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April 4, 2024

Ep166 Jay David - Reviving Giants: The Art of the Corporate Turnaround

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Get Unstuck & On Target

In this compelling episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with the remarkable Jay David, a fractional manufacturing CEO with a backstory that reads like a script for resilience and strategic brilliance. Jay's journey from a high school cook to a turnaround titan in the manufacturing world is not just inspiring; it's a lesson in leveraging unconventional paths for exponential growth.

Mike, with his insightful queries, peels back the layers of Jay's career, revealing a narrative that challenges the conventional wisdom of career progression. From Jay's early realization that the restaurant management lifestyle wasn't for him to his audacious leap into college for love of baseball, his story is punctuated with decisions that seem risky but are deeply strategic.

Jay shares how, without an immediate dive into college post-high school, he embraced the grind in restaurant management, honed his leadership skills, and later transitioned to manufacturing, where he applied his unique blend of operational savvy and financial acumen to lead turnarounds. His approach? A combination of hands-on problem-solving on the factory floor, innovative process optimizations, and fostering strong people management skills across teams. 

The conversation takes a deep dive into the essence of successful turnarounds. It’s not about sweeping changes but strategic, incremental improvements. Jay’s methodology, focusing on one or two areas for impactful change, underscores the importance of prioritization and engagement for lasting success. 

Mike and Jay also explore the transformative role of fractional leadership in driving strategic change. Through Jay’s lens, listeners learn about the nuanced balance between strategic oversight and operational excellence, the value of fresh perspectives in entrenched challenges, and the critical role of building a resilient bench strength for future growth.

Key Takeaways:

- The Path Less Traveled: Jay's journey underscores the value of unconventional paths to leadership and success, providing a refreshing perspective on career development.  

- Turnaround Tactics: Strategic incrementalism and a focus on people management emerge as pivotal for turning struggling operations into success stories.

- Fractional Leadership: Jay's insights into fractional CEO roles reveal a potent strategy for small to medium-sized businesses to leverage expert strategic oversight without full-time executive costs.

- Visibility and Incremental Improvement: The power of visual management and focusing on one challenge at a time for transformational change.

This episode is more than a conversation; it’s a roadmap for those feeling stuck, looking for a way to pivot from operational challenges to strategic victories. It’s about finding success by doing business better, not just working harder. Join Mike and Jay as they unpack the layers of strategy, leadership, and resilience that define the journey from the kitchen floors to the executive doors.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:12:01
Mike O'Neill
Joining me is Jay David. Jay is a fractional manufacturing CEO and founder of Do Business Better. I love that title. Prior, he was the chief operating officer for Mount

00:00:12:01 - 00:00:22:15
Mike O'Neill
Franklin Foods and that's a large general line. Candy company had six factories in the U.S. and Mexico with more than 3500 team members.

00:00:22:17 - 00:00:39:20
Mike O'Neill
Jay has led a number of turnarounds over the years by restoring profitability to these struggling organizations. I just think he's going to be a natural gas, and I look forward to speaking to you about turnarounds and want to welcome you to this podcast.

00:00:39:24 - 00:00:43:08
Jay David
Welcome, Jay. You Mike, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

00:00:43:10 - 00:01:04:13
Mike O'Neill
You know, Jay, we've had an opportunity to get to know each other prior to scheduling this. But what I found a little bit unusual for you is that you kind of have come about getting to where you are now in a little less conventional way, meaning you didn't necessarily start college right out of high school, did you?

00:01:04:15 - 00:01:09:06
Jay David
No, I did not. Took the path less traveled for sure.

00:01:09:08 - 00:01:15:09
Mike O'Neill
So tell me more. You started I if memory serves me. You were in restaurant management for a good while?

00:01:15:11 - 00:01:33:16
Jay David
Yeah. I started as a restaurant and cook in high school, and they loved the work that I did and the work ethic that I displayed. And they wanted me to go into restaurant management. I told them, no way, I'm going to go to college and get the degree. I went to college for one year, primarily to play baseball.

