Improvement Thinking in Organizational DNA with Gary Peterson | 057

Welcome to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers, the podcast for leaders in Ops Management who want to spark improvement, foster engagement, and boost problem solving – AND still get their day job done. Here’s your host, Leadership Trainer, Lean Enthusiast, and Spy Thriller Junkie, Jamie V. Parker. 

Hey, Ops Leaders, I’ve got to tell you, these 20 minutes were the highlight of my summer. When I finished this conversation with this guest and every time I’ve listened to it since then, I walk away feeling so energized. And I think I may have just heard my new favorite quote.  

Welcome to the Lean Leadership for Ops Managers Executive Series. I am so excited for this series where we really explore how operations executives can develop leaders to navigate current operational challenges while also building cultures where people can thrive.  

We are kicking off today with Gary Peterson. Gary’s the Executive Vice President of Supply Chain and Production at O.C. Tanner, and he specializes in creating cultures of continuous improvement through manufacturing and leadership excellence. Across his three decades at O.C. Tanner, this Shingo Academy and AME Hall of Famer transformed the company’s manufacturing operations from Batch to Lean, while pioneering team-based procedures that allowed each unit to take full ownership of their results.  

Now, Gary inspires me, and I hope that you are inspired through this conversation too.

Jamie: [00:01:49] Hi, Gary, welcome to the show.

Gary: [00:01:52] Hi, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here, Jamie.

Jamie: [00:01:54] Yeah, I’m so excited to have you here. We met I don’t even know if you remember this, but we met years ago at an AME conference in Boston, I think. And so it’s great to kind of bring this full circle and have you back over here to the show today. 

Gary: [00:02:09] I am honored that you would ask me to be here. 

Jamie: [00:02:12] All right. Well, let’s kick this off with a question about you and your perspective. And I want to hear a value or principle, some sort of quote, something that embodies your beliefs about leadership.

Gary: [00:02:28] So thank you. Yeah. I think for me, probably the thing that I see the most often as a way of introducing my entire theme is that the people closest to the job are the ones who are best suited to make improvements to the job. And so that naturally, therefore pulls management and leadership into a different type of role.  

Instead of being the know-it-all, the experienced, “I’ll give you the answer” type leader, it asks that a leader become more of a coach and a mentor, a teacher, develop groups of people.  

And I’m a strong adherent of the Shingo principles, a Shingo model which has a value to the client at the top continuous improvement towards that. The foundation is a culture that allows people to thrive at that.  

It demands respect for everybody and kind of a humble leadership where a leader is more about “how do I help you” as opposed to “how do I control you, direct you, make you do the right thing.” So that’s kind of my that’s kind of a synopsis of how I feel about life.

Jamie: [00:03:43] Yeah. I love it. And I always like to start with this question because I feel like it gives us such insight into who we’re hearing from.   

Well, before we jump into our main topic today, let’s talk just a little bit about your organization. So, you serve at O.C. Tanner, so tell us a little bit about your organization. Let us know who you are, who you serve, how you create value. 

Gary: [00:04:08] So, we’re a $600,000,000 annual revenue global company. I have operations here in the headquarters of Salt Lake, up in Toronto, outside of London, Mumbai, Singapore, and Australia.  

Our clients are the world’s biggest and best companies. And by best, I mean the ones who care about their people and who want their people to feel honored and valued and appreciated.  

So, we’re the global leader in software and services that improve workplace culture through meaningful employee experiences. And so, our customers buy our technology, and then they use it to provide employee rewards and recognition, and my team supply chain and production supplies the awards. And when the customer wants something custom and symbolic, we make that for them.

Jamie: [00:05:05] Yeah, that’s lovely. And you know, what a great tie in here. Yeah. This idea of culture here.

Gary: [00:05:12] So it’s kind of a chicken and the egg, which came first? Did I buy into this and therefore would become that or is that what I do and therefore, I don’t know.

Jamie: [00:05:21] Yeah, well, tell us when you think about improvement thinking and this idea of respect for people, and this overall idea of continuous improvement, how does that play a role in the strategy of your organization?

Gary: [00:05:38] For sure. So, Mr. Tanner, who is our founder, he used to talk about it and this was back before any of the current models were in place. He used to say things like, “I’m hoping for a future better or beyond our present best.” That’s a quote that our people use all the time. He talked about, “Every day I came to work, and I tried to touch the fringes of perfection. And at best I sometimes came near.” 

