A plant on the brink. Labor unrest, safety issues, shaky quality, and a community that had lost faith. Steve Matteson stepped into that storm with almost no runway and chose an unconventional starting point: listen deeply, walk the floor, and build a system people actually believe in. What followed is a rare, practical blueprint for turning a failing operation into a proud, profitable, and resilient culture.
We dive into the first 48 hours—hour-long one-on-ones, a real gemba tour, and the surprising power of choosing leaders for connection rather than technical stardom. Steve Matteson explains how he ended “mandatory meetings,” made safety and quality everyone’s job, and installed a weekly cross-functional cadence with clear inputs and outputs. You’ll hear how accountability with dignity defused tension, why inviting injured teammates into root-cause problem solving changed behavior, and how a simple, employee-led newsletter amplified trust and momentum across a 1,000-person workforce.
• starting a turnaround with gemba and one-on-ones
• selecting leaders for connection over individual brilliance
• weekly cadence, “no surprises,” and cross-functional glue
• accountability with dignity and ending mandatory meetings
• teaching safety and quality as everyone’s job with PDSA
• physical renewal, 5S, TPM, and visible standards
• handling naysayers through open forums and union trust
• bold process change with single-pass mixing and stabilization
• documenting habits so culture endures beyond the leader
• faith shaping mindset, humility, and service
This is a masterclass in sustainable change. We trace physical renewal and 5S as symbolic turning points, TPM to reduce downtime, and a bold shift to single-pass rubber mixing backed by meticulous stabilization and transparent communication. Steve Matteson shares how he documented a repeatable operating model in 31 concise chapters, built quarterly off-sites for senior leaders, and prepared the culture to thrive long after he moved on. Underneath it all is a candid look at mindset and faith—guarding the mind in crisis, choosing the next right step, and leading with humility and purpose.
If you’re trying to revive a team, unify a divided workforce, or make improvements stick, this story gives you the practical moves and the human touchpoints to get there. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep equipping uncommon leaders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:22):
Hey Uncommon Leaders, welcome back.
This is the Uncommon LeaderPodcast.
I'm your host, John Gallagher.
You know, there are times inyour life when you get a chance
to have leaders who have made adifference in your life.
You get a chance to haveconversations with them on the
side, but you rarely get achance to ultimately have them
share their side of the impactthat they've had.
I've got a gentleman today,Steve Madison, who I've known
(00:44):
for about 15 years, who's goingto share his leadership journey
and some of the things that haveimpacted not just his work, but
his life as well.
I'm excited about thisconversation we're going to
have.
We're going to talk aboutmanufacturing.
We're going to talk aboutleadership.
We're going to talk about faith.
And we'll probably talk about acouple of stories we've had
working together over the yearsthat still make us laugh today.
(01:05):
So, Steve Madison, welcome tothe Uncommon Leader Podcast.
How are you doing today, friend?
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
Hey, hi, John.
I'm doing great.
And uh it's always good to seeyou and see your smile and
people like you that smile andmake a difference.
So thanks so much.
SPEAKER_02 (01:19):
Well, let's jump right into this conversation.
I'm excited about it today,Steve.
I know we're going to have fun.
I'll probably overrun my time,but we'll see how that goes.
The first thing I want to talkabout, you shared a document
with me that was really cool,the best job that you ever had.
And ultimately was about yourmost fun job.
But let me tee it up just alittle bit in terms of what you
said.
You stepped into a leadershiprole of a plant where there was
(01:40):
labor unrest, poor communityimage, a real threat of closure
due to lack of profitability,quality and safety issues, low
morale.
In two years, you turned thataround and changed that.
And we'll talk about thoseresults here in a minute.
But why in the world would youtake an opportunity like that?
And what was the first thingthat you did when you got that
opportunity?
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Well, that's a great setup and uh great question.
Let me just say this.
I didn't know it would be themost fun job or uh, you know,
what I was getting into.
So maybe if I hadn't known, orif I had known more, but you
know, it was inside a companythat I'd already worked in two
states in different positions.
So it was a promotion within,I'm not sure I was given a
(02:19):
choice.
And I will admit that I hadtoured this uh sister plant an
hour away from where I wasworking.
You know, I toured it in a monthprior, and I was so grateful.
I went back to where I wasworking thinking that I didn't
work there.
And uh, you know, I just hadthis image of thanks, and I was
like, boy, I'm glad I don't workthere.
I'll never work there, was sortof what my head said.
(02:40):
You know, and so anyhow, uh, Iguess I was offered that job.
I did accept that job, and Imean I jumped into it uh
instantly, I think like atwo-day notice or something.
Two days where I was and away itwent.
And the day I arrived, uh, Imade sure to meet all my direct
reports over the next uh 48hours.
I think I had one-on-ones of anhour each and a real in-depth
(03:01):
plant tour, and that's how I gotstarted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
That's how we were always told, right?
Go to the Gimba.
That's how we were taught.
You were taught by some of thebest.
Shingazitsu in terms of uh whatyou've done, and you've made a
delible impact on my journey interms of lean and A3 thinking.
And we know that you know thatfirst step in the process is to
find the problem that you'retrying to solve.
And it sounds like you had quitea big uh challenge to solve
(03:23):
that.
Now, there are spaces, Steve, inyour leadership and and the
folks who've worked with youknow uh how much fun it has been
uh and the wisdom that you sharewith regards to your leadership
journey.
But let's go back in time just alittle bit as to how that was
created.
Tell me a story from yourchildhood, maybe, that still
impacts who you are today, eventoday as a person or as a
(03:45):
leader.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Yeah, I really like that question.
It gives me pause for you know adeep reflection.
There were a lot of stories, butthere's one that I replay all
the time.
And uh You know, I was uhrebounding from rheumatic fever.
I lost 10 weeks of eighth grade.
We've gone through my freshmanyear of high school, and I'd
been released for my firstphysical activity, you know,
outdoors, if you will.
(04:06):
You know, no physid freshmanyear, you know, it was a
difficult time for me.
But I was I went off with theBoy Scouts to the uh Cimarron
Sito area, the Philmont ScoutRanch in New Mexico, and with
the Adirondack Council.
So this is a trip 2,000 milesfrom home by plane, or not by
plane, but by train and uh busand other ways of uh getting
(04:27):
there.
It was a 23-day trip for 10 daysof hiking.
So somewhere in about the fourthday of hiking, it was abysmal.
It was a dire situation.
It looked pretty bad.
We were in the monsoon season,so every afternoon we're getting
dumped on with heavy rains.
This particular day, the rainwas fierce, and then hail came
on top of it.
It was a heck of a light show.
And as we're setting up ourtents, there were 12 of us,
(04:49):
adult leaders included.
And uh you're sharing atwo-person tent.
It's canvas, it's heavy, there'sno bottom to it, but you know,
it's a basic provision, youknow, to get out of the
elements.
And we set up mine.
Mine was one of the two that wehad to move because there was a
river running through it withall the rain off and runoff from
the rain and and hail meltingovernight.
Uh, it was unbelievable trip.
Well, anyhow, I remembereddistinctly, and it was getting
(05:12):
dark because the storm was sofierce.
And this is about four or fivePM.
And so I looked at my backpackon the ground against a tree,
getting wet.
I took off my poncho, put itover the backpack to preserve
that, and I told myself rightthen and there in my mind that I
was gonna survive this, and Iwas gonna remember surviving
this, and this would pass, andit'll come out of this, and it's
(05:36):
gonna be okay.
And I've never forgotten that,and it and it was okay.
And it took forever to to dryout.
We built a fire that night wherewe had to split wedwood to get
into dry wood, you know, tostart a fire to dry out and so
on.
But I've never I've neverforgotten that.
SPEAKER_02 (05:52):
I can imagine that was both scary.
I mean, uh also again, we talkabout a dozen people coming
together and saying, We're gonnawe're gonna make it through
this.
Too many stories, you know.
We've heard the recent story ofthe camp, the the young
children's camp, that where theywent through a very similar
process and the results.
Yeah, Camp Mystic, yeah, thatwere not that good.
But learning your scout sealswere very important, no doubt
(06:15):
about that, as you uh wentthrough that journey.
So and that prepared you, thatgot you ready for today,
persistence uh running through.
And I know you've been through alot, Steve.
Uh you look about yourmanufacturing journey just a
little bit.
Industrial engineer from theRochester Institute of
Technology.
Now I know why uh you like theRIT so well uh when we work
together at Simpler Consulting.
(06:35):
Must be something about that interms of uh connecting you there
also.
But let's move back into thistransformation from a work
standpoint.
So we know a little bit about,you know, you may not have
chosen that yourself.
We know a little bit about whoyou are.
What were the things when youhad those one-on-ones that to be
in that position with the team?
What were the barriers or thewastes that you identified, both
(06:57):
in leadership and maybe in theshop floor that told you, man,
we I think we got a chance here.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
Yeah, I like that question.
I yeah, I was reflecting alittle bit more about the
summary I sent to you and andjust real high level here.
At this point, I was 15 yearspost-RIT.
And uh I'd worked in four plantswith three companies in two
states, twelve bosses, fivepromotions.
And so undertaking uh this job,I was reporting to the president
(07:24):
of a division with uh three ofthe plants of the 12 around the
country at Gen CorporateAutomotive at the time.
And basically I was givendirections uh to pay attention
to safety, quality, eliminationof waste.
And those are the March words.
