Bertrand de Graeve

[00:00:02] In mid-2023, Inoxtag announced to the whole world that he was going to climb Everest, and that, with a one-year horizon.
[00:00:15] It's a buzz. It's first and foremost a commercial buzz for him, and that's normal, given his job as a YouTuber, mainly.
[00:00:26] It's not just a commercial buzz, it's also something else for him, he presents it well in his introduction for those who've seen the film. His wish is to change progressively, to become aware of the life he has, a life out of sync.
[00:00:43] A passable lifestyle, and then physically, not ready to take on the challenge he announced.
[00:00:52] So, and we see it clearly in his conclusion, his desire is not just to climb Everest, it goes beyond that. It's about improving, step by step, every day. And that's what we find in his conclusion. We also find something else. We see him actually planting rice in a paddy field a few months later. And then recently, for those who might follow his news, well, he's taking on a new challenge, to climb a new peak in the high mountains.
[00:01:26] So, naturally, given the number of views of Inoxtag, I wanted to pick up on what struck me: he used the word Kaizen. It turns out my company is also called Cap Kaizen, so we have things in common, at least that name, Kaizen.
[00:01:45] And in business, the parallel we can draw is, I guess, everyone is aware of the current context, a difficult context. The political situation, unstable. The war at the borders of Europe, a trade war with the United States, and we could find others. So, necessarily, in this difficult context, for a company to strengthen itself, to improve a little every day. It makes perfect sense. It makes sense all the time, but it makes even more sense when the context is difficult.
[00:02:21] That's what I'm going to talk to you about now, to give you some keys, because it's not enough to say it, it's not enough to have a catchy title, it's not enough to launch it. That's not why it works. And so, to give you some keys, some benchmarks, some principles. who, perhaps, in companies as a coach or within companies, allow you to implement Kaizen, a sustainable Kaizen, and that is the will when we talk about Kaizen. First of all, I'm going to tell you a story that caught my attention. I am currently accompanying a support team in a large French distribution group.
[00:03:09] And in this context, I have an appointment with the HRD of this company who wants to meet with me to see if it's possible. to implement this notion of continuous improvement everywhere in her company, and that I can accompany a large number of teams.
[00:03:28] We talk, we exchange about what happened with this support team, and necessarily the stock decreased, divided by 10. Necessarily the deadlines decreased, diminished strongly, non-quality no longer exists. So it's really cool, so I'm telling you all this, and then she asks me to tell her a story about problem solving. And so I chose, in fact, a story that would last and a simple resolution story, even if together we did a PDCA. This story is that every month, when it's time for the operating accounts of the different stores, you have to do consolidated accounts. The stores are grouped by region, so you have to take all the operating accounts of a region and make a regional consolidated account. And then from all of these regional consolidated accounts, you have to make a national consolidated account. The operating accounts of the stores come out between the 2nd and the 4th of the beginning of the month. And to do these consolidations, it takes at least 6 more days. So every month, the team is under pressure because the accounts don't come out before the 10th.
[00:04:38] And so every month, in fact, for this team, it's difficult to live with, to take this pressure, these phone calls, these emails, telling themselves: "So, when is the national operating account going to come out so we finally have the results of the previous month?" This situation, it doesn't suit me, it doesn't suit the team, and we decide to take a break and really study the problem, rather than fixing it every month. And it turns out that the root cause is quite simple: it's a VAT rounding story. All the accounting firms that accompany the stores absolutely do not have the same VAT rounding rule. Once we have the root cause, the solution is simple. Just make sure everyone applies the same VAT rule. So that's good, we give the rule to each of the accounting firms, and from the following month, it's over, there are no more delays. Following the monthly operating accounts, the regional and national consolidated accounts are released. And so I tell this story to this HRD and the question she asks me and which challenges me, she tells me: "But why do people need you to do that?" And at the time, I was so challenged by the question that I had trouble answering her, and I think I didn't win the market at that moment. And, uh, but this question, beyond the market I didn't win,
[00:06:11] it challenged me, and in fact, today I would know much better how to answer it. First, I would return the question.
[00:06:19] And simply, in fact, this is to tell you that despite the will of an HRD, despite the will of a manager, to ensure that Kaizen, continuous improvement, is implemented in companies, it's not because we decree it or because we think it works, that it really works.
[00:06:43] I've given you a few words about Kaizen, a definition, in all cases it's about the long term, etc., but here again,
[00:06:50] to explain it to you further, and especially the necessary posture. I'm going to tell you another story. I'll just do that anyway.
[00:07:00] As part of the organization of an event for the Institut des France, I meet a manager who is going to speak in Lille. And so this manager, it's a company around Valenciennes, next to where Toyota is. I'm going to visit his company and we'll exchange.
[00:07:18] And in this exchange, he explains to me that he was coached by a Japanese Sensei, a Japanese coach. So a direct disciple of Taiichi Ohno, so we're on a high level. And so he would come regularly and when he came, he would give him three pieces of advice.
[00:07:34] And he only expected these three pieces of advice. The first, the first piece of advice is: how do you manage to spend only one hour in your office each day?
