Learning Without Scars
As a third-generation educator, it is easy to say that teaching and training are in the blood for Ron Slee. From his beginnings as a coach, through his time at McGill University, Ron developed a foundation for the work he does today. From working within dealerships, to operating a consulting company, creating a training business and running twenty groups, Ron has been directly involved in this Industry since 1969. Ron has been known as the industry expert for years, and has brought this expertise to bear through his training programs. Today, Ron provides specialized, job function based internet based subject specific classes, job function skills assessments, as well virtual seminars and webinars. These courses are designed for manufacturers and their dealers, as well as independent businesses in the construction equipment, light industrial, on-highway, engine, and agricultural industries through Learning Without Scars (www.LearningWithoutScars.com). This platform is a continuation of the work begun by Quest, Learning Centers which was established in 1996. This training is aimed at improving dealer parts and service operations through qualified people that are knowledgeable in using operational metrics and current market and operational best practice methods.
Learning Without Scars
Innovative Paths to Workforce Development
Curious about how the digital age is reshaping business models and workforce dynamics? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Sara Hanks, the brilliant mind behind Leverage4Data, as she navigates the shift from traditional transaction-driven businesses to innovative, data-centric models. With her engineering background and fascination with continuous improvement, Sarah sheds light on the critical role of data quality and ownership. Discover how digitization, analytics, and machine learning are reshaping industries, and gain insights into overcoming the hurdles of data governance and the evolving synergy between business and IT.
Skill shortages in the workforce and the race to match educational outcomes with job market needs are issues that can't be ignored. Sara and I tackle these pressing concerns, examining the lag of educational institutions in keeping up with rapid technological advancements, like AI. We scrutinize the financial strains of higher education and propose alternative pathways such as military service for skill acquisition. As aging corporate leadership presents challenges for career advancement, we explore the idea of embedding practical learning experiences in high schools, aiming to equip students with the necessary tools and enthusiasm to thrive in the modern workforce.
The power of personalized learning paths and the continuous improvement of job functions are at the heart of our final discussion. Through robust assessment systems, we explore how tailored learning recommendations can bridge the gap between executive expectations and employee realities. Drawing on Patrick Lencioni's ideas about job dissatisfaction, we highlight how anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurability impact engagement. Our conversation emphasizes creating meaningful and measurable work, connecting individual contributions to a larger narrative, and fostering a proactive organizational culture. Prepare for a deep dive into the small details that shape our daily lives and the crucial role of mindfulness in fostering a productive and fulfilling work environment.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
Aloha and welcome to another Candid Conversation. Today we're joined by one of my favorite ladies, sarah Hanks, who has a business called Leverage4Data and has a really rich and varied background. And I'm going to say this tongue-in my education was mathematics and physics and Sarah's was engineering, and we used to tell the engineers we had to derive the formulas. They just did the arithmetic. So with that kind of tongue in cheek, smile Sarah why don't you?
Speaker 1:give everybody a reminder of who you are and what you are, and you're allowed to shoot back if you want and you're allowed to shoot back if you want.
Speaker 2:Without the engineers you wouldn't be able to take those theories and put them into application, so it's got to be a handshake.
Speaker 1:I got you I'll accept that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, Sarah Hanks, I've made a career, I guess, out of continuous improvement. I think you know, with the background in engineering, I realized very quickly out of school that what I love to do is problem solve, not necessarily invent the next thing. I'm more of a let's take the current state and let's figure out how to dissect what's not working and figure out how to make it work. And I was fortunate because it was back in the early 2000s. Lean Six Sigma was very exciting back then. It was very relevant and I had the opportunity to learn early on and became a black belt in the early 2000s, which was awesome.
Speaker 2:The rest of my career is defined by taking that same continuous improvement and just applying it in different ways. In the last decade it's been very heavily on digitizing process and then using that to make data and then using the data to leverage analytics, machine learning to drive additional incremental improvement. Leverage for data is a company that's founded based on those philosophies and those experiences. The idea is how do you improve your process, Use that to get data and then use the data to drive additional outcomes?
