Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Hal Frohreich – Toyota Kata Expert

Curt Anderson  0:01

Hi guys, Damon. Dude. Thank God it’s Monday. So Happy Monday to you my friend how are you?

Damon Pistulka  0:08

You know it’s great man. It’s great man. If you if you’re doing the right stuff Monday is a great day.

Curt Anderson  0:12

Awesome weekend beautiful in the northwest. How are things on yourself?

Hal Frohreich  0:17

We actually have a beautiful sunny day now has

Curt Anderson  0:19

a hell has a sunny gorgeous day. It’s beautiful here where I’m at. It is it is today it

Damon Pistulka  0:25

is it was wasn’t the the the weekend it was kind of achy. Awesome.

Curt Anderson  0:30

Well, let’s just let’s just do we got a ton to cover me. Yes. Right here. So guys, I want to introduce my dear friend Hal fro Rick. Hello, good morning. How are you?

Hal Frohreich  0:41

Very good, Kurt. Very good to be here.

Curt Anderson  0:44

At. So this is awesome. So we have a ton to cover how so you are longtime Bob, you’re a bowling veteran. You. You’re with impact Washington now. And so we have a lot to cover. But let’s go into a little bit of your background first. So first off, enlighten us. So your your title was impact Washington impact Washington is the MEP Manufacturing Extension Partnership of the state of Washington. Can you just share what is the MEP network for anybody that’s not familiar with me p.

Hal Frohreich  1:15

So we’re mainly chartered, to help small businesses be as competitive as they can be nice anything. And so we we have a whole host of services that we could bring a company, from automation to lean training to, you know, if you’re a food company and want to get all your certs and stuff like that. It goes on and on and on. I mean, we have a catalog of stuff to help businesses succeed. And that’s our charter. And so that’s what we work for every day. That’s awesome.

Curt Anderson  1:50

So you’re a resource partner. So the awesome thing is so impact Washington has a number of folks on their on their team. We work with a number of folks, you know, directly with impact Washington, you’re a resource partner. So what’s awesome, is the MEP network can hire can bring in hired guns, like yourself, seasoned veterans that bring just a wealth of experience and information expertise to help manufacturers, entrepreneurs, small businesses, tackle challenges that they’re facing.

Hal Frohreich  2:18

And that’s what we live for. That’s what I mean, I love going in. I would say the smallest business I’ve been working with is like six people. Yep. It seems like the average right now is about 20. Nice. And then I go up from there. I mean, I’ve worked up to 1000s of people. But what I like is the is around the 20 people business

Curt Anderson  2:39

20. Yeah. And you know, and when you look at the National Association, yeah, National Association of Manufacturers, if 75% of all manufacturers are 20 employees in or less, you know, so that’s you’re hitting right in that sweet spot. Now you have a long, incredible history, great track, record Boeing for 25 years. Share a little bit on your background, you know, how you get your career started. I know we’ve we’ve shared some wonderful stories on you’ve been all over the world, putting out fires, trying to create efficiencies, share a little bit about your background and how we got here.

Hal Frohreich  3:15

So my background, it’s kind of interesting how when you start your career, you think you’re going to go one way? Yeah. And so my career I actually started with being a electronics technician. And before that, it was Oh, was that lovely? Okay. Before that, though, it was in the military. And as you said, I was a a EOD guy. So I was explosive ordnance disposal. So I picked up a lot of my electronics, a lot of my mechanics, a lot of that. And then I went a little bit of school, and then I got out, and I got into marine electronics. Nice. And that’s what I did. And then from there to Boeing, and I was when I was at Boeing, I was in the facilities department. And around in the 80s, is when people started studying lean. And I was always looking at how inefficient we were in the maintenance department. And somebody laid a book called total productive maintenance on my desk. And I thought, wow, that lien stuff didn’t make much sense to me, because we build airplanes one at a time. But boy, this maintenance stuff. Now this made sense to me. And so I started in and and worked with, you know, selling it number one in the company. Could we do it? And the chief executive said, well go for it. We’ll give you some pilots. So they gave me five different site locations. And I started developing the TPM program for Boeing. And then we implemented the rest is history. I mean, TPM is a solid figure in Boeing right now. And that kind of led me into the Lean world. The Lean world led me into Supply Chain Management. And then many, many years in the supply chain management implementing lean in Japan. Yeah. Of all places. And the in the Japanese aerospace community. Yep. Who didn’t believe it belonged there. And then the rest of the world and then from there, it just, it’s become my life. And then what came along about a decade ago was this silly thing called Toyota kata. Yep. All right. And that was the next awakening for me is that, oh, there was a better way of doing Lean to. And so that’s what I started studying. That’s what I’ve, and you never become a master at it. I mean, you’re constantly learning something new. And it kind of goes back to my days in EOD. They said, there are no experts in DOD. They’re on a plaque down at Indian head saying in memory of, they said, every time you go out and disarm a bomb, you’re gonna learn something new. Yeah, okay. It’s the same thing with this in the Toyota kata world. You’re constantly rebooting. You’re never out of beta. You’re always learning something.

