My name is Kelly Thomas and I lead commercial operations for Ge Digital in my day job and I moonlight as the co-chair of a women's network for our business.Now, before I jump into talking about my passion for a lien and getting you on board with your own lane journey, I wanna set the stage for what I'm not going to do. I am not here to talk about or make the case for Dei A in general. I hope and pray that everyone on the phone uh firmly believes in the case for individuals as well as businesses. What I want to talk about is the struggle to close the gap between intention and impact in Dei A and in particular, I want to talk about how lean can help you and your business easing that struggle and get a little bit closer to results each day. So that's what lean is all about. Now in our very limited time today, I wanna walk through the data around the ei A in the workplace, but I wanna spend most of our time sharing what lean is uh sharing a couple tools that can really help you because they've helped us at the women's network at digital and then I wanna share results because again, it doesn't matter if it doesn't drive results for you.

Now, the data uh I'm sure no one on the phone would dispute that there has been great progress in DEI A. In the last couple of years since 2017, there has been an increase, a 71% increase in the number of roles posted with the words diversity or inclusion in the title. And additionally, 95% of business leaders and 75% of employees recognize their business for committing to Dei A.

But where the results are mixed is the results themselves. Because only 69% of those leaders and 49% of employees say that their company has moved beyond uh the commitment to Dei A into setting goals in the DEI A space and actually implementing them. Additionally, when a business only approaches Dei A through policy rather than programming to support Deia a efforts at best, there's been really no impact or little impact at worst. It's actually shown to backfire and what it comes down to is the motive of each business and implementing Dei A policies and programming. If all you're, if the only reason you're doing it is to avoid litigation, it's not really gonna benefit anyone. So what do the most successful companies in the EI A do? And I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on all of these, there's a ton of literature out there on what drives success itself. Uh I'm just trying to summarize it for everyone here today. First is leadership buy in and by leadership buy in. I mean, your organization has a leadership that is visibly diverse and that diverse leadership is making decisions. They are held accountable for progress in DEI A and metrics on a regular basis. Second, it's integrated across all parts of the organization, meaning from hiring and talent acquisition through on boarding processes, ongoing training and all the way down to how you write your manuals. It's ad ei a integrated approach.

Third, they listen to members a lot of times through er GS but also other forms, maybe it's regular annual surveys or biannual surveys of your population uh as well as round tables to get qualitative data. And then finally, they measure what's working and what isn't not just the vanity metrics that we all report and diversity reports uh annually. But beyond that, they measure the programs themselves are the hiring practices actually bringing in more diverse candidates. Uh is the hiring process more inclusive?

Are they addressing implicit bias? They measure those things and they pivot on them when they get feedback that something isn't working. So what that says to me is that the most successful programs in Dei A are disciplined measurable and transparent in their approach to Dei A and that's all well and good. I I'm sure we've seen all of these factors before. But the question is, how do you get there? Especially if you don't have the first one leadership buy in. And this is where I want to make the case for you. That Lean is a tool to help your organization get a little bit more disciplined, transparent and measurable in your approach to Dei A because Lean is really a business system that does just that for any other business problem. And by treating Dei a like a business challenge, Lean gives you a common language and to speak and an understanding for each other. I'm not sure how familiar the the audience is with Lean. Uh If you typed Lean operating system into a search engine, you would get a slew of different results. Um But my favorite definition is the one on the screen and the reason it's my favorite is because it's focused on people.

Glean is a system that motivates people to want to improve, teaches them the tools of improvement and encourages them to apply those tools every day. Now, as a leader in the ei A people is what drives me and I'm sure it does for many of you as well. Now, Lean is built on four basic principles. The first is delivering customer value for us in Dei A. That's our members of our er GS and our organization, but also the organization more broadly respecting and empowering people as our second pillar and not just your customers at the back end, but everyone throughout your process, because we all get into our business problems together.