Speaker 1:One of the interesting things in the last little while has become painfully obvious to me that we are moving from transaction driven businesses manufacturing orders, work orders, sales equipment, sales bills and invoices and payments and all that stuff to data, and that with statistics and with computer power. There's two things that are rather interesting. The probability of a future event is dependent on the size of an event and the time gap since the last event, and it is amazingly precise predictions.
Speaker 2:Assuming you have enough data.
Speaker 1:Well, of course, and the quality of data, which becomes now the biggest problem, because we've had data management since the 1960s and almost everybody I deal with. Let me ask you the question do you know? We've had data management david's management since the 1960s and almost everybody I deal with. Let me ask you the question do you know anybody, a business that has every data element owned by one of the employees you know you might have frozen.
Speaker 2:no, I no, I would think in a perfect world.
Speaker 1:Oh did I yeah, that's okay, okay we got the ocean and another, we got about 5 000 miles between us right now. Yeah, no, I I say every, every data element in every database needs to be owned by an employee, sure, and nobody can touch or change or do anything to that data without the approval of the data owner.
Speaker 2:Right or a steward, because you may have an organization Better word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that, and I would say that I haven't seen a company have that complete implementation exist Right. It's not even always clear who owns the data. There's often even confusion on whether the business owns the data or if IT owns the data, and I think, when it comes to data quality, it's a shared effort. I think that the data itself and the process around the data and the governance around what you can change it to do needs to be defined by the business and then, on the IT side, it's really up to them to monitor the transactions, the data movement, the data security and making sure that those protocols are in place, to make sure that it's protected and that, if it moves, it's moving in a way that's clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. I took computer science in the 60s. Way, that's clean. Yeah, it's funny. I took computer science in the 60s and at that time they were saying to us the programmers of today, this is 1964-ish. The programmers of today are the clerks of tomorrow, Because they'll be doing exactly what you're saying. There will be instructions as to what to do with that program, that data, that report, what have you and don't get. In the 70s and 80s I remember a lot of the systems, guys. I want an elegant solution. Give a hoot about elegance, you know, just get the data. Give me an answer.
Speaker 2:It's still a question that gets asked, in my opinion. Give me the data. I just want an easy way to get the data.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, you know, leading up to our recording data analytics. Whenever I get onto that subject, a lot of people's eyes glaze over. They don't know what the hell that is. And machine learning is even worse.
Speaker 2:Sure, now you're entering into a potential black box.
Speaker 1:And when they start talking about restarting Three Mile Island to provide the power for enough computers to do machine learning, then everybody goes. Wait a second. What's going on here?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're entering into a really interesting time. So that you're a mechanical engineer by education, correct? Yep, and you worked on manufacturing floors, correct?
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:Manufacturing and distribution. How different are they?
Speaker 2:different, are they? I mean, I would think overall they're pretty close. I think in manufacturing you've got some processes within the box that are going to be unique to manufacturing, like how to make certain parts, um. But I think that a lot of the things businesses would care about, you know, in terms of I'm buying things, I'm selling things and there's a value that I need to provide to my customer, I mean I would think there's a lot of similarities there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the end user, the buyers, needs and wants to be the same. Yes, the output distribution, the output of manufacturing, their satisfaction, customers. Yes, the output of distribution, the output of manufacturing to satisfy customers. Yes, the source might also well source for manufacturing can go back to raw materials versus distribution. We're probably going to be buying something that has some element of finished product on it, right, but other than that, are you finding? I'm hearing from everybody today that it's really hard to find skills, skilled people.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that, as we go forward, it's going to become harder. Are you sensing?
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely hearing that that One of our contributors, ed Gordon. He's got a PhD in economics and a PhD in history. He teaches at Northwestern. He's a hateful guy, you know but 21 bestsellers on the New York Times he says he's published that by 2030, half of the US workforce will not have skills that will be required to be employed.
Speaker 2:Do you think that's because the skills are changing so quickly or?
