GA 352 | Defining, Executing, and Aligning Winning with Billy Taylor

Hey, everyone, this is Ron Perera. Now, today is December 31, 2020, which means we are one day away from a new year. So first of all, allow me to wish you and yours a very safe, prosperous and happy new year. Now, we've debated on what to share for this final episode of 2020 and finally decided to kick the new year off with a boom. We're sharing the audio portion of the keynote presentation Billy Taylor delivered live inside our studio late last year. Now, Billy is an outstanding lean leader and thinker, but he's also incredibly motivating and leaves me feeling like a million bucks. So sit back and enjoy the presentation.

Boom. Down goes Muhammad Ali, a young, ambitious fighter whom at the age of 12, defined winning as being the greatest heavyweight fighter of all times. But yet, before he could ever earn the right to be great, he was knocked to the canvas. Like most companies on Erlene journeys, the referee began to count him out. One, two. Not only had Ali defined winning, he had aligned himself with the best talent, tools and processes in the fight industry, acquiring a world renowned trainer by the name of Angelo Dundee and the best cornerman in the business, Bondini, whom helped him coin the phrase, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, you better watch out for Muhammad Ali. But the most important part of that quote was the last part. Just like in lean operations, you can't hit what you can't see. Three, four. Ali sit up. As he thought about executing winning, fear set in. And he thought about quitting. And he realized fear has two meanings. You can forget everything and run, or trust the process and face everything and rise. Five, six. Ali sit up. He couldn't wait as the referee was holding him back. And he thought about now inspiring trust and trust in his team. Trust in the process, trust in preparation. At that point, the referee dropped his hands. Ali ran to the other side of the room and he hit the guy so hard they had to take his wife to the hospital first. Just three years later, Muhammad Ali had earned the right to be great, the right to fight for the title. But there was a challenge. He had to fight Sonny Liston, a feared force. Even the President of the United States himself called and advised him not to take the fight as it was too risky, too much of a challenge. Ali took that fight because he knew he had prepared and he was ready. And on fight night, Ali came to the fight and he knocked Sonny Liston out. And he ran over and he jumped on the ring and he says, I shook up the world. I'm a bad man. What he meant to say was operational excellence. See, he had aligned himself to win. He had managed the intersections of what it takes to be successful. See, on the way home from that fight, the president and the first lady, they stopped to have dinner and they recognized the guy taking jackets. It was the first lady's high school sweetheart. The president looked over with a smirk on his face. He says, honey, just think if you'd have been married to him, you'd have been married to a doorman. And she looked back in her womanly way and she says, no, you clearly missed the point and you didn't learn anything from watching that fight. Because if I would have married him, he would have been the President of the United States of America and not. You see, great teams work together holistically. And that's why I'm proud to be here today at the Gemba Academy. The to talk about how to link and align your organization. See these three things. Muhammad Ali did extremely well. And that's what I'm going to talk about. How do you bridge those gaps and those misalignments in your company to link your organization for success? 1. I want you to write these things down as we move forward because in the form of questions. 1. Have you defined winning in your organization? Does your organization know what winning is? That is about extreme clarity. Clarity around purpose, clarity around ownership, extreme clarity. 2. Have you aligned yourself to win? Does everybody know how they contribute to winning? The not only as a team, but also as an individual. Because you're going to hear me talk about in the absence of ownership comes blame. And if people don't know what they own in your enterprise or your strategy, they will surely blame when failure happens next is do you have a process that tells you if you're executing winning? It's your daily management process. It's around visual management. People want to know the score. It's just how we think as human beings. When we go to a sporting event, if we're late, the first thing we do when we get to the game is do what we look up for the scoreboard. We want to know the status. We are a status driven race of people. But more importantly, the glue the that holds this all together is trust. Do you have a process in your current company that gives 100% of your team a voice that makes people feel valued? Because what I would tell you when you make people visible, they will make you valuable. And what we're going to do today is go through this circle and I'm going to ask you to follow the circle. But you Know what? Don't listen to my story. I want you to make this applicable to your story because this is more about you than it is me. Right? I want to run like Toyota. I don't want to be Toyota. So we're going to walk you through a series of steps, but I'm going to take you on a journey. See, I was a plant manager in