[00:07:50] So he explains to me with this principle, to what extent, well, necessarily you don't get there, you shouldn't take it literally, it's not for that reason that tomorrow morning you're going to come in and say, "I heard someone on stage, he told me not to spend more than an hour in my office." In fact, after an hour and one minute, I leave my office and I'm going to do something else. No, that's not how it works. But it means that progressively, we're going to ask ourselves the question of how, what activities do I reduce? How do I free up time to spend time in the field with my collaborators?
[00:08:21] How do I spend more time with my clients progressively? And necessarily he succeeds. What he learns by getting there is that the less time he spends in his office, the less he has email exchanges, the less he has reports and needs for reports. Because necessarily, he knows the reality of the field more. So, he also generates less administrative tasks on his side. The second piece of advice,
[00:08:49] is every time you encounter something that doesn't suit you, I say First ask yourself what you did or what you didn't do that caused this problem to arise. In fact, start with yourself. rather than looking for a culprit and falling on the first comer, the poor guy who, with this process, the flow, does his best. Finally, the third piece of advice he gives him is: don't leave your company every day without having in mind an action of continuous improvement, however small it may be.
[00:09:39] This desire to put rhythm into continuous improvement. This desire for the manager, since he is on the ground, since he is not looking for culprits, to find and to ensure that the people around him develop this possibility of implementing initiatives for continuous improvement actions.
[00:10:00] I'm going to tell you a few other stories. So I haven't introduced myself. I'll do it here. I've been a manager, manager of managers, quality director. I've been doing continuous improvement, Lean, since 2009. And since 2009, necessarily, so either internally or externally, I necessarily have a few stories to tell you. So I've chosen a few, I'm not going to tell you everything.
[00:10:26] And I hope they will be representative.
[00:10:32] Around these stories, we'll talk about how to provoke desire. Inoxtag, we come back to him. His thing is making a buzz. Well, how, in fact, when you're the boss of a company, the boss of a department, how do you find something, a house behind the hill, an objective that is fun, that makes you want to and is achievable? I like its time limit. I like the challenge. You see it there. We'll talk about fully investing oneself in it and what that means beyond words. To give time, and not just time. So many of you do IT and many in an agile world. We see a lot of retros, we'll come back to the retros, and besides the time, how we give the method so that it works. We will go towards limiting beliefs and finally our ability to highlight actions.
[00:11:36] To provoke desire, I want to talk to you about Jean-François Obrist. I'm sure some of you know him.
[00:11:43] And so Jean-François Aubrist, he has a shared dream with his collaborators. So we remember, it's a small company in Ville in the Somme. It's a foundry. Its competitors are mostly abroad.
[00:12:01] And so necessarily, naturally, the labor here in France is more expensive and there are strong reasons, well, strong probabilities that each time he meets one of his clients, he will be more expensive. So his shared dream is to keep the jobs where they are. In Alaincourt, exactly. And so to keep the jobs, in fact, he has no choice. He must be zero defect on deadlines, zero defect on quality, zero defect on costs, the cheapest possible, despite this more expensive labor.
[00:12:38] His means of defense, his means of counterattack, is permanent progress.
[00:12:46] And the way he tells it already provokes desire. Necessarily, everyone is integrated. Everyone understands that to keep their job here, they will actually have to be better than the others. You have to be cheaper, keep deadlines, not have quality problems.
[00:13:09] For this dream, to achieve it, he puts in place other challenges.
[00:13:16] A challenge which is a challenge for the workers, who choose the best action of the month.
[00:13:26] And it's them who meet, a committee, and who choose the best action of the month. The one who has the best action of the month, he sees his name displayed with a nice diploma, and he gets a gross bonus of 1000 euros.
[00:13:40] There is a second committee that is set up annually this time. And so the one who wins the best action of the year.
[00:13:50] He wins a car.
[00:13:54] And he doesn't just win a car, he wins, in fact, on the parking lot, the only reserved spot, the only reserved spot for parking and for the one who will come with his winning car, and just, in fact, next to the company, for a year.
[00:14:11] Well yes, in fact, when you count 12,000, 1000 euros x 12, plus a car, let's say 20,000. Well, we're over 30,000. But given the number of improvement actions he gets per year.
[00:14:24] We are around 60 euros of investment per improvement action. That means, in fact, if you count well, more than 500 improvements per year.
[00:14:37] Fully investing oneself in the approach, we will see some examples, I'll go quickly. I'm going to tell you Valérie's story. We are in a logistics warehouse and so, uh, so I'm lucky enough to be quality director of this company at the time. I've just arrived, uh, and uh I meet Valérie and she tells me, she introduces herself. She tells me that she's a preparer in the frozen section in this warehouse north of Paris.
