GA 274 | Retiring from a Lean Career with George Saiz

Today's a gift, and I'm fortunate. I just turned 65, and I think. And I've been fortunate enough to be here as long as I have, and I don't know whether I'm going to be here another day, another year, another 20 years, but I look at that every day and I think, just make the most of it.

A few months ago, I turned 46 years old and a weird thing happened. I realized that I may have already lived half of my life. This then caused me to really reflect on where I've been, where I am now, and where my family and I are headed in future. Then, as fate would have it, around that same time, I learned that my good friend George says was planning to retire as president of ame. And I immediately knew I wanted to bend his ear to see what I could learn from his successful career. And since I had the great privilege of hosting this podcast, I asked George if he'd be willing to pull the curtain back and share his story on the show. Thankfully, he agreed, and we had a fantastic conversation that I know you're going to enjoy. Show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything George and I talk about, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 274. You can also check out GEMBA Academy's Lean Learning System, which, among many other things, includes courses on 5s, the 7 Ways and value stream mapping. Simply go to Gemba Academy.com to learn more. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, George, welcome back to the show. How's it going?

Good, Ron, thanks. It's happy to be here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good to have you on. So, as I mentioned in the intro, you were previously on. My goodness, it's been a few sleeps. It was July 2016. You were on in episode 121, and I believe this was first few months as the AME president, so.

That's right. That's right.

Interesting. We've had a few years in between and we're maybe on the other side of that bridge, so to speak.

Right, right. Just a lot happening and a lot has happened during the three years. And as you know, I've announced my retirement, so we'll be moving on, but it's been a great experience here at ama.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, when I saw that announcement, you know, I reached out it right away because I wanted to pick your brains on. Obviously, this is a show. We talk a lot about continuous improvement and lean. And I thought, I'm sure that's going to come up here today, as it always probably will when you and I talk. But as we've talked about before we hit record, I'm just genuinely interested in hearing from George, just some of your wisdom from your career and just maybe the various phases of your career. Many of the people listening right now are. We're working. And, you know, I'm 46, so I got another however many years to work, you know, and. But it's interesting, just the older you get, the more aware you are of, you know, what am I going to do when I grew up one of these days, you know?

Right.

Well, you've grown up, George. So we want to know. Yeah, so, so. But before we get into that, George, you know, kind of like, we always like to begin our shows with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one that you want to share?

I do. I do. It's a quote that isn't necessarily. Was not meant to be lean, but it kind of pictures lean to me. And it was from John Wooden, who's a real hero of mine, and he's the legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins, who won 10 national championships back in the 60s and 70s in college basketball. But his quote is just very simple. It's be quick, but don't hurry. And I always thought that that was. That was something that, that stuck with me. And I've used it. I use it when I played sports, but I also have used it in business. And I think it really. Pictures actually lean very nicely as well.

That's very powerful. I mean, you can think deeply on.

That a long time.

Be quick, but don't hurry.

Right, Right. Good.

Very good. All right. Well, George, again, if folks haven't listened to episode 121, that might be kind of fun, they could go back and give that a listen and, and come back to this one. But just in case folks hear that one, I'm going to probably not ask you to share your background because, well, I think that might be part of your story. So why don't we just kind of jump right in and maybe we'll look at your career, George, of, you know, in phases. Maybe early middle end or something like that.

Sure, yeah.

So. So how did it all start, George?