Lawton, Oklahoma. It was the world's largest tire plant and we made 65,000 tires a day. It's a union free workforce and we had just won the Shingo prize. And I was excited and I knew I was going to get an opportunity because traditionally if you did well in this plant and you delivered the results, you would get a bigger opportunity. So the phone finally rung and I was excited. Ring. I pick up the phone. It's the vice president, Pat Hurley. He says, billy, we got an opportunity for you. And I'm excited. Let me step out of the presentation for a minute. Yes, I want to get the call. I'm excited. I answer the phone. Hello, Pat? He says, we got an opportunity for you. Yes, sir. He says, we want you to go to Fayetteville, North Carolina. I'm thinking, hmm, mm, mm. I'm not going to Fayetteville. In my mind, that was the worst plant in the footprint at the point. It had nothing but failure written all over it. And actually it had a nickname because it was like a war zone. The nickname for the plant was Feud Nam. Why? That plant was making 31,000 tires a day. The market demand was 36,000 tires a day. I'd seen several of my peers go to that plant and fail. It was churning them out. It was like Gilligan's island. It started out on a three day trip and they never came back. And I knew I was just, I was next. And I was afraid. Like Ali, fear had set in. Fear. Remember, do you forget everything and run or you stay true to your process and face everything and rise. So at that point, I call my trusted confidant, my mother. Now I have a Southern mom. We're from Texas, I call her and she's in the kitchen cooking. That's what she loves to do. And I said, mom. And I had a Southern voice. Hello, baby. I said, mom, I just got a call. They want me to go to Fayetteville, North Carolina and it's a shame. I don't know why they want me to go there. They're penalizing me. She says, I am disappointed in this conversation, son. She says, now you've lived a journey of operational excellence, of building processes that link people, tools, and assets. She said, I'm going to ask you a question, because I've got to go, baby. My food's cooking, and I got to get. I got to get going. She says, if a bird lands on a branch, does the bird trust the branch or does it trust its wings? I was still puzzled a bit. I said, ma, what are you getting at? And she's his son. I've seen many birds land on branches, but what I have never seen is a branch break and the bird fall and die. They fly higher when they trust the process. Trust your wings, son. Baby, I gotta go. My food's gonna burn. So I hang the phone up. So I called back, and I said, hey, pat, I'll take the job. And I don't want no more than what I would have got if this was a standard move. This is not about the money. It's about the process. So what happens? I took the job. I get there. And the first question is the one I asked you to write down. And I want you to think about this and answer this question for yourself, because it's critical if you're going to drive change in your organization. Clearly, the question one, have you defined winning? Is there extreme clarity around what you want to accomplish, not only as an organization but as a team? And so I got there. I walked around the plant. I wanted to know, had they clearly defined winning? You know why that's important? Alan malloy said. He's a former executive at Ford. He said, you cannot manage a secret. It's impossible. You cannot manage a secret. People need to know what they own inside your strategy if you're going to execute winning. It's a critical part of linking your organization to be successful. And so at that point, I made a decision to arrive in Fayetteville without any fanfare. I booked my own hotel. I drove my vehicle, and I got there late at night, and I went into the plant with blue jeans, a baseball cap, and t shirts. This was before undercover boss. Trust me. And when I got there, I wanted to go and see. And what I saw was a hidden factory. There were great people. People were engaged. People wanted to win. It was blowing me away to see this type of engagement. But it was obvious there was a hidden factory. Even the union leadership, they were not aligned with winning. Their mindset was about keeping people a job. It wasn't about driving excellence. So I'm taking a tour with the Union Vice President, Mr. Mike Price, and he's got this big wad of Tobacco in his mouth. And we're walk. And I look at him. I'm trying to get some clarity around, does he even know what winning is? And he says, huh? I says, mike, approximately how many people work here? He looks at me and says, you want me to be honest? I said, yeah, Mike. And I'm thinking, Mike's going to tell me. Well, about 3,000 or 2,700. I said, Mike, approximately how many people work here? He looks around and Mike says, well, about half of them. I said, about half of them. Mike, this is about survival. We must align. It's not a us and them. It is a we. And if we're ever going to achieve excellence, I have to do it with the team, not to the team. And as we walked around on our personal gimbal walk late at night, I ran into this lady and she was running an extruder. And she calls me over and says, Mr. Taylor, I want to show you something. And that is the actual picture. And that is her Kaizen schedule up. I mean, her Kanban schedule. And she's telling me at the end of every shift, Mr. Taylor, they overrun these two run and line up at the time clock. Now, we have policies and standards around the time clock, but