Host - Pat Sweet (00:00): This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 44. Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineering leaders through today. I speak with Duncan oar of the business savvy academy about the importance of equipping engineers with business skills.

Host - Pat Sweet (00:36): Hey everyone. And welcome to the show. I of course, and pat sweet, and I'm thrilled to be with you here again this week. I've got a, a fascinating conversation coming up with Duncan oar, who is the founding partner of the business savvy academy. We're gonna be talking about teaching business skills to engineers and, and other frontline staff and how that can really transform an organization. But first, a couple things I wanted to mention one, I wanted to remind you of an event happening this week, Wednesday, January 26th. I'm putting on a webinar in partnership with the American society for engineering management on strategies for becoming an effective engineering manager. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I really like working with a S C M they're a phenomenal, really doing good work in terms of promoting engineering management. So if, if you're interested in that at all, I'll be putting a a link into show notes again, January 26th, that's this week.

Host - Pat Sweet (01:34): If you happen to be listening to this, as soon as I release it, it's just a couple days away, so do not delay. And the other thing I wanted to mention is I've got kind of a, a quick little announcement and a favor I'd like to ask. I'm really, really close to wrapping up a, a brand new productivity course for engineering managers, and it's gonna be coming out in a couple weeks, sometime in February, but before I release it, I've got a couple questions that I would love to ask you. And I, if you could help me out with that, that would be awesome. Very quick questions. It's a two question survey. You can find a link to that survey in the show, notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 44. Anything you can do to help me out with that would be very, very much appreciated. All right, let's move on to the main content for today

Host - Pat Sweet (02:32): In today's interview, we'll hear about the incredible power of what some call business engineering. Most engineers spend their time deeply embedded in the world of developing products and delivering technical service is and solutions. But what happens outside the walls of the engineering department is rarely exposed or explained. We're never really taught to understand the, the financial statements or other really important markers of organizational health. My next guest believes that that's bad for business and has taken great strides to change that trend Duncan oar is an engineer TEDx speaker and the founding partner of the business savvy academy, an organization dedicated to helping engineers and other frontline workers understand the business side, the organizations they work for, and then to use that knowledge to drive grassroots improvements to the organization. As you'll hear in the episode, these projects drive some incredible business outcomes. Here's my interview with Duncan, Mr. Duncan oar. Thank you very, very much for being here with me today on the engineering and leadership podcast. It's an absolute pleasure.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (03:39): Thank you. But it's a pleasure also. Thank you.

Host - Pat Sweet (03:43): Today's topic is, is a really interesting one. It's something that I, I feel personally very passionate about, and that is the, the business education of technical folks. But before I I'd say anything about, you know, how I feel about it, I'd like to know more from your end. What, what is a business savvy engineer? How, how do you define that in the first place?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (04:08): That, that's a good question. But if, if I say to you pet, you are savvy, what does it do with you? You know, it's, it's something, it gives you a good feeling. It's, it's a good word. If I say, Hey, pet, you're lean. It's like, okay. You know? So when we talk about business survey it's something about the business. So you really know about the business it's about numbers, but it's also about how you can implement a strategy. It's about the annual numbers of the organization. And it makes you more, how do you complete, so to say, as a person, how you can contribute to your work, but also in your private life. So what we say is, as a business savvy engineer or a business savvy person, you also grow professionally, but also personally.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (04:58): And I think that is really important because a lot of people, and it's not about, only about engineers, but a lot of employees don't know what, how they can contribute in their daily work to the higher organizations level or the goals of the organizations. And, and that is such a pity, you know, I've, I've been working already for well, 25, 30 years in, in the business and a lot of management positions and it always fr to be honest, frustrated me, you know, that higher level said, okay, this is, this is the plan. And this is the financials. And within 10 minutes, people were looking outside the window you cause they, yeah, because they didn't know what, what was going on. And, and, and it it's such a P and implemented to lean at, at power plants, that sort of things.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (05:44): And the people had the beautiful, the employees had the most beautiful ideas and that sort of thing, but it was not intrinsic motivation. You know, we came in, we, we, we, we were the driver, so to say and then we left from that location. And then it went, all went, held down, you know, and I went back and said, what happening? Well management, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Was not really, you know, it was like, okay, check the box. We did it. Well, let's go back to business. But it was also said, well, you were the driver. And I said that is wrong because it should be there in intrinsic motivation, but something was missing. And, and it took me a couple of maybe years, or maybe I'm not that smart to come with, come up with it, but it it's about how can you contribute.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (06:28): And it also has to do well. If, if somebody says, well, we need a sustainable organization. You need to make profit. Yeah, of course, normal business in normal business. You know, I'm not talking about the, the, the Amazon. So that sort thing in the end of early days and, and by, by educating your employees, how they can contribute to those numbers and how they can do that in their daily work that gives so much pleasure. And you see how, how the employees, how they grow, you know and we'll come back to that later. But if you, if they start with our program and they talk about, for instance, something like cash, you know, they, they present it to management team what they're gonna do. And they're like, I'm not really sure, but we're gonna do something with cash, this and this.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (07:15): And after a hundred days, they give the same presentation with the results. And then they say, well, this was the cash flow. This is what we did, and this is what we're gonna do. And that will be the cash flow, totally different employees. Mm-Hmm, , mm-hmm, ownership insight in, in, in the financials, how it can contribute, how it improves the performance of the organization. And, and every time when we see that it, it gives me SCO bumps, you know, that people, how they've grown professionally and personally, and they can present and standing in front of an audience, they, they, they talk about the business. You know, you see them grow and it's not only good for the employee. It's good for the organization, but also good for your clients, because now your are talking as a business partner with your client, your client was a, wow, these guys are good.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (08:02): You know, we can talk business with them and we always have this first that, and, and maybe it's also with engineers and I'm an engineer myself, but that they are afraid to talk with their clients, you know, oh, can I talk with them and just go there, grab a cup of coffee with them and just ask him, how's your business going? That's only the only thing you have to ask. And everybody's proud to talk about their business, how it's going and how, what are, what are the challenges, what are the results and where they want to go? And that gives a totally different, different discussion with your client and your client who feel like, Hey, I can trust his partner. I, I can discuss things with him. And from, from your side as, as a, as a supplier of, or, or a producer or whatever you are, you know, it, his client will remember you and he'll come earlier back to you. So that will reduce your cost of sales. It will reduce your risk. You have a much better understanding of their business, if there's an issue it's not like, okay, we send in the lawyer now let's grab a coffee, let's grab a beer, you know? Right. And, and it makes our life so much easier.

