GA 450 | Governing the Standard with Billy Taylor

You're riding down the highway and you see a police car under the bridge. What do you instinctively do? Whether you're speeding or not, you slow down. Why do you slow down? Governance. You don't want that. There are consequences. What's your model like that in an organization? You can say, well, I don't want to be policing people. Well, then you don't want sustainability.

Today, I'm excited to welcome my good friend Billy Taylor, or Billy Ray Taylor, as he likes to be called. I listen to the very end of the podcast to hear why. Why, that's funny. Anyhow, Billy is amazing. We're here at the AAME conference in Dallas, and Billy's written a book called the Winning Link. And so what we did was sort of just walk through some of the highlights of the book and what he was trying to get across talks about things like how to define winning and how to execute winning, which is an interesting concept. And then probably my favorite part was, towards the end, he talks about this idea of governance and why that's so important. And I think it's probably something that's not talked about enough within our. Our continuous improvement movement. So, anyhow, really good stuff. Billy's just full of energy, and I just love, love talking to him. He just makes me feel great every time I talk to him. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com look for episode 450. Again, gembapodcast.com, look for episode 450. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Billy, what's up, man?

Hey. Nothing much. Ron, Great to be here. Great to see you.

Oh, man, I'm so happy to see you. I mean, I guess the last time I saw you was. Well, no, at our facility. Last time I saw you in the.

Facility, we had a great lunch, huh? We had a great time. Yeah, we had a great time. Great. I met with the team.

Yeah, man, that's so good. That's so good. Well, you know the drill, man. Let's get going with a quote out.

Of the gate, and then we're going.

To jump in, talk about the Winning Link.

Absolutely. Well, one of the things in my quote today is what you accept you cannot change. So if you're a leader and you're saying that here's the standard, the standards to wear personal protective equipment, the standards to be here on time, but as you elite, as if you're a leader and you walk by that, you accepted it. So when people see that that's the new standard, you Know, and I say what you accept, you cannot change. And those people, let's make it personal. Those ladies that are dating or men that are dating, well, if you want me to open the door and every time you stay with me and I don't open the door, that's the standard. Because you just accepted it. And what you accept you cannot change. That's the standard.

I love it. I love it.

I love it. Oh my gosh.

Well, Billy, I can't remember the last time we had you on the actual pod. You've done so many things, videos and.

All the rest of it over the years.

But in case folks don't know who you are or can't remember from the last time you were been on with us, give us a little rundown on, on who you are, your experience, your background and what you're up to these days.

Absolutely. I spent 30 years with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company where I ran operations and manufacturing for North America. After 30 years I retired and actually was going to ride off into sunset and actually started a company called Linked Excel, meaning Linked Excellence, where we architect operating systems. And so we work with Note Printing, Australia, PPG and companies like that and we go in and help them build their operating system to fit their way. And so that's what I've been doing here for the, for the last two and a half years and then wrote a book called the Winning Link. So I've been very busy out in the field. I've learned a lot. Yeah, I've learned a lot around influence. Right. When you're the director, when you have that authority and that, that so called power, people have to do what you say in some cases. And I've learned a lot about the power of influence, the power of how do you get that buy in where people own it? Because ownership trumps accountability in that case. Because if I'm on it, I'm there 24 hours a day. If I'm accountable, just accountable is when someone's watching in most cases. And so the shift around ownership and your processes and your, your daily management system, because I say in the absence of ownership comes blame. When people don't know what they own, they blame. But more importantly when people don't know what they own in your strategy or what your strategy is, your strategy is a secret and you can't manage a secret. Yeah. And so you have to be deliberately clear on what change it is you want. Because as a leader, what I do, I help prior prioritize the change. The people closest to the source they process the change. And so that's what I've really learned a lot about and kind of embraced over the last two years.

Yeah.

The power of influence.

