Patrick Adams

Welcome to the lean solutions podcast where we discuss business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for true lean process improvement. I am your host, Patrick Adams. With us today is Deb coviello, author of CEOs compass your guide to getting back on track. And she is the host of the drop in CEO podcast. And after over 25 plus years in quality and operational excellence roles. Deb has a deep understanding for what’s important when it comes to creating solutions for CEOs by assessing the landscape, solving their technical business issues and elevating their people for a lasting impact and ultimately, for peace of mind. She’s here today to help share a bit of how the CEOs compass can bring you peace of mind. Welcome to the show, Deb

Deb Coviello

It is my pleasure. I am excited for this conversation, and bring hopefully some great stories and value to your listeners.

Patrick Adams

Thanks for being here. And obviously, you know that the majority of my listeners are from the continuous improvement and lean world. So I’m curious to hear a little bit of your experience or background in continuous improvement and lean. Could you share that with the listeners?

Deb Coviello

All right. Well, thank you so much for that, you know, and I think it would all boil down to when I was a child always asking why, why, why and always looking for deeper understanding. And that just fed into engineering, where I got a degree in Biomedical Engineering. And it also was a framework for problem solving. And so I think I was always a person that was curious about how things worked, always asking why and how things could be done better. And while I exited my engineering degree and never actually did biomedical engineering, I fell in love with manufacturing, taking nothing and turning it into something. It was my engineering lab in my senior year where not only was I a student in the prior year, but then I was a teaching assistant. And I really, really just loved that. So after leaving school, I didn’t practice biomedical engineering, went right into manufacturing, did a tour in all different functions and then wound up in the quality role. And I found quality, you needed to be somewhat of a jack of all trades, know a little bit about everything, because ultimately you are the foundation of bringing everything together and making sure the systems work. So I started there, but along the way, quality is a close parallel to continuous improvement. And so I started learning about root cause analysis. And I started out and continuous improvement in the dimeric world define, measure, analyze, improve and control the Six Sigma world where I ultimately got my Six Sigma Black Belt certification through a sq. But then I got introduced a little bit to lean and it seems simple, you know, workplace organization, how to make it a little bit faster, a little bit more efficient. And that was the extent of it, I knew a little bit about it. However, in business, I moved into a very senior role in operational excellence, rolling up my sleeves, saying I’m going to change the world and reduce defects and make our customers happier. Again, all part of quality and continuous improvement. And then my world changed. There was a new leader that came in and said we are not doing Six Sigma, we’re doing lean, oh, my world will change. Because here I am the leader, the head of operational excellence, the Vice President of operational excellence for a multinational organization in North America. And I had to lead an organization in lean, wow, I did not have the certifications talk about being at a low point in my career to say, not only did I not have the technical capability that I believed I needed, and they had to rebuild an organization that was actually crumbling. And then to provide leadership and direction on how we are going to save the company a lot of money. So fast forward, that was the quick introduction to lean Yes. However, I embraced it. I got through that crisis, and was able to make an impact. That’s the journey.

Patrick Adams

Wow. That’s amazing. So I’m sure you have so many stories over your 25 plus years. And I’m excited to hear a little bit more about that transition from six sigma to lean. And maybe we can talk through that a little bit. But I’m assuming that some of those learnings involve a deeper understanding of employee engagement and how to bring the team alongside in that transition. I don’t know if you can talk to me about some of those past learnings, you know, that are specific to employee engagement and how that affected the success of the, you know, your journey.

