Category Archives: Podcast Series: Finish Strong®

Finish Strong® Podcast Series The journey to excellence is not a simple one, nor does it follow a straight line. This podcast series addresses issues important to manufactures worldwide. Becky's insights include commentary on global, strategic, and tactical issues, as well as observations on current challenges and opportunities in manufacturing businesses. Feel free to suggest topics of interest to you; no doubt Becky will have something to say that will make you think.

Are You Today’s Buggy Whip?

An enduring business must offer more than today’s product and serve more than today’s industries. Products come and go, as do industries. Just ask the buggy whip manufacturers. Outside of a few religious sects, the product and the industry are dead.

If they had seen themselves as “guidance and speed control” experts, demand would be sky high today for their expertise. They wouldn’t be working with leather and they likely wouldn’t be relying on local sales.

You may think a mission of grand proportions and a value statement of equally grand proportions is silly. What is silly is going out of business because you think too small.

Let’s say you design, make and sell catalytic converters to the automobile industry. Your future is short term and dreary. Every major manufacturer is emphasizing conversion to electric vehicles, which do not need your product. You’ve known that is coming for years, and today it is in your face.

Yes, improving efficiencies offered near term value over the past decades, but it doesn’t position a business to endure. I hope you saw yourself as more than your product and more than your industry long ago. If so, your future can be very bright.

If you simply want to ride your horse until it dies, you can. It’s likely sicker than you realize.

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Caught Between Now and Then

Today’s operational crises often interfere with the strategic thinking of leaders. We can’t let that happen, except in the most unusual of circumstances.

Expediting orders is not the job of the C-level executive, nor of the VP-level. Nor even of the site manager. If the orders are late due to a systemic problem within the organization, of course those roles must be aware, and must allocate resources to identify the problem and eliminate it for the future.

The urgent is easy to see; the important often doesn’t appear with flashing lights. As leaders we must know and define the important. That certainly includes clear strategic thinking with our eyes scanning the future while identifying current ripples that could become tidal waves.

Prioritization is not easy, but every great leader is exceptionally good at it. Identifying the top priority for your business does not imply that nothing else gets done; only that the top priority is not sacrificed to accomplish those other important considerations.

Look at your schedule. Do you have time blocked — often a few days all together — to clear your mind of today’s emergencies and to think deeply about the future of your organization? Most of us don’t. We think strategically when time allows.

The obvious question is: what is your personal top priority as the lead executive?

Start with that question, then ensure your calendar supports the answer. Don’t leave the most important to chance.

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Want to Increase Alignment Within Your Organization?

Do your operations folk trust the sales team to provide a high quality forecast, one that can and should be used for operational planning? Does the sales team generate a sales forecast for which it wants to be held accountable? Or does one side second guess the second with finance left to pick up the pieces?

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a supply chain tool that has been around for decades, but too few manufacturers use it well even today. If your business wants to increase alignment within and with outside customers and suppliers, S&OP is a great tool to do just that.

The process is solid in theory, and implementation in your organization can be challenging. Understand the how and why of the process and your implementation becomes easier and faster. The goal is one set of numbers that the entire organization accepts and acts upon. No more second guessing.

An effective S&OP process leads to improved performance in every area of the business.

If you are unfamiliar with the process, I encourage you to read an old book by two friends of mine, Bob Stahl and Tom Wallace: S&OP, the How-to Handbook. If you are familiar with the concept, but don’t know how to get started or how to make it actually work effectively in your business, reach out.

Rebecca Morgan

Fulcrum ConsultingWorks, Inc

www.fulcrumcwi.com

[email protected]

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CEO Fear Limits Success

A recent LA times article shared survey results that found the vast majority of CEOs are in fear of losing their jobs in 2022. In public companies CEOs get replaced every few years. Most are paid enough to not worry about it, but most also want a new CEO role to prove their worth.

Over 90% of those same survey respondents also shared that they must overhaul their corporate model within 3 years. As an example, GE is splitting into three different businesses under the leadership of a new CEO. In this case the new CEO is a very capable person who truly understands the value of people and splitting up the company is undoing the conglomeration activities that made Jack Welch famous — a smart move for the business. A huge cultural shift for the business and a huge change impacting a significant number of companies.