What was the transition like for me? You know, obviously, being the big guy at Goodyear, and everybody was like, here come Billy, you know, to, you know, now you're, you're. You're going in as a consultant or, you know, as a. As a support person to help these leadership teams. Was that a weird sort of transition for you, or did it take a little time or.

I just had to get a better understanding of. Of what it is that people want. What, what, what. What influences people to move. I knew going in, they didn't know me, so I was a little scared myself. So I didn't go in saying, hey, this is big Billy. Yeah, I didn't. I went in, this is little Billy. Help me understand what this is like, Coach me. And my leading question was, what do you need from me? Not what. This is what you need to do.

Yeah.

And what I learned was sometimes leadership is the problem. Sometimes leadership is the one that's disabling the success of an implementation instead of enabling. And they think that they are the people that make everything happen. Yeah.

So what do you do in that case? These leaders hired you to come in and you identify them. That's potentially needing to change. How do you navigate that?

So, basically, we actually, we create a visual management system that actually shows them, and we build what's called a purpose map. It's your strategy on a page. And what we start with in this thing is why? And then we talk about what's your current reality. So what I'll say is my purpose. Let's just make up a fictitious example. In this purpose, what's my purpose statement? On this one page, it says, I. I want to get healthy. And then you talk about what's your current reality? What is it that you're most proud of, you're good at in swat, it's called your strength. Right. Well, my strength is I like to eat salad if I want to lose weight. What's my weakness? What's constraining me? Well, I also like to eat candy. What's my opportunity? What's the gift? Well, I don't have a gym, but there's one down the street. What's the threat? What can sink my ship? My mother lives with us and she likes to bake cakes. And so when I put that all together and we started telling leaders, they started telling me that they're the problem. We put A process in place that exposes. Right. Their shortcomings. We expose the fact that what they're doing to disable the organization. And then we start to build a strategy around KPAs. Not KPIs. Say, what's my key performance actions, not my key performance indicators. Because my key performance indicators means I stood on the scale to weigh myself. It's too late. My KPA's are, did I work out? Did I eat the right amount of calories, Am I sleeping? If I do all of these things, I get these things. Yeah. And when leaders have to put that on a page strategically and they see it, then the oh, woe is me happens. Yeah. And. But then to have that conversation with them, but you have to do it factually. Yeah. Because. Right. Egos erode effectiveness.

Yeah.

Those egos get in the way. And they think because they have the title. And to be able to sit there and talk about, here's where your opportunities are, and it starts with you.

Yeah.

Right. And that's a tough call. That's the ugly baby. Right. That's walking in saying, hey, the baby's ugly. And so that's hard to do.

Yeah.

And coming from me. And I have to be honest, the position that I operate from is one where I don't really try to be safe. I keep it psychologically safe. Yeah. But I don't have to be safe now because you know what? You hired me to be transparent. Right. Yeah. And so that's that. That's what I've learned a lot about now, you know, and so it served me well. I've had some very, very, very engaging opportunities to say, but it's been great.

So I want to talk a little bit about your book, Billy, the Winning Link, A proven process to define a line and execute strategies at every level. And what I thought we could do is you've got seven chapters laid out here with a conclusion and so forth, but let's just sort of walk through just high level, obviously, you know, Cliff Notes versions of the book. But chapter one, define winning.

I think deliberate clarity. Be exclusively detailed around what winning is for the enterprise. And not only that, at every level of the organization. And so deliberate clarity is defining what we want to achieve, what is winning. But. And I would say break that down at every level. So if winning for me is I need to make $10 million and I've got 10 stores, then when I start to deploy that strategy, every store needs to make a million dollars. But you know, what you own in the strategy. And so what it is you start to expose not only what the strategy is for the enterprise, but being deliberately clear around what everybody owns in that strategy and how they contribute to winning. And so in the book, it breaks down how to do that and it gives some actual models and pictures on putting names and faces with the strategy on who owns what. And then as you go through the book, there are steps that puts things in sequence so you can actually effectively define what winning is and start to build a strategy around that.