Deb Coviello

So I really, really appreciate that because we as lean practitioners, Six Sigma, continuous improvement practitioners, there are so many great institutions and people to teach us technically how to solve our problems. And so often, they teach us the methodology: you define a problem, you fix it from a people, a process, the tools perspective, and that’s what they need us to do. And For the most part, we do it really well. And then this happened to me. So as I was the head of lean, and operational excellence, I too had to complete a project, I had to do a cost savings within a manufacturing operation, the estimated cost savings was annually $250,000. us by bringing in some equipment that was, currently we were outsourcing this particular manufacturing process, and we wanted to bring it inside. So what did it take to be able to get our internal equipment up to operational efficiency, so we can realize the cost savings. So there I am, a lean practitioner, putting together a team to find a problem, establish a project plan, everything looks like it is working until the day we say engineers go to the floor and make that adjustment in the manufacturing area and report back to us what the changes are and what were the results? And did we get that improvement that we were expecting. And so the engineers come back a couple days later and said, We’re sorry, we don’t have the data, we went to the floor, we made the changes. And when we returned the next day, the operators had changed the settings back. And it was like, okay, they’re just being difficult. Go back to the floor and make the changes. Let’s get the date. Again. We were on a deadline. Again, tactically, I’m doing everything right the way I have been taught. And we came back and they said the operators change the settings back again. And then I hit myself on the head and I said, Oh my god, I forget one of the most fundamental things that they talk about in whether it’s six sigma, or lean change management and communications and getting everybody on board and defining who are all the interested parties, the humans and the levels of engagement we need. So I sucked it up, I went back head in hand and brought the operators and the employee engagement, which was the missing link again, I thought I had all the smart people in the room, the engineers, the finance people, the supply chain people, and I missed the operators. And so when they finally came in their hands, their arms were folded. They were not engaged because we didn’t even engage with them in the beginning. And so we went back a few steps, asking them some questions about their experience, what information did they have that we did not have. And ultimately, we gained their knowledge, realizing it was valuable to the changes we wanted to make. And once we got them on board, repaired the relationship, they were with us the rest of the way and we ultimately realized the cost savings. So I write about this in the CEOs campus. We are so laser focused on the results, but we don’t take the time to engage with the people to get a full picture. Because we might think we know everything and how to solve it. But we probably don’t.

Patrick Adams

Hmm, such an important piece. And what was the buy-in after that happened from the team members?

Deb Coviello

Well, it certainly made the job a lot easier to the point where they would come to the meeting, and we would make sure Okay, so what’s happening this week? What have you seen? What do you suggest they become an integral part of the improvement process? And we were simply enablers versus simply running with it, we’re there to serve them and be able to be better, faster, cheaper, the quality, etc. It was a slight mindset shift. And it wasn’t because we didn’t, or we wanted to exclude them, we simply forgot about it. Sure. And so and part of any checklists of any project plan, look a little bit deeper into communication plans and interested parties to engage with and really look seriously at all the people that are so close to your customer that are turning the knobs pushing the buttons, and really get their buy in.

Patrick Adams

Yes, I’m 100% behind you on that. That’s such an integral part of the success of any lean transformation. I’m also interested to hear, obviously, you know, this is a huge success story. And I’m so happy that you’re sharing it with us. But I’m also interested to hear about the challenges after the fact with maybe specific employees. Did you still have anybody that was maybe pushing back or difficult individuals that you had to deal with? You know, could you help us understand that maybe a couple of specifics around people and how you dealt with that and what your response was to maybe some of the more difficult people.

Deb Coviello

So there are several people in my past that it is so important to get everybody on board, because if they’re not on board, we start profiling them to say, well, they’re just difficult, they’re keeping the tribal knowledge to themselves, oh, they’re just that way we’ll work around them, when all we need to do is just have a one on one with them and get to know them. There may be a reason why maybe they’re an expert. They’re not engaged, maybe in the past people, pushed them aside, didn’t listen to their advice, maybe didn’t celebrate them or embrace them, and so they shut down. And so I did have one particular individual on a continuous improvement project. Very, very, very smart person, but she would always show up to these continuous improvement meetings and just be very quiet. And they wouldn’t volunteer any information and even when you called upon them, they wouldn’t engage and so this goes back to what I said, I got to get to know the person because I actually didn’t know them. And they did talk when I met them offline, that they had been on many, many improvement projects, where they just weren’t respected. They weren’t listened to. And when I took the time to say, Oh, my I didn’t realize how smart you were, what your history was, you were responsible for developing that standard, for which now we’re running by, oh, my that is two things I write about in my book is getting to know their past their culture, what made them special and brought them to this point. And I also talk about getting to know the pride and pride in the context of their humanity and their intellectual property. What are those unique things they did that people now no longer respect? So why would they come to the table and volunteer that information? It’s a little bit of a survival mechanism. But I will tell you, once I engaged with them and said, Wow, now I understand who you are, what you represent, and why you’re so valuable that they still were quiet. And it was perhaps their nature. But when I called upon them, they were ready to share the information to help. It’s a little extra time. Yeah, it’s worth the investment.