Well, you know, my start in business really kind of began very unceremoniously. I was hired by a startup medical device company in Southern California that made heart valves from pig hearts. And of course, when I was interviewing, I said, you actually have a business doing this? And I was very naive at the time. Pretty young and my title was General Helper and General Helper. General Helper. And I was thrilled because the job paid 25 cents over minimum wage. So that's kind of tells you where I was at at that point. But it actually began a career in medical device that, you know, spanned over 40 years. And so I got in and loved it and got the privilege of being able to stay there. And it's, it was really, really neat to be in that business and you know, you're making products, but when you're making products that really help improve lives, that, that was even just a real bonus. And so being a startup company, it was, we really had a lot of great learnings there. You know, we just experienced really, really rapid, I'd probably even say maybe even chaotic growth as a startup company. And in fact, about three years into our my time there, we actually had a ceremony for all employees where we buried the backorder. And so we'd been living with this backorder over our heads. Demand was so, so high. We actually had a coffin. And at a ceremony, we buried it in an adjacent orange grove behind our plant and then celebrated with a catered lunch. So it was a fun place to be. The company growth was really fast and furious when I joined. There was 80 employees and we grew up about 550 and we added buildings and warehouses. So but about five years in, we were acquired by Johnson and Johnson and life changed dramatically. So very quickly, I, I and all of our employees got to learn the corporate way of life and, and after a couple years, unfortunately, sales went south. And a couple years down the road, we'd actually gone from number one in our space to listed in, you know, the grouping of others in terms of market share. And our employment went down to about 175. And, and so after learning all the things to scale up a business very quickly, I learned all about layoffs and cutbacks and cutting costs. And so, you know, it's kind of like the butcher. You know, nothing's ever wasted. And all those experiences are good in terms of business. And so, you know, you take that and you try and learn from it. And then near the end of my time there, we were merged with another J and J division and then ultimately sold off to Medtronic. And crazy enough, we took off again. And when I left, we were back up to over 500 employees. And I know that it scaled up to about a thousand employees at that site. So it was a lot of things to learn. In all, I spent about 14 years there. And during that Time, I was fortunate to have about seven promotions. I think I had seven different supervisors, and we went through six company name changes, so we got really good at that. And I completed my bachelor's degree at night, and my progression took me through purchasing and materials, and ultimately left there as a materials manager. So going in as a general helper and coming out as a degreed materials manager. So a lot of great opportunities for me. You know, some of the lessons I learned during that time was really to ask a lot of questions and to keep learning and. And most importantly, be ready when opportunity calls. You know, you just never know. And I would advise that for anybody young in their career, sometimes you're looking for that next opportunity, you think it might never come, and if you're not prepared when that door opens, you might miss it, and you just never know. And maybe just a quick little story. I was a. Remember when I was a purchasing supervisor, I had two folks that worked for me. They were admin expediters. Back in the days, we had expediters, and they both wanted to become buyers, and they didn't have the education. And I encouraged both of them to enter into a local purchasing certificate program. And one did and one didn't. And so the one who didn't said, well, you just hired two new buyers, and they're probably not going anywhere soon. And, well, they actually did go somewhere soon. And the one who completed the certificate moved into a junior buyer role and ultimately progressed on up. And. And the other, well, you know, missed that opportunity and more of them after that. And so, you know, for me, I learned and saw that for me, and then, you know, was shown in this case, you really have to be ready when that. When that door opens, you don't know when it is. And if you're ready, you know, sometimes you get to jump right in, and if not, it'll pass you by and you don't know when it'll come back to you.

Yeah. You know, I recently read. I can't even remember which book it was recently, a lot of books. And they were talking about how some people say, well, these people just. They're always. They're always lucky. George is always lucky, you know, in his career. And the idea was that, you know, it's not these people who are successful. Yeah. What looks like luck is often, you know, preparation and perseverance meets opportunity. Right. And if you're not prepared for the opportunity, then you can't get lucky. Right.

That's right. That's absolutely right. Yes. Yes.

Hey, so I want to talk one thing about throughout that early part of your career there, you talked about you're booming and everything's great and probably, you know, everyone's big lunches and parties and whatnot. And then all of a sudden the bottom falls out and we're laying people off and all that. You know, unfortunately, I have even been through that, you know, when I was in the mobile phone business there for a while and a couple different mobile phone companies and, and same thing, you know, was booming, booming, booming. Money's just falling into our laps and the next thing you know it's like not. And there's some incredible, you know, emotions. And so I wanted you to talk a little bit about that. Like, how did you cope through those times of uncertainty, fear? I'm sure. Talk about that phase, because that's not, not a fun phase of your, of your career, I'm sure.

