Lean Legends | Michael Althoff | Yellotools
Michael Althoff is the founder of Yellotools and a pioneer for LEAN transformation in companies, organizations and private environments.
In today’s episode we talk about:
Why you should love the things your customer hates
What baking cookies has to do with lean
Learning from each others mistakes
And how to “shortcut” your lean journey
Check it out!
Links:
Michael’s website: https://www.michael-althoff.com/en/"
Yellotools website: https://www.yellotools.com/shop/en/
Book a Lean Made Simple Tour: https://www.leanmadesimple.com/book-a-tour
Welcome to Lean Made Simple: a podcast for people who want to change their business and their lives one step at a time. I’m Ryan Tierney from Seating Matters, a manufacturing company from Limavady, Northern Ireland that employs 60+ people. Almost ten years ago, I came across this thing called “lean” and it transformed my life… now I want to share this message with as many people as possible.
This podcast unpacks our learnings, lessons and principles developed over the last decade in a fun, conversational way that will hopefully empower you on your own business journey — whether you’ve been doing lean for years or are just starting out!
Check it out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other podcast platform by searching “lean made simple.”
Thanks and all the best.
— Ryan Tierney
Magic Moment: "We love what you hate"
Full Transcription of Episode
Michael Althoff:
FastCap, Seating Matters, Yellotools, they all make the mistakes for you. We have that recipe. Just copy what we do if you want the same result.
Matt:
Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Lean Made Simple, a podcast that's all about transforming your business and your life, one step, one improvement at a time. We're here today, live, at the Lean Summit with Michael Althoff, all the way from Germany, and he is the founder and CEO of Yellotools. And I have to give you really, really a lot of thanks from the start. Whenever I first read 2 Second Lean and was introduced to Paul Akers, he sent me a bunch of tour videos, and the first tour video that I clicked on was your factory. And so I have walked around your factory virtually.
Michael Althoff:
Oh, cool.
Matt:
And you give our team a really cool idea. So can you tell us about the bus that you guys have at Yellotools for conferences and exhibitions?
Michael Althoff:
Oh, the bus?
Matt:
Yeah.
Michael Althoff:
I thought the boss. The boss is sitting in front of you.
Matt:
You're like, "I'm the boss."
Michael Althoff:
No, no, no, no. That's pretty simple. I know that Paul hates me for it, but I still do trade shows, and because we need connection with our customers and we love talking to the experts, we love hearing about their pains, all their failures and what they hate about their job. "This is what we need. This is our gasoline we run on."
So that's why we do trade shows, but we're sick and tired of building up the booth, like bringing all the furniture in, bringing all the products, the demo boards and all of that crap. And it's about 12, 13 years ago, I thought, "You know what? Let me buy one of these old overland school buses, like the German Mercedes-Benz, thick, big things," and we built everything in there. And then we roll it from trade show to trade show. We roll in, we open the door, and then it's beer o'clock.
And everyone, I tell you, everyone hates me. All the co-guys on the shows, they're building and painting and doing, and we just roll in, takes us five minutes, open the doors. "Hey, anyone wants to have a beer?"
Matt:
So sick.
Michael Althoff:
So that's pretty cool, though.
Matt:
It's phenomenal.
Michael Althoff:
And it got pretty iconic.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Althoff:
Yeah, because we went to Dubai to a trade show, and one guy I've never met in my life, he said, "Why didn't you bring your bus?" I said, "Eh, it's not [inaudible 00:02:26]."
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The airplane ticket was a little bit too expensive for that [inaudible 00:02:29].
Michael Althoff:
Yeah, it's a very lean tool to make a trade show.
Matt:
Yeah, massively. And it's given our team the idea. Obviously, we make podcasts, but we were thinking, "What if we bought a minivan and turned it into a podcast?"
Michael Althoff:
Do it. Yeah.
Matt:
You can drive that thing anywhere.
Michael Althoff:
And you have the best acoustic in the car anyway.
Matt:
A hundred percent.
Michael Althoff:
Yeah.
Matt:
And the best conversations. I know you're a long driver.
Michael Althoff:
Yeah, that driving thing. Yeah. Oh, cool.
Matt:
That shoulder to shoulder, that's an interesting thing. Sorry, this isn't the official start of the podcast, but there's one more thing that I remember from your video, and you just alluded to it. I shared this, I'm not BS-ing you, two days ago was someone in the building where we work, and it's a quote from you. You're talking to your customers, and you say, "We love the things that you hate."
Michael Althoff:
Yes, totally.
Matt:
Oh my goodness.
