem 

• and leaders reinforce the behaviors needed to sustain it 

 

What This Means for CI Leaders

If you work in:

• Continuous Improvement 

• Operational Excellence 

• Lean leadership 

• manufacturing leadership 

• culture transformation 

• organizational change 

 

This episode is a reminder that your real job isn’t installing tools.

 

It’s shaping:

• systems 

• responses 

• behaviors 

• and learning environments 

 

Reflection Questions

As you listen, think about:

• What behaviors are being reinforced in my organization right now? 

• How do leaders respond when problems surface? 

• Are we building compliance… or capability? 

• What reactions are unintentionally creating fear or defensiveness? 

• Are we integrating improvement into culture—or just implementing tools? 

 

The Big Takeaway

Sustainable change is not about:

• installing a storyboard

• running a workshop

• forcing agreement

 

It’s about intentionally shaping how people think, respond, learn, and engage over time.

That’s the real work.

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Connect with the Guests

This episode features insights from:

• Mark Rosenthal 

• Laurel Martin 

Both bring deep experience in Lean thinking, leadership development, Kata, and organizational learning.

 

Enjoying the Podcast?

If you’re trying to move culture instead of just install tools, hit subscribe and share this with another CI warrior who’s navigating the messy human side of change.

 

Video

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Transcript

Welcome to Thoughts on Change, the podcast about the messy, political, emotional, deeply human side of leading change. I'm Kelly, and I believe anyone can implement lean tools until they actually have to get people to use them. Around here, we talk about how to move culture, how to build credibility, and how to influence without bulldozing.

Basically, how to herd humans without losing your mind.

Kelly Mallery: Hello, everybody. Welcome to this very special episode of Thoughts on Change. I'm really excited for this conversation because I've brought two people on that I admire a great deal, Mark Rosenthal and Laurel Martin. I'm going to have them introduce themselves really quickly, but we just came from the Kata and TWI Summit together and had some wonderful conversation, and I thought, "Why not actually, like, sit down and hit Record and share [00:01:00] these amazing thoughts from these wonderful people?"

So Mark, Laurel, please go ahead and give yourselves an introduction. Go ahead, Mark.

Mark Rosenthal: Okay, i'll go. So hi, my name's Mark Rosenthal. Um, I've been in the Kata land since the book was published, what, in '09, 2010 or so. Uh, blogged about it a lot on leanthinker.com. I've been speaking at every Kata Summit since KataCon Four.

We just had 12, so you can do the math. Um, so anyway, uh, also a co-founder of Kata School Cascadia. We put on cool learning events and get together every Friday. Awesome.

Laurel Martin: All right. N- I'm Laurel Martin. Um, longtime fan of Mark Rosenthal. So it's an honor to be, uh, on this podcast together. I'm an operational excellence and organizational development consultant, um, independent, and you know, I, I help companies who are feeling the strain, um, try to figure out, you know, what is that bridge between the process stuff and the leadership development stuff.[00:02:00]

So this, um, topic is near and dear to me, especially, you know, a conference that brought together TWI and Kata and, you know, how, how those merge together and, you know, uh, really emphasize the role of people in having an impact from any of our efforts. Awesome. You know, I'll just add that, you know, thinking the history, w- b- before there was a KataCon, um, a couple of years before that, I got asked to kind of do, "Hey, what's this Toyota Kata thing?"

to the TWI Summit. So actually, uh, I may have introduced the audience to it in a way. I mean, obviously, people knew what it was, and they were curious. That was just kind of an overview of the mechanics. And, you know, I went last because no one knew who I was, and, uh, and it was, you know, it was an interesting, uh, time meeting the TWI community.

That was the first time I really got to know them.

Kelly Mallery: Wow. That is interesting. It's, it's opening up a question for me about when did [00:03:00] the conferences, right, originally it was KataCon, and then it changed to Kata and TWI Summit, um, which is where we came from. And I will, we will go through what is Kata, what is TWI, just in case.

But first, I wanna land on this question. Mark, do you know when did that transition happen and why did it happen?

Mark Rosenthal: Well, that goes to the, the whole business model, I suppose. But, um, so again, I remember the years, we can do the math, whatever, uh, Ka- the first KataCon was just that. It was a Toyota Kata standalone summit.

I think it attracted s- you know, it was over 100 people. Um, I'm not, don't think they broke 200, but it was a pretty, pretty big room. Uh, a lot of the, a lot of people from Europe, because in reality, the, um, the initial research was done in Germany. Mm. Uh, and if you look in the pictures in the book, in the original book, you can see the storyboards are actually in German.

Um, [00:04:00] and, but there was a consultancy called, uh, what were they called? W- W3 Consulting that really, I think, was the pri- most of the speakers were their clients, and most of the pre- presenters were their people. But that was a community coming together for the first time, and that was kind of the vibe on that one.

And it went through as a standalone and, you know, just logistically, they began, Lean Frontiers began running them sequentially in the same week at the same venue, uh, with TWI Summit. I'm gonna say that was probably... Yeah, so the third one for sure in San Diego had the TWI going on, I think, at the same time.