[00:15:07] And in fact, Valérie, with a smile, she tells me that she doesn't need to go to the gym, thanks to her job. And she tells me that well, and she tells me that with a smile. I can easily stop there and say, "Bravo!" Plus, she's been there since the beginning, 13 years. Uh, so I can congratulate her on her investment and leave it at that. That's not what I'm doing. In fact, I have the reflex to suggest to her to put a pedometer. And so Valérie accepts to put a pedometer, and in fact, finally, we don't need many days. After three or four days, we realize that her average kilometers per day is between 15 and 16. So effectively, in fact, we review the situation with Valérie and so 15 and 16, that's a lot. We agree. So we went from a sentence said like that with a smile to, in fact, 15 or 16 kilometers per day. So we have a second step together, which is to say, Valérie, will you allow me to come and observe your work, to come next to you so that I understand why you do 15 or 16 kilometers per day? And so I've put two photos here, so you see, in fact, well, a photo and a drawing. So on the photo, you see, in fact, that it's about doors that we open and we come to take the product that the clients wanted. We have addresses and we come to pick the product.
[00:16:38] And so I've put the plan for you, so the total is 30 meters, you have the cupboards on each side, and in fact the red dots correspond to the location of the 30 best sales.
[00:16:52] So we learn something else with that. We learn that most of the best sales, so 73% of the best sales, are further than the optimal zone. That is, in fact, the zone around its preparation area. 73%.
[00:17:08] What we also learn, and that, in fact, we didn't have with the pedometer, is that most of the products that sell well are at the bottom. So in addition, Valérie, she does exercises, she does this exercise in fact every time she has to take a product. Well, not every time, but very often. So very quickly, so we understood why, we re-implement with Valérie, no need to take a long time to bring the best products forward. So simply frozen, it's three ranges per year. The summer range, the Christmas range, and the rest of the year's range. That means three re-implementations with this problem. We do that, we put the pedometer back on Valérie, and we went from 15 to 10.
[00:17:53] It's still 10, it's a lot, but it's already a third less. If we look, in fact, compared to her walking speed, since everything is based on speed, in fact, for Valérie, 6 km less means that we have given her back 45 to 50 minutes of time per day instead of moving, doing something else. A little comfort for her, a little continuous improvement, and we involved her even more.
[00:18:25] Another story, still about a logistics warehouse. IT will come later, I promise.
[00:18:31] It's Philippe's story.
[00:18:34] So here we are on the same warehouse and we are on the part of consumer products, that is, ambient temperature, groceries, drinks, laundry detergent, perfume, etc. And so very quickly, as it's a building with sheet metal, very quickly, as soon as there's a ray of sunshine, it's relatively good, not to say hot. 25 degrees, 30 regularly. And so he is allowed to work in Bermuda shorts or in shorts when you have safety shoes. And so Philippe complains one morning at the brief about the preparation trolley that you have there in photo, which is worth 1000 euros. The preparation trolley that hurts the shin.
[00:19:22] Similarly, in fact, it's easy when you're a manager to tell him, "You know what, put on pants, you won't have a sore shin anymore." That's a possible answer, we agree. the perfume, etc. And so very quickly, as it is a building with sheet metal, very quickly, as soon as there is a ray of sunshine, it is relatively good, not to say hot, 25 degrees, 30 regularly. And so it is allowed to work in Bermuda or to work in shorts when you have safety shoes. And so Philippe complains one morning at the briefing about the preparation trolley, which you see there in the photo, which is worth 1,000 euros. The preparation trolley that hurts the shins. Same thing. In fact, it's easy when you're a manager to tell him, "You know what? Put on pants, you'll have less shin pain already." That can be found as an answer, we agree. His manager, Cédric, absolutely does not have that presence of mind. On the contrary, Cédric goes to Philippe and proposes to him, "Do you want to take care of the problem?" And do you want to take care of the problem knowing that I challenge you, I propose you to do it without changing the trolley, because we don't have the money to put back 1000 euros times about thirty trolleys. Two days pass, only two days.
[00:20:10] And Philippe comes back with a piece of insulation and scotch tape. And he puts that on the trolley and helps Cédric, they do it together. And he takes his trolley and he continues to work the day. The next day, the first trolley that left is this one, out of the thirty preparers who are there in the morning. It's the check. That means it works.
[00:20:35] So, obviously, Philippe and Cédric do that for all the trolleys and we no longer have shin pain. And so, I'm telling you this story because sometimes things that are tiny, very small things, well, actually, it can be very nice and it shows how attentive we are.
[00:20:56] to what we can improve and to his team.
[00:21:00] IT, I promised you. It's coming, it's now. There won't be two of them.
[00:21:05] So. We are here in a large group. uh a dev team that receives from all the BUs' accountants, and therefore through POs or business referents, who receive requests following the implementation of an ERP.
[00:21:29] So there are implementations in progress, there are implementations that are already there, so there are evolutions and there are things to evolve for the new business units.
[00:21:41] In the backlog, there are still 60 dev requests. And then, in fact, when we put in place visual management, when we want to make things visual, there are 88 in test for the business referents or for the product owners.
[00:22:00] So inevitably, the manager is at the end of his rope, he really can't take it anymore, he told us that. He tried to make his business referents, his CPOs understand how much he needed them. It wasn't enough to come with requests, it was also important to come and test so that we could release things. And despite the explanation, for the POs and business referents, they have so much going on, they live with it, they optimize locally, without worrying about what they can do globally. So.
[00:22:33] The coach, the coach who is there, who is with me, proposes a crazy thing to the manager: he proposes that the dev team stops working as long as. we haven't lowered this level of 88, blocked in test, to at least 25. And why 25? To put a number on it. That's it, just to say, to make a statement and to actually go much lower than what it is today. The next two days are terrible.
