GA 049 | The Green Beret Way to Lead with Sam MacPherson

You're listening to episode 49 with Sam McPherson.

Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Pereira.

Hey there.

This is Ron Pereiro from Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to what we're up to here on the podcast, as well as watching our videos over@gembaacademy.com now then, I'm really excited for today's episode since we're exploring a topic we've never talked about before, namely the Green Beret way to lead. Now, Sam McPherson is a former chief of training for the elite United States Army Special Forces, specifically the Green Berets. And as you'll hear, Sam has some incredible stories to share about his own development, as well as the development of so many other amazing leaders. Now, during this episode, Sam and I explore the similarities between the Green Berets and lean thinking organizations like Toyota. We also talk about how Green Berets are selected, trained, and continuously developed, which I believe is especially insightful for those of us in the continuous improvement community. Now, I know I learned a lot during the conversation, and I'm confident you will, too. Now, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com 49 and at that's 49 for 49, so gammapodcast.com 49. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show.

All right, Sam, well, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to visit with us. Where are you calling in from today?

Pinehurst, North Carolina. Actually, thanks a lot for inviting me on to do the podcast. It's a real privilege.

No, fantastic. I mean, I think we have a extremely interesting topic and something we have definitely not explored in any podcast before, or any Gemba Academy video for that matter. So I think this is going to be a fantastic episode. So, Sam, let's just go ahead and jump right into it. Why don't you tell us about your background, how you were first introduced to continuous improvement, and then what you're up to these days.

Oh, that's a pretty good question. Actually, the first time I was introduced to continuous improvement, I was actually a supervisor while I was still in high school, in my junior and senior year, and I worked full Time in the, in the evenings. And I worked for a company that was purchased by Green Giant and they introduced Total Quality Management as part of their program. At that time I was a warehouse supervisor and they, they put together a Quality Circle team and I got tagged and asked to participate in the Quality Circle. And then little bit later on it was my responsibility to actually run and lead the Quality Circle. And then of course that's about the time all the, the so called Japanese management methods were being introduced to the world. And, and so I got caught up in that because it seemed to be the kind of stuff that I'd be very interested in. A little bit later on I joined the military and because I had that in my record, I got tagged to work on modular maintenance for the M1 Bradley. I mean, excuse the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle that was just being introduced as a young second lieutenant and they had brought in Dr. Shingo with FMC and General Dynamics to do modular maintenance. So I got tagged to be the team leader for, for Dr. Shingo and his team as we went through and tried to do quick change on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as part of battlefield recovery. And I got an opportunity to do it a little bit later on. And then later on at a point in my military career, I needed to go and complete my degree. So through a partnership between the University of Alabama and Kentucky, I got to intern and study the Toyota production system back in the early 90s and do that firsthand at Georgetown. And I've continued my studying until today. So I partner with, with Art Smalley. So I learn a lot every day when we're, we're on site together. So, so tell us, tell us, tell.

Us a quick Mr. Shingo story.

Probably the biggest thing that you normally get is, you know, is seeing how quick that we could get out of the vehicle. And, and the biggest thing that he would kind of chide us on was the amount of attachments that, that we had in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. And he would say no tools, you know, touch something once if you have to touch it at all. And too many tools, too many tools. So his idea was go to as close to a no tool and no touch environment in this, in this, in this recovery process. And as you would think with a big military piece of equipment, there would be a lot of attachment attaching points. And so we were able to help prove that out over a year and redesigns to get down to essentially about three or four connector points and we could pop the engine out and put another one in place right in the field and crank that buddy up and run down the road and see what they would do is that they take the. They would take the engine and then evacuate that to the rear where they would actually do the maintenance back there instead of trying to do it right there on the front line. But, you know, hey, touch it once if you have to touch it at all. Was. Was one of the biggest things that stuck with me.

Love it. Love it. All right, well, listen, we could get sidetracked so easily on this episode because I'm fascinated by your stories and, and your background, but let's, let's reel it back in. SAM One of the things that we like to do at the. At the beginning of all of our shows is have our guests share a continuous improvement or leadership quotation that inspires them. So do you have a quotation that inspires you? Sam?