Um, but what happened after 2021, which was a virtual conference, is, is that the, um, the attendance never really came [00:05:00] back. Mm. And last year, you know, for a couple years they were running them in parallel, so you could flip back and forth, but there was still a distinct room w- talking about Kata and a distinct room talking about TWI and some joint things.

And then last year, um, I think was the last time they did that, and then this year they just mashed the two together into a single conference. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting history there. And I'm sure- Sure ... you know, we could have a whole conversation about the, um, like lean conference industry. Um, so we'll kind of stay away from that a little bit.

Kelly Mallery: But to come back to, right, what, what are these two concepts? So let's q- do a quick check-in, 'cause- N- uh, some of my audience might know, some of them might not, so let's talk about what is Kata, what is TWI? Um, so I'll give a quick rec. Kata is just a word that means, like, a routine that we practice to learn a new skill, often, um, associated with martial arts.[00:06:00]

So for anybody who has seen Karate Kid, that's always the reference that is used. Um, when Daniel-san is waxing the car, painting the fence, painting the floor, all of that is a kata. And so we use this pattern to develop the habits of scientific thinking that were developed from Mike Rother's original research in Germany in 2009, at least that's when the book came out.

So then TWI, training within industry, whole nother section of work from World War II, I believe, and I'm, I'm gonna ask both of you to help fill in the history gaps here. Um, three sections of TWI, right? JR, job relations, which is how to help and support people, job methods, how to improve work, and then job instruction, which is how to document and train in those processes.

So please, Laurel, Mark, what are your thoughts about the two concepts, and what else would you add to, you know, their definitions for our listeners?

Laurel, why don't you get us started?[00:07:00]

Laurel Martin: Sure. I would say I learned a lot about the, uh, historical arc of these practices from Mark's talk at the conference and really showing this interplay where it wasn't just like Toyota came up with Lean in a vacuum, right? There has been this, um, this back and forth, uh, development, uh, you know, with, with lots of different countries involved.

But if you think about the role of TWI, um, you know, if, if people don't, uh, know on the call, that was started, um, really in response to World War II and this need to drastically ramp up production while all the soldiers were going off overseas, so who's gonna be left in our factories? People who have never worked in factories before.

And so, um, you know, it was a, a quick and effective way to get people to do the jobs safely and conscientiously, uh, that they had had no prior exposure to, uh, while also keeping people on board. So it couldn't be purely mechanistic, like, "Okay, just, you know, work harder, work faster," but, um, how do we [00:08:00] engage people as humans and, uh, you know, enrich their skills?

And of course that's, that's good for the company. Um, and it was interesting to see all the threads that Japanese companies picked up after the war when we're like, "Hey, this was kind of helpful for us. Do you wanna try it too?" And then kind of seeing where that's landed in modern Lean, um, and kind of pulling back through, like, oh yeah, that, that kind of came from JM or, or that kind of came from JR.

Um, so I like that it's always, you know, talking about these conferences, I feel like this community has always been very collaborative and, like, we grab a book and we're like, "Okay, let's all go try this out and see what we learn and see what happens in real life when we take these concepts, um- And try them out, and it's all an experiment, right?

Coming back to Kata, how do we discover our way into a, a better, a better method? Um, and I feel like we, we do that on ourselves in this, in this practice. Um, so I think they pair really well together because Kata is all about, um, how do you methodically [00:09:00] improve or how do you methodically solve a problem, um, you know, how do you actually work through that, um, applied very, very broadly, like, to pretty much any, any goal you have.

Um, TWI gives us this great background of, well, then how do you kinda shore up, um, you know, the standard work that you discover in your, your Kata practices, um, and how do you relate to the people who are absolutely essential to actually doing the Kata, um, you know, discovering change, adopting change, sustaining change, which is, you know, a lot of the things we talked about.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for that, Laurel. Mark, I'd ask what would you add, and especially, right, what are you learning about, um, and kind of exploring with what is the purpose of Kata? What is it really for?

Mark Rosenthal: Um, yeah, so I think a, the way I'm looking at it is there's an underlying thinking pattern that's behind everything, all of these things, and, you know, we call it PDCA, we call it scientific [00:10:00] thinking, we call it applied problem-solving.

It has lots of names. Um, but it's the pr- it is the thinking process of methodically saying, "What am I trying to get done? Where's the gap?" And then, "Okay, what, like, what do I need to try in order to figure out how to close that gap?" And so the Kata structure, just to be clear, Toyota Kata is really designed to create an environment where people learn to think that way.

And so it's a structure for the k- the coaching conversations so that the learner begins to think that way. But that's an underlying general model of just good thinking. If I applied that general model of just good thinking to, hey, my problem is my people are all inconsistent about how they go about doing this job, I will end up developing something that looks a lot like a training system, and an instance of [00:11:00] that training system is what we call job instruction.