Host - Pat Sweet (09:13): Your passion here about this is, is, is crystal clear. And, and it's clear that you see value for this kind of thing. Like you said, not just for the engineer, but, but for the, the organization the engineer works for and for the clients that the organization completes workforce. So, so it's, it's, it's a very, Folsome kind of view of things. And you, in, in a couple instances, how, how you approach this. So you've got an organization called the business savvy academy that runs engineers through kind of a, a structured program. Could, could you tell us a little bit about how, how you approach that? And, and one, one thing that I picked up on is, is you mentioned the word sustainability a couple times, and the importance of having things stick. I'd love to know more about how you deliver the training, but, but actually have it stick once, once you guys are kind of out the door, how, how does that all work?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (10:05): Yeah. Okay. What, what we do is that well, for instance, we, we we start with organizations where management love their people that see that's a major asset. Our people are major asset. I, I, sometimes I make a joke when we come to a company and where we have in front of the next left or right of the entrance. And there you have those plates, you know, with the management or the CEO, I don't think that's gonna work. That probably won't be our clients. You know, so this is a little bit a joke I make about it. But it, how the program works is, is that we first have a one day leadership session with the management. And we, we, we have some discussion before that, but then we have this leadership session and it's really like, okay, why do you wanna do this? Why do you wanna make your business people safe or your employee safe? Because it's not something like because it must, it must come really authentic intrinsic from, from management also, you know, like, guys, we really want to do this, you know, we did this, we did this. It's we, we got some good results, but it's not there where we want to be. So we want all, some entrepreneurship within the organization. Very important. Also.

Host - Pat Sweet (11:23): Do, do you ever see, do you ever see management teams that don't get it that, that kind of Chuck their shoulders and think, ah, our engineers are just gonna engineer, whatever, why would we invest in that? Yeah, really? Yeah. Well,

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (11:34): And, and, and those are not our clients. Yeah. but I have to say that the, the, the workshop we do with our clients we do this for free, and I will tell you later why that, why we do that? Mm, okay. So we run, we run them through the program on a high level. So we go through the why we talk about the big number game, for instance. So what is your sales what's your cashflow flow, your EBIS profit, that sort of things. And there, we already notice sometimes that the management team also doesn't know the numbers. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Are you gonna tell your employees, you know then we talk about the dream. Why do you wanna, 12 24, 36 months? Are they align like that? You know then we go to the SW very quick, you know, people do it a lot of times we give a little changes a little bit.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (12:28): Then we go to the value stream. And then we come up with certain elements. We, they say, well, we can improve this and this and this. Okay. I say, okay, if that's the case, how much do you think we can achieve within 12 months? And sometimes they don't, they cannot realize it or visualize it. And then we just come up with the 1% rule. And so what, what if we improve by 1% of sales and the cash and the EBIS and that sort of thing. And then we, we, we write it down on the boards and they're like, really? And we talk only about 1% for a whole year, and suddenly they under start understanding how the, the mechanism of the numbers work. Hmm. And, and, and then they make a, a, a challenge for themselves. And it's a little bit, it's a creativity to make their own scoreboard.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (13:18): So they have to present it to the other management team members. So there's a lot of fun with it. And then it's the question, okay, can you leave this on the table? Or can you just pass by and don't do anything with it? And they say, no, no, no, no. Okay. And then we ask who to start with this, and then the hands go up. And that's the good moment because they're actually energy. So if, if you would be sitting on the table, I would say to you, Hey, pat, you have to start with this program. You will say, nah, I get other things to do, blah, blah, blah. Now they have seen what we can achieve in one year. They like, oh yeah, I want it right.

Host - Pat Sweet (13:54): You, you you're opening eyes. You're, you're really exposing. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (13:59): And, and before we have this leadership day is also that we send them our business culture scan. We made it together with the university of Amsterdam, because we say on one side of the program, we have the numbers, operate numbers, financial numbers, blah, blah, blah, whatever, but you cannot change. And there we come on on a durable, sustainable way, if you change also on how people behave. So we said, okay, we also have to look how people behave, does that change. So we have a set of questions that scan 30 questions on items. And we, we send it out before we have the leadership day. And then we also present it. So about transparency, cooperation, appreciation, adding value and, and a few other things. And there, we presented anonymously in a graph. So well, you are here, and this is on detail.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (14:55): What we see, you know, one is says a zero and one says a 10 on the same question. So what's the difference? What's the Delta, how come the Delta, you know, and we have this lively dialogue with each other, and then this, that understanding one. Hmm. Yeah. We improve on certain areas. That's what, so that's a pretty lively day. Why do we do this at no cost and no obligation? Because we also want to know the management team because our experiences, if there's not intrinsic motivation, like, oh yeah, I want this. And we have to start pooling or selling it. Won't gonna work. Mm. Because I have this, I have this experience when we did lean with McKinsey. And that thing, you know, it's like,

