Episode 6: Back to Basics: Transformation, Leadership, and Continuous Improvement

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Shingo Podcast, where we follow the real journeys, the wins, the setbacks, and the hard lessons of those who believe excellence isn't a destination, but a way of life. This is the Shingo podcast. Today I'd like to welcome Virginia Cosgrove. Virginia is in a industry that's of particular interest to many of our attendees and clients and Virginia is with Mcgough Construction. We'd like to welcome Virginia, and I'm going to have Virginia tell you a little bit about her background and then we're going to get into our conversation today. Speaker 2 Yeah. So I'm an industrial engineer. As a background, I went to Montana State University and I actually did my thesis work in operating rooms. So I was in healthcare before I went into construction. So I did all kinds of efficiencies and started applying the shingle model in hospitals prior to coming to instruction for about 10 years. So I've been at Mcgough for 5 1/2 years. I've been kind of using the sneaky Shingo method in the background for the last like four or five years. And then just recently I've, you know, kind of told my leadership team what we're doing and we're officially going to be going for a Shingo Prize. Speaker 1 I like that the sneaky in in in the background. So so give us a little idea. These are two very different industries. Well. Speaker 2 Not as different as you think, I think. Speaker 1 Yeah. So tell us about that. Tell us about how they're not different, and maybe how they are different. Speaker 2 So they're not different because you're always doing something unique. Every patient is different. They're all going to have their own plan according to what they need. And every building is different. And so you have the same processes that you do for a patient. That's regardless. And you have the same process that you do for a building regardless. There's there's a little wiggle room because you do the same process, maybe not in the same depth for certain things, but it's just still the same process. So that's kind of how I equate a patient as a building. Speaker 1 For me, interesting, as you moved over to construction, how did you begin this? I mean, were you put immediately into a continuous improvement role? Tell us kind of how that worked at the beginning. Speaker 2 At the beginning of construction. Speaker 1 Yeah, at the beginning when you made that switch. Speaker 2 I actually joined the process improvement team and so we're called the operational excellence team. And so there was a few people on it at the time. And so we had some last planner system coaches and some other people who'd been on the journey before I got there. So they knew some of the historical things that we've done and, and we'd work with the consultant early on to kind of like bolster our journey at the beginning. And so I came in at the the low because they've been doing a lot and then just kind of was falling off of it. So then I came in, we did kind of a reset of just like, where are we at? Do we have standards? Do we do strategy? Do we, you know, just kind of going through all the types of like power huddles, all sorts of things like that just to kind of assess. Well, since I'm an assessor, I kind of, or I was working towards being an assessor at the time. It's just like like where we at And so just kind of making a plan from there and seeing who are my influencers and who aren't and I'm just kind of starting from there. Speaker 1 As you began this journey, it sounds like they backslid a little bit and you're kind of coming back on to reinvigorate things and that what were some of your big challenges in doing that at that time kind of at the beginning? Speaker 2 I knew nothing about construction #1 so my challenge was understanding what the heck people were talking about when I talked to them because there were words I didn't know, phrases, processes. I had no idea how a building was built. And so trying to figure out what those key processes were. Luckily, the leadership team before I came had done a really good reflection of where they were at, which is why I joined the team of just they, they had already decided they wanted to do standard work before I came, and they had identified some key processes. You know, talking about challenges, it was just going to where the projects were and understanding all the different aspects of what affects the project and learning about trade partners and just kind of learning the dynamics of the business was because, you know, in healthcare you can't really predict, you know, like your patient flow, but you can, you know, like from historical data what it's going to be like. But in construction, it's all based on if our clients want to build or not. And so, you know, learning how to do strategy off of that. A lot of them are opportunity based. The forecast is a little hard, right? Speaker 1 One these and these and these are long term projects right? Like how long is your average project? Speaker 2 We do anywhere from like a one week or a couple day projects up to, you know, four or five years. Currently we have a healthcare client where it's AI want to say 5 or 6 year project including the preconstruction. Speaker 1 Yeah. So there's huge variation in the work that you