you know what? Nobody follows them. And I'm listening to her. She says, Mr. Taylor, will you do something for me? I said, yes. She says, they store this material in all the racks all over the plant. Could you please go get all that material and put it in one place and bring your leadership team through so they can see those millions of dollars that they walk by every day? What she was telling me was, Mr. Taylor, I want you to expose the hidden factory. But she was also coaching me on how to have a real Gemba walk. See, leaders have to embrace the fact you work for the people. The people don't work for you. And so as she took me on this walk and she showed me this, and all of my leaders were walking by this material. So how many of you have Gemba walks? Just to walk and talk, just to walk and be the leader. Gimbal walks around interaction, understanding what your constraints are. And now you use Kaizen events to eliminate those constraints. But what she did is she woke me up to reality around exposing the hidden factory. Because what I prioritize got a lot of attention. To prove the point, I get my team, we go on a gimbal walk. It looks like a Verizon commercial. I got everybody behind me, and they're following me, but they're walking by all of this material that's hidden waste, a hidden factory. So I pull out my wallet, I get my mad money. Now, most of you guys ought to know what mad money is. It's that money in case your wife gets mad at you. At least you got enough money to get something to eat. You may find a place to sleep, okay? So I set my mad money on that skid of rubber, and they're following me. And I'm looking back, watching them walk by the hidden factory, but they think they're on a Gemba walk. They're following the leader. And then I stop them. And I watch how they're guarding that money. They're guarding the money. They're guarding what they think I think is important. And it should have been the other way around. I should have been guarding what she thought was important. That's what gimbal walks are about. See, I do an exercise when I go to events to prove it to those leaders that think they're bigger than the organization. And it's called extreme ownership. I ask people to put their hands up in the sky. And I say, I want you to follow me. And I'm going to prove to the fact that in the absence of ownership comes blame. And what I do with people. I just hold your hands up. I say, we're going to go to the left count of three. We're going to go to the right count of three. We're going to come back in the middle, do spirit fingers to throw them off. And then I said, we're going to clap on three. And then I asked a clear question. Do you understand the standard work? And they all nod yes until action is required. And here's what happens. They hold their hands up. I say, go to the left, 1, 2, 3. I say, go to the right. They go, 1, 2, 3. Then I get in the middle, and I do the spirit fingers. Then I say, 1, 2, 3. 95% or higher, clap on 2 instead of 3. And then I asked, why did you clap on 2 instead of 3? And their first answer is, because you did. I'm going to repeat that because you did. And then I repeat my slogan or my prepared statement. Hmm. So you're gonna blame me because you couldn't focus. I said, no one in this team called me out and says, Mr. Taylor, you said, Count on three, clap on three, because that's the standard. And you clapped on two. Mr. Taylor, are you bigger than the process? See, no one had the courage to say that. Or. Or I didn't create a safe environment. So people could say that. But more importantly, the biggest takeaway is people will follow what you do before they follow what you say. And so if you're going through operational excellence and you're coming in talking about Kaizen events, you're coming in talking about 5s, you're coming in talking about all those type of tools and processes, you're doing it to the people rather than with the people. And that's important to the fact that I'm going to walk you through a process. It's almost a test. And what I'd like you to do is write this down, Participate. It's okay to be wrong. You're going to hear me talk about we celebrate the red. Okay, I want everyone. We're going to talk about shaping culture. I want everyone to write the word no down on a piece of paper in front of you. Write down no. Now, most of you wrote the word no down. What that means is stop, fear, failure, don't move forward. And in your mind, here's what your mind plays. It says, opportunity is nowhere. What you want to do is create a culture where the word is no. Because you don't want opportunity to be nowhere. And you want to know. And what that means is I embrace, I understand. I'm going to take action. You've created a safe space so people can be at their very best all the time. But watch this. If you look at the screen, it says you think opportunity is nowhere, but when you know better now, it says opportunity. Opportunity is now here because you've created a continuous improvement culture. These are my rings and it's my story. So let me tell it, because the older I get, the better I was. So I'm just putting a disclaimer on this. See, when I was a young kid in the eighth grade, I could run that football. I was a great athlete. And those are my rings, by the way. I could run. I knew I was going to play in the NFL one day. You can look it up on Google. Billy Taylor. Where did that kid go? I'd line up in the backfield. Wait a minute. Let me go over my nicknames again. I had