Podcasts about richard sheridan

Sometimes, it feels like work wasn't designed with us, humans, in mind. Human suffering at work is becoming far too common in our tech-driven world of work. It's burning us out, disconnecting us, and draining our energy. We've lost sight of the one thing that truly powers progress: people. But there's a way to break that mean cycle. A better way to redesign work to fuel joy, not exhaustion. In this inspiring Happiness Squad Podcast episode, Ashish Kothari and Rich Sheridan, CEO and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations, talk about how to radically reimagine work to end human suffering in the world of technology.Richard Sheridan is the co-founder, CEO, and "Chief Storyteller" of Menlo Innovations, a software and IT consulting firm renowned for its innovative and joyful workplace culture. Disillusioned by the chaos of the tech industry, Rich co-founded Menlo in 2001 with a mission to end human suffering in the workplace. His passion for creating joyful work environments led to his bestselling books, Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, and he has shared his insights through over 1,000 talks worldwide.It's time to redesign your tech organization into a place where people feel more alive.Things you will learn in this episode:• Pair programming as a tool for collaboration and continuous learning• Replacing fear and micromanagement with clarity and trust• How laughter, energy, and joy signal a healthy workplace• Ending tech burnout through intentional systems design• The ROI of flourishing: higher quality work, retention, and impactIf you've ever questioned whether work has to be painful to be productive, this conversation offers a hopeful, proven alternative. Tune into this epic episode now.Resources:• Menlo Innovations: http://www.menloinnovations.com/ • Menlo Innovations Case Studies: https://menloinnovations.com/stories • Richard Sheridan on X: https://x.com/menloprez • Get to know Richard Sheridan: https://richardsheridan.com/meet-rich Books:• Joy Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love by Richard Sheridan: https://a.co/d/6C4HJbe • Books from Richard Sheridan: https://richardsheridan.com/books• Chief Joy Officer by Richard Sheridan: https://a.co/d/7F4t8HA • Hardwired for Happiness by Ashish Kothari: https://www.amazon.com/Hardwired-Happiness-Proven-Practices-Overcome-ebook/dp/B0BCXDCLX1?ref_=ast_author_mpb

Carmen Jurado: The Power of Being Heard, Turning Critics Into Agile Advocates Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Carmen shares how she was asked to step in as a Scrum Master for a struggling team that had a particularly vocal and critical lead developer. This developer had experienced multiple transitions and transformations, leading to significant resistance that was affecting the entire team's morale and creating unresolved conflicts. Carmen focused on building individual relationships with each team member and setting clear expectations. She discovered that the lead developer simply didn't feel heard. By listening and addressing these concerns, Carmen was able to transform her biggest critic into one of her strongest advocates. She emphasizes that resistance is often a sign of loyalty to something else and that understanding this can help transform a dysfunctional team into a high-performing one. Self-reflection Question: How might you address resistance in your team by focusing on individual relationships and understanding what team members feel loyal to? Featured Book of the Week: Joy Inc. by Richard Sheridan Carmen recommends Joy Inc. by Richard Sheridan, highlighting its practical insights for creating a motivating and enjoyable workplace. The book covers everything from hiring practices to team collaboration and experimentation, yet never explicitly mentions "Agile." Carmen appreciates the inspiring stories about understanding users in their environment and how these principles can be applied to create better working environments. [Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Paul Akers: 2 Second Lean Paul Akers is the founder and president of FastCap, a product development company specializing in woodworking tools and hardware for the professional builder. Through a series of twists and turns he discovered Lean and the Toyota Production System (TPS) which was instrumental in propelling FastCap as an example of Lean manufacturing and culture, now followed by thousands of companies around the world. He is the author of 2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Fun Lean Culture at Work & at Home*. We often add more in order to make a system better. The opposite tactic is often more useful: making things simpler. In this conversation, Paul and I explore how to make worker better by starting small. Key Points Your pride will blind you to what you most need to learn. Begin by addressing the things that bug you. Lean is about making things simpler. Instead of batching, consider one-piece flow. This helps you improve as you go. Set the standard at 2 seconds to try something new. Anybody can achieve that. Start in the bathroom. Showing respect in the place everybody visits sets a standard for the rest of the organization. To make something stick, (1) set the expectation, (2) inspect the expectation, (3) reinforce the expectation. Resources Mentioned 2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Fun Lean Culture at Work & at Home* by Paul Akers Example of 2 second lean in practice Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How To Create Joy At Work, with Richard Sheridan (episode 122) Engaging People Through Change, with Cassandra Worthy (episode 571) How to Change the Way You Think, with Ari Weinzweig (episode 592) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Today's guest is a big deal. He's the CEO of software company Menlo Innovations and the author of two highly recommended books—Joy Inc., and Chief Joy Officer, and he joins us today to share some of the incredible insights he has gained during his impressive career. From his definition of joy at work and how he has built a very unique professional environment and culture at Menlo to the unusual interview experience at Menlo, our conversation is expansive and detailed, giving you the tools you need to adopt some of the same principles in your own leadership journey. Richard shares how he has cultivated an environment where feedback is welcomed, why he has chosen a transparent remuneration structure at Menlo, how he has set this up, and much more. Don't miss this inspiring conversation with today's deeply intentional and revolutionary guest. Thanks for tuning in! Guest Bio:Rich Sheridan is on a mission to end human suffering in technology. As CEO and Co-Founder of Menlo Innovations, he built a workplace driven by collaboration, experimentation, and joy.Once a fear-driven leader who micromanaged every detail, he discovered that joy at work isn't a luxury—it's a necessity. With a background in software and engineering (U-M BS '80, MS '82), his true passion is process, teamwork, and organizational design.Through his books, Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, Sheridan shares Menlo's story to help others create intentional cultures of joy. Because when joy leads, success follows.Key Points From This Episode: [00:00] Welcome and introduction to this episode and a catch up with your hosts.[06:40] Richard Sheridan from Menlo Innovations.[10:31] What Menlo Innovations does.[15:05] Richard's definition of bringing joy into work and how he measures it. [24:59] Why the work environment that he has built at Menlo would not be suited to everyone.[28:24] How Menlo approaches interviews differently.[34:47] The rewarding, promotion, and progress process at Menlo.[42:25] A story of how Richard realized that Menlo has excellent gender equity.[47:07] Navigating hesitation around salary transparency.[54:20] Why Richard is not transparent about his own compensation.[47:07] Managing the feedback process and making it easy for others to communicate how they feel.[01:03:58] How to book a tour at Menlo.  Quotes: “We launched Menlo in June of 2001 with a crazy mission: we wanted to end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology. We've been doing that now for almost 24 years. It worked!” — @menloprez [0:09:33] “I don't think unjoyful people can make joyful results.” — @menloprez [0:16:44] “We have an interview process where we're actually trying to weed you in, not weed you out.” — @menloprez [0:31:06] “Humans are incredibly adaptable when they are given clear expectations.” — @menloprez [0:33:21]RESOURCES: [01:03:58]Menlo Innovations Tours and Workshops FOLLOW: Follow Richard Sheridan:LinkedInXMenlo InnovationsJoy, Inc.Chief Joy Officer  FOLLOW:Follow Laura Eich:LinkedInFacebookInstagram Follow Mike McFall:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookXInstagram Follow BIGGBY® COFFEE & LifeLabTM:WebsiteFacebookXInstagramLinkedInAbout LifeLabTM ABOUT LOVE IN LEADERSHIP:At the Life You Love LaboratoryTM and BIGGBY® COFFEE, we're out to prove that financial success and healthy workplace culture aren't two separate goals. BIGGBY® COFFEE's own cultural transformation is proof that not only is it possible to have a successful company where people aren't miserable at work, but that the happier your people are, the more your business will grow. Each week, join host Laura Eich, Chief Purpose Officer at BIGGBY® COFFEE, and her co-host and BIGGBY® COFFEE co-CEO Mike McFall as they're joined by guests from around the world to learn how they are fostering a culture of love and growth in the world's most innovative and people-centric companies. Get inspired. Get real. Get ready to transform workplace culture in America with us. This is the Love in Leadership podcast.Learn more at: loveinleadershippodcast.com ABOUT THE HOSTS:Mike McFall began his journey with BIGGBY® COFFEE as a minimum-wage barista at the original store in East Lansing in 1996. Over the span of 23 years, alongside business partner Bob Fish, he has helped create one of the great specialty coffee brands in America. Today Mike is co-CEO with Bob, and BIGGBY® COFFEE has over 250 stores open throughout the Midwest that sell tens of thousands of cups of coffee each day. But more importantly to Mike and BIGGBY® COFFEE, the company is a profoundly people-first organization.Mike is also the author of Grind, a book which focuses on early-stage businesses and how to establish positive cash flow. Laura Eich is BIGGBY® COFFEE's Chief People Officer, having worked in a variety of roles at BIGGBY® COFFEE for the last 11+ years. She helped launch BOOST, the department at BIGGBY® COFFEE which ultimately became LifeLabTM — BIGGBY® COFFEE's in-house culture cultivation team designed to help people be the best versions of themselves and help companies support them along the way. In her role, Laura helps people build lives that they love through the process of building profitable businesses and robust, growth-filled careers.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 7, 2025 is: malapropism • MAL-uh-prah-piz-um • noun A malapropism is an amusing error that occurs when a person mistakenly uses a word that sounds like another word but that has a very different meaning. // "It's lovely to see all of you on this suspicious occasion," our host said. A flurry of snickers were heard in reply; the malapropism (she had of course meant to call it an "auspicious" occasion) was characteristic. See the entry > Examples: "Words were precious playthings to Roald Dahl. The Welsh-born writer was a master toymaker with his wildly imaginative prose, embracing spoonerisms and malapropisms to invent scrumdiddlyumptious words that tickled the ear and fizzled on the tongue when spoken aloud." — i-news, 21 Dec. 2024 Did you know? Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, was known for her verbal blunders. "He is the very pine-apple of politeness," she exclaimed, complimenting a courteous young man. Thinking of the geography of contiguous countries, she spoke of the "geometry" of "contagious countries," and she hoped that her daughter might "reprehend" the true meaning of what she was saying. She regretted that her "affluence" over her niece was small. The word malapropism comes from this blundering character's name, which Sheridan took from the French term mal à propos, meaning "inappropriate."

The first night of Richard Sheridan's classic comedy ‘The Rivals' did not go according to plan. Critics thought it was too long, the Irish gentry in the audience were insulted, and an actor was pelted with rotten fruit. It closed after one performance on 17th January, 1775. But then… after eleven days of rewrites, recasting and edits (a process Sheridan called “prunings, trimmings and patchings”), the show re-opened - and became the much-loved hit it remains to this day. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly expose how Sheridan exploited his notoriety in Bath to put bums on seats; unpick how the play's famous ‘Malapropisms' achieved seminal status; and revisit the best of Sheridan's real-life one-liners… Further Reading: • ‘The scourge of Bath' (The Guardian, 2004): https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/may/15/theatre • The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Cavan Library): http://www.cavanlibrary.ie/file/Local-Studies/Library-Scanned-Docs/The_dramatic_works_of_Richard_Brinsley_Sheridan.pdf • ‘What Are Malapropisms?' (Bright Idea, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMdgr-qSAfM Love the show? Support us!  Join 

If you had to describe your company's culture in a single word, what would it be? Are you super flexible and casual? Are you collaborative and inclusive?Software executive Richard Sheridan argues that one key quality is missing from too many workplaces today: joy.As CEO of Menlo Innovations, an enterprise software company based in Michigan, Sheridan deliberately focuses on cultivating joy in his company. His 2018 book, Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear, offers guidance for how to create joy at work — and why it's so important for innovation.He explains the difference between joy and happiness and how to harness joy in service of a larger project. He also discusses how, as a leader, you can model joy for your team and why joy and a culture of fear are incompatible. Key episode topics include: leadership, managing people, emotional intelligence. HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week. · Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: How One CEO Creates Joy at Work (2018)· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast.· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.]]>

In this episode of the Purpose Summit Series on Stories from the River, host Charlie Malouf welcomes Ron Carucci, an esteemed consultant and author with extensive experience in organizational development and organizational psychology. The conversation is centered around Ron's experiences and insights from both his professional journey and personal stories.  Ron shares how he first attended the Purpose Summit through a connection with Richard Sheridan and then became a speaker at the event the following year. He discusses the themes of his talks, including how to create environments that foster honesty and his latest material that dives into the topic of our own origin stories. He touches on the importance of understanding behavior patterns and the formative stories that drive them, emphasizing the value of self-awareness and the courage to confront one's own narrative. The discussion also highlights Ron's work at Navalent, a consulting firm he co-founded, which helps leaders navigate transformational changes within their enterprises. He details the comprehensive and data-driven approaches used in his consulting practice, which often helps clients recognize and address patterns of behavior that may be hampering their effectiveness.  The episode concludes with Ron's reflection on the power of redemption and the importance of living an authentic and purposeful life where the pen is in your hand and you get to decide what the next chapter is as long as you're honest about the chapter that you're currently in.  Ron also mentions a TV series based on his book "To Be Honest," offering listeners multiple avenues to further explore his book of heroes and moments of truth. Additional Resources: Connect with Ron Carucci on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roncarucci/   Navalent: https://www.navalent.com   "To Be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose" by Ron Carucci - https://www.amazon.com/Be-Honest-Power-Justice-Purpose/dp/1398600660   "Moments of Truth" Videos (from the To Be Honest website) - https://tobehonest.net/   More Books by Ron Carucci: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ron-A.-Carucci/author/B001JSDKRM  Psychological Safety (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series) by Amy C. Edmonson, Ron Carucci, et al. - https://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Safety-HBR-Emotional-Intelligence/dp/1647829968/   Richard Sheridan's Book "Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear" - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate/dp/0735218226/   Ron's Book featuring Richard Sheridan - "Rising to Power: The Journey of Exceptional Executives" - https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Power-Journey-Exceptional-Executives/dp/1626341087   This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hrLdtLE6ztI  Visit https://www.storiesfromtheriver.com for more episodes.  This show is brought to you by Broad River Retail. Visit https://BroadRiverRetail.com            Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broad-river-retail    