But what really happened was Iwas given freedom to just jump
in, and uh which I'd beenprepared for, didn't know I'd
been prepared for, because I'vebeen through a lot of things,
(07:47):
and actually I'd been through alot of things where I didn't I
thought if I ever get into thisposition where I have more
degrees of freedom, I'm gonnaapproach it the way that I would
want to be approached.
And so some of the lessonslearned at that point were
lessons of how not to do things.
So how how I got started uponarrival was oh wow, these people
(08:09):
will kind of wonder who is thisguy?
Uh, you know, the dozen plantsaround the country and the three
in this division, this plant'sunprofitable.
It's uh there's more than justrumor about closing it.
I wonder who this guy is.
Yeah, here comes the corporateguy.
He's here to help.
Yeah, yeah, he's here.
Where did they get him?
What's he like?
He's down the road an hour,we've heard about him.
But so I thought it was veryimportant.
(08:29):
Uh, you know, I get an in-depthtour of the plant, but in less
than 48 hours, I spent a fullhour one-on-one with the direct
reports.
And I basically, you know, Ijust opened it up.
I just said, look, I'mso-and-so, you're a so-and-so.
Tell me a little bit about you.
Also tell me what you do, tellme a little bit about how you do
it, and then uh tell me whatconcerns you have.
(08:49):
And uh, that was the first 48hours.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
That's uh pretty amazing in of itself.
It wasn't about looking at thenumbers necessarily.
It wasn't about going out thereand pointing out where you saw
all the opportunities to improvefrom a manufacturing or
engineering standpoint.
It was about buildingrelationships from a leadership
perspective that was veryimportant.
And again, I got to believe thatyou know, working together, it
probably felt a little bit likethat rainstorm uh from the
(09:13):
scouts way back when it was interms of uh the challenges that
organization have felt.
So you go through that two yearslater, a transformed culture and
operation, explosive top-linerevenue growth, sustained
profitability, labor andcommunity harmony, breakthrough
safety improvements, and aservant leadership culture.
So, Steve, we teach systemsguys, right?
(09:34):
From a leadership standpoint,what were some of the habits in
those two years that you puttogether as the leader of that
organization to help turn itaround so quickly?
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
Yeah.
So as I met with each leader,part of that was sort of uh a
style, if you will, you know,systems.
How did they view their role?
Where did they think they wereconnecting?
And were they connecting?
So, for example, uh, one of theones I met with uh was in that
position by virtue is anengineering area, by share
talent, held a lot of patentsand a lot of individual, I'm
(10:04):
gonna say, uh, contributions,uh, and you know, all kinds of
great service.
But as a leader in the productdesign field, very uncomfortable
in leading others.
And uh that one almost threw meoff.
Uh and uh not completely, not ina bad sense, uh but in a sense
that I didn't terminate anybody.
Uh I did reassign people, andthat was the first person I
(10:28):
reassigned.
Less than a month later, thisindividual uh became just an
individual contributor, nochange in pay.
And a month later, I wasflabbergasted when he and his
wife invited us out to go tosome uh outdoor, well, actually
an indoor theater presentation,but an outside plant thing.
And his wife uh she was sothankful for this change in
(10:50):
position because it didn't fithim.
And so then I went for asuccessor.
So what I started to look for uhimmediately was people that
could uh connect with otherpeople from the standpoint of
what their function was, andthen their function connecting
with you know in across-functional way, all the
functions.
So when you talk about systems,you know, I was looking at,
(11:12):
yeah, we need to we need togather the senior staff weekly.
We'll do it more frequently ifthere's a need for it, but it's
gonna be fast and and people aregonna be prepared.
There's it's not just a randommeeting.
What's gonna be the sort ofinput process output?
Here's what I expect you to kindof bring.
Here's what we're gonna discussbecause we have a group, it's a
cross-functional group, here'sthe output, here's where we're
(11:34):
gonna go forward and you knowtake uh appropriate actions.
And so some of that role that Idid at at one point, I think I
had 10 or 11 direct reports.
At one point I had 22 when I wasmoving around, moving people
around.
I gave in the engineering area,I gave uh that was the crazy
one, I gave four or five peoplea chance to lead engineering
(11:54):
before I settled on one.
There were others I didn'tchange at all.
The the production person wasthe production person, for
example.
But I kept like a jigsaw puzzleputting together like in a
systems construct that uh youknow, we're gonna work together.
We know the functions uh need tointeract with each other.
And uh I'm gonna say integrity,honesty, the whole idea, and my
(12:16):
boss had said this to me, hesaid, look, don't shoot the
messenger in any case, is whathe said, Pope.
Just shoot the person who shootsthe messenger.
And so it was open.
If you've got a problem, I wantto know about it.
I don't want any surprises.
And that became the moniker, nosurprises.
And then it became not justSteve, no surprises, but the
team.
As we built the team, and thatextended to the entire alley
(12:40):
workforce, which was you know,it was pretty big.
I had a thousand employees.
SPEAKER_02 (12:43):
Oh my goodness.
And again, that just um overlayshow impactful it was to be able
to transform it there in twoyears.
I don't want to walk away fromthat too much, but you know, you
and I, when we worked togetheruh at the consulting company we
worked for, you and I primarilygot to work in healthcare
hospitals and clinics.
And that was kind of our area ofteaching the Toyota production
system and developing leaders.
(13:04):
And you know, the problem youjust identified with promoting
the best engineer to theengineering manager because he
was the best engineer is one ofthe biggest problems in
healthcare today, where theytake the best doctor and promote
them to the chief, or promotethem even worse, to the CEO and
never give them the support theyneed on how to be a leader
inside of the organization.
(13:24):
So recognizing those who are theleaders, the influencers, the
ones who are able to get folksto move forward, and recognizing
individual contributors who youknow need to help you make rain,
basically, get stuff done, areso important on the leader's
part.
And again, you get this on yourjourney.
Were there, and you mentionedwhat not to do, were there
(13:45):
individuals who had an influenceon you uh to help you develop
your leadership style?
How did how did you get to thatpoint where it became so
transformational and culturalversus you know demand and uh
control?
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
Yeah, so there indeed were, and uh, and
sometimes I didn't alwaysappreciate or understand uh what
was happening.
So, so for example, the uh theprior year, 19, just one year
prior to taking on thisengagement, the boss I had at
this time, at that time, was thethird plant manager in this one
place where I was for less thanfive years.
And uh there had been a uhfairly militant strike.
(14:21):
And uh and he actually, as adevelopment project, sent me to
the negotiation table uh fourmonths prior to the strike as a
key management representative.
Now there was an HR executive,uh colleague up here, didn't
have any union experience, whichwhich I did.
She did not and and so helpingout with that.
(14:41):
Well, we spent, I don't know, 60days at the table over four
months uh without getting acontract.
Uh you know, it wasn't ratified.
It was there's a whole insidestory of that.
But I remember kind ofcomplaining.
Uh, you know I can complain.
I was complaining a little bitto my boss about this, and he
was saying, look, he said, don'tjudge this too soon.
(15:02):
He said, You you have no ideawhat you're learning uh by this.
And uh, you know, this will belike take a manufacturing term,
this will be like annealing you.
This will be temporary, thiswill give you a larger capacity
to deal with people.
And no matter what thetechnology is, there's always
people behind it.
So stick with it.
(15:22):
Do not prejudge what's going tohappen, strike this, that, or
whatever.
And he was absolutely right.
He was a top-down boss, but heeventually, starting with that
and then post-strike, actuallyyielded his style more to and
his boss was 25 years moresenior.
So he was very seasoned in adifferent way, but we shared the
frontier after that.
(15:44):
I think there was a uh deepmutual respect.
I remember telling him at onepoint in a strike when I would
disagree on how things werebeing done.
Uh, he had two sons, they'reabout the same age.
I said, I'm not one of yoursons.
Uh, you know, we're here to worktogether as a team.
You know, I took some boldcomments and we worked through
them in a bold way, and we hadgreat success coming out of
that.
SPEAKER_02 (16:02):
Love that.
When influencers can help andyou can look back on that and
recognize who made a differencein that space.
Steve, you share with me kind ofuh a list of these 11 points.
I think it's your book.
You know, that's your point ofview.
It could be a book.
I think it's that, and I don'tmean that in a negative, I mean
that in a positive as to how youdid that turnaround.
I obviously we don't have timeto go through all 11 points that
(16:22):
you gave me in terms of whathappened over those two years.
But there are a couple thatstruck me that I wanted to just
kind of bring up because I sensethat many leaders today are
faced with the same problem some30 years later in terms of
what's happening.
The first one was accountabilitywith dignity.
Tell me more.
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
Yeah.
So uh this actual plant locationalso had a militant strike just
two years prior.
In fact, you know, there weresome pretty high civil
disobedience and rolling ofcars, starting fires.
It was a tough, toughenvironment.
There were also on themanagement side, which I didn't
see as a positive, there wouldbe communications and meetings
(17:00):
that were mandatory, which Ialways found that was like
throwing a red flag like infront of a bull.
Something's mandatory.
So uh one of the things Iinstituted immediately was uh I
got rid of mandatory meetings.
And uh I had some small groupshift meetings.
I I ramped it up to eight ofthem a month where I would meet
with somebody at a birthday oranniversary with the company, so
(17:21):
twice a year they got to come tothis meeting.
But then I had broad meetingswith everyone.
And in the first broad meeting,which was done the first 30
days, I announced we didn't havemandatory meetings.
I didn't feel that was anappropriate way to run things.
