Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Ashleigh Walters

Curt Anderson 0:03
Hey there Happy Monday, guys, man. It’s manufacturing Monday motivation. What an amazing, incredible wonderful day. We’re halfway through October. Damon my brother, how was your How was your weekend? Dude?

Damon Pistulka 0:16
It was it was a sports weekend for sure. You know, the mariners 18 innings in any Dallas marathon game. You know it was it was a long shot Houston’s a great team. It’s really it was exciting to be there. And I think next year, we got a good chance of being back again. So that was good. And then watching the Seahawks win yesterday. There’s a good there’s a good weekend for sports sports

Curt Anderson 0:37
weekend for our friend in Seattle. So hey, that’s awesome. So I am just thrilled. Honored. What a privilege it is to have our guests today. So Ashley Walters, happy Monday. How are you?

Ashleigh Walters 0:51
Great. Happy Monday. I’m excited to be here. Dana, we didn’t have such success in the sports world this weekend. Auburn did not be Ole Miss. Mills did beat the chiefs.

Curt Anderson 1:04
So I didn’t you know, and I wasn’t sure if I didn’t know if we were going to the Pittsburgh route. I know pure Steelers fan Bills fan. So yeah, a big one for the bills. I was watching the Auburn as matter of fact I was with I had relatives in town and their daughter is at Auburn. So we were rooting on Auburn and I knew you had we were coming on with you Monday. So they played they played tough though. They played tough. I was and then an Alabama last you know so anyway, what we

Unknown Speaker 1:27
did? I didn’t realize until like yesterday I was looking at they broke the goalposts down at Tennessee and stuff that’s

Curt Anderson 1:35
pandemonium.

Ashleigh Walters 1:37
They didn’t just break it down. They put it in the river.

Curt Anderson 1:42
They’re going crazy, guys. So hey, happy Monday. And I mean, we have a ton to cover. So let’s you know go again, for obvious sports fans would have October’s best month of the year. It’s absolutely awesome. But it’s also its manufacturing month and that’s what we’re here to talk to talk about today. So hey, if you’re out there, drop a note. Give us a hello. Let us know that you’re out there. Absolutely. Definitely. You want to connect Do yourself a huge favor connect with Ashley. She is just a dynamo. We’ve got Whitney here. Whitney. Good morning coming to us from Houston. And we got Sarah. There’s a big Bills fan. So hey, Sarah, Happy Monday to you. Diane, coming from Philly. Hey, man, egos issues are like what six and older now. So there’s so again, so I leading with grits and grace. I may say one of the best book titles I’ve ever heard. So guys, if you’re not familiar with Ashley, absolutely connect with Ashley here on LinkedIn. She has his dynamite dynamite book, we’re going to talk about this book. She is the president of onyx, great manufacture in Erie, Pennsylvania, and you have an incredible, wonderful success story. You’re just sharing with us that you’re just having a monster year this year, Ashley? So as we dig into this, if I understand correctly, chemical engineering goes to Auburn, great man, a woman in manufacturing. My first question for you of the day Ashley Walters, as you were a young girl growing up? Who was your hero? Who was your hero growing up that just sparked this incredibly inspirational person that you are?

Ashleigh Walters 3:13
Yeah, so I mean, I think always my parents were definitely huge portions of my life, right. And heroes and my dad worked in manufacturing. I always say that we’re a multi generational manufacturing family. One of the coolest stories that I found out and it was when my grandmother was had passed away, unfortunately, but I didn’t know she worked in a textile mill making socks during Nice. Yeah. And so, um, she was in this job. Real quick off side story. Here she was. And my grandmother was coming back from the war. And the boss at the job told her that she could leave to go see my grandfather. So she told him, she quit. She was like, I am definitely going, you know, yeah. Can’t believe that time period. You know, like everybody supporting the war effort. And yeah, yeah. So even my grandmother worked in manufacturing. And so we just have like a long lineage.

Curt Anderson 4:11
Awesome. So Mom and Dad, what’s what are your parents names?

Ashleigh Walters 4:15
So Bill and Libby,

Curt Anderson 4:17
Bill and Libby, so Okay, so we can attribute this great success story to film Libby. So Damon and I are big. We are girl dads. And so Ashley, we find you such an inspiration. We’re gonna give a shout out to Bill and Libby. So if they’re out there, if they catch us on a replay, we’re sending lots of love and support to mom and dad. So let’s just dig right in. So you you have a book and we’re going to take a deep dive into the book, but I want to go back in time. Okay. So let’s share with everybody you’re an Auburn Tiger and you go to Auburn evolve things to be a chemical engineer. Do I have that correct?

Ashleigh Walters 4:48
Yes. So what

Curt Anderson 4:51
what inspired How was grandma and Bill and Libby what inspired you at 18 years old that this young Ashley Walters is going to go into kind Chemical Engineering.

Ashleigh Walters 5:00
So this story is going to be all about Libby. So I was really good at math and science. And you know, I was in high school and I thought, Okay, what do you do when you’re really good with math and science? And so one of the things was to be a teacher, right? So I said, I’m going to go to college, and I’m going to be a teacher. And my mom said, No, you’re not. And I said, Well, you’ve already said that. We need more good teachers. And she goes, and we do, but you wouldn’t be a good one. Tough love, right?

Curt Anderson 5:30
Yeah, like it is, man. Right?

