Lead Change at Scale: Inside GE Aerospace’s Lean Cultural Transformation with Phil Wickler

[00:00:00] Phil: It’s kind like when people ask me where do I start on the fundamentals? Well start with where you have a problem based on what you’re being measured on. And then pick a fundamental that you’ve got pretty good certainty that’s gonna give you a sense of whether or not you’re moving in the right direction.

[00:00:17] Katie: Welcome the chain of learning where the links of leadership and learning unite. This is your connection for actionable strategies and practices to empower you to build a people-centered learning culture, get results, and expand your impact so that you and your team can leave a lasting legacy. I’m your host.

[00:00:34] And fellow learning enthusiast, Katie Anderson. Is it possible to lead a real long-term cultural change transformation in a publicly traded company whose shareholders demand results? Now, this is a question that I’m often asked by clients, conference participants, and leaders on my Japan leadership experience.

[00:00:54] My answer. Yes, it might be challenging, but it can be done. And GE Aerospace led by former GE Chairman and now CEO, Larry Culp and his team, including Chief Transformation Officer Phil Wickler, is showing how. I invited Phil to chain of learning for a deep dive exploration of the lean transformation that he and Larry are leading GE Aerospace.

[00:01:17] Phil and I met nearly two years ago at the Lean Mindset event that Larry Cole posted, and he, as well as several other GE Transformation leaders were featured in episode six of Chain of Learning Behind the Lean Mindset Event, and I was excited to have him here again to share the progress and lessons he’s learned along the way over the last two years.

[00:01:37] Phil has the enviable position of most lean and operational excellence change leaders of having a seat at the C-suite table of a global publicly traded company As a senior executive and working with the CEO, who’s leading the way before we got started exploring the transformation at GE Aerospace, I wanted to take a step back and understand how he got to be where he is today as Chief Transformation Officer.

[00:02:01] Let’s dive in.

[00:02:03] Phil: My whole career has been a geeky, it’ll be 30 years this summer. It’s really broken into two parts. I’ve got about 15 years in operations, but it’s kind of been the first seven and a half in the last seven and a half, frankly. And then in the middle, um, about 15 years in our commercial.

[00:02:20] Product lines, our p and ls, um, where I was a lot closer to the product and the customers. That’s what my careers looked like. And my last role I was running, um, our global supply chain and manufacturing operations. And then right before GE spun into, um, three independent publicly traded companies. Um, before, before the spend Larry approached me, he said, Hey, we really need to start looking at our transformation and, and really what we wanna be post spend.

[00:02:48] We’re spend a lot of time figuring out how to, you know, undo a hundred plus year old company. Um, obviously when somebody like Larry approaches you for that, they’re like, heck yeah, and I get to learn from, from the master. So, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s been a great career and really excited to be in the role.

[00:03:03] Katie: That’s great. I, you know, you and I met back in the fall of 2023, right before the spinoff when Larry hosted the Lean Mindset event, and that was such an exciting, exciting time to really position all of the three different companies for, you know, for their future. And it was great to talk with you and I think that was back on Chain of Learning episode.

[00:03:24] Six. So I’ll go back and I’ll put the link on that. I’m, I’m curious what excites you about Lean and operational excellence as a focus for your career and the work that you do?

[00:03:34] Phil: Well, if I look back at my career and the roles I’ve liked most, it’s been when I’ve been in the middle of change. You know, I, I started at GE in a time when early in my career, it was all about six Sigma.

[00:03:45] And we were rolling out Six Sigma, and it was really, it’s been really, really great to be able to sort of go from there. And, you know, frankly, there was a, a period of time when we really weren’t teaching structured problem solving and continuous improvement. But then since Larry came on board as a GE chairman and out at GE Aerospace to watch us here, what’s really drawn me to it is, um, I’ve worked in a lot of different functions within ge.

[00:04:11] And I’ve just seen some of the inefficiencies within the value stream, um, and how that really affects first our employees, but also our customers. And so just the whole continuous improvement mindset and the way that which, you know, the business system will talk more about. Flight deck, which we call our, our lean business system and, and how it’s being deployed across the whole company.

[00:04:34] Because in my earlier career, early parts of my career, it was more focused on manufacturing operations. And I think the impact that, um, it has on all employees, I. And, and really changing the culture, um, is what has drawn me to it the most.

[00:04:50] Katie: And you’re working for such a huge company. It’s like over 50,000 employees and leading that transformation is, is a giant undertaking.

[00:04:58] What are some of the steps that you’re taking to, you know, lead this culture change along with Larry to take it to the next level to really create a thriving, lean enterprise?

[00:05:07] Phil: You know, first of all, it helps a ton having the tone from the top and we. The benefit of learning through, through Larry’s experiences, but I think as we look at it at scale, we weren’t quick to launch it.

