Leadership in Manufacturing: How Culture Makes (or Breaks) Success

Transcript

[00:00:57] Josh Santo: With more than three decades in manufacturing leadership, our next guest has overseen operations at a scale few ever experience. He’s led teams of thousands manage production for some of the world’s most iconic brands and guided strategy that spans both the plant floor and the boardroom. It is clear from his track record that scale does not intimidate him.

[00:01:19] Josh Santo: He’s as effective guiding a plant team as he is at setting global strategy. Now his career includes nearly three decades at Colgate Pala in roles ranging from quality and r and d to global manufacturing leadership. From there, he moved to Hershey’s, where he directed US manufacturing and oversaw the production of household names like Reese’s, kit Kat and Twizzlers.

[00:01:42] Josh Santo: Today he’s responsible for both manufacturing and r and d at Morgan Foods, which is a company producing many of America’s favorite canned and food and beverage products. He’s proven over decades that his approach to leadership builds not just stronger operations, but stronger culture. And as you’ll hear, his take on leadership and culture is as bold as it is timely for the future of manufacturing, particularly here in the United States.

[00:02:08] Josh Santo: Please welcome Chief Manufacturing and r and d Officer at Morgan Foods. Rick Davis. Rick, thanks for being here today.

[00:02:17] Rick Davis: Uh, thanks Josh. I really appreciate you having me on.

[00:02:19] Josh Santo: Yeah. I really appreciate you, you joining. it’s been, fun trying to find folks that I don’t know, connect with them and convince them to join a, a, an episode of the Shop Floor Top Floor Talk show. And you were, pretty, I must say, you were pretty easy to convince to join.

[00:02:37] Josh Santo: So thank you for being such a willing participant.

[00:02:39] Rick Davis: Absolutely watching some of your past, events, definitely, laid out some groundwork of, you know, what’s the intent and objective aligns very much with my values, and I thought what a great opportunity just to, to have a little bit more conversation.

[00:02:52] Josh Santo: Ah, glad to hear it. So for everyone listening, if you know someone that would appreciate the show and be a great guest, make sure to share it with them because that’s how we can reach folks like Rick. Get more people to share their thoughts and perspectives with you who are listening. So that aside, let’s talk about what we’re here to talk about today.

[00:03:08] Josh Santo: We’re going to be covering a topic that never gets old, not in manufacturing, not really in any industry, and that’s leadership. So Rick, we’re gonna start with a question that we pose to all of our guests. What does a day-to-day look like for you as Chief Manufacturing Officer?

[00:03:31] Rick Davis: You know, it’s such an interesting question because I think everyone’s gonna give you probably the same answer, which is it’s never the same, it’s completely different in every single day, which is what? Really drives enjoyment for me. You know, whether it’s people or processes, things, breaking down, failures, successes, everything together is, is really just a collection of different and diverse experiences that grow and learn from.

[00:03:56] Rick Davis: And I think, I also have a responsibility for our RD team here, which is a collection of dedicated and creative people. So that just adds to that diversity of, of experience and variation for me. of course there are some key things I always wanna make sure of. there’s importance to your cadence of communication, your actions, your relationships, your performance management, things that have to happen.

[00:04:17] Rick Davis: And this, cadence is critical to ensuring you’re winning. So for me, on a day daily basis, there’s three ca key parts for me. One, are we winning? So this is those daily meetings that are critical to the daily operations of the business and knowing how you’ve performed across the organization, but more importantly, to celebrate the wins. preventive actions of the failures. And then you move into the weekly meetings, activities, gimbal walks, monthly meetings, quarterly. There’s just a continuous cadence of are you winning? and the second piece for me that that really is a is, is a day-to-day activity is how will we win? So I think there’s a significant amount of importance to put into strategic thought and making sure I’m blocking out periods of time. To, to make sure I’m attacking those strategic thoughts, making sure we’re aligned with our vision and making sure I’m aligned with those strategies. and I guess the third piece that I’d probably call out on a, on a day to day is, is who’s winning. So I need to spend time with everyone I can. I think whether it’s general one-on-ones. developmental discussion, succession planning. I want at least 60% of my time focused on people, and that’s important to me to make sure that that’s occurring on a, on a daily basis. And I’m blocking it in my calendar, and I’m probably getting a little bit, you know, overboard with the, the organization of it.

[00:05:32] Rick Davis: But that’s, that’s the probably the third and final piece on the

[00:05:35] Josh Santo: Ah,

[00:05:36] Rick Davis: basis.

[00:05:37] Josh Santo: there’s a lot of things that I found interesting about your breakdown there. First, you are absolutely right. Whenever I ask folks, what does a day-to-day look like for you? The answer is. Always the same, which is it’s never the same. Isn’t that crazy? It sounds a little bit like chaos, maybe to some degree organized chaos, but you actually called out that that was something that you loved about it.

[00:06:00] Josh Santo: And I, and what I really appreciated is that you called out. It’s challenging opportunities and from that you grow and you learn. And I think that really says a lot about you and your perspective, and I’m interested in hearing how that continues to manifest in our conversation. I like how you broke that down in overall three categories.

[00:06:19] Josh Santo: I’m with you on blocking your calendar. I have no idea how anyone else is able to get anything done because. Meetings overload is 100% afflicting our society today. That’s a secret killer of productivity that, some people are talking about. Maybe not, not, not enough, but you broke down the three things that you try to make sure that you get to, that you pay some attention to.

[00:06:44] Josh Santo: You talked about, are we winning? How are we winning or how we win and who is winning. I love that it’s framed through the concept of winning. Now, you talked, you gave some specifics about what happens within each of those categories, but I’m curious, you used winning so much. what does winning mean to you?

[00:07:05] Rick Davis: so winning is what the team and I have defined as winning. You know, it, it’s not me setting a goal and then the expectations that we achieve it. It’s really the team sitting down, and looking through what is it that we wanna make sure that we’re doing. What is it? How do we know that we are winning and we wanna know if we’re winning the shift the day, the month, the year?