00:01:33:18 - 00:01:56:11
Jay David
Rarely went to class, didn't take it seriously at all. Love the baseball side, but I quit and I didn't go back to college until many, many years later. In the interim, I spent about eight years in restaurant management. I did go back to them and they welcomed me with open arms and trained me how to be a restaurant manager.

00:01:56:13 - 00:02:21:20
Jay David
So I did that for eight years. I met my wife. I had a kid along the way and realized that that wasn't the lifestyle that I wanted. Weekends, 24 hours, seven day a week, business and this had a bad day one day and drove to the local community college, signed up for one class, and began my journey to my college degree.

00:02:21:22 - 00:02:52:05
Mike O'Neill
You know, food service, restaurants. Gosh, that's a hard, hard life. And you're right. It's it is 24 seven. But to some extent, where you end up going kind of fits that same definition. I introduce you as being a former CEO and our manufacturing organization. It is 24 seven. But what you mentioned is you started and I think if I remember correctly, you didn't get an accounting degree, is that right?

00:02:52:07 - 00:03:14:18
Jay David
Yeah. I have always been good with numbers. And I actually in my restaurant management time, I innovated a little bit there with Lotus one, two, three in the old days and helped automate inventory processes. So when I saw a degree, I thought accounting was the right thing for me with my love of numbers, but also knew that it would lead to a job.

00:03:14:18 - 00:03:18:19
Jay David
So it was the right thing at the right time for sure.

00:03:18:21 - 00:03:36:23
Mike O'Neill
Now, I don't mean this as a generalization, but oftentimes people who have accounting degrees stay in some type of accounting role. But you found yourself in operations. Walk us through how did you find yourself in an operational role?

00:03:37:00 - 00:03:57:19
Jay David
I think it gets back to my primary choice. I chose accounting because it would get me a job for sure and because I had a love of numbers. But what I loved about the restaurant business was aging people managing the the the financial side of it, the performance and the turnaround on piece and fixing processes along the way.

00:03:57:21 - 00:04:26:11
Jay David
So I found that when I got into the accounting, you have the month end routines where you're closing the books and doing that things. Everything is repetitive. So my first job was actually as a cost accountant with Farley Foods in Chicago, which was the multi plant candy business primarily doing fruit snacks. And we were required to wear suits and ties in the office every day.

00:04:26:13 - 00:04:49:16
Jay David
But I always wanted to go to the plant floor, so I put my smock on my hairnet, spent most of my time on the plant floor working with the plant manager on productivity, didn't buy month and responsibilities, but I was always attracted to the plant floor and partnered very closely with those plant managers to help them fix things.

00:04:49:16 - 00:05:12:24
Jay David
I could add the financial perspective, and I actually did it a little modeling for them in Microsoft Excel to give them some models to play with, to help them understand the impact of some of their decisions. So that led me toward raising my hand and in saying I wanted to make a move into operations.

00:05:13:01 - 00:05:40:02
Mike O'Neill
As you know, I came out of a manufacturing background or something about, you know, walking out and seeing something made. It's just very, very gratifying. But manufacturing is a capital intensive industry. But gosh, it seems as if the main challenges of manufacturing isn't the machinery, it's the people who you expect to operate that machinery. At least that's my observations.

00:05:40:02 - 00:05:41:19
Mike O'Neill
What did you find?

00:05:41:21 - 00:06:08:13
Jay David
Exactly the same thing, Mike. And that's why I think my strong background in managing people and getting the most out of them was made me successful there. A lot of companies require their plant managers to be engineers, and that from a technical standpoint, makes all the sense in the world. But as you said, it's more about managing people.

00:06:08:15 - 00:06:37:19
Jay David
Franklin I had 3500 employees, supervisors, maintenance, warehouse folks, all, you know, all in there. If you can't manage them successfully, it doesn't really matter what the equipment does. So it is about the people, how to recruit, how to train, how to retain, and just to get the most out of them. How do you get them on your side to say, I want to work here because I want the company to succeed?

