0114. Triumphs in Team Bonding and Strategic Vision at Sigma Lab Consulting

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- Unexpected team bonding and strategic planning during a snowed-in off-site retreat at Sigma Lab Consulting
- Reflecting on past year's successes and future opportunities
- Team cohesion and unique problem-solving approach leading to repeat engagements with diverse clients
- Integrating Lean Six Sigma with deep industry knowledge for success in pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical consulting
- The importance of relationship building and personal connections in niche consulting
- Balancing AI with the human touch in streamlining processes
- Teasing upcoming challenging projects
- Aligning team goals with the overarching mission for 2024
- Personal growth and goal alignment anecdotes
- Comparing cultural upbringings (Latino and Asian traditions)
- Strategies for setting and achieving realistic goals
- Excitement about networking and learning opportunities at industry events hosted by Sigma Lab Consulting

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Episode Transcript

Oscar Gonzalez (00:00):
Take those facilities and change all those
different pieces of equipmentand assets and put people in
there, and that's that's how Iend up seeing this Welcome to
Lean by Design Podcast.
I'm your host, Oscar Gonzalez,alongside my co-host, Lawrence
Wong.
We are former MBA classmatesturned business partners with

(00:21):
over 25 years of combinedexperience in life sciences,
from R&D through manufacturing.
Our experiences have shed lightinto the complex, ever-changing
challenges experienced by thisindustry and many others.
We took a risk quit oursix-figure paying jobs in Boston
Biotech and Pharma to startSigma Lab Consulting.
Journey with us as we explorethe relationship between people

(00:45):
and workflow design.
The goal?
To learn, inspire and deliverpractical tips to navigate these
ever-changing challenges.
Stick with us and learn to worksmarter, not harder, and be
lean by design.
So here we are 2024.

(01:08):
This, this episode, should becoming out early February, so
fresh on people's minds.
I think it's important toalways have this reflection,
something that you don't see alot of people do.
I was recently talking aboutthis when it came to looking at

(01:31):
company goals and what happenedin the previous year, what
didn't happen.
In most instances, I find thatpeople, departments, functions,
organizations are always forwardlooking, where you don't really

(01:52):
reflect on what happened, whichthere's a nice quote that I
really enjoy that talks about.
Wisdom comes from people thatreflect on what happened, that
self-reflection, reflection ofwhat occurred, what your
assumptions were, what actuallyhappened and it doesn't really

(02:13):
happen too much.
You do some retrospective looksafter the end of a project, but
if your project is three yearsold, your memory is about as
good as the last six months,because everything else is
somewhat chaotic.
So are you really getting thatlook back at what happened and

(02:34):
what could be changed?
And that's what we're here fortoday.
We want to talk about what ourlook back was for 2023.
Sigma Lab Consulting had agreat first full year in
operations.
We had the pleasure of workingwith, I think, how many

(02:57):
different clients do we haveFive, I think, five different
clients and where I would saythat they were successful and in
many cases, they have becomerepeat clients.
So I think that's a testamentto what we have been putting out
there in terms of how we workbetter, how we think through

(03:21):
some of these problems andcreate these spaces that allow
for our teams to really truly besuccessful without stress,
overload, overworking, workingon the wrong things, working on
things that don't have value.
So I think 2023 was a fantasticyear, especially for us to

(03:48):
start.
I mean, what do you think?

Lawrence Wong (03:51):
Yeah, I think the year went by incredibly fast.
I think we had a lot of more upsand downs, fortunately, I think
, when I think about what we didlast year, it was more again
like how we started in 2022,more about setting up the

(04:12):
business so that we couldsurvive.
But I think our mindset hasshifted for the year and not so
much can we survive, but morehow do we grow, what are the
things that we should be doingto move forward, not only for
this year, but also 2024 andbeyond?
So I think that was a big partof the weekend Just really

(04:33):
retracing our footsteps that wetook in the last year, but also
planning for okay, where is itthat we want to go and what
direction are we heading in.
And then looking at, okay, whatcan we do in a year?
And then really establishingthose steps to get there.

Oscar Gonzalez (04:48):
Well, let's set people up.
You said the weekend.
I don't think I brought up theweekend yet, but go ahead and
set up people.
What happened?
What did we do?
This was two weekends ago.
First weekend in January, wewent to a small cabin that
Lawrence found in Hill, NewHampshire, was it?

Lawrence Wong (05:09):
Yeah, I didn't even know where Hill was, I just
knew that it was within twohours from your house.
So then that's kind of what wedid, and we found a place that
was not too far but, I think,isolated enough, where we could
kind of focus on what we neededto accomplish as far as
reflections and planning for thenew year.

(05:30):
But it was a place that justtook us out of our normal
day-to-day routine.
But obviously we talked aboutbusiness for the better part of
the weekend, but that wasn't theonly priority.
The other priority was just tohang out with each other and
kind of learn about where wewere and in our own lives and

(05:51):
kind of reflect on how we werethinking about different aspects
, about things that were goingon that we don't necessarily
talk about when we see eachother every other week.
And it just kind of put us in anenvironment where we could just
spend hours talking aboutwhether it was work related or
non-work related, and I thinkthat was very beneficial,

(06:12):
because I learned a lot ofthings about you and you
properly learned stuff about me,and we'll get into that later
in the episode, but that's kindof how we spent the weekend.

Oscar Gonzalez (06:21):
Yeah, I mean it was a really great experience.
I mean it was a beautiful homethat was sort of up on a
mountainside, and this actuallyhappened the weekend that the
first snowstorm happened.
So of course we get up onSunday morning in my air maxes
and I think I don't know you hadsome low-toed shoes as well.

(06:46):
Yeah, it was like, hey, let's gooutside and start shoveling
eight inches of snow to get tothe truck, to where we can then
get out of the town.
It was a small town, the snowwas coming and I think our top
speed for that two hour driveback home was probably about 35,

(07:06):
40 miles an hour.
So we were fortunate enough tostumble upon a little barbecue
joint and have some deliciousbarbecue and have that extended
time to sort of riff on whathappened and sort of take in
that entire weekend.
But I think it was supercritical for us to find a space

(07:32):
that had low distractions or nodistractions.
I've seen other folks that dooff-sides, that are just locally
somewhere in the city.
They do an off-site for a halfa day or something like that.
And I think you hit the nail onthe head when you said that
there was more than just onepurpose of the business.