Speaker 1:is that because we're not training people quick enough? Both, I think the skills are changing so quickly. But also, you know, sarah, the example I use is the steam engine was replaced by the electric engine in 1880. And it took a generation 20 years before society could handle the changes that were required to the processes such that the electric engine was fully utilized. And, as we were talking earlier, artificial intelligence was at a Dartmouth conference in 1956, and here we are 60 years later and we're all excited about chat, gpt and all this stuff. Yeah, so our ability to adapt to all this change as a society is bad. Education Hasn't adapted. I wouldn't want to be in a school today or responsible for running a university or a community college or a technical school. Look at how much tuition is.
Speaker 2:It's insane. I've got a college-bound daughter. It's a lot more than when I was going to school.
Speaker 1:Does she have a number? A four year degree would cost her X.
Speaker 2:It's a range. I mean it's anywhere from $35,000 a year up to $80,000 a year, and that's just the schools within a specific radius a year.
Speaker 1:And that's just the schools within a specific radius. My grandson wanted to be a nuclear, wanted a degree in nuclear engineering. He got accepted at Purdue, which is the school he wanted. Without scholarships four years, $350,000. Wow, didn't count books. With all of his scholarships it came down to $170,000, which isn't bad in the overall scheme of things. He said to me he's 17 years and four or five months. He says I can't do that. So he took the military SAT ACT I don't remember what they call it and he scored incredibly high. So everybody came after him. My daughter went nuts. She says you're not going in the army, you're not going in the Marines, the Navy. So he went in and enlisted in the Navy.
Speaker 1:Wow. So he goes into the enlistment office. He says I want to join the Navy. The guy says congratulations. However, only if you put me in the new program. So he's negotiating. So he's in the new program, free ride, unbelievable education.
Speaker 1:I'm almost of the opinion now, with tuition, what it is, that everybody should go to a military, a job. Get the education, get get some growing up, get some self-esteem some. Yeah, you know it's, it's really tough. So here we got this circumstance where I believe companies are responding to this lack of skills by having too much work done by too few people. I think we're putting profit ahead of people as our response in business, right, yep, and that's very short-lived Yep. We also have and see if this one holds true. A lot of the people that are leading American business today are probably in the range of 10 years older than they used to be 20 years ago. In other words, the transition from one level of leadership to the next has been deferred, meaning that there's a whole bunch of people that should have been leaders that aren't getting the opportunity. They're not getting the opportunity and guess what? They're going elsewhere and finding things to do that maybe they had no idea. So that rate of change you were talking about.
Speaker 1:A social worker made the comment to me when I came out of school, 1960, whatever it was seven. My family said take your time, you're going to be there for the rest of your life. The social worker said don't worry about it, they're going to have six or seven careers and they're going to go back and be re-educated in whatever the hell it is. So my grandson, this guy who wants to be an astrophysicist, now he's probably going to be a chef. He might make clothing on a sewing machine. God knows what these people are going to do. So how do we get people excited about coming back into work?
Speaker 1:McDonald's ain't doing it. No, how does somebody start? I'd like to see us start in high school with guidance counselors, mentoring programs. Is that something that would help with continuous improvement?
Speaker 2:Well, I think starting with enthusiasm helps with continuous improvement, for sure, I mean. But going back to high schools, like one of the organizations that I'm involved with, they've started, you know, in manufacturing. They've started a program where we build an enterprise within the high school that's its own manufacturing entity. Perfect, an enterprise within the high school that's its own manufacturing entity. And now kids are getting an opportunity to do something, not because it's being taught in a class, but it's because a customer needs it. They're making parts that are going to Zippo and being installed on the manufacturing lines to make lighters. They're making parts that are going into locomotives. It's exciting, it's motivating.
Speaker 1:And they're 14 and 15 and 16, right.
Speaker 2:That's right. And then these kids they're getting exposed to careers that they never got to, and some are entering the workforce right out of high school. And now you get a chance to defer that college if you choose to go that path. You work for a company and the company pays the tuition.
