A business can install the right system, build the right dashboards, and still bleed profit because nobody is holding the standard. Richard Walsh returns to Leaders & Legacies to explain why structurally sound operating systems often fail on the floor: not because the framework is bad, but because small deviations go unchallenged until they become expensive failures.
Richard calls the problem command drift. One supervisor interprets the standard one way, another works around it, another ignores it, and suddenly the company is running three different operating systems across three shifts. His point is blunt: if a standard is not enforced, it does not exist.
Drawing from his Marine Corps background, his work as an internationally known steel sculptor, and his current command infrastructure work, Richard makes the case for standardized language, command literacy, clear authority, and repeatable enforcement. The goal is not to militarize a company. It is to stop relying on personality-driven super supervisors who hold everything together until they leave, burn out, or miss the drift.
This episode is about the invisible layer beneath execution: the human structure that makes systems actually work under pressure. Richard and Craig dig into manufacturing floor examples, escalation, 14-word commands, shift handoffs, and why the smallest tolerated deviation can become the most expensive problem in the plant.
Want to learn more about Richard Walsh's work? Check out their website at https://sharpenedimpact.com.
Connect with Richard Walsh on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-walsh-866ab237/.
Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://podcast.allies4me.com/podcast-guest/.
Want to learn more about Craig Andrews' work at allies4me? Check out his website at https://allies4me.com/.
You can also reach Richard directly at richard@sharpenedimpact.com.
Key Points with Timestamps
- [00:00] Craig welcomes Richard Walsh back and frames the episode around the missing human layer beneath business operating systems.
- [06:45] Richard defines command drift as the small deviations and workarounds that turn one documented standard into several operating systems across shifts.
- [09:05] Richard states the core principle: if a standard is not enforced, it does not exist.
- [10:23] Craig and Richard explain why standardized language matters before leaders can hold a standard.
- [18:03] Richard explains why commands must stay short, clear, and non-negotiated when pressure hits.
- [19:24] Richard connects missed first checks to floor profit leakage and expensive downstream failures.
- [25:10] Richard separates supervisors from commanders and explains why command infrastructure is installed before the system can work.
- [31:44] Richard explains why software alone fails when it assumes the people layer already knows what to do.
Transcript
[00:00] Craig Andrews: Today, I want to welcome back to Leaders and Legacies Richard Walsh.
[00:04] Craig Andrews: Richard is a former Marine, a internationally renowned steel sculptor, A business strategy coach, builder of…
[00:17] Craig Andrews: We wouldn't call it an operating system, because it's more than that.
[00:21] Craig Andrews: but of systems that really transform factories. We, you know, I've known Richard for a while, we had him on the podcast, over a year ago, and that was a great discussion, but he and I connected recently.
[00:36] Craig Andrews: And I've learned what he's been doing, and I think it's fascinating. And let me frame it this way.
[00:42] Craig Andrews: A lot of businesses have many things in place. Maybe they've installed, like, a business operating system.
[00:50] Craig Andrews: But then you look, and you're like, well, wait a minute, something's missing.
[00:54] Craig Andrews: And I think that's what Richard's found, and we're gonna talk about that. Richard, welcome back!
[00:59] Richard Walsh: Greg, thanks for having me, great to be back. Yeah, it's been a little while.
[01:03] Craig Andrews: It has been.
[01:04] Craig Andrews: Well, we gotta start with a shout-out to the core, you know? Au-rah, simplify, man. It's…
[01:12] Richard Walsh: I've got… so, you know, I have one son in.
[01:14] Richard Walsh: Yeah. Just for record, he's going on almost his third year. Another son going in in September, look out.
[01:21] Craig Andrews: Wow.
[01:21] Richard Walsh: So, who told them to do that? It wasn't me. I tried everything else, but they insisted on the Marine Corps.
[01:28] Richard Walsh: Because they're wise.
[01:30] Craig Andrews: You know, I had, there's somebody in my networking group that, announced, hey, my son just got accepted to the Naval Academy.
[01:39] Craig Andrews: And I replied… I said, make sure he chooses marine option. He doesn't want… you don't want him living with a life of regret. And…
[01:47] Richard Walsh: Love it.
[01:50] Craig Andrews: I, you know, it's funny, I just…
[01:53] Craig Andrews: I could never imagine being in another branch. I just… I just…
[01:57] Richard Walsh: No.
[01:58] Craig Andrews: Can't imagine it. And I'm not trying to diss those folks, but… Why?
[02:03] Craig Andrews: I just couldn't do it.
[02:05] Richard Walsh: You know, it kind of ties in what we're gonna talk about.
[02:07] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[02:08] Richard Walsh: You know, command infrastructure.
[02:11] Richard Walsh: Yeah, so people go command, they're thinking military. I go, well, no, it's not military.
[02:15] Richard Walsh: I guess you could say military-esque?
[02:18] Richard Walsh: The principles?
[02:19] Richard Walsh: The principles have been brought from that, but put into the civilian terms.
[02:23] Richard Walsh: an operational method, right? The whole methodology I created. So it's… it's kind of interesting. So, as you know, being a Marine, it never leaves you.
[02:32] Richard Walsh: Okay, it changes you forever.