Ashleigh Walters 5:32
Yeah. So. So I, you know, I talk all the time about experience and exposure. I mean, I didn’t have anybody in my life that I knew that was an engineer. So I didn’t know engineers existed, right? Yeah. So kudos to my mom for figuring out engineers did exist and exposing me to them. And then we actually went to the plant. That plant was a pulp and paper mill, in Tennessee, and North Carolina State University had a chemical engineering program that had a focus on pulp and paper, and they came to present. And so they were offering scholarships to buy who would, you know, join that program. So ultimately, I wasn’t accepted for the final round of the NC State scholarship for the academic piece. And we just couldn’t afford for me to go out of state, except Auburn had an academic common market. And so if the degree wasn’t offered in your state, you could go as an in state student to Auburn. So I went to Auburn University as a chemical engineer with a pulp and paper focus. And that’s how I ended up there. But I must say, I’m also a small town girl. And Auburn is a small town now. It’s gotten a lot bigger since I was there, but it’s still got that small town feel. And I definitely just felt at home.

Curt Anderson 6:47
great college town.

Unknown Speaker 6:49
Where were you at in Tennessee?

Ashleigh Walters 6:51
So I grew up just south of Knoxville, Tennessee. Oh, yeah.

Curt Anderson 6:54
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Very. Okay. Well, hey, all right. We’re just guys. We’re just getting started if you’re just chiming in. So again, hey, Diane remind me boy that Phillies did great too. So she had a really good week. Yeah, we’ve got we’ve got Heidi here. Good afternoon, Heidi. We’ve got Karen in the house here. So Karen, thank you for joining us today. Give a shout out to Ashley we’ve got my dear friend Vale is here today. And how about this one? Ashley? How about this guy? This guy’s flexing already I can just feel. So hey, he’s a big Buckeye fan. So go Buckeyes. Eddie. And so I actually let’s take a deep dive here. You go into college chemical engineering. So obviously, you’re you’re going to be in producing manufacturing, you’re going to go that direction. What led you to like it looks like you’ve been president for 19 years. You know, you’ve been involved in ONYX for 19 years. Let’s hear that story on how you transition to Onyx.

Ashleigh Walters 7:52
Yeah, so um, when I got out of school from Auburn University 911 had just happened. So now I’m dating myself. So we had an awesome job market and that we had no job market, right? No job market. So I had interned in Pulp and Paper It was totally meant to go into pulp and paper. But International Paper had was in a hiring freeze at the time they did open the hiring freeze and and offer me a position. However nucular power was also hiring at the at that time, right. So they’d spent 20 years not hiring since they built the plants and then they were like, Oh, crap, everybody’s gonna retire. So I ended up in nuclear power plant Vogel for Southern Company, Southern New killer. And I was there for just about a year and then kind of a tragedy happened at onyx, our Pulp and Paper technical sales person passed away unexpectedly. And so I then interviewed and was hired for the job. So I started at onyx and technical sales, and I was helping my husband run the southeastern operation. And then, um, you know, life goes on. We have baby number one, baby number one comes six weeks early. He was supposed to be a Christmas baby. And he made it before Thanksgiving. Yeah. He was eager. He was eager. I tell him he’s a he’s a big kid now thriving. But I tell him I was like you were all about getting Turkey.

Curt Anderson 9:14
The turkey? That’s right. Yeah. Football in Turkey.

Ashleigh Walters 9:17
Yeah. So, you know, he began six weeks early, his lungs were underdeveloped. He stayed in the hot in the NICU for two weeks. And it’s flu season. So he just couldn’t be out and around anyway, so that from what I thought was gonna be a stay at home or what I thought was gonna be a working mom, just stay at home mom literally overnight. And so life just changes, right? Maybe number two came along and then my father in law called one day in 2013, and said, Hey, I just generally need you to run the company. The CFO is left. I need to look at the financials, they pass it off as like a complete part time job. It was not a part. And I was also living in Charlotte, North Carolina with this two year old and three year old Olden we were running that operation and so eventually 2014 came along and we moved you know, closer to the Erie facility. We moved to Pittsburgh first and then on to Erie, but I guess kind of from there, you know, the history is in the book.

Curt Anderson 10:15
The history is in the book. Absolutely. So guys and you need to buy the book leading with grit and grace. And so talk Okay, so kind of like your the X, you know, Damon, we talked about the accidental entrepreneur, the accidental president of a company, right. So just and we’ve got a we’ve got a couple more hellos here today. We’ve got James James stage who dude, I love having you around. Happy Monday to you. We’ve got Laurie in the house. Lori Happy Monday from NWA IIRC. You know, Laurie, of course, and wonderful folks at Northwest IRC. So Molly and Bob and Michael, The whole crew at NW IRC love you guys. So actually share a little bit of like, what were those early stages like? How did you evolve from like, hey, Ash, I need to help part time to like you’re thrown into Yeah, literally thrown into the deep end with no, no little floaties on yarns. Right. Talk about like, what was that process? What was that experience like for you?

Ashleigh Walters 11:07
So yeah, it was really hard, Kurt. You know, we I was really thrown into the deep end, we didn’t realize how bad it was financially for the company at that moment in time when he asked me to take over, but we figured it out really, really quickly. Just had to do a lot to stabilize the company and make sure we could survive, right. So putting in a new accounting system was what I was working on. Behind the scenes is my stay at home mom job. And so that was the very first thing we did, we got that new accounting system installed. And then we could see, like, where, where the dollars were going, where we could make those biggest impacts. And one of them was just even in the overhead of the building that we were in, we were spending an ungodly amount on heating a building. That’s 150,000 square foot warehouse because it had a wet sprinkler system in it. You have things you just don’t even think about, or the lighting BILL Right? Those old were they metallic lights or whatever now LEDs and just just crazy places. So we just start making changes like that. Finding the that low hanging fruit. And the more changes we made the the better it got, right. And it just it’s always it’s kind of fun to make things better. So the better we got, the more people kind of got the bug to make the changes. Yeah, we just kept growing it just kind of a flywheel effect, almost.