If I had to go methodically around how do I save time, I end up developing job methods, and job relations, the pattern's exactly the same. The words are different. Kata has iteration built in. It's only implied in job relations, but job relations is from the '40s. so I look at, I look at the TWI th- Things, I guess, as, or programs as specific skills applied to specific contexts that at the time it was developed, those were the problems that needed to be solved to get more airplanes out the door.

Mm. And it was a very narrow focus to solve that one problem. Nowadays, we have scoped back a bit, and I think we have to be careful to make sure that what we're applying to our [00:12:00] context, um, when we're applying it to our context, that the context that it was developed in actually applies to the problem, or we modify a bit.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. Um- I think that that's a really excellent point about context, because these two methods come from historical situations, different cultures, different environments, and I think that was the common thing that I certainly heard happening at the summit, was just what is the m- modern context? What are we...

You know, how are these evolving into what we use now and today, and what... how is our understanding of them evolving? And I'd love to hear from both of you, what did you take away from that perspective? How are you seeing these evolve?

We can rock, paper, scissors on who gets to go first.

Laurel Martin: Well, maybe I'll just share one of my key learnings from each of you, because honestly, you guys kicked off the conference, and it was, like, within the first, what, 40 minutes, I had so much learning. I was like, "How am I gonna fit any more in my brain?" But, uh, one of the, the points that Mark really made is that leaders create the [00:13:00] conditions for any of these things to succeed.

So you can be, you know, a total expert at any of these models and have perfect rationale and all the, the results and proof points you want. Um, it's not going to work if you can't engage the people who are, actually have to try it and have to, you know, change their behavior, change their processes to, um, to get different results.

So that really resonated. You know, this idea of, uh, leadership doesn't happen in the leader's mind. It happens in the reaction in the minds of those being led. And so we have to be really conscious about where they're coming from. And, and this kinda merges in the key point that I took away from you, Kelly, which is- Before we try to bring our method , whether it's any of these things, Kata, JR, JI, JM, we have to think about what is their story?

What is their lived experience right now? What challenges are they facing? What are they up against? What are their hopes? What are their fears? [00:14:00] Um, and really get in and adapt. That, that's where I think the core skill comes in now for, for Kata and TWI practitioners. How can you adapt to that story, that situation, and add, you know, just the right, um, kind of nudge, I think is the word you used, Kelly, uh, to kind of infuse this type of thinking, uh, into the way work is done, um, without, you know, coming with the full toolkit and all of our perfect , you know, the way we've learned to do it by the book, uh, but really adapting to that human story that's unfolding right now.

Kelly Mallery: Mark, what are your thoughts?

Mark Rosenthal: Um, yeah. So gosh, I was listening carefully and forgot the question. But, um Hey, you can just respond to what Laurel said too. That's fine. I can too, actually. Yeah. Um, you know, I, the theme that developed was it's about leadership development, and it was cool 'cause that was my message, but what I saw was most of the other speakers were the same.

Um, [00:15:00] and that was cool. Um, but you know, some of the other things that I just gotta go through some of the notes and, and maybe this is a non-sequitur, I don't know. But, you know, one of Mike's research questions, right? Yeah, that was it. Let me back up. Um, one of the things is that the J programs were developed as specific scripts for specific instructors to teach specific skills.

Um, and where Toyota Kata came from was answering the couple of questions around, we have this company in Japan which certainly in the early 2000s and the late '90s was a benchmark for, for improvement, and what are they doing that's different? Because the rest of us try to do it and it doesn't work very well.

So the, one of the Toyota Kata questions that Mike was trying to answer was what are Toyota's unseen managerial [00:16:00] routines that al- enable them to be m- far more successful with this? I'm paraphrasing. I'm would even change the word because it's the unseen leadership routines. Mm-hmm. How do they lead their people?

But then the... I wrote down on my notes, okay, when I'm looking at, when we're looking at our own organizations, what are our unseen managerial routines that are driving the results we're getting? And to be conscious of why we're getting the results we are, which is a whole Kata thing. But I think that is something we kinda skip over as change agents, is we wanna l- we wanna jump straight into, well, let's just start changing stuff.

But let's understand what we're trying to change. And we have... We... All organizations have unseen managerial routines. Those... That's the very definition of the culture of the organization. [00:17:00] How do we respond to issues? What do those conversations sound like? And just becoming aware of that would probably be a pretty good first step if you're trying to create change.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. Go on. I think that's the first step in Kelly's START model, which I really appreciated. I think the first S was, like, just systems. Like, look at how people are getting work done and communicating currently, and, um, how are leaders showing up and interacting, and just what's happening there? 'Cause, yeah, before we try to change something, we should probably understand how it's working today.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. And I think, Mark, you raise a, a good point about this, too, that it's... I think we're pretty good as, as a community of, you know, improvement people, that we do look at current state. Hopefully all of us most of the time. Hopefully more than most of the time. But it's, it's, it's really at that surface process level, which is good, right?

We wanna be looking at process. We focus on making process better and not just telling people to do things differently or harder, or trying harder. But what we do miss [00:18:00] is the leadership routines that you can't see that enable that current process to even exist right now, and it's that deeper dig that we're not very good at all the time.

