GA 174 | How to Foster Leadership in the Blue-Collar Workforce with Mack Story

You're listening to episode 174 with Mac Storey.

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 Pereira with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, thank you so much. Thank you for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com, we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, a quick Gemba Academy update. We are preparing for the upcoming AME Conference, which is going to be held in Boston this year. The dates are October 9th through the 13th, October 9th through the 13th. And we've been to the regular listeners know we've been to the AME Conference for the last, gosh, three or four years. We always have a booth or we have like a double booth this year. And we are going to be doing our annual cocktail party again this year. It's going to be extremely cool. I mean, the last few years have been pretty fun and pretty good, but this year kind of taking it to another level. We are going to be on the 50th floor of the Prudential Tower, which is a skywalk. And I'm looking at a picture right now. When the sun sets, you can see the ballpark and just the view is going to be incredible up there. So like we've done over the last few years, it's a total free networking event. There's absolutely no sales pitch, there's free drinks, there's going to be food. Last year we had, I think around 150 folks show up and we are expecting that much, probably more this year. But again, it's going to be the building next to where the conference is. So folks are going to have to leave where the conference is and kind of walk across the road, I guess, or I think there's a skywalk that connects to the two. But again, that's going to be on October 10th, which is the Tuesday night. So if you are going to the AME Conference, please go to gembaacademy.com ame and rsvp for the cocktail party. Space is going to be limited. I think we can hold around 200 to 250 people and we've already had a bunch of People sign up, so it's really important that you rsvp. And also, if you haven't bought your ticket yet to the, to the conference and you want to go, we can save you 10%. There's a coupon code that you'll find on that website again, gembacademy.comame so it's going to be a good time. Now, today on the show, I'm excited to welcome Mac Storey to the show. Now, my good friend Rick Foreman over at Federal Heath, I've known Rick for many years, sent me an email out of the blue last week, and he said, hey, you got to meet this fellow Mac Storey. He's got an awesome story, and his wife's got an incredible story. And as it turns out, Mac has been kind of in the lean world for many, many years. Started as kind of frontline operator and worked his way up into various leadership positions. And now he's really. He's a professional speaker and an author and also does some consulting. But he's got an incredible story, and he really focuses on what he calls blue collar leadership. And so he spends a lot of his energy helping kind of frontline workers develop leadership skills, which, as he mentions in the podcast, is something that's just not really addressed a lot of time. We always focus our leadership on supervisors and managers and, you know, executives and so forth, which is important. But blue collar folks also need to know leadership skills. And so that's one of Mac's major emphasis with his books and his work. So really good stuff. We had a great chat. You're going to love Mac. From the beginning, he mentions that he's bilingual, so he speaks two languages. So I'm going to let Mac explain what those two languages are. I think you're going to really enjoy that. So show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com and you'll look for episode 174 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 174. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. All right, Mac, well, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from?

Well, first of all, it's a privilege and a pleasure to be on the show, and thanks for having me. I'm actually calling in from Atlanta, Georgia, today. So if, if some of the guests pick up that I'm bilingual, that's okay. I speak English and country sometimes at the same time.

I know. I read that on your website. I was like, oh, he's bilingual. Oh, yeah. Country.

Yeah.

Well, I'm from. I'm like, I'm all messed up. I grew up in Ohio, then I moved to Tex. So I don't know what kind of accent that I have, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I worked in Texas actually for every other week for four years, actually doing lean consulting out near the Rockwall Terrell area. Okay. So, you know, I've kind of mixed up. People in Texas want to know where I am. Where did I get. I mean, where I'm from, Where did I get this accent? People in Alabama want to know. In Georgia. And so I guess I'm from all over.

There you go. There you go. Well, good stuff. All right. Well, looking forward to the show here, Max. So, as you know, we like to begin all of our episodes with our guests sharing a quote of something that possibly inspires them. So do you have one?

Yeah, my favorite quote has stuck with me for a while. It's my number one quote, and it basically fits into the lean world and the leadership world. It's actually from Abraham Maslow. And the quote actually stated, if we're not modeling what we are teaching, we're teaching something else. And that's very powerful, especially in the lean world. And, you know, I've evolved into really respect for the people is what I do today. I hardly focus on continuous improvement. And, you know, if we're going to be teaching respect for the people, if we're not modeling respect for the people, then we're teaching something else because we're always teaching what we're modeling.

Yeah, beautiful. Well, we'll get into more in respect for people later in the show. But let's begin with you telling us a little bit about your background, maybe how you first came to learn about all this continuous improvement stuff. And then tell us what you're up to these days, Mac.