In this episode of the Purpose Summit Series on Stories from the River, host Charlie Malouf welcomes Ron Carucci, an esteemed consultant and author with extensive experience in organizational development and organizational psychology. The conversation is centered around Ron's experiences and insights from both his professional journey and personal stories.  Ron shares how he first attended the Purpose Summit through a connection with Richard Sheridan and then became a speaker at the event the following year. He discusses the themes of his talks, including how to create environments that foster honesty and his latest material that dives into the topic of our own origin stories. He touches on the importance of understanding behavior patterns and the formative stories that drive them, emphasizing the value of self-awareness and the courage to confront one's own narrative. The discussion also highlights Ron's work at Navalent, a consulting firm he co-founded, which helps leaders navigate transformational changes within their enterprises. He details the comprehensive and data-driven approaches used in his consulting practice, which often helps clients recognize and address patterns of behavior that may be hampering their effectiveness.  The episode concludes with Ron's reflection on the power of redemption and the importance of living an authentic and purposeful life where the pen is in your hand and you get to decide what the next chapter is as long as you're honest about the chapter that you're currently in.  Ron also mentions a TV series based on his book "To Be Honest," offering listeners multiple avenues to further explore his book of heroes and moments of truth. Additional Resources: Connect with Ron Carucci on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roncarucci/   Navalent: https://www.navalent.com   "To Be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose" by Ron Carucci - https://www.amazon.com/Be-Honest-Power-Justice-Purpose/dp/1398600660   "Moments of Truth" Videos (from the To Be Honest website) - https://tobehonest.net/   More Books by Ron Carucci: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ron-A.-Carucci/author/B001JSDKRM  Psychological Safety (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series) by Amy C. Edmonson, Ron Carucci, et al. - https://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Safety-HBR-Emotional-Intelligence/dp/1647829968/   Richard Sheridan's Book "Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear" - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate/dp/0735218226/   Ron's Book featuring Richard Sheridan - "Rising to Power: The Journey of Exceptional Executives" - https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Power-Journey-Exceptional-Executives/dp/1626341087   This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hrLdtLE6ztI  Visit https://www.storiesfromtheriver.com for more episodes.  This show is brought to you by Broad River Retail. Visit https://BroadRiverRetail.com            Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broad-river-retail    

