This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.
James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory., my guest today is from Sri Lanka and moved to Australia to complete university. He graduated from the university of new south Wales in 1998 with a bachelor’s of mechatronic engineering, and then began work as a process engineer for about seven years. And over this time he also completed his MBA at Sydney’s graduate school of man. In 2004, seven years after graduating today’s guest moved to Onnit, who are the manufacturers of shapes, Tim Tams, and my personal favorite, the Monte Carlo. He then started work as a production manager and two years later moving to a continuous improvement manager. And two years after that, Became a manufacturing manager where he managed 115 employees and oversaw that process of two biscuit lines from raw material to finished goods. My guest next major role was at Kellogg’s and you might know Kellogg’s for cereals like crunchy, nuts, and special K all foods like Hershey’s and Pop-Tarts at Kellogg’s. He was the continuous improvement manager for the Asia Pacific region, responsible for supporting the three biggest sites in the. Australia, South Africa and India, since 2015, he has been the founding director earth. His company capability unlimited where he works with manufacturing businesses. To help them move from chaos to excellence. My guests latest work is his second book called advance advance provides a 12 step practical framework to implement strategies, easily improve productivity, meaningful. And engage employees effectively. Please. Welcome to the show. Ishaan gala.
Ishan: James Love to be here and truly can just tell your guests that you did all that work by yourself. So, most people ask for some introductions about,, the participants or, you know, to make it easy, but I’m really impressed mate, but,, The level of detail and the accuracy you’ve gone into is outstanding.
So, well done and,, yeah.
James: Now, thanks so much, Sean. And certainly,, it was very, very interesting, while I was researching you. So definitely not a burden to look into someone like yourself. So really, it was so interesting when I was researching you, you know, about this whole idea of organizational productivity, improving processes, um, and really, you know, with that whole supply chain, things like that, really getting those processes efficient. But I want to start off with a question that ties in with your personal productivity. And I want to ask you, is there any principles from this whole world of process improvement that you have taken and now applied to your own personal practice?
Ishan: Oh dear. All right. You jump into the most difficult one for you. You might be familiar or your listeners. No in, in, in coming days and months and years, that there’s a thing called the irony of the expertise. And that is the plumbers. Taps are leaking, the electricians lights,, art working the cobbler’s sons you know, the shoes aren’t perfect.
So, So yeah, from corporate productivity to personal productivity,, luckily,, in this case I do take a little bit of my own medicine. So,, yeah, there is one principle,, that I do take, and that is to track the most important things, the habits, because it is the habit that actually turns into a process from.
The corporate perspective, but in our day to day, from a personal perspective, these are the habits. So tracking these habits is something that’s so useful., and it’s something that’s easy to do., I was recently reading a book called tiny habits by,, professor BJ Fogg.,, fog is the founder of the behavioral lab.
, At Stanford and he’s come up with this theory,, that w that we’ve used in manufacturing,, from a different context, but it is do the little things that matter because they all stack one of his students at James clear, also had written a fabulous book called atomic habits which is also around how do these.
Tiny habits then go to make massive differences. So having said that, how do I attract my daily habits as a way of improving productivity or at least staying productive? Let me just grab this off the wall, James, can you say.
James: Yes. Yes
Ishan: Don’t you want to just explain what you’re seeing? Obviously you’ll
be able to see, but let’s see how good
of a yeah.
How well you can explain this.
James: Yeah, sure. So I’m seeing it’s a big table when I’m seeing each row kind of has its own habit. And then I’m seeing some, I think there’s might be days of the week across the top. And then in each sort of each row and column, you’ve got a green dot there for I’m guessing when the habits been done and then a red one where it hasn’t been done. And so, yeah. Is it.
Ishan: Absolutely well done, mate. Sorry. I’ve just, I’m throwing you into the deep pen. So. It’s one of the other principles that are believing, and this is probably the one principle that goes through and through. Particularly with my work with my clients is a simplification. So I tend to do everything in the most simplest way, because.