Okay, so my background, I was basically exposed to lean in 1995. I started as a frontline factory worker in 1988 and just operating different types of machinery. CNC lathes, mills and drills and presses and gear shapers and all that type stuff. And in 95, the company I was in decided to go down the lean path. And they did what a lot of companies do wrong and they did it to us. They basically, I guess the corporate headquarters, you know, back then, I'm speaking like I was back, you know, at that time, they basically developed sales and all this type stuff, but didn't really teach us anything. They just come in and add a new bunch of new machines and set up sales and Move people over and taught them how to run the machines. And that's the way we went for a while. And fast Forward up to 2008. In between 95 and 2008, I became a sail operator. I actually learned to run about 70 of those different machines, became a setup person and would help everybody else set them up, you know, during the sale, changeover type stuff. And then I moved into CNC programming and learned to program those 70 different machines. And then I kind of moved up into cost estimation, engineering, building materials and routing and all that type stuff. And going up to around 2005, I was asked, I was in another plant and they were starting the lean journey and no one wanted to accept responsibility. So I. I chose to hold my hand up and say I would lead the 5S transformation, which is what we called it at the time. And no one really understood there was so much more to lean than that. So we kind of went through that pretty quick. And then I held my hand up when they asked again that we're going through a complete lean transformation as a company, not just at our plant, and we need somebody to lead it. So that's kind of how I got started. My whole background's blue collar manufacturing, and today I'm focused purely on leadership development.

And you're a consultant today, right?

Yes, sir. I guess you call me that. A consultant, A speaker. Some people call me motivational speaker. Okay. I just like to talk. Talk and teach and speak about leadership. We do speak. My wife and I actually speak together at a lot of conferences and seminars. And we do also do on site training when we're requested. That was a phase we actually went through. That used to be what we. The only thing we really done was on site training, but today it's more. Majority of it is actually speaking at different events and conferences.

Got it, Got it. All right, so back in. Let's go back to your kind of your corporate days and your career there. Tell me about perhaps the best leader that you ever reported to and what made that person a great leader.

Yeah, and I'm actually happy to share his name. His name is Jim Narault. He's a great guy. And you know, if you read. If people have been reading the lean books like they ought to have been reading, you always hear about we don't get support from the top. And I never really had support from the top until Jim became our plant manager. And that was around 2005, and we were just starting that lean journey. And what made him amazing was he was that leader that we all hear about that. You know, he come in. The first thing he did was he walked back. I mean, he come in and he started meeting everybody. And at that time, I had just been given the lean coordinator role, which didn't exist prior to that. And I was reporting to the previous plant manager just for a few months. And when Jim came in, took over, he came back to everybody's office, but he came back to my office in particular that day and sat down on the corner of my desk and he, you know, what's your name? You know, who am. This is who I am now. Who are you and what's your name kind of thing, and who do you report to? And I said, well, I'm the lean coordinator. I report to you. He said, well, that's. That's outstanding, because if you didn't, you were about to. I started thinking, I like this guy. And one of the things he done that was the coolest was just within a week or two, he basically went around, got all the staff managers that reported to him. You know, HR manager, engineering manager, quality manager, all these production manager, production control manager, all these folks on his team. And I was one of those folks, even though I wasn't a manager, he come got me first. I always had gloves in my pocket because I was always on the shop floor. But he. He wanted to follow me, and we're gonna go get some gloves. So we went and got gloves, and he went around to every office and handed out gloves to all the staff managers. And then he took us all out to the shop floor to one of the production lines. We were actually making, basically the big exhaust mufflers for big trucks at that time, like you see on the side of the big rigs. And he took us to one of those lines, and he's all hooting and hollering, having a blast, having fun with everybody, and gathered up the operators and gathered up the managers and told the operators, everybody grab a manager and teach them how to run your machine. And we actually operated their equipment for about two hours. And then Jim, you know, we had fun. We shook everybody's hand, thanked him for not letting us kill ourselves and scrap a lot of parts and that sort of stuff. And then he took us back to the office up in the front, and he got on the whiteboard and he asked everybody, what did you learn? You know, dies were not fitted right, or this button didn't work, or all this stuff that was missing and problems everyone found. And he just wrote them all over the whiteboard. And as soon as you know, finally it got silent. Everything was kind of documented. And Jim just smiled and looked at us all for a second with a silence. And he said, now go fix it. And he walked out and closed the door. I said, oh, I like Jim. And that's, you know, he sticks out. And I talk about. I write about him. My first book, Defining Influence. Increasing your influence increases your options. I write about him quite a bit in there because he was the model lean leader that we all read about. And he's the only one I've ever literally experienced. Even while I was consulting, I consulted over 11,000 hours leading Kaizen events and process improvement, change, organizational change, cultural transformation. And he's the only one that ever fit the model. Everybody talks about it, but he actually did it.

Was there any resistance with managers when they said, go get your gloves, we're going out to the gimba? Was there any resistance?

Oh, yeah. Really? Only from one. And I tell this story. I don't necessarily write about it too much. I don't write about the negative stuff a lot, but I do share it when I'm talking sometime. And I don't share his name or anything, but there was. There was an ops manager, and he was always, you know, one of those folks kind of separated himself. But that day when we went out there, he stood out in the aisles talking to a supervisor, and he had the gloves in his hand and his arm folded, you know, and. And I was close enough to hear him talking. She said, aren't you supposed to be out there? He said. He said, I didn't go get two degrees to work on the shop floor. And he did. He didn't go. He stayed off to the side. And eventually, you know, I write about this, and I got a book called Change Happens. Leading yourself and Others Through Change. And I talk about this in one of the chapters is Change or be Changed. And Jim tried to change him, but after so many months, he just had to change him. So what I mean is, he tried to grow and develop him, but that person never did want, you know, he never wanted to come along. So it some point, GM had to change him.