00:06:37:19 - 00:07:06:18
Jay David
Not just every week when I get my paycheck. So that is the biggest challenge. And that's why some great plant managers up there are kind of unicorns, right? I I've recruited plant managers in my day that don't have the engineering background or the accounting background. I recruit and hire them just because they're great people, persons. And, you know, and I can fill in the gaps on their technical knowledge.

00:07:06:20 - 00:07:38:07
Mike O'Neill
I can't count how many times I have found myself saying this. And that is there's a tendency for organizations to promote people because of their technical skills. But there's nothing about that that prepares them to manage others. Right. And so a lot of the training work that we do for clients focuses on those people skills. Why? Because it comes up time and time again as a as a challenge, but it's a challenge that can be overcome.

00:07:38:07 - 00:08:01:18
Mike O'Neill
But you got to kind of give them the tools to be successful, you know? G Introduce you as have an expertise in running businesses, but you also have found yourself in situations where a turnaround might very well be warranted just to set the stage. How do you define the term turnaround?

00:08:01:20 - 00:08:36:17
Jay David
It can be something very small as a an individual process within a factory or business is broken. Maybe it's just quality. Financially. The company's great, everything's looking good, but it may just be continued quality problems where they've had a couple of really calls in the marketplace or they generate way too much scrap. Their yield is off, so it can be some small turnaround such as that, but it can also be full company turnarounds that are you're digging into the finances, you're digging into h.r.

00:08:36:17 - 00:09:05:23
Jay David
Issues. You're digging into how how can we deliver our product better? It can be any number of things. So in my past, i've i've been involved in turnarounds on a process level, a factory level, but also a full company level where we've restored either profitability or whatever the problem was. We restored customer satisfaction by getting our deliveries on time and so on.

00:09:06:00 - 00:09:33:23
Mike O'Neill
What do we kind of go through each of those? I think you mentioned if we were to say three different tiers, it could be a need to improve a process, maybe significantly improve that process, improving a process in the context of a turnaround. What do you find? You've been doing this for a long time. When you go into the organization, how do you assess where the biggest challenges are?

00:09:34:00 - 00:09:56:15
Jay David
A lot of it definitely comes from maybe if I'm doing it from a consulting side, it would be beginning to talk with the owner or the CEO of the company. They're going to tell me their perspective of what what they think is wrong. But what they may be telling me is we're not making money anymore. I think it's because of these five things.

00:09:56:17 - 00:10:21:08
Jay David
But then I really typically go out and talk to their director reports, get their perspectives, talk to the sales team. What what products or problems are you having in the marketplace? Is it delivery issues? Is it quality? Is it lack of innovation? What are the customers feeling? And then talk to some hourly employees and hear what their issues are.

00:10:21:10 - 00:10:51:12
Jay David
A lot of times the middle management leadership will mask some of the issues and you really get an honest perspective from the employees. If it's me going in like I did at Mount Franklin Foods at the time, we were in cost below the cash flow difficulty. We had severe quality issues. We weren't delivering to our customers. And really all of that was kind of dropped on me when I started my job there as the chief operating officer.

00:10:51:14 - 00:11:12:21
Jay David
And I just the the old and Balaji of how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. So you have to start going in there and just making day to day, week to week, month to month incremental improvement in each of those areas. If you look at it like a huge elephant, it's overwhelming and you're never going to make progress.

00:11:12:21 - 00:11:30:12
Jay David
But what I would always tell the employees at that time is in six months we're going to look back and we're going to say, Wow, do you remember when this used to happen? Do you remember when we didn't have materials to produce? Do you remember when we didn't have enough employees to get this job done? Think of where we're at now.

00:11:30:14 - 00:11:41:23
Jay David
And a lot of times the feedback was great. We're still not very good. Okay, in another six months, we're going to look back and we're we're going to we're going to be amazed at the progress we made.

00:11:42:00 - 00:12:15:00
Mike O'Neill
You know, Jay, when you mentioned it takes time. You know, when I look at the word turnaround, when I hear the term turnaround, it for me sometimes it feels as if it's got to be an immediate one. 80. And what I'm hearing you say is it more often than not is it may require significant change, but you have found that it's always best to be looking at what's the most important thing we can be working on.