nicknames. They called me BT Express Touchdown Taylor. I'd line up in the backfield. They pitched me the ball. Before I could even start running, the band played the fight song, Touchdown. I knew I was going to the end zone. But see, in our house, my mother had core values, standards, principles. See, it's not just about defining winning. Once you define winning, you have to establish core values, principles and standards around winning. See, in My house. My mother's standard was if we made anything less than a B, we could not play by school standards. You could fail two classes and still be eligible. We were undefeated. No team had come within 14 points of us at Hanley Middle School. No team. We're going into the city championship favored by two touchdowns. We knew. We knew we were headed for the championship. Two weeks before the game, grades came out, and here's that Southern voice again, baby. Come on in and sit down. I said, yes, ma'. Am. She said, what's this? This is an F. I had all A's and an F. And I went to explaining, mom, the school rule says you can fail one class, two classes and still be eligible. Mom, I'm still eligible. She said, not by my standards, son. The standard is the standard. You're done. I said, ma, I'm going to play in the NFL one day. She says, do you know what NFL means in this house if you don't make at least a B? And I said, what, Ma? She says, not for long will you be playing. The coach comes by the house. The athletic director comes by the house. Multiple friends, everyone comes by my house. I'm the star of the team. And she says, if you're here to talk to me about football, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. And one by one, she escorted him out of our house, one by one. But if you're here to talk about how does he raise that B at F to a B, you're welcome to stay. Game day comes, I know that she's going to let me play. There's no way that I'm not going to play that game. I watch all my friends walk by their picture window, headed to the bus stop. My socks, my equipment's laying on my bed, waiting for her to give me the call. Baby, you go ahead, but I hope you learned your lesson. The standard was the standard. They played that game without me. They got beat 54 to nothing. My friend walked back by with his head down. I still see it today. And she called him up to the door to teach me a lesson about the standard. She says to me, she says, don, how did they do? And he says, ma', am, we got to be 54 to nothing. We needed Billy T. He was devastated. That was the best decision she ever made for me in my life. In my life. Because guess what? When you compromise your standards, you compromise your principles, your core values. You're never going to achieve excellence. It's part of the process of linking your business and you know what was interesting? All of those kids that were on that team, they were watching me. They was watching my mom. They were valuing the standard. My best friend died in an accident. And at his funeral, I flew in, and as they were sitting around the coffin, they called me up and they said, he wanted us to tell you this. We were with him in his last minute. He wanted us to tell you how we envied you growing up, how we envied your mom setting standards for you, and how it made you a better person, how it made you a better leader, how it influenced you. But not only he wanted you to know that that influenced us. We don't remember the score of that game, but at that point, we realized we have to set standards in our life. So how many people are watching you and your company? How many people are watching you let people get away with things? When you walk by people that are not wearing their ppe, when you walk through people that are not following your 5S systems, when you're walking through your organization and you're not adhering to the standard. See, as leaders, what you expect is critical. What you accept, however, becomes a standard. And then at that point, your organization transitions to a new standard. Because, see, most leaders don't get what they expect. They expect what they get because they don't adhere to the standards. So that changed my life. So when I went to Fayetteville, it was interesting that record played itself again. I got to Fayetteville and I thought it was all about Billy. And you hear about accountability. See, I believe Billy could change that organization. And my executives were pumping in my head, billy, you're the guy. You can go do it. And that was never my strength. My strength was engaging and aligning, linking people. See, with accountability. 5% of the people in organizations believe they make things happen. They think they're controlling everything. And here's what happens next. The people below them, they watch things happen. And then the bottom level, that's 80% of the people, they just wait for something to happen. I'm going to ask you to take a reflection break. Is this your organization? See, in Fayetteville, when we start to see change, we flipped that pyramid. 