I always wonder why, you know, I wonder why someone resists so much. I mean, is it, I guess it's pride, perhaps, or ego or.

Yes, it's character. It's what I talk about more than anything these days. Everything's about character. You know, to me, respect for the people is a synonym for character and leadership, and it's just character. He thought he was better than everyone else. You know, leadership's about serving the team, not being served by the team. And a lot of people, you know, it's one of the things, when I go to companies, there's things called symbols. And, you know, having a front row parking spot for the, for the boss or the several bosses, that's a symbol that things are a little bit different here than probably they need to be. And I'll give you an example. We were in Orlando one time and Dan Cathy, president of Chick Fil a, you know, his father, Truett Cathy, founded Chick Fil A. And they actually had been a client of ours for about three years. And Dan was given an example of what servant leadership means to him. You know, what does it mean at Chick Fil A? And he only talked for just a few minutes, but he says, I'll give you an example. What it means is, and this is the kind of lean leaders we're looking for in any industry. But he says, when I come into the corporate headquarters every day, nobody walks farther to the front door than I do. I don't care how many cars are there. I park in the farthest parking spot and I walk the farthest to the front door every day. And I pick up trash on the way in and I pick up trash on the way out. And I never tell anybody to pick up trash, but everybody picks up trash. That's the kind of, you know, that's character. The difference between that guy I described a minute ago and Dan Cathy. That's character. And, you know, character is the one thing that changes everything, but it's also the one thing that's made up of many things. And it's really what leadership is about. It's really what respect for the people is about. I know you're going to talk about that respect for the people later, but everything I talk about is respect for the people. So it's okay. We'll definitely dig into it a little deeper.

Good.

You're asking good questions.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Mac. So I understand then, as we can continue your corporate, your journey there, we kind of got up to around 2005 time frame. We fast forward a few more years up to around 2008. Right when the economy was booming. Yeah, booming the wrong way. I understand you decided to kind of make a little change in your life and leave that comforts of the corporate world, if you will, and start your own lean consulting business. So I can actually sharing your story, because that's right around the same time I did the same thing with starting Gemba Academy. So we're Kind of in a similar, similar boat. Now I held on to a day job for about a year or so. So I didn't.

That's just cause you're smarter than me.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about your story. Why did you take such a. Such a risk?

Well, remember that plant manager that I loved more than any and by that time I was actually promoted to a new position again that had not existed. Was a lean manager for a while. I had, I had. Under Jim's leadership, he and I basically had led a green team. I was basically a new green lean leader, meaning I had never led lean, you know, at a plant level or anything. I'd just been as an operator prior to raising my hand all those times. And so I had a green team. Nobody knew about lean in that company. And that's really what I prefer. If I'm going to do any type of real lean continuous improvement work. I like to go in when they don't know anything about it. And the main reason is I like transforming the way people think. And so when they don't know anything about lean, I get to talk about lean and leadership. And so that's pretty powerful. But anyway, the quality manager resigned in 2008 and they had been talking to me. They were probably. Well, I know they were trying to develop me to be a plant manager in the future and I didn't want to do that. I loved just doing lean. I didn't want to be the plant manager, I didn't want to be the quality manager. But Jim asked me if I would take over the quality manager role along with the lean manager role. And I told him what I had always told him when he asked me about that. I said, when I walk through that door, I'll do whatever you need me to do while I'm here. But if you ask me to do something I don't want to do, I can't tell you how long I'm going to be here. But if I'm here, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability because I respect you and who you are. And he put me in that quality manager's position actually, what's funny about it. And I write about this again in Defining Influence. I tell a lot of this story. And the next morning I was in at 4 o'. Clock. I usually come in at 7 and he comes in at 6. So I was there, you know, when he got there and he called me on the phone at 6. He said, he said, Mac, what you doing? You trying to get a head start on this thing. I said, I said, no, sir, Jim, I'm cleaning out my desk. He said, why are you cleaning out your desk? I said, well, I'm decided. I told you yesterday, I didn't know how long I was gonna do this, and overnight was about as long as I'm gonna do it. I said, I'm resigning with no notice. And he said, oh, you gotta come see me on your way out. I said, don't worry, I'll come see you. I mean, I really did love him. I still do. I love him. I talked to him. We're still friends, and went and talked to him, and he took me out, put his arm on my shoulder, walked me around the field of the plant. You know, he was telling me how stupid I was. It's 2008. Everything's crashing, you know, but he was doing it out of caring. And finally he said, just give me a month. I said, I'll give you a month, but not because I want to do the job. I give you a month because I want to help you transition, because you were not expecting this. And so I stayed for that month, and actually everything turned around. I took over quality and everything turned around. Not because I'm special, but because the leadership principles I applied get special results. And the team started doing things I've been trying to get the quality manager to do for six months. He told me he couldn't do it. They didn't have time. I'll give you an example. You got time for me?

Oh, yeah.

