GA 258 | Creating a Common Meaning with Billy Taylor

Standards would not be monuments. Okay? We're gonna prove it, trust it, challenge it, replicate it, and start the cycle all over again. Therefore, we weren't in that mindset of this is where we are. We finally arrived. We had a mindset. There is no finish line.

Today. I'm extremely excited to welcome Billy Taylor to the show. Now, if Billy's name sounds familiar, it's probably because you've seen him keynote at a conference like AM Now. As you'll hear, Billy has had a long, extremely successful career at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, where he currently works as a senior operations executive. Now, Billy is known for being a fantastic storyteller. So I did my best to pull out some doozies. I even took a bit of a risk and asked Billy to share some personal stories that I'm not sure he's publicly shared before. So be sure to give this entire episode a listen. Our show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything we talk about, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 258. You can also check out Gemba Academy's Lean Learning System over@gembacademy.com with a fully functional trial. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show.

All right, Billy, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Very good. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah.

Well, we're face to face here at Katacon 5 in Savannah, Georgia. It's actually a great honor to be interviewing you. I've watched you from the big stage over there at AME at least the last two years now. Have you done it more than that?

Yes, I've done that. I've Shingo Prize Institute, their main event. So it's a pleasure to meet you, and it's an honor to be invited.

Well, thank you. Thank you for coming. So. Well, Billy, what we like to do before we get too far into the show is have our guests share maybe a quote of something that inspires them. Do you have one that you like?

I do. It's all around trusting your process, too, and not only deploying strategy, but deploying ownership. Because my personal quote is, in the absence of ownership comes blame. And so when. When people don't own the process or people don't own what they do, as far as what their ownership is in the strategy, they tend to blame when failure happens or constraints come up. And it's kind of like I always say, like my. My children, when my son broke his curfew and I gave me the keys to the car, yeah, well, the first thing he says, dad, you're not fair. Right. You're not fair. In fact, I didn't break my curfew. Yeah, you did. Yeah, but you don't want to own that piece of it. And so it's that way. I've noticed even with adults, when you're in the middle of your lean transformation or your lean journey, it's clear to let people know what the expectations are and put extreme clarity around that and so that you can build a infrastructure of ownership. Yeah, Yeah.

I love it. I love it. All right, well, Billy, let's jump right into it. Why don't you just tell 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 this day.

Okay. Actually, this journey started years ago around operational excellence. My background was primarily in operations from the started on the shop floor with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company as a area manager or entry level manager. And at that point it was just reading books and it was really tool focused. Yeah, I was constantly looking for a problem to fit my tool.

Yeah, I hear you.

Versus the other way around. As I got educated and got a better understanding of what operational excellence is and what lean manufacturing is, I changed my focus to a more holistic approach. It's more around people centered excellence. How do people use and drive excellence and use the tools versus dictating what happens in operational excellence. And from that I used some, some of the best industry workshops or conferences as tools for education and how tos and standards and building standards on implementation versus, you know, Six Sigma. Everybody's going to use Six Sigma or everybody's going to do a Kaizen event. It's centered toward what was the need of the organization.

I gotcha.

So through my career I was able to move from team to team. I've led teams as large as 3,000 people in Lawton, Oklahoma and Fayetteville, North Carolina, to teams as small as 54 people in Kingman, Arizona. So I've run the gamut on large scale, small scale, union, union free. I've been in all of those environments and consistently it's been the people impact.

So tell us a little bit then, Bill. I mean, you're a master storyteller, you know, I mean, so talk about just some of your journey. Maybe I, I, if there was a particular transformation that, that, that you're especially proud of or, you know, or maybe there was something that was painful, you know, along the way. You know, tell us some Stories.

What in Fayetteville, North Carolina, when I was selected to go to that plant is one I didn't want to. I didn't want to take that assignment. It was a tough assignment. They were running very, very bad. And I would joke around, you know, leaders that were assigned that plan. It was like Gilligan's Island. Right. You started out on a three day trip, but you never came back. So that was very interesting. I didn't want to take that assignment.

Where were you before that?

I was in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Okay.

And we had just won the shingle prize. And so the, I guess the reward was to go to Fayetteville. Upon arriving at Fayetteville, there were a great team. It had a great team there. But the processes around alignment and structure, there were some significant gaps. And as we walked around, we had to clearly define what winning was first. And so at that point, our mindset was about reality first. And you hear a lot of things around clarity, you hear a lot of things around setting clear expectations. But in most cases the expectations have been set, but people are kind of naive or self selecting to be naive. That here's our current reality. And so what we did was define winning for everyone from the union to salary people.

