E125: Using Lean Six Sigma to Change Lives with Luke Chesla

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In this episode, I share an inspiring interview with Dr. Lucas Chesla, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with Value Added 616, and founder of the nonprofit, Full Armor Ranch.

In a world where continuous improvement leads to transformative change, he stands out as a master in blending Lean Six Sigma methodologies with meaningful purpose. With a rich background as a Marine and a relentless commitment to applying structured problem-solving, he has dedicated his expertise to revolutionizing both personal lives and broader organizational goals with his for-profit and government clients. His journey went from establishing a Continuous Improvement Office within the Marine Corps to moving out on his own to create a nonprofit focused on rehabilitating veterans and first responders. By integrating the principles of Lean Six Sigma into his nonprofit, he provides holistic support to those transitioning from combat to civilian life, emphasizing the power of structure and purpose with tools such as 5S and standard work.

His work is a testament to the expansive potential of Lean Six Sigma, advocating for transparency, communication, and efficient resource use across various sectors. Whether in nonprofits striving for greater societal impact or government organizations needing public trust and effective operations, he promotes the importance of aligning people, processes, and technology.

This episode is full of wisdom, challenges, motivation and inspiration. Please take some time to watch and connect with Luke.

  • 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Luke Chesla
  • 00:37 Journey into Lean Six Sigma
  • 02:21 Establishing a Continuous Improvement Office
  • 03:54 From Military to Nonprofit: A Personal Mission
  • 06:40 The Sober Home Concept
  • 07:21 Holistic Approach to Rehabilitation
  • 12:59 Finding Purpose and Overcoming Challenges
  • 16:33 Entrepreneurial Spirit and Support
  • 19:10 Incorporating Lean and Six Sigma in Nonprofit Work
  • 22:29 Building Confidence in Problem Solving
  • 23:23 Defining and Analyzing Problems
  • 24:03 Understanding DMAIC
  • 25:45 Applying Lean Six Sigma in Nonprofits
  • 30:55 The Importance of Transparency in Government
  • 35:05 Revolutionizing Work: Key Concepts
  • 41:03 Full Armor Ranch and Value Added 616
  • 43:49 Conclusion and Resources

Listen to the podcast on this page, download it on your favorite podcast player (search “Lean Six Sigma for Good”) or watch the entire interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K5iQ2I13tY

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Promotions

Have you ordered the book, “Lean Six Sigma for Good: Lessons from the Gemba (Volume 2)?” The book is made up of 8 chapters written about experiences from Lean and Six Sigma practitioners, to give you tips and tricks to help you work with nonprofits in your area. All proceeds donated to charity. Now available in audiobook as of Feb 2024. You can also order Volume 1 released in 2019.

Transcript


Brion Hurley
OK, today we’ve got Doctor Luke Chesla. He’s a lean 6 Sigma master black belt. It’s got a lot of great experience working in government and it’s got a nonprofit. And so I really wanted to reach out to talk to you about some of your work and learn a little bit more about you. So welcome, Luke.
Luke Chesla
Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your show. So first and foremost, if you want a little quick bio, the basic rundown is I was a knuckle dragging marine for over 20 years, did 20 years in about four or five months something like that. I was infantry then I was artillery. So always doing the knuckle dragging stuff. But what got me into this world of lean and sick. Stigma and stuff was so I was enlisted and then I got my bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas. That doesn’t help me. Much but fast. Forward and then I’m at Naval postgraduate. At school they sent me there because apparently I had just slightly enough intellect to make it into that school, and I got in and in there in an operations class. I learned about this lean 6 Sigma stuff, but it only was just I heard about it in passing. Was part of the curriculum you learned, essentially the Greenbelt curriculum as part of the class and. I didn’t think much of it from there, but it just it made sense to me. The stuff they were talking about really started to. Sense. And then Fast forward after I graduated Naval Postgraduate school and I was a captain about to pick up major at Marine Corps Systems Command in my final tour in My Twilight Tour. So those of you non military folks, I was getting ready to retire. I had an opportunity to go to a black belt course because I already had the training for green belt in my curriculum and I went to it not thinking much of it again. But there was something in there that drew me to it. It just it made sense. It’s on how you can solve these problems, and it’s really things are that easy if we just structure a way of thinking through them and I just couldn’t believe that this structured problem solving methodology allowed us to take these complex problems and break them down into something my little pea sized brain could figure out. And so for something like that for me. Like mind blown. And so that is the story of where I ran into lean and singing as a matter of fact, I set up a a program office, if you will. That’s a loose term, but they we were supposed to have a continuous improvement office with a focus on lean and Six Sigma. That was a requirement, A mandate from the Department of Defense, Marine Core Assistance plan at the time did not have. One I knew they were supposed to have one I took on the crazy role over a few years of developing and implementing one, which meant everything from training people to establishing the program office or Project Office. Excuse me, and in that’s actually what got me those fun little letters of Dr. the doctor, because that was the action research project that my college at the time let me use. So I got to use that experience and that’s what earned my doctorate in business, was developing that office. And then on the on the other.
