Podcasts about conagra

In this episode, Adrianne Agulla, CEO of Hamilton Heights Child Development Centers in Nebraska and the true definition of an education entrepreneur, joins Kris. Adrianne shares how she went from working in the corporate world to owning six successful daycares and a catering business called Milton's Amazing Kitchen. Together, she and Kris talk about growing from three to six locations, empowering a leadership team, using VAs to streamline operations, creating a strong scorecard, and what it really takes to scale with excellence. Adrianne goes through the very real ups and downs of growing with intention and building a company that inspires.   Key Takeaways: [6:19] Adrianne owns and operates Hamilton Heights Child Development Centers, with six centers across Nebraska. She originally purchased three as a package in 2017 and has grown from there. She also owns Milton's Amazing Kitchen, a catering company focused on child nutrition. [8:27] Hamilton Heights believes that it's their professional responsibility to protect childhood from all of the external threats in today's world, and they have a focus on play. [9:31] Adrianne's earlier career included leadership roles at Coca-Cola and ConAgra, before pivoting into child care. [11:30] She juggles the business while raising three busy teenagers. [13:46] Adrianne shares reflections plus a funny story about upgrading her wardrobe from a trip to Vietnam. [15:19] What benefits Adrianne has found being part of the highest-level membership of the Child Care Success Academy: the Empire level. [22:15] She explains her leadership structure, including a director of ops, finance lead, and a high-tenure team. [24:15] The leadership team meets weekly to review scorecards and KPIs. Accountability plus support equals success. [28:55] Adrianne shares how she works with three virtual assistants (VAs), including one for marketing, one for data and reports, and one for administrative support. [31:05] She talks about the industry-wide challenge of attracting and retaining staff and how her company stays focused on its leadership vision. [38:37] Her 2025 goals: simplify, streamline, and build an even stronger team. [40:55] Why she acquired a catering business and how it's improved their food program and opened new business channels.   Quotes: “We say that we're very serious about play. And we believe that it's our professional responsibility to protect childhood from all of the external threats in today's world.” — Adrianne [8:27] “That combination of loyalty and commitment and tenure and then new energy and new ideas and fresh faces, has created a really, I think, a unique and just a sustainable culture.” — Adrianne [9:12] “We are working to create an Early Learning Company that inspires because of the opportunity it creates for staff, families, and children, and so we are just trying to be single-mindedly focused on what it means to create abundant opportunities for our staff from a professional development standpoint, from a wage standpoint, and from a benefit standpoint.” — Adrianne [34:40]   Sponsored By: ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI) Use code CCSC5 to claim a free course!   Mentioned in This Episode: Kris Murray @iamkrismurray The Child Care Success Company The Child Care Success Academy The Child Care Success Summit Grow Your Center Childcare Education Institute: use code CDARenewal22 to get $100 off your renewal Hamilton Heights Child Development Center Milton's Amazing Kitchen

My guest this week is DeLu Jackson, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at ADT. A seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience, DeLu has led marketing transformation at some of the world's most iconic brands, including McDonald's, Audi, Kellogg's, Nissan, Subaru, ConAgra, and now ADT. He's known for his data-driven, customer-first approach and for helping redefine what protection and connection mean in the smart home and small business security space. With an undergraduate degree in Politics from Princeton University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, he brings both intellectual rigor and real-world results to the table. He's also an independent board director and a recognized thought leader in marketing, growth, and digital innovation. 

Navigating the Growth Dilemma with Ryan Hamilton   Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.    I'm thrilled to welcome Ryan Hamilton to the show this week. Ryan is an associate professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. He has consulted on branding with Walmart, FedEx, Home Depot, Caterpillar, ConAgra, Cigna, Visa, and Ipsos, among others, and has been a keynote speaker. He cohosts a podcast, called The Intuitive Customer, which applies the insights of behavioral science to customer experience. He has produced lecture series on both marketing and human decision making for The Great Courses. He is the co-author of a new book, The Growth Dilemma.    THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone navigating brand growth and customer strategy decisions across evolving markets and customer segments.   TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE…growth is a natural goal for businesses, but attracting new customers can unintentionally alienate the ones you already have. Ryan calls this the growth dilemma. As you expand your customer base, you risk creating conflicts between different groups of customers, conflicts that can undermine your success. Ryan outlines four kinds of customer conflict and how businesses can better anticipate and manage them before making big moves.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: Growth can backfire if you don't manage customer conflicts Start by maximizing value from existing customers before chasing new ones The four common conflict types are functional, brand image, user identity, and ideological   WHAT I LOVE MOST…Ryan's insight that brands often chase new customers without realizing the conflicts it creates, when the gold might already be in their existing customer base.   Running Time: 27:02    Subscribe on iTunes     Find Tiffani Online: LinkedIn Facebook X    Find Ryan Online: LinkedIn   Ryan & Annie's Book: The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things

Jon Harris, EVP & Chief Communications and Networking Officer at ConAgra Brands, has led an extraordinary career built on empathy, authenticity, and bold storytelling. In this episode of Owning Your Legacy, Jon shares his journey—from humble beginnings and a life-changing internship at the Howard Stern Show to top-level roles at PepsiCo, Sara Lee, and now ConAgra.Jon opens up about his childhood promise to help others, his philosophy of building genuine relationships, and how he became a trusted advisor to some of the biggest names in business and media. Whether you're interested in PR, personal branding, leadership, or career reinvention, this episode is packed with wisdom, laughs, and heartfelt moments.

Carl Quintanilla, Seema Mody, and Michael Santoli discussed the latest for stocks as the S&P and Nasdaq sit inches from new all-time highs. To kick off the hour: NAHB housing data, the latest from the White House, and why Stifel's Chief Economist is warning of a 10% sell-off ahead. Plus, one Former Commerce Secretary's take on tariffs, Trump, DOGE... And a read from the ground in Beijing as President Xi Jinping tries to reboot relations with the country's private sector.  A number of market movers also in focus: Broadcom & Taiwan Semi eye a deal for Intel; the latest on a new Delta Airlines crash; Conagra's guidance cut; what's driving Meta's record rally; and a look at Musk's newest iteration of 'Grok' Squawk on the Street Disclaimer

While inflation has fallen from the high of prior years, Conagra Brands (CAG) says that a strong U.S. dollar, a frugal U.S. consumer and supply chain disruptions hurt its margins. Jenny Horne has the latest on why Conagra isn't the only food company facing headwinds.======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

APAC stocks traded somewhat mixed in the absence of a lead from Wall St owing to the Presidents' Day holiday.Fed's Waller (voter) said the Fed cannot let uncertainty about policy paralyse action but it is appropriate to keep rates on hold for now.RBA delivered a widely expected 25bps rate cut but also noted the board remains cautious on prospects for further policy easing.European equity futures indicate a marginally softer cash market open with Euro Stoxx 50 futures down 0.1% after the cash market closed with gains of 0.5% on Monday.DXY is firmer, AUD marginally lags post-cautious RBA rate cut, EUR/USD remains on a 1.04 handle, Cable trades around the 1.26 mark.Looking ahead, highlights include UK Jobs, German ZEW Survey, Canadian CPI, Japanese Exports/Imports, BoE's Bailey, ECB's Cipollone, Fed's Daly, Waller & Barr, Supply from UK & Germany, Earnings from Baidu, Medtronic, Conagra, Occidental Petroleum, HSBC, Antofagasta & Capgemini.Read the full report covering Equities, Forex, Fixed Income, Commodites and more on Newsquawk