Damon Pistulka  6:14

Yeah, well, that’s

Hal Frohreich  6:15

I think is the real appeal to me, is that nothing ever remains stagnant.

Damon Pistulka  6:21

It’s it is it is I tell you, when you when you look at it there I forget somebody posted this. It’s so funny that you said this because somebody posted about being an expert this morning. Are you an expert or something like that? And it was it was, you know, just talking about how foolish it is to call yourself an expert. And and I just go back to one thing I read a long time ago is the wise wise, wise people know how much they don’t know. Yeah. And therefore they don’t therefore they don’t ever call themselves an expert. They’re always a student. And you’re just said that that’s so awesome that you said it because it’s so true that it something like this. It’s so there’s so much more to learn every time you do something or you help somebody you know, implement something, you learn a little bit more that you can apply to the next situation.

Hal Frohreich  7:08

Well, the other one I heard that I love too is people say guru because they forgot how to spell charlatan? Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  7:17

Write that down.

Curt Anderson  7:19

You know, when I turned 50 It just really hit me how really how dumb I am. You know, so I must be a genius. So, so our hell this is phenomenal. And so a couple things. Daymond this is this is great. So how your last name for rich and sugar. And we’re and I was like, Man, that’s a fast I love that name. And you know, where’s that come from? Is a German? And he said yes. And guess what? It stands for name and you’re gonna you’re gonna love this hell. Sure, sir, with Damon what it stands for.

Hal Frohreich  7:44

So it means either happy and wealthy, or happy and well fed. Okay.

Curt Anderson  7:52

Either way is good, or great. Both great choices. Yeah. And why I absolutely love that. How is when you know, we’re talking about you know, being a constant student. And again, when you look at your background, you know, 25 years Boeing, you’ve been all over the world, man, you shared some amazing, incredible, powerful stories. You are killing me on you know, you know, you’re the problem solver, you know, and I’m married to a preschool teacher. So I get that all the time. Hey, Kurt, come on. Let’s be a problem solver. Let’s figure this out. So I’ll just but when you look at lean and when you look at you know, and we’re gonna dig deep into kata today, you know, Kata is giving your team better tools, better resources to just be better problem solvers. Right. I mean, that’s how I’ve been as you’ve been introducing this concept. To me, that’s kind of in a simplistic term. That’s what I’m understanding.

Hal Frohreich  8:37

Well, and, and what’s interesting is, you know, I’ve, I’ve, you know, been listening to a lot of your presentations, and I listened to by small business owners. And it is things are just piling up now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It used to be a couple years ago. Yeah, you had issues, but they weren’t insurmountable. Right. And so, what’s happened, and we’re now we’re trying to experiment here is can help bring a slide up. Here you go. Okay. All right. So I just go like this. So I don’t have any control of it. See if you could change the slide.

Curt Anderson  9:28

You know, I know. If you click I know, if you click on Like number two that change a slide for you.

Hal Frohreich  9:34

Number two, like the second slide, that’s what I try and in there, well, no. Okay, guys, this is our experiment. There’s our learning. This is our desire learning moment.

