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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Patrick Adams 00:05
What does it mean to be an Executive leader, to be a decision maker, someone who is responsible, accountable for decisions and for leading organizations. This
Billy Ray Taylor 00:16
is a key point of life that comes back to managing a company as a human being, what we crave more than anything is to feel valued. You heard that saying people don't quit jobs. They quit bosses. Really what they quit is when they stop being valued. It's not just about the boss, it's about the value proposition.
Andy Olrich 00:37
There's that piece where you give back and we have footy players down here, so a lot of people end up getting their favorite player, and that's the player who might be sort of middle of the pack, but they hang around and they go and get photos, or they'll give their boots to a kid or something, and they never forget.
Patrick Adams 00:59
Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. My name is Patrick Adams, and I am joined today by our co host Andy Ulrich. Hey, Andy, how's it going?
Andy Olrich 01:08
Hi Mike. Going fantastic. Thanks. How are you Oh, I'm amazing, and
Patrick Adams 01:11
I'm excited for our guest today, Billy Ray Taylor is also on the line. Hey, Billy, how you doing?
Billy Ray Taylor 01:16
Hey Patrick, Andy, how are you guys doing? I'm doing great, doing
Patrick Adams 01:20
amazing. We're excited for this episode, excited to dive into the topic of today, be leadership in Lean organizations, and what does it mean to be an Executive leader, to be a decision maker, someone who is responsible, accountable for decisions and for leading organizations that have that are that are leading with intention, that are leading with a focus on continuous improvement. And who else better to interview on this topic than Billy Ray Taylor, for those of you that do not know Billy Ray, he was actually a keynote speaker for the Lean Solution Summit this past year, and we've had him on the podcast a few for a few episodes, actually, but Billy Taylor is a global keynote speaker. He's the author of the winning link and the founder of linked Excel, a global consulting and software company that empowers organizations to win through strategic implementation and strategic implementation of the connected business model, which we can talk a little bit about, that maybe during the show, so we can understand a little bit more about how the connected business model can actually help organizations. But Billy, we're exec we're excited to have you and excited to talk about this topic, do you mind just giving our audience just a little bit of a brief understanding of a little bit of the, maybe the leadership roles that you've played in the past, and where you've been at in those roles?
Billy Ray Taylor 02:53
Absolutely. Well, Patrick, I've actually, I spent 30 years in operations with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and so I came from, actually, after I graduated from college, from the shop floor supervision all the way to the executive suite. So I rose through those ranks and getting that practical experience, I was part of a team that helped Goodyear go from a negative 38 million to a billion in profit. And how do we do how do we do that? Right? We built business systems. And so today, I have a company called linked Excel, where I leverage that experience to help companies grow.
Patrick Adams 03:26
Love it, love it, and tell us a little bit about the connected business model.
Billy Ray Taylor 03:31
Billy, well, it's where really I tell people, when I go in and meet them, I sell speed, the speed of execution, right? And then what happens is, how do you connect the strategy and that alignment piece to the owners of that strategy, and then how to execute that strategy with a daily management system? So the connected business model, it does that. It connects the strategy with the owners, with the execution plan, and then what it does is help you close the gaps. And so that's what a connected business model is.
Patrick Adams 04:01
I think that's such an important concept that so many organizations miss, is they go out and they try to do so many different things, but they miss the importance of ownership and understanding how key it is that without ownership, there's no accountability, right? If, if everybody's responsible, then nobody's responsible, that's right. And so you have to have that ownership to create some level of accountability, and you have to have the right leaders in the right seats. I mean, there's so many, there's so many other, you know, foundational learnings that come along with that, but it's such a key point that ownership is established. Are there examples, maybe from your years at Goodyear or other organizations, of where you didn't see that level of ownership or that there was nobody that would really commit to take ownership?
