Michael Webb:     Some people focus on making more sales calls, reaching higher-level decision-makers, and selling value propositions. Other people focus on finding data, understanding cause and effect, and conducting experiments. My name is Michael Webb. This is the Sales Process Excellence podcast, where we focus on both of those things in order to create wealth for everyone.

Today, I'm thrilled to have a guest, Adrian Figueroa, of Cadence Aerospace. Adrian has a background as an engineer leading manufacturing organizations, leading continuous improvement and lean initiatives in several different companies. From our little chat here before we got started on this podcast, I'm really excited about the kinds of things he's going to be able to bring to us.

Adrian, welcome here.

Adrian Figueroa:   Hi Michael, thank you for having me on your show.

Michael Webb:     It'd be great, can you just give us a minute of background and tell us how you got to be where you are, and what you do at Cadence Aerospace?

Adrian Figueroa:   Yeah, so my first start was a Manufacturing Engineer in the aerospace industry, and there I was learning just the principles of achieving the numbers. All I cared about was doing my job well. From that point, I started getting a little bored with what I was doing, and I went back to school. I ended up finding a new job which gave me more opportunity to grow. That's actually where actually I fell into Lean Manufacturing.

Lean ended up opening my world, up until this point in my life, where the expansion from being able to use those tools, methodologies in manufacturing, but then in other industries. It just became so at first overwhelming, but so exciting at the same time. From my first job going to my second, beginning to implement the Lean principles, I ended up…

Michael Webb:     This was in a roofing system, not the first company, but the second company was roofing products is that correct? DECRA Roofing Systems?

Adrian Figueroa:   Yeah, I should say I moved from the aerospace industry to the building and industrial building industry.

Michael Webb:     Okay.

Adrian Figueroa:   From there, that's where I started, again, implementing Lean tools mainly, because I was excited about doing that. Just in general, I love working with people. Over time, it was very, I would say, easy for me to be implementing these tools and talking to the people on the floor. About four years later, after being a Lean leader, I was given the opportunity to move into the Manufacturing Manager role. At that point, I didn't do a thing really within the first month of new large projects, doing all this data analysis, where can we go to next, you just saw a jump in the performance of efficiency and motivation, and I could say morale within that first month to a point where nobody really understood what was going on. They thought maybe I was tweaking the numbers.

Over time, it seemed like... Even I had to get some self-reflection, where I was looking at it and saying, "How did that happen?" The more I was looking into the second half of Lean, or it's respect for people, I started reading more about that. Reading that, hey what I was doing by just listening to others, and working with them on their project teams no matter how big the issue was, I was there to be able to help where I could. Over time, that created a connection with all the individuals on the floor.

By the time I jumped into the role, I had supported everyone along the way that look like they're mirroring that back to me. Now, in my new role they wanted to support me so the motivation was on two sides. The results just jumped, like I said, enormously. It was fun after that point.

Michael Webb:     That's the sort of thing that people might call the Magic of Personality, is that right?

Adrian Figueroa:   Yeah, I mean that's part of why I do what I do now. I'm mainly focusing on the people side, still within the continuous improvement realms of either Lean or Six Sigma. But, I'm more heavily concentrated on behaviors in people rather than tools.

Michael Webb:     That is the field of the sort of thing that people consider to be soft, unmeasurable, subjective. You can't really replicate it. You don't really have any way of knowing what's going on. Do you agree with that position?

Adrian Figueroa:   Oh yeah, I think soft skills are very hard to measure and see your gains from that. I think that's why a lot of businesses struggle with actually giving any kind of trainings, or really focusing on that side of it because where are the results from it? That's the type of thing that actually is probably the most time consuming aspect for showing the results. That's what I actually like, is I try and position myself in businesses that are in for the long run instead of a short term gains, because on the behavioral side unfortunately it does take a while to gain that connection with others, and to build that stability with those people and the processes they're working. Because when you-

Michael Webb:     Go ahead.

Adrian Figueroa:   I was just going to say because you have your process that's built for the employees, or created for the employees, and you can only do so much with them. They come in, they have a bad day, they come in... There's so many variables from the human aspect that can make that process fail, that the more you can in a sense control, but not really, but you're creating that set safe environment for them to work on and have more enjoyment at being at work, the easier flow it is for them to follow those process steps.

Michael Webb:     Okay, but would you agree, because I'm going to push back a little bit to one of the things that you said a moment ago. Would you agree that the principles of process excellence, operational excellence, this idea of respect for people and all the ramifications of it, doesn't that provide a sort of repeatable or a framework... So, for being able to tell if you're making progress in those relationships with people.

Adrian Figueroa:   Oh yeah, you definitely need both, from both sides. One can't work without the other. From where I see it, it's that too many businesses are just focused on the tools only, and then wonder why they can't see these gains or they see it for a short period of time and then it goes back to normal. You're definitely correct. I'd agree with the framework’s definitely there from operational excellence let’s just say you have to understand where you're at in the business, assess it, measure it, and then implement for whatever journey the business decides to take, go through with those steps, learn from it and make your adjustments as you go. As long as everybody's on the same path towards the same targets or goals.

Michael Webb:     Years ago I was a Sales Trainer with a company called IMPAX Corporation. That doesn't matter. There's lots of good sales training outfits out there. One of the things that we did that we focused on with the client, was to help the sales people learn to conduct interviews, questions, conversations, to have a skill at active listening in conversations so that they could learn more about the debates, and arguments even, going on inside their aspect company, their client companies. Because, there is a debate that always goes on inside those companies, where people are trying to figure out what are the right decisions to make? What are the right priorities? What a...