John Chacon on Continuous Improvement and the Dangers of Paying People to Think

Lean Blog Interviews - Healthcare, Manufacturing, Business, and Leadership

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/429

My guest for Episode #429 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is John Chacon, the Director of Construction Excellence at Black & Veatch. We've been connected on social media for a while and John's reply to a tweet led to this podcast conversation, where he said:

“If you have read this blog post and are still thinking about incentivizing folks for ideas…stop…give me a call and I will tell you some stories about paying your folks to think.”

Today, we discuss topics and questions including:

• John's Lean origin story? In the Marine Corps.
• Deployed to Japan – painted a different picture – in what way?
• Cultural differences? A different level of respect?
• Why didn't you like it at first?
• How do you define Kaizen?
  • Not just the process, it's the people
  • Continuously improving the people
• Later company — “The work was to improve the work”
• How do you foster that culture?
• Curiosity and genuine wonderment
• What does Kaizen (what does John) suggest about how to incentivize people to submit ideas?
• DO we need to incentivize?
• What happens when you run out of rewards funding? Improvement stops
• How do you tap into in intrinsic motivation?
• Kaizen and Kata?
• Putting things into plain English?
• Working in other countries – Thailand, India, China — how does the Lean/Kaizen message get delivered differently?
• Marine Corps like Kaizen — the way you are vs something you do

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.