Host - Pat Sweet (15:41): Right. It, it's, it's a big, you know, it's a, a temporary project that everyone just wants to put their head down, go through and be done with.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (15:48): Exactly. And this is really something about a culture change into business savvy. And it's a mindset, but I'll come back to it later. So once we have, once we have this one day leadership there will be a decision, okay. We start with a business unit or certain group within the organization. And we then do the more or less the same exercise with the group of management from this business unit. And then we start with a two day MBA, what, how we call it. So there's a team of 15 to 20 employees a cross section of the organization, just so from sales to logistics or finance, or, but the whole value stream, 15 to 20 people, no management . And then we have a two day session and we start also again there with the why management comes in, addresses the, why tells the why and management leaves.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (16:44): And we say, okay, everything that happens here stays here in this room, blah, blah, blah, that sort of thing. Then we go, we had done the why that we explain a little bit about the program and then we start, okay, what's the big numbers again, just, just what what's the, the, the, the, the revenue of the organization, all kinds of numbers come out. Does it make profit? No, we make lots. Okay. How much we know how much profit and profit is sometimes higher than revenue. So to say, you know, like, oh, I'm looking for this model. All, so, so

Host - Pat Sweet (17:15): How, how, in your experience, how accurate are people's estimates? When, when you a, when you ask the non-management team, do, do, do the staff generally, are they close or are they way off the mark or, or is it, are you asking the questions that they even know how to answer

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (17:31): Exactly. It's, it's, it's the whole fire of the whole, the whole bandwidth. So to say, so from within 10, 10%, the people say question mark, I don't know. Yeah. Don't don't know the difference between revenue and profit or cash or what it means, that sort of thing, but that's okay. You know, that's okay. And, and here's also, sometimes we break the ice between people because every like, oh yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's this and this. And we did it already. We talked about the financial guys, okay. This is the revenue, this is the profit, this is the cash loan, that sort of thing. And then we go into to the purpose and the purpose is actually what we, what I said before is about the client you're working for the employee and your organization. So what makes them happy?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (18:22): And then if they fill it in, because it's, it's, we only ask questions. So we are in a appreciative, appreciative inquiry. We do positive way of asking and people fill it in and then we have a discussion. Okay. What happens if you are not happy? What kind of effect does it have? You know, the client, all the organization. Okay. Very good. You know, and, and if you look at engineers and engineering servers, companies, where, where they do project for a client the technical project manager, all the engineers are happy that, oh, the client is so happy, good project on time, blah, blah. This sort of things on budget, what I think sometimes. And then they turn around to the organization, the organiz that, nah, it wasn't such a good project because we made a lot of, we lost a lot of money on it.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (19:11): Right. And that's not nice, you know, because you're proud as an engineer. Why did a good job yeah. For the client, for the project, but for your own company. Hmm. Not so good. So there, we, we, we showed them that if a client is not happy, you are not happy. The company's not happy. If the company's not happy, you are not happy. The client could be happy, but the , so we all the, all the three of us more or less are in the boat in the same, in, in the same boat. So say mm-hmm and then people say, yeah, true. And, and then there's also a lot of things, common, you know between the three, between the three. So that's the other exercise. And then we go to the dream, as I mentioned before, why do we wanna be? And, and people wanna be at the same place as, as, as the organization or management want to be, you know, sustainable, durable because I have kids at, at home that go to school university, I have a mortgage, I want go on holiday you know, financial, financial, and that sort of thing.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (20:15): And then we also ask, okay how much money? Yeah, no, no, we're not asking, but we say, okay, we are sure that, you know exactly how much cash you have on your bank account. Everybody said, yes. I know. I know. I know. So why don't, you know, it from the company, would you like to know it from the company and everybody like, yeah, I would like to know that. Yeah. Yeah. And then with, okay, why, well safety, blah, blah, blah, that sort of thing. So it's not more, it's not much different than from a company to your own bank account. You know, it's the same way of thinking more of this.

