Cindy Darnell  00:00

I think it’s important to kind of think about this for a second, because we are all a combination of all the styles, and we may flex a little bit into one or the other, depending on the environment that we’re in, and something that we don’t know is what’s going on behind the scenes for someone, any of these major, you know, personal life events could also impact how we’re showing up at work, right? I’m being a little more reserved, and I’ve got things going on, so we don’t always know those things. So that’s why we kind of always say it’s a little bit of you know, you can pick up on behaviors, but you may have to have some conversation with that person to really, truly understand where they’re at and where they’re coming

Patrick Adams  00:54

from. Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. My name is Patrick Adams, and today I’m joined by Cindy Darnell, who is also going to be a speaker at this year’s lean Solution Summit. Hello Cindy. Hi Patrick. Well, Cindy, why don’t you take a minute, and as we again, we have people logging on from different places, why don’t you just tell everyone just a little bit about your background, and you know, just kind of where you’re you know what your history looks like, and maybe you know from a continuous improvements perspective, what what’s been your experience up to today?

Cindy Darnell  01:32

Yeah, sure. So I am the Director of Operational Excellence at a company called element, and element is in the tick industry, which is testing, inspection and certification. And I’ve been with element 26 years, and didn’t start in operational excellence by any means. Most of my career was managing the customer service, kind of I always say the front end and the back end of our process, so quoting customer service and then on the back end with reporting and invoicing to the customers. And probably did that about 15 years or so before I moved into an operations role, and so I was a department manager for a period of time, and that’s really when my interest in Lean kind of took off. We were launching our, what we were calling our operational excellence roadmap at the time, and I was the one that raised my hand and volunteered and said, I’ll be the site 5s champion. And I knew nothing about, you know, lean or anything like that. I just took an interest. I, you know, I stuck my hand up there and said, I want to do it. And so learned from some really great lean practitioners we had working with us at that time. And, yeah, moved into operational excellence officially in 2018 and got my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt in 2019 and And so today, my role is really traveling around to different element laboratories in the Americas region and helping them with process improvement, running Kaizen events, you know, value stream, mapping all of the things right, teaching them about Lean tools. And I do a lot of training. I do lunch and learns, and we have, you know, a lot of training materials up on our internal learning platform that I produce and create so all kinds of things. But I think I’ll also around the topic we’re going to talk about today with disc is last year I went through certification to become a disc consultant, and that’s really the time I started kind of seeing how it lined up with some of the things that I do and operational excellence.

Patrick Adams  03:56

Love it. Love it. One of the things that you said was you were when you were working as the 5s champion. You worked under some really good, lean practitioners. What would you say? Like, how did that impact you having someone as a coach that you know was, was kind of helping to guide you along the way. Did that? What difference did that make in your in your learning journey to just have a good coach.

Cindy Darnell  04:21

Oh, yeah. So it’s so important, and it really, I was thinking about this recently. At the time, I didn’t really see it as coaching. I didn’t even know that’s what was happening, right? It was just someone that was working with us to implement Lean tools, and we had kind of, you know, bi weekly touch points, and, you know, we would go through my standard work, my leader, standard work, and things like that, and I it didn’t dawn on me until, you know, a couple years later, it’s like I was being coached. I didn’t even notice that. I didn’t realize

Patrick Adams  04:53

that that’s what makes a good coach, right, right? But tell us just what, what is. Disc Exactly. We’ll start with that, and then I’ll have some more.

Cindy Darnell  05:05

Yeah, so disc is a behavioral assessment tool, and it helps individuals kind of better understand their behavior styles, their communication styles, their preferences, you know, their strengths, their fears, their motivations, all of those things, and it has a long history. So that’s why, you know, maybe some people will be familiar with it, because it was invented in the 1920s by William martson, and kind of this four quadrant model. That’s the acronym disc is, you know, D is dominant, I is influencing, S is steady, and C is compliant. And that’s the model that was really established back in the 20s. And, you know, I love all assessments like that, whether it’s Myers, Briggs, disc now they’re, you know, the last few years has been Clifton, strengths, strength, finders, all of those things. I love any assessment. I love being able to kind of reflect and learn about myself so that I can grow and develop. And I think it’s so interesting to learn about others too. And how you know, how do people tick?

