The Just Don't Get It!

They Just Don’t Get It Standing in the Middle to Turn Strategy into Execution

Don Robb with Bob Siepka Contributions by Ben Velker

Foreword by Jack Stack

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Foreword by Jack Stack I admit I'm biased toward manufacturing---it's in my blood. My father worked in heavy manufacturing for more than thirty-five years, and I've been part of it myself since November of 1968. My father had a significant influence on me because he was a measurement guy. He was a time study engineer, a cost accountant, and eventually ran a major welding organization before moving into supply chain. He measured everything---poker, horse racing, even my on-base percentage when I played baseball. That focus on measurement shaped my life. Numbers have always guided me, and they ultimately carried me into the CEO chair, where I came to understand the financial ratios of business. In my 50 years in manufacturing, I watched its contribution to GDP decline---until recently. Today, there's renewed conversation about making manufacturing great again. We're talking about the need to make things, to rebuild a rising middle class, to become more independent.

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But the critical questions remain: Do we have the talent? Do we have the skill sets? Do we have the energy to support such a big, hairy, audacious goal? That's why this book, They Just Don't Get It by Don Robb and Bob Siepka, matters. It's the first book on manufacturing I've seen since Edward Deming was elevated to sainthood! It's a fresh start, breaking down the language of manufacturing to reveal its hidden benefits and the power you gain when you truly get it. At SRC, we learned this lesson the hard way. When we bought our failing plant from International Harvester in 1983, we couldn't rely on traditional ways of managing because they wouldn't produce the kind of results we needed in time to save us. So we grabbed for something new, based on what we thought of as the higher laws of business. THE FIRST HIGHER LAW IS: You Get What You Give. THE SECOND HIGHER LAW IS: It's Easy to Stop One Guy, But It's Pretty Hard to Stop 100. These weren't theories from business school—they were street-smart principles forged on the factory floor by people fighting for their jobs. What Don and Bob understand—and what this book captures—is that the best, most efficient, most

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profitable way to operate a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in how the work gets done and a clear understanding of how their efforts drive business results. But here's the key: you can't just give people a voice. You have to teach them the language of business first. That's exactly what site leaders do every day. They stand in the middle, translating between two worlds— turning executive strategy into shop floor action, and shop floor reality into business results. They're the ones who make the connection between daily work and financial impact visible to everyone. When we first introduced The Great Game of Business, we said the key was to teach the rules, follow the action, and deliver a stake in the outcome. This book picks up that torch and shows how site leaders can bring those principles to life every day— not just in times of crisis, but as a way of operating that builds capability and drives results. As I often say, "If they knew what we know, they'd make better decisions." Don and Bob's book is about making sure they do know—and that starts with leaders who can bridge the gap.

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Read They Just Don't Get It and unleash the power of understanding both the language of manufacturing and the language of business. These metrics are stories about people. Learn their meanings and practices, and you'll not only change your thinking forever—you'll know how to play to win. Jack Stack CEO, SRC Holdings Corporation

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Introduction: Caught in the Middle This isn't a typical business book written by MBAs or consultants parachuting in with theories and frameworks straight from the classroom or the latest best-seller. It's built on more than seventy years of combined real-world manufacturing leadership--- leading plants, turning around struggling operations, and working side by side with executives and shop floor teams. We've seen what works, what doesn't, and how the gap between senior leaders and employees can either drive a business forward or drag it down. How often have you heard someone say, or maybe you've said it yourself: "They just don't get it"? It's whispered on the shop floor, where employees are convinced that executives don't understand - or care about - their reality. It's spoken in the boardroom, where corporate leaders struggle to understand why operations can't execute. This disconnect isn't usually about incompetence or arrogance. It's about different pressures, priorities, and languages.

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Executives focus on strategy, growth, and profitability. They speak in terms of EBITDA, margins, market share, and shareholder value. Most have never worked on the floor, so they don't know what really happens day to day. And even the few who came up through operations aren't immune from the common refrain: "He used to be one of us, but he forgot everything he knew the moment he got promoted." Meanwhile, the shop floor lives in a different world. Most employees have never heard corporate-speak in the first place. Their focus is the immediate: keeping machines running, meeting schedules, solving quality problems, watching out for safety, and simply getting through the shift. Strategy feels distant when you're living in a world where everything is both urgent and important. That's why this book is written for site leaders, the ones caught in the middle. Their ultimate job description is simple: execute and deliver results. Fail at that, and you won't be in the role very long. But delivering results isn't simple, because site leaders serve multiple masters. They must meet the complexities of revenue and earnings growth that

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drive shareholder value, while also dealing with the realities of the shop floor and the people who live it every day. At the same time, they need to earn trust, set expectations, inspire, and equip both sides to succeed. They must learn to lead in both directions. This book is filled with real stories drawn from our own experience---stories from the plant floor and the executive suite. These are stories about what happens when alignment breaks down, and what it looks like when people find common ground. You'll notice these stories are told in the first person because they really happened. When you see "I" or "We," just know it's Don or Bob speaking directly from our experience. Just Run Your Machines Faster! It was peak season, and the plant had been oversold by 30%. The backlog was growing. Overtime was mandatory. Morale was crashing. Despite heroic efforts---working weekends, optimizing production, pushing productivity---the team was still missing customer commitments.