Yeah. Am I right to assume that things like visual management play an important part when you're defining winning?

Absolutely. Because think about when we go to a football game, we get our, our refreshments and we sit down. What is the first thing we look for? Yeah.

Scoreboard.

Scoreboard, yeah. But here's what I've really learned about the scoreboard. There's a lot of numbers on that scoreboard. So let's talk about deliberate clarity. You get to the game, there's no score. Home or away. You're home, fourth quarter, one minute left in the game, you have three timeouts, the away team has zero. You have the ball on their 20 yard line. What's your strategy? There's no score on the board. Yeah. So you, therefore you really don't have a strategy. Now let me, let me be very deliberately clear. The score is 40 you0 for the visiting team and you have the ball with one minute left. So what's your strategy? Run the clock out.

Yeah.

What if the, the visiting team has seven and you have three? You have the ball.

I got three timeouts.

Ah, you got three times. Notice how we start the talking now. Right. You just engage. And now I'm saying, wait a minute, it's seven to three, you're down by four. Are you gonna kick a field goal? That won't help you. Right. You need four points. Right. So your strategy is different because it's deliberately clear what winning is. And most companies, they have. The definition of winning is 10 different metrics. Right. They didn't pinpoint what's the main thing. Right. And so therefore you have a bipolar organization that metrics are competing with each other and that resides at the top when leaders don't make it deliberately clear. Yeah.

Chapter two, developing your strategy and what.

That means is bring everybody in as you start to build your strategy. We don't resist change as human beings. We resist change being done to us rather than being done with us. So we do a process, you know, the purpose mapping. Bring the people in the room and hold them accountable to the things that they own in the strategy. And so there's a model in the book on how to actually do it, how to break those strategies down in minute pieces. So instead of this big elephant of a, you know, here's the dream, we're going to be a billion dollar company. What's the strategy behind it? Well, we're going to do that in four regions and each region has to do this. And so bring those regional leaders in the room, bring their voice in the room. And now that's when the ownership starts to happen, you know. And so what we do is we also start to inspire trust inside the strategy. Again, there's tools in the book on how to do that, but also there's, there's stories in the book where I failed and I've seen companies fail at it.

Give us a, give us, give us a sneak peek on a story.

Three people lock themselves in a room and they decide what's best for everyone. They don't know the intricate details around what it takes to get there. They don't have the resources available to do it. But they built the strategy. Then they come out and I'm going to use this for impact with the bullhorn or the newsletter, the emails. This is what we're going to do. And here's how we're going to do it. And everybody line up and that leader disappears. There's no governance model around it. There's no daily management system around that strategy. And those organizations fail and fail miserably.

Chapter three and four seem like they probably complement one another. Aligning to, in and cultivating ownership.

And so cultivating ownership, it's even at the operator level, we don't even focus on the KPIs we focus on at the start of the shift instead of doing a huddle. A huddle is kind of generic. You're just talking around the issue. Yeah, what we talk about is, you know what, we're the operators. There's three of us on this machine. You have to walk the unit and see if there's any unsafe conditions. Conditions. Write down the issue and write down the corrective action. But you have to flip it red or green so that when the manager walks by, you own it. Now instead of waiting to, just to report to me something's wrong. Also you have, and that's every shift. So you have an automatic shift pass down. But that whole KPI board, visual management board on ownership is connected to the overall strategy. So now you move from running a machine to running a business. Now when you walk in, you have to Flip it. When you receive your unit, was it clean when you left at the end of the shift, did you leave it clean? So let's think about if you, you come in, you say you left it clean. I'm following you. Ten minutes later, I'm verifying that you left it clean. Yeah. What you start to see is grown people. Be grown people. Right. Hey, Ron, let's talk about this. You keep saying, look at all this stuff you're leaving here.

Here.