Host - Pat Sweet (20:49): I, I I've heard the advice you should, you should manage your project's budget the way you would your own personal budget. And if you treat the company's money, like your own, you'll probably make the right decisions. But if you don't understand the, the vastly more complex world of, of business finance you, you, you don't have a hope of making those same decisions. Exactly.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (21:13): Yeah, exactly. So after that, we go into the SW you know, from, from external factors, internal factors from weakness to strengths, to opportunities. But, and it it's, it's a well, very old exercise, but every time it shows his strengths, we did it also with management team. And then we showed the paper from what, what said management team, you know, and the employees can compare it, then say, Hey, they're looking at the same thing for like, we are, oh, that's interesting. Never expected that. Yeah. That kind of reaction we get. And after that, we go into the value stream. So for marketing a sales execution delivery, whatever in your whole program, also there, a lot of people don't know how the value stream is through their organization, because they're only looking at their own silos, you know, and they've throw it over the fence to the other.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (22:08): Right. And then we go there. So we work in teams, we work in teams who set up the value stream and we ask 'em okay, where do you see improvement? And they start, and that's every time in the small teams, they work together and say, well, we can do this and this. So they got a lot of a list of ideas and that's it. And then we ask them, okay, quantify them in money or so many products or that sort of things. And, and mostly they say, well, I, I don't have Excel sheet with me. I have to be look into the system, Uhuh. No, no, no, no. What does your gut feeling say? And always, they're almost within a margin 10 to 25% interesting because they know, you know, and, and, and that, again, shows that people on, on, on, I hate to say it on, on the lower levels on the workforce, know exactly what's going on, but they never made it really tangible.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (22:59): So to say, you know, it's somewhere in the back of their head, they feel it, but now they can really say, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so then we have a whole list of interesting, I, this, I said, well, we, we cannot start with everything. So you have to make a decision. And the official way of, of this make a decision of high impact, low effort. And then they come up with three or four or things they say, okay, this is high impact, low effort for the start. And that's the end of the day. Everybody starts. It's really of new things impressed, but it's not over yet because management comes in and the team has to, to tell what happened that day. So they go along the posters, we work with posters. They say, well, we, we started with the the big number game. Well, we didn't know anything about the numbers. This is the purpose and we see blah, blah, blah. This is the SW blah, blah, blah. This is the, the value stream. And sometimes management says, oh, finally, we have the whole value stream on, on the wall. , you know, ,

Host - Pat Sweet (24:01): This must be, this must be really eyeopening, but, but both for, for individuals and for management teams, for them to answer the same questions and look at one another's work and, and realize either man, you, you guys were listening to us, that's amazing. Or exactly. Or, or maybe on the opposite end it's we are both in totally different mindsets, like, like that, that, that would force some really interesting conversations either way. Exactly. Either way. Yeah.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (24:30): Yeah. And, and we do that on a purpose that, that they show the whole thing where they come up with and then they show what they come up in, in the high impact, low effort, you know, and, and, and they explain it and said, management can ask questions and and certain amount, you know, it's, it's, we're done. It's, it's, it's over, you know, energy is gone, everybody's tired. And but then the next day we show up always early because there are people who are also early in the room looking at the boards, you know, like, ah, man, and everybody's in room and then we ask them, okay guys, did you sleep well last night? Some people said, no, I was thinking about it all night. okay. What happens? And here you see ownership coming up, right. People who are already earlier in the room ownership, like, and, and then they start, we have this discussion or the dialogue again about this selection of, of ideas, where to start with, you know, and then they walk to the, to the SWAT side or this post and say, Hey, this sticker should also be there.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (25:34): Cause if we do this, we cover this. And we, we, because during the first day we, we always look back to the previous poster and say, okay, what kind of impact does it have on the numbers on, on, on the dream, on the things. So they see there's a sequence and there's a relation between everything. So on the second day we have the discussion again about those numbers or about the ideas they have. And at certain amount say, okay guys, this is it. So they have about three maximum four ideas, and then they have to work it out. And I say, okay, where are we know? And, and again, they said, I don't know, you know? Okay. And that's no problem because how much do you want to improve or improve? And they said, well, about 10% perfect. Because it doesn't matter if you start a 30 or 50 and you wanna improve 10%, you wanna improve 10%.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (26:22): Right. Yeah. But that's the minds, you know, cause engineers wanna exactly. And that sort of thing. okay. And so, okay. So what do you want to improve? How much do you want to improve and then make a challenge and then they make a challenge out of it. So, okay. So this is day two, tomorrow is day three and you start, and it's not a simulation. It's really in the business. Mm. You know, let's keep it on cash flow. It's really looking at your cash flow. How can we improve this? They make a, a plan, you know, with milestones. And at the end they say, okay, this is where we want to be after a hundred days. And, and they all also determine how to celebrate it when they achieved that goal. Cause it's the team, did it not management, the team did it.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (27:11): So they should celebrate it. Management is sometimes afraid. Okay, what you gonna ask? Three weeks the Caribbean or something like that? No, no, no. It it's. It's about small things because they understand it's about small things. So we work through that the whole day. They also have to make a their own scoreboard. So there's a lot of creativity and a fun. We, we sometimes see the most amazing things in 2d or 3d or whatever. It's, it's unbelievable the creativity of the OFD of the people. And then at the end of the day, mention comes in again. But before they come in, we also talk with teams, say, okay, you're gonna present this to the management team, but be sure that you ask the management team what you need from them to achieve your goal. Mm. And why is this so important?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (27:59): Because there's where we close the gap because it's not what have, okay. They are doing it. No, we are doing it. So they present their, their their scoreboards where they wanna do where they want to go, what they want to achieve. How do you want to celebrate it? There's a lot of funny with it. Management ask questions that is the first a hundred days. Every, every week we have a call with the team or the team captains, depending on the sizes of the teams. We use our tool our platform, the business academy to, to stay up to date with app. There's a lot of information. They can always go there, reach out to us because it doesn't matter if they have a question, we answer it. You know, it's no problem with that. So every week we have a call update and we start to force them more or less to look forward.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (28:57): So what is your planning? How you gonna achieve it in a positive way? You know, so looking forward because we lot backwards. Yeah, we did this, this, this, now it won't change it anymore. Right. Learn from it. Look at the future. What can you ch because that is something you can change and, and, and have effect on day 50, 60. We come physically we come by, we, we, we visit, you know, it's like mother comes to your room, see if it's clean and everything works well . And in the meantime, we also have our biweekly update to management team. You know, we see this, we encourage them also to ask questions on a positive way. And, and management says a lot, well, we see a change in them. And so, and we ask them why, why? Well, they coming to my office and they talk about the business.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (29:50): They wanna see more numbers. Mm Hmm. That's interesting. Day hundred. We have to find a presentation again. We help them with the, well, sometimes engineers come with 30 slides and bring it back to three slides. And the rest is, you know, other work. And then they present and management is sometimes sitting there like WTF. Yeah, yeah. Happened here, you know, and it's, it's amazing what they, and, and after that, it's a big party or what we have drinks and that's, we celebrate it. And that's really cool. What we, as I mentioned at the beginning, where we do the business culture scan with the management team, we also do it with the team themselves. For the two days they fill it in at the end of the a hundred days, we do the same exercise we will cause we wanna see how they grow in.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (30:41): Sure. Exactly. But also for management, you know, say, Hey, where do we see the gap? And it's not, you wanna see that it in improves, but it's not really about the number itself. It's about the dialogue you have with each other. And that's so important. And everybody say, okay, so, so how did we improve on savvy? I, I'm more business savvy. And that's the funny thing is because it answers the question what's in it for me because a lot of employees come to work and say, there's a new program. Okay. Okay. But what's in it for me. And here we answer the question, do you become business savvy? Mm. So that's the first hundred days and that's what we call start. And then we go to the next 200 days, we call it accelerate. So we go back to the, what they delivered in the two days in the, in the MBA two day team MBA, where they came up with a lot of ideas.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (31:36): We go through that. Okay, what's the next step? So we use that information from the start, the next hundred days, it's called what we call accelerate with the same team. And there you see really an improvement of the results. Mm-Hmm really are no. Now they know how it functions, what they, what they can expect to, again, at the end of the 200 days, the business, if culture scan again improvement. Oh. And, and let me tell you about that. That's really enter. There's really, what have it's a lot is that at the beginning of day zero there's about transparency. So on the scale from zero to five, whatever they say, well, we are transparent four, let me say we're four. Sure. After a hundred days, they fill in the same scan and then transparency suddenlys down drop to three or 3.5. Oh,

