GA 599 | Coaching Different Personalities with Melissa Sherman

As we can build those relationships and those trust with the people and they can understand the why that we are doing this, the buy in becomes a little more receptive, and then as they start to see wins in it, then there's more openness to actually applying it in their day to day.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Melissa Sherman to the show. Now, Melissa, I've known her for a little while. She's got a lot of experience with continuous improvement. And today we had a great, great conversation. Really focused on probably just a theme of change and, you know, sort of leadership and sort of how all these things intersect. And she's got a lot of real world experience. So I kept asking her about different examples of things that she's seen over the years, and it was a really fun conversation. I think you're going to enjoy this one. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 599. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 599. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Melissa, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Not bad. How are you doing today, Ron?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. All right, where are you calling in from?

Whitehall, Michigan.

All right, now where is that in Michigan?

So it would be south of Traverse City by about two hours, north of South Haven.

Okay.

By about an hour and a half.

Okay.

Grand Rapids. So, you know.

All right, I got you. So I assume you're like Wolverine Spartans. Like, you know.

Probably more Spartan for basketball, but I actually follow Montana State. That's where my son went to college.

Well, there you go. There you go. As long as it's not Michigan. I'm from Ohio, so I'm a little sensitive to those Wolverines, you know, but.

Just like we're a little sensitive to those Ohioans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, in Texas now, I've been here for 20 some years, so. But funny is all of my kids have, you know, they've all been born and raised here in Texas. So you think they'd be like longhorns or Aggies or. No, man, they're all guys. You know, they will follow what your dad follows. And they've grown up. Yeah.

That's hilarious.

All right, well, Melissa, I know you know the drill. We like to begin all of our episodes with our guest sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Yeah, so it's by Peter Senge. It's people don't resist change. They resist being changed.

That's A good one. What's that mean to you, really?

What it says. Right. So we don't like to change. We don't want to change. We're set in our ways. Right. And so sometimes we don't want to open our eyes and understand that making that, whether it's a minor or major change, can be benefit for both of us personally, professionally, and, you know, in. In an organization, as in general.

Yeah, yeah. Change is hard changes. That's what this whole continuous improvement thing.

Exactly, exactly.

Right. All right. Well, hey, Melissa, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background and how you got into your line of work.

Yeah. Kind of funny background is I'm an industrial engineer by education. Took quite a few years to truly be in a role as a Lean consultant. And then I dabbled in that change management for a time. And I've really. So I've gotten certified in change management, certified in Lean and Six Sigma, and just really, really enjoy sharing how the two truly work together and are not individual silos and again, work together. So about 20. Some of my 20. Oh, my gosh. I'm a great age myself. Here. We'll go with 30 years of my career has been working in a utility, helping them through Lean and change management.

Nice, Nice. Yeah. The whole lean Six Sigma, you know, there can be a lot of. I'm like, just. Everybody just get along and we're all good. We're all trying to make things better. We can all be nice to each other, you know?

Absolutely.

I have to pick on anybody, though. I got to pick on the hardcore Lean purist, you know, they're the ones who, like, you, get all sensitive about Six Sigma sometimes, you know, And I'm like, just be. You're fine. Be calm. Be calm.

It's funny you say that. So I'm not sure. I'm sure you're familiar with a disc assessment. And I never had this click until probably about four or five years ago. People would always go, you're not the normal engineer. And I could never figure out what that meant.

Is that an accompaniment?

And like, I'm not sure. I'm like, okay, there's that Persona, I guess. Then I did the disc assessment. I'm about as far out on the edge of an eye as you can get.

No kidding. Okay.

Which does not fit you in with the data and the analytics and all of that portion of it. I think that's why change comes so easy and is passionate to me, because I can see that data side and all that, but I understand the Change side and like to merge them together. So I guess I'm not your typical engineer.

I gotcha. I got you. All right. All right, well, let's jump in. So I guess what I want to open up with is, you know, when we think about continuous improvement, there's lots of, I don't know, misconceptions, there's lots of misunderstandings and what we just talked about, you know, Lean versus Six Sigma and all that, you know, there's a lot of angst out there and. But if you think about just about a misconception people have about just continuous improvement in general, what is it? And then how would you debunk it?