[00:05:21] You know, we, we actually had been working on more of a lean mindset. For, for a few years before we actually officially launched February of last year and branded it Flight Deck. And frankly, I think it was really the right approach because when I look back at some of the earlier continuous improvement efforts, I became a little more of a check the box.

[00:05:42] Like, Hey, I went to the training, I did a couple of projects, and we had a little bit of that still in our culture and we didn’t want that to be. How Flight Deck was, was really. Absorbed from the start. And so, um, this was, this was all Larry, but if I think back to when, um, you first came into corporate, you started to really pull us along and, and a couple of examples I’ll give you is started with, um, our operating reviews and what are the KPIs and okay, it’s gonna be SQDC in that order, um, in terms of priority, safety, quality, delivery, cost, and cash.

[00:06:22] But it can’t be 27 KPIs. We need to be focused and they need to cascade in a way that you’re always connected. So that was, that got, I’d say a little bit of muscle development and then had been working, um, with the Shinga Jitsu corporation to bring in some experts to help us on Kaizen. And it wasn’t so much, frankly, at that point, a well thought out that we’ve learned a lot in terms of how we pick our focused areas.

[00:06:49] But it was really to get. People to understand what it means to go to the shop floor, um, to be able to do good pre-work and be able to really have that power of expectation about being able to make change within the week and have it be significant and that you’re operating, uh, in terms of outcomes and you operate differently on Monday.

[00:07:09] You don’t walk away with. A laundry list of to-dos. So those two things, I think got us a little bit in, in the motion, uh, and on the path. And then, you know, and then last year we, we launched it full bore.

[00:07:23] Katie: What were some of the misunderstandings that leaders had, especially those who’d been working at GE a long time and had, you know, their experience with Six Sigma like you had and and how it was done.

[00:07:33] More check the box style when Larry came in with this different approach. And how have you helped counteract some of these in addition to the Hoshin work that you’ve been doing in the Kaizen?

[00:07:43] Phil: Listen, it’s a great company. I’ve worked my whole career. My dad worked there. My wife works at ge, but we’re really an engineering product management focused company historically.

[00:07:52] There was always respect for where, where parts were manufactured, but there wasn’t. I would say a wholesale sort of DNA in the company for really going to where the work’s done and where the value’s added. And so one of the things that I think’s been really good, but it was a barrier initially, is you, we have full fundamentals.

[00:08:12] We’ll probably talk about in behaviors, but that the key behavior obviously in any lean transformation is respect for people. And I think getting people comfortable with going to where the work is done and being humble enough to see and listen and not, you know, pontificate about what you think’s going on.

[00:08:31] I think that was a barrier for us. You know, we’ve, we’ve got a lot of very experienced people that have been through different roles and may have seen things through, well, when I was here 10 years ago. So that, that humility, that respect for people and that orientation towards where the value’s added. I would say one of the bigger roadblocks we had to get through, and then a second is that this isn’t, you know, again, a check the box.

[00:08:52] This isn’t go to a class, work, a project, you know, this is building capability every day, and have those actions tie to behaviors that end up with culture. I. That’s really a continuous improvement culture.

[00:09:04] Katie: I remember when we talked back in 2023 and you mentioned that getting the leaders out to go see and go to gemba was the big, big thing that you were working on.

[00:09:13] How have you helped leaders really, I guess, go to gemba with that humility? Because that’s a really hard thing. That’s a big shift to make, right? I’m the leader who needs the answers, expected to have the answers, and then first getting out to go see, but then going to see with that right level of humility, asking the questions, it,

[00:09:28] Phil: it’s not a.

[00:09:29] Uh, one, one thing, it’s, you know, we’ve tried a couple of different things, but we, we’ve had, we have some great coaches here that have come from the outside and some that have grown up in the inside. And one of the things we do, for example, at the end of an operating review, we really reflect on what went well, what didn’t go well.

[00:09:45] And, you know, we, we try not to overindex and be overly quantitative, but, you know, there’s aspects about, for example, problem solving where we’ll look.

[00:09:59] Problem solving. And as we went through the problem and some of the evidence was it based on gemba evidence? Right? So, so really those cues within our operating cadences that really forced us to stay. Yeah. And then what was the gemba evidence that was sort of underpinning that? Who was at the Gemba?

[00:10:19] Right. I think that, and then the second thing I’d say. Obviously daily management, um, is really important and it’s any part of a lean operating system. It’s important for us. We really, really have driven home the point that if it’s not cross-functional, it’s probably not effective. You know, if somebody’s, the thing I always say is if I go and gemba daily management, typically I’ll go to the shop and I’ll, I’ll observe the multiple levels of daily management.

[00:10:46] I won’t jump in, but how, one thing I can always see is if. Somebody is taking an action on behalf of another function. It means that, um, either A, you didn’t invite them, or B, there’s something culturally going on there where you don’t have, um, folks at the point of impact in a way that supports the team.

[00:11:07] You know, the other thing is we, we did early on and still do, um, we have requirements number of.