No, it's not. And, and it's something, of course, I was younger in my life, so, you know, I have a wife and a young family that's starting up. And, and you're thinking about that and, and of course you're seeing folks that you've, you've worked with and basically we grew up together at that company and now they're, they're losing their jobs or you're in a position where you're having to make that decision about who, who stays and who goes. And, and you know, that's a, that's a really tough time. And you know, for me, I think, you know, I relied on my, my faith to help get me through there and, and, and just ask for wisdom and help me to be sensitive to what these other folks are going through. I was fortunate to be one of the survivors. But, you know, you realize when you call somebody in, you're changing their life. You know, they're going to have to go home and, and, and tell their family I don't have a job anymore. And so, and again, I took that just as a, as a learning experience. And I think that's something that, you know, you don't, it's not a pleasant thing to go through, but certainly you learn how to, how to treat people with dignity and respect. It also helps you to look at the future when you're booming of how do you do that under control and not lose that edge? And you know, we can't always predict the future and we can't control that, but certainly it made me very mindful of there's nothing guaranteed for the future and we have to be careful about even when you're in high growth that how do you manage that successfully and watch out for some of those speed bumps out ahead of you. Yeah, so I guess maybe beyond that moving, as you said, maybe by phase. After I left that company, I went to a company and had some really good success very quickly in a, in a short time period. And it was really by focusing on team, team building and working together with the folks that we had there. But again, suddenly an opportunity was opened up to me and I was fortunate enough to go from director of materials role into a division general management role within a company called Zimmer, who's a major player in the orthopedic medical device market. And so again, opportunity happened to come up and I don't think I was completely ready, but the door opened and I said yes. And of course, you know, as you know, you got to be careful what you ask for sometimes. This division that I went to was a small, smaller division, had been a dominant leader in its market at one time. I think it had about an 80% market share but it had fallen on tough times and it was now down to neck and neck with another major player. And we each had about 35% of the market, but we were falling quickly. The quality was really problematic. We had about 30% out of box failures for instruments. And these are surgical instruments the surgeons using. So when he goes into surgery and the first thing he goes to do is cut with it and it breaks, it's not a, you don't want to be in that room. And we had back orders for about 60% of annual sales. You know, all of our folks in Lean will appreciate. Inventory was over a year on hand, so we had too much of the wrong thing. R and D was dead and even our financial reporting systems were really inaccurate. So almost everything was broken there and we weren't in great shape. And so for me it was pretty eye opening. Every time I turned over a rock, you know, 10 cockroaches went out there, we're trying to step on them and, and we just kept finding more and more wrong and trying to figure out how do we, how do we write this ship. And our corporate group had just acquired a company out in the east coast, Raleigh, Durham area. And they had three, three different sites in the country that manufactured very similar products to us. And, but it was in a different medical application. And so their VP of Ops set up a one day workshop he called the Goal Seminar. And based on the book by Eli Goldrack, Goldrat and I, I received an invitation to attend with a lot of other people throughout our, our group of companies. And I read the book and all about one piece flow. And I have to be honest with you, it did not make sense to me. I could not figure that out. I thought that that's just not logical. You need, you need to batch these things together and, and just going through them. And so I went, we did the workshop and, and by the time we got into that afternoon, LEGO simulation, all of a sudden, you know, the lights went on for me. And when I left that meeting, I got copies of the slides and I went back to my company and actually over six months I took every one of our employees through that workshop and personally and I and launched our Lean initiative. And of course back in that it was about 1992, so it wasn't called Lean yet. And so we were in trouble, but we knew we needed to do something drastic. And about that same time, the general manager of one of those other three sites that made similar products was sent out by our corporate group to see if he could help our engineering department solve some of our problems and help us get off backorder sooner. And so I found out about a month or so after he'd been helping us out that he was actually told that if he could solve our problems, they would essentially close us down and move our products to his site. Wow. And so yeah, that hit me and I thought, well, we had developed a very open dialogue with our employees, you know, in that time. And I, so I shared this at an all employee meeting and thought, you know, we've got to be very transparent and everybody needs to know where we're at. And so we all had a burning platform that we were all standing on together so that that worked well. We developed what we called an operating credo. And it was simply teamwork, quality and speed. Our future depends on it. And we all got behind that credo. And so to cut to the chase before we start our implementation, our work order throughput time from opening a work order, picking materials, assembling, inspecting, packaging and putting in finished goods was about three to four weeks. And mind you, this is an instrument and while it's very sophisticated, very pricey, it only had 13 parts and six of those were pins. So I'm looking thinking this has got to go faster. Well, we also had a service repair business and repairs were taking about three months. So you can imagine how happy the doctors were that their favorite instruments were sitting in our shop for three months. And so, well, once we got done re engineering Our processes, our throughput time on our new product went down from three to four weeks to an average of two hours from start to finish. And our repairs went from three months to guaranteed 24 hours. And about 60% of those were completed on the same day we received them. So quite a dramatic turnaround. Our quality and delivery went up to like 99.9% out of the box. Failures were eliminated. Completely, completely. And our sales took off again. And ultimately we tripled our sales and we more than tripled our pre tax income. So our employees were really, really, really engaged at this point. It was really a fun place to be. And really the kind of fun part of this story, Ron, is that the other company who made similar products, their three manufacturing sites, they actually all got shut down. And one by one they were moved into our facility. Wow. Including the one that was led by our, by our quote helper. So after that I just became a complete, avid believer in lean. And I just saw the complete transformation of both the people and the company. And it was so powerful. You can't deny that there's nothing I would ever do different, different than that after seeing what happened with our company. So we got to, we got to live through quite an experience there.