I wanted people to come tomeetings because they want to be
part of the team, part of thesuccess, part of where we're
going forward.
I did lay down uh independent ofa union contract or management
(17:46):
protocols, procedures, I justsaid, look, I here here's what I
expect.
I expect you to come to uh youknow, come to work.
I mean that's that's the firstthing and follow safety rules.
Come to work and be here andthen be safe.
And a third thing is beproductive.
And if you come to work and youfollow the rules and you're safe
and you're productive, we'regonna get along great.
(18:07):
And I said we are gonna worktogether and I will continue to
show you and share with you thefuture I see for this plant.
And I think I packaged in atthat point a comment about
customer visits.
And I said customers haven'tvisited in a long time.
We're gonna have customers comein here, we're gonna clean up
this place, it's gonna be aplace of pride, and uh we're
gonna own it, and we have it.
(18:27):
And and that really that set thetone.
I mean, two years later, peoplewere bragging about working at
the place, and there was somelevel of bling on an improvement
teams with shirts and stuff, andso it is an unbelievably
different vibe than when I gotthere.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
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(19:04):
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Now let's get back to the F.
Again, and I believe it becauseI know I know how you are,
Steve, with that digney here I'dheard.
Set the vision so that folks cansee what that is, set the
(19:24):
expectations or the principlesthat we're to follow as a part
of that, and that if we can, youknow, ultimately follow those
principles, we are going to besuccessful.
I'm pretty sure, given athousand people, that you may or
may not have may not have had100% of the folks that were uh
following those principles andreally uh in support of that
(19:45):
vision.
How did you deal with those whowere the naysayers or the ones
that we like to call them anchordraggers in our world or
whatever they are?
How'd you deal with them?
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, that happens.
And that's a great question.
So I didn't know when I startedthis uh smaller group meetings
where And that's how we got toknow names.
So a thousand employees in twoyears.
Uh how many names did I know?
Over half, over five hundred.
So I didn't know every singleperson, but I knew quite a few
of them.
And I knew the rebel rousers.
(20:13):
And, you know, and I I wouldmake sure I find a place where I
could engage with them on thefloor.
I was pretty fearless and alwayson the floor, seldomly in the
office.
The small shift meetings wherethey had a birthday or an
anniversary.
It was a big enough plant thatit had a cafeteria.
And so I gave away uh acafeteria slip for a meal.
If you so I put a littleincentive, a little inducement.
(20:34):
You come to one of thesemeetings, give you a chip, it's
an old-fashioned term, and noproblem, whatever.
Well, in the first few meetings,uh, there were two unions uh at
the time, and uh the leaderswould come.
They had a brick and mortar uhbig enough place, so they had
brick and mortar, you know,headquarters right across the
street.
And they would show up at allthe meetings because they
thought I would be the I'm therebel riser, rouser.
(20:55):
Uh but I just started tocommunicate the theme of uh
safety, quality, elimination ofwaste.
We have new products coming in.
Yes, there's products movingout, yes, they're moving to
Canada, even a differentcountry.
Uh, but we're vibration control,we're growing, uh, the new
products are coming, the newcustomers are coming.
And so I kept pounding on thatvision.
I pounded on the fact of howwe're gonna approach problem
(21:18):
solving.
So, like safety, I said you mayhave heard that uh, you know, if
somebody is injured, they're inan OSHA recordable, as we may
call it, that person is gonna beon the uh problem solving team.
Uh they're automaticallydrafted, they're part of it,
we're gonna get their input andthey're gonna be part of it.
So to answer your question ofhow how did you overcome the the
ones that aren't on board, whatwhat started to happen is the
(21:41):
the union leaders would uh notcome to all, say, eight
meetings.
They might come to one just tokind of find out what's going
on.
Then they started to get excitedand then they started to talk.
And then there was also, Ididn't mention in the stuff I
sent to you, there was a companynewsletter that was put together
by the hourly people.
And uh wow, I I think the secondin command was also married to
(22:02):
the head of the largest union.
And uh I don't know why, but shereally liked me.
And we got along well.
So it all started with could youwrite something for our
newsletter?
And they weren't used togetting, you know, necessarily
the plant manager all the time.
And so I wrote every month.
Pretty soon they asked me tohelp out editing, which I did
too.
So what happened is the people,there's no mandatory meetings.
(22:24):
I can get a cafeteria mail.
Oh, by the way, I found out someinteresting things.
Oh, there's this newsletter, andof course, ultimately we had a
company picnic the second year,the second summer.
And so word spread.
That's what I would say.
Organic spread is what took careof, so there probably still some
people, even knockleheads, youmight, but they uh they were not
showing up to mess with thingsanymore.
(22:46):
There was there were notcigarette butts on the floor
anymore, there weren't uh wholerandom holes in drywall, there
wasn't graffiti in thebathrooms.
All all this stuff got cleanedup and uh it was different.
It was just different.
And so now it was like if you'rethe rebel rouser, you're sort of
the odd person out now.
And it just changed.
SPEAKER_02 (23:04):
And changed that because it's recognizing the
continued performance of thosewho are making a positive
impact.
And while not ignoring, butcertainly not allowing the
energy of the rebel rousers touh deflate what's happening
inside of the organization.
Too many times it actually endsup being opposite.
The rebel rousers end up gettingmore energy from the leadership
(23:26):
team.
And we can talk about how thatworks in companies, how it works
in families, that it's just nota good thing.
I mean, it's something thathappens.
Steve, I I love and I could talkabout the you know, the lean uh
tools, the elimination of waste,the quality improvement.
Uh one of the things you talkedabout was the physical renewal
as a symbolic change.
I'll call that the 5S andshining it up and getting rid
(23:47):
of, to your point, getting ridof the graffiti, cleaning up the
equipment.
I'm sure that that was a hugepart of what you had done as
well.
You get to this two point twoyear point, and this is where
I'm looking for you to give someencouragement to leaders out
there.
They work really hard, you pushthe ball up the hill, you solve
these problems, you get thingsgoing really well, and it's time
for you to, you know, just takeyour next opportunity.
(24:09):
You walk away from it and theball rolls back downhill again.
What were some of the systems,or how would you encourage other
leaders to ensure that, youknow, in essence, when they
leave it better than theystarted, but also so that it
stays in that condition evenwhen you're not there anymore?
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
Yeah, which is uh which is a really good point.
And the the time of thistransformation, by the way, is I
had had some lean exposure, uh,America can't compete and so on,
but it was prior, just prior tojoining Freudenburg NOK, where I
got a deep dive.
And uh so I had been to Japan,I've been exposed to Toyota,
Toyota partnerships.
And uh so we're using uh thoseprinciples 5S, TPM, and cleaning
(24:49):
the equipment and and spreadingthat around.
So, how how would you prepare soyou walk away someday and that
just doesn't roll backwards, asyou say.
So the I know what that lookslike, but to build that is
another story.
What it looks like is that nowpeople have, starting with their
leaders, the servant leaders atthe top, have actually committed
to a new way of doing things.
(25:10):
Their mind has been transformed,they're doing things
differently.
So take that example of a safetyissue where someone was on the
team and they had been injuredor lost time, and now they had a
chance to meaningfullyparticipate in how that wouldn't
happen again.
Now their minds changed.
(25:31):
Uh the senior leaders, uh I tookthem off-site quarterly.
You know, we would start today,and then we'd take off, go to
lunch, and then I would I'veactually developed a whole
manual for them with I thinkthere were 31 chapters
eventually of of key items andhow to operate and uh move
forward in old rat and thingslike that, uh, and some exercise
(25:53):
and how to calculate and dothings.
So so there were uh cookiecrumbs, I think, being developed
on uh procedures, uh not to thepoint of what I would call
standard work with tack timeyet, but with key points.
Here's how we're gonna dothings, and that was with each
department, each leader.
And uh certainly there werethings that uh let's talk about
(26:14):
quality, for example.
Quality was another spreadacross the entire plant, every
single employee.
So that was taught on the frontend that yes, we have a quality
department.
Uh actually it changed thetitle.
We got rid of quality control,told them there's no such thing.
We don't have a quality controldepartment.
We have a quality department,and uh, they're knowledge
people, and they're gonna teachproblem solving PDSA, and
(26:37):
they're gonna be the guardiansof the methodology, but quality
is every single person'sresponsibility.
So we started to build in thatsort of mentality as well.
So now mentality is changingregardless of who's at the top,
and we're building this culturewhere and you could see it in
the newsletter spread witheverybody want to be in a
newsletter, talk about theirarea and what they had done, and
(26:58):
we did it.
And then you sort of got this,and we did it.
And the more you got the buy-in,we did it, the more the
ownership was transferred uh tothe people actually doing the
work.
And I think that was a huge keyin turning around this facility
and uh in a two-year span.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
Yeah, recognizing implementing those new
disciplines, right?
I mean, and the way we do thingsas leaders, though whether it's
the quarterly management systemreviews of what you have going
on, the operating model thatsays this is how we're gonna run
the departments.
To your point, it might not becycle time equal attack time,
standard work in place, but itwas the habits and disciplines
(27:36):
to be successful as a leader.
And you documented it, it soundslike you documented it.
I mean, I can actually probablysee your workbook as you
documented that in the 31chapters and and made it
available to them.
SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
It was it was there and and there were different uh
we didn't leave anybody behind.
So, for example, uh even intechnology, you know, this plant
uh went to what was calledsingle pass rubber mixing,
natural rubber mixing.