[00:07:27] Rick Davis: You know, there’s different ways to look at it and, and it’s pretty, pretty easy to get overloaded with, with KPIs. Uh, and I think that’s an easy way to kind look at if you’re winning or not, is from a KPI standpoint. the key to it is that the team comes together, they define what that is in a, in a context.

[00:07:44] Rick Davis: And when you have large teams, it becomes more complex to get everyone involved and get their thoughts and feedback, but you want that team to understand how you came up to those, core critical winnings. I guess for me, from a leadership standpoint, there are three kind of key areas that I start with that I believe is the foundation of the house of manufacturing. And, uh, I think the first is people, know, attrition, you know, engagement scores. Where are we at? How many people are in discipline? Those types of things are important for me to look at and understand. safety across the organization, you know, injuries and inspections. Safety, is obviously everyone’s says safety first, and there’s no doubt that’s true. then there’s quality. Customer complaints is the key. To your quality. It’s the number one KPI for quality. I understand how you’re doing, but you also have first pass quality, et cetera. So people safety, quality, and when you’re hitting those KPIs that you develop as a team, then you’re winning. I think the next level, kind of down where everyone typically may start at for me is cost.

[00:08:43] Rick Davis: I think that, obviously we’re ultimately in business to, to make money and there are a hundred different ways to monitor cost, but we look at, you know, net income as a total company. That’s where you start. That’s the foundation of if we’re winning. But then there’s some pieces of labor costs, efficiencies and other factors related to, such as waste. but beneath that, there’s just a, there’s just a multitude of ways to understand if you’re winning. But the key is, is you’re winning. Does everybody know you’re winning? And, and then did you come up with the expectation of how to win together? So.

[00:09:13] Josh Santo: Well, I thought it was interesting that when you first responded, you defined winning based on how the team defined winning. So it wasn’t, you know, Rick coming in and saying, this is how things are gonna be done. It sounds like you took more of an approach or that you believe more in an approach in getting other people to help build that definition of winning.

[00:09:32] Josh Santo: Why is it important to bring others into the conversation to define. Winning.

[00:09:39] Rick Davis: I, I think, and if we, if we talk further and, and start dropping into things like engagement and empowerment and those types of things, you know, if I come up and say, Hey, I need you to run a hundred meters in 10 seconds. You know, you may not be, you may not understand how I came up with the time. You may not have understood why it’s important.

[00:09:56] Rick Davis: You may not have understood the context of it. You just know you have to get to 10 seconds and a hundred or a hundred meters in 10 seconds. if you. Work together to define where you’re at today and where you want to go to. And then you can set a time that the person understands, you know, why? Why are we going for 10 seconds?

[00:10:13] Rick Davis: Why is that important? No such thing as same thing in manufacturing. It’s the understanding of where you’re going and how you want to get there. And also as a part of a larger strategy that team has to understand. Where you’re at and where your, your opportunities lie. So I think it’s just, it’s all about, some call it the why, you know, there’s, there’s a hundred different ways to look at it, but it’s just, they know, came up with it.

[00:10:35] Rick Davis: It’s their plan and their strategy to get to it. And, and I think that’s the key to, to success.

[00:10:41] Josh Santo: There’s an element of buy-in into what you described.

[00:10:44] Rick Davis: Yeah,

[00:10:45] Josh Santo: Yeah, well, you know, you called out people quality, safety, and of course there’s cost as well. You also mentioned something that I thought was interesting is that you can overwhelm on KPIs, so you wanna make sure that you have the right KPIs defined and that you’re pursuing that, which I think goes a little bit to your comment about, uh, making sure people understand where we’re going, why we’re doing it, and how we’re gonna get there.

[00:11:13] Josh Santo: And, and how that starts to define what are the KPIs you should actually focus on and pursue? Because you can measure a ton of things. It doesn’t mean that it’s always valuable to do so. so as a chief manufacturing officer, are those the KPIs that you are responsible for? the people, the quality, the safety, the cost, from that perspective.

[00:11:35] Rick Davis: Absolutely responsible. Yeah. I think that, there’s so much shared KPIs and I think that’s why, you know, it’s not just a manufacturing, it’s not just an hr, it’s not just a financials, but, we have to each own all of the KPIs. Even, to Trisha, you know, HR typically reports that, but it’s. not theirs to own and it’s not ours to own.

[00:11:55] Rick Davis: Although a lot of times you need to define that ownership to, to make sure there’s driving, forces behind it. But ultimately, we all have to agree from the person, from every single position in the company. They have to agree that we own every single one of those KPIs.

[00:12:09] Josh Santo: Hmm.

[00:12:09] Rick Davis: So, um.

[00:12:10] Josh Santo: Okay. Okay. Well, you are. Pretty new to your current company. You’re within your first year as the chief manufacturing officer. And, when a new leader joins the company, it’s really important to identify and get a gauge on what are the goals of the organization? Are those the right goals to, pursue?

[00:12:31] Josh Santo: What’s the lay of the land? Who are we working with? What’s happened before? All those sorts of things. I’m curious coming into a role like this. What steps did you take to get acclimated? How did you identify wins and ultimately start leading your team?

[00:12:50] Rick Davis: Yeah. You know, it’s one of the most interesting things for me because I, you know, I’ve only worked for three companies in my three decades. and I spent a long time with, obviously with Colgate Palm Olive, so I don’t have that, you know, perhaps the traditional changing companies every few years. but what I do have is changing locations within even my nearly three decades with Colgate and then coming to Hershey, the Hershey company and now here at Morgan Foods.

[00:13:14] Rick Davis: And I think that first priority and hands down, it’s not even close for me, is to get to know everyone. I think that is so critical. To make sure that you’re coming in at the right situation. simple sounding complex in reality. You know, I wanna know everything I can about each individual. So I meet with, and I’m still meeting with even, you know, nearly, 10 months later, with people.