(07:53):
It's how well we can connecttogether, because it's not just
the business, it's the partnerswithin that business, it's the
leadership within that business.
How much are they?
You know, essentially youbecome a part of each other's
lives to some degree because youare establishing a workplace,

(08:14):
you are building a workforcetogether to create this
successful company, thissuccessful organization, in
whatever metric that means foryou.
So I think it was superimportant for us to be able to.
You know, take that weekend,you know, and I mean I think the

(08:36):
first night we went down wegrabbed some food, and you know,
we grabbed food, we grabbedsnacks, we grabbed drinks, and
we were working until almost 11o'clock at night and then we
figured, whoops, we got to dothis again tomorrow.
So let's back it up and getready for the next day, because

(08:59):
the next day was also a big dayas well.

Lawrence Wong (09:02):
Yeah, and I think there's something to you know
if you ask me a question beforewe started recording about hey,
could we have done this at yourhome or my home and maybe stayed
locally?
We probably could have, but wewould have had to broken up the
day into pieces and, like Iwould have to travel to where
you are and you would have totravel to my place or maybe you

(09:23):
sleep over, but I think, at theend of the day, being somewhere
that we're not you know, that'snot home and being away from the
normal yeah, you have a twoyear old and just being away
from family and friends it'snice, because then my sole focus

(09:43):
is on the business, but alsoyou, right.
So you know we have a businessrelationship, but we also have a
friendship that deserves justas much attention as that.
So I think it allows us to growboth of those things.

Oscar Gonzalez (09:57):
It solidifies the trust and it creates, I
think, a relationship outside ofwhat does Lawrence do for my
business and more of what can wedo for each other as a person,
as a thought leader, becausethat's, you know, I think our

(10:19):
ability to us becoming andbuilding more of this friendship
has allowed us to have morecandid conversations.
You know, quite frankly, I think, when you know the good thing
is that we started Sigma LabConsulting together, because
that gave us sort of, you know,the same launching pad I can't

(10:43):
speak for other organizationsthat maybe have been in business
for 10 years and then theybring another senior executive
that's like hey, welcome to theclub.
You know there may be some lagin time there, but you know, I
think that the start that we hadtogether really benefited us in
putting us into a position thatwe can sort of negate each

(11:07):
other without having thisfeeling of he doesn't like my
ideas, like why won't we do this?
You know, I think there's avery good, you know, 50-50 where
it needs to be, maybe 75, 25 inother places, or 60, 40 in
other places, and we've sort ofhad this friendship, this

(11:31):
partnership, that allows us tohave that dance, depending on
what it is.
You know I may say somethingspecifically to your field, but
you're the expert, so you know Imay throw in 30%, but you're
the 70% that's going todetermine which direction to
take it, based on some of thefeedback that I've given and I

(11:51):
think in the same way, viceFirst, and I think that that's a
really powerful and not alwayscommon thing with organizations,
especially smaller ones.
We don't really look atourselves as who has the most
ownership of the company.
Everything they say is whathappens.
That's just not what we do,yeah.

Lawrence Wong (12:13):
I think we're fortunate enough at this early
stage to be able to do thosethings right.
I think the larger you get, theharder it is to be in this
environment where you're able tosay, hey, let's go spend a
weekend wherever and kind offigure out what we want to do in
the future and also for theupcoming year.
So we obviously reflected on theyear past and, being the size

(12:36):
that we are now, I think a lotof our mindset was around
de-risking the business in theform of coming up with a better
strategy for the new year, butalso beyond.
And what does that look like?
Right?
But what is the missionessentially for the both of us
and as we grow the company, whatshould the mission be?
We talked about not going awayfrom designing and optimizing

(13:04):
workflows that drive operationalexcellence in biopharma, but
more around, okay, let's putbuilding a team in front of that
, right.
And so now our mindset is notonly like finding work for each
other, but also, okay, when wego out and speak to people, are
there potential hires that weneed, or mentors or clients,
right?

(13:24):
So not looking at some of thethings that we're doing as going
to like.
An example is going to anetworking event Like, if you go
to a networking event and theonly thing you're looking for is
to make a sale or a pitch.
You lose out on maybe meetingsomebody that you could hire or
maybe meeting somebody thatcould give you some insight on

(13:45):
the landscape of the businessand just giving you an outside
perspective on what you could bedoing better.
So I think that new strategykind of really will pivot a lot
of the things that we do for theupcoming year.

Oscar Gonzalez (14:01):
And I think, if we can go back a little bit, we
didn't start off with that.
You know, when we first arrivedon Friday evening, we
originally had this agendaplanned out, that we were going
to review 2023 numbers andthings that we did that didn't
work out, or conferences we wentto that we didn't find the

(14:23):
value that we wanted.
And I will say, when we go backand we look at our 2023 goals,
they sort of were spread allover the place.
Now, mind you, we were only inbusiness for three, four months
prior to that, but I felt thatimportant for us to anchor
certain things so that we cansort of see where these

(14:45):
components go.
I mean, we had goals for socialmedia postings.
We had goals for you know howmany people we can get to be on
board.
We had goals for people we canget into our LinkedIn pages.
We had goals for revenue, andmost of these things were

(15:07):
arbitrary because we didn'treally know what healthy meant
for us.
Yet there's a Boku number ofconsulting firms out there, but
they all do things differently.
They all do different things.
They all consult for differentpurposes.
Some of them are, for I'm goingto help you get from your IND

(15:29):
to your first.
You know, first, in humanclinical trials, you know that
is a very specific window thatthose consultants are going to
work.
We're sort of in this like whenthings are kind of, you know,
when shit's hitting the fan, whoare you going to call?
No, I'm kidding, I mean,ghostbusters was on just last

(15:53):
night, but you know, reallylooking at that and saying who
can I get to help me figure outthe best way to make this work?
How can I figure out the bestway to leverage the people in my
team, to leverage the tools, toleverage the knowledge, that
type of information?
You know.
That's where we sort of step into kind of say you need to
start pulling on these threadsthat you haven't been doing

