GA 290 | The Danger of Being Right with Thomas Frase

You see obstacles and barriers. And until I build that bridge with you to the side of the river I was on, it's just not gonna happen. I'm gonna scream all day. And just until I meet you where you are and help build that bridge, it's just not gonna happen.

Today I'm excited to welcome Thomas Frase to the show. Now Thomas works for Edward Jones in the firm strategic engagement office. Thomas black belt who practices continuous improvement. And today on the show we explore an interesting topic. Thomas recently gave a breakout session at a minitam conference. And kind of the title of it was be Careful being right. And with the idea being that sometimes we know what the answer is to a particular problem and we run in and we just kind of blurt out the answer. And that doesn't always work out well. And so during the show today, Thomas kind of gives some examples of where that's happened to him, his career and how he's learned from that. And then I would say the second part of the conversation really stemmed around how we can positively influence other people. And you know, we spent a lot of time talking about how it is important to know a lot of tools and so forth, but in the end if we're not able to positively influence people or perhaps even meet people where they're at. So if you're dealing with an introvert going in and, and getting all excited and all that is probably not going to work. Versus if you're dealing with an extrovert going in really low key and whatnot might not benefit that person. So we spend a lot of time talking about influence and it was a really fun conversation I think you're going to enjoy. So show notes for everything that Thomas and I talk about can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 290. 290. Also we spent some time talking about black belts and green belts and master black belts and so forth. And in case you didn't know, Gemba Academy does offer a certification program. It's one on one coaching. It's very traditional. You gotta watch some videos, pass an exam, that sort of thing. I would say what differentiates us from some of the other folks out there is, is the amount of one on one coaching. It's weekly coaching calls that you get with myself or someone from our customer success team. And yeah, we're really proud of that. So if you want to learn more about that, just go over to gembaacademy.com and everything you'll need is there. And if you want to take us for a quick spin. You can sign up for a free, free three day trial as well. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Thomas, welcome to the show. How's it going?

It's going well, thank you. Appreciate your time. All right.

Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. Folks that are listening don't know this, but I'll go ahead and just be fully transparent. We tried this interview, oh, gosh, a few weeks ago, or was it maybe a month or so ago? I don't know how long it was, and golly, we had terrible audio issues on my end and we can't figure out what happened. So thank you again for coming back on, Thomas. I really appreciate it. I know it's. You got a lot of things going on there, so really appreciate your flexibility. And we've already done some technical tests. I think we're good to go today.

Glad to be here.

All right, so, Thomas, as you know, we like to begin all of our shows with our guests sharing a quote. So do you have one?

Yes, I do. Albert Einstein. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

What's that mean to you?

Well, it's burned me a couple times at the home front here, but normally as a six Sigma black belt, when I'm parachuting into a situation, looking at just the symptoms and the problems and separating those and just trying to understand what the process needs to do more of or less of seeing, having somebody with a fresh pair of eyes to come in and advise and consult and listen and learn and influence that. That quote just really resonates with me. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good one. Okay, Thomas, before we jump into the. The main topic, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Tell us about your background, how you first got introduced to continuous improvement, and then what you're up to these days.

So thank you. Undergraduate degree in accounting. So I was going down financial and accounting route, but then I was asked to support a black belt back in almost 2000, 2001, and it just resonated with me in terms of the organized problem solving process. So I got the green belt training, then I went to become a black belt, and I haven't looked back. I really like looking at the problems, you know, accountants and come in after the war and bayonet the wounded. No offense to accountants out there, but it's looking at what happened. And once I started feeling comfortable and competent and confident to work with people on the front end of our processes to help impact the financial statements. It really, really just felt right for me. I got certified with ASQ as a black belt in 2004 and got my master black belt certification in 2007 and have just done a lot of training, a lot of coaching, a lot of facilitating, a lot of leading projects for the last almost 20 years.

Good, good, good. And so what are you up to these days, Thomas?

I work for Edward Jones and have been supporting their operational excellence program for the last three years. Before that, again, I've been in the operational excellence community working for companies and just really beefing up and helping to raise the competence and confidence of other green belts and black belts. And Edward Jones is just the right fit. It's been really great for my career.