Join host Andrew Stotz for a lively conversation with Cliff Norman and Dave Williams, two of the authors of "Quality as an Organizational Strategy." They share stories of Dr. Deming, insights from working with businesses over the years, and the five activities the book is based on. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, we have a fantastic opportunity to learn more about a recent book that's been published called "Quality as an Organizational Strategy". And I'd like to welcome Cliff Norman and Dave Williams on the show, two of the three authors. Welcome, guys.   0:00:27.1 Cliff Norman: Thank you. Glad to be here.   0:00:29.4 Dave Williams: Yeah, thanks for having us.   0:00:31.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I've been looking forward to this for a while. I was on LinkedIn originally, and somebody posted it. I don't remember who, the book came out. And I immediately ordered it because I thought to myself, wait, wait, wait a minute. This plugs a gap. And I just wanna start off by going back to Dr. Deming's first Point, which was create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service with the aim to become competitive and stay in business and to provide jobs. And all along, as anybody that learned the 14 Points, they knew that this was the concept of the strategy is to continue to improve the product and service in the eyes of the client and in your business. But there was a lot missing. And I felt like your book has started really to fill that gap. So maybe I'll ask Cliff, if you could just explain kind of where does this book come from and why are you bringing it out now?   0:01:34.5 Cliff Norman: That's a really good question, Andrew. The book was originally for the use of both our clients only. So it came into being, the ideas came out of the Deming four day seminar where Dr. Tom Nolan, Ron Moen and Lloyd Provost, Jerry Langley would be working with Dr. Deming. And then at the end of four days, the people who some of who are our clients would come up to us and said, he gave us the theory, but we don't have any methods. And so they took it very seriously and took Dr. Deming's idea of production viewed as a system. And from that, they developed the methods that we're going to discuss called the five activities. And all of our work with this was completely behind the wall of our clients. We didn't advertise. So the only people who became clients were people who would seek us out. So this has been behind the stage since about 1990. And the reason to bring it out now is to make it available beyond our client base. And Dave, I want you to go ahead and add to that because you're the ones that insisted that this get done. So add to that if you would.   [laughter]   0:02:53.0 Dave Williams: Well, thanks, Cliff. Actually, I often joke at Cliff. So one thing to know, Cliff and Lloyd and I all had a home base of Austin, Texas. And I met them about 15 years ago when I was in my own journey of, I had been a chief quality officer of an ambulance system and was interested in much of the work that API, Associates of Process Improvement, had been doing with folks in the healthcare sector. And I reached out to Cliff and Lloyd because they were in Austin and they were kind enough, as they have been over many years, to welcome me to have coffee and talk about what I was trying to learn and where my interests were and to learn from their work. And over the last 15 years, I've had a great benefit of learning from the experience and methods that API has been using with organizations around the world, built on the shoulders of the theories from Dr. Deming. And one of those that was in the Improvement Guide, one of the foundational texts that we use a lot in improvement project work that API wrote was, if you go into the back, there is a chapter, and Cliff, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's chapter 13 in this current edition on creating value.   0:04:34.3 Dave Williams: In there, there was some description of kind of a structure or a system of activities that would be used to pursue qualities and organizational strategy. I later learned that this was built on a guide that was used that had been sort of semi self-published to be able to use with clients. And the more that I dove into it, the more that I really valued the way in which it had been framed, but also how, as you mentioned at the start, it provided methods in a place where I felt like there was a gap in what I saw in organizations that I was working with or that I had been involved in. And so back in 2020, when things were shut down initially during the beginning of the pandemic, I approached Lloyd and Cliff and I said, I'd love to help in any way that I can to try to bring this work forward and modernize it. And I say modernize it, not necessarily in terms of changing it, but updating the material from its last update into today's context and examples and make it available for folks through traditional bookstores and other venues.   0:05:58.9 Andrew Stotz: And I have that The Improvement Guide, which is also a very impressive book that helps us to think about how are we improving. And as you said, the, that chapter that you were talking about, 13, I believe it was, yeah, making the improvement of value a business strategy and talking about that. So, Cliff, could you just go back in time for those people that don't know you in the Deming world, I'm sure most people do, but for those people that don't know, maybe you could just talk about your first interactions with Dr. Deming and the teachings of that and what sparked your interest and also what made you think, okay, I wanna keep expanding on this.   0:06:40.0 Cliff Norman: Yeah. So I was raised in Southern California and of course, like many others, I'm rather horrified by what's going on out there right now with fires. That's an area I was raised in. And so I moved to Texas in '79, went to work for Halliburton. And they had an NBC White Paper called, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?", and our CEO, Mr. Purvis Thrash, he saw that. And I was working in the quality area at that time. And he asked me to go to one of Deming's seminars that was held in Crystal City, actually February of 1982. And I got down there early and got a place up front. And they sent along with me an RD manager to keep an eye on me, 'cause I was newly from California into Texas. And so anyway, we're both sitting there. And so I forgot something. So I ran up stairs in the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel there. And I was coming down and lo and behold, next floor down, Dr. Deming gets on and two ladies are holding him up. And they get in the elevator there and he sees this George Washington University badge and he kind of comes over, even while the elevator was going down and picks it up and looks it up real close to his face. And then he just backs up and leans, holds onto the railing and he says, Mr. Norman, what I'm getting ready to tell you today will haunt you for the rest of your life.   0:08:11.8 Cliff Norman: And that came true. And of course, I was 29 at the time and was a certified quality engineer and knew all things about the science of quality. And I couldn't imagine what he would tell me that would haunt me for the rest of my life, but it did. And then the next thing he told me, he said, as young as you are, if you're not learning from somebody that you're working for, you ought to think about getting a new boss. And that's some of the best advice I've ever gotten. I mean, the hanging around smart people is a great thing to do. And I've been gifted with that with API. And so that's how I met him. And then, of course, when I joined API, I ended up going to several seminars to support Lloyd Provost and Tom Nolan and Ron Moen and Jerry as the various seminars were given. And Ron Moen, who unfortunately passed away about three years ago, he did 88 of those four day seminars, and he was just like a walking encyclopedia for me. So anytime I had questions on Deming, I could just, he's a phone call away, and I truly miss that right now.   0:09:20.5 Cliff Norman: So when Dave has questions or where this reference come from or whatever, and I got to go do a lot of work, where Ron, he could just recall that for me. So I miss that desperately, but we were busy at that time, by the time I joined API was in '88. And right away, I was introduced to what they had drafted out in terms of the five activities, which is the foundation of the book, along with understanding the science of improvement and the chain reaction that Dr. Deming introduced us to. So the science of improvement is what Dr. Deming called the System of Profound Knowledge. So I was already introduced to all that and was applying that within Halliburton. But QBS, as we called it then, Qualities of Business Strategy was brand new. I mean, it was hot off the press. And right away, I took it and started working with my clients with it. And we were literally walking on the bridge as we were building it. And the lady I'm married to right now, Jane Norman, she was working at Conagra, which is like a $15 billion poultry company that's part of Conagra overall, which is most of the food in your grocery store, about 75% of it. And she did one of the first system linkages that we ever did.   0:10:44.5 Cliff Norman: And since then, she's worked at like four other companies as a VP or COO, and has always applied these ideas. And so a lot of this in the book examples and so forth, comes from her actual application work. And when we'd worked together, she had often introduced me, this is my husband, Cliff, he and his partners, they write books, but some of us actually have to go to work. And then eventually she wrote a book with me with Dr. Maccabee, who is also very closely associated with Dr. Deming. So now she's a co-author. So I was hoping that would stop that, but again, we depend on her for a lot of the examples and contributions and the rest of it that show up in the book. So I hope that answers your question.   0:11:28.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and for people like myself and some of our listeners who have heard Dr. Deming speak and really gotten into his teachings, it makes sense, this is going to haunt you because I always say that, what I read originally... I was 24 when I went to my first Deming seminar. And I went to two two-day seminars and it... My brain was open, I was ready, I didn't have anything really in it about, any fixed methods or anything. So, for me, it just blew my mind, some of the things that he was talking about, like thinking about things in a system I didn't think about that I thought that the way we got to do is narrow things down and get this really tight focus and many other things that I heard. And also as a young, young guy, I was in this room with, I don't know, 500 older gentlemen and ladies, and I sat in the front row and so I would see him kind of call them on the carpet and I would be looking back like, oh, wow, I never saw anybody talk to senior management like that and I was kind of surprised. But for those people that really haven't had any of that experience they're new to Deming, what is it that haunts you? What is... Can you describe what he meant when he was saying that?   0:12:42.9 Cliff Norman: I gotta just add to what you just said because it's such a profound experience. And when you're 29, if most of us, we think we're pretty good shape by that time, the brain's fully developed by age 25, judgment being the last function that develops. And so you're pretty well on your way and then to walk in and have somebody who's 81 years old, start introducing you to things you've never even thought about. The idea of the Chain Reaction that what I was taught as a certified quality engineer through ASQ is I need to do enough inspection, but I didn't need to do too much 'cause I didn't want to raise costs too much. And Dr. Deming brought me up on stage and he said, well, show me that card again. So I had a 105D card, it's up to G now or something. And he said, "well, how does this work?" And I said, "well, it tells me how many samples I got to get." And he says, "you know who invented that." And I said, "no, sir, I thought God did." He said, "no, I know the people that did it. They did it to put people like you out of business. Sit down, young man, you've got a lot to learn." And I thought, wow, and here you are in front of 500 people and this is a public flogging by any stretch.   0:13:56.1 Cliff Norman: And it just went on from there. And so a few years later, I'm up in Valley Forge and I'm working at a class with Lloyd and Tom Nolan and a guy named, I never met before named Jim Imboden. And he's just knock-down brilliant, but they're all working at General Motors at that time. And a lot of the book "Planned Experimentation" came out of their work at Ford and GM and Pontiac and the rest of it. And I mean, it's just an amazing contribution, but I go to dinner with Jim that night. And Jim looks at me across the table and he says, Cliff, how did you feel the day you found out you didn't know anything about business economics or anything else? I said, "you mean the first day of the Deming seminar?" He said, "that's what I'm talking about." And that just... That's how profound that experience is. Because all of a sudden you find out you can improve quality and lower costs at the same time. I'm sorry, most people weren't taught that. They certainly weren't taught that in business school. And so it was a whole transformation in thinking and just the idea of a system. Most of what's going on in the system is related to the system and the way it's constructed. And unfortunately, for most organizations, it's hidden.   0:15:04.2 Cliff Norman: They don't even see it. So when things happen, the first thing that happens is the blame flame. I had a VP I worked for and he'd pulled out his org chart when something went bad and he'd circle. He said, this is old Earl's bailiwick right here. So Cliff, go over and see Earl and I want you to straighten him out. Well, that's how most of it runs. And so the blame flame just takes off. And if you pull the systems map out there and if he had to circle where it showed up, he'd see there were a lot of friends around that that were contributing. And we start to understand the complexity of the issue. But without that view, and Deming insisted on, then you're back to the blame flame.   0:15:45.1 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And Dave, I see a lot of books on the back on your shelf there about quality and productivity and team and many different things. But maybe you could give us a little background on kind of how how you, besides how you got onto this project and all that. But just where did you come from originally and how did you stumble into the Deming world?   0:16:08.9 Dave Williams: Sure. Well, sadly, I didn't have the pleasure of getting to sit in on a four-day workshop. Deming died in 1993. And at that time, I was working on an ambulance as a street paramedic and going to college to study ambulance system design and how to manage ambulance systems, which was a part of public safety that had sort of grown, especially in the United States in the '60s. And by the time I was joining, it was about 30 years into becoming more of a formalized profession. And I found my way to Austin, Texas, trying to find one of the more professionalized systems to work in and was, worked here as a paramedic for a few years. And then decided I wanted to learn more and started a graduate program. And one of the courses that was taught in the graduate program, this is a graduate program on ambulance management, was on quality. And it was taught by a gentleman who had written a, a guide for ambulance leaders in the United States that was based on the principles and methods of quality that was happening at this time. And it pieced together a number of different common tools and methods like Pareto charts and cause-and-effect diagrams and things like that.   0:17:33.1 Dave Williams: And it mentioned the different leaders like Deming and Juran and Crosby and others. And so that was my first exposure to many of these ideas. And because I was studying a particular type of healthcare delivery system and I was a person who was practicing within it and I was learning about these ideas that the way that you improve a system or make improvement is by changing the system. I was really intrigued and it just worked out at the time. One of the first roles, leadership roles that emerged in my organization was to be the Chief Quality Officer for the organization. And at the time, there were 20 applicants within my organization, but I was the only one that knew anything about any of the foundations of quality improvements. Everybody else applied and showed their understanding of quality from a lived experience perspective or what their own personal definitions of quality were, which was mostly around inspection and quality assurance. I had, and this won't surprise Cliff, but I had a nerdy response that was loaded with references and came from all these different things that I had been exposed to. And they took a chance on me because I was the only one that seemed to have some sense of the background. And I started working and doing...   0:19:10.1 Dave Williams: Improvement within this ambulance system as the kind of the dedicated leader who was supposed to make these changes. And I think one of the things that I learned really quickly is that frequently how improvement efforts were brought to my attention was because there was a problem that I, had been identified, a failure or an error usually attributed to an individual as Cliff pointed out, somebody did something and they were the unfortunate person who happened to kind of raise this issue to others. And if I investigated it all, I often found that there were 20 other people that made the same error, but he was, he or she was the only one that got caught. And so therefore they were called to my office to confess. And when I started to study and look at these different issues, every time I looked at something even though I might be able to attribute the, first instance to a person, I found 20 or more instances where the system would've allowed or did allow somebody else to make a similar error.   0:20:12.6 Dave Williams: We just didn't find it. And it got... And it became somewhat fascinating to me because my colleagues were very much from a, if you work hard and just do your job and just follow the policy then good quality will occur. And nobody seemed to spend any time trying to figure out how to create systems that produce good results or figure out how to look at a system and change it and get better results. And so most of my experience was coming from these, when something bubbled up, I would then get it, and then I'd use some systems thinking and some methods and all of a sudden unpack that there was a lot of variation going on and a lot of errors that could happen, and that the system was built to get results worse than we even knew.   0:21:00.7 Dave Williams: And it was through that journey that I ended up actually becoming involved with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and learning about what was being done in the healthcare sector, which API at the time were the key advisors to Dr. Don Berwick and the leadership at IHI. And so much of the methodology was there. And actually, that's how I found my way to Cliff. I happened to be at a conference for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and there was an advertisement for a program called the Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program, which was an improvement like practitioner project level program that had been developed by API that had been adapted to IHI, and I noticed that Cliff and Lloyd were the faculty, and that they were in my hometown. And that's how I reached out to them and said, hey can we have coffee? And Cliff said, yes. And so...   0:21:53.1 Andrew Stotz: And what was that, what year was that roughly?   0:22:00.3 Dave Williams: That would've been back in 2002 or 2003, somewhere in that vicinity.   0:22:02.0 Andrew Stotz: Hmm. Okay.   0:22:06.8 Dave Williams: Maybe a little bit later.   0:22:06.9 Andrew Stotz: I just for those people that are new to the topic and listening in I always give an example. When I worked at Pepsi... I graduated in 1989 from university with a degree in finance. And I went to work at Pepsi in manufacturing and warehouse in Los Angeles at the Torrance Factory originally, and then in Buena Park. But I remember that my boss told me, he saw that I could work computers at that time, and so I was making charts and graphs just for fun to look at stuff. And he said, yeah, you should go to a one of these Deming seminars. And so he sent me to the one in... At George Washington University back in 1990, I think it was. And but what was happening is we had about a hundred trucks we wanted to get out through a particular gate that we had every single morning. And the longer it took to get those trucks out the longer they're gonna be on LA traffic and on LA roads, so if we can get 'em out at 5:00 AM, fantastic. If we get 'em out at 7:00, we're in trouble. And so they asked me to look at this and I did a lot of studying of it and I was coming for like 4:00 in the morning I'd go up to the roof of the building and I'd look down and watch what was happening. And then finally I'd interview everybody. And then finally the truck drivers just said, look, the loaders mess it up so I gotta open my truck every morning and count everything on it. And I thought, oh, okay.   0:23:23.7 Andrew Stotz: So I'll go to the loaders. And I go, why are you guys messing this up? And then the loaders was like, I didn't mess it up. We didn't have the production run because the production people changed the schedule, and so we didn't have what the guy needed. And so, and oh, yeah, there was a mistake because the production people put the product in the wrong spot, and therefore, I got confused and I put the wrong stuff on by accident. And then I went to the production people and they said, well, no, it's not us. It's the salespeople. They keep putting all this pressure on us to put this through right now, and it's messing up our whole system. And that was the first time in my life where I realized, okay, it's a system. There's interconnected parts here that are interacting, and I had to go back into the system to fix, but the end result was I was able to get a hundred trucks through this gate in about 45 minutes instead of two hours, what we had done before.   0:24:18.8 Andrew Stotz: But it required a huge amount of work of going back and looking at the whole system. So the idea of looking at the science of improvement, as you mentioned, and the System of Profound Knowledge, it's... There's a whole process. Now, I wanna ask the question for the person who gets this book and they dig into it, it's not a small book. I've written some books, but all of 'em are small because I'm just, maybe I just can't get to this point. But this book is a big book, and it's got about 300... More than 300 pages. What's the promise? What are they gonna get from digging into this book? What are they gonna take away? What are they gonna be able to bring to their life and their business that they couldn't have done without really going deeper into this material?   0:24:57.7 Cliff Norman: Dave, go ahead.   0:25:01.4 Dave Williams: Well, I was gonna joke by saying they're gonna get hard work and only half because this is just the theory in the book and many of the... And sort of examples of the method. But we're in the process of preparing a field guide which is a much deeper companion guide loaded with exercises and examples of and more of the methods. So the original guide that that API had developed was actually about an eight... Well, I don't know how many pages it was, but it was a thick three inch binder. This, what you have there is us refining the content part that explains the theory and kind of gets you going. And then we moved all of the exercises and things to the field guide for people that really wanna get serious about it.   0:26:00.3 Dave Williams: And the reason I say hard work is that the one thing that you won't get, and you should probably pass it if this book if you're on Amazon, is you're not gonna get an easy answer. This is, as a matter of fact, one of the things that emerged in our early conversations about was this project worth it? Is to say that this is hard work. It's work that a very few number of leaders who or leadership teams that really want to learn and work hard and get results are gonna embark on. But for those, and many of our clients, I think are representative of that, of those people that say, gosh, I've been working really hard, and I feel like we could do better. I feel like I could make a bigger impact, or I could serve more customers or clients.   0:26:44.0 Dave Williams: And but I am... And I'm in intrigued or inspired or gotten to a certain point with improvement science on my own, but I want to figure out how to be more systematic and more global and holistic at that approach. Then that's what QOS is about. It builds on the shoulders of the other books that you mentioned, like The Improvement Guide which we talked about as being a great book about improvement, and improvement specifically in the context of a project. And other books like The Healthcare Data Guide and the Planned Experimentation, which are also about methods, healthcare Data Guide being about Shewhart charts, and Planned Experimentation being about factorial design. This book is about taking what Cliff described earlier as that... I always say it's that that diagram that people put on a slide and never talk about from Deming of production views as a system and saying, well, how would we do this if this is the model for adopting quality as strategy, what are the methods that help us to do this?   0:28:01.3 Dave Williams: And this book breaks that down into five activities that are built on the shoulders of profound knowledge, built on the shoulders of the science of improvement and provide a structure to be able to initially develop a system, a systems view of your organization, and then build on that by using that system to continually operate and improve that organization over time. So the book describes the activities. The book describes some of the things that go into getting started, including being becoming good at doing results-driven improvement, building a learning system, focusing in on the things that matter to your organization. And then working towards building the structure that you can improve upon. The book creates that foundation. It provides examples from clients and from people that we've worked with so that you can see what the theory looks like in practice get, kind of get a flavor for that. And we hope it builds on the shoulders of other work that I mentioned in the other books that compliment it and provides a starting point for teams that are interested in taking that journey.   0:29:26.5 Andrew Stotz: And Cliff, from your perspective, if somebody had no, I mean, I think, I think the Deming community's gonna really dive in and they're gonna know a lot of this stuff, but is gonna help them take it to the next level. But for someone who never had any real experience with Deming or anything like that, and they stumble upon this interview, this discussion, they hear about this book, can they get started right away with what's in this book? Or do they have to go back to foundations?   0:29:49.6 Cliff Norman: No, I think that can definitely get started. There's a lot of learning as you know, Andrew, from going through the four-day to understand things. And I think we've done a pretty good job of integrating what Dr. Deming taught us, as well as going with the methods. And one of the things people would tell him in his four-day seminars is, Dr. Deming, you've given us the theory, but we have no method here. And he said, well, if I have to give you the method, then you'll have to send me your check too. So he expected us to be smart enough to develop the methods. And the API folks did a really good job of translating that into what we call the five activities. So those five activities are to understand the purpose of the organization.   0:30:35.6 Cliff Norman: And a lot of people when they write a purpose, they'll put something up there but it's usually we love all our people. We love our customers even more. If only they didn't spend so much, and we'll come out with something like that and there'll be some pablum that they'll throw up on the wall. Well, this actually has some structure to it to get to Deming's ideas. And the first thing is let's try to understand what business we're in and what need we're serving in society that drives customers to us. So that word is used not need coming from customers, but what is it that drives them to us so we can understand that? And then the second part of that purpose needs to define the mainstay, the core processes, the delivery systems that relate directly to customers. And just those two ideas alone, just in the first activity of purpose, most people haven't thought about those ideas.   0:31:27.8 Cliff Norman: And can somebody pick up this book and do that? Yes. And that will answer a big challenge from Dr. Deming. Most people don't even know what business they're in, haven't even thought about it. And so that we... That question gets answered here, I think, very thoroughly. In this second activity, which is viewing the organization as a system contains two components that's viewing the organization as a system. And that's difficult to do, and a lot of people really don't see the need for it. Jane Norman reminded Dave and I on a call we did last week, that when you talk about a systems map with people, just ask 'em how do they know what's going on inside other organizations, other departments within their organization? How do they know that? And most of us are so siloed.   0:32:11.2 Cliff Norman: Somebody over here is doing the best job they can in department X, and meanwhile, department Y doesn't know anything about it. And then three months later the improvement shows up and all of a sudden there's problems now in department Y. Well, somebody who's focused on the organization as a system and sees how those processes are related when somebody comes to a management meeting said, well, we've just made a change here, and this is gonna show up over here in about three months, and you need to be prepared for that. Andrew, that conversation never takes place. So the idea of having the systems map and this book can help you get started on that. The second book that Dave was just talking about, there are more replete examples in there. I mean, we've got six case studies from clients in there than the practitioners and people who actually are gonna be doing this work.   0:33:01.7 Cliff Norman: That's gonna be absolutely... They're gonna need that field guide. And I think that's where Dave was coming from. The third activity is the information activity, how are we learning from outside the organization and how do we get feedback and research into the development of new products and services and the rest of it? And so we provided a system there. In fact, Dave took a lead on that chapter, and we've got several inputs there that have to be defined. And people just thinking through that and understanding that is huge. When Dr. Deming went to Japan in 1950, he was there to do the census to see how many Japanese were left after World War II. And then he got an invitation to come and talk to the top 50 industrialists. And he started asking questions and people from the Bank of Tokyo over there and all the rest of it.   0:33:52.4 Cliff Norman: And Dr. Deming says, well, do you have any problems? And they said, what do you mean? He says, well, do customers call up and complain? And he said, yes. And he says, well, do you have any data? And he said, no. He says, but if they complain, we give them a Geisha calendar. And then Dr. Deming says, well, how many Geisha calendars have you given out? So it's like, in 1991, I'm sitting here talking to a food company and I asked him, I said, well, you get customer complaints? Oh yeah. Do you have any data on it? No, but we give 'em a cookbook. I said, well, how many cookbooks are you giving out? So I was right back to where Deming was in 1950, so having the information activity, that third activity critical so that we're being proactive with it and not just reactive.   0:34:43.7 Cliff Norman: And so I think people can read through that and say, well, what are we doing right now? Well, I guess we're not doing this and move on. Then the fourth activity is absolutely critical. This is where you know that you've arrived, because now you're going to integrate not only the plan to operate, but a plan to improve. That becomes the business plan. For most people in business plan they do a strategy, and then they have a bunch of sub strategies, and they vote on what's important, and they do some other things, and then a year later they come back and revisit it. Well, what happens here is there's some strategic objectives that are laid out, and then immediately it comes down to, okay, what's gonna be designed and redesigned in this system? Which processes, products and services are gonna be designed? 'Cause we can all see it now, Andrew.   0:35:31.6 Andrew Stotz: Mm.   0:35:31.6 Cliff Norman: We can, it's right in front of us. So it's really easy to see at this point, and now we can start to prioritize and make that happen on purpose. As an example when Jane was a vice president at Conagra, they came up with five strategic objectives. Then they made a bunch of promises to corporate about what they were gonna do and when they were going to achieve it. When she laid out the systems map for them, they were horrified that over 30% of the processes that they needed to be having precooked meat didn't even exist. They were gonna have to be designed. And so Jane and I sat there and looking at 'em and said, well, if you'd had this map before you made the promises, would you have made those promises? No, no, we're in trouble right now. I gotta go back to the CEO of the holding company and tell 'em we're not gonna make it.   0:36:22.4 Cliff Norman: But there's a whole bunch of people that sit around in goal settings. We're gonna do this by when and have no idea about what they're talking about. So that's a little bit dangerous here. And then the fifth activity, it's probably the most important. And where I want people to start, I actually want 'em to start on the fifth activity, which is managing individual improvement activities, team activities. And what I mean by that is, nothing can hold you up from starting today on making an improvement and use the model for improvement. The three basic questions, you can write that on an envelope and apply it to a project and start right away. Because learning the habit of improvement, and when you identify, and this is typical in the planning process, again, a chapter that Dave took a lead on in the planning chapter.   0:37:03.8 Cliff Norman: When you lay that out, you're gonna come up with three to five strategic objectives, but that's gonna produce anywhere between 15 and 20 improvement efforts. And when people start three improvement efforts, and they see how difficult that is to traffic through an organization, particularly if you have a systems map, makes it a lot easier. If you don't have that, then there's all sorts of things that happen to you.   0:37:21.3 Andrew Stotz: Hmm.   0:37:22.8 Cliff Norman: But the, the idea of that all coming together is critical. And where you... Where that really shows up for the reader here is in chapter one. So Lloyd Provost took a lead on chapter one. If you read chapter one, you got a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen in the rest of the book. But more importantly, in that book, in chapter one, there's a survey at the end. And every time we give this out to people, they feel real bad.   0:37:48.1 Cliff Norman: And well, Cliff, any, on a scale of one to 10, we only came up with a four. Well, what I would tell 'em is, if you can come up with a four, you're pretty good. And those fundamentals have to be in place. In other words, the management needs to trust each other. There are certain things that have to be in place before you can even think about skating backwards here. And quality as an organizational strategy is all about skating backwards. The people who don't have the fundamentals can't even start to think about that.   0:38:15.0 Cliff Norman: So that survey and the gap between where they are at a four and where they're going to be at a 10, we've integrated throughout the whole book. So as you're reading through the whole book, you're seeing that gap, and then you have a good plan forward as to what do I need to do to get to be a six, an eight, and what do I need to do to finally arrive at a 10? Dave, why don't you add to what I just said there, and I gotta turn on a light here, I think.   0:38:39.2 Dave Williams: Well, I think one of the things that, and Cliff has probably been the one that has helped me appreciate this to the biggest degree is the role in which improvement plays in quality as an organizational strategy. So, I mean, I think in general, in our world, improvement is seen as kind of like a given, but in our case, what we've found is that many times people are not working on the things right in front of them or the problems in which they have, that they are on the hook... I like to say, are on the hook to get accomplished right now. And like Cliff mentioned, many of my clients when I engage with them, I say, well, what have you promised this year? And they'll give me a list and I'll say, well, okay, what are you working on to improve? And they'll be working on projects that are not related to that list of things that they've got to affect. And so usually that's a first pivot is to say, well, let's think about what are the things that you're working on or should be working on that are either designing or redesigning your system to achieve these strategic objectives.   0:39:48.8 Dave Williams: And the reason to put the attention on that fifth activity and get people working on improvement, there's a good chance that the improvement capability within the organization currently isn't to the level that you need it, where you can get results-driven projects happening at a clip that will enable you to chip away at 20 projects versus four in a year. And that it's not well integrated into the leadership, into the support structures that you have. In addition, if you're trying to use improvement on things that you're on the hook for, and Cliff noted, especially if you've got a system map while you're on that journey, you're gonna start to pick up on where the disconnects are. Similar to your example, Andrew, where you were describing your experience working backwards in the process, you're going to start to recognize, oh, I'm working on this, but it's linked to these other things. Or in order for me to do this, I need that. Or... And so that amplifies the project to be kind of just a vehicle to appreciate other things that are interconnected, that are important in improving our work together.   0:41:05.1 Dave Williams: And so I think that that's a critical piece. I mean, I sometimes describe it as the disappointment that people have when they open QOS because they want to have a new method or a new thing to work on. I said, well, there's a lot new in here. And at the same time, we want to build on the shoulders of the fundamentals. We want to build it because it's the fundamentals that are going to be able for you to activate the things that are necessary in order for you to skate backwards, like Cliff was describing earlier.   0:41:36.2 Cliff Norman: I got to add to what Dave was saying because this actually happened to me with a... I'm not going to mention the name of the company, but it's a high-tech companies worldwide. And we got up, a good friend of mine, Bruce Bowles, and we were introducing the idea of quality as an organizational strategy. And one of the guys in the front row, he says, Cliff, this just sounds like common sense, why aren't we all doing this? I said, that's a real good question. Let me put that in the parking lot here. So I put it up on a flip chart. And so we went through the idea of... We were working on Shewhart control charts. And so we showed him one of those. And at the end of all that, he raised his hand and I said, yeah, he says, Cliff, this is hard. I said, well, let me put that up here. This is hard. Then we went through the systems map and he says, look, this is hard. By the end of the two days, it was, this is hard, this is hard, this is hard, this is hard. This goes back to what Dave was saying earlier about once you open this page, there's some work that takes off, but more importantly, there's something new to learn here.   0:42:40.3 Cliff Norman: And that's frustrating to people, especially when they've got to quit doing what they've done in the past. It's what Deming says, you got to give up on the guilt and you got to move forward and transform your own thinking. So there's something here for the management to do. And if they're not willing to do that work, then this is probably not a good thing for them. Just go back to the blame flame and circling org charts and that kind of stuff and then wonder why we're losing money.   0:43:11.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that we see in the Deming community is that, why are people doing it the way they are, dividing things up and doing KPIs and saying, you take care of that. And we're gonna optimize by focusing on each... We see how that all kind of falls apart.   0:43:27.9 Cliff Norman: It all falls through reductionism.   0:43:29.8 Andrew Stotz: [laughter] Yeah.   0:43:32.5 Cliff Norman: It doesn't understand the system, yeah.   0:43:32.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, so what I want to do now is I was just thinking about a book on my shelf called "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. And there's a whole field of study in the area of strategy for businesses. Now you guys use, and you explain a little bit about the way you come up with... Why you come up with organization rather than let's say company as an example. But let's just talk about strategy for a moment. Generally we're taught in business school that there's two main strategies. One is a differentiation strategy. I like to teach my students like Starbucks. It's very differentiated from the old model. And you can have a low cost strategy, which is like McDonald's, where it's all about operational efficiency.   0:44:18.4 Andrew Stotz: And those are two different strategies that can get to the same goal, which is to build a strong and sustainable business that's making a good profit for the employees to get paid well and for shareholders. And so for somebody that understands some of the foundations of typical strategy, it's hard for them to think, wait, wait, wait, what? You're just talking about just better quality is the strategy? How should they frame this concept of quality as a strategy in relation to what we've been taught about low cost and differentiation and other types of strategy? How do we think about this book in relation to that?   0:45:03.2 Cliff Norman: When Deming wrote his book, his very first one of the four "Out of the Crisis", which was the whole idea about quality and competitive position. But he was kind of answering that. And at that time, what we had is we had three companies in the United States that were going at each other, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. And they'd call each other up, well, what are you doing this year? Oh, we're making cars that don't work. Sometimes they break down. That's why we have Mr. Goodwrench to repair them. That's an extra revenue source for us. As one of the executives that are challenged, a colleague of mine, he said, you don't realize how much money we're gonna lose here taking the repair business out because we make a lot of money out of repair. So making cars that don't work has been a good revenue stream for us. Well, all that works out great, until somebody shows up like Toyota that has a car that works and doesn't need to be repaired by Mr. Goodwrench all the time.   0:45:58.8 Cliff Norman: So the mind shift there, and what Dr. Deming was saying is that he was focused on the competition's already licked. And I don't think Porter's thought about that very much, not to be overly critical, because I'm an admirer of his, but the idea of focusing on the need and why is that customer coming to us so that we make a journey, and the Japanese call that being in the Gemba, being in the presence with the customers as they use the product or service and doing the research and the rest of it. And then coming back and then redesign that product or service so that it not only grabs the current customer, but we start thinking about customers that are not even our customers and innovate and actually come up with a design that actually brings new customers to us through products and services that we haven't thought about yet. So if I show you three products just to make a picture of it, we often show like an abacus, which was a hand calculating machine about BC. Then there's a slide rule that came out about the same year that Columbus discovered America. And that was good till about 1968.   0:47:06.0 Cliff Norman: And then the calculator, the handheld calculator came out. Well the need for all three of those products is to do handheld calculations. So we've had that need since BC. Now in 1967, K&E Calculator was making that slide rule, which I used in junior high school. If you'd have come up to me and said, Cliff, what do you need in the way of a better slide rule? I said, well can you get me a holster for it? 'Cause I don't like having to stick me in the face. I put it in my pocket and it sticks me in the face. And if you can give me a holster for that, that would be my view of that. I wasn't about to come up with the TI calculator. That wasn't gonna happen. Not from Cliff. It's gonna come from an engineer at TI. Now, K&E Calculator, if they'd been doing research in the marketplace and saying, is there something that can totally disrupt us going on here? Rather than just looking at figuring out a way to make the K&E slide rule better, they might've discovered that.   0:48:07.0 Cliff Norman: Most people don't do that. They just go back. They just lose their business. And it was interesting in '67, their annual report put out, what's the world gonna look like 100 years from now? So they had dome cities, they had cars flying, they had all sorts of things going on that were great innovations, but they didn't have the TI calculator in there, along with the HP calculator. And that wiped out their business. And so if people understand the need, and that's what Dr. Deming is getting at, he says, they really haven't thought about what business they're in. So why are the customers coming to us? He says, no customer ever asked for pneumatic tire. No customer ever asked for a microwave oven. That came from people with knowledge that were looking at how the customers are using the current products and services and say, now, is there technology innovation going on that we can actually do a better job of providing a better match in the future?   0:48:56.9 Andrew Stotz: And can you explain why you use the word need as opposed to want?   0:49:06.5 Cliff Norman: That's a good question. The idea is that there's a need that's constant in society. So that need of having to do handheld calculations or needing healthcare or to pay bills, that need is constant throughout civilization. And so if I want something that's interesting, that might be the match. That might be something to do with some features what I'm offering and so forth. I'd like to have this, I'd like to have that. But the need and the way we're using that is it doesn't come from customers. It's what drives customers to us. And it's always been there. It's always been there. Need for transportation, for example. Whether you're walking or driving a bicycle or a car or a plane.   0:49:53.6 Andrew Stotz: And Dave, how would you answer the same question when you think about a person running a business and they've had many strategy meetings in their business, they've set their corporate strategy of what we're doing, where we're going and that type of thing. And maybe they've picked, we're gonna be a low cost producer. Thailand's an interesting one because Thailand had a ability to be low cost producers in the past. And then China came along and became the ultimate low cost producer. And all of a sudden, Thai companies had a harder time getting the economies of scale and the like. And now the Chinese manufacturers are just really coming into Thailand, into the Thai market. And now it's like, for a Thai company to become a low cost leader is almost impossible given the scale that China and the skills that they have in that. And so therefore, they're looking at things like I've got to figure out how to get a better brand. I've got to figure out how to differentiate and that type of thing. How does this... How could this help a place like that and a management team that is struggling and stuck and is looking for answers?   0:51:07.0 Dave Williams: Well, I go back to what Cliff said about that many organizations don't pause to ask, why do they exist? What is the need of which they are trying to fulfill? Much of my background involved working in the service industry, initially with public safety and ambulance systems and fire systems, and then later in healthcare and in education. And in many of those environments, especially in places where in public systems where they've been built and they may have existed for a long time, when you ask them about what are they trying to accomplish as an organization or what is it that they... The need that they're trying to fulfill? Typically, they're gonna come back to you with requests or desires or wants or sort of characteristics or outcomes that people say they expect, but they don't pause to ask, like, well, what is the actual thing of which I'm trying to tackle? And Cliff mentioned like, and we actually, I should mention in the book, we have a list of different strategies, different types of strategies, all the different ones that you mentioned, like price and raw material or distribution style or platform or technology.   0:52:30.9 Dave Williams: There's different types of strategies, and the one that we are focusing in on is quality. But I think it's important for people to ask the question. Cliff mentioned transportation. There's a number of different great examples, actually, I think in transportation, where you could look at that as being an ongoing need as Cliff mentioned from the days when there was no technology and we were all on foot to our current day. Transportation has been a need that existed and many different things over time have been created from bicycles, probably one of the most efficient technologies to transport somebody, wheels and carts. And now, and you were referencing, we've made reference to the car industry. It's a fascinating experience going on of the car world and gas versus electric, high technology versus not, autonomous vehicles. There's, and all of them are trying to ask the question of, are there different ways in which I might be able to leverage technology to achieve this need of getting from point A to point B and be more useful and potentially disrupt in the marketplace? And so I think the critical thing initially is to go back and ask and learn and appreciate what is that need?   0:53:58.6 Dave Williams: And then think about your own products and services in relation to that. And I think we include four questions in the book to be able to kind of think about the need. And one of those questions is also, what are other ways in which you could fulfill that need? What are other ways that somebody could get transportation or do learning or to help sort of break you away from just thinking about your own product as well? And that's useful because it's super tied to the system question, right? Of, well, this is the need that we're trying to fulfill and these are the products and services that are matching that need. Then the system that we have is about, we need to build that and design that in order to produce, not only produce the products and services that match that need, but also continually improve that system to either improve those products and services or add or subtract products and services to keep matching the need and keep being competitive or keep being relevant. And maybe if it's not in a competitive environment where you're gonna go out of business, at least be relevant in terms of the city service or community service, government service that continues to be there to match the need of the constituents. So I think it's a really important piece.   0:55:17.0 Dave Williams: It's that North star of saying, providing a direction for everything else. And going back to your original comment or question about strategy, and many times people jump to a strategy or strategies or, and those might be more around particular objectives or outcomes that they're trying to get to. It may not actually be about the method or the approach like cost or technology that they may not even think that way. They may be more thinking about a plan. And I really encourage people to be clear about what they're trying to accomplish and then start to ask, well, how's the system built for that? And later we can bring a process that'll help us learn about our system and learn about closing that gap.   0:56:05.1 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Just what I'd add to that, Andrew, because you mentioned China, a few other countries, but I think the days are coming to an end fairly quickly where somebody can say, oh, we can go to this country. They have low wages, we'll put our plant there and all that. There's a lot of pushback on that, particularly in the United States. And if that's your strategy, that hadn't required a lot of thinking to say the least. But in 1966, over 50% of the countries in the world were, let me rephrase that, over 50% of the population of the world lived in extreme poverty. So there were a lot of targets to pick out where you want to put your manufacturing. And in 2017, and you and Dave were probably like myself, I didn't see this hit the news, but that figure had been reduced from over 50% down to 9%. And all you have to do is just, and I worked in China a lot, they're becoming very affluent. And as they become very affluent, that means wages are going up and all the things that we want to see throughout the world. And I think that's happening on a grand scale right now, but you're also getting a lot of pushback from people when they see the middle class in their own country, like here in the United States, destroyed, and say, I think we've had enough of this. And I think you're gonna see that after January. You're gonna see that take off on steroids.   0:57:31.7 Cliff Norman: And that's gonna happen, and I think throughout the world, people are demanding more, there's gonna have to be more energy, every time a baby is born, the footprints gets bigger for more energy and all the rest of it. So it's gonna be interesting, and I think we are going into an age for the planet where people as Dr. Deming promised that they'd be able to live materially better, and the whole essence of this book is to focus on the quality of the organization and the design and redesign of a system to a better job of matching the need and cause that chain reaction to go off. When Jane and I went over to work in Sweden, Sven Oloff who ran three hospitals and 62 dental clinics there and also managed the cultural activities and young shipping. He said, Cliff, I report to 81 politicians. I don't wanna have to go to them to put a bond on an election to get more money for my healthcare system, I wanna use Dr. Deming's chain reaction here to improve care to the patients in my county and also reduce our costs. A whole bunch of people that don't even believe that's possible in healthcare.   0:58:39.9 Cliff Norman: But that's what Sven Oloff said that's what you're here for. And that's what we proceeded to do, they launched about 350 projects to do just that, and one of their doctors, Dr. Motz [?], he's amazing. We taught him a systems map, I came back two months later, and he had them in his hospital on display. And I said, Motz, how did you do this? He said well Cliff, I'm an endocrinologist by education as a doctor, of course, that's a person who understands internal systems in the body. So he said the systems approach was a natural for me. But I'd like to say it was that easy for everybody else, that systems map idea and as you know, being in the Deming seminar, that's quite a challenge to move from viewing the organization as an org chart, which has been around since Moses father-in-law told him, you need to break up the work here a little bit, and the tens of tens reporting to each other, and then of course, the Romans took that to a grander scale, and so a centurion soldier had 100 other soldiers reporting to him. So we've had org charts long and our federal government took that to a whole new level.   0:59:46.1 Cliff Norman: But the idea is switching off the org chart from biblical times to actually getting it up to Burt [?] about 1935 and understanding a system that's kind of a nose bleed in terms of how much we're traveling there to get us into the 21st century here.   1:00:04.0 Andrew Stotz: And I left Ohio, I grew up outside of Cleveland, and I left Ohio in about 1985, roughly. And it was still a working class, Cleveland had a huge number of jobs and there was factories and all that, and then I went to California, and then I moved to Thailand in 1992. So when I go back to Ohio now, many years later, decades later, it's like a hollowed out place, and I think about what you're saying is... And what's going on in the world right now is that I think there's a desire in America to bring back manufacturing to bring back production and all of that, and that's a very, very hard challenge, particularly if it's gone for a while and the skill sets aren't there, maybe the education system isn't there, I talk a lot with John Dues here on the show about the what's happening in education and it's terrifying.   1:01:05.9 Andrew Stotz: So how could this be... Book be a guide for helping people that are saying, we've got to revitalize American production and manufacturing and some of these foundational businesses and not just services, which are great. How can this book be a guide?   1:01:25.8 Dave Williams: One thing I would say that I think is interesting about our times, many times when I reflect on some of the examples that you just provided, I think about how changes were made in systems without thinking about the whole system together. And there may have been changes at various times that we're pursuing particular strategies or particular approaches, so it may have been the low-cost strategy, it may have been to disrupt a marketplace. And oftentimes, they don't think about... When somebody's pursuing one particular view, they may miss other views that are important to have an holistic perspective. One of the things that I appreciate about QoS in the methods and overall as a holistic view of looking at organizations that it's asking us to really think initially about that North Star, what we're trying to do, our purpose, and what are the tenants. What are the things that are important us, the values...   1:02:38.7 Dave Williams: That are important to us in pursuing that particular purpose? And in doing that, really thinking about how does the system work as it is today, and if we make changes, how does it move in alignment with the values that we have and in the direction that we wanna go? And appreciating, I would say, part of the value of the scientific thinking that is in the Science of Improvement is that it encourages you to try to see what happens and appreciate not only what happens in relation to the direction you're trying to go, but also the... Have a balanced view of looking at the collateral effects of things that you do, and I think that systems do is really important there. So I think from that perspective, the quality as an organizational strategy brings a holistic picture into these organizations, or at least...   1:03:45.1 Dave Williams: To be paying attention to the system that you have, maybe the direction you wanna go, and what happens as you... What are your predictions and what do you see when you study the results of making changes in the direction of the vision that you have. And I think that's at a high level that is one of the ways that I think about it. Cliff, how would you add on there?   1:04:09.1 Cliff Norman: Your question made me think of something that happened about two years ago, Jane and I got a call from a lady that worked for her in one of the chicken plants, and she said, Jane, I had to call you because I need to order some of those Shewhart charts. But what happened today, you should have been here and Jane said, what... She said, Remember that 10 year thing we buried in the ground that we're gonna open up in 10 years, and she said, yeah, said, well, we opened it up today, and the new plant manager was here, and those Shewhart charts came out, and he looked at the costs on them. He said, you were operating at this level? She said, yeah, routinely. And he said what happened? He said, well, they had new management come in and they got rid of the charts, that's the first thing they did, and then gradually they try to manage things like they normally did, and then they forgot everything that we had learned. And that's kind of where we are right now.   1:05:11.0 Cliff Norman: So just think of that a decade goes by, and it just as Dr. Deming said, there's nothing worse than the mobility of management, it's like getting AIDS in the system. And they basically destroyed their ability to run a low-cost operation in an industry that runs on 1 or 2%. And when you watch that happen and understand that we still have food companies in this country, and we have to start there and start looking at the system anew and start thinking about how it can actually cause that chain reaction to take off, and that comes from focusing on quality of the system. And then as Dr. Deming says, anybody that's ever worked for a living knows why costs go down with two words less rework, but instead of people will put in extra departments to handle the rework. Next thing they start building departments to handle...   1:06:01.8 Cliff Norman: The stuff that's not working because the system they don't understand. So that was a... What do they call those things, Dave, where they put them in the ground and pull him out?   1:06:11.0 Dave Williams: Time capsule.   1:06:13.4 Andrew Stotz: Time capsule yeah.   1:06:13.5 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Time capsule. The a 10-year time capsule.   1:06:19.2 Andrew Stotz: It's a great, great story. And a great idea. We had a company in Thailand a very large company that the CEO of it came upon the idea of the teachings of Dr. Deming and over time, as he implemented it in his company, the Japanese Union of Scientists have their prize and his company won that prize and then he had about 10 subsidiary companies that also were doing it and they also won over time. And so Thailand is actually is the second largest recipient of the Japanese Deming Award outside of India. But he left and he retired and another guy took over, a very bright guy and all that, but he threw most of that out and focused on newer methods like KPIs and things like that. And just at the end of last year, maybe six months ago, they reported a pretty significant loss, and I was kind of made me think how we can spend all this time getting the Deming teachings into our business, and then one little change in management and it's done.   1:07:26.9 Andrew Stotz: And that made me think, oh, well, that's the value of the book, in the sense that it's about building the concept of quality as a core part of strategy as opposed to just a tool or a way of thinking that could go out of the company as soon as someone else comes in. Go ahead, Dave.   1:07:41.9 Dave Williams: I was gonna say, Andrew, you raise a point, I think it's really, really important and Cliff mentioned this in terms of the problem of mobility of management. One thing that I don't know that we outline probably in dark enough ink in the book is the critically important piece of leadership, building the structures and the capability. I know we talk a little bit about it, but doing it in a way that both builds up the people that you have... So Cliff emphasiz