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Meanwhile, pressure was mounting. Customers were angry. Competitors were waiting in the wings with lower prices and promises of better service and delivery. Leaders at the highest level demanded answers: why wasn't the plant delivering? The call came: "Come to headquarters. The Executive Vice President wants to meet." I walked into the boardroom, and I wasn't the only site leader on the firing line. One by one, my peers stood at the front of the room, delivering their presentations to the SVP. Each time, the pattern repeated: tough questions, sharp criticism, and no mercy. One by one, charts were dismissed, assumptions shredded, excuses cut off mid-sentence. I sat and watched anxiously as my colleagues were eviscerated, fully aware that my turn was coming next. But my presentation was cut short with one question: "Why can't you run your machines 30% faster?" It sounded like he didn't get it.

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Arguing was clearly not an option. I simply said: "That's not possible---but we will find a way to increase output. I'll need your support." Back at the plant, I gathered my leadership team and laid out the challenge. We collaborated to develop a plan to unite the workforce, explain the situation clearly, and set production targets that would dig us out of the hole. There was no time for new equipment or process upgrades---this would have to be pure discretionary effort and brute force. Using principles from Jack Stack's The Great Game of Business, we designed a "small game" to reward employees for hitting the "critical number"--- production targets that supported schedule attainment goals. The team rallied. They worked smarter, pushed harder, and found a way to deliver on commitments. The lesson: When leaders from different worlds stop talking past each other and start working together, the magic happens. The executives got their results. The plant got the support it needed. And the employees got clarity on why their effort mattered.

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Authors’ Note The story you just read isn't an isolated example. It captures the everyday reality of site leaders who live in the middle---pulled between corporate expectations and shop floor execution. This book is about giving those leaders a way forward: practical tools, a common language, and a framework for creating alignment---between strategy and execution, executives and employees, the top floor and the shop floor. Between us, we've spent more than seventy years leading manufacturing operations. We're not consultants writing from the outside looking in--- we've lived this work from the inside out. If you'd like more about backgrounds, see our bios and some case studies starting on page 121. Our experiences---sometimes painful, sometimes transformative---taught us what it really takes to stand in the middle between executives and the shop floor. We've both seen strategies fall flat when they don't connect with reality, and we've seen plants come alive when leaders earn trust, make data visible, and align people with purpose. This book is our attempt to pass

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on those lessons in a way that's practical, honest, and field-tested. To make it easier to follow, we've laid out a roadmap for the book. Think of it as a guided tour. Each chapter builds on the last, showing how site leaders move from seeing problems clearly to creating results that stick.

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A Roadmap for the Journey Part I: The Current Reality

Chapter 1: U.S. Manufacturing at a Crossroads Manufacturing faces a people problem more than a technology problem. The workforce is shrinking, skilled employees are retiring, and younger workers often view manufacturing as undesirable. These headwinds require new leadership approaches. Chapter 2: A Cultural Pulse Check Culture shows up in safety, cleanliness, workarounds, and how leaders interact with teams. Before applying these principles, take your cultural pulse with fresh eyes. Part II: Delivering Results Bridge: "Feverishly Fighting to Exceed Our KPIs Every Hour of Every Day..." This section outlines five levels of improvement, from mirages and quick fixes to structural changes where improvement becomes organizational identity.

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Chapter 3: Data—The Foundation for Everything Data is the currency of trust and the universal language of leadership. Without reliable metrics, site leaders navigate by instinct alone. Sidebar: Why Some Leaders Avoid Data Many leaders choose to operate without reliable data. In our experience, it usually comes down to one—or a combination—of three reasons. Chapter 4: Find the Story in the Data Raw numbers don't move people—stories do. This chapter shows how to uncover the patterns and connections that give executives evidence to invest and employees clarity to act. Chapter 5: You Can't Do Everything Leaders face more problems than resources. This chapter covers the discipline of prioritization and distinguishing between issues that matter and those that don't. Chapter 6: The ROI of Fixing Problems

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Every plant has problems. Some leaders accept them; others convert them into measurable business value. This chapter shifts focus from firefighting to value creation. Part III: Leading Through People Chapter 7: Supervisors—Organizational Duct Tape Supervisors are the most important yet least equipped people in the plant. This chapter examines their hidden load and how to protect their time for actual leadership. Chapter 8: Indispensable Partners No site leader succeeds alone. HR shapes workforce and culture. Finance connects operations to business impact. The matrix requires influence without authority. Chapter 9: Culture You Can See Culture isn't mission statements—it's what people witness daily. Leaders define culture through what they emphasize, overlook, and how they behave under pressure.