80% of the people were making things happen. They were executing. In fact, I worked for them, they didn't work for me. And when we created that safe space, my leadership team was deploying strategy. They were governing. They were enabling people to win. And at that point, I was a visionary. I was eliminating barriers and constraints, and we created a culture of ownership and so let's go back to defining and aligning winning. We brought everybody in the plant a jersey. We're in football country. We were making 31,000. The market needed 36,000. We set a target of 38,000. Why? So we could do Kaizen events, so we could do continuous improvement activities. And so they created their headroom. We're not laying people off. We're reinvesting back in the organization. Now, that jersey was powerful because it was a signal of what winning was. See, you saw the team name on the front, on the back of that jersey. It's called the Choice. And so we created a culture, ownership, and at that point, culture started controlling strategy again. In your organization, have you clearly defined what winning is? Because when we did, here's what happened. We went from 31,000 to 38,000 in six months. The net value was beyond the 24 million that hit the bottom line. It was around a culture of excellence that was much bigger than me, the leader. And I'm going to talk about that because after we clearly define winning, we had to align winning. And so we started with strategy deployment. Hoshin Connery, and we built the X matrix. Those things that we say, hey, here's how you must do it. The cookie cutter approach. And we followed the cookie cutter approach. We did strategy deployment. And so here's what happened. When we started to deploy, we went from strategies and mission. So again, that visionary group at the top of that pyramid, we got together because we make everything happen. Then that group that watch everything happen, we deployed them to that level and then we went to the next level, where they wait and guess what? Strategy deployment stopped. And we were wondering why we weren't making was critical. We had an organization that was not linked. I want to walk you through what would happen in that case. I had a budget of 8 million, and at the end of the month, it came up 9 million. What happens next? You bring everybody in the room and you start screaming, stop spending. Stop traveling. No catering. Get your ink pen out of a hotel room. You're penalizing everybody because you don't know where your real issues are. Because you have not created an authentic system where you can deploy your strategy and you can see your constraints. And at that point, we moved to a real linked process and we did some performance mapping. And in performance mapping, you clearly lay out who owns what. And so what we did is we said, okay, here's Billy's eight. That's my goal now. I moved to work teams. I broke that eight out. Then I moved to the next level, it was now mid level managers. I eventually got down to the operators so that every operator knew how they contributed to winning, how we knew if we were winning or not. I'm going to ask, in your organization, can you map performances? Because what happens when you map performances? Here's what happens. You created a GPS to constraints people can see. I need to work on department A, shift B where I thought I was good over there, I've got a problem on both B's, both sides. But I created a map so people knew what they own. Why was that critical? Look at that pyramid. When people don't know what they own, here's what your flowchart looks like. They think you're blaming them. And people look at leaders as if you're dumping on them. Because in the absence of ownership comes blame. In your center of excellence, you should build a performance wall that tells you in 10 seconds or less if you're winning or not. If this is my company and I'm missing my financials, what's causing me to miss 10 seconds or less? Reliability. Instead of bringing the entire reliability team in, which Value stream is causing me to miss value stream 2 in a linked process, everybody knows what they own. It's extreme clarity. You not only define winning, you align yourself to win. And when you do that, you move to the next phase. And this is the fun part. Executing winning. See, executing winning is around scientific thinking, okay? And deliberate practice. And just to break this down, what is deliberate practice? I want to use tying your shoes as an example. See, tying your shoes is just like regular practice. It's mindless. You don't think about it. You don't. You wake up and you just start tying your shoes. Deliberate practice is breaking that, tying the shoe down in steps in a series of sequences so that you can improve and evolve. In business, if you just practice, you're going to plateau. See, your skills over time will flatten out. You don't tap into those resources. And executing winning, you have to involve everyone, okay? It's not just about the source, it's really about the solution. With deliberate practice, it's a series of steps and you'll see your organization starting to evolve. See, in those plants that I went in, it was about a series of steps, but more important is about engaging everyone in the organization. You cannot exclude anyone from being in the process of operational excellence. It's around inclusion. You often hear diversity and inclusion. Let me tell you what that means in operational excellence. Diversity is who drives excellence. Inclusion is what drives excellence. That's important. And see, as I looked at my team when I went to Fayetteville, when you look at your organization, our biases kick in. We surround ourselves with people that we're comfortable with and they have the same mindset that we have. See, I like disruption. I like people to challenge me because they get me out of my comfort zone. They allow me to see differently. Even at Linked Excel, my team is very diverse and we challenge