Brion
What year was that you’re talking about? Mid to late 2000s?
Luke
No, actually. So this time frame where they didn’t have a continuous improvement office was 2013 to 18 time frame. When the mandate originally came out, it went away, and then all of a sudden, by the time I got there, it wasn’t in existence. There was nothing there. And they will say did away with it, but they were supposed to have one. And so I got just enough support from just enough for from a few influential leaders who said, OK, if you’re going to do it, but let me just tell you, the general is not going to be too thrilled about it. And it was true. So I fought an uphill battle. Learned a lot about how to communicate and grassroots effort, but that’s essentially what got me my doctorate and then obviously now I have a business around that. But the nonprofit, so the for profit actually leads us to the nonprofit that. That’s where it all started from because in all reality, our hearts were to give back from the beginning. As a retired marine, I knew since 2009 that God put it on my heart that we were gonna open a drug and alcohol rehab Center for veterans and 1st responders. I knew.
Well, the business was actually secondary. We were like, OK, how are we going to make money for this? Said nonprofit and thing there it is. So we used the skills that we were given in that department cuz I’m a master black belt. And then my wife’s a couple of years behind me. But when I learned black belt, I dragged her along reluctantly. Now she loves it, but I reluctantly dragged her along, and now she’s a master black belt as well, and obviously so is the rest of our staff. But yeah, so then that allowed us to have the money to purchase the home. So that we can actually have the drug and alcohol rehab center. So I’ll pause, right?
Brion
There tell me a little bit more about why you chose that or why you felt inspired to start that. What was the inspiration? And then yeah, walk us through how you got that going and what was some of the early struggles and successes you had?
Luke
So I’ll give you some of the inspiration from it. A couple of pieces, obviously very close to home. 1 is I was in, OK. Holic blackout, drunk and in the Marine Corps. Love my brothers and sisters and service, but we tend to promote that and say it’s a good thing. And hey, it’s OK. Drink. Do what you want. I got it. I was a blackout drunk, getting in fights all the time, literally. Like going to bars and my knuckles are nice and scarred up from fighting, right. So the point was, I just. I loved it to drink. I was. And I just. I was just say I was done with that part of my life, but also I didn’t have some of the stressors, even though I’ve been to combat and stuff I didn’t deal with the PTSD aspect of it, but my brother did. So my brother was also a marine. He was in the storm to when they stormed Baghdad in the very beginning when they toppled the statue of Saddam, the tow tank would actually belonged to him. That actually pulled that statue down. That really famous picture. So Long story short, my brother is a fireman right now currently.
Brion
Yeah.
Luke
And still struggles with PTSD really bad. And how do you medicate that? We all know how we medicate that and it inspired me, if you will, to do something about and say God gave me the resources and what are you going to do with it.
And that’s where we are.
Brion
Very cool. And so tell me about this house. What was the feel like? That was a solution you came up with or has been effective at getting people to go through this and have a lot of oversight and support during a critical time period? Is that how the house works?