(16:16):
before.
But within that, you know, if Icould go back to that first day
, I think what was reallyimportant for us was to sort of
just kind of riff on you knowthe year, riff on things that we
had thoughts of, you know,ideas that were popping in,
because that changed the natureof what we spent our time over

(16:41):
the next 36 hours doing.
And that is where we sort oflooked at this and said, well,
if we want to grow, if we wantto de-risk by growing the
company, which means we needadditional clients that are in
different spaces, which meantthat we needed to hire people,
which meant, you know that weneeded to establish these

(17:03):
structures like this, all sortof drilled down into that
strategy of we need to meet asmany people and strengthen our
networks and our partnerships asmuch as possible.
To your point, we need to startgoing to these networking
events not thinking can I get aclient, thinking who are the

(17:26):
individuals that are on boardwith our philosophy and the ways
that we think?
At some point in thoserelationships they may turn into
a potential client, they mayturn into a potential FTE,
because in this line of work, inthis line of consulting, if we

(17:48):
do not have a client that is onboard with how our philosophy
works, we don't want to workwith them.
This is our philosophy, hasbeen a combination of you know
it's Lean Six Sigma at a highestlevel.
But then you know, in thisparticular space, what does that

(18:09):
mean?
Am I going to create a Lean SixSigma for how quick you turn
over contracts, you know, andcreate the statistics.
There's so many variables thatgo into that that are out of
control for the client?
So probably not.
However, the principles of whatthose two methodologies bring

(18:31):
are what is at the crux of whatwe bring to these organizations.
So, you know, being able tosort of take that time to riff
and then turn around and say weneed to make sure that people
really know and understand whatis Lean?
What is Sigma Lab Consulting?
Who are they?

(18:51):
Do I want to know these people?
Do I want to be friends withthese people?
Do I want to connect with themas a client?
Maybe I want to work with them,and I think that was a turning
point for us in how weapproached the next 36 hours.

Lawrence Wong (19:08):
Yeah, I think we've said it beautifully like
this blend of operations andstrategy and being able to apply
it, like in a very specificarea that we've been able to
gain a lot of experience in inthe industry.
Right, for yourself, I know,you know project management in
drug development and then formyself, asset management in

(19:30):
biopharma facilities.
Being able to, for us, I think,understand okay, what is the
landscape.
Look now for this type of workin our perspective projects, but
also what are the types ofpeople that would welcome our
philosophy and thinking?
And you know, how do we findthose people?

(19:50):
Where, where, where are they?
How can we reach them?
How can we help them withoutactually meeting them?
But I think, at the same time,we realize that we know a lot of
people and we did a very I'mnot going to say poor job, but
not a great job with keeping upwith our network.
Right, I think that kind offorced us to look at, okay, what

(20:11):
can we do to not only attractthose potential people to come
to our tribe, but also whatabout the people that we already
know?
And how do we leverage ournetwork and build stronger
relationships, as you said,absolutely One of the things
that we had also talked aboutnot only increasing the

(20:35):
face-to-face interactions, butwe realized we spent a lot of
time looking at a screen.
I think some of the mostvaluable conversations we've had
all year have been with people,like in the office or at an
event.
They were all face-to-face.
If you look at our clientportfolio now, all those
projects have been because wewere talking to somebody

(20:59):
face-to-face.
We really looked back at howmuch time we were spending last
year.
I think the mindset wasn't inthe right spot.
I think we just need to doubledown on being in person and just
understanding what thechallenges and opportunities are
with our current network andmeeting new people to find out

(21:20):
what other interesting thingsare going on in the industry.

Oscar Gonzalez (21:24):
It was a learning experience.
We were fortunate enough thatwe had made the right
connections early on.
That sort of powered ourportfolio of clients through the
end of the year.
Now that we're realizing thatwe want to deleverage that by

(21:46):
obtaining additional clientsthat we can continue to work
with, and we'll need theworkforce to do that.
The way that I sort of equatethis is almost to I don't
necessarily want to say to likea therapy session, but when you

(22:08):
have a face-to-face interactionand it really gives you this,
you're feeling what that otherperson is saying to you.
It's more than just someone whois virtually in there.
You can really understand withthem what those root challenges

(22:29):
are.
Not only that, I'm very excitedfor some of this work that's
coming up, that we're going tobe doing a full six-month
project coming up in about amonth.
Now I'm doing some prep workthere, but our face-to-face
interactions have shown me howpassionate my client sponsor is

(22:53):
for this project that is socritical.
It's not every day that you'regoing to get the opportunity to
work on a project directly withthe decision maker.
The decision maker may be chiefof operations or some similar

(23:14):
SVP, where you're only gettingone 30-minute time slot in a
given month.
That's not enough to createthat relationship.
What we realized that we needto do and last year gave
credence to that was spend thisadditional time with those

(23:36):
functional people, that theseare the individuals that are
really doing this work day inand day out and they're seeing
the challenges that they'restruggling with, connecting with
them and helping them conveythe messaging the right way to
their leadership To say, hey,these are the things that we're
having problems with.
We have a group here that we'velooked into that can help guide

(24:02):
us.
I like to think of our methodof working as being really these
guides.
We have a level of expertisebased on our backgrounds, but
ultimately it's the way that weask questions of what the needs

(24:22):
are, of what the client reallyis looking for.
Just yesterday had a meeting andwhen I came in originally to
one of my clients, we had to fixwhat another company came in
and did.
The comments that they weremaking yesterday was yeah, they
never even listened to us.
They were telling us what weneeded to put into these spaces

(24:46):
and not asking us what wasimportant to us.
That's a huge red flag in anybusiness, let alone consulting
the way to really and this lensback into that human-centered
design.
You are not the one that isgoing to work there they are.

(25:06):
You need to work with them tosay how do you do what you do?
What is it that you guys aredoing?
We're going to make suggestionsof.
I would suggest to do thesefour steps as well, because it
allows for this downstreameffect, et cetera, but in terms
of what they're doing, that isup to the organization.

