GA 176 | How to Be a Transformative Leader with Amir Ghannad

You're listening to episode 176 with Amir Gadad.

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. Thank you so much 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, I wanted to give one little quick tip on this podcast. I know I've mentioned this before and previous hundreds some episodes ago, but there's several different ways to listen to this podcast. We're always interested to hear how you listen. So if you don't mind, drop me an email rongembaacademy.com it's pretty easy and just tell me how you listen to the show. Or you can also go to the Show Notes for this episode and leave a comment at the bottom of that post. So that's gembapodcast.com and just look for episode 176. But I'll tell you how I listen to the podcast. I have an iPhone and there's an app. There's a podcast app that comes native with all iOS devices. And if you just find that podcast app, you can search for Gemba Academy and download it or subscribe to it, I should say. And then every time an episode comes out, you can watch it or listen to it. That way, obviously it comes out on our website. So if you're subscribed to our newsletter or to our RSS feed, you can get it that way. Stitcher is another app and that's especially great for folks that are on the Android operating system. So Android mobile phone. So Stitcher S T I T C H E r so that's another way. And there's a few other podcasting apps out there, I guess if you just go to go to the Google Store or the if you're on an iPhone. I don't know why you would use anything other than the iPhone app, but. But anyhow, yeah, drop me a note@rongembayacademy.com because we are always interested to hear how folks listen to the show. I also wanted to just give a quick plug for the upcoming AME conference again, we're going to be doing an incredible cocktail party on the Tuesday night. We're to going, going to be on the 50th floor of this Prudential Tower. So it's the building right next to where the conference is going to be. So you'll, you'll leave, leave the building. I think it just, it's not that far of a walk. But go up to the 50th floor. From this 50th floor, you can see the, the, the baseball ballpark and oh my gosh, the sun's gonna set. It's gonna be incredible. So it's free. It's no sales pitch or anything like that. We've done these for the last few years. I think we're, we're at estimating probably maybe 2 to 300 folks probably going to turn up this year. So it's going to be fantastic. All the details can be found over@gembacademy.com ame and also if you haven't already registered to go to the AME conference, we can save you 10% coupon code again is over on that page. Gembapodcast.com AME all right, today I'm excited to welcome Amir Gabriel Ganad to the show. Now Amir is, as you'll hear, he's got quite the background. He's worked with some really large companies and many different kind of leadership roles. Also has a technical background, but he's written a book called the Transformative Leader. And so today we really kind of talk about that and it was really interesting conversation. One of the earlier topics we talked about was the difference between change and transformation. And I thought that was a really insightful way to look at it. And I had personally not really thought about that before. And we also just kind of get into different topics of like what leadership means to him and kind of a servant leadership discussion. So some really interesting stuff I think you're going to like to show. Again, show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com and just look for episode 176. Gembapodcast.com look for episode 176. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Amir, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from?

Thank you, Ron. Pleasure to be with you. I am in Atlanta, so that's where I live and I have a home here. I'm hardly ever here though.

Yeah.

But today I happen to be in Atlanta.

Good, good, good. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks for Coming on, I guess. Who was it? Sam or somebody that introduced us over email or somebody like that. So I really.

Yeah, it was Mac. Mac store.

Okay.

Yeah.

Good stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mac and Rhea. Yeah. Had them on a few weeks ago. Yeah, fantastic. So, okay, well, good stuff, Amir. Well, hey, so today we're going to kind of talk about your book, the Transformative Leader. But before that, why don't we start with you sharing a quote or two of something that possibly inspires you.

Well, Ron, one quote that stands out to me is A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King that says, if you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. And if you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving, keep moving forward. And that always resonates with me because often we basically just, if we can't make something really huge happen and we anticipate all these problems, then we get stuck and we don't move. And I think it's important to just keep moving forward.

I love that. Yeah, it's one of my favorite quotes. Very good. All right, well, hey, Amir, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about your background and maybe how you first got into this kind of this field of leadership and continuous improvement and all these types of things.

