Chad Diggs on Building Quality Systems, Not Heroes

Speaker A: Celebrating our 20th year of lean Podcasting. Hey, it's Mark Graben. If you've ever felt like you had to be perfect at work or you're worried about making mistakes, check out my audiobook, the Mistakes that Make Us. I share stories about how owning and learning from mistakes actually leads to better results, stronger teams, and real innovation. It's available on Audible, Amazon, Apple Books, or just head over to mistakesbook.com I hope you'll give it a listen.

Speaker B: Hi Mark, it's Karen Martin. Thank you so much for the 20 years of sharing your wisdom and experience with people across the globe on your Lean Blog podcast. And thank you also for having me on five times because I always enjoy our conversations and doing whatever we can to help people become more successful at making improvement and helping organizations perform at top levels. Congratulations on 20 years and may you have many more to come.

Speaker C: Welcome to the Lean Blog Podcast. Visit our website at www.leanblog.org. now here's your host, Mark Graben.

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Mark Graben. Welcome to Lean Blog Interviews. One of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast is how real quality improvement depends, among other things, on people feeling safe enough to speak up, uh, to flag problems, to challenge the status quo, and to say things like, you know, hey, this process isn't working without fear of being punished. We build systems that are too dependent on one person's knowledge or heroics or leadership. We're really building in fragility. And that's a theme my guest today knows well. So our guest is Chad Diggs. He is a quality management professional, consultant and founder of diq Digging into quality and AI powered quality management platform built for mid market manufacturers. He leads a team of quality, uh, engineers supporting first article inspection reviews for customers including Boeing, Collins Aerospace and Honeywell. And Chad recently released his, uh, book that's how we first got connected. I had a chance to read some. Get to read it in advance, uh, below the surface prevention systems that outlast tenure. We're going to be talking about that today. A book that challenges firefighters or challenges manufacturers, who are often firefighters, to stop doing that and start building quality systems that last. Um, so Chad, uh, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

Speaker D: Thanks, Mark, for having me. I'm doing great. Great introduction. I couldn't have done it better myself.

Speaker A: Well, uh, welcome. Congratulations on, uh, the release of the book. It's an exciting time. Right, There we go. Holding up a copy. I do not have my copy handy. Uh, it's, it's poor planning, uh, on on my part. But good job as an author, you always have to have a copy of the book with you. Gosh, almost, uh, at all times. But uh, before we talk about the book, you know, I like to ask people, you know, kind of their professional origin story, you know, your quality story, other more specific methodologies that you got into. Tell us your story, Chad.

Speaker D: Yes, uh, thanks for asking. So I got into quality, uh, originally I was working in customer service. So I was doing, you know, on the phones, uh, helping people with customer service. But that really wasn't my niche. I found it very robotic. Uh, I wasn't getting too much pleasure out of it and I was really trying to find what occupation or what I could do, you know, what was that next step going to be? Uh, so I was hired at a company as, at first working in warehouse. So I was pulling kits for a medical manufacturer, uh, St. Jude Medical at the time. And uh, so my job was working in the warehouse, uh, where I would put together these kids based on bill of materials. And it was kind of almost working in a small prison cell in medical. You know, everything is very much regulated. So the area that I worked in, no one can just walk in and out. You have that control of materials, right? You don't want people just coming in, lot traceability and things of that nature. Uh, so I worked in an area that was very enclosed, locked in and I would literally come in and when I come in in the morning there was this roll up door, then I would roll up and that's how I communicated with the outside. And so, uh, I seen a lot of, a lot of action taking place on the manufacturing floor. And just diagonal from me was the quality lab. Quality lab was well lit, everyone was well dressed and they, they worked with, uh, they worked with some, some gadgets that I seen at the time as being very cool. And uh, I said, you know, how do I get my foot in that more and what do they do? So I've always had uh, so basically, you know, I continue to work with the, with, with the company being in the, in, in the warehouse. But I started putting together a few continuous improvement ideas based on when the, when you know, production manager or someone from production will come back and ask me for more material.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: It's like I gave you, I, I put this kit together. It's to the T. I uh, counted everything how it's supposed to be counted. Why are you coming back and asking me for more components or more parts or more material? So I found that there was something going on There was a gap, there was high scrap. I didn't know what scrap was at the time. Those, those that. That word never wasn't, uh, something that was a language that I spoke. But I knew something didn't make sense. They were losing money to me. You're losing money?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Uh, so what I did is I presented a continuous improvement idea to create what I call a bill of material change form. And so what would happen is if you came and you. You requested more material, you had to. You had to fill out a piece of paper on how much material you were requesting and your reason why you were requesting this material, that would then go to an engineer, and the engineer would reevaluate whatever it was that they were building to say, hey, you know what? We're not accounting for a certain amount of material, or we're building this. So they would go and do their thing. So from that, an opportunity had actually opened up in quality. And my manager at the time had said, hey, Chad, what would you feel like, uh, going and applying for this position in Quality? We feel like you would be a good fit. And, uh, that's where it started. You know, I am a, uh, practitioner. I had no formal training, so I came into this over 20 years ago as a quality inspector, the lowest level of quality inspectors. And I continue to build my career from there. So when we talk about the book, you know, 20 years later, it's like, well, what can I develop to share with others that I wish I had when I started? Over 20 years.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. A practitioner's Guide by a practitioner. Now, what I mean, you say you don't have formal training, but I'm sure within the workplace, um, how much have you developed your quality skills through, um, training, or let's say through mentorship?