each other. Here's why. When you start to challenge each other, you look at things differently. It's like a bowl of M&Ms. See, if you close your eyes and open your mind to innovation and what's there, the only thing that really matters is what's inside. That's where the value proposition lies. People want to be a part of the team. My best employee or my best mentor in Fayetteville, North Carolina was Sammy, the janitor. Every holiday, Sammy texts me, I love you, I miss you. Every holiday. Still today, Sammy taught me so much around that culture. See, if I was caught up on the source rather than the solution, I would have never listened to Sammy. Sammy advised me on how to approach the culture. See, you have to move toward a culture of building an evangelist for operational excellence. And so when we put up visual boards, we had this in mind. We went ask the people and what the people told us that we had boards that meant nothing to them. Leaders were posting charts and people felt that they were doing it to them rather than with them. So we created what's called a 10 second rule. It was very simple and we created a culture where we celebrated the red and we harvested the green. And so when I went into plants and when I go into plants, I asked leaders, can we stand at your bulletin board and walk 10ft away and then stop people walking through the area in 10 seconds or less? We asked him, explain the board. And here's what happens. 90 plus percent of the time, the people that work in the area walk by the board and I ask, so what does the board mean to you? I get the Scooby Doo answer. I say, so what does the board mean to you? They want to take two steps. Then they give me the Scooby Doo answer, no. Now think about that. And so when we ask people, here's what my people told me. But we want boards that are visual. And so if you see that board, that is the actual board that we used. We made it simple, visible. The leaders were owning it. The first line was safety. When I walked out of my office, I looked at that board and I Looked across it. Did I have any accidents? Nope. Did I have any quality issues? One, I knew exactly where to go. And I had two questions. What do you need from me? And after I gave you what you needed, my next question is the most painful. Why do you accept that? See, that was about the standard. And when we did that, what we did is create a culture of ownership. Operators felt that they were running machines. They weren't running machines anymore. I'm sorry. They were running companies. And we created extreme ownership. Even the guard wanted in on it. He says, Mr. Taylor, I want to put a board out. 100% of the people come through this guard house. I. I want to put all of the indicators. I'll flip them every morning. And guess what? If anyone wants to visit our plant, they have to fill out a tour admission ticket. I said, explain the standard work. He says, you have to give me three improvement ideas, or I'm not letting you out of the plant. I said, whoa, hold on now. If they're from corporate headquarters, you just go ahead and let them out. But he became an evangelist from the guardhouse. People want to be included. But to get to that state, after we defined winning, we had aligned winning. We had a process where we were going to execute winning. Now came inspiring trust. Inspiring trust. This is the hard part. Trust is not about what you say. It's about what you do. As you start an operational excellence journey, you have to earn the right to change. And companies on their journeys, they actually earn the technical right because they buy equipment, assets, tools, and then they deploy those to the team, and people feel they're doing it to them instead of with them. But when you earn the cultural right that's around respect, inclusions, morals, values, people join in on the journey and want to change. But one leader did that better than anyone I've ever seen. She was the CEO of Mid Michigan Medical. She called me up to her annual operating review and says, billy, wear a pink shirt, pink tie, pink socks. I'm like, whoa, hold on. Slow down just a minute. She says, yes, I want you to come and give a presentation around leadership. And then at the end of it, we're going to dance to close out the annual operating meeting. So I show up, and she's dressed like a princess. For me, that was a red flag. A CEO dressed like a princess at the annual operating meeting. So I get there, I give my presentation. We're sitting there, and she says, billy, come up. We're going to dance to close out the meeting. We're going to dance this Is getting stranger by the minute. And so I stand up front and I'm going to go ahead and stereotype myself. Black guy got a little rhythm. I don't care what nobody says. You know, I got McKenna Chesney on just in case I can do my line dance. I'm ready to go. And I'm looking at her, I'm thinking, this is about to happen. The music comes on and I'm shocked. The music comes on and says, so watch me whip, so watch me nae nae. I look at her, I say, what are you thinking? You are a 50 plus year old white lady. What are you doing? And you're the CEO. What do you think I do five seconds later? So watch me whip. So watch me nae nae. What do you think everybody else does in the audience? So watch me whip. So watch me nae nae. We had an operational excellence party going on in that building and we were rocking. But don't miss the point. She unlocked the keys to success. She created an environment that was safe