Sure, Ron. I have about 31 years in corporate roles. I've worked for Procter and Gamble, for Sunny Delight and Campbell Soup, have been in a lot of different places in the world, spent some time in Southeast Asia, some time in Europe, and have had basically just about every job in a plant and have done a lot of the roles in Supp Chain and that sort of thing. But the whole time, even though I had kind of a technical, educational background, if you will, I was always gravitating toward organizational development. So in a covert fashion, I was always doing something with organizational effectiveness. And later in my career, I got more and more into it, where I basically ended up being responsible for the High Performance Organization initiative at Campbell Soup for about four years and doing a lot of leadership development. So it's always been my passion. No matter what my job was, I was always doing this kind of work. And now I do it for a living, and I absolutely love it.

And now. So what are you doing today?

Yeah, so I'm on my own right now. I often say I rewired several months ago in that I don't plan to retire, but I have rewired and I'm offering, in my own practice, offering some services relative to leadership development and workplace culture transformation. So I do a lot of speaking, consulting, training and work with clients to accelerate their results and capability building.

Got it, Got it. All right, so let's jump right into it. The Transformative Leader. So what made you write the book?

You know, I've been writing for many, many years and in fact I've got so much writing on these post it notes on the Wal. And a couple of years back my daughter was actually the one who said, look, we need to publish at least one of your books to get started. So the experiences that I wrote about really all came from my own personal experiences in my corporate roles and turnarounds that I've been involved in and that sort of thing. And really the Transformative leader is all about empowering people, no matter where they are in the organization, to take on a transformative leader role and declare something bold and go after it and make it happen. And so I often say to people that there is a transformative leader inside each of us, but sometimes we're kind of stopped because there are these hidden saboteurs that are in our way and we don't see them. And the book sort of uncovers many of those hidden saboteurs and give some very practical tools and methodologies for people to discover the transformative leader within.

So can you give us maybe just a few tidbits, some of these issues or some of the countermeasures that the transformative leader does?

Sure, absolutely. I think one of those things is that we're often driven by our past experiences. And sometimes what we do is we form our opinion of what's possible based on what's happened in the past. And I think it's really great to bring experiences and some tangible learnings from the past. But oftentimes what we bring with us is just a whole bunch of stories, if you will, that we've made up that at some point maybe served us, but they no longer serve us and they're limiting us things about what's possible and what's not possible and what somebody's going to let us do and, and that sort of thing. And so one of the things that we sort of uncover in this whole thing is that in the book as well as some of my teaching, is to really kind of dig in and say, okay, what is your mindset? What do you really believe about what you are capable of or what's possible in the world? And so when you begin to examine those, you get to sort of separate fact from fiction and you go for something extraordinary. One other thing, if I could mention, I Think one of the central sort of topics in the book is that there's a difference between change and transformation. I think sometimes with change, we're after improving things, tweaking things, making things better, which in a continuous improvement world is a good thing. It's wonderful. Sometimes that's all it takes. You just want to continue to stay in action and make things better. But there's a difference between that and transformation, which really starts from nothing, starts from the future, and creates something completely discontinuous. And what I always tell my clients is that you ought to at least have one or two things that you're out to transform and really just step out into the future, create that picture, and then look back from there and look at those milestones that you must meet in order to make that happen. And that gives you a whole new perspective on your journey.

Give me an example, though, of the difference between. I said, this is really interesting to me. The difference. Give me maybe two scenarios where one is change and one is transformation.