Host - Pat Sweet (32:25): Interesting. Why is that?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (32:27): Exactly? Well, people suddenly realize that the company is not that transparent or delivering the right information to do their good job.

Host - Pat Sweet (32:37): There were unknown unknowns that exactly. They're now where exists out there to, that's interesting. That's

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (32:44): Really interesting. And we see that a lot, you know, and afterwards it picks up again Uhhuh, but like, oh yeah, we need the right information. So, so the second hundred days accelerate, again, the presentation from a lot people grow, grow, grow more and more. And then at the last a hundred days, so the third time of a hundred days we call it sustain. So that's where we say, okay, here's something you should be able to keep this level and improve continuously and add value to your clients. So what we see is that people really start changing in behavior. And when you start changing your behavior, you start to do better and you keep this like, Hey, we should do it again. We should do it again and again. And it, it, it's maybe not in a challenge, but they know now what to look for and that they ask for, for numbers, you know, how's the cash flow.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (33:38): Why does the EBIT not so good? Why did we do this or that they were not talking about cost savings or something like that? No, we're talking, okay. How can we do more or better or add more value? And that when you ask it that way, people will start under. They understand it, say, okay, we shouldn't do this. Or we shouldn't do that less because it does not add value to it. And that is much more in a positive way than saying, well, you're not allowed to do or costs you big this or costs. Of course, there are certain elements that you have to look at the beginning, but this is how we do it. And if you look with the larger company we have more teams. We have to platform where they can discuss it with each other stimulates. Sometimes management said, okay, we, we stop after a year. And, and half a year later, we are back. Cause the employees ask for it.

Host - Pat Sweet (34:30): Interesting. I, I think it's this, this whole, this whole program speaks to people's inherent desire to do good work. And I've heard this, I've heard this said a hundred different ways, but when people get outta bed in the morning, they show up to the office. You, you might feel as a manager, like some people are out to get you and out to ruin things. And it's just not true. People want to do good work, but exactly they need to be equipped. They need to be helped and, and, and, and shown what good work looks like. And, and, and that's what at its core. That's what this sounds like to me is you're equipping people to do better work. The skills may, may have already been there. They just had no idea how, how to apply them or even that they needed to be applied.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (35:17): Exactly, exactly. And, and it, it is, it is just like home, you know, they know about, you know, you need some cash on your bank account because if the washing machine dish washing machine breaks down, you wanna buy a new one. Cause otherwise your partner starts say like, Hey, , you can do it now yourself. You know, but, and it, and, and that was really what frustrated, irritated me that we did not use on, in a good way, not abuse, but use the knowledge, the, the experience of your employees. And, and that's, that is such a shame because how nice is it when your, your partner comes? I was like, wow, that was a great day. And tomorrow, are we gonna do this? We're gonna do that. You know, or you come home and you're like a couch potato. Yeah. You know, and, and it's such a difference.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (36:05): People come to, to go to work with energy. Most of them yeah. Lemme put that way. Yeah. And if you come home with energy, you know, and that was sometimes what we also see is that when we ask the team, like, okay, who, who, who, who would you like to have within the, the first session, you know, of the 15 to 20 employees? And they say, yeah, this, and then they hear discussion. Yeah. We should also ask John and somebody say, no, not John. He so negative and blah, blah. And then we say, well, put John in the team, John is already working there for 10 years, had a lot of good ideas. Nobody listened to him. And John said, well, I do my job from nine to five. Perfect. That's good with me. And here, John starts to flourish again.