[02:34] Richard Walsh: Whether you like it or not.
[02:37] Craig Andrews: God.
[02:37] Richard Walsh: And it just does, but those… but there's so many…
[02:41] Richard Walsh: Incredible qualities that you probably didn't like when you were in?
[02:45] Richard Walsh: Okay, but you look back and go, that was… I'm so glad.
[02:49] Richard Walsh: I have that discipline, I have those… those traits, those abilities, those capabilities now. So, yeah, I've kind of put them into the mix and created those methodologies.
[02:59] Richard Walsh: Man, I'm just so grateful to the Corps.
[03:03] Craig Andrews: You know, I just… I continue to thank the Marine Corps for so many things in my life, I mean, and…
[03:11] Craig Andrews: when I was having to learn how to walk again, you know, I don't know how people who didn't have our training went through that, because it was hard.
[03:20] Craig Andrews: But it's a… it's a mentality, you know? It's… you know, one of the things I recognized
[03:27] Craig Andrews: early in boot camp, I wrote home to my dad, And I said.
[03:33] Craig Andrews: this is a mental game. If I can make it mentally, I can make it physically.
[03:38] Craig Andrews: And my dad said… later said that that was when he knew it would be okay.
[03:44] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[03:45] Richard Walsh: Great.
[03:46] Craig Andrews: I'd make it through, but it's… so… Let's talk about the…
[03:53] Craig Andrews: you know, the mentality… actually, I want to pause there, because there's… you do something that's, like, really, really cool.
[04:00] Craig Andrews: You're one of the most diverse people I know. Let's just take a minute and talk about your sculptures. You know, I mentioned…
[04:07] Craig Andrews: that… but I don't think it does justice. You know, so… what do you do?
[04:14] Richard Walsh: So, what I did, because I stopped about 17 years ago, I would create… I have some world-class exhibits.
[04:20] Richard Walsh: Very organic things. I do, like, giant steel trees, you know, kinetic stuff that actually move, look real.
[04:27] Richard Walsh: We get their abstract.
[04:28] Richard Walsh: A lot of things along that way. I do… I've done giant steel, walk under waterfalls, all kinds of different pieces. I have a… I have a permanent exhibit at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. It's the most cutting-edge exhibit in the world on photosynthesis.
[04:46] Richard Walsh: So I did the whole thing inside, so it's… so the Garfield Park Conservatory is the largest conservatory under glass in this country, fifth largest in the world.
[04:55] Richard Walsh: Okay, so the room next to it is Jens Jensen's fern room.
[04:59] Richard Walsh: You know, so it's like I'm… I'm with greatness, right? So they wanted to build this thing to last another 100 years. So I did all Cortan steel, which rusts and seals itself, so it'll never… never deteriorate and everything else. I put a couple hundred tons of boulders, water features in there. I made light fixtures, signals, I mean, the whole thing. It's…
[05:18] Richard Walsh: It's spectacular. And you go, and it's all… it's all interactive.
[05:21] Richard Walsh: So the water… I got 10-foot waterfalls coming up, you can walk them and touch them.
[05:25] Richard Walsh: And it just disappears into the gravel and stuff, things like that, you know, mangrove ponds, I mean, it's just bananas, you got the whole thing, right? So you've got, you know, sunlight, you've got sugar, you've got, water and air, right? So you've got all that stuff. So it's really, really a fascinating, interactive experience, and it was, you know, PBS documentary, they did all kinds of stuff on it, so that was pretty cool.
[05:45] Richard Walsh: Okay.
[05:46] Richard Walsh: So…
[05:46] Craig Andrews: You're like a renaissance man, you really are. You do well in so many areas, and diverse areas.
[05:55] Craig Andrews: So Help me understand…
[05:58] Craig Andrews: the command infrastructure. Let me give you my bias. You know, see, there are different operating systems out there. You've heard people have, you know, these business operating systems.
[06:07] Craig Andrews: And I've…
[06:09] Craig Andrews: run into companies that are using one particular operating system. I'm not going to say the name, but
[06:17] Craig Andrews: every time I see it, I'm like, this is the most horribly run…
[06:21] Craig Andrews: company I've ever seen, or it's at least in contention for being one of the worst-run companies.
[06:27] Craig Andrews: And I just… I'm left wondering what's missing? You know, because when I look at the structure of it, I'm like, the structure looks good. Everything about the structure makes sense to me, but then I look at it in action, and it's like.
[06:41] Craig Andrews: This is not impressive.
[06:44] Craig Andrews: What's messing…
[06:45] Richard Walsh: What's missing is… For lack of a better term, really, it's the human element, right?
[06:51] Richard Walsh: people don't know… they don't understand, and there's all these soft skills and all this stuff with people on the floor, but take a manufacturing floor. Okay, you've got a system, and I'm gonna describe what systems… they're dumb.
[07:03] Richard Walsh: Because they're a system.
[07:05] Richard Walsh: They're only reporting results.
[07:07] Richard Walsh: Okay, so, okay, light's green, cool. Is everything good?
[07:11] Richard Walsh: No, we have a thing I've called Command Drift.
[07:15] Richard Walsh: Drift begins, like any other drift, right, in little tiny increments.