Yeah, sure. I mean, so if you look at it, you say, let me just kind of bring up an example that would apply to anybody, not just people in manufacturing or business. Let's just say you're experiencing a health issue and you are taking medication or taking some steps to deal with some of the symptoms so you can feel better. And that sometimes is more like change, because you actually do experience a change. You're dealing with some of the symptoms. You no longer have this issue. I call that kind of playing whack a mole a little bit with your problems. And the same thing would apply and in any kind of operation. But the transformative approach would say, look, instead of saying, well, I just don't want to have a headache, or I just don't want to have this particular pain, or I don't want to have that loss or waste in my operation. Just really kind of taking yourself out of that picture and say, what is it that you want? Rather than focusing on what you don't want and continuing to play whack a mole with that problem that really describing what you want. So in case of the person with the health issue, it's like, okay, what I ultimately want is vitality and health and looking from there. Yes, I may need to take an aspirin or two from time to time to address some of the symptoms, but some of the steps that I would take to actually create health and vitality are very different than the ones that I would take in order to just deal with the issues that I'm Dealing.

With, for example, stop eating fast food for lunch every day, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. So in operations, I think we run into the same kind of thing. We get obsessed with just removing some of the barriers and eliminating some of the waste, which, again, is a good thing. But if you step back and you say, look, what do we want our operation to look like? What's really possible? We don't want to just meet our budget. We want to go for zero waste, zero loss, goes for that true north, if you will. And that's usually a transformative kind of thinking.

Got it, got it. So let's talk about you. Obviously, you've had a really awesome career and worked at some really big companies who have many strong kind of cultures and whatnot at these organizations. But talk about maybe your personal journey as a leader, and were you always a transformative leader or did you have to kind of grow into that? What did that look like?

I tell you, Ron, I am still growing into it. I don't claim to be there, but I've had a few experiences in my life. You know, first of all, I came to the States when I was 16 years old. I grew up in Iran, and my English vocabulary was very limited. I didn't know anybody, basically had to sort of go through a bunch of challenges to make it, if you will, and, you know, get an education, get a job, things like that. So from a personal standpoint, I have been blessed and fortunate enough to have overcome a lot of different sort of challenges. But from a career perspective, no, I would say when I first started, I didn't really know. In fact, I visited the plant where I started my career, and I went back and looked those folks who worked with me at the time, you know, when I started, looked them in the eye and apologized to them because I just didn't know what the heck I was doing. But over the years, what happened was, you know, early on in my career, I would say about three or four years into my career, it became real clear to me that there's no way that I'm going to be as competent as the folks who are working in my area, because usually they had been there for many, many years. So I just really caught on that my job is to take care of them so that they can take care of the business. So this notion of servant leadership, way before I read any books on it, sort of came to me as a way for me to survive and thrive in my career. And so then I just really started focusing on it. And anytime I was kind of in A turnaround situation I fell back on. What do I need to do to make sure that everybody's bringing their best to work and everybody feels like I've got their back and things like that. So that's how I got into this whole leadership and transformative leadership arena.

So we often throw the word leadership around quite a bit within our world here of continuous improvement. But I'm curious to hear, maybe in your own words, what is leadership? How would you define it?

For me? Leadership. There are two key elements to leadership. The first one has to be committing to a cause, declaring yourself the one who is solely and unconditionally responsible and accountable for it. I mean, this has got to be something that is bigger than you. It cannot be, hey, I want to be successful, I want to be rich, whatever. No, this cause has to be something that is bigger than you, and you commit to it. And the second factor is really to make sure that you energize and enroll others in this common vision in a way that causes them to choose to be committed, to go beyond the call of duty and be actively engaged in making it happen. So when you put those two elements together, that big commitment and a relentless sort of commitment to getting others energized, that, to me, is leadership. Now, there are a lot of tools and methodologies and tools, skills that you will pick up along the way, but without what I've just mentioned, I don't believe we're going to be a great leader.

Talk a little bit about energizing and enrolling others. What are some tips a leader can do for that?