Curt Anderson 12:32
That’s perfect. And so hey, we’ve got a couple of folks saying that, man, we Jamin we’ve been having some LinkedIn challenges. And so

Damon Pistulka 12:39
I just I rolled over there to see if it was live, it’s live there. I just don’t know what how,

Curt Anderson 12:44
okay, so anybody out there if you go to b2b tail.com my website so if you go to b2b tail.com, my social buttons at the bottom, if you click on YouTube, you will catch this live. And you guys, I know a bunch of you’re on our Twitter junkies, we are live on Twitter, as well. So feel free, go to b2b tailed.com. And you can go to our Twitter page, go to YouTube. And if you’re having challenges on LinkedIn, hopefully we’re smooth sailing with Ashley here over on those platforms. So Ashley, let’s, let’s continue moving forward. So okay, so you’re starting with accounting. And now again, I just want to remind everybody, if you’re just coming in Ashley as a chemical engineer by trade, it’s not like you were a turnaround specialist. It’s not like you’ve been, you know, you’re so young. And you know, not having a wealth of experience on turnaround a company is like we’re talking about when you’re going through the accounting and finance being an engineer, like how did you know what to look for? How did you know to dig into these things of, Hey, these are challenges, this isn’t right, and maybe ran into some like, Hey, this is how we’ve always done it. How did you break some of those down?

Ashleigh Walters 13:46
Yeah, so definitely a manufacturing we’re famous for. This is how we’ve always done it. Um, so I think it was probably okay that I didn’t know how I’d always been done. Right, I had to figure it out. And so here’s Bill’s biggest piece of advice, said to me, school of hard knocks again, I get my engineering degree. And that says, well, that’s great, but you don’t know much. When I thought, wow, you know, four years of engineering school, I feel like I know a little bit. I did four years progress. But what he said was go to the place where the work is being done and ask the people doing the work, they already have the solution to the problem you’re trying to solve. And so I’m not really as smart as one would think I am I just went and ask curious questions. And, and people did, they told me, they already knew what the problems were. Right, they needed. They just needed somebody that was gonna back them up and help solve them. Yeah. We ferreted out those problems, I would ask what takes up most of your time or what frustrates you? Paul Akers has a book out there that says what bugs you right so any version of that question you want to ask him Ask it and people will tell you, and then your responsibility is to help them try to fix it. And there are cases where you can’t fix it right? So we do some arts for aerospace, I can’t change the way that we do it, no matter if it would make it better or not, right. But you say thank you for that idea. We can’t change it. Because keep thinking, right? can change it, you get them the resources that they need to let allow them to make those changes wherever possible, given them the autonomy to make it because it was there. It’s fun to come by yourself, right? So they weren’t looking. That’s one of the biggest things I learned early on in my leadership. One of my my ops manager came to me one day, and she said, sometimes we just want to tell you about the problem. We don’t actually want you personally to fix it. We want to fix it, we just want to tell you about we just want to talk through with you. We just want somebody to hear us. And so I thought that was another really cool.

Damon Pistulka 15:58
It is it is and that’s that’s one of the things I think it’s cool to hear and how you learned it because we all want to fix it right away. But we do need to let other people fix it. And sometimes it is just listening to, to confirm or whatever they want to hear. But that’s, that’s incredible. So when you started doing this, I mean, did you see people really getting fired up and then come in with more and more and more and more changes?

Ashleigh Walters 16:26
So I think it takes time, right? Yeah. You have to remember, think about what I was dealing with. If you’ve ever been in a relationship where somebody’s broken your trust? Yeah. How long does it take to repair right? Long time sometimes, right? So I was just really on a mission of rebuilding trust and faith in our family that we, you know, could run this and do right by everybody. So it did just take a little bit of time. But one of the things that I’ve always loved to do is just write handwritten thank you notes, because you probably don’t get them very often. I love it. When I do. It’s just a true gift that somebody took time to write that and I save them all. I have a book where every time I’ve gotten one, I’ve saved it. But you’ll notice that in your organization, people will save them when they’re from you too. So I can go on our human resources managers office right now. And I know she’s got a card sitting up on her desk that I wrote to her years ago, thanking her for whatever really incredible thing it was that shoulda done. So it doesn’t take much, right. I mean, like little wards where the man was teetering outside the box, and it was a think outside the box award and but just just that gratitude that people are helping you that starts building on itself and an organization.

Curt Anderson 17:46
Okay, so let’s man we have Ashley, this is so good. So we have a few comments here. So, Whitney job hey, this is right up Adam Baker’s alley, Adam Baker is an eerie guy, Ashley, you and Adam, Adam Adams of phenomenal dude. And now Whitney dropped the YouTube link. So again, guys, if you’re having any challenges, any glitches, thank you, Whitney, she’s over, she’s hopped over to YouTube. And, hey, this is one person that you absolutely have to connect with Nicole Donnelly, she is absolutely phenomenal loving your advice that you’re giving here. She is a rock star. So I’d love for Ashley and Nicole to connect. So you’ve covered a ton of things that I want to unpack here real quick. So I know from your book, one of the big strategies you pulled an every employee and you pulled in every employee to get their inputs and employ to ensure quality, optimize processes in eliminate waste. So you took a combination of your engineering degree, Dad’s brilliant advice, you’re ripping through the financial statement just tearing it to shreds of like, Where are their challenges? Where can we turn things around? So let’s, so that’s good and great. So again, like somebody out there, they’re like, boy, this is music to my ears. You’ve given me a process. Take us the next step. So now you ask people’s advice. How did you night you know, everybody out there, you have to buy the book. So we’re not going to give any spoiler alerts from the book, but actually talk about how did you start implementing these things? How did you you got the buy in? It sounds like by asking everybody’s opinion, but how did you take it to the next level?