Curt Anderson  9:47

So how while you’re popping into that, so your co founders I understand right are the kind of school Cascadia right and just a couple of things. I just wanted them and you’re gonna love this. So how house is deemed as one To the most generous and humble kata coaches on the planet, they use this great hashtag, got a Kata. So how why does somebody got a Kata this shared a little bit about why do we need to go there? Well,

Hal Frohreich  10:13

just we’re not gonna have any slides on this thing that that’s fine. So, you know, like I said, Toyota kata. A lot of people look at that and say, What in the world? That doesn’t sound like any lean thing at all right? It’s really about the deliberate practice. I mean, if you look at today’s society, right? Nobody does anything without a coach. Hmm. Okay. If you’re getting on a peloton, bike, there’s a coach, you go to yoga. There’s, there’s a coach, if you’re going to do music, you’ve got a teacher. Yeah. All right. So if you’re going to put as much effort into your own social stuff that you’re doing, few people think about the business side of that, and what they’ve got to transition to as far as scientific thinking, to go out and work these issues, and work the problems that they have. You know, I my slides, I said, I was gonna be very clever. And I was actually trying to experiment here. And, you know, like I said, in the old days, you know, a couple years ago, problems and issues and challenges came at you in a way that you could at least deal with them. Yeah. Now, it’s like, every time it’s like going into a steakhouse, and getting that 96 ounce steak challenge.

Curt Anderson  11:42

I think I can barely see you can see right there. Yeah. There it is.

Hal Frohreich  11:47

The 90 Okay, with all the trimmings, and you got an hour to eat it. No excuses. Yeah. Okay. That’s business today. Right. And so when you, but there are people that actually do this professionally, right, there are deliberate hotdog eaters. Yeah, good luck to Nathan’s, and they’ll suck down. But 60 Hot dogs in a minute. Yeah. Okay. They learn how to do it. They have coaches. All right, they go out and they deliberately learn how to do this. Same thing with the steak eaters, there was not a brings you is that deliberate practice of how to think, scientifically, and apply this stuff to your business? To take those challenges and, and filter them down to where you’re not trying to eat the whole 96 ounce steak. And, yeah, it might be just a little piece of it, it might be a french fry. They’ve even had any earrings on there. Okay, but there’s a pattern to how you do things. Yeah. And so what we’re taking with the Kata is how to bring that pattern in and do the deliberate thinking on how you approach your business.

Damon Pistulka  13:01

So important, because if you can’t break it down, I mean, the biggest challenge in business is doing the right thing next, because we always have so much like you said, there’s a cluster of things, the plethora of things that are coming at us all the time. And if you can’t filter through, okay, here’s the 10 things that hit me today. Which ones a first of all, are the ones that I really need to care about. And then how do I break those two issues down into stuff that are actionable steps? And, and doing that?

Hal Frohreich  13:29

Well, and what I mean by deliberate practice, okay, this, you learn this by getting coached? Yeah. And so it follows the same pattern. So there’s never any surprises, you follow the same pattern until you master it. Okay, it becomes a reflective thing that I have watched workforces that after you do this for, say, a month or two, when they talk to you on the floor, they’ll follow the same pattern. They’ll say, Well, my challenge is this. Okay? I’m working on this process. Here’s my current condition. Here’s the target condition I trying to hit. I’ve got these obstacles, and here’s what my next experiment is going to be. Okay. And so in the kata world, we give you a way to capture all this. The coach is going to ask you the same questions every time. There’s no secret. Yeah, same pattern. So it’s a deliberate thought pattern. So, you know, you get your challenge and you look at that and you say, Okay, here’s a little process I want to focus on. Now. It’s not the eat the elephant process. Okay? It’s, it might be the tail. But you’re going to go out and you’re going to look at what the current condition is. And the interesting thing about the current condition is in a way, you’re a detective Okay, and what was what was a sergeant Friday’s? Or Sergeant Friday’s favorite saying, right? Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts, right? He didn’t judge anything. So you’re going out into your processes, non judgmental, and just collecting the facts. And that can be, you know, the math behind it? How, you know, how often are you putting the product out? What’s the quality on it? How many people do you need to make it? But you’re also looking at it from an operational standpoint? What are all the steps that you have to go through to get this product out. And then you’re also looking at what are the overt and covert things. processes happen, things happen in shops, there’s always somebody that’s bigger to work around to actually make it work. Right, there’s always the old thing of, well, there’s how the process is both to work. But John’s the only one that knows how to really make it work. So you go on and you collect all these facts, you don’t judge any of them, you put them out there, that’s what you’re going to examine. And then from there, you’re going to say, okay, and in the bright new world of what I where I want to go, there’s this target condition I’d like to hit. Now it isn’t a target, it’s a target condition, is you’re also going to put a date on it. And the nice thing is, you’re always striving to hit that target condition. So that once again, you’re gonna look down and say, here’s the challenge. Here’s my current condition. Now, here’s where I want to go. And where do I got to do to get there? And so you may go ahead and line out, well, here’s the metrics I need to hit. Here’s the operational pattern I need to hit. And then you’re gonna say, Okay, I got this down. I think, if I do this, I can hit this target condition, or at least get close to it. And then you sit down and say, Okay, so now what obstacles are in my way. And so again, you can look at this whole thing and say, Well, gee, I may not have this, or I may have that. And you can categorize these obstacles. And then we’re gonna get into where the science really comes in. Because you’re going to say, well, I’m going to work on this obstacle. Here’s my hypothesis. Okay? What’s a hypothesis, a prediction, right? I bet you if I go do this, this is what I’m going to get to happen.