We’re all time poor. Right. So we don’t need that extra app or the extra portal to log into. And, and so I tend to do things extremely in a simplified way. So this is a great basically yeah, as you said, based on the month, so it’s, it’s a monthly. Where I’ve created some of the habits that are want to maintain, and me personally, and obviously there are different categories.
You know, like from yet there is the mind body, soul kind of, you know, do I do the daily meditation too? Are, do the daily exercise. No, I do a little bit of daily reading to continue my education. And then from a business perspective, what are the things that I need to do to kind of make sure that I’m staying on top?
But also you will notice that there are two categories right at the bottom. The second last one is family and the very last one is gratitude. So, it’s about trying to stay on track on a daily and a weekly basis on. You know, be grateful for something or someone you know, that has done. So practicing gratitude is something I’ve been doing consciously over the last five years.
But the answer to your question is yeah, so I maintain this grid. There’s about again there’s about a dozen little activities that I mentioned. On a daily basis and it’s a red dot or a green dot simple red dot means that I’ll just make a conscious note. And I tried to get on top of it immediately, the next day.
That’s all it is. And, and yeah, so, that’s the one thing I’ve taken from corporate life into my own uh,
James: Yeah, for sure. Well, I think that’s so cool. And I liked what you were saying about, you know, that whole simplification of the process, because certainly there are heaps of those apps on app stores for track your habits here or whatever, like do this better by using this track, all these things. Like, whatever you name it, that it’s on the app store somewhere. I’m all for building those habits. And economically you can get, you know, very taxing on yourself to have to go into all the apps, to tick, tick it off. It’s almost a whole separate task to remember to tick the habit off, you know, which is taking away from actually doing.
Ishan: And there you hit the key point. Right. So, yeah, so, I’m a gen X-er and that means I’m one of those real pen and paper kind of guys. Right. But the millennials you know, you’re probably younger than a millennial James, right? Probably not in to pen and paper and they probably use the phone almost as an extension of their fingertips.
Right. And, and they’re probably you know, feel comfortable using technology and apps. But the point is, it’s not about the piece of paper or it is not about the app. That’s just a simple preference, but what is it that’s going to prompt you to do the. tracking That’s the key point, right? Because yes, I can have a piece of paper.
Yes. You can have an app, but what’s going to be the prompt. And so it’s the habit that’s going to take kind of a snowball onto the other habits. Right. So, as I say you know, committing is easy, but committing to the commitment is hard. So how do you build. Uh, Practice so that you know that you’re going to stay on top.
So for me, it’s very easy to have this piece of paper right next to my desk. I see it because the very first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I’ll go through my morning ritual of doing a bit of exercise, doing a bit of meditation, not. Do a bit of journaling and focus on what do I need to work on today?
And as soon as I, I finished that, I know my very next thing is to do the red.green dot for the previous day. So that is the ritual. And by creating that ritual. It’s easy to kind of track those habits and be the person you want to be. So, it’s not about the app or the piece of paper, but then what’s going to be the trigger that’s going to remind you to complete the habits.
James: I agree that is so important. And it’s, it’s, you know, like you said, it’s up to the individual to, you know, to work out something that works for them in terms of, what’s going to remind you to remind you to do the thing almost. Um, yeah, I think that is really cool. It definitely, it’s one of those things where you want it to be sort of as frictionless as possible.
So I liked what you said there about having. Right next to your bed and you see it every single day at the same time, you know, it can’t be something that, you know, it’s like, know, if you want to ride your bike, keeping the bike somewhere, that’s easy to get. And not in the shed around the corner, that’s locked by three different things and you need two keys to get in there, you know, which one’s going to make you ride the bike
Ishan: Exactly. And it’s that reducing the friction to get the things done right. Or BJ Fogg in tiny habits, you know, he talks about removing that friction. So that exactly, as you said if you just want riding the bicycle EMS. The, bicycles, easy to access make sure the shoes are probably, you know, that you find the shoes and the socks and you keep it by the door.