(25:28):
How they do it is what you'retrying to influence.

Lawrence Wong (25:35):
We'll be right back after a quick break.
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(25:59):
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Yeah, I think to your point.
We've been reading the winwithout pitching the NFS.
So there's a concept.
It's not so much the tacticalsteps that were necessarily

(26:30):
asking our sponsors but alsoteam members to give input on.
It's more of understanding whatis the goal here, why do you
want to do this, understandingall the motivations behind it,
really clamping down on thatproblem statement, and then
you're able to design whateverit is that you need to do to get
you to the end.
But you're right, there's a lotof and this is a lot of your

(26:58):
average consultant is probablygoing to say, oh yeah, what is
the task and I'll go do it, andno questions asked.
When there is a question, it'sreally about nitty gritty
details from the team, and thenyou're not really providing what
you would call subject matterexpertise, and so where we
really differentiate ourselvesis being able to ask those

(27:18):
questions and being able topoint out okay, well, why do you
want to do that?
What is the goal for theorganization and who is involved
in this?
Who are the decision makers?
Asking those right questions toreally make sure everybody is
on the same page about theproblem, so that, once the ship
starts to move, we're all goingin the right direction, because
you can't be on a boat whereeverybody's rowing in the wrong

(27:39):
direction.
You're just going to bespinning circles and nothing
gets done.
And then people get cynical andwe spiral down this dark, dark
alley of oh that's how it'salways been, and no progress is
made.
Right.

Oscar Gonzalez (27:50):
Remember I used to row and it is so exhausting
when you're not rowing together,you can actually still row in
the same direction, but whenyour oars dip into the water, to
push no-transcript All eightpeople, their ore should hit the
water at the same time androughly be at the same depth in

(28:13):
the water.
I don't know if you've seenthese rowing ores, but they're
probably somewhere in theneighborhood of like 12 feet
long, you know, and it feelslike you're rowing through
molasses.
And it's the same concept inthese projects of, just like you
know, we're going nowhere fast.

(28:35):
We'll use that age old phrasethere we're going nowhere fast,
doing a lot of work, not a lotof things are happening, and so
you know, I think there's a lotof different strategies to
alleviate that, but I want to gointo a little bit more of what
our strategy, what we intend todo in this 2024.

(28:57):
You know, one of those thingsis that we've made a commitment
not only to provide real worlddata and content into these
podcasts, so we're starting toutilize additional resources.
I found a couple throughDeloitte, through all these

(29:17):
other different firms that haveinsights.
We can start to talk about howprocess improvement is changing
our landscape and howadvancements in our medicines or
techniques are also modifyingthose process improvement.
I know AI is all over the placenow, but there's a lot of

(29:40):
concern for the security of thatWith all all do right.
You know so there's a lot offolks that are using, you know,
zoom and teams.
We use Google Meet and all ofthese different meeting spaces
are creating AI that reallychanges in such a dramatic way
the amount of time.

(30:00):
You know that project managerseven spend on crafting minutes
for a meeting.
Now, again, there's a lot ofsecurity concerns there, but I
do believe that those are thingsthat will eventually be
addressed within AI, so that'ssomething to look forward to.
That.
There are these othercomponents that are advancing in

(30:24):
technology that will allow someof these, some of this more
rote work, to become morestreamlined.
You know so, in 2024, we'rereally hoping to we're really
planning to attend a number ofmeetings, so we'll need to make
sure that we are letting you allknow the meetings that we're

(30:45):
going to be attending.
We are looking to have coffeewith you, have a drink with you,
share a meal with you, you knowmaybe a couple laughs, or talk
about, you know, sports,whatever.
It doesn't even have to bebusiness related.
We just want to get to know youIf this is something, if this
space of making your work inbiopharma space more efficient,

(31:07):
more optimized to where you'renot coming home exhausted
because you spent three hourslooking for something, if you
want to get rid of that sort ofthose sort of challenges that
still happen small, medium,large business, it does not
matter, they are still there,they're still happening.

(31:28):
That's what we want to do.
We want to meet with you and soyou know we're punting around a
couple of ideas, eveninternally.
So you know, I would say one ofthe most, one of the things I'm
most excited for this year isis the opportunity to to create
sort of a networking eventsponsored by Sigma Lab

(31:50):
Consulting that we can bring infolks from similar mindsets and
really bring them together, sortof as like a melting pot of
ideas and people and expandingnetworks.
So you know, that's somethingthat I'm really excited to do
and hopefully we'll have theopportunity to do that within
2024.

Lawrence Wong (32:12):
Yeah, I think to your point.
For the people that we knowalready that we haven't seen in
a while, we will make a veryconscious effort to see you
again and we will be catching upand then having conversations
and sharing a meal or whatnot.
I think I want to take a stepback and kind of, you know, just
revisit the whole podcastdirection that we're going into.

(32:32):
So not only are we gettingoutside sources from some of the
stuff that's going on you knowthat you might see in the news,
or some some of these more Iwould say, specialty websites.
An example would be likeBioprocess International, where
they it's like a magazine andthey have articles about some of
the new trends in the industry.

(32:52):
Or even DIA has their owndatabase for all sorts of things
that are going on in theindustry.
But I think we're taking thisopportunity also to teach each
other and also learn aboutsomething that we did not know
about our respective areas ofwork, and using this as not only
a professional developmentthing, but also we find that if

(33:16):
you're able to teach somethingthat you do not know, it just
helps you understand it better.
And so we'll be learning newthings and hopefully you'll be
coming with us along the way tokind of learn stuff that we
don't already know.

Oscar Gonzalez (33:30):
I think it's going to be a fantastic
experience and something thatwill strengthen our specialties.
You know it's always.
It's always a benefit when youcan learn from like-minded
individuals things that youdidn't know before, because you
start to see differentperspectives and you start to

(33:52):
see challenges that occur inadjacent I don't want to say
adjacent industries, becauseit's biopharm, but adjacent
functions.
I guess you can say Biopharmagoes anywhere from early stage
concept R&D all the way throughmanufacturing and facilities.

