Transcript
When your business receives positive publicity, it’s exciting, the spotlight attracts more customers and the cash flows in. But too much growth too soon can be catastrophic. Especially if your business lacks the operations to support this influx of customers. Hi, I’m Alicia Butler Pierre. You see, some small businesses fail not from the lack of customers, but from far too many. They reach a point where they struggle to align capability with capacity. Simply put, they can’t handle the unanticipated demand and run the serious risk of losing what they’ve worked so hard to build.
If you or people you know are in a similar situation with their business, the good news is there’s hope. And we’re about to hear from someone who will share exactly how she was able to turn around a company on the verge of ruin. Specifically, we’ll learn how to get to the bottom of this fast growth dilemma. Or should I say the root causes. This is season 13, episode 162. Let’s start the show.
Welcome to Business Infrastructure, the podcast about carrying back office blues of fast growing businesses. If you’re a business owner or operator looking for practical tips and solutions to scaling your business in a sustainable manner, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your hostess, Alicia Butler Pierre.
Finding your new favorite podcast is hard. Finding one that can help you scale your business is even harder. That’s why they launched the HubSpot podcast network. It includes shows like Martech with Ben Shapiro, a podcast that shares stories of world class marketers who use technology to generate growth, scale their business and achieve career success. You know the saying, you can’t make all mistakes by yourself. That’s what I love about the Martech podcast. Ben’s guests describe mistakes they’ve made so that you don’t have to. Whatever your role or goal, HubSpot Podcast Network has the podcast for you. Listen, learn and [email protected] podcast network.
Having a tough time trying to explain ideas over a video conference? Try the Think Smart Whiteboard. It’s the fastest whiteboard software in the world and allows you to upload flowcharts and write on them while your colleagues are watching remotely. Call us today for a free demo. The number is 1-866-584-6804 or visit us online at getmytablet. Now that’s smart. Think smart. It’s season 13 and we are focusing on operational excellence, what it is and how to achieve it.
And joining me today in Tampa, Florida is Lauren Hisey. Now, Lauren is traditionally in Woodstock, Georgia, which is in the North Metro Atlanta area, but she just happens to be in Tampa today. Now, Lauren is the founder and CEO of Lauren Hisey Consulting, where she and her team help leaders and operations professionals uncover and solve business problems with continuous improvement. And today, she’s going to share with us an example of how she solved such a business problem.
It has to do with receiving phone calls, and it’s one that almost all of us can probably relate to. And, yes, I’m keeping you in suspense. You’ll have to keep listening to hear what Lauren reveals. So, Lauren, we’re welcome to the show. How are you doing?
I’m doing great. How are you doing?
I’m doing well. So this is just like other conversations that you and I have had, except we’re just recording it.
That’s correct.
And I’d like to share with everyone how we met. We were introduced through our mutual friend and colleague, David Allen. David is the quintessential customer, success, thought leader, and guru. And David was kind enough to introduce us to each other. He’s actually been a guest on the show as well. So shout out to David, and thanks again for introducing us to each other. You know, Lauren, I’d like to just get right into it, if that’s okay with you.
Sounds good.
Okay. You know, I’m always fascinated by people’s backstories, and yours is no exception. So it’s funny because I realized in the conversations that we’ve had, I don’t think I really, really studied your background until I started preparing for this interview. And I just found it to be so fascinating. So you worked for the telecommunications giant AT&T for about 15 years, is that correct?
Yes, I did for about 15 years. I started there right outside of when I graduated from the University of South Florida.
And speaking of which, I noticed your degree is actually in political science. So how on earth did you land a job at AT&T in an operations role? It sounds like, with a degree in political science. How did that happen?
Oh, yeah, that’s. That’s a great story.
Please do tell.
So when I was growing up, I was heavily involved in politics with mean. My father was. Was always involved in local politics and in the state of Florida. So I was like. oh, that’d be great. I want to be in politics. I want to do something political science. And then I thought I wanted to become a lawyer. And then in my last semester of school, I really, really did not want to become a lawyer, and I did not want to go into politics.
Really?
Yeah but, What changes I was taking a law class at the time. Like, you know, when you become a senior, right, you could start taking some of those introduction law classes. And I started taking law classes. I’m like, okay, I like law and I like, you know what the history behind it, but I don’t want to practice it. I didn’t have that passion for it. And so when I was like, well, it’s too late to really change my degree because I was in my last semester, but I was taking a political theory or women in politics, I forget which class it was during that time.
And I actually ended up meeting a couple of people that were part of our study group that were working at the AT&T call center and they were looking for people to hire and so they asked me if I wanted a job. And that’s how I landed at AT&T.
Wow.
Just be at the right place at the right time.
Isn’t that something?
Yeah. And so what was great about it is I just, I had a knack for, I guess that, that for technology and didn’t even realize it at the time. So I had a knack for that. And so it was really easy for me to learn what the call center was about. So my friends helped prep me for the interview and you know, within, I think right after the interview they offered me a job. It was just a part time job for a while and then I ended up, when I graduated, I knew since I knew I didn’t want to go into a political science field, I just ended up staying at AT&T.