Right. So all these little things, what it does is it just removes the friction in the morning. When you want to Get started. And once you get started, what will happen is it becomes kind of a positive snowball effect where you’re really happy. The fact that you’ve done the one key thing that you wanted to do, and you’re going to get a.
Release of dopamine and oxytocin and all those wonderful chemicals in your brain. And what, what you’re doing is you’re actually starting with feeling good, feeling happy. You’ve ticked off the first one. And with that mindset, you then try to focus on what you want to do as your next activity. So you’re starting the day on a positive cycle, as opposed to working.
Trying to turn on, your phone and trying to figure out what’s gone wrong in the world, or who needs you and what fires you might need to put up today. That is a really bad way to start the day because you know, the, the emotions and what goes into your head straight out of. All negative emotions and I hate to be in that place and I don’t do it at all.
And I don’t turn on my my computer, my email, my phone until a good hour and a half or two hours. After my.
James: Hmm. Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I’ve heard, you know, people say that you shouldn’t look at social media definitely, you know, in that first hour of your day. Cause it’s, so it’s almost priming your brain for the rest of the day.
Ishan: It’s something that I’m really interested in right now. And it’s a little bit premature to talk because it’s a half baked idea for my next next book. The part that I can share is there’s a lot of work that’s been done about the brain patterns and there are different brainwave states or states of brain from a, from a functioning point of view that, that we go through on a day-to-day basis.
Right. So, we’re kind of in that. deep Sleep state And then there’s a state that we are pretty much at the peak, like right now. We are, we are very conscious. We are pretty much at the peak of our brain functioning. But as the day progresses, it kind of obviously kind of slows down. And then there is a phase between the slowing down phase and the deep sleep phase where we kind of.
in that What people call as that hallucinating, you know, you’re not asleep yet, but you know, you’re not fully away as well. And we go through that state when we go into sleep, but as we were coming out of sleep and we go through that phase as well it’s good and bad. The good is that’s a really good state to be in that, that semi semi-conscious state where.
If you’re, if you’re into positive thinking, if you’re into a reprogramming, your subconscious mind, a lot of people would say, that’s the state that you want to do your work. So that’s the positive side. Then the negative aspect is. The reprogramming also works. If you start reading all the bad things, that’s the, you know, and if he’s reacting to all the negative things from the newsfeeds and if the mindset that you’re dealing with is, oh, it’s going to be a terrible day.
And you know, I don’t know how to face the world. And if that’s the state you wake up with. Then that gets reinforced. And you know, how many times do people, you know, kind of start off the day bad, and then you keep cursing for the rest of the day thinking, oh, you know, there’s another thing going wrong and the other thing gone wrong and you don’t know why you feel this, you know, you’re kind of feeling bad and you don’t know why.
Right. And it’s because of long-term reprogramming of your subconscious mind. In that hallucinating stage of going to sleep coming waking up of reading all the negative from negative stuff, I guess. So, that’s as much as I want to share only because that’s not a stead it is an area that is of interest to me right now, and it’s an area that’s going to impact this thing that I’m researching for my next book about how do people work?
Really productively. And I think there’s a state of the brain that helps us to really get that 110% surge productivity out. And I really want to understand you know, can we force ourselves like almost in a meditative state for a short term to get the best work out, but more on that perhaps next year.
James: Yeah, perfect. Well, I’ll look forward to it cause yeah, certainly that, that kind of stuff about, you know, almost like optimizing your performance and, you know, truly, really trying to extract the best out of yourself,,, is so interesting. And, you know, any of these kinds of tips about improving productivity, you know, making sure you do the things that you want to do. Um, because really that’s, that’s what it all is at the end of the day is. Yeah, doing the things you want to do more than doing the things that you know, you know, that you shouldn’t do. You know, I think is, is really, really cool. But I wanna sort of change the, change the topic now from this productivity, which is, which is so interesting, but I want to go into more of your career.