We mixed uh rubber for fiveother plants, and we had we had
four mixing lines.
Only one was vibration control,our own division.
(28:06):
The others are all synthetic,but we had partners in Germany
and Japan that were two-passingrubber, using rubber just twice
before they would mold it.
We were doing three pass on the1950s.
We did a leapfrog at Christmastime of my first year, the
single pass with every knowncritic you could think of, like
are you people nuts?
And then we had every chemist inthe state of Indiana, so outside
(28:29):
just our division on duty fortwo months after a Christmas
shutdown to make the changeover,just to dial in all this stuff.
Well, then this was newsworthy.
Went in the local newspaper, andthis was where some of the most
macho people would work.
And we actually, you know, wereable to, you know, realize a
couple crew reduction.
And so, you know, thecommunication was we're gonna
(28:50):
we're gonna advertise and sellrubber to the outside world,
rubber and plastic news.
So it was always having a storyon how to move things forward.
So all directed at your point ofnot wanting to fall backwards,
because when I got recruited outof there, we were at the table
getting actually getting aharmonious labor contract.
Oh wow.
And we had great relations inthe community.
(29:11):
I joined the rotary club, I knewthe mayor, the chief of police,
uh, you know, all these pieceswere there were a lot of pieces.
You know, back to thinking aboutbeing fun, uh, the best job I
ever had.
So I was moving so fast in theplant was I just didn't even
have time to to recall how muchfun it was.
It was just ever every day wasmoving at lightning speed.
(29:31):
And you're just as slow as aperson, you don't even recognize
it, right?
And that's uh I didn't recognizeat all.
I just it was it was it was justgood movement and every
everybody was on board.
And it was uh that's whyhighlight is the best job I ever
had.
I've had a lot of jobs sincethen, but that that one was uh
it was unfettered in the sensethat I hadn't had that much
freedom part of that time, and Ihadn't had a developed even
(29:53):
script.
I just wanted to be treated theway I would like to be treated,
and I used some insights of hownot to be treated, and I just
look at the data and thelandscape and started to push
the buttons.
Where did we need to be?
I guess I was the chief personto prioritize things, but
anyhow, that's and I when Ileft, by the way, that plant
(30:13):
continued for almost twodecades, and you know, it was it
was bought.
SPEAKER_02 (30:18):
That's the wedge that held there that helped
allowed it to keep going.
So cool.
So great to hear that.
Steve, look, we've gone througha lot.
We've gone through kind of thescout days in terms of you being
a scout, uh, industrial engineerfrom Rochester Institute of
Technology, and certainly asuccessful executive in
manufacturing.
Uh you and I briefly talkedabout, and you know, from a time
standpoint, we can never go inand we wouldn't get out of the
(30:39):
holes of discussing workingtogether for you're my first
supervisor at the consultingcompany that we worked for.
We did that, I did that with youfor 10 years in terms of going
through that journey andappreciated all the mentoring
that you gave me to you know putsome of those things in place in
healthcare as well.
And you know, we could debate,not you and I, but we could
debate uh the impact that we'vehad on that industry as we look
(31:00):
at where things are withhealthcare today.
But I know that the things we'redoing were making it better.
And your life isn't defined asany of those one things, Steve,
in terms of what you did.
But I also know that you're astrong man of faith.
Um, when you think about yourjourney on the faith side as
well and how your relationshipwith God has impacted who you
are, how did that play a role inyour leadership style and the
(31:21):
things that you've done as well?
SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
Yeah, I I like that question too.
So I've reflected on that uh,you know, each and every year as
I've you know become older andhave uh strengthened my faith
and my faith journey as opposedto, I think in the early days it
was embedded, thankfully.
And I didn't necessarily uhwell, I'll just say it this way
I didn't praise God enough forthe things that were happening.
(31:44):
I think I was not in tune enoughto realize, hey, the Holy
Spirit's really guiding me.
You know, certain doors open,certain doors closed.
And uh, you know, I was probablya little bit too much in love
with self then, thinking I'mdoing all this, and found out
no, I'm not, I'm not doing allthis.
And maybe I've been blessed withsome talents and equip.
But and I I think uh you know,it goes back even to high
(32:08):
school.
You know, we we had a retreat ona given uh weekend with lay
people coming to our church andanswered an altar call then.
I was uh president of the youthorganization then, so I had a
seat with the adults to plan theretreat.
It was quite meaningful.
When I was off in college andoff campus, it was on campus and
then you know, off campus thelast several years.
(32:29):
Yeah, and I was the guy runningthe townhouse.
We had seven of us in it, youknow, tried to get the cost
down.
I think I slept in the furnaceroom or something.
But they ended we ended up uh weasked one person to leave who we
didn't approve of the behavior,and we started to get people
that had faith in Jesus.
And I can remember at one pointuh praying.
(32:50):
I had to make up a course inphysics in my later years, you
know.
It was a engineering back in uhwhen I went to school, there was
a process to winnow people out.
That was absolutely thephilosophy.
So, you know, a group of 150mechanical, electrical,
industrial when we graduated,you know, it was less than a
hundred, and that included 20transfers or so.
(33:10):
So people dropped out.
Now, one of the things inphysics in particular, you know,
if you could come up with a30-point average on a hundred
scale, you might get a C in thecourse.
And, you know, uh straight onthe curve.
Just the way it was.
And so I'll never forget in myChristian walk that uh one of
the uh roommates suggested I wasgoing, I was pretty nervous
(33:31):
getting ready for this test nearthe end of the quarter and need
to pass this.
And he said, Well, let's pray.
And I was like, Oh yeah, we'vetalked about God, we've talked
about Jesus.
Yeah, let's pray.
So we prayed.
And I never felt so calm in mylife.
I uh I went in, I took the test.
Uh I prayed a little we had agroup prayer at uh townhouse,
(33:51):
but when I was in class beforethat, I just prayed to God and I
just laid it out and I said,God, if it's not your will for
me to be an engineer, then I'mnot gonna pass this course.
And uh if um I'll do whatever.
So uh just give me peace ofmind.
I'm gonna do my best and I'vegot to move forward.
And uh anyhow, I passed thecourse and and so on.
Uh the the point of what I wouldleave going forward on this
(34:12):
whole discussion is thatlistening to God and that faith
in is just grown stronger andstronger.
Now it is so very strong, youknow.
I even fill in the pulpit.
So, you know, I was preachinglast Sunday at a not my church,
another church.
I'm preaching this Sunday.
I facilitate or co-lead a coupleof studies.
I'm in a study group Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.
One one is Zoom only, the othertwo are in person.
(34:34):
I find it indispensable as partof my life.
And it's built into what I dowith everyone, and that would be
friends, family, and so on.
It's uh and I want everybody toknow Jesus.
It's uh I don't know how manyyears I have left, I don't, but
I I believe I was created for apurpose uh by God, and uh it's
(34:55):
in my DNA to recognize God,serve God, and claim Jesus.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
So I'm quite sure you'll have the you'll hear
those words well done, good andfaithful servant at some point,
Steve.
I love you sharing that andcarrying out that great
commission to make disciples.
You know, your LinkedIn profile,and I'll put a link to that for
folks because they can even sendyou a note there to be connected
with you.
It says retired on there.
And you know, I'm sensing thatyou are not necessarily the
traditional retired and just outplaying golf and pickleball on a
(35:23):
regular basis, but still veryactive in taking, you know, the
things that you learned,frankly, in your manufacturing
world and in our consulting andhealthcare days and using them
for the uh ministry uh andmaking a positive impact.
And you know, for that, Steve, Icontinue to be grateful for what
you continue to do, you know,the impact that you made on me
and what you're doing in thelives of others, utilizing your
(35:44):
faith as well.
Steve, I want to give you thelast word.
This conversation's been great.
I have way overstayed my timewith you, but we may have to do
this again.
I always ask my first-time guestthe question at the end about
the mantra or message theyreally want to leave leaders
with.
I'll give you a billboard.
You can put that billboardanywhere you want to.
What's the message you're gonnaput on that billboard and why do
you put it on there?
SPEAKER_00 (36:05):
So uh I'll tie this into the first question you had,
the time and the downpour ofrain and hail and how bleak and
so on.
So what I think what changedforever in me then was in my
mind.
So I put I put that situation inmy mind.
It was sort of like a mind overmatter or positive mind.
It was like, I know this lookspretty bad, I'm telling myself.
(36:27):
And I'm going, I'm not gonna letit bother me.
And what am I gonna do?
Okay, everything everything'sgetting wet.
Okay, you know, I can dry out.
Let's throw this poncho over,you know, on top of the pack.
I can preserve that, the restI'll worry about later.
So I did a little bit ofprioritization, but the main
thing I got out of that was themind, the power of the mind.
(36:48):
And so I would the billboardwould be mind cultivation.
It would be what you feed, whata person feeds their mind is
what they become and what theycan do.
And you can have some controlover that.
I believe God has given us somecontrol, a lot of control,
really, in deciding what to feedthe mind.
And so I feed, I feed the mindscripture every day from the
(37:12):
good book, from the Bible, andlook for wisdom, not man's
wisdom, but God's wisdom.
And so my billboard would bewatch your mind.
And in your mind, your heartfollows.
So what's in your heart, what'sin your mind, uh, you want to
guard that.
You want to guard your heart,you want to guard your mind, and
you want to feed it not withjunk food, but with the right
stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (37:31):
Amen, brother.
Feed it well.
You know, Philippians 4.8 isreally clear.