Lou Cooperhouse is recognized as a leading global authority in food business innovation and technology commercialization, with extensive leadership experiences throughout his 40-year career in the food industry.  He is a results-driven professional, and has led cross-functional teams in a wide array of industry settings that include: multinational corporations, foodservice and retail operations, new business startups, mid-sized and family-run companies, university entrepreneurship and innovation centers, and industry trade associations.   With his deep and diverse understanding of the food industry, Lou has spoken at hundreds of conferences throughout his career, specializing in food trends, disruptive technologies, and global best practices in business innovation and incubation. A summary of Lou's career experiences in entrepreneurship were featured as the cover story in Food Technology Magazine, titled Oceans of Innovation in December 2023. Most recently, Lou served as CEO of Food Spectrum, LLC, where he provided a broad array of strategic consulting and business management expertise to the food industry. Areas of specialization and focus included: corporate development and strategic planning; organizational leadership and team building; merger and acquisition assessment; corporate partnering and sales development; new product ideation, innovation and incubation; product and process development; technology assessment and commercialization; quality assurance and food safety systems; plant and process design and engineering; and operational performance and metrics.  Lou also served as a founder and the Executive Director of the Rutgers University Food Innovation Center (FIC), and led this program for approximately 15 years. Lou created a new global model for food industry economic development, business attraction and retention, and industry cluster creation. The Rutgers FIC subsequently became internationally recognized for its economic development impacts, and recognized as the “Business Incubator of the Year” by the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA), and as a nationwide model and an “Agricultural Innovation Center Demonstration Program” by the USDA.   In this role, Lou also testified at the US Congress on best practices in business incubation and industry cluster formation, and also served as President of the New Jersey Business Incubation Network; Executive Director and President of the New Jersey Food Processors Association; and on the Board of Directors of the International Business Innovation Association.  Earlier in his career, he also served on the Board and a member of the Executive Committee of the Refrigerated Foods Association; on the board of the United Fresh Produce Association; on the Board of Managers of the NJ Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University;  and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Produce Processing Magazine. Lou is also a member of the Explorers Club, a prestigious international organization dedicated to promoting the exploration of land, sea, air and space, and to inspire new generations to pursue discovery and conservation. He's also a member of the Society of Fellows at the Culinary Institute of America. Previously, Lou served as President & COO of F&S Produce, a leading regional supplier of fresh-cut produce and value-added refrigerated foods, providing leadership to over 500 employees, located at two facilities with over 125,000 sf operations.  Prior to this, he served as Co-Founder, President and CEO of MenuDirect Corporation, a unique health, wellness, and nutrition company, which provided meal solutions for individuals with celiac disease, diabetes, PKU and dysphagia.  Earlier in his career, Lou held positions of increasing responsibility at Campbell's Soup, ConAgra, Nestlé-funded Culinary Brands, Idle Wild Farms, and Grand Union Supermarkets in areas of business development, product development, quality assurance, and operations.  

Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by Microsoft, Ownit AI and Mirakl. In today's Retail Daily Minute:Walmart launches a pilot program equipping store associates with body cameras for worker safety, marking a significant shift in retail security measures.Conagra Brands becomes the first major food company to specifically target GLP-1 medication users with new "GLP-1 friendly" labels on their Healthy Choice meals.Best Buy Canada expands its retail media network to include non-endemic brands, allowing companies like HelloFresh and DoorDash to present personalized offers during checkout.Stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights. Be careful out there!

Live from the Founder's Diamond Mine in Botswana, where all diamonds are worth 50 votes per share, it's an all-new Terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants. Joined by Analyst-Hole Matt Moscardi! On today's chocolate-filled summary compensation table called October 22nd 2024: It's Double Quiz Tuesday, featuring a heartbreakingly mediocre ESG News Quiz and a relatively thoughtful data drop quiz!Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.DAMION1Let's start with a report that came out a week or two ago that claims Roblox is ?Bonus question 1: of influence is held by women on the Roblox board?Bonus question 2: of influence is held by brothers named Baszucki?Bonus question 3: CEO and co-founder David Baszucki undemocratically controls the pedophilic landscape known as Roblx because his Class B shares are magically worth ?Roblox's 2024 proxy statement cites a Trust & Safety Advisory Board comprised of world-renowned digital safety authorities. The company invites shareholders and stakeholders to “learn more about each of our Safety Advisory Board members at: corp.roblox.com/parents/.” Here's Bonus question 4: Yes or No, Does Roblox list names and qualifications of the members of its Trust & Safety Advisory Board at corp.roblox.com/parents/, in any of its SEC filings, or anywhere else on its corporate website, or anywhere else in the world, including the back on a Chipotle napkin?As a sidenote, the board's Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee is tasked with overseeing Roblox's initiatives related to trust and safety:The chair of that committee, Anthony Lee, has been on the board since before Obama was president, is the VP at a VC firm called Altos Ventures management that “invests in founders”Committee member Andrea Wong who serves on the boards of:media company Liberty Media, which is controlled by billionaire John C. Malone;Qurate Retail, an American media conglomerate controlled by billionaire John C. Malone; andHudson Pacific Properties, a real estate investment trust controlled by Victor ColemanAnd committee member Christopher Carvalho, who currently owns options worth about $5 million today based on an exercise price of SIX CENTS.There's no real quiz question here: so Bonus Question 5: Do you like this committee??And finally, let's get to executive pay at Roblox:According to the company's 2024 proxy statement, of Rolox's 5 named executive officers are women?Over the past 3 years, has founder and CEO and chair and majority voting powerman David Baszucki, averaged $50 million a year?Let's move over to a recent research report from Russell Reynolds called Gender Diversity in the C-suite: Women's representation in the 2024 S&P 100Just to put the collective power of the S&P 100 into perspective, what is the market cap of the S&P 100?What is the market cap of the entire S&P 500?In 2022, women held 12.2% of the ~15,000 C-suite positions across publicly traded U.S. firms. At the end of 2023, what was this percentage?Russel Reynolds' report looked specifically at 1553 executives at the 100 largest S&P 500 companies (the S&P 100). Out of all S&P 100 organizations, how many have achieved gender parity on their senior leadership teams?Of the six organizations that have achieved parity, name one notable feature of five of those six companies:What percentage of S&P 100 companies have leadership teams consisting of at least two-thirds men?What percentage of S&P 100 companies have leadership teams consisting of at least two-thirds women?The study looked at gender distribution by executive roles:Name the top 3 executive roles held by women:Extra credit: what percentages of those roles are held by women?Name the bottom 2 executive roles held by women:Extra credit: what percentages of those roles are held by women?Double extra credit: what's another name for the CEO role?In 2022, RRA research found that 43% of CEOs in the Fortune 250 companies were promoted from the COO position, making it the most commonly held internal role prior to taking the top job.In the S&P 100, of the 35 men who were a COO in 2022, eight have been promoted to CEO at their same organization and one left to be CEO elsewhere. But of the four women who'd held the COO role, none had been promoted—and three out of four left their operating roles to pursue boards/advisory work Let me add one bit of research that stood out to me from McKinsey's “Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report”Since the anti-DEI/anti-ESG movement took off over the past year or so, the following four data points have all shown remarkable rebounds after several years of declining percentages:Any competence-based microaggression 37% to 57%Having judgment questioned in area of expertise 22% to 39%Being mistaken for someone at a much lower level 10% to 19%Being interrupted or spoken over more than others 21% to 40%Moving over to the news: As HSBC embarks on a major restructuring, including a new geographic setup where HSBC plans to divide its operations between an “Eastern markets” branch, reuniting Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, along with a “Western markets” division, comprising the non-ringed-fenced U.K. bank, the continental European business and the Americas and consolidated its operations into four business units: Hong Kong, U.K., international wealth and premier banking, and corporate and institutional banking, what has HSBC done for the first time in its 159-year history?Super duper bonus question 1: CNBC released a 615-word article called”HSBC embarks on major restructuring, names first female CFO.” How many words before the article actually names HSBC's first female CFO? Super duper bonus question, part 2: How many words before the article names HSBC's male CEO? And finally, On HBO's hit show Industry that takes place at a 150-year-old Goldman Sachs-esque investment bank in London, what exactly led to the company's near total Lehman Brothers-esque financial collapse?MATT1A data drop quizActivist Jana builds Lamb Weston stake, pushes for possible saleJana said it owns 5% of the Eagle, Idaho-based company and wants to see a strategic review in which the company and bankers would review capital spending, operating deficiencies and share-repurchase strategyWhat percentage of the board has Economics knowledge (from an MBA, a degree, or acting as a CFO)?72% (8 of 11). MBAs, TWO accountants, econ majorsWhat about Food Production?20% (2 of the 10 excluding the CEO). Unless "lawyer at Krispy Kreme" or "3 year stint as Arby's CEO" counts as food production. CEO Tom Werner and Andre Hawaux both from Conagra, Robert Coviello from Bunge and Cargill.How many directors of a fried potato company have addictive product backgrounds?45% (5 of 11). Benson was at McDonald's, Blixt was at Krispy Kreme, Hawaux was at Pepsi, Moddelmog was at Arby's, Sharpe was at PepsiHow many directors are connected through boards or companies in common?45% (5 of 11). Hawaux to Niblock and Benson; Jurgensen to Niblock; Sharpe and Hawaux at Pepsi; Wener and Hawaux at ConagraLeast liked director?Blixt, head of comp in the year the CEO Werner was paid 20.3m in summary comp but took home a staggering 40m to sell fried potatoes - and it got him a team low 96% FORWhat creative new directors are being considered now that Jana has a 5% stake?ROLL IT BACK! They've secured former executive chair Tim McLevish, who became a director in the spinoff from Conagra and has deep experience in... corporate finance, along with the 72% of existing board members

It's the spookiest time of the year! For this Halloween-themed episode of The CMO Podcast, Jim welcomes Gabrielle Dallas Wesley, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Wrigley North America. Privately held since its founding in 1911, Mars Wrigley is a giant in the consumer goods industry. The company boasts about $50 billion in sales and includes famous brands like M&Ms, Snickers, Orbit, Pedigree, Whiskas, Ben's Original, and MasterFoods. In August 2024, Mars Wrigley announced the purchase of Kellanova–the Kellogg's spinoff–with brands such as Pringles, Pop Tarts, and Nutrigrain. Gabrielle has worked with Mars Wrigley for about seven years and stepped into the North America CMO role about fifteen months ago. Before Mars Wrigley, Gabrielle worked at Conagra for three years, and General Mills for eleven years. Before she became a food and snack marketer, she spent eight years in financial services before jumping to CPG, using her MBA from Michigan Ross. Tune in for Jim's Halloween Trick or Treat chat with a CMO who is all about a united team!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's guest is Michael Reda, VP of Omni-Channel Marketing & Insights at T. Marzetti Company. Michael has transformed the company's digital and eCommerce strategy since joining in 2021. His previous brand management experience includes Conagra and Kraft Heinz.Michael shares the things he can take risks on with smaller brands that aren't possible with larger ones (5:58), how analytics and creative are intertwined (12:27), the transformation of T. Marzetti's digital presence since 2021 (13:58), why retail media is an important part of their strategy (18:53), and what you need in order to switch from a few "great" pieces of creative to many "good" ones (26:04).Connect with Michael on LinkedIn; https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelreda/Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Plus: Humana shares fall after the company warned about a steep drop in the federal government's quality ratings of its medicare plans. Conagra shares decline after the foodmaker reported lower quarterly sales. J.R. Whalen reports.  Correction: Humana shares fell 12% on Wednesday. An earlier version of this podcast incorrectly said they rose 12%. (Corrected on October 2) Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

European bourses are generally on a firmer footing whilst US futures are modestly lower with slight underperformance in the RTYDollar is flat unable to continue the prior day's geopolitical-indued gains, JPY underperforms with USD/JPY around 144.25USTs are flat and Bunds give back some of its recent strength, Gilts follow peers and took another leg lower following an auctionCrude continues to benefit from the geopolitical risk premium, XAU slips off best levels whilst base metals gainLooking ahead, ADP National Employment, NBP Policy Announcement; OPEC+ JMMC Meeting, Speakers including ECB's Elderson, Schnabel, Fed's Hammack, Musalem, Bowman & Barkin. Earnings from Conagra & Levis.Read the full report covering Equities, Forex, Fixed Income, Commodites and more on Newsquawk

In honor and Labor Day, David and Rachel discuss a workplace disaster that hits close to home in more ways than one.