Ashleigh Walters 19:14
So the next level after I started asking those questions, those curious questions, and we started figuring things out, was to teach others problem solving skills, right? So you’ve got command and control leaders all these years telling everybody what to do, and you you’ve just lost your problem solving skills. So kata was the way that we taught problems.

Curt Anderson 19:35
Was it really your big?

Ashleigh Walters 19:37
So, and we you know, we love the Lean tools, but we definitely use them differently than like Toyota does, right? Sometimes people get a little afraid of Lee, right, like because you don’t have to be all in at the very start. Right? It’s a group one of my leader, one of our board members told To me one time, lean is a journey. So I just want to tell you, like, start somewhere and get your feet wet, and you don’t have to be perfect up again. Yeah. And we’re still learning. We’re still learning for sure. But yeah, kata was how we taught those, those problem solving skills. And once again, once you get people thinking about it, and they’re going through iterations, and they’re going through experiments and experiment doesn’t go the way they think it’s gonna go. And then they have to, they’re learning from their failures. Right? So I always talk about, we have the freedom to fail. And I’m not talking about we’re, we’re not sending back quality parts out or anything like that. But you have to allow people the psychological safety, to be able to fail at something because they’re never going to get to that next level, they’re never going to have that great big idea, right? If you can’t go through the process.

Curt Anderson 20:48
So all right, let God this is good. psychological safety, we can’t let that one pass by. So that might be new, you know, I don’t know. And that’s not my area of expertise whatsoever. And it might be newer to some folks out there. But again, for our crowd, or for anybody out there. Sure. Let’s take a deeper dive. How did you create that? That, you know, if trust was broken? How did you What were some of the steps that you take? You know, and I know you’re sharing so many things, but talk about how do you create a robust environment of psychological safety for your team?

Ashleigh Walters 21:21
So it’s, I think, what it’s not is berating and belittling people, right, you got to get rid of that in an organization. Because now so what we found was people were hiding their mistakes from us, even when it was something that it was like a manufacturer’s defect, right, you know, and we needed to be able to address it with a manufacturer, but they were hiding it from us because they didn’t want to be berated or belittled. And so when we started telling people, whoa, whoa, timeout, like, let’s look at this together, and then showed them it wasn’t their fault. Then they started to bring things to us more. And even when it was their fault. We would say that as long as they brought it to us, right? Like right away, bring it to us. We’re going back out there on the shop floor with you. We want to put our eyes on it. We want to see how it happened. And we want to help you figure out how not to do it again. It’s okay. People make mistakes. You’re crazy. If you think people don’t Yeah, yeah, every day, how do you how do you work with those mistakes? Right? How do you make it? So they don’t happen again? Right? Now always don’t make mistakes. Just don’t make the same one twice.

Curt Anderson 22:32
Yeah, right. Exactly. And you know, what, and I read it a fascinating article that was a game changer for me years ago was in The New York Times. And the title was, it’s never the employees fault. It’s never the employees fault. And this guy he was really fascinating was a great entrepreneur. And he broke it down where either something’s wrong with the system or process. Or maybe if the person still, you know, there was a miscommunication, or you flat out hired the wrong person, you know. So like, his whole, his whole basis was, it always came back to the employer. Now, a couple of things that I want to share again, you guys, you have to go out and buy the book leading with grit and grace. You talked about gratitude being your guiding light, can you just share a little bit like as a leader of a manufacturer? Why is Why is gratitude so critical to create this wonderful environment?

Ashleigh Walters 23:18
So it’s just about saying thank you, and in realizing the effort that others are putting in, and when you can tell them thank you very specifically for doing this. Or because you did this, it’s made this so much better, or, you know, one of the things was we were really siloed, nobody was talking to each other within the company, and certainly not apart across departments. So even in bringing them together for a Value Stream Mapping event and getting them to talk to each other, you get you find out that people aren’t trying to be jerks, right. They don’t know that they’re making your life harder by doing it the way that they’re doing it. Right. You just have that conversation. Yes. Right. Then you, you can say, Okay, well, if you could give it to me this way, it would save me 20 minutes, and most of the time people be like, Oh, sure. Like, why didn’t you say something earlier? Right. Right. Just being grateful to others. Once again, being kind one of our core values is just be kind, right? Don’t assume worst in people.

Curt Anderson 24:22
Yeah. And that’s and I have if I correct me if I’m wrong, I think I have your mission statement, make things better. empower employees, happy customers, thriving communities. Did I do I have that correct? Got, can you share so and Danny’s here today, Damon? So I want to give a shout out to Janney Janie where you and I are connecting later today. So Happy Monday to you my friend. She’s with the Midwest, the Great Lakes tack. Talk a little bit about how I’m a huge huge Damon we’re both huge mission statement guys. Yeah, we’d love mission statements king so if there’s a entrepreneur out there company that really doesn’t have one line. They’re like, Man and Actually, I need this. Can you talk about like, how did you guys go through this process? How did you create it and make things better? empower employees, happy customers, thriving communities, just give us a give us the dirt behind that behind that mission right

Ashleigh Walters 25:13
there? Well, it took a little while. We started out with high quality and safety is the number one priority and all those things, right. And then we realized that that’s not a mission. That’s just an expectation. That’s an

Curt Anderson 25:26
expectation.