Mark Rosenthal: Sheryl, un- under Sheryl Jekyll, she brought up something, and I don't remember what she said, I just know what I wrote down, is we need to map the flow of problems and problem-solving as that is more important than mapping the process, the industrial process or the work process. What happens when that process goes off the rails, when it can't be followed, when we encounter something that it doesn't account for?

That process flow is really what defines those unseen managerial routines. What happens when there's a problem? If I were to go to, you know, the Toyota automobile plant, it's really quick, right? That's that classic pull a rope and trigger a light and start some music, 'cause I [00:19:00] just encountered an obstacle on the assembly line, and that initiates a whole long chain of events to get that problem contained, understood, and solved.

But we don't talk about that when we're looking at lean tools other than Andon. Well, okay, but what happens next? Mm-hmm. And what happens- Even when that light is out again, because now we've, you know, we've at least restored standard, but why did that happen to begin with?

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. And I wonder, I appreciate the direction this conversation is going, which is I had no path, but I love this point because I wonder, right, we, when I think about people who get into lean continuous improvement, process improvement, a lot of the time it is engineers who are then trained on those process tools you talked about, Mark, right?

We, we are taught how to analyze a process, right? Look at tack time, [00:20:00] look at labor balance, um, look at defect rate and, right, defects per million opportunities. But we, we are not taught to see the conversations that happen in between. And they're... You know, I think Toyota is a good example where those have become more visible.

It's easier to see them happening. Where in a lot of organizations, I think that I know I've been a part of or, you know, been to, it's really hard to see them. And it takes a lot of digging and listening to even identify what those processes are.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. I really loved how Cheryl Jakeel, who we're, we're talking about, came in at the end of...

She was like the very last speaker and gave us like all these tools or ways of making sense of some of these themes that we've been talking about, which is, is funny because I don't think she knew those were all the things we've been talking about. Um, but she had a few really useful models. One is this iceberg map, and I know we [00:21:00] have lots of versions of the iceberg map in the lean world.

But this one was, you know, the iceberg that we can see, or at least that we can measure, is the results, and that's what everyone wants is like, "Okay, make my iceberg bigger." Right underneath the waterline are events, which are, you know, you can think of as the things that we're actually doing, like whatever, the Kaizen or the, the training.

Um, but underneath that are the patterns, and that's what we focus a lot on in Kata is what are the, the patterns of, um, kind of the thought process that we are really trying to ingrain in people, first through the start of Kata, then through, you know, kind of letting people, uh, go and explore. But under that, we don't really talk much about what are the, the structures and what are the mental models.

Mm-hmm. And it's really hard to ingrain a pattern if you don't change the mental model, and I think we, we don't go... We often are like, "Oh, process leads to results," but it's actually like there's some deeper layers there before we can actually do that process in a authentic, uh, you know, [00:22:00] deep and, and sustainable way.

Mark Rosenthal: Yeah, I like that metaphor. I use the same metaphor, and I says, put those mental models, they're not even part of the iceberg. They're the water- Mm-hmm ... that holds up the iceberg. And that's why it's, I think, you know, that my model, that model makes it a little harder even to see that stuff because we're, we're s- we're paying, paying all this attention to the ice.

Yeah. We're swimming in it. Mm-hmm. We can't even tell. And, and, you know, it reflects Ed Schein's model of culture being the, you know, the, the artifacts, the values, and the unseen- Mm-hmm ... or the unseen values, you know, and the structures. And it's those underlying assumptions about what is true, which are the mental models, right?

That really define what structures go into place, which then in turn drive how people behave. So that's part of it, [00:23:00] and where the Kata, just to kind of bring it back around, comes into the equation, is changing those mental models to be more scientific, to be a little more... But also, okay, this is the whole leadership piece.

I think what, even in Kata land, what we don't do a good job of, except for some folks like Gemma Jones, is understanding empathy as part of that structure. We have to build it in, and we, and at least I have to build it on purpose. Um, and that's, uh, you know, coming back to Cheryl, she put- shared this thing that she called an empathy map.

I've, I haven't researched if that's hers or where it came from. But what I loved about it is if I look at a process that somebody's engaged in, even the problem-solving process, yeah, what are they doing? What are they thinking? Okay, how are they [00:24:00] feeling? And what are they saying to themselves or even to other people?

And breaking down process steps, so let's just go back to that whole, the whole coaching Kata thing, right? I mean, there's steps that the learner goes through. Have I as a coach deliberately designed the experience so that they are feeling like their confidence is building, or have I somehow designed the experience where they're feeling like they're just gonna have more stuff pointed out that's wrong?

Been there, done that a long time ago. I was still learning.

Kelly Mallery: We probably all have. And I, to me, like, for me, this co- this all comes back to, you know, a lot of space that I've been focusing on is how we, and I'm gonna call, like, pra- continuous improvement practitioners as well as part of this leadership group.

Because, right, we are leading the way for demonstrating how change can occur and these methodologies. And- I've been thinking a lot about, [00:25:00] you know, when we come into situations where we're asking people to change or asking people to think about doing work in a different way, we so often neglect all of that deeper human stuff that is happening, and we bulldoze in, and we aren't taught to, like, pause and have a look at what is the current reality they're experiencing and feeling.