And then I eventually ended up getting a full time job at AT&T as a systems engineer. And that’s just kind of like where my, where I grew up with learning technology stuff. And then I also met my husband at AT&T. Yeah, so that was great. And then as I started, you know, going further and further in my career, I went back to school, got my MBA knowing I wanted to do something in business.
And that’s where I really learned about Lean, Six Sigma and continuous improvement. And then I believe it was about two to three months after I got my mba. I was telling my BP at the time that I didn’t have any acceleration growth anywhere left in my team because I, my team leads were really great, but they weren’t moving anywhere and my manager wasn’t either.
But I’m one of those people that I always want to learn and do, do a bunch of things. And I told him I was getting bored. Three or four weeks later I found out that I was being recommended for the AT&T’s leading Six Sigma program. As a black belt, that’s how I started down that journey. So just kind of like, it’s almost like an evolution of things that just being in the right place at the right time and just talking to the.
Right people and it’s sounds like also speaking up for what you want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s something. You know, it’s very early I learned to do that, but then later my career, I also learned I didn’t do it as often as I should. So it was kind of. It’s been a interesting journey in that aspect of speaking up when you want to or if you see something that you don’t feel comfortable, like you don’t feel comfortable seeing, or, you know, that if you don’t, if you stay stagnant, you know, you’re not going to grow.
Yeah. Do you think it has to do with age? So, you know, you know how it is when you’re in your early 20s, you’re just a model of vitality and energy. And so, yeah, you want to constantly be on the go.
Right.
And you want to constantly learn new things. And I think we have no problem saying what we want, but I think the older we get, and this is just me making an assumption of what happened with you, Lauren, but I would imagine, you know, as we start to get older and, you know, we get married and maybe even start families and. And you start to get a little bit more settled, which kind of leads to being just kind of comfortable and complacent. Did that have something to do with it?
Maybe that probably did. It’s probably, you know what, you don’t really think about it. And so, you know, you don’t really think about it until you get in a situation where like, oh, my gosh, you know, something just changes overnight. Like, you know, what happened with, I think, a lot of us last year. Right. Things changed every day. And then that’s. I think, yeah, that’s when you get comfortable, sometimes you get stagnant. And I don’t. I don’t think that’s a good place to be, and I don’t think that’s a good place for even businesses to be.
So maybe that’s why I think now, as we move, you know, as we move out of this pandemic and we start to learn what we really want, I think a lot of us are really, truly trying to figure out what’s our passion and who would be like to help and realizing that if we stay in the same place all the time that we’re, like I said, we’re just going to become stagnant. So that’s, that’s a, that’s a clear assumption that you, like you said, as we get older, we might get comfortable versus when we’re younger.
Yeah, yeah. And so eventually, obviously you left at&t and I know you started working at Nielsen, is that correct?
That’s correct. Yeah, that was. And I wasn’t looking for, you know, talking about being the right place at the right time. I was not even looking for another job at that point. I was my boss who became the person that became my boss. His name is Mark Taylor and he had found me on LinkedIn. And then an HR recruiter from Nielsen contacted me on LinkedIn. And so you know how people say, oh yeah, you know, we should network all the time, even if it is on, on social media, like, you know, a business social media, it does truly work. And I’ve always been a big advocate of that and a big supporter of LinkedIn because of what happened with that.
Absolutely. And so, okay, so at and T, you go work for Nielsen, you’re still in operations, functioning in an operations type capacity, but eventually you start your own consulting practice. So tell us more about your company.
So I started my business, I launched it two and a half years ago, but I really, the idea and the evolution of getting there started about three to four years prior. It’s just more about knowing that I wanted eventually to go out and do something on my own because I knew that outside of the corporate world that there were other businesses that could use or that could use my help. And that’s really my passion because I was getting tired of the, you know, like, red tape is what I like to call it, you know, the red tape and being sent into different areas of the business to try and help them.
But then you find out that people aren’t ready to change just yet or ready to move. So I thought that there’s got to be businesses out there that will would love for me to come help them and partner with them to make their businesses better. Right. Business improvement. And that’s how I started my business. And then eventually just, it was the right time at the right time.
It’s always, it seems that always happens to me. It’s always the right time to choose something. And I take the leap from corporate into launching my business. It launched it in 2019. And so it’s either for. I got pretty lucky. I got, I landed my first two clients pretty fast and then I got Some more clients and project work.
And then as talking with, sometimes I partner with some other firms, smaller firms. And right before the pandemic started, we, you know, how you talk about those dream clients that you always wanted, start talking with the dream client. And then the pandemic hits. And then, you know, I think all of us probably felt this last year, if you had your own business with all of us probably struggled, okay, what do we do or how do we do it? Can we support our clients?