As CEOs sit in fear, knowing they must lead significant changes within their organizations, what can we expect from all those beneath them on the organizational chart who have to actually make the changes?

Many employees are in fear of losing their jobs, even within a company that very rarely fires anyone. That fear, coupled with CEO fear, can freeze an organization. We can expect significant disruption within companies and industries with few accomplishing any measure of success. If a company does not perform well with ambiguity, there is no chance of success.

Massive change efforts are needed, which requires different thinking and will involve more failure events than most companies are used to accepting. Those failure events are a test of leadership.

Who should the employee trust, and how much personal skin should they put in the game?

My response: Trust yourself, and put skin in the game to improve the value of your work as you make it more enjoyable. Is that a risk for the employee living paycheck to paycheck? I don’t see any more risk than that of keeping her head down doing as she is told.

Every company, private or public, must soon create a new model and develop new value and skills while marching through ambiguity. Any employee that can share an experience of dealing well with ambiguity, even in a failed effort, has value. Any employee that can share experiences of initiating improvements in his own work and the processes impacted has value. Any employee who can only share coming to work and doing as he’s told will have value to companies on a fast track to elimination; no one else.

Work is how we provide value to the world in exchange for money. The more value you bring, the more money you can obtain in exchange. Think, challenge, try, learn, fail sometimes, and keep thinking, challenging, trying and learning. There is no better way to build the value you bring, recognize and reach your personal potential, and improve everything you touch.

Just because many CEOs live in fear of losing their jobs does not mean non-C-Suiters should live the same way. Just as I am, each of you is an unfinished human with much more to offer the world by offering it to yourself.

Empathize with the CEO. You too may have felt fear of getting fired. The good news is there are so many more opportunities for you to continue your path of development and accomplishment than he is willing to consider. CEOs are not generally bad people. They are just highly visible and scrutinized. If it is a leader you want to follow, do that. If not, do something else.

And importantly, have fun along the way.

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Please! Please Become Disciplined!

If your costs are higher than you want, speed is no where near where it should be, and you all too frequently live in a world of déjà vu lack of discipline is likely a significant self -induced obstacle to success for you. You can’t blame anyone else for this; it reflects leadership.

Trying to avoid micromanagement? Follow up, confirmation of priorities and expectations, and asking if help is needed are three actions that reflect discipline, not micromanagement. Given, that is, that they are done at the right time and frequency and are in no way used to attack.

PDCA is a very simple process that is 75 years old. Many of you claim it, but few of you live it. Most are guilty of a little Plan, some Do, no Check, and Act only when someone feels like making a change. If you want to be the leader of a successful mid-size manufacturing company, focus yourself and your organization on living PDCA in the way it was intended. You’ll be amazed at reductions in cost, increases in speed, and the lack of déjà vu.

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Your New Business Model

Is there a business anywhere that has not been impacted by the changes of the last few years? I can’t think of one. Is there any business anywhere that will return to its 2019 “normal?” I can’t think of one.

Regardless of industry, business models are changing. Many were hit over ten years ago; most in the past 3-5. If the primary business model in your industry has not yet changed, it will soon.

In this podcast Rebecca Morgan explains what a business model is, provides examples of several from the recent past, and provides the questions a leader must consider in evaluating potential business models that better fit the value and financial needs of all.

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Escaping Disruption

We’re surrounded and buffeted by all types of disruption. Until recently, customers bullied suppliers, employers bullied employees, and companies made few exceptions to the rules long established. But then the world changed. And the reactions of human beings — people — to those changes, and especially to what those changes made possible, has disrupted every business.

While that has happened, the pace of technological change has quickened as the pace of discovery in both tech and application has accelerated.

For manufacturers, who tend to be a laggard group when it comes to adopting change, these are confusing and challenging times. It is common to believe the evolving technologies can be ignored for several more years as we try to wrap our arms about the changes people now expect.

Ah, but it is not so. There is no escaping disruption. There is only preparing for it, or creating it, or succumbing to it.

The heads-down tactical mindset of most manufacturers is limiting their abilities to envision a vastly different future. And we can not create a future we cannot envision. So, like the ostrich…..