Well, you know, for me, it really comes down to getting into their world. It's not about, you know, oftentimes we sort of look at it from our own perspective and say, what can I do to this person to get more work out of them? And what I've always done, or not always, but really in my more enlightened years I've done, is I've said, okay, how can I really treat this person as a whole person and make sure that their needs are met? How can I find out what it is that they bring to the party and what is it that they have passion for? And in that case, I think it's important in that sense that you get to know each person to some extent to make sure that either you do this directly for them or your role model, a kind of behavior that leaders within the organization will do for others. So it's, you know, if you're. All you're after is compliance, I think there are ways to sort of make sure that people comply. But I don't think anything extraordinary has happened by people just complying. If you want commitment from people, I think you've got to get into their world and find out what makes them tick and then hook them up with opportunities, set them up for success. And that's what's really worked for me in the past.

Got it, got it. Sounds very respect for people, but, you know, we'll save that for later. So back to the transformative leader. Are there maybe some, I don't know, practical characteristics or things we can kind of wrap our arms around of how. Of what that person looks like that you could share with us?

Sure. I think the transformative leaders essentially have a large vision that is transformative, not just based on change or surviving and things like that. The other thing is that they are 100% committed to that vision. There's no 99% here. In other words, their commitment is not conditional. I think the balance of tenacity and humility, this is something that a lot of people talk about. Jim Crow Collins refers to it as level five leadership. And there are many, many different ways to bring this. But basically, I refer to it as kind of the chick fil a lemonade style of leadership that says I've got to have chick fil a lemonade is very delicious because it's got a lot of lemon, a lot of sugar. It's really rich. It's awesome. And so in leadership, you got to have the courage and the tenacity to hold people to high standards. And that represents the lemon in the lemonade. But you got to really care enough about the people and have enough consideration to really make sure that you take care of them and that you remain humble and really focus on them. And that represents the sugar. So if you got the right balance, I think that makes a huge difference. I think the other thing that kind of is embedded in that is you've got to have a heart, the heart of a servant. You cannot just sort of, you know, expect to tell people what to do and stuff like that. You're there partly to lead and partly to serve. And there's a huge overlap between those. And so. And the final thing I would say is, of course, it's important for you to be competent at the thing that you're trying to do. I mean, you can have all the right attitude and the right mindset, but if you're not competent, you don't have the skills or you don't have the right tools and things like that. That doesn't work either. That to me is a price of admission. But oftentimes people have too much of that, but not enough emotional intelligence and not enough of a servant heart and things like that.

Yeah, you got to have that balance, right?

Yes, absolutely.

So as I was preparing for this, I came across a quote that I believe you're known for says, I am the One, and it's not about me. I am the One, and it's not about me. What does that mean?

Yeah, that to me, really is something that I center myself on and I really encourage others to do the same because the two parts of that statement, the first part really speaks to the fact that I am declaring myself to be the one who is responsible unconditionally for the outcome. In other words, if I'm a leader and something is not going right, I do not get to blame other people. I take full responsibility. I am the one. If it's to be, it's up to me. The second part, which says it's not about me says that, you know, I'm not going to get in my head about all the things that the implications on me when I hit a. Hit a kind of a roadblock. I'm not going to go in my head about, oh, now that's going to happen to me, or these people didn't support me, why didn't they do that for me? I get that I'm just a tiny speck in the universe. It's not about me. Because if it's all about you, then you cannot be the one. So if you get one part or the other of this statement, it doesn't work. If you get you're the one, but you don't get that it's not about you. You're not a great leader. And if you also get that it's not about you, but you say, well, I'm not the one, Somebody else got to come and do this. That doesn't work either. But when you get both of these at the same time, you declare yourself the One and you get that this whole thing is not about you. It's about the mission. It's about your team, then that makes for an awesome leader.

In my mind, I think you need to make us some T shirts and say, I am the one. That's not about me.

Good idea.

I like it. I want some royalties on that, by the way.

Thank you. Yes. You got it.

Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Hey, so the last question for this section, Amir, so your book is the way you've kind of Organized it is interesting. Seems very kind of similar to the way Max kind of gone about some of his books with these kind of one point lessons. And some of them have some funny titles. Like you mentioned, the Chick Fil a Lemonade. That's one of the titles of one of your chapters. Well, what made you organize the book this way into these short lessons?