Speaker D: Yeah. So, uh, mentorship was very. I think I worked with a lot of, uh, leaders that saw potential, and so they would give me kind of the keys to. To explore and do what I needed to be able to build and learn. There was a lot of trust because I've always been very intuitive or trying to learn new things or looking into new things. So I think for me was a lot of. If I heard about, well, ISO 1-348. Well, what is that? So I would look it up, I would read it, I would try to understand it. If there was IPC or Lean Manufacturing. What is Lean Manufacturing? Let me look it up. Let me read about it. Let me Google it. If I was applying for a new job and this job said, hey, you need These certain level of skills, I would go research those skills and at least have enough knowledge to go walk in this interview and act like I knew what I was telling you. This is dark. Yeah, yeah, because, I mean, I've always had confidence in myself to be able to learn. Right. Others may not have that same confidence. So when I walk into it and they say, oh, well, do you know something about that? And I said, well, no, but I can learn. They're going to say, uh, well, you know, we're not here to teach people.

Speaker A: Uh, that's a shame. Right? I mean, you know, companies would benefit from investing in people learning.

Speaker D: But most. Most definitely. Most definitely. So I think whenever an opportunity approaches. So as far as you know, I learned how to program CMMs, and because of, uh, learning how to program the CMM, picked up the CMM manual and understood in and out how to, what the datum point was and, and you know, how to structure the part, how to set up the part, Blueprint interpretation. You know, I read a line to blueprints and asked others for help. Well, what does this mean? Or, um, you know, what is a basic dimension and how does that apply? And um, you know, learning all about gdmt and then, you know, so there was like these little steps that move into other steps. Right. So, you know, when I started, it was more blueprints measuring these small parts using caliper mics, right. Your basic surface plate tools, learning about traceability. So it was really, it was really a mixture of myself going out and trying to understand the industry and all the different layers. Because coming into it, I just saw a lab of. I didn't know what was going on in that lab. Uh, I just knew that they look like they did important work, you know, because everything went out of there and back into there. Right. So when I, when I received material and it went to them, first they had to say, yes, good. And then it went to, it came back to me and went to the floor. Then when it was done, it went to them, they said, good. It came back to me and I shifted out the door. So I said, these are the shot haulers, right? And so, um, so yeah, so I mean, I went in. I also, I did, uh, I attended Villanova University, uh, to, to, for my Six Sigma green belt. Uh, so that was eye opening, right? Learning about the domain principles and, and all of, all of that good stuff. Just really kind of continuing to expand online on my knowledge whenever I had the opportunity to do so.

Speaker A: So, um, I think this will help us segue into the book and the stories and the principles there.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker A: You shared a couple of minutes ago talking about presenting an idea for improvement. And you know, just kind of thinking back to times I did that early in my career and hearing different people's stories. I mean, I think we're on the same page that, you know, you're the reaction to that makes all the difference that you're kind of not just putting an idea out there, you're putting yourself out there. And hopefully that was a positive, constructive, reinforcing reaction that made you want to do more of that.

Speaker D: Exactly, yes. And I think that is very important that you point that out, because I started at a company that was very, very much about continuous improvement and a voice of the customer, as in we are also the customer. The people within the company are. Those are your customers. Right. As a manager, I work for my team, and so they are my customer. What they what the input that they have matters. So this company was all about continuous improvement. Uh, we had monthly meetings where they weren't afraid to talk about revenue, they weren't afraid to talk about the goods and the bads.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker D: And so with that, I came into something where I was able to voice and feel comfortable expressing these ideas. I can't say that for all companies that I've worked for. And so like you said, and we talk about in the book are those situations where you work for a company where it's not promoted for you to open your gun. Right. And some of the things that we can do to try to change those cultures.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, some, in some cultures, they don't say improvement is important, which is disappointing in one way. And some organizations, they say it's important, but then there's a gap and the reality, I mean, that's a quick story. I remember going for an mri, uh, about a decade ago in an outpatient radiology center. And I was waiting in the lobby because there's a whole room for that. I was waiting in the waiting room and there was a big, huge thing on the wall about, um, values. And I read that more than others would. And it said something about, you know, we. Something about, you know, we, we value, you know, everyone's participation in innovation and continuous improvement. And you know, I turned my little clipboard with my form. I asked the woman working the front desk who was like, literally positioned where she could have been like, looking at that all day long, and I said, oh, you know, I asked something locally in a friendly way about this innovation, continuous improvement. And she just kind of gave Me a look like, I don't know, those are words on the wall. Like she didn't really say anything, but that said a lot, unfortunately.

Speaker D: Yes, for sure. I mean there's all, there's those companies that they have banners everywhere.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: That tell the auditor all the things. You know, it's like, what can we set up? So when an auditor walks in, they look at it and they say, oh, okay, yeah, these people understand. Right. But we all know about the suggestion box. The suggestions were if it's just dumped in to make you feel like you have, you know, like, oh, what we're going to do and what we're going to tell the auditor is like, well, how do you, how do you go out and how do you promote continuous improvement? Oh, well, we have this suggestion box here and at any time anyone can come in and they can just put a suggestion in that suggestion box and we review it, you know, and we determine, you know, whether or not we want to, uh, go, you know, we want to implement whatever that suggestion is.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, hopefully the auditors dig a little below the surface. Here's what we say versus what we do. I mean, it's been a long time since I was involved in ISO or, you know, back at GM QS9000, it was so, you know, somebody explained it once as say what you're going to do, do what you're going to say. And hopefully they're checking both parts of that.