[00:13:35] Rick Davis: and I always want to ask five questions. And this is how I started off. how did you get where you are? You know, where did you grow up? What is, how’s your career progressed to, to be where you’re at? are your aspirations? and again, I really enforce not my aspirations for you, but what are your aspirations? what do you do outside of work for fun? what do you enjoy most about working here and what is the one thing that I can help with? and those are the five questions I always ask. And I think that just really opens up of avenues to have a really good and, frankly, candid discussions. a lot of people. Want those candid discussions, they want to be able to, to drive it. And it’s hard to get to that until you truly know and trust someone. So, that’s the first thing. I think in parallel it’s developing an understanding of, know, like I mentioned, how do we know we’re winning and beginning to engage people and truly engage people, and what tells us our winning, that we are winning.

[00:14:27] Rick Davis: And, I’ve also had the opportunity over these, uh, this long time manufacturing. to develop plan assessments. So I, I always want to come in and, especially manufacturing and, and use this tool that I’ve built over, over my time to focus attention and help us to begin to define how to build those strategies. I’d say the final piece as I come in, came into Morgan and into, uh, new positions is I wanna make sure I can find a couple quick wins you know, it’s not all about. the building of relationships and engaging people, you have to show results. And I think that’s the, you know, a key piece that is hard to balance when you have this type of approach.

[00:15:05] Rick Davis: But it doesn’t have to be millions of dollars of savings, although that would be nice. I think it has to be something that’s come from your team, has brought attention to a problem. And if you can help them fix that and give them a solution, that’s a fantastic first step in building that relationship by, while also achieving some of those results.

[00:15:24] Rick Davis: So in these discussions I’m hearing things, I’m typically creating these long lists of opportunities to attack and it’s okay, how can we attack and get some quick wins with the.

[00:15:35] Josh Santo: Interesting. There’s a couple of things that I wanna break down on the things that you covered. ’cause I’m hearing some themes that really seem to connect together. You mentioned coming in your priorities, get to know everyone, develop an assessment for focus and attention, and get some quick wins on that topic of getting to know.

[00:15:53] Josh Santo: Everyone, which, like you said, that is a daunting challenge, especially the bigger organ the organization gets, the more locations you have, et cetera, et cetera. You broke down that you want to know about them, how they got here, where they from, what their career’s been like, and then you want to know what do they aspire to?

[00:16:14] Josh Santo: What part of their journey are they on? Where are they trying to go? Do they even know, are they having. Fun, within the work itself, are they enjoying the work? What are they doing outside of work and what are things that can be done by you or by the management team to help them in their particular roles or in their job or in their day-to-day, or maybe even outside of that?

[00:16:36] Josh Santo: So I’m sure it’s a very open question. Well, I like that you are. Putting so much attention on, I know that you are a person and that work is just a piece of your life and work is probably there for you to serve a greater purpose in your own life, whether that’s pay the bills, finance, your kids, education, whatever the case may be.

[00:16:58] Josh Santo: So I love that you’re putting the actual person first, but you’re still working in. What are the things at work that I can do or do more of to make you more successful? And you, you said all that and you ended it with this idea of trust. You’re ultimately trying to develop trust now. I call that out because it really, it’s really something that I think can get.

[00:17:25] Josh Santo: Overlooked. When people trust you, they can be a little uncertain about the direction that they’re going, but if they trust in you, they believe in your leadership and you as a person, they’re willing to try things, go the extra mile, put in some extra effort, uh, but they also have to see. Something come from that and, and you tied that well together with the last thing that you call that of quick wins, and those quick wins being based off of a lot of the conversations that you’re having with this, those folks.

[00:17:52] Josh Santo: So what I’m hearing from you is that there’s a need not, not just to make that initial investment of I care for you as a person, but let them know I’m here to help and then show them. Through action that you actually are here to help in order to have those quick wins. so a lot of great breakdowns there.

[00:18:12] Josh Santo: I wanted to ask a follow-up question about the assessment that you brought up. You talked about developing an assessment to focus attention and build strategy. What is that assessment? What are you looking for? What are you checking?

[00:18:25] Rick Davis: Gosh. Yeah, it’s, it, you know, it started off in, uh, I think it was 2003, 2004. You know, I did a lot of, when I was in quality department and I did a lot of external manufacturing assessments and audits for our vendors supplying us materials. It started off at a very innocent. I, I’m going to give myself some direction on what to go look for when I go into these facilities. And then it kind of ballooned into lean manufacturing and principles of processing and efficiencies and how well the plants organized. And then it went into leadership. And at that point I started utilizing it, you know, everywhere that I went to, just to get a feel for, you know, more of a baseline, you know, seeing. facilities and people often say you, you know, you’ve had the opportunity to see what good looks like. but I’ve also more importantly, probably seen what good, what bad looks like. Not, not necessarily bad, but what failure looks like. And I think this just gives me a baseline to understand, okay, looking at these facilities that I know that are great and these facilities that have opportunities. There are some key things that always stand out, and this assessment tool just helps to call out and identify, Hey, here’s a couple watch outs that are consistent with failing facilities.

[00:19:37] Josh Santo: And what are, what are some of those key things that you’re looking at? I’d love for folks who are listening to be able to stop, take a look around and see if they. See anything that you are describing in your assessment

[00:19:50] Rick Davis: Yeah, I think it’s probably gonna be a little bit different than, than some, you know, especially

[00:19:54] Josh Santo: for sure.

[00:19:56] Rick Davis: school. But I think, really looking at culture and some of the things that impact culture. you know, you can look at financials, you can look at efficiencies, you can look at all those KPIs. but the culture is what really stands out and it’s really kind of unique define what culture means. ’cause everyone views culture differently. And so for me, I have my views and my, my thoughts around what culture is. And I think that’s, that’s the key thing that always stands out. And, and it’s pretty easy. After, you know, for people that have been in a lot of facilities, it’s really easy to, to start walking in and getting a feel almost immediately. You know, it’s, uh, there’s consistencies among facilities that are great and there’s consistencies among facilities that aren’t.