do as well, which which brings its challenges, yes, to you. So you were really starting from the beginning, I mean, as far as you were concerned, right from really understanding the, the business that you were in. What was your, your leadership's kind of mindset at that time? What were they, what were they thinking about what they were going to do with continuous improvement? How did they see that at that time? Speaker 2 They already saw that it was a like non negotiable, like we do lean, we do improvement. That's how we should run our business because if we don't, we're going to fall behind. Like that was already some of their mindset. Then it's been more about like how do you become a lean leader is kind of the next step for them. They had already gotten a little bit of leadership coaching, but I think it was really kind of honing in what do they want their lean journey to look like versus what the did the consultant want their lean journey? Like just, you know, trying like what did you learn? What did you like and not like because there was some scar tissue. Sure, sure. So, you know, getting through that and understanding, you know, what words can I use and not use? So we basically only we use two Japanese words, you know, because otherwise it just they don't want to. So we can use gemba and sometimes we can use Kaizen, but that's about it. But that's OK. As long as I know the boundaries, we can work within that and you know, just kind of keep moving forward and, and work around the scar tissue and kind of rub it away so that it gets a little smoother sometimes. So. Speaker 1 So now you've got the leadership support and, and when you got there after you went and kind of learned the business and that where'd you start? What'd you start? Speaker 2 With they had already hired someone just to do standard work already. So I helped that person learn. How do you map a process? How do you facilitate people? How do you get things out of their head? Because it was all knowledge based, you know, just hey, I've been here 30 years and this is how I do it. How do you get it out of their head? So that was like our first place that we started was just teaching that person. Speaker 1 So that's a challenge. Speaker 2 Yeah. Looking back, it's kind of unfortunate that so in Minnesota, our headquarters is there. That's where we wrote our standards from. We didn't use our other offices to really, we, we tried to use them a little bit, but after a few years then it was like they were trying to use them and then the standards didn't work because they were a smaller office or they did different stuff or their, their legal, you know, ways were different or, but it still gave us a baseline which we didn't have before. Our cut phrases, just like, you know, get it to like 70 or 80% and put it out there because you can't just have perfect standard work off the bat. We let people use it, modify it, give us feedback and it just keeps progressing from there. So. Speaker 1 So great place to start, start to stabilize things. Where do you, I'm just curious, where'd your, you know, leaders get kind of their idea about lean or going on this journey from lots of different places and and you may not know all of those, but where do where do you, where do you think that that came from? Where did it initiate from? There was. Speaker 2 A few people, one of them who's actually doesn't work in Mcgough is a consultant that we work with now. Glass Planner System had been around for a little while, so they'd heard about it. So that's the construction kind of system that is used on projects to help you with your schedule and your execution. So they'd heard about it and they're like, well, I think that would be really helpful for us. And there's some other people kind of at the same time or some leaders that they started like book clubs and just to Start learning about it. And then that's when they were like, well, we need help. So then that's when they hired the consultant for a couple of years and they did value streams and so many kaizens, but a lot of it didn't sustain. Speaker 1 Sounds like a kind of a typical start, yeah. You know, a lot of people ask, you know, well, can you do this just kind of homegrown, you know, and organically from the organization and that and it's tough without getting help, isn't it? Speaker 2 I struggle with consultants because they can only do so much. They're not there all the time, but they give you a really good boost at the beginning to just get you going. They have, they have a bunch of people who could do leadership coaching. They can, They know where to take you to see what good looks like. I mean, there's just right, it's a good boost at the beginning. Speaker 1 And it's not always easy to see where the next level is, Right? What? What's next? Yeah, right. Once we have the standard work all laid out in that way, where are we going to after that? Right. And you know, where's the next move based on where organization, what our current state is. So that's, that's always an interesting perspective. So, so let's talk a little bit. Your, your industry is unique in a sense that it has a lot of trade partners, right? How do you manage that with organizations that are sometimes working with you, sometimes working with others, sometimes there for a long time, sometimes a short time? How do you