[07:18] Richard Walsh: So it's a little work around here, it's a deviation of a standard. Like, maybe they've got a standard written down somewhere, and say you got 2 or 3 shifts. Well, every shift supervisor interprets it differently.
[07:31] Richard Walsh: Right? So you actually have 3 different operating systems going on.
[07:34] Richard Walsh: Huh. He's banging it 3 times with a hammer to get it back working right. Another guy's ignoring it completely, you know, and then all of a sudden you've got scrap. All of a sudden, that light goes red from green, and it's a major catastrophe.
[07:48] Richard Walsh: it's not a little fix, right? Because they didn't detect the drift early. They didn't hold or enforce a standard
[07:55] Richard Walsh: That wouldn't allow that drift to happen.
[07:58] Richard Walsh: Right, so it's Commander of Prevention.
[08:01] Craig Andrews: Well, when you're talking about that, it reminds me of something I heard about. So, you know.
[08:07] Craig Andrews: A number of years ago, Ford and Mazda were, you know, they've gone through a variety of relationships where they're the same company, where they're sister companies.
[08:16] Craig Andrews: But…
[08:18] Craig Andrews: the Ford… I think it was the Ford Ranger pickup, and we're talking years ago when a pickup was a pickup, it wasn't like a luxury vehicle. Right. It wasn't like a Lexus that you can go up firewood in.
[08:30] Craig Andrews: the Ford Ranger, and I think it was the, Mazda…
[08:36] Craig Andrews: Oh, I forgot the model, but… Identical design.
[08:41] Craig Andrews: And the transmissions in the Mazdas lasted way longer than the transmissions in the Ford. You look at the blueprints, the design was identical.
[08:51] Craig Andrews: But it was the drift, it was the Japanese mindset of, we're continually monitoring drift, and we're gonna… it's…
[08:58] Craig Andrews: Yeah, we're… we, of course, are going to be within standard, but we're always going to be tightening that drift.
[09:05] Richard Walsh: Right, so it's the power of enforcement, is what I tell people. Yeah. Okay, and I have a simple saying that's kind of the whole basis of the book.
[09:14] Richard Walsh: If a standard is not enforced, it does not exist.
[09:18] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[09:19] Richard Walsh: Okay? That's… that's the biggest takeaway. Think about it, if a standard is not enforced, it does not exist. So you can put it in the book.
[09:25] Richard Walsh: You can say whether… you can plant it, I see it on the wall.
[09:28] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[09:29] Richard Walsh: But no one's adhering to that. No one's holding the standard. Who's… who's in charge of maintaining the standard?
[09:35] Richard Walsh: Okay, because if it's personality-driven, which means I've got Joe, the super supervisor.
[09:41] Richard Walsh: And then I got Slacker Steve on second shift.
[09:44] Richard Walsh: Okay? And if Joe takes 3 weeks off, the whole thing goes in the crapper.
[09:48] Richard Walsh: Okay, because he's the one holding all the pieces together. You can't run a business like that.
[09:53] Richard Walsh: Okay? They have to be interchangeable.
[09:56] Richard Walsh: And that's what command infrastructure, what I install, that's what it does. It makes it… I'm not… I'm not negating people, I'm just saying they have a command infrastructure. So again, it's not training.
[10:07] Richard Walsh: You know, it's infrastructure, so it's installed regardless who's there. There's a language, there's a vocabulary they use, they're able to speak and talk in the same terms and everything else, and they record drift. They actually record it when they catch it and correct it. There's a whole… there's an enforcement of the enforcers, I have that.
[10:24] Richard Walsh: I have an intelligence system, and then does that as well.
[10:27] Craig Andrews: Well, you know, it's… it's funny. Now, I…
[10:30] Craig Andrews: I don't typically work with manufacturers, but…
[10:34] Craig Andrews: You said something, kind of triggered something.
[10:37] Craig Andrews: when I'm working with a new client, or we're working on a new project.
[10:42] Craig Andrews: one of the things I do is say, hey, can we… standardized language.
[10:47] Craig Andrews: Let's talk about language. What does something mean? And, you know, it's funny, a lot of times they'll look at me like, what are you talking about? Why are you fooling around with this?
[10:57] Craig Andrews: But 5 minutes in, we find out that we have one word that has two different meanings, depending upon who you ask.
[11:06] Richard Walsh: Yeah, when you get into this book, so The Invisible Layer, you can see it.
[11:09] Craig Andrews: Yeah, yeah, hang on. Yeah, so I forgot to mention that. You've written a book called The Invisible Layer, and what's the subtitle?
[11:14] Richard Walsh: The hidden structural failure undermining manufacturing.
[11:18] Craig Andrews: Okay, the visible layer, the hidden structural failure undermining manufacturing.
[11:23] Richard Walsh: Yes.
[11:24] Craig Andrews: Alright, sorry, finish your thought.
[11:25] Richard Walsh: So, in this, even in the appendices, I have a full vocabulary.
[11:29] Richard Walsh: So I lay it all out. This is how we talk, this is how we communicate, because I've standardized that language.
[11:35] Richard Walsh: Okay? Again, we're upstream of the system.
[11:38] Richard Walsh: Right? We're not downstream, we're not in the middle, we're upstream of the system, whatever your system is.