Billy Ray Taylor 04:52
Yes, as a young leader, I thought it was all about me, and boy, what was that? Was my biggest first. Lesson learned. All right? It's about us, right? And the formula was strategy plus execution equals results. What I kept missing was that plus strategy plus who owns what in the strategy See, that's when you start to get to the real ownership, when people know what they own. Because one of my favorite quotes are two of them, you can't manage a secret. The second one is, in the absence of ownership, comes blame when people don't know what they own. In your strategy, when you have your weekly meetings, it's a blame game. But when it's crystal clear what you own, right? One of my sayings when I go with my clients, when two people owns the dog, meaning the two people own something. The dog dies. I thought you fed the dog. No, I thought you fed it all. No. I thought, well, the dog ends up dead, dead because no one fed the dog, and they blame each other's I thought you were going to feed the dog, but let me convert that into business. When you put your plan together, once the plans there, you can't manage your secret. Don't put it in a PowerPoint and put it in a frame. It's a secret, then right, bring it to life by assigning who owns what in that strategy, so that we have our meanings. It's around why we're missing. And early in my career, I realized you have to celebrate the red so you can harvest the green, right? You have to create that psychological safety so people can rally around what the issues are. Because if they're afraid, what are they going to do? They're not going to talk about it. And it goes back to my first point, you can't manage a secret. And so if they don't talk about it, then it's a secret, right? And so that's the thing that, that, that I really realize, as a leader, you have to create this environment that is psychologically safe to engage, right? And so therefore, when you're building these strategies, that's, that's, that's a, that's a big, big component,
Andy Olrich 07:00
Yeah, amazing, Billy. I was so fortunate to be in that audience last year at the summit. And those two phrases that you use there that just hit me right between the eyes, because, yeah, it's so true when you go through organizations and either they haven't got the strategy worked out themselves, or they have the strategy, and you ask someone on the shop floor, and I don't know, I just do this and and I love the the way that you're able to to use a real example with the audience there and then, and then you thank the person for being transparent with you, right? We shared that on a previous spotlight episode. So just such a such an important piece are in that plus and for yourself, coming from the shop floor, like you said right through to the executive, what I find really powerful about your connected model is the simple visuals where you talk about the three and the 10 second rule, and it's all right on the shop floor. And could you? Could you give our listeners a bit of an insight into that Billy about how you make it so practical and visual for regardless of who's looking at it,
Billy Ray Taylor 08:03
absolutely and great point Andy as well as no matter what level, right? We're all human, right? We're all human, and we're all wired to know the score. Just think about it. When you go to a sporting event, what's the first thing you look at? It's the scoreboard, right? And the scoreboard tells the coaches what to do next, right? And so if you don't have that visible, visible, visual management on the shop floor, the people don't know if you're winning or losing. And so that's the reason why it's very critical. It's critical. It moves people to action. But you can't just put anything up there, right? You have to measure what matters. But anywhere I go with it is when we're building visual boards, people only go to the KPI piece of it. They want to show metrics. They want to show trends. Well, again, it's too late. It's after the fact. What we do? We build boards, or we build visual management systems. We build two boards, the KPA, the key performance actions board, and the key performance indicator. So think about it. Where you want ownership. When we build boards, we say the first board is when you first get to work, was your area safe and clean? Red or green? So you're telling yourself whether it's red or green and if it's red, what did you do about it, even if you had to call me All right, was the equipment reliable red or green, right when you got to work? Was your work area clean red or green when you left at the end of the day? Did you leave the area red or clean, red or green, so that triggers a behavior that gives you the highest probability to win. Then we build those boards, and the key elements of the boards beyond the data a board must have, what was the issue and what was the corrective action you. So again, that's triggering the behaviors you want. Once you use the data, the data is just a fact of where you're at, right? What you want to do is say, What did you do about it? And that's the ownership piece. That's the ownership piece. So that's how we build a kPa board and the KPI board. You need both.
Patrick Adams 10:20
Yeah, I like that. I love, I love the idea of, you know, almost it's like the leading measures and the lagging measures, right? So the in the leading measures, or the the KPA board, is based on behaviors. And also, you know, one of the things that I find with the KPI board, the you know that daily management piece that's kind of managing after the fact is, many times, to your point, they have the KPIs up there, they have the measures, but then there's no action. So they're just, they're just talking about what happened. They're just reporting out on what you can see. And really, to your point, the board should tell a story. I should, if I see red, I should look at either a Pareto or some kind of a collection of the reasons why it's red, and then not responding, not not doing something necessarily on every single red, but looking for trends or repeat issues that we can then go, Okay, this is a problem that continues to happen. We haven't been able to take care of it on a day to day basis. So now what's the action that we're doing to to actually respond to that? So this the the KP, the KPI board, should really tell a story and show some action, but also, to your point, that's more reactive. It's right. It's making adjustments as you go based on what has already happened. And I love the idea of the KPA board, where you're looking at daily behaviors and what you're doing almost minute by minute, or when you come in to your point. And that had to have been something that became natural to you, because if you started out in frontline leadership and worked your way all the way up to an executive level position. I mean, I have to imagine looking back as an executive going, it's it probably was a lot easier for you to see the connections or make the connections to behavior with KPIs. Would you agree with that
Billy Ray Taylor 12:13
absolutely without a doubt? And I came up in Union factories, so steel worker factories, 3000 people working in a factory. And so understanding that piece of it, it goes back to Patrick, when you're building those boards, it's clear to connect the owner, who owns what, to the stuff that's on that board, right? And so I remember, actually, I just had a union A steel worker executive. I was on a plane. He was texting me, he says, I just gave your book to an executive at Alcoa. And he was understanding, how do you crack that code of relationship building with the steam workers? He says, Let me give you this book. This guy, Billy Taylor, when I went to see Billy, Billy would bring it to the framework and says, Okay, what's the standard? A union contract book, that's the standard. That's how we're going to operate. So I'm going to hold to the standard. I'm not going to do anything. And when you come to my office, I want to start the conversation with the standard. When I build these boards, I'm going to start with the standard. I'm going to talk about these things and but the ownership piece is what drives the change, the connection to those things, both of you guys, healthy gentlemen, I'm looking at you on the screen. I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to answer for me, what's more important, standing on the scale to see how much you weigh, looking in the mirror, looking at your physique, or the workouts, I'm going to eat this round at 2000 calories a day. I'm going to walk two miles a day. I'm going to sleep three hours a day. If I do those things, I should impact what's in the mirror. So what's more important, the workout, the exercise, the KPA, are the KPI, standing on the scale. See, standing on the scale will tell you if what you're doing is working or not. It doesn't dictate what's the lack right?