Ashleigh Walters 25:29
And so we talked a lot about just making things better. And I do think that that’s, you know, just general problem solving from me being an engineer. And I always talk to everybody here about it’s not just make things better at onyx, it’s make things better for the customers that we’re serving. We always talk about how important manufacturing is to our small towns. For every four jobs we create, or for every job we recreate, there are four more created in our communities. Yeah, just pick a rust belt town. And look at when manufacturing leaves town, what happens, it’s devastated. Right. And so we’re make things better came from was just trying to get everybody to understand. We got to we got to do good at home. But we have to serve our clients too, because they have a very important mission as well. Okay,

Curt Anderson 26:18
so you saw I heard 2013 14 ish is when this little like, Hey, Ashley, do you want to do this part time? Hey, run the company. Right? So now. So talk like 1516? When did you feel that you’re starting to see this positive impact and starting to see things turn around? Can you walk in and walk us through that process?

Ashleigh Walters 26:40
Yeah, so I think you know, you feel like positive impact. Start early. But sometimes when you’re trying to turn the Titanic around, it just takes a little time. Right. And for those of us out there that are overachievers in high energy, it’s feels like it takes even longer. You get really kind of how how long could this possibly take? Right? But it was really I think 2018 You know, by the time we were feeling good about life cart.

Curt Anderson 27:10
Okay, so, man, God, this is so good. A couple of comments here. This is Diane buyer on her daughter’s account. I think everybody jumped over on YouTube. So we got you know, love the mission statement. Nicole was saying, you know, mission is bigger than the organization. And what such a great, so you’re getting a lot of compliments here. So 2018 Like you’re like you’re all in, you’re raising two young children sleeves are rolled up. You’re in a new community, new town, and you’re really turning the ship around. Now what’s what challenges what was next for you? Like, how did you? Did you have your checklist? Okay, I’ve kind of turned this around. Did I turn it like, walk us through? What was that process to keep growing as a leader for you? Right?

Ashleigh Walters 27:49
So my guys always say that I pulled a string on a sweater and unraveled the whole sweater to put it back together again. And redone it it is so true, right? Like we were in a process of remitting everyone back together again. Um, you know, we definitely had some turnover in the organization, it just the way that we were doing, it wasn’t successful. Yeah. So I had to do a lot of getting the right people in the right seats on the bus. And sometimes that was just reordering inside the organization. You know, I really strongly believe in playing to people’s strengths. So whatever their strengths are not, you know, be cognizant of the weaknesses, be self aware. But if I tell you to go fix your weaknesses, I promise you it will be the last thing you do in a day. If you don’t do it. Right. You’re not interested in it. But if I let you play to your strengths, oh, boy, like watch out. Right now getting people in the right seats, you know, making those financial decisions. I also started what we called wildly important goals, wigs, you’ll know. So we had performance appraisal, appraisals, the standard ones where you, you know, you pick the goal, and then you cascade it through the organization. And it was so frustrating, because by the time I got them cascaded the world had changed, especially in 2020, right? Yes. Oh, we stopped doing that. I stopped, I started picking one wildly important goal. And then allowing every department manager and team to pick the battle that they were going to fight that was most important in winning the war. And that calmed the organization down that focus that priority if we can’t get anything else done, because your days are probably 99% task oriented, right? So you can’t have 25 projects that you’re supposed to be doing. So just choose one. And if you can do that, then we can be hugely successful. That’s one of the biggest things that we

Curt Anderson 29:50
Okay, so Ashley, you’re new here. So anybody that comes on Damon, can you tell Ashley what this moment is right this right now?

Unknown Speaker 29:59
Yeah, This is a moment of silence.

Curt Anderson 30:02
We’re just saving savoring. It’s lunchtime here on the East Coast, we are savoring the brilliance that was just shared. So Damon, I don’t know if it was a coincidence that Ashley’s on our program, and she’s sharing wildly important goals. Does anybody know what the acronym for that is? You know, so Nicole, we’re always talking about acronyms. So Wi G wig does it happen? Like this guy here is on the program today. And we were talking about wigs, Ashley, so they’ll joke there for you. But anyway, I love what you’re saying. And there’s a phenomenal book called almost as good as yours. It’s called essentialism, New York Times bestselling book essentialism. And in that book, he shares there’s no such thing as the word priorities like that, like we changed that word like, that word shouldn’t exist. I love what you said, I have to I’m man, it’s like a masterclass. Can you go a little bit deeper? Yeah, had the discipline to self discipline, what I mean, oh, my god, your leadership skills are just off the charts. So you created an environment of like, focus on that one task? Can you share, like, were How did you? How did that come on your radar? How did you like if other people are like, Man, I want to implement that, like, share this process with us?