Patrick Adams

That’s right. Yeah, it’s definitely a long term play for sure. So that’s great. Thank you for sharing that with us. And you mentioned the book a couple times. So I’m curious to talk and maybe dive a little bit deeper into the book. And first, my first question would be, you know, what was the inspiration behind even writing the book? Obviously, there’s a ton of just powerful information in there, you know, that comes from your history. And you know, you talk a lot about employee engagement and high performers. And we’ll get into some of that, but what was the inspiration behind the book?

Deb Coviello

So there’s the politically correct statement? Well, I’m in business for myself, everybody who’s a consultant writes a book I need as a business card, so that I can build brand credibility. And that’s true, too. Sure, whoever for the real story is Oh, my. So I have so much to say, obviously, I’m a podcaster. I’m having an interview with you. I have a lot of my own thoughts. I would put them out on social media, in videos and blog posts, to the point where people really didn’t know who I was, or what the Representative was, just that she’s a thought leader. Okay, well, I’m a little bit more than a thought leader, what it did for me, and again, this goes to lean, is it distilled down? What are the messages that you’re trying to communicate? What is the impact you’re trying to make on people and by taking a conscious effort to just string all these stories together? And then ultimately, it started out as a house of quality? What’s the foundational elements? What are the enabling strategic things? What’s the roof of the house? And then I said, well, that’s really boring, it’s really a compass. It is those things that I have seen that talented leaders such as yourself, myself, are sometimes off track based on the human engagement, not necessarily what platform Am I going to put in, or what kind of spreadsheet I’m going to create, but often, we skip over human centric leadership. So I created a compass for which peace of mind is the ultimate outcome, not a metric or KPI and then I talk about the compass points of performance, pride, people platform, which is tools process, past, which is culture, and purpose. Because I find most leaders when they get into those high level positions, and they’re slightly off track, they don’t know where to go. And they don’t need a 510, seven step approach, but just pull out the compass and ask yourself some questions. And it’ll give you guidance. These are all the culmination of all my thought leadership. And when I was in a crisis, when I was the head of operational excellence or the head of quality, I had no playbook, I had to figure it out myself. So I help and distill all these concepts for which another leader can take these and help themselves get back on track. That was the impetus, I had to write the book, to create a framework,

Patrick Adams

very nice. And I love how transparent you are with the stories and the fact that you didn’t know what you didn’t know. And you were making mistakes along the way. And you had to learn and and i think that that’s, that’s key when when people understand in the continuous improvement world that we are on a learning journey, and we’re only going to be we’re only going to be successful if we’re open to being coached being that we’re open to learning and growing and developing as leaders. And so I don’t know if before we dive into some of the topics within the book, I have a question for you just on your learning journey. And in writing the book, what was your biggest aha moment or your biggest learning as you were pouring into this book? And you were thinking, Okay, this is that one thing that I have to have in the book, one thing that I learned along the way, what would you say that would be?

Deb Coviello

This is an amazing question because it’s not just the output or what you achieve, but it is you the process of going through it and I will say there are few learnings one, you go into a new place you start your own business, you’re trying to establish yourself within a company you say Who am I Am I an expert? Oh, there’s smarter people than me, they have five more certificates than I, what do I know? But what I realized was nobody has had exactly the experience and the stories and the industries that I have had. And as I compiled these stories, and the lessons I learned that I’m sharing with others, I realize I am an expert. And when I started testing the stories and sharing bits of the book with other people, people say, Wow, that’s great insight. Well, that’s great insight. So the first learning is to set your mind, set a goal, set a roadmap against structured lean methodology, set out a plan, otherwise, you’re never going to start, I set the intention, I was going to write a book. And then I realized along the way, what I have to say and share to help others going through the same journey is valuable. And I am an expert. That’s a mindset shift for a lien practitioner, you can be an expert, despite maybe somebody else has a few more certificates, or a few more years experience. And then add to that I realized one, yes, I am a stem professional. But I am a writer, I am a storyteller, I realized strengths that I had far beyond how I show up in the world. Those are some of the learnings, there are many more. But when you endeavor on a project like this, just reflect on the experience, not necessarily the output that may be where you find you’ve grown the most.

Patrick Adams

Sure, absolutely. I love that. Thank you for sharing that with me and with the listeners. And I want to get back in as we dive into the book here. We talked a little bit about employee engagement. But one of the areas that I’m interested to hear about in your experience is specifically on high performers. Now I don’t know what your feeling is with developing high performers, or are people born high performers or you know, is there Can everybody be a high performer? I’m just curious to hear what your thoughts are around that. And maybe start out by defining what is a high performer?