Yeah, it's so cool seeing how Lean and Six Sigma, it's just. It really does know no boundaries anymore. I mean, just seeing, you know, everybody thinks manufacturing first and sure, there's a lot of roots there, right, within manufacturing, but golly, now you go pretty much into, you know, any hospital or, or, you know, like financial services, banks all over the place. It's just, it's just being used everywhere now. So it's, it's really, it's really cool to see that.

I just see processes. I see inputs, processes and outputs. And it's once, once you cross over into services or transactional, it all starts looking very similar.

Yeah, yeah. I always say, do you have people?

Yes.

Do you have processes?

Yes.

Can you use it?

Is there an output? Can you tell me how it looks when it's right? Can you tell me how it looks when it's wrong?

Yep.

Oh, and then it's amazing. The light bulbs start turning on when you start putting it in that manner.

Yep, exactly. Exactly. Good stuff. All right. Well, hey, so, Thomas, I understand you recently gave a keynote at a minitab conference. When was that? A week or so ago.

It was a breakout session. Sorry, it wasn't a keynote. Sorry if I misled you there, But a breakout session on Be careful being right, it's really about influencing. And I thought that title would grab more attention than influence. As, as a black belt, we parachute into situations where something's not right. The customer experience is off, the financials are off, the budget to budget. It's off something. You know, what, what's led them to success over the past is not going to lead them to success in the future. And many times we black belts analyze, understand, listen, and we're gathering, gathering, gathering to tell stories. And many, many times we, we can, you know, we don't solve 100% of the problem. But we, we arrive at a situation where, hey, if you do more of this and less of this, you're going to have a better process, you're going to have, you're going to have less defects. And many times as we are getting asked questions or trying to influence, many times that's met with resistance. So the breakout session was focused on, started with me telling a couple of, sharing a couple of battle scars where I was right. I had a good idea of the situation and was asked a question and gave the answer. And being right hurt my career.

Can you share that story?

Oh, I'll be happy to. So I worked a project and it was a decentralized process and I worked 40ish different places and the same process but in different areas and we were making progress. Slowly but surely we're making ends. And I was asked by a senior leader if I thought the process could be centralized and quickly. And I answered no. And it's an itch I can't scratch right now. It really burns me that this is about. So I got certified in 04, so this is about 06. So this is 13 years ago. And it's like I said, it's just really an itch I can't scratch because I wish instead of answering with a no, which is more of a fixed mindset, I wish I would have answered if we're going to move from centralized to centralized, we need to really rethink and change our mindset and how we deal with our customers and the rules of engagement with our customers and how all of these, we have so much complexity out there. How do we reduce complexity? And I should have went through a list of the things that we needed to change in terms of mindset, let alone processes. Instead I answered no. Thirteen years later, I'm familiar with the company and they have not centralized. So I was right. But I think there was more to the question as well. This executive wanted a change and were asking me, are you on my team? Are you thinking like me? And basically I said no. Newly minted black belt, proud of what I was learning and doing. And I was right. But I think career wise, it really hurt me because I never was really invited into that leader's inner circle or it really just set me back a little bit because I was so right on terms of my analysis and where we were and what we could do.

So let me, let me take a contrarian view. We were talking a little bit before we hit record. You know, one of the Things that we're passionate about within the, within the lean community in particular is this whole idea of not always knowing the right answer. Right? And this is where Mike Rother has popularized Toyota Kata and scientific thinking and that, you know, when we're at the beginning of a, of a, of a, of a project, if you will, or a problem or something like that, we are at that maximum point of uncertainty. And yet we often make these grand plans or we have these, we, these, these definitive statements like yes or no or whatever, when the fact is a more honest assessment might be, I don't know, you still have the word no in there, but it's. I don't know, let's see what we can learn. Right? So like, how do you balance the idea of, you know, the, the, if you will, all knowing black belt master, black belt rolling in with all the answers when in fact, what if you're wrong? What if you could still centralize that process, but we're just not. And it might be, it might benefit the organization, but we haven't experimented our way through it. And we might experiment and discover that no, it is, it's still no, we can't, and here's why. So how do you balance that, Thomas? Do you know what I'm saying?