Whatever is true, whatever isnoble, whatever is right,
excellent, or praiseworthy.
Think on those things and putthose things into your mind, and
then ultimately put those intopractice.
Steve, this has been fun.
I know we don't get a chance toconnect enough.
I've enjoyed the conversation.
I am so uh honored to chat withyou, but also recognize that
(37:55):
blessed to be able to uh be ledby you and and to call you
friend as well.
I wish you the best goingforward, and I want to thank you
for being a guest on theUncommon Leader podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Well, thank you so much for gladly share with you.
Thanks for those years where wework together.
SPEAKER_02 (38:38):
You need to share this with somebody else.
You may need to go back andlisten to it.
You can ultimately have some ofthe tips and some of the
enforcement conversations if weshare with somebody else.
I know that's very helpful aswell.
And it helps us get it into thehands of more leaders with DDU
that really well.
I think I'll still leave us upwith you.
(38:58):
And that also gets it into thehands of more listeners.
So until next time, go and gochat.
Hey Uncommon Leaders, welcome back.
This is the Uncommon LeaderPodcast.
I'm your host, John Gallagher.
You know, there are times inyour life when you get a chance
to have leaders who have made adifference in your life.
You get a chance to haveconversations with them on the
side, but you rarely get achance to ultimately have them
share their side of the impactthat they've had.
I've got a gentleman today,Steve Madison, who I've known
(00:44):
for about 15 years, who's goingto share his leadership journey
and some of the things that haveimpacted not just his work, but
his life as well.
I'm excited about thisconversation we're going to
have.
We're going to talk aboutmanufacturing.
We're going to talk aboutleadership.
We're going to talk about faith.
And we'll probably talk about acouple of stories we've had
working together over the yearsthat still make us laugh today.
(01:05):
So, Steve Madison, welcome tothe Uncommon Leader Podcast.
How are you doing today, friend?
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
Hey, hi, John.
I'm doing great.
And uh it's always good to seeyou and see your smile and
people like you that smile andmake a difference.
So thanks so much.
SPEAKER_02 (01:19):
Well, let's jump right into this conversation.
I'm excited about it today,Steve.
I know we're going to have fun.
I'll probably overrun my time,but we'll see how that goes.
The first thing I want to talkabout, you shared a document
with me that was really cool,the best job that you ever had.
And ultimately was about yourmost fun job.
But let me tee it up just alittle bit in terms of what you
said.
You stepped into a leadershiprole of a plant where there was
(01:40):
labor unrest, poor communityimage, a real threat of closure
due to lack of profitability,quality and safety issues, low
morale.
In two years, you turned thataround and changed that.
And we'll talk about thoseresults here in a minute.
But why in the world would youtake an opportunity like that?
And what was the first thingthat you did when you got that
opportunity?
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Well, that's a great setup and uh great question.
Let me just say this.
I didn't know it would be themost fun job or uh, you know,
what I was getting into.
So maybe if I hadn't known, orif I had known more, but you
know, it was inside a companythat I'd already worked in two
states in different positions.
So it was a promotion within,I'm not sure I was given a
(02:19):
choice.
And I will admit that I hadtoured this uh sister plant an
hour away from where I wasworking.
You know, I toured it in a monthprior, and I was so grateful.
I went back to where I wasworking thinking that I didn't
work there.
And uh, you know, I just hadthis image of thanks, and I was
like, boy, I'm glad I don't workthere.
I'll never work there, was sortof what my head said.
(02:40):
You know, and so anyhow, uh, Iguess I was offered that job.
I did accept that job, and Imean I jumped into it uh
instantly, I think like atwo-day notice or something.
Two days where I was and away itwent.
And the day I arrived, uh, Imade sure to meet all my direct
reports over the next uh 48hours.
I think I had one-on-ones of anhour each and a real in-depth
(03:01):
plant tour, and that's how I gotstarted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
That's how we were always told, right?
Go to the Gimba.
That's how we were taught.
You were taught by some of thebest.
Shingazitsu in terms of uh whatyou've done, and you've made a
delible impact on my journey interms of lean and A3 thinking.
And we know that you know thatfirst step in the process is to
find the problem that you'retrying to solve.
And it sounds like you had quitea big uh challenge to solve
(03:23):
that.
Now, there are spaces, Steve, inyour leadership and and the
folks who've worked with youknow uh how much fun it has been
uh and the wisdom that you sharewith regards to your leadership
journey.
But let's go back in time just alittle bit as to how that was
created.
Tell me a story from yourchildhood, maybe, that still
impacts who you are today, eventoday as a person or as a
(03:45):
leader.
SPEAKER_00 (03:46):
Yeah, I really like that question.
It gives me pause for you know adeep reflection.
There were a lot of stories, butthere's one that I replay all
the time.
And uh You know, I was uhrebounding from rheumatic fever.
I lost 10 weeks of eighth grade.
We've gone through my freshmanyear of high school, and I'd
been released for my firstphysical activity, you know,
outdoors, if you will.
(04:06):
You know, no physid freshmanyear, you know, it was a
difficult time for me.
But I was I went off with theBoy Scouts to the uh Cimarron
Sito area, the Philmont ScoutRanch in New Mexico, and with
the Adirondack Council.
So this is a trip 2,000 milesfrom home by plane, or not by
plane, but by train and uh busand other ways of uh getting
(04:27):
there.
It was a 23-day trip for 10 daysof hiking.
So somewhere in about the fourthday of hiking, it was abysmal.
It was a dire situation.
It looked pretty bad.
We were in the monsoon season,so every afternoon we're getting
dumped on with heavy rains.
This particular day, the rainwas fierce, and then hail came
on top of it.
It was a heck of a light show.
And as we're setting up ourtents, there were 12 of us,
(04:49):
adult leaders included.
And uh you're sharing atwo-person tent.
It's canvas, it's heavy, there'sno bottom to it, but you know,
it's a basic provision, youknow, to get out of the
elements.
And we set up mine.
Mine was one of the two that wehad to move because there was a
river running through it withall the rain off and runoff from
the rain and and hail meltingovernight.
Uh, it was unbelievable trip.
Well, anyhow, I remembereddistinctly, and it was getting
(05:12):
dark because the storm was sofierce.
And this is about four or fivePM.
And so I looked at my backpackon the ground against a tree,
getting wet.
I took off my poncho, put itover the backpack to preserve
that, and I told myself rightthen and there in my mind that I
was gonna survive this, and Iwas gonna remember surviving
this, and this would pass, andit'll come out of this, and it's
(05:36):
gonna be okay.
And I've never forgotten that,and it and it was okay.
And it took forever to to dryout.
We built a fire that night wherewe had to split wedwood to get
into dry wood, you know, tostart a fire to dry out and so
on.
But I've never I've neverforgotten that.
SPEAKER_02 (05:52):
I can imagine that was both scary.
I mean, uh also again, we talkabout a dozen people coming
together and saying, We're gonnawe're gonna make it through
this.
Too many stories, you know.
We've heard the recent story ofthe camp, the the young
children's camp, that where theywent through a very similar
process and the results.
Yeah, Camp Mystic, yeah, thatwere not that good.
But learning your scout sealswere very important, no doubt
(06:15):
about that, as you uh wentthrough that journey.
So and that prepared you, thatgot you ready for today,
persistence uh running through.
And I know you've been through alot, Steve.
Uh you look about yourmanufacturing journey just a
little bit.
Industrial engineer from theRochester Institute of
Technology.
Now I know why uh you like theRIT so well uh when we work
together at Simpler Consulting.
(06:35):
Must be something about that interms of uh connecting you there
also.
But let's move back into thistransformation from a work
standpoint.
So we know a little bit about,you know, you may not have
chosen that yourself.
We know a little bit about whoyou are.
What were the things when youhad those one-on-ones that to be
in that position with the team?
What were the barriers or thewastes that you identified, both
(06:57):
in leadership and maybe in theshop floor that told you, man,
we I think we got a chance here.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
Yeah, I like that question.
I yeah, I was reflecting alittle bit more about the
summary I sent to you and andjust real high level here.
At this point, I was 15 yearspost-RIT.
And uh I'd worked in four plantswith three companies in two
states, twelve bosses, fivepromotions.
And so undertaking uh this job,I was reporting to the president
(07:24):
of a division with uh three ofthe plants of the 12 around the
country at Gen CorporateAutomotive at the time.
And basically I was givendirections uh to pay attention
to safety, quality, eliminationof waste.
And those are the March words.
But what really happened was Iwas given freedom to just jump
in, and uh which I'd beenprepared for, didn't know I'd
been prepared for, because I'vebeen through a lot of things,
(07:47):
and actually I'd been through alot of things where I didn't I
thought if I ever get into thisposition where I have more
degrees of freedom, I'm gonnaapproach it the way that I would
want to be approached.
And so some of the lessonslearned at that point were
lessons of how not to do things.
So how how I got started uponarrival was oh wow, these people
(08:09):
will kind of wonder who is thisguy?
Uh, you know, the dozen plantsaround the country and the three
in this division, this plant'sunprofitable.
It's uh there's more than justrumor about closing it.
I wonder who this guy is.
Yeah, here comes the corporateguy.
He's here to help.
Yeah, yeah, he's here.
Where did they get him?
What's he like?
He's down the road an hour,we've heard about him.
But so I thought it was veryimportant.
(08:29):
Uh, you know, I get an in-depthtour of the plant, but in less
than 48 hours, I spent a fullhour one-on-one with the direct
reports.