Andy Olrich 14:19
For sure, I was going to say, like that both important, but it's, it's really about the understanding whether your strategy is producing the results. And that piece there, you see, I wanted to sort of dive a little bit deeper into when we're setting up the boards, for example, and you'll be part of the executive track at the Summit in September, right? So there'll be a lot of executives, I think, will be interested to find out a that pushback you get, even if you are trying to get them, hold them to the standard. But also, when you're setting up these boards, if they've already got some sort of system in their areas, how you can stop having some information here and or half. Score in that room, and then half the score in that room. How do you how do you get that standard to life, and then also try and get that consistency and buy in early in the piece, when they really need that, that quick alignment. So every
Billy Ray Taylor 15:14
level needs to have that visual board. And it's two different types of board, virtual. It's high tech, low touch. That's the one that's in your computer. That's where you the screens. The lower you get in your organization, you need high touch. Low tech people need to do that. So what I would say to that is, we build and what we do, we build a connected model where, listen, this is what you own. So we're gonna put the visual board there, but we're going to show you how it impacts the overall picture, right? And so you must have these things. We call them, these governance meetings. These are all about your visual boards. Once you know, what do you do about it? And these, what's your doors, wars and mores your daily operating reviews, right and the lawyer you get an organization, they need to be very frequent, every day, sometimes every hour, on every machine. When you start moving into the staffing positions, those are weekly touch points, if not dailies, the senior one roles, those are those monthly touch points. But monthly is are like after action, after action reviews. So when I build these boards, it's based on what's winning in that meeting, what's meeting, what's winning to that audience. They need to know that. Okay, now, the monthly meeting is what's winning overall, right? The Weekly ones are how you are impacting winning overall. And so your boards, it's like if I go to a soccer game, the scoreboard tells the score, but it's a little different. The baseball game, they tell the score, but it's a little different, right? A football game, right? And so when you're in those meetings, what's important are the CPI. We call them critical performance indicators. You gotta know the CPI now, the KPIs are those things in the middle, how much time is on the clock, how many first downs you have, if it's football, who has the those all important. But what drives your decisions are, what's the CPI? What's the main thing on the board. So when you're in a company, you have to be very deliberate on what's winning, what's winning on one of my close friends and I were at dinner last night. He's on the board of a company. He says, Billy, I use one of your Billy isms in the meeting, and I'm like, which one? He goes, the main one. Define winning, if you don't define winning, then where's the conversation going to go, right? And so when you're talking about visual boards define winning, then you move to aligning the win, who owns what in winning. And then you have the process where you talk about executing winning. That's your daily management system,
Patrick Adams 18:01
right? One of the things that I know many organizations, I guess I can't say many, I don't know the number, but a lot of organizations that I've been to that that have some challenge, some of their own challenges. Sometimes they have this challenge of not making that red is bad and that it's something that we don't want to make visual, because I'm thinking of one organization specifically. I'm not going to name any names here, but that, you know what you call watermelon metrics, where they throw green out there all the time, because they know if I put red out there, I'm going to get, you know, ripped a new one. I'm going to, you know, might lose my job like we're going to be in a bad plate. We're going to have to have people out here watching us every day. So I'm not even going to put any red on there. I'm just going to make sure it's always green. And I'm going to tell this story that isn't a picture of reality. And I think the the the reason why that happens many times is because of the way that an organization is LED, and it starts at the top. And I just want to ask you, what are the right behaviors from an Executive leader that should cascade down through the organization? What are those specific behaviors that executives should be showcasing that will create a safe environment, where you don't have watermelon metrics, where people have these boards, these these visual management systems that they feel safe to show their problems. What would you say are some of those behaviors? Yeah,
Billy Ray Taylor 19:37
so actually, you're almost letting the cat out of the bag, Patrick, when we talk about the executive track, right, when people are going to come to the conference, it's going to be a big takeaway. And talk about, right? How do you create that psychological safety? What does it mean by celebrating the red I'm going to start by telling the best leaders, most effective leaders I've known with transformation. There, I have a say. Be hard on the process, so you can lead easy on the people. See, when you're hard on what we should be doing, the standards and you're celebrating those things. When I say, celebrate the red you know, Andy, you talked about it, doing my keynotes, when someone tells me something that that's important, I don't get mad. I recognize them, right? I create that surface, safe environment for change. And so one how do you create this environment? And it's what you do, not what you say. And so you have to create this environment by celebrating the red. What I mean by I don't like red, but the fact that I know I want to see it, but I create this environment where people know that, listen, we can do something about it. I know, right? I created a no culture. The other one I'll talk