Michael Althoff:
This is our quote, "We love what you hate," in general. And you know what? This is very strange, to be honest with you. And this all comes back to lean. If you ask people, "What do you hate?" They say, "Nothing. It's all good." Come on. There's nothing you hate about your job, your life, your daily workflow? "No, it's all good." So in that perspective, we ask, "So what do you hate about your job as a sign maker or a car wrapper or a vinyl installer?" They say, "No. No. It's all good." I said, "What about peeling off vinyl?" "Oh yeah, that I hate." "Here's a tool for it." "Oh my God, this is so cool. What else do you have?" Boom.
And then over the problem, a person actually have, you find a solution and you find a contact to that person. And this is how we do it with Lean in my shop. We ask the guys, "What do you hate about that process? What do you don't like about this?" Because my goal is that I provide a job to my people where they are excited on Friday afternoon to come back there on Monday. Can you imagine you work in an atmosphere where you just simply hate the weekend because you need to go back on Monday? I don't want that. I want them to come in, they're happy, a place to grow, a place to be happy, joyful. I don't know. It's crazy, but that's what it is. And therefore, you need to know what you don't like, or even worse, what do you hate about what you do every day?
Matt:
Yeah. Phenomenal. Oh, what a start. Wow. First official question, how did you first come across Lean, and what was the before and after effect?
Michael Althoff:
Okay. So this podcast is longer than two hours?
Matt:
Yeah. We have six hours. We've got six hours of SD card. So yeah, work away. I'm all ears. Let me just get comfy. Hang on. I'll just stretch out for a little second, order some coffees. Yeah, yeah, hot chocolate. Bring it. No, beers for you probably.
Michael Althoff:
Oh, why not? A hundred percent. So, okay. Here's, the story. I met a lot of these people here today in Lean In Common. I met Paul Akers, but I met him ... I think it was '97 or something like this. So I met him long before Lean even had a name.
Matt:
Wow.
Michael Althoff:
Yeah, it was still called Kaizen, and it was that spooky Japanese stuff nobody wants to know about. So Paul and I were friends since then, and we never had any ideas of building a Lean thing or something like this. We were just two guys having too much fun. But I visited his company back in the Iron Gate Road in Washington up there, and I found his company just staggering. Even he didn't start at the Lean journey.
Matt:
Wow. Interesting.
Michael Althoff:
For me, it was like, "Oh my God." So I want that, but I had no chance. And then fast-forward, a couple of years later, my company started growing and growing. So we make the tools for the sign makers, for digital printers, for car wrappers, the squeegees, the cutters, the knives and all of that stuff, and it took off. Paul helped me at the first product. And like you said, we're friends.
So now, all of a sudden, my company just get wings, right? Oh, gosh. But my shop was so messed up. Yeah, I mean, you could not go from one corner to the other without breaking your leg. It was messy. It was chaotic. People wanted to have our products, but we did not get it off, off the shelves or into a truck or something like this. And Paul, meanwhile, started his Lean journey, and from day one, he's like a kid, like a super, super amazed, excited kid on Christmas, right? "Oh, Michael. You need to do this. This is so cool. This is so crazy, and you need to do this." I say, "No, you know what? That maybe works for you guys in America or in Japan-"
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're European.
Michael Althoff:
But Germany is good. No, no.
Matt:
It's too cheesy for us.
Michael Althoff:
Of course [inaudible 00:07:38].
Matt:
We don't want any of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michael Althoff:
Yeah. We were like, "No, we don't do stuff like this." I was like that. And he said, "Michael, you need to look at it." I'm like, "No, no." Okay, but you know what? Over the years, I figured my team was breaking apart because everyone did what he or she wanted to do, but not what they supposed to do. And I was totally desperate. I said, "Hey guys, don't you see that? We have a big huge rock of gold in our hands. All we need to do is just polish it, get a little off, share it, and spend it. Rock and roll. That's all we need to do."
But they were busy with the egos and busy with, "I want to do this instead of that," and stuff. And I thought, "They're stupid. They're all stupid. I am the best person in the room. I know everything better than anyone else. I can drive the forklift better than everyone else. I can run the CNC machine. I'm a superhero, and they're idiots." Okay? So that was me. I admit this, I was really that kind of a person. Then the other day I had a training seminar, training with one of my suppliers in San Diego. And Paul's mom, a gorgeous, amazing person. If you ever meet her, you know exactly where the Akers family has that generosity from.
Matt:
Interesting.
Michael Althoff:
She is amazing.
Matt:
I've never met Paul Akers' mom, but I just met Martina Tierney, Ryan and Jonathan and Martin's mom. And you just say, "There's the source." It's phenomenal.