[00:20:38] Josh Santo: Well, culture is. Certainly a key topic to discuss whenever we’re talking about leadership, because that is one thing that is directly, I don’t think influence is the right word, and you know, it’s not solely created by leadership, but it is heavenly, heavenly, heavily driven. By leadership and there’s many different versions.

[00:20:58] Josh Santo: I, I hear references to all these different types of cultures, you know, and a lot of folks that I talk with, you hear about quality culture, safety, culture, lean as a culture, uh, general just description for working conditions and working experiences being defined as culture. You mentioned that this is something that can be difficult to define.

[00:21:17] Josh Santo: It’s different from group to group. I’m curious, since you are in a leadership position, how do you define. Build and sustain culture as a leader.

[00:21:27] Rick Davis: it means so many things, like I mentioned, but I think it’s probably, for me, is my favorite topic. I mean it without a doubt, to discuss, but it’s also the most ignored. Or most confused and with a doubt the number one reason that manufacturing plants or, or organizations fail. and I do believe, and I might probably find out the, a lot of an answer that a lot of people are gonna agree with, but I think it’s, there’s an epidemic in US manufacturing and today you have two types of leaders that are really, you know, charging or leading the charge for this failure. I think the first leader that, and, this will tie into culture in a second, but I think that first leader is. Is kind of what I call a LinkedIn warrior. So they’re out there posting, you know, photos of group outings, talking about how great the culture is. Plastering slogans all over the, the organizations, facilities and social media, simply out of touch with their teams. Meanwhile, you know, 80, 90% of their teams are simply not connected.

[00:22:22] Rick Davis: I think that’s, that’s the first type of person leading this, uh, this epidemic as I call it. and I think, who are they trying to convince? I think 80, well, there’s one of three people they’re trying to convince themselves. They’re trying to convince their leaders, or they’re trying to convince people they’re trying to hire. And the thing that always stands out in a culture that is far exceeding or, a great culture is that the best and only recruiting tool that you’ll ever need, is the, are people in great cultures If your people aren’t recruiting. All the people you need for the organization, then you, you have a, false culture. I think that’s a, a key point is you don’t need to get on LinkedIn to drive and bring people in. Those people that work in that company, that are engaged, that are empowered and have that belief in, in the organization are gonna recruit all, all the people you need. I think the second type of leader that’s is what I call maybe back to the future type of leader. So they were a part of a team at some point in, in, in the history of their lives where the, they had a culture of, and I’ll use a quote that, I’ve heard before, and it’s, check your brain at the door. Bring your back in your hands essentially do what I say, work hard and don’t ask any questions.

[00:23:36] Rick Davis: I think that, they use muscle fear and intimidation a little bit to kind of get to where they need to go. And, they’re successful somewhat in some organizations because they can achieve really good short-term results. And so they’re highly visible. You know, they come out and they, they can really, push those successful short-term projects.

[00:23:56] Rick Davis: But what stands out for those type of facilities, organizations, and manufacturing is that, they can’t sustain it. So immediately as they leave. The success dwindles. It doesn’t climb anymore. And, and these are the type of organizations, when you look at KPIs, when you look at different aspects, you see a, an ebb and flow, sometimes a, a nice trend up and a nice trend down, but there’s just not a true solid, continuous increase of performance.

[00:24:22] Rick Davis: And I think that’s a good way to determine that false culture I mentioned earlier and then. do you build and sustain it? I think is, is really what, we could go way in depth on that, but I’ll, I’ll pause there and make sure, ’cause I’ve talked a lot and just see if you have any questions on that.

[00:24:36] Josh Santo: Oh p plenty Pliny. I love how you’ve got categories for it. You talked about the LinkedIn warrior, you talked about the back to the future leader, and there’s some good callouts that’s, that are worth, doubling down on. So this LinkedIn Warrior Boy LinkedIn is, it’s a tough space to be on these days.

[00:24:53] Josh Santo: It’s gotten to the point where I’ve gone from following folks because what they share. Teaches me something new or introduces a new perspective I hadn’t considered to, now I’m following people because I, for lack of a better word, hate so much what they are posting, but there’s some sort of. Positive feeling.

[00:25:15] Josh Santo: I get reading it and just thinking like, wow, this is just terrible. And uh, so I certainly think LinkedIn has found a different algorithm that it focused on. But anyway, like you called out, you’ve got people who are more trying to serve either themselves or show to their leadership that they are. Someone influential someone, uh, to be followed in a sort of case and you called out that they’re either trying to convince themselves, convince their leaders, or convince folks that they’re trying to hire you.

[00:25:44] Josh Santo: Compared that to this idea of a back to the future leader where, that quote, that’s a crazy quote. Check your brain at the door and use your hands. Right? So that’s essentially saying. don’t ask questions. Don’t bother about understanding the why. Just do what we tell you to do. That’s what you’re here for.

[00:26:03] Josh Santo: That’s all you’re here for. Do it. We’re not gonna have any problems. And you mentioned using muscle, using fear, using intimidation, A very old school type of approach when it comes to managing, and you talked about the trade offs, you might see some good, but then you’ll see some bad and. You will definitely see when that individual leaves a lot of breakdowns happening because that foundation that you called out earlier hasn’t been successfully built.

[00:26:32] Josh Santo: But one maybe kind of controversial thing that you called out, uh, you call that actually a couple of things that we’re gonna have to dig into. So I’m trying to get the order right. One of the ones that stood out to me the most, you said if your people aren’t recruiting for you. You have a false culture.

[00:26:53] Josh Santo: Now that one’s an interesting one. So if you’re struggling to recruit folks, probably a little bit on the retaining side as well, this could be an indication that you have a false culture. Talk to us about what you mean by that. By the false culture and the fact that if your people aren’t recruiting, it’s a clear sign.