And that's the only way that we're gonna get out of them. The third pillar, eliminating waste because the best way to deliver value and to respect people is to do it as efficiently as possible. And finally seeking improvement because there's no done in lean, you can always get a little bit better. And all of this, the final point is it's built on a foundation of data. Sometimes in the ei A we hear a lot about feelings and I'm not saying that's wrong, but it is incomplete by always verifying the feedback that we're getting with the data. We make a better case for dei A generally and one that your business leaders can actually understand. Now, just like the finding lean, there is a ton of tools in the lean tool kit and honestly the tools themselves, some of the words on the screen can be intimidating. Kaizen potion, Muda moa Poko Kanban, all of those things are intimidating and they're intimidating because they don't naturally translate to what their purpose is. At least for those of us who don't speak Japanese and for those who don't know the background of Wean, it really comes out of the Toyota production system and it's how Toyota runs their manufacturing plants as well as really any of their operations and has for a very long time.

It is the air that they breathe. And for us, the rest of us, it just means a bunch of tools to help all of us improve our processes. Now, I'm gonna focus on the tools that my organization ge sees as foundational to our own transformation in lean daily management, problem solving, standard work and Ks and before I talk about the details, I want to emphasize for everyone on the phone that what I'm sharing is not rocket science.

Um Larry Culp, our CEO S definition of lien is common sense rigorously applied. And although my favorite definition of lean generally is George kick sackers. From the last page, Larry Culp says my favorite definition that you can view the tools of lean through because that's exactly what they are. They're common sense, but what's missing a lot of times in common sense and applying it is a common vocabulary or a language so that you all understand where you're starting and that's what lean does. Now, if we had a little bit more time, I would go through all four of these tools. But I'm gonna focus on the two on the left daily management and standard work because those are the ones that my women's network leaders use on a daily basis and find the most value from. They're also the tools that you need. No other knowledge of Lean to really implement and take advantage of. So the first daily management, what is it, it is exactly what it sounds like. It is the way that you manage your business and drive towards your KPIS. And there are three main attributes.

It happens on a regular cadence and I know it says daily management here, but really the way to think of it is managing your progress that is commiserate with the goals and the KPIS that you're trying to achieve. So if you're working on a project or an initiative that needs daily progress, then you meet daily. If you're in the de I space like us at women's network and this is your second job on top of your already your day job. Ca the cadence can be a little bit more uh spaced out for us. Our women's network board meets on a biweekly basis because that still aligns to making sure that our KPIS are on track as well as achieving the results that we intended. The second feature is that it's visual, your critical metrics and your action plans associated with achieving them are on display. Anytime you're in a conversation, any time you're in that daily management, everyone can see for themselves where you are in the process. If something is being held up and they can see if they can contribute because back to the point that II I said before we all get into these problems together and that's the best way to get out of them, which is also what's the third piece. Why daily management is team based. Now, how do we use it in women's network? There's really two main ways that we use it on a day to day basis. The first is an established operating rhythm to review our metrics.

And the second is an action plan, as I mentioned before, the our women's network. As I said, our daily management is actually more of a biweekly management in our case. Um But what we do is review our KPIS in a bowler format, which you can see an example of a bowler in the top left hand corner. Again, just another lean tool in the way that you depict your metrics. So it has your basic KPIS, it has your targets and it has your actuals and how you're performing against them so that everyone can see exactly where you are. We also have a monthly operating rhythm where we deep dive into the KPIS as well as any initiatives that are going on. Uh We always are focusing on how we work together, how we make the news as it's called in lien rather than just reporting on what we're doing. We also have an operating rhythm around feedback. So what's called a Bob Wow analysis or a best of best, worst of worst. So on a quarterly basis, we go and look at the feedback from our events, both qualitative and quantitative to see what is performing really well, what people feel like they're getting value from.

And then we pivot on that and in that informs our strategy for the remainder of the next quarter. And finally, we do a yearly review of our strategy to make sure that our mission vision and values continue to align what our business is expecting of us as well as what our members are. And then the way that we manage this beyond just visuals with, with the bowlers is an action plan and I'm sure everyone is more than familiar with an action plan. So I'm not going to describe what it is, but I do want to emphasize that a lien action plan is a little bit different because beyond just talking about the initiatives that you're working on who's responsible next steps. And when it's due, a lien action plan also asks you to quantify the value or the impact that you're gonna make with that action. So an example, if your organization's target for attrition rate of women is 8% and you're above that target in terms of attrition, say it's 12%. The lean action plan.