about is, is when you're out there, when I'm building teams, I look at the cultural things, right? We talk about, make people visible. They'll make you valuable. Celebrate the small wins. You can't just talk about the red you have to talk about both. You have to celebrate the wins too. Make people have the mindset, or create the mindset where winning is fun and losing isn't critical, right? Losing is a part of the process, right? Recently, I was in a restaurant and a couple of guys walk up on me. They own a business, and they recognize me. They want to talk, and we talking about failure, and I said, think about a baby. If when the baby falls, they stand up for the first time. They're wobbling. You're the parent. What do you do? You start cheering them on. But when they fall, what do you say? Oh, get up. Come on. You start calling the wife in, honey. Come in and look. And he just took his first steps, right? You happy? And he falls again. As a parent, do you say, Oh, you're not going to be anything. You're late. What the heck? Why are you falling? That baby's not going to be worth a quarter. They fail. They can't walk. No, you go get the baby, you lift them up. You keep encouraging. Right now, there's things where you got to hold people accountable, but if you don't create this environment where people are recognized and embraced, I just did this thing called intimacy as a leader. You're going to hear about that in in the conference, and it's called in to me. You see, as a leader, I look for that in my my the people I work for that respect into me. This is who I am, authentically. You see that you're okay with it, right into me. You see, now I can come to you with bad news. I can do, and I don't mean this literally, and I said, you know, I can call the baby ugly, right? If we're in a meeting and you say, how does the baby look in the grocery store? You lie. Oh, it's so cute. It's so precious, right? But, and then you walk away, you say, dang, that's an ugly baby in business. I want to have that ugly baby conversation. How does the baby look? Andy, I want you to say to me, Hey, Billy, baby's not so cute, and it's because we don't know how to do hair. It's because we don't know. So we as the leaders are failing the people. The people are not failing us. My number one question, and I'm going to pause for a second, and this is what I'm going to talk to about in the executive track. Try asking this question next time someone comes to you or you want something done. Okay, Patrick, want to do this? What do you need from me? Pause and watch your body language change, not. What do you want from me? Right? I want a steak. I need to eat. When I ask you, what do you need for me to do this, the person normally self reflects, and then, most often, they'll say, nothing, nothing. I can make it happen. No, no, I want to be a part of the solution. What do you need from me? Just those questions alone start to shift the mindset. So we're going to talk about that. That's how you start shaping the culture. Because, Patrick, I want to tell you something change. People talk about it all the time, and we all three, go out and help companies change. But let me tell you, we are not the change. Change happens like an egg. When the egg is cracked from the inside, life begins because a chick is born, but when the egg is cracked from the outside, life ends, right? We're having that egg for breakfast, right? And so when companies are going down their journeys, I help companies, as well as YouTube, because I know both of you, you help companies crack that code from the inside. That means creating that environment where people own things, the things we're talking about right now. How do you create that ownership? How. You celebrate the red How do you create a culture first, versus a tool first? Because when tools lead right, failure follows, yep,
Andy Olrich 25:10
yep, I and when I'm near why I'm loving this conversation. What you do, Billy so much is, I'm in organizations and they're wanting to get into the technical tools, or they've read these books and they're starting to scroll things up on the wall. If they don't have some daily visual management in particular, I'll say, Well, this is really about change management, and people side of change, if they can't see where they fit in, or they don't know where they're truly at, yes, how do you even go on and justify the change or the tool that you're trying to use, and usually they're trying to push it on them, and they haven't been trained, and they're just like, Is this about cost cutting? We about to go under here? Yeah, just those simple some people can get quite frustrated. They're like, hang on, what do you mean? I gotta start with 5s and visual management. I'm going well, for where you're at, but I say it, and sorry for the bad American accent, but y'all can't see that's there you go. That's terrible. But I just, like, no one really knows what's going on. And that change is that, is that really important piece there, Billy and I just, I just found that really impactful and and for those watching, so I've got, I've got Billy's book here, the winning link, right? Yeah, Billy's got a really cool example of, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, Oh, well, I I'm not an executive, or I'm not in manufacturing, or whatever, Billy's got a health example in there about losing weight and how you can align. We've talked about looking in the mirror, harrowing things like standing on the scales, but also how you can connect that in so I encourage people to check that out. And yeah, this, this works anyway. If I can see where I'm going or what I'm supposed to be doing, that's a bit better than just you're not doing your job, or sometimes, hey, you're great, and you're thinking, what at what? So, yes, so powerful. Billy,
Billy Ray Taylor 26:54