[00:11:15] The learning, we try to do like a lot of companies, various experiential, so we’ll go send group of employees to, to learn, but see at kind of our gold star sites. So we have a group, um, this week and one of our Italy sites to, to re, to really be able to bridge the. Some classroom, but with what good looks like, and then they can start to see and interrogate how that cultural change happened.

[00:11:39] Katie: Yeah, that’s great. I mean, going to see is so powerful. And also they don’t have to be so far ahead, but what does better look like? Right. And so, oh, spark some ideas of that. You know, I, I love that. There’s so much focus on kaizen and continuous improvement and those, the one week events can be so much accelerators of, you know, of improvement, of learning and of energy.

[00:11:59] You know, you mentioned that one of your goals is, you know, making sure that, you know, there’s not like a laundry list at the end of the week. You know, that’s what I think one of the challenges that, you know, Jim Womack and I talked about of why like, lean has failed in many companies. ’cause it was just a focus on Kaizen and Kaizen events.

[00:12:14] How are you ensuring that, like, that’s not what’s happening here.

[00:12:18] Phil: That’s a great question. First of all, we have like, you would expect some pretty rigorous standard work that ties to the Kaizens. If I really reflected back, I think the first event we had was, um, in our Boston limb, Massachusetts facility outside of Boston, October, 2019.

[00:12:36] And if I look at the. The groups, the projects we were focused on, they were more point solutions, but they weren’t ever tied to a value stream analysis to really understand the impact. And so that’s one of the things we do is we spend a lot of time on pre-work. The second thing we do is make sure during that pre-work that it, it ties to something that’s impactful to the value stream that ties to the customer, of course.

[00:13:00] And then the third thing is the sustainment. Gemba blocks. I just was at a local facility here, um, or repair facility and was a part of their 30 day sustainment blocks. And I think it’s important as leaders running the central group, I wanna make sure that our standard work is good enough based on what, what the teams are seeing.

[00:13:17] But at the same time, I get to see how they’re sustainment. And 30 days is you get a real, pretty good indication how many actions, um, float over. You know, you can’t have every event be, you know, a sensei led event from a Japanese company. And so, you know, the other thing we’re doing is really trying to get reps with our own kaizens and, and making sure that we’re getting, you know, the same outcomes relative.

[00:13:43] Fast start on Monday with a new process, but it, it’s the sustainment, walks and the pre-work had been key for us.

[00:13:49] Katie: Yeah. Really making sure that it wasn’t just this great, great week and that we’re going back to business as usual. Yeah.

[00:13:54] Phil: And I tell you, and, and we’re not perfect, right. I would say we typically, you know, we’ll have six teams, um, and a, and a, a big site.

[00:14:02] Kaizen and I would say four of the six probably we’re at, we’re at that point now where four of the six are sort of meeting that standard, but we’re far from perfect, so we’re continuing to improve.

[00:14:13] Katie: That’s good to hear. I mean, no one, no one is perfect, right? So it’s about getting better and how are you learning from it?

[00:14:18] And it sounds like from what you talked about too, that you are having that reflection of, you know, what is. Going. Right. And what is maybe opportunities for continuous improvement, Yvonne? How you deliver those events in the follow up.

[00:14:30] Phil: You know, the, the reflection is so important. One thing, again, in, in our culture anyway, we think because we’re following the process, we’re making progress.

[00:14:39] Larry came up with this chart that we teach in all of our flight deck material. It’s a simple bell curve, and on the left side it’s process and the right side is impact because. The culture I grew up in, we were very focused on process. Did we use, you know, the right Inova analysis? Do we use D-M-A-I-C in that order in the Six Sigma world?

[00:15:00] Um, but you could be on the other side where you’re not using process, you’re just going for results, and it’s typically not sustainable. So we’re spending a lot of time on Yeah. How to make sure we’re getting both so that you’re, you’re less reliant on sort of like this extra effort one time. And, um, it’s, it’s still a journey for us, but that’s been a pretty powerful lesson.

[00:15:21] That simple chart just says so much and you’re not perfectly gonna be in the middle, but geez, if you’re one side to the other. Or the other, you, you really got some work to do.

[00:15:30] Katie: It’s trying to make that connection, right? So how are we getting the outcome we need? But looking at the process to get there.

[00:15:36] And Mr. Yoshino, as you know from my, my book, learning to Lead, leading to Learning, he said that was one of the key differentiators of Toyota is of course they want the outcomes. But it’s, if you’re only looking at the outcome and not the process to get there, either good or bad, you’re, you’re not actually gonna gonna know if you can repeat the process or learn from it to, uh, to make changes.

[00:15:55] Phil: To stay on that for one second. Um, so we’re obviously, we spend a lot of time on how to, how to coach. One thing we find too is. We, uh, can have a number of people that are very comfortable with coaching and kinda saying maybe what’s wrong or what you should try next, but absent of the requirement of outcomes, you can lose a lot of time and you can frankly frustrate.