Transcription N Our guest this episode is Sandeep Dayal. Sandeep grew up in India and moved to America at the age of 27 to secure his MBA. He stayed in the U.S. to work. He has held positions with a number of major firms where he worked with large clients throughout the world.   My conversation with Sandeep covered what I feel are quite interesting topics around marketing and sales. Because of his knowledge Sandeep and I spend considerable time discussing brands, branding and the many ways the science of brands has evolved. Sandeep gives many relevant examples and ideas we all can use. As he will discuss, his ideas are also contained in his book, “Branding Between the Ears” which many describe as an iconic study of branding. I think you will find Sandeep's insights quite relevant and useful whether you are in marketing or not.   About the Guest:   Sandeep Dayal is the managing director of the consulting firm Cerenti. He advises senior executives at Fortune 500 companies in industries spanning pharmaceuticals, financial services and consumer products.  Global market leaders like Pfizer, Abbvie, HSBC, Santander, Kraft and ConAgra, have been some of his clients. He worked previously for McKinsey and Booz Allen & Hamilton.   Sandeep has led a 100+ engagements at over 50 clients around the world in major countries in the US, EU, Latin America and Asia. He is regarded as one of the leading minds in marketing and brand strategy and has co-authored articles in Marketing Management, McKinsey Quarterly and Strategy+Business. As early as in 2001, he correctly predicted that “consumer collaboration” would become a key factor in winning people's trust online. Many strategies he proposed including viral advocacy and instant decisioning are mainstream today in designing brand experiences.   His latest book “Branding Between the Ears” has been described by some as the definitive advance in the understanding of what makes some brands truly iconic. It draws on his years of experience in working with some of the most successful consumer brands and his company's proprietary knowledge capital. Sandeep's current research focuses on Cognitive Branding and Selling, which translates the latest advances in behavioral economics and social psychology into completely new ways for developing modern power brands and driving up salesforce performance.   Ways to connect with Sandeep:   Sandeep Dayal website: http://sandeepdayal.com Cerenti Company: http://cerenti.com LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-dayal-8361b61/ Blog signup: https://www.cerenti.com/blog   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.      Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Thank you once again for being here with us on unstoppable mindset. Really appreciate you listening and watching wherever you happen to be. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and our guest today is Sandeep Dayal, who has an interesting story to tell, at least. I think it's interesting. He's going to talk to us a lot about branding and marketing and such things, having been in sales most all of my adult life, all of that gets fascinating to me, but I think that he'll have a lot of interesting topics and issues to provide us all with that will keep you interested as well. And if you're not wake up. You should be anyway. Sandeep, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I'm   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:06 so delighted to be here. Michael, thank you for inviting me to be on your show.   Michael Hingson ** 02:11 Well, thank you for for being here, and we'll have some fun. Tell me a little bit about maybe the early Sandeep growing up and all that to give people a little background.   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:20 Oh, wow, that was a long time back. You sure want to? You sure you want to go into,   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 oh, sure, a long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away. There   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:29 you go. There was a little Sandeep, yeah. No. I mean, I grew up in, I grew up in India, and, you know, if, if this were still five years back, I would have said half my life was in India, and half my life in the United States, because I came to I came to the US at age 27 but until then, I grew up there in in a city called Jaipur, which is in the middle of a tar desert there. So there you go, you and I have something in common there. And then, I mean, I went through my engineering education, so I was I run. I sort of learned all my my background, you could say, is more analytic and scientific and so on, from a training perspective at that time, which sort of shaped my view of the world at that, that point of time, in terms of, you know, being more objective about things, thinking about things more logically, and so forth. And then at some point, you know, I set up my own little business there, which sort of brought me into areas that were beyond engineering, if you will. You know, like the kinds of things you were talking about, Michael, like sales, you know, how do you how do you form relationships with people? How do you work with people? How do you run an organization, and so on. And that got me much more interested in the the management side of things, versus just the engineering side of things. And I came to the United States in 87 to to Yale University to do my MBA. And, you know, after I finished my MBA, I started working in the US, and I've lived in the US since then. And I got more and more interested in other things, as you might imagine, particularly on consumer connections, the consumer side of things, consumer psychology and what have you. So it's been a, it's been a, you know, multiple year transition. I've worked in a number of consulting companies. I worked at McKinsey, I've worked at booze, and then I started my own company, so renty. So renty Marketing Group, which is much more focused on working with consumers, understanding their psychology, understanding their mindset and so on, and then putting that to use and good marketing and then good branding. So it's been, it's been. It's been a long and, you know, steady journey, if you will. It   Michael Hingson ** 04:57 certainly has been. But you you sound like. Survived it, and you're doing well and and now you're basically getting up near 60. So there you go. There   Sandeep Dayal ** 05:07 you go, yeah. So there, there I am now in at a at a stage in my life where, actually, where I enjoy more of the kinds of discussions that you and I are having right now. Because, you know, my earlier phase of life, I would say, was all about doing stuff, you know, getting it done, making money, doing it, you know, whatever, whichever way, making a career out of it, and what have you. Now, I'm at a point of life where I'm able to sort of sit back and reflect a little and say, hey, you know, what was that all about? You know, what did I really learn? And is there something there that I learned which is worth sharing with others? So that's why I really love being on shows like yours, and particularly yours, around mindsets and being unstoppable and so on, and sort of having a chance to, you know, really see what all those things can possibly mean.   Michael Hingson ** 06:01 Yeah. And on top everything else, you're an author, you've written some books. I love the title of of the one that least I know about branding between the years, and we'll have to get to that. That's kind of cute, but it makes a lot of sense. Also, I think people really don't understand the whole idea of marketing as much as they should. And frankly, I don't think that people really understand sales like they should. And there are differences between the two, but there are also a lot of similarities, and they do, they do dovetail to   Sandeep Dayal ** 06:35 Yes, and   Michael Hingson ** 06:37 so I think it's, it is something that a lot of people don't understand nearly as well as they should, and they're not necessarily making the process work   Sandeep Dayal ** 06:48 like that. And I would say, Michael, that, you know, sales and marketing, they go hand in hand. I wrote the book branding between the years around branding specifically, but it actually there's a whole I could have written also a book which would have been called branding between the years, but it would have been all about sales and but, you know, I this sales is such a big topic and such so interesting and so rich that you don't want to sort of squeeze it into a book which is about branding. You know what I'm saying? So, like, in fact, I mentioned that very specifically in my book, that, look, we could do a whole discussion and a whole book about just the psychology of sales, the behavioral science behind sales, and that's very important, but that's a whole separate book. So I hadn't covered it. There it well,   Michael Hingson ** 07:41 it is. And people really get it wrong. They think of sales as, oh, the guy who's trying to make me buy a car and things like that, and, and in one sense, at a at a very low level, I suppose you could say that sales, but that's not really what sales is all about. I got into sales originally, because I was working for a company, and the company was, well, it was Kurzweil Computer Products, Ray Kurzweil, the inventor and futurist and so on. And at the time, they was developing the reading machine for the blind. And I had been asked to join the company in 1978 and then, like May or June of 1979 I was called in, and I was doing Human Factors studies for them, but I was called in and told I was being laid off because I wasn't a revenue generator for the company, which I wasn't. Then the company had too many non revenue producing people, and I needed to go off and find another job unless I would be willing to go into sales. They gave me that option, which was a was a great compliment, and I said, I don't know anything about sales. And the guy who actually made this offer was the Vice President of Marketing for and sales for Kurzweil, which was a gentleman named Andrew Parsons, by the way, who used to work at McKinsey. Ah,   Sandeep Dayal ** 09:06 I see, I see, wow. Anyway, so yes,   Michael Hingson ** 09:11 so he said, We can teach you sales. We'll send you to a tale Carnegie sales course and so on. And I was very fortunate, because the group and the teachers really talked about the true nature of what sales was all about and what it wasn't about, and that sales is really a good salesperson as a teacher, as a guide, as a counselor. And in reality, I can't sell anyone anything. The customers really gotta want to buy it if I do it right, and and that's that's what it's about. And then that came into play for me years later, when, again, I was looking for another job, and I was debating at the time of looking for the job, and we found a company, my wife and I that we thought would be. A good company to go work for, but I debated about whether I say I'm blind in the cover letter, because that's always an issue. If you're blind and you say it, they usually won't pay any attention to you. And if you don't blind and and if you're blind and you don't say you're blind, then you'll go in for an interview and they'll just the defenses will go up immediately. Yeah. And what I did is I wrote a cover letter. And part of the cover letter said, Do you want to hire somebody who comes into the company and sells for eight or 10 hours a day because it was a sales job, and then goes home? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands sales for the science and art that it is and sells 24 hours a day as a way of life, which is what a blind person has to do just to be able to convince people to let them do stuff. And it was the that sentence was what got me the interview and got me the job. Wonderful,   Sandeep Dayal ** 10:50 wonderful, you know, you just, you know, you've just inspired me to actually talk about some, you know, some things in sales. And I do make a connection around this topic in my book in the following way. So, you know, branding, you can think of it in two parts. You know, there's one part of branding which is around strategy, which is around, you know, what is your brand going to be positioned? You know, how is your brand going to be positioned? What is it going to be its DNA? What is the brand going to be about? So that's those are decisions and choices you make around what your brand is going to be, which are more stray. But then once you made those choices, your brand actually goes to market, right? And it goes to market often through what sometimes companies will call brand ambassadors. But these are all the people that are in stores. You know? These are, these are the sales side of the people, right? The people that are actually, this is where the rubber meets the road. And so the brand actually goes to market through its ambassadors, who are really the salespeople, the retail people, and what have you. And they have to their work is just so incredibly important. It's just as important as the design of the brand. And I'll give you a couple of examples, because, you know, this is a topic that's close to my heart. So for example, you think of a company like Bulgaria, right, which sells this awfully expensive jewelry, right, hundreds of 1000s of dollars and what have you. And you have to, even if you selling to rich people, they still, you know, think about these things, because these things are pretty expensive. So one of the things what they've done is that they've actually thought through that whole process of from the time that the person is walking into their store to every single moment that they are in the store, to how the purchase happens, and what the post purchase follow up is they've talked through all those things, and I'll give you a very small example about the kinds of things which are more behavioral science oriented, which is, which is where we're going in this discussion. So one of the things they do is that when the salesperson is going to notice that, Hey, you, you know, you're a woman and you like a particular necklace, what they do is they have you, you know, you're sitting in a private room. You're looking at this necklace. There's the salesperson with you, and the person will say to you that look or the brand ambassador, let's call them that. The brand ambassador is going to say, hey, why don't you try it on and what have you? And the woman can then go ahead, the customer can then go ahead and try the necklace on and look at it. And then the salesperson does something where that's very interesting. They say, hey, you know what? I need to just step out and take care of something. Would it be okay if I just do that for five minutes while you're, you know, sitting here? So then they walk out of the room. And now you can imagine, here's the customer, the woman, she's sitting there with the necklace she's wearing, and there's no one to bother her or try to push her into the scale or try to She's just sitting there by herself, and every minute and every second that she's there with that necklace, it's feeling to her more and more like her own. And you know, in psychology, there has been a lot of research that has been done, which basically says that once people feel like something is theirs, they are less likely to part with it. They're less likely to give it up, you know. So it could be anything. It could be, you know, let's say it could be a pen that you own and but once you own it, you start valuing it more than if you didn't own it and it was just sitting on the shelf, and there's been just a lot of research to show that that is the case. So in this instance, what happens is, it's not the single thing that drives the person to the sale, but it is one one step, one small thing that they do which pushes the person or coaxes the person to take one step more, you know, feel like that thing is their own. So that is, you know, that is, that's what selling is about. It's not about, you know, just pushing used cars and so on. So really understanding the mindset and working with people, helping them get comfortable with the idea of owning your product is a critical thing that you do. In another example that I'll give you, this is from. Another very famous behavioral psychologist, Paco Underhill. He wrote a book about why people buy. This was several years it was one of the books that inspired me to get into this whole area. And he used to observe how people shop in stores, and he would make little changes in the stores to help people be more likely to buy. And one of the things he observed was that when you kept items, like, if you had women sweaters, and you put them on a table right in the middle of the aisle, right so you're walking through the aisle in a store, and sometimes you'll see there's a table right there in the middle of the aisle. So you run into the table, and there are whole sweaters piled up there, and you can then, you know, start looking at them. But he found that on one hand, you could say, Hey, I'm putting it right in the middle of the traffic where you're going to be walking, so you'll have no choice but to stop and look at it. But what he found was that women would stop, they would look at those sweaters, but then they would quickly walk away. And the reason that it was happening was that if they stopped in the middle of the aisle, that people would brush by them, and they would it would make them just feel uncomfortable. You know, when somebody just comes in, someone that you don't know, just walking by that brushes by you, it makes you feel uncomfortable. So they would stop there, but they wouldn't stop there long enough to look and make up their minds. So he just had them move those tables to a more comfortable space where someone could not only stop but look at those things at their leisure. And they found that the sales went up. So it's these, it's these little things that you know, that people don't think these are all parts of being a good brand ambassador, and it's all parts of designing the sales experience or the marketing experience for the person in such a way that they're going to be more inclined to prefer your product. So it's just, I wasn't really going to talk about these things, but you brought it up, and it just brought back these things.   Michael Hingson ** 16:58 Another thing that comes to mind just talking about that same thing, which is sort of unrelated, in a way, to exactly what you're talking about is, is this, my wife was in a wheelchair her whole life, and would go to many stores, and when there were blocks in the middle of aisles like tables with sweaters and so on, she couldn't get by. And places like Macy's, for years, just had very narrow aisles, yeah, because they wanted to stuff as much in which they felt was a good thing to do, except then people in wheelchairs couldn't get through. Well, Macy's eventually had to deal with that, because they were sued and they lost, but, but the reality is, I'm sure that that changed to a degree, in some ways, how people viewed exactly where they should put products and so on. And it's a little bit of a different dimension than, than, than what, what you're talking about, but still, nevertheless, yeah, it is also part of what we need to do to recognize that we've got to be inclusive in what we do for everyone.   Sandeep Dayal ** 18:10 Absolutely. I mean, I mean, it's, this is, you know, we're you and I are just talking about some examples here, but this is actually a whole area of science and design, right, which is, when you when you're a company, how exactly yours, your products are displayed in a store, you know, what height they're at, how they're displayed, what kind of a message that communicates to people is, is such an extremely Is it such an important thing that we, in our company, in serenity, we can be doing entire studies, which are, you know, like, three month long studies where we're just designing that whole aspect of how the product is presented in a store for the consumer, for all of them to feel comfortable, for all of them to feel like this is something that they would like to own. And that whole process, like I described about, you know, every moment that you spend getting to that store, being in that store, and then after leaving that store, you know what is every single moment? What's your playbook for that moment is a key piece of what marketing, sales, behavioral science is all about, right?   Michael Hingson ** 19:16 Well, the the idea of sales and marketing and branding and so on is always going to be a moving target. It's a market of or a process of evolution, because as we learn more, as we develop more understanding of psychology and so on, we're going to change it. But I know you talk about the fact that there is the old branding techniques, and there's a lot of new branding. How is branding kind of evolved over time?   Sandeep Dayal ** 19:47 Yeah, now interesting that you bring out. So let's talk about, you know, the whole brand strategy piece, which is, you know, how do you design, how do you design brands, and so on. And I think I in some ways, brand. Marketing is not rocket science, and in other ways it is. So the part that is been relatively straightforward about branding historically has been that, look, if you have a product and you're an entrepreneur, you have a product and you're going to mark put it to market, you just, you know, you start thinking about, okay, how is my product different from everybody else's products. And then once you make a list of all those things that are different, then you say, oh, okay, now which of these things are kind of important for people? And maybe I pick three or four things, and then I can talk about that. And the problem is that while all of that makes a lot of sense, what doesn't make sense is that that's not how the human brain works. So what happens when you make a list of things that are different about your product? It's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like the occasion where my wife gives me a list of things that I need to go and buy from the grocery store, and she might tell me only five things that I have to buy. And I go to the grocery store, you know, I'm, I can't remember what those five things are, and I go, and I come back with three things that were on the list, two that are missing, and maybe another three things that were not on the list at all to begin with, right? So that's, and that's a very natural thing that happens, which is that human beings, our brains are not really designed around remembering lists. So when the marketer goes and said, My brand is about these three things, you know that it's this is, this is something that's going to make your life easy, or, then this thing is very tasty. Well, you know, easy, tasty, like, you know, how am I going to remember all those things. So now, for example, in behavioral science, there's a whole theory around story lining, which is that people are going to remember your brands better if you can put a storyline around it. And the reason is that, like you know, while we are, if I give you a list of 10 things to remember, you're not going to remember. It becomes 10 words to remember. Can become very hard, but at the same time, I can send you to watch. You know, you might go to, you know, somebody might tell you a story about a play that they saw right, which could be a whole 30 minute story, and you might then just be able to remember that story in all its detail, because it's a story, right? Or somebody comes like you now you're telling me about your life and how you went through, you know, you went through the transition from your job to sales, and how you were with Ray Kurzweil. And so I've already remembered more than five things, right, because you, because you told me the thing in such a compelling way, and such a story, you know, in such a story form. And so what we are discovering scientifically is that when you tell people things in terms of stories, when you show them things in terms of patterns, when you when you do rhymes, for example. So there are certain types of things that the brain remembers better than if you just give it lists. So this whole old idea that used to exist that I'm just trying to make my brand about the two or three things that I'm different about just doesn't work, because people, when you tell them that those two or three things, they just don't remember it. And if they don't remember it, are they going to buy your product? So now we are starting to take this new understanding of behavioral science and the psychology that we have from various studies that are being done about the human brain. Right? There's a lot of study that's being done about the human brain, from neuroscientists, from linguists, from cognitive psychologists and so on, and all of them, if you take their knowledge and bring it together, it's giving us an understanding of how the brain actually works. And now you can use that understanding of how the brain works to start thinking better about how you do, how you do the designing around your brands, the strategy around your brand better.   Michael Hingson ** 24:08 And that's in large part what the whole concept of cognitive branding is all about. That's   Sandeep Dayal ** 24:15 what, exactly what cognitive branding is all about. The you know, the name of the book branding between the years is really the illusion to the to the fact that, you know what's between the years. Between the years is our brain, right?   Michael Hingson ** 24:28 For some people, that's what's between the years. And there are others, I'm not so sure   Sandeep Dayal ** 24:34 if there's anything there. Whatever is there that's that really is, is is our perception of the world, right? You know, our perception of what reality is, what the world is, who we are, everything that we think about, what the brands are, it's all. It's not, it's not the billboard out there. It's not what the store it's not that little song jingle, and you know, all of these things. Is, but it's when all of those different things, the touch and feel, the sound and sight, and I mean, all of these things actually are processed in your brain. And so your vision of what this thing is, what this brand is, what it's all about, is really determined. It's arbitrated between your ears. And that's why, you know, the book is called right between   Michael Hingson ** 25:23 wait you you talked before about the woman trying on the necklace, and then the branding Ambassador leaving, and about ownership and so on. It really ultimately comes down to getting people to relate to whatever it is that you're you're trying to get them to relate to and getting them to to feel some ownership, but more important just feeling ways to relate. I sold a number of products that were very similar to products that other companies would produce. I sold big tape backup storage systems that people would use to back up data on Wall Street and other places. And although we were the developers of some of the technology, other companies would would buy our technology, and they would put it in their own products. And the reality is, ultimately, speaking, there were not huge differences directly physically. There were differences in shapes and so on, but they weren't really different. And so the issue is, why would one buy my product as opposed to someone else's? And that's where it gets back to, what is it that we're really talking about, what is it that we're really doing. Why would you buy my product as opposed to somebody else? That has a lot to do with, not just and not at all necessarily, with here are the differences. But rather, you have to find other things that people are going to react to, that they'll perceive your your product as being the one that they ought to have, and it's my job to help them see that in an intelligent way, while at the same time not alienating other people and making me look like just the used car sales guy.   Sandeep Dayal ** 27:15 Yes, yes. And I think that my whole book is really about that very question, which is, which is that, why would somebody buy your brand, right? And and it comes from that study of really understanding how people have bought brands and how in my companies work. So my company does a lot of work around designing brands and helping companies launch their products. And some of those brands have gone on to become some of the largest brands in the world. But really it is, it is, in fact, around that whole question around the why and what, what has changed is. And of course, you know, sometimes, like I said, you can give people a set of reasons, and they will, for those reasons, buy your product. But what we're finding through science is that, what we're finding through science is that it's not, it's not the case that people always make decisions so rationally, you know, it's not the case that people always sit down and do like, a pros and cons of things you know, like, Okay, this is product A, Product B. Let me do a pros and cons. Let me do a spreadsheet on this and so on. People do a lot of things very instinctively, for example. And in fact, there is research that has been done which is, which has shown that 95% of all the choices that people make Okay, in your life, you know in your every day there are 1000s of choices you're making all the time, and there's research that shows that 95% of those choices are done instinctively and not deliberately, right? And this science is called system one and system two by a very famous psychologist who gave those terms to these forms of thinking, the instinctive and the rational thinking. The psychologist name is Daniel Kahneman, and he is at Princeton University. But it's something that you can actually this is something that you can intuitively relate to, which is that you know, for example, when you're driving a car, there are a lot of choices that you're making, and those are very complex life and death choices, right? Because if you make a make a mistake in terms of how you drive the car, but you make choices around how fast you're going to go, how much you're going to press the accelerator, whether you're going to take a left, are you going to veer to the right? You know, all of those choices you're making, and you're just doing that instinctively, almost, not almost without thinking many times people are singing or thinking about something else as they're driving and so on. And all of this is happening instinctively. And the reality is that even when it comes down to branding, there are many, many things that people do. Um. Instinctively and make those choices instinctively. So understanding what that is and how that happens is is a key as is a key part of key part of how you can make brand choices. So I'll give you an example. So what happens is, as we go through our lives, we have many, many different experiences based on those experiences, we have certain learnings, and with those learnings, and those are learnings that I I would call like, that's the wisdom that we acquire over life as a result of the experiences that we have in our life, right? And those are our personal wisdoms, you know? Those are things that you know we have. We have decided this is what, this is how things work. So for example, there's one common wisdom which is seen across many, many people, across countries and so on, where people say, hey, the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And there's a, there's an effect around it's called the Occam's razor, which is, you know, which basically says that, given a problem, and if there are two possible answers to the to the problem, then the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And lot of times this comes from the vis. This kind of wisdom comes from the aspect that you know, Don't over complicate life. Don't overthink things. You know, you did things, such things, sometimes you can decide quickly. So what marketers have done, for example, there is, there's a company called HEB, which is a grocery store in the south where they make prepared meals. And so they did a whole campaign where they essentially say, where they essentially say that, you know, life is complicated. So they had actually an ad where you see this person who is, you know, driving back from work, and there's, he looks up his GPS system, and the GPS says your expected arrival time is Thursday, which was like two days away, which obviously they were exaggerating it. But the idea was to say that, look, life is so complex all the time. You're dealing with traffic and so on, meal time shouldn't be. And then, you know, and then they make a plug for their prepared meals, which is, you know, life is difficult, but meal time shouldn't be and then you have their prepared meals. Now mind you, what they're talking about making life simpler here is not, they're not necessarily saying that, you know, take my prepared meal and put it for two seconds in the, you know, microwave and it's ready to eat. It's not that ease that they're talking about. What they're talking about is the ease of choice, because choice, when we start thinking about choice, it can be very stressful when we have to make sure. So they're saying, take that decision, make that decision. Making around, you know, you already had a tough day. Make the decisions around your meal time, at least easy, you know, which is by, you know, because otherwise, if you were going to make your own meal, you'd be thinking about, Hey, should I eat healthy? Should I eat carbs? Should I do this? Should I, you know, greens? Should I do? You know, there's like a million choices to be made if you're going to make your own meal, but with this, all those choices become very simplified, because you can, you have your pick of all kinds of prepared meals that they sell in their stores. So lowering that burden of choice is what the Occam's Razor is about. And here it's a marketer that is very cleverly doing that. Now mind you, are there prepared me, let's go back to the point you made. Are there prepared meals that much better than, let's say the prepared meals you might get at a Dominic's or a jewel Osco or, say, or an Albertsons. Maybe not, right? But nonetheless, this campaign really taps into the idea that meal time shouldn't have to be so complicated. So go for it, and then you think of that, and you automatically do it, because choice can be instinctive. This is just one example, but there are many, many different things like this that help you, give you a sense of how people make choices. And in my book, I talk about seven different ways that brands, that you can make new brands, these types of brands, which sort of tap into your experiential wisdom. I call them brands with wisdom. That's one way to make great brands. But then you know, of course, there are many other ways that you can do it.   Michael Hingson ** 34:28 Do you think that in Hey, say it this way, but I will a perfect world. It would be better if we made choices instinctively or really analyzed. Or do you think the animal analyzation just introduces too much stress?   Sandeep Dayal ** 34:46 Well, it's it's stress, it's a lot of work. Also, you know, if you're going to analyze everything, you know it's just not possible to analyze everything, which is, the whole idea about learnings, right? Was Once you learn something, you want to be able to use. At learning as broadly as possible, right? And which is why there's all kinds of, you know, there's, there's, there's all kinds of advice from all kinds of sources, from religious sources, from your from your mother, from your from your wife, from your, you know, you from your friends, you get from experts, you get all kinds of advice because you want to be able to have certain principles so that you can live life without having to spend a whole day doing spreadsheets around what's a good choice and what's a bad choice. Having said that, there are certain times when you do have to think when the learnings that are available to you are outside of the experience that you had previously in life. In those instances, you do have to think so it's a this is this is this is a this is a good balance that we have to arrive. And you know, one of the examples that I mentioned in my book is, let's say you're going out and taking a mortgage on your for your home, right? Wow, that's a complicated discussion. Wow. That's a decision where, if you make a mistake, that could be very costly, you could find that Sunday you can't afford your mortgage, you know. So it can be pretty complicated. And so that, in fact, would be a good time to bring out a spreadsheet and, you know, sit down, and maybe sit with a pencil and pencil and a pencil and a piece of paper and write down what the positives and negatives, and you know, different mortgage products might be and what have you, and and also maybe read the fine print. And what happens, though, is that most of the time, we will make a mixed decision, where we will do some instinctive work and some and some appeal, you know, real analysis. So what you might do is you might say, Okay, I gotta get a mortgage. Hmm, you know, which of my friends have you know got a mortgage recently? And maybe I go and talk to them about how their experience has been. Maybe I go, maybe I go talk to Michael, because financially, he's such a smart guy, you know, I'm gonna idea if he's, if he's going for a mortgage with with Bank of America, that must be a good place to go. So I'll most likely go with Bank of America, because Michael went. So this is, that is part of what the now, that is part, part of what is drawing into an expert bias, or a part of what is drawing into a herd effect, right, where people go in a certain direction because they say, hey, everybody else is doing it right? Or person that is an expert is doing it, which is why you see so many ads and in television where there's some ex so called expert who's telling you to do X, Y and Z, and then you say, you stop to think for yourself, and you do it. Now, there are risks with it and but nonetheless, when you're designing brands, we do have to balance, because that can be, in fact, a legitimate strategy where we have certain experts or certain very respected people that are going to make make a recommendation or a suggestion of a product, and then people are going to do it well, if you do it responsibly, that that is a very viable brand strategy that certain brands will take Sure.   Michael Hingson ** 38:11 And if you're going to go into an analysis mode, you need to understand what that means and how to analyze. And you know, for for example, you talked about the expert and, well, I'm going to do it, because he's he's doing it, and there are risks in doing that, and one should really take the time, although I think a lot of people don't, to analyze and look at real facts. Okay, so he had a great success. What about my other friends over here who bought a house in the last couple of years? Yes, and really taking the time to explore it and do it right. If you're going to analyze, really analyze, and don't just look at one person or take one view, it's like you go to a doctor and you get a diagnosis, and then you decide, I really need a second or a third opinion. Do that right? Because it'll make all the difference in the world. Yes.   Sandeep Dayal ** 39:07 Yes, it does. And as you can see, you know, some of these things also come into play, not just in marketing, but you know, right now, we're in the middle of campaigns, campaigns, and there's a lot of very strategic marketing that's done by, you know, in politics, and that's a whole, you can write a whole book about Sure, which is, you know, which is the different strategies that politicians may use to get people to decide. Because, remember, it's, there's only so many voters that are going to actually sit and do a in depth analysis of different policies that have been put in place by different politicians. What was the economic impact of it? You know, whether it's immigration policy, whether it's economic or whatever, you know, whatever I mean, to really do the. The analytics around, did that policy actually work out, and who did it benefit? And so on. Is a lot of work and and most people are not really going to do that,   Michael Hingson ** 40:10 so they should, but they won't. You're absolutely right. Yes, yes.   Sandeep Dayal ** 40:13 I mean, and I think they should do it, I would say at least they should do a mix of the two, right? They should. They have to understand, like, Hey, what's going on? What am I? How do I make some good decision around certain things? But often they may, they may pick on one or two things which align with, really, their system of beliefs, right? Which is why it's important for politicians. Find it very important to figure out what your beliefs are and try to align with them, because they know, if they can do that, then they will go with then you will go with that, because it's already in your belief system and so become very important in marketing, in politics, in our relationships with people, in sales, you know, these are Very important things that influence our lives. In very important ways, sure,   Michael Hingson ** 41:04 and I think that when take taking the politicians, as you said, they you want, you want to see that they've aligned with your beliefs. But I think the other aspect of that, which goes back to analysis, is, are they really aligning with your beliefs, or are they just saying it? And the problem is that we are seeing so much today where there are a lot of things being said and most people are just going strictly on emotion, and they're not analyzing, and that's doing a disservice to everyone. And it would really be great if people would do more real analysis of all of the politicians on both sides and look at what's really happened. I was just reading an article this morning about the economy, and the reality is that it said that the in fact, the most of the naysayers about the economy today come from one party and not the other, and that that's happened more often than not over the last many years. In terms of economy, the people who are going by the party, and that's real lovely. But is that reality? And the problem is, we don't take the time to really look at it,   Sandeep Dayal ** 42:12 yes, and, you know, and that is, it's just, and that's the reality of it. Michael, which is that people's lives are very complicated. There are a lot of things that they're doing, you know. And they have to go to work, they have to cook meals for their kids, they have to have more, you know. There's just so many things happen, yeah. So realistically speaking, people only give a fraction of their mind, of their brain capacity, to many of these decisions, and which is why, as brand marketers, we have to be very cognizant of the fact that people are going to make these decisions based on their own learnings, their own experiences. And therefore, you know, how do we make sure that we can get some preference from them by understanding what their experiences and what their belief systems are. Now, mind you, you have to do this with a sense of responsibility, because, you know, with with all of this learning about how people make their decisions, comes the opportunity to manipulate people you don't want, you know, for brands, you don't want your work to be around doing that. You want to be doing things in in a responsible way. Because, you know, because that is the right thing to do   Michael Hingson ** 43:32 right, and it's important to to do that, and to really take the time to do it right. And it is just kind of one of the issues that we face that a lot of people aren't going to take the time to really analyze or take the time to understand, I'm just too busy to do that. Yeah, yeah. And people take advantage of that and do spin things and try to just manipulate. And unfortunately, there's way too much that going on in so many things that we observe and see today, because they're taking advantage of the fact that people are so busy. Yes,   Sandeep Dayal ** 44:09 yes. And that's why, you know, when I in my book, I have a whole chapter, by the way, and in the book on ethics, you know, so it's, it's called branding with ethics, and it's, it is exactly about that point, which is with this knowledge and with this learning. Because, you know, when you read my book, you're, you know, we've talked about maybe two or three things out of the book in terms of how you can influence people, but in the book, there are 30 different things that you can learn. So because it's an it's an entire playbook for how you do this, well, right? But with that, but with that, comes that responsibility for every marketer to understand what is the right way to do that. Because, yeah, you might, you might get some bump in sales. You might, you know, make a nice little bonus one here. But ultimately, these things can. And, yeah, not the right things to do, you know, so you have to. So, in fact, in the book, and let me see if I can remember my own book, there are, you know, few things that I talk about. I talk about three principles that every, every branding campaign must pass through. So one is this whole idea of that we understand as the canonical principle, which is, you know, do unto others as you would they do want to use. So don't do a campaign which you wouldn't want someone doing to you or to your kids or something like that. Right? So that's one thing that that is, that is, that's a no no. Second thing that is a no no is that don't do anything, which is this actually comes from a philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant, a very famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who came out with something called a categorical imperative. And really what he talks about is that don't do anything, which if everyone started doing that, would be a social, you know, that would be a social detriment, right? That the detriment of the society don't do something that, which, if everybody else also did, would really lead to a deterioration of society. And so that's another principle that that is very important. And then the last one is, you know, the sun, the sunshine principle, which is, don't do anything, which, if people discovered that you had done it, that you would feel embarrassed about it, right? So you know things that you're willing to talk about, the do, things that if they appeared in the front pages of the New York Times, that this is what you did, that you wouldn't be embarrassed by it. You wouldn't, you would still be proud of what you had done so with those three things, I find that most market you know, most marketing dilemmas, most branding dilemmas, can, in fact, be be addressed. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 46:53 and that makes perfect sense by any standard a question that I'm been thinking about. You dealt with a lot of pharma companies and so on, and I would suspect that in dealing with a lot of pharmaceutical organizations and so on, you've interviewed a lot of people, probably a lot of people with disabilities and so on. How do you think that the work that you are doing and have done has really benefited or affected them?   Sandeep Dayal ** 47:20 Yes, I think that is, I think actually one of the things that I do a lot of work in the pharmaceutical sector, actually, and in the healthcare sector generally. But in the pharmaceutical sector, for one, and I actually love working in that space. It is, you know, as a marketer, it's, it's where you you really feel like you're actually making a big impact, to be honest. Because you know when, when the some pharmaceutical companies these days have come up with some fantastic drugs, which I've personally seen have made a phenomenal difference in in people's lives. You know, you can imagine, as a marketer, if you will, I have a choice of working for consumer product companies and tell them how to sell a box of cereals in a better way, or I can work with a pharmaceutical company and help them, you know, with get a get a drug to market, which is really going to have a transforming effect on a person's life, and so in my calculus, in my equation, that has weighed heavily, which is that when you work with these companies, with the healthcare companies, you're so close to truly appreciating people's people's lives and how those things can and can be, can be altered. So lot of times in the work that I've done, it's been, it's been very much about understanding how, how people that have certain disabilities or certain diseases in certain cases, how their lives are really being impacted, how that disease is robbing something away from them, but understanding it through their lens and seeing how you can actually come in with a conversation oftentimes, you know you Those are things that don't have anything to do with the drug that you're going to be marketing, but nonetheless, having that total understanding is essential to actually connecting with that person to begin with. You know, because remember that branding and marketing is a lot about communications, unless you can understand how you're going to relate to that person and how you are going to communicate with that person, you're actually not going to make process. You're not going to make progress, and you're not going to be able to get them in a place which is a better place for them. And so in that sense, it's very important. I'll give you an example. There was one time I was working with, with a company called AbbVie, which has one of the most successful drugs called humera, which is for people with rheumatoid arthritis, right? And in rheumatoid arthritis is it's kind of like a lifelong disease. And before this drug came out, people used to go through a lifetime of suffering, you know, in terms of joint pain, in terms of stiffness in their joints and so on. And it was just just a very, you know, difficult situation. There were no good no good solutions out there. However, when the when the drug came out, we were finding that even people that could benefit from this drug, you know, that they were not actually taking it, because they said, Hey, this is a newfangled drug. It's a biologic, gee, I've been taking, you know, pain pills, and it's kind of fine. I've spent the last 20 years in pain, and I've kind of managed IT and, and I'll be fine. I don't need to take some, you know, this new fangled, maybe experimental drug. It wasn't experimental, but nonetheless, nonetheless, that's how people can think about it. I don't want to experiment on right and, and it was kind of like, you know, we really had to understand that, that mindset, because we, you know, one time I talked to, I was doing a focus group, and I was talking to this woman. Her name was Lisa, and she was, you know, talking about her things. And I was telling her, Hey, Lisa. And this was when I was a young marketer, less, much less experienced and much less wiser than I am now. I was telling Lisa, hey, look, you know, this is a fantastic day. I don't understand why you're not taking it, because it's a fantastic drug. Your pain will go away, your stiffness will go away, and you're going to feel a lot better. You'll be able to go, go get a job. You'll you know this is, this is just going to change your life. You know what's, what's going on here? And she sort of stopped me, and she said, looked at me, and she said, Look, Sandeep, if you don't understand what I'm going through and what my life is all about. How are you going to help me? And that was kind of such a, you know, it was a moment that sort of stopped me, because at that moment, sort of it was kind of very perplexing to me. Because remember market, as a marketer, you came from that mindset that if I tell you what my product, how my product is different, and what it does, then you should obviously want it right? That was the mindset. That was the list branding mindset. But here, what I was being told by this person was that look, unless you unders, unless I have that connection with you, unless I understand, unless I feel, unless I can trust that you are a person that can relate to what I'm going through, and you understand my life, I'm not going to trust anything. Right? Which is fair, which is fair, so, which is but as a young marketer at that time, I didn't understand, sure, and I was, hey, well, you know, why does she care whether I understand her life or not? You know, I've got a drug that's going to change your life, you know, so, but that is that sort of got me on this journey of understanding, what is this consumer psychology? What is this? What is the what are these things that are going to help people change their behaviors? And then you get into all these things about wisdom, around beliefs, around values, around empathy, which are all the different ways in which you can design brands, which are going to be way more effective, which I then talk about in my book, and with all these different experiences that I have, and I, of course, I give lots of examples and stories because, remember, we said stories are important, so you need to be able to tell stories so that people can can can remember what you're saying better, but, yeah, that's so it's a book about brands, but it's a book about stories. Really, one   Michael Hingson ** 53:48 of the things that I find being blind, so if you will, that I find as a person with a disability is that we tend not to be included in the conversation. Yeah, people make so many assumptions about disabilities, and they start with the basic premise, well, disability means lack of ability. Well, it doesn't, but we, we don't get included in a lot of the conversations. And so the result is we have things like people who are diabetic and who let's let's use people who are blind and diabetic or have diabetes. The problem is that the way to deal with measuring insulin and really dealing with measuring blood glucose have been very primitive, and while there is newer technology that allows for more constant monitoring, just recently, the first version that has the potential to be accessible for people who happen to be blind has come on the market and has been approved, and that actually is using an app with a with. The constant monitor that transmits to the app, but, but the reality is, there's so many issues and so many types of things where we get left out because the pharmaceutical industry doesn't include it, or consider it a high enough priority, or it's too expensive, and again, a total lack of understanding or value of what we bring to the marketplace, and how do we deal with changing that?   Sandeep Dayal ** 55:28 Yes, I mean, that is such a great example that you're bringing, you know, bringing from your from your personal life. So thank you for sharing that. But I think you know in the example that I talked about, it was the same thing that was very apparent, which is, even when people are, you know, not necessarily, they don't necessarily have a disability, you know. So they're not blind, they're not you know, but they still get left out of conversations, yeah, right, because the people that are in a position of power, or the marketers, are just not listening to everything that listening to there are not sensitive, you know, they talk about being customer centric, but they really are not, and that is because they because, you know, and it's, and I'll give you an example, you know, outside of disabilities, I'll give you an example about how people get left out of conversations in many different ways. So there was a campaign that recently for and that was done by by Samsung, you know, again, a very rich company with the best marketers in the world. No shortage of resources and so on. And they were, they were, you know, marketing, their new watch, you know, like to compete with Apple Watch. Apple Watch, right? And they came out with this campaign in which they showed this woman that's running through, you know, decides at two in the morning to run through some streets, and she's running through these very sketchy streets, and she's in the in middle, the middle of the night, and so on. And she is, you know, there is another person that is kind of just playing with her, biking around her and so on. And it was kind of a very sketchy ad, which, which, which was put out there. And what happened was, when they put this ad out there, they thought it was super cool. The ad agency thought it was super cool because they're very cool graphics. But then again, the person that you're leaving out of that conversation is really the customer and consumer, right? Yeah, and they put out this ad, and women saw this ad, and they said, You've got to be kidding. And right around the time that this ad came out in Ireland, there was a woman who had, in fact, gone out running at night, and, you know, and then and she got, she got attacked, you know, and she got attacked and raped and this and that. So there was that whole story going and meanwhile they come out with this ad, which is almost depicting this kind of a situation, this woman in this and they're thinking it's pretty cool, because of the graphics that they've done, and so you have to be very sensitive to not just what you're saying, but what the other person is actually hearing, you know? And I'm saying hearing in a, in a, in a kind of medical right, which is you have to be able to see things from the from the eyes, from the ears, you know, from the perspective of the person that is actually getting this message. Otherwise, you are doing what you just said, which is you're leaving them out of the conversation. And I think that is what you just described so eloquently in your own experience, right?   Michael Hingson ** 58:47 And and it happens so often in so many different ways. We have been doing this about an hour, and I think we're going to have to stop so we don't get people too, too tired of us. But a couple of things, but a couple of things. Can we, can we continue this and do another episode in the future?   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:06 Oh, of course, yeah, you know, I'd be happy to talk to you, Michael, this is, I think we should do it easy for me, it just, it just kind of flows. So if you're getting what you need out of this, then I'm happy to to do this in Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 59:20 I think, we should. How can people reach out to you and so on, if they'd like to,   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:26 so that there are multiple ways that they can do that they can go to my blog website, which is simply my name, sandeepdayal.sandeepdayal.com   Michael Hingson ** 59:35 Can you spell that, please? That   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:38 is S, A, N, D, E, P, D, A, Y A L, at, sir, at, sorry, no, I made them say Sandeepdayal.com.com that's what that is, yes, or they can go to my company website, cerenti.com, C, E R, E N T I.com Com. And in both instances, there is a place where they can send messages. And I usually look at those messages personally and respond. I always respond,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:12 well, cool. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. And I do want to do another episode, so we will schedule. We have to schedule a time and record it, because I know there are lots of other questions and things that we can delve into. So if you don't mind, I think we should do it.   Sandeep Dayal ** 1:00:28 Yeah, we'll do that. Let me just mention to you that I am going to be actually out of the country in February and March, coming back in the middle of April. Okay, either we can do it then, or if you wanted to do it earlier, I mean, I can, I'll be in India, but I can still, I've done lots of webinars from there, so it's not an issue, as long as we can work with the time difference. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:52 bottom line is, like we did with this one, we'll schedule it at whatever time is. Can we end for you? So I'll, I'll resend, I'll resend the link, and you just schedule it for when you want. So if you want. So if you want to do it when you get back, that's okay, whatever works for you.   Sandeep Dayal ** 1:01:06 Okay, yeah, no, I'd love to do it. Michael, so thank you. Thank you again for including me on your podcast.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:12 Well, thank you, and I want to thank you all for listening. We really appreciate it. I hope that you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to unstoppable mindset. We really value your ratings and we value your input. You'd like to reach out to me. You can do so by sending me an email at Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, E.com, Michael at Access Michael h i@accessibe.com or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael Hingson and again, is M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, S O N.com/podcast, so please do that and send deep for you, as well as others. If you know of somebody else who we ought to have on as a guest on unstoppable mindset, really would appreciate you emailing me or letting me know we are always looking for more people to have on, although it is fun to talk to somebody more than once like we will do with Sandeep, well, thank you all for listening and again. Sandeep, I want to thank you one last time for being here as well.   **Sandeep Dayal ** 1:02:14 Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed this.   1:02:22 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while