[11:43] Richard Walsh: That's where that's at, right? So what that means is I can go company to company, install command infrastructure, now they're all speaking the same language.
[11:52] Richard Walsh: So, if John, the commander, we actually make them commanders, they're forged into commanders as part of their deal. They get challenge coins, and there's a whole progression, everything else, everything's tracked and monitored. We'll get into that in a minute, but they can go to another plant that has command installed.
[12:08] Richard Walsh: They're right in, it's assimilated.
[12:10] Richard Walsh: I even have a command literacy program, which we take the leads, who aren't supervisors, and we train them the language.
[12:17] Richard Walsh: It's rapid assimilation then. When everyone's speaking the same language, just like you mentioned, it was good you caught that, that's what changes the floor.
[12:25] Craig Andrews: Well, you know, I think about, you know, if we go back to boot camp.
[12:29] Craig Andrews: They started giving us new language, and they standardized language, and we made sure everybody knew exactly what they meant.
[12:36] Richard Walsh: You must fall in love with acronyms, and I got a bunch.
[12:40] Craig Andrews: Well, my favorite part was when we get in trouble and we go on the quarterdeck, you know, the language was just, you'd snap the fingers, and we had to figure out what we were starting with. Was it bends and thrusts, or…
[12:54] Richard Walsh: Bends and thrusts begin. I do it with my kids still. I did it with my son yesterday. Begin. Okay.
[13:05] Richard Walsh: I'm legendary for that, but it's good. No, you're exactly right, though. And once that's established, like, now with my… my son's been a while, I have to be updated on the acronyms.
[13:15] Richard Walsh: Right? I mean, he's just speaking in acronyms.
[13:18] Richard Walsh: like, two-thirds of this conversation, I'm like, dude, you gotta slow down, man. Like, I've been out for, like, 40 years.
[13:24] Craig Andrews: Those things.
[13:26] Richard Walsh: to change. I don't know all the stuff, you know, so it's hilarious, though. I mean, they're just still acronyms, just different, right? But yeah, but I think it's really important, once that language is common.
[13:37] Richard Walsh: Because you can hold the standard.
[13:39] Richard Walsh: Yeah. Right? It's all about what is the standard. I think…
[13:43] Richard Walsh: Greg, today, when you look at standards in general, not just manufacturing, anything in life, everything is, oh, your truth is your truth.
[13:50] Richard Walsh: All this, right? It's all this nonsense, like, it's whatever you want to believe. It's like.
[13:55] Richard Walsh: No, that… you're… you're, you're in, like, fairyland.
[13:58] Richard Walsh: Like, you have to, you have to, there has to be a standard. Listen, if… if red means stop and green means go, you decide green means stop.
[14:07] Richard Walsh: What's gonna happen?
[14:09] Richard Walsh: Right. Okay, you know, or red means go. Who's gonna die? Right? Like, it's that. You just can't arbitrarily, like, that's the same thing as saying mine is that. If you don't have any standards, again, if it's not enforced, it doesn't exist.
[14:24] Richard Walsh: Right? Yeah. So, it just really comes down to that, I think, is the biggest overall picture.
[14:29] Richard Walsh: And if we all look at it, Craig, you kind of go, well, he's kind of got a point.
[14:33] Richard Walsh: You know?
[14:35] Craig Andrews: So, what does enforcement look like?
[14:41] Richard Walsh: So, think of this. We have what's called the Sharp and Impact Intelligence System, okay? So, think of a dashboard.
[14:48] Richard Walsh: Alright? So, our commanders are trained, right, how to execute command, how to do this properly, right, how to recognize drift, how to prevent drift, but they also have to upload that into the system every week.
[15:01] Richard Walsh: Okay, so… and it's like a 5-minute job. This is not like I gotta sit down and do a report. Okay, it's simple stuff that we track.
[15:09] Richard Walsh: Okay, so they get certified through us, right, they go through our 90-day challenge coin, they're certified commanders, but they can have their command, that certification, revoked.
[15:18] Richard Walsh: Right? So they're always earning it, you know where that comes from, right?
[15:22] Richard Walsh: Yes. But… but if… let's say 3 weeks goes by and they don't report any drift.
[15:28] Richard Walsh: Well, they're getting email.
[15:30] Richard Walsh: They get an automatic email that says, we're calling BS on this.
[15:34] Richard Walsh: Because there's always drift.
[15:35] Craig Andrews: break.
[15:36] Richard Walsh: There's never not drift, and if you're not detecting it, you're not paying attention, and we're watching. If we don't see a report, you're gonna be on… you can be on warning, there's a whole progression. Then you get what we call rocked.
[15:49] Richard Walsh: It's a revocation of certification, right? So you're gonna get rocked, and, like, you're gonna have to earn your certification back.
[15:56] Craig Andrews: And you're talking about there's always drift. Back when I was in the semiconductor industry, we had a… we had a production issue that was severely impacting Bosch, you know, a very big, you know, German company, and the Germans can be very exacting, and…
[16:15] Craig Andrews: And I found out years later, they hid this from me. I was inside the company, and they hid this from me.