And I basically, you know, Ijust opened it up.
I just said, look, I'mso-and-so, you're a so-and-so.
Tell me a little bit about you.
Also tell me what you do, tellme a little bit about how you do
it, and then uh tell me whatconcerns you have.
(08:49):
And uh, that was the first 48hours.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
That's uh pretty amazing in of itself.
It wasn't about looking at thenumbers necessarily.
It wasn't about going out thereand pointing out where you saw
all the opportunities to improvefrom a manufacturing or
engineering standpoint.
It was about buildingrelationships from a leadership
perspective that was veryimportant.
And again, I got to believe thatyou know, working together, it
probably felt a little bit likethat rainstorm uh from the
(09:13):
scouts way back when it was interms of uh the challenges that
organization have felt.
So you go through that two yearslater, a transformed culture and
operation, explosive top-linerevenue growth, sustained
profitability, labor andcommunity harmony, breakthrough
safety improvements, and aservant leadership culture.
So, Steve, we teach systemsguys, right?
(09:34):
From a leadership standpoint,what were some of the habits in
those two years that you puttogether as the leader of that
organization to help turn itaround so quickly?
SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
Yeah.
So as I met with each leader,part of that was sort of uh a
style, if you will, you know,systems.
How did they view their role?
Where did they think they wereconnecting?
And were they connecting?
So, for example, uh, one of theones I met with uh was in that
position by virtue is anengineering area, by share
talent, held a lot of patentsand a lot of individual, I'm
(10:04):
gonna say, uh, contributions,uh, and you know, all kinds of
great service.
But as a leader in the productdesign field, very uncomfortable
in leading others.
And uh that one almost threw meoff.
Uh and uh not completely, not ina bad sense, uh but in a sense
that I didn't terminate anybody.
Uh I did reassign people, andthat was the first person I
(10:28):
reassigned.
Less than a month later, thisindividual uh became just an
individual contributor, nochange in pay.
And a month later, I wasflabbergasted when he and his
wife invited us out to go tosome uh outdoor, well, actually
an indoor theater presentation,but an outside plant thing.
And his wife uh she was sothankful for this change in
(10:50):
position because it didn't fithim.
And so then I went for asuccessor.
So what I started to look for uhimmediately was people that
could uh connect with otherpeople from the standpoint of
what their function was, andthen their function connecting
with you know in across-functional way, all the
functions.
So when you talk about systems,you know, I was looking at,
(11:12):
yeah, we need to we need togather the senior staff weekly.
We'll do it more frequently ifthere's a need for it, but it's
gonna be fast and and people aregonna be prepared.
There's it's not just a randommeeting.
What's gonna be the sort ofinput process output?
Here's what I expect you to kindof bring.
Here's what we're gonna discussbecause we have a group, it's a
cross-functional group, here'sthe output, here's where we're
(11:34):
gonna go forward and you knowtake uh appropriate actions.
And so some of that role that Idid at at one point, I think I
had 10 or 11 direct reports.
At one point I had 22 when I wasmoving around, moving people
around.
I gave in the engineering area,I gave uh that was the crazy
one, I gave four or five peoplea chance to lead engineering
(11:54):
before I settled on one.
There were others I didn'tchange at all.
The the production person wasthe production person, for
example.
But I kept like a jigsaw puzzleputting together like in a
systems construct that uh youknow, we're gonna work together.
We know the functions uh need tointeract with each other.
And uh I'm gonna say integrity,honesty, the whole idea, and my
(12:16):
boss had said this to me, hesaid, look, don't shoot the
messenger in any case, is whathe said, Pope.
Just shoot the person who shootsthe messenger.
And so it was open.
If you've got a problem, I wantto know about it.
I don't want any surprises.
And that became the moniker, nosurprises.
And then it became not justSteve, no surprises, but the
team.
As we built the team, and thatextended to the entire alley
(12:40):
workforce, which was you know,it was pretty big.
I had a thousand employees.
SPEAKER_02 (12:43):
Oh my goodness.
And again, that just um overlayshow impactful it was to be able
to transform it there in twoyears.
I don't want to walk away fromthat too much, but you know, you
and I, when we worked togetheruh at the consulting company we
worked for, you and I primarilygot to work in healthcare
hospitals and clinics.
And that was kind of our area ofteaching the Toyota production
system and developing leaders.
(13:04):
And you know, the problem youjust identified with promoting
the best engineer to theengineering manager because he
was the best engineer is one ofthe biggest problems in
healthcare today, where theytake the best doctor and promote
them to the chief, or promotethem even worse, to the CEO and
never give them the support theyneed on how to be a leader
inside of the organization.
(13:24):
So recognizing those who are theleaders, the influencers, the
ones who are able to get folksto move forward, and recognizing
individual contributors who youknow need to help you make rain,
basically, get stuff done, areso important on the leader's
part.
And again, you get this on yourjourney.
Were there, and you mentionedwhat not to do, were there
(13:45):
individuals who had an influenceon you uh to help you develop
your leadership style?
How did how did you get to thatpoint where it became so
transformational and culturalversus you know demand and uh
control?
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
Yeah, so there indeed were, and uh, and
sometimes I didn't alwaysappreciate or understand uh what
was happening.
So, so for example, the uh theprior year, 19, just one year
prior to taking on thisengagement, the boss I had at
this time, at that time, was thethird plant manager in this one
place where I was for less thanfive years.
And uh there had been a uhfairly militant strike.
(14:21):
And uh and he actually, as adevelopment project, sent me to
the negotiation table uh fourmonths prior to the strike as a
key management representative.
Now there was an HR executive,uh colleague up here, didn't
have any union experience, whichwhich I did.
She did not and and so helpingout with that.
(14:41):
Well, we spent, I don't know, 60days at the table over four
months uh without getting acontract.
Uh you know, it wasn't ratified.
It was there's a whole insidestory of that.
But I remember kind ofcomplaining.
Uh, you know I can complain.
I was complaining a little bitto my boss about this, and he
was saying, look, he said, don'tjudge this too soon.
(15:02):
He said, You you have no ideawhat you're learning uh by this.
And uh, you know, this will belike take a manufacturing term,
this will be like annealing you.
This will be temporary, thiswill give you a larger capacity
to deal with people.
And no matter what thetechnology is, there's always
people behind it.
So stick with it.
(15:22):
Do not prejudge what's going tohappen, strike this, that, or
whatever.
And he was absolutely right.
He was a top-down boss, but heeventually, starting with that
and then post-strike, actuallyyielded his style more to and
his boss was 25 years moresenior.
So he was very seasoned in adifferent way, but we shared the
frontier after that.
(15:44):
I think there was a uh deepmutual respect.
I remember telling him at onepoint in a strike when I would
disagree on how things werebeing done.
Uh, he had two sons, they'reabout the same age.
I said, I'm not one of yoursons.
Uh, you know, we're here to worktogether as a team.
You know, I took some boldcomments and we worked through
them in a bold way, and we hadgreat success coming out of
that.
SPEAKER_02 (16:02):
Love that.
When influencers can help andyou can look back on that and
recognize who made a differencein that space.
Steve, you share with me kind ofuh a list of these 11 points.
I think it's your book.
You know, that's your point ofview.
It could be a book.
I think it's that, and I don'tmean that in a negative, I mean
that in a positive as to how youdid that turnaround.
I obviously we don't have timeto go through all 11 points that
(16:22):
you gave me in terms of whathappened over those two years.
But there are a couple thatstruck me that I wanted to just
kind of bring up because I sensethat many leaders today are
faced with the same problem some30 years later in terms of
what's happening.
The first one was accountabilitywith dignity.
Tell me more.
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
Yeah.
So uh this actual plant locationalso had a militant strike just
two years prior.
In fact, you know, there weresome pretty high civil
disobedience and rolling ofcars, starting fires.
It was a tough, toughenvironment.
There were also on themanagement side, which I didn't
see as a positive, there wouldbe communications and meetings
(17:00):
that were mandatory, which Ialways found that was like
throwing a red flag like infront of a bull.
Something's mandatory.
So uh one of the things Iinstituted immediately was uh I
got rid of mandatory meetings.
And uh I had some small groupshift meetings.
I I ramped it up to eight ofthem a month where I would meet
with somebody at a birthday oranniversary with the company, so
(17:21):
twice a year they got to come tothis meeting.
But then I had broad meetingswith everyone.
And in the first broad meeting,which was done the first 30
days, I announced we didn't havemandatory meetings.
I didn't feel that was anappropriate way to run things.
I wanted people to come tomeetings because they want to be
part of the team, part of thesuccess, part of where we're
going forward.
I did lay down uh independent ofa union contract or management
(17:46):
protocols, procedures, I justsaid, look, I here here's what I
expect.
I expect you to come to uh youknow, come to work.
I mean that's that's the firstthing and follow safety rules.
Come to work and be here andthen be safe.
And a third thing is beproductive.
And if you come to work and youfollow the rules and you're safe
and you're productive, we'regonna get along great.
(18:07):
And I said we are gonna worktogether and I will continue to
show you and share with you thefuture I see for this plant.
And I think I packaged in atthat point a comment about
customer visits.
And I said customers haven'tvisited in a long time.
We're gonna have customers comein here, we're gonna clean up
this place, it's gonna be aplace of pride, and uh we're
gonna own it, and we have it.
(18:27):
And and that really that set thetone.
I mean, two years later, peoplewere bragging about working at
the place, and there was somelevel of bling on an improvement
teams with shirts and stuff, andso it is an unbelievably
different vibe than when I gotthere.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
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(19:04):
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Now let's get back to the F.