Deb Coviello

Actually, I’ve never been asked the question that way. But a high performer, in my mind, is just somebody that continually not only does the work at hand, but is always asking why and challenging themselves and others to basically lead the pack and already seeing the future, what we need to do, we need to do that. They’re basically pulling people along, and they are executing, and delivering and also potentially influencing others from a leadership perspective of the high performers. They are the future of the company for which you should be investing time and money. Now, to your point about Can anybody be a high performer? And I asked a lot more questions than give you answers. But in my thoughts, I believe every person can be a high performer. And I challenge the leadership and a channel challenge not to put aside our HR business partners where it’s a periodically we must great people across the spectrum, we are given the narrative that people must fall into a bell shaped curve by virtue of our technical training and what HR tells us, people will be high performers, people will be steady, Eddie’s that middle 50%, and you must gray people as poor performers. And so yes, we can check the box and do that. But if you’re going from a leadership perspective, what then are the qualifications for a high performer? And could the people that are your steady, Eddie’s your middle? 50%? Can they actually be a high performer? If you invest the time and ask the right questions, if we don’t invest the time and ask those people for their thoughts? Or how can we improve this process? What do you think versus thank you for getting that report to me on time, I can depend on you. We only get what we ask our people to do, get the report done, get those transactions done. But if we ask our steady Eddie’s, what do you think if we really wanted to be the favorite in the industry? Maybe not. Number one, what would that look like? And you never know, if you ask the right questions and invest in your average people, you might actually get them to a level of a high performer. So it’s worth the investment. And with a poor performer, have we ever taken the time to get to know them? Where they trained, where they onboard? Or do they understand what the Standard Work is? And if we ever had a conversation to understand, maybe they’re not even in the right role, because a poor performer could actually be one of your steady Eddie’s or your average people, or they could develop to be the high performer. The difference is, do you invest enough in the top line of individual resource management? Or do Would you rather ignore it and pay the expense of wasted time having to rework, redo, retrain those people that you didn’t make the investment in the beginning? So it’s more I’ve asked you a lot of questions, but I propose to you that everybody can be a high performer.

Patrick Adams

I love that love that. The idea and I know there’s many people that are listening that are thinking maybe about specific individuals within their team where they go, okay, maybe maybe I could invest the time and energy into this person and maybe they could be a high performer. So I guess I challenge those that are listening right now to put a name, put a face and a name to that person that you’re thinking about, who’s that steady Eddy or that person that’s maybe not performing at the level that they should? What is necessary? What should you be doing as a leader in order to help develop them into your next high performer? Because as Deb says, it is possible for everyone, right?

Deb Coviello

Yes. Because maybe you’ve never had the conversation, maybe required somebody and somebody gave you a narrative about that person. So they’re already doomed to stay a core performer. And I will tell you that I’ve had people labeled as they’re difficult. Sure, and they stay that way. But had we maybe spent some time with them we would realize, Oh, my god, they’re really, really smart. Yeah, they just don’t know how to communicate effectively, their ideas in a way that leadership can say, oh, wow, if we don’t do that, we’re going to start losing all kinds of money, because we wrote the person

Patrick Adams

off. Mm hmm. And in my experience, the people that are labeled as difficult, I love to write those names down, because those are the people that I’m reaching out to right away. Because there, they probably do have some really, really great information that needs to be shared. And as you said, maybe they don’t know how to share it, or maybe something has happened in their past that they don’t feel comfortable sharing it or whatever it might be. If you can get past that. Sometimes those more, those people that are labeled more difficult, can really be your best advocate, especially if you can win them over and they start advocating and becoming an ambassador for change within the organization. You know, everyone else is going to see that and say, Oh, my gosh, you know, so and so is they’re making those statements about change. You know, maybe we need to get on board with me.