Speaker D: Yes. Yeah. And I think, you know, some of the companies that I work for that have done the best job wasn't about how many procedures or SOPs or work instructions that they had out on the floor. It was really the leadership's involvement on what was happening on the floor.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: You know, and I've seen where, uh, the owner of the company, when something happens, that owner is out of their seat and out there on the floor with his team discussing, what do we need to do, Chad? What is it? This is what. And we're out there, we're having, we're having a full on um, discussion that's productive because I've had other owners. I will go up there on the floor when something goes wrong and it will be unproductive. There will be finger pointing and, you know, throwing things around. And uh, and so I've, I've seen it all. I've worked at, at great companies and I worked at companies that were the leadership. Unfortunately, you can't change every culture. And that's the thing is this book isn't about, hey, you can just take Any situation, and this is going to be your outcome. Some situations you need to learn when it's appropriate to walk away and go apply your services somewhere else. Because you're just going to be spinning your wheels if you think, you know, you're going to change an owner's perception. Sometimes, you know, it can take work and it takes a little bit, but most of the time, you know, it's, it's, it's. You're not going to get the result that you want and, and it's better to just walk away and find a company that fits you better as a

Speaker A: quality professional or as a lean practitioner or. Yeah, I mean, that's, I. Far too often the case. Um, you can't coach people who aren't asking to be coached. That's why I think coaching up is such people ask, how do you coach up? I'm like, what makes you think someone wants the coaching? They'll tell you in direct or indirect ways. Right. Asking questions. You can frame these pictures. I could see you or I in the middle of, uh, uh, Chad, what do you think we should do?

Speaker D: Right?

Speaker A: I mean, like asking somebody instead of coming out and barking orders and blaming makes a huge difference.

Speaker D: Exactly, exactly. Those asking questions are, you know, really a part of, you know, when we talk about growth in general as individuals, and mostly when we talk about quality, right. We have the 5Y principles. We have all these principles. When we go into root cause investigation and brainstorming activities, it's a number of questions of what we have to ask to get to a solution. Uh, we don't just come to a solution and say, oh, this is why, or this, this operator isn't doing their job properly or, you know, why didn't quality catch it? That is a question. But it's the wrong question, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. And then there's the questions that go unasked, Right. So somebody could come out and say, you know, on one level, Chad, what do you think we should do in this situation? It's a different level for somebody to ask, well, you know, if I'm role playing as the leader here, Chad, what do you think I could be doing differently? I think it's rare when somebody invites, even opens that door.

Speaker D: That is very rare. And I've come across that a few times. But when it does happen, you know, I think that is, uh, it's very empowering and it shows vulnerability in that person and it shows that they are willing to take the next step. It's even being in a leader, you know, because I. My best leaders have been there, they know they were. Because I've worked for leaders where they know, hey, Chad, you got, you have a lot more, you're more stronger in this field than me. Right. Uh, and I've worked with leaders that may have seen that and may have suppressed me or made it way more difficult for my growth because of that. And the best leaders that I've seen. I worked for a company where I went in, and I went in as a first article inspector. I had a quality manager. Eventually that quality manager ended up being the GM of the plant. And I was the director of quality. Right. Because of the work that we did together. His growth, my growth was his growth. Right. We moved like this together. And it was because he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid to, to, to tell me like, hey, how can we do better? Or you know, what, uh, what, how can I be a better manager? And we worked together on that and it was, and it was beautiful.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's always a bad sign. I, you know, hate hearing about situations where a leader, you know, is. Feels threatened by the talents of one of their employees. Like, why? I mean, you know, like you said, we should working together, raise, uh, each other up, grow and progress together. But you're right there. There are some leaders that will subtly squash or even, you know, overtly punish or move out somebody that they see as a threat. Obvious statement of the day. That's not good for the business.

Speaker D: Not at all.

Speaker A: And when that happens. So let's talk about the book and, um, you know, the structure. I mean, this is not, you know, a technical quality textbook. It's, it's stories. And you frame it as, uh, Christina's story is main character or protagonist or why, why tell it that way instead of, you know, writing a more traditional quality book about, you know, methods. And here's what you should do and like, you know, just writing it in this format and a little bit more, I'd love to hear also a little bit more about just, uh, the book origin story. Cause it's, it's a big thing to take on. Where's the inspiration?