Patrick Adams  06:15

Yeah? So, yeah, that, I guess that is my next question is, why? Why would something like this be important, like, whether someone’s using disc or Strength Finders or whatever it is, you know, why are these personality assessments important? And what impact can they have on a leader’s journey, you know, in helping to get the results that they’re looking for. Like, what high level what would you say?

Cindy Darnell  06:38

Yeah, so I think it’s important to make sure that we are self aware. And if our self perception is distorted, then you know, our attempt to collaborate with others or communicate is going to be misguided, and gosh, you know, we change in different periods of our lives, and so it’s important to kind of assess, you know, as certain milestones, or, you know, periodically, to see, you know, have we worked on, you know, maybe our weaknesses, and making sure those aren’t becoming blind spots. Are we tapping into our true strengths? You know that for me has been huge in my career learning that, you know, yes, I do have weaknesses, but I don’t necessarily need to turn those weaknesses into strengths. I have strengths that I can lean into, that I bring to the table, and so does everyone else. And just it helps with so many things, but just establishing relationships and communicating, and, you know, not just in the work world, right? So at home, at church, at school, building relationships is really the foundation for everyone’s success, right?

Patrick Adams  07:50

Yeah, and you know that that makes a ton of sense. I wonder, like, practically, can you break this down for us and maybe even give us an example of where you’ve seen this be effective in either, like a coaching relationship or, you know, a leader to direct report relationship, like, specifically how, how have you seen disc being used, where someone understands utilizes disc to understand personality And, you know, behaviors, and then they use that to improve, you know, how they’re coaching or having a you know, conversations, how they’re driving change with with their team members. How do they use it exactly?

Cindy Darnell  08:34

Yeah, so I think it’s, it’s key to hone in on the communication preferences for each style, and also the fears that each style has, because when those fears are triggered, they’re going to lean more into their their natural personality. You know, under stressful situations, for example, they’re going to lean harder into kind of their natural tendencies. And so, I mean, I can only speak from, you know, I guess my experiences, right? I had a peer that was, you know, someone that was very challenging for me to work with. And turns out, you know, looking back, they were very much a D, a dominant style person, and it wasn’t until I really learned about disc and the different styles of behaviors that I was able to kind of step back and adjust my approach. Because, you know, to me, I’m an I didn’t say that yet, but I’m a high I person, and, you know, I like to socialize. I like, you know, to be happy. I’m very positive, very you know, everything is, you know, the glass is half full. Type of person very optimistic. And these styles are a lot more direct to the point focused on results. And so we would kind of butt heads a lot, because the. That person would just be very, you know, direct to the point bold, kind of cut me off in meetings sometimes, or speak over me. And I just always left meetings with that person just thinking, what am I doing? You know, how can I turn this around? And I don’t know if that person felt that way about me, but for me, I just kept thinking that I don’t, I never leave these meetings feeling good or feeling that we’re on the same page. And I just felt, how can, you know, how can I kind of turn that around? And so now that I have learned a lot about disc and the different styles, it’s like, Okay, I just need to get to the point with that person, they are fast paced worker. They want, you know what? What’s in it? For me, what’s the outcome? Focused on results, get to the point and move on. And so I’ve been able to change my approach with that person. And I don’t know if they feel better about the outcome, but I certainly do. I don’t, you know, stress or fret about it anymore about how the meeting went, because I, I know I’ve delivered, you know, more what they’re looking for from that conversation. And so I think that’s that’s an example of how, you know, you can just kind of learn, maybe how to better approach. So the communication, the conversation goes well, and you can walk away feeling like, Okay, we were on the same page, you know,

Patrick Adams  11:25

yeah, yeah, I love that. What a great example. Because I think all of us probably know people that are high D’s, and, you know, we can identify that person pretty, pretty easily if we think about, you know, your story that you just gave and I love how you change your approach. Instead of trying to, you know, maybe walk through all the details or draw things out a little bit longer you you shorten things up, you went straight to the point. And the results of that were a much better outcome for that communication. Now, obviously that high D person should also, if they if they know that you’re an I, they should also be changing their communication style and their approach toward you to to help make that relationship and that communication better as well. And if the two of you know each other’s whether you’re a D or an i, and you know, how to kind of adjust your style to meet that. What a better communication pattern that you would have between each other, right?