[00:16:16] And so, um, that, that balance, we call the balance point chart has been really impactful for us.

[00:16:21] Katie: Going, going back to a comment you made earlier, and this, you know, is tied to outcomes and results, you know, and how to help, like, especially the executive team and maybe that, that one layer down move from having 27 KPIs or goals under each of those categories.

[00:16:37] I mean, the, how have you helped, or you and Larry helped. To the executive team, get really focused and narrow on the vital few, because I see this across organizations when they’re starting a hoshin kanru process or a lean transformation. You know, they’re trying to do everything and measure everything.

[00:16:52] So what has been helpful for you in getting that list down?

[00:16:56] Phil: First of all, you can’t have freedom within a framework because you’ll get the freedom. You won’t get. Anywhere in the lines of the, of the framework for us, if we talk level one or the, the top of the house, we tried to keep it under 15 and that was a little bit arbitrary, but across SQDC across 15, but also we wanted to make it clear that we would be reflecting, um, especially as we get into the fourth quarter on what was working and what wasn’t.

[00:17:24] So of the, the 14 I that we have this year, I think we probably changed five or six. It’s first as a staff, get an agreement, keeping it to a manageable number and, and making sure people understand that it’s the most expensive real estate in the company. ’cause you have to manage the KPIs. You have to have an action plan.

[00:17:44] You have to problem solve if they go red, right? It’s very expensive. Real estate. So that’s sort of the, the why behind how we, how we get people in that mindset. Um. But then we’ve had to, uh, unfortunately police it a lot to make sure that it’s actually tying as it cascades, because, you know, just in our culture, we, we would, well, we like to do it a little different here, and we, and, and what you find is.

[00:18:09] It may, it’s not helping the value stream typically, right? It’s, it’s showing that part of the business may be in a better light than the customer would see it. So not a lot of freedom type framework. Less is more, but the commitment that the solid owner for each, you have to manage it and you’re gonna be in weekly and monthly opera reviews.

[00:18:29] And so if you have 27, that’s gonna be super painful.

[00:18:31] Katie: Yeah, totally. I remember, uh, one of the organizations I worked, the last organization I was internal at to help the leaders see this, uh, at the executive level and the one down, we put all the initiatives and all the KPIs visually on the, on the wall. I mean, there were hundreds and it was, it was, it was so clear that there’s no way it’s impossible to manage that.

[00:18:51] And if we’re trying to do everything, we’re not gonna do anything at all.

[00:18:54] Phil: You’re so right, because the temptation is. Some people like wanna make sure that what they’re working on specifically is on that list.

[00:19:02] Katie: Hmm.

[00:19:02] Phil: And, and that’s something that we’ve, we’ve tried to help in the communication too. Yeah. What you’re working should tie to it.

[00:19:10] But just because you’re, you know, maybe you’re working on cycle time of this DT project implementation, it doesn’t mean that you’re not working and managing that. But you might, you’re not gonna see it probably at level one. And ’cause we are one that, I remember the first time we did Hoshi Connery several years ago, um, before we got coaching from, from Larry.

[00:19:32] I think we had 14 items in our north box of cap, new capabilities we wanted to build. And it’s because everybody’s like, well, I’m working on this new technology that’s gotta be there. Of course we had no idea what it meant to actually own a North Box priority in horse encount. Once you do, you’re like, oh yeah, because this year we have three, right?

[00:19:49] For the whole company.

[00:19:50] Katie: That’s nice work. Good, good improvement on, on that. I’m really excited to see, you know, how that helps also enable you and the organization to achieve those goals. I wanna go back to the career shifts that you’ve had as well. And you know, a lot of listeners have either play been in roles that are more operational in nature, like you’ve had a plant manager or you know, supply chain.

[00:20:12] And then moving into more of a internal consultancy transformational change leader role. What shifts have you had to make from being an operational leader to a transformational change leader?

[00:20:24] Phil: It, it is a change and fortunately, I, I do have some other things tied in my role, like our own environmental health and safety and our global facilities, and so I own a couple of the KPIs directly, but, but it is different because I, I’ve always been in functions or p and ls and one of the things I didn’t wanna do is have a big central org that was viewed as a function of p and ls is not adding the value.

[00:20:49] We should. And so the, the way that I’ve went about it and my teams went about it, is we actually have a pretty small group of central folks and they have decentralized the flight deck. Team, team, you know, I have activation, learning and content side of the team that’s really working on making sure that we really have a clear way to articulate, teach, and give experiences around our eight fundamentals of flight deck.

[00:21:14] And then the other side, we have very small group of former operational leaders that have run big sites, that have transformed sites that we can deploy into high impact areas that jointly own operational outcomes with the operational leader. But they need to leave behind the flight deck culture. But how I, how I make sure we’re in sync with the decentralized team.