[16:21] Craig Andrews: I guess because it was so incredibly embarrassing, before they would run in production, they would have what they call the golden tray of parts. They would put the golden tray, it was parts that they knew had 100% yield, and they knew how they performed, and they would use that to kind of calibrate the machine.
[16:39] Craig Andrews: And then they started shipping parts that had 100% yields.
[16:45] Craig Andrews: And nobody slowed down to say, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. And what happened was the test program took the values for the golden tray and started applying those to all the others, and it goes back to what you were saying, that that should have…
[17:02] Craig Andrews: That should have alerted somebody. Somebody should have said, wait a minute, we never have 100% yield on anything.
[17:09] Craig Andrews: And… let's figure out what's going on.
[17:12] Richard Walsh: Yep, that's exactly it, and it's… it's that training, if you will, or that attention, like, that's their job, right? A commander has a specific job. We literally, Craig, we teach them how to give a command in 14 words or less.
[17:26] Craig Andrews: Oh, that's so powerful.
[17:28] Richard Walsh: So, you gotta think about…
[17:30] Richard Walsh: We call it training, but when they go through our 90-day… it's a 90-day kind of sprint install,
[17:37] Richard Walsh: It's heavy role play.
[17:39] Richard Walsh: It's role play. It's like, nothing's gonna stick. Then you have homework all week.
[17:42] Richard Walsh: So they do one session a week for 2 hours, virtually. We do this virtually, right? Any company. And all week, they have homework to do, they have… go implement this, report back what happened, when you did it, what was the pushback, what was this, how'd it go, and do that for 12 weeks.
[17:58] Richard Walsh: These guys come out on fire.
[18:00] Richard Walsh: They know it, they live it, it becomes an identity.
[18:03] Richard Walsh: Training doesn't change people. You can do a seminar, you can do this, you can do that, you know, oh, that's great on Friday, and by Thursday it's back to…
[18:10] Richard Walsh: Same old habits. Because when pressure hits, see, here's the key. Everything's fine when everything's good and easy.
[18:17] Richard Walsh: Turn the pressure on.
[18:18] Richard Walsh: Increase the load.
[18:20] Richard Walsh: Give new deadline, do that, and then see what happens. See how… how all of Suns and Amazon's got a workaround, they got this, because they're trying to keep the light green.
[18:27] Richard Walsh: Right? At all costs. But all of a sudden, they're not catching a deviation or a defective part on the first check.
[18:34] Richard Walsh: It goes through, and now they check. And if it gets out the door, that part, if it goes to a customer, it's 100 times the cost if you caught it on the first check.
[18:45] Richard Walsh: A hundred times.
[18:47] Richard Walsh: Okay, so, like, every time it misses and not corrected, you're adding money. Okay, so it's profit leakage. All the stuff on the floor, the biggest place on… in the factory is floor profit leakage.
[18:59] Richard Walsh: It leaks everywhere.
[19:00] Richard Walsh: And Command tightens all that up, and it recovers millions and millions of dollars.
[19:05] Richard Walsh: Every year.
[19:07] Craig Andrews: You know, I heard a story…
[19:09] Craig Andrews: a little bit adjacent to this, but back in the days of the iPod.
[19:14] Craig Andrews: there was an engineer on the iPod team.
[19:17] Craig Andrews: that figured out they weren't charging the batteries before they were shipping the iPods.
[19:22] Craig Andrews: And of course, they were doing manufacturing in China.
[19:26] Craig Andrews: this guy called the factory in China, shut down the production line, and said, don't ship any more of these until you charge
[19:36] Craig Andrews: Until you charge the batteries, because part of the Apple experience, it's when your iPod shows up, you have to plug it in and wait 2 hours to use it. It shows up, it's ready to use.
[19:46] Craig Andrews: But the thing that amazed me was that an engineer Had the authority
[19:53] Craig Andrews: To call the… call the production line and shut down the production line.
[19:57] Richard Walsh: This… and that's called escalation.
[19:59] Richard Walsh: Right? So, it's a huge thing in the line.
[20:03] Richard Walsh: Okay, if you've got a lane going… authority is key.
[20:07] Richard Walsh: How much?
[20:08] Richard Walsh: What do you have? Who has that authority? A lead doesn't have any authority.
[20:11] Richard Walsh: A commander sort of does, okay? Now, they know what they're able to do and fix and work.
[20:17] Richard Walsh: But then, what gets excavated? This is an engineer's job.
[20:21] Richard Walsh: not… not my line supervisor's job, right? So he has to… or she has to escalate that up. And that… and that's where it gets messed up, because you get a great supervisor, and he can just fix it.
[20:32] Richard Walsh: But you can't let them do that.
[20:34] Richard Walsh: Because it doesn't mean he's fixing it right, he's just fixing it so it continues to get the production out. So you're just kicking the can down the road to the big breakdown.
[20:43] Richard Walsh: You know, so that's a big thing we teach, but that has to be established, like any company.
[20:47] Richard Walsh: Whether it's manufacturing or you're an accounting firm.
[20:51] Richard Walsh: Right? You have to assign authority.
[20:54] Richard Walsh: You know, it's just a… and all we're doing here, Craig, and you probably know this as soon as I say it, I'm not creating something new, I'm going back.
[21:05] Richard Walsh: I'm going back to when standards were standards.