Heck, yeah. This is a great one. Just shows the difference in leadership. And not that I'm better. I'm saying the principles are better if you apply them. And so I had tried to, you know, we were moving along, and there's a quality lab. We wanted the outside painted white and the inside painted white and the floor plan painted high gloss gray. And we had all the paint. All we needed was them to do it. And I'd been asking the previous quality manager for six months, you know, can we do this? Can you get your team to do it? Oh, we're too busy. We can't do it. You know, all this stuff. So soon as I become the quality manager and they announce it, the team. First thing I do is meet with the quality team and the lean team, tell them we're about to merge together and we're going to be one team. And the greatest thing we got going on right now is we got to work on quality. That's why I didn't want to Be the quality manager. I love quality at the source, but I don't want to be the at the desk and the computer and the phone and all that stuff. I like to be in the middle of everything. So they said, well, we need a big screen TV on the wall when we come in and we use the coordinate measuring machine. Everybody has to huddle around, look at the laptop, and it'd be great if we had a big screen on the wall so everybody could see what we're doing and see the measurements and everything. I said, that's a good idea. I said, I tell you what, I'll make a deal with you. The minute every wall out there is white and that floor is high gloss gray, as soon as that happens, you let me know and I'm going to order you this 48 or whatever inch TV it was they wanted. And what's amazing was they come to me the next morning. I mean, it was not even 24 hours, Ron. They said, oh, come out here to the shop. I said, okay. I walked out there and the walls were white, the floor was gray. I said, who did this? Oh, we got maintenance to do it on third shift last night. And I walked them in there with me and let them pick out the tv and I ordered it next day, whatever, and it was there. And I didn't even tell them to do it. See, that's the thing managers tell and leaders sell. Managers lead with directions, leaders lead with questions.

So, okay, so things are, I guess, going okay as the new leader of lean and quality. Did you stay then? For a while.

What I did, I got a little bit smarter. That was in April of 2008. I actually hired a career consultant, made them about five grand. And they normally help people transition from like accounting to engineering or stuff like that. But I learned their principles and took it to start my own business. So Fast forward to August 2008. I walked in and gave Jim and I told him, I said, I got a career consultant. I said, I'm gonna do me and you a little favor. I'm gonna stay a little longer just because I'm preparing better to leave. And so I walked in in August and gave him my resignation. And as soon as he saw it, he wadded it up, threw it in the garbage. He's like, I don't want this. Then we had another little talk, and he's like, think about it overnight. Come back tomorrow. So I come back tomorrow and handed him another one. And when he reached for it, I yanked it back. Don't tear this. Don't don't wad this one up because I'm not giving you another one. Yeah. And you could see his. The paradigm shift. Literally, you could see it, like go through his body and he kind of sunk in his seat and he knew it was real. And so I started with nothing. I had no llc, no. No idea what I was going to do, no clients, no anything. But I knew when I was at work, all I could do is dedicate myself to work. I couldn't do both because I loved what I was doing at work. And when I got off work, I didn't want to work anymore. So I just quit cold turkey and gave up everything as far as my career, my insurance, you know, everything. Used up my. My 401k. Took me about nine months, but I was actually booked solid after nine months. And I grew up to about, you know, my. My income actually went up about. It was about 150% of what it was before. So I wasn't that stupid that that worked out good. Another two years, it was about 300% of what it was before by 2010 and then by 2012 and also in 2008. Ron is when I started reading leadership books, that's when I really discovered what respect for the people was. They don't call it that in the leadership books, but that's what it is. Goes to Toyota and should and have has in the past for the principles of continuous improvement. And that piece. But what I learned is there's an entire world already that exists that's all about respect for the people, and it's leadership development. And 2008, I started reading leadership every day. 2005, I started reading lean every day. 2008, I switched and started reading Leadership every Day. And I still do, and I have for all these years. And what happened was between 2010 and 20 or 2008 and 2012, when I started consulting, I decided how the event went. So I started teaching everybody leadership because I knew I never had it in 20 something years in the blue collar world. And I had worked my way up to the plant manager staff and still never had any formal leadership development. So by the end of 2012, I was so passionate now about teaching that piece of it that I gave up everything again. I gave up my entire income and went to zero and started over from scratch again to build a leadership development business. And now, like I said, Chick Fil A has been a client Auburn University. We've had banks, real estate, you know, everybody. Now we've kind of crossed because the leadership, respect for the people piece applies to everyone. But it's really. That's the missing piece. When people talk about sustaining the gain and lean, it's the hardest piece. But it's the missing piece. Yeah, it's the missing piece. When you want true continuous improvement, true kaizen, where people are suggesting and making small changes for the better. They only do that if they want to. They don't have to. Everybody wish they would do it. That's why if they had to do it, they'd already be doing it. But they don't have to do it. So they have to have leadership so that most people follow leaders because they have to. But if you're a very high impact leader, people follow you because they want to. And those people will do continuous improvement. Those people will do kaizen, small changes without the event. Those people will sustain the gain and move you forward instead of letting it regress. You know, when the team leaves or the consultant leaves, it goes back. And the reason it goes back is because the leadership goes back.

So speaking of leadership, let's jump in a little bit about what you're coining. Blue Collar Leadership. And in particular, I'm interested in your books, the series of books that you've written. Talk a little bit about maybe the why, the purpose of these books.