Joe has a book “Agile Kata” in the making, if you like to be the first to know when it launches, please visit www.agilekatabook.com.Transcript: Agile F M radio for the agile community. [00:00:09] Joe Krebs: All right, thank you for tuning into another episode of Agile FM in the Agile Kata series. Today I have two guests with me, actually three guests with me. I have Dan Roman and Richard Sheridan from Menlo Innovations. We have Dexter with us in the background. He might or might not. Contribute to this recording as he's a dog, Dan is a frontline worker at Menlo.He's a a lead, but he's also primarily a software developer. We're going to talk a little bit about Kata in development and obviously Richard Sheridan, author of the books, The Chief Joy Officer and Joy Inc. Is it fair to say you're the Chief Joy Officer of Menlo. [00:00:54] Rich Sheridan: A chief storyteller is the more typical title they give me here.[00:00:59] Joe Krebs: Awesome. All right. The chief storyteller, Richard and Dan, welcome to the podcast.[00:01:04] Dan Roman: Thank you for having [00:01:05] Rich Sheridan: us. Thanks Joe. Good to see you. [00:01:08] Joe Krebs: Yeah. Good to connect. And this episode we're going to focus a little bit on development. We want to talk about how do teams build agile teams? How do they build a product?Here in particular software development products. Now, Dan you are, as far as I know from a website, your keynoting together with Richard there is, you have a focus on software for manufacturers of medical instruments and software for space researchers. So this is. This is I would say complicated, complex stuff you're working on and as far as I can tell and we talked about that during our visit in in Ann Arbor, where you guys are located, that there is no formal process like Scrum or Kanban or like to the book extreme programming deployed at Menlo Innovation.Is that correct? [00:02:01] Dan Roman: 100%. We have plenty of people who come and visit and we'll see what we're doing and find that what we're doing matches with one of their models. So we didn't set out to be agile, but agilists who come in say, Oh, Menlo is agile, or we have lean practitioners come in and they say, Oh, Menlo is lean.But our processes, we never started from a place of. We want to be agile. Let's do it this way or we want to be lean. Let's do it that way. [00:02:27] Joe Krebs: As you're obviously working with different kinds of companies and clients. And obviously also with different kinds of products you guys are creating. Now, I would be interesting because.There is a term that's being used, I was told, on the floor at Menlo, this is run the experiment. That seems to be a frequent term. Can you just specify, either one of you, what that means, or maybe both, right? And how that comes into play, working in agile ways. [00:02:55] Rich Sheridan: I would say, Joe, that phrase is born out of a background philosophy at Menlo that says, let probably pump fear out of the room.We think that fear is a culture killer. Filler fear is a mind killer. I think there's a line in doom that says something like that. And so if someone has a new idea here, rather than. Hey, let's form a committee to write a policy on that. I do. Let's take a meeting. Our inclination is to take action with that simple phrase.If somebody has an idea, somebody else might see. Great. Let's run the experiment. See what happens. And that can typically the things we try are on fairly small scale. We don't upend the whole place every week to try some new, crazy new way of working. But usually it is some small incremental change to an existing process or an enhancement to the way we do things here.Because somebody believed that there was a problem to solve and this experiment may help us address that problem. Again, trying it and see how it works. And the experiments that succeed are the ones that last a long time and others might just thritter away because they didn't actually solve an actual problem.Probably more often than not an experiment. Morphs over time. We had the original idea, we tried it, it didn't work the way we hoped. We try something a little different. [00:04:23] Joe Krebs: So it could go into either direction. So when we talked about this a little bit about the experimental part and obviously I'm very public about my my work and my interest in Kata and scientific thinking through Michael Rother and Jeffrey Liker.We, we met in Ann Arbor. And obviously when you hear the word experiment in connection with Kata , then it becomes, obviously the question is, how does this whole setup look like in Menlo? How do you guys operate? How does this all work? Do you guys have a product owner within Menlo? Do you guys have scrum masters?Do you guys have project managers, agile coaches? What do people listening to us right now have to imagine when they just picture Menlo and cannot visit you guys in person? [00:05:10] Rich Sheridan: It's probably valuable to know, just for your listeners, a little bit of background on what Menlo does for a living, where we make our money.We are doing custom software development on behalf of our clients. So Dan has done a lot of projects for us over the years that he's been here. He will work in with manufacturing companies who are trying to enhance their ERP systems. He'll work with furniture retailers who are trying to improve how things happen on the sales floor.So all these companies are coming to us because as Joe, everybody in the world needs software to run their businesses these days. And so we are bringing in clients from every industry imaginable to come in and work with us. We have a fairly simple structure to our team. The teams that Dan is a part of that are working on those various projects will consist of a project manager who is typically paired with we'll call it a product owner on the customer side of the equation.And for us, the customers are the people who are paying us to do this work. They aren't necessarily be going to be the end users, almost never the end users. Software building. We have a set of people on our team that have a very fun and unusual title and a great role called high tech anthropologists, and their job is to understand the humans that will one day use the software, the end users in software.Then we have our software development team, which comprises the biggest part of our company. And then Formal quality assurance role that works alongside the software development team. So every project at Menlo has some component of each of those four pieces. And and we work on a weekly iterative basis here.essentially right sizing every project for exactly the workload, right sizing it with the types of people it needs. We're more in the discovery phase. There'll be more high tech anthropology. If we're more in the software development phase, there will be more people like Dan on the project. The project manager and the QA teams are shared amongst variety projects, and they are they are constant throughout the course of each of the projects.In any given moment in time, we're a team of about 50 people. We have, probably right now, I'm going to guess about 15 different projects. at various stages. Some of the projects are large. They'll have 8 to 10 people on them. Some of the projects are small. They only have a couple. And it's probably worth noting that we pair.That pairing is a big construct here. That was an early experiment that took hold in the 23 years ago when we founded Menlo. And it has never let up since. [00:07:44] Joe Krebs: So running the experiment seems to be something like a, for testing and verifying the process in place, like programming, right? Is this an interesting, is this you have read about it, you, the teams might try it and find Found it useful, like many teams found their programming useful, right?So it's an interesting thing. So you're using that kind of experimentation approach for the process you're using, but you're also using experimentation for building the products for your clients. And that's where I want to go a little closer here. So you have your how do you protect your end user, your users?Your clients or your customers that are the product owner or acting out that role. If you want to say it this way. But then how do these requests come in? There's a ton of teams that are there that are using user stories product backlogs, ordering activities, refinement activities planning, sprint planning activities, and so on.How does this all look like at Menlo? How do you guys incorporate that if you work in different ways? I would be curious to hear. [00:08:42] Rich Sheridan: Yeah, the biggest starting point and starting is always hard for every project is starts with our high tech anthropology team and really attempt to answer three questions and use a lot of experiments to get to the answers to these questions.What problem are we actually trying to solve different than perhaps the one even the customer presented to us? Who exactly are we trying to solve this problem for? What types of people? And we'll use personas and persona maps for that exercise. But a lot of that discovery work is done out in the field.And so a lot of the early experiments are to be able to find these typical end users of the products we're working on out in the world. And that is often where some of the key experiments start early on. I'll give you a fun example, way back in our earliest days, long before anybody had iPhones or any kind of GPS devices, we were working with a company that wanted to create lanyard type devices that people who were on cruise ships would use to navigate the cities they would arrive in as the cruise ships pulled into port.And so imagine they had around their necks, they had these GPS driven devices with moving map displays and that sort of thing. So we had to figure out simple questions like do people know how to read maps? Because, if you ask a group of people, do you know how to read maps? Everybody would say, absolutely, I know how to read a map.If you ask people to read maps, you find that hardly 50 percent of people know how to read maps. And so it would be very expensive to try and do this on a cruise ship. We did get one cruise ship ride throughout the course of this project. But before that, we went to a local theme park here, locally here, just to watch people try and use maps.So we would run into that. with them. We would walk up to them with a map in our hand and say, Hey, can you show me where the Edison exhibit is? And we obviously have the map in our hand and we would see if that people would grab the map and what they would do with it and how they would orient it. And 50 percent of the people said, Oh, I can never read these things.See that circle I over there, the information booth, you should go ask them. So we found out right away that about 50 percent of people self report they don't know how to read maps. But this was really early experimental data that we could collect very inexpensively around what kind of challenges would people get to if they don't know how to read maps and we're creating a device that's supposed to allow them to navigate a city.And we get very creative. We try and do things inexpensively. And then ultimately we experiment with the potential designs, often with paper based prototypes to see what will actually work for people. Once we get into the actual software development, once we've secured that we understand what design and work for them, then there's a lot of other experiments that Dan and his fellow developers here at Memo will use.Sometimes those experiments are technical ones, technological ones. Sometimes it's most of the time, I would say they're often human ones because we were often working with developers. And our client sites, we have to figure out how to work with them, given the way we work. [00:11:55] Joe Krebs: Dan I'm curious, like just to take it to the software development side and take advantage of you being here on on this podcast as well, right?So it's a great insight to see business and the leadership of the organization, but also to see the actual implementation of these products, right? So let's say we're doing these visioning techniques and obviously as a. As Richard pointed out, there's a lot of cost savings finding out early on that people can read a map, right?Could you imagine you were building something assuming they can read a map? That would be a very costly detour later on. But I want to go a little bit deeper because there's so many teams, agile teams out there that are preparing for sprint planning activities or iteration planning. And they're using user stories or and then they're basically have planned everything and laid it out and implemented.You guys have through that experimental process, a different thing in place. I think it's much more lightweight, if I'm not mistaken. Can you walk the listeners maybe through once these requests come in and you're actually in the software development part of how you're still using experiments for that?[00:13:00] Dan Roman: Sure. So to as Rich was telling us about those experiments, it reminded me a little bit that every development iteration at Menlo, I would argue, is itself an experiment. So the beginning of the iteration happens after a show and tell, where the software development team will actually have the client or customer demo back to the development team the work that was accomplished for the previous iteration.And then based on that demo we'll authorize the next week's worth of work which comes out to some 40 planned hours worth of work. And when I think about Kata, I think about declaring a desired future state. And that's ultimately what we're doing. When we set out a plan for the iteration, we're saying the plan is we will end up in a state where these cards have been completed and there'll be completed in this effort.And then the rest of the iteration is the steps that we as a development team take to try and realize that. Future state. And then by the time we get to the end we'll basically start the cycle over again, which will again reminds me a little bit of Kata where we'll compare. All right, we started with a plan to get to this future state.We've run the iteration for a week. Let's compare where we are compared to where we want to be. And ultimately, all of that happens through obviously the software developers doing the work, but that all happens through . The story cards, which are our fundamental unit of work and these are three by five index cards on which are written the work items that the developers will go and implement and our quality advocates will go and test.And typically our high tech anthropologists are part of writing in the first place. .[00:14:28] Joe Krebs: Is there still like, are you pulling from an organized formal product backlog as so many scrum teams? are doing, or is this process a little bit more ad hoc and fluid based on the work you did in previous iterations where you're getting instant feedback from your customers and how does that all look like?The show and tell, that's where this comes together, I would assume. [00:14:50] Dan Roman: Yep. That's a very good question. So it's a little bit of all of the above. So what Rich was alluding to at the beginning of our engagements, the high tech anthropologists will do a lot of the Upfront work of describing here's based on our research and our observational data, what we believe the application needs to do.And that sets as a starting off point for the engagement itself. But over the course of every engagement, we are also discovering new work. So over the course of a given iteration, as the developers are doing work, they might write. They may write other story cards or the quality advocates may write some story cards or even at show and tell the client might may say, Oh, we didn't think about the fact that the user might need to do this certain thing.One of the fundamental rules that Menlo is that everyone can write a story card. Now just because you've written a story card doesn't mean that it'll get authorized or that'll get put on a weekly iteration. But we are certainly collecting the scope that's being executed nonstop over the course of the engagement.[00:15:49] Joe Krebs: How does maybe I love this story cards, right? Obviously, there is a story to be told and collaborated on as a team. How detailed are you? As teams now within Menlo, how detailed are you with the planning activities? Are you planning very ad hoc? Is this like in subgroups or pairs or how let's say, this, these requests are coming in.You have these stories and you're experimenting, I would assume also on those. How detailed are those or all the questions? [00:16:22] Rich Sheridan: Yeah. The important element of our planning that I think probably differs from many development teams is how collaborative it is with our customers. Number one, we're putting together at a high level a story mapped version that might map out a year or two worth of key milestones for this client broken down into achievable goals that might run.Okay. A month, two, three, four months. And then we start laying out the story cards for that very first goal. And the customer is standing alongside of us choosing these story cards that should go into that plan. Obviously we're giving them some advice from a technical standpoint as to if there's a more appropriate sequence of things that makes more sense, but we really want the business feeling like they're driving this we often find it When we hear of other teams challenges in planning and estimating and that sort of thing, you often find that it's an adversarial relationship with the business sponsors, where somebody is I can't believe it's going to take that long, or you need to get this done in a shorter amount of time.Our approach isn't to try and argue against the importance of a date or features within that date, but to simply argue with the data of here's what fits, given your budget, given your burn rate, given the team size we have. And then it's a question of, can we make responsible trade off decisions with our client to get to that particular goal?And then, as Dan said, on a weekly iterative basis, we're going to review the progress against our original plan. Because, no plan actually holds up once it hits reality. So we're going to get, sometimes we get more done than we expected, sometimes we get less done. But that weekly visit into what exactly do we get done in the weekly opportunity to now look ahead in that longer plan and say, okay, what we've learned now, should we make adjustments to the plan?Have we discovered new things that need to be done? Should we write story cards and estimate those story cards? Should we take some things off that we originally thought should be part of the plan in favor of newer, more important things? Collaborative planning happens on a week by week basis on all of our projects.I think the most fun thing I see happen is that often we use paper based planning techniques, which is again, unusual for software teams to use paper. Typically in the earliest part of our planning, all of our story cards are on white paper. But as time goes on, and as customers start to get nervous that we don't seem to be making as much progress, we often switch to, say, hot pink paper for things that were newly discovered or that somebody raised their hand in a meeting and said, hey we didn't think of this when we talked to you about it originally.And so we'll write that story card up, we'll estimate it, but when we put it in the paper based planning process, we make it hot pink. And over time, what you can see is The actual physical real estate of our planning sheets being taken up by more and more hot pink work Which essentially says hey, there was a lot of stuff for some reason we didn't discover early on Yes wrong with that, but let's at least acknowledge With this, these colorful pieces of paper that we are now three months into this project and 25 percent of the things we're working on are things neither one of us thought of at the beginning of the project.That can be really helpful to maintaining executive sponsorship of a project because. Now we can have explicit discussions about new things that came in. It isn't some theoretical wave your hands in the air. There were a few new things that came along. No, it is clear what the new things are that came along because it's on this different color.[00:20:18] Joe Krebs: Yeah. Creating truly a partnership, right? With with the business the clients in this case do to showcase this, right? And obviously as a client, I would assume they're all very happy with us to see that. They are late changes are being incorporated some way or the other, and [00:20:34] Rich Sheridan: happiness is an interesting word in this.So it would be fun to believe that the people on the other side of the planning table at Menlo have all of the power and all of the authority to make these changes. But typically they're reporting up to an executive somewhere that has some other budgetary constraints. . We're not so much trying to make happy customers out of this process.We're trying to make informed customers so they can have intelligent conversations when they go back to their offices to say, Hey, I thought you were going to have all of this. What happened? And what you really want to do is give them the physical artifacts they need to be able to create a story. scale all the way up, perhaps to the CEO of the company to figure out why is this project where it's at right now.[00:21:27] Joe Krebs: . That's a good point. And thanks for clarifying. I think makes makes perfect sense. Dan Richard's mentioned the word a few times. I want to go a little bit deeper. That's the word estimates. Are you guys estimating there's a lot of different kind of estimation techniques out there.Agile teams are using, I'm just curious with this approach where you're going into more experimental activities, if estimation is actually still a thing here, or if it's an, if so, how lightweight it is. [00:21:58] Dan Roman: Sure. So to start right off the bat, yes, we do estimate it's part of that weekly iteration cycle.So every development team is sitting down and looking at the cards in play, as well as cards likely to be played in the future and estimating those story cards. That takes about an hour of time for regardless of the size of the dev team and we estimate in hours and in powers of two. So a given story card at Menlo would sit between two hours and 32 hours again on that power of two spectrum which can feel pretty radical for some organizations where things like velocity.I know that's a very popular way to, Fibonacci numbers as a means of calculating velocity or t shirt sizes, another sort of abstraction. I think that there are a couple of things that necessitate, or at least why we as Menlonians prefer that method. One is because estimating in hours is a universal language that when we get to that planning game after the show and tell with our stakeholders.There's no need to do any translation between 13 Fibonacci points or a medium t shirt size. We can say we've got 40 hours of effort for a given pair to plan for. And this card is 16, and that's 16 hours worth of work. And that's something that is instantly understandable by our stakeholders.I think part of the reason that we as a team are able to do that and Not in all cases, but in some cases, why other teams choose those kinds of abstractions at Menlo. We have a very healthy relationship between the technical folks who are doing the work and the project managers and stakeholders who are authorizing and planning the work.And that's manifest in this sort of contract. That's very explicit and part of, as I understand it, our project management training. There's a dual responsibility for maintaining our estimates. So any software developer pair that's doing work on a card. As soon as they know they're going to miss the estimate.So if Rich and I were pairing on a story card and we were on an eight hour card and we started to realize, Oh, wait, this is bigger. This is going to be at least double that. This is a 16 hour card. Now we have a obligation to go out to our project manager, for example, Lisa, she's one of our PMs and telling her, Hey, Lisa, we are working on this card.It was originally estimated as an 8, but because of these reasons, we see it as a 16. That's our half of the sort of contract. The other half of that is the one that lives on Lisa's side, or the PM's side, which is to say, Thank you for your estimate, and smile. And that sounds like a really simple little strategy, but it's That kind of strategy that sucks the fear out of the room that would otherwise inhibit Rich and I from volunteering that information or giving an honest, updated estimate on the card.And that's why a lot of other teams can run into those abstractions is because it's scary or painful when you let some set of stakeholders know, oh, this thing we originally estimated will take a day is now going to take more than that. Yeah, [00:24:59] Joe Krebs: well, there's definitely a lot of controversy out there about.Estimation and the techniques and in communicated and sometimes they're so like inflated to o just to be safe, depending on what organization and teams you work for. So that's, does not seem to be the approach at Menlo and obviously you guys. I've taken an expert estimate on the work at that time and see what, what comes out of it.Once you start working on it very interesting thing. Now you just mentioned that I want to follow up on that word too, because I think the listeners out there who are. Used to agile coaches scrum masters, et cetera, et cetera. They are probably not saying did he just say the word project manager?Did he just use that term? And because that sometimes that is a term that has been removed and replaced and you guys are using it actively, as far as I understand what's the role of a project manager at? Menlo, if you're working so in so agile ways and in experiments and et cetera what would be the role of a project manager other than nodding and saying, thanks for your estimate and smiling.[00:26:09] Rich Sheridan: So the primary role of a project manager at Menlo is to be the voice of the customer, people who pay us to do the work when the customer isn't in the room. And so their job is to answer questions from the development team about the general direction of the project, where it's going, how we're going to get there, what what the overall overarching goals for the project are if the cause, if the project manager doesn't know they will reach out to the client who isn't imminently available every time we want to reach out to them.That's why we need somebody who's advocating on their behalf when the client isn't around or not available by phone and that sort of thing. The the other role important role project manager does is to help the team remove obstacles. Dan and his pair partner will be rolling along and a card gets stuck.Have a question, need to reach out to somebody, you can just let Lisa know and say, Hey, Lisa, I just want to let you know we're stuck here. We wrote to the client. We're waiting for an answer. We're going to red dot that card, which means they're going to stop it. We're going to move on to the next card in the lane.And if there's anything you can do to help remove that obstacle, that would be awesome. Project managers also keeping close track. Our customers are spending a lot of money with us, so keeping close track on the budget relative to the total budget relative to the burndown for that budget, all those kinds of things.I guess there's a tremendous amount of, financial oversight that comes with every one of our projects, we're often working on projects that run into the millions of dollars. And so project managers are helping manage that part of the process with us. And you're also making a lot of decisions alongside people like Dan is to what should the composition of the team be this week.So it's a very collaborative role for the people doing the work I mentioned before we pair, we switch the pairs every five business days and. over time, systematically rotate people in and out of the projects to avoid burnout, to avoid towers of knowledge issues, all that kind of stuff. And the project managers will work very closely with the team to figure out what would be the best composition of people who should pair with whom who who would be good candidates for these story cards, that sort of thing.[00:28:27] Dan Roman: I think there's one element that's important too for Menlo, but I would also argue this is true of other organizations. But the roles and the titles that we have for the work that each of us as Menlonians do does describe a primary role. But that is not to say that the team is not responsible for also doing some of the other responsibilities of the other roles.For example, I am primarily a software developer at Menlo. But on a day to day basis, I am contributing to the conversations Rich is talking about where it's planning the resources for the project, making sure that the customer is appraised of any changes to the plan or keeping in mind the decisions that we're making today and what impact that has on the end user, the way that our high tech anthropologists might be considering.So I think it's one of those things where it's like we, we have those titles and those roles to an easy heuristic to generally describe what we do within Menlo, but at the end of the day, there's actually a lot of blending or blurring of the lines that exist between our individual roles.[00:29:30] Joe Krebs: Yeah. I think that's also it speaks to the self managing aspect of agility in general. Now I'm so thrilled to have you both on this podcast episode, because we had in this Kata series so far, we had different topics. We talked about transformational cultural things. I, this is a and I think that's a really great, wonderful episode.I believe it's a wonderful episode that really focused on Developing in agile ways, but in a non prescriptive or existing frameworks. That are out there and you can almost say like, when I listen to your conversation. It's almost it's almost sounds like cherry picking, right? Of how we're using this concept, or we are estimating, but a little bit different, or we have paper, but some of them are pink.And and so what I and working in pairs and we're shifting pairs and the way of how you operate with clients rather than the product owner being in house, the product owner is the actual client. So there's a lot of things. So there are some terminologies or project manager, just to name another one versus a scrum master.And what's really fascinating, I think, is for one of the goals of this episode is to show existing Agile teams if something's not working with an existing framework or with the process they have chosen, as you guys said, run the experiment, right? Try something new. Adjust your process. That's one element.And maybe you find ways of changing the way of how you currently work with breaking something. Obviously, that is recommended, but you're saying it's not working for us. That's not us. And that would be whatever you shared about. Menlo and the culture, but there's also the way of using this way of working to build the product itself, right?So there's two aspects to it, shape the process, how you want to work, but also the way of how you build a product for your clients. So I want to thank you guys for that. That is really nice. Thank you. [00:31:22] Rich Sheridan: You bet. Yeah. I think our general philosophy is all of these tools, methodologies, ways of thinking have value to offer and why would we constrain ourselves to simply one of them?Why don't we borrow pieces and parts? And put, I think for us, we do refer to our general system of work here as the Menlo way of working. . And but if you probed, you would see we borrowed all these pieces from this so we don't find ourselves resisting any of them. We find ourselves embracing them, looking at them deciding, oh, that might work here.And every project has its own unique, qualities to it as well. I [00:32:02] Dan Roman: think one of the pieces that reminds me of is the notion that when we're designing our process, we're setting out to solve a problem and our problem isn't that we're not doing agile. It's not that we're not doing scrum and we need to start doing scrum.We're trying to provide value to a customer on a frequent and consistent basis such that they can respond to feedback and make planning decisions. There are times when that desire or attempt to solve that problem will line up pretty closely with what Agile might seem like or Lean. But at the end of the day, it all starts from let's solve a problem and the absence of some predetermined process is not itself a problem.. [00:32:42] Joe Krebs: Yeah. This is, that's wonderful. And then maybe a good word to end the the podcast episode here together. And obviously there is. An opportunity to take a tour with Menlo and see that all in action. So I invite the listeners to go and reach out to you. There's a, there's tons of tours you guys are doing on a yearly basis.Ann Arbor is the place to visit in Michigan. And and then they can see all what we just talked about in action.[00:33:08] Rich Sheridan: And one of our experiments during the pandemic were virtual tours that we continue to this day, even though. The in person tours have resumed. , [00:33:17] Joe Krebs: even cooler. So this could be done just from your couch.Thank you so much. [00:33:22] Dan Roman: Thank you.​