no, that's any and that's why I'm really looking forward to this executive track, right? You know, one of the things that I realized through now working with other executives, I mean, senior executives, it's it's one they know what to do. They don't know how to do it. And it's lonely at the top, right? It's just very few people you can talk to right? And so how do you do that? My last one is, we're going to talk about this at the at the conference as well. How do you create this culture? Because often when we go out and build teams, we focus on capability. We go right to capability. We see the resume. We go right to capability. You know, you have to take a step back and look at the three C's, character, chemistry and capability, because I don't want someone on my team that has horrible character. They're a thief, right? They're not trustworthy. They can be smart, but that is destruction, right? The chemistry, if all three of us right, right before this, I'm being transparent, we were working through some technical issues. The chemistry was there. We start talking about other stuff. It wasn't a stress situation. It was like, oh, let's try this. Well, let's do that. Well, I'm going to share this with you guys. Give me some feedback. That's chemistry capability, is what they're seeing on the screen now, right? That's this is a perfect example of that type of executive presence that needs to be had, right? And the one thing I'm going to talk about as well is, how do leaders show up? Right? Your title doesn't give you impact. It's only impacting the people while you're in the room. When you leave the room, does your influence stay right? Amy, you and I talk, I've seen I appreciate you. When I post something, you'll say something back, right? That's the value proposition. You and I haven't talked in a long time, but that their influence and you have in the book, Patrick, when you call me often, what do I say? Patrick, you have me in Hello. What do you want to
Andy Olrich 29:07
do? Right, right? Always open, always well, it's
Billy Ray Taylor 29:10
the chemistry piece of it. And so we're going to talk about that, because once you put your management system in there. Again, systems are only effective if people follow them. And one of the messages, and this is my mom's, it's not mine. It's it's, you know what you accept you can't change. So if you're a business leader and you haven't set the standard, or let me put it like this, the standard isn't what you write down, is what you walk by. And if you walk by something and you say people should wear personal protective equipment, and they're not wearing it, and you don't say anything, then that's the new standard
Patrick Adams 29:47
I've taken. I think I've told this story many times, but you made me think about it again with this executive leader that I used to work for at a company way back and when she would walk the floor. Would pick up trash, and she would also make corrections on PPE. And I always thought when this was when I was a young I think I was a supervisor at that time, but she would, I always thought about that, like, like, I can't believe she's picking up trash. It made me feel bad. Like, my like, I can't believe that she just found that, you know, or but I would think about like, is it's not really her job to do that, but she would do it for that exact reason, Billy is that she didn't she didn't want to accept mediocrity or the red she wanted to challenge it, or make sure that everyone knew that that's not the acceptable way to put trash on the floor, to not wear PPE. We need to respond to that. We need to take action on that such an important piece. You
Andy Olrich 30:43
know, it's
Billy Ray Taylor 30:44
setting that example, being that example, right? Being that that that example. I actually work with two of the brightest young executives I've ever, ever met. I mean, I was just with them in Louisville a couple of weeks ago. It's just amazing to watch them and their growth. But their father is, I tell you, he grooms them. He put the right he puts the right talent around them to help them grow. He doesn't look at it as just his role. And they've grown this company, but they are so, so amazing. It was to me. I was thinking about them yesterday in a discussion and talking about them. And I'm sure you've read the book Who Moved My Cheese, right? It's one of the best books out there, and it keeps evolving. Every time I read it, I get something different out of it. But the one young man said, you know, right now I'm learning. And as an executive, he goes right like him and Ha. He says, When I go to bed, he said, most people take their shoes off. He says, When I go to bed, I keep mine around my neck, in case I got to get up in the middle of night and start running. Right? I know what it takes right to keep running. And what I mean by that is, everybody wants to be king and queen. And what I mean the next part of that is the question is, who hunts the king? Who hunts the lion? If the lion's king who hunts the lion, not what the lion does, who hunts the lion? And you have to be aware of that, because that's where chemistry comes in place other lions, other lions are the biggest predator to a lion. It's not the elephant, right? And then comes the hyenas. They move in packs. But what the hyenas do? They look for weaknesses. They look for cracks so they can pounce on you, right in business, what does that mean? They look for the kinks, they look for mistakes. They look for blame, right? Remember, when the acts of ownership comes blame? Those are those hyenas, and the last one is what kills the lion is complacency. When the lion gets complacent and stop sharpening their edge, they stop reading the books, they stop listening to these type of podcasts, right? And so when you talk about that and change as an executive, yeah, when you become lion, how do you stay there? How do you sustain that? And how do you create a culture of lions that are not trying to attack you, right? They protecting the pride, they protecting the organization. And, you know, I've been a part of organizations, and again, I love being transparent on podcasts. I was a, you know, in the Deep South. My first big management assignment was in a place in the Deep South, in Tyler, Texas, became one of my most rewarding experiences. But it didn't start that way. When I walked in the door, it was like they looked at me, like I was elephant in the tree. How the hell he get way up there, right? It was a how do what is he going to teach us? How can he help us? That was the first thing. But I had to show up differently. And the part of showing up as a leader is making sure people know what they own, and so that's that's it.