(34:13):
So we're literally at the twopolar ends of biopharma, with a
little bit of our expertisesprinkled throughout the middle
as well, through the clinicaland earlier stage facilities.
So I think it's going to be areally fantastic, you know,
learning experience and I'mexcited to take that journey.

(34:36):
So hopefully we can bring anumber of you all for the ride
as well and bring theselearnings to you guys.

Lawrence Wong (34:45):
Yeah, how much time do we have, or I don't know
how long we've been recording,but I wanted to talk about, to
keep it more light.
I learned a lot about you overthe weekend.
I wanted to kind of go abouttalking about that.
So after spending a wholeweekend with you, I found out

(35:08):
two things.
One is that you take like themost comprehensive notes that I
have ever seen for like allsorts of things right, and what
surprised me the most is that,like when you explain the whole,
I would say like the smartsheet, like Death Star,

(35:29):
essentially this crazy workspacewith all these connections and
sheets and reports anddashboards that you don't write
any of that down at all, likehow you created that.
But yet you'll write notes forall these little meetings that
we have.
But the most complicated thingthat you've ever done, like you
write no notes for it.
I find that fascinating,because I'm the complete

(35:50):
opposite, where I don't writenotes at all, for all the day to
day stuff, but all the bigthings I will write.
I'll write notes to remindmyself hey, you got to do this
and do that, but at the highestlevel you just it's like this
program in your brain thatyou're just able to do all these
things, which I find isincredible.
So that's number one.
Number two is that you makeincredible chicken wings, like

(36:11):
to be like from the dryseasonings to the sauce, like I
was.
It was amazing and I reallyenjoyed the chicken wings and I
can say that your family is verylucky to have you as the person
making meals sometimes.

Oscar Gonzalez (36:28):
I'm the meat eater man.
I'm a meat eater.
My wife doesn't eat a lot ofmeat now, but my son he has been
as a two year old.
He's very adventurous when hesees or smells something that's
good and he's like he's adead-ass.
He's doing the eat signlanguage and I'll give him.
He was licking up some barbecuewings that I had made the other

(36:50):
day, so he was going to townand it was fun to see.
I'm glad that I could share thatwith you.
It's a technique that I've sortof perfected since college and
just sort of.
I always find disappointment inrecipes that I find online, so
this was a little bit more oflike it was experiments that
eventually got me to come upwith like I have a thing in my

(37:15):
mind for a recipe, in my mind atleast, for the time and the
temperature Now, in terms oflike what we add in there.
You kind of you know that's acrap shoot every single time,
whatever's in your pantry inyour fridge, but I'm glad that
you enjoyed those.
You know the there's somethingabout the work that I've done

(37:40):
within Smartsheet to generatethis understanding of how these
R&D and clinical processes work.
You know I've been fortunate.
I think it's more of a strengththan a weakness that I have

(38:03):
been in these program andproject manager level roles
without necessarily being, youknow, the soldier ants that are
doing all of the paperwork, allof the you know, because when
you're so close to a problemit's hard to see the problem.

(38:24):
You know when you can, couldyou.
You know there's so many thingsthat distract you.
They're not always.
You know you're going to seesomething, you're going to see
an error happen somewhere, butbecause you're so close, it's
going to be a challenge to tofigure out where exactly that
error happened.
You know you'll see when thingsare wrong, but you may also get

(38:46):
used to this.
Yeah, it's a little bit of amuddy process because, well,
that's just that's the processthey showed me when I got here.
That's a very common Well,that's how they showed me, how
we had to do it and usually, andwith that's what you should be
doing, you go in, you take it in, you do it a little bit and
then you say, okay, I know wherethis can be fixed.

(39:07):
So I've just always had this Iwon't say always, I would say,
since I've been using thatsystem.
It sort of creates this mentalmap of what are all the
similarities and that I meanthat lends credence into what we
did with our strategy for 2024.
We needed more clients and weneeded more people, and we

(39:31):
realized the the.
The mutual factor in there wasthat we need to know people that
are in agreement with ourphilosophy.
It doesn't matter if they'regoing to be a client or an
employee.
So that's where we sort of kindof you know, aha, this is now
going to be an approach to meetanybody that thinks in that way.
That can go into either one ofthese windows, and so the you

(39:54):
know it's been.
I love it, man.
I absolutely love taking chaosand showing the organization
behind it, showing theschematics behind it, because,
quite frankly, you may see thisin facilities, because there's
pipes, there's gaskets, there'spressures, there's control

(40:16):
panels, there's all thesedifferent systems that are all
working.
I see that with people, allthese systems, all these giant
tanks that you have in yourfacility, that giant tank is a
VP, that giant take is adirector, all these little
spouts and gauges, those are,you know, entry level workers.

(40:42):
These are once just a stepabove it.
So when I look at theseindividuals, when I look at
these project teams, that isthat same mechanism that you
have in your facilities is whatI see with people.
So I draw, you know, in my mindI start drawing these mental
maps of like okay, well, thisperson has this information,
that person needs it, thisperson can also transfer that

(41:05):
information over.
So, you know, it's sort ofbuilding this network.
That is not the hierarchy andthis is the challenge that
people face is that we aredelivered.
Here's the project team, here'sthe organizational chart.

(41:26):
But that is not your workingchart, that's not how you work,
that's how you report, but it'snot how you're working.
And even the teams, the teamsare great, but the teams are
siloed as a team.
And then you start to go, well,this is not the, this is the
core team and this is the.
You know the extended team.

(41:47):
And it's like, well, you'rekind of creating little silos
with these extended team andunless you have the
understanding, the communicationshould be going back and forth.
You can't just assume, oh yeah,they should be telling they
should be transferring all thecore team stuff into that new

(42:08):
team.
Well, ask them.
I've been in those extendedteam meetings and I don't hear
any recap of what we talkedabout.
I don't hear anybody refer toany of the minutes from the core
team, which is where thedecisions get made, you know.
So it sort of came to me at somepoint as I started to work in

(42:31):
clinical operations.
That's very, very matrix teamsbetween pharmacovigilance,
between legal team, between CMC,between clinical leadership,
medical affairs.
All of these groups have onething in common, one major thing
in common the sites.
Everybody refers to the site.