Are they even going to pay us?
Right, right.
Yeah. So I decided to take time last year to really under, maybe refocus a little bit and make sure I’m. I was targeting the right clients, who I want, who my ideal clients I wanted to work with and make sure that I was targeting the right, you know, targeting things the right way. So I, I decided to take a taste of my medicine and decided, okay, I’m going to put, really put, continue to prove it back into practice in my own business.
And that’s what I’ve done over the last probably three to six months is continuous to improve things. And so that’s really helped me land the clients I really would love to work with. And then also make sure that if there’s a. Another firm that I like to partner with, that I’m partnering with the right. With someone who I really want to partner with.
Yeah, yeah, that’s. That’s so important. It’s so key to make sure that you are aligned with people that you collaborate as well as people you know, as you’re building your team, making sure that that alignment is there. You know, Lauren, as I was looking over your website and reading your different blog posts, I love the fact that you, I note and I noticed this phrase throughout a lot of your materials online, and that is, you know, the fact that you, you say that you use a calming influence and as you’re solving these business problems for your clients and, you know, for those of us who are operations consultants, Lean Six Sigma consultants, we always go into situations of chaos.
Right, right.
And, you know, you can’t solve chaos with chaos. So I love the fact that you actually point out that I’m coming into your chaotic situation with, with calm. I have a calming influence and we’re going to do this together. So in that spirit, what does operational excellence mean to you? And can you talk a little bit more about that calming influence that you speak of?
Yeah. So operational excellence, it’s, you know, with that, with continuous improvement, it’s pretty much what it comes down to. It’s either I also like to look at in this perspective of front office and back office. And then you have your operations, right? So you have all these different things that all these different processes, these people and technology all interacting with each other. And in order to get to that excellence, you have to always continuously improve, right. Because your processes always need to be. Your processes always need to be evolving with what’s going on in the marketplace, what your customers want or even need, but then also what’s going on with your employees, right?
So your employees, they’re seeing different things happening or maybe, you know, things are getting stagnant in the business or maybe they’re getting unhappy. And I would say that when you’re starting to see the symptoms, right? Unhappy employees, customers leaving, paying your rising cost or if you have, or even paying like penalties, right. I think a lot of times those are symptoms of problems or if I’d like to think about it, like when we’re sick, we always have symptoms like we have a cough or we have a temperature or we just don’t feel really well. Those are just symptoms of the underlying problems.
And that’s the way I look at it with. If you don’t fix the true business problems, which are which a lot of times with business processes and the people and the technology, then your symptoms are going to always stay there. So when I think of operational excellence in that natural, like the common influence and talking naturally with people, right. What I like to do there is I actually going in and the first right off the bat, I think a lot of when I’m talking to business leaders who are going to become my potential clients, they say, you know, their employees just aren’t adapting to change or maybe they.
There’s no trust there. So in order for me to even gain that trust, I start out just doing what the true gimbal walks, either if it’s in person or virtually is really walking that process. And getting to learn what these people do on a day in and day, you know, day in and day out, but also getting to know them personally. So that’s probably part of the, part of the calming influence that helps with doing any type of change management as well is by gaining that trust and this letting them talk. Because a lot of times people just want to vent.
Yes.
nd they just want, they just want to. And they’ll tell you. And once they’re done vetting, they’ll tell you exactly what they do. And a lot of times those people actually have the best solution ideas and they just feel like no one’s ever listened to their voices before. So that’s part of my influence I do with that. And then what I also do too is once I get to that point and we start mapping the processes, a lot of times a lot of companies and organizations don’t even think about the customer perspective.
How’s the customer, like, what’s their journey? And so you put that all together and you put this end to end map together. I think that’s where people start to get the trust because they start to see the picture, right. So we do like a very high level map and then we do that really detailed map, you know, so they can see what is truly going on. And I think that’s part of the calming influence is just putting all those pieces together, talking with them and just being like rolling up my sleeves and just really helping them and being, and partnering with them to fix the issues.
You said the word that I was looking for, Lauren, which is trust, calming influence. As I’m listening to you talk about your calming influence and the different things that you do to, you know, for example, the gimbal walks and we’re definitely going to, I definitely want you to explain what that is for those who are listening and they’re like, what, oh what, what are they talking about?
So we’re going to make sure we define what that is and continuous improvement in and of itself as well. But you know, as I was listening to it, I was like, okay, so yes, this is everything that Lauren is describing sounds like she’s really doing the things that are necessary to establish trust.
And once people trust you, then it just opens the door to, as you mentioned, the free flowing of ideas and being able to brainstorm and come up with solutions that are a win win for everyone that’s involved. Now I know you have a specific success story that I hinted at earlier that you’d like to share with us. We’ve all received at some point or another, probably in our businesses influxes of unpredictable calls.