Joe has a book “Agile Kata” in the making, if you like to be the first to know when it launches, please visit www.agilekatabook.com.Transcript: Agile F M radio for the agile community. [00:00:05] Joe Krebs: Thank you for tuning into another episode of Agile FM. Today, I have Dr. Jeffrey Liker with me. You probably know from a, I would say, famous book with the title The Toyota Way. That is a book we want to talk about today a little bit, but there's so much, much more about Jeff, he is a professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan.He's president of Liker Lean Advisors, and as I said, he wrote not only the Toyota Way, but he also wrote, if I did the count right, nine other books. That relate to Toyota, and there are two books that more recently were published and we'll have a chance in a different episode to talk about those.One was in June, 2023, Giving Wings to her team with Tilo Schwartz, and we have Engaging the Team at Zingerman's Mail Order and that's more like a comic if you want to see it this way, and he co authored that with Eduardo Lander and Tim Root, so that is the The list of books if I haven't missed anything, but we want to talk a little bit about the Toyota way before we do that.Welcome to the show though, Jeff. [00:01:13] Jeffrey Liker: Thank you. Joe. [00:01:16] Joe Krebs: Awesome. So the Toyota way initially released, I believe 2000, somewhere three, two, somewhere that this book we're talking about is the Toyota way. Second edition. This is also very important. We're talking about the second edition of which, which was released somewhere in the year 2021. Timeframe. [00:01:34] Jeffrey Liker: Yes. Three, about two years old. [00:01:36] Joe Krebs: Yeah. And but there is something that happened in that book that is fundamentally different in, in terms of I, I don't know all the change log and everything, but there's one fundamental change, and that is the inclusion of scientific thinking.[00:01:52] Jeffrey Liker: Right, right. A little over five years ago, Mike Rother than I jointly gave a presentation and the book hit my book Toyota Way was 20 years old. So the 20 year anniversary, and his book to Toyota Kata was, I believe, 10 years old, and. We started talking about the relationship between the two.Mike was one of my students and he had practiced lean transformation for many years and was very familiar with the Toyota way and all the concepts of Toyota and studied Toyota. And then he came up with this thing called Toyota Kata. And I had to kind of struggle to sort of figure out what it was and what he was trying to add to what we know about Toyota.And. What he really did was to reverse engineer what Toyota, we call him Toyota Sensei. Sensei is like a master teacher. So what the Toyota Sensei, who are experts on the Toyota production system, do when they work with a new client outside of Toyota, how do they teach it? And they always teach by doing.And he had a chance to see a lot of companies that these different Toyota masters worked with and their masterpieces. And. Asked the question, What do they have in common? And they're all very successful, like they almost won't even bother working on a project unless they can at least double productivity.And that just happens almost automatically. And so he knew that they got great results. But the question is, what are they doing. And in fact, each of these masters. It has a bit of an ego, and they think that they're doing it the right way and the best way, and nobody else can do it that way, the way they do, but he found an underlying pattern, which he called scientific thinking, and what he noticed is the first thing they do is they grasp, they call it grasp the situation in Toyota, they go in, they see what's going on, they talk to the top leaders, and they ask, what is it that they're trying to accomplish?What is their goal? What is their purpose? What are their goals? Why do they want to learn about lean management? What is their vision for what happened? If they were successful, then they go to the Gemba where the activity is, and it could be a factory that they work. They've worked with where they gave you injections for COVID 19.They've worked with where they made ventilators for COVID 19. They've worked with software houses where they develop software. They don't really care when they will go to the Gemba and they'll see the process and understand the current conditions. So then they'll go back, they'll grasp the situation generally, and then they'll go back and they'll say, here's where you're at.Here's the challenge for you. Yeah. And the challenge is always big, you know, like we will double productivity or we will reduce costs by 30 percent or something pretty big based on the needs of the company may have runaway late deliveries and there's paying a ton for a premium freight.And we'll say we will eliminate all shipping and then they will go back to the Gemba with a team of people from the company. And they will teach them how to see, how to understand the process as it is. And Mike calls this the current condition. And then the people in the company will basically wait and expect answers, solutions from the masters.So what do we do? And the masters will say, that's my question to you. What are you going to do? You see where you are, you see where you want to be. You see all sorts of opportunities. What do you think you should be working on first? And then based on what they say the students say, they they may ask them to go back and look some more.Or they may say, why don't we try it? Usually what these people come in the company, come up with, because it's a big challenge, they come up with a fairly big thing and they, it might be, for example, in a manufacturing facility, moving equipment around and laying it out as a cell and They said a personal last one.Can you do this? And they'll say something like, well, we have to talk to engineering and we have to make sure customers okay with this. We have to line up the maintenance people move the equipment. So, I think we really stretch it. Maybe we could do it in a week. And then the trade master will say, good, I'll be back tomorrow and that like starts the process. Now, of course they can't do it in a day what they might have to do it. They can't get all the approvals. So what the person is trying to get them to do is. You don't have to do a hundred percent in one step. Let's try something that's doable and then see what happens.And then we can learn from it. And then we can think about based on that, what our next step is. Usually what happens is the, like, for example, if they lay out a cell. It'll be a disaster. You'll move the equipment together and they'll realize that the equipment has maintenance issues and it's breaking down and everything stops because they don't have inventory anymore.And usually they can't, they barely make product and the you know, the mentors say, that's okay. Let's start working on the problems down now that we see what the problems are. You were hiding them before. Now let's start working on the problems one by one. So Mike saw that, and he saw it enough times, that he realized that what the, these Master thinkers were doing.We're not teaching tools and methods like most of the Westerners were doing with lean. They were teaching a way of thinking. Yeah. And it was actually very scientific. What's your goal? What's your current condition? Right. You know, fairly precisely with measurements and direct observation. And then let's not try to in one step get to the challenge.Let's break down the problem. And all we really need to understand is our first step. And then after that, our second step, our third step, and each of these steps were structured like experiments. They might ask them, what do you think will happen if we make the cell? And then, you know, the people will say, Oh, well, our productivity will go up or quality will go up.Let's see what happens. Yeah. It's a disaster. Yeah. So what did we learn from that? We learned that we have a lot of problems that we've been hiding. And now we can see the problems we have to solve them. So, and also they're trying to teach the value of running the experiment, learning from it, which then gives you the next step and gives you the next step.So that became the basis for what. Mike call Toyota kata. The other part of it was in the meantime, he was studying about neuroscience and cognitive psychology and how we learn and there's a lot of literature that suggests that none of us are natural scientific thinkers, right? We're driven more by biases and the desire to know things, whether we do or not.So we want a lot of certainty. And we want to be right. We're going to, in fact, fudge the data to make it appear that we're right. That's called confirmation bias, which is really strong in humans. So he realized that to change people, to start to think and act scientifically requires fundamental behavior change.That's right. Yeah. It means changing our habits. And then he asked the question, how do you change habits? And the literature on, on, on cognitive psychology and neuroscience, as well as Practical experience, for example, with coaching sports teams, it all says the same thing, which we have to practice repeatedly with feedback.And it's very common enough times it becomes a new habit. So then he said, asked, how do you, how can we practice scientific thinking? And he said, first, we need a model, which we have, which is challenge current condition, first short term target condition, then experiment, then second target condition and experiment.Then third target condition and experiment. And. Then he said, how can we teach this? And each of those steps has some associated ways of thinking and tools and think practice routines, things to practice. So he laid that out in what he calls the Toyota Kata practice guide, which is pictures and step by step instruction, like, Like a recipe book and he came up with kata, which comes from the martial arts, which mean small practice routines to teach us complex skill by breaking it down and trying the pieces one by one karate.They'll have the first kata and move the second kata until you learn the first kata. That's right. Correctly. So it's an evolution. Yeah, and usually think about, you know, taking a music lesson until you can play the very simple piece. They want. Go on to the next more complicated piece. All right. So, that led to the whole Toyota Kata, which is a model plus the practice routines.And as you practice them, you begin to think more naturally in a scientific way. [00:11:20] Joe Krebs: Right. So what's interesting is so when I started looking at Mike Rothers work right on, on Kata, and obviously I read your first edition, came in to the second edition and it just like became more and more eyeopening is these habit changes or like a habits we have and habits we want to change that's the same in the agile community, right?So we have certain habits of how we. build software or how we release software and go through transformation and all these cultural changes. So it's just like this meta skill. If you want to see it this way, that, that's that's fascinating when I came across this now, I do want to make sure that If I understand this right, this is obviously not that in 2021 Toyota started with scientific thinking.It was there before, right? It is like something that was carved out as something like it should go into the Toyota way as this core thing. So if you look at [00:12:10] Jeffrey Liker: Yeah. So that was the, we ended up giving a presentation where we said Toyota way and Toyota Kata play well together as if there were separate things.And then thinking about some more, I realized that scientific thinking really underlies. What I called in the Toyota way, the four P's of the Toyota way. The first was philosophy, which I refer to as long term systems thinking. And the second is lean processes. The process of trying to work toward one piece flow.And the third is developing people. In problem solving, which is the fourth "P" and I realized these all are connected through scientific thinking, right? And if you're not thinking scientifically, you can't do any of them. For example, you can't be a system thinker. Yeah. If you're a jelly non scientific thinking is reductionist.We assume every individual tool operates on its own. So we implement Kanban to get inventory reductions and we implement standardized work to get productivity improvements. So we're seeing isolated tools as opposed to a whole system, which is what Mike called the Toyota production system. So with that, I then started to rethink the book from the point of view of scientific thinking, being at the center.And also realizing that you can't really talk about lean as if it's a bunch of mechanistic pieces that you individually build and then they just all suddenly fit together. You have to talk about more of an evolutionary learning process. Yeah. Organization. [00:13:48] Joe Krebs: Yeah. This is interesting. So, I have never consulted for Toyota myself but I was told that the word Toyota Kata does not really, it's not a use, it use Toyota.[00:13:58] Jeffrey Liker: That was not their word. It was Mike's. [00:13:59] Joe Krebs: Exactly. Yeah. [00:14:00] Jeffrey Liker: Description from the outside of what he learned in Toyota. And then he went further and say, the Japanese sensei, they tend to be pretty mysterious Yeah. Yeah, it's light. For example, do it tomorrow. Yeah, we'll come and see. So what should I do now? What do you think you should do now?Yeah. So they tend to be mysterious, but he realized that if we want to mass distribute this to people that don't have access to those magical Japanese, we need a very explicit and simple methodology. So he developed in great detail, this methodology that in Toyota, they wouldn't think they had to use because they, what they say is that from the day you enter the company, the culture is so strong.You begin to learn Kaizen. [00:14:49] Joe Krebs: Yeah. Interesting. So, what was that one of the reasons why you decided to call that core scientific thinking, or was it more like, because it's the thinking and not the tool, it's not the pattern [00:15:00] Jeffrey Liker: thinking now it turns out. You go back to the first Japanese pamphlet. Really? It was a document for the first Japanese document that describes the Toyota production system.It says that it's based on scientific thinking. So for people in Toyota, that's not. Unusual. It's not a stretch, but they, and they think of scientific thinking more empirically than theoretically. So there's theoretical science where we just. In the abstract. And then we deduce from that things and we apply the abstract model to a problem.And then there's inductive science where we look at the phenomena and the empirical reality. And then we induce from that principles and solutions. And so in Toyota, they learned that you need very specific solutions to very specific problems. Yeah. Not general solutions to a whole general class of problems.So you need both to some degree, but they're much more focused than most on solving this problem right here, right now. Yeah. So when they see product development in software, we're developing a software program, they see it and maybe they see it as a part of product development, but they're not going to come in and say, here's your 10 step roadmap to great software.They're going to ask, what is your problem? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your goal? Let's go look at your current process. So they want to know the specifics of your situation and your goals. And they want you to learn how to think scientifically, to learn for yourself how to achieve whatever goals you have and adapt and adjust as the environment changes.[00:16:45] Joe Krebs: It is, it's fascinating also when I open up your new book, the second edition, right? There's also a thing where you design a I don't know if that's the content of your masterclass. I do know that you're teaching a lot of masterclasses but it's really the transition from a mechanistic lean, right?Organic lean. And if I go through the list of the organic lean, this is just like, it just translates for me, for somebody who has been now, you know, using, learning, applying Kata thinking more and more it just links like one, one, one to one, like two to the scientific thinking too, right? [00:17:17] Jeffrey Liker: Yeah, the other part is that whatever performance improvement program you have, Whether it's lean or agile or theory of constraints or whatever.If you look at it from what I call mechanistic point of view, then you're trying to fit square pegs in the round holes, you know, your problems, I want your problems to fit into my model. . and the other expression pill uses, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.So, You can apply Lean, you can apply Agile, you can apply Six Sigma mechanistically, or you can apply any of those things organically. You start organically, you start with a problem. You want to engage the people who understand the Gemba the reality the best. And you want to teach them how to think differently about their process.So they developed the skills of problem solving and performance improvement, and you expect to be surprised and you expect that you won't know the answers until you start digging in and trying things, Mechanistic point of view, you, I have the solution and I'm going to sell you the solution, even though I've never been in your place.I've never seen your process. I don't know anything about. Yeah, I have the solution for you. That's kind of taking this abstract solution and assuming it's going to apply in the abstract to any similar type of problem. Staying at that theoretical level. [00:18:49] Joe Krebs: This is this could I want to just take one example.You know, I want to hear your opinion about this as you do teach these classes, right? When you are surrounded by leaders in those workshops, and you do talk about something like, yeah, I find like the right line here. It's not about like organic, Lean. It would be, it's not a project. It's a journey.Right. And I would just like to hear like what kind of responses, what do you hear when you introduce a concept like this, in terms of continuous improvement and it's a journey or it's a. From a cultural perspective, it's not like an initiative that starts here and ends in by the end of March or any arbitrary date you, somebody might pick it as an ongoing activity that obviously shifts from a leadership perspective, entirely the view, like, what did you hear when you challenge people?[00:19:39] Jeffrey Liker: When I teach the masterclass, the people that usually come have titles like director of continuous improvement, vice president operations excellence and then I'll get some people who might be the head of operations or plant manager, but and you're probably this is self selection, but they all agree when we talk about it.That the approach they have used in the past was very mechanistic and the approach that they believe, particularly after they see it in Toyota. So we do this with Toyota is they see the value of engaging all the people and Leaders acting more as coaches than as disciplinarians. And they said, that's what we need.So they, they conclude they want to move toward a more organic approach, but then they also feel a little bit concerned and nervous because I said, you know, my boss's boss expects immediate measurable results from everything we do with lean. And if you're telling me that it takes time, if you're telling me that it takes investment in developing people.And there's a gap, a time gap between the investments we make in developing people, for example, teaching them using Kata and the results that we get, we're going to have a hard time selling that. So what we ended up concluding usually is that you need both, that there is some value in the experts coming in with the tools, eliminating waste and streamlining processes and getting.Quick results on a more expansive part of the organization. Cause these people are coming in with big companies. They might have 30 or 40 or 50 manufacturing plants and the, and that there's a value in piloting within a smaller area, some of the deeper approaches to changing ways of thinking and changing culture with the successes you have in those models.You have something to sell to the senior management, come and see this and see how much better they perform. So that's usually the kind of vision they have is that they have to somehow find a balance. And I have a slide that shows like, the balance of justice and they have to find a balance between the more mechanistic, quick, short term and superficial approach.Deep and a mile wide. And that's deploying the tools and then the more deep one inch wide, a mile deep, the more deep approach to developing people one by one that you would be doing with Kata. So they have to find a balance between those things, and they have to figure that out there through their own scientific thinking journey.They have to figure it out inside their company by trying things by experimenting. So I asked him instead of leaving here with a whole bunch of solutions. that you're going to bring and implement your company, think about one big challenge that would really make a difference. Your ability to deploy lean, sell lean and define that as a challenge.Then the next, what do you do next? And they said, well, we have to solve the problem. Okay. So how do you solve the problem? Do you go back there and say, we need standardized work. We need employ work groups that we saw at Toyota. And they said, no, those are solutions. We have to understand the current condition.First. That's a great, wonderful.[00:23:09] Joe Krebs: Back to scientific thinking.. This is awesome. Your book was initially the first edition came out as we said of. Several years ago, 2002 or something like that. Why do you think at least from the, from an agile perspective there's other terms floating around. I don't want to go into pick any, right, because it's not a complete list necessarily, but why do we.I see like a lack of of these terms actually like being used on a more broader level, right? You have sold so many books and people are looking at this and saying this is wonderful material, but the implementation, it seems to be slow in the transition. Like taking companies to lean or even in, in agile transformations, is it, do you think it has something to do with the the culture, like, like, for example, using Japanese terms or something like that?[00:24:01] Jeffrey Liker: Yeah, I don't think that so much. I mean, I think there is sometimes a sense that since this is a car company and you have a stereotype picture in your mind of what a car company does. And the first thing you often think about is the assembly line, where you have cars running down the assembly line and people are attaching things to the car.And you say, well, that doesn't look anything like what I do, so therefore, it doesn't apply to me. So there's a lot of that, you know, we're different. And it could be anything. It could be that we're a manufacturing company, but we make chemical products. It's not like cars going down the line. Or it could be that we're a finance company and we don't make any physical products.Or it could be that we work with a mining company that does iron ore mining in Australia and we go and we blast and we dig and we have this big batches of stuff. And how do we get to one piece flow? So, the the problem is that you have to shift your thinking from manufacturing. Mechanical solutions.Like I'm trying to look over here to get solutions that apply in an obvious way to me. You have to shift that thinking to there are some general principles here that have been abstract abstracted that I can then bring to my operations and the people who are well trained and lean or in Kata get very comfortable going into any new environment and not knowing What the solutions are, and then digging in and trying to understand the current condition of that operations.So this idea of I think the first easy thing to do is to copy solutions like a template. But if you give me a template, I'll just superimpose on my process and I know what to do. And the harder thing is to take a more abstract concept, like I need to define a challenge., even when I take my classes and I asked them to define a challenge, they struggle, you know, the challenges we want to have a culture of continuous improvement.Well, that's way too abstract. And then if they say, well, the challenges we would want, we'd like five suggestions per employee. That's way too specific. . So finding the right level of the challenge, you know, itself challenging challenges are thinking. And then what do you look at in the current condition?If it doesn't look like a Toyota plant where you can say it takes 60 seconds for each car and we can break down the steps of attaching window wiper into a reach that takes 2 seconds and, you know, They that's their current condition analysis. Your current condition analysis may be very different if you don't have a routine repeating process.But there are ways to understand the current condition in any sort of process. And even and I remember Deming saying that if you don't think you have a process, you can't improve anything. So, that even that idea that, you know, we develop software, and every software project is different. And the process is that we understand what the customer wants, and we do it.There's no process beyond that. You know, so that Just understanding there are processes, there are habits, there are routines that you have and you need to shine a light on them and understand them, and then figure out from where you are how to start to move in the direction. of the ideal model you have in your head.That, you know, it takes a, it takes thinking. Yeah. It's thinking is tiring. [00:27:36] Joe Krebs: Well, that's my recommendation to all of the listeners out there. When I went down the journey and extracted. By doing exactly what you just said, like looking at that material and extracting information saying like, okay, this is not about Toyota.This is not about this. This is about, you know, how would this apply a map to the agile world? I'm just calling it agile Kata out because of the making a dereferencing it to the Toyota. Brand, let's say in this particular case, but the thinking is the same in terms of the scientific thinking, but surrounding it with agile principles and, you know, [00:28:12] Jeffrey Liker: last thing I'd like to say is that as I dug into agile and you and I met.Menlo Innovations, which is kind of a benchmark for Agile and software development. And I looked at what they're doing there, which Richard Sheridan we're doing. And I saw lots of similarities to the Toyota way. And I saw also a lot of similarities to Toyota Kata. And I met, worked on Zingerman's mail order with Tom Root, who is one of the owners.He was originally an IT guy. So the backbone of the mail order business is the IT system. And what I discovered, and I've talked to you and I've talked to a lot of different IT people, what I discovered is that a lot of the concepts of scientific thinking are actually quite natural for programmers, you know, see, if I think in terms, if I say we need to think in terms of systems and how the parts interact, and I go into a manufacturing environment, they might think Treat me like I'm from another planet, but the software guy will say, of course, and then the idea that you have to have a vision for what the software is going to do and understand the customer.And then you have to break that down into small elements of some sort. Call them features, and then you need to develop one feature at a time and then compile them, make sure they work together as a system, and then build the next feature and compile it. And it's a step by step learning process, breaking the big problem into small pieces and then solving each problem one by one.That idea just you know, a software program said, how do you do it any other way? So the high level model of the Kata makes perfect sense. Within the world of software development, but how to do that in a sort of structured systematic way and make it part of the culture and natural.For example at Menlo Innovations, they do unit testing. And if I say unit testing to a software program and say, of course, we know what that is. Let's go and see your program and show me the unit test you've conducted. Exactly. And this kind of, yeah, and it's got to be hopefully more and more examples like this, right?Than than the one you're naming. And so I think somebody might be listening to this. Or reading the second edition of your book of the Toyota way might be building these bridges to whatever environment they are in, right? About in, in the Toyota way I do write about Menlo innovations. And so I, so that's another thing I did in the new edition is add more service examples and software examples and examples from other places, which I didn't have at the time I wrote the original book, I was just describing.So that's in the book. And it. The thinking way is still the same and one of the things that happened with Richard and to tell you the truth is that he started to get kind of turned off by a lot of the agile examples he was seeing, because they like the lean folks were often simply using a tool.Be that agile was almost equivalent to writing things on post it notes. Yeah, and he has all culture. He calls it deliberate culture. He had to develop the whole culture. Out of pairs, paired programming and programs learning from each other and sending what he calls technical anthropologists out to the customer to really deeply understand the Gemba and how they're using software and getting the customer in week by week, every single week to test the software and give feedback to the team.So there's a whole set of practices that he had to create as the standard for the culture of Menlo. That it took an awful lot of work and it was much more than buying a lot of post it notes. [00:32:08] Joe Krebs: Yes, and maybe that was one of the reasons why he decided when we all agreed on we're going to meet in Ann Arbor and it was in September 23 we'll all come together and it was Mike it was you and several others and Richard Sheridan was the first one who says and count me in and I'm offering my office space for this because it's so important.[00:32:25] Jeffrey Liker: So yeah, well he yeah so he didn't understand Kata at first but then I understood it. And he said, yeah, that's pretty much what we do. Isn't it? Then he had to, you know, he then added some things to what they do because they weren't working in a deliberate way using the scientific approach of kind, but the overarching way that they worked and developed all their software was very much the vision, current state, right down to small pieces, solve one problem after another with very quick feedback.Correct feedback, then get it to work. One of the interesting things about Menlo innovations projects, cause they're developing customer software, none of it's off the shelf. And they, if they do a one year project in the 52nd week, the only thing they have to get right is one week of work because 51 weeks of work works perfectly.So there's basically zero, almost zero rework and they have a hundred percent customer satisfaction. The customer takes the software out of the box and they just start using it.. [00:33:37] Joe Krebs: I want to thank you Jeff for some insights on the second edition of the Toyota Way. If the second edition is It's only somewhat successful as the first edition in terms of sales of books.Thousands of books will be sold and thousands of readers out there will be exposed to scientific thinking and it's a good thing through your materials. I want to thank you for that. And also, yeah, just like, to everybody out there, if you are interested go to the show pages, I'm going to list Jeff's books and obviously ways of learning about Kata in a way to apply that in the agile context, I have some additional pointers here of where to go, what to do first and second, and obviously the Kata Bookshelf is growing thanks to you, Jeff, too, and and many more ways to learn about scientific thinking.Thank you, Jeff. [00:34:27] Jeffrey Liker: You're welcome. It's my pleasure, Joe. Take care then.