Speaker D: Yeah. So, uh, starting off with, with your first question and how I structured the book and why I structured it, uh, because again, I'm a practitioner. So I've learned from stories, I learned from real life scenarios. I've learned from, you know, the pains, the heartaches. So that was the best way for me to communicate it where I feel like it would resonate. Uh, because even for myself, when I would go back And I would, you know, I mentioned gdnt, I mentioned some of these other things. If I go and read it, look at a GDT handbook and I try to decipher that information. For me, it's a lot more difficult than some, than sitting and measuring a part and someone showing me where a datum is and working out and really talking it through. So I wanted something that just wasn't textbooky, uh, where someone can follow a story, relate and say, hey, you know what? I've been through that. Uh, I wish I would have had some of this information on how to maybe communicate some of these things better. Uh, because a lot of the story isn't just the tools. It's communication. It's effective communication. Right. It's not saying words like this part is bad. Uh, it's more or less explaining the consequences and discussing the impact around, around that. Yeah, you know, the, the origin story for the, for the book. I've always been somewhat of an, of an educator my, myself, you know, I've been that friend where everyone would go to and say, you know, you know, whether it was relationship issues, where there was work issues. You know, I've, I've been that guy just from a young age, you know, some say well beyond my years. Um, because, you know, even my, you know, my dad would come to me sometimes and be like, son, you know, like I'm dealing with, you know, and so even more rare.

Speaker A: I see.

Speaker D: Exactly. So I mean, and, and that is really, I have to give it up to my, my parents. God rest their soul, both of them. Um, they really were, you know, they were young parents and they, you know, they did everything to instill me confidence, not try to hold me back, give me the opportunity to speak up. Speak your mind is one of the things that were always a part of my household. Uh, don't hold things in. Speak your mind. Say what's on your mind. Uh, so anyways, yeah, thank you, Stevie Owen Roby. Uh, so about. So when I, When I started to develop to, to go into the book, at first I was thinking, you know, that I kind of have an entrepreneurial mindset. So I have all these business, you know, all these business ideas, different things going on in my head on how I can impact quality, uh, or how I can take these years of experience and I can, I can put it out there. Uh, and first I was thinking about opening up like a small training facility for quality inspectors. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to train, you know, inspector level one, inspector level two, three in Quality, engineer, supplier, quality, digging into first article inspections, all those different layers of, um, quality within. So that's something that I still have. Right. But the other thing was. Did you have a question?

Speaker A: No, go ahead. Oh, numbers.

Speaker D: Uh, and so when I started thinking about all these things, uh, it was more or less, well then, but who are you? Right. And how can you present yourself to those, to, uh, become a leader in the field for people to even listen to you or even want to take your class or even want to buy their software or anything like that? You have to put a person behind, behind this. You have to put a face behind this, you have to put a story behind this. And so that's when it was like, let's do the book.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And let's just start putting all of your details in your book without. Because honestly, for myself, through 20 years I worked for like five or six companies. Right. You know, and so I couldn't tell it in my story and saying, oh, at here and then at here and then at here, it was more or less, let's build a character.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker D: And then let's take everything that I learned and isolated within one company, Aegis Aviation, and tell, tell a story that isn't jumping around from here or there, but has the, all the principles and all the things that I've learned from industry. What works and what doesn't.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a safer way uh, to go about that. Um, you know, I think of the line in the movie Pulp Fiction where Edward Norton's character, or not Pulp Fiction, my goodness. Uh, Fight Club.

Speaker D: Sorry, Fight Club.

Speaker A: Where, you know, he's talking about, you know, problems, you know, with cars exploding in the auto industry and blah, blah, blah, and the women on the planes appalled, like, what company did you work for? And he says a major one, like for some of these stories could apply. The problems are widespread. I mean, you talk about, you know, the problems of people getting blamed, bad parts being shipped. The book opens, you know, I think there's a real compelling story and, uh, I want to hear you talk about it a little bit. And it reminds me of a different story that's been heard about putting the wrong solvent into some equipment on the third shift. Product's quarantined, customers wanted delivery. You know, walk through what happened for the reader, or I'm sorry, for the audience that's listed, what happened, how Christina responded, how others responded. It's a great tell.

Speaker D: Yes. Yeah. I wanted to start off with that, that breaking point that we all deal with within being, you know, whether it's even inspector or quality manager. Right. Christina Galles is the quality manager. And she walks into a company and, you know, we started by talking about what she sees when she enters and already that feeling of something is wrong. And then walking in and seeing the huddle of the production manager or, uh, quality engineer, everyone around these parts. And then it's another issue of contamination. These things happen all the time. We have a barrel that we're supposed to keep a certain solvent in, but in this case it was the wrong one. Or even cases where someone just goes to the wrong barrel and puts the wrong solvent in. Right. Cross contamination. This happens within the industry quite a bit. So the issue was, okay, how can

Speaker A: we still ship it though?

Speaker D: Um, it wasn't, you know, it immediately went. Because everything is driven by the customer. And there's penalties, especially within aviation and other. Other industries as well. Right. Uh, once you donate your shipment date, usually there's penalties that after. Because it delays other programs or may be in, uh, a, ah, plane on the ground waiting for this m. You know, AOG situation where the plane is waiting. It needs this material. So she has her. Her VP basically on the phone asking her, I need a solution and I need these parts. How can we get these parts shipped? And she's going through, hey, if we ship these parts, most likely there's going to be some failures. And she explains to him that, hey, you know, we might lose. There might be 12% failures. Oh, well, 12%. I can live with that. Correct. Was basically the answer. And the way they're looking at is like, well, at least we shipped the part. But what he did not understand was the impact. And that's what Christina knew, is that she was fighting these faint same. The same fights over and over again with no change and a, uh, degrading reputation from their customer. Right. And so she decided to say, you know what, we're done. What I'm going to do is I'm going to show them the impact. We're not going to ship these parts. We're going to rework it the right way. And I will take the responsibility, uh, of doing things the right way. And that's how the journey starts.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, it's giving me flashbacks, if not, uh, a little bit of. It's just a ptsd, uh, a little bit. Thinking back to the start of my career, being in an organization where I hate to say it, but I think this was true, that the quality department was viewed as like the enemy of production. And top management was so focused on quantity and Even, uh, at some other companies down the line, I, I think is a cliche of bad quality management, but I've literally heard it. People expressing concern about shipping bad product and somebody saying, well, that's what we have warranties for this house. Gosh, that's, it's, it's, it's funny because it's true, not because it's haha funny. Um, what, what, what. I mean, have you seen or uh, you know, thinking back to the story, I mean, trying to influence that, that quality hopefully is a partner in success, Quality is a partner in profitability.