Deb Coviello

As a technical professional, I was the quality, professional, continuous improvement and quality and production can buttheads at times, because, oh, you’re just rejecting my stuff, my stuff, or it’s not me, it’s your equipment. But I will find persistence and data. So I had a situation with a production manager, I said, we’ve tested it, it doesn’t conform to specification, it’s not made, right. And he didn’t believe me. And then one day, he was watching an operator basically play the system, he poured an ingredient and then lifted the scale slightly. So we’ll register within specification, and that batch failed, when he realized the power of data that I was right. And I asked him to do further root cause analysis. Is it really equipment? Or is it maybe operator or human, and then what spawns the operator for that behavior. Maybe the governing thing is get it out on time. And he was fostering that behavior. As soon as we took the time to invest in I would say he didn’t like me, he thought it was a bulldog, but with data persistence, and investing. And then he finally saw, I was right. It was about trust. And now we can solve problems together versus butting heads. It takes time. But those moments are beautiful. And those breakthroughs are what then you move together to make the improvements. And we did make a lot of improvements in that environment.

Patrick Adams

Amazing love hearing that love hearing that story. And I’m sure there are so many listeners that are thinking about some of their own stories of some of those tougher individuals that have had breakthroughs, and what does it take to get there? So consider that. But let’s shift a little bit here, because I’m thinking about high performers. And I’m thinking that probably many high performers in organizations will at some point get promoted into leadership roles. And I’m curious to hear from you, which again, I know this is laid out in your book, but what are some signs that you could be losing some of your high performing leaders or some of your best leaders? Because I think as CEOs, as executives, mid managers, we have to be looking out for that. They have to be ahead of that and, and be proactive, you know, so what are some signs that you could be losing some of your best leaders? And how should we react to that?

Deb Coviello

So this is a great question, because this is about being aware, taking the time and looking at who’s out there. And I will see this time and time again, as companies change companies grow some of our best continuous improvement professionals are technically very, very good at what they do. So we may promote them sometimes into a leadership role. And we should give them the opportunities, even if they’re only 80% of give them the opportunities that we as leaders have the responsibility to then understand well, what is the gap between where they’re performing and where they need to be at and here goes to the point investing versus an expense. If we don’t look at their essential skills? Are they able to first of all, do they have any limiting beliefs? And do they have the right confidence? Do they use the right language when they’re communicating with leaders for impact? Not only do we need to buy a new piece of equipment to get that efficiency, but here’s the risk of doing nothing, the opportunity ahead of us if we do it and the impact of inaction. Something as simple as that we don’t train our up and coming professionals on what to do. So those are just symptoms of what I’ve seen over and over again. We don’t invest the time we don’t evolve develop those essential skills because we assume that they have it or, and we just don’t invest in it, we send them out for a class, and then they become a problem person, because then the people that are reporting to them are not getting the support, they’re not getting the feedback, because the leader doesn’t have the skill. So I’ll just pause there that that’s a systemic problem. I often see we elevate talent without preparing them either before or doing to then have the essential leadership skills in themselves, and then also to be able to raise those of the people. So that’s the first symptom, and then we can go into you’re going to be losing your talent if you do nothing, but I’ll pause for a moment.

Patrick Adams

No, I agree with you 100%, and being able to teach them or develop them hot before in how to, you know, speak the language in quotation marks, you know, of executive leaders and, and understanding bottom line impact and things like that, you know, a lot of times leader, people are promoted into leadership positions, because they did a really good job at running a piece of equipment, or they, or they, you know, were a really hard worker, or whatever it might be, but to your point, they may not have the skills to make the connection with bottom line impact, or you know, that the language of executive leaders, so those are necessary, but also one of the things that I experience is that a lot of people that are promoted into those leadership positions don’t don’t have the skills to lead people, they’ve never led people before, they don’t understand what that means, how to coach how to develop other people. And so you know, a lot of times we find them back on the production line or running equipment, because they just don’t know where else to go. That’s where they feel most comfortable. And they have no idea what are those important or essential items that they should be doing as leaders to help coach and develop other people problem solving skills, there’s so many things that can be taught and developed in leaders that in you know, you mentioned the gap, right, those are all areas that I think as executive leaders, we need to look at as we’re promoting people into leadership positions, what are those gaps that need to be developed so that we can help them to be successful?