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Conclusion: The Leadership Imperative The site leader's role is engaging the shop floor to deliver results. Between executive demands and operational realities, you translate, connect, and ensure floor work adds up to business outcomes. Appendix: • About the Authors • Case Studies from our Past • How Marking Systems Transformed Manufacturing with Data • Acknowledgements: The Turtle on a Fence Post

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Chapter 1: U.S. Manufacturing at a Crossroads The leadership challenge that will define the next decade Manufacturing is experiencing a moment of opportunity unlike any we've seen in decades. Supply chain disruptions exposed our over-dependence on foreign production. Companies are announcing massive investments to bring manufacturing home. Communities are competing for these new facilities, knowing they represent thousands of good-paying jobs and economic revitalization. But there's a harsh reality beneath the optimism: we're trying to rebuild an industry while the workforce that built it is disappearing. Baby boomers with decades of manufacturing knowledge are retiring faster than we can replace them. Skilled machinists, maintenance technicians, and experienced operators are walking out the door, taking institutional knowledge with them. Meanwhile, younger workers increasingly view manufacturing as outdated, dirty, or beneath their aspirations.

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The gap isn't just numerical—it's cultural. Today's workforce expects transparency, purpose, and respect. They want to understand the "why" behind their work, not just follow orders. They value work-life balance over unlimited overtime. They expect feedback, growth opportunities, and leaders who actually listen. Traditional manufacturing leadership—built on hierarchy, secrecy, and "because I said so" authority— simply won't attract or retain the talent we need. The old playbook assumed workers were grateful just to have jobs. That assumption is dead. The companies that thrive in this new reality will be those that learn to lead differently. They'll create cultures of engagement rather than compliance. They'll treat employees as partners in solving problems, not just pairs of hands executing tasks. They'll build trust through transparency and earn commitment through clear purpose. This isn't about being "soft" or lowering standards. It's about understanding that sustainable performance requires sustainable engagement. And engagement starts with leadership that bridges worlds—

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connecting business objectives with human motivation, strategic vision with daily reality. Here's What That New Leadership Looks Like The Spectrum Brands plant in Blacksburg, Virginia, once carried a terrible reputation. In the community, it was known as a dark, dirty, and difficult place to work. Inside the company, it wasn't regarded much better. Recruiting was an uphill battle, turnover was high, and morale was low. I joined the Spectrum team as the Blacksburg plant manager during a company transition that led to the removal of the entire site leadership team. My first task was to build a new team from scratch. Then, we embarked on a journey to turn that ship around. Our immediate priority was safety—every employee's well-being mattered more than production numbers, full stop. The second priority was simple but powerful: clean the place up. Housekeeping became a daily discipline. Locker rooms were cleaned and painted. Break rooms were restocked and refreshed.

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Next, we re-energized the shop floor data system, not as a reporting tool but as a problem-solving engine. By using data to pinpoint real issues that hindered production and frustrated people, we began attacking root causes. Workarounds, long accepted as "just the way things are," were no longer tolerated. Teams were engaged directly to identify and eliminate barriers. Throughout the journey, we made sure compensation reflected the market. Wages were raised multiple times, reinforcing that Spectrum valued its people and was willing to invest in them. Equally important was the unwavering support from senior executives. They didn't just sign off on plans; they leaned in, removed barriers, and backed our efforts even when results weren't yet visible. That visible support told everyone: this time, things would be different. The transformation didn't happen overnight, but the culture shifted. Employees who once felt trapped began to feel like they were part of something bigger. The plant's reputation improved both in the community and inside the company. What had been a place to avoid became a place where people wanted to contribute and grow. It ultimately became the flagship

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plant for the company and was recognized as the best manufacturing plant to work for in Montgomery County. This Transformation Represents the Future The Spectrum Brands turnaround demonstrates what becomes possible when manufacturing leaders embrace this new reality. This wasn't about lowering standards or accepting mediocrity—quite the opposite. By creating an environment of trust, transparency, and shared purpose, the plant achieved levels of performance that command-and-control approaches never could. The transformation required every principle you'll learn in this book, working together as a system: Data transparency replaced management secrecy, giving everyone visibility into real problems (Chapter 3). Storytelling with numbers connected daily work to business outcomes that employees could understand and influence (Chapter 4).

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Strategic prioritization focused energy on changes that mattered most instead of scattered firefighting (Chapter 5). Business case thinking justified investments in people and systems with measurable returns (Chapter 6). Empowered supervisors gave frontline leaders time and tools to actually lead their teams (Chapter 7). Partnership across functions aligned HR, finance, and operations toward shared goals (Chapter 8). Visible culture change reinforced new expectations through consistent actions, not just words (Chapter 9). The workforce challenges facing manufacturing aren't going away. If anything, they'll intensify as competition for talent increases and workforce expectations continue to evolve. The plants that thrive will be those led by people who understand that engagement drives performance, that transparency builds trust, and that respect is earned through action, not demanded through position. This book will teach you how to become that kind of leader—one who can bridge the gap between business

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requirements and human motivation, creating environments where both performance and people flourish.