00:12:15:02 - 00:12:23:17
Mike O'Neill
And what I heard you describe is what incremental improvements can we make right now? Right. And keep making those changes.

00:12:23:19 - 00:12:56:19
Jay David
Yeah. Sometimes the quick fix becomes the quick fail also. When you come in and you try to make too much change too quickly or attack 50 problems rather than three problems, the organization gets confused. Everybody's in a panic and you don't get enough traction on on really the the things that you want to tackle. So, you know, usually what I'll try to do is to say in my questioning period, you know, is there an existential threat right now?

00:12:56:21 - 00:13:24:13
Jay David
Are we at the threat of closing our doors? Are we at the threat of losing a major customer? Do we have any life saving safety issues in the building? That's what I'll I'll jump to address first. If that's not the case, once you get beyond that, that says no. Okay, we just need to turn the turn the vehicle, you know, 45 degrees and and head in in a better direction than it's typically.

00:13:24:13 - 00:13:49:20
Jay David
You go in and you start to try to make some, you know, some quick victories. And usually those are employee related. It might be some safety issues on the floor. It might be we're working a ton of overtime and we're tired. It can be just listening to the employees and and then coaching the the plant management team. Hey, here's four things we need to do today.

00:13:49:22 - 00:14:14:05
Jay David
Let's make the employees lives a little bit better. And then all of the sudden you get attention and everybody is on the same page. Then they're accepting for more change to come. You know, after that, it's about finding what the big issues are. So if it's profitability, okay, well, what what is the issue on profitability? Are you paying too much for your materials?

00:14:14:07 - 00:14:37:21
Jay David
Do you have inefficient processes where you're wasting labor out on the floor? Then you get in and root cause those and and figure out really what is the quickest and biggest way we can make an impact on that. But my mantra has always been and I said it a minute before, is make today better than yesterday, make this week better than last.

00:14:37:21 - 00:15:00:06
Jay David
We beat this month better than last month. And it's small incremental changes and if you try to go from a 50% a week to a 70% story in one week, it's not sustainable. All it means is you just ran the equipment too hard, you beat up the employees and it it never works.

00:15:00:08 - 00:15:29:13
Mike O'Neill
JAY As you were describing this, I'm a kind of a visual person, and that is you kind of advise us, don't take on too much. At the same time, you really want them to be able to see that progress. When I'm in, I'm a visual person. Have you found that given visibility to what it is that you're trying to address, what kinds of really mind would be score cards or something like that?

00:15:29:15 - 00:15:42:21
Mike O'Neill
Do you find that people need to be able to see where things are going to truly buy in and feel that there is in fact some progress going in the right direction?

00:15:42:23 - 00:16:10:02
Jay David
For sure. And that, again, it gets into the reason why you focus on one or two in an area. If you try to attach to any problems, it's it's overwhelming to the organization. The employees can't get it. So if it's about scrap, then you visually track your scrap every day and you put a big number up on the wall and you have a quick stand up meeting every morning and say, okay, yesterday we generated £150 of scrap.

00:16:10:04 - 00:16:35:06
Jay David
Let's talk about the three biggest contributors to that scrap yesterday and go from there. And, you know, there's a point in time where that changes. Maybe you've tackled scrap, then you take it from a daily discussion, you put it to a weekly or monthly discussion, then you bring another one forward and maybe that machine downtime, whatever you want to, whatever you want to look at.

00:16:35:06 - 00:16:43:00
Jay David
But for sure, you definitely want some visual reminders out there that everybody can focus on.

00:16:43:00 - 00:17:15:12
Mike O'Neill
You have served as a chief operating officer for a manufacturing company. Your company, which I love the name do business better, is you offer fractional manufacturing CEO services. This might be a concept that's new to the folks watching or listening. Can you explain what does that look like to a business owners listening right now? How would a fractional manufacturing scope work?

00:17:15:14 - 00:17:39:03
Jay David
Well, there's there's a difference between a plant manager and and what his day to day role is versus a vice president of operations or a chief operating officer. My role typically was strategic. So if you asked me what was running on any given piece of equipment today, I don't know. I just that's my plant manager's job production manager.

