s01e06 – The Importance Of Resiliency In The Business – Part Two

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, organization, respond, happening, manufacturing, resilient, fitzgerald, change, safety, leader, quality, understand, enablers, trust, small business entrepreneur, podcast, part, adapt, work, environment
SPEAKERS
Graeme Fitzgerald, Deirdre Lewis

Graeme Fitzgerald
Welcome to manufacturing mastery with Graham Fitzgerald, the podcast. My name is Graham Fitzgerald. And for over 30 years, I’ve led some of Australia’s largest manufacturing organizations, right in the highs and lows, the occasional failure, and the plentiful successes that inevitably come with being in business. This podcast is aimed helping you progressive Australian manufacturer with practical and real world advice on navigating your pathway to sustainable success in manufacturing, myself, and my special guests will cover everything from how to embed a planning framework into your business, new approaches to innovation, the importance of culture, and how to lead change, and navigating the new normal as an Australian manufacturer. So manufacturers let’s master How do you change? Because there’s an element of trust that sits behind what you’re saying, to get somebody to be willing to share that? Look, it’s never worked like that. And there’s, and that’s a huge shift in the trust balance that’s required to happen to get that,

Deirdre Lewis
yeah, you’re spot on. So that’s kind of what we’re working on at the moment. So there’s a few processes that we’re starting to utilize in the business that are enablers for that. So I will try to explain to people so you can kind of talk to people about principles. And then, and then get senior leaders to really understand how their behaviors are driving organizational behavior. Yeah. So there’s that pace at a very senior level. And then there’s this whole piece around actually senior leadership providing psychological safety. Because often what happens, whether we’re conscious about it or not conscious about it, often we will reward people for Well, the people who want to enter the people where the work is happening will reward them for 50 itself. So that’s the big take and all you know, if breaking the law, but we won’t, if they tell us why it’s broken, and that there’s a problem. And we want to reward them. So often you’ll hear management speak or come to be the solution, not the problem. It’s like, Well, you know, it was this whole dialogue that we’ve created in our organizations that kind of say, Well, I don’t want the problem. So if you come to me with problem, that’s an issue, and I’m going to blame you for not coming up with the solution. Yeah, heap of dialogue around That’s right. So what we’re trying to do is provide an environment that gives that can help us to enable psychological safety. And that’s really tricky. So what we’re doing is that we’re looking at a process called Learning team that is that we’re now using in the organization. So there’s, there’s quite a few organizations prescribe. Now it’s time to use this technique. And rather than doing an investigation, and, or whatever it is, you know, that from a safety point of view, that’s, you know what to do. But, um, but rather than doing that, and have one on one interviews, the whole process that goes around that actually get people in room together, the first thing we do is bring the most senior leader that we have that people know, and bring them into the room, and then that individual will actually say, I’m not gonna blame anybody, for whatever comes out of this discussion. And what we’re going to do is really try and provide an environment, but I know that we all understand what’s really going on, so that we can improve collectively, and then that person late, so they don’t stay, they go. So you remove the power, if you like, and then have the people who doing the work in, in the group versus individuals, and actually then start you’ve got a really good facilitator, but you end up having a real conversation, and then it can go over a couple of couple of sessions. And and what we found is that people, you know, if it goes really well, people actually ask each other questions versus facilitator questions and the trust builds over time. Yeah. And people want to be involved in that because they are now part of the solution, rather than feeling that they’re going to get blamed for making a mistake. And then the other thing that has to happen is once the ugly truth comes out, if you like, or the thing that nobody wants to set

Graeme Fitzgerald
and discuss

Deirdre Lewis
the undiscussables once that actually emerges, it’s like a hallelujah moment, but then you’ve got to make sure that your latest responds appropriately because some months getting badges is not a lot of fun. Alright, how Respond to bad news is super important. So often what I’ll do is I’ll deliver the bad news or somebody else will deliver the bad news to the simulator, so that if there’s gonna be a response, I can have that in private. And you can work through that, and then then come back to the brave and actually go, because sometimes, as a leader, you do respond like that, because that was tricked into responding. But, um, because you just want to fix it and leave us and not any different to anybody else. Everybody just wants to pick that. And so when they have those conversations, then come back and go, actually, I’m really happy that I know that now. I’m really happy. It’s ugly. And and it’s, you know, it’s something that I didn’t want to hear, necessarily, but I’m really glad that we know, because now we can change things. Or we can make things better or gosh, you know, I didn’t realize, for example, that you are at risk, because no leader wants to put their people at risk, right, no leader I’ve ever met, knowingly will put somebody in a dangerous position. And and, you know, I’m sure there’s leaders who do that, but they’re probably not real leaders. Right. But I think, you know, genuinely people don’t want to see others put at risk if they have some way of mitigating that. So I see this change, I see leaders going, Oh, gosh, how I respond, it’s gonna really matter here, because I actually start to understand that their graphic culture. So if people tell them stuff, they’ve got to respect the fact that they’ve been told I heard something, some of they’re talking about, you know, if you if you have a daughter, that if you respond badly to your daughter’s first boyfriend, you’ll probably never make the second one. So this is how pay two grand will, how you respond is actually going to make a difference. And I think organization is a huge challenge, because my organization’s memory point of view, people remember when you respond badly, much more strongly than Absolutely, yes. Right? Yeah, people remember you for being the guy who shouted at them because you’re frustrated, or the woman who cannot, you know, what, that you know, did the same thing, or whatever it might be versus, you know, you could you could give the prize 150 times

Graeme Fitzgerald
humiliated me or whatever. Yeah.