They're not calling the manager no more. And now you're really cultivating ownership and that, that, that housekeeping stays sustainable. Those unsafe conditions, they start to go away. Those leaks that are there now when you do your walk around your machine, in your KPA walk, that's the key performance action before we start. Yeah, you're cultivating ownership. Yeah. And so what I've seen is companies fail to do that. And so that's at every single level. What's your door? What's your daily operating review? What's your war? Your weekly operating review, what's your soar? Your shift operating review, where those leaders come in. And it's based off what that deliberate clarity on what winning is. And now those individuals now come to the forefront. They're proud to talk about it. They're proud to talk about the, the, the opportunities. And it's psychologically safe. See, psychological safety is just as important as physical safety. That's speaking from experience I've said in meetings and wouldn't say anything now, why I may have been right, but in my mind I felt I'd be dead. Right? So I didn't say anything. Yeah. Yeah. And so my leaders created that environment. And so remember, you can't manage a secret. So therefore, if I keep those things to myself, then it's a secret and nobody knows. And that's that. That environment where you want to cultivate ownership. We're safe to tell me all the things that are not so good as well as the things that are very good. Right. Right.

Execute winning. Chapter five. Executing winning. That's an interesting phrase. Or executing winning. What does that mean?

So we've laid out what winning is. We've laid out who owns what we've laid out. Now how do we see it, how do we know it? What's your process that's going to be put winning on display or losing on display. And so now you're celebrating the red. You're celebrating the red so you can harvest the greens of the. Think about what I just said, all those things I've talked About previous celebrating red. It's safe to come tell me bad news now so we can fix it. But it's really around that visual management. Not only visual management, but getting one in everyone in the room to talk about it. Yeah. And the scoreboards in front of us. And I can tell in 10 seconds or less if I'm winning or not. If I walk up to a tire machine in 10 seconds or less, I can see if I'm winning. Know what's more important? The Hawthorne Effect. Right. At Stanford they did this study. When they raised the lights, production went up. When they lowered the lights, production went up again. You'd say that doesn't make sense. It makes a lot of sense. If you make people visible, they make you valuable. So people start saying I know you're looking, I matter. My performance is meaningful to you. When you lowered the lights, you were still paying attention to me. When you raised the lights, you were paying attention to me. So when you start those visual displays there, they're not just and done. It's them turning red green. Yeah. It's them owning that performance. And you know when the leader walks up, it's not, it's. Let me explain what I'm doing about it. Let me tell you how we're going to drive change. Yeah. I was recently with one of my former leaders, he's a vice vice president of a company now. And I went, he had me come to his operations on Friday and I walked around, I looked at his visual management boards and I like that's pretty good. I said but can I speak to your cit? So it had hour by hour and then we get over here to write corrective actions and all it had was comments. And I says that's interesting. I'm going to ask you a question. I just want feedback comments. Am I conditioning them just to give me excuses? But what if I had issue corrective action? What did I condition that person to think? Now I have to identify it but I have to do something about it. But if I had just comments, you're telling me it's okay. Just the right excuses there. And I'm going to keep missing or blame or blame playing.

Yeah. And so didn't have material.

That's right. That's exactly right. So what did you do about it?

Right.

And so when you're talking execute winning it's letting you know your status at any given time it's up to date. You know if we're winning because after the fact it's too late.

Yeah.

It's. It's Too late. Yeah. You know, I, I the example, and I'm not a, I'm not an Alabama fan, but I am a Nick Saban. Huh? He's a winner. Yeah.

The process.

The process. And he holds to the standard. Right. I don't care where you're from. Right. You can be from the best neighborhood in Beverly Hills. Yep. Or the worst neighborhood in Compton, California.

Yeah.

On game day, you don't know who's from where. Right. Because of the standard.

That's right.

And that's what great leaders do. Yeah. They establish that platform on what the standards in. And I guarantee you, everybody knows on Alabama's team at every level whether they're winning or not. Yep. Yep. I if you blew five tackles.

Yeah. Especially we recording this after Tennessee beat him.

So that.

I'm no Alabama fan either.

It's all good. It's all good. All right.