And it's, it becomes really hard to, you know, understand that because we, we only know our own experience. But I, I love what you said, Mark, that it's that deeper level of empathy to think about what might they be saying to themselves right now about this situation. How might they be feeling? And that's a whole part of the current condition that we need to be better about even contemplating before we push forward into situations.

Because I don't know without, you know, a lot of conversation and building a lot of trust and [00:26:00] relationship, I don't know that we'll ever be able to actually grasp it from somebody else's perspective, but even just thinking about it and considering.

Mark Rosenthal: I think that's really important because as change agents, and most of us are, and most of them, I'm guessing most of the people listening to this are, we're really fond of making rollout plans.

Mm-hmm. But that's not how change propagates. Change-- And, um, this is one of the notes I took s- change spreads through relationships, not rollouts. Mm-hmm. And it's an organic social process. So we've got to engineer our understanding, engineer our process to simply, simply deal with that as a, as a fundamental truth.

We're asking people to change how they interact with one another. We're looking at relationships, and we're looking at potentially changing the fabric of some of those relationships. And, you know, the people who [00:27:00] have-- who are... Was it-- Wasn't it Buddy said, "There is no resistance. There's simply ambivalence."

Hmm. And I like that better because nobody actively resists. They just, okay, this isn't-- They don't, they don't get it yet or whatever. But people change their minds not as a result of some outsider coming in and giving a logical argument, but as a result of the people who are closest to them beginning to shift theirs.

And so if we don't understand that social network, we're gonna have a hard time creating the kind of change we have in mind.

Kelly Mallery: You mean just more data doesn't do it? No, I agreed. Agreed. Go, Laurel.

Laurel Martin: Oh, I was gonna say that, that was the strongest theme for me as well, Mark. Um, you know, when you- we talk about leaders creating the conditions for change or change influencers, um, I think you used the word, like, how do we, how do we pull people along with us?

Or, or, or enroll them. How do we enroll people in wanting to follow us in the change as opposed to, [00:28:00] "You will attend this Kaizen, you will write down your ideas on the Post-It, uh, you will do the follow-ups." And it, it just... it, um, it runs so counter that, like, the reality of the social situation runs so counter to how we had maybe been trained in Lean or what, what our leaders, you know, thought of us as, like, what's the role of the, the Lean team or the continuous improvement director or the, or the consultant, um, that we're almost all having to, like, unlearn these method-driven, um, you know, just get to the results through force and will kind of approach.

Um, and really understand, like, how do you develop trusting relationships through problem-solving? Um, which is part of why I just love the Kata because if you have enough of those conversations, it, it does that as a byproduct. Um, but you really... you can't mandate a different way of thinking or different assumptions or, you know, the way someone's brain works.

Um, you've really gotta, [00:29:00] to cultivate those conditions over time and, um, address that ambivalence. Like, w- well, what is great about the current way? What are you scared about with this new way? What might the implications be for your job or your reputation or, you know, your role on this team? And how do you tap into that underlying, like, what do they really want from the change, and what would make it worth them, you know, maybe taking some risks and participating in this thing?

And it's not your agenda, you know? It's gotta be their agenda.

Mark Rosenthal: Yeah. And, you know, the, that whole process, like, what I, what I said, and I just wanted to, you know, I wanted to say it, is it's, it's not even enrolling them to follow you. It's enrolling them to come with you. Yeah. And your alternative is compliance.

And some people, you know, will say, "Well, there are some times we just need to give orders." Okay. Great. I understand that, but even [00:30:00] compliance is a decision made by the person being led.

So it's still onto them. There's nothing you can do to force someone to do something. Mm-hmm. Even through threat of violence, they still decide- Mm-hmm ... to do it versus some alternative. So let's come back around. Enrolling them in your vision so they come with you- Is, um, it's probably harder to start that way, but if you want it to sustain when the, you know, you- when...

Yeah, if you want it to sustain, I'm just gonna put it that way, when you're not there. When you're not watching, right? Leadership is expressed by what people do when the leader isn't there. Uh, that's a whole different ballgame. And, you know, I, I love the, you know, the story that David Marquet tells in his book- [00:31:00] Mm

Turn the Ship Around, I'll put a, a plug in for that. Mm. Where he's the captain of a submarine, uh, in the US Navy, about the last place I would expect, um, to let go of the, the classic give the ord- I give the orders, you follow them structure. But in the last chapter, he is basically telling a story where everybody on the crew knew what to do, and they knew more about what was going on than he did.

And what struck me about that story as a former military officer, so I obviously understood, you know, the culture, um, was he stepped into the bridge, misread the situation, gave an order, and a junior sailor said on the bridge, "No, Captain, you're wrong." And to have a junior sailor call out the captain of the ship...