Cause I know you’ve had a really amazing one. You know, starting out as an engineer to becoming someone that was leading, you know, an entire region in, in many aspects. So I want to speak to, you know, even where you are now as a, as an author and a speaker and things like that. Did you always have this where you are now in mind is some way that you wanted to end up well, has it been kind of, sort of an iterative process through your career where you’ve kind of just jumped to what’s the next best thing, and then you’ve just ended up where you are.
Ishan: Hmm. I think there’s a bit of both coming out of university. I think it’s kind of this serendipitous moments of you just fall into something in some workplace and for many, you know, that carves what your career path is going to be. You know, that may not necessarily be true to everyone, but that is the.
Common way it’s it literally happened to my dad. You know, he took on the world of HR and I fell into process improvement. I, I could say quite by accident or, you know, just by reading a little advert on the on the university notice board somebody had placed this advert requesting for a student to come and work at their workplace. So I wanted some work experience and I applied and I went to work there and that turned out to be Pretty much the start of my process improvement role with the very first company, what started off as a casual job for three months as a student turned out to be a full-time role the following year.
So that was quite by accident. But then during my time at Arnett and time at uh, Yeah, I’ll be, you know, I was kind of trying to pave my career towards something that I want to achieve and yeah. You know, we, we all dream of, then what’s my career ladder and you’re getting advice from you know, your senior leaders and you’re going through a lot of projects and programs and leadership development and you know, you’re doing everything you can to.
Explore the world, learn how the world works, learn how organizations work. And yeah, so trying to then take it to a place you want to. So, I think
that’s a common story of you fall into something and then you
try to make something.
James: No, I definitely think it is. And it’s something that, um, there’s a book. I don’t know if you’re familiar with, um, Cal Newport. Um, he, he wrote the book deep work, which I guess is maybe it’s the most famous for that, but he has another book called so And this is before, before he’s written deep work and it’s about this idea where you.
Um, you know, maybe your your passions don’t come first. They come second. So you, you don’t do something because you’re passionate about it. You get good at, and then you become good at your passion. It’s actually the other way around. So you become good at something and then you become passionate about it later. And so your story is one that, you know, similar to ones that I’ve heard before, where, you know, people almost their first job out of uni, they kind of just get thrown into this whole new area that, you know, maybe they had never heard of it even while they were doing uni and they’re in this whole new place. And then it’s, it’s probably not something that they were passionate about when they were in uni. They’re like, okay, I’m going to become a continuous improvement engineer. You know, it’s probably not something that crossed your mind, but you know, as you’ve gone on and as you’ve become some. Actually, you know, is good at what you do now, the passion starts to come in because you know, it’s something that you’re good at something, you know, and then you know, you can go and tell people about.
And I think that is really interesting. Um, yeah. What Is that? Something that you’ve seen in other things.
Ishan: And I think absolutely. ‘cause what happens is when you hit your fourth decade in life. So that’s your forties, right? You, you, you got few years to go, James. What happens then is this thing about your personal perspective changes and many start questioning about why am I here? As in not why am I here with this organization, but what’s my purpose on planet.
So many, and I don’t want to say on your 40th birthday, you’re going to wake up with that question. Overused kind of in that kind of, you know, the 40 to 50 kind of decade, right? It’s a, it’s a common thing for people to start wondering about. How they can help mankind, how they can help the planet what is the purpose you know, that they can help with.
So at that point, what we’re trying to do is we are trying to look back at the lived and learned experiences we’ve had through our career and through and in our lives. And we are actually trying to make meaning back. And we’re looking through a lens of productivity in my case. It could be sales if that’s what somebody has done.
So we were trying to figure out what does this mean? And therefore we’re trying to connect a few dots in. In your life. And then all of a sudden you’re making meaning out of it. And all of a sudden then an obsession comes out of it because yeah, it’s not about the it’s not about the manufacturing productivity.
In fact, maybe it is about helping individually. To be more productive beings. Maybe that’s why I’m being put on this planet earth. So I just had to work myself through the manufacturing productivity field because that’s one of the most hardest, you know, one of the areas or sectors that work quite diligently in this sector.