We're joined this week by Corey Ritenour, current Sr. Director Transportation and interim Head of Supply Chain for Lindt & Sprungli, one of the premier chocolate manufacturers in the country. Corey comes to the table with 20 years of industry experience, all working for large, established manufacturers. He began his career at the ground level at Conagra working as a Transportation Planner, working his way up and across various roles as he moved on to PepsiCo, Smurfit Stone, and Mars PetCare before establishing himself for 5 years at Dairy Farmers of America. He has now spent the last 5 years in his current role with Lindt. This wide breadth of transportation experience makes for a riveting conversation that any supply chain professional can learn from. He provides advice and insights that he gathered from his time at each of these great companies.We spend time doing deep dives into Dairy Farmers of America and Lindt & Sprungli, two very unique organizations, one owned by farmers, the other representing a shared services model across three chocolate companies. The nuances from these experiences and depth provided make for quality conversation and valuable learnings for listeners.We pivot from there to Corey's perspective on brokers and carriers pursuing his business. He gives us an inside look to his role, the challenges he faces on a day-to-day basis, and the "do's and don'ts" for prospective partners. We get into a market cycle conversation as well, looking at the last four years, from the highest of highs during Covid, to the lowest of lows brought on the last two years in the aftermath. End to end, this episode is filled with great nuggets of information thanks to Corey's decades of experience and wisdom shared. ***Episode brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services.***

The producer price index increased 0.2%; economists worried Trump will worsen inflation, WSJ survey finds; PepsiCo, Conagra signal limits to price increases; IMF predicts Fed rate cuts by end of year.