Speaker D: Exactly. So that is the, that's a big takeaway when we talk about quality. And what we, what I discuss in the book is instead of Christina saying, no, we're not shipping these parts, we're just going to rework it with no real big explanation and just saying because it's the right thing to do. Right. That probably wouldn't have, uh, took well with her, with her vp. Right. You're going against. And you're not really giving him. All you, all he knows now is he's losing money based on your decision, he's not able to ship these parts. Now you're maintaining that reputation of being the bad guy.

Speaker A: And that framing of the right thing to do is putting the other person in the position of where you're saying it's the wrong. That's argumentative and not likely. I mean, that's just, you know, people aren't going to react to that well even if it's true.

Speaker D: Right, Exactly. So what she did is she went and dug deeper and did data and what this data captured, which is, you know, the cost of poor quality. And it's discussed a lot within the, within the quality industries. I don't know how many companies really practice it or really want to dig that deep into their cost of poor quality. But when we talk about warranties, right, that's the cost of poor quality. That's the stuff that they say, oh, we have warranties, but that's, you know, that doesn't. Those kill your margins. Scrap. They kill your margins. All these different things. So when we start, when we dig into the cost of poor quality, what she did is she took the data from everything within the last three years and said this is the impact. Right. And put numbers behind it and said this is how much the company is losing based on all of these bad decisions. And it was about 25%. Uh, of what? Of the company's income. So they were losing a ton of money. And so her thing Was like, let's invest in prevention. And I could promise you an roi. We're investing this much in prevention right now, and we're investing this much into warranty, into all of these, into more inspection. Right. What do people do usually when they get a corrective action? Oh, we have to add another checklist. Right. Or reach 90. Yeah. Retrain more inspection. Right. These are cost costs, and they don't really dig deep into the designs, into how can we design this properly, how can we build this properly? What, you know, what are some of the tools that we can put in place to prevent bad parts from even reaching quality. And so that was, that was really her pitch. Um, and that's what, that's what got the ball rolling because, uh, in this case, it was $30 million that the company was losing on bad quality. And plus the reputation impact, the loss of contracts. Right. Because that's all, that's all in it too. They think, oh, well, we lost a contract. And the company said, you know, well, we, we didn't have confidence in your ability to produce it because of your quality reputation. That's just a lost contract to some other. They don't count that as being cost of poor quality. But if you lose a $2 million contract, that's a loss of income. Right. That you could have potentially brought into your company.

Speaker A: Well, and, uh, when there's that blaming habit, they might blame sales for not sale, would blame production.

Speaker D: Why didn't you close that deals, Tea?

Speaker A: And they're going to blame production or quality or, uh, the cyclical continues. But, you know, I wanted to ask, you know, it comes to blame, you know, that, that story of putting the wrong solvent in the tank. Um, ASAO Yoshino, who's a retired Toyota executive, told a story in an episode of the My Favorite Mistake podcast. Um, there's a version of it, uh, in Katie Anderson's book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn, there's a version of the story. Um, I mean, it's the same story, different telling of the story, uh, in my book, the Mistakes that Make Us. But, you know, he was early in his career in Toyota and was. He put the wrong solvent into the, uh, paint equipment. And there were a lot of defects. They were caught. So there was going to be rework. And he thought he might get fired. But the lesson he learned was management basically apologized to him for putting him in the position where it was even possible to put the wrong solvent into the machine. The wrong solvent had been delivered. It wasn't mistake proof. These barrels look very Much the same, you know, systemic error compounded by human error. I mean, what, what's, what's your reaction to, to that story?

Speaker D: First off, that tells, you know, that's why I think you said Toyota, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: I mean it tells a lot, you know, a, uh, great reputation. And um, but in what, what usually happens is we have things called traceability, where people have to initial their name at different steps within a process and those names are only there to go back to the person that did it and put blame. Usually what happens is there's an investigation on who did it and then there is a you did it, we need to retrain you, um, what to do. Right. Because a procedure may have had something within the process that said make sure that this or something that was missed.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: But it did not foolproof or pokio. Right. So the ways to prevent these things from happening. So usually it goes back to the blame and then with blame comes suppression. People don't want to speak out or say anything if they know they're just going to be blamed for something or even possibly have someone else get blamed and feel responsible for whatever actions take place to that individual. Right. So that's kind of what I've seen a majority of the time is how can we go back to the person and put blame, uh, and set blame and that's the wrong way to do things.