No business can avoid disruption. No business can operate as it did before and survive the future. Imagine a manufacturer with no heat or electricity, with no computers, one that demands women work only in clerical roles and that men wear ties and fedoras to work. That hires only white Christians.

Disruption comes in many forms and at many speeds. It is not becoming slower or more narrow. While you may hope this digital transformation stuff will bypass your industry, it will only do so as it leaves you in its dust. You’ll be replaced by something better and faster and more environmentally friendly.

You cannot escape disruption. Learn how to create it and thrive in it. Or learn about bankruptcy laws in your country.

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It’s Never Too Late for the Basics

Boring. Entry level. But rarely done well. Quit looking for silver bullets, at least until your organization has mastered executing the basics every single day.

Don’t look for Big Data until you’ve got your small data under control. That means data governance fully defined and executed such that your internal data is timely and accurate.

Don’t look for mapping plug-ins to show if any of your supplier or customer facilities are in the path of that storm until your internal data is complete and accurate.

If your company does a solid job of continually rationalizing parts, goods, customers and suppliers so that you are working with the optimal number and choices of each, accurate and timely data is much easier to maintain.

If your company is making significant improvements in processes, but not updating the records that document and reinforce that, the improvements fade.

You should be able to ask any fundamental question of your leadership team and get a data-backed accurate response, even if embarrassing, in seconds. You should get the same answer to that question regardless of whom you ask.

The best companies don’t let poor execution of the basics interfere with efforts to lead the pack. It’s never too late to go back to basics.

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Why Do They Stay?

Manufacturing in early 2022 faces a number of challenges, varying by location and industry. But the one most of you share is the inability to attract and retain high potential employees.

Recruiting is not a perfect process, and don’t assume that yours is even well-designed. Hiring is an equally imperfect process. Why do I say that? Look at the hiring mistakes you’ve made. Short-lived honeymoons are the obvious ones, but sometimes it takes a few years to realize that the person you once believed a great match is not. Maybe he changed; maybe you did.

Many companies utilize exit interviews in an attempt to understand why good people leave. Those rarely provide accurate information, and even more rarely generally applicable information. We’ve all heard that people don’t leave a job; they leave a boss. That is often the case, but not always.

Let’s take a more proactive approach and find out why people stay with your organization. No blind surveys, no focus groups, no assumptions. Have 1:1 conversations with each person, because each is an individual with his own individual priorities and interests, and ask “why do you continue to work for us?”

But that’s only half of the question. The other part is what aspects of the role or the organization prevent them from having a great day every single day? There is no reason to assume that everyone will have a bad day at work, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that “work” should be a dirty word.

Of course things won’t always go right, but that is not sufficient for a bad day. Bad days are caused by much more than that. Were the things that went wrong preventable? Were the things that went wrong more interpersonal than functional? So for each, what are the primary factors keeping them from having a great day every day?

You can work with the organization and the person to adjust roles and responsibilities, to eliminate unpleasant parts of the role, to steadily increase the good-day/bad-day ratio until it reaches 1:0.

Your sales team will tell you it is much easier to keep a current customer than to find a new one. The same is true with good employees. After they leave is a bad time to ask them what it would take to make them stay.

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The One Thing Stopping You!

While 2020 and 2021 tossed us all around with unexpected changes, 2022 may well offer much the same. But none of us can afford to be victims.

It’s time to identify that one thing contributing the most to holding you back.

Every company has unspoken assumptions. You know, those ideas that are so obvious to people that there is no need to speak them. But, frequently those are NOT true, and in many cases do not need to be true.

Here are a few examples:

-“our market grows by 3%/year no matter what”

-“to avoid lawsuits we need to treat everyone the same”

-“our customers don’t know what they’re doing”

-“money is the best motivator”

-“”they” won’t let us”

-“”they” don’t come up with any good ideas

Those examples may not be true for you company, but they should give you enough help that you can identify the one undermining your progress.

Identify the unspoken assumptions that underpin action and decision-making at your organization and decide if you truly want your business believing those are true. Or that you want them to be true.

Once you identify and challenge those, there will always be one that has the biggest restraining impact on your organization. Do something about it. Now.

Then take on the next ones.

If you believe your organization doesn’t have any of these, that may be the unspoken assumption that is holding you back the most!

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