Okay. And that's what I'm most passionate about. I have 11 books today. But those three, those are the ones that if I could sell only those three, they'd be the ones that I would pick. That's where my passion is at, is really in the blue collar workforce. And from the bottom entry level person to the. To the top level owner or CEO, that's who. If I could talk to one group every day, it's the blue collar folks. And so Blue Collar Leadership, Leading Yourself from the Front Lines, that's a book on how to lead yourself well, basically, and I wrote it for entry level people. I don't think there's anything out there like it. What makes blue collar leadership different than just normal leadership? The principles are all the same. Leadership is leadership. What's different is the practices and the stories which you know. The principles are timeless. They're the same forever. Just like lean principles, Continuous improvement principles. They're the same but you apply them different in different places. And then I have another book called Blue Collar Leadership and Supervision Unleash youh Team's Potential. That book is about how to lead others well. Blue Collar Leadership is how to lead Yourself well. Blue Collar Leadership and Supervision is how to lead others well. And then my Newest book just released a few months ago is Blue Collar Kaizen Leading Lean and Lean Teams. And that one is how to Lead Teams well. And so you got leading yourself well, leading others well, and leading teams well. That's basically what these are. And I don't think I may have shared, I can't remember, but from 2005 to 2012, I actually have over 11,000 hours basically leading Kaizen events. So that's. That's really what Blue Collar Kaizen is about, is teaching what I learned about leading teams. But I couldn't do those. I couldn't do that unless I knew what was in the Blue Collar Leadership book. How to lead myself well as an individual, which is basically how to develop my own character. And then again, Go ahead, give me.

Just before we wrap up this section of the show, I would like you to maybe share one story from that first book, the Blue Collar Leadership for the Frontline Worker. Can you share maybe just one story that you write about in that book?

A story.

Or one example of how that works?

Yeah, I actually like to share chapter four with you.

Okay.

And it's not necessarily a story, but it's kind of. Basically, the chapter is Common Sense is Never Enough. And I start out building this book up by connecting with the people. First chapter is I'm one of you talks about how I started working in my underwear. My first day was soaked in cutting oil. And for 10 years I was a frontline factory worker. So, you know, I start out by connecting what a lot of people miss. But chapter four is Common Sense is Never Enough. And what I'm talking about there, everything I'm talking to you about on the phone today, whenever someone says, you know, top level leadership is the biggest obstacle that they need to be involved and removing roadblocks and learning and growing with the team and being part of it, that's common sense. Common sense says if I do that, we're going to move forward. And what I talk about in that chapter is helping people understand. And again, this one is for the entry level frontline person. But it applies to anybody at any level in any industry. And what I'm teaching them is we use common sense wrong. Basically, when we say something's common sense, we mean we kind of say it, meaning anybody should do it. But that really ain't what it is. When we. When we say something is common sense, it means anyone should understand it. Like if I said, if you read leadership books every day, 10 years from now, you're going to be in a different spot, character wise, Salary wise, position wise, title wise, whatever you want. If you read Leadership every day, you're going to grow and benefit from it. That's common sense. But to actually do that requires uncommon sense. And that's what most people are missing. That's why you can say something that's common sense and everybody says, oh yeah, yeah. Then you can ask how many people actually do it. And most people are not doing it because it requires a completely different level of understanding and intellectual capacity. And that's the reason I'm telling them that in chapter four is because I'm setting up and I tell them, everything you're about to read in this book is common sense. You already know it, but do you already do it?

Yeah, yeah.

And, and what's in that book? I was actually promoted 14 times in my 20 year corporate career doing a lot of what's in that book. And I do have a lot of stories that, that are in there related to my, you know, my growth as an example and, but I didn't know how to teach it and speak about it while I was doing it. I kind of learned it accidentally, not intentionally. Yeah, got it.

Wow. Fantastic. Well, I haven't read your books yet, but I'm actually going to be purchasing them today because I'm really interested in your story and really enjoy chatting with you. So let's go ahead and jump in.

One thing I'd like to say right there just for you and for the listeners. I wrote these books for people who don't like to read like me and a lot of other blue collar leaders and readers or non readers. But they're all 30 chapters, three pages per chapter. Oh wow. It's a little book. 90 pages. They're perfect for like toolbox meeting, startup meeting. You can read a chapter in six to seven minutes and you can get a powerful several nuggets out of each chapter. So I wrote them very intentionally. People could lead like a 30 day book study or 30 week or however they want to do it one at a time, buy them for their team.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, we'll link to everything in the show notes. Folks can find those links@gembapodcast.com and this will be episode 174, so just look for that. We'll link to everything in there. Mac, so fantastic stuff. All right. Hey, so this first question, we've been kind of tap dancing around and kind of talking about it a little bit, but let's get right to it and talk about what respect for people really does mean to you.