Cindy Darnell  12:28

Yeah. And, you know, I want to make sure it’s clear, you know, there’s no good or bad style. You know, we are, and actually, everyone is a blend of all four styles. It’s just maybe we’re stronger in one or two of them than others. And we need all types to make the world go round, right? We need those D folks. You know, I always use this example, you know, when it’s kind of a group setting and everyone’s like, well, you know, let’s go to lunch. What? Where are we going for lunch? What do we want? Oh, do I don’t know, maybe this, the D’s are going to be like, Okay, let’s go. We’re going to go get pizza, right? Like, they’re very decisive. And we need that. Otherwise, we would spend half of our lunch time, you know, trying to figure out what we’re going to have for lunch. But we need the we need them all. We need all types.

Patrick Adams  13:17

So true that I’m glad that you said that, because that is, that is so true. Because sometimes we can put, you know, someone that’s a different style than we are. We can maybe put them in a different light. And to your point, there’s a there’s a reason why everyone has the different personality styles that they have. And in in a team environment, we want diversified thinking. We want diversified approaches, because that will get get us to a better outcome, much quicker, versus, you know, can you imagine having, you know, five,

Patrick Adams  13:51

five, let’s just say, like engineers in a room, you know, all trying to solve a problem, and probably butting heads a little bit, because they all have the exact same approach, the exact same thinking process. You know, you bring someone in from the outside who is maybe has this fresh set of eyes, and they don’t think the same way that an engineer thinks. They might spark some different ideas, or some different, you know, different conversations around that same topic that the engineers didn’t even think of. Cindy, have you ever misunderstood someone’s behavior, style, like, like, you know, maybe thought they were a D, and realistically they came out to be an i or something like that. I mean, what have you ever had that happen? And if so, like, what exactly happened?

Cindy Darnell  14:37

Yeah, of course. I think it’s important to kind of think about this for a second, because we are all a combination of all the styles, and we may flex a little bit into one or the other, depending on the environment that we’re in, and something that we don’t know is what’s going on behind the scenes for someone. So anytime someone. Going through, you know, a major life event. You know, a divorce, relocating their home, you know, birth of a child, any of these major, you know, personal life events could also impact how we’re showing up at work, right? But we don’t always know that those are things behind the scenes that that we don’t know, and so those may impact, you know, you know, if I’m an I, but I’ve got something going on in our home, I may show up at work more like an S or a C, because I’m being a little more reserved, and I’ve got things going on. And so we don’t always know those things. So that’s why we kind of always say it’s, it’s a little bit of, you know, you can pick up on behaviors, but we may have to have some conversation with that person to really, truly understand where they’re at and where they’re coming from. And so it’s not, you know, always, that’s why we say it’s not just put someone in a box and close the lid and that’s, you know, that’s their label, so to speak. Because certainly, things can impact how we’re showing up at work and how we display, you know, our behaviors for sure?

Patrick Adams  16:06

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think, yeah, I think it’s important that we, we pay attention to that. And if we, if we realize that we’ve maybe misunderstood someone’s behavior style, then just make the adjustment. It’s not, not a big deal. Just obviously, if you want certain outcomes from that relationship or that communication, you know, then, then you want to present or enter that that conversation in the best way possible. So, no big deal. Just shift, shift your, your, your approach and, and, you know, look for the next conversation to be a little bit more intentional in that way. So I think that’s a great call out. What about like, Have you ever seen anybody that changed their approach specifically, or maybe even called out, like, oh, I can, I can see that you’re an eye or like, you know, like, and they, they, maybe they didn’t call it out that way. I don’t know if that would be positive, good or not, but. But have you ever seen that where someone actually, like, changed the way they were approaching a situation, or maybe even like, Oh, I know. So and so is going to be in this meeting. So I’m going to, I’m going to set this up a little different, or I’m going to, I’m going to come at this from a different angle. Have you ever seen anything like that.