Luke
Yeah. So the house came about in a very odd we didn’t think of a sober. That, like, never crossed our mind in the beginning of any of this, but. Through conversations, prayer, leading, guiding, we ended up at the sober home idea and what that allowed us to do. Our sober home has run a little bit different than some of the other ones where people just go in there. They live a sober life and move on. We actually provide accountability and discipline in that place. And so we have somebody that lives there to help them manage their day-to-day, not like a boss. Go over the top of you and do your chores, kids. No. Hey, let’s wake up at a certain time. Let’s journal at a certain time. Let’s make sure we’re going to the meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, narcotics Anonymous, these other things that can help us in our journey. Sarah provides. She’s a counselor as well. She got her Masters degree and all that stuff. And So what she does is she helps to rebuild those bridges back to the families, whether it’s children. Husbands, wives. There’s a lot of bridges that have been burnt this time. So we have this really holistic view of it. Not umm. The men in the Council and we take them out hiking and we love on them and we get them back on their feet, try to get them jobs, get them purpose, get them up. Skilled re skilled. She works on the family piece and we try to collectively work on building that bridge together. So our sober home is not like a lot of where it’s like. Hey, it’s a home that’s available for you to live. And we’re sober. No. Actually, we walk with you every step of the journey. We roll up our sleeves, we get really, we’ll say, ugly and dirty and we love it every step of it, a lot of tears, a lot of hugging, a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. But such is life, right? I mean that that’s it is what it is. These you got to realize these men and women, these men and women have been trained to. I’ll try to be as politically correct as I can. They’re warriors, right? They show no pain, show No Fear. If they go on the battlefield, they’re police and they’re out and could be shot at high speed. Chase, whatever it is. And then all of a sudden, we’re supposed to go home and be loving. Husbands. And wives and fathers and mothers. And I will tell you from experience, that is an extremely difficult thing to do and we try to help. Again, we just help people get back on their feet and restore those relationships. Find themselves, so to speak.
Brion
Yeah, I can imagine how challenging that is. And yeah, that kind of switch turning a switch on and off to go back and forth and readjusting back into civilian life or just even coming home like you said at the end of the day and saying now I’m no longer a policeman, I have to be a father and.
Luke
Yes.
Brion
And and that’s definitely a challenge.
Luke
Yes, it is. And so those pressures obviously boil over. And so again, that house is we’ve had folks come in there that as a matter of fact weren’t even struggling with drugs and alcohol. They were struggling with their. Courage. And so that’s OK that it’s you don’t have to be addicted to alcohol or drugs, but going through that issue and it was a retired cop and having a lot of issues. And so we try to help build those bridges and build it back up those relationships, give them tools, techniques get give them everything we can. And so we have equine therapy. So with horses we have a we have a friend of ours. Who’s a retired military as well, and he started a nonprofit for equine therapy. So that’s about 15 minutes from the house. So we use him, and it’s called hopeful acres in Seguin, TX. Shameless, shout out for hopeful acres. But Rick is a fantastic dude just in. Awesome dude. And then we have canine therapies. We have Blake, who actually is the house manager and he is a professional dog trainer like he he did it like these guys do this professional they before being here Blake as a matter of fact was in Washington DC and these guys do drugs and bombs and these things for like checking buildings like government buildings in downtown DC. And so, yeah, these guys are professional trainers. We have dogs, horses. Sarah. Does the female humans. I do the male humans and would collectively, like I said, collectively, it’s holistic.
Brion
Where do you find the time to, you know, provide consulting work to raise funds and then also help out? It must be pretty long days or long weeks or you’re just driven to do that?
Luke
Drive is a big part of it, but even more. So. Is it’s. It’s the team you choose because we all know each other’s lanes and if you stay like, for instance, if I stay out of Sarah’s lane and let her do her thing and I stay out of Blakes Lane and let him do his thing, right, and we all respect each other’s lap. Guess what? That minimizes the work you’re actually having to do. So if you structure your time, are you putting in a lot of extra hours? Yes, but I’m not belittling what we do as master black belts. Shoot what we do and working with data and stuff. Very difficult. But I’ll tell you that’s a lot easier than the human aspect of running a a sober home. A lot of time gets spent on how to the people side of it, which by the way. For sure bleeds over into the master black belt sites. You deal with humans and the change aspect all the time. There’s literally a direct link. What I learned over here in the silver home is directly applicable over here. And then also we can use the master black belt work. Where I try to let them come across too. Some people have the we’ll say Gee 2. The intellect, you just know that they have it. You can also train them in Greenbelt, Black belt, right. And you can upskill and re skill them. And some people want to learn. Dog training is up. Blake can train them in that. So again, we give them skills and techniques going a little off track with the question. But everything we tried to do. Is make it so there’s not silos. Everything goes together, and if that happens, you don’t feel like one starts. One stops. Oh, my work day starts now. I’m with the people. No, they literally blend it and bleed beautifully together. So they make this nice kind of like lean 6 Sigma, right? They’re harmonious. They’re different, but they work together in harmony. But it’s the same thing.
Brion
Yeah, that was really interesting. I’ve always felt like that’s a great thing to teach people who are looking for work and just built ramping up their skill set. They’re out of work. And here’s an opportunity to take someone who has time. And if we can connect them with a nonprofit or some group that they can practice their skills while they’re looking for work and boost their resume, and then they have a project and then they have a connection to an organization, I think there’s some really cool things that sounds like you’re already doing that work. So that’s really exciting and. Cool to hear.