Okay, sounds cool. And remember that as you’re going through all this, you’re being coached. So somebody is asking you these questions, and they’re going through, and, and also maybe asking you some clarifying points, to bring your thought down a little bit deeper. Okay, and maybe consider some things you hadn’t considered. But the big thing is, you’re going to go out and you’re going to run this experiment. And based on what happens or something you’re going to learn. I mean, that’s what this is all about is learning. You never quit learning. So you may find that oh, this thing just flop bigger than stink. Okay, well, you learn something. So the next experiment, you know, that prediction may be a little bit more honed, right? Mm hmm. And so you’re going through these things. And as you’re working through that target condition, and you’re working through these obstacles, every time you do it, it’s getting better and better and better and better. Okay. And you can, and we have done this in hundreds of companies. I mean, it’s always amazing to me, what I learned, okay. I mean, I, I recall, following and getting the current condition of a nurse who had a five patient load, and I followed her around for a week, collecting her current condition, writing down her operational stat points. And what was amazing to me was at the end of the week, her total Touch Time on patience was about 10 minutes. Okay. And it’s what was interesting to me is she confessed at the end of the week that she was actually leaving that hospital and going to work and family practice and I said, why? She said, I wanted to work with people. Okay. So I’m never surprised anymore. With what I see as I go through this thing. Thing, the challenge was to get them their breaks and their lunch back because they were so busy running around doing all types of things. They never had time to sit down and I get a break or get a lunch. Okay. So the challenges can be a lot of different things. It can be on a the morale of your people. Okay, it could be, I need to manufacture more stuff. It can be I’ve even used it for producing. One of the companies that I ran for five years, we made orthotic, children’s orthotic braces. And every one of these things were custom, new way of designing and building it because everything was a design build. And we took a software program and turned it into a new CAD CAM. And we use Catia to design the whole thing. Nice. So this is not like going out into the end of the lean shopping mall. And GE, there’s, you know, 600 different products out there. And so you go pick a solution, right? Oh, I think we need five s or Oh, I think we need this. And you bring this into your company. And what I always like to put this too is every year Gallup says, with the amount of employee engagement is right. You guys recall what that number is? 2015 to 20% of employees out there engage? Yeah. So when you’re a company, and you say, oh, okay, I, we know what to do, we’re going to go shop in the end the Walmart of improvement, right? And we’re going to go pick up a bunch of packages and bring it back here. And this is what we’re going to install. And then you wonder why your employees aren’t engaged because they look at this done, but you’re not needing anything from my mind. How are you challenging me? Okay, everybody forgets that this stuff happened. You know, Toyota, did not start off with GE, here’s five s, here’s this, here’s that it was a bunch of guys on the floor. That said, we got to get stuff done. We got to figure out how to do this. And so they went into this scientific mindset of trying stuff, you know, fail forward fast. Yeah. Until they got something that work. There wasn’t any name for it. If you went in there and looked at it, and said something about it. They said, We just call it work. Right? Right. It’s just work. This is how we work. Okay. So this, quote, Akata kind of brings back those early pioneer days, of when people just went out and made stuff, work. They didn’t worry about naming it, right. They tried stuff until it worked.