In this episode of World Business Forum NYC 2023 Series from Stories from the River, host Charlie Malouf welcomes Will Luke, Director of Retail Operations and Stacey McCormick, the River's Senior VP of Retail Performance, as they break down their thoughts on Simon Sinek's unique Q&A in New York City. In their conversation, they delve into Simon's ideas on the correlation between rewarding behaviors and initiatives as opposed to rewarding outputs. They examine the idea of a company hackathon to solve big problems within the company with collaboration. Additionally, they discuss how scheduled office meetings can impede spontaneous creativity, and explore the current work-from-home (WFH) culture and why a return to office (RTO) can lead to a necessary and healthy dose of human and social connection. Simon suggests that the WFH culture is causing our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. They discuss Sinek's book "The Infinite Game" and the long-term, healthy benefits of playing an infinite game in business as opposed to the short-term and limited mindset that leads to a decline of trust, culture, and morale that comes from playing a finite game.  They discuss various viewpoints presented by Sinek and whether or not they fully concur with his ideas. Additionally, they delve into some of his concepts, such as when it is appropriate to terminate someone. The conversation also covers the responsible implementation of AI technology, taking into account both its exciting possibilities and underlying concerns. In staying true to his optimistic outlook, Simon concludes his time on the stage by stating that his theme for the new year is idealism as he suggested that the possibility for world peace literaly existed within the room that day.  Additional information:  The Optimism Company - https://simonsinek.com   "A Bit of Optimism" podcast - https://simonsinek.com/podcast/   "The Millennial Question" from Simon Sinek - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vudaAYx2IcE   3 Things w/ Simon Sinek | The Purpose of Business - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQaIyTekTmU  https://www.redventures.com/blog/3-things-the-purpose-of-business   Surgeon General Advisory: The Healing Effects of Social Connection - https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/connection/index.html   The Surgeon General's Advisory on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (PDF) lays out a framework for a National Strategy to Advance Social Connection - https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf   and one-page summary - https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-social-connection-general.pdf   "Start With Why" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Simon-Sinek/dp/1591844517   "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591848016/   "The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Game-Simon-Sinek/dp/073521350X/   "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" by James P. Carse - https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713   "Chief Joy Officer" by Richard Sheridan - https://richardsheridan.com/books/chief-joy-officer   WBF NYC 2023 Event Details: https://www.wobi.com/it/wbf-nyc/   WBF NYC 2023 Event Brochure: https://www.wobi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/wbfnyc_brochure.pdf     This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/49vgPn63wpo  We hope you enjoy this episode and subscribe to our podcast for a new story each week. Visit https://www.storiesfromtheriver.com for more episodes. 