engage that opportunity in that potential? Speaker 2 We've been lucky in the Minnesota market that we work with a lot of the same trade partners all the time. So we have good relationships and we're starting to build those in our other offices. But I think first and foremost is we can't build buildings without them and we need to respect them and use their knowledge in order to build our buildings. And so early on in the process, ideally we're using them to create like our initial phase plans. And so they have input into what are the different areas, you know, that we're going to be building and what's going to be the sequence. And because if they're not involved in the plan, then they don't want to do the plan, which I think is a very human thing, right? So, so, you know, we want to be very respectful to our trade partners and if we end up running into trouble. So Mcgough actually has never gone into litigation in our 60 years because, well, that's. Speaker 1 Commendable. We want. Speaker 2 To work with our trade partners and build our relationship with them. So if something's going wrong, we're going to work with them and figure out what it is so that then, you know, we still keep that relationship. And it's not just like, well, I don't want to work with them anymore because they disrespected us and, and didn't care what we wanted to do. So that's one of the biggest things. But then I think, you know, including them in our early on, but then you know, they're there every day on our site. So we do like our foreman do daily huddle S and then they all come together and with there's a site huddle which includes all the trade partner huddle S right. So they're expected to know information. So if they're not huddling with their own people, someone needs to know what the plan is for the day, right, right. Sometimes it sets the expectation for them to huddle. So then, you know, we kind of go through like, you know, did you there's it's called reliable promises. You promised you were going to do that yesterday or this week. Did you get it done? And if yes, cool, let's move on. If not, what got in your way? And do we need to resequence people because they're going to be in the same area today or something so that we make that plan for today. Sometimes we have like visuals of the layouts and people can highlight like I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here. Just so you know, just good communication eliminates a lot of waste basically. Speaker 1 Absolutely. You know, as you talk how you talked about what you just did, it's easy for me to look back on your, your healthcare career and go, yeah, it really isn't that different, is it? It's it's kind of the the same same I've. Speaker 2 Been in a lot of nursing huddles and who's going to be here, who's going to be there? You know if it's a shift change, you need to talk. Speaker 1 So, so you, so you learned about the, the shingle model, you know, well before you came, but before you got into construction and that and you brought that with you. So tell us, tell us some of the challenges about, you know, using the model, referring to the model, what it helped you with, what was difficult. Speaker 2 I think for me initially it was, you know, understanding, OK, we have our strategic priorities. We have 5 strategic priorities that we work towards. They already had those set up and we just have refined them since then. And then it's just like, OK, so if we're doing that and they call it business planning instead of strategy deployment. So understanding, you know, what does each person feel like they're responsible for? And then I can kind of work within what's going to be that pull on me. So I can see like which systems did I think we're going to be needed or which one's more priority right now, like and just really working on that. So I kind of worked on, I had like documentation of building the system like myself of like this is the behaviors that I'm going to be coaching, you know, these are the metrics that it's working towards and just kind of working on on that aspect of things. And then I didn't just a lot of the coaching in the background of, of towards that system model that I had kind of built on my own. You know, we had standard work strategy deployment. And then like on boarding, I was working with our learning and development person. And I straight up said, like, you know, what's, what's the, what's the good manager behavior look like? Like what does it look like when a manager does a good on boarding? And so he'd start to describe it to me. And, and so, you know, we just kind of document it. And so then we'd be developing, you know, what that's process towards what he wanted it to look like. You know, I'm using the same thing things, I'm just not saying I'm using the shingle model so. Speaker 1 Right, right, right. And, and what's important is the concepts and the principles and, and that right, not that you say it's, it's the shingle model, right. So, So what are what are some of the things that you looked at that you did that you said, oh, next time I'll do it different. I learned from that and I'm going to do something different. Speaker 2 So they had a lot of scar tissue in there, started in business planning from our consultant. Speaker 1 Right, right. Speaker 2 Right. So they had a very complex system to try