Again, and I believe it becauseI know I know how you are,
Steve, with that digney here I'dheard.
Set the vision so that folks cansee what that is, set the
(19:24):
expectations or the principlesthat we're to follow as a part
of that, and that if we can, youknow, ultimately follow those
principles, we are going to besuccessful.
I'm pretty sure, given athousand people, that you may or
may not have may not have had100% of the folks that were uh
following those principles andreally uh in support of that
(19:45):
vision.
How did you deal with those whowere the naysayers or the ones
that we like to call them anchordraggers in our world or
whatever they are?
How'd you deal with them?
SPEAKER_00 (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, that happens.
And that's a great question.
So I didn't know when I startedthis uh smaller group meetings
where And that's how we got toknow names.
So a thousand employees in twoyears.
Uh how many names did I know?
Over half, over five hundred.
So I didn't know every singleperson, but I knew quite a few
of them.
And I knew the rebel rousers.
(20:13):
And, you know, and I I wouldmake sure I find a place where I
could engage with them on thefloor.
I was pretty fearless and alwayson the floor, seldomly in the
office.
The small shift meetings wherethey had a birthday or an
anniversary.
It was a big enough plant thatit had a cafeteria.
And so I gave away uh acafeteria slip for a meal.
If you so I put a littleincentive, a little inducement.
(20:34):
You come to one of thesemeetings, give you a chip, it's
an old-fashioned term, and noproblem, whatever.
Well, in the first few meetings,uh, there were two unions uh at
the time, and uh the leaderswould come.
They had a brick and mortar uhbig enough place, so they had
brick and mortar, you know,headquarters right across the
street.
And they would show up at allthe meetings because they
thought I would be the I'm therebel riser, rouser.
(20:55):
Uh but I just started tocommunicate the theme of uh
safety, quality, elimination ofwaste.
We have new products coming in.
Yes, there's products movingout, yes, they're moving to
Canada, even a differentcountry.
Uh, but we're vibration control,we're growing, uh, the new
products are coming, the newcustomers are coming.
And so I kept pounding on thatvision.
I pounded on the fact of howwe're gonna approach problem
(21:18):
solving.
So, like safety, I said you mayhave heard that uh, you know, if
somebody is injured, they're inan OSHA recordable, as we may
call it, that person is gonna beon the uh problem solving team.
Uh they're automaticallydrafted, they're part of it,
we're gonna get their input andthey're gonna be part of it.
So to answer your question ofhow how did you overcome the the
ones that aren't on board, whatwhat started to happen is the
(21:41):
the union leaders would uh notcome to all, say, eight
meetings.
They might come to one just tokind of find out what's going
on.
Then they started to get excitedand then they started to talk.
And then there was also, Ididn't mention in the stuff I
sent to you, there was a companynewsletter that was put together
by the hourly people.
And uh wow, I I think the secondin command was also married to
(22:02):
the head of the largest union.
And uh I don't know why, but shereally liked me.
And we got along well.
So it all started with could youwrite something for our
newsletter?
And they weren't used togetting, you know, necessarily
the plant manager all the time.
And so I wrote every month.
Pretty soon they asked me tohelp out editing, which I did
too.
So what happened is the people,there's no mandatory meetings.
(22:24):
I can get a cafeteria mail.
Oh, by the way, I found out someinteresting things.
Oh, there's this newsletter, andof course, ultimately we had a
company picnic the second year,the second summer.
And so word spread.
That's what I would say.
Organic spread is what took careof, so there probably still some
people, even knockleheads, youmight, but they uh they were not
showing up to mess with thingsanymore.
(22:46):
There was there were notcigarette butts on the floor
anymore, there weren't uh wholerandom holes in drywall, there
wasn't graffiti in thebathrooms.
All all this stuff got cleanedup and uh it was different.
It was just different.
And so now it was like if you'rethe rebel rouser, you're sort of
the odd person out now.
And it just changed.
SPEAKER_02 (23:04):
And changed that because it's recognizing the
continued performance of thosewho are making a positive
impact.
And while not ignoring, butcertainly not allowing the
energy of the rebel rousers touh deflate what's happening
inside of the organization.
Too many times it actually endsup being opposite.
The rebel rousers end up gettingmore energy from the leadership
(23:26):
team.
And we can talk about how thatworks in companies, how it works
in families, that it's just nota good thing.
I mean, it's something thathappens.
Steve, I I love and I could talkabout the you know, the lean uh
tools, the elimination of waste,the quality improvement.
Uh one of the things you talkedabout was the physical renewal
as a symbolic change.
I'll call that the 5S andshining it up and getting rid
(23:47):
of, to your point, getting ridof the graffiti, cleaning up the
equipment.
I'm sure that that was a hugepart of what you had done as
well.
You get to this two point twoyear point, and this is where
I'm looking for you to give someencouragement to leaders out
there.
They work really hard, you pushthe ball up the hill, you solve
these problems, you get thingsgoing really well, and it's time
for you to, you know, just takeyour next opportunity.
(24:09):
You walk away from it and theball rolls back downhill again.
What were some of the systems,or how would you encourage other
leaders to ensure that, youknow, in essence, when they
leave it better than theystarted, but also so that it
stays in that condition evenwhen you're not there anymore?
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
Yeah, which is uh which is a really good point.
And the the time of thistransformation, by the way, is I
had had some lean exposure, uh,America can't compete and so on,
but it was prior, just prior tojoining Freudenburg NOK, where I
got a deep dive.
And uh so I had been to Japan,I've been exposed to Toyota,
Toyota partnerships.
And uh so we're using uh thoseprinciples 5S, TPM, and cleaning
(24:49):
the equipment and and spreadingthat around.
So, how how would you prepare soyou walk away someday and that
just doesn't roll backwards, asyou say.
So the I know what that lookslike, but to build that is
another story.
What it looks like is that nowpeople have, starting with their
leaders, the servant leaders atthe top, have actually committed
to a new way of doing things.
(25:10):
Their mind has been transformed,they're doing things
differently.
So take that example of a safetyissue where someone was on the
team and they had been injuredor lost time, and now they had a
chance to meaningfullyparticipate in how that wouldn't
happen again.
Now their minds changed.
(25:31):
Uh the senior leaders, uh I tookthem off-site quarterly.
You know, we would start today,and then we'd take off, go to
lunch, and then I would I'veactually developed a whole
manual for them with I thinkthere were 31 chapters
eventually of of key items andhow to operate and uh move
forward in old rat and thingslike that, uh, and some exercise
(25:53):
and how to calculate and dothings.
So so there were uh cookiecrumbs, I think, being developed
on uh procedures, uh not to thepoint of what I would call
standard work with tack timeyet, but with key points.
Here's how we're gonna dothings, and that was with each
department, each leader.
And uh certainly there werethings that uh let's talk about
(26:14):
quality, for example.
Quality was another spreadacross the entire plant, every
single employee.
So that was taught on the frontend that yes, we have a quality
department.
Uh actually it changed thetitle.
We got rid of quality control,told them there's no such thing.
We don't have a quality controldepartment.
We have a quality department,and uh, they're knowledge
people, and they're gonna teachproblem solving PDSA, and
(26:37):
they're gonna be the guardiansof the methodology, but quality
is every single person'sresponsibility.
So we started to build in thatsort of mentality as well.
So now mentality is changingregardless of who's at the top,
and we're building this culturewhere and you could see it in
the newsletter spread witheverybody want to be in a
newsletter, talk about theirarea and what they had done, and
(26:58):
we did it.
And then you sort of got this,and we did it.
And the more you got the buy-in,we did it, the more the
ownership was transferred uh tothe people actually doing the
work.
And I think that was a huge keyin turning around this facility
and uh in a two-year span.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
Yeah, recognizing implementing those new
disciplines, right?
I mean, and the way we do thingsas leaders, though whether it's
the quarterly management systemreviews of what you have going
on, the operating model thatsays this is how we're gonna run
the departments.
To your point, it might not becycle time equal attack time,
standard work in place, but itwas the habits and disciplines
(27:36):
to be successful as a leader.
And you documented it, it soundslike you documented it.
I mean, I can actually probablysee your workbook as you
documented that in the 31chapters and and made it
available to them.
SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
It was it was there and and there were different uh
we didn't leave anybody behind.
So, for example, uh even intechnology, you know, this plant
uh went to what was calledsingle pass rubber mixing,
natural rubber mixing.
We mixed uh rubber for fiveother plants, and we had we had
four mixing lines.
Only one was vibration control,our own division.
(28:06):
The others are all synthetic,but we had partners in Germany
and Japan that were two-passingrubber, using rubber just twice
before they would mold it.
We were doing three pass on the1950s.
We did a leapfrog at Christmastime of my first year, the
single pass with every knowncritic you could think of, like
are you people nuts?
And then we had every chemist inthe state of Indiana, so outside
(28:29):
just our division on duty fortwo months after a Christmas
shutdown to make the changeover,just to dial in all this stuff.
Well, then this was newsworthy.
Went in the local newspaper, andthis was where some of the most
macho people would work.
And we actually, you know, wereable to, you know, realize a
couple crew reduction.
And so, you know, thecommunication was we're gonna
(28:50):
we're gonna advertise and sellrubber to the outside world,
rubber and plastic news.
So it was always having a storyon how to move things forward.