One of the things I write this on the marker board in that house and it just came to 1 today. It said there’s nothing more dangerous. Than a man. Without a purpose, he says after. Enough. Folks started to come in there and I realized because from the beginning, when you start out, you’re so naive to what you don’t know. I realized case after case that like one word just kept coming back. Turn out my purpose. I lost my purple. This when you lose your purpose, like that’s the first thing we gotta find, right? What is your purpose? Why are you here? And this isn’t some existential question. I gotta sit like a Yogi under the sun and meditate for six hours. It’s like, where do they people want to intrinsically we wanna add value to society and our lives and the people around us. Right. So how do we do that? When you’ve lost it, I was in the Marine Corps. That’s where I was adding value to as a paycheck. I was a hero to my kids and blah, blah, blah. Now I’m out. Now I’m a nobody. No, you’re not. You just have a different purpose. Now. Your purpose is different. You’re still a father. You’re still a husband. You’re still a loving human being who deserves love and compassion and. City. But you do need to find where we’re going. To add value. Where is that? And so that’s one of the first things that we have to. Explore is how do we add? Value. What does that look like? Everybody’s different, obviously, that you and I are very different. We add value in different ways, right? People’s lives. But that’s that. I will tell you. There’s one word that this all boils down to its purpose. That’s where all of it comes from. Lost my purpose.
Brion
How do you help someone figure that out? Is it just through dialogue or is there exercises that you can do? Because I knew a lot of friends and I played college football and a lot of them went professional and then that times over and that’s the same similar thing, not maybe to the extreme, but. There, like now what do I do? I’m not getting the same limelight or my whole life has been around football and now that’s gone. Who am I? And so I think that’s probably a challenge. A lot of people face and. Don’t have to be in the military or professional athlete to go through that.
Luke
So one of the keys that we had found journaling is huge. And as dudes a lot of times, it’s yeah, I don’t like to do that or whatever, but. And so one of the first things that they get when they check in is a journal. And so they get this journal, you know, you journal when you’re mad, when you’re had, and we start to look for these triggers and talk through them. So it’s a combination of the journaling and the dialogue because then we will do. Like we do disc golf, together we go on hikes together in in groups and we talk while we’re doing them cause guys we don’t like to steer each other in the eyeballs, like girls. We like to be walking and talking. You know what I mean? That’s OK. I can talk to you when we’re shoulder to shoulder, but not eyeball to eyeball. I don’t. Weird. Don’t talk to me, but so we take opportunities like that and we talk and then then. We get to explore our group together and we build trust and we can share then when we’re doing our individual times together, then we can talk a little. Deeper into the. Purpose so that journaling is a really big one. The Group One helps people to understand they’re not alone in that struggle for purpose. This and then it finally leads to in the individual times to go. OK, let’s work through me specifically and how I find my purpose. So journaling group individual, and so all of that collectively helps people to identify or get to the point where we can talk about where do you add value, where do you want to add value? And it’s a typical intersection. You and I know it. It’s pretty cliche for everybody. OK? What are your passions and your purpose and what do you love to do and right? And there’s that confluence of and then making money. Of course people want to add value that way. So where is that? Where are the Venn diagram overlap and it’s OK, let’s try to find something in there. And then and then let’s pursue. And so because our background is so entrepreneurial, we’ve also helped people, many of them be like, I can’t find a job. I can’t find a job. And I always I’m joking. I always let’s go make one. Like for instance, one guy who said was one of our first guys was like I got hired at Home Depot, but it’s just not fulfilling cause he was a real handyman. That’s where he really felt because he had ADHD and all this other stuff and. So. Like he just working with his hands, he had to do. Guess what, Fast forward to about. I wanna say close to exactly a year. So now we helped him to launch his own business with a handyman. And guess what? Now he’s hiring people and stuff and he’s growing and expanding and, like, blowing up and I’m like, see, go find a job. I even told him to go knock on the neighbors, go knock on the neighbor’s house over there, ask him if you can do their leaves, ask him if you can fix her roof, ask if you can do whatever he started doing it taking off. It’s just, it’s that entrepreneurial spirit. Too so. We if you have the say, the you want to go that direction, we also help them be like make it happen. This world is all about small business nowadays, so I’m like make it happen. Put it that way.