In this episode of World Business Forum NYC 2023 Series from Stories from the River, host Charlie Malouf welcomes Will Luke, Director of Retail Operations and Stacey McCormick, the River's Senior VP of Retail Performance, as they break down their thoughts on Simon Sinek's unique Q&A in New York City. In their conversation, they delve into Simon's ideas on the correlation between rewarding behaviors and initiatives as opposed to rewarding outputs. They examine the idea of a company hackathon to solve big problems within the company with collaboration. Additionally, they discuss how scheduled office meetings can impede spontaneous creativity, and explore the current work-from-home (WFH) culture and why a return to office (RTO) can lead to a necessary and healthy dose of human and social connection. Simon suggests that the WFH culture is causing our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. They discuss Sinek's book "The Infinite Game" and the long-term, healthy benefits of playing an infinite game in business as opposed to the short-term and limited mindset that leads to a decline of trust, culture, and morale that comes from playing a finite game.  They discuss various viewpoints presented by Sinek and whether or not they fully concur with his ideas. Additionally, they delve into some of his concepts, such as when it is appropriate to terminate someone. The conversation also covers the responsible implementation of AI technology, taking into account both its exciting possibilities and underlying concerns. In staying true to his optimistic outlook, Simon concludes his time on the stage by stating that his theme for the new year is idealism as he suggested that the possibility for world peace literaly existed within the room that day.  Additional information:  The Optimism Company - https://simonsinek.com   "A Bit of Optimism" podcast - https://simonsinek.com/podcast/   "The Millennial Question" from Simon Sinek - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vudaAYx2IcE   3 Things w/ Simon Sinek | The Purpose of Business - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQaIyTekTmU  https://www.redventures.com/blog/3-things-the-purpose-of-business   Surgeon General Advisory: The Healing Effects of Social Connection - https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/connection/index.html   The Surgeon General's Advisory on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (PDF) lays out a framework for a National Strategy to Advance Social Connection - https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf   and one-page summary - https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-social-connection-general.pdf   "Start With Why" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Simon-Sinek/dp/1591844517   "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591848016/   "The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Game-Simon-Sinek/dp/073521350X/   "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" by James P. Carse - https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713   "Chief Joy Officer" by Richard Sheridan - https://richardsheridan.com/books/chief-joy-officer   WBF NYC 2023 Event Details: https://www.wobi.com/it/wbf-nyc/   WBF NYC 2023 Event Brochure: https://www.wobi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/wbfnyc_brochure.pdf     This episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/49vgPn63wpo  We hope you enjoy this episode and subscribe to our podcast for a new story each week. Visit https://www.storiesfromtheriver.com for more episodes. 

This week we're celebrating our 500th episode by sharing some of our team's favorite moments from over the years. Whether you're new to the podcast or you've been here since the beginning, thank you for listening. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you'll learn:  The impact of running into a former student with David Tuttle (2:56) Billy Taylor on the importance of diversity (5:42) A story of survival with Matt May (10:26) Richard Sheridan on forgiveness (23:28) Peter Docker's take on making mistakes (31:11) Recovering from broken trust with Bhavana Bartholf (36:23) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 GA 411 | Practicing Lean in High School with David Tuttle GA 347 | Leveraging Deliberate Practice with Billy Taylor GA 100 | How to Survive with Matt May GA 213 | How to Lead with Joy with Richard Sheridan GA 402 | Leading From the Jumpseat with Peter Docker GA 430 | The Importance of Empathetic Leadership with Bhavana Bartholf Get All the Latest News from Gemba Academy Our newsletter is a great way to receive updates on new courses, blog posts, and more. Sign up here. What Do You Think? What are some of your favorite moments from the podcast?

SynopsisOn today's date in 1933, the Philadelphia Orchestra was performing at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. Conductor Alexander Smallens led the world premiere performance of a new work by a 23-year-old composer named Samuel Barber. It was his first orchestral composition to have a major public hearing, but oddly enough, young Mr. Barber himself was not in attendance. He was in Europe that summer, and so missed the premiere of his Overture to The School for Scandal, a musical romp inspired by the 18th century English Restoration comedy of the same name by Richard Sheridan.Even before he had left the Curtis Institute of Music, where he pursued a triple major in piano, composition, and voice, Barber had begun winning prizes that enabled him to study abroad. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Barber's musical career was quite Euro-centric. His School for Scandal Overture, in fact, was written in Italy in 1931. Barber's First Symphony premiered in Rome in 1936, and the following year was played by the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1937 Salzburg Music Festival. That led to stateside performances and commissions from conductors like Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini.Music Played in Today's ProgramSamuel Barber (1910 – 1981) School for Scandal Overture Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 436 288

Join us on the latest episode of our podcast as we sit down with Richard Sheridan, an extraordinary entrepreneur, author, CEO, and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations. Richard shares valuable insights into transforming the way we do business, eliminating managerial weaknesses, fostering efficient communication, and building trust with customers. Discover how Menlo Innovations has created a work environment where software emergencies are rare, enabling employees to enjoy their work and deliver exceptional results. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with a true visionary in the industry. https://theleaneffectpodcast.com/ https://www.facebook.com/TheLeanEffectPodcast https://www.facebook.com/groups/272448766629082/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-lean-effect-podcast/ Insta: @theleaneffectpodcast Twitter @EffectLean Guest: Richard Sheridan https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/ rsheridan@menloinnovations.com Host: Mark Dejong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-de-jong-investor-lean-advisor-0288695/ Mark@4ppartners.ca https://www.4ppartners.ca Phone: 1-778-807-9691  

Wow, it is that time of year again and both of your hosts (Just Nate and DK) are both on vacation again at the same time and they could not find the time record a new episode this week.  So they did what they do best and had a conversation about one of their favorite guests from this year.   Listen in as your hosts "Just Nate", Dennis K along with guest speaker Chris E talk to the CEO and Chief Story Teller of Menlo Innovations, Richard Sheridan.  The Smalls team is a huge fan of Rich and everything that Menlo stands for.  The team talks through all the ups and downs that Menlo Innovations have had in order to break the mold and how they created a joyful place to work.  Menlo's mission is:  "End human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.®"  Rich tells stories throughout this nearly hour long podcast as he talks about how they were all focused on delighting others with the work of our hears, our hands and our minds.  Rich states the key to success and how they have been so successful is they set out to make a culture where your more likely to take action than to take a meeting. A key to Rich's success is he had a different goal than most.  His goal was to try to succeed, where others goal is to try not to fail.  Don't let failure get in your way, run the experiment and if it don't work, try something else and learn from the mistake. It sounds simple, Create a Intentional Culture! We can't suggest Rich's books enough, you can find them at nearly any books store or online, see links to both books below from Amazon. Joy Inc. - https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591845874/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-rsf1_0?cv_ct_cx=joy+inc.&dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&pd_rd_i=1591845874&pd_rd_r=d686b69d-d465-4f2e-a0fb-6e8c751ccfed&pd_rd_w=pNf5t&pd_rd_wg=S9ISd&pf_rd_p=e0f994a8-a359-40a9-8917-dadca71c7184&pf_rd_r=QSASTN1ZB45FCMCXDMAK&psc=1&qid=1610928792&sr=1-1-526ea17f-3f73-4b50-8cd8-6acff948fa5a Chief Joy Officer - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate-ebook/dp/B07B2KHQCS/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&qid=1610928832&sr=8-4 Listen in to the other podcast that Rich mentions the Bossless Office by Tom Ashbrook.  -  https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2013/06/20/bossless-office Read the article that Rich mentions from New York Magazine by Matthew Shaer, The Boss Stops Here  -  https://nymag.com/news/features/bossless-jobs-2013-6/ To find out more about Rich and his team at Menlo Innovations check them out on the web.  https://menloinnovations.com/ To hire Rich to come speak at your event you can book him here:  https://richardsheridan.com/ From the team here at "The SmallsCast Podcast", thank you Rich, it truly was an honor and pleasure having you on the show! To find out more about the Smalls or become a member, please check us out at www.thesmalls.org To contact Just Nate:  justnate@thesmalls.org  — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/support www.patreon.com/thesmalls --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thesmalls/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thesmalls/support

The Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond will present Richard Sheridan's “The Rivals” April 14-15 at 7:30 p.m. and April 16 at 2 p.m. in the Alice Jepson Theatre. The play follows Lydia Languish, the headstrong daughter of a wealthy family who is fiercely determined to rebuff her parental desires and marry for love rather than money. Admission is free. For details, call 289-8980 or visit modlin.richmond.edu. *** Accessible sports club Sportable will host the 3rd Annual RVA Adaptive Sports Festival on Saturday, April 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Glen Allen High School....Article LinkSupport the show

Menlo Innovations is a software development company that has been around for 21 years. As the CEO and Co-Founder, Richard Sheridan travels the world telling people about what his company does. They are not an ordinary tech company, their mission is to bring joy to the tech world and end suffering as it relates to technology. They have discovered and built an amazing culture that grasps human energy because they believe in 'running the experiment'. Rich has authored two excellent books, Joy Inc. and Cheif Joy Officer, wherein he tells the story of Menlo innovations. You will want to hear the stories Rich shares and learn from what he has done with his company over the past two decades. This is a must-listen!

This week, we talk about optimal stickiness, quest concepts, and brain sharing. Pair programming is like piloting a Jaeger. Drifting off each other's brain powers makes the process of extra-dimensional creature conjuring easier and quicker. Warning! So much brain power in one place may result in brain pain. Proceed with caution!00:00 Intro01:22 Thanks to our supporters! (https://moneygrab.bscotch.net)01:34 Tape Off13:50 Pairing and CollaborationOther things mentioned:Book: Joy Incorporated by Richard Sheridan (https://bit.ly/3w67K9u)To stay up to date with all of our buttery goodness subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts (apple.co/1LxNEnk) or wherever you get your audio goodness. If you want to get more involved in the Butterscotch community, hop into our DISCORD server at discord.gg/bscotch and say hello! Submit questions at https://www.bscotch.net/podcast, disclose all of your secrets to podcast@bscotch.net, and send letters, gifts, and tasty treats to https://bit.ly/bscotchmailbox. Finally, if you'd like to support the show and buy some coffee FOR Butterscotch, head over to https://moneygrab.bscotch.net. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode, I was able to catch up with the attendees and speakers of the Michigan Lean Consortium Annual Conference that took place last week in Traverse City, Michigan. This was an in–person event and the engagement was AMAZING. Some of the highlights include discussions with keynote speakers Richard Sheridan and Mark Graban, among many other attendees. Michigan Lean Consortium: http://michiganlean.org/ Richard Sheridan Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/ https://menloinnovations.com/ Mark Graban Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgraban/ https://www.markgraban.com/ https://www.markgraban.com/podcasts/ Chad Bareither: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-bareither-32712222/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/bareither-group-consulting-llc/ Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center: https://www.the-center.org/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leansolutions/support

On this THL Refresher, we bring you the first interview we did with Richard Sheridan, the CEO and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations. Menlo is a company that builds custom software, whose mission is to “end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.” Like Barry-Wehmiller, Menlo has a unique culture which they want to share with the world.  We call it Truly Human Leadership, they call it “the business value of joy.” Rich talks with us about leadership, Menlo and his book, "Joy Inc."

Drew & Sam discuss Richard Sheridan's second book, Chief Joy Officer. Drew makes good on his promise from last episode to discuss this book. Sam finds the joy teasing. As always, the book then finds it's way to their….nope, you'll have to listen to find out where this book ends up in their final review.

Join Drew & Sam as they bring CEO, Chief Storyteller, and co-founder of Menlo Innovations, Richard Sheridan. Author of two great books, including Chief Joy Officer that we will discuss next episode, Richard explains how he is so full of joy. The best part? He explains how he has spread that joy and how you can do it too! Whether it's pizza or programming Joy can drive your team. Speaking of pizzas, learn Richards favorite toppings, hint he believes in “run the experiment” so pepperoni may not make it.

In this episode, Richard Sheridan, Entrepreneur, author, CEO, Chief Storyteller, and co-founder of Menlo Innovations, discusses the software equation of lean. He highlighted how systems with short communication and feedback loops perform better. Rich discussed how they created the culture in Menlo, where 20,000 people from across the world have been in the last two years to learn about their magical culture. https://theleaneffectpodcast.com/ https://www.facebook.com/TheLeanEffectPodcast https://www.facebook.com/groups/272448766629082/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-lean-effect-podcast/ Insta: @theleaneffectpodcast Twitter @EffectLean Guest: Richard Sheridan https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/ rsheridan@menloinnovations.com   Host: Mark Dejong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-de-jong-investor-lean-advisor-0288695/ Mark@4ppartners.ca https://www.4ppartners.ca Phone: 1-778-807-9691  

This week's guest is Richard Sheridan. Ron and Rich discussed Rich's two books, Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. Rich also shared what qualities he thinks make a good leader. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you'll learn:  The quote that inspires Rich (3:01) Rich's background (7:22) About Joy, Inc. (10:01) The importance of humility (14:04) What Rich would change (20:24) A story about Borders books (30:31) Advice for facing uncertainty (32:35) What Rich hopes people will say at his funeral (38:15) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 Rich on LinkedIn Joy, Inc. on Amazon Chief Joy Officer on Amazon Menlo Innovations GA 003 | Learn What Joyfulness and Lean Thinking Have in Common with Richard Sheridan GA 070 | Menlo Innovations with Richard Sheridan GA 213 | How to Lead with Joy with Richard Sheridan GA 300 | Leadership, Teamwork, and Taking Flight with Richard Sheridan What Do You Think? What other characteristics should a leader have?