Yeah, there are actually two that have stuck with me over the year. Obviously, a lot of people have heard this one, but it's a big part of our. Our indoctrination of our lean leaders at the Lean Leadership Academy. Every day, every lean leader sees on the back of their nameplate that the shop floor is a reflection of management. And it's kind of interesting because from a Japanese translation standpoint, the role of a manager or a leader doesn't really translate to manager. The word cho means leader. So you can retranslate that. The plant shop floor or the workplace is a reflection of your leadership. And it's neither a positive or negative connotation. It's just a factual statement. So when we work with our leaders, we'll actually post that up. They see it on a daily basis. The plant shop floor is a reflection of your leadership, and I think it kind of, kind of sinks in. The other one is one that one of arts mentors, Isaiah Kato, had said at one point and I kind of picked up on, was that the proper attitude for a lean leader is to have proper problem awareness and an extremely low tolerance to the current condition. That's the Kaizen mindset.

Love it. I love it. All right, Sam. Well, let's get right into it. So, you know, you told us about your background with your military background, but tell us about your relationship with the US Army Green Berets.

Well, you have to go back to the activity of being a team leader for Dr. Shingo and spending about a year in the. In the motor pool, jumping in and out of vehicles. So, of course, as a young infantry officer, what I wanted to do was be out shooting things and blowing things Up. So I actually got recruited into the Special Forces back in the mid-1980s and graduated from the Special Forces qualification course here out at Camp McCall not too far from where I live right now. And began my service as a, as a first as an A team leader for the Special Forces. The famous A Team, Special Forces A team. I was actually a halo military free fall A team leader, which means that me and my team would get out of airplanes at night with 100 pounds of gear, lightweight gear by the way, strapped to us at, at altitudes of 25,000ft, which is. And we would free fall to somewhere around 4 to 3,000ft and fly in and hit a target. So. So what a way to make a living. So that's where I started with. And I actually became an 18 commander, a company commander, which is the next higher up kind of equivalent in military terms to a plant manager on into battalion staff and eventually became the chief of special operations plans for Task Force Dagger. And Task Force dagger was the 5th Special Forces Group that responded directly after the attacks on 9 11. So within just a few days of those attacks I went from being a plant manager in Salt Lake City. I still had my relationship, but more of a part time relationship with Special Forces and Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg. And not more than a couple weeks later I was signing back into my old unit and on an aircraft on my way to Karshi Kanabad, Uzbekistan, preparing to plan for the invasion of Afghanistan. Wow.

Now I gotta ask kind of a crazy question. So I actually knew a man who was in the Special Forces and he told a story. I don't know if he was just pulling our legs because we were all fascinated by his war stories, but he told a story about how when he was first taught to jump out of an airplane, they would jump out. I don't know how to say this politely, but urinate in his pants. And by the time he landed it was all dry. So I don't know is he crazy or what?

Well, everybody has their own little war story like that. I'm known for saying that. No, I, you know when, when I went to jump school, I think they did it on purpose. The jump, the basic jump course that you have to go through, which is, isn't specifically a Special Forces course. This is a three week program. And when you get to the third week when you're actually going to jump out of an airplane, it's. They get you up and they make you drink lots of water, drink lots of water. But you. But then once you've got all your, your parachute and all your kit on, you can't take it off.

Oh.

So by the time they get you in the airplane, Maslow said the need not miss the need that motivates and, and when that door comes open, you don't need anybody to tell you to get out of the airplane, you're going out. And thing is, when you first land, you know what you're going to do. Get the parachute packed up and then go find a tree. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. All right, so the US Army Green Berets in Toyota. So you've made a connection between these two amazing organizations, for lack of a better word. What made you think of connecting this unlikely pair?