Speaker 1:And the company selects what path you follow based on the skills that you're exhibiting. True, which is another mind shift, isn't it? Yeah, I think I'm excited, but I don't know how many people are like you that can lead those like those kids that go to work as interns in the summer. I had that in two dealerships that we would take people in their year before graduation and we get depending on the size of the company and the need, it was 12 to 20 people and I would put them on the warehouse floor the first 30 days picking parts and sweating their butt off, and I'd lose about a third of them because they didn't want to work that hard. But if they stayed, we guaranteed them a job after they graduated and we put them into an 18-month training program and this is in 1978, I went to Finning Tractor, which is the largest Caterpillar dealer in the world, and when I got there they had 53 stores every store manager, every sales manager, every parts manager, every service manager came into the company that way.
Speaker 1:Talk about a culture you can't take apart.
Speaker 2:That's. I mean, that's how I felt about GE and when I joined it it was you know we were. I wasn't in the internship program, but I was aware of it and I was still offered an opportunity to interview and was able to go in after university. But that training program built relationships that still exist even in my network today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I would think that your, your business, is going to have to be getting involved like that too. It's, it's I. I'm focused, I'm trying to get people that I talk to to focus on their core competency giving parts to people, making parts, repairing parts, buying parts, paying for parts, looking after customers. And if it isn't part of the core competence and I don't believe Six Sigma or Continuous Improvement is outsource it. Yeah, now I'm. I'm met with a lot of skepticism, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2:Oh sure, but it's. How can you?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, human resources. Why the hell do you have to have one? People don't outsource it. Yeah, there's people that know how to do that. Make money doing that.
Speaker 2:There's sure, there's fractional chief marketing officers, there's financial planning that you can outsource all sorts of functions and, yeah, continuous improvement ought to be, and should be, one of those things that can be outsourced, because to develop the expertise in-house that's going to be generational and have that depth is going to take a lot of time and we're starting from scratch. I think there's just a big gap on how do people think about what they're doing and how they can continue to do it better. It's like we get in a mode of execution and forget to peek our head up and figure out what to do better and forget to pick our head up and figure out what to do better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that I'm really pleased about is Sarah has agreed to create a lecture series on continuous improvement on Six Sigma. I'm excited to see 10 one-hour lectures that will allow the universe to take a class, 149 bucks and learn something that you can't get at school. So thank you. Do you want to talk about that a little bit Like let's have a commercial.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I mean, when it comes to the 10 lecture series, I want to address not just technical topics but also really what I've felt over the years, which is that how do you get influence on your efforts and actually make them happen within the organization In order to get projects to sustain? It takes a lot more finesse than a statistical analysis done, you know, in a Six Sigma study is going to be able to provide. And then also there's a third element that will be woven in, and that's really how do you leverage technology and kind of modernize some of the approaches. You know, I don't even know how to get Minitab necessarily to be able to do a statistical, you know, an ANOVA to compare two populations and understand if they're distinctly different. So that would be the approach that we're going to take to these lecture series.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to see them. The whole process. You know, in school the kids that were constantly asking questions were viewed as troublemakers. I want the whole damn department to be troublemakers.
Speaker 2:Why do we do that I?
Speaker 1:want to have that. You know and I think you've heard, in our management classes we talk about three words understanding, acceptance and commitment. And that came from a partner of mine by the name of Mac Ferrys, who graduated from Annapolis, got an accident with a plane, so he got a master's out of Stanford and then he was the lunar lander coordinator for Boeing. You know, just a slug. Wonderful, wonderful guy. But what Mac did in his management training, everybody has to understand what we're trying to do. That's the first problem. I don't think everybody does. And statistically in America something in the order of 10% of American businesses succeed in implementing their strategy. That's true.
Speaker 2:I think I've read a similar.
Speaker 1:It's obscene and the reason that is primarily given is that 95% of the employees could not tell you what that strategy is, so it's communication and clarity Amen.