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Chapter 2: A Cultural Pulse Check Here’s something we’ve learned after visiting countless plants: you can read the culture of a facility in minutes. It shows up in the basics—is there an obvious commitment to safety? Is the place clean and well lit? Is 5S being practiced faithfully? It shows up in the workarounds—cardboard, duct tape, zip ties, and handwritten signs taped to the machines or breakroom walls. Those quick fixes aren’t just about keeping machines running; they tell you a lot about whether problems get solved or just patched over. It shows up in what’s visible: real-time displays and dashboards that mean something, versus charts and graphs stuck on a wall that are old, irrelevant, or just ignored. How about those whiteboards that haven’t been updated in days or weeks? And maybe most of all, it shows up in the way leaders and teams interact with each other and with other functional areas. Do you see respect, camaraderie, authenticity? Or is it stiff, distant, going through the motions? Put all that together and you get the real story of a plant. Why This Matters Before You Start Before you try to adopt the principles in this book, you need to understand your starting point. Culture either

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accelerates or undermines every technical solution you’ll implement. Strong data systems won’t help if people don’t trust the numbers. Clear priorities won’t stick if everything is treated as urgent. Partnerships won’t form if functions are protecting their turf. Supervisors can’t lead if they’re buried in firefighting mode. Culture isn’t abstract—it’s the foundation that determines whether your improvement efforts take root or get rejected like a bad transplant. I learned this the hard way. Early in my career, I stepped into a leadership role where the culture was so toxic it destroyed every attempt at progress. It became one of the most formative lessons of my life. Sidebar: A Horror Story from the Top Floor In the early 2000s, I accepted a COO role at an unnamed company. The CEO had seen what we accomplished at the Roanoke book plant and said, “Hey, come here and do that for us.” It wasn’t an easy decision after 23 years, but I made the move. I had arrived at “the top floor” with a mandate and thought I could change the world. Instead, I walked into an organization that ignored—or flat-out violated—every principle in this book. On the shop floor, many employees felt demoralized. Among site leaders, fear ruled the day.

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And in the C-suite, decisions were driven by brute force and intimidation, not strategy or trust. Have you ever heard the saying, “the beatings will continue until morale improves”? That was the environment. The company paid its managers at the very top of the market range. That pay wasn’t a reward for excellence—it was a necessity to keep people from leaving. It created the sense of being trapped. Many thought, “where else can I go and make this money?” Bottom line: I failed to drive change or deliver results. In hindsight, a cultural pulse check might have warned me about what I was stepping into. After just 18 months, I left—without another job lined up. The lesson: These principles aren’t optional. Ignore them, and the culture will eat you alive. Live them, and you give people a chance to win. Transition Back to Main Text There’s a saying: culture eats strategy for lunch. That story is living proof. I walked in with a mandate and a strategy, but the culture devoured it before it ever had a chance. The experience was painful and caused me to doubt myself. Yet it also gave me perspective I couldn’t have gained any other way—a deeper understanding of how

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leadership really works, and how essential culture is to everything that follows. That’s why it’s worth pausing before you start—to take an honest cultural pulse check. A Simple Assessment Take a walk through your facility with these questions in mind: Relationships and connection: Do people make eye contact when you walk by, or do they look away? Do leaders greet employees by name? Is there natural conversation and camaraderie, or does your presence create awkward silence? When teams interact, do you see mutual respect and collaboration? Obvious evidence of workarounds: Look for the obvious signs—cardboard acting as a shim or stabilizer, duct tape holding things together, handwritten signs taped to machines with warnings or instructions. These workarounds aren’t just maintenance issues; they’re cultural indicators. Do teams dig for root causes and fix things properly, or do they patch problems and move on? In healthy cultures, workarounds become the known villain—something to identify and eliminate, not accept and normalize. Trust and transparency: Do people speak openly about problems, or do they tell you what you want to hear?

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When you ask, “How’s it going?” do you get real answers or generic responses? Information flow: Is data visible, current, and meaningful to the people doing the work? Or is information hoarded, outdated, or irrelevant to daily decisions? Leadership presence: Do leaders spend time where the work happens, or are they mostly in offices and conference rooms? When they’re on the floor, are they listening and learning, or inspecting and correcting?

Cross-functional dynamics: Do different areas work together toward shared goals, or do they operate in silos

with competing priorities? Getting Outside Perspective

If you’ve been in your role for more than a year, you’ve probably adapted to your environment. What feels normal to you might look dysfunctional to fresh eyes. Consider inviting someone you trust—a peer from another facility, a mentor, or an outside consultant—to walk your plant with you. Ask them to be brutally honest about what they see. Their observations might reveal blind spots that have faded into your background. Every chapter ends with a Cultural Pulse Check—a chance to pause and ask, “How does this show up in my plant?”