[00:21:35] I have, um, what we call steerco of those operational leaders and the decentralized flight deck folks that I use to really understand where, where’s the excellence happening? Where are the gaps in what we’re teaching? Where’s the gaps in the material? And so it’s, it’s more of a, a way to stay synced. And, because the last thing I want is, you know, 50 people in the central group and, and like I said, the, the decentralized folks saying, what are they doing?

[00:22:00] At headquarters so that that’s how we structure it.

[00:22:04] Katie: What’s the role of, you know, I guess both the centralized team that you have and then in terms of like leading transformational, like change work and then the decentralized team as well?

[00:22:16] Phil: Yeah, so the decentralized team very much aligns. So if I think about like our global operations team, there’s, you know, flight deck leader that’s paired.

[00:22:24] Directly with, and typically reports to that operational leader. And they have folks that are at the sites and they’re for those sites driving, you know, the, the transformation. Uh, my team is really developing the content around flight deck. We’re working closely with our learning development team. We are developing the training.

[00:22:44] So for example, I mentioned the, um, Italy training. I had been there and seen what they had done with three or four of the fundamentals from their value stream management to what they’re doing with Pole and now going to, to single piece flow. And so how do I create those? Curated learning opportunities to then be able to bring other folks through in a structured way so they could walk away with, wow, this is how I could do it in my site.

[00:23:11] And then making sure that from a talent perspective and a consistency of how we’re applying flight deck, that it’s consistent across So. That, that’s kind of the role. Mike, we, we do a lot of the, a lot of teaching, but in terms of, you know, who’s rolling up their sleeves on the transformational roadmap for, you know, one of our groups of plants, it’s the decentralized team.

[00:23:32] Katie: Yeah. And it sounds like they’re working in partnership with the operational executives leaders.

[00:23:36] Phil: Yeah, and that’s why I just spent almost an hour with, um, individual that leads our global overhaul shops. You know, he said, Hey, I’ve got some ideas on how I think about talking about. Flight deck as a system in a way that could resonate more.

[00:23:51] And I wanted to get his input on the way we’re looking at flight, how to assess flight deck capability of the talent. And so. He’s on steerco, he is one of my Steerco members. And, and so we, we sync up formally on topics, but also it’s now, it’s created some really close ties so that we use it as each other, as a, as sounding boards.

[00:24:13] But we have a formal process where, you know, frankly the decentralized team, the way we talk about it on, on some of our fundamentals, like problem solving, we wanna make sure that they have the pen, frankly, to. How good is our training? Where are our gaps? Where is it not resonating? And then we’re on like a 12 week, um, improvement cycle to make sure that we’ve got the best that can be offered and we’re seeing the best examples.

[00:24:36] Katie: Yeah. So it sounds like the centralized team is really sort of holding the, the truth of the standard work for what is flight deck, the learning, the development, and then helping support the areas that are closest to the work and really leading that. I loved hearing too that you are partnering with, um, OD and hr, you know, both around training and development, but also sounds like ensuring that like the leadership capabilities that you’re looking for in the organization are aligned with the lean transformation.

[00:25:02] So critical. I’ve seen like some, sometimes it’s like these, all these separate like lean and continuous improvement or operational excellence is doing this and OD is doing this and HR is hiring for this, but it’s not synced up.

[00:25:14] Phil: You’re so Right. And the other team I put in there is our communications team.

[00:25:18] How we’re communicating effectively, efficiently, to the org. But for example, that like HR has been such a great partner, but, um, you know, we have to prioritize how and who we’re gonna deploy some of the training and some of the more unique experiences that we have. And so making sure that that’s very aligned with our org and talent development.

[00:25:37] And the other thing I’ve learned, you know, I feel like, um, still developing in my flight deck capabilities, but I’m not an adult learning expert. And we have people that are, but they’re not flight deck experts. And then so bringing those two together, having the steerco in the middle to say, yeah, like what you’re training.

[00:25:55] Yep. Get it on adult learning, but here’s what’s not happening at the point of impact. And so that sort of intersecting circles has been powerful for us.

[00:26:04] Katie: You’ve mentioned Flight Deck many times here, and I, you’ve told me already what you know in, in previous conversations what Flight Deck is, and you know how you’ve developed it.

[00:26:14] But I, I’m sure listeners would be really interested in hearing what Flight Deck is all about and also, you know, the learn lessons you’ve learned in creating this proprietary lean transformation approach.

[00:26:25] Phil: Yeah, so Flight Deck is our sort of branded lean operating model. We, we talk about it as in terms of it’s our proprietary operating model.

[00:26:34] Now we, the reason we do, it’s less about that we’re doing something unique on five s for problem solving. It’s more about the recognition of, it’s how we apply it within our culture to get results. And that’s why we use the word proprietary. But we started, you know, with eight fundamentals that, uh, that the lean community would expect, right?

[00:26:52] Five s. Daily visual management, value stream management, problem solving, pull flow, et et cetera. You know, you won’t find high junk in there. So we wanna start with what the, some of the foundational elements need to be. We, we expect over time it, it will evolve. But those are the fundamentals. And then we have behaviors.