Michael Althoff:
And Ms. Akers is pretty much the same. So she lives in San Diego. It was a coincidence. I contacted Paul, said, "Hey, I'm down in San Diego. Why don't we just meet there?" And he said, "Yeah, I want to say hi to my mom anyway." Okay, long story short, we were sitting at that little Denny's café, and two buddies meet. It's all about, "How's your car? How's your hobby? How's your favorite soccer team?" Whatever. Two guys meet and have a chat. Of course, after a while, it starts like, "How's your business going?"
Matt:
Yeah.
Michael Althoff:
"Well, yeah. We're getting there. Nah. No, honestly, Paul, it's not good. I'm desperate. I'm about to give up again." And you have to know, I'm just a regular guy. I used to be a truck driver, long haul, in Europe. I mean, I drove semi-trucks, crisscross Europe, and that's who I am. I mean, I'm not that smart of a person. I never saw a college or even university from inside, except those parties. That doesn't count, I guess. "So I give up, Paul. I give up because my people are so stupid. They're such a group of idiots. I give up."
And it was Paul asking me one question. He said, "What do you think of all the mistakes happening at Yellotools? What do you think is the percentage of human mistakes and process mistakes?" "Hm, good question." I reflected the last couple, let's say, four or five weeks, and said, "Hmm, at least 70% human mistakes because, again, they're idiots." And he laughed at me. He just freaking laughed at me. He said, "Michael, it is one percent human mistakes and 99% process mistakes." That was the moment where I wanted to ... You know these American coffee mugs? They are so freaking heavy. I just wanted to freaking slam that thing in his face. And I thought, "How arrogant are you?"
Matt:
Wow.
Michael Althoff:
"You don't know jack about Germany, my company, the philosophy, the culture. You don't know anything, and you just sit here and just shoot out a phrase to a buddy," right? I was upset. Can I say pissed? Yeah, I can say pissed.
Matt:
Oh, yeah. You can say whatever you want to say.
Michael Althoff:
Okay, so I was pissed, and I was angry. And so I just wanted to play it back to him. I said, "Okay, Mr. Lean. What is the biggest mistake still happening at your company after all these years into Lean?" It took him half a second to answer that question. He said, "The biggest mistake still happening at FastCap," his company, "is guessing and assuming. Assumptions and guessing. This is the biggest problem." And I'm like, "Wow, what do you exactly mean by that?" But then I answered the question myself.
You go out in the yard and you expect the forklift where you parked it last, but it's not there. And you assume that everyone knows the boss parked it there, so you got to park it there as well. So then you start yelling, "What idiot put ..." You know what I mean. So then you figure out, "There's that guy who drove the forklift before you," and you start yelling at them, "Hey, why don't you just park it where I want it to park?" And then you've got an answer like, "Well, I park it across that corner because it's closer to the gas tanks, just in case it gets empty." Darn. This guy is right and I'm wrong. It's because we never talked about the process. Wow. I'm telling you, I flew home. It's an 11-hour flight from LAX to Frankfurt. I couldn't sleep a minute-
Matt:
Crazy.
Michael Althoff:
... because I figured the biggest idiot at Yellotools was me in guessing, assuming, and undermining my people, in trying to be better than everyone else just to prove that, "You're an idiot." No, I needed to change that. See? And that was the start, because like I said, I'm not a smart, studied, MBA, whatever. I needed a recipe, right? I needed a role model. You know back in school, and you were not that good at the test, you just looked over to your neighbor and said, "What was the answer to B?" I needed this. I needed someone who is good at this test. I can just copy it. It is like you like your grandma's chocolate cookies.
Matt:
Oh yeah.
Michael Althoff:
You like them. These are the best-
Matt:
Sure.
Michael Althoff:
... in the world. Okay? And you ask your grandma, "Hey, grandma. Can you give me the recipe? Because I want to be able to make that cookie myself so I can eat it whenever I want it." So grandma gives you the recipe, right? I'm not saying that Paul is my grandma. I'm just making this clear.
Matt:
Thank you for clarifying that.
Michael Althoff:
He might sue me then. No. So you ask your grandma, "Hey grandma, give me the recipe." So she writes it all down. I mean, we all know that grandmas, they always have that little portion of love in every recipe, so you can't copy it one to one, but you can get damn close if you follow the recipe. If you decide on the way, "Hey, you know what? I think garlic could be really cool in my chocolate chip cookies," or you put some bacon in it or whatever you think you want to add, please be sure that the result is going to be different than you expect. I'm not saying better or worse. I'm saying different. Okay?
Matt:
It's your fault if it's better and it's your fault if it's worse.