How can we create a workplace people love? In fact, most of the challenges faced by organizations today, are not technology-related rather they are human problems. So, the question is- How do we organize humans more effectively?This time on The xMonks Drive, Richard Sheridan co-founder and CEO of Menlo Innovations, joins us to explain how humans impact organizations.Richard Sheridan is a co-founder, CEO, and "Chief Storyteller" of Menlo Innovations, a software and IT consulting firm that has received multiple awards and news coverage for its innovative and positive working culture.Richard, the CEO of Menlo Innovations, became disillusioned in the course of his career in the tumultuous technology world. He was consumed by a single thought: things could be better. Much, much better. He had to figure something out. Why can't a workplace be brimming with friendship, human vitality, creativity, and efficiency?Rich co-founded Menlo Innovations in 2001 with the goal of putting an end to workplace hardship. Rich's passion for building happy workplaces inspired him to write Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love, which became a best-selling and generally acclaimed book. His second book, Chief Joy Officer, proves that a pleasant and engaging leadership style is genuinely beneficial to a company's bottom line.

The first night of Richard Sheridan's classic comedy ‘The Rivals' did not go according to plan. Critics thought it was too long, the Irish gentry in the audience were insulted, and an actor was pelted with rotten fruit. It closed after one performance on 17th January, 1775.But then… after eleven days of rewrites, recasting and edits (a process Sheridan called “prunings, trimmings and patchings”), the show re-opened - and became the much-loved hit it remains to this day.In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly expose how Sheridan exploited his notoriety in Bath to put bums on seats; unpick how the play's famous ‘Malapropisms' achieved seminal status; and revisit the best of Sheridan's real-life one-liners…Further Reading:• ‘The scourge of Bath' (The Guardian, 2004): https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/may/15/theatre• The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Cavan Library): http://www.cavanlibrary.ie/file/Local-Studies/Library-Scanned-Docs/The_dramatic_works_of_Richard_Brinsley_Sheridan.pdf• ‘What Are Malapropisms?' (Bright Idea, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMdgr-qSAfMWe had EVEN MORE to say about Sheridan's second draft. To hear bonus material this and every week*, support the show NOW at Patreon.com/Retrospectors or on Apple Podcasts.(*top two tiers only)The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Emma Corsham.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2021. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join Karen as she sits down with Richard Sheridan, author of Joy, Inc., and CEO and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations. Richard shares how to infuse joy in the workplace by cultivating the connection-creators of empathy and accountability that fuel engagement. Richard shares an impactful story about how grief can help us to take off our masks and show up with our true selves at work and home. Tune in to hear the transformative insights shared with Karen in this can't-miss episode of “Saving You A Seat”. For more about Richard, check out @MenloPrez on Twitter and LinkedIn. Also, check out https://MenloInnovations.com

What if you set up a no-firing policy for your team? I'm exploring this concept from the book Chief Joy Officer by Richard Sheridan.View full shownotes here: https://joytolead.com/no-firing-policy-for-your-team/ Read Chief Joy Officer with us in 2022 inside the Leadership Academy!Ready for your next steps? Expand your leadership and build your dream team. Join the Joy to Lead Leadership Academy today!

What ACTUALLY makes difference in coaching ? What REALLY has an impact on the way you experience the game? On today's Brain Booster we have a slightly different show lined up for you. One that I am sure you will enjoy. A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of being asked to do a live presentation with Fred Shoemaker and Richard Sheridan to members of the world famous Olympic Club in San Francisco. We had a wonderful wide ranging discussion which I am sure will really get you thinking about your game and if you are a coach your whole philosophy and approach to the game. We really drill into what does and doesn't make a difference. To both playing and coaching. Why the ‘DO' instruction which is so dominant in the world of coaching is largely ineffective How there are 4 levels of instruction and how to gain an understanding of which levels actually make a true impact We look at natural movement Instinctive movement The joy of actually moving in a way that is complementary with YOUR body How is it actually created? How the CONTEXT you create for your golf will determine the way you play and feel both on and off the golf course Do you have a mind or ARE you your mind? How you can look at your mind as a crazy machine that will do what it will do but you don't have to fall into the trap of believing everything your mind tells you As ever when Fred gets talking it is a wonderful listen. It is a great experience. You will want to have a note book and pen handy with this one. There are some absolute gems To get a copy of the NEW BOOK ‘The Lost Art of the Short Game' by Gary Nicol and Karl Morris go to: www.thelostartofgolf.com To find out more about Fred Shoemaker go to www.extraordinarygolf.com To find out more about the Mind Factor go to www.themindfactor.com    

In the season 3 opener, host Corey Mohn is joined by Chief Storyteller & CEO of Menlo Innovations, Richard Sheridan. Richard is not stranger to the CAPS community and he joins the podcast after making a high impact on our Summer Bash participants. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Richard tells the stories of his company and the people who make it powerful. This episode is the perfect kick-off to our season - this discussion gets at the heart of what we do: making education exciting, transformative and future ready.Richard Sheridan is a sought after author and public speaker. If you are interested in asking him to speak to your group, you can find more information at richardsheridan.com. You can also learn more about Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, MI by taking their virtual tour at Menlo Innovations Tour.The Network team is crazy about Richard's books: Chief Joy Officer and Joy, Inc. These books dive into several of the topics Corey and Richard talk about during this episode.Our new podcast music comes from: Forever by MusicbyAden https://soundcloud.com/musicbyadenCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/forever-musicbyadenMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/CRknG2QC2mc

This week I'm talking with Richard Sheridan, the co-founder of Menlo Innovations where his team's mission is to end human suffering in the workplace. Richard is also the author of Joy, Inc. - How We Built a Workplace People Love and Chief Joy Officer. In this episode, Rich and I talk about his company Menlo Innovations and the importance of having a balanced and satisfying work culture, including how you can bring about a culture change in your own organization. What You'll Learn This Episode: Menlo Innovations and the process of finding and training Menlonians Teaching culture internally and externally Pairing- What it is and how it's done How pairing helps the customer How to start a culture change in your organization About the Guest: Menlo Innovations CEO Rich Sheridan became disillusioned in the middle of his career in the chaotic technology industry. He had an all-consuming thought…things can be better. Much better. He had to find a way. Why couldn't a workplace be filled with camaraderie, human energy, creativity, and productivity? Ultimately, Rich co-founded Menlo Innovations in 2001 to end human suffering in the workplace. His unique approach to custom software creation is so surprisingly different, that 3,000 people a year travel from around the world just to see how they do it. His passion for creating joyful work environments led to his bestselling and widely celebrated book, Joy, Inc. - How We Built a Workplace People Love. His highly anticipated second book, Chief Joy Officer, came out December 4, 2018 and will continue to prove that a positive and engaging leadership style is actually good for business. Important Links: https://menloinnovations.com/ https://richardsheridan.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leansolutions/support

Let Them Lead is a podcast about the risks and rewards of leading today.I'm John Bacon, author of the book, LET THEM LEAD: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America's Worst High School Hockey Team, which led to this podcast. On Let Them Lead we talk to remarkable leaders from every field imaginable –automotive, computers, food service, education, and athletics, to name a few – and they share their hard-won wisdom, amazing stories, and a few laughs. You'll learn a few things you can use tomorrow, and others you can think about the rest of your life. We always finish with three take-aways, and a discussion of their favorite teacher. In the words of my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Pudduck, it's fast, fun, and we get it done. So please join us for an entertaining and  inspiring discussion. You'll be glad you did. For info about the book or this podcast please visit our website:http://www.letthemleadbybacon.comhttp://www.johnubacon.comYou can connect with John via these platforms:https://www.facebook.com/johnubaconhttps://twitter.com/Johnubacon This week's guest is Richard Sheridan. When Richard speaks to MBA students, he tells them that their careers will really start after they've been fired the first time. This gets their attention – and it got ours. It happened to Sheridan when he was 43, with a wife and three young daughters,  and he got the call that his software company would be eliminating his position.  But from that low point came his best idea: Menlo Innovations, a completely different kind of software company, one they founded on an almost foreign concept: joy – joy for the creators, the users, and the sponsors. “Joy is the goal,” he says, and the high customer satisfaction, low turnover, and strong profits, happy byproducts. Almost everything your company probably does, Menlo does the opposite. Connect with Richard:https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprez/https://twitter.com/menloprez?lang=enhttps://richardsheridan.com/

It was an incredible joy (pun intended) to chat with Richard Sheridan in this episode. His books, Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer  have been an incredible inspiration to me on my own leadership journey, and his friendship even more so. In this episode, we talk about the Great Reckoning of 2021,  the perspectives and fears of leaders, the joy that is found in uncertainty, and more. You don't want to miss this one! Disclaimer: : As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Support the show

Up next on Pass the Secret Sauce, we have Richard Sheridan ─ the CEO, co-founder and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations - a custom software design and development company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His unique approach to custom software creation is so surprisingly different, that 3,000 people a year travel from around the world just to see how they do it. He has a passion for creating joyful work environments which led to his bestselling and widely celebrated book, Joy, Inc. - How We Built a Workplace People Love.  His highly anticipated second book, Chief Joy Officer will continue to prove that a positive and engaging leadership style is actually good for business. In this episode we discuss: Richard's favorite books that gave him hope in his career  [4:40] How his upbringing influences his way of communicating with people  [6:20] Writing his first two-line program that won an international programming contest  [8:30] The catalyst that made Richard leap into starting his own company  [13:00] The major problem in the software industry ─  the tower of knowledge problem  [19:00] Teaching cultural norms to their workforce; where the concept came from  [21:00] The productivity level of people working together [24:55] How much they spent on the unique process of their workforce [28:30] Making demonstrable software for clients every five days  [30:45] Types of clients they worked with  [32:10] Challenges they typically face in their workforce [36:30] Books  authored by Richard ─ Joy, Inc., Chief Joy Officer [38:45] How does the remote process look like [40:20] Quotable Quotes A high-performing team creates lasting value on a software project. It's isn't the efficiency of the programmers; it's about the effectiveness of the results that those programmers create   Links to sources and tools Get to know Rich: richardsheridan.com Virtually' visit the Menlo Software Factory - we offer free virtual tours weekly Learn more at menloinnovations.com Stream other PTSS episodes: TECH Thanks for listening. Don't forget to like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passthesecretsauce to get updates on new episodes. If you haven't already, please follow and leave a review for our podcast, we'll really appreciate it. And as always, don't forget to pass the secret sauce. Support our podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Subscribe, rate and review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pass-the-secret-sauce-by-matt-shields/id1506940483 the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a family member, friend, or colleague about the show. Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ5eItxsGWyGKC91zd1pzbA and follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pass-the-secret-sauce-podcast This podcast is hosted by

In today's episode with Ludwig von Busse, Co-Founder and CEO of Simplifa you will learn1. How Simplifa successfully wins clients by creating pain point diagnoses and providing suitable solutions2. Why the pandemic prompted Simplifa to restructure its sales organization and key lessons learned3. Andrea's perspective on the importance of aligning goals with your customer and being a trustful, honest thought leaderAbout LudwigLudwig stands out with his solution-oriented, digital mindset and his determination to help in a sustainable and effective way. After graduating in 2007 with a degree in Business Administration, Master of Science (MSc) and with the Diplome de Grande Ecole at ESCP Europe, he worked in various positions at OTIS, eventually becoming Sales and Marketing Manager "Modernization" of OTIS Germany in Berlin. In 2013, he co-founded Simplifa and today acts as shareholder and CEO responsible for sales, business development and marketing. Besides, Ludwig is a music and wine lover, Italy fan, as well as a passionate dad and chef. About SimplifaSimplifa was founded in 2013 by industry expert Ludwig von Busse and his founding partner Hubertus von Schierstaedt, who was previously a shareholder at GSI Unternehmensgruppe. The Simplifa GmbH aims to increase the transparency and predictability of elevator operations for all parties and to manage these processes even faster and more reliably for their customers. Simplifa is committed to further advance the deployment of state-of-the-art technologies and create interfaces to software systems of Simplifa's customers. Although the company is still young, it combines over 45 years of elevator expertise and works hard every day to achieve its goals in Berlin's City-West.About the host SammySammy is Managing Partner and founder of SAWOO. SAWOO helps companies with Social Marketing and Lead Generation to leverage the power of LinkedIn in a sustainable way. No spam, no bots but building real Human 2 Human connections between you and your B2B buyers.Shownotes LudwigFind Ludwig on LinkedIn or xingReach out to Ludwig via +49 1635828773 or Ludwig.vonbusse@simplifa.deLudwig's Company SimplifaLudwig's favorite business book: Joy Inc. by Richard Sheridan and Managing Complex Sales by Jeff Thull

Wow, it is that time of year again and both of your hosts (Just Nate and DK) are both on vacation again at the same time and they could not find the time record a new episode this week. So they did what they do best and had a conversation about one of their favorite guests from this year. Listen in as your hosts "Just Nate", Dennis K along with guest speaker Chris E talk to the CEO and Chief Story Teller of Menlo Innovations, Richard Sheridan. The Smalls team is a huge fan of Rich and everything that Menlo stands for. The team talks through all the ups and downs that Menlo Innovations have had in order to break the mold and how they created a joyful place to work. Menlo's mission is: "End human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.®" Rich tells stories throughout this nearly hour long podcast as he talks about how they were all focused on delighting others with the work of our hears, our hands and our minds. Rich states the key to success and how they have been so successful is they set out to make a culture where your more likely to take action than to take a meeting. A key to Rich's success is he had a different goal than most. His goal was to try to succeed, where others goal is to try not to fail. Don't let failure get in your way, run the experiment and if it don't work, try something else and learn from the mistake. It sounds simple, Create a Intentional Culture! We can't suggest Rich's books enough, you can find them at nearly any books store or online, see links to both books below from Amazon. Joy Inc. - https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591845874/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-rsf1_0?cv_ct_cx=joy+inc.&dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&pd_rd_i=1591845874&pd_rd_r=d686b69d-d465-4f2e-a0fb-6e8c751ccfed&pd_rd_w=pNf5t&pd_rd_wg=S9ISd&pf_rd_p=e0f994a8-a359-40a9-8917-dadca71c7184&pf_rd_r=QSASTN1ZB45FCMCXDMAK&psc=1&qid=1610928792&sr=1-1-526ea17f-3f73-4b50-8cd8-6acff948fa5a Chief Joy Officer - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate-ebook/dp/B07B2KHQCS/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&qid=1610928832&sr=8-4 Listen in to the other podcast that Rich mentions the Bossless Office by Tom Ashbrook. - https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2013/06/20/bossless-office Read the article that Rich mentions from New York Magazine by Matthew Shaer, The Boss Stops Here - https://nymag.com/news/features/bossless-jobs-2013-6/ To find out more about Rich and his team at Menlo Innovations check them out on the web. https://menloinnovations.com/ To hire Rich to come speak at your event you can book him here: https://richardsheridan.com/ From the team here at "The SmallsCast Podcast", thank you Rich, it truly was an honor and pleasure having you on the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/support