to help them track all of their stuff. And they were like, it took like a full time FTE to keep that system up to date, right? That was way too much. So Virginia, let's go like way simpler. And so we went more simple than I wanted to, and it didn't work because we simplified it too much for a starting point because we had a lot of new leaders and, and you know, things like that. So they hadn't even been there. And when the original consultant helped us, so we went too simple. And so then I tried to push it harder. So our COO, you know, he knows the pain from before. And so whenever I try to change stuff, he's like Virginia, you got to keep it simple for everybody. So that's one of my biggest challenges in some of the systems is we have to keep it very simple. So it's very usable, but effective. We can't have things that just take forever to update or and especially when I first started, we didn't really have a lot of electronic data. We were just implementing an ERP. We did a lot. So all of our project data was on spreadsheets and so we didn't even have dashboards like it was, we had almost no data, some of that stuff. So you know, that's why it took so long to do a lot of updating because there was so much manual work to do stuff. So working within those confines initially was one of the things I just didn't see coming and wish I could have done something different, but I don't. I don't know exactly what I would have done different. Speaker 1 So right, right. You kind of learn from those and move, right. So now that you're kind of a little over five years into it, what do you see that's changed based on the maturity of not not only the trade partners, but but the folks within the organization? How is it different now? Obviously the challenges change as as you move on. How do you how do you see that progressing in the journey? Speaker 2 We've also grown since I've gotten there. There's some people for example, who have, they had a team of like two or three people. They're kind of like team leads and now they have to be like a full time leader because they have so many more people. So that's been one of the things is helping, like how do we help our leaders become better leaders is one of the bigger things that has kind of come out of the last few years that has has changed is that we actually have just a lot more things to be keeping track of a lot more complex projects. And I've been working with these leaders all along, but now they're starting to be like, I understand why you told me that two years ago or Yep, I need a training matrix like because I saw I'm starting to have gaps on my team because I don't just have all the Swiss Army knives anymore. Like it's been really good to see like, you know, they're hearing me over time and, and they're, they're doing a lot more understanding how to lead their teams and, and how to connect with them. And I have one leader who he's like, I, I need everybody to have an individual development plan. I think that's where I'm at. And I'm like, well, let's talk about it, you know, which is where the training matrix comes in. Or, or because you have needs, but they have needs. And there's just a lot of different things with, with growth that because I joined when there is about 600 people. So we're 820. We're going to be 1000 by the end of the year. It's that our systems need to be flexible. Speaker 1 That's interesting, yeah. Speaker 2 We built our onboarding system for about 50 people a year. Hiring 200 people kind of breaks our own boarding system, right? So, so now we need to build a little bit more robustness into it. And we're hiring people who aren't in Minnesota more. And we built systems, but they're they're breaking hard right now. Speaker 1 So that's so that's. Speaker 2 Interesting. Our standards are breaking hard too. Speaker 1 Yeah, because because people don't commonly talk about that, right? I mean, the evolution of systems is based on a lot of things, but one of those is, is growth, right? Or the opposite, you know, you're in the fortunate place of growth, which makes many things easier, but it also has different challenges like you're pointing out, you know, we've, we've got different tools that we need to enable the systems that we have and we have to change some of the systems ourselves. And, and sometimes you don't see that until they start breaking, right? Speaker 2 I see e-mail chains of 10 long and, you know, a matter of minutes and and I'm just like, oh, what what happened? Speaker 1 Exactly how about what the trade partners have the, have you seen over the years now that you know, 5 1/2 years into it, have you seen the trade partners or, or do you know of them actually starting to implement some of the things into their own organizations that are making them better for everybody that they work with? Speaker 2 Yeah, They've become accustomed to the fact that we do certain things on our sites and when our, if we get like a new person or someone isn't doing what they're used to, like this isn't, this doesn't feel like I'm a golf site. We've actually had trade partners like contact us and be like, it'd be really nice if you did the thing that was on my previous job with you guys. You know, like we were doing real good huddles over there or like we were doing poll plans for our phases and you know, we didn't do a poll