We've talked a lot about building a culture of continuous improvement already. I want to get to chapter seven. This is the one that I'm most intrigued by. Governance. What is this all about?

Debt. There is the single most important part of the book. That is the lesson that I wish I'd learned 20 years ago. We wouldn't be on this call because I'd be a rich, rich person.

Okay.

Okay. Governance. The governance model is how do you sustain the gain once you change the guard, how do you guard the change? So what I realized is when we go on this continuous improvement journeys, we come in and we bring in these consultants and we do these things and change starts to happen. But what's the model to keep it in place? What's your governance process? And that's where I'm gonna sum it up in a quote. Be hard on the process, and it's easy to lead the people, because know what? When the leader changes, the process is what drives it. So what I see is if you don't have no governance model, that you go out and audit the things that you have in place to make sure people are doing it, and there are consequences. So think about us, you and I, and this is just an example. If you're riding down the street, Right. This is what makes America so great. You're riding down a highway and you see a police car under the bridge. What do you instinctively do? Whether you're speeding or not, slow down. You slow down. Why do you slow down? Governance.

Yeah.

You don't want that there are consequences. Right. What's your model like that in an organization? You can say, well, I don't want to be Policing people. Well, then you don't want sustainability because you have to have a mechanism in place that says we are doing the right thing or we're not. Yeah.

Well, it's even like when you're raising kids, you know, it's, you know, they all say that, you know, when you have rules, the kid mad about them, they don't like them. But in the end, as they grow, they like. They want those guardrails.

Absolutely.

Even if they rebel against them.

Yes.

You know, but they want them.

Yeah.

They need them.

Absolutely. But the parent needs to be deliberately clear.

Yep.

On what that is, what those standards are. You can't keep moving the standard. You can't say your curfews at 11 o' clock today.

Yeah.

10 o' clock tomorrow. And I come in right at 10. And you said, well, it was at 8. Yeah, yeah, but you can't move the target. But here's what I would say, and this is an example I got from my mom and I was.

You were a good boy.

I don't know, I think I got more. I don't want to say this because they may arrest her and I don't want to do that because my mom was hard on the standard. But I remember sitting in a meeting and I was a young manager and everybody on my staff trained me or hired me or worked for them at some point. Okay. And I was leading the team and I'd have my meeting and I'd say, the meeting starts at 8 o'.

Clock.

My team kept dragging in late. And I remember calling my mom. I said, mom, I put a quarter in. I put a cup in the middle of the table and I said, drop a quarter in there when you're late because it's going to cost you. And then at the end of the month, we'll buy donuts. And I said, you know, because I'm tired of everybody coming in late. What did I do? I just compromised on the standard. I just gave them an out on the standard. That's a bad.

You bought them donuts.

I bought them donuts. And my mom said, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard, son. She says, first of all, let's talk about what the difference between a fact and a excuse is. Timing. Don't call me after the meeting start and tell me why you're gonna miss. Call me before, she says, tomorrow, you take that cup away at 8 o', clock, give him 5 minutes of grace period, then you lock the door. She said, wait a minute. I want you to be more, more Focused. She says, who's the strongest leader on the team that comes in late? And I gave her name. She says, wait for him. Lock the door on him. Set the standard. And I did. And he stood at the door and I just said, the meeting starts at 8. And I turned around and kept holding the meeting. He was furious. And our lady came back and apologized. The standard is the standard.

Yeah.

What you accept, you can't change. If your governance model is not to the point point where you're holding people accountable to adhere to the system, then you don't have a continuous improvement process.

It's so hard though, Billy, because like even me, like, I, I just keep thinking about parenting, you know, I got teenagers and all the rest of it, you know, and one's a 16 year old boy, so God help me, you know, they weren't angels.

That's right. That's right.

But, but, but, you know, like I, I hate conflict, you know, I just, I just want peace.

Yeah.

Get along, you know. Yeah.

And.

But my wife, she's like, like your mom, you know, My wife, like I'm gonna be.