[00:23:06] People come to complain, the managers, around, the PO managers, the business referents come to complain a lot, the POs too, the business referents too. In short, we hold on and especially the manager holds on. Ultra cool. So after two or three days, once this effort to hold on, to stay the course, has passed. The level drops.
[00:23:29] And the level really drops. So the following week, the dev team, even though it stopped working, that is to say developing, it still accompanied the tests. It has never produced as much as the following week. And also as the week after. At the end of two weeks, the dev team resumes work because it still has things to do in the backlog.
[00:23:53] And we have three or four weeks later, another alert. You just have to pull the alarm saying, "Attention! The dev team could stop working and the level drops." We managed, thanks to this manager, to this coach who proposed this, but especially thanks to the manager who held on despite the storm, to make sure that we switch to optimizing locally, to looking globally at the flow, the process.
[00:24:22] The production of the dev team from that moment has been multiplied by two.
[00:24:35] Give time, that's already the base.
[00:24:38] Many times, outside of IT, in IT, it's okay to give time, it's called retrospectives. But there are many other places where we don't necessarily give time.
[00:24:49] On the other hand, most of the time, I also coach in IT and when I go to retros to try to understand, I'm always surprised. So in fact for the company, we agree, it's an effort. It's 3 hours, it's 4 hours, in fact every two weeks, every three weeks depending on the duration of the sprint. It's a real effort. So we have the effort and so next to that, we must have the value. We agree. And so the value is to know how to solve problems. What surprises me, however, is that there are many things that surprise me with this retro. It means that in the meantime, if we have a retro every two weeks or every three weeks, in the meantime we will build up a stock of problems.
[00:25:31] And hoping that at the time of the retro, we will have problems to solve.
[00:25:37] And there I'm a bit dry. And so I'm a bit dry because what I generally see is that it lacks a bit of method. So we have pretty terminals, like the one in the previous slide, we have a lot of good stuff, Star Wars, whatever, it's very nice. But actually, fundamentally, generally, I'm missing things. So here it's about a 5-column table, it's super less sexy.
[00:26:02] But at least it works. And to see that it works, you have a small counter on the photo at the top on the left. And so, which says, in fact, the number of problems solved and on the number of known problems to be solved, and then the rest, in fact, the difference, you have it in line and written and with the status that shows where we are in the PDCA, between the plan, the do, the check, etc.
[00:26:29] This is a DSI for hospitals, it was last week, the photo, for hospitals, nursing homes. They are about thirty. But that's what we managed to do. So they're not agile, so they're more in Kanban mode. So, uh, so when they see a problem, they don't store it, even if they have an obedient weekly meeting to look at these problems and try to solve them.
[00:26:57] So, you're going to see, it says 10.
[00:27:02] The number of times I've been confronted with beliefs that limit. We talked about statu quo earlier, the person before me on stage. And in fact, you're going to see, it's incredible. I'm going to tell you a first story.
[00:27:20] I am in a bank, the team I accompany is called RMF, which stands for Return to Better Fortune. Its raison d'être is to see if customers who have not paid their debts for two years, who have great financial difficulties, have therefore had a return to better fortune and can now pay their debts and get out of the Banque de France file. That means in fact for these customers, finding the possibility of having a bank card, a checkbook, of taking out a loan if necessary.
[00:27:56] But provided they know how to do that. That afternoon, so there are 12 girls, and their manager is next to them. And so a robot sends them calls when they are available, and most of the time, as we are a Thursday afternoon, early afternoon, most clients do not answer. When clients don't answer, they leave a message saying who they are, why, in fact, the purpose of their call, in an evasive way, and asking to call back the phone number that is displayed. And after two hours, not a single client has called back. And so I ask for a break. So I stand up, I address the group, so the robot stops. And I tell them, I'm so surprised that in two hours, not a single client has called you back. I, I can't understand. Explain to me. And so, uh, there's one who's in front of me who tells me, "Bertrand, you still haven't understood our job." Clients don't want to pay, they're hiding.
[00:29:08] Limiting belief.
[00:29:11] And so I propose, surely at that instant, I propose that she calls me.
[00:29:17] to see how it goes. And so she dials the number, my number, and she calls me, I put the ringer on, I put the speaker on. It rings. Very good, perfect. I don't answer and I call back.
[00:29:33] The number you are requesting.
[00:29:41] Unbelievable, right? The very next day, a technician does what needs to be done on the line and it changes everything. It's magic, clients call back.
[00:29:54] Another story.
[00:29:57] Different.
[00:30:00] I come back to the warehouse. The warehouse, when I arrive, I arrive in February, so very quickly, we are in strawberry season, in March, mid-March, April. And in fact, what I receive from clients, I receive complaints about strawberries that are turning black.
[00:30:17] Well, I try to understand.
[00:30:20] why the strawberries turn black. So, in fact, we have three zones in this warehouse, we have the frozen zone, we saw it earlier, the zone of dry products, we saw it earlier with Philippe, and we have, in fact, the positive cold, a whole zone, a large zone with all the fresh products. That is to say, the products that we must keep for the most part at a temperature below 8 degrees, and for some, at a temperature below 2 degrees. The very sensitive products.