And I can’t wait to hear from you Lauren about how you were able to help one of your clients mitigate this. But first, let’s take a break to hear from our sponsor. In order to build a successful company, you need to create a remarkable customer experience. And to create remarkable customer experiences, your teams need fast and accurate insights to make decisions.
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And align your team with a single source of truth, giving them access to powerful pre built dashboards that help prove the impact of campaigns, provide intuitive sales and coaching insights and highlight clear business performance metrics. Learn [email protected] so, Lauren, before the break, we hinted at a success story that you’d like to share with us. But before we get into that, I’d first like to define what business infrastructure is. And it’s so funny because you actually have been talking about what I define as business infrastructure as you’ve been talking.
Right.
So when you were talking about the integration of the people and the technologies and the tools and the process, I’m like, yes, yes, Lauren, yes. Now that’s what we define business infrastructure as. So for those of you who are listening to this show for the first time, business infrastructure is an operations system for linking the people, processes and tools in your company to ensure that growth happens in a profitable and sustainable way.
So I’m dying to get into this, this success story that you, that you want to share with us because again, all of us, we’re in business, we receive contact, you know, we’re constantly being contacted, whether it’s through phone calls, chatbot messages, messages through direct, you know, direct messages.
We are receiving communications from different sources and sometimes we can get these waves of unpredictable messages and we’re not sure what the source is and how to, how to even curtail it if it’s something that needs to be curtailed. So can you define for us first what the actual issue was?
And then from a business infrastructure perspective, Lauren, I’d like to look at each of those three elements of business infrastructure. So if we could talk about the people, the process, and then the actual tools and technology. So let’s first start with the problem. In and of itself.
The problem for someone’s actually was really simple. And this is, I think you and I in the past talked about, you know, business expanding in there and sometimes they’re afraid to expand. What this client of mine was doing is they had launched a product, a brand new product in a series of products they already have. And when they launched this product, it’s been growing year after year and it’s been growing faster than they expected it to.
So then what was happening is they were getting these influx of calls into the call center, but they were unpredictable so they couldn’t stop the call set Their call centers with the right amount of people. So then what was happening is they have long hold times really upset employees. They were working so overtime and they’re at the point where when the call center managers were calling the employees to see if they could work and this is even this happening last year. So they were doing a lot of this from home, see if they would even work on extra hours at night or on the weekend.
The employees were avoiding their manager’s calls because they didn’t want to work overtime. Yeah, it was getting to that point. And then so this client actually does B2B which is business to business and then business to business to consumer. So they have, they do sell directly to consumers, but a lot of times their bigger clients will actually take their services and just, and bring them as their own. So. Yeah, so what was happening there too with that?
Is there. So they’re, you know, their customers are trying to call into the, into this call into this branded call center. And what was also happening there is they had to start paying penalties to their clients because their whole times were so, were so high. So you have overworked customers that or I’m sorry, overworked employees. I’m not just talking about the call center employee, the people, the call agents, but also the managers.
Yeah.
Even up to directors and VPs were getting very, were getting stress as well and working overtime because they realized they had to figure out a way to mitigate this problem. And then on the flip side of that is that they didn’t realize overall end to end their processes from when first process starts with the customer engagements all the way to the time that they’re calling, they didn’t realize that all the stuff that they were doing upstream was really affecting what was going on downstream. So you have employees all over the place just, they just felt they’re overworked and doing a lot of manual work as well.
But then your customers, and not just your big clients, but then their customers and then even your direct, their direct customers were going to the competitors. And then so they’re losing customers which then they’re losing revenue. Right. And then, and then of course, you know, their costs are rising because it’s still rising because you still have to. They’re still having this influx of calls coming in.
So by the time I got there, I want to say if you, if we want to break down as the people process and then tools, technology, I can definitely say I like to sometimes all three even throw an extra layer on there and throw on the customer. Right. So I Was like, look at the customer review. So when I first started talking to the business leaders, they brought me in, started and we started talking. I get their perspective first because they’re, they’re really upset as well. So it’s not just your frontline employees. I said like, right, your big, your leadership.
And so I like to understand where they’re coming from and understand what are you trying to truly resolve? Like what’s the issue, you know, what, what do you want to do? What’s the business objectives that you want to get to? And it’s not just really, you know, not having high call wait times or even high call and, or reducing call numbers.
It’s maybe what do you want your people to have in an experience and what do you want your customers to experience? And then are you trying to grow revenue and cut costs? Right, or reduce cost? That could cost me a reduced cost. And so usually when you reduce the cost and raise revenue, then you increase your profit margins.
Those are the kind of conversations I like to have first with the leaders to truly understand exactly what are they looking for. Because when they just tell me, I just need you to reduce the number of calls coming into a call center that I said now we really need to understand what exactly you’re trying to solve for first. And that’s just having those probing questions and discovery. So that calming influence and the getting to gain the trust starts at first at that level.