But, you know, what Captain Marquet did was he took a step back and realized that, [00:32:00] yeah, that sailor was right, and the lesson he learned there was they got this, which was really cool. So that's what you want to create, right? Where, you know, the boss doesn't have to have all the answers.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. And I think that comes back to this, it is about building relationships. It's about building a condition and experience for people. It's not about us coming in and saying, "You're gonna do it this way," or, "Here's a tool," or, "Here's a method." It is about that bridge and connecting to their emotional experience, their actual experience. It's, it's hitting all the layers of that iceberg.

Mark Rosenthal: And creating those environment- Mm-hmm ... where people receive extraordinary support. Mm-hmm. And are feeling that not just from the boss, but from their peers- Mm-hmm ... from their teammates, uh, from everybody around them. Uh, and that's what, you know, that's what makes a championship sports team.

Laurel Martin: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the oversimplification of this idea we [00:33:00] have in mind that leaders get results through others. Like, okay, that's a little better than leaders get results by elbowing in and doing it themselves- But it's like, well, how, what is that chain? 'Cause it's not just give order, the other person executes.

So many things have to happen. To your point, Mark, we can't just compel people. You know, maybe occasionally we can threaten people and they do it, but, um, so I've been kind of mapping that out, of like what is the chain from, okay, I hear that intent from the leader, you know, if we wanna put it in David Marquet's terms, um, and then I act in a consistent, aligned fashion with what that leader had in mind.

There's a lot of steps in between to, uh, kind of unpack, um, that I think, you know, uh, lean- leader standard work and, and JR and all these things kind of, kind of help address. Um, but yeah, it's a complex system to get from point A to point B.

Mark Rosenthal: So Laurel, you're triggering one of my little JR rants, so- Yeah. Do [00:34:00] it forgive, forgive me TWI gods. Give us the JR rant. Um, but one of my objections is that the language does reflect the attitudes of the times and the, of the 1940s, plus it reflects the problem they needed to solve. And that was not a problem of developing people. That was a problem of keeping them at work.

It's a fundamentally different problem. And so I think that whole, you know, gets results through people, but really the supervisor, in their words, doesn't get any results. The people get all of the results. The supervisor is responsible for making sure the environment is there, that the tools are there, that the knowledge and skills are there such that the people are enabled to get the results that are needed.

And so just looking at another piece, you know, they say, you know, good [00:35:00] supervision is... I'm gonna paraphrase here 'cause I don't have my notes, but um, you know, a good supervisor, uh, gets his people, his people, that, their people- ... um, you know, to do what he wants done, when he wants it done, the way he wants it done because they want to do it, which just pushes me back.

But really what we're doing is we want to enable people to do the right thing, to do the, it, to do it the right way at the right time. And that's a fundamentally, in my mind, fundamentally different attitude to bring in. So if I were to rewrite job relations, that would be one of the places where I would make a major change.

I don't need to change the objectives of doing the right thing the right way at the right time, but I do need to say it's not, it's because we've created and enabled people- To know what to do, know how to do it, and know when to do [00:36:00] it, and that they're in an environment where they're supported to do those things.

Laurel Martin: Yeah, to develop their judgment and back them up.

Kelly Mallery: Which coming... I'm gonna bring us all the way back to, right, thinking about, um, practitioners out there, leaders out there, right? I think the lesson or maybe the message we're talking about a lot is put the tools down. This is how I'm gonna say that. Put the tools down.

Just stop. Put them down, and instead think about what is that environment, and when a problem happens, map out instead what do you want them to respond. How do you want them to respond? What does that look like? And then it is about come back to where you are right now. What are your un- unseen routines, or maybe seen?

There's probably a gap there, and then this is the beauty of PDCA and that thinking model. What's the next step to close the gap, and how... what's the next condition and experience you need to create to enable that team to move forward?

Mark Rosenthal: I hear people say, "If people would simply follow the standard work," which is [00:37:00] yes and. Um, so let's just say that your worker is doing their very best to follow the standard work, and then they run into something that stops them. What do you want to happen in the next three seconds? Because that is going to define whether or not you have standard work. Because, oh, I have to work around the problem.

Congratulations, there's no longer a standard. Or are they gonna say, "Hey, we've encountered an obstacle," put in Kata terms, and then work together with that first responder. Okay, yeah, we're gonna have to do the workaround to get things going again, but somebody knows, and we gotta write it down and do something about it.

If you want standard work to work, you have to be constantly looking for those sources of friction in your system and systematically honing your system so that those sources of friction are reduced or [00:38:00] eliminated. Otherwise, the friction builds. And, you know, one of my metaphors is, is, you know, we do a Kaizen, we do a classic one-week Kaizen event, and what do we have on Friday is a s- a target process that has not been robustly tested.

So lots of moves. And we have- And big action list, yeah. Yeah. And, and we, we have pizza and go home, and then Monday morning we start robustly testing it whether we like it or not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So have we equipped those first line leaders not with a long laundry list of stuff to do, but with the tools to know how to respond to those problems?

And then it's just, here's the next obstacle, here's the next experiment. Um, and so that's the difference, I think, between six... You can run a one-week event. That's an awesome way to kickstart Kata, but my objective on those now is what I have at the end of the week is I have a functioning storyboard, and I have coaching cycles happening every [00:39:00] day.