Ashleigh Walters 31:09
Well, you’ll laugh. Um, so it’s like September of 2017. And it’s time to start thinking about, you know, the goals and the performance reviews. And I’m just like, Ah, this is drudgery. Like, I hate it. Why is this so much like, anxiety in the organization? For what reason? And so I calculated the ROI on it. I’m doing a performance appraisal, and I figured out how much it was costing the organization between my time trying to write goals, leaders times giving out goals, everybody talking everybody doing self reviews. And I was like, This is ridiculous. To what end? We’re looking in the rearview mirror. We’re not looking out the windshield. Yeah, we can do to fix what’s already been done. So why aren’t we focused forward? And so we just had our we started training on like this coach approach, and just making sure that we were thinking about the future, instead of worrying about what we didn’t do. Right. In the past. Right. Yeah. And so yeah, it’s gone already, has probably done an ROI on performance appraisals.

Curt Anderson 32:14
Wow. And so once again, you know, you took like, if I’m understanding correctly, like maybe a sacred cow, and you’re like, you know what, this is how we’ve always done it. But guess what, we are not doing it anymore. So guys, I know we’re coming at bird top of the hour. If you’re just joining us, I want to I love for you to connect with Ashley, drop us a note that you’re here. Ashley, I know like you, man, modest, humble. And I might make you feel a little uncomfortable. I’m gonna read some a couple of review comments on your book. If you haven’t purchased if you haven’t read leading with grit and grace. implore you do yourself a favor, go out and get it today. It’s going to be life changing. But some here’s some of the reviews, a plus plus, plus a great book for leaders of any business that wants to improve company culture, powerful read on how to inspire people along a path of change, leading with grit and Grace offers leadership insight from a leader still in the trenches. terrific book, A must read powerful, wonderful, excellent, impactful, inspirational I can go on and on. This book is for is a perfect read for all women leaders loved it. We are all in the people business, according to Ashley Walters, distinctive and transit and let’s see what’s he say? And I dropped to send a note earlier about intrinsic fires. Its intrinsic fire, the book grit and grace. And just every comment is just going on and on and on. So I want to talk about this for a second. You are busy mom, you are a busy president of a company you’re turning the ship around you use the word Titanic it’s not easy. When on earth did you have time to write a book? And what inspires you to even go that route?

Ashleigh Walters 33:56
Well, I guess thank you for COVID-19. Otherwise, it probably would have happened. To write a book, right? Nothing else would do. I mean, we were we were locked down. Right? Especially here in the state of Pennsylvania. We were locked down more than other states. And so like the sports were locked down, the kids were being homeschooled, you know, we were an essential business. So we were still in operation, but we were as busy as as we had been. And so I guess no time like the present to write a book write a few extra hours. So no, my marketing coordinator said, you need to write a book and I said, I’m an engineer, I don’t write, like not what I do. And she said, you just have to share the story. She said what if you could help one other person? And I thought, well, if I can help one other person, then it’s probably worth the effort. So what’s really interesting is people do they resonate with different pieces of it. It just kind of depends upon where they are in their journey, which piece that they find is most important so I think, you know, it was a, it was great for me to have to sit there and like reflect thing that I don’t probably do very well. But just that roadmap and that journey that we took. And yeah, just getting it out there in the world just so if there’s one golden nugget in it for somebody else like to change to make that change. I just hope somebody finds it.

Curt Anderson 35:23
Well, thank you and our friend, Diane drops a nice little comment here, focus forward, and she’s with the Pennsylvania she’s with the Mid Atlantic tack, which she’s located in Pennsylvania, so she’d be a great person to connect with Ashley. So Ashley, so let’s go here. So you’ve survived, you know, you turn the company around, you survived a global pandemic, or crisis, you’ve written a book. And guys, I’m Tanya, you want to go out and get this book. So let’s talk about we’re going to talk about women in leadership. But before I dig into women in manufacturing, in women in leadership, before we go there, just share, like, just give us a little nugget of like, what was it like at COVID? Onyx? And like, how did your leadership have to change? And what were some tips advice? Or like, what did you learn over the past two years?

Ashleigh Walters 36:05
Yeah, so I think actually, we had an inside advantage as COVID happened, because when I lived through an internal crisis together, and so now we were having to wade through this external crisis. And I think one of the biggest things is like, as a leader, sometimes you think you have to know everything, and COVID is the perfect example of not knowing anything, right? Like everything was gray. When they were just the Emperor, we just didn’t have good information to even try to deal with. And so we just had to deal with it day by day, as new information was learned, right? So I gathered up the whole leadership team, we sat at the table six feet apart. And we said, Okay, this is what we do know, what have we not thought about. And so every person at that table had a voice and a very important voice, because they were thinking about different things. And they were thinking about them differently than I was. And when they could voice their opinion and say, we need to do this, then they also had the autonomy to go do that they took the action to go do it. And so we just worked really well as a team. But a couple of things that happened that I thought were pretty unique. Number one is I bought bracelet, silicone bracelets, they were red, yellow, and green. And you could pick a color for the day, but it gave people a visual signal as to where you were feeling like Green was like, Give me a hug. I don’t care. Read at least don’t come near me. You know, I’m, I’m terrified. And you got to choose your color, whichever day right, because news was coming out fast, things are changing. So it just gave everybody like a sense of where, how to approach another person where they were. The other thing that happened was my shipping or receiving manager, he really challenged me as we went to shut down the plant, you know, nobody that was not supposed to be here didn’t need to be here was going to be here. And I said, including the truck drivers. And he said, But what about our he said, What about the truck drivers? And I said, No, I’m sorry, they can’t come in. And they just need to sit in their truck, you know, because we’re trying to contain everything right? He said, Well, they usually come in to use the facilities. And I said, I’m sorry, they’re just going to have to go somewhere else. And he goes, Ashley, the governor shut the rest areas like where do you? Yeah, yeah. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I didn’t even think about that. And so he even took it a step further. So we was shutting down the women’s restroom in the plant, because we had less women on site. We could just use the one in the offices, and we made that the truck drivers facility. But then he also put out a table with snacks and water and stuff with him because there was nowhere to eat, like ever. But as a as a leader, I didn’t think about it. But he did. He did. And he challenged me on it, which was even better, right? Yeah. Yeah, he was just gonna let me be dumb. Not not think about it.