Curt Anderson  22:21

And I’ll tell you how, what’s what’s fascinating is, you know, and I, again, appreciate your humility, you are a pioneer in, you know, operational excellence, lean, you know, going way back in your early career. And what I love is that you’re just, you know, we’re in round about, you know, the beginning of the program is just, you’re the avid student, of just, you know, learning. So you very easily could said, Hey, this is how I’ve been doing it for decades that you’ve embraced and brought in a whole new policy new concept with the kata, and what kind of like what I’ve been picking up from you. And with this conversation, our previous conversations, it’s really it’s a culture change, isn’t it? I mean, like, it’s really in the buy in, because you know, it’s difficult for that pert, that nurse or somebody on the shop floor, like, Hey, I’m having a challenge. And I’m just so close to it, I’m having a difficult time seeing the challenge, or get ego gets in a way or resistance, or this is how we’ve always done it. How do you help folks overcome, whether it’s inadvertent resistance, or maybe ego resistance? How do you help folks overcome those challenges that you’re describing?

Hal Frohreich  23:22

You hit this every time? Hmm. I mean, anytime you come into a company, they’re always precepts of their challenge of their culture. Right. Yeah. And you’re hoping to cover them over? Yeah. And and so the interesting thing about about comments, it is more one on one type stuff. Is that coaching session every day. Okay, okay. And depending on, you know, it’s 15 to 20 minutes. And as they get better and better, I’ve had people do it and seven minutes flat, right. But there is that feedback loop that they can work through, and they can talk these things out. It isn’t an event. All right. If you look at the history, and I think statistically, they say 90% of all lean attempts fail. Okay. 90%. And that is, you know, I don’t know if anybody’s ever really gone and done a scientific study. But if you read the stuff on LinkedIn and read an odd thing, it’s a 90% of all the things fail. And so there’s got to be a reason for it. And usually, it’s an event and it’s something done to people. All right, Kata is line owned. All right, it isn’t a group from the Kaizen promotion office, or the Lean promotion office that comes in and says, hey, guess what, guys? It’s your turn. We’re gonna get you next week, and we’re gonna just shut you down and we’re gonna do all types of cool stuff. And by God, you’ll love it. Right, yeah, it isn’t that way. This is something where a challenge is given to a team, usually a manager, or a supervisor. And they’re taking it down to their team. And now, you know, somebody’s acting as a learner. And they’re gonna leave the team. And they’re going to work on this thing together. And so it’s not being done to them. It’s something that they’re all participating. And I think that, that mindset, that different thing, we’re engaging them, they own it, they’re responsible for it, they produce the results, I think that is something that really kind of kicks us to allow from the resistors that are so used to that,

Curt Anderson  25:47

and powerful and and again, you know, with your wealth of experience, expertise, your calming presence, you know, a couple other comments that people dropped about how Damon creative, passionate, thoughtful person, and this I love this line, he most, most trusted of resources and operational excellence. Now, you’re also on the advisory board of board member of the operational excellence societies that that I read that correct? Right? So what’s awesome is that, you know, you you’re bringing in just, you know, you’re not talking to talk, you’ve walked the walk your entire career, you know, you’ve saved company, companies, you know, millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, talk a little bit about like, some, let’s go into Boeing, like, see, like, what were some of your monster successes that you’ve seen, you know, or even if you want to, you know, throw in one of your smaller companies chair, sir, a couple of success stories with us on what you’ve seen that with powerful results that you’ve seen,