[00:30:49] Shellfish, fish, minced meat, etc.
[00:30:54] Anyway, so to answer that, since there's only one warehouse.
[00:31:00] They put the warehouse at 1.5 degrees on average. Products at 6 generally behave well, except for certain quite sensitive products to very cold, even if it's positive, like strawberries. So the impact on strawberries, if you don't eat them fast enough, you leave them on the table for a bit, they turn black. That's the root cause.
[00:31:25] And so once we have that, okay, so it's true for a few other products and it doesn't suit me. And so every day, I ask them the question if they have thought about the solution. So of course, the problem has existed for 13 years, huh. So I arrive with my big horses, with my challenge, actually, they look at me a bit with eyes like that, but anyway. And after two weeks, there's one who comes to see me saying, "Bertrand, I think I have an idea." We're going to put fridges inside the fridge.
[00:31:55] So, I told him, "Go ahead, explain to me." And he tells me, "Listen, we don't have many products below 2 degrees. What I propose is that we put them in small fridges and we set the temperature to 2 degrees in these fridges. And that way we can put the rest of the warehouse at 6 degrees." And on top of that, we'll be less cold. Bingo.
[00:32:17] So I call a rental company and off we go, we rent, we rent fridges, we set them up, we put the products in them, we need five or six, off we go, and we set the temperature of all the fresh products at 6 degrees. What happens is incredible. First, I no longer have clients complaining about strawberries. Well, normally the strawberry season is over. But in any case, next year it will be for the strawberries. But beyond that, when we have, when we work at 1 or 2 degrees, we work with gloves. It's cold. And on portable terminals, we make a lot of mistakes with gloves when it comes to entering the order. Well, in fact, when we work between 6 and 8 degrees, we no longer work with gloves for the most part, almost all of us.
[00:33:04] So we don't make mistakes anymore. We have fewer small boo-boos, the colds and so on, less absenteeism.
[00:33:12] In short, it had been dragging on for 13 years.
[00:33:21] I'm not going to tell you the third story.
[00:33:26] Highlight successful actions. So I told you earlier about Jean-François Obrist. I told you about his ability to give sums of money. I told you about his ability to give a parking space, to put large signs on the wall to say that such and such with their action did this, and this bonus. There are other things than the bonus. Just giving the microphone, giving the possibility of speaking and exchanging to the one who found the action. It's not about rewarding ideas here. That's not what we want. In fact, Kaizen is not about ideas. Of course we need ideas, the story of the fridges, in fact there's an idea before. But after the idea, you have to implement the action. So, how can we reward actions, recognize them?
[00:34:27] And that, in the same way, it's the manager who supports that. Who is aware of it, and because he is aware of it, ensures that these actions are highlighted.
[00:34:41] To summarize the intervention, I'm going to start again and try to synthesize around five principles.
[00:34:56] The first is rather an intention, an understanding of always having the right attitude, the first is that those who produce are those who know, they are also those who are the value of the company, the safe, the treasure. And so, as a manager, as a boss, when I'm going to see employees working, is the look I cast towards them, with the 97% rule, everyone knows the 97% rule? No? Okay. Very often we make rules for the 3%. You know, those who need to be taken back, who don't respect the internal regulations, etcetera, etcetera. And so, uh, except that there are 97% next to them who have this ability to be with you, to try to do their best every day. Well, in my world, in fact, to have this principle number one, it means that. I trust the other person a priori, and when I approach someone, I consider that they are part of the 97%.
[00:36:12] And it immediately goes better.
[00:36:19] In connection with the first principle, the second principle. Inevitably, if I look for a culprit in what I found, it won't work in the long run.
[00:36:34] After a while, people will hide. So after a while, in fact, there's no more question of continuous improvement. If in fact when a problem arises, we fall on it, it's over. It's over. We cut the momentum.
[00:36:51] So the right attitude to have when a problem arises is nice. A problem. My word is, it's great.
[00:37:01] There are companies where, in fact, we open champagne when problems arrive. We can see the problem as an opportunity to do better. The Kaizen mindset is necessarily that one. Necessarily that one, all the time.
[00:37:22] We saw earlier, problems that date back 13 years.
[00:37:29] Incredible things.
[00:37:32] Clients don't want to pay, they hide.
[00:37:37] So I told you two of them, but I could have told you 10, 15. It happens to me a lot of times in a lot of different jobs.
[00:37:51] What I like is around the status quo, it's also looking at the process for what it is. Rather than looking at people who work, look at the gestures, look at the people who work with gestures on a process.
[00:38:10] ask myself the question of why the process is so permissive at that place. Why, even though the person is involved, why do they make mistakes? Because we remember, I trust a priori. So the person in front of me, I start by telling myself that they are involved. I start by telling myself that they try to do their best every day. And yet, there are quality problems. Yet there are delivery time problems. Why? What's going on with this process? That changes the questions a bit. That brings us to point 4. Since people know.
[00:38:53] They don't need advice. why the process is also permissive at that point. Why then, when the person is involved, why does he make mistakes? Since we remember, I trust a priori. So the person in front of me, I start by telling myself that they are involved.