Yeah, for me it means intentionally. This is, that's a key word on everything I talk about, but is intentionally unleashing the leadership potential in everyone, at every level by growing and developing everyone in an effort to increase their influence, basically increase it 360 degrees from wherever they are. And that's what this entire Blue Collar leadership series is about. It's a unique resource because I'm, you know, I'm one of these folks, the blue collar people. And respect for the people means actually developing them. I learned. My wife Rhea and I were in Guatemala in 2013 with John Maxwell and we, we and 150 other coaches and mentors helped John train over 20,000 Guatemalan leaders. And the whole thing was about the cultural transformation. It was a cultural transformation initiative in Guatemala and the 87, 13 rule I learned there, it was the foundation for everything we'd done there. And I talk about it, I write about it in all these books too, and talk about it. Basically what that means is 87% of our results are influenced by comes from character and only 13% from competency. And unfortunately, most people, even if they talk about respect for the people continuously, if you go look at where they actually put their resources, their time, money and energy, most of it's on the competency side. Most organizations don't do a whole lot of developing people beyond what's required, you know, and if they're using Lean as a tool, then that's required. But that's why most companies, you know, when I talk about this in Blue Collar Kaizen, I actually call it righting a wrong. And I talk about, you know, everybody in Lean teaches two pillars, respect for the people and continuous improvement. But I teach two layers. I say I don't like to talk about the pillars. I like to talk about those same things, but in layers. And I apply the 87% to the respect for people and I make that the foundational layer. Then I stack on top of that the 13%, which is continuous improvement. But unfortunately, most people and most organizations focus on competency when they want to get ahead. Not the character, but the way you validate this, whether you believe those percentages or not, is. And you know it, and everybody listening knows it. They can validate it this way. And I heard this from John Maxwell. People get hired for what they know, their competency, and they get fired for who they are, their character. But that's, that's. I could talk about any one of these questions all day, so it's hard for me to give short answer.

Yeah, I know it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful response. What's the best advice you've ever received?

Okay, I'm gonna give you two short ones on this one because they're both very powerful. Two pieces of advice, one of them came from John Maxwell and who's a mentor of mine, got done a lot of training with John over the years was basically seek advice from those doing or those who have done what you want to do, not everybody else, not friends and family. It's why I read every day. When I started this journey, even with Lean, when I started reading Lean every day in 2005, I wanted to learn from those doing. And I had never heard this from John at that time. I just naturally was doing what he says is really good advice and learning from people who are either doing or have done what I wanted to do. Because people who are not doing it don't have the passion and desire to motivate and inspire you to do it. So most of the people that I wanted to be like, I couldn't call them up on the phone or go visit them. So that's why I started reading the books and it's why I write books today to help other people. The second thing was in 2008, I heard it within 2008. Before that I had never heard anything about formal leadership development. A friend of mine, and this story is also in Defining Influence, but he loaded one hour audio of the seven habits of highly effective people on my iPod in 2005. It was three years before I ever listened to it. And pretty early on within that, Dr. Covey started talking about habit one. And he said between stimulus and response, human beings have the ability to pause and choose their response. And I had never thought of that. And Dr. Covey, I've read a lot of his books. That's my number one book still out of the hundreds that I've read, is that seven habits. And I talk about them, teach about them every day to somebody. And that really, because I was a very reactive person earlier in my life especially, but even then, because I was real strong for the people and low impact leaders or managers, bosses, whatever word the folks want to use, I've always wanted to defend the people. So I was still working on me a lot. But that one quote transformed my life, realizing that I can pause between something happening and my response and choose my response.

So you've had a lot of success over the years, Mac, but I'm sure there's been an experiment or a project or two that didn't quite turn out like you had planned. And if that's accurate, can you tell us maybe what you learned?

Yeah, there's a lot of them. I'll tell you one, I was actually going to tell you a different story, but I'm going to tell you one where I really messed up. You know, people learn more from our mistakes than our successes. And this was actually why I was still working with Jim in the plant, you know, between 05 and 08 and I was leading a pretty extensive 5s event in a paint department. We had a liquid paint department, the chain, you know, going around, carrying mufflers around. And I was facilitating the event. And on Thursday we were going to paint everything. Basically we had a team probably of about 12 or 15 people. It was a big project. And so Thursday morning I was going to get multiple five gallon buckets of paint. I don't remember how many. It was a bunch. I just drive about five miles across town, pick them up. They always had it. And that day I drove over there and some other plant had bought it the day before and they didn't have any. And so now I'm scrambling to find all this paint. This team worked very hard to prepare everything to be painted on Thursday so they could have their final presentation on Friday. And I didn't find any till about 2 o'. Clock. Then I had to drive about 60 miles, 120 miles round trip to get it. And by the time I got back, they were, they were getting off. And because I told them, you guys just get prepared, I'm gonna find the paint somewhere today and we'll paint it tomorrow and we'll do a presentation on Monday instead of Friday. So when I got back with all that paint and I was on salary then Jim, Jim basically he never really told me what to do. He gave guidance, basically was transform this plant. That's what he told me to do. How was up to me. So I would talk with him and discuss with him. But he wasn't never giving me direction, especially on when or how much to work. So when I got back, everybody was leaving with plans to paint tomorrow. And I went back there as soon as everybody was gone. I went back and put on the Tyvek suit myself. And I was lean manager at this time. I didn't have to do this stuff again. Nobody told me I didn't get paid. I put on the Tyvek suit and I was a one man painting machine. From 4 o'clock that night, that afternoon to 7 o' clock the next morning. Oh my gosh, I did it. I Screwed it up and I painted. They thought Santa Claus had come the next day because I almost done all of it by myself. And I didn't go to the bathroom somehow. I didn't get a drink, I didn't get a snack. I didn't take that suit off or that mask off from 4 o' clock that night to 7 o' clock because I had let the team down. And what I learned from that, I mean, it was my mistake, but what I learned from that was how powerful you can use a mistake to increase your influence. And again, whenever I say the word leadership, I haven't said this, I know, but I define leadership as influence, which I learned from John Maxwell. And I didn't realize that, but everybody in that plant was talking about what I had done. I didn't do it for that. I done it because I had screwed up and let down this team. And I was the leader.