So if you believe. The story of you being put on planet earth to serve a purpose. And, you know, if, if that’s the narrative that you’re happy to believe in then it’s quite a useful way of looking back thinking, okay, how do I utilize my experience, then be fired up in your belly about that. And then trying to provide a service to the world is quite a.
Quite a peaceful and a wonderful way of
living and making an, and making a living as well.
James: Um, yeah, I think that’s, that’s very wise. Yeah. and I,
I
think one thing, one thing, actually I heard you say or heard you on a podcast say when I was researching you, was it, you know, life can be understood in looking back, but you’ve got to play it in forward. So, you know, and I think
Ishan: Yeah. And, and that’s that’s not my statement, I read that in a book. So yeah, it’s quite profound, isn’t it? That uh, life makes
sense in backwards, but you’ve got to live it forwards.
James: Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really cool when,, you know, just like what you were saying there about, creating that meaning and that purpose and how that as your life goes on, I think,, Is, it is really interesting too., One thing I want to talk about now is, you know, in your career, you know, you’d maybe be considered sell on that sort of a, a high performer in some regard, right. You’ve become sort of this person that’s in charge of so much, so much stuff. Do you, do you consider yourself to be a high performer?
Ishan: Well, we can be the hardest critics of ourselves. So I see a lot of areas that, you know, I want to improve on and, you know, there are times when, yeah, I’ve caught myself, you know, 10 YouTube videos later on going, like, how did I end up here? And then you know, Self-reflective thing of Asian, you know, you should know better.
Right. So there are those moments and, and similarly, there are other areas where you know, I feel like, oh geez, you know, what did I achieve today? So the thing is not about well, in, in, in my belief, it’s not about saying, yeah, I’ve got there. I have achieved there, but being conscious. Of what is it that you want to do?
And how do you do that in the most effective way? So, for example for, for the weekend, I want to make sure that the weekend work we do, but me and my wife, as, as a family turns out to be the most productive weekend, right. So I want to make sure that we get the most done from the weekend. Whereas, so I want to preplan it, right?
What are we doing Saturday morning? What are we having for Saturday lunch? And now we, you know, are we taking it easy on Saturday afternoon or we’ll be doing some things. So, you know, I’d like to kind of put into major buckets. Whereas my wife is kind of high. I would just wake up Saturday morning and we’ll see how it goes, shadowing.
And when we wake up, go like, oh yeah, we need to go shopping because this is what we’re doing for lunch. So it’s almost that. Just taking life as it is. Whereas if I want to have free time, it’s, it’s almost like I want to put in the calendar free time and I and then I’m
James: Hmm.
Ishan: Was like, oh, okay, now, now it’s my free time.
So I’ll, I’ll relax. So, but it is with the view of. I want to make sure so that we get the best out of the, the, the, the, the time that we’ve been given wrong, because I think that is the most limiting factor, and I don’t want to stress about it. But I also don’t want to just waste it. So of course, you know, I spend a lot of time with my boys.
You know, I love cooking with them. You know, I want to go for walks with them, but I want to do that in a planned way where. Yeah, that’s the most productive and the best use of my time. You know, maybe I’ll go for a walk with the boys after lunch, you know, when I’m feeling slightly lethargic. You know, I, I make sure that I’ll do a bit of reading or do something more productive in the morning because I know that’s what I’m firing on all cylinders.
So it’s, it’s more than. Planning and getting more done. So, if, if that’s a way of then saying yeah. You know, achieving a lot then good. But do I consider myself as a high achiever? Don’t know, as, as I said we tend to be the hardest critics
on ourselves, so I don’t think I’ll give myself, that tick just yet.