Well, of course, you know, being in Special Forces, I think the big connection was when I was doing my degree completion program and I got a chance to study it firsthand. And the little side note on that, the reason why the University of Alabama was really interested in learning the Toyota production system is because the state of Alabama time had gotten had won the opportunity to host a Mercedes Benz. And so they were going to build a plant, the Mercedes Benz plant USA right there in Vance, Alabama, which was not more than about 15 miles from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. So the university was very engaged, especially the College of Engineering, partnering with the University of Kentucky to learn lean. And they were sending groups of us students as part of an honors program to go up and learn things like training within industry pool production systems, working on the lines, how leaned worked at Toyota. Now the reason why they wanted that is because we needed to put together a leadership development training program for the Mercedes Benz Institute for training team members and team leaders and supervisors. And that's about as high up as it went. So I kind of, with my special forces background, what I noticed with my time at Toyota was we're a complete team based organization, Special forces. Actually every element of a special forces unit, the whole corporate unit is considered a detachment. And it's one of the few places in the army where we are a true team paced organization. And you can take the whole organization apart and deploy it at different places in the world to do their own mission and then when it's all over, pull it back together. So the A team's not the only team that can actually do that. And so when I was at Toyota I noticed, you know, hey, this is a team based organization. These guys work in small five, six man teams. I understand the reasoning behind it. There is a team leader instead of a supervisor trying to lead 100 people. They have These small group leadership, it's a matrix organization, so it's cross functional, just like us. And so so many things started to look so similar. They had these centers that they called obeyas or big rooms where they kind of manage and communicate. Well, we have the same thing, we have what we call operations centers, where we're all together in one big room talking to each other with no walls, no cubicles. And so there were so many similarities. There was a. Outside of the military, Toyota was the only place I ever found that had this much intense emphasis on developing leaders. And so they were so similar. I said, you know, it'd be great at some point to kind of mix these guys together. So when I later came back and decided, you know, I'd served my first requirement in Special Forces and decided to get back into manufacturing, you know, I did that with the intent of combining the two. And there are so many more as well. So many, so many more similarities from, you know, how they train people, the technical competencies required of the leader. Because in Special Forces, the team leader has to know the same thing that every member of his team does. So we do a lot of cross training. But there's also something that's unique in Special Forces where we share leadership too, which kind of goes beyond the Toyota approach in the sense that I may be the A team leader, but depending on the mission, I'll turn the leadership over to one of the members of my team because of their subject matter expertise. I'm still overall responsible for the mission. But we are designed to share the leadership with each other. And on an A team, the general, if you looked at the population of a Special Forces A team, that a team commander's probably got an IQ running between 120 and up to about 150. Well, if you also look at the team members and they're enlisted members, the IQs on those teams run between 118 to up to 125. So we have medics and we have communication experts that, that literally are as smart as the officers who are in charge. So you have to approach leading that kind of group completely different than you. You would lead any other group in the army because they're just as smart as you are.

Yeah. Now it's interesting when you say that the, the leader may turn it over to somebody else on, on, on his or her team that might be more of a subject matter expert. Is that similar to the kind of the lean concept of autonomous teams and, and really empowering the workforce to kind of run the business? So the Leaders can kind of stand back and coach and mentor and inspire. Is that similar?

Yes, it is. But the only difference is, is, is that in the Special Forces team, these guys are very mature. The average age is 36. You probably have 50% of the team has not only a bachelor's degree, but a master's degree, in some cases two master's degrees. It speaks, you know, at least one additional language beyond their own native language. So when you're dealing with a group of creative and smart people like that, it's. You don't empower them. They take empowerment for themselves. Wow.

Got it, got it.

So isn't that what we really want? I mean, isn't that like the pure end state is it's not self directed work team. There's still a directed work team. It's just a very empowered team. And that's the culture too.

Got it, got it. So what do Green Berets look for in a leader in addition to being super smart?