Well, the name you mentioned was much more wise than me for sure at that time, where like I said, I just learned Six Sigma, I learned the methodology, I did my homework, I did a thorough deep dive. And I've evolved over those years and especially to the point where I feel like I can do a breakout session sharing some battle scars in terms of parachuting, in consulting, advising people on a process, the people who do the process and their leaders, and helping them see their process from a different lens and using tools to help them see what's happening in terms of waste, what's happening in terms of defects. And most of the times, the way I've been working, it's their ideas, their solutions that we're trying to. They have it. They just for some reason over the years weren't able to sell it. And it's taking all of that. So nowadays, yes, correct. I'm not as fixed mindset as yes or no. There's a lot of in between focusing on the methodology and still trying to help people. You know, we're not trying to solve 100%. We know we're not going to get 100% continuous improvement. Yes. But let's take the small steps. Let's get rid of the easy stuff, let's take the low Hanging fruit. And over the years I've had an easier time influencing because I haven't been focused on being right. I've been focusing on helping others and building their capabilities through the lens of something that they weren't even exposed to in their education or experience. And here's a methodology that can help. And most of the times I don't walk away with an itch I can't scratch. I've been having a lot more success, but in terms of coming in and being right, that's. That can set you back. And like I said, the be careful. Being right was a way to. Yes, it's all about influence and persuasion and I just felt like I was trying to be right and it really hurt and I've learned a lot from it.

Yeah. So what's a better approach then, you know? Like, how have you evolved your approach then? You've mentioned the word influence several times, so. And you know, a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Obviously these are all really popular kind of like within the kind of social psychology scene kind of thing like that. So talk about like dealing with people like what are you, what do you, how have you evolved your approach when you might have some good ideas worth exploring but you don't want to jam it down people's throats and be annoying.

Right. So what I've evolved to is when I started off the breakout session, I asked how many people are in sales. And at the minitab conference, nobody raised their hands, which I knew was probably going to happen. And where I've evolved is I'm in sales, I'm selling, I have a brand and I'm selling my brand. And once that clicked, and I can't remember when that clicked with me, it really helped me say, what am I here to do? What am I here to help? What's my brand and how do I sell it? And I give more than I take. I'm on the second half of my professional career, I admit it, and I've learned a lot and I have a lot to offer when I look at processes and I can help others see their process through this unique methodology, this lens of continuous improvement. And when I've kind of started focusing on what am I selling, what is my brand? Like I said, I give more than I take. And if I look at my strength finders from the Gallup assessment, my strength finders are relator communicator, analytical and strategic and then it all is wrapped up and self assured. So it's interesting that relator communicator which is the right brain and analytical and strategic, the left brain. And I can't think of a better combination of working with people and processes to help them better get results, get what the business needs or what their customer needs. So taking the strength finders, taking my brand and selling it, it's been helpful. It's been a lot more helpful than me just coming in with this set of tools and a tool belt saying, okay, here's what we're going to do, step back. And I use a lot more psychology, more so than the statistics I've been using the statistics I got the down, I got the methodology down, where the tool set of all these tools has become a skill set which has evolved to a mindset. So now I'm moving away from just the pure methodology to where I'm now selling my brand, meeting these people and really understanding what motivates them, what demotivates them. And the lastly, the other thing I'm really honing in on is body language. I had a former colleague that was an expert, truly an expert and reading body language, and he opened my eyes to a world that I just hadn't explored. And at the age of 39 was a pivotal moment in my career that just set me back going, wow, do I really understand some of the fundamentals of communication?

Give me an example. Is that like, like neuro linguistic programming, like NLP type stuff or what are you talking about with body language? Like their eyes, their arms are crossed or what are you, what are you talking, talking about?