Brion
That’s great. Yeah. And probably just even the confidence to say you can do this or let’s guide you help you through this where they might be overwhelmed or not even know where to start or even can’t even imagine. I can’t own a business that’s just not me or that’s just something I’ve never been. I’m not that type of person. And you can get them through that hurdle to say. Yes, you can. There’s a lot of people who run great businesses. They don’t have to be like, come up with a brand new idea. There’s tons of just core businesses that still can be successful.
Yeah, this boils down to part of the conversation too, because some people want to start businesses and others may just want to create your own job, right? Again, you and I know that difference and you’re like, you just may want to be. Yourself and somebody else doing it. Cool. Oh, this is just some paperwork file it. Make sure your file is an LLC or whatever it is, or a sole proprietor, whatever. However, you’re going to structure this thing will work through it. Help you file it and get it rocking and rolling and be like there you go. Now you can kind of legally transact. Oh, you wanna do this? We’ll make sure you get your general contractor license. 400 bucks. OK, tell you what, you’re gonna pass that test? Yes. I’ll give you 400 bucks. But you better pass the test. Let’s go do it. So again, the whole thing, that’s one of the phrases they know from me as well. Ditch the excuses. I say that a lot. Ditch them. I don’t want to hear any of them cause anything that you’re going to say. I’m gonna say you want it. You go get it. That’s the whole thing. You want it?
Brion
Take away excuses, yeah.
Luke
Go get it. I don’t know where. Good. Now that’s true. You probably don’t know where to start. That’s where you get a good mentor. And that’s where hopefully we can come in. But I’m like, but excuses. Nope. Ditch him. Leave him at the door, because no matter what you want to do, we’ll find a way. We’ll figure it out.
Brion
How about the lean and six Sigma methods? Is that something you’ve been able to incorporate into the nonprofit work? Do they practice in 5S or do they do any kind of mapping exercises or data analysis, anything like that?
Luke
All the above. Now we do a lot with 5S. For instance, when you’re living in a community structured home. You have to things have to be 5 S like literally every day things have to be in a certain spot. Like they we have QR codes for basically everything and I give them like this metal business card. It’s got 6 QR codes. One of them is like the chore list. Everything’s laid out pictures literally 5S down to on Wednesdays. You wipe even the window sills this way and it’s structured on no more than 30 minutes. Towards per day everything has to go. Everything in its place or everything has a place. Everything. In its place, right? Typical. 5S and so we use 5S is quite literally what drives that place without 5S, that place would fall apart, even down to when we get a new person coming in. There is a literal standard operating procedure, checklist boom. And it sits here it goes. Here it goes this way, it goes that way and everything is structured that way. They know what to expect because. Think about again the mind. Set. This goes for business and nonprofit the mindset of what drove the chaos to begin with is the lack of structure and accountability and discipline. Right and SO5S5 S is like the Primo thing that brings everything back into providing that structure and accountability. There it is. There it goes. There is where it belongs. Good. I’m at peace. I know exactly where this thing is. At where it’s supposed to be. When I’m done with it, where it goes when you know so 5S is big and then working with data. That’s how we teach them to track. So now you’re getting into the good part about when you go from journaling. We teach them to take that journaling, turn it into really good, useful data. And how do we assess that data? How do we look for trends and patterns that sound familiar? Yep, that’s exactly what we do. Trends, patterns. Right. Look at your control charts. But essentially, so when we do this, we’re teaching them to look for data in their own lives. And how do they use that data? What are we as master black belt or storytellers? We’re interpreters. We’re translators, right? We take data like that. What they’re doing in their journaling, we turn it into something useful so decisions can be made. Is that any different than journaling? To finding my purpose? No, it’s not. It’s a direct one. For one translation, it is literally what we do. And. All of that came from thinking through the Dominic process. Think about the process that they’re walking through as somebody who’s could be marriage could be drugs, alcohol, whatever. You gotta define that problem. You have to figure out what’s the baseline of this thing. Analyze the root causes, improve our process, our life, and then control, sustain, make sure we don’t go back and revert to our old ways. Build on past successes. Are you kidding me? It’s just to make your life. That’s literally what you do. So demais, that’s why I jokingly tell people. Let’s just say I’m doing agree. About course, like with what’s going on right now. I go, I can challenge you that if you think of jamaic as not a checklist, but a mental model, it can solve any problem anywhere, anytime.
To find me a problem, I’ll use to make and we’ll solve it. Because it’s not a checklist of tools.