Speaker 1:So we get into that. So everybody has to understand. And then the piece that I say has been missing everybody has to accept that what we're trying to do is the right thing to do and we do not allow people to fight about it, to debate it. The boss wants that done. That's the end of it. Wait a second. I don't agree with you. Really. We don't have environments that are that open, that our leaders are trusted to be able to be resisted. Yeah, if we can do that, if we get understanding and acceptance, then it's easy to get commitment. For goodness sake, everybody's doing it, sure, and there's methods that you can teach people to make that happen with continuous improvement, aren't there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, with understanding and getting clarity, you know, learning how to define a problem properly up front.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:So that you can you understand what turns on and off that problem. You need that level of clarity to be able to solve it. Yeah, and that's understanding.
Speaker 1:What I used to say is if you can tell me what the problem is, we're done. That's right. Most of the problem is trying to figure out what the dull problem is. Yes most of the problem is trying to figure out what the dull problem is, yes, and then to get everybody to agree that that is a problem, because there's going to be everybody and their dog trying to protect the status quo.
Speaker 2:They're comfortable absolutely, and people are in it in all fairness too. People have a lot of expertise and they have a lot of experience, but sometimes situations rise that the data suggests something very different, and that's scary. And now you're not just challenging a specific problem, but you're challenging essentially an identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're talking about me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this gets very personal. I think in large part that's why continuous improvement hasn't really become commonplace. It's been around for 45 years or longer yeah, longer yeah. So I'm excited about the lectures and I'm excited about seeing the kind of people that take the class yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 2:How, what kind of information do you get on the people that take the class?
Speaker 1:oh I, I get all kinds of information you have no idea. It's it's well it. It helps us drive the product we're trying to create, right, sure? So, example our assessments are a precursor to everything. Yeah, and I got a score on what your skill and knowledge is. So imagine continuous improvement. I'm going to create a team and we're going to go do a project and it's going to be aiming at this problem. So the assessment gives me groupings of people by specific job functions, and we've got 24 job functions. So for that job function, here's 90 questions, multiple choice, and you get a score. And we've had this year probably 4,500 assessments.
Speaker 1:Wow, in the education world. 0% to 50% is called developing, developing skills Okay. 51% to 75% is called beginning, 76% to 90% is called intermediate and 91% and up is called advanced Okay, now that's just school. So it's a little weird, yeah, and we adapted a little bit. But what we do with those scores is we create individualized learning paths. So you get 48%. These are the eight classes that we would recommend you take. You can do them one at a time, you can do them in bundles of four, or you can do it in a bundle of eight. Boom and take another assessment and see what happened.
Speaker 2:And the nice thing is, since they're broken down by role, I assume you know what skills need to be at what level to be successful for that role, and some skills are transferable Precisely.
Speaker 1:And some are not.
Speaker 2:And some are not.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you know it gets back to let me see your job description.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know it gets back to, let me see your job description yes, and this is not the job description anymore.
Speaker 1:This is a job function statement.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's a clear understanding of what is. But can you imagine people don't take the time to understand what their people need to do to be successful at that level. Managers don't get down into the details. Executives don't understand the nooks and crannies of what it takes to get something accomplished at that level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just continue to do what you've always done. Everything's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and not realizing that. You know, or even something as simple as an executive asking a question and the amount of churn that it takes and the angst that's created to just even answer the mail and how much time it takes, and the executive is very frustrated because they're not hearing an answer that they expect would be quick and meanwhile the employees are doing all of this work behind the scenes, you know, and that comes back to data right, and being able to answer questions with data, and that's why, no matter what, from a continuous improvement standpoint, I think one of the strategies that people need to have an appreciation for is what's our data look like? Where does it fit on a maturity scale? Where do we need it to go?
Speaker 1:And can everybody hear the passion that just has been coming out of the last 90 seconds? You know, and that's beautiful because I think you know fundamentally, I believe everybody wants to do a good job.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Similarly, I think everybody can do more than what they think they can. Yes, at the end of the day, we're all lazy, so you put those three things together.