James: Well, I certainly think you are, so I’ll give you a big tip., another Question I have to something that I’ve seen and heard, you know, about people in the workforce people in. When I go and get promotions and move up the up the career ladder, um, there’s kind of this idea that, you know, you’ve gotta be really set on, okay, this is what I have to do to get to the next position. These are the things I’m gonna, you know, I’ve got to take all these things and then, you know, really sort of a goal setting type, very driven, let’s get to the next stage person. And then I think on the other hand, perhaps I’m wrong, but I think there must also be. Like, uh, let’s just do the best I can and wherever I end up, that’s where I’m going to be, you know, a bit more still doing their work well, but a bit more laid back. And I’m curious, you know, which side of that do you think you’d be on? Are you more of a, you know, set goals and, you know, very direct do like, you know, what needs to be done, smash it, or are you more of a, you know, a little bit more laid back? Um, Take things like one step at it.
Ishan: No, I was definitely a goal. And, and then trying to hit it, the, get the results, get the goals. But you, you got to be you got to be at ease with the fact that trying to get to that next career goal is a goal, but it’s not maybe totally within your sphere of. Right. Whilst you might have all the right credentials, the experiences the, the results you’ve delivered, the way you work.
So all of those things could be tick, tick, tick, but if the opportunity hasn’t risen, then you’re still
on a holding pattern, waiting for the opportunity and right. So, yeah, so I was very much a clear communicator with my managers in terms of here’s what I’m planning to do with my career.
Here’s where I want to head to What do I need to do to get there. Right. But as the next role, but also on a longer term as well. So I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve had managers who have supported me, who have guided me and provided me with opportunities to ensure that aren’t ready to move on to those roles when they become available.
So, yeah, so I think it’s good to be.
But it shouldn’t be to the detriment that, you know, you’re knocking on that you’re impatient. Right. So yeah, so you got to hold
onto it tightly, with an open hand
James: Hmm. Yeah, no, I think that’s a great analogy because you, I, I love what you said about, you know, it’s not always in your control, so it’s important to. In some sense, like want it really badly and do what you can do to get to where you want to go, but also have that patient as well and understand that, you know, you’re not the one that’s deciding these things.
So, um, you know, and have that humility almost as well.
Ishan: Oh look. Absolutely. And I’ve seen where. It works the other way. Like if you’re impatient and if you’re trying to get ahead of the other person, you know, there’s always this, you know, you’re, you’re trying to elbow the person next to you. And it becomes a toxic culture then, you know, that’s when people talk about not hang on you know, people aren’t getting along in this organization because, you know, Everyone for themselves.
That’s not the way organizations work to be highly productive, to work in a, in a great working place. So yes, it’s good to be driven. But at the same time, you’ve got to know how to balance your your inspiration and your desire to progress versus what’s the team culture and. People better suit it more experienced for those roles more than you.
So, yeah, so good to be driven, but you’ve got to be
mindful, you know, look at your side view mirrors as well, and you look, look sideways.
James: Hmm. Yeah. really liked that. Um, one thing I want to talk about as well with you is, you know, learning or pardon me, learning more things as you go through your career. And one thing that you did, um, you know, fairly early on was, you know, you did your MBA. Really sort of four or five years after you graduated, which is, you know, from, I don’t know many people that have done as, at that age.
So for me, it seems like you did that fairly early on., is that something that, you know, doing that extra study and doing those things, has that been something that was really a focus for you at that time and
of.
Ishan: Yeah, I’ve always known that I wanted to do post-graduate studies. MBA made sense because I was kind of in a, in a management kind of role and I knew that’s where I want to do head to. So although my undergrad was in mechatronics and engineering It was more around the people and working with people was something that I really enjoyed.
So, I knew that I wanted to do post-graduate studies. MBA made sense that point in time. And personally, we knew that we also wanted to start a family as well. Pretty soon. So, I guess, you know, you’re trying to do. Get few things out of the way and kind of planned life, you know, and how do we support the, the career?
And the good thing is the company supported me. The company that I was working for at the time they supported me. So they sponsor. Right. So, that was good. And even some of my other training programs that I went through again there were major change management programs that were going through the organization at the time.
So it was helpful for me to go through those training programs, go through the MBA during that time, because I dunno, it just felt like the stars or. Lined up from companies sponsoring it. I knew I wanted to get it out of the way to start a family. It makes sense because I could apply the learnings at work because of the programs and things that were happening at work.