You know that's right.

You know, that's right. Because I love you, I'm gonna punish you, you know, and all the rest of it. And I'm like, oh, baby, can we just like. But it's, but it happens in business too, you know, because there's different personalities, some people, you know, I mean, even in business, I don't like to have to get rough with somebody or tough with somebody or anything. But I will if I have to. But babe, that's hard.

But you have to. Yeah. That's a part of being in business.

Yeah.

Holding to the standard, governing the standard. You have a beautiful facility.

Yeah.

You have a great team.

Yeah.

But that's only there because of your high standard. Yeah, that's only there because of your high standard. Yeah. And if you don't like doing, if you can't do those things, then you, you shouldn't go into business.

That's right.

I don't understand, like, it, I don't like conflict either, but I will if I have to. Right?

Right.

I will if I have to.

And I think if you manage things correctly and you set those standards and you explain why the purpose, you know, really we don't have conflict. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, when you, when the rope is tight, as they say. Right. You know, then you can.

I'm laughing because you just explained what we just talked about in the book. It's Very clear what the standard is. I defined it. Yeah. I've aligned your role in that. Yeah. I've carved out your piece in it.

Yeah.

I'm watching to see if we're executing and I'm aware.

Yeah.

And you know what? Then I'm governing. If you violate that.

Right.

Then we need to talk. Right.

Right. Yeah. And that analogy of the tightrope is in. When you tug on it, you immediately know.

Right.

You immediately know. But you got a lot of slack in that rope.

Absolutely. You pull on it for a little.

While before you feel it, and there.

Have to be some consequences. Now, as a leader, I can tell you I did not treat everybody equally, but I treated them fairly. Respectfully, morally and ethically. But I didn't treat them all because people need different things from each other. And my favorite story is Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman and Jimmy Johnson. He says, I don't. I don't treat all my players equally. I treat them all fairly. So what do you mean? He says, well, I was giving that. I had this rookie, he's undrafted. He comes in, we go into the meeting. He's in there, sleep, Jimmy. He said, what did you do, Jimmy? I said, I cut him. He said, yeah. He said, well, what if Troy Aikman would have been there? Sleep? Would you have cut him? He said, no, I'd have woke him up. He said, but after the meeting, I'd have talked to him. See, I'm being fair about this. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Now Troy got the business.

Yeah.

From Jimmy afterwards. And Troy never slept again. Right. But he didn't cut Troy. Right, Right. So, you know, governance is. Governance is critical. The governance part was Jimmy brought them both in and he dealt with the situation and it was clear that sleeping in the meetings. Unacceptable. Right, Right.

Good stuff, man.

Good stuff.

I am curious. I always like to ask authors and when they're writing books, why did you write this?

Being on shows like yours, living it, and being able to talk to people from the viewpoint that I did it. I didn't go to Harvard and say, here's what you should do. I came up the hard knocks of manufacturing. Right. The failures, the setbacks. Yeah, right. The sleepless nights. Yeah. To getting the phone call at the. In the middle of the night, somebody severely hurt. Why? Safety is important. I lived it. Who better to tell the story? Yeah. And so when people said, billy, we want to hear from you. We want to hear the tried, the trusted. And you're so transparent. That's why I wrote the book. Yeah. That's why I wrote the book.

Well, I'm glad man. I'm glad. So everybody needs to go out and pick it up, man. The winning link. Put it on your library next to Lean thinking, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Billy, what's the best way for folks to connect with you?

Well, LinkedIn. I answer all of my LinkedIn and I never miss out on a return response. But the best way to catch me is on link. LinkedIn. Yep.

Billy Taylor. Easy to find, man, Easy to spell.

Easy to spell. You know you want to get cute and technical. Billy Ray.

Billy Ray.

Billy Ray Taylor. Mama called you when I was in trouble.

Billy Ray.

I knew I did something wrong when it was just Billy, I was okay.

Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you man.

Same here. Always, always a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Take care. Uh huh.

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