Speaker 1:And you get complacency and then you get Patrick Lencioni, who's written I don't know 9 or 15 books as fables, and his three signs of a miserable job anonymity, irrelevance and immeasurability. Yeah, so now you go to a company like GE and I'm just going to use a big one and the employees don't feel that anybody knows who the hell they are. Are you married? Have you got children? What are your hobbies? You know what's your education? What do you do at night? Do you go to church? Nobody pays any attention to that anymore. Irrelevance they don't think that the job that they're doing has any bearing on anything because nobody's shown them how it fits into the overall picture. And unless you're on the manufacturing floor or repair immeasurability, you don't know when you left today if you did a good job or not.
Speaker 2:And even then you might not have that feedback either.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I'm not waiting for outside feedback, I want internal. I want to be able to say to myself I know how my job is supposed to be measured and I know how I did today. And damn it, Ron, you should have done better today.
Speaker 2:When I was a quality engineer, on the shop floor and somebody had a mistake or a defect, we walked the process from the point that it was discovered to all of the other areas that could have been impacted along the way. We understood why it was important. We talked about the impact of the customer and made it very relevant. It was important, we talked about the impact of the customer and made it very relevant, and I think people don't take the time to do that and teach people the broader picture. But there's so much value there because when someone has a story that they can connect it to now, they have a reason to care.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's part of building the culture of the company too. Who are our heroes? Who are those legends? Do you remember George? He never would have let that happen.
Speaker 2:No, we reward the firefighters instead of the people that are proactively going out of their way.
Speaker 1:We can have 10% error on a job but then cascades to every single job 10%. By the time you go through three or four jobs you lost 50% of your effectiveness and nobody thinks about that. So I hope this is a rebirth of continuous improvement. I don't see it on syllabuses at school improvement. I don't see it on syllabuses at school. We very modestly touch on it in styles of management and change and things like that leadership. But I'm really looking forward to the lecture series and, as you say, weaving it's not just about. Clarity is important, understanding is important, communication is critical and I think we have failed miserably on many of those things. And you know, look at politics and I don't want to be political, but in this particular case, who the hell in Trump's situation would want to do what he's been doing? You know what the hell is a man who's a billionaire doing this for, yeah, and I don't mean to draw the parallel but what the hell is a man like Biden still in the chair for?
Speaker 2:That's right, why, yeah, go go enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1:You've contributed enough for goodness sake, enjoy your retirement, or whatever you want to call it. So.
Speaker 1:I've got a bunch of guys that I work with that are my age and older, which is scary. They're still running businesses. And one of the guys, a good friend of mine. He basically started rubbing two nickels together Every month. He had to rebalance his bills and debts in order to stay alive. He's got a really big business, a really successful business. I said, okay, where's your board, Where's your board of directors? Where are your advisors? I don't need that. What I said? Well, what happens if you have a stroke? What happens if you get sick? And who takes over? And what do they know that you want to have happen? What are your expectations and have you communicated it to them? Yeah, I mean, you know, and he's not alone, sarah.
Speaker 2:There's many no women that are in the same boat yeah, I mean, I see it in manufacturing all the time, you know, especially in the small, mid-sized sector, because a lot of them are family owned businesses. Yeah, and they lack that succession plan and that's scary. And I've seen it happen where something suddenly catastrophically occurs to a leader and the business is left fragmented. It's scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the thing that bothers me about it is all the employees in the company are vulnerable and most of those people don't have many options. The leaders, they're fine, we don't need to worry about them, but the person who's in that lower level job not a lot of education, really important work not respected or rewarded or recognized, they're vulnerable and they're.
Speaker 2:They're probably insecure too, right, and they don't realize that they probably have the ability to to do great elsewhere too, because they haven't been told. Yeah, they're reinforced.
Speaker 1:I think that's another byproduct of continuous improvement. I think we're going to have a bunch of people if they go through this thing. Oh, I can do that, god, that's kind of fun. I wish I'd known about this earlier.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with Paul Akers and Two Second Lean?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think he does a fabulous job of taking the concept of lean and continuous improvement and personalizing it. Taking the concept of lean and continuous improvement and personalizing it, and he puts a big emphasis on culture and recognizing, and that's you know. All two second improvements get to go in for recognition.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and a similar thing is the conductor of an orchestra. That's the only musician that has his back to the customer, and that's an interesting statement.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting statement.