Host - Pat Sweet (36:51): That must open eyes to think that, okay. How, if there are a bunch of Johns in the organization, how many ideas, how much talent are they, are they sitting on? Because they've not had an outlet, just not had that direction.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (37:04): Yeah. You you're, as we said, also, you are harvesting all the experience and knowledge of your employees and, and how great is that? Because sometimes management has all this pressure, you know, cause, oh, this and this, well share it also because it's also about being to transparent. Like, Hey guys, we have an issue for the coming next three months. Cause there's a lot lack of work or whatever, or, you know materials are very expensive and that sort share it. And, and let everybody think about it.

Host - Pat Sweet (37:33): One of the things that, that strikes me about the, the way you approach developing organizations like this is, this is not, you're not stopping at the one day kind of executive retreat or the two day MBA. This is a long term project and commitment. And we talked a little bit about sustainability front. I can't help, but, but feel like this might be that there could be a messy middle in there that it could be difficult times to maintain people's time and attention over the long run. I, I, I, I get the sense that it's critical, right? You there's no avoiding it. I'd love to know a little bit more about the, the website mentions fun and awful lot in the program. And I couldn't help, but think that you you've gotta keep an element of fun in this program, if you're gonna hook people for the long run. How, how does that, how does that play out? How, how do you keep this light even though it's it a big commitment

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (38:31): That that's, that's a good question. Of course it also comes from us where we're not acting like clowns or something like that. Right. But it's on the, you know, it, it's on a positive way asking, well, how can we assist you? And we're not telling them what to do. It's every time we ask, how can we, so it's really should that people start thinking about it and that they get the the confidence that they can do things. And, and that's always what I said. I, I would like people to, to help people to get to the next level of, of a level, which they never expected to reach so they can be proud. And, and, and then you come to a lot of this chemical stuff in your head, you know, with what happens and, and Orine, and all these kind of things, that's say, well, oh, this is cool because I'm with a team that is fun and we achieve a goal and I can help, help that person.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (39:21): You know, if, if, if you keep the door open for somebody and somebody says, thank you, it gives you good feeling. Sure. Well, and all these kinds of things happen during those a hundred days. And of course you have this beautiful graph of denial and then go through the, the, the trough and, and then go up again. Sure. But we'll help you. We'll help you through that. And it's more like our management is not placing, okay, we'll talk to management, you know, what's going on. And so we're the, the catalyst more or less. Right. we, we make a lot of, well, we make fun of each of ourselves, you know, like, oh yeah, I know, sorry for, and that sort of thing. So it's, we also show them that it's not they shouldn't be afraid to, to, to acknowledge mistakes. So it it's a safe area and that people, I don't know, I don't know.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (40:08): Okay. Well, who can, who could help you? Well, I think, no. Okay. Well, let's go for it. You know, so, but, but that's true, you know, and, and people always busy, you know, oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. I'm so busy. And that's what we also tell them. I say, well, let's start with it. And it's, it's the weekly call is no longer than an hour, half an hour, an hour. Something like that. The should work with each other. The team captain is not really guy. Who's doing everything now. He's more or less the contact person for us. And, and there, and sometimes we don't have time for it. Okay. So how are you gonna do it? Did you still achieve your goal? Well, I can catch up next week cause I have less, more free time. And then I can catch up with that.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (40:51): At the same time with management, we talk about, okay, where can they subscribe their, their men hours they put in this program, you know, because you don't wanna have discussion. Where do I leave my, my time? Where can I write my time? Yeah. That sort of thing. You know, so it's all has all been, everything has to be prepared to have more or less a flaw of thing happening. And, and they're also proud about what I find out, you know, about the cash flow and about an engineering company making a lot of proposals and, and, and billability was really low, but there were more a tender machine or a proposal machine than they were doing their work. So we started, okay, what's your hit rate or win rate and said, oh yeah, 25%. All right. 75%. The cost of the 75% has to be earned back in the 25%.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (41:44): And, and, and then they made a list of the most successful and then a list of where they made the most margin, completely different layout. And then we said, okay, and what does your gut's feeling say? Gut's feeling, what do you mean? Gut's feeling? I say, well, you have a client you would like to work for, but you don't make much money with it. Or you work for a client. You don't like you make a lot of money. And, and that makes them think, you know, said, huh. Yeah. And if you made a lot of proposal for a client and he, he never, you're never gonna a contract from this client maybe should send in your manager, go talk with him. You know, why, why we're spending so much money or why are we making so much proposals? We never get work from you. Are we doing something wrong?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (42:24): Are we, you know, that kind of things. And then you have this dialogue and people start understanding it much better, and then less proposals, less cost of sales higher. How do you call it? Head rate more, yeah. Higher degree, more edit Val to your clients. The, the, the, the it's, it's, it's less hectic within the organization. So it really works from, from the beginning up to the end, it's like a wave to go through your organization and, and people enjoy it. You know, it's like, oh, this is cool. Yeah. Now we know how it works. So it also gives them a feeling that they're more in control about their work.