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These quick reflections help you measure progress, spot new blind spots, and guide conversations with your team. Remember: you can’t change what you can’t see clearly. Take the pulse first, then prescribe the medicine.

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Part II: Delivering Results

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Introduction: "Feverishly Fighting to Exceed Our KPIs Every Hour of Every Day..." That line—borrowed from a friend and colleague's email signature—captures the heartbeat of a site leader's job. Part II of the book is about that job in its simplest form: find the problems, fix them, and deliver results. Strategies and visions only matter if they translate into execution. For the site leader, that means turning pressure into progress, aligning people and resources, and refusing to let excuses become the culture. Bottom line: your role is to make things run better tomorrow than they did today. But here's what every experienced leader knows: not all "improvements" are created equal. Some changes create lasting gains that compound over time. Others feel good in the moment but fade quickly. And some aren't improvements at all—just fortunate circumstances that temporarily mask underlying problems.

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Over time, we've found it helpful to think about improvement in five levels: Level 0: The Mirage Sometimes what looks like progress is really just a set of favorable circumstances. A week with fewer changeovers, an easy product mix, or a temporary lull in quality problems can make performance appear better than it actually is. When conditions return to normal, the "improvement" disappears. Example: A packaging line shows a 15% jump in weekly output. The data reveals the real story: they ran only two products instead of the usual six, eliminating most changeover time. Nothing fundamental changed about the line's capability—they just got lucky with the schedule. The takeaway: Before celebrating performance gains, understand why they happened. If you can't trace improvement to a specific change you made, you may be looking at a mirage. Level 1: Just Work Harder People dig deeper and push harder—like a team fighting for a playoff spot or playing with extra

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intensity against their fiercest rival. This discretionary effort can produce real gains when you need them, but it's not sustainable. Eventually, people burn out, and performance returns to previous levels. Example: A plant facing a major customer audit rallies to hit quality targets through extra inspections, overtime, and heroic efforts. The audit goes well, but once the pressure Performance improves simply because attention is focused on it. New displays, management walkabouts, or measurement systems can create short-term gains just by making work more visible. But unless an underlying weakness is fixed, the improvement fades once the novelty wears off. Example: Installing real-time displays on a production line initially boosts output as operators respond to visible feedback. Within weeks, however, the same bottlenecks and inefficiencies that existed before start dragging performance back down. Level 3: Behavioral Change lifts, quality metrics drift back to baseline. Level 2: The Hawthorne Effect

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You get what you measure and reinforce. Clear metrics, regular reviews, and consistent attention can shift how people approach their work. These changes are real and can be sustained—but they require ongoing reinforcement and can be fragile if leadership attention shifts elsewhere. Example: Implementing daily production meetings with visible scoreboards drives teams to focus on schedule attainment. As long as the meetings continue and leaders stay engaged, performance remains elevated. Skip the meetings for a few weeks, and old habits return. Level 4: Structural Change This is where lasting ROI lives. You identify and eliminate the actual constraint—redesign the process, fix the equipment, remove the bottleneck, or change the system. Once implemented, the improvement maintains itself. Performance stays elevated without pep talks, extra meetings, or constant management attention. Example: A chronic jam point on a conveyor is causing repeated micro-stops. Rather than posting an operator to clear jams faster, engineering redesigns the transfer

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mechanism. The micro-stops disappear permanently, and the capacity gain requires no ongoing intervention. The Path Forward Execution isn't about chasing every metric or working harder every day. It's about recognizing what kind of improvement you're really achieving and pushing the organization toward changes that endure. Mirages teach you to dig deeper into data. Discretionary effort shows you what's possible when people care. The Hawthorne Effect proves that visibility matters. Behavioral change demonstrates the power of focus and measurement. But structural change is where you build lasting capability that compounds over time. Each chapter that follows will give you tools for climbing these levels—seeing clearly, finding the right problems, focusing energy where it matters, building partnerships that multiply your impact, and creating culture that sustains progress. Together, they move you from firefighting toward building capability that lasts.

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Chapter 3: Data—The Foundation for Everything Throughout this book, one underlying assumption remains constant: everything begins with data. Without it, the strategies, tools, and tactics discussed here are simply theories with no grounding in reality. You cannot effectively stand in the middle, and you cannot drive meaningful change, without having the right data at your fingertips. The site leader's language is data—the fundamental currency of leadership. By using clear, actionable metrics, site leaders transform raw data into a compelling narrative that connects day-to-day operations with business objectives. This data-driven approach ensures that decisions are not made in isolation but are firmly grounded in the operational reality, creating a common language that resonates both with the C-suite and the shop floor. Whether it's identifying bottlenecks, tracking performance, or aligning daily activities with strategic business objectives, data is the key to seeing where you're headed and how to adjust course if necessary.