Actually, it's a great question. For one is many times I hear, well, I have my day job and then you want me to do this continuous improvement? What do you mean? And then I usually throw in and I put a twist on it and I'm like, how many people own a car? Most people in a room will answer or, you know, raise a hand, right? They may rent or lease, but they still own a car. And I'm like, well, what came in your glove box? Your owner's manual, and what is that? That's on how you maintain your car. So that has longevity. That right there is continuous improvement. Right? By you following that manual and getting your tune ups and everything that you need when it's required, the longevity of your car is there. It also then helps the manufacturer understand what is going right or wrong with their standard work so that they can update it with the next car they build. And so I really like to take the lean Six Sigma and put it and twist it to how we do things personally in our personal life, at home and the things we own. So usually that's when the light bulbs go on and go, oh, that's how I use this. And now how can I apply it at my job so then I can have a better life, work, balance and enjoy those things at home?

Yeah. I wonder if some of the angst comes from when folks just see that oftentimes. Well, I don't say, I don't want to say often, but sometimes Lean and Six Sigma, continuous improvement is done to people, right, Instead of with people. So do you think that that might be part of the issue? And you know us practitioners, we're partly, partly to blame for some of the pushback that we get.

I would agree. I've seen a lot more push, I'll just say in the recent years, maybe it's just I'm more observant of it where there is that more push. And so therefore the more it's pushed, the more it's. I. Rejected is kind of a harsh word, but the more it's rejected, right. There's rebellious against it. And I think that's where the change management comes in. Right. As we can build those relationships and those trust with the people and they can understand the why that we are doing this, the buy in becomes a little more receptive and then as they start to see wins in it, then there's more openness to actually applying it in their day to day.

Yeah. All right, well that leads me really into my second question then. And it is all about change management. And really I want to focus specifically on the role that communication plays. How have you seen communication play, play out in an effective manner when we're trying to invoke change?

Yeah, another great one. So communication is everything. It does go back to that, building that trust. What else? I'm going to actually start with a negative is what I've seen not work is specifically in large transformational change or continuous improvement projects. It's an email that is sent and I'm like, well that's great, but how many people read the email? Right. So all of us want to hear information differently, right. Obviously there's people that love podcasts, there's people that want a two way conversation. There's people that are fine with an email or a memo. So when we build our communication for change management in those large transition or transactions that we do, we need to think about the different types of how people receive the message. And we may have to duplicate, triplicate and do it multiple ways so that we can hit the audience and that they all get the message. So I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to communication is really looking at the different types so that we can hit a majority of the people versus a minority of the people.

Talk about your strategy when dealing with different types of personalities. So you know, obviously there's classically the introvert versus the extrovert and you know, that sort of thing. But we have people who are, you know, receive information differently. Like what, what is some of your styles to make sure that you can sort of reach as broad an audience as possible.

Yeah, pause, bear with me for a second. So there's a book called the Switch by Chip and Dan Heath.

Oh yeah, those guys are great.

Yes, they're awesome. And it talks about the elephant and the rider and I'm gonna draw a complete blank on which is which. But there's Three bullet points for each one. So you can think about the one that's the. I need the data, the facts, the straightforward information and then you can think about that person that's more, I don't want to say touchy feely, but on that more intuitive.

Yeah.

Personable side. Right, right. And so now you can look at both of those avenues. And again, that's another way to add into those types of communication that you're hitting the various types of, of people and what they are, those that just want the data and those that just need the information and how they bring it together. I use his template a lot when I'm building out any type of a communication for a large or small change. Right. To help those people along.

Yeah, those guys are great. I haven't read their work for quite a while, but I've got, I'm pretty sure I have that book. I think they've written several, haven't they? I think they did.

Switch is my favorite. I'm drawing a blank on the other. I actually listened to the book. I drive multiple hours a day. It can average five hours a day just for work. So I think I've gotten like 20 some different books done just this year, so.

Wow, that's impressive. That's impressive. Yeah. So. All right, well, let's keep on the theme of change and change management. I'm wondering if you have any, maybe, I don't know, you, you've been around for a while and you've done this for quite some time. Do you have any maybe stories of when a change didn't go as you hoped it would and then if so, then what did you learn?