Well, and that is a great question, and that's actually something we're going to spend quite a little bit of time on at the upcoming Lean Transformation Summit down in New Orleans on March 4th and 5th. There are essentially eight plus nine plus one, eight plus one attributes that we look for in selecting a Special Forces Green Beret candidate. And we, we test that throughout their career. The first thing that they have to do is they have to be adaptable. So we look for adaptability. They have to be a team player. And we actually have very specific ways that we check for this. They have to be able to persevere when, when, when, when times get tough, the tough get going, right? Personal. Take personal responsibility for one's action. They must be professional at all times. They have to have professional demeanor. They have to maintain a professional countenance. Because you are dealing with politicians, you are dealing with world leaders. You're also dealing with folks that may or may not have the type of education that we have here in America. So there's a broad spectrum of folks that you will be dealing with. And when it comes to professionalism as SF leader, you have to think out what we call the first, first, second and third level of effect. So anything you might do may not only affect that situation, but it may affect the village, it may affect national relationships with the country. So you have to think about those first, third and fourth orders of effect. You have to be extremely capable. And this is part of, and this is true with Toyota as well. We're looking for people that are self starters, that are self Motivated, but are constantly looking for their own improvement. You know, you might. I had a conversation real recently with one of our Special Forces guys that actually went to work with the Cleveland Browns as a, as a player strategist and Brian Decker. And he used to run the course that actually looks for this and he's doing that with the Cleveland Browns right now. And you know, he says, hey, you know, we're looking for people who are going to think out of the box. Creative thinkers, Kaizen mind type thinkers. Clearly with Special Forces we. I think the last count I have is the Special Forces community has received 19 congressional medals of Honor. So courage is clearly something that's, that's something we look for someone who can kind of, you know, place the needs of the mission and the country above their personal needs. And then lastly, integrity, because you are part of a team and part of a team based organization and trust and building team relations and building national relations is an incredibly important part. Lastly, because every member of a Special Forces a team must lead at some point or another. Then we also look for the willingness and ability to lead. And mostly what we say is if they have the will to lead, then we will teach them. We'll provide them the capability to lead. So there's nine things that I really think apply as well to the lean organizations and people who are going through a lean transformation. We should be looking for this in our leaders too and in the leadership pipeline. And what we've been able to find out and a lot of studies were done with the RAND Corporation, went down, down a Green Berets career with some Green Berets that found themselves in trouble. We were able to actually trace that back to how they were evaluated and assessed against these criteria when they were going through selection prior to going through the Q course. So it kind of reinforced the fact that we need to find people that might struggle with this as early as possible. And so we actually evaluate a Special Forces candidate throughout their entire training based on these attributes.

Now is there any kind of specific training that a Green Beret goes through that you might be able to kind of, I don't know, tie to or help when we're training lean leaders?

Well, absolutely. I think. What's one of the things that you might find kind of interesting? One of the things that I'm really concerned about right now is leaders that are globally deployable. And if you're globally deployable, one of the skills that you'll need to be able to have is the ability to, to really kind of understand the culture that you're going into. And that may just be a culture in your organization. So our Special Forces qualification course includes a lot of emphasis on communication skills and rapport building skills, relationship building, understanding the environment that you're going into. And you find a lot of that very early on in the Q course, also language training. So very specifically in the Special Forces qualification course, you're going to find an emphasis on language, on culture, on building rapport and being able to manage a complex environment that is different every day. And so those kind of skills are just as true for us in Toyota. You may be building an engine every day, but the, the human terrain that you walk into every day is going to be different and you need to be able to navigate that human terrain. Yeah, so, so the skills in rapport building, communication skills development, something else that we teach is something that's called a Special Forces version of the military decision making process. That is our structured mission development process that could be similar to a structured eight step problem solving process. But it's very role based. So it's like part Hoshin and part problem solving. We also have our own version of structured problem solving as well. So some of the things that our approach is the number of courses of action or solutions for a particular problem. We look for three or four different, unique, unique courses of action to countermeasure a problem. And then the other thing that we have them do is we have them pre murder board it and post murder board that. What could go wrong if we do this and then find out. We call that war gaming. And so before we even do something, we war game it, we pre war game it, we post war game it to see if we could do it better. So everything from mocking up all of these things are things that we do as Special Forces leaders that the community actually should be doing. Already go and see big been part of our culture back to the Revolutionary War. So we call that a leaders recon, you know, where leaders go out and actually see the ground they're going to fight, go see the community, get a sense of the ground truth. And you can't do that from an office.

Gotta go to Gemba.

Go to Gemba.

So let's say that I'm a Green Beret, I've made it through, I'm in, I'm a Green Beret. What is the Special Forces going to do to continue to develop me as a future leader?

