Latest / Calm Under Fire / William (Bill) Closser
Transcript
- Col. John Boggs: Well, welcome to Calm Under Fire. I'm Colonel John Boggs, the president of Fortitude Consulting. ⁓ And today, I'm joined by William Klosser, ⁓ president and principal consultant of NSGI, with over 35 years of experience in operational excellence, asset management, and reliability engineering. Now, Bill has led teams across industries ranging from energy and mining to manufacturing and government, helping organizations improve performance where it matters most, in execution. Bill, it is great to have you here. William Closser: Thanks, John. I appreciate you inviting me on your podcast here. Col. John Boggs: Perfect, thank you Bill. Well Bill, do you mind if we just jump right in it? William Closser: No, please do. Col. John Boggs: Perfect. Bill, organizations talk a lot about strategy, but performance is won or lost in execution. So why do many organizations, why do so many organizations struggle to execute consistently? William Closser: Mm-hmm. Well, I think from what I've been able to observe that Leadership doesn't always ⁓ provide a clear vision for starting for the teams. ⁓ What you see is, you know, the small group that has developed the strategy understands what it is that they're trying to achieve. ⁓ But they really don't communicate that well to the rest of the team. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: So the team doesn't really understand clearly the objectives of what they're about to take on. And that, think, is many times the biggest issue. They get these great visions. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: The plan isn't there always. ⁓ It's a step by step by step process to go from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be with that vision. Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: And the structure of how you get there, the expectations ⁓ that ⁓ you have to communicate to the folks that are actually implementing your strategy have to be clear. And I hate to say this, but many times, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: ⁓ We're afraid to set expectations. You and I are both ex-military folks. And we always had clear expectations set in front of us. And I think that's one thing that... ⁓ good organizations really do. They set clear expectations for the organization, both in outcomes and performance for the individuals in achieving those. So, you know, we don't want to be afraid to do that. And then I would say the last thing that comes to my mind is support. for execution. A lot of times, the teams don't have that capability. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: to execute and no fault of their own. know, but sometimes it's a new ⁓ adventure that the organization is going on. So some members of the team don't have that capability. And so leadership has to get in and understand where they need to support their team, where they need to build them. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mmm. William Closser: and bring them up. And that has to come all the way through the organization and figure out, you know, how do we give our people, because we've hired good people, you know, how do we give them the tools that they will be successful in the execution ⁓ of the strategy that we're laying out. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. So just to tag on to that just a little bit more. So the leadership is when they don't give the support that's needed. So is this a function of leadership just passing on? It's almost like an action passes and is an action completed. I'm not worried about it because I told you what I want to done and that's it. And they just walk away. William Closser: No, no, no, no, that comes back to holding people accountable. a little later on, I want to get into some change management issues. And these come back around to effectively managing your change. But you have to be accountable to your organization, first and foremost. Col. John Boggs: Okay. Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: But then your organization for execution also has to be held accountable. So it's a two-way street. And so that accountability goes both ways. It's not a one-way type deal. ⁓ I'm kind of a, ⁓ I shouldn't say kind of, but I'm more of, my leadership style is more of a servant. leader style. So I view it as once, you know, the people understand where I need to get them to go, you know, where we're going to go as a team. And I've done a good job doing that. I got to clear out the roadblocks. I have to dig in and understand what it is my teams mean. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mmm. William Closser: to be able to execute. ⁓ And it's different for every team. And that's why I look at some organizations and you see ⁓ a leader may be successful one place, but he moves on to someplace else and he fails or vice versa. And it's because, but you have a few really good leaders. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: who excel wherever you put them. And that's because they take the time to understand what their teams need to be successful. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: You know, so your teams, that's, think, one of the biggest things you need to do as a leader is understand what your teams need to have to be successful. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. So you're talking about behaviors now. So these are the behaviors that separate the high performing operational leaders from the average ones or are these the behaviors? William Closser: Yes. It's behaviors. ⁓ And it's, you know, I'm not one for using the word empathy much, but you have to, you know, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the other people on your team and stop and think and say, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. William Closser: You know, what is it? You know, the guy. I believe, you know, 90, 95 % of the people come to work and want to do a good job and want to be ⁓ on a winning team. You know, and ⁓ this whole philosophy about wanting to be on winning teams actually You know, it goes back to my military days. And so I believe that people really want to be on a winning team and want to contribute. And so if you're looking at them and saying, how do I make it so you can be successful. I laid it out here for you. You know, we've all talked about it. We've communicated well that vision and we've set our expectations there. So I have to understand that, you know, the people want to win and I have to help them win. Col. John Boggs: Okay. So Bill, what are the signs that an organization is drifting away from operational discipline? They're trying to be on track, but they're not. They're going the wrong way. William Closser: Well, I kind of understand. And ⁓ you'd be surprised how, maybe you wouldn't be, but how easy it is to drift. And it comes under the hurry up mentality. Well, I only got so much time to get this done. I'll do it the best I can. I get done and say, well, that's not as good as I could have done it, but it's good enough for now. When you see people start to not put into it, for whatever reason, what they know is their best. and they accept from themselves less than their best. That's when you know you're on the slippery slope. And it's exacerbated not only on the individual level, but on the organizational level. Because I, ⁓ in my career, spend most of my time working with operations, maintenance, engineering, supply folks. That's the arena that most of my time is spent in. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: And I watch operations say, come on, come on, come on, come on. And then it's like, just maintenance finish up and let's go. And so they're like, that's good enough for now. We'll get to it later. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: They know they're not meeting their own established criteria for what is good, but it's good enough for now. Well, getting to it later never usually happens to come around for a number of reasons. One, because the machines don't care whether or not you plan to get to it later on. Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Mmm. William Closser: You know, if you didn't do it right, you're either going to suffer in capacity, suffer in quality, or it's just going to quit on you altogether. You know, and then you're down and it will make you take the time, probably more time than you would have had to on the front end. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. William Closser: If you've done it right, if you've taken the extra time on the front end just to do a little bit more that was required, you would have seen the benefit and gotten a lot more out of it in the long run. So that's the front end of that slippery slope that we get into. and organizations get into. Col. John Boggs: Wow. So the front end of that slippery slope never ends well. William Closser: No, I think it's once you get on it, you're sliding down the hill, you know, and it takes it takes a real effort to arrest that kind of thought process and behavior. You know, it's, you know, I've seen organizations actually have to take a stop and say, OK, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: You know, we got off track, we're going in the wrong direction, and let's just stop and remember what we're here to do and why we're doing it. And let's get back on track. And it takes, to be honest, it takes a very strong leader to do that. It takes somebody who really understands that if he doesn't correct now, we may notcorrect Col. John Boggs: Wow, takes a strong leader to correct now. Well, I like that. That's excellent. So Bill, you focus heavily on reliability engineering. So how should leaders think about reliability beyond the just equipment? William Closser: Mm-hmm. To me, ⁓ reliability is the goal that you're after. Some people in today's arena look at reliability, they think of it in terms of... ⁓ They think of it in terms really of predictive maintenance or doing the right preventative maintenance. And that's going to get me the reliability that I want. But I look at it more of reliability is the goal that you're headed for. But it really creates, really, ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: You really need a strong cross-functional process or system to achieve that reliability. ⁓ And it begins with engineering. It begins in the design phases. It comes through with a procurement process. ⁓ It gets into how we operate. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: And it also gets into how we maintain our assets. Because I've had people look at me with a blank face and say, when I tell them this, but you can acquire the level of reliability. You can purchase that. You can purchase reliability. ⁓ It'll cost you a lot. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. ⁓ uh-huh. William Closser: Okay. And this is what NASA does. know, NASA can't stop an operation once you stick that satellite or that deep space probe up in sky. You know, there's no coming back. There's no technician showing up and taking care of that. You know, so they spend a lot of money buying Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: level of reliability in their equipment that they need. They have no other choice. we can't, know, most manufacturing facilities can't do that. But we can start with some level in the design process that says, this is what is acceptable because this is how we're going to operate. Okay, we're going to take six months. Col. John Boggs: and Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: short outages or, you know, we don't run 24-7. We run, you know, 18-hour shifts. So that means six hours on night shift, I've got time. You you think about how you're going to operate. And so you can begin your whole thought process about reliability in that arena. Okay. There's a process in the Department of Defense, a really good detailed write up on RAM, Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability. And I've taken it and I call it RAME, ⁓ R-A-M-I, which is Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Inspectability. So that all starts. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. William Closser: early on. Well, if you have a greenfield operation you're designing for, or you're doing refits, the same philosophy ⁓ can start in that design process. ⁓ Now, when you move from design, you get into the procurement chain. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: ⁓ huh. William Closser: We look at, there's always a drive to cut our cost. And really, it's a price reduction. Because if we look at the sometimes at the cost, I'm interested in the lifecycle cost. I spent so much money to acquire it, and I'm going to maintain it ⁓ over its life. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: Those are built into what I expect for my production costs. ⁓ If I go in and I take a look at, well, let's see if I can get something cheaper, the materials necessary or the parts necessary or my labor necessary cheaper to take care of it, I risk increasing my long-term costs. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: And that seems to be counterintuitive to some people. But when you think about it, if I buy a lower priced product, how do I get a lower priced product? Many times it's because it's an inferior product. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: We saw huge amounts of this in the nuclear industry start to creep in about 10 years ago, 15 years ago, where we started to see counterfeit parts coming in. And so the nuclear industry really put a huge red flag on stuff that you didn't know where it was coming from, and how to check. Col. John Boggs: Ooh. Mm-hmm. William Closser: for counterfeit parts. But those lower priced parts basically end up costing you more downtime. They may cost you repeated maintenance ⁓ on a specific piece of equipment. ⁓ And that's all that lost production time. And it depends on the operation. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. William Closser: But it ultimately leads to reduced throughput. So if you're a 24-7 operation, you almost can't make that up. So your customers end up having to have to wait, which makes them less happy. What happens to your reputation? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. ⁓ William Closser: you ⁓ as a supplier, ⁓ your reputation is tarnished as being able to meet delivery schedules. Or if you are delivering, I did some work for a steel company at one point in time. And they were making their delivery schedule. But every time Their product got, you know, their rolls of steel got unrolled. There were marrs on them, there were stains on them, and they couldn't be used for final product. So the customers were very unhappy about inferior quality products. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. tour. William Closser: So those are the things that ⁓ you have to look at and consider ⁓ when you start thinking about buying lower priced product. And engineering can help you there. They always will. But again, it's that process that comes across. Engineering delivers the specifications. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: and says this is what needs to be there. If the supply chain goes and buys all that and sticks with it, then it's to the operations folks and the maintenance teams. Operations, ⁓ when you build a design, build a plant or you modify it, you usually take Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: the conceptual designs that management has. And you look at it, you say, OK, we want this plant to be capable of x number of widgets per hour or day or whatever the manufacturing cycle is. Well, if you're good, which everybody wants to be, and you have a product that people like, what happens? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. ⁓ my, we have a product that everybody likes everybody wants it. Yeah. ⁓ my god. William Closser: So you have more demand than you're actually supplying. So usually, operations says, you know what? I think I can get 5 or 10 % more out of this line. Let's try it for a week. Col. John Boggs: Yes, absolutely. William Closser: And so they figure out how to run the machines a little bit harder. And at the end of the week or two weeks, whatever the trial period was, they're like, ⁓ yeah, see, we can do it. We can do it, right? Col. John Boggs: Hodge. William Closser: What ends up happening is in the equipment there are stressors that are there. And it designed those stressors that the materials, the configurations have been set up to eliminate or significantly ⁓ retard those stressors. When you crank up the machining, you put more stress on the machine. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And when you bought the inferior part, you really bought yourself a real problem now, don't you? Yep. Wow. William Closser: Yep. Yep. So if we're going to ramp up, you have to go back to the engineers. Start back at the engineers and say, what are our vulnerabilities? What are the failure mechanisms associated with this piece of equipment that will become apparent? And what are those impacts to our production? Sometimes it may be, OK, so you're going to have to increase the frequency of maintenance that you perform on this piece of equipment. Sometimes they're going to say, you know what? This is over designed for what we're doing with it right now, and it'll handle it. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: But without it could end in engineering evaluation, you're not going to see that. You're not going to understand it. So what ends up happening? You either have, if you're running and you're running at 110 % or whatever it happens to be, your quality suffers or your output suffers. Okay? Col. John Boggs: Hmm. So, Bill, how do you build in a culture of continuous improvement? How do you continually improve if you're trying to cut corners or do things too fast? William Closser: Well, to build in that continuous improvement, you always start asking yourself, what can go wrong? What can go wrong? And the more obvious one usually is, what's not right right now in my plan? Okay. And, you know, for some people, you know, that in the reliability and asset management world, there's a there's a whole strategy around defect illumination. And you take a little bit of it at a time, you don't tackle it all at one time, you walk through it, you know, I'm sure some folks have seen, you know, just get 1 % better every day, right? Col. John Boggs: ⁓ huh. Mm-hmm. William Closser: I've seen that in my own personal workouts. They're like, just set a goal of 1 % improvement every day. That sometimes is a little tough to achieve on a regular basis. But what we can do really is, OK, let's take a look at what are some of the low hanging throughs. for defects that are in our plant right now. What causes those issues? Don't be satisfied with, well, it's good enough. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mmm. William Closser: Okay. How do I, you know, make that next step? How do I improve? And that's the way I think you engage everyone. know, you know, what, look around. Management, management and leadership. And I kind of use those terms separate because there really are two different roles. Okay. But leadership needs to set the expectation that, hey, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: We want to get better. If we don't get better, our competition will eventually eat our lunch. So I always want to stay better. ⁓ In today's world, it's on the world stage. It's not just down the road or in the state one state over. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: And it's obvious. What's Japan going to do? What's Korea going to do? What's anybody else going to do and supply product here to the United States? So my competition, I have lots of competition. How do I outpace them? I do it by starting and saying, how do I eliminate my known defects? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: And I asked the team, you know, I asked everybody and the people closest to those defects usually are on the shop floor. Right. The operators, the maintenance people, the people who ⁓ go out in the plant every day, they're seeing them. But when we when we get into that continuous improvement, it's Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: It's one thing to identify those. It's another thing to address them. And you have to address them based on the risk that they pose to the organization meeting its objectives. And ⁓ I use a bigger term than an objective. It's not just production objectives. It's also ⁓ safety issues, personnel safety, environmental. These are the productions, costs, environment, safety. These are all. Col. John Boggs: Mmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: We all have objectives around those. So you can't just look at the one. So you go back and you say, if I'm looking at all these defects and I'm prioritizing them, I'm prioritizing them on meeting our combined objectives for the organization. Then, if you don't, now you've prioritized it and you don't take Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: ⁓ Action on it. You don't fix it Yeah, and it could be the way we operate. It could be a procedure that causes the problem. It could be a Problem in Equipment that we have it could be a layout, you know I've seen many times where you know equipment is located such that Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: It's very hard for operators to get to it, and it's almost impossible for maintenance to take care of it. ⁓ So those are defects that keep you from achieving what you need to achieve. So why don't we think about moving that piece of equipment in the facility so that operations can operate it effectively, maintenance can maintain it. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: maintain it effectively? So those are questions ⁓ that you have to look at and answer and actually do something about. If you say, let's identify the issues. Let's plan and prioritize them. But then they sit there in that basket. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: never getting dealt with, the leadership loses credibility. Col. John Boggs: Yeah. No action. William Closser: And once you start losing the credibility, you start losing trust. And trust is in my mind, you know, one of the most valuable things that a leader can have with his team. Col. John Boggs: So Bill, if a leader wants to improve, if they want to improve operationally, they want to improve their performance, they want to start improving things, they want to start tomorrow, what's the first thing they should be doing? William Closser: Well, I'll say this. It depends on where they are in general, as to the next step. But you can never go wrong with ⁓ improving your two-way communications. You have to be very clear about what you're trying to tell people. Don't sugarcoat it. Make sure that there are any questions. But on the other hand, you also have to listen well. Communications is a two-way street. It's not me just telling you what you need to do. A good leader has got to listen well. and understand, you know. And that goes back to that, comment on servant leadership. If I don't listen well, I can't understand the problems that they're encountering. And if I can't understand the problems that they're, you know, my team is encountering, I can't ⁓ remove those obstacles for them or help them. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: to remove those obstacles so that they can achieve. Col. John Boggs: Wow. William Closser: So, and then trust. You know, there's an old adage that says, you know, say what you're gonna do and then do what you say. Okay. That's, you know, that is utmost, you know. Don't say something and then walk away and not do it. Whether it's... Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: either positive or negative. If you say there's disciplinary action for doing these things and this is what it is, ⁓ I remember early in my career, ⁓ we were doing a major turnaround at a nuclear plant. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: Admiral Williams, and I was going to say this for later, but I'll talk about it now. Admiral Williams was brought on board to turn the place around. you know, he kept telling people, procedures, procedures, procedures, got to have your procedures. Why? Because we're only human, you know, and we get distracted. You know, we forget things, that saying that, you know, you don't know how to do this and that you haven't done the, you know, the activity a hundred times. But how well did you sleep last night? Did your wife complain and what was she or are your kids sick? You know, you know, there are all kinds of things that distract us as human beings. So I want you to have your procedures in front of Col. John Boggs: You William Closser: and I want you utilizing your procedures as you go through things. And he had said that over and over and over again. Okay. And finally, he says, the next person that we catch not using their procedures, you're terminated. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Wow. William Closser: Our very best electrician hands down was in the instrumentation cabinet going through checks and he had left his ⁓ procedure in the shop. Why? Because he'd done it a hundred times. He knew exactly what he was doing. He fired him. Col. John Boggs: Ugh. Ouch. William Closser: Yeah, it hurt. But he did what he said he was going to do. And he had given everybody lots of, you know, this is what we're going to do. This is why we're doing it. You know, I want you to follow. He set those expectations and they failed. I'm telling you, nobody went without their procedures after that. You know? Col. John Boggs: It hurt. I certainly did. I will bet. William Closser: Because if they were willing to do it, the guy that everybody looked up to, was the best, everybody thought was the best technical electrician there, then he was serious. So no favoritism. Col. John Boggs: ⁓ huh. Mm-hmm. Wow. No favoritism. ⁓ my gosh. Bill, after decades of doing this work, what drives your passion? What is it that keeps you going after this? The drive for excellence. William Closser: You know, ⁓ when I started early on. ⁓ I quickly believed that US manufacturing could compete with anyone. I started in the 80s. And it was a time when there was this big push that, US manufacturing can't compete. Especially in Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: some of the more traditional arenas. ⁓ We were great with the computers, computer development and software. But we were willing to farm out all the rest of what we did. Let somebody else do that. ⁓ And I think that the... ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: and mindset with a lot of ⁓ the influential people in the country was, let's just be a large version of Switzerland. We all have, you know, our goal is to make money. Everybody will make money. We'll all be in the banking and the exchange business. And I have people, I have family and, you know, the ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: banking and exchange business. they hear this from me all the time. But I believe that American industry could compete with anybody. ⁓ And we should be taking advantage of our knowledge and our people, their skills. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: the knowledge on business practices and processes, applying technology to make us more efficient and effective, to create better products through more precise measurements, more precise manufacturing, all those things. again, goes back to also, I believed Col. John Boggs: ⁓ huh. William Closser: people would be proud and have a higher level of self-worth if they were actually seeing those contributions ⁓ and not writing a managed decline. Col. John Boggs: you Mm. William Closser: And so I have always wanted to see that improvement. I have always wanted to see people do the best that they can and capable of and continue to get better. For some people, they can make that very quickly. But some people it takes, or organizations, takes longer to accomplish. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: just because of lots of different constraints. But as long as we were continuing to get better, ⁓ and I'll give you ⁓ a great example. I'll go back to early in my career. ⁓ I was at a nuclear power plant that was considered the worst Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: power plant in the country. Our availability and our capacity were the pits. And ⁓ Admiral Williams showed up. management had a decision as to whether or not they were going to invest in trying to get the place turned around. Col. John Boggs: Oof. Ouch. William Closser: or whether they were going to just give up on the place. And they made the decision to invest. And over about a six-year period, Admiral Williams took that place from being the worst to being the number two plant in the country. Col. John Boggs: Hmm. Wow. William Closser: and the number 6 plant in the world. Col. John Boggs: Wow. William Closser: And talk about people feeling great. Yeah. And so if you can go to work and feel like you're part of a team that is accomplishing something, and accomplishing something that's, you know. Col. John Boggs: Doing really good. Yes. Yeah. William Closser: difficult to do. But you come away from it feeling good about what you do every day. And ultimately, I want people to feel good. I want people to feel good about what they can contribute and what they can do. And when they go home at night, they're happy. So their families are happy, right? I mean, it's awful to come home and have had a bad day and then the family gets that bad day, right? Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. William Closser: So that's kind of what keeps me going. ⁓ Col. John Boggs: Outstanding. Wow. Well, Bill, for the listeners, for the people who listening here today, how do they connect with you? Can you tell us a little bit about NSGI and in case, I mean, how do people connect with you? How do they do that? Can you tell us a little about NSGI and how to connect with you? William Closser: you Well, as I mentioned, I'm ex-military just like you. And ⁓ we're a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business. And we're... Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. William Closser: The easiest way to get in touch with me is through email, which is WCloser, C-L-O-S-S-E-R, at THENSGI.com. And if somebody wants to pick up the phone and call, they can always do that. 865-773-8606. And I'm happy to share ⁓ whatever I can. ⁓ I might have a whole lot of questions for them, but it's great to learn about other people and where they are in the journey. But that's one thing I want. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, that's great. William Closser: one, everyone that's listening is the whole arena is really adjourned. It's not about getting to that point. And I used to think it was about getting to a point. But once you get to that point, there's always more beyond that. And so it's a journey. This is, know, and I know that's kind of cliche. But I've really, over the years, learned that it's a term. I can always get better. I can always do better. Col. John Boggs: the Bill, thank you very much. That was awesome. So to reach Bill, it's WCloser, C-W-C-L-O-S-S-E-R at THENSGI.COM and his phone number is 865-773-8606. So Bill, thank you very ⁓ much. And for everyone that's listening, I look forward to seeing you on our next episode. ⁓ stay steady, lead well. That's it, out here. William Closser: Thanks, John.