Speaker A: So in the book, um, in the appendix, there's um, what you call a blameless investigation checklist. Um, what does a blameless investigation actually look like?

Speaker D: Well, blameless investigation is more looking into why did this happen in the first place. Right. What processes did.

Speaker A: We.

Speaker D: Did we. Do we have. That would make it for these solvents to even be cross contaminated. Right. Are they sitting next to each other? Are the barrels. Do the barrels look similar?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: Is there other ways that we can dispense these and make sure. So it's looking into that where it happened. It's not looking at the person, it's looking at where the defect and where the process took place and then dig into there and saying, well, how can we improve that without putting blame? Now if you speak to the, if you do have a conversation with that operator or whoever performed that function, it's more to understand, hey, you know, in a sense, we apologize for. How do you feel you do this every day? What are some of the things that you feel can improve on this process? That's the investment. That's where those are the conversations you should be having with the person.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Why did you do this? You didn't do it wrong. We're going to retrain you to make them, make them feel like, you know, they're the enemy in this situation. But you do this every day. Uh, tell us how we can make this better. There's something that they see that engineers don't see, management doesn't see. Go to the line, go to where it's happening. And then that should be your checklist of identifying all those different things, uh, which includes speaking with the person as

Speaker A: a partnership and I think the opposite of a blameless investigation. Blameful I don't think is a word, but I'm going to call it a blameful investigation that teaches people to hide problems. It teaches them to be quiet. You write about this as being, um, a cultural issue. You cite and mention Amy Edmondson's book, the Fearless Organization. So you could say there's a lack of psychological safety where people are afraid, or they know from past experience that they're going to be punished for speaking up. How do you frame that? And you know what, what are your recommendations around trying to shift that culture where people do feel safe to speak up?

Speaker D: Yeah. I think first of all, like, when it comes to the blameful and the culture, most of the time people feel like their function is that whatever it is that they're doing, like, oh, well, I just do this. And I was told that it's quality's job to catch the defects. Right. And whenever I bring something up, they say, well, you don't need to worry about that. That's what quality is there. Quality will look that. See this step in the process, that's their step to you, just building. And I think that's the wrong way of everyone is a part of quality at the end of the day. And we. And quality is a part of everyone's function. And so there's situations where that's already promoted, but there's situations where I've come to a company where it hasn't been promoted and maybe you don't have buy in from leadership. Right. Um, but you're in a position like with myself, where I was a quality manager. So therefore, I am the leadership of quality and I'm coming in to perform a job. And so what I like to do is whenever I start not only getting to know my team within the quality department, I go out on the floor and I get to know every one of the operators. I give them M, I shake their hand, I introduce myself, I tell them, hey, if anything comes up, you can come to me.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: And this isn't going to be a situation where you come to me and I go run to your, to your boss or anything like that. We're going to maintain a relationship here and I'll do my best to work for you.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: Because I'm not just in charge of that, of that team that you see, you know, inspecting parts or maybe saying things are bad and all of this. Right. I'm not your enemy. I am your partner. And I'm going to do everything to make your job easier and to work for you. So if you see anything or if you have any ideas, tell them. Yeah, it's building that relationship, but sticking to whatever it is. Your word is that you say when you go out there and you make that introduction.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Because you can't make that introduction and then you fail on the deal and, and not go to battle. Mhm. And you know, I work for a company where I did, I, I made a, I, I created that culture. But still leadership was, was, they did not buy into it, meaning they weren't a part of it. And we were building something great. And the more and more that I saw that, uh, they were coming in and affecting what was being built, what was being. I even had the buy in from the production managers. Right. So this was, this was coming on all cylinders. Right. But then you have the owner or VP come down and they're like, well, why are you guys all gathering around this press and why is this going? We need to get this started right now. And those are the things where it's like, like I said, some things and I have people that work for the, for that still work at this company till this day or work for this company. I had to leave because of that type of toxic environment and because, hey, I don't, you know, I don't want to keep building something for something to get knocked down because at the end of the day you sign the checks, not me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Their posture.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: So, But I think from what we have, what we have the power to do. Right. And I always think about, you know, there's always a, hey, I hear it a lot in quality starts at leadership. It starts at leadership. But also if you're in a place of leader, if you're in a place of, uh, leadership or even an inspector and you have a voice and you want to do things to make things better, don't ever feel like you have to suppress that because there are companies and there are people out there who will take you in and that will appreciate it. And if you feel like you're not being heard and you're being blamed for things and you're being suppressed. And you have a true passion of doing what is right. Leave.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And take the leap of courage to go find the right place and just continue to speak up. Build relationship with those that, you know, um, are going to help make the changes. Because that's what I did. I went out, I visited with the operators, and then I visited with the, with like, um, the GMs and, uh, the production managers. I build relationships with them. I would go out to lunch with the production manager myself. You know, we all had lunch together. I wasn't the enemy. Like you said with other companies where you have the quality manager sitting on one side of the, it's like the kid at the lunch table where they're sitting all alone. You have the cool group of kids sitting over here. You know, um, no, I, I, I, I built those relationships and I would promote others if they're seeing this and they're in a position, go out on the floor, talk to your people, try to promote it and, and, and, and build that culture from there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Hopefully with the voice of everyone that will, that will help with that change.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I love hearing what you're describing there. It's building relationships, it's building trust, it's asking, it's opening that door and then following through on that commitment. Because we go back to the blame game and the old blame habits. Uh, I hate when I hear leaders blaming employees for not speaking up. Like, well, you know, it's important they should speak up and like. But you've trained them not to. Yes, it's a systemic problem, it's a leadership problem. You can turn that around. But I think if there's long, if you're in the middle of an environment and like when I started at General Motors 30 years ago. Again, this is one of the key flashbacks I'm having. Um, you have all the best intentions and want to work and collaborate with people, and they will reject you because there's just too much learned experience of getting in trouble for speaking up. You're new, you know, you or I might be new to a situation. Friendly, treating people, uh, respectfully. And we're in the midst of a systemic problem that is hard, not impossible. But there are barriers. And you have to demonstrate, I think, that you're trustworthy and that you have their interests in mind. You can build, you can start to shift that a little bit. It doesn't change the whole plant culture or the whole company culture. Sometimes you can do what you can do. And look, I've left uh, two companies, I'm not going to mention the other one by name here right now. About, uh, yeah, I mean basically it was as you described in the book, quantity first, punishing people for speaking up, um, you know, 100% out based, output based. So one, one thing I took a note in the book, you know, you talked about one of the things that uh, Christina did was trying to shift, you know, the metrics were all 100% about output or throughput. Um, you know, the other company I left was uh, notorious for having big end of quarter demand spikes which require big end of quarter production spikes. And you know, the incentives were like. And I sort of complain I could have been more constructive about it. This is where I was young and not as experienced with these things. But I, it was a true, you know, I pointed out that 100% of the end of quarter incentives, it was all quantity, quantity, quantity. There was nothing about quality. And um, it was frustrating. It didn't have to be that way. The cost of poor quality was hidden or it was someone else's problem. Yes, the warrant, the returns, the complaints, the customer service needs, the warranty claims, these things still happen. That's sad to hear.

Speaker D: They do, they do. And um, I'm glad you pointed that out because like the structure, right? When it is, when companies see like, well, why are we shipping all these bad parts?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker D: It's because that's what you promote at the end of the day. You promote the output. Everyone's incentives or bonus structures are based on the product going out of the door. And there's hardly or rarely any structure that takes in consideration poor quality, right? But when, when people's, when their job and their bonuses or their pay raises or their goals that they were set for involve a piece of quality and then that changes things. And that's where, you know, I hope that every company kind of reframes their bonus bonus, uh, structures or goals around taking quality and consideration, right? If you're, if you're a production manager and you're responsible for a certain cell or program, you know, your scrap rates and all of these different things, you know, should be taken in consideration. Not just cycle time, you know, where it's like, oh, we need to hold a certain cycle time. Anytime this is down, we lose X amount of money, right? So there, you know, you always hear, oh, you know, this machine is a thousand dollars per minute that it sits down, you know, but they're not looking at the problem that is being fixed or the impact of if this maintenance doesn't happen to this machine, what's going to happen when it's down for months? What's going to happen? Yeah, it's, it's. Those are the things where we have to change. We have to change the mindset around, around these things and uh, show that they are, they are very much important. And every company should, should think that.

Speaker A: Yes. Um, so maybe one other question before we wrap up. Chad really enjoyed exploring, you know, just the. The real realities of, um, the things that people face, the things that can be improved, the things that do get improved. So, you know, in the improvement story and, and, and Chad's book, again is Below the Surface, the subtitle, I think it's worth talking about here. Prevention Systems that outlast Tenure. And you know, you kind of point out that a lot of leaders want credit for their transformation. You said the goal is for people to forget who built it. Why is that?

Speaker D: Uh, just real quick, I did make a change to the whole tenure, so it's building quality systems, not Neuros. Now I did make a little change to that, um, but to your field

Speaker A: version, because there was a lot of duration on time. My bad.

Speaker D: Mark me. You have, uh, gone back and forth on so many titles and so many different things, and I appreciate all the help and input that you've done on just kind of giving me feedback and uh, you know, with, with somebody with, with all of your knowledge and, you know, the books that you produce. So I appreciate that. We've talked about a lot of titles.

Speaker A: I'm glad, you know, um, yeah, there was a lot of discussion. I'm glad you were open to input. And you know, it's your book and I hope you like the title and the subtitle you landed on.

Speaker D: I love it. I love it.

Speaker A: I'm sorry for getting it wrong, uh, in the intro.