So was it, was it more just like kind of lean, traditional lean, go, one piece, flow, workplace organization? Like what, what did you guys do? I mean, I won't have to get into the great detail, just high level.

Yeah, we, we did everything from soup to nuts. I'll tell you that one thing that really helped us early on was that we were in a process of moving to a new building. And I will say that our old building that we were in, we were in like three suites that were patched together. And of course you start in one, then you grow to another, and you grow to another. And, and, and if you looked at the flow, it was like a ping pong ball going, you know, around. And, and I think we probably had enough space. If you could ever, and I think many businesses are like this. If you could take everything and put it out in a parking lot, re engineer your, your building and then put it all back in, it would probably work. But in our case, we were moving to a new facility, anticipating some growth in the future, are hopeful for that. And so we got to really think about what we were doing and how we were going to do it in the future and relay out everything from start to finish. And so we did look at the entire flow from beginning to end of the building. But beyond that, we had just A very young, energetic group. And I would say this is. There's probably two teams in my life that, that I've worked with that were just unbelievably great and fun to work together. And this was one of them. And so everybody got behind this. Everybody worked together and we were on the same agenda. And so, you know, I'll go back and I'll talk about that a little bit later. How important culture is. But that culture was so important. And, and what's funny, I know that when we went through our ISO certification process, the ISO folks auditors asked our employees, so what's your quality mission statement? And they really didn't know anything other than teamwork, quality and speed. Our future depends on it. And they would just cite that and everybody would say that. And the auditor said, you know, that's so simple. And everybody really understands what that means and have subscribed to it.

That's so awesome. So I remember, quick, quick story. I won't be a company, but we did the same thing and we had this quality policy that was like, oh my gosh, it was like I'd like memorizing a poem, you know.

Right, right, right, exactly. Oh my God. This was simple. And so yes, we did all the things. We went to Kanbans and went to a complete pull system from finished good Kanbans to stock Kanbans eliminated work orders and just back flushed out materials and, and really just had one piece flow. And a lot of folks cross trained. And so it was a fun time. We reinvigorated our R and D and got that going and also got ISO certified, built up all the quality systems, but it was just a fun group of folks that really wanted to do it. And luckily enough, our corporate group was headquartered in Florida. We're out in Southern California. And they really gave us full autonomy and a lot of space. Luckily, I had a gentleman that I work for that went in and really paved the way for us. Took the pressure off all the back orders and said, they're going to get it fixed, leave them alone. And we did. We were left alone and we got to just focus on turning this business around. And quite frankly, it was about a year after we started our lean implementation that we turned around and offered all of our, we call it the 4848 program. And we said, you'll get your new instrument in 48 hours and you'll get a. Or you'll get your repair in 48 hours or we'll give you a free one or we'll give you your repair for free. And so we very quickly had to back it up. But, yeah, it was just a great group.

Now, how long did that phase of your career last? What was the timing on that?

I was there for. For seven years.

Okay.

Yeah.

Nice.