plan and, and nobody knows what's happening. Like they'll tell us when they feel like we're not following our standards, right? Right. Speaker 1 Where do you benchmark from in your industry? How do you see that? Like if if you're going to send leaders to see what good looks like, are they still in the mindset of it's very industry based and it's hard to translate things into the industry or? Speaker 2 It depends on the leader. So originally how I actually met Mcgough is they came to where I worked. When I worked at Healtheast, they benchmarked us. So they went to multiple industries because no other construction company at the time was doing that. If the leader is OK with it, sometimes we'll take them to another. Like, I actually brought a bunch of people to the conference and some of them went on some site visits and they were like, oh, now I see what you're saying. Like, you know. And so it doesn't, I think, and I'm also always available for translation of like I saw this. How would that, how would we see that in our company? And, and so I don't think it matters, you know, where we're benchmarking against. It's just because we're thinking we're, you know, if we're thinking system focused or behavior focused, I you can see that anywhere. And I don't think it matters which company we see. Speaker 1 That's awesome. So. So where do you see the next, next little while, next three to five years? What are you working on? Where's what's your focus as far as the transformation goes? Right. You've kind of given us an idea of where you're at now. What? What's next? Speaker 2 Now that my leadership team officially knows that I've been doing Shingo and that we want to go towards it, I actually have a road map of I think it's 12 to 14 systems. So I can actually say like these are the ones we've been working on and these are the ones that are going to be coming up and actually defining them further and sharing the system build with them. So they actually can be coaching to it more. And ideally I want to challenge in two years, but I, you know, we got to see where we're at at that point in time. But because one of our offices has been doing it longer than other and we have sustainable results. Like we haven't had a bad project in three years now for that, we put some of the things in place and our margins are better. I think part of our growth honestly is because we have reliable systems, we're able to escalate problems very quickly and, and resolve them quickly. And we talk with our owners about them. And, you know, we're laying out our road map and making it really clear to our leadership team of where we're going. And like I said, hopefully in the next few years we'll have a Shingo Prize and then we're going to go office by office and they're going to each have their own road map and. Speaker 1 Go from there. So, so as you move, as you move down this road map, what do you think some of your biggest challenges are going to be? Speaker 2 So we have some offices that are like 7 people and some offices that are like 100 people. And so that's the scalable systems thing as well. Is that like, you know, we're trying to put in tiered management and in one of our offices we have three tears. And in another office we have too, because there isn't that there's not as many people and, or do they even need one of them? Because they can all talk to each other all the time. It's trying to figure out the, I call them squishy standards, like what are the non negotiables of the system that you have to do versus, you know, but knowing that this is what it looks like if you grow. Because sometimes they fight back and say like, well, Virginia, I already talked to everybody, it's fine. And I said, well, what if you get a $200 million project? Is it fine? And they're like, oh, no, it's not. Yeah. So I do need to learn it so that I know how to do it later. Speaker 1 Absolutely, Absolutely. Speaker 2 That's one of the bigger challenges we have. Speaker 1 Well, it's, it sounds like a, a worthy challenge and I, I think the great thing about these journeys is the challenges never end. It's just a matter of which ones they are right. So if you had to, you know, talk to the audience and tell them, here's one bit of advice I'd give you as you kind of start down this this path or as many describe as a journey. It's also been described other ways. What would you tell them? Speaker 2 My mantra is patience and persistence. You have to be patient because revenue producing people, they have to do their job, but we have to do our job too. And so you have to be patient and and make sure that you're using the time they have available to do the coaching, but be persistent in that they have to keep doing it. We also kind of joke that we're winning the world 5 minutes at a time. You know, if that's what we got, then we're going to work with it. You're in it for the long haul. You're not here for like the short term wins usually so. Speaker 1 That's great. Well, thank you, Virginia. Thanks for sharing a little bit of time with us. Some of your insight into what you have going on in a very interesting industry, not familiar to many, no. So thank you, thank you. Thanks for joining us on this shingle podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe. We look forward to seeing you in future conversations. Thank you. See you soon.