And then once I can get their trust, then I start talking to the rest of their people. And so when I talk to their people, I’m talking to all levels. I’m talking to people on the leadership team, I’m talking to people like middle management managers. And then I’m talking to the people themselves. And then if I’m really truly lucky, which I hope I’m allowed to do sometimes with my clients, I get to talk to a couple of their customers or even their clients to understand what their perspective is.
And that’s where the gimbal walk starts. Come in. Right. So I need to get the trust people first before I can start doing anything with the, like looking at the process. And a lot of times people want to like throw all these process maps at me. I just say, let’s take those process maps you have, put them off to the side. We’re not, I don’t want to look at them just yet. I just want to talk to your people and understand how are they feeling and understand what do they do on a day to day basis.
I just want to, if I may just Interject really quickly. You asked something, such a poignant question. How are you feeling? And that is so key. And let me, you know, for those listening, let me explain why that’s so important because we can oftentimes as practitioners of process improvement, continuous improvement, Lean and Lean Six Sigma, it’s very easy to just focus on the numbers. And even as executives and leaders of our companies, it’s so easy to just be purely metric driven to the detriment of the people who are on that front line making things actually happen.
Yes.
So to get them to come across as empathetic is so important because they just want to be heard. And oftentimes the frustration comes in because they don’t feel that they’re being heard. So, so I think that was, I just wanted to mention that. Just kind of. Yeah, just interject that a little bit. But yeah. Can you also. So you, you were starting to talk about, you know, before you even look at any of the process maps or flowcharts, for those who may not be familiar with, with what a process map is, but you mentioned gimbal walks. And there’s, there’s an expression that we have sometimes in this field. Right. Go to the gimba.
Go to the gamba.
Yes. Can you, what is a gimbal walk, Lauren? Can you explain what that is?
Yeah, so I don’t remember what the exact definition is. So I’ll just give you the way I look at it. Right. A gimbal walk, I think was developed by, I think that was developed by Toyota. I hope I’m right on that. So it’s, it’s, it’s a leap lean term that we use. Right. That we use in this, in our profession. And it’s really just getting down and I like to say rolling up the sleeves and understanding what the troop, understanding what these people do on a day in and day out basis.
So Gamma Walk isn’t necessarily just for like a continuous improvement, professional or expert, but it’s also for the leaders. And I, and that’s why I like to practice with the leaders, is that if you, if we can get and talk and understand how the people feel when we say go to gimbal is we’re going and watching what they’re doing and observing what they’re doing. And a lot of times when we listen to those people and we see exactly how they do something, that’s where we start to find out the as is true process versus the process that’s on a piece of paper.
Yes.
Or. Yeah. The perceived. Or what they perceived it to be. Then there’s so many. And what, and that’s what I, how I, how I look at a gimbal walk is just really going in, getting that, gaining the trust, helping leadership understand what’s truly going on, but then also getting people to understand that maybe what, what they’re doing is affecting either upstream or downstream. So the next process step or the next step in the process is sometimes people. You always say the term, I’m just gonna throw it over the wall and let them take care of it. And a lot of people, that’s where the silos start.
And the other thing I also like about the gimbal walks and talking with the people is besides one them having good solution ideas, their gut feelings usually like you usually are, usually help you determine where the problems are. And then once you help determine understanding when you’re doing that problem solving and do some root cause analysis after you do the gamma walks. I always remember those gut feelings as people have. And then at that point then that’s where we can start saying, let’s finally look at the data and then we can use the data to back up those gut feelings.
That’s what I like to say sometimes too, when people are talking about lean six sigma or they’re talking lean versus six Sigma, I say if you take that toolbox approach and use all the tools that we have at our disposal and use them at the right time, I would see lean kind of gives us, you know, helps us get rid of some of the waste, but it also, I think, gives us a way to get the human side of things right, understand what those humans are doing.
And then you can take the six sigma side of things and start looking at the data and match that up with the human side of things. You get. And you get a really good story that way. That’s the way I look at gimbal walks and putting everything, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
I love that you kind of reduced lean versus six sigma because again, I know there’s probably people listening to this right now who are still like, what, what are they talking about? But I love, you know, you summarize that so beautifully. If we could just think of lean as, as being more on the human side of things and six sigma being more on that data side. I really like that the way you were able to distill it down to those two very simple, easy to grasp concepts. Because you’re right, that’s really what it boils down to.
It is, it is, very much so, yeah.
Okay, so you have this toolbox approach that you use. So you figure out what are the right tools. You have access to all of these different tools through the Lean framework as well as the Six Sigma framework. And you’re just kind of selecting which tools will be most appropriate or applicable in solving this particular problem.
Can we back up just a little bit, Lauren? Because, and I only know this from having read some of your blog posts because I know you’re very big on root cause analysis as well. So at some point, you know when you, when you’re talking to the business leaders and then eventually you’re talking to middle management as well as frontline people working on the front line.
I would imagine that somewhere before you actually get to the process piece as well, or maybe even that gimbal walk that there’s some type of root cause analysis. What are the true sources of in this case, this unanticipated demand, these, these extremely long hold. Hold times.