[21:08] Richard Walsh: And they were held. When stuff, you know, you always talk about, hey, they don't make things like they used to.
[21:12] Richard Walsh: Well, that's because they let go with the standards.
[21:16] Richard Walsh: They had standards, and it mattered, so we're just… I'm not… this isn't, like, new.
[21:20] Richard Walsh: I'm… I'm going back.
[21:22] Richard Walsh: And I'm going, this is what we're… let's bring that back, let's bring that element back. And obviously, I've created vocabulary and everything else applied for today, but it's that. It's holding the standard. That's what matters.
[21:35] Craig Andrews: Now, there's some people listening that… are thinking.
[21:41] Craig Andrews: I didn't join the military for a purpose. There's a reason I never joined the Marines.
[21:46] Richard Walsh: Right.
[21:46] Craig Andrews: I don't want to go in to this company and have it run by a bunch of jar heads.
[21:50] Richard Walsh: Right.
[21:51] Craig Andrews: That they're doing, you know, enforcing these standards.
[21:55] Craig Andrews: Have you run into any resistance like that?
[21:57] Richard Walsh: So…
[21:58] Richard Walsh: I'll give you a quick how we deal with this, okay? It's called… ready for my acronym? It's just a CRI.
[22:04] Richard Walsh: Okay? It's called the CRI, it's the Command Resistance Index.
[22:08] Richard Walsh: Yeah. Alright? So, like, say I'm gonna come, and the company says, hey, let's install this command infrastructure, this would be amazing, it's gonna save us, you know, tens of millions of dollars.
[22:16] Richard Walsh: You know, it's gonna recover that. Okay, good.
[22:19] Richard Walsh: Well, we go in, and we have to… I'm gonna use my military, and we're gonna have to soften the battlefield, okay? You're always gonna get pushback. It's gonna be from HR, it's gonna be from that one cranky, crotchety line guy who's been there for 15 years, thinks he knows everything, okay? He'll do it in the training, he'll try to push back, yeah.
[22:36] Richard Walsh: We go in and we work that for, like, 30 days. We're working everyone, we get complete buy-in before we even begin to install. That's the first thing. And we let them know this is not the military.
[22:47] Richard Walsh: That's not what this is, okay? But command is the appropriate… Is the appropriate term.
[22:53] Richard Walsh: Supervisor means you're kind of like managing people. Command is a very different… has a very different connotation.
[23:00] Richard Walsh: Right? I'm the commander, I maintain the standard. I enforce the standard.
[23:06] Richard Walsh: Okay, yeah, I have people around me too, but this… we have a whole method of communication now.
[23:10] Richard Walsh: And everyone understands what it is. So, that command resistance index, we actually have a score sheet.
[23:16] Richard Walsh: So as we interview, we just come in and interview and talk to people, and then they get a score.
[23:20] Richard Walsh: You know, and then depending on where they score.
[23:24] Richard Walsh: It's gonna be dependent on how we fix it, and when we come in, and when infrastructure is ready to be installed.
[23:29] Richard Walsh: That's a key, that was a big hole that was missing, because just like what you said, Craig, people are gonna go, you know, some HR is gonna freak out, you're gonna be like, you're militaristic, and you're gonna do this, and what about that? And you can't say command, you can't, you know… I'm like, just, okay, just calm down.
[23:45] Richard Walsh: We just come in and, you know, and I don't do that, okay?
[23:49] Richard Walsh: I'm not the guy who comes in and does that. I have a team for that, because
[23:53] Richard Walsh: That's not my wheelhouse.
[23:57] Richard Walsh: I'm like, you just do it like it. I go, that's… and it's gonna be amazing, but yeah, that doesn't work.
[24:03] Craig Andrews: Well, here's another story,
[24:06] Craig Andrews: you know, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, I was, I was visiting my brother, and we went over to somebody's house to go shooting.
[24:14] Craig Andrews: And…
[24:15] Craig Andrews: guy pulls out a, you know, like, M4, and and he's showing it off. I'm like, cool, and I picked it up, and I hit, you know, I popped one of the pins and broke it down shotgun style, and he looked at me, he's like, you know how to break that down?
[24:32] Craig Andrews: I'm like, yeah, I was a little surprised he didn't. He's like, can you show me?
[24:37] Craig Andrews: I hadn't touched that class weapon in 20 years at that point. I don't know, it'd been a long time. Been a long time. Maybe 15.
[24:49] Craig Andrews: And so I just start pulling it apart, and I get to the bolt carrier group.
[24:54] Craig Andrews: And I just kind of got stuck, and… but instinctively, I just decided to flick my wrist, so it flung the bolt out, and I was able to remove the cotter pin and break it down.
[25:03] Craig Andrews: The reason I'm bringing that up is I had stripped my M16 so many times, That just became instinct.
[25:13] Craig Andrews: And that… that was one of the things I felt like the Marines gave, was there was just so much repetition that it became instinct.
[25:21] Craig Andrews: How do you work repetition into the command structure so it becomes instinct for everybody else?
[25:28] Richard Walsh: Yeah, so, again, first is the common language.
[25:31] Richard Walsh: Okay, and then it's how to deliver commands.
[25:34] Richard Walsh: Okay, so here's what we don't want.