[00:27:09] So flight deck is fundamentals and behaviors and behaviors. We try to keep simple. It’s um, respect for people, a continuous improvement. Mindset and customer driven. And that’s sort of the foundation of what Flight Deck is. And um, again, like any lean business system, it’s gonna change over time. It changed a little bit from year to one.

[00:27:31] Year two, we used to have 10, um, fundamentals. We had ’em broken up into individual and enterprise. But what we realized, there were a few things in there that were, you looked at, he said, well, how would you actually. Uh, teach customer focus, like what would that content look like? And then that’s how a few of them pulled away and became the behaviors.

[00:27:50] But that’s how it’s evolved in the last year, year and a half.

[00:27:53] Katie: Talking about behaviors too, I mean that’s, you know, obviously you need the process in looking at, at the flow and how you’re creating value for customers, but the behaviors are really what’s going to drive the success of the transformation.

[00:28:05] When I talked to Larry at the a ME conference in 2022, he shared some of the, you know, changes in behavior he’s had to make to be a true lean leader and unlearn everything he was taught in business school, like go to gemba ghost. Ask questions and have that humility. Phil, what are some of those shifts that you’ve had to make for yourself through the course of your career to be a more effective leader in this, in this mindset and with behaviors?

[00:28:30] Phil: You know, one of the biggest ones is the whole spirit of the tri storm. If I think back over my career, typically there’s some strategy or some inclination that we should do this, that, or the other to solve this problem or to develop this capability and we’ll launch off on, you know, this long program plan that we’re super convinced is gonna do what we want it to do.

[00:28:56] And frankly, one of the things that’s been refreshing for me as I’ve learned more. Over my career on continuous improvement and lean mindset is that the whole spirit of you need to react as quickly as possible to non normal. But then as you get into to problem solving, how quickly, based on as much evidence as you can get, can you try something to know whether or not you’re starting to get over the right target to get back to a standard condition.

[00:29:24] And again, I’ve fallen into the trap many times in my career where that spirit of. Go try, go see, um, see how it affects the problem or the gap you’re trying to, to close. Um, has been, uh, I, I haven’t had that. And what you realize is one, you’re. People closest to the work to get ideas, but it’s just such a waste of time.

[00:29:46] You lose so much time. So I’d say that that orientation towards tri storming and then I would say a real thirst for daily management. You, you know, having to run our global supply chain, of course you wanna talk daily and right, but, but that whole idea of winning the day and seeing that. Deviation from standard and then with a cross-functional team that at point problem solving as quickly as possible.

[00:30:19] Oftentimes, you know, we could fall into the trap of, oh, it’s another meeting, or is that really value added? But as you anchor back’s, why the behaviors are so meaningful to me is that’s respect for the team. Right on, on how you can support them. And so that thirst for when in the day, because you know, the more time, you know, in jobs I’ve spent at corporate, you just get used to that meeting after meeting, after meeting, and you miss that orientation again, like we said earlier, where the work’s done.

[00:30:50] So those are two things. For me,

[00:30:52] Katie: uh, thanks for sharing. Uh, we hear so much about like, what’s the ROI on, like a lean transformation and like, oh, okay, are we gonna make the investment? You know? How does Larry, and how do you and the executive team measure the success of Flight Deck and this cultural transformation you’re taking

[00:31:08] Phil: on?

[00:31:09] We’ve had some of those discussions, but it’s, we haven’t gotten too fixated on it. This is just world according to me, how, how I think about it. For me, it’s being able to start to see the cultural change around continuous improvement that shows up through linearity in our operations. Hmm. I grew up in a GE that was very financially focused, where we would go to an opera view and spend over half the time on the financials.

[00:31:39] We just had our monthly operating review with the senior team last week. We spent 90% of the time on the operating KPIs and 10% on financials, if that. So the ROI is really gonna be tied to, you know, our ability to really demonstrate that linearity, but also that continuous improvement that allows us to, in the customer’s eyes and, uh, you know, the eyes of our shareholders that we’re gonna outperform.

[00:32:08] It’s a little bit of our old culture. We used to count projects way back when. It became a little bit of fuzzy, like, where did that really hit the bottom line here? It’s about. Are we making progress, managing the 14 KPIs? Are we taking waste out of the system as evidence, um, through our continuous improvement activities?

[00:32:29] Katie: Uh, that’s, that’s super exciting to hear because I, you know, I talked to so many internal change leaders or operational leaders who are working in organizations who are publicly traded as well, and they feel so tied to this short-term financial reporting that it’s hard for them to get their executives.

[00:32:46] To, to see that the transformation’s not just about that end result, but it’s like creating the capabilities for the other results in the organization and to continuously improve and thrive into the future.

[00:32:57] Phil: And, and that’s why a, as we look at activation and training, bringing folks to the sites that are really transforming and the culture is different.