Looking for patterns. So we were in a meeting and it was two companies that were not merging, but we were working together. And this colleague of mine happened to be staying at the same hotel and I had met, he was with the other company and he asked me what I thought of the meeting and I said, wow, the egos were just on fire. And he looked at me and said, really? I saw insecurity. And I didn't know what he meant. And he said, I saw insecurities. All those egos you saw were the projections, were the walls they built around their insecurities so you wouldn't see that they either didn't know what they were doing or were worried or concerned. And it really just. Here I am, 39 years old, I think I'm doing pretty well in life and in my career, and I'm like, wow, I don't understand the fundamental difference between an ego and an insecurity. And I started digging in and exploring more about just that simple concept, but digging and expanding More just about how if you're trying to influence and sell, if you know what to look for, there's subtleties that people will, will give you that like they're not buying it. And if you know what to look for without over analyzing or profiling, you might want to adjust your sale, your sales pitch, you might want to tap on the brakes, you might want to start asking more questions instead of telling and talking. And it really just opened up my career in terms of when I'm talking, influencing or I'm facilitating or training and I'm reading the body language of do they need a break? Did I lose them? And the concept just looking at are they with me or am I too far ahead? It's really been a huge, huge benefit to really stop. And if you're paying attention to body language, you're probably not talking either. You're probably listening more. And those have been some biggies in my career.

So I want to circle back to the whole idea of, of selling continuous improvement, you know, within, you know, a traditional sales. And like a salesperson listening to this, the best salespeople know that the way to sell anything, whether it's, you know, a car or a subscription to Gemba Academy or Edward Jones, you know, such and such portfolio advice, it's to, it's to really stress benefits over features, right? So like in Gemba Academy's case, a feature is, we have a thousand videos, that's a feature, nobody really cares, right? But a benefit is that you could train, you know, people in consistent way with low cost, blah, blah, blah. So we want to stress benefit. So like how do you tie that in to your sales approach? Like what are the benefits and what are some of the features that we have to be careful of to not, not, not press features when again, people don't, in the end don't really care, they want to know about benefits. How do you work that?

So if I look at the disc assessment disc, there's the dominant, the influential, the steadfast and the conscientious. And if I'm quickly assessing who my audience is, whether it's a one person or a group, I'm trying to look at the dominant people are concerned about time. The influential people want to be heard, the steadfast people, they like to be liked, and the conscientious people like to be accurate. So if I can, as I meet with these folks and develop the rapport, I'm taking note of these attributes. And if I want to sell to somebody who is an influencer, the best way for me to sell them is to ask them the right question and let them sell themselves. If I'm talking to somebody who's conscientious, I want to give them details. I want to give them data. They like that. If I'm talking to somebody who's steadfast, I'm not going to get right to business. I might see some pictures in the cubicle or an office and talk about, oh, you've been whitewater rafting, where was that? And get into some of their personal. Build that small talk and somebody who's dominant. It's all about time. So how do I get it quick and minimize my time with them to get them the information they want? I'm not saying that I'm an expert at it, but it's easier to influence. You know, if I look at somebody who's an introvert, a thinker and a fixed mindset, I might. The conversation I'm going to have with them is very different than somebody who's an extrovert, a growth mindset and a feeler. And those are things that, as I'm moving away, you know, the tool sets there, I know what the tools, the methodology is when I'm working projects, but I'm also taking in some of those attributes as to how do they, how do they take in information and how do they make decisions? And if I understand those better and not that I'm always right, but I'm paying attention to those, I do subtly switch some of my tactics in terms of am I showing a lot of data, am I showing pictures? Introverts. I try to make it quick because I know sometimes just being in that conversation is just, you know, sucking the energy from them or an extrovert, that that conversation is giving them energy. So how do you know in terms of selling and sales? I'm really trying to, you know, explore some of those. Really getting to know the people. So then as we converse, I'm using methods that, that plays to what they like or dislike or what to what motivates them or demotivates them.

Yeah, yeah, in a way. I mean, a lot of, a lot of critics of this approach of selling is, oh, you're just, you're manipulating or you're, you know, it's again, assist nlp. You know, Tony Robbins has popularized it. You know, like, kind of like, you know, talking the way the other person talks or if their arms are crossed, you cross your arms. If their arms are on the desk, you put your arms on a desk and match them and mirror them. And, and some people, I mean, I suppose it can be used in a manipulative, bad way. Right. But, but I think when you're using it with the right, right intention, I think it's a respectful way of communicating, you know, like to your point, if you're talking to someone who's super, you know, soft spoken or something, like throwing up in their face and yeah, you know, that's just like you said, it's just going to freak them out and you're, you're not going to, you're not going to help that person. Right. So trying to find where they're at and meet them where they're at I think is a more respectful way of approaching really just life. Forget continuous improvement, just life. Right. Being a human.