[00:27:13] Rick Davis: Yeah, I think, and it is kind of a little bit along the lines of what I mentioned. You have, leadership that, you know, false slogans. there might be some annual surveys that are sent out, you know, and there’s a, a, an occasional rare appearance to shake hands and kiss babies, as I say, out on the, the manufacturing environment.

[00:27:29] Rick Davis: But. but they, and, and this is gonna be a controversial statement, they only truly care about people when they can get the results they want. but people know this, I mean, they’re. People feel it. They know it. It’s very clear. And so that’s false culture of, look, look at what we’ve done and everything that we can do as, as a company.

[00:27:50] Rick Davis: And these slogans. the, the rest of the team is just, they know and they absolutely feel the frustrations. They’re not being heard, they’re not trusted. They’re not engaged. All these things add up to, there is no culture. it’s just an ebb and flow of. Of a good string of of success and then a bad string of success.

[00:28:11] Rick Davis: So the end of the day, and, and this is the belief, people know when their leaders are invested in their success. And I think, you know, there’s lots of slogans out there about being more invested in the success of others versus yourself that can back that up as far as people wanna know that they have a voice and they have an opportunity to have an impact.

[00:28:31] Rick Davis: And I think that’s what I call a false culture that. that really is an epidemic in the us.

[00:28:56] Rick Davis: ​Hey, good afternoon. My name is Rick Davis. I’m with Morgan Foods, chief Manufacturing Officer. And, uh, a quick blurb and advice that I might suggest is always stay connected to your leader. You know, we all have mind mindsets and ideas of culture and what, what we want the organization to move to and go to.

[00:29:13] Rick Davis: but it’s so critical that you stay connected to that leader, whether it’s the board of directors, CEO, or a supervisor, and it’s, we have the responsibility as leaders to return the results of the business. I believe culture and how you lead has a significant impact on those results. however, you’ll find differing approaches across every single person that’s in a leadership role.

[00:29:33] Rick Davis: So it’s critical as you progress through your career to stay connected and, and understand. How you might be able to, mold your response and mold your actions to, to kind of fit into that guidance that you have a coach. And if everyone on that team plays together in the right direction of that coach, you’re gonna be successful.

[00:29:53] Rick Davis: And I just would encourage you to continue to stay connected and, and thank you for your time.

[00:29:56] Josh Santo: There’s some, some ideas in there I wanna clarify for you. ’cause, ’cause you described this idea of a false culture. It’s, putting out there, it sounds like a, a lot of what is generally associated with positive benefits of having a well, established working culture. Working environment, but even a poor environment like the ones that you’re describing as a false culture that is in itself a.

[00:30:22] Josh Santo: A type of culture. so my question to you to, to clarify is, is there only culture when those elements are positive, where people know that they have a voice and they know that they have an impact? Or is there always culture? You may have that positive, ideal version or you may have that back to the future leader version, but it’s still just culture, isn’t it?

[00:30:50] Rick Davis: Yeah, no, you make a great point, and you’re right. It is a culture now, I think in reference, it’s whether or not it’s a good culture or a bad culture, or a wanted culture versus an unwanted culture. I think when you have everyone with the wanted culture and you’re all rowing in the same direction, I think that’s when you truly have a culture that drives the foundation of your company and your manufacturing plants. I think with the failure occurs is when there’s a lack of, consistency in what people believe the true culture is. And I think so to your point, yeah, absolutely. There’s a culture in every facility. just not whether or not that culture supports the vision which supports the strategy, which is then engaged and successful from everyone in the company. And that’s, that’s the culture I refer to, I think.

[00:31:37] Josh Santo: Yeah. Well, you know, when we’re thinking about this, would you say that culture serves a purpose within manufacturing?

[00:31:46] Rick Davis: Absolutely. I think for me, the culture is the foundation of manufacturing. And it’s what drives the success of everyone.

[00:31:55] Josh Santo: Well, I, I ask because let’s say. and this can be a hypothetical scenario, and this may derail the entire conversation, but just, just follow with me for a second. Let’s say that there is what we would consider by what we discussed, a poor culture in place, in a particular environment, but at the end of the day, they’re still shipping quality to products, quality products to customers on time in full, right?

[00:32:19] Josh Santo: Those KPIs we talked about earlier are being checked. Because you mentioned part of the false culture being, when people care only about people, when they can get the results that they want. So they’re in that case, they’re caring about people, but solely for the purpose to get those results a a little bit to that degree of show up, do what we’re asking you to do, check your brain at the door, kind of thing.

[00:32:43] Josh Santo: But if it still leads to the output that the company’s looking for, is there really a problem with culture?

[00:32:53] Rick Davis: Yeah, I think there’s a, getting the output your company’s looking for versus getting the output that your company could have. I think there’s substantial amount of gap between. a lot of companies, I mean, ’cause they’ve set their expectations upon previous performance, and I think that, each year it’s a, it’s an ebb and flow.

[00:33:12] Rick Davis: if you were to, to straight line when you’re having improvement and you look at 10 years in the future, you know, you might be at point A, which is at the top of the expectations. But because of that false culture, you’re seeing this ebb and flow. Suddenly you look at 10 years in the future, you really haven’t progressed. At the end of the day. So I think that, yeah, year on year, I think we get, we get too focused in on seeing the results as compared to what we budgeted or targeted going into that year, versus looking at a wider view and a wider lens of, Hey, this is where we could be and just think and, and the success you could have that, and again, that’s good and there’s some great books about it.

[00:33:51] Rick Davis: Good to great. You know, it’s

[00:33:52] Josh Santo: Yeah.

[00:33:53] Rick Davis: we’re a good plant. We’re hitting the, the targets. Oh, by the way, we’re gonna go ahead and build another facility because, and we’re kind of tapped out over here. but the reality is are you, you know, is there, is

[00:34:05] Josh Santo: Yeah.