When you have initiatives focusing on that attrition rate asks you to quantify how you're going to close that gap between eight and 12. So how much of your actions are actually going to impact that 4%? Again, you want to measure what you're doing to make sure that it's making impact as expected. Now, where do you start? Well, the in order to track your progress, you need to know where you're going. And so you really need to define your mission vision and values first, you then you can identify metrics that support those mission vision values because you really shouldn't be asking people to track something if you're not going to act on it. Make sure as Jim Collins says that you have the right seats on the bus and then the right people in those seats from there establish a cadence that works for your organization, whether that's monthly, weekly, whatever it is that works for you make visual management part of your daily progress, your daily conversations, because everyone having a visual and knowing where you are, helps everyone review your cadence for effectiveness.

So if all you're doing is reporting out on what you're doing rather than actually taking action in the meeting and solving problems as a team. That's just another form of waste. It's just a meeting on everyone's calendar. That's not what daily management should be. It's actually about tackling the problem together. And then finally remember that you're always trying to get better. So if you're meeting your targets, move the target, try to get a little bit better. Now, how do you do that? Well, standard work, our second tool standard work is really the best documented way of getting to a result. Think of it as the wedge that holds your progress anytime you've made improvements as a team and the best standard work is documented and it documents why a process exists.

The key definitions, part of that process process steps, how long each process step should take roles and responsibilities as well as the tools and systems that are required to actually complete that process. Really standard work should give you a place to start a place to understand what your current state is, something for everyone to improve on. And then finally, it actually helps new people understand what's expected of them when they come on board to help you. Now, how do we use it? Well, really any process should have standard work and the EI A is no different. We have our own processes and plenty of them and so on the screen, we have a couple of examples of how we use it on a regular basis. We at GE Digital have a global er G calendar, not just for women's network and our chairs, but across all of the organizations to make sure that we're not scheduling over other people's events, but also to make sure that we're being a good ally and amplifying their events and their work for our network as well to step further into event, standard work.

We have a submitted for all of our global chairs to submit events to and when that's done, they actually automatically engage any of the resources they need for support, whether that's marketing and communications, it support, maybe it's vendor support or treasury support all of those things.

Are done simply through a form and people can start acting on it as soon as they get that notification, makes it a little bit easier. And then again, further into standard work because that's really what drives our women's network is events. We have communication plans, we have templates around how to send out an invite, who's responsible for what post event surveys to make it a little bit easier for anyone who is attempting to execute an event to really execute it. That's really what standard work is all about.

Now, how do you do it? What, how do you start the first place to start is ask yourself, do you have processes in all of your critical areas? If you don't have a process, should you, would it ease any confusion? Eliminate time resource effort, retraining of some of your new members to your board. If the answer is yes, then start down a path to putting a process in place, document it as well as the expected results. As I said before, this gives you a pla your team a place to start and a wedge to hold the line anytime they've made progress, that's what documenting it does make the process visible and accessible to anyone who wants it or may need it and be open to feedback because you're always trying to get a little bit better review your results on a regular basis, whether that's weekly, biweekly monthly, whatever it is that works for you and your KPIS ensure that the standard work is supporting the progress that you're making on those Kpis.

If you're green, great up to your target. If you're not, and you're seeing problems, then start digging in. If you have standard work. Is it doing what it's supposed to, is it being followed? Is, is there an understanding or the results? What you expected? If the answer to any of those is no, then take a step further dig in again. Has the process been documented? Is there a process owner? Has everyone been trained on that process? Now, if any of the of those answers are no, then start addressing them one by one. Because to circle back to my initial point, lean is a tool that helps you be more disciplined, transparent and measurable in your Dei A efforts. And that's exactly what it's done for us now to our results. And now I wanna emphasize that none of this is down strictly to implementing daily management and standard work in our women's network. At least not by itself, they're really part of a bigger commitment of our organization to treat Dei A as a challenge. And so we've made impact for our business in the form of attrition. Our attrition rates have gone down 2.4% and given the cost to replace a salaried employee 6 to 9 months. That's true business impact. We've also made an impact for our people improving their sense of belonging and their sense of engagement.

And that's really what drives me on a day to day basis. Now, I know we're limited on time. So I will just say I'm happy to talk about anything lean with anyone else. Uh So feel free to reach out. And I hope if nothing else, you get a little bit of value from this conversation and you're able to make your own dei a efforts, A little bit more disciplined, transparent and measured in the way you go forward. Thank you.