[00:33:04] You know, I have a, we’re training in Terre Haute, Indiana at our site, and it was, this was like a nine to. Transformation, I mean, safety all time, high quality, uh, results off the charts delivery. They went from sort of way below 50% to way above and then, and then cost 40% improvement on cost, which you don’t see anywhere.

[00:33:29] Right? And, and, and the traditional in some of the places that have that early on hadn’t yet accelerated their adoption. And so part of it too, I think is really showing people what. The art of the possible is. And and you had asked her when we were talking earlier about the Italy site one, one of the problems, um, when you go show people, somebody that’s further along in the transformation is maybe it’s just ge, but it’s like, yeah, but there’s like all these Y butts.

[00:33:56] Yeah, but it’s simpler here. It’s this or it’s that. So one of the things that’s been really important as we’ve done some of that training is really make sure people understand the steps it takes. So, for example, you know, they. In one Kaizen, they had four lines that they went to single piece flow. By the end of the like 70 plus percent lead time, it just.

[00:34:20] When, when I brought 10 of the operational leaders there, I don’t know, a month ago what, what I challenged the Italy team to do is, hey, walk through the standard work of how you got there. And it started with, you gotta start with five s and TPM. Now normal. You’ve gotta be able to understand from a TPM perspective how you’re not gonna get stopped.

[00:34:38] And it went through all the standard work. And then, you know, of course the last part is, yeah. And then you can go to. Move all your equipment and go to single piece flow, but we’ve had to get a little bit of focus to make sure that the Yeah. Buts get quiet pretty quickly because like, no, but here’s a, here’s the standard work you can go through and you’ll see benefit along the way.

[00:34:57] Katie: Yeah. And start with the basics. You can’t like. Make the endpoint change without doing that, those foundational elements as well. You know, I hear that all the time. You know, I just got back from the seventh cohort of my Japan leadership experience, and so often I hear from other people, oh, well that’s just Japan.

[00:35:11] We can’t, you know, we can’t do it here. We’re not a car manufacturer. And I think about, it’s like not all of Japan is being run like a Toyota or these other great companies we’re going to, it’s about the leadership and it’s about, you know, starting with those fundamentals and the basic, and it’s that marrying of process and people together.

[00:35:28] And overcoming the cultural barriers or the challenges you have either in your organization, in your country, you know, from company history, you know, even at like, you know, you mentioned GE having come from more of a Six Sigma background. And so it’s all about getting those basics and focusing on the behaviors.

[00:35:43] Phil: You’re so right. And people and people you have to buy in and frankly, there’s some folks that didn’t buy in. Not everybody’s still on the team. You gotta want it. You gotta want it.

[00:35:53] Katie: It’s so, it’s important. Mr. Yoshino always says, like, when I, when people ask like, what’s the most important thing? And he says, leaders must be serious.

[00:36:01] They, and not serious, like as in boring or stern, but seriously committed to the organizational culture they want and, and making the changes in the behavior for themselves and, and showing up, walking the walk, not just, uh, talking the talk. Phil, when, when is your work as a transformational change leader done?

[00:36:19] Or is it ever done?

[00:36:21] Phil: Yeah. ’cause it’s interesting, early on it was, you were worried about how to separate this long, long time industrial company and then, and we’re obviously early innings on our flight deck, uh, implementation and transformation. Yeah. You’ll ne of course you’re never done. But what I look forward to is when.

[00:36:42] I can look across the majority of our functions, majority of our teams, including a more kind of transactional majority of our shops and, and really a lot of our suppliers and, and be able to have objective evidence of that transformation happening. Like they have the foundational elements like they, they understand are implementing five s, they have visual and daily management and are getting pretty good at problem solving.

[00:37:10] Yeah. Do I want everybody to be great at value stream management and everybody moving towards, um, pull and float? Yes. But when I can see a majority of organizations that have those aspects, then I’m gonna feel like we’re really starting to click on the continuous improvement mindset. And I’ve seen it, you know.

[00:37:30] I would, the numbers have grown a lot through the year, um, especially on transactional. I’ve seen some great transactional work in, in the commercial and defense part of our business, but that’s how I’ll know that we’re, we’re beyond the second, third ending. I. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’re, we’re moving fast.

[00:37:47] Katie: That’s great. And maybe get to that sustainability that will last even some changes in leadership. Right. Ultimately,

[00:37:54] Phil: you just sparked something in my mind. So one of our sites that really made a lot of progress on transformation. I think we had too many coaches there. I. Great people from the outside coached a coaching and they were there.

[00:38:07] The, but when some of those folks.

[00:38:14] But when they step away, it wasn’t in the culture enough. So it didn’t go backwards, but it slowed down in terms of rate of change. If I talk about the sites in Italy, when we talk flight deck, almost nobody with a flight deck title is talking. If those folks left tomorrow, the flight deck leaders are really the, the functional leaders.