Deb Coviello

100% and I talked about this in two of the compass points. One is the people’s Compass Point. And again, lean professionals, continuous improvement professionals think about Oh, how do we train the people? It’s not what it is in the compass? How do we develop the skills of the individual? Do I have the right confidence to know how to speak? Do I use powerful words? Do I even know how to ask for feedback? or receive feedback. I talked about some of those skills that we don’t even know how to say, how are you doing? Oh, things are fine, versus what do you need to be successful in your role? a totally different question that requires thought and potentially an action. And I also talked about the process. If a leader already has challenges with interfacing with other people in the organization, how are they going to develop the skills to then say, I saw you in this meeting with somebody else may notice there was a little bit of conflict. Talk to me about that? What was the situation? What can I do to help you and prepare you for the future? If they can’t even do that? How are they going to model the right behavior, and coach others, so not only do you have an expense starting to accumulate by the leader that’s been promoted, and now they lose their confidence because they don’t know how to handle difficult situations, then you have people reporting in there now saying, Okay, well, I’m not going to go to my boss, he’s already having complex, that’s a difficult department and go away. And so then that becomes an expense of missed opportunities, and people not knowing how to engage so, so, so critical. We need to have a plan, promote talent and prepare them.

Patrick Adams

Absolutely. So now let’s shift and talk about losing those best leaders, right? So are those top performers, what are the signs that we need to look for? And how do we respond to that?

Deb Coviello

So what I do is I think about a fire, I think about the levels of burning crisis situations, and I call it like, you have the initial Spark, when you’re getting ready to start a campfire, then the fire might burn slowly, I call that the slow burn. And then I had the Ignite. You know, the thing that Okay, now we got a fire here. And I think about that in terms of three people at different maturities in the organization. So I’ll talk quickly about the spark. This is the person the career professional, maybe 510 years in their career, super excited, very talented, they want to change the world, they come into your office, they’re frustrated, because they had a conversation, I presented the data to somebody, and they didn’t receive it and they picked it apart. This is a person with talent. And unless you are prepared to explain to them or what information you communicate, maybe they need polish and how to communicate the information to our point, what’s the risk, what’s the opportunity, speak the language of the other person, if you don’t do that, this person is really talented. Maybe they’ve been on board for 18 months, they are going to leave and find the next job because they don’t have time to spend time trying to figure it out. Unless you can coach them. You’ll lose that very talented young professional. Then you got the slow burn. This is a person who maybe has been there a while with their heads down, they do their job, but you know what, they’re starting to get some ideas and they come into your office and they start scribbling things on your whiteboard. And you don’t really understand where they’re going. But they got these crazy ideas. This is a person that’s one of your creative thinkers, but they’ve been keeping it to themselves. And unless you can work with them to say, Okay, well, let’s grab your ideas. Let’s whiteboard this, let’s what are the opportunities? What are the connections, sometimes people don’t know how to tell the story to say, I think there’s an opportunity here, that person, if you don’t grab that moment of inspiration to evolve a concept they just don’t know how to do that’s, first of all, a leadership, a leader needs to have those skills. If you don’t grab that moment, you may have lost a moment of creativity to maybe change the direction of your organization, you may not lose that person go out the door, but you will lose their mind the creativity, and they’re going to go back end being heads down and not contribute to the greater cause. That’s your slow burn. And finally be Ignite. That’s your high performer. I don’t care if they’ve been there five years, 10 years, 20 years, they do want to go go go. And unless our leaders have the skill to be able to give feedback, that high performer that ignites is going to say, what should I do? What do I need to get ahead? What should I do differently? And if we can’t give them the data, what’s the next thing? What’s the next challenge for them, because they just want to keep going, if we can’t give them the feedback, and you just say, You’re doing a great job, here’s your 2% increase, you’re going to lose them, they’re going to actually settle down into the steady Eddy, maybe be bored, become your poor performer, they may or may not leave, but you lose that ignite that thing, that person that could be that next level leader, and it all is around you developing that next level of leadership, because not only might you have a problem with that leader, you’re going to lose these other three types of people, depending on where they’re at in the spectrum.

Patrick Adams

Absolutely. I see this a lot with a lot of companies, a lot of leaders and a lot of leaders just don’t know how to react to these different areas that we’re talking about today. I would be curious to hear, you know, any advice from you, for executives or leaders, you know, when they are dealing with these situations, and they just don’t know where to turn? You know, when should they ask for help? Who should they trust? What what’s what our next steps for people that are listening in? Yeah, yeah, I have those issues. But I don’t know where to turn, what would your advice be to them?