Deirdre Lewis
Right. And then you go, Well, actually, that’s who that person is. And so when I do that, again, um, because that’s the risk of us as people, we want to be part of a community. Right?

Graeme Fitzgerald
I’ll protect myself.

Deirdre Lewis
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the psychological side. So we

Graeme Fitzgerald
went to CES, where where do you think this is gonna take you and your organization over the next year or so particularly coming out of COVID and the environment that we see and, you know, potentially balanced balancing back of things from offshore to onshore and and I guess, an increased stress level in the in the general community? What, how do you see this sort of thinking in the work you’re doing playing out?

Deirdre Lewis
Well, there’s probably a few things. I think there’s just huge organizational benefits from having a psychologically safe environment, not just for me, yeah, a, you’re legally required to do that. So that’s just kind of whatever, you have to do that, right. But I think from an organizational point of view, I think really knowing how the work happens is so fundamental, because it enables you to be able to catch quicker to change the environment. And what we see happening, and many, many organizations are experiencing this is with such a changing environment, you can either sink or swim, if you like, because resilience will. If you’ve got a resilient business with resilient people in it, you tend to be able to adapt quicker and more efficiently. So if you enlarge organization, you know, it’s really challenging, right? Because you tend to be a bit more of a behavior than a small organization who can adapt quite quickly and be much more dynamic because they’re not, they’re not bound by such.

Graeme Fitzgerald
It’s just just the channels of

Deirdre Lewis
communication differently, right? It could be communication could be legislative requirements, it could be whatever it could be regulatory scrutiny, it could be whatever, right. So I think there’s a large organization. And I think by going down this journey will further enable our capability to be able to adapt in a way that’s cohesive.

Graeme Fitzgerald
If you’re wanting tailored one to one coaching for fast results, perhaps my mentoring services, the option you need, this package includes to one to one sessions each month, and a weekly accountability call, as well as access to the growing network of members in the mastermind group. Find out more by visiting Brian Fitzgerald comm.au, forward slash mentoring for contact me directly via the form on my website, to understand how I can best help you grow your business.

Deirdre Lewis
So you’ve got some brilliant people, like unbelievably good people. And so by connecting the power of those people with each other in a really honest way, I think we’ll be able to move faster, so understand each other better, and understand how one person could impact another person and vice versa. I think you’ll just inherently become more efficient and safer as part of that. And I think from a safety point of view, we’re just looking for safety. I think I’m really hoping that that will continue to make us to control Based Thinking versus the Yeah, that this whole page down? Yeah. Have you got the controls in place? And is that enough? This is how do we make sure that somebody doesn’t sprained ankle? Yeah, cuz that’s not gonna blow up a block of houses. That’s, you know, and because we haven’t done it for, you know, X amount of time doesn’t mean we’re not going to push. And how do we give ourselves some confidence that we’ve got that happening? When there’s no result? So shifting the organization’s thinking that actually the absence of incidents or injury or complaints or Yeah, bad production is the presence of something is not here? Yeah, that’s right. You really be important to us. Right?

Graeme Fitzgerald
You don’t have the ready measures that say that things are improving as such. It’s it’s

Deirdre Lewis
not right. And I think understanding why things go well, it’s just, it’s just not part of i don’t i think that it’s certain, I think quality probably more evolved with the quality space around that. Then in the night, me,

Graeme Fitzgerald
I’m not sure about that.

Deirdre Lewis
I don’t know, I’m not so

Graeme Fitzgerald
sure about that. I I suspect that you’re on to something which is equally applicable, whether it’s safety or quality, or operational excellence and discipline. Because the things you’re equally Yeah, you’re the things you’re talking about are exactly the things that I’m dealing with and finding with multiple manufacturing companies right now. And, and the, the, I think what I’ve taken from this conversation is resilient people come first, which helps create the resilient organization. But you’ve got to have the framework or the safety in place,

Deirdre Lewis
you’ve got to have the enablers. Yeah, you’ve gotta have, you know, well, how are we going to do this. And I think the other thing is, is that the secrets are really important. It’s not about throwing out procedures, or having something that’s fit for purpose. Rather than that something is so prescriptive that we know they sit on shelves, right, whether it’s a quality procedure, you know, they fill in shelves and gather data, and often will just pull them out when an auditor comes or whatever. So let’s actually get real with ourselves. And and say, Well, we know that’s right, that and we think, cause we’re doing the right thing by the organization, or we’re doing what the regulator wants, we’re doing what a customer wants, whatever it might be. But actually, maybe we’re not because what, if you think about it, what we all really want is to make sure people go home alive. We want to have a good quality product, we want to be efficient, and we want to place our customers. So whichever way you look at it, I don’t think anybody would say well, that prestigious, actually right now is that they are part of a system that’s bigger and has to be dynamic because if you think that’s perceived It’s gonna keep you safe in every single circumstance. Every single situation you might come across. Yeah. Yeah, just get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah. And no people ever use it. Yeah,