I tell you, I struggled with writing this book because I'm a very interactive guy. Even when I speak in front of 800 people, I'm just interacting with people. And so when I was writing this, I didn't want it to come across like some kind of a prescription or anything like that. So I wanted it to be very much in a language that was like I'm coaching someone. And so it's written that way. And the way I've organized it is the first half of the book really talks about the culture that the transformative leader creates, which is distinct from the traditional cultures and, and the mindset and the behavior of leaders. And the last half of the book, the second half of the book is organized in these two or three page stories and each of them have a kind of a funny story and a point. And then I end it with questions, reflection questions, and some recommended follow up actions. The reason I did it that way was because I think, you know, people ought to be able to jump around and read any of those stories that resonate with them. There are several companies right now that are doing book studies. So this book is actually very conducive to doing that because it only takes a half hour for people to come together and sort of dissect the lessons in one of these one point lessons and go apply it.

Got it. Yeah, Very good, very good. So the Transformative Leader, I guess available on Amazon and anywhere books are sold, right?

Yes. And it's also available@Amirganad.com as well.

Okay, yeah, we'll link to everything over. People can go to GembaPodcast.com and this will be episode 176. So just go to GembaPodcast.Com 176 and we'll link to everything there. Amir. So, all right, well, let's go ahead and transition into the reflection section. So this first question we've had from the very beginning of the show is within kind of the continuous improvement world. We often talk about two pillars that hold this, this house up. And one of them is one pillar is continuous improvement. So it's the tools, the things that we can, that we can do that and wrap our arms around. But the other pillar is respect for people, and that can be harder to define. So I'm curious, Amir, from your perspective, what does respect for people mean?

Yeah, so respect for people, to me, means that you really take the time to understand what it is about that is important to people, and you treat people the way they want to be treated, and sometimes that may be different than the way you want to be treated. So I think the basic principle is that basically do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. However, when it comes to certain styles and things like that, I think the spirit of the golden rule is that you take the time to make sure they understand that you understand what's important to them, what they bring to the party and all of that. What respect for people does not mean to me is that you're always just kind of really nice to people and things like that. Because sometimes you ought to have the courage to have the tough conversation, and that is also a sign of respect, that you have the courage, in a considerate manner, to have a tough conversation, to let a person know where they stand and what they need to do differently in order to show up as the transformative leader that they are.

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

You know, I was working in a plant, and there was a gentleman who had worked there as a technician in my organization. He had been there for about 30 years. And one day he just kind of looked me up, looked me in the eye on the floor and told me. He said, amir, I know you kind of knew in your career and everything, but I want you to know you should not expect people to be as good as somebody else. You should expect them to be as good as they are. And this has always stuck with me in that I always strive to really treat people as the extraordinary leaders that they are, whether they're showing up that way or not. But I have really tried to refrain from holding people to somebody else's standards. I've always kind of looked to see what it is that they can really excel at and committed myself to making sure that I support them in that.

What are you most proud of as it relates to your journey with leadership and continuous improvement?

You know, I transferred into a plant several years ago that had all the tools and everything in place of lean and all of those latest tools. But they were delivering the worst results in the company at the time. We managed to turn that plant around within a year and a half, and we became the best. And the way we did that was we not only focused on the tool set, but also the mindset. The reason I'm so proud of that particular turnaround in my career is that it made a profound, profound difference and impact on the lives of people. The kind of testimonies that we got every single week in terms of how the work that we were doing within the plant to change our mindset spilled over into people's personal lives was just amazing and it will always stay with me.

Got it, got it. So. Well, obviously we've talked a lot about your book, but I always like to ask our guests if there's any other good books that they're reading or have read recently. Do you have any that you think folks should check out?

Absolutely. Of course, there are several books that I have really benefited from. The one that I will mention here that really stands out for me is called the Servant by James Hunter. And so I've done a book study with this, with several organizations and I absolutely love it. It just speaks to the heart of a servant. You know, when you're a leader, you really want to kind of take have the spirit of servanthood as your leader. And I love it. It's just a lot of really great truths in this book.