That's... If you want change to sustain, you use the process improvement to stand up the conversation about process improvement. That's the objective.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. And this is now triggering maybe an... I don't know if it's a new thought or it's just a thought that is finally forming into this way, that, that, that routine, that scientific thinking routine that we call Kata, that practice is teaching leaders how to respond- Yep

in the way that we want them to respond. That's exactly what it is. And that is what we should be focusing on as a, you know, a Kata, a TWI, CI Lean community, is not what's the next tool I go implement, what's the next shiny new thing that I'm gonna get these people to practice, but it's what are they doing right now to respond, and how can I shift that towards where we need to be.

Mark Rosenthal: It reminds me of Ra- Raghavan, 'cause- Mm ... you know, he quoted Peter Drucker, which is, you know, anytime you quote Peter Drucker, you're probably doing some good thinking. [00:40:00] But I love that only three things happen naturally in organizations, friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.

And this is entropy wins, right? You know, if for those of us with any kind of technical engineering background, entropy wins every time, and we tend to think we can put in an improvement, and my metaphor is, okay, now with the freezer's cold enough, we can unplug it. That's not gonna work. You have to keep putting improvement energy in, even to keep it the same.

Um, and that's the leadership role, is to be conscious of those things that are adding entropy back to the system so that we can be actively removing it.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. I really like how you mentioned the importance of the, the first reaction in the three seconds- Mm-hmm ... which, you know, we've gotta just train ourselves and practice.

Like, okay, how, how do I wanna [00:41:00] respond when I notice the, you know, the standard isn't being performed or, you know, whatever it is. And kind of modifying our idea of this, you know, classic motivation theory of like, what are the positive- Uh, and negative, you know, immediate reinforcing consequences. Uh, it's kind of a version of that, but it's not like, oh, give them a pizza party when they do a good job.

It's, there's, there's such a subtler way to reward almost the right thinking pattern that we want people to take, like when they encounter an obstacle or when they, when they can't do the, the standard as performed. And I feel like often, uh, the leaders I observe are unintentionally giving reinforcement to things like complaining about the problem or taking shortcuts around the standard work or whatever it is.

You know, I, I think of the classic, like, how do you sustain 5S? Well, no one should ever walk by a piece of trash on the floor without, like, picking it up, throwing it away, and maybe looking around to say, "Where did this come from?" Um, and, uh, [00:42:00] one theme I've been noticing in actually a lot of different podcasts on different topics, you know, like family and relationships and everything, is how do you rewire that first reaction to not be blame or defensiveness, but just curiosity?

Like, huh, I wonder, I wonder why that standard work isn't being followed. And again, going back to, let me get the story from this other person whose mind I couldn't possibly pretend to understand, and let's see if we can unpack what's really going on there.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. Or even, huh, I wonder why this person is so nervous, concerned about this change, instead of just immediately saying, "Oh, they're resistant." Yeah. They're an antibody. I, that's my soap box.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. Give them, give them another presentation. Convince them harder.

Kelly Mallery: But we do that. Yeah. And we see that. Go, Mark.

Mark Rosenthal: Laurel, one of the things that is interesting, you know, what's in it for them, right? You, we always like to ask that, but that right there is a transactional mindset.

And we have to get away from the transactional mindset and get into a teaming mindset and get into [00:43:00] a supporting mindset. It's not what do I have to give them in order to get what I want. Yeah. Because the minute we're thinking in that transactional terms, in those transactional terms, we are moving toward compliance.

Mm-hmm. And if you want true teamwork, you have to... You cannot rely on compliance to get it. So it, the, those, that, that compliance language is embedded in so many things that even, even, even those of us who like to think forwardly, we ask, well, what's in it for them? And the minute we do, we're asking, what do I have to give them to get them to do what I want?

And that's the wrong question to ask.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. And I think that connects back to your, you know, maybe modern critique of job relations is It, it doesn't feel copacetic with respect for people to say, "Well, our job is to get, you know, the most, uh, [00:44:00] activity or production or, you know, compliance with this standard out of our people," but to make them think that it was their idea. It's like, well, that seems a little shady, actually.

Mark Rosenthal: I remember a, a presentation from a guy I heard years ago, and he was a m- you know, in the consulting business. Uh, you know, you realize that empowerment means your people can make the decisions, right? Oh, I didn't say I wanted them to be empowered, I said I wanted them to feel empowered.

Yeah. And, but we have to be genuine, right? We have to be genuine, which means that there's a safety net, that, um, somebody... There's no fear around bringing something up, about making a suggestion. Mm-hmm. Um, even, you know... And that's why we say in Kata we, right, run the experiment, but keep the blast radius small. Make sure that the consequence of failure is relatively benign, is that we always have learning.

Laurel Martin: Yeah, had a, a great Kata moment a few weeks ago, [00:45:00] and we were just starting on a new challenge, and the leader actually volunteered to take the first step, like, to, to implement the first experiment, which at first I was kind of like, "Oh, I don't know.