Andy Olrich 34:08
Yeah, love it. I love it. I love that elephant in the tree. But it is so true, though, when you when a new leader starts, I think the first question people ask is like, oh, where they come from? Or what? What do they do? Or who? What tickets have they got, and all those sorts of things, they immediately look at that, that capability piece, I think, like you said, and if they haven't been from a big company, or haven't got that amazing story behind them, or, even worse, well, the last company here was at, or she was at, they got rid of 20% of the workforce, and on here it comes. So I think there's that, yeah, the capability piece, that also the character, I think, and the chemistry had went I met a really fascinating person. She was one down to the final 28 to be one of the first one way ticket Mars astronauts. And she talked about how they went from 200,000 to 1000 to try and. Look it out. Yeah. And brilliant, absolutely brilliant minds. They all had physical attributes. I had to have, but they constantly threw them into different teams with different people to see how they would react in the moment. And that what you were saying there about the chemistry and that that PC, if that wasn't there, she would, she would never have got anywhere near that. So, yeah, when the chips are down, but yeah, I think elephant in the tree. I love that,
Billy Ray Taylor 35:28
you know, yeah, what is he doing way up there, right? You have to show up. You have to show up differently. You just have to show up. And often I show up. You know, one of the things that I coach young people is I wear a jacket because it makes Billy feel good. I don't wear a jacket for no one else. My brother loves the word T shirts. If he was doing his podcast, he'd be doing it in a T shirt. It's his personal preference. But he asked me, he asked me, Why do you do that? I'm like, when I walk in the room in most cases, right? It's like, whoa, who's that guy? Who's that guy? The reason why it's the people that I'm in the meeting with, right? I want to cut. I want to cut through that, that bureaucracy of filling each other out, and it's like you just said, you know, Billy Taylor being on the podcast, if Billy's there, he's just gonna tell you his truth. He's gonna tell you his truth. It may not be your truth, but it's my truth, and for me, it. It it turned organizations around. You know, everything didn't always work. And you know what? We had more small wins and big wins, but at the end of the day, we won the championship. And so it's not okay if you go undefeated in the season and then you lose the first game in the playoffs. Yeah, right. I At some point I learned the things from the losses. I had multiple losses, but when the playoffs came, I was the best team on the field in the last one standing. And so it's the small wins are just as important. Are they are critical to the big points, the main point, right? Yeah, and it's funny. I asked So who won the Super Bowl last year? He said, The Eagles. Well, who did they beat? Everybody starts thinking out, oh, it was Kansas City, right? But you had to think about that. You remember the champion, right? And after, after the big event, what normally follows when Oklahoma City just won the tournament, what followed the parade, the recognition to say, we appreciate you. The city gets the chance to say, we appreciate you, and that's just as big as winning trophy, right? And it's the key to relationships, not only at work, at home, my wife, she wants to know. She's valued. She wants to know. And as a human being, what we crave more than anything is to feel valued. You heard that saying people don't quit jobs. They quit bosses. Really what they quit is when they stop being valued, when they think they're in this as it's not just about the boss, it's about the value proposition. If I don't feel valued, my number one teammate called me. He got offered a major job, and I told him he should take it. And I remember he called me before he accepted it. We had several conversations, and I told him, You have to he called me back. He says, If you don't mind, will you not take me off of the website. Will you not take I still want to be involved with this. I still want I learned so much, you know, I love working with you. I love you. He says the biggest thing I'm gonna miss is traveling with you, right? And so think about your kids. You can buy them all the presents you want. This is around executive leadership. This is a key point of life that comes back to managing a company. Every day I take my kids a foot basketball game, right? Football game, it's not the two. It's not the 1000 you go to that they remember. It's the two you missed because they want you there. They want your presence, not the presents you buy them in life, they'll forget about the bike you bought them. They'll forget about the drum set. They'll forget about the video game. But what they would what they'll never forget, is when you were there, when they needed you, when you celebrated them. You know, my son don't need me when he hits the game winning shot, it's when he misses the game winning shot. Got, and I'm there to say, Son, that's just a part of life. Man, that's right. Great leadership. That's where change happens. Yeah,
Patrick Adams 40:09
that makes me think about, I just think about Amway. When you said that, when I was working at Amway, I remember in the cosmetics plant, I remember a couple of the people there telling me stories about when Dick DeVos used to walk the floor when, obviously, when he was alive and young enough, when he would walk the floor and just shake hands and talk to people and just chat with them about their families and their vacation plans and these different things. Those were the stories that they remembered, not the pizza parties that he paid for or the special, you know, token of appreciation that they received at the end of five years, or whatever it was. It was him physically being present with them in their work area and having real conversations, real genuine conversations, where he cared about what their responses were and really listened to them. You know that that that's what made the most difference for them.