[00:34:06] Rick Davis: potential there? So,

[00:34:07] Josh Santo: Yeah. When you describe the Back to the Future leader and, and how when they leave it’s unsustainable, I immediately thought of that book. Good to Great. so if, if you haven’t read the book, make sure to check that out because it describes what separates. The good companies from the great companies.

[00:34:23] Josh Santo: Spoiler alert, it’s the leaders and the people within the company. So, I’m gonna, do the flip side of the question that I asked you. ’cause it sounded like, what I heard in your breakdown about, you know, if you’ve got a, a poor culture, but they’re meeting the results and the expectations that were set as far as goals, KPIs, however you wanna put it.

[00:34:44] Josh Santo: it sounded like you’re really thinking of that as well. That’s a short term. Perspective, and then there’s a long term that comes from that more positive culture that we’ve been talking about. Let’s flip the scenario. Let’s say you’ve got a very great culture, but you’re not meeting the results that you need to meet in the short term.

[00:35:05] Josh Santo: If that, if those two scenarios are true, at the same time, do you have the right culture in place?

[00:35:13] Rick Davis: Yeah, I think, there’s always hidden. Pieces of things that might derail performance, but it should be a short term derailment. You know, if you, if if you have that culture in place, then those derailments will be quickly remedied. I think that’s the key thing to look for. You look at, and you, you want to be able to look at this and we sometimes we get tunnel vision again, and we’re not looking at it as a totality of maybe wider lens of, okay, you know, we’ve got a great culture here, or at least we believe we have a great culture here, but we’re not meeting. expectations. It’s not an immediate red flag that your culture isn’t in place. It’s definitely one that you want to take a look at and just reinforce and re reevaluate. but there’s definitely many ways to get derailed, uh, from a performance standpoint that aren’t culture as well as.

[00:35:59] Josh Santo: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I like, you know, one of the things that you called out was that we talked about results, we’re talking about culture. Sure. You know, a poor culture may hit the numbers that you set. It may hit what the company wants, but it may not hit ultimately what the company needs. And I couldn’t help.

[00:36:15] Josh Santo: Uh, but think about, ’cause you brought up the idea of capacity. We’re building another plant because we are tapped out at our. Current ability to produce. There’s just, we can’t do anything else. And, and I have to imagine that if you’re asking people to check their brains at the door, kind of putting it all on yourself to figure out how to improve, when really, when you started the conversation, you talked about the importance of gathering that feedback, the problems from folks because.

[00:36:41] Josh Santo: Ultimately they can help you identify the improvement areas that maybe just wouldn’t have occurred, because especially in a leadership position, the higher up you go the further from the floor you get. So really embracing those perspectives and asking people to bring their brain with them to do the work and think about how that work could be improved, either to be more, to be faster, to be more efficient, et cetera.

[00:37:08] Josh Santo: so that was something that stood out to me is that idea of your poor culture may get you what you want, but it’s probably not gonna get you what you need in the long term.

[00:37:18] Rick Davis: absolutely. And I think to, just to support that, I’ve worked with former nuclear engineers, former aeronautical engineers. I’ve worked with former doctors and lawyers all in the manufac on the manufacturing floor, not in leadership positions. They’ve just taken a position where there, there are some brilliant people in our manufacturing environments that we just simply do not tap into. for whatever reason, whether it’s bias, ego, et cetera. And I think that, that, capability exists and if that culture doesn’t exist and you’re not tapping into that, that ability of these people to really and, and frankly do a better job of probably defining what needs to be done.

[00:37:57] Josh Santo: Yeah. Bias, ego prioritization, you know, that I’m, I think of that quote that said something along the lines of never attribute to malice. What could, uh, easily be attribute attributed to ignorance, I think is the quote, I’m sure that wasn’t word for word, but that idea of, I’d be willing to bet that most of the time is just kind of slips, slips your mind, you know, you get overwhelmed with all these other things that have to be done and you start to deprioritize check in, in with folks understanding.

[00:38:25] Josh Santo: What’s going on with them. and I love that you explicitly block your time and you protect your time in order to do that. ’cause you’ve prioritized. This is something that has to get done. Uh, so, for anyone who’s struggling with these types of things, checking in with folks, it really comes down to what are you prioritizing, right?

[00:38:43] Josh Santo: And you got, because something, something has to go.

[00:38:46] Rick Davis: Absolutely. And I failed too many times to, and finally, failing so many times is when I realized I needed to change, change what I was doing.

[00:38:54] Josh Santo: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you gotta be able to reflect. You gotta be able to ask, are my actions getting me closer towards the goal? If not, why not? What do I need to do about it? I love that continuous improvement mindset that you bring up. Now, you’ve mentioned this a couple of times. You talked about how culture, how leadership is killing manufacturing in the United States.

[00:39:13] Josh Santo: That’s the other controversial comment that I wanted to dig into. What do you mean by that? Tell me more.

[00:39:20] Rick Davis: Yeah. It’s this, it’s this approach to leadership. The two leadership, uh, failures that I talked about that are driving people to go into cocoons and manufacturing. they’re not trusted. they’re not empowered, they’re not engaged. So what happens is, okay, well then if you’re not gonna listen to me. I’m just gonna be basically become a button pusher. I’m gonna show up, I’ll do the minimum amount of work, and I’m gonna go home. And then my thought process will be, well, what’s in it for me? And I think, it’s a kind of unique situation where you got what’s in it for me on both sides of the organization.

[00:39:50] Rick Davis: And it’s really a vicious circle of we gotta break this. This mindset down and be more invested in, and I’ve said this once before, but be more invested in the success of the other person. And when that happens, you can start to erode that, that, that channel. But what I see is a significant amount of that circle, that manufacturing then becomes just a stagnant. And a, really difficult. We have high attrition. You’ve got a lot of people leaving, and then now your focus is on, we gotta get better at training. and then once, once you have training built up and you, you solve some of your attrition problems, then performance isn’t up to speed. And that’s because your team isn’t involved in identifying the problems to drive the efficiencies.