Listen in as your hosts "Just Nate", Dennis K along with guest speaker Chris E talk to the CEO and Chief Story Teller of Menlo Innovations, Richard Sheridan. The Smalls team is a huge fan of Rich and everything that Menlo stands for. The team talks through all the ups and downs that Menlo Innovations have had in order to break the mold and how they created a joyful place to work. Menlo's mission is: "End human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.®" Rich tells stories throughout this nearly hour long podcast as he talks about how they were all focused on delighting others with the work of our hears, our hands and our minds. Rich states the key to success and how they have been so successful is they set out to make a culture where your more likely to take action than to take a meeting. A key to Rich's success is he had a different goal than most. His goal was to try to succeed, where others goal is to try not to fail. Don't let failure get in your way, run the experiment and if it don't work, try something else and learn from the mistake. It sounds simple, Create a Intentional Culture! We can't suggest Rich's books enough, you can find them at nearly any books store or online, see links to both books below from Amazon. Joy Inc. - https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591845874/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-rsf1_0?cv_ct_cx=joy+inc.&dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&pd_rd_i=1591845874&pd_rd_r=d686b69d-d465-4f2e-a0fb-6e8c751ccfed&pd_rd_w=pNf5t&pd_rd_wg=S9ISd&pf_rd_p=e0f994a8-a359-40a9-8917-dadca71c7184&pf_rd_r=QSASTN1ZB45FCMCXDMAK&psc=1&qid=1610928792&sr=1-1-526ea17f-3f73-4b50-8cd8-6acff948fa5a Chief Joy Officer - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate-ebook/dp/B07B2KHQCS/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=joy+inc.&qid=1610928832&sr=8-4 Listen in to the other podcast that Rich mentions the Bossless Office by Tom Ashbrook. - https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2013/06/20/bossless-office Read the article that Rich mentions from New York Magazine by Matthew Shaer, The Boss Stops Here - https://nymag.com/news/features/bossless-jobs-2013-6/ To find out more about Rich and his team at Menlo Innovations check them out on the web. https://menloinnovations.com/ To hire Rich to come speak at your event you can book him here: https://richardsheridan.com/ From the team here at "The SmallsCast Podcast", thank you Rich, it truly was an honor and pleasure having you on the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/support

 Richard Sheridan, one of Menlo Innovation's founders and Chief Storytellers, which has given more than 1000 talks to audiences around the world and written the bestselling and widely celebrated book, https://richard-sheridan.com/books/joy-inc (Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love) and his second book, https://richard-sheridan.com/books/chief-joy-officer (Chief Joy Officer) joins us to discuss what he has learned about building a workplace of JOY.

In my conversation with Kris, she mentioned hiring for values fit, not necessarily culture fit. I think that makes sense, because hiring for culture fit certainly has its downsides – there was a ludicrous example of the investment banking firm that only hired former male Lacrosse players, because they wanted people who fit the culture so to speak. That got me thinking about what we are actually hiring for now. Because the shelf life of technical skills is getting shorter, organizations are realizing it's actually easier to hire agile learners who communicate effectively and work well as a part of teams. Then, those employees can be taught the technical skills they need because they are adaptable and coachable. And this is what's happening out there in the real world. On https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reinventing-the-job-interview/id1346314086?i=1000472139819 (Adam Grant's podcast, he focused an entire episode to reinventing the job interview), or as Richard Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations would describe it, “two people sitting across a table lying to one another.” Instead of traditional interviews, Sheridan brings in about 50 people together in what he calls an audition. The people interviewing them have no access to resumes, they encounter the human being before they look at a piece of paper and establish a narrative. The candidates are put in all kinds of scenarios to assess their teamwork. For example they're given a single desk between two and observed for who hogs or shares the space. When there aren't enough resources provided for the activities, how will the candidates behave towards their teammates who they may also see as competitors? In fact, one of the challenges was to get your partner to a second interview! Interesting elements of this: Employees get to choose the new additions to their own culture, empowering them, giving them agency, investing further in them to create and build the culture from the ground up They focus on human soft skills – humility, teamwork, communication, and they don't even look at a person's professional background or acumen The interview challenges in no way reflect the challenges of the workplace, they simply provide an insight into whether or not you will make the people around you better Who is elevating the performance of the people around them? They are not focused on individual performance, but team performance. Ultimately, organizations are hiring people for how well they fit their organizational culture, for soft skills, for the ability to learn. Then they provide those teams access to high-quality learning opportunities for the specific skills they need, knowing that if they are a strong team and strong learners, there are no problems they cannot tackle. They are adaptable, they are resilient. They believe in each other. And when the next inevitable unpredictable event happens, they are equipped to pivot quickly, learn new skills, and keep the ball rolling. This is why companies are investing so heavily in learning programs that empower their teams. Because team and learning culture are intertwined! These guys are not looking for deep expertise, they are looking for able learners. As Adam himself says: He wishes they hired people not on credentials, but on the motivation and ability to learn. Less on invisible unreliable gut feelings, but on unstructured questions and challenges that actually relate to the world at hand. Investing in agility and using hiring methods that assess it can set you up to shape the future.  That's echoed in Daniel Coyle's fantastic Culture Code He says: “Individuals aren't really individuals. They're more like musicians in a jazz quartet, forming a web of conscious and unconscious actions and reactions to complement the others in the group.” You're don't necessarily want just the best individuals, you want the best orchestra! And collaboration allows groups to learn and grow together, and ultimately to be more...

Listen in as your host "Just Nate" and Dennis (CEO) talk to the president of Defense Management Company, Inc (DMC Inc), Matt Betzmer. Matt walks us through his journey of starting up his own DoD firm. Matt does not hold back on this episode, he tells it like it is, the good and the bad. If you are thinking about opening your own company or you already have and just want to listen to someone that has been through it or going through it as we speak, listen in. DMC Inc. does not have a website yet, it is in the middle of development. The company focuses on DoD Training, Education, Missile Defense, Space Systems, Operations, etc. Just Nate mentions two great books by a wonderful Author by the name of Richard Sheridan, CEO and Chief Story teller of Menlo Innovations. Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love - https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591847125 Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear Hardcover - https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joy-Officer-Leaders-Eliminate/dp/0735218226/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_0/138-7642473-6170433?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0735218226&pd_rd_r=dc8942c1-8b91-4ef5-9b1d-4540a28cfd4d&pd_rd_w=lJmY1&pd_rd_wg=5tTKl&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=W20T2R4Q1Z1YCF4NNVA4&psc=1&refRID=W20T2R4Q1Z1YCF4NNVA4 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thesmalls/support

My guest today is Richard Sheridan, the founder of Menlo Innovations and author of “Joy, Inc.” and “Chief Joy Officer.” He shares an inspirational guide for those seeking joy in the challenge of leading others and pushes readers to think, act and lead different. Too many live in quiet desperation. It's Richard's mission to bring those people out of those lives and thrive in whatever workplace they are in. Before Menlo Richard was in a job that by all definitions he should have loved. He was creating art and making a real impact in people's lives, however he was not happy. He realized he had created a culture where nobody at his company could make a move without his approval. He knew the company could not move forward any faster than him. Shedding the “smartest guy in the room image” was an important part of culture Richard wanted to instill wherever he went next. The topic his books Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love and Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear. In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss: Extreme programing Running experiments Trusting your team What is Joy? Killing ideas vs. action oriented Index cards Jump in! --- I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show. To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/ You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/ Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast My social media platforms: Twitter: @covel Facebook: @trendfollowing LinkedIn: @covel Instagram: @mikecovel Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

What difference does JOY make in the workplace and how can you find JOY in leading others? Richard Sheridan joins Kevin to discuss how a joyful culture can bring about business results. He is the CEO and co-founder of Menlo Innovations and author of Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love and his latest book, Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear. Richard recognizes that leadership occurs at every level within an organization and challenges us to become a better version each day. Further, the people we are leading need to know we are real and we support their growth through our vulnerability. Richard also says that if you are in the Ann Arbor area and want a tour, just reach out. In this episode learn more about 1. Joy and culture. 2. Loving and authentic leaders. 3. Importance of storytelling to leaders.

To help projects and departments set realistic expectations about agile,  I find that the popular HGTV and DYI series, are full of examples of what's realistic and what make sense when doing projects and building solutions.  The same lessons that apply to building a house apply to building software. Join me and ever be a part of the conversation during our LIVE episodes. A is for Agile - Agility C is for Conceptualization T is for Techniques and Thinking Tools I is for Inquiry and Investigation O is for Observation N is for New-Thinking     Every day Agile & Uncommon Common Sense Series featuring  20+ year software implementation veteran Jacqueline Sanders-Blackman and David Blackman.  Agile Recommended Reading MUST READ Tribal Unity by Em Campbell-Pretty  Tribal Leadership, David Logan The Radical Leap, Steve Farber Leading Teams, J. Richard Hackman Turn the Ship Around!  L. David Marquet Smart Tribes, Christine Comaford Good to Great , Jim Collins Great by Choice, Jim Collins Switch, Chip and Dan Heath Managing for Happiness, Jurgen Appelo The Toyota Way to Learn Leadership, Jeffrey Liker Joy Inc , Richard Sheridan  

To help projects and departments set realistic expectations about agile,  I find that the popular HGTV and DYI series, are full of examples of what's realistic and what make sense when doing projects and building solutions.  The same lessons that apply to building a house apply to building software. Join me and ever be a part of the conversation during our LIVE episodes.   Every day Agile & Uncommon Common Sense Series featuring  20+ year software implementation veteran Jacqueline Sanders-Blackman and David Blackman.  Agile Recommended Reading MUST READ Tribal Unity by Em Campbell-Pretty  Tribal Leadership, David Logan The Radical Leap, Steve Farber Leading Teams, J. Richard Hackman Turn the Ship Around!  L. David Marquet Smart Tribes, Christine Comaford Good to Great , Jim Collins Great by Choice, Jim Collins Switch, Chip and Dan Heath Managing for Happiness, Jurgen Appelo The Toyota Way to Learn Leadership, Jeffrey Liker Joy Inc , Richard Sheridan  

It's clear Agile is taking over the world and it's because technology and the other STEM fields are taking over the world. Listen to  20+ year software implementation veteran Jacqueline Sanders-Blackman and David Blackman - hear how the agile mindset teaches us lessons about every aspect of how we approach every day problem solving. Join me and ever be a part of the conversation during our LIVE episodes. Contact us at: technologyexpresso@gmail.com (855) 484-6837  Agile Recommended Reading MUST READ Tribal Unity by Em Campbell-Pretty  Tribal Leadership, David Logan The Radical Leap, Steve Farber Leading Teams, J. Richard Hackman Turn the Ship Around!  L. David Marquet Smart Tribes, Christine Comaford Good to Great , Jim Collins Great by Choice, Jim Collins Switch, Chip and Dan Heath Managing for Happiness, Jurgen Appelo The Toyota Way to Learn Leadership, Jeffrey Liker Joy Inc , Richard Sheridan    

Brandon Laws and Tyler Meuwissen discuss the book Joy, Inc: How We Built a Workplace People Love by Richard Sheridan. In the episode, Brandon and Tyler discuss some of the most unique human resource practices Menlo Innovations is putting into practice in their business, such as hiring, recruiting, office set up, how people work together, purpose, and much more.

For this episode, Vic is joined by Jon Jorgensen (@WaterScrumBan) and Dale Ellis (@thedigitaldale) for a lively morning of Agile and coffee. Today our heroes discuss the following topics: Training vs Discovery - learning styles, immersive learning, guided discovery, peer stimulus Positivity-resistant peeps - believe in your team, like attracts like books: Joy, Inc by Richard Sheridan & Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Agile mechanisms without values - Deathmarch Agile, Scrumbut DevOps, Docker, Agile - automated testing, microservices slides, videos for DockerCon 2014 Want more? Visit our brand new forums on the AgileCoffee website. BTW, have you gone to iTunes or Stitcher to give us a review? It takes so little time and would sure help us a lot. Thanks! Reach out to Victor (@AgileCoffee) on Twitter –  and use the hashtags #askAgileCoffee or #tellAgileCoffee to interact with us on an upcoming episode.

Jochen (Joe) Krebs speaks with Richard Sheridan, author of "Joy, Inc." (Penguin Publishing) and Menlo Innovations. Rich is the CEO of Menlo, a steadily growing company, that has is not only productive and successful but also joyful. Learn in this podcast how Menlo differs and why executives can learn interesting things from Richard, his book and his company.