Breaded fish fillets were the latest target of an ESG class action lawsuit examining sustainable certifications, traceability claims, and broad environmental benefit claims for ConAgra's fish fillets and similar seafood products. The Northern District of Illinois decided on a motion to dismiss that although ​“certified sustainable seafood” claims may be permissible in this case, general ​“good for the environment” claims require further review and so the Court partially denied ConAgra's motion to dismiss. https://www.kelleydrye.com/viewpoints/blogs/ad-law-access/federal-court-unpacks-challenge-to-fishy-environmental-claims Katie Rogers krogers@kelleydrye.com (202) 342-8455 https://www.kelleydrye.com/people/katie-rogers Gregory Berman gberman@kelleydrye.com (212) 808-7844 https://www.kelleydrye.com/people/gregory-t-berman Subscribe to the Ad Law Access blog - www.kelleydrye.com/subscribe Subscribe to the Ad Law News Newsletter - www.kelleydrye.com/subscribe View the Advertising and Privacy Law Resource Center - www.kelleydrye.com/advertising-and-privacy-law Find all of our links here linktr.ee/KelleyDryeAdLaw Hosted by Simone Roach

Food company Conagra Brands announced that it would cease production operations and close its facility in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. The company claimed in a letter to the Bureau of Workforce Training that the move is designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiencies in its supply chain network. Conagra added in the letter that the closure, which is expected to be permanent, would affect all employment, including 25 management and administrative roles and 227 production and production support jobs. The employees have no union representation or bumping rights but will be offered severance benefits.Download and listen to the audio version below and click here to subscribe to the Today in Manufacturing podcast.

In the recent earnings report, Conagra Brands' CEO, Sean Connolly, shared the company's developments, "As I said in the prepared remarks, things unfolded very much in line with what we expected. And as you heard us say, our investments in frozen have driven a nearly 7-point swing in our scanner volume from Q1 to the most recent 4 weeks where volume came in down a fairly modest 1.2%. So very strong progress in frozen overall, which is important because that's been the focus of our investment. What you're seeing and the reason for the optics being a bit confusing is the reason the R&F segment in total numbers don't show the same magnitude of inflection is noise in the refrigerated part of the business which was, by the way, also consistent with what we anticipated." In response to this, Conagra Brands' consistent performance, strategically concentrated in frozen products, and optimistic results within its Grocery & Snacks segment reinforce the company's solid financial foothold. This stability owes much to the company's shrewd investments and maintenance of its gross margins. Product strategy-wise, the company's deliberate investments, particularly within single-serve frozen meals and value-enhanced frozen vegetables, have successfully bolstered both their market share and revenue ascension. The company's honed focus on innovation and responsive marketing feed the wider consumer trends towards convenience and value. Analyzing current consumer behavior underscores a bias towards value, convenience, and high-grade products. Despite a momentary shift from fresh and frozen vegetables towards canned equivalents, Conagra's commitment to capitalizing on their frozen vegetables' value and quality underlines an overarching understanding of fluctuating consumer preferences. Connolly further clarified, "Overall, as a company, we under-index, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, versus private label. That is obviously category-specific. So there are some categories that have more private label. A good example is canned tomatoes, where you basically got Hunts, you've got private label and then you've got some kind of regional brands that are smaller in the area. One of the other categories where there is a larger piece of private label is frozen vegetables." Moving forward, Conagra Brands anticipates diverse investment strategies to drive volume growth, secure cost savings, and enhance productivity. The importance of its supply chain team in realizing substantial cost savings and stimulating growth is underscored by Conagra's commitment to efficiency, clear in initiatives like the connected shop-floor program and strategic forecasting for future fiscal years. In closing, based on the statements from Conagra Brands on their earnings call, the company has demonstrated a strategic focus on key product categories, maintaining growth and profitability in a competitive marketplace. It's crucial to note, however, that business performance will remain contingent on a variety of factors such as market trends, operational challenges, and future strategic decisions. CAG Company info: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CAG/profile For more PSFK research : www.psfk.com  This email has been published and shared for the purpose of business research and is not intended as investment advice.

Three-time founder, Yves Potvin, discusses the current state of Plant-based Innovation sector and how to grow a food business to be acquired. Having sold gardein to Conagra and Yves Veggie Cuisine to Hain Celestial, Yves is now championing Konscious Foods with a plan to be acquired. Learn from this ultra-successful pioneer on The Plant-based Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano. Subscribe! For plant-based media/branding consulting and public speaking, reach out at elysabeth@elysabethalfano.com. For more information, visit ElysabethAlfano.com. For more information, visit ElysabethAlfano.com. Connect with Elysabeth on Linked in here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elysabeth-alfano-8b370b7/ For more PBH, visit ElysabethAlfano.com/Plantbased-Business-Hour.

Three-time founder, Yves Potvin, discusses the current state of Plant-based Innovation sector and how to grow a food business to be acquired. Having sold gardein to Conagra and Yves Veggie Cuisine to Hain Celestial, Yves is now championing Konscious Foods with a plan to be acquired. Learn from this ultra-successful pioneer on The Plant-based Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano. Subscribe! For plant-based media/branding consulting and public speaking, reach out at elysabeth@elysabethalfano.com. For more information, visit ElysabethAlfano.com. For more information, visit ElysabethAlfano.com. Connect with Elysabeth on Linked in here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elysabeth-alfano-8b370b7/ For more PBH, visit ElysabethAlfano.com/Plantbased-Business-Hour.  

It was during a 9-year tenure at food giant ConAgra Brands that Alejandro Castro became involved in a companywide initiative that would forever alter his approach to leadership and strategic thinking. Born and raised in Mexico, Castro had begun his professional voyage at Price Waterhouse, where he launched a public accounting career from the accounting house's Mexico City office. After ConAgra came knocking several years later, he accepted a position within its Mexico operations that eventually led to a promotion involving relocation to the U.S. and the firm's Omaha headquarters. Castro tells us that this move was pivotal, offering him exposure to the food giant's global operations and strategic involvement at a high level that included participation on a board of directors in Asia. Still, Castro's path took somewhat of an unexpected turn when ConAgra's CEO approached him to help spearhead an initiative designed in part to boost efficient decision-making across the company. In short, ConAgra management had sanctioned the companywide adoption of the GE Work-Out methodology, and Castro was to be stationed along the implementation's front lines. Division presidents, unit leaders, and factory workers alike all now came to be spending face-to-face time with Castro so that everyone together could identify existing behaviors or practices that were undermining efficient decision-making. Castro recalls: "We were able to fix issues that had existed within the company for years and years. We did this by connecting the people who really knew what was going on—the people who were close to the job—and this quickly made a big difference." Now, what might have appeared on paper to be but one career assignment among many suddenly began to accelerate Castro's own understanding of business operations while further establishing his reputation across the company as a leader known for fostering collaboration and driving meaningful change. Says Castro: "For me personally, it was the interaction with the people and talking about the different issues that really altered my whole view of the business." –Jack Sweeney

This week's leftover stories:Taylor Swift fans add to Tyler Bass cat rescue foundationRetirement home in Baltimore gives travel tips for Taylor Swift on TikTokDolly Parton partners with Conagra for new food lineNetflix reaches $5 billion deal with WWEThe Leftovers with Sean (@seanrburnett) & Chelsea (@chelseaareber) from The Infomaniacs on WTAW (@wtaw1620)WTAW

Plus: Shares of Conagra fall 1.9% after the food company cuts sales and earnings projections. Walgreens shares fall 5.1% after the pharmacy giant cuts its dividend by 48%. J.R. Whalen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drew Miller,  PhD, CMA, CFP, CM&AA, DDP Col USAF (Ret)   manager@fortituderanch.com   Dr. Drew Miller is Founder and CEO of Fortitude Ranch, a recreational and survival community.  Colonel Miller also does corporate collapse survival consulting.  He is a Certified M&A Advisor, Certified Management Accountant, Certified Financial Planner, and Due Diligence Professional.  Drew is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy with a Masters Degree and PhD in Operations Research from Harvard University.  He served as an intelligence officer in the US Air Force, retiring as a Colonel.  He also served in the Senior Executive Service in the Pentagon, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and in Corporate Planning and Development at ConAgra.   Dr. Drew Miller, CMA, CFP, CM&AA, Col USAF (Ret) CEO, Fortitude Ranch 402-952-5339 www.fortituderanch.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

HFS, in collaboration with Genpact, conducted a comprehensive survey of over 600 business and tech leaders at CPG and retail firms worldwide, unraveling the strategies employed to navigate macro and industry-specific trends. In this videocast featuring Tarun Chopra, SVP and Segment Leader for Consumer Goods at Genpact, and Tracey Schaefer, CIO of Conagra Brands, react to survey results and share Genpact's disruptive journey towards innovation. Key Discussion Points: Uncover how CPG and retail firms grapple with challenges like inflation, cybersecurity, and supply chain disruption while striving to innovate. Explore Conagra's approach to modernizing functions in alignment with industry trends. Delve into the world of cloud, SaaS, and cybersecurity—key levers for modernization according to our study. Insights on the potential of GenAI in reshaping industry dynamics. With 70% of CPG and retail leaders still recovering from pandemic impacts, discover how Conagra is navigating the post-pandemic world. Learn about strategies for building agility into supply chains amid new challenges like the war in Ukraine and inflation. The role of technology in building networked and autonomous supply chains resilient to disruptions, and how can tech empower companies to thrive in dynamic environments.

Welcome back to the Great Women in Compliance podcast. In today's episode, Lisa talks with Lizette Arias, who went through this and is now thriving. Today, she is the Director of Ethics and Compliance at Conagra and was recognized as an Emerging Leader in this year's Diversity MBA Top 100 Under 50. Providing a safe environment for people to raise concerns is a priority for any Ethics & Compliance officer, but what happens when that person learns first-hand that the safe space does not exist? Like many of us, she raised concerns about an individual's expenses. However, her experience was one where she was stonewalled, told to stop investigating, and then suffered from retaliation. During all this, she stood up for what she believed was right, and the lessons she learned made her better understand what a whistleblower goes through. She talks about how she brings that insight and empathy into all her investigations. Lizette hopes that her willingness to “speak out about speaking out” will inspire others to feel comfortable doing the same, and Lizette and Lisa (as well as Hemma, Sarah, and Ellen) all want to support anyone who has or is going through this and to connect you all. The Great Women in Compliance Podcast is on the Compliance Podcast Network with other Compliance-related offerings. GWIC is also sponsored by Corporate Compliance Insights, where we have a page where you can hear every episode. If you enjoy this episode, please rate it and/or review it. Corporate Compliance Insights is a much-appreciated sponsor and supporter of GWIC, including affiliate organization CCI Press, publishing the related book, “Sending the Elevator Back Down, What We've Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020). If you enjoyed the book, the GWIC team would be very grateful if you would consider rating it on Goodreads and Amazon and leaving a short review.  Don't forget to send the elevator back down by passing on your copy to someone who you think might enjoy reading it when you're done, or if you can't bear parting with your copy, consider it as a holiday or appreciation gift for someone in Compliance who deserves a treat. If you enjoyed the book, the GWIC team would be very grateful if you would consider rating it on Goodreads and Amazon and leaving a short review.  Don't forget to send the elevator back down by passing on your copy to someone who you think might enjoy reading it when you're done, or if you can't bear parting with your copy, consider it as a holiday or appreciation gift for someone in Compliance who deserves a treat. You can subscribe to the Great Women in Compliance podcast on any podcast player by searching for it, and we welcome new subscribers to our podcast. Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.

Nearly all startups fail. Often even founders with a successful exit under their belts have stories of entrepreneurial strikeouts prior to or after their home run. But every once in while there's a founder who seems to have the Midas touch who just keeps winning. No, I'm not talking here about Elon Musk. Rather, I'm talking about Yves Potvin. The classically trained chef pioneered the plant-based meat movement, founding Yves Veggie Cuisine in the 1980s, which was acquired for $35 million by natural foods giant Hain Celestial. One successful exit is rare, but Yves went on to then found Gardein, which brought alt-meat to even higher heights and was eventually acquired by Pinnacle Foods for $175 million. Rather than resting on his laurels and retiring into the Alt-Meat Hall of Fame (which if it existed he'd certainly be in it!), today Yves is betting that entrepreneurial lightning will strike a third time. He's just launched a new brand called Konscious Foods which aims to bring fish-free seafood to the masses, starting with sushi and other Japanese delights. Rather than relying on extruded plant protein isolates—the core of Gardein's products, along with most other alt-meats—Konscious is using whole vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, eggplant, and konjac as its core seafood replacers. But Konscious' frozen sushi, poke bowls, and onigiri don't taste like vegetable rolls. Rather, since Konscious acquired the IP of the defunct alt-seafood company Ocean Hugger Foods, the vegetables are prepared in such a way as to give the feel and taste of products like tuna, crab, and so on.  Already they're in Sprouts and Whole Foods (see their frozen sections), and you can even get sushi made at the Whole Foods sushi counter with their fish-free fish product.  In this interview, Yves and I talk about his life, success, struggles along the way, and lessons he's learned during his multi-decade career seeking to replace animals in the food system with healthier, more humane, and more sustainable options.  Discussed in this episode You can see Konscious' products here. Konscious Foods recently raised $26 million in venture capital. Konscious Foods acquired Ocean Hugger Foods' intellectual property. Yves previously founded both Yves Veggie Cuisine (acquired by Hain Celestial) and Gardein (acquired by Pinnacle, and now owned by ConAgra). Yves worked on Gardein with Tal Ronen, who later founded Crossroads Kitchen. Paul saw Quorn's vegan chicken sold at KFC UK at price parity with conventional chicken. Yves recommends reading Shoe Dog, Steve Jobs, and books by Brian Tracy. More about Yves Potvin Yves Potvin has dedicated his culinary career to creating healthy, tasty, convenient foods that can now be found in institutions across North America. In 2017, Yves bought Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver, and he is excited about training the next generation of chefs while infusing nutrition studies, sustainable practices and new technologies into the curriculum. Trained as a classical French chef, Yves successfully built two health-focused food companies. His first, Yves Veggie Cuisine, grew to become the largest refrigerated meat-alternative producer in North America. It was sold to the Hain Celestial Group in 2001. Yves then founded Garden Protein International in 2003 to create a meatless product line called Gardein, which redefined the plant protein category and became a game changer in this fast-growing segment. Gardein received many awards including Better Homes & Gardens' Best New Product Award 2014, Canadian Grand Prix Award (four years in a row), and the National Restaurant Association's 2014 Food and Beverage Innovation Award. Yves is now the founder and president of Konscious Foods, offering consumers with conscious and convenient plant-based seafood. Yves has been recognized for his career achievements, receiving the BC Food Processors Innovation Award in 2014, Mercy for Animals Innovative Business Award 2014, BC Export Award 2014 for Sustainability, and Canada's Top 40 under 40 Award from Financial Post magazine. Yves served on the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems Advisory Board from 2007-2018, and on the BC Ministry of Agriculture Board of Advisors.

Alexandre "Ale" Eboli is the Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer for Conagra Brands. He has end-to-end supply chain responsibilities for the company, overseeing the manufacturing, procurement, environment, health and safety, plant quality, logistics, and transportation and warehousing teams.Ale earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science degree in Naval Engineering from São Paulo University. Ale serves on the board for Ardent Mills.Discover more details here.Some of the highlights of the episode:Passion in execution that led Ale to go back to supply chainFive core principles for a successful supply chainKey KPIs in Conagra Stabilization of CPGs- identifying challenges and solving themFinding the right balance between sustainability initiatives and P&LInspiring insights and thoughts to develop a careerFollow us on:Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzXLinkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQXFacebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd

Ted Lindell is a former Marine Corps F18 Officer who transitioned to a business career with Conagra Brands in 2017. His transition journey started in 2015 when Ted and his wife, Carrie, reflected on what they wanted for their family. They decided they no longer wanted the long deployments and the risk of Ted's flight operations. They wanted a better quality of life. While they knew they were going to leave the Marine Corps, beyond that, they had two main options on what to do next. One option, they could exit the military and focus on just the quality of life by conducting a job search focused on the northeast region of the US near family. This would meet the need to be home more frequently, spend time with each other and their children, and be close to siblings and parents. This would have narrowed their search and opportunities to a smaller geographic area. Fewer options meant an increased risk of starting in a “good enough” role but not the right fit. As a Marine Corps F18 pilot, settling was not in Ted's DNA. He knew that would quickly lead to looking for another position within one or two years post-transition. As Ted was finishing up his master's degree, he knew he wanted career growth and development and quality of life. He did not define the quality of life by geography but rather by the fit with a community, schools, and activities for his children. He also knew that if he had a fulfilling career, he would stay with a company instead of pivoting and uprooting his career and family. Ted chose to balance his career ambitions and quality of life goals by doing a broad career search. Ted's choice led him to partner with Cameron-Brooks, where he attended a Career Conference interviewing with a broad range of companies and career paths. an Internal Audit position with Conagra in 2017. This position provided him with broad exposure to the almost $12B company and allowed him to build a network within the company. Within two years, he was promoted to a new role and earned four promotions in six years. Interestingly, he accepted a position in Omaha, NE which he would never have considered without conducting a broader search. However, after visiting the city, though some distance from his preferred geographic location, he found the mid-sized Midwest city an excellent fit for his family. After evaluating all of the factors, including quality of life, company fit, career path, and the nature of the work, he made the decision to launch his career with Conagra Brands. Ted and Claire's reason for leaving the military is a common one. While they wanted a better quality of life, they also considered Ted's professional goals. This led him to explore various options, finding the right fit at Conagra Brands and successfully transitioning with four promotions in his first six years in business. I encourage you to listen to the full podcast because Ted's choice is one that most JMOs have to make before their transition, yet they do not always know the likely outcomes of each option. To stay connected, we encourage you to check out our website and YouTube Channel and follow us on LinkedIn. If you want to learn more about your transition options, please get in touch with us. You can also check out our Transition Guide on "3 Game-Changing Strategies for JMOs Making the Jump to Business" for additional transition tips.