(42:53):
Some people may refer to thedoctor, some may refer to the
hospital, some refer to the sitenumber that is given to them,
but everything funnels intothose spaces.
So how do we connect theinformation so that it flows to
the right people and that's awhole.
Again, take those facilitiesand change all those different

(43:16):
pieces of equipment and assetsand put people in there, and
that's how I end up seeing this.
So it's funny because I neverreally said that out loud, but
it's, oh my gosh, it's justreally sitting with me there.

Lawrence Wong (43:28):
Yeah, I think it makes complete sense.
And we're not saying thatpeople are equivalent to
machines.
They're machines, don't have aheart and they don't have a
motion.
But I will say that you, really, I think the idea is
understanding the relationships,right, that, like, each piece
of equipment has with each other, and how does it interact with
another system that may not bein the same building or whatever

(43:50):
.
Right, right, understanding,okay, what's the impact of this
thing if it goes down?
In the same way that youunderstand, okay, what if one
functional area doesn't do thatone task?
How does that impact some othertimeline that has been built,
based on how the project isgoing?
So, yeah, I completely agree.
Really, our, the thing that hasmade us successful, right, is

(44:16):
really understanding thoserelationships and orchestrating
the right interactions with themso that you decrease the risk,
right, right, so no one criticalpath is impacted by a very
minute thing that maybe nobodyis being aware of, right, we
actually bring that to theforefront and say, hey, that

(44:36):
thing that you purchased, ormaybe that task that you told
somebody to do, that has areally big implication on the
long term trajectory of whereveryou're trying to go.
Yeah, I completely agree.

Oscar Gonzalez (44:53):
You're listening to Lean by Design Podcast and
we'll be right back after aquick break.
Do you suspect your lifesciences company could do things
more efficiently?
Maybe you're seeing costlyworkflow issues or maybe the
work feels more difficult toperform than necessary,
affecting team morale.
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(45:13):
Consulting for a freeconsultation on how we can
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Our consultants will build acustom workflow solution for
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Find out more atwwwSigmaLabConsultingcom.

Lawrence Wong (45:34):
And so I want to kind of keep us back on track.
Was there anything like that?
You learned about me that youdidn't necessarily know.

Oscar Gonzalez (45:41):
I learned a lot about.
We talked a lot about on thedrive in, a lot about family and
how we grew up and what was.
There were some differences,but I think there's a lot of
similarities too in the strengthof the parental units within a

(46:01):
Latino and an Asian family.
They're very much there.
We're not messing around.
You're going to go to school.
You're going to either become adoctor or a lawyer or an
engineer, Exactly, and guesswhat?
I originally started trying togo to med school.
You became an engineer.
So you know, maybe everybodyhappy.

(46:25):
You know, and I think it waswhat I learned about, I would
say, some of the things that youfind oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
How did I almost forget thisTime out?
Let's hold the phone.
I need to make this known thatfor the very first time at our

(46:49):
weekend summit, lawrence watchedthe movie happy Gilmore.

Lawrence Wong (46:57):
Oh my God, I totally forgot to watch that.

Oscar Gonzalez (46:59):
I do not understand how I partnered with
someone that has not seen happyGilmore, I mean, let alone we
haven't even stumbled into BillyMadison yet.
That's not even a thing yet.
But we're going to need tobring that to the forefront.
But it's interesting becauseit's easy to make assumptions.

(47:20):
I mean, you were born, you wereraised in New York, I was
raised in Virginia.
So even myself, for a long timeI didn't catch a lot of these
movies or shows that otherswatch, because growing up my
parents didn't watch thosemovies.
So I never saw, I didn't watchall of these slaps that you know

(47:46):
Will Ferrell comedies, owenWilson, adam Sandler, david
Spade, all these comedies thatwere sort of like earlier in you
know, I would say, middleschool, high school age for me,
you know, late 90s.
I didn't really see a lot ofthose things until I went into
college and I started to look at, watch all these movies.

(48:08):
But that was one of the mostastounding revelations that I
had of you.
But I also could read yourpersonality and I knew, okay,
he's going to appreciate this,because this is a bad shit,
crazy movie that is hilarious inso many aspects.

(48:29):
So that was man.
I mean, how did you feel afterwatching that movie?

Lawrence Wong (48:35):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great movie and you're
right, like it's this person whojust says whatever he's
thinking at the time and likenormally you wouldn't be able to
do that in an office setting,but in a movie he's just like,
he just says it.
And I think that was like I waslike this is awesome, this
movie is great.
I mean, how come I've neverseen this and I realize I had
this conversation all the timewith some people that I worked

(48:56):
with this have you ever seenthis movie?
And I'm like no, I've neverseen that movie.
And they look at me like haveyou been living under a rock?
Like what's wrong with you?
Where have you been?
Yeah, that's the same reactionthat you gave me.
So, yeah, I was.
Yeah, it was a great movie andI would definitely watch it
again.

Oscar Gonzalez (49:12):
You know, and I think I, what I really enjoyed
was, you know, just the timebeing around each other, and
you're a very positive person.
That is also, I don't see a lotof things I don't want.
I guess frazzle you would bethe word that I would say.

(49:33):
You know, you tend to statetake a step back, take a look Me
.
I'm going to have an initialreaction to something in some
way.
It might be internally, butthere's something that I'm going
to go like oh dear God, this isa nightmare.
I know things will always getfigured out.
You know, there's a saying thatI say there's obviously.

(49:55):
There's a saying that I saythere's a saying with my wife
and my son, who's too, you know,we tell him that there is
nothing that we can't figure outtogether, and I think this last
weekend really made me believethat with you that, as we riff,

(50:16):
as we have these conversations,you have this fantastic way of
distilling a lot of thespecifics that are coming in my
head and kind of drilling down.
Okay, well, it sounds like it'smore of this and it's, and you
come up with this concept thatis on par with exactly where I'm

(50:40):
trying to get to, and I thinkthat that's been super helpful
for me.
And as soon as you know, youkind of create that into a ball
of like this is what you'retalking about.
All of a sudden, my ideasshould start coming out the
wazoo of now I have anotherperspective and now I know.
Now I'm sure of what directionI want to go to.