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In its absence, you'll be making decisions based on intuition or incomplete information, and that will lead to failure. But let's be clear: data isn't a silver bullet. It's not a quick fix or a plug-and-play solution. Learning to use it well takes effort, discipline, and often a new skill set. You have to be willing to dig in, ask the right questions, and turn raw numbers into meaningful insight. Creating Line of Sight: Helping the Shop Floor See the Bigger Picture A crucial way to translate strategy into execution is by creating line of sight for the shop floor by helping them understand how their daily work impacts the business. We have line of sight when we: • Understand the parts of the business our role directly impacts. • Know the metrics, how they're calculated, and how we can influence them. • Have a scorecard that clearly shows how we're performing—in real time.

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• Know that personal success fuels team success, and vice versa. • Are accountable for our performance. When employees can connect their daily actions to the company's success, it builds ownership, engagement, and a shared sense of purpose. They don't just do tasks, they understand why it matters. When they understand that their contributions are measurable and tied to the business's bottom line, they are more likely to take ownership and strive for continuous improvement. The Power of Making It Visible A common disconnect in manufacturing is the lack of real-time visibility. That's where displays change the game. Their power isn't in technology but in translation—turning leadership expectations into something operators can see and act on immediately. When performance is visible: • Operators get instant feedback and correct problems before they escalate. • Supervisors solve issues at the point of failure instead of explaining them tomorrow.

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• Management trusts that information is current, accurate, and shared. Displays speak the universal language of performance. At their best, displays don't just report— they spark conversations. Data becomes the translator, turning complex strategy into actionable steps. Quick Story: Motivation Through Visibility At a site where we had just deployed real-time displays, the impact showed up almost immediately. After the first day, the site leader sent a note celebrating a record-breaking run on one of their machines. His words captured the essence: "Couldn't have done it without your system." He explained that the real-time displays gave the operator and crew line of sight and a clear target to chase. The visible feedback didn't just show progress—it motivated the team to push further and hit a new milestone. That's the difference visibility makes. It shifts performance from being an abstract management

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expectation to something the entire crew owns in the moment. Data is your translator. By grounding conversations in clear, reliable metrics, you can turn complex strategy into actionable steps that make sense to your team while speaking the language leadership expects. Understanding the perspectives of your audiences, and reinforcing that understanding with meaningful data, ensures everyone moves together toward the same goal. Of course, data by itself won't fix problems—they simply tell us they exist. The real challenge for site leaders is to take that raw information and shape it into a story that people can understand, believe in, and act on. Data creates visibility, but translation creates meaning. That's why the next step in the framework is so critical: finding the story in the data. Pulse Check: Are You Grounded in Reality?

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• Do you have real-time, accurate data—or are you relying on reports that are days old? • Are metrics visible, meaningful, and trusted by both leaders and teams? • Do your people have a common understanding of the goals and targets? Transition: Data brings visibility. It brings clarity. It brings decisiveness and confidence. It gives you solid ground to stand on. And yet, we've met countless leaders who still operate without it...

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Sidebar: Why Some Leaders Avoid Data Data brings visibility. It brings clarity. It brings decisiveness and confidence. It gives you solid ground to stand on. And yet, we've met countless leaders who still operate without it. In our experience, it usually comes down to one—or a combination—of three reasons. You Don't Know How If this is you, you're not alone—it's the most common. Leaders in this situation are exhausted. They live in firefighting mode, juggling problems shift after shift. The pressure is constant, and many nights they go home drained, frustrated, and wondering if they're even making a difference. You desperately want things to get better, but every day feels like drinking from a fire hose. Equipment breaks down faster than you can fix it. Quality issues pop up without warning. Schedules slip despite heroic efforts. You're always reacting, never getting ahead.

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Sometimes you're flying blind—there's simply no reliable data available. Operators keep handwritten logs that disappear between shifts, and the only "real time" information comes from walking the floor and asking questions. Other times, data exists but feels overwhelming or meaningless. Spreadsheets full of numbers that don't connect to anything actionable. Reports that arrive days after problems occurred. Metrics that seem designed for corporate reporting rather than shop floor improvement. Either way, the outcome is the same: you're left reacting instead of leading, managing crises instead of preventing them. If that's you, stay with us. The principles in this book will give you practical ways to move from firefighting toward clarity, alignment, and measurable results— even if you're starting from scratch. You Don't Want To This one is tougher. Some leaders resist data not because they can't use it, but because they'd rather not confront what it reveals.