Deb Coviello

So I actually attended a networking event. One of the hardest things that keeps people from being successful is just knowing when to ask, but also knowing that there’s a problem. So I see this across the spectrum, I’ve learned this from marketing. First, there’s a leader who realizes I even have a problem to begin with, where I’m not making the mark, I have human capital issues, they may not even realize it because they’re so down in the weeds. That’s the first problem, maybe the most dangerous one, because they don’t even realize they have a problem. The second level of a leader is that they say, you know, I got those difficult people, the organization, they’re not functioning as efficiently as they could. I do need help. But where do I go, I don’t see anybody within the organization. I’m a small organization, I don’t have anybody, I don’t have the time to even coach these people. But then the last part is, and that’s that precipice. You’re on the edge of a cliff, I think I should be able to solve it myself. I’ve been praised by being independent as a firefighter, solving these but sometimes as a leader, it’s simply having that corporate courage to say I need external support. It could be a coach, it could be a consultant, it could be a collaboration with a business partner, another company, just as being able to say I need versus heads down. And I think that’s a really powerful word for a leader is we should be asking for feedback, we should be saying what I need in order to be successful. And it may be that even that person’s leader is not asking them, you know, how are you doing? What should you continue? What should you start doing? What should we change? What do you need to be successful? I wrote about this in the blog, when we don’t even ask those important questions. What do you need, we may never muster the courage to say I need this and I need help. So I just want to just basically say, “Here is it in business, we are so busy doing the report and getting the transaction done getting the continuous improvement done versus having a question or conversation with our leaders say I need help. So I just want to emphasize to people, if you have a pit in your stomach, I’m not on track. I don’t feel good. Maybe if I work a few hours harder and throw some resources at it, maybe it’ll go away. Well, maybe you want to listen to that and say, You know what, I’m not a subject matter expert. And I will tell you, I had that in my last job at the head of quality. I had gotten my feeling I needed help and I probably waited too long to ask for help. When I eventually did, I got the help. But maybe the crisis that gotten too big. Let that be less and don’t let things fester too long. burn a little bit because four becomes a crisis. Yes, then it’ll become very expensive to ask for help.

Patrick Adams

That’s right. Right. And he and when you do ask for help to be transparent and be real with those people that that, you know, obviously you have to, you have to have that level of trust, but you’re wasting your time, if you’re not going to be completely transparent about all of the struggles or challenges that you’re dealing with when you’re working with a coach, you know, so, you know, I would just kind of throw that in there too, is don’t just reach out but reach out with with intention to really make some some true changes based on being real with what you’re really dealing with.

Deb Coviello

May I just add a 30 seconds story. This is where something went wrong. So I was in this high level, continuous improvement, quality position, and I was having monthly one to ones with my boss, and we would talk about the projects and, you know, how could he help with the specific projects, and we got them to a poor area where we had a quality issue, we had an issue that really was starting to get out of hand. And we worked through those tactical details. But then he finally towards the end asked me to question tab. Have you ever had experience in this area before? And I said, No, I was doing what I could with the resources that I had at my disposal to solve the problem. And when he said to you, have you ever had this experience? I said, No. He then said, well, that’s on me. But he never took the time to even ask a question. Do you have everything you need? What’s my background? What’s my past? What are my unique skills? What are my strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats? never asked. Now, one should take personal responsibility to say to their boss, I have a gap here. I need some help here. But also, as leaders, we need to have conversations to say, What do you need? What’s your background? Don’t assume? Do you have everything you need to be successful?

Patrick Adams

That’s right, absolutely. So Deb, if someone wanted to get ahold of you, outside of this podcast, we’ll drop some of these links into the show notes, but where would they go to get ahold of you or to find the book.

Deb Coviello

So I am so excited to have this conversation. You brought stories out from a long time ago but you know, there’s always a lesson. It’s a thank you for the opportunity to speak to your community. My website drop in ceo.com Dr. O p bi and co.com drop in C O is my brand. If you go there you can connect with me. I also have a link to get on the waitlist for the book, the CEOs compass your guide to get back on track is coming out later in 2021. And my playground where I play a lot is on LinkedIn, look up drop in CEO or Deb Coviello, you’ll find me and I would love to have a conversation, get to know you and see how I can support you.

Patrick Adams

Absolutely. And again, as I said, we will drop those links into the show notes. So if you’re interested in getting in contact with Deb outside of this podcast, please check those show notes and go to her link and reach out to her. It’s been great having you on the show. I hope this isn’t the last time I really appreciate your time, the stories and and obviously all of the insights that are coming through through your book.Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Lean Solutions podcast. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe. This way you’ll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined. Please give us a review. Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai