Ep 139 Michelle Formanczyk: Improving Communication with VoicePrint

Speaker A: Continuous improvement comes in lots of different flavors and styles. I'm Bella Engelbach, and I'm inviting you to journey with me to the Edges of lean. M Episode139 Michelle Fomanchek Improving communication with Voice Print Michelle Fomanchek, welcome to the Edges of Lean. Hi.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Bella. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker A: It's really nice to have you here, and I feel like we've been, um, in the same circles for a long time, but, um, I'm not sure everybody knows you. So could you, um, just tell us a little bit about yourself and about your career pathway?

Speaker B: Sure. I, uh. So I got my start. Let me start at the very beginning. I was born and raised in Northern Michigan, which matters because it was all woodland creatures, right? I didn't actually meet my first humans that I wasn't related to until I went to school, right? So it made it. I mean, you know, it. It made for a really interesting upbringing that, uh, matters now, right? So then I went to the city and I discovered, you know, people in this, you know, everything was so big and bright. And my first job was at Chrysler Tech center, so it was not small. And I went from there into glass. And then that progressed. I was just a really curious person. And it kept leading to bigger and bigger and bigger roles that I don't think I. Looking back on, I don't know that I was ready for, but it was in some way or the other. And, uh, eventually that took me to the level of global consulting, and that's where I kind of went, okay, now I want to go home. Right? And, uh, and I took. I took everything I've learned now, and I'm back in Michigan, uh, doing what I wanted to do when I was a little kid, which was make change.

Speaker A: Uh, what kind of change are you making?

Speaker B: Well, the goal is to, uh, connect lean and scientific thinkers in Michigan, Right? So that is anything from K12 all the way through to, as you know, I mean, that goes to any industry. It goes from an education, the span from kindergarten all the way through into adult ed around and very focused on Michigan.

Speaker A: That idea, that which is such, um, I mean, there's so much interesting. So many interesting things from a lean perspective that happen and have happened in Michigan because you've got the automobile manufacturing, you've got some really interesting startup companies in Michigan and universities. Um, and so it is a place. You know, when I think of lean in the United States, Michigan's one of the first places that I think of but it sounds to me is what you're saying is that. Is there's not a connection among, um, um, all those folks. Is that. Is that true? Yeah.

Speaker B: There's a consortium here, and, um. And I knew that. So this. I'm glad that you brought this up, because that leads me to that global position that I had. And I kept seeing what consortiums were capable of, right?

Speaker A: And.

Speaker B: And I kept having that same thought as you, but this is my home state, right? So I got back here, and I'm like. And I'm going, we have U of M. Why are we not on the map as a destination, right. For just. I mean, U of M alone? And we have so many thought leaders out of there, and. And we have so many other universities in Michigan. But, yes, to your point that I. I had the same thoughts and, um, questions and I asked them, and that's how I ended up getting involved with the Michigan Lean Consortium last year. And, um, and I then. I, as a volunteer, and then very soon after, ended up joining the board. So

Speaker A: they saw some talent, decided they needed to bring it on board,

Speaker B: or I saw, like, I really want to make. I want to see. We're all passionate evangelists, right? I mean, that's something that Elizabeth Swan said to me recently. And I was like, yes, that's it. Right? That's what we do. Um, and that's something that unites us, and I love that. That idea. We know that, you know, when. You know, when you know you can do better, you do better. You know, I love that thought.

Speaker A: Yeah. So when you talk about Lean, I think it's really interesting at this point in, you know, where lean is, for the first time, people started talking about Lean, um, in the United States to where it is today. And I always say in my intro to the show, there are many different flavors and varieties of lean and continuous improvement. For when. When you say Lean and scientific thinking, what does that mean to you? And how. How is that connecting in your mind? I.

Speaker B: This is a great question. And it leads me to where I ended up taking my career, right? Um, which is the. I kept elevating as high as I could, right? And. And I kept seeing, like, this can be used anywhere. This is change management. This is culture. This is cultural excellence. This is operational excellence, statistics. It doesn't matter. The one thing that is common is curiosity, right? I mean, I see that over and over. Whether it is the one thing that's lacking or the one thing that's making some, you know, an organization thrive. I see that being that curiosity and, and then it kind of stepped back to what does it take to have that curiosity? Right. And that's when we get into, in my mind, that's when I went into kind of psychological safety and all of those, those kinds of ideas and they're. It's all true. And then from a lean perspective, of course, I'm looking for those areas of biggest waste. And I saw the biggest waste in our communication, or I'm sorry, in our, in our day to day human activities is in our communication and specifically in our verbal communication. Because anybody, if they're like me, can sit there and write forever. As you know, you've seen them. So I can write all day long, right. And I can refine what I write. I can go back and edit it, but we can't take words back. So, yeah, that's where, that's where it led me to.

Speaker A: And uh, yeah, I love that idea that we do do that. Right. Where we're writing. Um, you know, as sometimes people will put out there on social media, they'll put out there some raw, unfiltered thoughts and it's not necessarily a good thing when they do that. But we're writing, we've been taught through our whole lives to edit. Um, but you're so right. Um, what we say to each other, how we say it, when we say it, when we decide not to say something, all of that is, you don't have much time to edit. Right. And for some of us, the connection between, you know, where it's happening up in the brain and what's coming out of the mouth is extremely rapid fire. Um, and, um. Yeah, and um, it makes me, it makes me laugh though, because, uh, my husband and I were talking about this the other day about movies and TV shows and how many movies and TV shows depend on the plot device. If somebody misunderstands somebody else. And I think that rings true for us. Right? Because that's what happens. We misunderstand each other all the time. So tell us more, Michelle. What do we do about that?

Speaker B: Well, it's what drew me so I was so drawn to the science behind this that this is why I shut down my business the first time to go to that place and learn about this. I won't go into the backstory, but the scientist who developed voiceprint or uh, the psychologist who developed voice print lives in England. And this is already kind of pretty well known or fairly well known across England. Um, it's been around for like 10 years. But when I went there and got to Know, I worked directly with him and was absolutely involved in the back end of how does this all work in a team or in an individual? Where does the coaching take them? Right. And I was so fascinated with the progress. And so what it comes down to is obviously first off, awareness, like you were talking about, right? It's being aware that it is this. I loved when you did this because this is midbrain, right? Crossing over that midbrain and going front brain. I mean, that's, that's what we got to know we're doing first and foremost, right? Being aware of that. Um, and then it comes down to, like, we have these nine voices. And. And so this voice print triangle kind of breaks up those nine voices into three clusters, which I think this is really easy for us to digest. Right. And whether we're naturally inclined to think scientifically or not, when we start getting into these kind of analytics, we start to see ourselves in it one way or another.

Speaker A: Wow, this is amazing to me because, uh, this is something I have not heard of before. I mean, I mean. And, uh, I've said I've interviewed a lot of people about communication and effective communication, but this is the first time that I've been. I'm hearing about voiceprint. So can you tell us a little bit more like, like, who is this scientist and, and. And did what. What spurred his research, if you know that?

Speaker B: Ooh, that's a good question. All right, so I have to take back the word scientist. He's a, He's a practitioner, right? I mean, he's a psychologist, so.

Speaker A: He's a psychologist. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it's my, My scientific thinking thought. Right. Of, uh, of, uh, let's put him in this camp, uh, versus a camp of. I just have. This has been my life experience, which there's nothing wrong with that camp too. But to your point, to question the science makes us, you know, we're wise to do that. Uh, and he actually take this back. His name's Ellen Robertson. He owns the company that he owns is called Talkwise. And, uh, so the, like, looking him up is. Is a good way to kind of go about this, but he's, um, he's been doing this, his voice prints, uh, existed for over 10 years. And, and, and before that, he had a lot of research building up to it. Right. And now this is kind of a legacy company he's passing along to his kids. And I just happen to get to know him pretty good. Right. And understand these voices in a different way than what he had heard before. So there is. I have a whole lot of literature about the science and the, like, how he came about it. Um, I did. I'm going to be honest with you, I did read through it, but that is not. I read through it to make sure it was credible and knew I would know where to answer your question. But I didn't read through it enough because I cared more about the application. So, uh.

Speaker A: Gotcha.

Speaker B: Gotcha.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Unless I have to look up for myself then.

Speaker B: No, yeah, it's on the website. But I do have those resources too.

Speaker A: Okay. Wow. So would, um, you like to tell us a little bit more about Voiceprint and what. How you're using it in with your business, with your clients?

Speaker B: Sure. It's what I love Again, like lean. It doesn't matter where we go, Right. I mean, you know, I've done lean at home. Uh, I've done lean with my kids and with schools. My kid was my first. My youngest at the time was eight when I first went through this. And she helped me study. So she was the first person I technically taught these voices to.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And it really helped her make sense of her world, which was important in middle school. Right. Um, so. But the clients that I have now, um, and I've been. I recertified only a month ago, and I'm telling you about. It's just taking off. Everyone I talk to is all about this. Right. So the clients I have now are, um, anywhere from, like, strategic, uh, teams to an individual who's trying to just up their leadership game. Right. I really want to take this to schools in a simpler form. I want to take this to kids at some point. But it's what we see by going into a team is that we start off with, uh, self assessment. And I, that I love because I am all about you. Change starts from within, right? So changing.

Speaker A: You need to know your current. You gotta know your current condition.

Speaker B: Right. Before you get that, that or cardinal. Cardinal condition, as I would call it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So knowing where we're at, at that high level, knowing what, what we're leading with, um, is, is really important. What are our tendencies? And then from there we go into a 360. And the 360 is terrifying. I won't lie. I've done this all myself.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Asking for people to tell me how do I sound was really scary. But what I learned was really impressive because I learned I sound a lot like how I intend, whether that's good or bad. Right.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: So I was really close in my intention. What I My self perception was very, very close to my 360. Um, which is, which is not always the case. Right. So for me it ended up being like, okay, you're intentionally sounding this way, Michelle. You really have to pull back. But for other people, they, they don't land there, you know, and in their 360 they realize, oh, I don't land the way I intend at all. And then from a leadership perspective, we do a group profile too. So we can take all of those 360s and put them together and say to a leader, this is what your team sounds like. So this might be some areas to work on with your team.

Speaker A: Uh, okay, so I think that takes us into, if you don't mind explaining a little bit more about the, the nine. What are they?

Speaker B: Nine. Nine voices.

Speaker A: Nine voices, yeah.

Speaker B: It's in. So I love this. We have, um, we have an exploring, a positioning and a controlling cluster. Right. So each three voices exist in a cluster. So of the nine, the exploring voices are like an inquirer, a probe and a diagnose. Those are questions that we're going to ask to get to an answer. Right. Um, the positioning clusters, um, those are when we're trying to, uh, well, position for something. Right. We're not trying to control yet. So we're looking at articulate, advise and advocate in the positioning clusters. And then for the control cluster, we're looking at to evaluate, to challenge, or to direct. And I would say out of the three clusters, people have the most sensitivity towards those controlling clusters, those controlling voices of direct, challenge and evaluate. So do we know how to do that? Right. Like, and are we comfortable doing it and doing it with grace, with real intention of the impact we know why we're doing it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm thinking this through in the context of what we coach people on to become lean leaders. So there's a lot of coaching, often a lot of coaching around asking questions. I mean that's, that's often the first coaching that we tend to give with, um, people who are seeking to improve their lean leadership is, you know, well, first of all start asking questions and, and then, uh, the questions that you're ask asking are they having the effect that you intended, you know, so that you're not, you're not sounding like, like you're interrogating somebody when you're really just trying to find out what's happening or what do they see? And, and those are all skills that people work on. And so my perception is that in leaders you see some people who come into it naturally already asking questions, being curious, um, and, you know, tending in that direction, but then not wanting to. When they have to, um, you know, make a decision and be and make and. Or, you know, really ask somebody to do something. Um, you know, you spend too long questioning, you know, asking questions, asking questions. And then there are so many other people who come into it the way that they've been trained to be a leader is only to direct. Right. So asking questions is really hard. So I can just see so much application in lean coaching to really learn more about these, these voices and these groupings and, and to help people. I guess what you're helping people do is hear how they are perceived, saying these. Perceived. Right. And, uh, how is it. How is it landing? Yeah.

Speaker B: And how does that perception impact what we're trying to do as a team, as a leader, as a company, as a community? Right. As an individual, like, what is the impact? So one of the personal lessons I got out of this, the first time I've done this, done this in a few different contexts, in a few different places, the very first thing I learned from doing this was that I was advocating when I was supposed to be advising. And yes, and this is a big one because I had moved to consulting.

Speaker A: What's the difference? Tell us the difference.

Speaker B: I had moved to consulting and, uh, in the consultant role, you are expected to advise. My clients expect me to advise them. But I am, um. I mean, you know me, I'm all like, one love. Come on, we can do this together. You know, pitch in. Like, what's, what's your goal? Let me help you make it. Like, you know, I am such a collaborator that I don't advise people. I advocate. I say, this is great. You should be a part of this. I want to get in people's intrinsic motivation going, right. You don't do that with an advised voice. You. Instead, you're giving somebody a direction. You're not inviting them to be a part of it or saying, this is really what I, what I love about it. It's not about what makes me passionate. It's about, this is what you need to do. Right. From my expert opinion, because that's what you're paying me for. This is your next move, and it wasn't comfortable doing it.

Speaker A: Yeah, don't, don't. Don't cross the street against the red light. Yeah, that's.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Because. Because you can stand there and say, you know, it. It's really, it's really interesting that all this traffic's going by when the Light is red in front of you.

Speaker B: You, you can't.

Speaker A: What do you think about that? Yeah.

Speaker B: When we switch from advise very, very quickly to direct, if that person then steps into that traffic, right, Then it's like no, like uh, you just stop, right? There's, there's no conversation about it. There's no lessons to be learned. We can learn that later, right? That's where direct voice is really powerful. So we have to be comfortable with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So, so in the, in the sort of the, the philosophy, and this philosophy is for leaders is the idea that they're aware of the different voices, both how they, they are speaking and how it's landing on other people and how other people are speaking to them so that they can flex among amongst them as needed. Is that the, is that the underlying idea?

Speaker B: It's all about, it's all about fluidity when it comes to humans. You know, like I am a great person and like I legitimately am a kind person, right. People expect me to be kind because I am often kind. There are days that I am not feeling kind, right. And uh, and there's some grace to be had on both sides, right? Some grace for myself that I'm not feeling the best today. But also some grace from those who love me, those who are around me that, hey, this isn't Michelle's normal behavior. So maybe we can have a better conversation about why that's happening instead of what typically happens, right? We take it personal.

Speaker A: One thing that occurs to me about this, with the, with the perception piece of this, Michelle, is that I have, I have observed and tell me if I'm right about this or not, that when you say something to a group of people, one person may hear it one way with one intention and another person may hear it with a different intention. Um, and I don't know why that is. It may be because of, you know, the way that they've been spoken to previously. Um, you know, what, whatever it is, what, whatever preconceived notions they come into about how you might behave. Um, so then how do you manage that, that the, uh, that not everybody is going to hear you in the same way

Speaker B: a few ways. One is managing our own expectations of what we expect when we go and have a conversation with a bunch of people, right. Um, another one is, uh, if others are also aware of this, if we're creating a culture here, um, of learning and we're going to have this conversation with everyone, then that becomes a two way street. And so the way that things are perceived, continue to improve. Honestly, I hate to say it this way, but whether that other person improves or not. Right. Even if you kept that one person still talking the way that they've always talked, the culture is still going to improve because the rest of the people are aware of the voices that they're using that are being used. They're aware. You know, um, Terry over there is, you know, somebody who. They sound really verbose, but they just like to articulate a lot. Right. Like they're just somebody who articulates a lot and then they can kind of let go. Again, not take it personally, not assign it as a personal fault of Terri. It's just something Terri does. You know, it. So it creates, it creates a lot more empathy and grace in the organization. Again, whether the speaker improves their speaking or not.

Speaker A: Interesting. So, um, are you able to give us examples from, um, from some of your clients or maybe your kids? I don't know if you want to talk about your kids on the show,

Speaker B: but, but, but either, either. Um, Let me think, let me think. Uh, my. Well, I can tell you my youngest learned a lot about how to handle, um, how to handle people in the way they spoke to her. Including adults, including teachers. Right. So. And that's a big problem with students. So I think there's one area there. Um, but a real good case study from a, ah, client I would have to go with, um, a recent one was somebody, uh, who is in financial services and uh, they realized immediately upon looking at their report just their self perception. Nobody else was giving them feedback just from doing their own self perception. They realized like a laundry list of things we do. If we read them right, we kind of get into and go, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And. But there's always a coaching feedback session. Right. So, um, I'm. We're having a conversation after and during that conversation they're bursting out of their mouth is, I think this is because of a loss I suffered as a child. But that's for my. That's from my therapist. And I'm like, if you have a therapist, that's fine, great. I love that. I encourage that. Uh, but you don't have to leave that out of this. Right? This is, this is about what is contributing to that voice. And if you have something to talk about that, you know, and you're okay talking about it, bring it up. You know, I'm not going to go into the deep depths of, of the emotional trauma you suffered. No, that's not for me. You're right. That is for Your therapist. But that's a contributing factor. And like you said, if you grew up in an environment where a lot of people were yelling, you are probably going to be real high on that direct. And especially if you're somebody like me who then went into quality management, you didn't even hire in that direct. Right? That's, that's the, that's who we use as the avatar for quality management is the direct voice, right? No, it goes in the box. So that makes sense.

Speaker A: And were they able to move on from that? Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah. And uh, sounds so cheesy saying this knowledge is power, you know that. And especially if when we're armed with it, we come up with a plan because our coach makes us so you. Knowledge is power and you're committing. So I'm going to see you, you know, and, and, and you're gonna, we're gonna keep each other accountable on this. So I like that uh, I like that we have this dynamic of, of accountability here and people do push themselves beyond. It's not even really a push. Again, I think once you just wake up to it, you just understand it and then you can't wait to learn more, you know, because it is, it's so effective right off the get go. Actually that's what it's called. It's called the most useful personal development tool. The immediately useful personal development tool. That's our. Yeah, Ellen, Ellen gave it that tagline after, um, I was. After I learned it the first time. So I just saw that recently. I was like, I love that because

Speaker A: it's very true because you, you're immediately going to go and have another conversation with somebody else and yeah, I'm. Wow. To have that awareness of it. Okay, to have what, what voice? I guess it's an awareness of what voice am I using? What voice would I in? Should I be using or could I intend to use. And I love the idea then also of, of doing it in say in a kind of context. So I, I can see somebody doing a, you know, a kata cycle where they would say well what, you know, what's, what's, what's your next step? And they could say, well my next step would be to, to um, to use this voice more or to you know, to use this, this pattern with, with a particular person and see what happens, you know.

Speaker B: You know, it's interesting you say that, Bella. Um, there's ah.

Speaker A: A.

Speaker B: There's two things I want to say here and please bring up kata again if I. In case I forget, but I probably won't the, uh, first one is I don't want to lose track of this. Uh, there's a few times you brought it up and I wanted to touch on it. The one of the big things that comes out of this coaching, whether it is the self perception or later on in the 360, is some of those voices are internal. Um, so a lot of times we will find that those voices are very internal. So I may not even be using. I think I'm evaluating, but I'm not actually evaluating. Maybe, maybe I'm evaluating my mind, but what people hear me doing is diagnosing because my evaluation silent and I don't realize that I'm in the moment, especially under pressure. And we also measure, we give you a self perception. We're asking questions about that. Determine whether how you act normal, like under normal circumstance and how you act under pressure. And then we'll compare those to see where your voices grow and shrink. And it's very, very, very insightful. Um, that was the first thing I wanted to tell you. The second thing, Kata, um, remember earlier in the conversation when I mentioned we live in Michigan or I live in Michigan and we have.

Speaker A: I don't know.

Speaker B: You don't move. I do. Uh, and here in our Great Lakes state we have U of M along with many other fine universities. Yes, you. U of M has a few thought leaders, uh, coming from it. Right. Um, first lean book I ever picked up was written by Jeffrey Leiker. Right. The other person, who I am, by the way, not super familiar with Kata. Right. I am. My familiarity with Kata came from women and lean and category of geeks. Right. That's how I knew about them. Uh, so the other, um, person from U of M. M, who is a big cat, a fan is Mike Rother.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I will share this. I hope he doesn't. I don't think he will. I reached out to him about, uh, probably six months ago now and right after I turned to the board and I was like, I was like, U of M is my home state. I'm a Great Lakes girl through and through. So is there any reason why the MLC and U of M don't have a more formal relationship? That was my hi, nice to meet you email. And he replied like, I've been wondering the same thing. And that's what sparked our conversation. And then we got into a whole bunch of other things and you know, Kata is definitely one of them. And I like that. I don't know a ton about it because I like that, you know, I'VE got those, um, Those ears that are fresh and the fresh eyes on it. And I think that this would pair so well with those questions. And in that knowing how to pivot on, um, my next question part, I think that we could be.

Speaker A: I, um, Might have had a coach.

Speaker B: Obviously, I don't know anything about it, but I think we could be more effective in that moment if we had some options. We had a bit of a strategy going in.

Speaker A: I just. I just see it that it could be so helpful, especially in the context of the. Of credit coaching for leadership skills, because it's kind of. It's always kind of squishy and tenuous. It's, you know, it's not like. Like some of the other kinds of credit coaching. And. And there's this. This fine line you have to draw between when you're. When you're. When you're conducting experiments as a leader that you're conducting experiments only on yourself. We, uh, you know, we. We don't experiment on other people, but because we, uh. All of our leadership conversations and leadership actions impact other people, we do have that opportunity to see how our own actions and our own conversations, what kind of reaction they get from. From other people. And that then, uh. So that what happens with Kurta is then it makes you stop and say, well, what happened? And what did I learn from that? And m. It forces that reflection. And so I would see. Michelle, I just would encourage you to go further with that. I think there's a lot that can be. That could be done, uh, with Kata and, um, with voiceprint and, um, you know, well, for leadership skills, but for. But for anybody. Because we're all. We're all people who talk to other people and want to be heard and be more effective in our conversations. Right.

Speaker B: And you know, as well as I do, like, one of the biggest problems that has been spanning, you know, generations and will continue to. Is that transition from supervision to management. Right. I mean, or from frontline to supervision. You know, these people are our friends, and now these people report to us, right?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, I supervise these people, but now I'm in charge of the department. Right. Those are very. Talk about voice changes you have. That's the one thing to nail down. If you can change your voice when you're in. When you're present, and you can do it with confidence and you can handle the pushback and you know, what to do. I mean, that's everything. That's what I see. Anyway. I'm, um, so passionate.

Speaker A: I completely agree. And in my world, which is with people with technical backgrounds and scientific backgrounds. Even that first step is really difficult. Um, because there's sort of this imagination that the people are going to be like, the molecules or the, um, materials that I've been working with. And if I just do this one thing, they're going to follow along. And of course, people don't hear what I said. They don't understand. They didn't. It's not important to them. You know, so many reasons why things don't go the way you think they should with actual human beings. And, um, it's. It's. It's really difficult. It's much more difficult, I think, than, you know, than some of the academic things that people have experienced previously.

Speaker B: I would agree with that. And the other thing I, I think that you just brought up, too, that I love on the opposite side of the scale. So I, I love working with, you know, women in stem. Like, I get that. I get the story, I get. Right. I get the background. It resonates with me. Um, I get women who want to transition into stem. That resonates with me too. Right. What I wasn't expecting was how well this resonates and translates with people on the opposite side of the spectrum. So I was just yesterday having coffee with somebody who is, um, really dominant salesperson, very aggressive.

Speaker A: Uh, they.

Speaker B: Very successful. They run many, many teams. Right. Uh, they pass millions and millions of dollars through. And he straight told me, michelle, I have no desire to change the way that I, that I lead. I have no desire. None. I am effective. I tell my team how it's going to be done, and they jump in line or they can leave, because I'm just going to bring somebody else in. I'm going to make them rich, too. And I'm like, I, you know, I respect that. I do. Um, it's actually kind in the long run to not save, you know, to save people early and say that you're not cut out for this or you're not ready for this yet. So I, I don't have any problem with that. What about your clients? Right. What about talking to your clients? Do you have that same approach with them? No, I'm gonna kiss their ass.

Speaker A: Ah, all day long.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So maybe this will save you a

Speaker A: little bit of smooching.

Speaker B: Right. Maybe you can get there faster the first time. So it, it was. So it, it applies no matter where. And that's the thing that I do like,

Speaker A: that's. I love that story. Yeah. But, but they were already aware that they were using different voices with different people.

Speaker B: Yep. And they didn't. And so where's the value? Right? Yeah, it just depends on which conversation you value the most.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, but, but do you, do you, I like that, what you were saying, you want to save some time and not have to, you know, have to go through a, uh, long cycle of, of wooing that client. Yeah, just.

Speaker B: That's a better word. Isn't, wasn't long ago yet where I had reflected on it and changed the swears out? You know,

Speaker A: this is a somewhat family friendly podcast. We've. Yeah, um, yeah, it's, it's so interesting. Um, this, I mean this, this is, this is fascinating to me obviously because of, you know, the work that I do and the coaching that I do and I'm sure other people are going to find it, you know, really interesting and really, um, you know, want to follow up more with, with you. So Michelle, how do people find you?

Speaker B: The best way to find me is on LinkedIn. So finding me on LinkedIn would be a really easy way to do it. The uh, um, the harder part is spelling my last name. So yeah, uh, you know that I can, I could do that for you. That it's a, uh, F, O, R, M, M as a Mary, A N as in Nancy, C, Z, Y, K. Uh, so it's Michelle for Manchu. And you can find me on LinkedIn. Really easy that way. If you are a woman lean, you can find me in there. Um, and if you are in Michigan, you can find me next week at the Michigan Lean Consortium Annual conference.

Speaker A: Oh, that's so cool. I'm not sure this show will come out before, before the conference, but, um,

Speaker B: that's what I think.

Speaker A: There'll be one next year, right?

Speaker B: Yep, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: The Michigan Lien consultant. And you don't have to be, do you have to be someone from Michigan to go to that conference?

Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. We'll see what we can do to get you there next year.

Speaker A: I really like Michigan. Yeah, it's a, like I said before, I mean I think there's so many interesting sort of lean things that, that happen in Michigan. Like you said, the University of Michigan. Um, um, I've, they're just manufacturing. Well, yeah, startups. You know, this, this, it's, it's a really, it's a really, um, fascinating place. It is.

Speaker B: I'm really thrilled to see how this happens with automotive. You know, coming back to Michigan. I, I, I'm really excited to see what that looks like.

Speaker A: So, yeah, lots of Lots of opportunity for people to figure out how to become effective and efficient. Um, effective before efficient. I think that's. That's really important. Yeah. And that has to do with how we treat each other and, um, how we talk to each other.

Speaker B: Yes. How we approach each other as humans. Right. I mean, that human first or human centric approach, I think is so important.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. So, Michelle, I need to ask you my final question here. I believe you studied up on is this Right. I had.

Speaker B: I put a lot of thought into this.

Speaker A: Yes. Okay. All, uh, Right.

Speaker B: So doesn't mean I came up with a final answer, but I just.

Speaker A: Okay, well, that's.

Speaker B: Generally.

Speaker A: No final answer is not required. The answer for today is what is what we're hoping for. So, Michelle, FA Manchuk, what is your one piece of advice for a young person starting out?

Speaker B: Uh, my one person. And my advice for one person starting out as somebody who went it alone for far too long. My one piece of advice is you don't need to go it alone. Uh, so if you are feeling that way, um, then there are people all over the place that are, uh, a. Also feeling that way and be, uh, ready to start communities or ready to bring you into a community. Right. So I would say if you feel alone, um, or in those times that you do, it's a really good reminder to reach out and get to know someone. And one of the easy ways I've done to do that is simply asking for a mentor. I think a lot of times that's. That's really helpful, and I have yet to have somebody turn me down. So what.

Speaker A: I love that advice. That, that's. That's really, really terrific advice. And it's advice, I think, for anybody in any stage of their.

Speaker B: So, yes, absolutely, yes.

Speaker A: Don't go it alone. There's plenty of us around, plenty of other people around. So, yeah. Michelle Fermentik, thank you so much for traveling with me to the Edges of Lean. It's been a delight to have you here.

Speaker B: Uh, it's been wonderful to be on. Thank you so much, Bella.

Speaker A: This is Bella Engelbach, and I would like to thank Michelle Fomanchek for joining me at the Edges of the Lean. What did you learn from this conversation? What ideas did it spark? We would love to hear from you. Find Michelle on LinkedIn and check out the Michigan Lean Consortium and meet all the other Lean folks in Michigan. Please find me on LinkedIn or at leanforhumens.com subscribe to the Edges of Lean. There's a lot to learn. The Edges of Lean is written and produced by Bella Engelbike. This is a Lean for Humans production. M

Speaker B: sam m.