Yeah. So for that example, this one was unique. The root causes for this one, you version, when you think of a call center, sometimes you’re thinking, oh, it’s the. Well, the 800 number is not smart enough. In that case, the 800 number wasn’t smart enough like it would be. Or not smart. Definitely there wasn’t a lot of technology there to help answer people’s questions that they might have had about the product. But when it came down to it, and as I started to.
We call it what peeling back the onion. Right, the root cause analysis, a lot of the things that we saw for this example was one like the emails that they were sending out were kind of scary, I guess better way to look at it. Just something very simple. They weren’t educational enough. So then it was propping the people just to pick up the phone right away and call. So by knowing that those emails didn’t have that in the website and then also the website itself, their website itself wasn’t very educational and there was no educational videos.
And it didn’t really provide that warm fuzzy feeling that these customers really wanted. So by just saying, okay here, those are the problems. Customers are just didn’t want that warm. That weren’t getting that warm fuzzy feeling that was the true root cause. And something’s very simple and sometimes people like to really make it really detailed. I said, no, what’s the real root cause?
What’s really causing them that problem? And then as we started to peel back the layers even more, as we dig into the process, the emails that were being sent and the 800 number we were able, I think we had out of that, with that whole team, we had probably about 60 ideas, solution ideas.
Wow.
We can’t implement all those.
Right, Right.
Because all the other things you, as we’re doing the root cause and then we’re coming up the solutions, I always tell them, let’s not think about what you’ve done in the past, what may or may have not worked. Right. Let’s start with a clean slate and understand. You’re right. What’s the true problem? What are they? What do we need to solve for?
And then when I’m working with them to do the problem solving and then for the root cause analysis, and then as we move into problem solving for that root causes, I always say to people, let’s not worry about time, let’s not worry about money. If I gave you all the time in the world and all the money in the world, how would you truly solve this problem? And when you take away those barriers, even when it comes to some of the analysis, it’s like you’re taking away all the barriers.
I think that’s what happens. The creativity starts to happen and people, and that’s where also people get to gain the trust. And the other thing I like to do too when I’m doing my workshops with the clients is I always tell them right up right at the front of anything is we check the titles at the door and everyone’s on the same level. Yeah. Because you have VPs, you have frontline people working together because they all have great ideas. But I think sometimes like their front lines are probably a little scared to talk in front of the leaders.
Yep.
And so I said no, everyone has a chance to talk. Unfortunately, sometimes you do have, you do have some folks that are still very shy in front of the leaders or in front of, you know, even their managers. And so if I see that they’re not participating the way that I want them to, I’ll take them to the side like during a break and just have one on one conversations and say, well, is there something that you.
Because by that point I’ve already gained the trust, I’ve already spoken with them. But when I do share, that’s the other thing too. When I share all of my findings through that discovering gamble box, I don’t share people’s names with things because so that way they feel that they, they can still have their voice and it’s more of anonymous that way. But what I do is I see they’re not participating in solutioning and helping out then that sometimes that starts just, that’s where you gain the trust.
And what I find out a lot of times they are just so scared to talk in front of the leaders or maybe they try to say something in the past and they never got heard before. And that’s where I said now is the time you have, the floor is yours and if you’ve got a bright idea, let’s get it out there.
Yeah. And with the knowledge and understanding that there won’t be repercussions, Right. For providing commentary or anything that could in other circumstances be perceived as negative.
So I think that’s great. That idea of checking titles at the door, I really love that. So they come up with all of these solutions and then is it a matter of then prioritizing like where’s the low hanging fruit? What can we start implementing right away?
Yeah, that’s the approach that we take. So I usually have them rank, I have them ranked things so based on ease of doing it cost, how much, you know, cost of it, is it going to improve the customer experience but is it also going to improve the employee experience? And then by doing all of that together we rank it. And usually what I try to get them to do is choose, you know, the things that improve the employee, the employee experience, the customer experience, you want them to rate those high and of course you want the cost and time to be lower.
A lot of times that’s where I get the low hanging fruit and that’s usually how we prioritize and then we set up that roadmap for improvement. A lot of times I’ve been finding out in the last few clients is sometimes the low hanging fruit may have already been taken care of and they done that without my involvement at all.
But I’m also finding and it’s they probably had something already in play to try and get things fixed as fast as they could on their own. But what I’m also finding out to you is as we’re developing more of the solutions are starting to involve a lot more technology nowadays.
So unfortunately some of the late as they’re sorry, I like to work in an agile format so and say okay, let’s get that low hanging fruit, start working on that now but then let’s also start planning for those future improvements that include the technology that are going to cost some more money but are also going to take more time but will greatly improve everything and reduce cost at the same time.
And once we get that implemented, sometimes that stuff can take about a year to do, six months to a year that’s why, like I said, like to work in an agile format and try to get things done faster with technology. And if you move that way, then you can start getting more momentum that way so we don’t run into where people, things get stalled in there as they’re trying to implement this stuff.