Billy Ray Taylor 41:12
No, this was, this was the executive I we've become friends. We've had a lot of dialog since. But I recently did an event. They had 1000 store managers there, and I do the keynote. We put this new material together. We'd launch it. And then I said, I'm gonna be at the back at this point, and I'm gonna sign every book. I won't go home until every book signed. Now remember how many people I told you it's gonna be there, in there, in my assistant looks at me like, are you crazy? We've got a plane to catch, right? I go to the back room. I set up the table. I didn't know this. The guy's on the other side. He puts up his GoPro. He just wants to see just what really happened. I'm signing every book. I'm there for about an hour now. Let's go back to what was that about those people that got a chance to get there and talk to me and get selfies, they feel valued. They felt they knew Billy Taylor after the keynote. I know Billy Amy and cycle you and I first met, right? We know each other, right? And so that's that value proposition is bad by being sincere. If you say it, do it. If you sow it, don't, don't be so gimmicky with operational excellence and lean right? Because I get more out of that, I'm gonna be honest with you, than the people get i The biggest part of my day is interacting with people. That's what I love more than anything, being a leader. If you focus on the the I think, you focus on the outcome you're not going to sustain. If you focus on the things you have to do to get the outcome, it becomes a constant.
Andy Olrich 42:59
Yeah, I'll never forget Billy. When we did meet, it was some there, for some strange reason, Patrick gave me the job to lead a bus tour to Ann Arbor. I'd never been to Michigan before, so that was, that's crazy stuff. It's going to work. And I met you. And one of the things that became very clear was you just that two feet rule that you ended up talking about later was about anyone comes within two feet and say hello, and yeah, I was, I knew the keynoter, but I'd never met you before. And I was like, that's That's my guy. I really love the fact that it didn't matter who was on the bus or where they came from, Billy Ray wanted to know who they were and and what they did and talking about the signings and things. So when we I always sit up the front a, I'm short, and B, I think I need glasses, but C, I get to, sometimes get some cool moments. And remember, at the summit, Billy, I You gave me that $5 note. That's right, obviously, I framed it like I said I would, yeah, and never forget that. And it was really about these busy people like yourself that are keynoting. And, yeah, it just felt like, wow, that that's really impressive, and you took extra time over what you needed to do. So I'll stop pumping your tires there, but I just want you to know that that's what I kind of try to be. And like with Patrick, there's, there's that piece where you give back and and I, we have footy players down here, so the best players, a lot of times, they'll run straight up the tunnel after the game. A lot of people end up getting their favorite player, and that's the player who might be sort of middle of the pack, but they hang around and they go and get photos, or they'll give their boots to a kid or something. And, yeah, it sticks. It's like, Oh, wow. Well, He's really He's really, he's the best player, but he doesn't have time for me. So yes, they never forget and that moment. So again, if people are coming to the summit, if, if you're wanting to be inspired, if you're wanting to have someone who just hits you sideways with something that really sticks, Billy, it's, it's going to be awesome, mate. So I'm just really, can't wait to. See you in person again.