[00:40:29] Rick Davis: And so there’s just this continuation of circle of we’re just, we’re not making headway. and this, and I’m using the generality here. There are some fantastic companies out there that are doing a great job and wish, you know, that I’d love to be able to learn more from, and I think so that it is just based off of the experiences I’ve had and obviously my opinions, but that’s what I’m seeing as a, as a lot of an epidemic of, of lack of trust.

[00:40:56] Josh Santo: Lack of trust and trust being that that one thing that you immediately as a new leader sought to. To really establish within your team. In fact, I, you know, I’ll go back to one of the things that you called out. you had mentioned how you get to know them, their aspirations, if they enjoy the job, what do they do outside of work?

[00:41:13] Josh Santo: So you got to know them as people and then you asked, how can I help? Now, I would imagine that you would classify yourself as a, someone purveying a false culture. If you did not follow up on that, last. Part if you ask, how can I help? And they tell you, here’s how you can, if nothing happens with that, doesn’t that start to to shift towards that false culture that you’re talking about?

[00:41:40] Josh Santo: Right? So

[00:41:41] Rick Davis: Yeah.

[00:41:41] Josh Santo: building trust, it sounds like what’s not happening in the US is there’s not enough leaders going in and finding out what are, what’s my team struggling with? What are these people struggling with? What can I do to make their lives easier and better? Make it easier to work for? Even if that doesn’t immediately translate into.

[00:41:58] Josh Santo: Top line or bottom line savings.

[00:42:02] Rick Davis: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it’s because, you have for myself included, you have all this years of experience in manufacturing, so you think you have the answer. But even when we have the answer, it’s the wrong answer. If you’re not asking your people, at the end of the day, it’ll always be the wrong answer.

[00:42:17] Rick Davis: So you have to get the right answer. and that’s really, that, just completes that circle, that, that mentioned. So

[00:42:25] Josh Santo: Right, but doesn’t that take just a lot of time and a lot of effort?

[00:42:29] Rick Davis: absolutely, and that’s why it’s so critical to be, you know, when you look at, you look at the environment that you’re in, you have to be. In an environment that recognizes it and builds it. And I think that that’s, a key point that you bring up is, when you’re in an environment and you’re working for a leader or a board of directors, that they do not have that patience because it is a slow process.

[00:42:49] Rick Davis: It’s a slow build. You’re driving a Titanic, not a speedboat. you have to have a leader that believes in that and has to understand the steps that you’re taking and, the process that you’re going through. If not, then you’re either, you have two options. You can either find the culture in a different company or you can plant the seeds of culture and, and try your best to adhere to and drive, in the way that your coach, your leader, much like a, a sports team, you know, a football team or, or et cetera. not be fully aligned with the direction, but you need to get aligned and show that alignment and plant the seeds of culture change. But recognize also that you’re not in a position quite yet, uh, to be able to affect that change.

[00:43:34] Josh Santo: Planting the seeds of culture. Now, is that something that. it’s leadership has to plant the seeds of culture, or is there a certain seniority within the organization that, that I have to have in order to plant those seeds? Or is the seed planting of culture something that could be done by anyone at any level?

[00:43:53] Rick Davis: Absolutely anyone at any level. It, it has to be anyone at any level. If you have a leader that perhaps isn’t, up an agreement with that type of culture change, and, and it may not have a, a full impact, but even small bits of impact can have a, just a great deal of opportunity to, to help someone and to help someone’s day, make it a little bit easier to come into work, make it a little bit easier to achieve the efficiencies, et cetera.

[00:44:17] Rick Davis: So.

[00:44:17] Josh Santo: Make it a little bit easier to come into work, and that’s something that we can all take some responsibility, take some accountability into owning. I love that idea. Make it a little bit easier to come into work. That reminds me of a, a story I spoke with this was a. director of quality and operational ac excellence at a plastics manufacturer.

[00:44:37] Josh Santo: It was a smaller organization and he very much had this mindset of, you know, what can we do to make it easier to work for us? And that. It spanned a wide variety of topics. It wasn’t just, what tools are needed or what training was needed, but we’re talking about introducing new shift schedules.

[00:44:58] Josh Santo: That better coincided with public transportation because a lot of their folks relied on the bus to get to the facility, and they were having an issue where the, there’s significant delay between when. They got off their shift and when the next bus showed up, and by hearing that out, making the appropriate adjustments so that you’re not inconvenienced, it made it a little bit easier to come to work, which is something they were struggling with, right?

[00:45:27] Josh Santo: Is getting people to come to work. So they’re working with their teams to just what are those ways we can make it a little bit easier. I love that and I love that idea. So folks listening. Whether you’re at a senior level or you are relatively new to your career, ask yourself with your peers, your coworkers, what can you do to make their day a little bit easier in the day to day?

[00:45:49] Josh Santo: Now, Rick, I know I’ve asked you a ton of questions, but I’d love for you to share story with us, about a practical time in which one or more of these lessons really clicked for you.

[00:45:59] Rick Davis: Yeah, well, absolutely. I think, if I were to pick a, a singular type of event, I think I have to go way back in. Early in my career, I was just starting out, uh, I had responsibility for full shifts of teams, uh, as a shift team leader, shift supervisor. And I did this, I had this opportunity in a couple different plans, and I think that I, I really struggled, with com with a completely different approach.

[00:46:22] Rick Davis: I had no idea what the right. was, I had no idea what leadership was. I had no idea of, where I wanted to go with who I was and being authentic. But I knew the environment I, I was in. It was an old school environment, which had worked for many years. and I was the other extreme, you know, I talked a little bit about that approach of, checking your brain at the door and, those types of things. and the environment was, was such that I didn’t know. It didn’t feel right. I had no other experiences ’cause I had just, you know, graduated college and had no clue. And so I was trying to mold myself and try to, to become that, that piece, you know, accountability was really about, fear and intimidation and. was not how I wanted to drive accountability. So I, but I thought that’s the only way that, that’s what accountability meant is, you know, fear, intimidate, and then determination. I think that was the, the approach. So, in an effort to try to counterbalance that, you know, I have all these people that I’m listening to and talking to and, and really respecting, you know, I, you know, I tried to counterbalance that a little bit in, in facts.