(51:03):
So there's.
Have you always?
Has that always been kind oflike your thing, where you sort
no-transcript, take things inand obviously we're I'm learning
that too with you know how toask questions and take that into
, distill it, but sometimes Ican't get out of my own way.

Lawrence Wong (51:18):
Yeah, I think I'm the opposite, where, like, I I
enjoy like, but I find a lot of,you know, things that are
Simple and beautiful to me arebeing out in nature and being
able to observe things and andreally just reflecting on them,
right.
I think where I struggle islike having those ideas and
thinking outside the box, right.
I think that's where you comein, where you have like, oh, I

(51:39):
think we should go in thisdirection, and then I go, yeah,
that makes a lot of sense, andthen I kind of distill it.
But I think I struggle withhaving those, you know, being
more creative, being moreimaginative of what the future
could be.
I think for me I'm always like,oh yeah, the simple thing is
this, and then that's kind oflike where my brain is is let's
keep it Stupid and simple, andlike that's.

Oscar Gonzalez (51:59):
I gotta be my boat here a lot of my work.

Lawrence Wong (52:02):
Yeah, I just try to keep things as as stupid and
simple as possible, but beingable to explore possibilities
and go down those rabbit holes Ithink that's why I read so much
, I listen to all these podcasts, I like talk to people because
I just don't have those ideas.
But I think you're in theopposite, where you constantly
have all these like organicthoughts that come up and then I

(52:24):
go well, that's amazing.
Yeah, keep telling me about it,and then I'll just distill it
and then we create this thingright.

Oscar Gonzalez (52:31):
It's, it can be a wait.
I will say that it can be await, but you're right, it's
being able to To come up withthose organic ideas, and we we
had that discussion duringDuring the weekend and that is
where we came to this idea ofwhat we were gonna focus on in
2024.
You know if I could kind of tiethat back in we looked at, you

(52:56):
know, these ideas and thesedesires that we wanted to do.
You know these, these desiredspaces that we wanted to open up
into.
There's a lot of Possibilitieswith what we're doing, with
educating with.
You know, how do we take thedata of working with these
clients and showing people whatthe what impact this really does

(53:19):
.
You know, the one thing that Itend to say to folks is that we
are on the cusp of innovation inso many spaces.
In biopharma, accept ouroperations.
We're using Excel to do reports, we're using Microsoft Word to

(53:40):
do our minutes that don't tieactions to anything automated
that notifies people that.
You know, it's like we can beas innovative and as forward
thinking and as New technologyas we can be on the science
front, but if we're not doinganything to cultivate that from
an Operations perspective, we'llbe left in the dust.

(54:02):
We're gonna go.
This is fantastic.
I don't even know like we'regonna spend now three hours
trying to figure out what thatmeans, because the only way we
know how to process that data isby using these.
You know macros on Excel orsomething rather, so you know, I
think that the your ability tokind of Corral me a little bit

(54:25):
really Helped us focus on on2024 and beyond.
You know, I don't think ourmission and our vision changed
for the company.
I think our near term missionchanged and that's important.
We can have a 10 year, 15 yearplan, but we also got to figure
out how we're gonna get throughthe next three years, and I

(54:46):
think we did a fantastic job fordoing that.
So we're we're pretty much attime.
But I wanted to see from you Isthere anything that you would
Suggest for for people that aretrying to do their own planning
whether it's in theirOrganization or whether it's for
them personally orprofessionally that they could

(55:08):
take away from from ourexperience?

Lawrence Wong (55:11):
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is getting out of
the normal routine, right,whether it's getting out of the
office or or maybe just spendinga few hours Together eating a
meal or something like that,just being able to Take a step
back and look at how do thingsgo, what can we do better, what
should we be doing right?

(55:32):
Having those more Candidconversations will allow the, I
would say, the flow of theorganization to flow faster,
flow more efficiently.
But whatever word you want touse and I think something that I
Think we should do, maybe forthe future summits and is Again,

(55:53):
like you said, right, be againdoing the same exact thing,
being somewhere that's notwithin the normal routine that
you have.
But also, I think I would wantto spend a little bit more time
just outside right and justmaybe going for a walk and Just
being Undistracted, right, likewe spend an enormous amount of

(56:14):
time in front of a screen.
I think we need to spend more.
Less screen time and morepeople time is what I'd like to
say.
Mm-hmm, talk to people, right?
I think a lot of people, whenyou are typing responses through
a computer or something likethat, you're having to pause and
think like is thisgrammatically correct and like
did I miss anything?
But, when you're just having aconversation, you can let those

(56:36):
ideas, ideas flow more pure.
Right, it's more pure.
And if for a person like me,I'm like this is amazing because
it's just flow of ideas and I'mable to kind of distill those
things to go Okay, I think whathe's trying to get at this is
and then you feed, you know offof that and then we're able to
create something right.
But if you just spend yourentire time in the office and
it's always like the one hourmeeting they have to have an

(56:58):
hour catching up you just don'thave those, those, that quality
of interaction.

Oscar Gonzalez (57:05):
Right, you know, on on that note, to kind of
throw this in there as well, wejust had a strategy discussion
and I kept getting you knowwhat's the agenda, what are we
doing, what are.
And I'm like, well, we had twostrategy sessions like let's
recap that, and then we need tojust talk about this.
We need to just talk it outtogether, like if these people

(57:28):
say that we don't have a planyet, we don't have a plan yet,
but we should have thiscommunication with everybody,
and then at the end of thatsession yesterday I got Well,
that was, that was fantastic.
I feel really great about thedirection, about what we're
going, and blah, blah, blah.
And it wasn't even a solid Linein the sand that this is what
we're doing.
It was these are all theconsiderations, this is where we

(57:52):
believe the industry is takingit, etc.
But it was that opportunity.
We held a two-hour meeting andwe and we finished in about an
hour and ten.
But just having that free willtalk is super important,
especially, especially in avirtual environment.

