Originally from Kenya, Robert Odhiambo came to the US over 15 years ago and has made a career of driving change and continuous improvement at companies like USPS, Ingersoll Rand, and Spectrum Chemical, an FDA-registered manufacturer of chemicals and lab products. Ben Merton talks to him about how to build trust with mid-management employees who are resistant to change, and the importance of coaching upwards to senior leadership on new initiatives. 

Episode Summary:

• Why creating ‘flow’ is the key to creating customer satisfaction, whether you are in a Fortune 500 organization like USPS, Ingersoll Rand, or in industries as diverse as chemicals, pharmaceuticals or building materials.
• The importance of mapping ‘information flow’ as part of your Value Stream Mapping. Continuous improvement is not just about how material moves through the shop floor.
• How changing mindsets is the key to creating the right behaviour for implementing continuous improvement. To do this, you need to build relationships and trust outside of the work environment, especially with apparently difficult or intractable people.
• Coaching upwards: people often forget the importance of changing the mindsets of senior leadership at the beginning of a continuous improvement initiative.
• Where you are most likely to see resistance to change: mid-level management. To overcome this, you first need to listen and understand where people are before you start talking and making assumptions.
• Moving OEE from 52% to 88% in a plant by empowering a mid-manager who was previously resistant to change and building engagement with daily huddles.
• How the future of quality management will be about better usage and application of programming tools like Python to day-to-day requirements, more automation and better visualisation of continuous improvement KPIs.