Join host Kathi Sharpe-Ross and guest Ann Rindone as they dive into Ann's inspiring story of growth and Reinvention. Ann's early aspirations of becoming a teacher were quickly derailed after a year in the classroom, so she went on to work in corporate America doing marketing at ConAgra. With time she decided that the corporate gig no longer aligned with her values so it was time to figure out how she would Reinvent her life. This is when she discovered Coaching. Ann has always been good at exuding confidence, but struggled with self-doubt internally. Her trust in people was shattered early on in life leaving her feeling vulnerable. This event fueled her determination and strong-willed nature. However, it wasn't until she got into coaching that she realized these walls built to protect her were doing more harm than good. She learned how her past influences are what drove her today and now helps many people figure out not only their passions in life but also where they fit in. Enjoy the whole episode and learn how to break down those walls that are blocking you from your Reinvention. What are you waiting for? Some powerful takeaways from today's episode: Your past defines a lot of your motivations and decisions today  It is important to tackle your own personal challenges in order to help others with theirs Find your purpose in life beyond making money  Often times you need to be the one to believe in yourself, because it is easy to let corporate America beat you down  It is easy to want to put up a wall when you get hurt, but sometimes the thing that you build to protect you is the thing that hurts you the most  Links: Ann Rindone's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/annrindone/ ARC Coaching Solutions LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumencoaching/ ARC Coaching Solutions Website: https://lumencoaching.com/index.html THE RE:INVENTION EXCHANGE - for more Inspired Content, Blogs, Podcasts, Virtual Chats, or to buy a copy of my book RE:INVENT YOUR LIFE! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? visit https://www.TheReinventionExchange.com. IG: KathiSR_Chief_Reinventor   FB: Kathi Sharpe-Ross or The Reinvention Exchange LinkedIn: Kathi Sharpe-Ross    Twitter: KathiSR or The Reinvention Exchange

There is an upcoming disruption of the food systems industry, and investors today can get in ahead of an exciting new S-Curve that's developing. Elysabeth Alfano is the CEO of VegTech Invest, and also advisor to the EATV ETF. EATV is the world's only Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF. 7investing CEO Simon Erickson recently interviewed Elysabeth for our 7investing podcast. In the first part of the conversation, Elysabeth describes how she got interest in food systems transformation and why it is important to solving issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and human health care. The global food supply system hasn't changed much in the past 1,000 years and it could be ripe for disruption. Elysabeth goes on to describe the limitations of our traditional supply chain. Animal husbandry isn't really innovating any more, whereas the plant-based innovation curve is just getting started. She explains that our current system isn't economical and is often bad for the environment. Beyond Meat has published research that says animal agriculture accounts for about 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions; with two thirds of those coming directly from cows. Consumers, governments, and businesses are all stakeholders who are interested in making food systems more efficient. Simon then asks what parts of the supply chain will require the most investment, in order to create a $290 billion new industry by 2035. Elysabeth says it will be investment from businesses into their processes and supply chains. Perhaps with support from their governments. In the final segment, Simon asks what the most common criticisms have been from people who are opposed to change in food products. Elysabeth also describes the investing methodology that she uses for her index. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this podcast include Beyond Meat, Cargill, ConAgra, Costco, Dannon, Nestle, and YUM Brands. 7investing's advisors and/or its guests may have positions in the companies that are mentioned. Don't miss out on future conversations like this! 7investing will be publishing upcoming interviews with the CEOs of PubMatic, Rocket Lab, and more. Join 7investing's free email list to get our podcasts and investing insights delivered directly to your Inbox. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/7investing/message

Whatever your background, you can build a successful treasury career. Kevin Wang, Vice President and Treasurer at Eastman Chemical Company, began as a pre-med student before switching to treasury. He joins this episode of The Treasury Career Corner to tell his story and explain how he empowers others to develop their own career journeys. Plus, he tells us how he demystifies treasury for other teams, why cross-functionality is key and what we should look out for in the future. After leaving college, Kevin's finance studies saw ConAgra take a chance on him, offering him a financial development programme. During a decade with ConAgra, Kevin worked as Associate Financial Analyst, Financial Analyst and Senior Financial Analyst before moving into finance management and directorship. He joined Eastman Chemical Company as Director of Capital & Risk Management in 2018, later becoming Assistant Treasurer, then Vice President and Treasurer, the role he holds today. Kevin holds a BSBA in Finance and Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA in Management & Organizations, Finance, from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. On the podcast we discussed… How Kevin moved from pre-med to treasury Why he left ConAgra for Eastman What he learned from his managers How he demystifies treasury for other teams What it's like becoming a treasurer in a familiar company What treasury professionals should consider for the future Why cross-functionality is important The benefits of building customer service skills How he plans to empower people to grow their own careers You can connect with Kevin Wang on LinkedIn. Are you interested in pursuing a career within Treasury? Whether you've recently graduated, or you want to search for new job opportunities to help develop your treasury career, The Treasury Recruitment Company can help you in your search for the perfect job. Find out more here. Or, send us your CV and let us help you in your next career move! If you're enjoying the show please rate and review us on whatever podcast app you listen to us on, for Apple Podcasts click here! Subscribe to the Treasury Career Corner podcast newsletter to receive a link to every week's episode as soon as it's published via click here!If you're interested in learning more about the fundamental pillars of treasury, download my free Corporate Treasury eBook by clicking here!

Steve is the Chief Client Officer at The Mars Agency, the largest, independently-owned shopper commerce agency in the world. Steve has spent almost 25 years agency side and in 2011, he founded TWINOAKS, a sister agency to Mars, based in Dallas. He has worked with companies including P&G, Pepsico, Coca-Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper, Campbell's, Conagra, and Anheuser Busch. On this episode of the Marketing Insights Podcast Series, Dr. Shane Hunt of Idaho State University visits Steve about his career, the rapidly changing world of marketing, and his advice for current students.Podcast Transcript

FreightWaves' Mike Baudendistel discusses ConAgra's results and how those reflect trends he is seeing across the broader CPG industry. In addition, he discusses Walmart's supply chain initiatives, labor issues at the west coast ports and SONAR data. Follow The Stockout PodcastOther FreightWaves Shows

Analysts expect companies to tighten their belts in the years ahead. ConAgra raises its earnings forecast, but sales remain sluggish. And FedEx will soon combine its delivery networks to shed costs. Host: Jackson Cantrell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The market today had a mixed bag day, with the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ falling while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 80 points, and Jim Cramer is digging into factors impacting the market this week. First, Jim sits down with Conagra CEO Sean Connolly to discuss the drivers behind the company's 31% growth in earnings. Then, Cramer continues his segment on stocks with low P/E ratios in the U.S. steel sector. Plus, an exclusive interview with FedEx CEO Raj Subramanian on his plan to restructure the American logistics giant.Mad Money Disclaimer

Today we welcome Bill Marler Meet William Marler An accomplished attorney and national expert in food safety, William (Bill) Marler has become the most prominent foodborne illness lawyer in America and a major force in food policy in the U.S. and around the world. Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, has represented thousands of individuals in claims against food companies whose contaminated products have caused life-altering injury and even death. He began litigating foodborne illness cases in 1993 when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured survivor of the historic Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, in her landmark $15.6 million settlement with the company. The 2011 book, Poisoned: The True Story of the Deadly E. coli Outbreak that Changed the Way Americans Eat, by best-selling author Jeff Benedict, chronicles the Jack in the Box outbreak and the rise of Bill Marler as a food safety attorney. For the last 26 years, he has represented victims of nearly every large foodborne illness outbreak in the United States. He has filed lawsuits against such companies as Chili's, Chi-Chi's, Cargill, ConAgra, Dole, Excel, Golden Corral, KFC, McDonald's, Odwalla, Peanut Corporation of America, Sheetz, Sizzler, Supervalu, Taco Bell, and Wendy's, securing over $700,000,000 for victims of E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, and other foodborne illnesses. Among the most notable cases he has litigated, Bill counts those of nineteen-year-old dancer Stephanie Smith, who was sickened by an E. coli-contaminated hamburger that left her brain-damaged and paralyzed, and Linda Rivera, a fifty-seven-year-old mother of six from Nevada, who was hospitalized for over 2 years after she was stricken with what her doctor described as “the most severe multi-organ [bowel, kidney, brain, lung, gall bladder, and pancreas] case of E. coli mediated HUS I have seen in my extensive experience.” New York Times reporter Michael Moss won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Smith's case, which was settled by Cargill in 2010 for an amount “to care for her throughout her life.” Linda's story hit the front page of the Washington Post and became Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's touchstone for successfully moving forward the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010. The B.I.STANDER Podcast is a conversational podcast unique to Bainbridge Island and Seattle Washington, that covers the Arts, Society &  Human Interest stories. The intent is to introduce interesting people, ideas, and conversations. We are not perfect and that's OK! Thank you for your support! The B.I.Stander Podcast is a listener supported show, please consider subscribing.  Thank you & tell them you heard it on: The BISTANDER Podcast! Blue Canary Auto NOW ALSO in Bremerton! Sound Reprographics Additional sound effects by: https://www.zapsplat.com/ Support the Show on PATREON

Episode 1939 - Antibodies in egg yolks against Covid? Ted reads letters from listeners. Conagra recalls 2.5 million pounds of meat. Who owns Conagra? Chinese balloon is propaganda. Pilot says heart attack was due to Shot. Don't live in fear! Plus much much more! Fireside chat show today!

The Nasdaq was the only major average to end in the green and Jim Cramer is sharing his thoughts about the investability of today's bounce in tech. Then, after reporting a better-than-expected quarter last week, Conagra CEO Sean Connolly joins Cramer to break down key lines in the company's earnings report. Next, Cramer's helping investors start 2023 strong by positioning their portfolios if they missed out on the first five trading days of the year. Plus, Cramer's exclusive with Exelon CEO Calvin Butler.

 Today we have Katya Hantel, Head of Global Sustainability at Conagra Brands. Conagra Brands, Inc. is an American consumer packaged goods company, that makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, and food service establishment.In this interview, Hantel discusses intergrating ESG into core business functions, the backlash against ESG, and the balance of finding ESG professionals vs professionals who work in ESG. 

Andrew Schultz is an international speaker, facilitator, coach, podcaster, and mentor. His teachings and vulnerable online offerings are enjoyed daily by 22,000+ readers on Instagram and his weekly podcast is downloaded in over 77 countries worldwide. Andrew's favorite coaching mantra, “Be the change you want to see in the world” is the foundation of all of his offerings. Andrew has worked with numerous corporate clients in areas of mindfulness and leadership training such as TaylorMade, Conagra, lululemon, Vuori, Gorjana, and Boston Consulting Group. On today's episode, Andrew shares his journey from addiction and rock bottom in 2015 and losing the will to live, to thriving in recovery celebrating over seven years of sobriety today. He now leads with an open heart and vulnerability that has become his super-power. Andrew opened up about how his past unresolved issues affected his relationships and how he overcame them. He also shared some valuable tips on how to incorporate healthy habits into our daily lives and ways to heal from our traumas. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:  01:14 The harsh truth about dealing with drugs and alcohol 08:39 The importance of a father's role in the child's development  22:27 How Psychedelics can be used in a person's healing journey 36:15 The secret to making relationships work and thrive 45:55 Practical ways to deal with adversity  negative thoughts

US stocks were mixed Thursday. Plus, Conagra missed on sales, Molson Coors commercials are coming back to the Super Bowl, and Manhattan rents are spiking.

This is episode 1080 of the Arete Coach Podcast with host Severin Sorensen and guest coach Tony Lewis who lives in Kanas City, MO. Tony is an executive coach, Vistage Master Chair, Best Practice Chair, and Chairman of The Lewis Group. In 1998, Tony founded the Lewis Group USA, where he helps companies develop better strategic direction and greater organizational effectiveness through his consulting services. Prior to this, Tony Lewis held several executive positions including President and CEO of ConAgra Foods and Vice President of Continental Grain. Additionally, Tony is retired from the U.S. Air Force after serving his country for 6 years as an active duty Colonel and 31 years as a General in the Air National Guard. On the podcast, Tony shares his life journey as an Aviator, Military and Business Leader, CEO ConAgra, and his passion for being a Vistage Chair. He shares concepts of leadership, courage, action, and activities to make individual coaching and peer groups stronger. He muses over the powerful contrast of 'opportunity is nowhere' vs 'opportunity is now here.' He talks about the necessity of cultivating the "Courage To Fail, Learn, and Think." The Arete Coach Podcast seeks to explore the art and science of executive coaching. You can find out more about this podcast at aretecoach.io. This episode was produced on June 1st, 2022. Copyright © 2022 by Arete Coach™ LLC. All rights reserved.

“We went from working with one band to working with hundreds of musicians and artists like Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson, Michael Franti, The Dead and so many others!”   Justin Levy (5:11-5:23)   It all started when Justin Levy had an idea 20 years ago to teach young people how to fight against hunger by hosting a food drive at a concert. He was attending University of Colorado at the time and as a part of his senior thesis he held a food drive at Fillmore Auditorium in March 2002 at a String Cheese Incident concert. In exchange for donating, concert goers received a limited edition poster to commemorate the experience and they ended up bringing in over 4,000 pounds of donations. Now, Conscious Alliance is a movement of artists, musicians, food makers and music lovers on a mission to end hunger in underserved communities nationwide with over 119 festivals and concerts under their belt.   The first drive benefited the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota where 40,000 Oglala Lakota Native Americans live. Pine Ridge Reservation is one of the most economically isolated communities in the country and is about the same size as the state of Connecticut. For 40,000 people it only has one grocery store! Conscious Alliance has since opened a food pantry and started working with all 15 schools on the reservation to make sure kids going to school have plenty of healthy food to eat.   “We started developing relationships with schools knowing that where the kids go every day we can reach a lot of families with the backpack program approach.” Justin Levy (14:16-14:39)   Along the way, Conscious Alliance has met plenty of “hungry heroes”, many of whom are in the natural food community, like Justin Gould from Justin's Peanut Butter. These brands helped shine a light on the huge amount of food waste going on in the United States, which triggered Conscious Alliance to work out logistically how they can go to different brand's warehouses as they tour with musicians throughout the country and pick up food before it hits the landfill… food that grocery stores won't buy or will throw out because it's, for example, within 90 days of hits shelf life, the brand is getting crowded out or is going through a reprint. Great brands like Applegate, Conagra, Hormel, and many more you know have all partnered with Conscious Alliance.   Think your kids are obsessed about trading cards? Try concert goers and their posters! At every event, an attendee can make a food or monetary donation and receive a limited edition screen printed poster with the band, venue and date on it. It's a special reminder of the opportunity the concert goer had to give back, make a difference, and of course a memory of the amazing time they had.   Conscious Alliance was still able to make an impact during the pandemic when, of course, live music events were on pause. At the beginning of lockdown, one of CA's board members (who happens to own a restaurant) asked Justin if he had a way to distribute meals if the restaurant made them. Justin connected with a kindergarten teacher on the Advisory Board and ended up working with three teachers who were going to their kids' doorsteps and dropping off dinners made from various restaurants in Boulder, Colorado. This way, the teachers could check in on their students and make sure their family's were okay, and everyone was receiving quality nutrition during this scary time.   “One of the first days of the lockdown in March 2020 we had a board member who owns a restaurant and say, ‘If we prepare meals, do you have an outlet to give them away?'” Justin Levy (16:01-16:20)   This caught the attention of the World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that sets up mobile kitchens in areas that need them most, like war zones for example. When partnering with WCK, Conscious Alliance went from serving around 160 restaurant meals a week to almost 2000, making for about 2.6 million meals total in 2020.    Now that restrictions are removed and we're “coming back to life”, Conscious Alliance is back at it again with concerts, festivals and music events. How can you get involved or find out where they'll be next? Simply visit their website and find a listing of upcoming events or a way to donate virtually. You might see a band or event you've been dying to go to, or some of your favorites like Jack Johnson, The Dead, Umphrey's McGee and many more that you can now see live again!   How to get involved Join The Produce Moms Group on Facebook and continue the discussion every week!  Reach out to us - we'd love to hear more about where you are in life and business! Find out more here.    If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a quick review on iTunes. It would mean the world to hear your feedback and we'd love for you to help us spread the word!  

All three major averages rose, making a comeback after a two-day streak of losses, and Jim Cramer is guiding investors through what drove the market higher. Then, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry talks to Cramer about the company's fourth quarter earnings and guidance. Next, Conagra CEO Sean Connolly joins Cramer fresh off earnings to talk about the impact of inflation. Plus, Cramer's your caddie and provides a closer look at two golf stocks, Acushnet Holdings and Callaway Golf.

After two days of stock market declines fueled by Fed-related news, Jim Cramer and David Faber discussed how investors should navigate the tech sector slump following Wednesday's Nasdaq sell-off. On the flip side, the anchors explored what to make of Warren Buffett's big bet on HP Inc.: The stock surged after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed an 11% stake in the personal computer and printer maker. Also in focus: Fed's Bullard on inflation and hiking interest rates, Shell said it sees a Q1 write-down of up to $5 billion due to its pullout from Russia, what the CEOs of Exxon Mobil and Chevron said at a House subcommittee hearing on high gasoline prices, plus the biggest movers -- including what Conagra and Levi Strauss are telling us about the consumer.