So. So we had just a good time. So. So that was kind of the. I would say, kind of the middle of. Of my career. And. And. And I had a few other opportunities, but maybe the. The last area that I could share is my previous employer in my time with AME and opportunity to serve as president in both roles. And, you know, by this time, Lean's kind of become a way of life for me. And I think the most important changes that I've seen during that time, for me and that I've seen in Lean in general, is the focus really on culture and leadership. And I'll tell you, here at ame, when we run our member surveys, the top four, which are pretty much saying the same thing that come back are always culture, leadership, engagement. And then the thing that we. Our title here, people, Centric leadership. We'll put those on there. And those are the top four. And if you put them all together, it's the super number one thing that folks are really interested in. And, you know, for me, I had always put culture first. I was a real big believer that you could do that mission and vision and values, and you could put them up on the wall, and you could put your strategic plan up on the wall, but if you didn't have the culture to execute it, it was just a bunch of nice words up there. And so I thought I was always very focused on culture, but I had the opportunity to spend some time with Bob Chapman. You probably heard of Bob, who was president of Barry Wehmiller, and for your listeners, the author of a great book titled Everybody Matters. And what I learned from Bob is that we could be even more intentional about the culture we were building. And. And after spending some time with him, I really reflected on what we were doing, and we were doing a lot of things. There were a lot of activities and a lot of focus, but much of our culture was really dependent on events. So I'd say it was very episodic in nature. And so I really wanted to explore how we could build it into everything we did and make it every day and not waiting for some great event. And we had a lot of those things, whether they were all employee meetings or picnics or parties or charity events or all kinds of different things and recognition programs. But I really thought we need to find a way to make sure it's in everything that we do every day. And so at my last job, we actually developed a cultural goal statement that was fairly simple as well. That was for our employees. It was engaged when we are here and fulfilled when we go home. And we said if we could achieve that, that would be a very, very special environment. Because every company is asking for engagement and they want. I think that's the company part that. That we want from our employees. We. We want them all to be engaged. But from the employee part, I think we think of their perspective as being fulfilled when they go home means that they've had a great experience, and probably when they get home, they're going to be a better husband or wife or father or son or daughter or whatever their different relationships are. But it isn't just about engagement and what the company gets, but it's what the employee gets and that. That sense of fulfillment when they go home each night. Yeah. And so I've really seen that. And in my time with ame, I think there's more and more companies I hear and see that are focusing on leadership and culture. And I've. In my role here, I've got to go out and see some of these companies and see their facilities. Companies like Goodyear, the racing division is a huge transformational story. And Cambridge Engineering, Mark Braun and what that group has done together there, they really spent a lot of time on culture up front and then started introducing the tools of Lean. And the same at Goodyear, when I was there at Goodyear, worked on respect. They had very tenuous relationship with their union, and they worked on respect and safety and turned that around. And a great testament of that was at our conference in San Diego this last year. They were a recipient of our excellence award. And on the stage, there were. I forget. I mean, I think there was about six people up on stage, and three of them were the union leaders and three were the folks representing management. And so what a team. And. And then even Neptune Technology Group down in Alabama, they've done another company that's done a great, great job of putting culture first. And, you know, I think when they do that, they build such a deep sense of respect and trust throughout the organization. And once that's established, then the tools of lean are going to go in kind of like greased lightning in my mind. And I really think it's going to be much, much more sustaining. And so I would, you know, if somebody asked me what to do if they're. They're first Starting out in their lean journey. I think before we used to always say, you know, people. So Many people started with 5s and try and get a little success and that people will believe in. And you're trying to convince people to change. And. And I think if you can take the time to. To develop a culture of respect and trust, and that may even take you years, I think it's worth it, because that. That foundation, you know, is really the perfect foundation for the kinds of things you want to do with Lean or with anything. And you have that opportunity to not just be. I'll use a term that Colonel Arthur Athens has said in the past, not to become just a great company, but an extraordinary one. And that's what these three companies that I mentioned earlier, I think they're very extraordinary in what they do, and there's a real focus on culture, leadership, and on putting people first.

Yeah, yeah. So the last question I have for you, George, you know, throughout this episode, you've given a lot of advice, you know, in various phases of your career there. So, you know, before we hit Record, you and I were chatting, and, you know, I've personally been thinking a lot.

