Talk Real Shift

Terry Rhadigan spent 36 years at General Motors.

He started answering phones on an 800 number in Troy, Michigan, fielding angry customers in an era when Detroit's quality reputation was taking hits. Communications was the goal, but it took nine years of dealer visits, district service calls, and floor-level learning before he got there.

On the other side of a GM crisis, he became VP of Global Communications at one of the largest companies in the world.

In our episode we covered:

→ Why transparency is your best crisis tool, and what happens when you don't use it

→ How to redirect a conversation without lying

→ What 15 different roles at one company teaches you about communicating

→ What it will take to keep Detroit's momentum going

→ What Terry would tell his younger self about balance, kindness, and the long game

People who can communicate well under pressure aren't born that way… they earn it in the hard roles nobody wanted, before anyone trusted them with the big ones.

Terry, thank you for sharing your story with our audience!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction to Terry Rhadigan

1:30 - Career Beginnings: Nine Years to Get Into Communications

4:00 - Breaking Into GM Communications and Learning the Business

5:00 - The Core Rule of Crisis Communication: Own It

7:00 - Redirecting the Narrative: How Product Launches Changed GM's Story

8:45 - Using Communication Skills in Your Personal Life

11:15 - Life After GM: Four Boards, One Consultancy, and Detroit's Momentum

13:15 - The NFL Draft, the Sports Commission, and Detroit's Image Shift

17:00 - Michigan's Automotive Industry: Fighting to Stay at the Top

25:00 - The EV Crossroads: Where the Industry Goes From Here

38:15 - When Shift Hits the Fan: Inside the GM Crisis

44:50 - Leading at 22: Managing 70 People Through a Company Crisis

50:35 - Advice to My 25-Year-Old Self

52:05 - About TeamSense

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This episode is powered by TeamSense

Prefer to listen?

Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/033oapRSFlbJrOYMyW2IVS?si=d552ddefbc0c4c10

Apple → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-real-shift/id1896826304

TeamSense is the AI-powered shift intelligence platform that automates attendance, connects every worker, and drives performance across your operation — all through text.

Ready to see how leading manufacturers and logistics teams keep every shift covered?

https://teamsense.com/

Bill Currence is a West Point graduate, former Army officer, and the guy companies call when everything is on fire. They got tired of watching big consulting firms walk in, bill millions, and leave nothing behind but a PowerPoint deck and a bigger problem.

So they built CCO Brands instead.

But getting there cost him. Bill watched himself lose his values in a plant he was trying to save, pushed by someone who called his leadership into question. When he was fired, he says it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

We covered a lot of ground in this conversation:

→ Why pride is the single obstacle keeping companies from getting fixed

→ How Bill turned around 30 plants in 4 years

→ The physics-based approach that reveals where a plant is losing money in real time

→ What it means to truly save someone's livelihood

Bill cares more about the people on the plant floor than the numbers on the report. And because of that, the numbers always get better too.

Bill, thank you for your time and being so open in sharing your story with our listeners!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

3:28 - Bill's First Job After the Military: Cintas and Lessons in Operations

5:45 - The Six-Year Grind: From Quality Manager to Every Role in the Plant

7:20 - Climbing to Plant Manager and the Decision to Roll the Dice

9:12 - Scientific Injection Molding and the $250M Plant at Lear

14:19 - CCO Brands Is Born: Anti-Consulting and the Problem with Big Firms

20:31 - The Pride Problem: Why Companies Wait Too Long to Ask for Help

24:04 - Leadership Lessons: Football, West Point, and the Human Element

27:24 - The Moment Bill Lost Himself as a Leader (and Got Fired)

32:34 - What CCO Actually Does and Why It Works

38:00 - The Physics Framework: How to Find a Plant's True Bottleneck

48:18 - The Case for Manufacturing: Why Trade School Is Winning

53:30 - The Monterrey Moment: Why This Work Is Worth It

1:00:55 - Advice to 25-Year-Old Bill: Start Five Years Earlier

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This episode is powered by TeamSense

Prefer to listen?

Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/033oapRSFlbJrOYMyW2IVS?si=d552ddefbc0c4c10

Apple → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-real-shift/id1896826304

TeamSense is the AI-powered shift intelligence platform that automates attendance, connects every worker, and drives performance across your operation — all through text.

Ready to see how leading manufacturers and logistics teams keep every shift covered?

https://teamsense.com/

Amy Wang has spent 20+ years building things from nothing.

She helped open a hospital as the ninth employee and scaled it to 2,500. She wore a hard hat over a business suit, slept in her car, and worked 120 hours a week to make sure her team delivered on time and on budget.

She learned, the hard way, that success in silence isn't success at all, and that bringing people along on the journey matters just as much as (if not more than) the destination.

In our very first episode, we covered:

→ Why being the best at your job isn't enough to get ahead, and what you actually need to do instead

→ How Amy made a grown man cry without yelling once

→ The real price of always being the calm one in the room

→ What she would tell her 25-year-old self about over-proving and boundaries

→ Why young talent today is making smarter choices than the generation before them

My big takeaway was how often organizations reward visibility over substance. Amy consistently took on more than expected and carried a significant amount behind the scenes, but she wasn’t someone who felt the need to constantly broadcast it.

Amy, thank you for being my very first guest on Talk Real Shift! You rock and so does your story!

Chapters

0:00 - Welcome to Talk Real Shift

1:04 - Introducing Amy Wang

1:53 - Amy's Background: From Pre-Med to HR Executive

6:27 - What Built Amy's Career: Restaurants, Lean, and Calm Under Pressure

10:12 - Employee #9: Building a Hospital From the Ground Up

13:21 - The Real Lesson: Working Hard in Silence Gets You Overlooked

16:37 - How to Bring People Along on the Journey

19:53 - Standing Up for Your Work: The Boardroom Confrontation

23:16 - Being Labeled "Too Emotional" as a Leader

30:05 - The Real Cost of Executive Leadership: Family and Sacrifice

37:55 - Why Younger Talent Is Making Smarter Choices Today

43:05 - Setting Boundaries When You're a Natural Giver

49:27 - What Amy Would Tell Her 25-Year-Old Self

51:02 - Amy's New Company and How to Follow Her

Connect with Amy

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywang168/

https://www.ssonetwork.com/

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This episode is powered by TeamSense

TeamSense is the AI-powered shift intelligence platform that automates attendance, connects every worker, and drives performance across your operation — all through text.

Ready to see how leading manufacturers and logistics teams keep every shift covered?

https://teamsense.com/