And that is a great question. It's kind of in our community, as expected, we have a culture of excellence that you would expect to have with such an organization. And so when you get to the unit, you are going to go through a lattice of assignments that will include leadership positions, which we would call command positions. Starting with that, a team leader position. So you're going to be the team leader with 12 very, 11 very smart guys and you get to be the quarterback. And and so you're going to serve as a leader on that team for a period of time and then you will move off of that team and then you're going to move into a staff position in a place where you can learn what it takes to support special operations missions. And so what you'll find in special operations in our leader development throughout your career, you will rotate from a command position to a staff leadership position, back into a command position and a staff position. Now the interesting thing is you think Special Forces, it'll all be operations. But in my career I had an. Although I am an operations guy and that's my background, I spent time as a budget officer. So I got to learn how the army budgeting system worked. I got to spend time as an assistant logistics officer. Now they actually have people who are qualified for those roles. But I would come in as an assistant for a period of time and learn, you know, what it takes to move and support from a logistics standpoint a special forces company or a special forces group. So I think we don't do that as well in the civilian community. We don't create a lattice of opportunities. Instead of taking them from a team leader and putting them right into a group leader role or a supervisor role, let them go be an assistant supervisor and do nothing. But the logistics side, you know, Art would say, Art Smalley would say, you know, hey, he spent time being a spare parts manager before he could do this next role. So he knew what it took to maintain the spare parts, you know. So I think we need to rotate our leaders into these very challenging but different roles to prepare them for the next leadership role before we throw them in that next leadership role. So it's really more of a lattice work throughout the career. The other thing that happens is we have both specialized military training that's career long kind of pre promotion to the next level training so that we have the skills and the role based competencies for those roles. Roles as well as civilian. Like I said a little bit earlier, it's not very uncommon to see where on a special forces A team and in a special forces unit that you have senior enlisted non commissioned officers that have not only their bachelor's degree but a Master's degree and in some cases a PhD. I did have one commander that had two master's degree, one in physics and one in mathematics and a PhD in physics. And now he's a rocket scientist. So, but, so, but those are the kind of guys that you're going to see. Traditionally we have actually also built in some education, some advanced civilian education here at Fort Bragg in conjunction with the University of North Carolina system. And so our guys, when they come back to the schoolhouse, they have this opportunity to get these advanced educational degrees and things that have very strong application in the civilian community after they retire from Special Forces.

Love it. Last question I have for this section, Sam, is if someone in the civilian community were to hire a member of the US Special Forces, what should they expect?

You're going to find someone that number one knows how to plan. Very detailed. Special Forces guys must plan the missions that they execute. This is different than the rest of the military. Usually in the rest of the military, the higher ups, the officers plan the mission and then the soldiers execute the mission. And that is not the case with Special Forces. In Special Forces we receive a mission and then the team plans the mission in detail and briefs it back. So you're going to find, you're going to find soldiers that are capable of planning, understand logistics, understand accountability, have high integrity. They've also been checked. They've got very high IQs. They should be considered for the management and leadership pipeline. I know sometimes folks put them into supervisors role and that's a good place to start. I would never let a Special Forces guys stay in that role. They should be considered for management development. They're great at project planning. They know how to synchronize operations at a very large scale. They're great with the community. They believe in making sure that the business achieves the business objectives. But yet respect for people. We have a saying that's kind of similar to respect for people. That is, it's mission first, people always. And that is a key part of our culture. So yeah, we must accomplish the mission, but we always respect our people. Always. We always look out for our people. So you'll also find someone who will knows how to do, really work on a team, work as part of a team, but also capable of leading a team. So again, there's so much that they could offer. And the last thing you know, with the, with the growing technical skills gap that we have right now, I could tell you a Special Forces leader understands how to develop technical skills. We're cross trained in each other's skills and they're all trainers. Part of our job in Special Forces is not just to, you know, go blow things up and, and go snatch bad guys, but probably the biggest, you know, part of our mission is going and training others. So we're excellent technical trainers and we're excellent operational trainers. So we're trained in training techniques very similar to TWI job instruction method. And you would find that because they are trained instructors, part of how they lead is to train and coach. So you would be able to bring up those technical skills because we have an appreciation for technical skills. But when you've got a leader that understands that, they will make sure that they close the technical skills gap.