00:17:39:05 - 00:18:08:02
Jay David
My role was really focused six months to 2 to 3 years out, interfacing a lot with sales, understanding the market that's going forward and building the plant for the future. So what type of capacity needs are we going to have? What type of training programs should we adopt to help bring our people forward? And really from an executive standpoint, you know, helping really globally run the company?

00:18:08:04 - 00:18:33:22
Jay David
So there's a lot of smaller organizations, small manufacturers that are the founder is still around. They might be in the 50 to $100 million range. They can't afford that type of org chart in the operations area. So typically, the plant manager will report to the owner at that point and the owners wearing all of the hats that they typically do.

00:18:33:24 - 00:19:08:02
Jay David
But what they need is somebody in there that can think more strategically just from the factory or distribution, you know, side of the business. And while the day to day is still going on. So a fractional CEO can go in and take that role fractionally. So at one fourth, what you would normally pay a CEO, if that's the level of commitment of a certain period of time on site and then day to day attendance of meetings, remote and and project related also.

00:19:08:04 - 00:19:41:07
Jay David
So that helps them step into that type of strategic role without doing the full financial commitment. It also means that I can help some organizations raised the skill level of that plant manager and getting to think strategically and you know, I use your company is bench builders and you talk a lot about bench strength. I always tell a plant manager, if you want my job back someday, you need to have a replacement right behind you so you're ready so I can promote you.

00:19:41:09 - 00:20:03:20
Jay David
And I used to spend time with all of my guys and help them understand what I was doing from a strategic perspective. So bringing them forward. And what's funny is I learned that back in my restaurant days as a general manager, we had 28 restaurants in the Chicago area. I always had three or four assistant managers trained and ready to go.

00:20:03:24 - 00:20:28:00
Jay David
It might be one of my best cooks I had waitress somebody else. I always had them ready in the event that I lost one. And it ended up that I used to feed assistant managers to other locations in the city. So, you know, I think that's very important. A lot of founders owners are not able to develop those guys because they only know what they know.

00:20:28:02 - 00:20:34:20
Jay David
So mentoring and counseling from that perspective as well as what we do.

00:20:34:22 - 00:20:56:07
Mike O'Neill
You work a lot with owners who know what they're doing very, very well, but they're putting out fires constantly. Yeah, they're bringing you in. They're bringing expertise. What I'm hearing you describe part of that expertise is to kind of to build to have a little bit of a more strategic mindset. And that is not so much the day to day.

00:20:56:07 - 00:21:16:24
Mike O'Neill
That's what the plant managers for, but begin putting in place things that would enable the company to sustain success. Let's go back to the owners a bit more, an owner to say yes, to bring in Jay David. It means they're going to be turning over things. Is that something that owners sometimes struggle to do?

00:21:17:01 - 00:21:36:11
Jay David
Absolutely. And, you know, as I've spoken to several guys in the past, it's been about for a period of time, you're going to have to let me lead them. They can't if you and I will interface regularly about what your expectations are, but they have to know who they're working for during this time frame.

00:21:36:11 - 00:21:42:12
Jay David
be able to go around to the owner and like a Jerry Jones situation with the Cowboys, you know, and override.

00:21:42:18 - 00:22:11:14
Jay David
So that is difficult. But as long as is I set the tone right with the owner or founder upfront and build that trust and I am open and honest with them on weekly updates or whatever as to where we're heading. It hasn't been a problem, so we get along well that way. And really it's it's in their best interest because what I'm doing also is bringing objectivity to their factory.

00:22:11:16 - 00:22:33:00
Jay David
A lot of times owners and founders, it it may be wrong as they say it, but they love their product so much they can't take an objective view about it. At the end of the day, they're making a widget and that's what the consumer looks at it as a widget and I can put some objectivity to it that says, you know, we're spending too much effort on this.

00:22:33:02 - 00:22:44:19
Jay David
We need to back off on this. We can save some things here while we invest over here to correct some of these problems. And it's sometimes things that they've been reluctant to do in the past for sure.