Yeah, so. Yes, unfortunately. Right. But it's, it's learning from those failures or those mistakes to make it better as we move forward. There was actually a time in the utility where we were rolling out a massive project and we had some suggestions for a change so that we could get a good buy in. Right. You're never going to get 100%. There's always going to be the people on the fence and then those that aren't interested in it at all. And the suggestion was to go around the company, multiple facilities like 40 some and do what I would call an all hands on deck meeting and explain what the change was. Right. So you got everybody involved and heard the same message. Unfortunately, that wasn't a proposed idea that they went after. They didn't feel it was necessary. And then because of that, unfortunately we didn't get the people to volunteer and offer up their time. To help us be successful in what we were going after. So hindsight now is okay. Could I have brought that up a little bit differently to the leaders on how we should have rolled that out? Could we have done a pilot in one location to see how it worked? So the lesson learned is okay, it wasn't, shouldn't have been just that email. It shouldn't have been just maybe a couple open office hours. But how could we have done things a little bit differently to be more successful and sustainable in that change that came through? Because honestly, seven years later, we are still struggling for support for what that change was.

So do you think that that communication was at the root cause of the issue, like, and lack thereof at the beginning, or.

I think some of the breakdown is what in this case leadership wanted to share and didn't want to share with the employees. Right. So they maybe we'll say put some bells and whistles on it or made it look really pretty when in fact it wasn't necessarily all of that. And so then when people did jump in, they jumped ship in a hurry too. And so that made the challenges, along with the fact that there's multiple leadership changes in the last seven years hasn't helped either. So, yeah, I think we could have done things differently by far. I think we could have also, as I mentioned, right? What better way to hear something than from, I hate to say it, from the horse's mouth, right? So if we're out there and in the, in the business and talking about it, it's more receptive than getting an email communication or hey, if you're interested, come to this meeting instead of the hey, you're interested. Hey, here's what's changing now. Everybody from, I'll just say a janitor through a VP knows what the changes, they're all in the room together and then they can, they can start to work together to make it more successful and sustainable.

Right, right, right. Got it. I want to circle back a little bit. We touched on this a little while ago, but I want to circle back in on personalities and personality types. I'm sort of fascinated with this idea for some reason. Talk a little bit about how you go about coaching people who might have, again, different personalities, different styles, that sort of thing.

The first thing that I like to do is whether it's officially written down or not, is really do my own internal stakeholder analysis so that I can understand where the people are at. I'm not going to come and say, hey, Ron, we're doing this change. Where are you at on the change curve. One, you may not know what the change curve even is, but through a conversation I can understand where an individual is at. And then it comes back to building that trust and that relationship actually relationship first and then the trust. And then I can work with them and have a conversation of why are they. I don't want to say against, but not as anxious to move forward with the change. And usually it's through that conversation and having that trust that we can start to describe the why, the what and the how to at least move that needle forward a little bit versus having it way in the red. Right.

What about like a. I don't know, maybe not good to label people like this, but there's, there's an old term many years ago called cave people. Citizens against virtually everything.

Everything.

And sometimes unfortunately, you know, I know you've trained a lot of people. You walk into the room and you see that person got their arms folded in the back of the room and yeah, you know, just like not happy to be there and probably gonna maybe not make your life as a facilitator easy. Like how do you approach that and that really, really difficult personality.

Another great question. I literally just had this early in July. I was out doing some consulting work where we were doing some inventory management changes and the individual leadership director over manufacturing production was just that way. There's nothing wrong with my way, the way I do. It's fine. Da da da da da. And it was one of those points where we had one on one conversations. I learned to understand what his I'll say fear was. And then we could run through some analogies of okay by doing this, this is how it's going to make your job better. And oh, by also doing this now you can focus on these other areas to improve your production. Right. So it's just having those discussions now. I can't say today where he's at in it because again I was out doing a consultation not in that business every day. But I could see the needle mo move a little bit forward and open up to his receptiveness. But that's a one case. They're not all that way. Right.