Curt Anderson 38:52
And what’s this? What’s this gentleman’s name? Says Nate. Stop, Nate. Well, hey, kudos to Nate. Again, as a leader appreciate your humility of like, you know, you’re, you know, you’re admitting like, Hey, I didn’t think of that. Nate has the company, you’ve created that environment of trust, where he pushes back and says, Hey, Ashley, wait a minute, I would have never thought of that as well and kudos and Nate to take it that would stop you know, further and what a great you know, what a great thing about leaders Ashley is great leaders create great leaders and that’s exactly what you’re doing. Our dear friend Val drops a note she says it’s a business book that’s actually readable to many double is a cure for insomnia. That is great Vale so hey, that’s a what a testimony that is again, man, Ashley, I could keep you here all day. Grit is when you think you have nothing left. Grace is the light inside do i is where did that quote come from?

Ashleigh Walters 39:47
Yeah, it grit is when you think you have nothing left. Right? It’s that determination, that persistence, that resilience. And as leaders I mean, sometimes we feel like really stuck, right? It’s hard. But grit Ace is equally as important because if you are operating with empathy and compassion for others, it doesn’t matter how gritty you are. Yeah, nobody’s nobody wants to follow you. If you’re not being an inspirational leader, so yeah, it’s tough, but you’re gonna take people on that journey with you. And COVID is like the perfect example of how everybody reacted differently. That uation and needed something different in that moment, you know, double income parents, I had, you know, people taking care of elderly parents, I, it just you name it, everybody needed something a little bit different. So we just had to learn to be flexible. Together.

Curt Anderson 40:45
That is awesome. And Hey, speaking of and Adam, he really loves your bracelet idea. And so that was, I’m telling that was absolutely brilliant. I wish I would have thought of that one. That was a great. So actually, let’s go here. Now that slight into women in manufacturing, again, you’re you know, as President of a great manufacturing company, you’ve written this incredible, wonderful leadership book, which you know, every testimonial about your book is it’s not just for manufacturers, it’s anyone in a leadership position. Great job there. Talk about like your role, or like leaders, like why do we need more women leaders in manufacturing?

Ashleigh Walters 41:19
So I think we just need more people in manufacturing? I’ll say, well, and I think most manufacturers would say the same, right? So you know, everybody knows this statistic. 50% of the US workforce is women and only 25%. In manufacturing, right? So I think, but it’s also experience and exposure. Most of us just don’t know that it exists. Or we think that we’re supposed to be in other industries that aren’t that are traditional, right? So you guys just having that conversation around? Like, we belong here, too. And I don’t think guys don’t think that we don’t belong, we just don’t know. Right? Right. Um, sometimes so back to experience and exposure. But I would say that also in an any one that you’re hiring, think about diversity and history and perspective that it just makes for a stronger team. What if I didn’t have a Nate stop? Right? Bective is different than mine. I don’t need everybody to say yes to me, I need them to challenge me so that we can do better.

Curt Anderson 42:32
All right. That’s another that’s another moment that we’re just going to save her for a moment. That was just, you know, peep, surround yourself with trusted advisors that are going to challenge you just not agree with you. Again, Diane, thank you for the comments here today. Inspirational Leader. People follow, don’t inspire and employees will run the other direction. Absolutely true. So Ashley, what can manufacturers out there do to? You know, like you’re talking to us, you have a new some new teammates on your team, if you want to share with everybody. manufacturers that are out there? How can any advice that you have on how they can help diversify their team?

Ashleigh Walters 43:08
Yeah. So as all this happened with COVID, like we’re all looking for people, right? And even before COVID, we were all looking for people in manufacturing. So one of the first things I did was if you know anybody that has autism, a lot of times they love repetitive tasks. So shipping and receiving is it like a very repetitive task, housekeeping, general housekeeping is very repetitive. So I have two gentlemen who work for onyx, Jas and Colin, and they have autism, but they have been here with us for going on almost three years now. And they are just incredible team members like they are so good at what they do. And they’re learning, you know, new and different skills. And they’re just filling a gap for us. We also just hired for Syrian refugees, they’re immigrants to you know, here in the US and Arabic is definitely like a challenge for us. We don’t know how to read or speak it and they don’t know English yet. But we’re teaching them Onyx English. We have an instructor that’s coming two times a week. We’re making sure that we get their OSHA training in Arabic, their native language right now we’re, you know, translating some of our forms into Arabic, but they have just been incredible additions to our team. And it’s just it’s the American way, though, isn’t it? Like, yeah, your ancestors were immigrants at some point.

Damon Pistulka 44:33
we’d forgotten that. We forgotten that. It was all people who didn’t know how to speak English half the time, or more than half the time. It’s so cool to see you guys doing that.

Ashleigh Walters 44:43
Yeah. So it’s awesome. So we have some really awesome new team members. So just trying to really think outside of the box and not go to the traditional paths. And

Damon Pistulka 44:54
this is fantastic. Everybody, like you said we need everybody. We can’t You can’t I mean, if you’re not trying to hire anybody and everybody that has a brain and wants to do it, it’s, you’re you’re missing out.