Speaker D: No worries. So what I really wanted to do is, you know, when we talk about we want to build a system that's not dependent on whoever comes in next. Right. I think as far as when it comes to integrity and uh, when it comes to wanting to. When it comes to having a passion for what you do, you hope that you build something that someone can come in and springboard off of and continue to build and evolve with, because some companies get stuck in processes that are archaic, let's say. Um, but you want to build something that is there, that has room for improvement, that can go into the next phase of technology or whatever that is, but you don't want to Leave a situation where you're fighting fires and you're dealing with all these different things to then have someone come in and fight those fires. So what I talk about in the book is developing your team, right. Having a succession plan and building processes and procedures of all the work that you've done there. Right. If it, you know, how can I document these? Or this is our process for reviewing suppliers. Right. Because we talk about a lot of, you know, supplier quality. Right. That's a big thing within the supply. Like what are the. Some of the partnerships and how do we evaluate supplier quality? What's the scorecard documenting all of that, but also having the succession plan on who's going to take your place after you're. You're gone. And in this case, Tom took her place. She developed Tom, they worked together. And then from Tom, you know, Sarah also had her, you know, her movement in to be, you know, the quality engineering manager.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: So everyone that she had worked with through her tenure, she also helped develop and said, I want you to know what I know. I'm not going to hold anything back, and you've helped me build this. So when I move on to the next phase in life or whatever that is, I want to make sure that you guys are set up for success, not failure. And some companies, and you know, really most, you know, they have a great quality manager that comes in and they're fighting all these fires and they're, you know, handling all. I used to be that guy. I probably, you know, were. I'm a great problem solver and I'm finding fires all the, all the time. And, you know, uh, I really wore it as, like this badge of honor. Like I'm the best firefighter you can hire.

Speaker A: Well, I know, right. I'm doing the right thing and that's Right. Right.

Speaker D: But that's not the. At the end of the day, that's not the right, Right way to lose. You know, if a company hires me on and I go to work for a company, it's really because I believe in, uh, quality and I really want to implement tools and things within the industry that can continue to grow so that it just out. If I leave and it continues to do great, I've done a great job. If I leave and it falls apart, I didn't do my job. Uh, so that is very important.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a huge risk. Whenever there's been dramatic improvement in systems and management style and culture, it doesn't always outlast the leader who put that in place. I think if companies are developing and promoting from within, it's more likely to um, have that sustainability as well. Which is all the more reason as a leader, don't be threatened by talented people who work for you. Um, don't let them be the enemy. Work together and um, that's your successor someday. That's part of your legacy. When you get promoted, you're a better job someplace else.

Speaker D: Exactly, exactly. I try to hire people that are smarter than me.

Speaker A: That's a good trait. And uh, uh, to not be threatened by that again, let me get the book title correct this time below the surface. Building Quality Systems Not Heroes. Yes sir. Uh, it's available now. You can find it uh, on Amazon. And final, final question. Diq Digging in the quality like a lot of us are digging around into AI. These give uh, us a quick overview of uh, what that is.

Speaker D: Yeah. So uh, as well as Amazon you can also purchase the book at the, on my website it's dig into quality.com. so that's dig. Yeah dig in the number two quality dot com. You can, you can definitely, you can go here, you can learn a little bit more about the book. You can purchase the book and I also have some tools so free tools when you purchase the book that you also have access to. So some of the tools are the cost of port quality calculator, we have the CPCPK capability calculator, D FEMA template, PFEMA template Kappa tracker. You know we even get into iqlq, PQ and PPAP and those are just a few of the tools. Uh, but getting into diq, uh, DIQ is a software that I'm currently working on and what I want to do is I'm going to take the principles of the book and I want to implement these tools to more of the underserved and the supply chain mid market manufacturers. A uh software that they can afford will help them within their quality systems. So what I want to do is I want to build a system that has all of these tools that I mentioned but also has an analyzer that's in the background that is tracking your CAPA system, your non conformances, your scrap rates, all of these different KPIs that you have within your company and then you can also with even audit findings, all of these different things and you can use and have basically a Christina Valdez. M on call. Hey Christina. This is what we're dealing with lines such and such and she's gonna, she's, it's gonna be like your, your quality direct quality manager, your consultant Right there at your fingertips. And not only will it help you tell you some of the steps that are due, but it can also then produce that, those that data for you or help you with some of the problem find it tell you the proper tool tools to use. Okay, are you gonna, you know, is this a 5Y fish bone or what are some of the, some of the root cause tools that you should use? How uh, should you analyze your data? Maybe you need to use this tool. So in a sense that's what I'm helped help build because usually for these smaller companies they're structured with a single quality manager and maybe a couple of quality inspectors. No quality engineer, no, they don't have all of the resources that some of these larger companies. So that quality manager wears multiple hats and is expected to just change the world. So uh, this will give them a software or something that they can be able to use that isn't going to break, break the brain that, that can measure cost of poor quality, that can do CPK studies, you know, and can really assist them in their job. Not take their job, but assist them in the work that they're doing every single day to help them be able to focus on building a quality system and that doesn't involve having a firefighter, uh, at the, at the helms of all time, at all times. I'm excited. Um, currently in the works. You can go to the website if anyone's interested they can sign up. I will, you know, I'll send updates pretty active on, on LinkedIn. Uh, so there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot to come. Uh, and uh, so thank you Mark for having me on. Uh, you know I really appre. Appreciate it. You didn't have to do this and uh, thank you.

Speaker A: All right, well, sure thing. Thank you for, for uh, being a guest. Thanks for sharing your stories and your uh, hard earned lessons learned and I'd encourage people, yes go to their link will be in the show notes. Dig the letter N the number two quality dot com. Uh, and it does say there on the website how you can sign up to learn more about the uh, DIQ digging in the quality platform. Uh, so again Chad Diggs, thank you for being here. Congrats uh, again on the book and um, certainly wish you all the best. Thanks again.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening. This has been the Lean Blog podcast for Lean News and Commentary. Updated daily. Visit www.leanblog.org if you have any questions or comments about this podcast, email mark@leanpodcastmail.com.

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