Speaker 1:So you know, I played clarinet in high school. This is a weird story and the guy who was my teacher also played clarinet and we did rudimentary stuff and I was never happy happy with it. So I was always being a disturber. I would find music that I wanted to play and I'd get the whole orchestra I'd give it out, and when he wasn't around and we're waiting for him to arrive we'd learn it and start playing it and he was ticked. So I was the solo clarinetist in any performance and I was the last clarinetist when it wasn't a performance.
Speaker 1:And so in high school graduation we were given an estimate by our teacher and then we had a three-hour audition. We had to play and the guy stopped me after about an hour and he said what time of the day are you having? A good day? Bad day? I said man, pretty normal, I can do better. And he said your teacher gave you an estimate of 80%. I said he doesn't like me and I got 98 and I picked the guy off. But you know, I wonder how many, and I guess I relate to these things because a lot of this happened to me. I wonder how many, and I guess I relate to these things, because a lot of this happened to me. I wonder how many employees are just diamonds sitting there waiting to be picked up and challenged and given an opportunity? So I I'd like to give every single person a task.
Speaker 2:A weird thing yeah, a stretch, just like yeah stretch goals.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, that's the jargon, right, but yeah, you know, I wonder if we had that tool over there instead of there, if it would be any better. What do you think? Why don't you spend some time and look at that? And after a while people start well, he's crazy, but they, they start oh shit, you know, we did, it was better when we moved it, and then all of a sudden the thirst starts up. I wonder what else we can do it with. So it's, it's absolutely amazing. So in the midst of all your busyness, family, work life, a prospective grandmother Yep, get the damn lectures finished.
Speaker 2:I will yeah.
Speaker 1:I hope that this is a new resurgence of, but with that being the thing, how do we wrap this up? How, how, what would you want to say to people to get them turned on about continuous improvement?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing that I would, I would say, is to evaluate what causes you the most frustration in your work. And I don't mean that. I mean there's definitely frustration that's invoked by other people and that may be part of it, but it's harder to figure out how to be empowered to solve. But I mean specifically with the work that you have to do today. What is one frustrating thing that you can do? And do a quick search to see if there's a faster, better way to do it. Use the tools that are out there, like AI, to give suggestions on how to do that better, and try to fix one thing. Build the confidence that you can make one thing better, and that'll open your eyes up to be able to see other opportunities to make things better.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point Something in the world over which you have total control, something that bugs you, and see if you can find a better way to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And, if you can, hallelujah, because that'll really get you excited.
Speaker 2:That's a snowball effect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you can't go to something else?
Speaker 2:And here's an example right, I can't find my keys. I struggle finding my keys, so I bought a key holder and then I trained myself on the regular to hang the keys up going into the building. Right, you know something very simple. Then that frustration goes away. Same thing happened with my employee badge. I would always, you know, wear it around my neck and I'd misplace it. I changed my process, so when I got in the car it went into my purse. That's it, little change. And now I don't have those moments of panic going into the gate when I have to go into a place with a badge. There's little things that we're empowered to do that can remove frustration every day, and if we can just learn to see them take simple actions, you'll start to see bigger opportunities.
Speaker 1:For loss of a nail, a shoe was lost. For loss of a shoe, a horse was lost. For loss of a horse, a battalion was lost. For loss of a battalion, a battle was lost. For loss of the battlealion, a battle was lost. For loss of the battle, a war was lost. It's the little things that we tend not. I had the same thing with keys. I put my keys in one spot all the time. I have to plug my phone in in the car for power and often I forget the damn phones in the car for power and often I forget the damn phones in the car. I mean, we're all in that kind of mode At my age now. I walk into a room and I get there and say what the hell am I here for? But that's a different discussion, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Sarah, it's been great. Thank you very much. I look forward to the lectures and I hope every one of you that's listening to this candid conversation has enjoyed it as well, and we'll look forward to seeing you at the next one, Mahalo.