[00:38:31] I start by telling myself that they try their best every day. And yet, there are quality problems. Yet, there are delay problems. Why? What's happening with this process? That changes the questions a bit. That brings us to point 4.
[00:38:49] Since people know.
[00:38:54] They don't need advice.
[00:38:58] If I give them advice when I don't do it myself. It's not me doing it, it's not me producing. Why would I go and advise them? On the other hand, asking questions is great. Asking questions, first of all, makes them think, develops them, challenges them.
[00:39:17] So there are questions that work well. The 'why', in fact, to find the root cause, is really necessary. The 'where' it happens, to start understanding with the process, and then to dig deeper where it happens, these are also good questions. And then, for the May 8th, there are many, May 8th, you know them, May 8th. There are plenty. How could we still do it, how could we do it differently? These are the questions that challenge, that allow us to overcome obstacles of resistance. And to put people, in fact, into a continuous improvement project, into reflection.
[00:40:01] Finally, the fifth and I will put a sentence from Jean-François Zobrist with.
[00:40:12] If we aim, in fact, it's too hard to aim for perfection, it doesn't work. So in general, when we do that, we wait. We are convinced that we don't necessarily have the brilliant idea, in fact, that solves everything, and so we get stuck.
[00:40:31] So the approach is different. I propose a very different approach, which is to say that even 1% improvement right away, that's great.
[00:40:41] And then if the next day I take another percent, that's already 1 + 1. That's great.
[00:40:48] So my preference, it's also Jean-François Zobrist's. It's about preferring concrete actions right away that improve things just a little, rather than big tomorrows that might never come.
[00:41:05] So, thank you in fact for your listening.
[00:41:11] Uh, so, since there's no feedback, I took the opportunity to turn it into an opportunity and leave my contact details, that's cool. Thank you very much to the organizers. Uh, so, if you want to give me feedback, very willingly. If you want to exchange more, very willingly too. And if you want to know more, I am also co-author of a book released in 2022 called Lean Management in Services. Uh, so co-written with a colleague, ex-Toyota.
[00:41:45] Uh, we had a lot of fun writing it. There are lots of stories in it. What we wanted was to make it accessible to the widest possible audience and therefore to illustrate the points each time. There you go, you can find it easily on Amazon or other sites. Thank you very much for listening.
[00:42:17] We're going to move on to the questions.
[00:42:30] Hello. So, thank you very much for your presentation. Which I love because I fight myself with step by step, small step, small step, small step every day. Uh, so, it gave me lots of ideas and uh I'm going to continue. I do have a question, however, regarding a bit the rewards, the fact of setting up, this month, the best, the best action, the best action of the year. Uh, can't that create tensions or rivalries because we are still human beings. And I immediately see, by putting that in place, oh, he got the parking space, even though I've seen it for 10 years. So, my question might be silly, but have you, well, had any feedback on that, I'm interested. There you go, thank you very much.
[00:43:22] So, I animated a, I animated a session a few years ago with Jean-François and I actually asked him that kind of question. Uh, what he told me is first of all, it's not him who chooses, it's not the managers who choose, it's the workers who choose. And it's the first-level leaders with a committee, there's even a bailiff, there are clients. So, as a result, that raises less the question of fairness. In fact, fairness, given that we are on a decision-making committee with people who do the same thing but also with external people. And for example, the one who won the year before, he doesn't have the right to play again. Uh, uh, so it works pretty well. And if it didn't work well, I think the check point is what he gets sustainably, meaning in fact these 5 years of actions and more each year. It stops otherwise, there you go. I, I, we agree, I talked about that but it's not the only way. Huh, the bonus in fact, it's OK, uh it's fine, it's an organization of a reward system, but there are others. The parking spot, it's brilliant. And it's not expensive. The fact of uh honoring on honor boards the people who have carried out continuous improvement actions. To give them the microphone to tell what they did. To give them a bit of recognition in fact.
[00:44:50] That's already very nice.
[00:44:53] I hope I answered the question. Thank you for the question.
[00:45:06] Yes, thank you very much for this presentation. At one point, it's about saying the manager's role is not to advise or choose actions, but rather to allow people to choose actions. With experience, there are still proposals for actions that we know will not succeed. For example, in the case of tests, tests that are never done for the development cycle, we could say, well, we're going to hire a QA team that will only do tests and that way it'll be solved, whereas, well, we know there are many ways in which that doesn't work. How, how do we manage that?
[00:45:46] Yeah. In fact, it's always the question of the framework. In fact, there are two things that are for managers: first, the meaning, the challenge, the why, the house behind the hill, the North Star. And then the question of the framework. So, in fact, in this testing question, we're dealing with a significant gap between uh local optima and what would actually need to be achieved globally for the good of everyone and for the good of users. So we are within a framework. So we're no longer in 'how we do it', we're focused on recalling the framework, recalling the 'why' and what we're trying to achieve in terms of the house behind the hill. And so that, in fact, is typically the manager's role. So every time we're on the framework, on the vision, it's for the manager. When we're really in the 'how to do it', 'how do we develop'. It's not for the manager. Uh, however, going to see when there's a problem and going to look, to observe, and to ask questions afterwards, that's the manager's role.