Lawrence Wong (58:13):
I think there's.
Yeah, you were.
You were explaining the wholeconcept behind Marinating and I
found that a facet, because youwere like, no, we have to, we
have to take the chicken out andwe have to, you know, put the
seasoning on that it marinatedin the fridge and then we have
the, the other things and wecook it for a little bit.
Then you add the sauce and thereis there's Something to be said
about letting these ideasmarinate and like, have you

(58:36):
think about something else?
And then coming back to it thatmaybe you miss something or
maybe there's something else youwant to add, right, but
allowing these ideas to kind ofsoak into your brain and reflect
on it and then come back to itagain and, you know, iterating
on it, right, that's what.
That's where you really createsomething special.
And I think it's it's a yeah,it's something that will

(58:57):
continue to do and to have thesesessions where we separate
ourselves from the day-to-dayand Really talk about these,
these big ideas, but then reallycome back down to earth and say
, okay, tactically, what are wedoing for the next?
You know, 12 to 18 months, andwe we had this conversation
about we don't know if this isgonna work, but I have a feeling

(59:18):
that this is going in the rightdirection and if it doesn't
work, we'll pivot and we'llchange directions.
But I think a lot of theinformation that we've gathered
from the past year and Thingsthat we've been seeing in our
own network and just havingconversations between ourselves
is that we need to spend moretime with people and less screen
time.

Oscar Gonzalez (59:39):
Absolutely and, if I can add, for, for those
that are looking to Really findyou know they're North Star.
That is a that is a metricthat's now getting floated
around, and we looked at ourNorth Star as Strengthening our
networks and our partnerships.
So if you're looking to try tofind a way to, you know, plan

(01:00:00):
for your own year.
For me, I like to start small.
There's a lot of things thatyou know that have to happen
within the, within the year.
There's a lot of things thatyou know you really need to
execute within that year.
Perhaps it's not completelyironed out, but you can do that
and then step back and say whatis all this mean?
Where does this take me?

(01:00:21):
Where is the value here?
And that is what will drivethat North Star for 2024 for you
.
What do all these things mean?
Does it mean that you want tospend more time with your family
?
Does it mean that you want toAdvance in the workplace?
Does that mean that you want to, you know, become closer to

(01:00:43):
your brothers and sisters oryour parents, or come closer to
a best friend?
Or you want to, you know,looking at you know you want to
be.
Everybody wants to be healthier, but what does that mean for
you?
Doesn't necessarily mean beingin the gym five days a week.
It might just mean, hey, on anyday, that is, you know, good
weather, I'm working at home,I'm gonna go walk outside for 20
minutes and just do a laparound the neighborhood.

(01:01:05):
You know finding out what thosemean for you and, and you know,
having all these small pieces,looking at the similarities,
going big and, at the end ofevery year, reflect.
Reflect on what that lookedlike.
Your goals don't have tonecessarily match up to the
goals of your organization whereyou're trying to hit a hundred

(01:01:27):
percent, Shoot for 80.
Throw a couple in there thatyou know maybe a challenge to
get to, but be proud of what youdid.
Don't look at what you were notable to accomplish, because
that is Gonna fuel you the nextyear.
They say you know what?
Man, I can't believe I missthese things.
However, I crushed on all theseother pieces and I was just

(01:01:52):
moving and grooving.
That felt Really good.
That felt really good for mymental health, for my physical
health.
Let me see where I can amplifythat the next year.
Lawrence, I'm really excitedfor this year.
Go ahead.
You have one thing.

Lawrence Wong (01:02:06):
Yeah, I was gonna say the, the.
If this is your first timedoing this or maybe you've done
it in the past and hasn't workedout, I Think the the practice
of setting goals.
It's gonna be shit at first,but you kept better over time,
right?
So don't even worry about oh,what is this the right format?
Do I have the right categories?

(01:02:26):
Like, forget all about that,just just write it down and Over
time, that'll get better andyou'll iterate and you'll figure
out.
Okay, these are the things thatare actually important and I
think that's something thatwe've been able to learn.
Right, we were looking at ourgoals from last year and we're
kind of cringing at it goinglike this didn't make any sense.

Oscar Gonzalez (01:02:43):
Where are we going?
Yeah, what was the point?

Lawrence Wong (01:02:46):
Yeah, yeah, and so now I think we've come a long
way from there, and Each of thethings that we're about to do
in the next 12 months Arealigned with where we want to go
completely, and there's noquestion about it, and it's more
about okay, what's, what's theplan to get this done, and and,
quite frankly, when we went backand looked at it, our Tentative

(01:03:08):
goals that we'll have for 2023.

Oscar Gonzalez (01:03:11):
I believe, shrink from the number of goals
that we had in 2020 or 2024.
I think they shrink from whatwe had in 2023.
Yeah, because there is more ofa focus.
All of those other things willcome, the revenue will come, the
clients will come, theemployees will come when your

(01:03:32):
focus is on strengthening thosepartnerships and those
relationships.
So when you look at your goals,don't set them up to be so
individual, because they shouldall go into one direction, the
purpose of all of that, thatNorth Star.
So find that North Star.
All the other things will fallinto place.
I'm excited for 2024.

(01:03:53):
I'm excited to connect with ourpeers.
I'm excited to connect with newpeople at conferences.
Lawrence, you're heading to aconference soon.
Let's hear about that realquick.

Lawrence Wong (01:04:03):
Yes, so I'm heading to the ISPE facilities
of the future conference in SanFrancisco, so I'll be there
January 29th to January 30th orwhatever this episode airs.
But yeah, so that's on thebooks and I know you're going to
something in February.

Oscar Gonzalez (01:04:21):
Yep society for clinical or summit for clinical
operations executive scope 2024in Orlando, florida.
I'll also be attending thefundraiser golf tournament.
My expectations are mediocrebecause I have not golfed in
about four years, but I'm reallylooking forward to Connecting

(01:04:44):
at the golf tournament, at theSuperbowl party.
That's before the conference.
During the conference, I hopeto see a lot of familiar faces.
If you see me, pull me aside.
Let's chat, let's have a drink,let's have coffee, let's have a
meal.
I'm super excited to attend.
Awesome.
I am looking forward to 2024.
Lawrence, thank you.

Lawrence Wong (01:05:06):
Yeah, let's get it going.

Oscar Gonzalez (01:05:12):
Thanks for listening.
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