Hal Frohreich  26:39

I think the most interesting one for me, and, and I, and I think it was a very smart boss. And fortunately, in 2000, I had an autoimmune disease hit me that just laid me out flat, oh, boy, and I had a recovery period, I had to go through that. And my director said, you need a project, you’ll, you’ll heal faster, if you have something to do. And I’ve got something for you. Well, at that time, the the 737 was having some other issues where the PCU, and the rudder was not working correctly, and the airplane would get dizzy and hit the ground and kill everybody. And so we had to get this new PCU John. And in the aerospace world, this was like mass. Mass manufacturing, every airplane had to have one. The ones that have been out in the field for years, there’s five or 6000 of those, that brand new ones being made in the factory. And we had to get this done to an FAA mandate in about two years. And so we went out and we had to hand build this supply chain, put it all together. And and what was interesting with the company that I that I paired up with, we teamed up, we put manuals together on how we wanted to go out interview suppliers, the systems that we wanted to do, we we had built all the production lines before they even got together. And we were able to do this thing before the time allotted. And, and interesting enough, it was like, kata wasn’t around then. But it was scientific thinking because even in the Lean world, they talk about the PDCA you know, the PDCA loop. So applying that, you know, gave me that confidence that we would be able to be successful. And I think that’s why when Toyota kata came along, I embraced it. Because if you look at it, when they originally went over to look at this stuff, they just looked at Toyota they came back and like you said for tools, right? Yeah, no one went over and looked at what the people they didn’t look at the anthropology part of it. And nobody went back and examine what we did in World War Two. Okay, how how training within industry fit into this thing. They didn’t go back to the Venetians okay? The Venetians in the 13th century, had a shipyard that was all single part flow, right? They start off with the wood, working all the way through, I would pop a boat on the canal, load the sails load the cannonballs up after war, right. Okay, so lean, single part flow, all these things, it’s not new. Okay, it’s been all through history. Right? And so, this is, you know, you build off of this stuff, you study it.

Curt Anderson  29:48

And that’s what I love. And so, you know, as you know, Daymond I were, you know, ecommerce, you know, help folks with on manufacturing side with E commerce strategies, marketing strategies, that type of thing. And you’re, you’ve been really opened our eyes to like, you know, how kata can be applicable to, you know, doesn’t need to be on the show, you know, just necessarily on the shop floor or like you said, a nurse in a hospital, it can be applied to virtually any aspect. It could be your finances, wherever you have bottlenecks or challenges, or, you know, like you said, you’re you feel like you’re trying to eat that elephant or eat the 98 ounce steak. Yeah. Talk a little bit about, you know, how could folks apply the kata concept to their marketing strategy? What would be effective there? Say there’s a manufacturer brand new, they really were hit hard through COVID. Um, you know, couldn’t go to trade shows their marketing pipeline dried up? How can you know, how would you help them coach them applying kata to marketing?

Hal Frohreich  30:43

It’s interesting, you bring this up, because we actually did use this in a marketing situation. Awesome. And it was for a group of people that were doing a big convention. That was of course going to have to be remote. Right. And, and when we started on it, they they wanted to get, I think it was somewhere around 2000 people at this convention. And so in the Catia world, we we’d said that, well, what’s the challenge? Okay, well, they wanted to get it up to 2000. And their current condition was they had about 500. And some odd people signed up for it. So we went out to get the current condition. So we went and looked at the analytics, but we went a lot deeper than what they normally did. And what they really found out was all these emails and things like that, that they were sending out all the time, were going to people’s spam. Okay. And so one of their target conditions that they picked out was, well, how to how to get for the email goes to the spam. And so the experiment, you know, that was one of the obstacles. So one of the experiences, well, there’s a lot of these people that are speakers, that people collect their news letters every day. And so they get that every day, it doesn’t go to spam. So instead of us shifting over to where we’re sending out the emails, let’s let them the people that are gonna be the speaker send them out, right. And they ended up getting over subscribe to the thing. Okay. Yeah, so that is just down and dirty. Yeah, took about four days of running the coaching cycles of getting stuff through. And the result was startling. Powerful.

Curt Anderson  32:37

Yeah, just playing detective right. You’re just getting so how so? I know. So folks want to learn more about kata you are again, I’m going to repeat this quote, one of the most generous and humble kata coaches on the planet. Hashtag gotta gotta kata. A little bit about you’ve, you’ve built and created a wonderful network, a school. Talk a little bit. I know you have a boot camp comp coming up for folks that are eager to learn more share a little bit about how can they learn more about kata?

Hal Frohreich  33:11

Well, number one, we can always set up. If we get enough interest from people. We can always set up our own little webinars and stuff like that. Or if you want to post some Oh, we can do that too. Sure. And then we are we have started a new boot camp method of learning this at the Cascadia school, that the school we just scheduled sold out. So we’ll do a waiting list. And if enough people want to sign up for it, we can we can do that. Yep. There are. Like I said, get a hold of me and I’ll send you information. Okay. You can do it through LinkedIn, things like that. I you know, I mean, we only had a half hour here today. There’s a lot more stuff to talk about, that the Catia community will probably kill me because I haven’t covered all the little things in there. But with a half hour, it’s hard. So but everybody Friday, we do have, you know people that are in the starter kata that want to learn stuff. And if you want a little bit of fun right now, and you want to start getting into the mindset, if you go to the Cascadia kata school, we have a thing called the clicker challenge. And one of the interesting things is everybody has to kind of go through learning how your mind works. So we have a starter kata. And if you download the clicker challenge, it’ll start getting you set up for how to think about your mind and how you process information and how you react to stuff. So I would say that’s one thing that you can do right now. Very cool. Also, the university Michigan has a Toyota kata website where a lot of my rather stuff is that you can download, and then any of your MEPs I think most of the MEPs have people that are schooled and working on stuff for Catia. And so you can also reach out to your local MEP and ask them for some help.

Curt Anderson  35:28

Absolutely. So let’s let’s, let’s unpack that a little bit or just kind of recap it, if you will. So again, combination and things. So I pulled up your slide deck in how I apologize. We’re going to have you back so we can get through these slides. But your website is kind of school Cascadia is that correct.com That’s a Yep. So we did have someone in the chat box ask. Good morning, everybody. So again, you’re with how is a Kata. I know you don’t like the word guru, but I’ll use it for you. When somebody else says it about you then it’s not bragging right now. So you’re, you’re a Kata Toyota kata expert. Yeah, he’s a student, but is also a phenomenal, very humble, passionate coach on this topic. So again, you can check out his website kind of school Cascadia. You he also just mentioned any the manufacturing extension partnerships. I think you how you’d share with me, there’s a majority of the IMAPS manufacturing extension partnerships, whatever state you’re in, go to your local MEP, just reach out to them and just say, hey, I’m interested, I heard about this, this wild thing that’s gonna change my business changed my life called Toyota kata. Could you share a little bit with me? As a matter of fact, we just had the director from the Alaska MEP, Dr. Lisa Rodriguez. And I know, as small as they are, they’re actually embracing and promoting Toyota kata at her MEP. So reach out there. And then you mentioned if they Google Toyota kata, you’ll find the University of Michigan is it’s Mike, rather, R O th, er, Mike Rogers, the founder, if you will, they have a bunch of great information on that website. So again, three great tools and resources to learn a little bit more. And so and how I don’t want any of your team upset or mad with you share and I you know, you talked about the

Hal Frohreich  37:15

would you call the clicker, the clicker challenge and clicker

Curt Anderson  37:19

challenge, you know, so and you guys have networking events, you have the boot camp, you guys are just relentless of getting this and spreading this message, getting this information out there. Any other tidbits that you want to share about to Toyota kata. Again, we don’t want to have your teammates upset. Any other thing that I’d want to cut you short, was there anything else that you wanted to cover?

Hal Frohreich  37:39

No, I think we’ve covered it. The biggest thing is you got to try it. You know, you got to stick your toe in the water and give it a whirl. But find a coach. Okay. When I talk about the kata community, it is a very Pay It Forward community. You can ask anybody for help, and they will give you some help. And they’re all over LinkedIn. Okay, there’s a Comic Con coming up here. Shortly. Every year we have kind of a conference. I think it’s in Jekyll Island this year. Oh, nice. Okay, but you can reach out to any of the cuz I know this is gonna go out over the world. There are cottage schools all over the world. I mean, the pandemic proved that there are no more borders. I mean, even in the Cascadia school, we have people dropping in from Egypt, from Turkey, from UK and Ireland, you know, all over the place. And so you can reach out to people. There’s even the kata girl geeks, nice. Yes, there is a group of girls that are dedicated to empowering women to learn this. Yeah. And they meet every week, and you can get on there. And look them up. Yep. And they do coaching. Yep. And they do teaching and stuff like that. And like I said, this, there are a lot of people out there that will help you. Yeah, I’m just one getting Okay.

