Latest / The Manufacturing Blueprint / Would You Apply to Work at Your Own Shop? How Leaders Build, Model, and Protect Culture | Ep. 15
Transcript
- speaker-0: Coming to you live today from the Philippines. speaker-1: Yep, I'm still in the Philippines for another few months ago. speaker-0: I think are you are you guys in your rainy season right now? speaker-1: Yeah. Ryan is bouncing off the roof. Yeah. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: So if you hear thunder and lightning in the background, don't panic. If the lights go out or the microphone fails, we'll just have to restart it. speaker-0: We'll just keep recording, no problem. We're just gonna keep digging. With or without you speaker-1: Phones been going off with with with phones been sending emergency alerts and we're warning red weather warning for flood flood warnings, but that's life. We've got another speaker-0: If we see you slowly sliding off a camera, we should not be alarmed by that either. speaker-1: No. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Welcome to the Manufacturing Blueprint. This is the show where manufacturing leaders, shop owners, and operators come to sharpen their thinking, strengthen their teams, and improve the way work gets done. From leadership and culture to systems, strategy, and execution, we break down the blueprint used to build high-performing manufacturing organizations. No fluff, just straight talk and real conversations, real lessons and real results. Here's your host. Jason Davis. What's up, guys, and welcome back to the Manufacturing Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Davis, along with my good friend Paul Barnes. Today we're going to be jumping into talking about culture, right? It's something that every organization has to deal with. And I think, you know, you've got some questions about the culture and whether that's something that leadership has built intentionally, or is that something that leadership has allowed to develop? Whether intentionally or accidentally. So I'm gonna ask you a really difficult question. If you left your company today, would you apply to work there tomorrow? So not because you own it, not because you've invested years into building it, but if you're just looking for a job, would you honestly choose your company? Take a moment to reflect on that. Would you do that? So Every manufacturing company has a culture. So Paul, if you walk into a manufacturing company, do you feel like you can quickly identify that culture, if that culture's healthy or unhealthy or what's going on there? speaker-1: I would like to think you could get a grips pretty quickly of what the culture is, but then again, everybody's impression of the culture they expect or the culture that they want is also different, right? Depending on the background, where you've come from and what culture you expect. I would say if we go into most companies, by the time we have finished talking to the receptionists, we've probably already got a perception of how we view that company. And sometimes smaller business, medium sized businesses maybe aren't aware of the first impression and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Right. So if I go into your shop and I meet a person sitting at the front desk, they've got several minutes before I make my mind up on my first impression of your shop. Yeah. And speaker-0: That's a big responsibility for a receptionist to control the entire shop. How about that? That's It is. Yeah. speaker-1: Your first impression, right? Talk about best foot forward and sometimes we maybe don't give receptionists maybe the the respect that for the role that they do and the impressions that they give to every visitor, whether that's a customer or a supplier or or anybody that comes into your shop because they represent you first and foremost, right? But we're talking about culture and the culture that they show and Neither do we want to just blame receptionists because it's not just about them, right? And of course at the same time, not everybody loves Monday mornings, right? I'm sure receptionists are no are no different than the rest of us, right? A Monday morning's not great if you come and knock on my door and say, it's Monday again. And not everybody loves to work, right? People are there to make a living, people are there to make money. And we also have to be realistic from what we ask them. But At the same time when you're talking about culture and what you expect, I'm sure we're gonna talk about this later. It's culture's not something that you can just delegate or dictate. Sure. It's something that's deeply embedded in the foundations of your business and your company and is built up over years. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: At the same time, what you hire also impacts your culture. And if we hire cheap, well, do you get cheap attitudes from your employees? Do you hire people who are professional? Do you hire people who care about your business as much as you do? And all of those things will express themselves in one manner or another and becomes ingrained in your culture. And that's a a delicate web of emotions and feelings and attitudes and behaviors. But at the end of the day, the employees and those direct reports that are working to any leadership will become more like leadership or should be and should be. And I guess we're gonna t chat about that later as well, right? About how our how we as leaders impact that culture. speaker-0: That's right. Hey guys, if you're making chips, your tooling should never be the thing slowing you down. Canom Metal has spent decades helping manufacturers cut faster, run longer, and get more out of every setup. From turning and milling to hole making, threading, and beyond, they've built tooling designed for the real world demands of the shop floor. And it's not just about buying another insert or another end mill. It's about finding the right tooling for the job, making sure you're improving your tool life, reducing your downtime, and making every spindle hour count. Whether you're just trying to solve a stubborn application or improve productivity or just get more consistent results, Kennemetal has the tooling and the expertise to help you personally. Learn more about what Kenemetal can do for your shop at Kennametal.com. Let's maybe take a look at what culture actually is, right? And how do we define culture inside of our organization? how how do we define culture inside of other organizations? I think, one of the things that j I just thought about, you were talking about that first impression. Do you guys have Chick fil A there? I can't remember. speaker-1: No, not in the Philippines although we do get it. In the UK and Ireland we've got it. It's just made its way over in the last year or two. Yeah. speaker-0: And so of course you've been to you've been here and in the US and you've been to Chick-fil-A. And so anybody that's been to a Chick-fil-A, I think they've probably experienced a very good customer service. okay, forget the food for a moment. speaker-1: Yeah, I I can't. No, you you've just got me thinking with chicken and those like waffle fries and there's the sauce. What do you call that? Like the Chick-fil-A sauce? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, Chick-fil-A's great, it's a great speaker-1: Culture. I don't want to talk about culture. I wanna talk about my stomach. speaker-0: I know. You know, one of the things that's like a staple for them is if you say thank you, they always reply with my pleasure. They don't say you're welcome. They're they're trained and that's part of the decision of management and their culture is they are extremely courteous, extremely professional, and no matter what they'll say, my pleasure. And it's almost like some people make a game out of it trying to get them to say something other than my pleasure. And so speaker-1: Really? I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I'm gonna put that to the test the next time. speaker-0: Yeah. You know, again, like that's an intentional part of the customer service aspect. And so, you know, I think from a manufacturing company, the thing that I didn't really think about until you just mentioned it when we're talking about even, you know, with a receptionist like we put processes in place and s SOPs and we got things on the floor that we're working through and, you know, design the way things flow, but we never really we real never even really think twice about that first impression. from somebody walking in at the front door. and that's that's that's a whole new concept. So that's gonna be something that we'll have to we'll have to dig into that later. But let's talk for a minute, what culture actually is. I think in in reality it's that combination of a shared values, beliefs, expectations, behaviors, and it's all the way that we kind of put those things together to guide people and how we work and how we work together. Right. So I don't know, maybe it's it's not necessarily like, well, we have a meal once a month or we have a pizza party or we've we brought in donuts. I mean, those things are okay. I mean, those things can be fine, but I think it's really figuring out a way that you can define those values, explaining those values. And that is a such a hard thing to do. That is so difficult to do. speaker-1: You talked about food and sorry, you talked about Chick fil A and then you talked about bringing in food to work. And by the time we finish this podcast, I'm gonna have to get some pizza or something. speaker-0: Me too, me too. speaker-1: But I agree, right? Sometimes I've seen it that maybe we work over a weekend or we work late shifts and what we do is we maybe bring in pizza for the guys or or food and we feed them or whatever and we think, yeah, we're a great company and look at our culture, we're feeding our employees. But actually that's just the least we can do, right? As a company, that's the least you can do because we're overworking our employees. We're late. We're over our hours that we should do. And yes, people might appreciate overtime, but whenever this just runs week in after week after month after month speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: feeding your employees is it's speaker-0: Yeah, you need a break. Yeah. speaker-1: not that's not a a healthy culture. And I guess that's what we're saying, right? Just these simple perks is not that's not your culture. And it's not like saying that it's like hard work. If someone says, Well what's your how do you describe your culture? Well we're hard working and That's okay. But is it really your culture? Or are you driving people to be hardworking? Or are people naturally hardworking? There's a because there's a difference, right? There's one in your culture and there's one that's not. There's one healthy and there's one that's not. There's one healthy that people are are hardworking because they want to help out your business and they have to see things over the line. But if the hard work just becomes day after day, hard slog after hard slog, people get worn out and it doesn't become a culture. It becomes a chore after it has become a duty and it becomes hard, hard work. No enjoyable hard work. There's so much you can get a sense of satisfaction, if of if you occasionally have to meet a target or a deadline on a month end and everyone gets together and you get a bit of camaraderie together and you do a late night and everybody helps each other out and you get that product out the door and everyone's high fiving and you get a feel good factor. And that's a can be a healthy culture. Sure. But if this goes month after month, week after week, you can soon lose Yeah, and speaker-0: It just wears on you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. speaker-1: you can't say that you can't say that hard work and dedication i is a is a good culture trait at that point. speaker-0: Right. Well I think that's a that's the contrast between what you would maybe call a visible culture and then an invisible culture. maybe the invisible is more that daily experience working in the business. Yeah. Where that visible culture is, that's those things that are they're they're both important. and I think that it's it's vital that you can do some of those things and you have those wins as a team. You have that camaraderie, but I think some of those invisible daily experiences is is also part of building that culture. And it's and it's really hard. It's hard to translate, leadership translating the values that you want to have into a behavior that's observable in the organization. Right. But that that kinda gets you to where speaker-1: It's the values. W the values is your key word there you're putting in, all right? It's the values, it's what you stand for. More so than just what you may do or how you may perform at a month end or whatever. But it's the day to day values and attitudes and behaviors that are instilled in how you treat people, how people is managed. they reckon there's a retention survey done and they estimate that about thirty three percent of employees who quit jobs say that it's due to toxic or a negative work environment. Thirty three percent. Yeah. There's lots of reasons. That's that's a big number, right? There's a lot of people who would leave because of family reasons, health reasons, personal reasons, child care reasons. They need to relocate. They need lots of reasons, retirement reasons, people leave the business. But for thirty three percent to say that it's due to a negative or toxic work environment, that's pretty high. We speaker-0: Yeah, that is. speaker-1: need to look at our own business and say, Is that my business? Is my business contributing to that? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 'Cause that's for me that's a scary statistic. speaker-0: Yeah, well I I think you touched on it too when you talked about, how we're treating people and how people, it's it's really how we're making people feel because those feelings dictate how they interpret that culture. so I think as as from a leadership standpoint, once you define what that culture, what you want that be to be, you've got to then determine the next question is where does that come from? And that really starts with leadership. Right. It starts with the leadership group that sets that tone, creates that environment that allows other you're you're really modeling what you're wanting other people to do. Employees are able to learn what the company truly values by watching the leadership. And I will say more specifically watching leadership under pressure. Right. Because when like you were you were kind of saying earlier, when we were chatting about, you know, you got the end of the month and it's time to get product out the door and it's just like, how are you treating people at that moment? Right. Is it with kindness and compassion and understanding, or is it with just all out like, get it out the door? You know, we gotta do everything that we possibly can. And, you know, are you cutting corners? Is, you know, what becomes acceptable and not acceptable in difficult times, that's more of a tell than like when things are going smoothly. speaker-1: Yeah, so I think as a leader you need to understand what it is that what you stand for and what should your company stand for. And I think if you haven't done it before in in a smaller business, think about that, take time to actually think what should we stand for and what should our culture be? And whereas you c you can't really just write it down, you can't just describe it in a bubble. You should have key elements and key behaviors and figures that keep you grounded even as a leader, thinking about Thinking about your employees, how do you act and behave around your employees, right? Are your employees safe to voice their concerns? Are they safe to admit mistakes without fear of retaliation or embarrassment? Yeah. Right. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: And if you do that, then you're building your trust and you're building your trust with your employees. So is trust one of your key values that you stand by, that your company stand by is that when you talk to people, they can see and feel trust. And know that your company is founded on their trust. And then seeing is it do our behaviors then align with that? So do we act that out every day when we're talking to people? Do we show that in our daily activity that integrity matters, that what we say matters, the things that we're supposed to do? Do we do that? Does that matter more than profit? Whenever we say we care about quality, do we really care about quality whenever it's talking about getting that last product out the door that the customer's putting us under pressure for? Or do we say, Do you know what? We just need to get this out to the door to keep our customer off our back. If one or two gets turned back to us, well, we at least we've got time to respond. We can expect maybe that there's gonna be one or two and we can already be working on that. Does that fit with our values whenever we say that we should be shipping quality products to our customers or does it not? And quite often we have to understand as leaders that does our behaviors actually ring true? are these things that we say and we tell people that we stand for, but whenever the rubber hits the road, we compromise. Because when you compromise once, that's what people will remember. Not all the times that you talk and you are actually consistent. It's about when you break that consistency. speaker-0: really made me think about one of the things that's easy for people to say is, well, I have an open door policy, right? And that's great. Yeah. That's great to have an open door policy that, like you said earlier, that somebody can come to you, they can voice opinions without fear of being persecuted for their their ideas or their thoughts. But I think the other part of that is making sure that you keep those conversations confidential. If you can't take those things that are said to you and keep them to yourself or into your immediate team that it that might that it might involve, you are not gonna be able to have people trust you because they know that whatever they come tell you, they've just told everybody. So and in addition to that, if you are kind of talking about other people around you, then that just gives everybody else a free pass to talk about other people. You know, so speaker-1: With people behind their backs and speaker-0: That's right. They're gonna model your behavior. So you have to make it a point that, hey, I've got an open door policy, that's great. Those things it c yeah it's an open door policy but a closed door conversation. speaker-1: That's about trust because if someone comes to you and they want to talk about someone that they're having problems with on the floor, maybe they're struggling with their supervisor for whatever reason, they have to trust and have confidence in you that you're not just gonna go and tell that person and then that's gonna make their issue worse. Right? That's speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. speaker-1: that's dangerous, but that happens sometimes because we as leaders can't have tact because maybe we trust people more than others and maybe we expect the good in everybody rather than also weighing up the risks and the dangers of people talking. So yeah, a hundred percent. speaker-0: think as a leader you're able to establish that and establish that tone like that's through your consistency. I think that's through humility. I think that's through your communication and then through the follow through. It's like all of these things have to be done in order to encompass that that that complete leadership portion of it. And that's again how we get to that trust portion and we can't build those trust factors and we can't expect our employees to do something different than we are. So that's why it's so vital that you're modeling the things that you're saying and that you're, following through on on that as well. So I think that's really speaker-1: Critical. But if I asked you, Jason, about D and D and what your culture is like and what your values, how do you feel about your values in D and D, right? And then say if you had a value that you thought maybe you lacked or that you want to build upon, what would it be? speaker-0: I think for us, I want to make sure that we just carry ourselves with integrity. For me as a leader or any leader, you always have a lot of things that are placed upon you, right? You've got to deal with things every single day. And people are looking to you to make decisions and looking to you for leadership. And so there's two things. I want to make sure that I'm leading with integrity and I'm treating people the way that I want to be treated. And and then really to me that honestly comes back to my Christian core values, right? And making sure that we are treating other people how we want to be treated. And we want to make sure that we're doing things with integrity. We want to make sure that we're being calm and respectful of individuals. And those are things that are to me are just super critical, right? There's a thousand buzzwords that we could put on the wall. There's a there's there's so many things that we could write and that we could say, well, these are our values and these are our core, core things that we're doing. But it it all comes down to just how we treat people. To me, it's all about how we treat people. So I think that's the most critical thing. And I want to model that so other people have an example. And I don't ever want to step outside of that to give people a reason to to say, well, this one time you did this or this one time you did that. You know, like that's so critical because if you can keep that to where you're staying steady, then, you know, other people have that opportunity to see that and they have the opportunity to follow that. Yeah. Whether they do or not, that's not your choice. you're never gonna be able to make that decision for them. In addition to that, if they choose not to follow that, then sometimes that's o that's gonna be okay. that you're not gonna be able to change everybody's opinion. And then you just kinda, you knock the dust off your boots and you keep going. So you gotta c make maintain that. speaker-1: I think that was really, really nice. And I think as a leader as well, we we can never be afraid to say sorry because at times that we get it wrong. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: At times we get frustrated. At times we make mistakes we're out of line. And saying sorry or apologizing to your your team, either publicly or privately with an individual isn't a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strong leadership that we can at least recognize and that will also gain respect back from the team for those people who are maybe disappointed in what's happened. speaker-0: Yeah, and something we didn't touch on, really touch on, but the blame game, right? Like as a leader, no matter who makes the decision, the buck's gotta stop with you and you've gotta own it. And you've got to take that responsibility and you've got to, you know, like you said, you need to if if there's something that's gone wrong and you need to apologize to somebody, you need to apologize. That's going to gain more credibility. You taking that ownership, leadership, and accountability. than it is, saying, well, I didn't have this piece of information. I didn't know that. I'm so well, who cares? Like you're the one that's in charge. It's your responsibility, right? No matter what. I was talking to a friend just the other day and, what he told me, he had actually said he had listened to one of the previous podcasts about, trust but verify. And he said that I had an individual who I thought I could trust. And I asked them, Hey, is everything good? They said, Yeah, I'll take care of it. And I went home. I didn't think about it again. And the next day, my boss calls me in and was like, Hey, I thought we were good on this. And he was like, What? And he said, I trusted the employee to do it. But I didn't go back and double check him. And I really should have just, you know, had that check in. But he then said, Hey, that's on me. That's my fault. I was the one that didn't make sure it got done. He didn't throw the other employee under the bus. He took full responsibility and said, You're right. I told you I was gonna make sure that was taken care of. I didn't do that. I will get it handled. And he went and made sure it got handled. And so that was just a really cool example. So I thought that was awesome. Shout out to Tim, by the way. speaker-1: Hey folks, listen up. that manufacturing buyers don't ask simple questions. They're asking about product compatibility, materials, specs, lead times, application fit, and they want answers before they even talk to sales. That's where Navu comes in. Navo adds AI chat to your website trained on your own content so visitors can get reliable. Accurate answers in real time. It helps buyers find the right product, understand the right application, and take the next step without forcing your team to answer the same questions over and over. And setup is simple. NAVU works with your existing website. It connects with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Slack, and gives you visibility into what visitors are actually asking. See what your website has to say at Navu.co slash making chips. That's navu dot co slash making chips. We talk about safety as our priority. Safety is our number one priority, right? Making sure that the every employee goes home the exact same way they came to work. Got speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: to for themselves, for their family. Mm-hmm. But do we ever compromise that? Do we ever ask somebody to do something that may endanger them just because of time? A machine's down, you want it quicker. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Do you encourage them to run and get that? Do you compromise with machine lockouts? Do you compromise with machine guarding? All of these things tell us a lot about the business. If you walk around your business and someone isn't using proper machine guarding, do we stop that employee and ask them why? Is it serious enough for us? Because that's the culture. If an accident happens, do we go down and blame someone else? Do we blame the supervisor? Why was he not wearing the correct PPE? Why was machine guarding not in place? Or do we Do they see it from us? Do we illustrate that enough to them? Is it important enough to us? So for example, if you've got PPE on your shop floor, maybe you have to wear a steel toes, maybe it's high Viz, hard hat, goggles, gloves, whatever it is, probably not gloves, round machines and so on. Mm-hmm. But how often do leaders go out and compromise that? Because they're only on the shop floor for two minutes. They only want to walk out and ask someone a question and they're leaving back to their office again, right? Yeah. But are they in that area that requires PPE? Mm-hmm. And if so, even for two minutes, then it's gotta be on because leadership must set the standard. I don't wanna see glass stuck in the end of someone's nose and people looking over the top of it or guarding their forehead in case something hits them on the forehead, right? Goggles should be on their eyes. And we cut corners and leaders we walk past it. But the culture is that safety is important. We can't just talk about it, we must display it and we must stick to them because it has to become embedded. speaker-0: Yeah, you're on speaker-1: You always say it before, right? The culture that you walk past is the culture you're willing to accept. speaker-0: That's right. So and that's where you've got to hold yourself to a higher standard. it, 'cause I've been in those situations and, have to turn around and walk back to the office, get my safety glasses to go back out. but it's for me it definitely is a perception thing. I don't want people perceiving that it's okay because if if they perceive that I'm okay with it, then they'll go without it. And again, there's your there's your safety thing. Last week we just went through a process at the end of every month where Shutting down machines, doing some cleaning, some maintenance, those types of things. As I was laying everything out, we'd worked with our teams to decide exactly which machines we were gonna do, who were gonna be our teams, how we were gonna split up. And I was just putting some final touches on it and I was like, we gotta make sure that we do the lockout, when we're gonna be in these machines. And then I was like, Nah, it's fine. We don't need that because, everybody's like the machine is stopping and everybody knows what we're doing. And then I was like, No No, that is the right thing to do. We have to make sure that we're doing it properly. And so, we went through that process and each of the leaders, the each team leader got the lockout lock and key. And so, you know, it was their responsibility to make sure that the machine was shut down properly, locked out. And I started thinking about it because I actually ended up climbing into one of these machines and I was like, There's that thought that goes through your head and then I'm like, Well, who has the key? Right. And I if I'm the one going in the machine. And I've set the lock on this machine. I want the key in my pocket. Cause, did I really think somebody's going to turn it on? No, and absolutely not. But at the same point, time, it's there. So you just got to be aware of those safety procedures. So that's really it. leadership sets the tone. Leadership is in control of what they allow to happen, how things go, and they know that the each employee is really. judging what those values are by watching that leadership and watching that leadership under pressure. speaker-1: There's so many other things that we can talk about, Jason, that contribute to your culture. even accountability. How do we hold our team members accountable for our role? Sometimes we hire people to put them into positions, yet we have a tendency maybe to micromanage them, to look over their shoulder, to look at their metrics. But at the same time, if they're employed to perform a role, we have to trust them to be a role and hold them accountable. If we don't hold people accountable as well, sometimes people can have a general lack of satisfaction in their job because we're not also challenging them enough or holding them accountable. And then things even like flexibility. We talk nowadays about being flexible. How do we have this work life balance? How do we support employees that maybe have a childcare issue or have to go till a an appointment. And we're trying to be flexible as leaders, right? And it's trying to ensure that we measure people's success by the quality of their results rather than the hours spent at their desks. And I think Modern day society and modern day business I think are adapting, are getting better at this flexible working hours. Sure. I can do it here. I I commute quite a bit to work. I have some calls late in the evenings. And you know what? The occasional day, I'll leave the office a little bit early. I get home to see the kids before they go to bed because I know in the evening I got calls at night and so on. And you have to trust your team to do what they do and they balance their work. And if you can't trust your team to do that then you've got a culture issue in itself. So it's not just about the hours, the desk, it's about the value of the work that your team has given to you and putting back into the business. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that that's where that employee experience, that's part of what you're actually creating. it and it it makes me think about like your intentions, right? Intentions matter, but employees don't always experience our intentions. Like they experience the workplace that we're actually creating. So that drives into what experience are we creating for the employee? Like that that that's again part of that culture, is that real everyday experience. as we're joining together, as we're learning together, contributing together, being recognized, those types of things. And I think different employees, and that this is probably one of the most difficult parts to figure out too, because different employees at different stages of their career, different points in their lives, have different values in what they want. or what they maybe not what they want, but what they feel is the most important, right? Whether that's Purpose in their job, opportunity, pay, just learning and growing, recognition. Like each each one of us and it as an individual have different things that drive us, things that are in our lives personality wise that make us go. And it's figuring out how each one as an individual, and that is so hard to do, is driven and how they're motivated to help push those into the right experience. Which then helps drive that correct culture. speaker-1: think whenever you're talking about different stages of people's career, if you look at new employees and how we bring them and incorporate them into a business. I've seen it in in our business in various places that sometimes we're not prepared for new employees starting. And then again that first impression of someone starting into your business stays with them. And I've seen it multiple times where you get new people into the business and you know what? Some of them don't come back in the second day. Some of them don't last more than a week. Yeah. Right. And that's not because they necessarily didn't want a job, but they didn't like what they seen. They didn't like how they were treated and they thought this place is not for me and that's that's sad if that happens in your business. But it does happen. speaker-0: Yeah. We've really experienced this transition and starting to work on this transition over the years. Having that day one experience for a new hire is really important. Having that 30 day plan for a new hire is important. And we failed at that over the years. But it is something that we're working on right now. And then also beyond that 30 days, looking at what are our training opportunities. And I feel like as manufacturing companies, That is something that can be, especially a smaller manufacturing company. Our training typically is just like, hey, this is your buddy. You're gonna stay with him and they're gonna be, you know, telling you what to do. And I think that's a piece of it, but it's really difficult for a small manufacturing company to come up with a formal training program and have a path and a plan for people. But that's something we've been working on internally because as people come into our organization, we wanna give them opportunities. We want to give them the roadmap and we wanna, help them decide, hey, is this something that we want to do long term? Or is this just a job that I need because I've got to pay rent for the next year? Like in there and there's different there's different points to that. And that's okay. Like I'm okay with hiring someone that's just needing to get a job for the next year or two years because they're at that point in their life. And I'm okay with somebody that is wanting to come in, wanting to learn and wanting to build a career out of it. So we we kind of have all kinds and that's okay, but What are we doing as a company to set them up for success in the first 30 days, 60, 90 days, first 12 months, first five years? And do we have a path that if they want to go down it, that they can go down it? And that's that's a hard part for us. That's something that we've not done a great job at, but it's something that we're trying hard to to improve. speaker-1: You gotta ask yourself if if someone arrives in the business into your shop, do they feel welcomed? Are they genuinely appreciated? Do they feel part of the team that the team wants their support, wants them on board? Or do they come into an environment where people just takes a look at them and goes back to what they were doing, right? You get that first impression and that's really important. Yeah. Maybe let an engineer And they arrive into the office and they go in and the supervisor says, Yeah, we we we don't have I don't think we've got a laptop for you yet, but just buddy with this engineer here and he'll show you what to do. We'll get you a laptop in a in a few days. And how does that engineer feel, right? They've been hired as an engineer, they're coming in, they're wanting to get to work, they think they're gonna be important to your business. And you can't get them in a you can't get them a laptop. Do they have sign-ins? Do they have a all the accesses? It's about preparation so that whenever that employee starts that they feel that you want them, that you're ready for them, that they can come in and they can contribute. It's it's okay coming in and going along with the buddy on a machine, but have you got PPE already prepared for them? Do you have a uniform already for them so that in day one, you can give them this that they feel like they're ready, so that in day two they can come in and feel like they're part of the par the fabric. Can they be proud of wearing the logo on their on their shirt? Right. All of the all of that stuff's i is important to employees. speaker-0: Yeah. And I think how many times have we s that's just a common thing, is it, well, it took me two months to get all of my stuff. that's a pretty common thing, especially in larger corporations. And it and it can be, it's probably gonna be a little quicker in a smaller group, but it's still we've experienced those challenges before, especially from office personnel. you know, we've had that happen and for sure, but it's I th I think that drives us to where culture that culture gets experienced. before it's actually understood. And those initial early experiences help mold what that individual feels about the culture. Right. That's telling them right off the get go what the culture is like, how they're being treated. While, you know, it's and and I would say ninety five percent of the time it's not that we don't value them. Those situations are probably because we've been busy trying to do other things and, you know, that's just We just hadn't got to it yet or we haven't we don't have a process or a plan in place for it yet. And so I would suggest, okay, first of all, let's let's step back and let's create a world class first day. and then from there we need to, you know, make sure that we've got things before they arrive, those there's a checklist that's in place. After they get there, there's a checklist that's in place. And then over the the next thirty, sixty, ninety days, twelve months or whatever. So speaker-1: If you think about Jason, the the preparation that you would put in place if you had a big customer coming to visit your shop. Yeah. Right? If there's a really important customer, VIP was coming, you'd be prepared. Everyone would know who was coming in today. You would have PPE arranged in case they don't come with it. You would have people waiting to greet them at the door, introduce themselves. Yet if a new employee comes to the business, you'll say, Yeah, there's new guy in the lobby, I need to go meet him, but I just Gotta finish this meeting first or you know, take a seat, we'll be with you later. And I guess that's okay, right? I'm not saying we should be treating them exactly like our customers, but we should respect our new employees. Again, you get that one chance to make a first im first impression. And speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: and people will feel respected and appreciated. They will feel validated, they'll be reassured that the that the company matches how they want to feel. Because going into a new environment is daunting. Basically, if you're a young person, if you're a young person and this maybe your first job, second job, where you're coming out of college, maybe you haven't been in employment a long time, you don't know what to expect, you necessarily maybe don't have your mom there to put the arm around the shoulder and tell you, son, it's gonna be all right. It's gonna be okay. And you're going you're going into this big bad world of work with scary people that you don't know. And if you're a shop that likes to feel like a family and create that home culture, it's That's a good thing and it's reassuring for new employees to come into. It's about having that culture where people feel safe, especially in the early months or years. It's about are they safe to ask dumb questions? Are they safe to share their thoughts without the fear of judgment? An engineer coming in and saying, I'm afraid to ask this question but in case they think I'm stupid. That's a sad thing because then they can't learn. How can they learn if they've never had that experience? People on the shop floor doing machines. If they ask a dumb question, is their body gonna make fun of them? That's not nice, but it happens in life. Are we the kind of shop that expects that or tolerates that? speaker-0: And I and I think I think you can you can have a a couple of dumb questions. That's not the problem. But I know people get frustrated when they ask the same dumb question six times. Now we've we've got a different situation. Asking a dumb question once or twice is okay. When you get to like six, it's all right now. But but no, the culture, right? It's not only built on what we provide, right? So that's those first day things, those those things that we're providing to our individuals, we're providing to our teams. But it's what you also mentioned earlier, it's also shaped by what we allow, what do we walk past, and what we allow ourselves to walk past is what we are calling our standard. And the same thing happens when it comes to the culture, like what we allow is what becomes our culture. Revenue is great, but if you don't understand the numbers behind your business, growth can get expensive fast. On Buy the Numbers, Mike Payne digs into the financial side of manufacturing, cash flow, KPIs, capital investments, acquisitions, profitability, and building business value. If you want to make better decisions with your money, check out Buy the Numbers Podcast, part of the Making Chips Podcast Network. You we're talking about being positive, building positive culture, tolerating behavior or tolerating unwanted behavior becomes a standard too. And, we gotta make sure that we're aware of how we're handling negative situations because those things that we allow to go on, that becomes our standard. So we've got to make sure that we're aware of, you know, toxic behavior. I think of just the example in general of like, you know. If you've got a toxic situation, how do you handle that? How quickly do you handle that? What is, you know, what do you do to take care of that situation? And you have to make decisions. Is it coaching? Is it employment decisions? Is it just a friendly chat? I mean, and everybody's a little bit different. And so I think those are some things that you really have to to work as a manager and as a leader, you have to work at figuring out how you're going to address those toxic behaviors. speaker-1: Yeah. I think some of the traps that I've seen and we've fallen into before sometimes are driven just by business demand. Mm-hmm. Sadly, in some areas I've seen lacks of or I should I say decline of innovation. And I've seen that driven by other business priorities. So we're pushing, we have to push to get product out. We've got our KPIs that we have to hit. And sometimes leaders, middle leaders, can focus on those outputs. at the expense of other things like s like of innovation. And what happens over time if you allow that and that you may not think that that's a to a toxic thing, but it can get to a toxic place. Sure. Because what that's doing is stifling all your innovation. All those people who are enthusiastic about what they're doing, people with bright ideas that they would implement things that could shape the business and make it better for the future. We actually take that away because we restrain them by saying, No our priorities, get this product out the door and then you look round and the leader himself is sitting back relaxing because you're busy getting product out the door. Mm-hmm. But that's all that matters because the more product you get out the door, the easier it is for him. And sometimes leaders will sacrifice that innovation. And that's a sad place if you if you allow your business to get to that point. Right. speaker-0: Well, and I I think, even you go beyond that, like when we have underperformers, like how do we tolerate that? And and a lot of times I think people will tolerate underperformers a little bit because it's a difficult conversation and you know, they've got to figure out the coaching method. Or maybe you've got high performers that behave badly and that's hard to talk to because their output is so valuable, right? If you've got somebody that's not doing well, I've got an example from this, years ago one of the decisions we made was there was an employee here and he was one of our our top machinists. this guy was extremely fast and what he was able to do, his quality out production was very high and he was just somebody that was that was able to be here, was willing to go the extra mile, stay the extra hour. And if you had a project for him, you give it to him, it was done. Like you didn't even have to think about it. You could hand it to him and walk away. But on the flip side of that, he had a Very, very poor attitude. You didn't know if he was gonna be in a good mood today or a bad mood today. Most of the time it was a bad mood. So he's he's bringing a negative attitude and he's spreading that amongst other people, dragging other people down. And so, you know, we tolerated that for a while and it got to the point where it was like I felt like his output outweighed that personality side of it until one day I was just like, What are we doing? And we had a conversation and we decided collectively it was better to part ways. And that was kind of a turning point for me in saying, okay, we're not gonna tolerate toxic behavior because somebody is a a good producing employee. What we want to do is we wanna have somebody that's a good all around employee. So I would rather have somebody that's a little less ability to perform their job from a number standpoint. But they're bringing the right attitude. They're bringing an encouraging attitude. They're bringing an uplifting attitude. And they're better for the people around them. Because if we