Totally agree. Yes. Usually when I show up in a process, something's not going well and what they've been doing isn't working and they've tried other approaches and they might have got some short term gains, but if I'm there, something's going poorly and my whole goal is to help them. I don't want to make them work harder. I want to help them just look at their process from a different lens. Again, you know, we come from different backgrounds. I got an accounting background, so I got the numbers. I've been doing operational excellence for 20 years and I just see it sometimes. I know the root cause, not 100% of it, but I'm like, okay, I see what's going on here, but I'm not going to spoon feed them. Here's your problem, here's solutions. Good luck with that. Let me know how it goes. I've got to take them on a journey to help them see it. I've got to take them on a journey to help them understand and help them arrive at this, at the root cause and help them. And most of the time they have a lot of the answers. They just didn't know how to package them or they didn't know how to tell the story. And many times when I'm in a situation and we're going to make a presentation to the leaders, I look for that one person on the team. Team is like, hey, this is you. You've done a lot of the heavy lifting. Do you want to, you know, and I'll, I'll coach them and help them present, because I can present. That's, that's easy. Not easy, but it's just, that's what I've been doing. But I'd rather take somebody who's wanting that opportunity to get up in front of their leaders and share the journey that we've been on and let them know that most of the times, it's not my ideas. I just took what was there and kind of repackaged it, rebranded it, organized it in a manner that made it easier for them to see. Oh, if we do more of this and less of this, we're going to have less problems. Our customers, our clients are going to have a better experience. Wow. And it just walks away and they feel good. And I just kind of ride off in the sunset saying, all right, where do I go next? And just help them. So taking that time to realize who they are, if there's an opportunity for someone else to step up and present, I love that because it's not about me, it's about them. And they'll take more ownership if I've done a good job of branding and selling it.

So on that note, it's not about you, it's about them. You know, one of the. Oh, let's just call it criticisms of the. If I were to hone in on, just say, the traditional Six Sigma model where, you know, you have black belts and master black belts and some green belts or whatever, but, you know, the black belts and the master black belts are the. The folks who, you know, have the most training, most experience, most knowledge, if you will, and, you know, they're deployed around to, as you say, parachute in and fix things and then. And then move on. And one of the criticisms from, in particular the Link community is that drives them insane, right? Like they say, you know, because what happens when Thomas moves on to a different company, then. Then we're. We're in big trouble, right, because we were so dependent on Thomas. So how do you balance that idea of the expert, you know, black belts running around fixing everything versus, you know, empowering the workforce and training and pouring into the workforce to. So they can, you know, fish for themselves, if you will. How do you balance that?