So all directed at your point ofnot wanting to fall backwards,
because when I got recruited outof there, we were at the table
getting actually getting aharmonious labor contract.
Oh wow.
And we had great relations inthe community.
(29:11):
I joined the rotary club, I knewthe mayor, the chief of police,
uh, you know, all these pieceswere there were a lot of pieces.
You know, back to thinking aboutbeing fun, uh, the best job I
ever had.
So I was moving so fast in theplant was I just didn't even
have time to to recall how muchfun it was.
It was just ever every day wasmoving at lightning speed.
(29:31):
And you're just as slow as aperson, you don't even recognize
it, right?
And that's uh I didn't recognizeat all.
I just it was it was it was justgood movement and every
everybody was on board.
And it was uh that's whyhighlight is the best job I ever
had.
I've had a lot of jobs sincethen, but that that one was uh
it was unfettered in the sensethat I hadn't had that much
freedom part of that time, and Ihadn't had a developed even
(29:53):
script.
I just wanted to be treated theway I would like to be treated,
and I used some insights of hownot to be treated, and I just
look at the data and thelandscape and started to push
the buttons.
Where did we need to be?
I guess I was the chief personto prioritize things, but
anyhow, that's and I when Ileft, by the way, that plant
(30:13):
continued for almost twodecades, and you know, it was it
was bought.
SPEAKER_02 (30:18):
That's the wedge that held there that helped
allowed it to keep going.
So cool.
So great to hear that.
Steve, look, we've gone througha lot.
We've gone through kind of thescout days in terms of you being
a scout, uh, industrial engineerfrom Rochester Institute of
Technology, and certainly asuccessful executive in
manufacturing.
Uh you and I briefly talkedabout, and you know, from a time
standpoint, we can never go inand we wouldn't get out of the
(30:39):
holes of discussing workingtogether for you're my first
supervisor at the consultingcompany that we worked for.
We did that, I did that with youfor 10 years in terms of going
through that journey andappreciated all the mentoring
that you gave me to you know putsome of those things in place in
healthcare as well.
And you know, we could debate,not you and I, but we could
debate uh the impact that we'vehad on that industry as we look
(31:00):
at where things are withhealthcare today.
But I know that the things we'redoing were making it better.
And your life isn't defined asany of those one things, Steve,
in terms of what you did.
But I also know that you're astrong man of faith.
Um, when you think about yourjourney on the faith side as
well and how your relationshipwith God has impacted who you
are, how did that play a role inyour leadership style and the
(31:21):
things that you've done as well?
SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
Yeah, I I like that question too.
So I've reflected on that uh,you know, each and every year as
I've you know become older andhave uh strengthened my faith
and my faith journey as opposedto, I think in the early days it
was embedded, thankfully.
And I didn't necessarily uhwell, I'll just say it this way
I didn't praise God enough forthe things that were happening.
(31:44):
I think I was not in tune enoughto realize, hey, the Holy
Spirit's really guiding me.
You know, certain doors open,certain doors closed.
And uh, you know, I was probablya little bit too much in love
with self then, thinking I'mdoing all this, and found out
no, I'm not, I'm not doing allthis.
And maybe I've been blessed withsome talents and equip.
But and I I think uh you know,it goes back even to high
(32:08):
school.
You know, we we had a retreat ona given uh weekend with lay
people coming to our church andanswered an altar call then.
I was uh president of the youthorganization then, so I had a
seat with the adults to plan theretreat.
It was quite meaningful.
When I was off in college andoff campus, it was on campus and
then you know, off campus thelast several years.
(32:29):
Yeah, and I was the guy runningthe townhouse.
We had seven of us in it, youknow, tried to get the cost
down.
I think I slept in the furnaceroom or something.
But they ended we ended up uh weasked one person to leave who we
didn't approve of the behavior,and we started to get people
that had faith in Jesus.
And I can remember at one pointuh praying.
(32:50):
I had to make up a course inphysics in my later years, you
know.
It was a engineering back in uhwhen I went to school, there was
a process to winnow people out.
That was absolutely thephilosophy.
So, you know, a group of 150mechanical, electrical,
industrial when we graduated,you know, it was less than a
hundred, and that included 20transfers or so.
(33:10):
So people dropped out.
Now, one of the things inphysics in particular, you know,
if you could come up with a30-point average on a hundred
scale, you might get a C in thecourse.
And, you know, uh straight onthe curve.
Just the way it was.
And so I'll never forget in myChristian walk that uh one of
the uh roommates suggested I wasgoing, I was pretty nervous
(33:31):
getting ready for this test nearthe end of the quarter and need
to pass this.
And he said, Well, let's pray.
And I was like, Oh yeah, we'vetalked about God, we've talked
about Jesus.
Yeah, let's pray.
So we prayed.
And I never felt so calm in mylife.
I uh I went in, I took the test.
Uh I prayed a little we had agroup prayer at uh townhouse,
(33:51):
but when I was in class beforethat, I just prayed to God and I
just laid it out and I said,God, if it's not your will for
me to be an engineer, then I'mnot gonna pass this course.
And uh if um I'll do whatever.
So uh just give me peace ofmind.
I'm gonna do my best and I'vegot to move forward.
And uh anyhow, I passed thecourse and and so on.
Uh the the point of what I wouldleave going forward on this
(34:12):
whole discussion is thatlistening to God and that faith
in is just grown stronger andstronger.
Now it is so very strong, youknow.
I even fill in the pulpit.
So, you know, I was preachinglast Sunday at a not my church,
another church.
I'm preaching this Sunday.
I facilitate or co-lead a coupleof studies.
I'm in a study group Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.
One one is Zoom only, the othertwo are in person.
(34:34):
I find it indispensable as partof my life.
And it's built into what I dowith everyone, and that would be
friends, family, and so on.
It's uh and I want everybody toknow Jesus.
It's uh I don't know how manyyears I have left, I don't, but
I I believe I was created for apurpose uh by God, and uh it's
(34:55):
in my DNA to recognize God,serve God, and claim Jesus.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
So I'm quite sure you'll have the you'll hear
those words well done, good andfaithful servant at some point,
Steve.
I love you sharing that andcarrying out that great
commission to make disciples.
You know, your LinkedIn profile,and I'll put a link to that for
folks because they can even sendyou a note there to be connected
with you.
It says retired on there.
And you know, I'm sensing thatyou are not necessarily the
traditional retired and just outplaying golf and pickleball on a
(35:23):
regular basis, but still veryactive in taking, you know, the
things that you learned,frankly, in your manufacturing
world and in our consulting andhealthcare days and using them
for the uh ministry uh andmaking a positive impact.
And you know, for that, Steve, Icontinue to be grateful for what
you continue to do, you know,the impact that you made on me
and what you're doing in thelives of others, utilizing your
(35:44):
faith as well.
Steve, I want to give you thelast word.
This conversation's been great.
I have way overstayed my timewith you, but we may have to do
this again.
I always ask my first-time guestthe question at the end about
the mantra or message theyreally want to leave leaders
with.
I'll give you a billboard.
You can put that billboardanywhere you want to.
What's the message you're gonnaput on that billboard and why do
you put it on there?
SPEAKER_00 (36:05):
So uh I'll tie this into the first question you had,
the time and the downpour ofrain and hail and how bleak and
so on.
So what I think what changedforever in me then was in my
mind.
So I put I put that situation inmy mind.
It was sort of like a mind overmatter or positive mind.
It was like, I know this lookspretty bad, I'm telling myself.
(36:27):
And I'm going, I'm not gonna letit bother me.
And what am I gonna do?
Okay, everything everything'sgetting wet.
Okay, you know, I can dry out.
Let's throw this poncho over,you know, on top of the pack.
I can preserve that, the restI'll worry about later.
So I did a little bit ofprioritization, but the main
thing I got out of that was themind, the power of the mind.
(36:48):
And so I would the billboardwould be mind cultivation.
It would be what you feed, whata person feeds their mind is
what they become and what theycan do.
And you can have some controlover that.
I believe God has given us somecontrol, a lot of control,
really, in deciding what to feedthe mind.
And so I feed, I feed the mindscripture every day from the
(37:12):
good book, from the Bible, andlook for wisdom, not man's
wisdom, but God's wisdom.
And so my billboard would bewatch your mind.
And in your mind, your heartfollows.
So what's in your heart, what'sin your mind, uh, you want to
guard that.
You want to guard your heart,you want to guard your mind, and
you want to feed it not withjunk food, but with the right
stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (37:31):
Amen, brother.
Feed it well.
You know, Philippians 4.8 isreally clear.
Whatever is true, whatever isnoble, whatever is right,
excellent, or praiseworthy.
Think on those things and putthose things into your mind, and
then ultimately put those intopractice.
Steve, this has been fun.
I know we don't get a chance toconnect enough.
I've enjoyed the conversation.
I am so uh honored to chat withyou, but also recognize that
(37:55):
blessed to be able to uh be ledby you and and to call you
friend as well.
I wish you the best goingforward, and I want to thank you
for being a guest on theUncommon Leader podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Well, thank you so much for gladly share with you.
Thanks for those years where wework together.
SPEAKER_02 (38:38):
You need to share this with somebody else.
You may need to go back andlisten to it.
You can ultimately have some ofthe tips and some of the
enforcement conversations if weshare with somebody else.
I know that's very helpful aswell.
And it helps us get it into thehands of more leaders with DDU
that really well.
I think I'll still leave us upwith you.
(38:58):
And that also gets it into thehands of more listeners.
So until next time, go and gochat.
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