Billy Ray Taylor 45:01
No, this is good, good point you're making, though, really, really, great point, really. And I'm excited to come back to everybody out there, if you're watching this. I'm excited to come back. And then what I tell people, if I'm there, I'm there. So when you see me in the hallway, or were you got a question? I'm there. So just Billy. You got a minute? You got Sure? Sure, let's talk. What do you want to know? Right? That's right, I like you. I love your analogy, right? Running through the tunnel. Well, we're not going to run through the tunnel. We're going to sit there and sign some autographs, because you are, who makes me? Yeah, that's right. Remember, intimacy into me. You see, I don't want to stay there. So no, I'm looking forward to it, guys, this is going to
Patrick Adams 45:53
be great. Well, we've, we've referenced the summit multiple times. Let me just, let me bring everything kind of full circle here and explain what Billy Ray and Andy are talking about, because Billy obviously was one of our keynotes this last year at the Lean Solution Summit. And this next year, this coming this year, and currently, 2025 September, 24 and 25th we're going to be in Detroit, the Motor City. We're going to be at the Westin, which is connected to the Detroit airport. So for those of you that are flying in from other states, from other countries, easy in, easy out, you can literally walk from your gate to the conference center and back without leaving the building. So it's it's pretty amazing. They do a great job at just a really easy in and out for people that are coming in for conferences. It's an amazing venue. It's a great location, but you heard us reference the executive track, so one of the things that we've been tossing around the last couple of years is to create a track that is specifically curated for those executive leaders and organizations many times. And I'm sure you guys that are listening, that are executive leaders, you know, you hit up these conferences, and you know, maybe it's not totally relevant to you and your level or what you're working on currently. Maybe, maybe there's certain things that do resonate. But, you know, sometimes a lot of it isn't specific to the role that you're in. You know, there's a different language that's spoken at the executive level. There's different different levels of accountability, different you know, in Billy, I know you can speak to this better than I can, but it's just a it's a different level of leadership that takes maybe a different type of understanding. And Billy said, it's lonely at the top, you know, which you know? I'm sure you know that as well. Those Those of you that are listening, we want to create an experience where you are sitting in the room with other executives from different industries, but other executives that are at the same level of leadership that you are, and what we're planning to do is curate this experience. Now we have some certain, some specific things that we're going to talk about during the the the executive leader experience, but we're going to ask you, when you register for the summit, we're going to ask you some questions, and you're going to give us some answers, and we're actually going to going to curate, we're going to customize this experience specifically for some of the challenges that you're experiencing in your organization as an Executive leader. And you'll be having discussions with other executive leaders about some of those challenges, and you'll be hearing from some some serious leaders in, you know, in your at your level, like Billy Ray Taylor will be one of the speakers at in the executive track. Katie Anderson will be one of the speakers. She also keynoted for us last year. Tilo Schwartz, who's also spent many years as an Executive leader, and he'll be there as well. And then myself will all together. The between the four of us will be running you through some not this isn't going to be a listen to Billy, listen to Patrick. It's going to be an interactive experience, a discussion, a conversation, basically, you specifically talking about things that are that are related at your level. So I'm excited for it. Billy, it sounds like you're excited for it. This is something different. We're right. We're kind of running this as a something we've never done before, but we wanted to create this, this place for executive leaders to come now you can still see your team. So bring your team with you, because your team will be heading out to some of the other breakouts, and we have some team building activities and things that are available as well. But this will be a specific track just for you, and it'll be curated by people like Billy Ray, Taylor, Katie Anderson, Tilo and myself. So Billy, what are your thoughts on it? What specific. Basically, what are you looking forward to the most on this?
Billy Ray Taylor 50:02
I'm looking at the peer to peer right, that peer to peer conversation, those connections, and this is what's missing, right? Often, those executives send people to these conference to learn the practical tools and systems, but they don't really get that firsthand connection on how to do it, those peer to peer discussions. So this is what's been missing. And so for people to come to the conference and get that, those executives, those VPS, Chief Executive, operators, right, staff level, senior staff level managers, they're not coming. They're coming there now to get how do I manage and deploy Kanban systems? How do I effectively implement a business operating system? And really, what's the key elements of a good system? What does good look like, right? And then the last part is like, those people get to walk away and emulate greatness, emulate success, right? It's like, I use sports analogies. Kobe Bryant immolated Michael Jordan. He wasn't trying to be Michael. He wanted to understand the standards of being great, the habits of what makes greatness. That's what they're going to get from this conference. That's what I'm excited about. As you see, I'm so excited. Well,
Patrick Adams 51:18
Billy, we're gonna, we're gonna drop some links into the show notes, so anybody can go in there and grab a link to specifically to register for the Lean Solutions Summit and the executive track. The executive experience is an add on to that, so obviously you'll get access to everything with your team, but during the breakouts, you'll be heading to the executive experience. So we'll, we'll drop that in the show notes. We'll also put a link to Billy Ray's book, The Winning link, as well as his website, at linked Excel, if you'd like to get some more information on that. And just like Billy said, he's very active on LinkedIn and through his website. So if you got a question for Billy, reach out to him. He'll, he'll help you out. He'll answer your questions. He'll, it'll be more than welcoming to open his himself up to help you out. So Billy, again, thanks for being on the show. It's always good to see you. I'm excited to see her today again in September. It's going to be a great event. And obviously, Andy will be there as well. So, you know, it's, if you're listening to this, you got to be there. Everyone's going to be there. It's going to be
Billy Ray Taylor 52:27
fun. Absolutely.
Patrick Adams 52:29
All right, take care. Take care, guys.