Michael Althoff:
Totally.
Matt:
Interesting.
Michael Althoff:
But if you are not that advanced in baking and cooking and stuff like this, keep your eye on that recipe. And I did it. I didn't believe in a lot of things Paul did with his team, with Lean and Kaizen and stuff like this. There were some things I was totally disagreeing with and that it was totally against my inner monk doing that. But I said, "Michael you're not as smart as Paul. So please keep an eye on the recipe."
Matt:
Sure.
Michael Althoff:
So 16 years forward, here I am, writing books, traveling the world, being a speaker for Lean, having the best life I can ever, ever, ever imagine. If I look back 16, 17 years from now, I was just a joke. My life was just a mess. I was just wasting time getting up in the morning. And today, oh my God. I mean, living la vida loca. That's all I can say.
Matt:
Phenomenal. I mean, that transformation and that personal story is very powerful. And we've said it a few times at the summit. Me, these two guys behind the cameras and the microphones, we are like newborn babies in Lean. To use your cookie recipe analogy, whenever I was first introduced to Lean by Ryan and how simple it was, I realized I've been trying to bake cookies with just a random, "Oh, maybe throw this amount of flour in, and I don't know, maybe some salt." And then you taste the cookie. "Why is it so salty?" And then you're really mad at "Why is this cookie so salty?" And it's because we didn't follow a recipe. We were just free styling, and now we have a model to follow, and that's powerful.
Michael Althoff:
I mean, some of the best cookies came like this. Apple and IBM. You know what plexiglass is, right?
Matt:
Yes. Yeah.
Michael Althoff:
You know where the name plexiglass is coming from?
Matt:
No idea.
Michael Althoff:
Mr. Röhm, Dr. Röhm, the guy who invented it, he was up to totally different. So he mixed that stuff and he just put it to rest, and he left his labor, and the next day he came in, and by accident he found a pretty clear piece of plastic. And he was so perplexed ... It's a true story. That's why It's called plexiglass. So I'm not saying that you should not have your own thing or be an entrepreneur and try things, but if you look at something and you say, "I admire this. I want that," ask this guy, "Hey, how did you get there?"
Matt:
Sure.
Michael Althoff:
You say you were a newborn baby in that. Congratulations on that because your journey is just to begin. Mine is right in the middle of it, and it's harder to find improvements if you are 16 and 17 years into it. Everyone I see just started, I'm so jealous, man. I see exactly what you guys up to. And just today I got a guy, he asked me, "Hey ..." We were touring the facility at Seating Matters, and everyone ... I've been there a couple of times. So I knew what to expect. I mean, I was still blown away. Don't get me wrong. I mean, these people are just nailing it. But this guy was there first time and he was like, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." And he said, "Oh, Michael. How long would it take us to get here?"
Matt:
Oh, wow.
Michael Althoff:
And I said, "This is an irrelevant question. It is really not the right question." See, FastCap, Seating Matters, Yellotools, In The Ditch Towing, Best M Doors, you name it, they all made the mistakes for you, right? I mean, we all tried to bake these cookies and failed, and now we have that recipe. So we made all the mistakes for you. You can do the shortcut and just copy what we do if you want the same result. So it maybe took Seating Matters 12 years to get there, or nine or eight, but if you know how to do it, you can skip the row. You're there in what? A year or two? Whatever you want. It's up to you.
So this is what I try to tell people. I don't know how long it takes you to get to that stage, but I can promise you one thing with Lean. If you start with your heart and your soul, tomorrow is going to be better than yesterday was, that's it. That's how simple it is. And this is what I tell everyone in my groups, everyone in my speeches, everyone who tours the facility in Windeck, Germany. A, two second means little by little, and enjoy and celebrate every little improvement you found. And you guys, I mean, I've heard that you built that little thing and it fits in a small car and stuff like this. This is the beginning. Can you imagine where you guys, the three of you, will be in three years if you follow that amazing group of people you met today? You are going to change the way people do podcasts, forever. But just if you want. If you say it, it's okay. It's okay, you don't have to.
Matt:
Phenomenal. I have six more questions. I am actually going to wrap it up there because that was full of heart and soul at the end and really, really actionable and inspiring. We will put links to Michael's factory tour video. We'll put links to Michael's books and anything else we can find online that we think would be useful for you guys to check out. Thank you so much for spending this time with us, and be sure to check out some other episodes where we hear from some other incredible Lean maniacs, just like Michael. Thanks again.
Michael Althoff:
Thanks for having me, guys.
Matt:
Have a great rest of the day.
Michael Althoff:
Keep on leaning.
Matt:
Awesome.