So, it was, yeah. It just, the stars aligned. So, I yeah, I’m, I’m one of those people where when opportunities present are.
Just welcome them with arms wide open and I’ll just grab it. And then.
James: Hmm. Yeah, I think, I think it’s really
good. And I
think there to, you know, realize that was something that you wanted to do more often and get on top of that early. Um, And really, you know, something that I’ve spoken to all the guests about is sort of following your gut and your intuition. It’s like things that you see yourself doing in the future. So I think, you know, acting on that early has really S you up, um, for you know, later opportunities and later things that. you ended up doing., another question for you is about, you know, career advice and things like that. Um, Do you have any career advice that people should ignore or any bad career advice?
Ishan: The only thing that you should ignore. Obviously don’t do anything, do abuse and you know, th th you know, that goes without saying, right. But other than that, if it doesn’t feel right to you in whatever sense, if, if, if you can’t be congruent to yourself, if, if there’s a little voice inside you that tells you when something’s not right, this is not for me.
Then no matter what the others say, listen to your inner voice. Don’t second. Guess your first instinct and learn to trust yourself and back yourself up. That’s not to say shy away from great opportunities because you thought that you’re not worthy of it, or you can’t do the job. I’m not saying. that But if there’s something that’s fundamentally not right, you don’t want to move internationally to get that great job because something tells you no, wait here, something else might happen.
Or you know, or anything else, if there’s something not right then just don’t take it. But if there are opportunities where you feel like. I don’t know if I’ve got enough to step up to the expectations of the company. You know, if you’ve got limiting beliefs you know, I don’t have enough experience and expertise learn to back yourself up because when you’re feeling that big knot in your stomach, when you’re feeling the butterflies in your stomach, that means you’re going through.
growth As an individual, so learn to embrace that, knotted feeling and the only way is to go right through it. And on the other side of that experience, you’ll see you, you come out as a different individual on the other side of that experience is growth. So it’s good to know what that feeling is and learn how to manage it and deal with it.
I remember, I can give you two examples. One was a small one where when I started the continuous improvement role, that art and it was a program that I was kind of initiating for the Sydney site. So I was leading the whole program. The very first improvement project came on the team time line and the team time.
What was the line that I was a production manager and I knew the line very well. I knew the people, I knew the processes. I knew the machines. It was a line that I was fairly comfortable with. So when I had to lead a team to improve, I forget what it was, but whatever it was like, let’s just say improve the throughput of the team times.
I felt quite comfortable leading these cross-functional team because I, I. I thought that when I’m leading a project, I thought that I had to have all the answers. I, I, you know, what, if they ask me about whatever, you know, some technical questions, then I’ll be able to answer some, you know, not all of it, but a fair bit.
We went through the pro the project and we solved it yet. Great. The second project that I had to lead was on this alarm. I knew nothing of about the processes on the Salada liner. I knew nothing about the people or the machines or the processes, right. East based biscuits versus sweet biscuits, almost, almost having nightmares going well, how am I going to leave this project?
You know, I don’t know anything about days. And then. The voice of my teacher who was teaching me how to do structured problem solving, you know, what he said, was he showing you need to trust the process? So I was kind of channeling my my teacher at the time were like, okay, well Harry said, trust the process.
So I’ll trust the process and kind of went through it. And, and I learned so much on what. To trust the process and lead a team to solve a problem from that more so than going through the TeamTime problems. So, that was a moment of growth much later on almost at the point of leaving Kellogg.
When I was leading the region for continuous improvement, one of the other roles I was involved with, all other projects that I was involved with at Kellogg was developing. The global supply chain excellence program. So I was part of the global team that developed essentially the, the, the framework, the blueprint on how all Kellogg factories around the world operated and improved year on year.
And as part of it I was given the opportunity to lead continuous improvement globally. Lead the continuous improvement center of excellence globally. And I had to lead you know, facilitate meetings with quite senior people. You know, seeing people with titles of senior director vice-president global for for regions.