What did that look like? How did you do that?

So basically we were not making enough tires. So we were not supplying enough tires to the marketplace. And actually we were making around 31,000 tires and the market needed approximately 38,000. And so clearly how did we get their attention? How do we tell them about their current state? And we made it very obvious that we were making 31 and the goal was 38.

Now is that like dumb question, is that in a month or is that a day?

A day.

Oh my gosh. Wow, that's a lot of tires.

Yes. And. And we looked at what was looked at from a cultural standpoint. What, what One significant thing that that environment embraced, it was football. And so we bought everybody a football jersey with the number 38 on it. Yeah. And it's like, well, they're not going to wear the jerseys. No. It was just fodder for conversation.

Yeah, I remember that picture from your AME presentation. Yeah.

To start to transform the mindset, to try to build the ownership. And we started to drive that level of ownership to the shop floor. And the visual management boards were. We had the 10 second rule. And so we would line up, put our backs against the bulletin board as they existed and walk 10 steps and then turn around. And our objective was within 10 seconds or less, you should know what's going on in that business, even if you didn't work there. So if you came in off the streets as a visitor, you shouldn't know what's going on. And that's what the mindset was.

And assume it wasn't like that when you first walked in, obviously.

And so what we did, we tested it. We had people walk by and we stopped people in the area and asked them, what does that board mean to you? And they didn't know. And so we knew then that was an opportunity. And so we let them choose what they wanted to see aligned with what the strategy was. And so how do we tie this back to the overall strategy? And they knew how they contributed to winning. And it changed the mindset because as one of this, one of the late night tours, I would go in on third shift in my blue jeans and my baseball cap and I just walk around on night shift and I just wanted to get to see the people.

Did they know who you were the first time?

They did not. And then they started to expect he could come in at any time or he will come in at any time.

Code word, the first.

Yes, yes, yes.

Lone Ranger.

Lone Ranger, absolutely. And what was great was the first time I went, I was actually walking with, I think it was a union president. And he was walking and he had a big wad of tobacco in his mouth. We were just joking. And I asked, I says, well, approximately how many people work here? And he pulls his wad out of his mouth and he says, you want me to be honest? I said, absolutely. He says, about half of them. I said, what? He goes, about half of them. And I said, no, no, no, 2,000, 3,000. And he says, you asked me to be honest. And he was having fun with me as well. But at that point he became evangelist on what we were doing. And so at that point we started to build other evangelists and we would have report outs. Now there's a such thing about visual management around what people see. And if you're having recognition events around the process, that's visual management. And you start to build evangelists and people want to come on board, they understand the why. And so every week we started with a project review at the end of every week. And at that point it became contagious and people wanted to present out. And then at that point we realized if you make people visible, they'll make you valuable. And so people wanted to report out. People wanted to actually get up in front of the leadership team and show how they're impacting results and how they're involved in the strategy. And at that point, 38. We went from 31 to 38 in six months. And it was sustainable because it was process driven versus people driven. And as we started our journey, it was all around process, process. And we recognized the process and we embrace the individual because we don't want the firefighter mode. People creating situations are constraints to be recognized, but more so celebrating the process. And then at that point, the standards. We made a commitment to each other, being union, salary, our overall workforce. That standards would not be monuments. Okay, we're going to prove it, trust it, challenge it, replicate it, then start the cycle all over again. Prove it, trust it, challenge it, replicate it. Therefore, we weren't in that mindset of this is where we are. We finally arrived. We had a mindset. There is no finish line. Yeah, yeah.

Talk a little bit about the football jersey, though, like, but how soon into that journey did you do that and why? I mean, really?

Well, at that point, we had to have. How do we get the message out? That standard method of communication to get people the rally cry. And so speaking a common language. And people say, a common language. We wanted a common meaning. Not just a common language, a common meaning. And so at that point, when our leadership team and all of our associates and we said, what's the target? There were several different numbers. 31, 32, 33. And the number was 38. So what we did, we got very creative with the jersey. On the front of the jersey was the team, okay, the plant name. On the back of the jersey, the name which would be the player was called the choice. We wanted to be the choice of the customer, choice of the company, choice of our community. On the sleeve, we actually put the union logo because this was a team. And then on one sleeve, we had the Goodyear Wing Foot. That's the league we play in. Okay. And so we clearly held meetings with every single group in small lots of 30 so that they could ask any question they like. And so we kept that environment safe. And so the jersey was irrelevant. The meaning is what the team embraced.