[25:36] Richard Walsh: If I'm gonna tell you, I use a rulesome thing, and I tell you, Craig, okay, Craig, fire up line 1 at 0600.
[25:44] Richard Walsh: And you go, well, what about… I go, and I'll just look at you, and I won't say anything. You'll say, what about so-and-so, and this, and…
[25:50] Richard Walsh: Start the lineup at all 600.
[25:53] Richard Walsh: And you'll look at me, and I'm like, I'm not here to negotiate. I'm not here to debate. All this on command is a big thing. Everyone wants to… well, why? They want the why. We don't… we don't do the why.
[26:04] Richard Walsh: Okay, I get it, and like, one guy had asked me online, he's like, well, what happens if it doesn't start, or whatever? I go.
[26:09] Richard Walsh: Then they follow the process for when the line doesn't start.
[26:14] Richard Walsh: There's actually a process for everything. Okay, when this breaks, there's a process. You go to this stage and this stage. We've trained them in that, right? So they know it's not… it's not some mystery deal out here. Like, we… we deal under pressure.
[26:29] Richard Walsh: We've designed it for pressure, so that when it's easy, it's easy.
[26:33] Richard Walsh: Right? But we also can maintain the standard when pressure hits.
[26:37] Richard Walsh: So that's really what happens, that we want… we don't want to negotiate… we don't want to negotiate commands, we don't want to debate them.
[26:43] Richard Walsh: Okay, you're gonna execute. I get it, stuff's gonna go wrong.
[26:47] Richard Walsh: No battle plan ever survives the first shot.
[26:50] Richard Walsh: Okay? But the reality is, like, if we can't communicate like that, if I can't tell you to do something, and you just, okay, and you go do it.
[26:59] Richard Walsh: Things run well when you do that.
[27:01] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[27:01] Richard Walsh: You know? Think of this, like, from the commander's standpoint, take a sergeant in the Marine Corps, he's in North Carolina.
[27:06] Richard Walsh: Okay? They ship him off, he's restationed at Pendleton in California.
[27:10] Richard Walsh: Still a sergeant, still speaks the sergeant language, still gonna execute his job without any, like, major training or anything, right? Because he understands his identity, his role, his rank, everything else. Same principle. Okay, again, I'm not, like, we're not doing that kind of thing, but you really look at it, like.
[27:29] Richard Walsh: This is… we have a process, we have a way that… we have a way that command works, and then we just… we install that again, so it becomes commonplace.
[27:38] Richard Walsh: It's how it's run.
[27:40] Craig Andrews: Well, and here's an example, going back to the Marines. You… you went to San Diego, right?
[27:46] Craig Andrews: I went to Paris Island.
[27:48] Richard Walsh: Sorry for you, buddy.
[27:51] Craig Andrews: Same for you.
[27:52] Richard Walsh: I just… yeah, we were just getting suntans and… You know, wallowing around.
[27:57] Craig Andrews: I mean, those bases couldn't be more different. Right. San Diego, right next to the airport, in the middle of the city. Yep.
[28:05] Craig Andrews: Paris Island, you don't see any civilization. At the rifle range, we could see some bridge that we knew was going towards Savannah. That was the closest thing to being in touch with the outside world that we had. Completely different bases.
[28:20] Craig Andrews: But when you went out in the field, you couldn't tell… you couldn't immediately tell if you were, with somebody that went through San Diego or Paris Island. The standards were enforced in these radically different environments.
[28:34] Craig Andrews: And they all generated the same type of marine.
[28:36] Richard Walsh: Yep, our ID cards both say U.S. Marine.
[28:39] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[28:40] Richard Walsh: Okay? I mean, and that's the thing. Like, we can give each other crap.
[28:43] Richard Walsh: Yeah. Because we're in. No one else can.
[28:46] Craig Andrews: Yeah, yeah.
[28:46] Richard Walsh: We can all… we all talk smack, okay, about where and when and all that cool stuff, right? But you're exactly right, but it's that, and listen…
[28:55] Richard Walsh: They've had over 250 years now, 251… 251 years now to perfect that system.
[29:01] Richard Walsh: Yeah. So you gotta give it some merit.
[29:04] Richard Walsh: You know, it's not something you just, oh, yeah, whatever, it's, oh yeah, they got lucky. No, it's…
[29:09] Richard Walsh: It's real.
[29:11] Richard Walsh: You know, and again, and it all doesn't apply in the civilian world.
[29:15] Richard Walsh: You know, because you have a concentrated group, 200,000 Active Marines.
[29:21] Richard Walsh: Speaking the same language, operating the same mission, the whole thing. That's a… that's impressive.
[29:26] Richard Walsh: Yeah. But at factory, you've got 3 shifts.
[29:29] Richard Walsh: They basically only see each other at a handoff.
[29:32] Richard Walsh: Right? So how do you do that? That's where the problem is, Craig. It's shift to shift.
[29:36] Richard Walsh: Okay, now we got duty, right? Your fire watch, whatever it is, and you hand it off, there's no… there's no confusion, right?
[29:43] Craig Andrews: Right.
[29:43] Richard Walsh: Oh, well, you're gonna walk around here, you're gonna do this, you're gonna check on this each time, you're gonna say… like, it's… it's standardized.
