Chapter 1: What does Paul Akers believe about technology and AI in business?
The answer to having a great company is not to focus on technology or focus on AI. Those are tools that are accelerants to a well-run company. You still have to have a well-run, well-organized company with well-trained people.
Welcome to the Duane Kerrigan Podcast, and I'm your host, Duane Kerrigan. With 35 years in business and close to 30 ventures across 12 industries, I've seen a lot. Amid the celebrity allure of entrepreneurship, many exceptional entrepreneurs remain shadowed. Here, I team up with these hidden talents to unveil their challenges and successes.
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Chapter 2: How can a company effectively implement Lean principles?
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You only change because you want to change. You only change because this makes sense to you. If it doesn't make sense to you, keep doing it what you're doing. No problem. Don't bother me. Yeah, it's not your time. It's not your time. It's not your time. Go knock yourself out. I don't tie myself in knots.
Chapter 3: What is the 30-minute challenge and how does it change team dynamics?
I don't do anything. I'm only looking for Dwaynes. I'm only looking for people. I didn't come to you. You came to me. I'm only looking for Dwaynes. I only want to talk to the people that get it. Everybody else, keep knocking yourself out. I have no time whatsoever. To convince you of common sense.
Zero. So let's just take that one next level from a coaching standpoint. When we're talking to owners who are like, okay, I love this. I'm bought into it. And I'm going to go to the leader and I'm going to chat with them and we're going to do this together.
Chapter 4: Why is Lean culture considered joyful rather than burdensome?
And we've agreed to do it. I mean, this takes commitment.
Burn the ship commitment. Burn the ship commitment. Like you're not going any other way. This is the direction you're going and you are not turning back.
Yeah.
That's the level of commitment.
What does the coaching need to look like when they run up against people who are like, well, they're kind of in, but they're like, well, I got to say, got to say I'm in because the owner wants to do this. But, oh, this is a lot of work and I'm really busy. In a lot of organizations, it doesn't seem like yours, but you've created this culture over years.
But when you're shifting cultures, so you're going from this culture to a lean culture, it's going to have some growing pains. And so how do you manage those growing pains moving forward?
Three things. Slow growth.
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Chapter 5: How does Paul Akers define the concept of Gemba?
and consistent and self-selection. Slow, consistent, and self-selection. So what that means is you must do it slowly, but you must do it absolutely consistently. That means you always 3S and you never make an excuse. You always have a morning meeting. Everyone's got time for a five or 10 minute morning meeting, period. Everyone's got time to clean up their crap every morning before they work.
everyone has time so slow consistent and self-select self-select the people that don't want to do this will self-select out they will say i can't deal with this and they'll go somewhere else and the message the bumper sticker there is you know you get what you tolerate if there's owners out there who are not willing to have those hard conversations and be committed to this process
They are going to. 100%. 100% in Espanol. 100%. You get what you tolerate. I don't tolerate anything but excellence. Here's a conversation I have with people.
Chapter 6: What strategies does Paul suggest for improving employee problem-solving skills?
People ask me this all the time. One of my most famous talks I give. Bob doesn't want to do lean. Bob doesn't want to make improvements. He doesn't want to make improvement videos. He doesn't want a 3S. He doesn't want to really participate in the morning meeting. So I pull Bob. I don't have an office, Dwayne, so I have to pull him into my conference room because I have no office.
I'm always on the Gemba. I'm always on the shop floor working with people. So I pull them into my conference room and I say, Bob, this is a conversation I have. One of the most important things I'll say in our podcast today. Ready?
Bob, I have determined as the president of this company that the way that we can guarantee your future, my future, you can buy groceries, you can buy a new car, you can plan a vacation.
Chapter 7: How does Paul Akers view the role of AI in enhancing Lean practices?
For your family, maybe put some money away, buy a house and everything. I've concluded unequivocally that the only way that's going to happen for sure is if this company does lean because it's going to create stability in the company. It's going to please our customers. It's going to produce higher quality.
It's going to reduce costs and reduce burden on our people, our customers and our entire system and processes. So in order to do that, we have to train our people every day. We have to do daily 3SC. We have to do morning improvements every day. And we have to make small improvement videos. Now, I understand, Bob, that you may not want to do that.
And you may think Paul Akers is freaking crazy and he's a nutcase and everything. And I get that. And that's totally fine. But I got to explain something to you, Bob. OK, this is the direction we're going.
Chapter 8: What lifestyle changes has Paul made to achieve happiness and health?
This is what everyone's going to do. And if you don't understand what I'm trying to say, I will train you. I will teach you. I will take you to Japan. I will spend any amount of money in the world. I will work shoulder to shoulder with you. I work with you on every process. Whatever problem there is, I'll come to your beck and call.
I'll give you all the resources, spend the money, do anything you want. But I will not cajole you, cuss at you, swear at you, poke you, prod you, or anything else to get you to do this. And if I have to, you're going to get the hell out of here now. Make your decision. What's it going to be? Lean or are you going to go somewhere else? That's the conversation. That simple.
I got to ask this question because I know you do business in California. So, and California is a very strict labor state, just like Canada. So get the nightmare. How do you handle that? What is that? What might that look like?
Give me an example. What's not, what's the handle? You know, they make me put prop 13 stickers on everything, you know, that kind of nonsense. I mean, I have to deal with that. There's nothing I can deal with.
And that conversation, you document it and you have one, two or three conversations and whatever the law is, you follow the letter of the law and then.
We definitely have to comply. But of course, if we have an unreasonable customer, a customer that is asking us to do a reasonable thing, we fire customers. That's a regular thing. That's not a problem with me at all. If we have an idiot customer that is not reasonable or wants us to do something crazy, we say, you know what? We're not the right company for you. You have to find somebody else.
I love it. That goes for vendors too.
Great point. So how does that work? Like what was the most difficult thing with setting up vendors on this? Because you must have, and I'll use this as an example, like you had made a comment when you were talking in your speech, which is you communicate through video. You don't reply to emails. You communicate through videos.
And I remember the next morning going, oh man, we were talking about your speech and I was like, it was so awesome. I'm going to send him a note. And then she's like, you can't send him a note. He doesn't read them. And I don't usually, I don't, you're the only guy that I flicked the video onto, but it's been awesome.
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