Good, good, good. So obviously you've been around for a while, Amir, and you got a lot of experience and knowledge. But I'm curious, is there an area of leadership or continuous improvement that you feel you need to, to get a little bit better at? And if so, what's your plan?

You know, it is. And one thing that I have always been very cognizant of is that I, when it comes to managing all the details of everything that needs to be done, I've never really been really great at it. And I think to some extent it has helped me. Because if you think about somebody who's had a 31 year career, career in manufacturing and has done well for themselves and you think, well, they're not really good at managing the details. You're like, how the heck did that happen? But I think it ended up being a blessing for me because it was like I learned to rely on other people and I confessed my own sins and I said, look, I'm good at these different kinds of things, but this is the kind of thing that I'm not really good at. So I'm constantly trying to get better at saying, look, either I'm going to recognize that some of the details that I have to work with, even publishing my book, I had the manuscript and everything, but my daughter had to really step in to take care of a lot of those steps. So for me, the way I intend to deal with it is that I intend to focus on my own strengths, but I also intend to raise my hand and when I know I'm not good at managing some parts of the work that needs to be done, making sure that somebody else is handling it and working with me to make sure we don't drop any balls.

You know something, it's sort of related to what you're talking about. I think we're going to actually perhaps do an episode on this as well here on the show, but there's a little startup company called Bestself co. Like instead of.combestself co. And they make this. It's a. It's a. Basically a day planner, but it's called the self journal. And it's basically, it's set up to where that's set up, that each book is for 13 weeks. And it's very kind of got a lot of leadership standard work kind of things embedded in it. But it helps you kind of identify some big goals, like write a book and then break that those goals down into kind of they call progress goals. And then those progress goals then have action steps. And then you basically kind of follow the book along. And all the while you're keeping track of your day as well, like what you want to get done that day. And. Well, I just actually started using it. My colleague Steve Cain has been using it for some time now and. Because I can relate to what you're saying as far as the details, like, you know, like making things happen, you know, but yeah, all the little things. Sometimes it's easy to. I don't know, to mess those up. Yes. So anyhow, yeah, well, good stuff. Well, hey, I really enjoyed talking with you, Amir. So let's maybe wrap the show up with you sharing some final words of wisdom and then why don't you tell folks how they can connect with you?

Yeah. Thank you so much. Basically, the one thing that I'd like to share is that I think there are a lot of companies. Just about everybody out there is focusing on tools. And so the way I always kind of put this is that everybody invests in tool sets. Some companies are going a bit further and focusing on developing the skill set to use those tools in the right context. But very few are really doing an effective job of developing the right mindset. So what I try to do is work with clients to really hit all three of those. You know, let's really make sure we got the right tool sets, let's make sure we develop the right skill set, but just as importantly, let's make sure that we develop the right mindset to make things happen. And I'd like to leave that with folks because I think oftentimes it's easier to just kind of focus on a tool set and say, hey, we put the system in place, or something like that. And sometimes you just get pennies on a dollar because you don't have the right mindset.

Right. Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

And as far as I'm concerned, I would always love to stay in touch with kindred spirits, anybody who's got interests in this field. If I could support you. I'm at. You can find me@amirganad.com and the link. I suppose you guys will put that out. Yeah. So amirganad.com is one of my websites and it's connected to. To all the other places where you can get in touch with me.

And it's a M I R and then G H A N N A D. Yeah. Yes.com Americanaud.com all right, very good, Amir. Well, thank you for coming onto the show. Hopefully we get. Do you ever get out to any of the kind of Lean conferences or anything like that?

Absolutely. I've spoken at several of the Shingo Institute events. I've spoken at at several of the Apex events. So I'm sure I've run into you and others and one of those fantastic.

All right, Amir, well, thanks a lot and you have a great day.

Thank you so much. You too.

Bye. Bye. Bye.

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