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There's an odd comfort in chaos. When everything is urgent, nothing gets scrutinized too closely. When you're constantly firefighting, people see you as busy and essential. The rhythm of crisis management can become addictive—it feels active, even heroic. Here's the hard truth: very likely, you have major problems in your plant. Every plant has them. But you're hiding from them. You've been putting band aids on critical machines, and the performance and quality are deteriorating faster than you can change the band-aids. Some leaders have actually said to us, "I don't want my boss to see these numbers." They prefer the familiar struggle over the transparency that comes with measurement. The trouble is, firefighting may look busy and even heroic, but it's not leadership. It's reaction. Operating from visibility is harder—it demands discipline, transparency, and follow-through. But that hard work is the only way to build real trust, unlock capacity, and create results that last. The same energy you spend on firefighting can be redirected into building stability and results. The hard work of leading from truth may feel uncomfortable,

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but it's the only work that pays off—for you, your people, and your business. You Don't Think You Need To These leaders genuinely believe they already know what's happening on the floor. They've been doing this for years. They walk the lines, talk with people, and pride themselves on being close to the action. "I can tell you everything about this plant just by listening to what I can—and can't—hear," one veteran plant manager told us, inferring that silence means equipment is down. "I don't need a computer screen to tell me what I already know." They see problems, hear stories, and trust their instincts to fill in the rest. To them, data feels like bureaucracy—something that slows down decisions rather than improving them. After all, they didn't get to where they are by staring at spreadsheets. But here's the reality: even the most experienced leaders have blind spots. Your morning walk shows you a snapshot, not the full picture. The problems you see today might not be the ones costing you the most money. The stories you hear are filtered through

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people who want to give you good news or avoid blame. Most telling? We've had seasoned leaders look at their first real-time production data and say, "I had no idea that was happening." Then, five minutes later, they'll claim, "Well, I already knew that." Our response is simple: if you already knew it, why didn't you fix it? Experience and intuition are valuable, but they're not sufficient. Data doesn't replace your judgment—it sharpens it. It fills in the gaps between what you think you know and what's actually happening. Moving Forward Wherever you find yourself—unsure, unwilling, or unconvinced—the journey forward begins in the same place: by learning to tell the right story. Because data without story is just noise, and story without data is just opinion. The next step is turning those numbers into narratives that drive action.

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Chapter 4: Find the Story in the Data Translating Data into Decisions W. Edwards Deming once said, "In God we trust, all others bring data." Data is one of the most powerful tools available to operations leaders. You cannot run a business effectively without it. But know this: Data is useless, and maybe even dangerous, unless you know how to use it! Data Without Translation is Just Noise It's not enough to simply collect information; it must be turned into a compelling story that drives action. This chapter is about shifting your focus from reporting data to uncovering the story that data tells— and using that story to prompt meaningful decisions. Collecting data for its own sake only creates more chaos. In fact, when you overload people with too much information, they don't get smarter—they get overwhelmed.

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We've seen brilliant and well-intentioned managers deliver PowerPoint decks loaded with charts and graphs but miss the mark. Why? Because the data didn't tell a story that connected with the audience. Elephant Hunting: Spotting and Slaying the Hidden High-Impact Opportunities On the shop floor, the primary goal can be summed up in a simple mantra: "Get it in run, keep it in run, at target speed." That phrase captures the heartbeat of manufacturing. It's not about fancy strategy or abstract objectives; it's about keeping the machines running and meeting commitments. The site leader's job is to find and fix the problems that get in the way. That means using the data to find the stories and rally the troops. Some problems are obvious: a long changeover, a broken machine, a yield crash. You see them, you react, you fix them. But others hide in plain sight, and you can't see them until you can measure them.

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We used to call this elephant hunting . These are the big, slow-moving problems that everyone notices but no one can measure without data. The Big 3: 1. Waiting: For materials, approvals, or quality checks. One plant we worked with knew they had problems in a particular department, but they could never quantify the impact. The data—showing just how much time was lost to "waiting for materials"—gave them the ammo they needed to justify a major overhaul. The project wasn't cheap, but the ROI was substantial. 2. Shift transitions: the ramp-down and ramp-up during shift changes. Shift transition losses are nearly universal, and most sites are shocked when they see the data. It's classic low-hanging fruit. A universal expectation for any operation should be simple: hand off a running machine. If one crew ramps down early and the next ramps up slowly, the chart will show a visible dip in

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production at every shift change. Truthfully, we see it everywhere we go. But if you can't measure it... 3. Micro-stops: frequent, short interruptions. Micro-stops are a massive hidden beast. These frequent but very short interruptions don't show up on anyone's radar individually, but cumulatively they eat capacity, generate scrap, and drive operators and crews crazy. Imagine running a line that goes down every 10 minutes. At one site, a handful of issues were creating repetitive short stops on a critical asset. It was a known problem for a long time but brushed aside as an everyday nuisance until we installed a shop floor system. Once the team could finally measure the true impact, those "nuisances" turned out to be massive drains on performance. By focusing on the biggest offenders, the plant doubled its run uptime and slashed the scrap that was associated with each stop. The lesson was simple: you don't really know which problems matter most until you can see their cost in hard numbers. Data, when used properly, turns invisible friction into visible action.