Host - Pat Sweet (43:04): That's a, that's a really interesting point because feeling, I, I, I think a lot of engineers, I think a lot of knowledge workers in particular, the, the projects and organizations are getting faster, bigger, harder. It, it it's, and it would be very tough to feel anything more than kind of like, you're along for the ride. You, you, you know, you put your head down, you do what you gotta do. Oh man. That's that lack of control is something I hear about an awful lot. Yeah. So, so that, that's, that's an interesting, not, not something I, that had occurred to me before, but I, I could see that providing a lot of value on an individual basis.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (43:44): Exactly. And, and it it's, you know, look at an engineering service company and they get a contract. It's the scope clear you know, what are the penalties? What is the payment schedule? All those kinds of things. You, you should have a clear peak of meeting. And sometimes that, that doesn't have, I was to do this job cause they're on the time pressure, please spend some time with your team, explain it to them, you know, and not only the risk, but what are the opportunities, you know? And we do this annual research about engineering companies, how they perform and you can find it on, on our website, on the business academy. Oh,

Host - Pat Sweet (44:24): Great. That's

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (44:25): Perfect. And, and, and we select a, of 25 engineering companies to go through the books. And then we see, and from our experience we have with these organizations and technical organizations, they say, well, we sell a projects for, with the margin of 12 half percent. So let's say profit margin at the end of the project, it's down to four. Mm. So during the time of execution, they lose about out 8%, eight to 10%. And we also showed them that there's an upside from, they should go from 12 and a half to 15% margin. And then they asked how come, well, there's always additional

Host - Pat Sweet (45:05): Work, right? Change orders.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (45:07): Yeah. Change orders, whatever, you know, and, and engineer, I said, well, yeah, well, cause of the relation of the, of the client and the project now, you know, and at the end, and there we come back again to what I said in the, the project is perfect, but the financials are not so good. And then it's really hard to go back to your client. I say, well, you know, we have overrun and this additional work and of additional work, your client will say, I don't know, you never addressed it. And, and, and, and that's difficult. So we say also clear scope. Is there any changes, discuss it with your client? He understands it. Is it, is it nice to have, or is it really necessary? You know, he can still make the decision. And, and that makes everybody's life much more easier from the client side, from the engineer, but also as, as an organization that you really can say, okay, this is the margin where we can expect this.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (46:04): Not that it goes like this, stuff like that. And, and, and, and, and also what we figured out is that there are engineering companies making double digit. So more than 10% profit annually, it is possible mm-hmm , but the majority is below 5%. And, and that's where I say, well, they're undervalued and under pay the engineers. Mm. Because how much can you do as an organization to say guys, the new equipment or other things, or do something or pay a better salary or that sort of thing. And that is such a pity cause engineers, they build the world of tomorrow. They add all much, so much value.

Host - Pat Sweet (46:46): Well, yeah. And, and this is, this is the, the fundamental motivator for, for me, for the work that I do here on the show. And my, my, my consulting, my training is engineers are, are doing phenomenally important, work in the world, right. That this is we, like you said, we're, we're creating this future. And, and to think that the organizations that we work within are not as healthy as they could be, meaning you can't do the work you might otherwise be able to do in a healthy organization is, is well, gosh, like that, that's, that's bad for the world. That's bad for the planet. We, we have, we have enormous challenges in the world to say that engineers could be doing more to help if, if only supported by stronger, healthier organizations. So I I'm really glad you touched on that Duncan. Yeah. This has been super, super interesting, and I'm really glad to, to have had you on the show today, this, this is great. I think you've made a solid case for the value of, of training engineers and, and frankly all frontline staff to better understand what's going on under the hood. If there's an, an organization out there who would like to learn more like to work with the business savvy academy, what, what might they do? How could they, how could they initiate those first steps?

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (48:12): Well, just send me an email or gimme a call and we have a free or open discussion. Okay. What would you like to achieve? What have, what have you already done? I'll, I'll talk about again, about the program, what we achieved and maybe just to give an idea, that's one of pray for it to say how we did a challenge with a cashflow issue that we were with the company. And they figured out that every month they were sending out the invoices, but the DSO days or days D O days receivables outstanding mm-hmm was about 90 days to a hundred days. Okay. so it was a long time and, and, and the, the, the, the, the, the financial department, every time at the end of the month, they were stressed because they had sent out all the invoices and blah, blah, the things went wrong.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (49:02): Of course, cause client said, well, this is not correct. Back. Gary goes again another month and that sort of thing. And then we, we spoke with the team and they figured out, oh, we don't have to wait till the end of the month to send the invoice. We can do it whenever we want to, as long as the contracts allows us, us to do it. Okay, well, let's start a program. And they had a, a sales of 10 million the year before they made 400,000 nonprofit. And so they start improving the cash. And, and what they did is they made the the cookie jar project. They called it. Okay. So they had a baking plate with plastics, cookies on it with magnets, you know, and they put on the, the project numbers. Oh, okay. Cooking plate and our no names, but just the project numbers. And everybody knew what, what, what project it was at the end of the months, all the plastic cookies should be in the cookie jar. So your, your, your cookie shouldn't be on the baking plate. Cause that, that was wrong. Uhhuh. They even went a step further and they made really fresh cookie every month. So when you were on time, you got a fresh cookie. You were too late, you got an old cookie , you know, here you go. You're already laughing. So it is a lot of fun with it. Yeah, sure. And,

Host - Pat Sweet (50:23): And why not? Why not? It can, it can be made to be fun.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (50:26): Exactly. So what, what happened is that from the night, I don't know how many days it was, but we reduced it with 50% or improved it by 50%. So the days outstanding, really improved by, by, by 50%. And if we calculated, what, how much money we got in that year, more that what was the same as the profit of last year. So just by doing their, their, their invoicing on a proper way without stress, every time of the month that they could send them out an invoice in a correct way with the correct numbers on it. no stress and the cash flow improved tremendously and they had fun and they had fun because it was a cookie jar and they had got fresh cookies or old cookies.