Curt Anderson 45:08
Well, and I think, you know, thing that unite love to preach Damon is well actually, I don’t know, like, all the cool kids are going into manufacturing these days, you know, so, you know, so, you know, used to be you know, tech and everything now all the cool kids are going into manufacturing. So, I mean, there unfortunately, there was a big trend of you know, great you know, especially here like you you’ve described like the Great Lakes Rust Belt, you know, great manufacturing for decades that you know, century. And, you know, it became like, Hey, Bo Grandpa, you know, took things to a higher level and created a middle class and created opportunities. Then the kids went off to college, and unfortunately, we got away from well, hey, don’t go into, you know, don’t fall grandpa’s shoes, don’t go into manufacturing. There are amazing, incredible, wonderful opportunities in manufacturing from automation, robotics, HR, E, commerce, digital marketing, engineering, all the above. So there are great opportunities financially, and you can accidentally become a president of a company. Let’s say I want to be mindful of your time you are running this great manufacturer. I know we could keep you here all day, guys, I dropped Ashley’s book again in the chat box here. And looks I dropped it over on YouTube this time. So please, please, please do yourself a favor, great Christmas holidays are around the corner. You know, it could be a good Halloween gift. As a matter of fact, grab that book handed out to the kids for Halloween, throw it in people’s sight. It’s a great stocking stuffer. For those of you who celebrate Christmas. So again, you want to do yourself a favor, get that book if you are trying to lead the charge in your world, or you know, folks that are trying to improve their leadership game. Grab this book. Ashley? One, man, you just this was just a total masterclass. So first off, thank you, as we wind things down. I love what you said about hey, let’s stop looking in the rearview mirror. Look in the windshield. What’s what’s out ahead for you? What’s ahead for Onyx? What are you looking forward to in fourth quarter? 2023? What’s on the horizon for you?

Ashleigh Walters 47:07
Yeah, so I think we’re like most manufacturers were just as busy as busy can be like the manufacturing Renaissance. And America couldn’t make me happier. It comes with its own challenges. But so cool to see things being manufactured in the US for sure. You know, one thing we didn’t talk about was Drew and I purchased the business and became second generation owners in 2018. But we have gone on to sell the business. And it is now 100% employee owned. So there’s just amazing things ahead for our team. I mean, to come from where we were to be in, you know, employee owned, it’s just a testament to all their hard work. And yeah, they’re gonna get their own entrepreneurs now.

Curt Anderson 47:49
That is amazing, guys. And so what an inspiration and again, How about how about the kids? Do they look up to mom and being a president? How does the kids feel about if they if we had them on the show? What do they say my mom being the president of a company,

Ashleigh Walters 48:01
you know, so I think because of their experience and exposure, they think probably every mom is the president. Yeah, right. But yeah, they definitely like are proud of us. And they come to work and see what we do. They we make sure that we show them how cool it is. I have their friends come in to work and participate in manufacturing activities, we brought in the whole fourth grade to tour the plant and it was their best field trip of the year. So you know, I hate that we got away from those family days and the manufacturing plants because I get it for safety concerns and whatever. But it really, really is important if we want to recruit this respect to manufacturing.

Curt Anderson 48:42
Absolutely. So okay, guys, Diane, again, thank you for all the comments today. She thank you so much. Appreciate it. Inspiration explanation point. So guys, if again, if you’re still out there, we’re going to wrap up, drop us a note drop Ashley, a connection request on LinkedIn. She’d love to hear from you. Again, grab that book, do yourself a favor. So Ashley, thank you, thank you for for everything. You are such a blessing to the manufacturing community. You’re an inspiration to us, girl dads, you’re an inspiration to our girls or women and just to all manufacturers and leaders. And so again, everybody out there, please. Big round of applause for Ashley Walters today, get up and stand up and give her a round. Ashley, thank you for everything. We appreciate you you and I man we’re so close, Damon, we’re like 40 minutes apart. We’re gonna get together and geek out some time. It’s America actually we should do a LinkedIn live together. I’d love to come out to your facility and we’ll make that happen here soon. So, Damon any parting thoughts on on this week of manufacturing month? Any any parting thoughts today?

Damon Pistulka 49:46
You know, no, it’s it’s where the cool kids are. I like you said that’s all we gotta do. We gotta get more people involved. And as Ashley said, Everyone,

Curt Anderson 49:55
everyone involved Ashley, any last parting words of wisdom for our folks out there anyway? Just words of inspiration that you want to share.

Ashleigh Walters 50:02
So what I would share is doing book clubs has been super fun for me. So if you do buy books for the team and would like me to pop on or come see you, I would love to do that. Just get to meet more people in the industry. Absolutely. So

Curt Anderson 50:15
guys, thank you so much have an amazing, incredible week we have we have another author on Friday we have Kathy Miller, stilettos and do pose. Yeah, so So we’re on the women and manufacturing week this week. And so we’re blessed with two great authors who are just leading the charge in manufacturing. So guys, we’re gonna close it out. And Damon is we’d like to close it out. What is our tagline be someone’s inspiration? Boy, if you weren’t inspired today with Ashley, man, we need to check your pulse. But boy just be someone’s inspiration. We don’t care who it is. Just be an inspiration to someone out there today in your world and hate. We will see you soon. Actually Hang on one second. We’re going to close out our program. And we’ll see you guys soon. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 50:58
Thanks, everyone.