Curt Anderson  39:19

I want to say so guys, so please connect with how here on LinkedIn how I want to I found a quote and I think it’s from Mike rather the founder, it’s easier to act your way to a new way of thinking than to think your way to a new way of acting. I thought I just I love that quote. I thought that was fantastic. And again, I just I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve introduced to us, you know, changing you know, we are eager active students, you know, loving China, you know, as you enlighten us on new ways of thinking new strategies, how we can make what we’re trying to teach and preach more applicable. Try not to eat that 98 ounce steak you know, when we’re trying to help folks tackle e commerce and all these other daunting overwhelming Any anything anything else that you want to share before we wrap up?

Hal Frohreich  40:05

Well I hope we get back here one of these days where I could take you down show you the slides and maybe make a little bit more sense then my my ramblings and Oh dude,

Curt Anderson  40:15

I was

Hal Frohreich  40:16

good without slides we no net this time

Curt Anderson  40:21

yeah we have and I would love for you to share Damon we had an awesome conversation how when you’re sharing you know how was like the troubleshooter were like hey how you need to go to Singapore you need to go to Asia like he was like the FIX IT guy Joe Friday in a spot like traveling all over the world fixing challenges with vendors and what have you in this in the Boeing supply chain. Just what a fascinating career that you’ve built. So how I want to give a huge huge thank you to you thank you for sharing your passion, your expertise with the community on this, this wonderful tool and resource Toyota kata. Appreciate your friendship. We want to give a shout out to impact Washington and again, any manufacturers out there that need help. Please reach out to your local MEP. They are a great resource to help you move the needle. So Damon, I think we’ll close it out. We have an awesome week. How did you have one more?

Hal Frohreich  41:13

Reach out to your local Cotter school? Agree? I mean, they’re all we’re all over the all over the world. Okay. So don’t be afraid to reach out to them too. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  41:23

fantastic. So guys, so this So speaking of exciting so this Friday, our guests Damon as you guys sitting down for this one, you guys sitting down so this week, we have Jeff Long, who’s going to be teaching us he has a new resource for manufacturers. It’s called Video value bombs. And his tagline is we are detonating explosive growth for your business with video value bombs. And Greg Misha just put out a Post this morning showing one of his videos that Jeff did for him so it’s Yeah, manufacturers get into this digital world. You can apply kata to these strategies. We want to stop the best kept secret and help our manufacturers get out there and be more competitive. So how we salute you my friend thank you guys everybody out there go out have an amazing phenomenal week keep smashing your goals apply kata to your goals and you’re going to hit your goals even faster. Yeah, thank you my friend.

Damon Pistulka  42:15

So I’ve got one more thing though Kurt don’t we have another thing going on on Wednesday?

Curt Anderson  42:20

Don’t we? Oh gosh we do do drop the mic man I forgot forgot

Damon Pistulka  42:26

about it. But we I’m here to remind

Curt Anderson  42:30

everybody what we’re doing on Wednesday. You go ahead you go ahead manufacturing dotnet guys, if you’re not on manufacturing dotnet if you’re a manufacturer, you want the latest greatest things like Toyota kata, any the greatest resources go to manufacturing dotnet Damon, I had the honor and privilege we did a workshop for them a month ago. They are broadcasting that work that workshop this Wednesday, 11 o’clock central time. So noon, Eastern, nine o’clock, Pacific. And so what we’re doing, they’re doing a replay recording of a Digital Workshop training that we’ve conducted. One of our trainees were that went through the program was with us on the stage. And we’re going to have live q&a. So go to manufacturing dotnet Damon wants to grab the link and we’ll drop into this box when we’re done. So guys manufacturing dotnet on Wednesday, we have our program this Friday. So lots of exciting things and definitely connect and check out what HAL has going on. So guys, thank you have an awesome, awesome Monday. Have a phenomenal week and we will see you soon. On one second we’re gonna wrap up the broadcast