00:22:44:21 - 00:23:22:19
Mike O'Neill
Yeah. When as I've gotten no books in fractional roles, CEOs had to sales h.r. Etc.. There is maybe a variety of ways in which an organization would use these fractional books. Sometimes they're brought in to fix a major issue. So it's more project minded. Sometimes there is acknowledgment that we just need an extra set of well trained eyes to look, point out and help us address that.

00:23:22:21 - 00:23:48:12
Mike O'Neill
But I really like what you're describing is an organization could choose to use you in operational capacity and it's not necessarily a three month, six month assignment. It could run much longer than that if if you're providing what I suspect is the real return on that investment that's impacting the bottom line. What are you finding in your work working with others who do this type of work?

00:23:48:14 - 00:23:53:14
Mike O'Neill
Is it a project or does it oftentimes become more long term?

00:23:53:16 - 00:24:21:13
Jay David
Well, that's where the difference in operations comes in versus sales or fractional CFO. A lot of that can be done remotely because it's computer based, it's spreadsheet based operations typically is more of an onsite role. So for sure, for instance, an owner that is looking at a small acquisition that might be adding another factory. So now all of a sudden he's running one location forever and now he's going into a second.

00:24:21:15 - 00:24:52:13
Jay David
He might need somebody in my role for a year to help build that multi-site overwatch and and help build the organization to to manage to help bring together the systems and consolidate maintenance programs and training programs and so on. So that might be a year assignment. But what I've also told folks is, you know, from a just a project basis, we're wanting to take this production line, we're trying to automate.

00:24:52:15 - 00:25:16:07
Jay David
So we're going to add robotics, we're going to add auto case packers, pellet risers and things like that. And we just need an extra body, really, because we're going to be running the date, day to day to oversee that entire project and to act in a project manager slash almost contractor role to to make sure get the people hired, get the people trained and everything like that.

00:25:16:07 - 00:25:22:20
Jay David
So, you know, there's there's a wide array of skill sets that we can bring.

00:25:22:22 - 00:25:42:07
Mike O'Neill
I know that you pride yourself in able to help organizations fix problems that have eluded them. Can you reflect on a time where perhaps the organization you're working with or a client got stuck? And what did that happened? What did it take to get unstuck?

00:25:42:09 - 00:26:15:01
Jay David
One of the things that that I did right after my Franklin is helped a a local company, a beverage company that they were in the middle of COVID. They were short people. They were running mandatory overtime. They were just in absolute survival mode. And they were kind of blinded to the fact, you know, when I walked in as the outsider, mandatory overtime down 20% on headcount because of COVID, no plant manager, no maintenance manager struggling all around.

00:26:15:03 - 00:26:41:02
Jay David
And it in some aspect, they were kind of oblivious that, okay, well, this is kind of how we're surviving right now. And I walked in immediately and gave them a proposal and we we made an agreement right away. And the first thing I did is we're done with overtime. These people are exhausted and we're not you know, we're not in dire straits from an inventory perspective or shipping to our customers.

00:26:41:04 - 00:26:48:07
Jay David
But because they were so close to it, they didn't see that these folks had worked 13 Saturdays in a row.

00:26:48:09 - 00:26:49:03
Mike O'Neill
Goods.

00:26:49:04 - 00:27:15:16
Jay David
And, you know, so that was the first thing we did is to say we have to just stop, think about what we're doing and hit the reset button and that immediately gave a morale boost. It showed the employees that there was somebody on their side. It took a lot of negotiation on the executive side to absorb that. But the promise was we're going to see it in productivity during the week.

00:27:15:18 - 00:27:48:22
Jay David
And guess what? On those Saturdays, we can also maintain our equipment. We can do our preventive maintenance with with the maintenance guys and and and really help along the way. So a short six week, eight week delay of going back into any type of overtime made all the look the the great things come out during that process and and really help set up future success after that.