Graeme Fitzgerald
yeah. So what Yes. And I think what I really liked about what you just described, though, is that you’re in, the more resilient an organization can make itself, the more able it is to talk about what’s really happening, the more quickly we’ll be able to respond to the things that will change. And, and with that comes the opportunity to take advantage of the potential things that are changing, not necessarily responding to negative things all the time. But there’s also that, that ability to react, then take advantage of things and the like. So

Deirdre Lewis
what’s going well, I was speaking to a really interesting entrepreneurs, small business entrepreneur, and set the correct start setups. And he said to me, some really interesting was a few years ago, now, he said to me, I always watch for change, and volatility, because that’s where the opportunity lies, is the opportunity to kind of go what’s working well, and with opportunities to make change with impact, and that’s stuck in my mind, because I thought, if we’re all really entrepreneurial, in our owns, but if, if I looked at, you know, say, for example, it could be a manufacturing line and something’s changing, or was that change? It’s been working really well for, you know, you know, this period of time, and suddenly, it’s working better. Oh, that’s, well, that’s maybe because that fit, changed out that part. Or maybe it’s because we did something different. And so we always look at that in the negative, you look at it in the positive you go, actually, we can do something like that. And we do that stuff every single day. How do we leverage that as well as you know, when bad things happen?

Graeme Fitzgerald
And just that, that, that togetherness, oneness, whatever that essence you were talking about, and the sense of being able to trust and share openly? And what’s really happening that sits behind your concept of resilience, I guess?

Deirdre Lewis
Yeah, and I think, you know, trust is one of those things that you know, I think, can be, um, we don’t need to trust people with personal stuff. Sometimes people go, oh, like, you know, you trust me, don’t trust me, it’s like, well, actually, I trust you enough to be able to have this conversation. You know, and, and sometimes we kind of looking for perfection, but it’s about trusting people enough. And if they trust our workers, they will feel respected and valued. And we need to allow people to give us their ideas. brilliant, brilliant people out there that we, if you think about, you know, yeah. taylorism you know, that, yeah, that, you know, that most senior person is obviously the smartest, right? It’s like, Well, you know, you know, they kind of have trenched in in many of our organizational practices. And it hampers our ability to actually listen to what the people who are doing the work the same people at the word plug. I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re the smartest person at doing that work. And so if we start really listening to what this family might learn something, and then collectively, we can all work together to get the outcome that everybody wants. Where we

Graeme Fitzgerald
get a sense of you could talk for hours about this.

Deirdre Lewis
I’m really passionate about it. Yeah, just see. Just make sense to me. I think having you know, um, you know, you learn your trade as you go up in your career, you like to trade people who’ve gone before you and sometimes you’ve learned things that never really sit comfortably with you. And I think for many, many years, there’s been stuff that’s been really bugging me as a as a professional golfer that doesn’t feel right to me, like, why would we stand someone down or blame someone making a mistake? That just seems like if I was in that position, I would. You know, and I think both feet have always sat really uncomfortably with me and now I’m in a position organization to be able to make a difference and actually change that and do something that I think is not just respectful and rise, but actually it’s been a really proves the organization a bit far with my value set. So I’m really passionate about this. And I’m just feeling so proud and privileged that I’m in a position where I can maybe beat my organization.

Graeme Fitzgerald
I’m, I’m, I’m absolutely certain that’s a, as you embed that change in the culture and the way, the way that things work around here in your organization that will make a massive difference and in the energy markets of that you guys work in, I think that will be a it will stand you in good stead from all sorts of aspects. So look, I’m I’m now it’s getting close to time for you to probably go and do some other things. So thank you so much. For the chance to have a chat for

Deirdre Lewis
having a chat with me always have a good post that way.

Graeme Fitzgerald
Yeah, sorry.

Deirdre Lewis
We always have a good chat. We do

Graeme Fitzgerald
we do. And I look forward to having it more later on. So hey, guys, have yourself a great day. Talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you for being part of this week’s episode was great to have you. I’m always keen to hear your thoughts, questions, ideas and suggestions for future topics for the podcast. So please get in touch to my Facebook page. Graham Fitzgerald, manufacturing growth specialists. My LinkedIn page or via my website, Graham fitzgerald.com. That’s a that’s gra me Fitzgerald calm that a if you’re enjoying what I’m putting out here, please rate review or subscribe to the podcast. So more manufacturers can find out about it. And we can build our community masterminds, manufacturing this great nation. Talk to you soon.