[00:46:51] In that warehouse, uh when uh we observe and we see in fact some issues, in fact the most important thing when we have observed, is to debrief on what we have just observed, to discuss it. The previous person with me, in fact, was talking about their target and saying in fact to what extent it was above all a subject of discussion. In the same way, in fact, an observation, an exchange, as soon as something has been made visual, in fact it serves for discussion. And the discussion is questions, it's answers and other questions, other answers, sometimes reminding of the framework, sometimes reminding of the vision.
[00:47:32] There you go, okay? OK.
[00:47:35] Yes.
[00:47:52] Yes, hello, thank you. Thank you for these nice stories. Uh, I have a question, in the IT world, uh quite a few difficulties, do teams reveal their problems? And I wanted to know if you had any initiatives beyond Gemba observations or anything like that to help them consistently formalize and reveal their problems.
[00:48:16] So, when many times, especially when I go into IT, watching someone code doesn't teach me much, you know, I can't read what's being done. So I, I don't know how to do it.
[00:48:30] Uh, on the other hand, so, there are many times when I don't know how to do it. What I do know how to do is ask questions when I don't understand, by asking people to work naturally. And what we see, in fact, what I see, even if I don't know how to read code and so on, I see in fact waiting times, I see in fact questioning times, inertia times where nothing happens. Uh, I see requests for help, where I do a video call with someone who knows better than me and so on. I see that. So I see some lack of standards. Uh, I, I see in fact people who are more qualified than others.
[00:49:09] Uh, and I ask myself the question of how we keep them busy, how in fact we make them a bit more versatile, how we develop the skills. That's what I see and in fact it stops there. When I'm a bit dry uh on improvement actions because I'm not from the profession. And it happens to me many times, I'm currently accompanying loggers. Wow! Uh so likewise, I am in fact, sometimes in fact, in the same way, I am also dry. And so what works well, you have a great thing in IT, you have what's called pair programming. We can in fact, as it's customary, it's in the culture. We can use that by accompanying people in observation. To actually have a phase where once you work and I observe you, with the framework we set before and the training to know what we're looking for with an objective. And then in fact we move on to the next one. And then we exchange about it and it's conducive to discussion and it actually reveals things. When we are in that context, well, there are many professions beyond IT where if we behave badly when we are a manager, meaning simply if we don't put. Completely trust the other person, we don't have the problems. Another point. If in fact the problems that are received, it doesn't serve for them to be solved, not for me to solve them. If in fact the team solves them, it's done, it doesn't come up again. So in fact, there are many conditions. What attitude do I have, what behavior do I have. What am I already capable of doing myself? Uh, if I'm stuck, how do I actually look for a bit more. But above all, my framework is to ensure that, uh, since problems arise, problems are solved.
[00:51:03] Okay? OK, thank you.
[00:51:16] Hello, thank you for the presentation. That reminds me of a book I read a few years ago called 'Absurd Decisions' by Christian Morel. And listening to all that and the illustration of the trolley, I wonder about the decision-making model, in fact. What it inspires in me is that there are people who ordered trolleys who are not at all the people who work with the trolleys. And the question I would have is uh through this Kaizen process which somewhere, from my understanding and my perception of what you've described, aims in fact to correct absurd decision problems at some point, maybe, sometimes. Does it, at some point, also lead to reviewing the decision-making model in these companies to prevent new problems from emerging, in fact, rather than constantly trying to correct them. Which can perhaps also have the somewhat endless Sisyphus syndrome and which can be, for some, perhaps a bit frustrating or paralyzing.
[00:52:10] In fact, in the case of the trolleys, but thank you for the question. Uh in the case of the trolleys, if ever we need to reorder trolleys, we know that a bar uh therefore placed right there, in fact this support bar, reinforcement for trolleys that carry weight. on the trolleys sometimes, we have more than 150 kg. Uh so that's also why there's this bar. Where do we place this reinforcement bar? Uh so how do we place it a little further, we could ask ourselves that question. Regarding other absurd decisions, in fact, we talked about frozen foods earlier, there was something ultra absurd. Uh and nevertheless. Why not, meaning that we thought of inclining the shelves, telling ourselves we would fill from the back. And so the back, in fact, you imagine large containers, inside which it's between -19 and -26. Uh that's the normal temperature, but so that, especially when it's hot, the ventilated motors run strong and at that moment the perceived temperature, we're not far from -35. And so, what happens is that the employees will not fill inside because in addition you have to press keys on the POS to say what you have filled. So finally, we have in fact the inclined shelves and we fill from the front. So we have 20 minutes to fill so that there is no reheating of the products and we put the rest back in the cold and so on. So absurd decisions, in fact, there are plenty. Uh there are many, in fact, what we do in my case, in fact, when the situations are done, we escalate them for the engineers. If we have to rebuild a warehouse, well, we stop taking these large containers with these shelves like that, thinking that employees will fill at -35 and they will hit buttons at -35. Uh so there you go, from my point of view with my experience, for now, that's where we are. We correct. And in fact, we learn from these corrections so as not to reproduce them. I am not yet working on the upstream for now, how we do it.