Yeah.

And I remember, I think it was my controllers telling me, they're never going to wear those jerseys. The goal or intent is not for them to wear the jerseys. It's to get the understanding about where our true north is and where we're headed. And that's what happened. And I guess the greatest reward was I went back to visit after I left the plant two years later, they lined the aisles with the jerseys. Oh, man.

How'd that make you feel?

It was humbling. It's actually a tearjerker. Yeah. To be honest with you, I, I, I, I shed a couple of tears walking through the plant, I bet. And, and it wasn't just the lining of the aisles. It was the lining of the aisles with future projects. They were showing, hey, we're still going because it's ours. It was never yours. Yeah. And it wasn't about the leader. It was about the process. And, you know, I always say, if you hit the lottery, what happens with the company? Continue to grow with the team. Continue to grow. And I believe great leaders work for their team. Their team doesn't work for them.

So how did, how did that facility get on after you left?

Very good. Very good. A strong leader came in after me. It continued to run well. Continues to run well. Yeah. So it's still running well. And so it's. That's great. The system itself prevail.

Hey, so talk a little bit, Billy, about. I know a lot of listeners do work in a union environment, and, you know, in some situations, it can be challenging for, like in some aspects of continuous improvement. So how were you able to overcome that? And what advice do you have for someone listening right now that might be struggling?

Well, it starts with transparency. And it's not us and them, it's a we. Yeah. And so that extreme clarity, that's where that comes into play. So what are we trying to achieve? Why are we trying to achieve it? Yeah, it's that, that, that bonding that has to take place. And it starts at the top.

Yeah.

All right. The infighting starts at the top. And I always say, if it's the parents in building that cohesiveness and it's a team approach, knowing that we're gonna have some setbacks, and at some point, you're gonna have how I said, red, green boards. You're gonna have red. Yeah. But to build that, that trust and you have to celebrate the red. Don't, don't, you know, balk at the red. Don't use red as a, as a hammer, so to speak. Use red is something you say celebrate because you know what your issues are, you know what you should be focusing on. And if you embrace the red, then you have a mindset and you establish those paradigms that were forward thinkers. We're not blaming. Right. If you go to the other, it goes back to my leading statement. If you don't have that mindset, you blame. Yeah. And when the red comes about pointing fingers around and versus rallying and it's important. One of the key things that I believe, when you're working with not only union, any, any plant, any, any organization, do you focus on your KPA or your KPI? See, most companies focus on your key performance indicator. It's too late. I think great companies focus on their key performance actions because if you focus on the KPAs, it will deliver the KPI. Yeah. And so we focus on KPA's key performance actions. If we do these things, we will get this result. Yeah. And so when you look at your, your plan, do check, act, then it's very. Yeah, it's a closed loop system.

Yeah. I've heard even say it. Focusing on KPIs and trying to run your business by KPIs is like trying to drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror.

Yes, right.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

Eventually you're gonna run into something really, really.

And you know, when you start focusing on the kpa, you get. I know, I received a lot of help, a lot of guidance. You don't know what you don't know. And so people, the evangelists start to evolve. Yeah. And another thing that was very critical was the fact that, you know, it's been said to me, good leaders measure what matters. And you hear that a lot. Measure what matters. Great leaders embrace the fact that everything that matters can't be measured. And that there in itself, that's a game changer. And I always say, let's go home with this example. I have a son that played for St. Vincent St. Mary's right. That's where LeBron James went to play. And his coach, Drew Joyce and I really got good friends.

Okay.

And we talk about lean processes in sports. Yeah, right. Comparison to a Bill Belichick or a Nick Saban. Right.

Process.

Yeah.

Focus on the process.

On the process. Yeah. Drew's the same way. I think he's the leading coach for state championships in, in Ohio. But we had these critical discussions, but more so my son who played with, with first, St. Vincent, St. Mary's every day we went to the gym at 5:30 in the morning, morning prior to me going to work Monday through Friday. And he put up 300 shots. And the goal was to shoot 70%. Okay. From the three point line. One day I had to leave early for a meeting and he put up 360 shots. And I think he believed he shot. I believe he shot 85%. He called me back, he said, dad didn't mean much. And I says, why son? He goes because you weren't there. It wasn't the shots that he says, what I finally realized was that doesn't matter. That really doesn't matter. What matters most is you and me in that relationship. Wow. And on the day of their state championship game, they were playing to be back to back state championships, and they won the game. Well, he called me in the lobby and he said, dad, I need to inform you that this would be the last game I'll ever play organized basketball. And he says, whether we win or lose, I'm going to go to school for academics. And being a father kind of took me a step back. And he says, dad, I know what matters most and it's not basketball. He says, most human beings, they seek praise and acceptance. And he says, dad, basketball is what not. Is not what matters most. For me. Now, what brought it home was when the buzzer sounded, he ran over to the rail instead of running over to cut down the nets or run into the trophy and call me up to the rope. I get to the rope and I believe we cried for two minutes.