And I’m so, I’m just loving everything, I must say, Lauren, because you know, when people, here’s the thing, you know, you, we haven’t built these businesses overnight, so why do you think you’re going to fix it overnight? And that’s, you know, but when people start to hear about how long it could take, you know, if you tell someone 6 to 12 months, they’re like, oh no. Because they’re thinking, oh well, this is something. Yeah, we get in here 30, maybe 60, even 90 days max and we should have it fixed, right Lauren?
Right.
Yeah. It doesn’t, it doesn’t work that way. And you’re right. People get, they get, they can get discouraged, they can think, oh my God, we’ll never, we’ll never, we’ll never get on the other side of this. But, but in using that Agile approach.
So basically dividing the work up into short bursts, right, where you can have these, these incremental wins before you get to what the final finish line actually is. But that’s, that’s a really important approach because it’s very easy to get burnt out on a, a continuous improvement type project. Very, very easy to, to lose momentum.
Very much so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you being the consultant acting as that guide, you have to keep everybody, you have to keep that energy level and that enthusiasm up throughout that, throughout the duration of these projects? So kudos to you for using that Agile approach.
Now, speaking of tools and technologies and just resources in general, are there some specific things that you can recommend to those who are listening right now who may say, wow, this is fascinating. Learning about gimbal walks and agile and some of these, you know, these lean and lean Six Sigma.
What are some resources that you can recommend, Lauren, that you, you know that if people go and maybe watch a class or read a book or a particular article or join a certain organization that they could really benefit from to learn more about this type of work?
Yeah, so let me think. I want to see. Okay, so I just was just having these conversations with my mentee last week and her intern and I had, oh, I can’t remember the name of the book. Like, so process mapping. Right. I think that’s the biggest resource. I like when people ask me where Do I even start like, oh, I really want to learn about Lean six Sigma? Or do I even need that? Do I need to get certified?
I usually tell folks that if they. So it really depends on the size of the organization too. But if I have people come to me and ask, just want to know what’s going on. You know, there’s so many of us out in the org out there that have some good resources and I just want to say.
You know when it comes down to learning what it is, I always tell people first, let’s have, you know, maybe if they want to have a conversation with me, I’ll just sit there and have a conversation with people and tell them all about it and how we can help them. But I’m looking for resources, our books, why else? And I’m getting late. I’m getting, I’m getting. My mind just went blank. Well, that’s.
Yeah, if you, if something does come to mind, you can always let maybe outside of this and we’ll make sure we get it into the show notes.
Yeah, yeah. Because you know, there’s probably a couple books that I will have to, I’ll have to get out to get that to you because there’s like a processing process mapping book, but then there’s also the Insect Sigma book.
I always tell people to go take a look at just so that they wanted to, to understand what it is and if they can even apply it straight into their business.
Now one thing I would like to recommend, and this is a very specific post that I saw on your blog, your company’s blog, and that is it was an April 2021 article called My Continuous Improvement Toolbox. I thought that was such a well written article that basically kind of summarizes a lot of what you spoke about today.
The gimbal walks, the toolbox approach, having that calming influence, establishing rapport and trust with the people that you’re working closely with. So I highly recommend that article.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I had a lot of fun writing that one. That was probably been one of my favorite ones I’ve written.
Well, it’s very effective and I, I always like reading other people’s approaches and their explanations for it for this type of work. So I found it to be very informative.
And I did notice something that you’ve also mentioned here, which is the fact that you do these discovery calls. And so if someone does want to know more about this or possibly I would imagine how they can work with you, you do offer these Complimentary discovery calls, right?
I sure do. I would say let’s, I always tell people, let’s get on the phone. Even if it’s just for 15, 20 minutes. I like to try to schedule them for an hour because you end up talking about so many different things. But I like to see if there’s a match and if we can, we can work together. I usually like to say partner together.
Yeah. So what I usually do is I’ll ask them, you know, what’s the problems that they’re seeing or what are they facing and then just start asking them really open ended questions. And then if it comes down to where we both feel comfortable that things can move forward, then I usually set, we’ll set up some more time after that to talk about what our next steps will look like and then we start to just kind of go from there.
So with that being said, what’s the best way for people to connect with you, Lauren?
A couple of two different ways is either to send me an [email protected] or there, or to go to my website. There’s a contact us off of my website or off of LinkedIn as well.
Okay, there you have it, everybody. Now let’s, let’s just. I’d like to quickly recap some of the things that you shared with us, Lauren. This was absolutely phenomenal and I wish we could go on more, but we do have to wrap it up, unfortunately.
But I love, I loved how we started off talking about your backstory and how you, you realized, you know, your senior year in college, like, I don’t actually want to be a lawyer and how that, you know, eventually, you know, a team that you worked with led you to an opportunity, working as a call agent at AT&T while you were still a student. And once you graduated, that evolved into full time employment, which landed you into all of these different operations and process and continuous improvement roles in the company.