This is that whole notion of we can do better, we can be better. Like I say, it is in our DNA in a nutshell. I would say strategically, all of our people, every person wants to provide as much value as possible to the client with as little effort as possible. And we do think of that as very strategic.

Jamie: [00:06:32] Wonderful. So, I love that this is integrated. It’s not a tack-on, a bolt-on. 

Well, today we’re talking about leadership and some of the challenges that we face in leadership as well as how we can better serve, so let’s talk.  

So, thinking about the last year or two years, whatever time frame you want to use, what’s been one of the biggest leadership challenges that you’ve faced as an organization? Which one of you said, hey, we’ve got to overcome this?

Gary: [00:07:05] So in the last year and a half, I don’t know if you’re aware of this pandemic going on, and that is without a doubt been the biggest struggle for us. We had that figure out almost overnight how to manufacture with social distancing, taking care to disinfect the workplace.  

There are a lot of things that we kind of said, “Here’re the things you need to make sure we do.” And I was very pleased that our teams ran with it and basically figured out how to make it work. And in the end, they didn’t miss a beat. Everyone went home except the factory, and the factory just pushed on.  

It’s interesting. At first, I walked through the factory and I’d see in their eyes, I saw a little bit of fear like this is a pretty frightening situation. But after just a few weeks, the look was more like we got this, we got this. Now we can make this work.  

But the biggest struggle was I found shortly after that, everyone just kind of hunkered down and was focusing on producing, and they kind of stepped away from all the principles and systems that have always brought us success.  

And it was almost like, OK, the world’s in turmoil, there’s pandemonium, let’s just produce. And so, things were stopping like continuous improvement, like team huddles, like problem-solving, and they just assumed that we were just going to hunker down. And I and think about that. I mean, that was maybe a month into it.  

If we’ve got 18 months of no improvements, of no team meetings, no problem solving, a no strategy deployment, that’s a horrifying thought. And we actually nipped that in the bud very early. We said, look, guys, when things get rough, you fall back on what matters to you, fall back on your principles of systems. You double down, you enrich them. You do them even better than you’re doing them.  

And as far as we’ve come in the 30 years that we’ve been on our continuous improvement journey; I never would have believed that I had to emphasize that as strongly as I did. That was a shocker to me. And it’s been a good learning, a really good learning. And I think I think we’re stronger because we adapted and found our way back to what matters. 

Jamie: [00:09:47] Yeah, I think that’s probably a relatively common reaction. Even at an individual level in moments of crisis, while the thought is maybe we should double down, but in moments of crisis, that’s where we tend to step away and we lose sight of some of that.

Gary: [00:10:06] So maybe we remember that in next global pandemic, we remember that people need to be reminded that we’ve got to keep doing what matters. You know, you can’t just isolate yourself and not do the big things.

Jamie: [00:10:25] Sure. And that crisis may look like, hey, we have leadership change that we weren’t prepared for or, hey, we have supply chain challenges or we’re having gaps in trying to attract and retain team members. And we have some work to do on how we’re leading to make a difference there. And that’s when we have to double down on this.

Gary: [00:10:48] You just everything you just said we’re experiencing. And I think everybody is.

Jamie: [00:10:53] Mm hmm. Well, so it sounds like kind of saying, hey, we’re not going to go down this path. And you course-corrected pretty quickly there. Any other learnings from that experience or anything else you wanted to share from that experience?

Gary: [00:11:08] I will say that I think one of the areas we’re still struggling with, and it’s becoming worse the longer we have people working remotely, is our development of new custom products, our launching and selling new custom products. It’s so physical, it’s tangible, it’s very personal. And I think having the front office marketing client’s success sales away from us is very difficult.  

And thankfully, we have a soft opening in July, so some people are back in the office. In August, everyone will be back. But I can’t wait. I can’t wait to get marketing back here to a client success back here. I think that those interactions are important to us where we’re struggling on that.

 Jamie: [00:12:00] Yeah. I know that’s been obviously a big topic for organizations is, is everybody coming back? Are we doing a hybrid? Virtual? What does that look like? Anything that when you were thinking the organization you were thinking through, what is our decision going to be about the same thing that you really considered and how you made that decision?

 Gary: [00:12:20] Yeah, we’re doing a hybrid in the sense that we’re a technology company. So even though my factory people, they can’t work from home, but some of the support people can for me, and the whole company, if your work allows, is going to be off on Thursdays and Fridays. Not off work but work from home on Thursdays and Fridays. And a lot of the I.T. jobs are working from home three, four days a week because that because they can do that.  

I have some of my support functions, like some of my systems team, production control and logistics teams, where we’re asking them, certainly a product development team, we probably won’t take Thursday and Friday from home. We probably want to have them here.  

So, it just depends on the job. I would say that come August, I’ll bet 70 percent of the people are not here the second half of the week is my guest.

 Jamie: [00:13:18] Thank you for sharing your experience because we all went through it and are still going through it today. We’re still dealing with some of these changes and impacts from it.  

So, thinking about this, you know, now we have this immediate future here. What’s next? How do you think ops managers really need to evolve and show up as leaders to be able to navigate these operational challenges with the supply chain in the employment market and all of the operational challenges, while also doing what you talked about the very beginning, which is creating workplaces where people can thrive? How did how can they get both?

 Gary: [00:14:00] It’s a great question, Jamie. I’ll tell you that before the pandemic hit, which has led to these ongoing issues that you’re describing in both supply chain, logistics, and employment, et cetera, I was arguing that with the business world to change to the point where a command-and-control structure, the old hierarchies are just too cumbersome and too slow to adapt to the client, the way the client needs are changing so dramatically.  

And they’re really not necessary anymore because now I mean, in the olden days, which is interesting, old days, the 40s and 50s at the last century, and yet we’re still clinging on to some of those leadership models of command and control.  

Back in those days, information was not readily available. It was hard to disseminate data to everybody. And so, somebody needed to be like a leader who could help people understand what was going on. Nowadays, you can get your access to every piece of data. Every team member can see the data every day. They can see it throughout the day. Nowadays, I mean, you can consume any training you want from your phone. 

So, there is no longer this corporate need to control that. The market dynamics are moving all over this place. And I’m just thinking we need to rely more on teams more than ever to be nimble, more agile, to make the decisions at a more local and tighter level to them, that allows the company to move very rapidly.  

If we’re doing everything command and control, if everything that my people do has to come from me, then I am the bottleneck and the whole organization can only move as fast as I’m able to make things happen. We have found here that having every team empowered and authorized to do what matters, things are moving so fast I can’t keep up with the changes. So, my job becomes more of setting direction and vision and strategy and energy and credibility and belief. That’s the new leader in my mind. And let the teams do what needs to be done. And I think just a very big deal for leaders to change the way that they’ve been managing.

 Jamie: [00:16:32] Yeah, it’s interesting that you say all this. I don’t know if you know this, but I when I introduced myself, I tell people that I am a recovering command and control manager.

 Gary: [00:16:44] I love it. I love it.

 Jamie: [00:16:46] And, you know, it’s recovering. Still not recovered past tense. Because it is it’s an ongoing thing.

 Gary: [00:16:53] I think we all are. And I think when you see yourself fall back into the old patterns is when pressure is being applied, when emotions are high, when crisis gets difficult, crisis happens, our energy level drops, and we tend to move towards these less effective management techniques.  

The challenge for all of us, all of us recovering command and control people is to keep ourselves at this higher level that allows the trust to stay in the team.

 Jamie: [00:17:30] Yeah. And I think what’s so interesting about what you just said is that those times when emotions are higher, when there’s more pressure, when all of these situations, which is when we revert back, those are the times that we most need this people-centric leadership and those are the times that it’s easiest to slip away from it.

 Gary: [00:17:49] Yes, I think that is true. You know, so I have my leader standard work reminds me every day of what matters most. I took the time to sit down and say, what is the best use of care? How do I provide value to all of my people and to this organization? I write that list down. If I compare that to all the things I’m doing, 80% of what I’m doing does not play to my strengths. If it does not play to what I should be doing, why am I doing it?  

And the things that I should be doing need to be on my leader standard work, you know, they need to tell me to get to the floor, to talk to people, all the things that I say that I need to do. Well, if it’s on my leader standard work and I’m checking it off every day and I’m leaving the leader standard work out of my desk so that anybody who wants to can come and see how I’m doing against the things that I told them I will do, this is what I will do. I think that is a good step. Tell people you’re going to be different. Tell people this is what you’re going to do and hold yourself accountable to do it.

 Jamie: [00:18:56] Yeah, I love it. What a great tactical way that people can go after this.  

So, as you as you look forward to the next year, what are the kind of leadership opportunities or trends or things that you expect maybe manufacturing organizations are going to face?

 Gary: [00:19:15] Well, let’s be honest. I mean, these global supply chain and logistics disruptions, they’re going to continue well into next year and we’re all being disrupted. So, I think it’s a perfect time to go to our people and ask them to step up and work together to more quickly solve these problems that are in front of them.  

So, again, I think teams make good decisions. I think a group of people will make a better decision over time. Better than I will make as an individual. The problem is when I make a bad decision, everyone just does what I say until I fix it, no matter how bad it is, they do what I say. But when a team makes a mistake and they immediately realize, oh, this is wrong, they fix it, they adapt to it, they learn, and they change.  

It’s doesn’t make any sense to me, again, in this difficult time to revert back to command and control because we’re afraid or worried. I’m saying let’s go back to what you and I were saying earlier.  

Let’s keep our energy at a high level and let’s trust people, help us sit down with them and say, look, here’s the issue, you know, components are going to be expensive, we’re going to struggle to get shipments out. We need everybody’s help. Anything you see, how can we do this and get teams talking about it? I think that’s the big leadership opportunity in this difficult time.

 Jamie: [00:20:49] Yes, I love it. I love the transparency that’s required when you get people engaged. Yeah, we have to be honest with them.  

 Gary: [00:21:00] They love hearing me say I don’t know how to do this on my own. This is too big for me. I’m in over my head. I need everybody’s help. We need all your brains helping to solve this in my mind. And that’s powerful leadership.

 Jamie: [00:21:15] Yes. I’m like, I’m ready. I want to go help. And what I’m really hearing too is, don’t try to wait this out. So, don’t try to say, oh, we have these supply chain challenges, and, when things get back to normal then…

 Gary: [00:21:31] They’re going to be too long. So again, it goes back to the hunker down my people were doing early are we can’t just hunker down and say, well, when this passes, will be better. It’s going to be here for another year at least, I think. Yeah.

 Jamie: [00:21:44] Ok, wonderful. All right. So, anything that you wanted to share before we wrap up, anything that you wanted to share that you feel like we missed today?

 Gary: [00:21:54] I just want to reiterate that I think work should be powerful and engaging for everyone. It needs to be full of meaning and purpose for every employee at every level.  And so, I think we should all look at our sphere of influence and just kind of figure out how are we going to get everyone in our sphere of influence engaged in the results. That would be my advice to everybody.

 Jamie: [00:22:21] I love it; engagement, encouragement. I love this advice that you just gave. We’re going to do some wonderful things.  

So, listen up. If you enjoyed hearing this from Gary, there are ways that you can learn more. So, in our show notes, I’m going to put links. You can learn about the organization, you can connect with Gary, but also check out a tour or a workshop at O.C. Tanner. So, there’s going to be great opportunities for you to explore how Gary is leading and how really all the leaders in that organization are leading this in real life. Right. So, Gary, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate everything you share is really powerful stuff today.

 Gary: [00:23:00] Thank you, Jamie. It’s wonderful to be in your inner circle.

Don’t you feel awesome right now?  

You know, I was going to summarize my top one or two takeaways, so I was relistening and writing them down, and I ended up with four pages. So, I basically wrote down almost everything.  

So, here’s my opinion. You should download this one to your phone. Save it, bookmark it, whatever you need to, and have it available so that you can listen to it again when you have a little extra time or maybe when you need a little inspiration.  

For now, what I’m going to call out is what might be my new favorite quote. Gary shared that Mr. Tanner, the founder of O.C. Tanner, used to say this, “I’m hoping for a future better beyond our present best.”  

Oh, my goodness, I love this.  

What about you? What were your favorite takeaways? Head over to LinkedIn and share them. Tag me Jamie V. Parker and Gary Peterson in your post because we’d love to see what you’re taking away and be able to engage in conversation about it.  

So that is your next step. And if you need links to our profiles, you can grab those at our show notes. Remember, show notes are at processplusresults.com/podcast.  

I hope you enjoyed our first episode of this Executive Series. And here’s what’s up for the rest of the month of September:  

September 8th, which is my birthday, by the way, Javan Lapp, COO of Key-Link Fencing and Railing, explores collaboration and clarity. 

September 15th, Kristen Ogo, COO of Kenmore Envelope Company, dives into growing a leadership team as your business grows. 

September 22nd, Marc Braun, former president of Cambridge Air, talks us through the process of transitioning out and developing someone to fill your executive shoes.  

September 29th, Scott Post, COO of Pizza Ranch, joins us to share the challenges and triumphs leading a Buffet restaurant enterprise through a pandemic.  

So be sure to tune in, invite your colleagues to listen and share your favorite takeaways on LinkedIn. Until next time.