have those kind of people, they're going to be better teammates and they're going to build stronger teams. And stronger teams are built by being a team. That's the key part of it. It's not an individual that's strong, but it's somebody that supports a part of the business that's supporting somebody else as part of the business. So that is our team. Working together. speaker-1: That's a good point, Jason. And sometimes management fear of losing that individual. Yeah. You have to get rid of a person like that. It's the the specialist knowledge that they have, the drop in productivity that may come because of their skill set. And then the fear that you maybe can't replace that person because of the experience just as easy. Sometimes that's a a trap as well. You know that you've got a cultural problem there, but sometimes it's hard to address because of the negative consequence of your business. Sometimes as well, I've seen it that management just aren't even aware of this. And I've been in this situation myself where you may have a slightly toxic culture, but maybe that supervisor or whoever's in charge, they're can often be skillful with management because they can always be the center of attention. Sometimes they're lively, they can be charismatic to management. They can say all the right things, but they can belittle maybe other employees. It's a it's a it's like a schoolboy thing, right? It's like you're being back at high school and you got them picking on the little guy and everybody else laughs and jokes about it, right? But can create a very, very bad culture. And then you you talked about it at the start. Sometimes people just struggle with one to one. If you get people managers there who aren't coaches, then they struggle to address it. Maybe you have a technician who's just lazy, bad attitude. And then the fear of that person who doesn't who can't handle that situation, who can't have that one-to-one and have that open and honest performance related conversation. Well, that creates a bad culture because then everybody else says, Well, why is that guy allowed to get away with it? And the rest of us are over here trying to pick up the slack. And that toxic culture will breed across the rest of the employees. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: there's another another part that we haven't talked about, but I think is important too is sometimes we don't address a toxic behavior because we don't even know it exists. Right. Because a lot of times maybe as managers or leaders, I know me specifically as a leader in our organization, I don't see everybody's true colors all the time, right? I'm I'm sure you've experienced this as well. And so you show up and everything's great. Yes, Mr Mr. Paul. Everything is everything is great. We're right on schedule. And we're not getting the full picture at times. Or we're not getting everybody's true colors. We're not getting we're not seeing that person that's like talking behind other people's backs. We're not seeing that person that's d you know, putting somebody else down or or whatever. And so we're not able to handle it because until it comes to that boiling point and that's when we find out. And if we would have known about it like two months earlier There's probably some things we could have done, but so not knowing it is something that can be a difficult and and present a challenge for us. speaker-1: One thing that I would encourage is most leaders or if you've got your business, you might have regular one to ones with your managers, with your supervisors. But it's important too that you do skip levels as well occasionally so that you're going down another level and you're saying, How is it on the floor? And that gives that creates that safe environment for those technicians, to your machinists to come and say, Do you know I actually don't like this, or I don't like how this is being handled, or I feel like I'm being treated unfairly, or I'm feel like I'm getting asked more of than other people because they're all mates with the supervisor and he always comes to me with all his problems. And if you do those skip levels, and they may not be as frequent as you might have your weekly one to ones with your your direct reports, but those skip levels can give you a real good insight on the mood on the floor, how people are feeling. And actually let you learn a lot about that side of your maybe your supervisors or your managers that you're not seeing yourself, but you can see it from the other side. speaker-0: No, that's right. So that's perfect. speaker-1: If you're looking to increase your spindle up time without adding any headcount, check out the Hennig Workflow Automation System. I've seen it, I love it. It's a compact, automated pallet delivery solution that lets you work ahead of your machine so your shop never stops. You can load up to 40 pallets with material, fixtures, programs, and just let the workflow cook. A Henning Workflow is designed for high mix machining, works with a wide range of machines. And even with a 125 pound payload on top of a 300mm pallet, yet still takes up less space than most competitors' pallet automation system. That means more production, fewer manual changeovers, really just a practical path to high profit lights out machining. Learn more about the Hennig Workflow by visiting Hennigworldwide.com slash workflow. speaker-0: So we talked about avoiding those wrong behaviors, right? And that's not enough. that kind of leads us into making sure that as leaders we're intentional, reinforcing the behavior that we want. and and I think then that culture gets implemented through multiple channels. That's gonna be our hiring, that's gonna be our communication, that's gonna be our training, our correction, our promotion, like all of these things are are going to be part of what we're building. And we want to make sure that we're building that culture on purpose, that we're hiring people for value alignment. We want to hire people with high character. And for me, that's like a I really want to hire people first on values and characters and then evaluate their skill and potential. Because I feel like, you know, if we can have high character, high value individuals, then we're gonna be able to get the best out of their performance, even if they're slightly less have slightly less talent or skill from a machinist standpoint, then but having that high character, high value, high moral compass, we're going to have better employees, better teams that we can build around. So making sure that we we do that, we explain what our expectations are, and then we're connecting each one of our team members into that that core group. speaker-1: Yeah. It's about creating your culture authentically and authentic authenticity is I guess what you want to put in there, right? Everything has to be real. It can't be manufactured. It's about standardizing your behaviors, not your personality. She talked about who you're hiring. It's about what do you stand for? Do we start meetings on time? Do we set agendas? Do we do what we say we're gonna do? Or do we speaker-0: A lot of little things. speaker-1: do we say we're passionate or do we say we're Bubbly, right? Or it's about actually making those hard words that we can actually stick to and we can say, here's what we are. Here are our values that we can stick to. Here are our values that outline our culture. and make those frameworks so that everybody's got the the same rules, fairness, expectation that you you get, creating clear boundaries of what's acceptable and it's not, right? It's about saying, We don't blame shift. It says we're accountable for the work that we do. Accountability. Accountability is our value. That's our culture. We don't blame shift. We take accountability for our own work, our own actions, our own learning. If we make a mistake, that's okay. We hold up our hands, we say we make a mistake. We don't cover it up. That's right. We don't shift the blame and we learn and together. And it's outlining those fundamental things that are authentic, not made. And then how do you build those into your systems? How do you embed your core principles into what you do, into your performance reviews with your teams? How do you build them into promotion criteria that this is what we expect from our supervisors, this is what we expect from our senior technicians? These kinds of traits and these behaviors, we don't just promote them based on experience. We tr we promote them based on their values, how they actually Create the culture of the business that we expect and how do we display them? Because it's easy saying, well, I've been here for eight years, I should now be a senior tech, or I'm I've been here ten years, I'm due a promotion. But the question is, are you displaying the trust? Are you displaying the accountability? Are you displaying the culture and the values that we expect from our business? Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think th that culture, we build that culture. We've talked about building it like one hire at a time, one individual at a time, one conversation, maybe one correction, one leadership decision. And for me though, the the thing that really needs to pull all that together is we've got to be consistent, right? We've got to be consistent in our hiring, we've got to be consistent in our conversations, in our corrections and our decisions. So that way we're setting the tone that we're not gonna be making changes based on which individual it is. We're not gonna be making changes based on what we're having to decide. We're not bending the rules or we're not cutting corners, that we are staying consistent across the board. Like you said, even the little things, starting a meeting on time, if we say we're gonna be there, be there. If we're gonna say we're gonna call, we call. do those things, the little things. are building blocks for the big things because if you say that, okay, well we're gonna start this meeting at one o'clock and you show up late, you have just essentially told your people that they're not important enough for you to be there on time. Now, do things happen? Absolutely, right? And I think you can you can ask you can you can get by with that happening on a on a rare occasion, but that can't be your norm. I will say here's a little suggestion. If you ever walk into a meeting and you're late for this meeting, don't say, I'm sorry I'm late. What you should say is thank you all for your patience, right? You're complimenting them as you're walking in. You're telling them, hey, you guys are being patient and I really appreciate that. So you're complimenting them and not detracting from you. So just a little tidbit. speaker-1: That's a nice one. I like that. Never heard that one before. speaker-0: Yeah. So make sure you do that. I appreciate you guys being patient. speaker-1: You you may not have it, you may have it, Jason, but I have got so many back to back meetings in my week that I schedule my meetings only for fifty five minutes long. Because in a facility of our size it takes me five minutes getting between meetings. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. speaker-1: So I purposely I purposely leave at at five to the hour or whatever to allow me the walk time to get to the next meeting so that I'm not late. And that takes discipline. But that's the culture. And whenever you get there the expectation is that everybody else is there. That's speaker-0: That's right. I agree. Yeah. So I think, yeah, and and as we shift and we start to close this out, the the the final tests is not what leadership says about the culture, but it's what the person feels when they walk through the facility, right? So whether that is an individual that's been there for twenty years, whether that is a new hire, or whether that's maybe a customer that comes through, because I think customers can also get a sense from that. So, you know. One of the challenges I'm gonna put to our listeners is this week, when you walk out on the floor, walk out on the floor and observe the workplace from an employee's perspective rather than lonely looking at production results. Because so often we go out, we're we're on the floor and we're looking at results, we're looking at those metrics, the KPIs, you know, we're wanting s to see what's prepared to ship or what we built, what are those numbers look like. But actually take a step back and try to observe the workplace from an employee's perspective. Are we presenting them with an environment that's good for working? Are we helping them to be more efficient? Are we keeping a clean environment? Are we keeping, a lot of our work tables, are those organized and easy to work with? Or are we putting people into tough situations because there's clutter or there's rejected product or, you know, there's failing equipment, we've got to make sure that we're doing things to set up our entire workforce for success. And that can be something as simple as making sure that the floors are clean, that the debris is up, and that we're creating an environment that is conducive to positive workflow. The other thing, I think we can do is l watch people. We can watch people to see are they taking pride in their work? Are they showing frustrations? Are they taking ownership? Is there confusion? Are they avoiding certain jobs? make sure that we're able to decide, make decisions of what do we need to do, what do we need to change? You know, we asked earlier if you were not working at your company, would you go back and work there? Another question you can ask, all right, if you have a child, like a a son or a daughter, would you recommend that your son or daughter come and work in this facility? And that's another question that we can that we can ask ourselves. So speaker-1: That's a tough challenge. I I'm just thinking about that. Would I want my son or daughter being employed in a few years' time in the business with the culture that we have created today? That's a challenge. And I guess leaders as leaders we need to think about that, isn't it? Do we do we treat our employees the way that we would like our sons or daughters treated? I think we can learn. We can learn a lot from that. I think as leaders we should take time and reflect on what is our values. If we had to write them down and stick them up on the on the office wall so that we read them every morning whenever we would come in as as pillars of what we stood for, what would we write? Mm-hmm. What would we write write? Are we trustworthy? Are we dependable? Are we flexible? Are we supportive? Are we trustworthy? What are we? What is the fabric of what makes us place where other people want to be? speaker-0: Yep, that's it. That's it. So I think, as we close this out, I want to give you the challenge. Walk through your facility, imagine that you're seeing it the first time. Don't think about it. Don't start with looking at machines or output. Look at the people, look at the conversations, look at the conditions, look at leadership behaviors, and ask yourself, Would I want to work for this company? If I came here, would I feel welcomed? Would I know what's expected? Would I feel respected? Would I see opportunities for me to grow in my career? And would I recommend this company to somebody that I love? All right, well I think that does it for this shift on the manufacturing blueprint. Make sure that you go out onto your floor, that you take a look through fresh eyes, like you're seeing it for the first time, and ask yourself Would you work here tomorrow? We're giving you the blueprint. Now go build.