[00:38:34] So what the flight tech folks would say, well, what our focus is, we need to be one or two steps ahead of. You know, the ops leaders, so we can coach them to the next step. And I think that’s perfect. But yeah, making sure that that transformation is taken hold in a way that when you pull those expert coaches that it just doesn’t slow down.

[00:38:54] That’s the secret sauce.

[00:38:55] Katie: Yeah, for sure. And that, that’s my experience as well. Like early in my career I was like the person going in doing this great improvement work, partnering with them, but I was really. The one owning it. And when I left, you know, things would not just, I, this was all of my team. So being able to really transfer that knowledge and, and having that.

[00:39:13] Your flight deck team being the one, staying a step ahead, continuing to advance the organization to the next level is, is fabulous. One final question for you, Phil. What advice would you give to other lean or operational excellence, uh, change leaders in how to enhance the positioning of lean and continuous improvement in their organizations, especially when they’re not as fortunate to work, you know, for an organization that has an executive who’s really, truly gets it and is leading the way.

[00:39:40] Phil: Well be careful that it’s not positioned as a program or a thing is key. It’s kind of like when people ask me, where do I start on the fundamentals? Well start with where you have a problem based on what you’re being measured on. And then pick a fundamental that you’ve got pretty good certainty that’s gonna give you a sense of whether or not you’re moving in the right direction.

[00:40:02] So you, you know, if someone, if somebody’s in a company where it’s, it’s being viewed as maybe niche or in this specific area, make sure that you’re finding a way within a scoped, um, area to make a difference on something that matters, but that you can then start to. Bring people there to see it, see the cultural change, and then build from there.

[00:40:26] Um, that’s very much why we, you know, we have kind of these blue star examples that we’re finding every day, because prior in my career would’ve been like, oh wow, they’re doing great. You know, single piece flow here, let’s do it everywhere and gimme your program plan. You’re gonna be there by June. Right?

[00:40:41] So, uh, that, that would be my main advice. People are naturally skeptical, so show ’em where it’s different. For us, some of those early kaizens that were well led, good pre-work, were were good accelerators as well.

[00:40:56] Katie: Yeah, that’s great. I’m so excited to see what GE Aerospace is doing and continuing to do, you know, you’re the, the shining example of a publicly traded company that’s really creating this.

[00:41:09] Transformation and we need more successful examples of lean working, not just in small family owned manufacturing companies, which we need that as well, but really that it is possible, right? It is possible when shareholders are looking at the p and l and wanting return on investment. It’s possible to focus on culture and improvement and behaviors and then get those results that are needed for the long term and the short term,

[00:41:34] Phil: you.

[00:41:35] Katie: Yeah. Thank you so much, Phil. I look forward to continued conversations and, um, I’m excited to see what, uh, you’re learning along the way.

[00:41:42] Phil: Great, Katie. Thanks for the opportunity.

[00:41:45] Katie: There were so many great insights here from Phil about leading transformational change, whether an operational leader, internal lean practitioner, or external consultant.

[00:41:54] One key element that Phil highlighted that has accelerated their transformation at GE Aerospace. As that leaders have shifted the focus of discussing ROI of continuous improvement in kaizen from mainly financial metrics to their impact on organizational KPIs and the behavioral capabilities that are being built within the organization.

[00:42:15] As Phil and I talked about, of course, results are important, but it’s about developing capabilities and the processes that will get you there in the long term. When your leaders see lean as just cost savings, bottom line, episodic projects, your transformation is not set up for success. If you’re in an organization where you’re trying to get started or get your senior leaders on board, reflect on Phil’s advice here.

[00:42:38] Find a problem that is important to solve. Choose something where making a difference there matters to your leaders. Don’t lead with the tools or see it as a project. Use the area as a learning ground to teach the fundamentals from both a behavioral and technical improvement perspective, get results, and then use that as a way to share and grow the chain of learning in your organization.

[00:43:03] If you haven’t already, be sure to check out some of the past podcast episodes that I mentioned here, including episode six Behind The Lean Mindset, featuring Phil and other GE colleagues and leaders who spoke at the event as well as episode three with Carol Dweck, whom I met at the Lean Mindset event, and also go back and listened to episodes 37 and 38 with Jim Womack, where we explored if Lean Has Failed and what we can do about it.

[00:43:26] And if you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my book, learning to Lead, leading to Learn Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a lifetime of continuous learning. Larry Culp read the book several years ago and recommended it to all employees of GE saying, if you’re looking for an approachable way to learn lean.

[00:43:43] I highly recommend Katie’s book, so be sure to check that out. I’ll put links to these episodes in the full show notes for this episode, as well as links to some clips of videos and insights from my fireside chat with Larry Culp back in 2022. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe.

[00:44:01] Now and share this podcast with your friends and colleagues so we can all strengthen our chain of learning together. And if you’re enjoying the show, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast player. Thanks for being a link in my chain of learning today. I’ll see you next time. Have a great day.