[00:54:35] Uh but in fact, we're thinking about it, we already have tests that we can do before going to production and so on. Because for example, I told you about frozen food, it's a big thing with a big investment. It's like that in the 7 warehouses.
[00:54:49] We could have made one and learned from the first one. To learn, I went to fill at -35 to see what it was like. I lasted 10 minutes.
[00:55:01] There you go, I have no other answer.
[00:55:10] It's great, there are lots of questions, we have some. Hello.
[00:55:12] Hello.
[00:55:14] Uh, thank you for the presentation.
[00:55:18] Uh, have you put things in place or what could you recommend so that Kaizen actually becomes a virtuous cycle? We saw that solutions and problems are escalated by collaborators. Uh by the collaborators.
[00:55:35] So have you put things in place, for example, for the stock, so that problem escalation and solution searching don't become punctual, but rather continuous improvement over time and all the time?
[00:55:52] There, you're talking about the Haiti example, right?
[00:55:55] Well, in IT, we know with Scrum, we have retrospectives, but there are certainly other ways and maybe also in non-IT companies, as you've experienced, have you put things in place so that it can actually live out there?
[00:56:10] In fact, there are lots of things that exist. We'll find all the Lean tools, we'll find Andon, that is to say, the ability, in fact, at the moment we have a problem, to be able to pull a rope, to call someone, in fact, to put a red sticky note on a computer to say I have a problem. Uh so and at that moment to say, in fact, how, because we don't stock problems, how do we deal with it immediately. Uh we'll find in fact the red bin that allows me to, when I have a doubt, when I have a defect at my station and not at the next station, to drop it in there to say in fact, well for now, I doubt, I don't know if I should pass it on to the next, I'll drop it there and then we'll see. Uh so and then the role of the manager or the role of the expert is to be able to discuss with the person who dropped it in this red bin, whether in fact uh it's a defect or not? What is the tolerance level, can it move on to the next step and why? And at that point, I come to another tool called the standard. How, what does the standard say, what does it say about self-control points? How do I know that I'm doing well? And so, do I actually have a reassuring work standard that tells me what the best known practice of the moment is and what I must clearly self-control at that point to actually be sure to pass it to the next stage?
[00:57:33] Finally, I'll stop there, there's another another tool that exists, it's an error-proofing system. There are many places in a process where even the most involved person in the world will potentially make mistakes at that point.
[00:57:49] How do we spot it? And how do we set up an error-proofing system?
[00:58:01] I, there you go, I give examples, uh four with four tools, uh but there are therefore tools that exist and things that exist to uh to solve problems sustainably. While developing everyone, including managers. The last question.
[00:58:32] Uh first of all, thank you for the presentation. Uh, to take an idea that is uh a bit dear to Inox Tag, it's uh it's the Shonen spirit. Basically, this idea, a bit uh a bit strong, grandiloquent, simple to simple to express, becoming the pirate king for example, or climbing Everest. Is that something that works in practice? Can we inspire desire simply with a strong idea? Is it simpler to go look for uh material advantages and so on? That's a bit of the general question.
[00:59:08] And what do you think?
[00:59:11] I think it's not simple, I think it can be both. Uh an idea with an evocative power, that can unite, motivate. Not everyone. And I think it depends on the audience.
[00:59:28] In any case, I was taking the example of Jean-François Zobrist. So, OK, Inox Tag in fact, it's crazy. I was sure I'd come across an Inox Tag fan, at least one. And so thank you for the question. No problem. It's but it's a very good question, the question of the challenge. How do I manage to bring, what pretext, how am I capable, from my marketing boss or service manager side, of sending a punchline that takes everyone in the same direction.
[00:59:59] It's a necessity.
[01:00:02] For me, in my world. In any case, we're thinking about it. With uh so Jean-François Zobrist with let's keep the jobs around Alincourt and so on, that's our dream. When we fight against an honestly cheaper Chinese market.
[01:00:17] In fact, it's OK, in fact, it's uh the punchline is great in the same way too. Uh so lighter uh the IT department in hospitals where you saw the the small 5-column board.
[01:00:29] Uh, their objective is to satisfy users and uh to uh so by and by December this year. We started uh continuous improvement in December last year. And uh so with an average score of 9/10.
[01:00:54] It's actually why it scores points. It already gives meaning to what we do. Knowing that behind the users, there are for example surgeons who need to retrieve patient information uh for uh in for a certain pathology, uh to have it immediately and it's urgent. And without waiting, you need to have the medication information, uh to actually have uh the check of everything the patient has recently experienced according to their condition when they arrive in the operating room. Uh in emergency situations. Well, that, in fact, uh when there's a delay and it takes a few hours, well, it's not OK and it gets grades of 2/10 or 0/10. So in fact, we are on ultra-important things for users who are doctors, surgeons, pharmacists. And so satisfying them at 9/10, well, it's less crazy than Inox Tag but it already takes them there. In any case, it's enough to bring a group of about thirty individuals into a small IT department.
[01:02:03] Thank you.
[01:02:06] Thank you everyone, thank you very much.

Transcript (Translated)