Episode Summary

Most mid-market manufacturers don't have a quality problem — they have an acceptance problem. Justin sits down with George Pesansky, a 30-year continuous improvement veteran who has trained 10,000+ professionals across six continents, to unpack the formula behind sustained performance: Success = Quality × Acceptance. George shares why airline kiosks won and self-checkout lost, how to spot the hidden "leaks" draining your operation, and why your shop floor superhero may be your biggest liability.

About the Guest

George Pesansky is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and the author of Super Performance (Fast Company Press, 2025). He's the creator of the Deliberate Improvement Framework, a Forbes Coaches Council member, and founder of MyBlendedLearning.com. Over three decades, he has trained 10,000+ professionals in Lean Six Sigma and World Class Manufacturing across six continents.

Key Takeaways

Success = Quality × Acceptance Companies drown in quality and crater on acceptance. The Excel spreadsheet that worked yesterday and the veteran who's run things for 20 years are exactly what blocks buy-in for change.

Stop Filling the Cup. Fix the Leaks. Every mid-market manufacturer has superheroes who swoop in at 3 a.m. to patch problems. That's filling the cup. Growth comes from following those superheroes, identifying every leak, and asking what system would have prevented it.

Speedboats Beat Battleships Big organizations can't admit failure — careers are staked on it. Small and mid-size companies can pivot, learn from mistakes, and run circles around battleships. Failure isn't the enemy. Failing to learn from failure is.

Flip Training: Why → What → How Most compliance training is 80% how and almost no why. George's Learning Marketing System inverts it: lead with why it matters, define the benefit, then teach the how.

• Book: Super Performance by George Pesansky (Fast Company Press, 2025)
  • https://www.amazon.com/Superperformance-Strategies-Potential-Yourself-Organization/dp/1639081356/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34ROZ53EW043Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.3VrjOBXXPCVi2Ru3ptNufQ.yLC6BIUJrsX4rDIOS0yVuNo2clhBiNZUlnXWcFGfZTo&dib_tag=se&keywords=Super+Performance+George+Pesansky&qid=1777574631&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=super+performance+george+pesansky%2Caps%2C212&sr=8-1
• Featured article: https://www.fastcompany.com/91521452/the-ai-success-equation-we-are-getting-wrong
• Training: MyBlendedLearning.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deliberateimprovement/
• Mentioned: Light Forge Works (Braydon McCormick episode), prior episode with Winfred Rocksteiner

Have a question or want to talk about scaling your operation? Justin would love to hear from you.

• Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io
• Web: alliedadvisors.io
• Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube

Most manufacturers are great at building things. Far fewer are great at understanding whether those things are actually making them money — and that gap is costing them more than they realize.

In this episode, Justin sits down with Allen Engstrom, Managing Director of CFO Network, to break down the financial realities that every mid-market manufacturer needs to understand. With over two decades of experience — including a stint at Intel, where he helped oversee a 60-person team managing a $60 billion data storage market strategy — Allen has seen firsthand what separates manufacturers who thrive from those quietly taking on water.

They get into the cash flow mismatch that makes manufacturing uniquely brutal, the single metric Allen looks at first when he walks into a business, and why "we'll make it back next quarter" is a mindset that can sink a company. If you've ever wondered whether your financials are telling you the full story, this one's for you.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why manufacturing cash flow is so uniquely challenging — and what Allen saw firsthand at Intel committing a billion dollars to build a factory for products that didn't exist yet
• The difference between gross margin and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) — and why ROIC is the number Allen looks at first
• How to benchmark your business against industry peers to spot whether your margins are competitive or dangerously thin
• The "leaky boat" framework: how to identify where money is quietly escaping your operation through poor labor utilization, equipment underperformance, and pricing gaps
• Why a 1% improvement in the right place can literally double your cash flow
• What private equity firms are really looking for when they evaluate a manufacturing business — and how to prepare for that culture shift
• The fractional CFO value proposition: why bringing in financial expertise may be the highest-ROI investment you can make in your business
• Why sunk costs are water under the bridge — and how forward-looking financial discipline separates growing companies from struggling ones

About Allen Engstrom: Allen Engstrom is the Managing Director of CFO Network, where he leverages over two decades of experience to provide world-class outsourced finance and accounting solutions for businesses of all sizes. Holding an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin with a specialization in IT entrepreneurship and finance, Allen blends deep technical knowledge with sharp business acumen. His career includes a significant tenure at Intel Corp, where he served as a program manager overseeing a 60-person team for a $60 billion data storage market strategy and managed M&A transactions totaling over $4 billion. Today, based in North Little Rock, Arkansas, he is known for transforming complex financial data into actionable growth strategies.

Connect with Allen: 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-engstrom-4a436/

Enjoyed this episode? If this conversation added value, please take a moment to like, subscribe, and share the show. The more mid-market manufacturers we can reach, the more we can help move the needle on the bottom line — which is what The Allied Advisors Podcast is all about.

Episode Description

Most manufacturers have experienced the same gut punch: a major improvement project goes beautifully, everyone celebrates, and then six months later you walk back out on the shop floor and it's like it never happened. The problem isn't your people. It isn't your culture. It's the absence of a daily discipline to sustain what you built.

In this first-ever solocast, Justin Goethe goes deep on the Daily Leadership Routine (DLR) — the system he has seen transform some of the world's best manufacturing operations and the one he believes is the single biggest difference between companies that sustain gains and those that don't.

McKinsey research shows only 30% of organizational transformations fully succeed. VA & Company found that 70–80% of improvement projects fail within 24 months — not because the solutions were wrong, but because there was no system to hold the gains. The Daily Leadership Routine is that system.

What You'll Learn

• Why lean projects, Six Sigma rollouts, and improvement initiatives fail to stick — and the one thing that changes that
• The 5 pillars of Daily Management and how each one plays a specific role in keeping operations stable
• How to structure a 15-minute daily meeting that actually drives decisions (not just status updates)
• The communication cascade model — from shop floor to executive level — and how to scale it for your organization
• Why process confirmation is a coaching exercise, not an audit (and how to make sure your team feels the difference)
• The 4 maturity levels of Daily Management and why starting at Level 1 is the right move
• The 6 most common reasons Daily Management fails — and how to avoid every one of them
• A practical, step-by-step guide to launching DLR at your facility starting this week

Key Takeaways

Daily management is not a meeting — it's a leadership system. It connects leaders to the reality of operations every single day through a structured routine of monitoring, reacting, and improving.

Allied's Fractional CI Manager Program

Justin's Fractional CI Manager (FCIM) program is a 12-month embedded partnership designed to help mid-market manufacturers build the internal capabilities to run continuous improvement on their own. It's not traditional consulting — it's a teach-to-fish model.

The program includes:

• Quarterly on-site value stream mapping workshops (System CIP Cycle)
• Project A3 development and coaching
• Weekly roadmap review meetings
• Daily management implementation and coaching
• Problem-solving skill development at all levels

Clients have achieved up to 80% increases in output with zero capital expenditure — no new equipment, no major investment. Just better management of existing processes.

Resources & Links

• Watch the video version (with KPI board visuals) on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4OF-0InH_9o
• Email Justin directly with questions: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io
• Learn more about the Fractional CI Manager Program: https://allied-log.com/fractional-continuous-improvement-manager/

Connect with Justin

• Email: jgoethe@alliedgroup.io
• Company: Allied Group