Cindy Darnell  17:21

Yeah, so I’ll talk a little bit about my own experience. So, you know, I, I talked earlier about, I work at element, and it’s in the testing industry, and so I, I work with a lot of engineers, mechanical engineers, you know, PhD level chemists, failure analysts. You know, very highly technical, highly skilled people, and I’m an I and so I am polar opposite of that. And I realized, if I’m going into a Kaizen event or, you know, any type of training situation or meeting, sometimes I don’t go into enough detail, because, you know, folks that are C’s in particular, like that detail and they want the information and the facts. And as an aisle, kind of tend to maybe glaze over those things. But I really have to pause and think, Okay, where are they coming from? What questions might they ask, or what might they want to know that wouldn’t really be important to me. It would be boring to me. I would just, you know, I don’t need to know all of those things, but for those individuals, they really need that. And so I really have to think about my audience and who I’m meeting with, who I’m talking with, and really maybe pause and slow down and bring more information than I would maybe typically think to prepare, just to help that conversation or help, you know, move us forward. And that’s, you know, just truly my own experience with, you know, all the individuals I work

Patrick Adams  18:54

with, sure, sure. Have you ever seen it? The opposite, where someone is, you know, makes the decision to bring less data, like, obviously we want to make data driven decisions. But sometimes I’ve, you know, been I’ve worked with people that, like, almost present too much data, and it’s like, we get lost in or at least, me personally, maybe there’s other other people in the room that are like, Oh, this is amazing. But for me personally, I’m like, you know, we had enough at this amount, what about Yeah,

Cindy Darnell  19:23

yeah, sure. There’s definitely been some times where they say that, like paralysis, analysis or analysis paralysis. I always, I always mix that up. You got it. But yeah, yeah, too, too much data. And when we were So, an example of this might be someone on our team, we were preparing some lunch and learn content. And, you know, a lunch and learn, in my opinion, is kind of just, you know, you’re kind of giving an introduction to a topic you only have, you know, 3040, minutes, maybe an hour. And so you’re not going into all the details of a topic. And my colleague, we met to go over our slides that we had prepared, and he just had this huge deck and all of these reference material, almost like it was writing a, you know, dissertation on this topic. I’m going, Whoa. We need to pare this down. He’s like, you’re right, you know, I he, he’s like, he said to me, I find this interesting, because I like learning in this way, and I want to know all of this, but you’re right, our audience will be lost by all of this. And so he really had to adjust what he was going to prepare and present as a presenter, and really keep it very high level, which is sometimes hard to reign it, reign it back, right? Especially if you’re passionate about a topic. Oh, yeah. So yeah, that that definitely has come through.

Patrick Adams  20:51

Yeah. I find that for myself a lot when people ask me, like, what do I do for a living? Or, you know, even my wife has a hard time explaining to people, you know, because we do, and I think probably most like engineers, or like as a process engineer. I mean, it’s hard, like using, like, these high level words or that, and I don’t think they’re high level, but other people do. And, you know, sometimes you got to change that up a little bit. And, you know, like talk, talk in a different manner. Or, you know, I hate to use the word dumb it down, because we’re not, you’re not necessarily dumbing it down, but just using the right words that are going to resonate with that person, like you said, knowing your audience is is important, right?

Cindy Darnell  21:33

Yeah. And even, you know, in the Lean world, all the acronyms we use are not, you know, meaningful sometimes to folks outside of of the lean world. And so, yeah, trying to explain what we do without using some of the acronyms or the common industry. You know, phrases can be challenging sometimes.

Patrick Adams  21:54

Yeah, it makes me think of a story. I was working with a team, and they specifically told me that they didn’t want any lean words or terms or anything at all, because they had had some bad experiences in the past with some different lean consultants that you know. Anyways. So the the word was that that we were trying to use was tact. We were trying to teach tack time. And so we just, we just changed it up and used customer demand rate. And, you know, again, just knowing your audience and using words that are going to resonate with them is, you know, as a practitioner, as someone that’s facilitating activities. I mean, that’s an important piece, and that’s where this, these personality assessments, can really give you an edge in the work that you’re doing, because you want to meet your audience where they are and when, when, if you don’t do that, you could immediately be, you know, closing closing doors and shutting people down there, putting walls up without you even knowing it. And so I think this is a really valuable concept and a really great tool to use, especially for those of us that are working with teams and in trying to teach or guide teams towards improvement.

Cindy Darnell  23:09

Yeah, and I don’t know if I said this earlier, but I’m certified in the Maxwell method of disc. If you you know Google disc, there are probably, you know, hundreds of different versions of disc out there. Companies put their own kind of spin on it, but the Maxwell method of disc that I’m trained in is based around John Maxwell and his leadership principles. And one of the pieces of the report that I find very valuable when I’m reviewing it with someone is called the power disc page, and it’s seven leadership characteristics and the strengths and leadership. And it’s really helpful to help you know someone see where their strengths are in leadership, maybe where they have areas that they could grow in, but also those strengths you know, that they should be leaning into, that they bring to the table. And just that’s really enlightening to me, that really helped me when I first went and took my DISC assessment, and, you know, then it’s we, you know, it can be deflating if you only focus on your weaknesses or your weak areas, you know. And so it can be really powerful and uplifting to kind of say, no, look at all of these strengths that you have, that you bring to the table. So I really like the Maxwell method because of that.