Shouldn't you let your team step in?" And then we come back the next day, you know, "What happened? How did it go? What'd you learn?" And they said, "I was gonna try XYZ. Here's what I expected, and I was wrong." I was like, "Yes, round of applause." And it was such a perfect first experiment to have the leader say, "It's perfectly fine if you, you know, really think you're right, when you have your hypothesis going in," and then when we get back together, and, "You know what?

It was super tiny." It was like, "I don't know. I was gonna go, like, try to fiddle with the design in this way and see if I could get this thing to fit," or, um... And, and to just say, "Oh, I was wrong. No big deal. What's the next experiment?" You know, "What do we need to learn next?" So I really appreciated that for setting the tone of the rest of this Kata, where now the team is, is running the experiments.

I don't know if they did that on purpose, but... Well, it doesn't matter. [00:46:00] It happened. It doesn't matter. And- So good for that safety ...

Kelly Mallery: And that's a great demonstration of the response that we want to instill, right? Uh, whether or not that was on purpose or accidental, that's exactly what we're looking for, so amazing.

Did you give that leader praise afterward? I did indeed. Good. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. All right. So to wrap up the conversation... Honestly, I could probably talk to both of you for a very long time about all of these things, but to honor and respect- schedules and timing. Um, I would love for us to just wrap up with, you know, what is a single lesson, a single takeaway for our listeners, um, whoever they may be out there.

What's the one thing that you wanna make sure that they all leave with?

Mark Rosenthal: I think it is developing leaders. If you're, and if you're not doing that on purpose, that you are gonna, you can [00:47:00] end up with a rote process that nobody really mentally engages.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. And I'll, I'll, uh, steal one of your lines, Kelly. Okay. How do you go about that? Integrate, don't implement. Mm. How can we get into that? The mindset, the assumptions, the real, you know, what do they care about? Uh, what, what would be a meaningful improvement here? And help them do what they already want to do- Mm versus saving the day with your tool they've never heard of.

Kelly Mallery: And then they won't be able to actually sustain and use long-term because they don't understand, and it doesn't make sense to their context. Yeah, I love that.

Laurel Martin: Yeah. And the second you walk away you know that board's not getting updated. So, yeah.

Mark Rosenthal: I think one other piece, and I'm just going back to my notes from Cheryl Jekyll. Effectively address lack of agreement. And yeah, that's a tactical thing, but that is one of the places, like one company that [00:48:00] I think we all know well, and I'm not gonna mention who it is, but that's one place where they don't do a good job.

And it results in some frustration, and it's resulted in them being probably kind of stuck where they are for the last couple of decades. They're, they've reached a level, they've plateaued because they haven't yet effectively addressed, or they're, maybe they're beginning to, that not every senior leader actually supports what it is they're trying to do.

And that's a very common problem. I've seen it in almost every company. Well, yeah, certainly every company I've ever worked for, um, had that problem of wanting to talk around disagreement or isolate the people who are disagreeing or whatever it is in an effort to mechanistically control that disagreement rather than organically address it.

Mm-hmm. And having that mechanism of dissent, [00:49:00] getting back to David Marquet, how is it that you are encouraging people to- Bring up their concerns

Laurel Martin: This is what gives me confidence that AI is never gonna take over our jobs as change influencers, because it's that ability to productively surface the real, like, what are people really thinking and feeling here, and where are the disconnects that...

And that's, that's the magic of, of lean and, and getting these things to, quote-unquote, work, is how do you move people into enough alignment over time that, yeah, we can move forward in the, the same direction.

Kelly Mallery: Yeah. Yeah. And this comes so beautifully together for, like, my big takeaway from this conversation, which is our jobs are to look at what are the systems and how are people responding, and what is the ideal response we want in all of those situations, and that's what we need to slowly [00:50:00] work on and shift in our organizations.

It is not about go put a storyboard in place, go use TWJI. It's, okay, when this thing happens, how do I want people to respond to it? What does that look like? What does that sound like? And let's move towards that. Design the experience-

Mark Rosenthal: Yes ... that you want people to have, and you have to keep that in mind.

Kelly Mallery: Yes. All right, Mark, Laurel, thank you both so much for coming on and spending time with me and having this really fruitful conversation. Um, I am really grateful to both of you for everything I have learned, uh, from you two over the duration of my knowing you, and again, just really happy that you were able to come spend some time with us today, so thank you.

Laurel Martin: Thanks for the opportunity, Kelly. I- it's always fun to step back and learn even more from what you think you already learned- Mm-hmm ... by talking through it.

Kelly Mallery: Always. Always.

Mark Rosenthal: Yeah. Thanks for putting this together. Made me go back and look at my notes.

Kelly Mallery: There you go. All right. Thank you all. Have a great [00:51:00] rest of your day.

That's a wrap for this episode of Thoughts on Change. If you're also out there trying to move culture instead of just installing tools, hit subscribe and share this with a fellow CI warrior. And remember, progress beats perfection, curiosity beats control, and culture beats everything. See you next time.