Oh, my God.

And we were crying because it was a father and a son and what mattered most was him growing up the relationship. And most leaders, they miss out on that relationship piece, on the fact that relationships drive results just as much as that authoritary. Right. That the authoritary figure is sitting there with a hammer. And when people know you really care, it changes the game. I have the two foot rule. You get within two feet of me, I say hello. I don't care who you are. I just speak. I think it's important because you never know what people are going through. Yeah. And even with, when you start to rise, it, rise in the ranks of leadership, people look at you differently. Yeah. And do you speak now? Do you take time out to acknowledge people? Because it means a lot. And so those are the things that are intangible in operational excellence.

Wow. You know, talk a little bit more about, if you don't mind, I'm gonna dig into your personal life or anything like that, but I've got children of my own, you know, and are growing up, and I've not had any, you know, graduate yet, high school or anything like that, or get to that point, but talk a little bit more about the importance for you as a, as a, as a, as a man, you know, and leading in all phases of your life because, you know, a lot of us here in these lean, you know, communities, you know, we'll talk about, oh, yeah, let's 5 SR kitchen and, okay, that's fine. You know, but how we lead people, how we empower people, including our children. Right. Obviously, could be the biggest mark we leave in this world.

For me, Operation Access resides in my home. It's applicable the same thing. Make my children visible and they'll make me valuable with my children. I look at KPA's versus KPI's, as far as, here's, if we do this, son, if we do this to my daughter, here's what the end results will be. And you have to be committed to these things and stay with the process, celebrate the process. And with those things in life, it's just like operational excellence. Yeah. But they under extreme clarity on what the goal is, extreme clarity on who, where we are. Here's our current reality, here's our target reality, and what are the gaps and how do we get there. And then have those conversations with your children. And also celebrate the red. Right. I always say I was, I played football and the older I get, the better I was. Okay. And parents forget that.

Yeah.

And they start to bring the pressure on the children. Yeah. And instead of being realistic and using that as a platform to coach and develop. Yeah. All right. And celebrate the red. Now, I get it, it's your child and you, you want to lead with the iron hand, but at some point you have to keep it safe. Yeah. You know, I always told my children, listen, if you're honest with me and transparent with me, I won't get upset. I may not like it, but at least I'll know. And I can give you some advice, I can give you some coaching that this thing doesn't blow up to something that's, that's major. Right. Because something that's minor in their, their eye, in your eyes, may be major in their eyes if they don't tell you.

Yeah.

Right. It's like hiding a dead fish. Right. Eventually it's going to start to stink when you could have gotten rid of it. Right. Yeah. And so it goes back into strategy deployment. You can't manage a secret. And I've been involved with Hoshin Conrad, and I look at it starts out great with senior leadership, then you go to the next level of leadership. It's posted on the wall. Right. And then you start to go to the shop floor, it dies. People don't know. And so at home, I deploy my strategy. I make sure my children know what they own inside the strategy. Yeah. Here's what dad owns, here's what mom owns. And we create a level of transparency. We really do. And we laugh about it. And when Red comes, even though we don't like it, we do talk about it. Yeah, we talk about it.

Yeah. What do you make of all this KATA stuff here? I know, you know, you came and listened to all the talk, see? And what do you make of this whole scientific thinking?

For me, it's been great. Yeah. And I was asked in my last session, so what do you expect to gain out of here, out of the conference? I said, for me, it was testing what I think I know. Right. And then expanding on what I do know. And so for me, I've took a lot of notes. It's been very good. I had the opportunity to introduce Mr. Leiker and it's been a very, very, very good and practical conference. Right. Because it's leading by doing and leading by examples. That's what makes it so powerful for me. Right. I've got several key takeaways, you know, and people ask, will you invest in yourself? Are you willing to invest in yourself? You know, for me, it wasn't, hey, my company paid for me to come. This is me taking vacation and being able to pay my own way because I think it's that valuable because I know Mike, and Mike and I spoke together in Canada at the CME in Canada, and we also spoke together at the AME in San Diego. So we had a chance to sit in the speaker's room and just really have a transparent, down to earth, lean conversation and several similarities about how do you move an organization? And, and so I felt it value add that I come and I tell you what, I've not been let down. It's been some great, great sessions. Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, I do too.