So what was your message to the folks when they came in and they saw everything? First of all, were you there?

Oh, yeah, I was still there. I was like, you guys just gotta, you know, they were all happy. They couldn't believe I had done all this stuff. I had to paint walls, I had to paint paint booths and you know, all kind of stuff. And I told them I brought them together because they didn't know I was gonna stay. And I told them why I stayed. I was humble and said I made a mistake. It would be easy to say, well, the paint store didn't have paint. Well, then I could still be responsible, say, why didn't I order it last week? To be sure. Right. That's what being proactive as Dr. Covey speaks about is taking responsibility. Regardless of what happens, if you're the leader, you're responsible. And I had never read all that stuff back then, but I was just doing it. So I just told them, I said, you guys get everything squared away. I told the Kaizen team leader, you know, prepare the team for final presentation at 10:30 or whatever it was that morning like we had planned. And. Or it was in the afternoon, right after lunch. I said, I'm gonna go home and take me about two or three hour nap and then I'll be back and we'll get this thing done. And you know how hard they worked that day? Oh, yeah. They worked harder than any other day. And I didn't tell them to.

Yeah.

And it was actually that quote that I shared with you in the beginning. If we're not modeling what we're teaching, we're teaching something else. Yeah. And what I was teaching them, because I don't call it my first leadership book, although kind of really was, was the Toyota way. And that's where I really learned how much the people mattered. And that was one of the first books I read. So I was applying that during those first three years. But I didn't really discover leadership again until I resigned in 2008. And that's when I learned everybody's trying to reinvent the wheel and lean and create this stuff about the people. Leadership development is already out there. It's been there since the beginning of time is already there. We don't have to go learn and we don't need to go learn that from Toyota. We need to learn that from these, from the timeless principles that already exist. Anyway, I'm getting fired up, Ron.

I love it.

I get excited about this stuff.

I love it. All right. Hey, so what are you most proud of as it relates to your journey?

I guess really helping, you know, people unleash their potential. And I say I take the complex and make it simple, whether it's lean or leadership. You know, during that time when I was a green lean leader and they were a green company of people that I was leading from 05 to 08, and I didn't know this till Jim told me about a year after I had resigned and left, we had dinner one night and he told me what I'm about to share with you. And I didn't know this, but that plant we were in was about to be shut down. And when we started our lean journey, we were -3% gross profit margin. The entire company was very profitable, but our plant was not. Three years later it was plus 35% gross profit margin. It was 150,000 square foot facility. During those three years, we freed up 70,000 square foot of space. We brought in four new departments that created 50 new jobs. But we didn't have to hire one single person because we had freed up people from other jobs and we didn't terminate them like you're not supposed to. We did the stuff the right way. And, and there's always two camps. Soon as you start this, you got people for it and people against it. It's the same way with lean or leadership, which again, when I say leadership in my mind is still lean because it's the respect for the people pillar. So that's, that's what I'm most proud of. And because a lot of I didn't know it, those 200 and something people in that plant could have lost their job. What I'm proud of is how they embraced Lean with the majority of the people being resistant, because that one operations manager, I told you before, that was so resistant. I started working there in 2003. He probably didn't leave till 2006, maybe, or could even been seven. And he was the leader of the bad camp, and then Jim was the leader of the good camp. And it was rough, but we still did achieve those kind of results. So that's the one. You know, it's a big thing, but that's. That's really what I'm most proud of, is how well that team did with green leadership. And we just went out and did it.

So. Last question I got for you, Mac. We could talk all day if we're not careful. And people will be not getting any work done out there.

I know that's right.

So you've been around for a long time and you've learned a lot, and you've had a lot of accomplishments and learned from some mistakes, but is there a knowledge or a skill area that you feel you need to improve in order to become a better leader of people?

Yeah. This may. Again, this goes back to my favorite quote, right? If you're not modeling what you're teaching, you're teaching something else. And this is everything my life's about today and what I've learned relative to lean or leadership. But we're talking about lean. You know, in the Gemba Academy environment, people need to be studying leadership. And I'm one of those people. And I've taken it to the extreme. What I'm teaching you at this moment, to answer your question, because what people don't know, and it's actually the first chapter in my blue collar leadership and supervision book, is in the beginning is the chapter title. The subtitle is the challenge of not knowing what you don't know. And what most people don't know is how much they need to study leadership. Because leadership is influence. Especially if you're a lean leader, because most of the people you're trying to influence do not report to you. Same thing as quality leaders and safety leaders and all that sort of stuff. And the reason I'm saying that everyone, when I teach and I talk on stage, I tell people, if you don't like to read, can you commit to one paragraph a day? Read one paragraph a day. If you read a whole book, outstanding. But tomorrow you still got to read a paragraph a day. And that's me. I still. That's why I read every day. And I usually Read much more than a paragraph a day. And what I've learned through all of my leadership experience and being with John Maxwell and talking with Dan, Cathy and a lot of the people I've been exposed to these days, what I know is the people who know the most about leadership know that they know the least about leadership.