And 15 years later, you know, eventually moving on to another company and ultimately starting your own business. But I loved, there was something very specific you said. You have to continuously improve to achieve operational excellence. In other words, it never ends, right?
No, it doesn’t.
There is no such thing as perfection. You just continuously improve. And considering that idea of continuous improvement, it also ties very nicely to something else that you said that we can’t ever get comfortable because when you get comfortable, that’s when complacency can start to creep in.
Whether that’s in our personal lives. Or business, the way we operate our businesses as well. So I think that was a great kind of full circle type moment there. I love the fact that you talked about establishing rapport and trust and having that calming influence. I just may try to quickly summarize process that you shared with us that you took your client through on this very specific problem that they were experiencing.
Unanticipated demand. You know, we all think, wow, having more business than we can handle, that’s a great thing. Right, because we have all of these customers. But if you don’t have the business infrastructure to support that, you can lose the company. The company can still fail. And that sounds so crazy.
I know, but it’s absolutely real. And I’m so glad you shared this example specifically because it speaks to things that I talk about all the time. You know, this, this challenge, that’s, this, the operational challenges that are caused by fast growth. So you talked about this, this problem that one of your clients had with this unanticipated demand.
And as a result, not only were costs rising and cycle times or hold times rising, but as a result, they were actually not only losing employees, but losing business to the competition. Ouch. So the process that you walked us through was, first things first. Talk to the business leaders, understand the problem that they’re trying to solve, but with a focus on the customer experience and not necessarily looking at whole time.
Right That’s a byproduct.
Right. Of the true thing that we’re trying to get after, which is improving that customer experience, which as you always point out, ultimately leads to increasing revenue. Secondly, you mentioned that you then talked to everyone else. Everyone else, meaning middle management, frontline managers.
But you also made it a point to include the fact that you said speak to those customers and clients as well, which is so key to make sure that what they are saying their needs and wants are aligns with what the company thinks that their customers needs and wants are.
And we usually find that there is a mismatch there. But then you mentioned that’s at the point where you start to do those gimbal walks. And so it’s really like a form of job shadowing is how I often describe it to people. And then. No, go ahead, please.
I said definitely. I didn’t, I didn’t. I never thought about it that way. That’s a great way to. That’s a great way to look at it.
And then, you know, you mentioned looking at that data to back up the gut feeling. So people, as you start to establish that trust, people are starting to open up to you. They’re sharing their feedback with you, what they think is going on. And again, that can also be just a gut feeling, but then also looking at that data to back up those gut feelings. I love the fact that you refer to your selection of the right tools and technologies as your toolbox approach and how you likened lean to looking at the human side or the human factors of a process and six sigma as the data side. And how do you kind of bridge the gap between the two?
Then next we talked about that root cause analysis and how you analyze those existing tools and their effects, degree of effectiveness. You then talked about how you all get together in a room to have this brainstorming of solutions. And what I loved most about that part of the exercise is the fact that you have everyone check their titles at the door. And then lastly you rank all of those ideas based on ease of implementation, cost and impact.
And a reminder, everyone, these are not there can be very short incremental wins, but to have a true turnaround or true transformation when you’re talking about a process improvement initiative, continuous improvement initiative, yeah, it does take six months to a year usually. But as Lauren does, she actually breaks those up into easily digestible quick wins so that you don’t experience burnout along the way.
If you want more details about Lauren and her consulting firm and how she she can help your business become more profitable in today’s fast paced environment, make sure you connect with her on LinkedIn. Her name is spelled Lauren. That’s L A U R E N. Last name is Heisey H I S E Y. Also make sure you check out her website which is Laurenhyce consulting.com and you, you’re always, I’m always in awe of people who are brave enough to share their email address. So again, that’s Laurenaurenhiseyconsulting.com Lauren, thank you so so much. This was amazing. Thank you for coming onto the show today.
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
Now for those of you listening, don’t forget to check out BusinessInfrastructure TV because those resources that Lauren said she’s gonna get to me, I’m going to make sure that we get those into the show notes and the only way you’ll see them is if you go to BusinessInfrastructure TV. Just look for season 13 and you will find this interview.
And while you’re there you’ll also find more information about our sponsors. Please support them because when you do it helps us keep this show free for you one more time. That’s businessinfrastructure tv. Thank you so much for tuning in and for being a loyal subscriber. Remember, stay focused, be encouraged. This entrepreneurial journey is a marathon and not a sprint. And keep operating your business as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
Until the next time, thank you for Listening to Business Infrastructure, the podcast about curing back Office Blues with Alicia Butler Pierre. If you like what you’ve heard, do us a favor and subscribe. Leave a rating and review, and more importantly, share with your colleagues and team members who could benefit from the information. Join us next week for another episode of Business Infrastructure with Alicia Butler Pierre.
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