About.

Life after work kind of thing. You know, I'm 46, so I've got many more years to work, obviously. But it was interesting that you had even mentioned, I think, before we hit record, that turning 45 was like a. Was a major turning point for you. And I'm wondering, like, what. What advice do you have for. For me and for. For all the people who are listening, not just lean and this and that, but just in general, you know, as a person. You know, I always said, speak to us as a father, you know, because you've grown up, George. You know, we're still growing up.

Well, you know, I've got some. You know, they're probably statements that certainly you've heard the past, and that is, you know, don't. Don't take yourself too seriously. And. And, you know, there's. There's a young man that I met very, gosh, many, many years ago. He was, gosh, I think, 26 years old and dying of, I think of leukemia. And he was sitting, before it happened to be a men's group at our church. And he was sharing and he was looking at us, and I was just one row back from the front and just looking at him, and he was just saying, just enjoy each day. Don't take it for granted. You never know. And he passed away about three months later. And actually our church started this fund and they had a flyer on it. So I. I've kept that flyer. And every morning when I get up, before I start my day, one of the things I do is I pull out that flyer and I think about that. Today's a gift. And I think about that young man. I'm fortunate. I just turned 65, and I think he got 26 years to live. I've been fortunate enough to be here as long as I have, and I don't know whether I'm going to be here another day, another a year, another 20 years. Unfortunately, my parents are both in their 90s, but. But I look at that every day and I think, just make the most of it because you. You don't know. And, and, you know, we sometimes get focused on all those. Those little things. And, And I always think about, well, 20 years from now, am I going to. Am I going to really care about all those things that I'm fretting over today? And. Yeah. And so. But every day is a gift, and we need to enjoy it.

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you for that, Georgina. And I keep your thinking of, as you were talking there, our mutual friend Richard Sheridan, you know, of Menlo Innovations and Richard's work on joy, you know, creating joy in the workplace. And, you know, I see that in friends and family. And there's some people who exhibit just joy in their life, and then there are some people who just don't seem to have a lot of joy in their life. And I'm often found, like, how can. What can I do, you know, to help foster more of an environment of joy? Like, instead of blaming people for saying, why are you so miserable? It's like, well, what can I do to help that person? So perhaps that's a. That's a challenge for all of us. Right. Is to.

Sure.

Is to find a way to be a light. Right. And. And to help.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, George, I really, really am thankful that you came on to share your story, and I know you're retiring and all this kind of stuff, but I know. I know you too well. I think you're going to. You're going to get bored. So I'll probably have you back on the podcast here in another year. We'll talk about your. Your. How you're applying lean to your golf game or whatever it is.

Oh, I would love to, Ron, and I really appreciate the time here, too. Thank you.

Hey, so we haven't. We haven't done our traditional plug for. For Ame, but, you know, here. And we're in the summer of of 2019 and we got a big conference coming up. So tell us a little bit about about AME Chicago.

Well, we've got some, the usual great lineup of keynote speakers, including Tom Peters and I mentioned before, Colonel Arthur Athens, who's one of my favorite, probably my favorite all time speaker that we've ever had and he was in Dallas and he'll be back. And we've got a bunch of great tours and workshops and sessions coming in. I know that we actually even have some things very targeted at health care and government. The state of Illinois has been involved in their Rapid Results program and they're going to be sharing what they're doing. So it's going to be quite a wide mix of all kinds of things. One of the tours that they've actually offered up is of a jail where they've applied Lean. And so that's going to be very interesting for folks to go see, but it'll be another great event. It's gonna be a little bit later. It's gonna be in that early part of November, so a little bit later for us, but here in Chicago. And it'll always be those are always a great mountaintop experience.

Yeah, yeah. So November 4th through the 7th and so ame.org I guess to go get your registration and Gemba Academy will obviously be there. It's the biggest Lean show in town, as they say. Yes, in the world, I think, right?

The world. Yes, it is.

So yeah, we'll see you there, George. And thanks for everything and yeah, enjoy your retirement and congratulations, you know, very well done.

Thanks, Ron, I appreciate it. Well, come see me if you're ever in San Diego.

All right, I will. Take care, George.

All right, bye bye now.

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