00:27:48:24 - 00:28:12:22
Mike O'Neill
You have shared with us in this conversation a little bit of an unconventional route that is, you know right out of high school. We're actually in high school. You began working in in restaurants and you took on managerial responsibility and you learned how critical it was to effectively manage others at a point where others may have already completed their degree.

00:28:12:24 - 00:28:55:01
Mike O'Neill
Well beyond that point, you entered back and started working order degree, a degree, an accounting degree that you chose in large part because of its marketability. But then you found a way to apply what you learned in accounting, particularly calls accounting and the like, and make it relatable to those folks on the manufacturing floor. And it's I love the way that you found that that kind of drew you into operations and more and more responsibility where you became a CEO and now you're working from a that in a fractional capacity, helping cover the things we've talked about and much, much more.

00:28:55:07 - 00:29:02:04
Mike O'Neill
J As you kind of reflect on this conversation and what do you want to be the takeaways?

00:29:02:06 - 00:29:25:21
Jay David
I think, you know, the biggest takeaway is there's always a fresh set of eyes to come in and give you another perspective. And it doesn't have to be a situation where somebody comes in and and it's a large engagement where they bring in a group of six or eight people, but a fresh set of eyes just walking through and saying, here's what I see.

00:29:25:23 - 00:29:49:20
Jay David
And that's essentially what I the previous company I referred to, I came out for a week, spent the week with them, toured the plant and spent a lot of time on the floor talking with people. And then the proposal was easy. Here's here's everything that you need, I think, to get things set in a in a better way.

00:29:49:22 - 00:30:17:11
Jay David
I can come and help you do it or I can come and do it for you on a more permanent basis. And and we can talk years instead of months. And I think that's the biggest thing. A lot of the things that I presented would have been evident and to many people, but because they were in their own paradigm and really a bunch of long term leaders who hadn't been outside their industry, they were blind to a lot of it.

00:30:17:11 - 00:30:40:17
Jay David
So open, you know, open up and and ask for outside opinion. And again, not with the idea that it's going to cost you a ton of money or lose a little bit of control your company. But that's the biggest thing, I think, and really what I've learned over the years and people have said, you know, is is it just manufacturing?

00:30:40:17 - 00:31:10:24
Jay David
J.R. said, the reason I call it do business better is this applies everywhere. My wife and my son are in health care. I get to hear their complaints every day about how their their offices have dysfunctions within them and and it gets into processes discussing with them. You're a hospital is like a factory. You have in you have conversion going on and you have outbound.

00:31:11:01 - 00:31:49:16
Jay David
So really as long as you understand those processes And what I bring to it too is the financial background. So I understand how actions cause costs. And outside of the normal financial accounting perspective, I understand true cost drivers in all of that. So that's where I kind of have a little bit different perspective. I'm not just focused on Oyi, but I can also counsel on cost accounting, cost management and other topics that are nontraditional to an operations guy as expected.

00:31:49:16 - 00:32:06:17
Mike O'Neill
J The perspective Your brain is fresh. I appreciate your candor. Things that you have learned along the way. I can see how you could be very valuable to your clients because you bring that to the role. Thank you for sharing that expertise with us today.

00:32:06:19 - 00:32:09:19
Jay David
Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.

00:32:09:21 - 00:32:32:15
Mike O'Neill
I've got a question for our listeners. Are people following you because they have to or because they want to? As a leadership coach, I work with executives who have a track record of success behind them, but they're now feeling stuck. They're frustrated because they're finding that with each level of success that follows, the bar is set even higher.

00:32:32:17 - 00:32:56:01
Mike O'Neill
They get discouraged because what worked in the past is no longer working by clients, despite all their successes in the past, are lacking the clarity and the competence to make the decisions to get to that next level. So if you're feeling stuck and that describes you or someone you know, let's talk go to bench dash builders AECOM to schedule a call somewhat.

00:32:56:01 - 00:33:10:22
Mike O'Neill
Thank you again for joining us and I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from J that will help you get unstuck and on target.

Jay DavidProfile Photo

Jay David

Fractional COO/Consultant

Following more than 25 years of executive operations leadership roles in the food industry, I now help mid market companies find a better way to do business.