[29:50] Richard Walsh: For those…
[29:50] Craig Andrews: listening that don't know what Firewatch is, you're walking around a building that could never burn in its life. It's all concrete.
[29:59] Richard Walsh: Busy work.
[30:01] Richard Walsh: It's just to annoy you. So you get so frustrated, you just want to go and kill somebody.
[30:06] Craig Andrews: So we just…
[30:07] Richard Walsh: Well, Marine Corps, if you don't understand in garrison, is to make you so annoyed, irritated, frustrated, and angry that when they pull the trigger, we're like, that's why we do what we do. Yeah. Okay, because it's a great release.
[30:21] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[30:23] Craig Andrews: Well, Richard, this is…
[30:26] Craig Andrews: This is exciting, and I was, you know, when we talked a couple weeks ago, I was really wanting to bring you on because
[30:32] Craig Andrews: This is a big jump from the last time we talked, and…
[30:37] Craig Andrews: I love this. And something you told me earlier, you said, systems without enforced standards
[30:44] Craig Andrews: will not save your business. And that helps answer the question, you know, I've seen people install these operating systems, and then I look at the business, I'm like, this place is a dream wreck.
[30:55] Craig Andrews: And it was the, you know, one of the big lines is, you know, right seats on the bus and on the right bus.
[31:02] Craig Andrews: And I've seen people who are using one of these operating systems, and I'm like, definitely the wrong seat on the bus, probably the wrong bus.
[31:09] Craig Andrews: Where is… the thing, and you just answered it. There was no enforced standard.
[31:15] Richard Walsh: And a lot of these people who bring in these owners, outcome owners, right, of the business, usually in those
[31:21] Richard Walsh: A lot of these are that, you know, 0 to 30 million.
[31:26] Craig Andrews: Yeah.
[31:26] Richard Walsh: 0 to 50 million revenue companies, you know, they're doing that. Now, these systems are an upgrade from what they had, because they had nothing before.
[31:33] Richard Walsh: Right. They had fly by the seat of their pants, so this, to them, is this huge upgrade, but what they refused to…
[31:40] Richard Walsh: to… to, to approach is…
[31:44] Richard Walsh: The floor element, the human element.
[31:47] Richard Walsh: How to do that? So, real quick, think about my Sharpen Impact intelligence system, okay? And then the commanders, okay? The commanders are 15%,
[31:57] Richard Walsh: My intelligence system is 85% of this, okay? But without the commanders, my 85% doesn't work.
[32:05] Richard Walsh: without the intelligence system, my 15% doesn't work. It's very odd from a software standpoint, because most will build with an assumption people know what they're doing.
[32:14] Richard Walsh: Right. Right? We have to install this command.
[32:17] Richard Walsh: You can't take my intelligence system and just go use it.
[32:21] Richard Walsh: without command installed, right? So it's an unusual combination. It's symbiotic.
[32:26] Richard Walsh: Like, they need each other to exist. So here's a last thing I'll give you. I created what's called the CYC. It's the Command Your Coefficient.
[32:35] Richard Walsh: So remember I said they're uploading all this data every week, and all this, every commander, all this stuff? They've got their own number. Once they graduate the 90-day, they have a challenge coin with an engraved number. It's their ID number for the rest of their career.
[32:49] Richard Walsh: We track it for the rest of the time they're in. Every new challenge coin they get, every 3, 5 years, 10 years, it's got that number engraved on it.
[32:56] Richard Walsh: Okay? So, that goes in, we track all that. Now, as a company, let's say you've got 5 sites, you've got 50 commanders that are trained and been working, and 10 years goes by now.
[33:08] Richard Walsh: You have 500 years of installed command.
[33:11] Richard Walsh: Okay, now, what are we talking about here? I'll give you a simple comparison.
[33:16] Richard Walsh: the FICO score.
[33:18] Richard Walsh: for command leadership Okay.
[33:21] Richard Walsh: I own it.
[33:23] Richard Walsh: It's gotta be… it's mine, right? Like, we record all that debt, and that goes to the valuation of the company.
[33:29] Richard Walsh: That's… and I'm just… I'll make the prediction here on your show.
[33:33] Richard Walsh: Okay, in 5 to 7 years, that's a Wall Street number.
[33:36] Craig Andrews: Wow.
[33:37] Craig Andrews: I look forward to it.
[33:39] Craig Andrews: I look forward to it. Well, Rich, this is… this is, always a joy talking with you. So… your company is Sharpened Impact, and your book is The Invisible Layer. Can… I'm assuming it's on Amazon?
[33:54] Richard Walsh: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
[33:56] Craig Andrews: Great. How can people get in touch with you?
[34:00] Richard Walsh: Richard at sharpenedImpact.com.
[34:03] Richard Walsh: That's also the website, sharpenedImpact.com, great little… Good information.
[34:09] Richard Walsh: Not selling anything on my website.
[34:12] Richard Walsh: You can check it out, you can see the book on there and all that stuff, too.
[34:16] Craig Andrews: Well, thanks for coming back on Leaders and Legacies.
[34:19] Richard Walsh: It's been awesome, Craig. Thanks for having me again.