Yeah. Never done learning.

They're never expert. Some of us call ourselves expert because that's what people want to hear. But what I tell people is a true leadership expert means they're a lifetime student of leadership forever because they know that. They know how much they don't know.

Yeah. What book are you reading right now?

Right now I'm actually reading. I downloaded the other day. I'm reading something kind of unusual for me. I'm always reading Leadership. And to a degree, this is still leadership. But I'm reading actually the Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. And the reason I downloaded his entire works, I won't read the fictional stuff. I like to read, you know, real stuff. But this. I've just seen so many quotes from Mark Twain in my life that I was like, I'm gonna go read something from him, because I've never read anything from him. And so I learned Mark Twain wasn't his real name. And Mark Twain means. Twain means two fathoms, 12ft deep water. He was a steamboat captain on the Mississippi. I didn't, you know, I didn't know all this. I didn't know that his name was Samuel Cleghorn or something like that, but he used that, that Mark Twain as his pen name.

Fantastic. Ah, great episode, Mac. I've really, really enjoyed chatting with you and hopefully get to meet you in person one day. But let's go ahead and wrap things up with you, sharing some final words of wisdom. And then why don't you tell people how they can connect with you?

Matt? Yeah. The final words of wisdom I would be. If you're going to learn leadership, learn it for your family more than anybody else. It's one way I get people to buy in from the stage, whether I was. When I talk about the stage, it could be leading a Kaizen team in a blue collar plant. When I'm in front of the team talking, that's the stage. Or I could be on stage talking to 80 world leaders from, you know, 40 countries. I do that too. But that's what I mean from the stage. And what I try to do is get them to buy in. I don't care why they buy in. I just want them to buy in. But I know people. I tell people, if you'll study leadership, it'll change your children and grandchildren's life more than you can ever imagine. So that's my words of wisdom. You can take it and apply it at work and in the lean world, absolutely. But do it for yourself and your children and people can go to blue collarleadership.com I have over four or five hours worth of videos. Actually there's a little about three minute video series that covers three minute video for each chapter in these books. So it ends up being like a little series and it's not really teaching it. It's an overview with some unscripted thoughts, kind of like we're doing here. I just pick up the book and say this is chapter so and so and whatever. I just wanted to talk about, you know, if you want to read deep, they can go buy the book. One thing that I'd really like to tell you and your listeners, and this is on blue collarleadership.com go to the special offer tab. Any company that'll buy 200 of these books and invest in their people, I'll invest in their people. And what I mean by that is if they'll spend $3,600 to get 200 books to distribute to their people anywhere in the 50 United States, I'll pay all of my expenses and I'll come speak to anybody in that plant at any level on any leadership subject or lean or whatever they want me to talk about for four hours and I'll pay all my expenses and I've been paid up to $20,000 to speak on my books. So. But the reason I'm doing this, and I only do it for blue collar industries, is because I'm passionate about developing these overlooked, underdeveloped people. Overworked a lot of times. And they can also connect with me on LinkedIn.com in Mac M A C K Story S T O R Y and I have 34,000 followers there. And so I really can't hardly connect with anyone unless I delete someone. So if anybody wants to connect, they just please follow me. And I put out leadership quotes and blogs and stuff every day. We get about. Me and Ria get about 300,000 interactions per week. And I put out videos every day, some, you know, on my LinkedIn channel and Facebook. Anyone wants to talk to me about leadership. 334-728-4143. That's my cell phone number. That'd be on my side. Don't mean I can master it. But.

This thing goes up in a couple Thursdays and that thing starts ringing.

Hey, I hope it does. And I want to talk about leadership, especially in the blue collar world, in the lean world.

Beautiful. Speaking of your. Of your wife, I read a little bit on your website and goodness gracious, her opening sentence or two will grip you. And so I'd invite people to go over there and read that. I don't want to spoil a surprise or anything like that, but it's some pretty powerful stuff and I'll just go ahead and throw this out right now. Mike, right here on the podcast. I would love to have her on the show. We don't have to talk. We don't have to talk about lean or anything. Just talk about her story and her witness, because it's pretty powerful.

She's amazing and she can talk about lean and leadership. She resigned and gave up her job in 2013, and her background is healthcare administration. But like you said, I ain't gonna spoil it either.

Yeah.

But I'll tell you, she'll get on your show.

All right, well, we'll make it happen.

Absolutely. All right.

Well, hey, I really appreciate you, Mac, and this was a great episode. And you take care and be well.

All right. Thank you, Ron. Thanks for all your listeners. All right, bye. Bye. Goodbye.

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