Love it. Love it. All right, Sam, so let's go ahead now and transition into what we're calling the quick fire section. And before we came on, I was kind of joking that this might not be so much quick fire for you, but that's what we're calling this section. So the first question I have is you just touched on respect for people a bit. But you know, we lean thinkers spend a lot of time talking about, you know, the importance of continuous improvement and respect for people, that you have to have a balance. What does respect for people mean to you?

Well, coming from an organization that is considered the best of the best, to me, respect for people is helping people to achieve that level of excellence. And you have to do that through challenge. Some of the greatest coaches in the world were some of the toughest coaches in the world. And so to be a, to be a Special Forces Green Beret, you're going to be challenged every way you can think, but you're going to step up to it. And, and so to me, respect for people is helping people reach their full potential by giving them career long challenges. And, and, and I think that's probably that mission first people always. And it's a good cross, cross translation to the Toyota Way when you think about the continuous improvement pillar, where challenge is clearly part of the philosophy and there's a connection between that challenge and the respect for people that's the other pillar of the Toyota Way. So I believe you show respect for people by challenging them to be the best that they can be.

Yes.

Love it. What's the best advice you've ever received.

From a non special forces standpoint? Came from my mentor, Russ Gafferty, who came from General Motors and came to work at TMMK under Mr. Cho and Nate Furuto and Bud Saito. And, and when I was looking at doing this in the civilian World. Russ said, Sam, when you go to talk to somebody about helping with them, helping them through a lean transformation, start with the senior leader and always start with the senior site leader. And if the senior site leader isn't willing to lead from the front, walk away. And I pretty much made that my philosophy ever since. If every Lean leadership Academy transformation starts with the senior site leader and they lead by being part of that process from the front.

Okay. Do you have a personal productivity habit that others might benefit from?

Well, kind of a unique one. I, since I've got back from running up and down the mountains of Afghanistan, been kind of tough on my knees. I took up cycling. So. So when I ride my bike here in beautiful Pinehurst, North Carolina, it's great because that's where I'm most creative. When I'm riding that bike for 20, 25 miles, I am doing nothing but thinking about how to make the process better. Where can we explore new opportunities and lean. How can I do more translation of special forces methodologies and leadership development into the lean world? So that's that personal productivity. It's kind of my idea factory when I get on that bike.

Love it.

And I'm also an abstract thinker. So if you were looking in here in my office right now, you'd see flip charts all over the place with mind maps and, and sketches and just throwing my ideas up on the board. I work it out up old school wise. Flip charts.

Nothing beats a flip chart.

Yeah.

All right, here's a new question. What's one thing that surprised you during your last year of practicing or implementing Lean?

One thing that surprised me. Well, you know, the one thing that always surprises me is the number of untapped leadership talent there are in organizations. So when we work with the transformation client, a lot of times we will force them to look organically for the answer to their leadership needs. And lean transformation needs versus going out and hiring someone in. And it's always the most pleasant surprise when you see someone who was a welding operator that turns out to be an outstanding production team leader. Just was never thought of that way or someone that was, that was, you know, a production team leader that, that was capable of not only stepping up to a supervisor role, but an area manager role. And, and as the guy from the old A team series in the, in the 1980s when Hannibal would say, I love it when a plan comes together, you know?

Exactly. All right, Sam, do you have a routine or perhaps a ritual you follow when things aren't going well and you need to recharge and refocus.

Well, I'd say the working out and getting on my bike when I need to recharge, getting on that bike's been the best thing that I could do. Also, recently, I downloaded an app called Audible, and so I'm able to download great books like Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, and listen to some really outstanding thinkers in their own words while I'm riding my bike and getting ideas. So that's kind of really how I recharge. I'm a workaholic, you know, so I tend to work the same kind of hours I did when I was in the Special Forces. Okay. You know, but I say, you know, having a physical activity that gets you out, gets you out in the environment where it's just you and the machine and you can think. Yeah.

I'm a huge fan of Audible myself. In fact, if people have never tried an audiobook, they need to go to the show Notes for this page, Gimbapodcast.com 49, and download. You can get a link to a free audiobook there. Audiobooks have changed my life.

Yep.