Yeah. You know, I, I think back when if I'm get the opportunity to facilitate events and I don't get to do it sadly as much anymore as I used to. But my style was always and still is. I, it's not that I would ignore the person. That's not the right thing. I mean, you know, I'm not like just sort of dismissing them but definitely don't poke at them. And then eventually what I've. What I've seen happen is the more that I sort of just let the natural process take hold, as soon as they sort of like once in a while they'll just throw something in and you just really just pause and just. Oh, just really hear them, you know, and. Because I, I don't know, it's been my experience that these, these folks that are seem super negative, they've been burned in the past many times. Right. For whatever reason. And they just, they've been misunderstood and, and that damaged them somehow. And so you just need to. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that's the right way or not, but it's kind of how I approach it.

I, I will say a majority of the time that is how I approach it. The recent example, it was a different. I had to do it differently because it was specifically looking on changing how production was done. Obviously I had to bring the production manager along in that journey. I guess I didn't have to. I mean, the company had other options. Right. But the goal was to try to bring him along in that. But I have been in rooms where I'm facilitating lean and you've got the individual that could care less to even be there, doesn't want to do it. And it's through the conversation with the rest of the people in the room, it's being a positive facilitator. Right. And bringing them along again and showing examples where there's the benefit for them. But no, I don't want to say waste either. I don't spend a lot of time on those, we'll call it naysayers, cave people, because eventually they'll come along or they're going to find out that corporation or that location isn't for them and they're going to go somewhere else.

Right, right, right, exactly.

You really want to spend your time on those that are the advocates and excited to. For the change and want to move it forward because their excitement, hate to say it. Right. Brings on that peer pressure inadvertently that brings some of those not as comfortable or as willing to change along.

Yeah. And I remember one early in my career, real young engineer running around and I was facilitating an event and, and there was a cave person, you know, just really sort of negative in the back and they frustrated me and I didn't handle it well. And I sort of like say I.

Did when I was younger either, and.

I, and I kind of confronted them about it. Privately, not in front of the whole group sort of thing. And, and I never forget the rest of my, for the rest of my life. This person told me about how their, their child was super, super sick in the hospital and you know, wasn't doing well and this and that. And I'm kind of like, well, why are you here? You know, but you know, it was one of those deals where the child had been there for a long time so they sort of had to, you know, kind of until like you never know what people are dealing with. Right. And so like that was a really hard reminder for me that just because someone's presenting a certain way doesn't necessarily mean they're bad person or that I'm a bad facilitator. Just never know what's going on in that person's life. And so that was a good example for me to just don't jump to conclusions. Right. That's one of the principles that we teach.

Absolutely.

I don't know. So yeah, I'm always very sensitive to the whole personality thing.

You mentioned that I was facilitating a class here a couple weeks ago and it was a U shaped room so but anyways, individual closer to the front was sitting with his arms crossed and I just didn't know him. Co worker, but I didn't know him. And I kind of made the comment about, you know, well, there's people and we were talking about the change curve actually at that point in time. And you know, I said oh, there's this person. They could be unwilling immediately set up and, and I went oh, I didn't mean you. He goes, oh, this is just how I sit. And I said oh, I could tell because the look on your face was different than the rest of your body language that I knew you were in tune and looking at it. I didn't take it negatively with the arms crossed. Right. So again it's knowing your audience and capturing that, that visual. That body language is extremely important because you could think somebody was a huge advocate and their body language is completely the opposite.

Yeah. Gosh. Another thing just popped in my mind wasn't that same event, but it was a different one. And another person who was real quiet, won't say negative, but just really quiet. But you know, eventually they sort of, they came in and participated in the event and, and at the very end we're doing the big report out and, and the, you know, all the plant leadership was in there and so these folks are up, you know, classic Kaizen event report out kind of thing. And they're all taking a turn going through their little pitch, you know, and got to this individual. I'll never forget this rest of my life. This individual got up and started talking and paused and like tears literally welled up in their eyes. And they said like in front of this whole leadership, like one had ever listened to them. Like this team listened. It was like an operator level person. And I was like, oh my word. Like I didn't expect that from anywhere. I mean it was like emotional, man. You know, and so yeah, I mean the power that, that these, that just stuff that we teach and what we do change and touch lives, it really can when people sort of embrace it.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So, all right, well, maybe to wrap things up, I'm wondering if I know again you've got a strong change management obviously got a very strong continuous improvement background. So let's talk about where do you see and we've talked about this a little bit already, but where do you see these two sort of intersecting and you know, is coaching and coaching is another strong part of what you do. What does coaching do when you're talking about sort of the intersection here?