I really try to help them take ownership. It's. I'm here to. I'm here to support you. I'm here to help you take. We're going to go on a journey. Some people say, is this Six Sigma? I'm like, well, it could be. I mean, there's other tools that I've used that aren't Six Sigma Sigma that have helped, but it's. It's. We'll use part of some of the tools, and it's really about helping them, building their capabilities. And it's there. It just sometimes, you know, People have just get myopic. They get. They hire into a company, they get trained or they don't get trained or anywhere in between. They figure it out, they start doing well. They're getting meets on all their yearly reviews. So things aren't bad. Why, you know, and I'm just doing what I've been doing. And then someone like one of these continuous improvement people come along and start asking questions and, you know, fear, insecurities, oh my gosh, they're going to blame me. And really just tearing that down saying, no, this has evolved over time. I'm not looking for blame. I'm actually hoping that when we're done, maybe you have better metrics for your yearly review that actually mean something. Because many of the times, I mean, with people and their, their yearly reviews are very generic, very vague and, you know, helping them see the value of what they do. A lot of people aren't told. This is, this is the why, this is important. And if you do this and it takes longer than we need, here's the, here's the impact. And no one told me, no one told me. And a lot of times when I walk, you know, as we're implementing solutions or we're brainstorming people like, we can do this, we can do this. They, you know, they've built walls around them that don't exist. And it wasn't, you know, anybody's fault. It's just over time, things just kind of settle in and this is comfortable. I feel empowered because I have this power and this tribal knowledge and if nobody else knows, they can't let me go. And, you know, helping people let go with that of saying, well, you know, if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, what happens? Or this is freedom, actually. It's freeing to you to not have to hold this and feel like it's all on you. And I've actually, you know, yes, the statistics and the process improvements there, but getting to know people and build that rapport of saying, I'm not here to take jobs. I've been doing this for 20 years and no one's been laid off because we've helped the business, we've helped our clients. It's just the opposite is actually, we've helped people see different ways of doing things that then leads them doing other things. I've had people go to their homes and change some of their morning ritual because we did a process map of from the time their alarm woke to the time they logged into their computer and we process map and they couldn't believe how much time was being wasted and things they did. Like in the evening they were getting their coffee ready to go off at 6am Instead of doing a coffee, it was just one less step. It was ready to go and really analyzing saying, wow, I've just fell into this habit and it's no one's fault. It's just things have evolved and helping them see it.

Just don't go home and 5s your wife's shoes or anything like that. That's probably not good.

Sometimes the cobbler's kids don't have the best shoes. Right.

Good stuff. Good stuff. Oh, this has been really fun, Thomas. I really appreciate where this conversation started with kind of being right to just a really good conversation on, on how to help people, how to influence people. Because in the end, as you've kind of, you've mentioned multiple times, you know, the tools and things are super important and we need to know them. But in the end, if we can't deal and positively impact and influence people, all the tools, all the regression, all the T tests in the world aren't going to really matter. Right. We have to be able to meet people where they're at and help them.

I would agree so much and somebody gave me an analogy once that said, hey, if Ron, you're on the other side of the river, I'm on this side of the river and I can scream to you all day long to come to this side of the river. It's better. And until I cross the river and understand your perspective as to why you don't want to cross the river, maybe from your perspective you see alligators, piranha sharks, I don't know a body of water would have that. But you see obstacles and barriers and until I build that bridge with you to the side of the river I was on, it's just not going to happen. I to scream all day and just until I meet you where you are and help build that bridge, it's just not going to happen.

Yeah, fantastic. Thomas, what's the best way for folks to connect with you?

I am on LinkedIn. Thomas Frase with Edward Jones. So that would be great there. I'd be happy to engage in conversation without being right, but exploring and helping me with my skills and my competencies and just encouraging others to think about their brand, what do they bring to the table and how do they brand themselves. And I do some coaching and mentoring at Edward Jones and outside of Edward Jones and it's so many people just don't think of their careers like I have a brand and what am I selling? And they're out interviewing and they don't know that they have a brand and it's painful to see sometimes. And just a couple of questions can help people go, you know, what are you selling? And it really can help people adjust and make some tweaks to help them better articulate who they are and the value they can bring to a company.

Fantastic. And phrase for folks just listening is F R A S E. Correct?

That is correct. Yep. Pronounced like prepositional phrase.

Okay, Thomas Frase. All right. And this is episode 290, so we'll link to that in the show notes as well. Gembapodcast.com Episode 290 so, Thomas, thanks again. So are you going to get out to any other conferences this year or anything like that?

No, I just accepted a new role within Edward Jones. I'm going to focus on that as a team leader. So I've got lots to learn. It's outside of my comfort zone. I'm moving away from a subject matter expert to a positional power versus expert power. And that's going to be. It is a change and I look forward to pushing my boundaries with my career.

Love it.

Love it.

Good luck. Thanks for coming on, Thomas, and keep up the good work.

Thank you for your time. I really appreciate the opportunity.

All right, take care. Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now we invite you to take a no strings attached, fully functional test drive of Gemba Academy document. Gain immediate access to more than a ,Thousand Lean and Six Sigma learning resources, all free of charge at Gembaacademy.com.