Patrick Adams  24:31

Love it. Love it. Well, like I said, Cindy, you’re just scratching the surface here on the breakout that you’re going to be presenting at the Lean Solution Summit coming up September 15 through the 17th. We’ll be in Grand Rapids at Meyer Frederick Gardens, which is a it’s actually a just a beautiful venue, and it’s a place where people come from all over the United States, even all over the world, to come and see the beautiful gardens at Meijer Gardens, here in West Michigan. And so we’re going to be at that venue, and it’s going to be September 15 through the 17th. As I said, you’re going to be here with us, and you’ll be presenting on this topic and diving a little bit deeper into those leadership behaviors that are necessary to get the right outcomes that you’re looking for as a leader. So tell us, maybe just give us a little teaser, a little bit more about what you might be sharing at this year’s lean Solution Summit.

Cindy Darnell  25:28

Yeah, so I’m, I’m planning to talk a little bit about, you know, the history of disc and we’ll do a fun exercise and help you know everyone kind of understand the four styles and their fears, how to help mitigate those fears and how to really tap into the strengths. I really want to talk about that a lot at the focusing on strengths.

Patrick Adams  25:53

Yeah, and the theme for the summit this year is better together people plus innovation. So obviously this is big on the people side of things, but also some of the activities and discussions will kind of show how innovation and people work together. And that’ll just kind of continue to reinforce that, that theme that we’re shooting for better together people, plus innovation again, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, September 15 through the 17th, and there is a special code that Cindy has. It’s Cindy 100 and Cindy 100 we’ll drop that in the comments as well. But Cindy 100 if you use that code, go to www dot lean Solution Summit com, and you can get on the registration page, but that will give you a special discount using using Cindy’s code there to get some special price. And the price is as cheap as it’s going to get right now. So don’t wait until you get closer. Register now, because the price is just going to keep going up as we get closer. Obviously, Cindy, we’re excited to have you here in West Michigan. You’ll be back home in the Midwest. So by September, let’s see it’ll be it’ll be fall, and it’ll start it’ll be getting a little chilly, lot, a lot cooler than it is in North Carolina. You’re gonna have to bring your winter coat.

Cindy Darnell  27:13

I might, I might need

Patrick Adams  27:15

some spring jacket. It won’t be that cold. We won’t have snow yet. It’ll probably be really beautiful. Actually, in the fall in Michigan is the best time all the trees start to change. We actually have these fall color tours where you can drive up the up Lake Michigan and see the beautiful trees and all the different colors that are changing. So it’s a it’s a great time to visit West Michigan, especially at Meijer Gardens, where kind of another little tidbit that I’ll throw in. We have in Grand Rapids, they have the the art fair that will be happening the week after, or the weekend, I think it starts the weekend after. So at Meijer Gardens, they’re going to have a ton of amazing art that’s already on, showcased for the upcoming Art Fair. So again, lots of great reasons to visit. It’s going to be pretty amazing.

Cindy Darnell  28:04

Yeah, I’m looking forward to, I haven’t been to the gardens yet, so I’m really looking

Patrick Adams  28:08

forward to it perfect. Well, it looks like we have a few other people joining us. I see Milton from the UK. I see, let’s see badridan from France, too. So Paul from Chicago, well, welcome everybody, and thank you for joining us. We’re actually going to wrap up at this time. And so if you’re just joining us, go back and watch the replay, because we talked about some pretty amazing things when it comes to leadership behaviors. And again, just scratching the surface, Cindy’s going to be presenting at the Lean Solution Summit coming up September 15 through the 17th. Use code, Cindy, 100 and you’ll get a special deal on the registration, Cindy, I’m looking forward to seeing you coming up in September. Appreciate you jumping on here and just chatting a little bit about what you’re going to talk about in September,

Cindy Darnell  29:01

of course. Yes, thanks so much for having me, and I can’t wait for the summer. I’m looking forward to it.

Patrick Adams  29:06

All right. Take care, everybody.