Yeah. So I don't know as if they necessarily intersect, but I think they're in tandem.

Okay.

So I actually do a presentation on embedding change management into your continuous improvement initiatives. Done it for ASQ and a couple other entities. And I really, I use the domain because that's probably one of the more common six sigmas. Right. And then I use a framework that I have at work. But really it's showing that, you know, as you're defining your problem, you should also be defining and understanding your people. Right. So you're starting that stakeholder analysis and you know, as you're getting into that measure now, you're going, okay, what's the outcome from a change? You know, what's my expected outcome to be for the people? So I really actually crisscross them together. It's not, they don't intersect at oh wow, we've got to our long term countermeasure now. Let's pick up change. Right. It really, if you're going to say intersect, it's at the very beginning they should be thought of together. And when I facilitate, coach, teach, whatever it is, I really talk about that going, whether it's a small change or improvement that you're making, that's a change to somebody. Right. Whether it's a large change, if you think of a huge new process or even a reorg, we should be thinking about the employees and Those that are affected by early on, not two days before implementation. So I really bring that change management to the forefront. And again maybe it's because like I mentioned right from a disc assessment, I'm that strong eye and I'm the visionary and that long looking individual but without the people, the processes don't matter.

Yeah.

And so it's really again bringing it up right in the beginning, not a third of the way through or, or halfway or at the end.

It's funny you said without the people processes don't matter. I was, I haven't finished it yet but there's a, that Sam Altman, a Chat GPT guy, you know, he, they, they've, he's done this interview on, on the new chat GPT5 or whatever it is and, and talking about like what is this? The whole AI thing And I like just take over thinking and all the rest of it and it was interesting what he said. He said something to the effect and I haven't finished it yet. So he said something to the effect of for some people it will, yeah, some people are just going to stop thinking but for those who choose to sort of use it as a thinking tool and a thinking partner, you know, they're basically going to rule the world kind of thing, you know. And I thought that was really powerful.

Love to add something on it. So I teach for college and I remember when Chat GTP came out and I'm like, I don't need this, what do I care? I thought it was another, I don't know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. I didn't know what it was in full transparency and so I didn't say I ignored it but I'm like I don't need it, but I can tell from a student when they use it and when they don't it's very obvious. But what I will say is actually just this year I started playing a little bit more with the AIs out there and where I found some huge benefit for a continuous improvement person is depending on the data you're deciphering. So let's say you're doing something with culture and you've gotten a culture survey and you want to pareto out the themes of where somebody needs to work on and build action items so they can improve their culture. Comes right in. Right with change management. The nice thing about using AI you can say here's my data pareto for me and it takes all of my bias out of it. Yeah, that's where I see a huge benefit. If you have Something that you could bring some bias into using those AI tools to help you decipher that is a huge win. And it can even give you action items if you want it. But it's a great starting point for some of that data deciphering.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Awesome. All right, well, hey, Melissa, this has been a fun conversation. I appreciate you covering out some time. I don't know if. Do you have any sort of like final words of wisdom or anything that you want to leave with the folks?

Yeah, actually I would. Just in general. Right. So many times we hear, I'm sorry, continuous improvement. Oh my gosh, I have my day job, then I have to do this. And then we put a silo up and we say, oh, here's change management. And we put a silo up of. You know, I'll say it's not new, but we've been hearing a lot more about psychological safety lately. And really it's important that they are all intertwined and not different pieces and parts. So, you know, think about the people as you're doing your change, think about the people as you're doing your continuous improvement and help the people come along in the journey and always lead with, why? Why are we doing this? Because without that, why, it makes a little bit harder for some people to want to join in and come along.

Yeah, for sure. Good stuff. All right, well, hey, Melissa, folks, wanted to connect with you personally. What's the, what's the best way?

Probably LinkedIn.

Okay. And we'll have your LinkedIn profile linked up here in the show notes. Everybody go down and connect with Melissa and thank her for coming on the show.

Thank you so much, Ryan, for having me. It's been great.

Awesome. All right, I appreciate you. Take care, Melissa. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or, or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 lean and 6 Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching, as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy. Com.