I love them. I love them. Similar to podcasting. I think that's why I love podcasting so much. It's the same kind of idea. All right, last question I have for you, Sam. Do you have. Is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to be more successful at practicing lean?

Well, probably time management. I'm a notorious synchronizer, but I'm a Special forces guy, so getting things to fit within a timetable. We're taught day one and Special Forces qualification course. First thing you do is develop a timetable and execute the timetable, but never sacrifice quality for time. So there's the thing that I struggle with is making the call, you know, when a team's not quite getting it. And you say, well, I can adhere to the timetable, but should we. Should we train to the standard or should we train to the time? And sometimes that's on purpose, too. And, you know, I'm the grandson of a church God preacher, so I do well with talking, so sometimes I need to roll that back a little bit and spend more time where I'm just carving out time for me to. To read and study and research. I want to do a lot more knowledge work regarding lean and Special Forces this year. So that means I've got to carve out time for self development where I can read and study and make notes. And as consultants and as trainers and teachers, we oftentimes, you know, if we're not at the clients. We're building the stuff for the next client. And sometimes you have to do the old thing, you know, stop and sharpen the saw, as Stephen Covey said.

So when are you going to write your book, Sam? You got to write a book.

Yep. I'm actually in the process right now doing the heavy duty research on the Green Beret way to lead. And that's why I've reconnected with all of my Special Forces buddies that actually run the course. And I've spent. Last week, I spent two days out in the field with young Special Forces captains that are being trained as Special Forces captains going through some very interesting scenarios. I just did a podcast. Not a podcast, but a kind of a TED Talk with the Special Forces training leadership we call Cadre. Actually brought Art Smalley and Russ Scaffody down to actually do a leader development program talk for a half a day just before Thanksgiving and hope to have that posted here this week. They videotaped that, so I've got to do more stuff like that. So the book. I'm in the process of doing the research right now, and it'll take a little bit of time to get through all the interviews I want to do and then hopefully start pulling that together in this. This year, that is, by the end of the year, have that out there, because everybody is very interested in this. Yeah, well, actually want to kind of, you know, spin off from that and focus on, you know, how to develop operational leaders, too.

Well, if I'm not one of your proofreaders, I'm going to be upset with you, Sam. Okay.

I'm probably going to need more. I need a small army of that.

All right. All right. Well, Sam, gosh, I sure have enjoyed talking with. With you today. Why don't we wrap the show up with you sharing some final words of wisdom, and then why don't you tell people how they can connect with you over social media or your website or however that might be.

Well, first, last thing I'd like to say is just thanks for the opportunity to address the Gemba Academy community. I know this is a great honor for me, especially not specifically talking about Lean, but actually talking about things I think it has. We're able to do Lean because we got guys like Special Forces out there, you know, making. Making a way for us to do that.

Yeah.

So when these guys finish their careers, they're not done. And. And really would like to encourage folks to. To. To reach out and look for special operators. They have a lot to offer and they're the absolute people we should be looking for, they're natural fit to Lean methodologies. It would not be foreign to them at all.

Let me jump in there, Sam. So where do you go to find people like that? I mean, is there a organization or a way to locate these folks?

Well, I guess the best thing to do is just send me a note. There is a network of folks that we use, and if somebody is interested, if they have a leadership opportunity, just have them get ahold of me. They can reach me at Sam McPherson@leanleadershipacademy.com and I will connect them with the right folks and.

And spell your last name.

M A, C P H E R S O, N. Okay.

Okay. What about social media? You Twitter guy or Facebook guy or.

Yes, I'm on LinkedIn. We do have a Facebook page for Lean Leadership Academy, just because you can show pictures, and that's nice. So if people are interested to see some of the work that we're doing and some of how we're translating it, they can see that. But they can also reach out to me on LinkedIn where I'll post some of my presentations, share thoughts, and then I actually send out a lot of the little Twitter thoughts through LinkedIn.

So, yeah, love it. All right, well, listen, I sure have enjoyed talking with you, Sam, and you know, we need to explore the idea of possibly doing a webinar together, because I think you would come across really good in that form as well.

You give me the mission and I'll kid up. Sounds like a great job.

All right. All right. Well, you take care, Sam.

Yes, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

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