Episode Summary Most improvement projects die quietly after the consultant leaves. Adam Lawrence built a framework to stop that from happening. Known across the manufacturing world as the Kaizen Ninja, Adam has facilitated more than 400 Kaizen events, driving over half a billion dollars in business impact. His events average roughly $1.2 million in annual savings apiece, and he runs them in a week or less. In this conversation, Adam walks Justin through how he actually runs a Kaizen week: two hours of level setting, then straight to the Gemba with the people doing the work as his guides. Post-its and Sharpies instead of technical jargon. Rapid experiments instead of perfect plans. He calls the standard "butt ugly by Friday," and the point is speed of learning, not polish. The heart of the episode is sustainability. Adam breaks down the nine elements of his Wheel of Sustainability, the framework behind his book, and then explains why he recently blew up his own assessment and rebuilt it around five observable leadership behaviors instead. His marketing team told him the wheel was too hard to see in the field. He agreed. The two also dig into safety as a lean principle, not a compliance program. Adam shares how Armstrong World Industries drove its global OSHA recordable rate from 4.5 to 0.28, and why he now requires every team member in a Kaizen event to make two personal safety improvements before Friday. If you have ever watched a good improvement quietly disappear six months later, this one is for you. About the Guest Adam Lawrence is the founder of Process Improvement Partners and the author of The Wheel of Sustainability. An industrial engineer by training, he spent nearly 30 years at Armstrong World Industries, starting on the floor at Thomasville Furniture and working across multiple continents to become Global Lean Champion for the Building Products Technology Group. He struck out on his own in 2018 and has since facilitated more than 400 Kaizen events worldwide. His work has been featured in Industry Week, Aerospace America, and Artisan Spirit. He operates out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His core belief is simple. The real solutions to business problems do not come from conference rooms. They come from the people doing the work. Key Takeaways Go see, do not debate. Adam describes a plant manager and his team arguing over the location of a post on an AutoCAD drawing. Five minutes at the Gemba answered it, and revealed the post would have blocked their entire concept. Going to see cuts the time by a factor of ten and shows your people you take them seriously. Butt ugly by Friday beats perfect by never. The goal of a Kaizen week is many rapid learning cycles, not one polished solution. Teams try, fail, learn, and try again. By Friday they have something safer and easier that they own, even if it is not pretty. The team is the people doing the work. Adam uses only two Japanese terms all week, Kaizen and Gemba. Everything else stays plain. Post-its and Sharpies mean anyone can contribute without feeling unqualified. Sustainability is a system, not a follow-up meeting. The Wheel of Sustainability has nine elements: leadership commitment, notification, training and review, visible evidence, all tools available, clear benefits, daily layered audits, accountability, and recognition. All nine get applied to the change during the week itself. Notification is about why, not what. Anyone can see a workstation looks different. What matters is whether the operator can tell you why it changed and what it does for them. Build visible evidence you can read from 30 feet. Outlines, labels, Andon lights, flags. If you cannot tell from a distance whether someone is working to standard, you cannot coach them back to it. Audit with people, not at them. A good layered audit takes three to five minutes, checks three things together, and often surfaces the next improvement. Accountability runs both directions. Coach people back to standard, and thank the people already there. Charter means blanket approval, not marching orders. Leaders define the problem and why solving it matters. They do not hand the team a solution. That distinction is what makes ownership possible. Adam replaced his own framework with observable behaviors. After his marketing team told him the wheel was too abstract, he rebuilt his assessment around five things you can go watch: people become part of the change, leadership at the Gemba, owning the change, earning trust, and growing the improvement culture. Fifteen questions, and each score comes with something you can act on without calling him. Earning trust means nothing waits. Adam needed a label printer mid-event. The maintenance manager dropped what he was doing, found one in another building, and carried it over himself. That is what leadership having your back looks like in practice. Safety is the inarguable principle. Every Kaizen event includes a personal objective: two safety improvements per team member, demonstrated by Friday. It applies to roughly 95 percent of Adam's events regardless of scope or industry. Safety is also the sustainability argument. Ask a sponsor whether they are willing to go back to a less safe way of working. Nobody says yes. That answer is the leverage that keeps the rest of the improvement in place. Lean is not a toolkit. The goal is not 5S or a plan for every part. The goal is an organization that keeps learning, because the environment never stops changing. Batches shift, machines wear, people turn over. Entropy wins if you stop adding energy. Quotable Moments "The real solutions to business problems don't come from conference rooms. They come from the people doing the work." "Butt ugly by Friday. Don't wait for perfection. Try something, see what you learn." "My Gemba tolerance is about five minutes." "I am an acquired taste." "You can't get better if you aren't willing to learn how to get better." "If you can't get safety right, you can't get anything right." "Are you willing to go back to a less safe way of working? Well, what are you going to say? Sure, let's hurt more people." "They said this really needs to be based on observable leadership behaviors. Crap. That actually makes sense." "Stop letting perfect be the enemy of better." (Justin) Topics Covered How Adam structures a Kaizen week, from level setting to Friday implementation Why he limits himself to two Japanese terms and keeps everything else plain The AutoCAD post story and what it teaches about analysis paralysis Virtual Gemba and finding waste in administrative and IT processes The nine elements of the Wheel of Sustainability Why he threw out his original sustainability assessment and rebuilt it The five observable leadership behaviors that predict whether a change sticks Preparing leaders for their role before, during, and after an event Improv sessions on day three as a teaching tool Safety as a lean principle and the Armstrong journey from 4.5 to 0.28 Biggest results: bottleneck eliminations that doubled output, a $1.4 million quality check improvement Why some organizations never get there Resources & Links The Wheel of Sustainability by Adam Lawrence - Click Here Process Improvement Partners: http://www.pi-partners.com Click Here for Adam's sustainability assessment: 15 questions built on observable leadership behaviors Connect with Adam Lawrence on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-t-lawrence/ Connect With Allied Advisors The Allied Advisors Podcast is the podcast for mid-market manufacturers looking to scale operations and improve that ever important bottom line. Website: alliedadvisors.io Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with a friend. It helps us reach more people and support others on their manufacturing journeys.