And there were this moment of, again, I’m going, like, I’m just the Asia. Operational excellence manager, you know, how am I going to globally lead and facilitate and come up with this part of the framework? And again, I just had to learn how it’s not about me. But it is about what I bring to the table.
Then it’s, it’s just trusting the process and they’re being the team because they are the experts. And my role is to lead. And hold that space. So, again, whether it was the simple on site, so that I was as team at Tam or on a global scale, the, the advice I want your listeners to take in is learn to back yourself, trust your instinct, and go through those moments of this company.
because on the other side is the growth
James: Yeah, well, I think that’s really cool when
I think I’ve heard it described, you know, you have that, catapult where you’ve got to go, got to go. Do. to have the ops as well. I think that’s, that’s really profound. Um, and then on a similar vein to that question, um, is one question that I ask all the guests, which is, if you, uh, uh, let’s say your issuance back in 1998, finishing university going to start his career.
What is, what’s some advice, um, that you’d give.
Ishan: Funny, you should say that or funny, you should ask that James. Because I went to new south Wales university, right. As you said in, in the introduction and I was living in Randwick then and I remember distinctively. The very first day I arrived in Australia and I arrived in Randwick. And I remember on that Saturday afternoon in February, 1994, walking the Biltmore street or Biltmore road, I think, or Frederick, which is the main, main street.
And I had all these questions going through my head in terms of.
Simple less. How do I get to the uni? And you know, where’s my faculty, how do I find my faculty? To, to all the way from what’s my first job going to be, who will I marry? Where we live B all of that. And recently my niece who is now studying. Engineering at the same faculty. I had the pleasure of helping her to settle in, in her apartment.
So my wife and I, we helped her to hire a flat and you know, moved in and set up. And as part of it this evening, I had to basically go and grab something. So obviously, you know, we all familiar with the area, you know, we know the area in back of the hands and I quickly rushed out and went to Belmont road in trying to find a cafe or something to get something to eat.
And in that moment, it’s I could feel myself that the Ishaan who was in 94 on that road, it was as if I was watching this movie, I was watching myself in third person. Walking the road for the first time and looking into the windows and I could feel the questions I had in my head at the time. And I wanted to, you know, tell that issue and saying, Hey, it’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay. And it’s going to be an enjoyable ride. Is what I saw myself telling the, the 20 year old version of me. And at the same time, I also saw the 70 year old Ishaan who had also been, who had come there to tell the 40 something year old Shan saying, Hey, was, you’ve now got questions.
Where to next, you know, will I be able to make a difference? Like I want to is the world going to be okay? You know, we travel again and then all that stuff. And again, I heard the voice of the 70 year old Shawn saying, Hey,
it’s going to be okay. And, it’s going to be.
James: I think that’s very, very specially Sean and the
fantastic story. And it’s something, that’s something that’s really, really special. And I really appreciate you sharing that story with us. Yeah, you can tell just from, from watching you say that’s very close to your heart. So thanks so much for sharing that. with us today.
, think that’s a fantastic note to, to send people out into their day,, listening to that. So,, thanks so much for your time today., and,, thanks so much for your advice as well. So I think it’s,, very, very simple.
Ishan: Oh, you’re very welcome, man. James, I loved it. And Yeah. If anyone is interested in reading anything about productivity, not from a personal perspective because that book hasn’t been written yet. What I can share is if you’re interested in learning about organizational productivity or the corporate productivity, the team productivity head to advanced.
Book.com.edu, advanced book.com.edu. And you will notice that there’s a free PDF that you can download with a full introductory overview of my entire book. So you’ll understand my simplified version of how these mega companies operate. It’s a simplified version of. Kind of what I helped Kellogg to develop as that supply chain excellence framework, but in my simple mind, what does the simplified version look like?
So you’ll be able to read all of that and more and also pick up on
the things that really interests me. So, yeah. Advanced book.com.
James: Amazing. Yeah. Thanks so much for your time today, Sean, please, everyone go and check out your Sean. He’s a fascinating guy., So again, thanks so much for your time today, Sean.