I do too.

I love it. I do too. So, Billy, we could talk all day, but let's, let's maybe wrap things up. And one question I often like to ask folks is, you know, how many years have you been practicing kind of continuous improvement, would you say?

Oh, I would say 20 years.

Okay, so say you could jump into that old time machine and you go back 20 years minus a day kind of thing, and you could spend just a few minutes with yourself. No stock market advice or anything like that. But what would you say, if anything?

Well, command and control is what leaders think they have to do when they're leading other people or transforming organizations. And they underestimate the power of influence. Yeah. And when I say that, you start to build evangelists and you turn it over. Right. You let go without letting loose. Yeah. And people are taking a run with it because the power of ownership trumps accountability any day of the week. Because accountability is really a subset of ownership. Accountability is, I'm in the room and I've got that. I'm the hammer. And when I leave the room, so does accountability. Ownership's a 24 hour thing. And so you start your lean journey. It's getting the input right from 20 years ago. It's my way or the highway. It's Billy Taylor, what are you doing? And the way I wouldn't be, I wouldn't say I was proud of the way I handled certain situations back then. I didn't seek to understand. Yeah, I always sought to change. In some cases it was shoot then, aim right back then. Today it's getting a perspective, getting everybody's perspective, perspective and embracing feedback from others and more so being influential. It's more the why to help me understand why did we do that? So if we do that again, what happens? Right now there's such things, accountability as well. But it comes back. The person comes back now and they're feeling bad. They're feeling we need to change. And it's that way, that level of ownership, you can't buy it. It's three things I believe you can't buy. That's integrity, trust and respect. You can't buy it. It's how you act, it's what you do, it's who you are. And you have to be transparent. And I don't mean this literally, because I tell a story about me having to do my daughter's hair once and she was 4 years old and I butchered it. I mean, I messed it up. My wife came home and she's getting on me pretty bad. And she goes, you, oh, look what you did to my daughter. And she, you took her outside. And I says, but you never showed me how to do hair. Yeah, you've never showed me a process, but you're really ragging me pretty tough. So I use that as an example that when I go into a leadership team, I said, we're going to talk about the ugly babies. Don't treat me like you do the lady in the grocery store. The parent in the grocery store. You walk up and you say, oh, it's so cute. It's so precious. And then you walk away and say something totally different. Ooh, dang, that's an ugly baby. Right? My team knows we're going to talk transparently about what the issues are because I didn't have an ugly baby with my, with my wife. Right. That conversation, it was a way, I didn't have a process. And so today I have a process. She goes to the beautician and I have a beautiful baby. And so it changes the game around ownership and those things. So for me, it's been around. A cultural culture is just as important as tools and process. I have a good friend, he says culture, environment, and capability. If you're going to lead a transformation, assess those things before you jump in. Assess your culture, assess your environment, and then assess your capability and then start your lean journey.

I love it. Billy, how can people connect with you?

I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on Twitter. Gy tires on Twitter. Okay. And as well as out there on Facebook. So I'm out there and I love connecting with people. I love talking to people. That's my. I live to empower.

When's your next big keynote?

I believe I'm heading back to Canada for Fincon 19. Okay. And I'm going to do AME Australia. Oh. And I'm also partnering with Note Printing Australia. Okay. And so that's going to happen in May.

Nice.

And So I got Fincon 19 to have an event in Fresno. I try to pick four a year, and then I'm done. And so the Valley Maid Manufacturing Summit in Fresno, California. I'm gonna be doing that as well.

Well, we'll try to. Jessica will listen, type up the show notes. We'll find all those conferences and we'll link them up in the show notes and people can go check them out.

Perfect.

Yeah, that'll be great. That'd be great. You also should have you met Oscar Roche, the Australian guy that was up kind of talking I did earlier? Yeah, I was gonna say, when you go out to Australia and holler at Oscar.

Ready? Actually, I was just an Oscar session. Oh, you were. And I came out. Perfect. Perfect. So he and I talked, and I believe he's invited me to come to his workshop and partner with him.

He's great. In fact, I'm interviewing tomorrow. Oscar's awesome.

He is.

He is.

So, no, again, I appreciate it. It's been. Been an honor and a very good conversation for me.

Well, thank you, Billy.

Thank you.

You take care.

All right. You do as well.

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