for people to change, safe for people to take risk. See, if you don't do that, you're gonna struggle and you'll never get reality. Because all of your issues will be a secret. Because your people will not want to have those transparent conversations with you. I call it the conversation that you have with the lady in the grocery store. Most cases, you walk up to the baby carriage and what do people do? And they lie. They walk up to the baby carriage and they look in and what do they do? They say, oh, baby, so cute, so precious. And you walk away and you say something totally different. They walk away and they talk about, oh, dang, that's an ugly baby. Some of you get rude. It doesn't even look like the father. We have those ugly baby discussions because we want transparency. We want people to put the dead feet fish on the table. Because if we don't address them, they'll eventually stink and corrode the process. And I'm going to clear that up later on in the keynote. Just so you know. Why is it important that people are allowed to have transparent discussions? See, psychological safety is just as harmful as physical safety. People want to feel valued. And when they can't feel that safe space, they'll hold back. And what's interesting about that, you'll never understand the hidden mindsets. See behaviors we can. See mindsets we cannot. Values, we cannot. Those needs are critical when you're changing the environment. So what we did is we created a mirror exercise and people allowed to transparently give us feedback. And so at that point, we were inspiring trust. We created that environment so we can find out what was our current situation. Here's what we found. We had a lot of ugly babies. See, it had nothing about spending money. It was about trust. Okay? It was about standards. It was around restrooms not being in the right place. But more importantly, it was about giving 100% of the people a voice to tell us what the issues were. And in the past, we had only focused on the KPI, the key performance indicator. And at that point, we were creating an environment for failure. We were running our equipment in the ground. We weren't doing the proper PMs. We weren't doing continuous improvement events because we were focused on the KPI and we were firefighting. When we start focusing on the kpa, here's what happened. We created an environment of extreme ownership, an environment of key performance actions. Now I'll talk about what that is about. A key performance indicator is equivalent to standing on the scale wondering why you're not losing weight. A key performance action is around what we have to do to get that result. And when you create that space, you develop processes around recognition where you can celebrate the wins. And when you execute on winning, you celebrate the process and you embrace the individual. Because I don't want to create an environment of heroes. Here's why. When you make people visible, they'll make you valuable. That's an actual picture. When I came back to Fayetteville two years later, you'd have thought they threw all those jerseys away. You'd have thought they forgot about Billy Taylor and that they had moved on. Halfway through that tour, I had to walk out the back door in tears. In tears. And that was not a celebration of Billy Taylor. They were celebrating the process, that it had outlived me, the leader, and they were still running strong. Because people don't want to be praised, they want to be valued. And if you're going to drive excellence and link your organization, remember, you have to clearly define winning. After you define winning, you have to align yourself to win. After you align yourself to win, you have to have a process or a daily management system that lets you know if you're winning or not. Daily. You have to inspire trust where people have a voice and follow the circle. I want to go back to the ugly baby. As I close this is a picture of my daughter when I actually did her hair. And her mom called me in and she raked me over the coals. You made my baby ugly. What did you do. And she went on and on. Now, I'm pretty sharp when it comes to emotional intelligence. See, I know as a husband I get two options. I can be happy or I can be right. I can't be both. So I choose to be happy. And so at that point I said to her, you've never shown me a standard. You've never shown me how to do hair. You've never given me a process. But yet you want to critique me. Now I have a process, and that's what my daughter looks like. See, there are no ugly babies. There are bad processes. There are bad standards. I want to close with this. I once saw a coach by the name of John Scalinas, and he was coaching leaders and baseball coaches and he had this around his neck and it symbolized a standard. He says, this baseball plate is 17 inches. Whether you played little league baseball, high school baseball, or major League baseball. Home plate, 17 inches. If the pitcher cannot get the ball across the plate, the umpire never wides the plate because the plate is the standard of everything. I talk to you about today, about defining, aligning, executing, winning. You must adhere to to your standard. Every team I led, they had to sign the plate. Don't widen the plate for your best players. Don't widen the plate for your worst players. The standard is the standard. The question I'm going to ask you do you get what you expect or expect what you get? Follow your standard.

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