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The critical step? Measure the impact. Make sure your corrective action kills the elephant and keep tracking it to ensure it doesn't quietly return. Story: Data Saves the Project (and Maybe my Job) We had just invested in a custom-built machine to automate the manufacturing of a niche product. The design was unique—developed in collaboration with the OEM—and we had agreed on strict contractual performance criteria for uptime, speed, and yield. We had high expectations for the impact it would have on our operation. To say we had startup issues would be an understatement. The problem centered on two grippers designed to pick up a part and set it precisely into a frame. It wasn't working. We struggled for weeks to figure it out. Then one day, a maintenance tech came to me with grim news: "It's the parts— they're not consistent enough for this process." He showed me how the plastic parts were slightly warped. This had disaster written all over it—we would probably need new material, new molds, and maybe a

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new supplier. The cost and disruption to us and our customers would be significant. Fortunately, our operators were using our shop floor system to capture detailed data. I asked, "What does the data say about how each gripper is performing?" Sure enough, identical parts performed at different rates depending on which gripper handled them. That meant it wasn't the parts at all. We presented our findings to the equipment manufacturer. They found a minor design flaw and re engineered replacements—at no cost. The machine went on to deliver the results we'd envisioned. Moral of the Story: Without accurate, detailed data— the voice of the operator—we would have made a costly change that would not have fixed the problem. Data Beyond Plant Floor Data isn't just for solving operational problems. We discovered its stories could help us reshape business decisions at the highest level. The same insights that drove equipment and process improvements also influenced how we set priorities, price products, and hold partners accountable.

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Some real-world examples: Target Setting -- grounding performance goals in actual capacity, not wishful thinking. Pricing -- sharpening quotes with cost and efficiency data to improve profitability. Product Design & Value Engineering -- highlighting redesign opportunities to simplify the process and cut costs. Product Portfolio -- making confident decisions about which products to grow, sustain, or exit. Supplier Accountability -- using facts to challenge suppliers on quality, delivery, and cost performance. In short: data became a business tool, not just a plant tool—driving improvements in our equipment, processes, products, and ultimately our results. Closing Thought: If you're not using data to find and fix problems, what's the point? It's there to drive action, solve problems, and improve your business.

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Pulse Check: Are You Turning Data into Action? • Does your team understand the story behind the numbers, or have your dashboards become wallpaper? • Is data being used to illuminate issues and drive improvements—or to assign blame? • Have you created a culture where people trust the data enough to use it as a voice? Do you ever hear people saying, "What does the data tell us?" Transition: Data tells you the truth, but that alone won't fix everything. The real test of leadership is choosing what to act on—and just as importantly, what not to.

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Chapter 5: You Can't Do Everything Doing the Right Things the Right Way—in the Right Order A Lesson in the Quick Fix Trap We've all been there. The machine keeps jamming. We keep chasing it, hoping the last change works, but it rarely does. So we try another adjustment, swap a sensor, modify the timing. Each fix feels productive in the moment. The team jumps in. Maintenance makes another tweak, an operator adjusts the gripper again, and within an hour the line is running. Everyone feels productive—like heroes. Until the next shift, when the same issue shuts production down all over again. That's the danger of the quick fix: it feels good in the moment but doesn't last. In fact, it often makes things worse, because the root cause is still lurking, waiting to stop you again.

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One of the biggest challenges for operations leaders is balancing the urgency for quick fixes with the discipline of prioritizing thoughtful, strategic solutions that create sustainable gains. Every site leader wrestles with the same tension: how to respond quickly to problems while also keeping the team focused on what truly matters. The Two Pitfalls of Execution The Quick Fix Trap -- reacting fast and patching problems without ever addressing their real cause. It feels productive, but in the long run it just builds a culture of workarounds. The Prioritization Challenge -- even when you know the root cause, you face more problems than resources. Choosing what to fix first isn't just tactical-- -it's the difference between lasting progress and wasted effort. Together, these two challenges define the early battleground for any leader. Solve them well, and you create momentum. Fall into them, and you'll spend your time chasing fires instead of building capability.

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The Quick Fix Trap: Activity Isn't the Same as Impact In manufacturing, speed is survival. Leaders pride themselves on reaction time—putting out fires before they spread. But firefighting is deceptive. • Quick fixes feel productive but rarely solve the real problem. • Short-term solutions usually become permanent workarounds. • Recurring issues frustrate teams, waste resources, and erode trust. The workaround mentality starts here. When you patch a problem instead of fixing it, you're training your organization to accept "good enough." That cardboard acting as a shim or stabilizer? It started as a quick fix. The duct tape holding things together? Someone decided a temporary solution was sufficient. Those handwritten signs taped to machines? They began as urgent warnings that became permanent fixtures. Every workaround you see on your plant floor began as a quick fix that someone decided was acceptable.

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