Host - Pat Sweet (51:14): Well, I, I I'm, I'm prepared to to hire you myself, if I think it's, it's gonna bring in cookies. I, I, I think this is , I think this is great Duncan, this has been an absolute blast. I really appreciate it. And I'll, I'll be sure to put all links in the show outs to everything you mentioned, make it easy to reach out Mr. Duncan oar. Thank you very, very much for being with me today. Really appreciate it.

Guest - Duncan Oyevaar (51:37): Thank you, Beth. Thank you for giving the opportunity to tell about our program. You bet. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Host - Pat Sweet (51:48): Thank you. Once again, Mr. Oar, that was a, a fascinating conversation. I, I really, really enjoyed it. I, I love that idea of the, the cookie jar at the end. Just goes to show there's a lot you can do to make work fun and make business fun. If you, you put some thought toward it, there are a few things that really stood out to me when I listen to this over again, after the fact, and the first was that being business savvy, something that can benefit you both personally and professionally, it's not just, it's not just about work the way you think about the financials of an organization. Even if that organization is your own little family can be profoundly impactful. It's it's just plain good to have a, a, a sense for the dollars and cents of whatever organization you are working in.

Host - Pat Sweet (52:40): The other thing that I really liked that Duncan highlighted here is, is the importance of celebrating success. See, they've got this whole program that is geared to toward improving the, the business, improving the organization, showing really concrete results. And, and in a lot of ways it would be tempting to say, well, that that is its own reward. That's good for everyone. And that is the pat on the back to see the, the concrete, the tangible results, but Duncan really emphasize the importance of causing and really celebrating those successes and, and even investing a little bit of money into that. It's worth it. It's worth having that, that clear punctuation mark at the end of an effort, regardless of what that effort is. And, and, and that's what got me thinking, because I, I feel like it's so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day work of what we do, no matter what it is we do.

Host - Pat Sweet (53:36): And whenever you finish one task, there's 10 more that need to be addressed. Whenever you finish one project, it's likely that a couple others ha have slid in the background. And it's very hard to find the time to pause and celebrate those successes. So you have to make the time. And ultimately I believe that that falls to the leader to make sure that that time is protected or created. So thank you. Once again, Duncan, that was, that was an awful lot of fun. Again, all the links that were mentioned related to the the business savvy academy and the culture scan that that's all in the show notes. So, so do check that out. If you'd like to learn more next up, we've got the engineering and leadership mailbag.

Host - Pat Sweet (54:31): Well, my friends, you know how this works, this is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read absolutely everything you send me. And I promised to read my favorites right here on the podcast. First of all, I wanted to say, thank you to everyone who sent congrat messages. I got messages from people all over the world congratulating me on the launch of the business, the, the engineering and leadership project. It's really, really cool. The, the response has been phenomenal. So too many people reached out for me to mention here, but just know that I really appreciate that. That's super motivating. And it's great to know that that there's is this cadre of people in, in my corner. It's really, really cool. So thanks so much. The next message I wanted to share was from the team over at CoLab software, who had a, a brilliant meme about the importance of capturing lessons learned in a way that people can actually find them later on, is this awesome Simpsons meme that, that I think you, you you've gotta see it.

Host - Pat Sweet (55:29): And I'll, I'll put a link in the show notes. It really sums up the, the trouble that there is with lessons learned. If you are able to capture them, if you can't find them after the fact, you might as well not hut, not have I commented on this, this post and, and, and they replied. And one of the things that they, it, I thought was really important was collective knowledge is too valuable to let it live only in people's heads. And that's, that's so true because within an organization of any size, you don't necessarily know whose head the information is stuck in. And if that person happens to leave the organization, which is a normal and natural thing to have happen, that walks out the door as well. So capturing lessons learned, making them available to the organization as a whole, so that you don't repeat those same mistakes, or you can take advantage of what was learned is super, super important.

Host - Pat Sweet (56:20): You can learn more about colabs work@colabsoftware.com. And like I said, you can see that that Simpsons meme by visiting the show notes. Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to a few folks who came out to the webinar that Jeff Perry and I had last week Sal sore Steon and Henry, there were lots of people came out, but these, these folks were super, really, they delivered, I think as much value as, as Jeff or I did just with their experiences and, and what they shared with the group. So I just wanted to say, I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you coming out and, and sharing what you did. I also take this moment to say that the webinars that I've been doing over the last little while have been just awesome. All the people who've come out have been super engaged. So do keep your eyes out for future webinars. We're definitely gonna be doing more of those. Thanks again, to all those who reached out. If you'd like to chat or leave a comment, please do you can find me on LinkedIn on Twitter and on Facebook, or you can leave a comment in the episode, show notes.

Host - Pat Sweet (57:27): That's all the time we have for the show today, but I'll be back next week with a new episode, which will feature Ralph Specht on his mission to make soulless companies a thing of the past. Don't forget. We've got that webinar coming up on January 26th on strategies for becoming an effective engineering manager. And another reminder about that quick favor, that if you could spend a minute, that would be awesome to fill out this two question survey on this this productivity course for engineering managers that I'll be releasing soon. Again, links to both of those will be in the show notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 44. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, and please leave an honest review to let me know what you thought of today's episode. Both those things help provide me feedback to make the show better and help others find the show as well. For more information and links to the resources mentioned today, just go to the show notes again, engineering and leadership.com/episode 44 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent. You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet, to learn more about the engineering and leadership project, including other podcasts articles, free resources, courses, consulting, and much, much more. Just go to engineering and leadership.com, that's engineering and leadership.com.