[00:47:25] Rick Davis: What happened was I failed to hold people accountable. I didn’t want to hold people

[00:47:29] Josh Santo: Hmm.

[00:47:29] Rick Davis: ’cause they had so much accountability on the other side. this really changed for me when I, had, pleasure working for someone. I consider one of my, my greatest mentors and, probably doesn’t even consider himself a mentor, but he was, and he showed me approach that was simple and, and as soon as I met and started working for him, I realized, okay, I see a different way of leadership.

[00:47:52] Rick Davis: I see a different way of, of approaching this that really. Opened my eyes to, what it means. So he was, for an example, he was able to, I’d go into his office, he was able to talk to me, give me something to work on, guidance for improvement. And I’d walk out feeling like I just won the lottery and was on Cloud nine.

[00:48:10] Rick Davis: And, it was an approach of, of, and he often said this, he goes, his approach was simple. He wanted to talk to the other person across the table as if they were his child, his parent, or his spouse, which means clear. of expectations, appreciation, and actions. And I think those were the things that he really showed, about it.

[00:48:32] Rick Davis: And I think when you have this type of culture, you have my type of approach of what I believe is important, and that’s people, there’s a fear from those that have done it, the old school way of around accountability. Well, you need to intimidate, you need to, you know, create that environment where they’re afraid of. the expectations, and it simply isn’t for me. And it’s not the approach that I believe in. It takes more strength and courage to treat people as equal as humans. And with appreciation, it does to use fear and intimidation, but it’s not easy. it takes focus and repetition to make sure people understand and that you are driving that accountability, on a consistent basis and completely so.

[00:49:13] Josh Santo: you’re in a situation. You, you, you’re leading sounds like for the first time and you felt some discomfort with your perceptions at the time of. How you had to be in order to effectively lead. You talked about that intimidation and fear-based approach in order to drive accountability, and it sounds like this was something that you kind of struggled with internally.

[00:49:36] Josh Santo: You said that it ultimately led you to fail to hold people accountable. but it wasn’t until someone showed you a different way, showed you that there were ways of leading that didn’t require. That fear or that intimidation. and I love that they provided such a good example through your own experience and you found someone saying this, I want to emulate this.

[00:50:01] Josh Santo: I want to take this forward. And I think it’s interesting because so often leaders don’t quite have an official trainer. You know, you, you probably came into this leadership position, prob, I’m assuming, because you were excellent. At what you were doing before and, and some people said, Hey, this guy’s really good at this.

[00:50:20] Josh Santo: Let’s give him a promotion. Or, you know, maybe it was a new job, whatever the case is. But there’s often that lack of, well, how do you effectively lead people, lead a team. And sure there’s trainings out there, but these are all things that you would have to pursue on your own. Right. You’d have to look ’em up, Google it, get a coach, et cetera.

[00:50:43] Josh Santo: But you found someone who was demonstrating that and ultimately, ultimately, became a mentor to you because there were things that, you wanted to emulate. One of the things I was struck by is you keep talking about that term of accountability, and I did a webinar with a individual, his name is Rich Nave.

[00:50:58] Josh Santo: From the Luminous Group is actually the first, he was the guest on the first episode of the podcast, and this webinar was about the concept of accountability. And he argued that you cannot hold people accountable, which is a bit of a, pump the brakes, that that’s what accountability’s all about.

[00:51:16] Josh Santo: but his perspective was that you have to inspire them to take accountability because accountability is. Within an individual, and I’m picking up a little bit on that from you, that perspective of it’s not about driving accountability ’cause, ’cause it’s not really what you’re doing when you’re using fear and intimidation.

[00:51:37] Josh Santo: That’s more acquiescence, that’s more I’m afraid. So I will submit, but instead, similar to Rich, what you’re describing is I want to connect with that individual. On a personal level, I wanna understand what this person really cares about. And I’m willing to bet if you think back to those conversations with that mentor of yours ultimately, that you walked away with inspiration because you were connected with whatever the instructions or guidance there were.

[00:52:06] Josh Santo: it clicked with you whether personally or professionally. And so I love that you shared with us that that story of struggling. Seeing that there’s a different way and then trying it for yourself and, and never letting go of that initial feeling that you had of, there’s gotta be a better way.

[00:52:26] Rick Davis: Yeah, absolutely. and I think that that’s why it’s so critical to me and important to me, and I, I know many others, the importance of paying it forward and trying to be mentors for others and, and developing our future leaders, in manufacturing so we can kind of continue to move that boat into the new element culture and, and understanding of what we can really do in the, in the us. To drive improvements in our in manufacturing.

[00:52:51] Josh Santo: Well, Rick, you’ve given me a lot to think about. You know, I, I almost derailed the show just to talk about my, just to ask you questions so that I could, uh, learn a little bit more about how to be a better leader and, and I took away some, some really great things, but the one that’s really sticking with me right now is make it a little bit easier for everyone else.

[00:53:10] Josh Santo: I love that, and I’m gonna have to reflect on that. So that’s gonna be my takeaway from the show is that I, after this, I’m gonna reflect on my job, my role, and. How I can make things just a little bit easier for the folks that I work with and interact with both customers and my peers and coworkers alike.

[00:53:25] Josh Santo: so Rick, thank you for that. Thanks for sharing that perspective and not only, helping me learn something new, but helping all those listening learn something new.

[00:53:36] Rick Davis: Well, thank you and thank you for allowing me to learn a few things today as well. And I think that, this is such a great concept, you know, and I really hope that it, that you continue and, I’m gonna be interested and, and excited to see all your future guests and thank you for allowing me to be a small part of that.

[00:53:50] Josh Santo: All right, well thanks again, Rick.

[00:53:52] Rick Davis: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:53:53] ​