Brion
I think that’s very similar to me. It’s once you see these tools and you’re like, I can’t imagine a problem I can’t solve, I can’t figure out there’s enough tools out here that if we methodically walk through these steps, we are going to get something out of this and figure some way of solving this. It doesn’t. It’s almost like it takes away these ideas of impossible problems or too challenging, and I don’t know how we’re going to do this, or I’m afraid to even go after this problem because I just feel confident now that. There is a methodical way to follow and get to some kind of improvement there. So yeah it that I think it just really builds people’s confidence in the ability to go tackle almost any problem.
Luke
If you understand that. That if you understand the kind of the mental model, there is not a challenge that you can’t think through, and it also lets you again forgive the cliche but eat the elephant 11 bite at a time right? Cause like where do I start? Where does any problem start or any 12 separate to find the problem? What’s the problem? I’m an alcoholic. OK, own it. Good. Now the measure is I drink. This baseline in this. Yeah. And then here’s the things that are ruined in my life because of it. This is all that. OK. Good. Now what’s the root cause of it? Gig? This is probably the toughest part, which again, this is your hypothesis testing this record. Get out my chi square, my ANOVA, my whatever it is that I’m gonna run. Here and then I can run through all. My list of. Hypothesis tests. Well, that’s the same thing. I’m digging to the root causes. I’m using my fish going. I’m using my 5 wives. Why? Let’s get down to it. Why does this happen? When you do that? Then I can say I’ve identified those. Now I can make the improvements. So. That’s again, it’s if you really understand DMAIC. If you really, truly understand it and you haven’t, we’ll say, screwed it up to the point where you’re like, it’s this list of tools and that’s how you do demand. You don’t just do DMAIC, it’s a process. It’s a thought process.
Brion
I use that now as someone’s telling me a story of it, just like what’s the problem and how bad is it? And and do they really understand why it’s happening? It’s a it is. A. An approach to even organize someone coming at and. Just. Spouting off a bunch of stuff and you’re just like, OK, I think that’s. A. Little bit improved. I heard some analyzing there. I think I heard of the definition of a problem. I’m piercing it in my head. OK, wait, I didn’t hear any measures. There’s my gap. I gotta go start asking questions. How bad is this? And how many times did you say this happened? And so, yeah, it’s a great tool for even trying to. Get a handle around lots of information and just reorganize it to say, alright, here’s where we’re missing something. Or we got to back up. Because. You skipped way ahead to improve and I didn’t hear the problem yet, and so I agree. That’s a really powerful tool.
Luke
Again in the. Considering this is about nonprofits and lean, Lean 6 Sigma for good, let’s think about this people. They’re gonna go into a sober home, and there’s gonna be like, alright, I’m gonna jump into just not drinking and that’s it. And I’m gonna move into this house and you’re like, hold on. Do we even have a true grasp of the problem yet? Do we really understand what it is? Let’s mentally charter this suck. We’re up, right? What’s the scope of what we’re dealing with here? And it’s true, like you said, you’re hearing pieces of it. You gotta get them to step back and you go. OK. But if you teach them and empower them and say this is the framework from which I’m coming from here. And and oddly enough, this is a quote UN quote business framework we got. But in all reality, it’s not. It’s just this mental model. It’s so much bigger than that. Just frustrates me because some people have just scrolled it up so much that they think it’s this tool and this tool and this tool. I’m like, I don’t know who taught you that, but no, it’s not at all. Those tools. Help me as I’m trying to. If I’m defining a problem, the tools there to help me to define it, it’s going to help me with, it’s a supplement.
That’s all it is. That’s what it’s there for. It’s not there to be the phase or whatever, or to define the problem. It’s a way for me to capture the the thought process. But yeah, I think we gotta get off target. What we’ve done with it, but you can use it in a nonprofit world and that’s another one too, is a lot of nonprofits. They think, like, ideal in the nonprofit world all the time. And when you talk to them about, like, process improvement, they always think ohh, that’s for the businesses, like they’re real business is making a lot of money. And you’re like, whoa. As a matter of fact, wouldn’t you rather, since you have a tight budget, you’re asking for money, getting donations, all this others. Wouldn’t you rather be more efficient with the few resources you do have? Seems like you would be the best. For candidate for working with Jamaica and doing some lean operations here, then I don’t know a big like Chase Bank would be because they’ve got billions of dollars to blow. You have a budget of 200 grand a year and you’re constantly going month to month on this. And like maybe it’d be really helpful if you thought through how to lean out your operations. So what would be nice is if people like you and I were able to get in with some of these nonprofits and help them out, and they just get them to see there’s so much more you could do with the resources you’ve already got. Wouldn’t that be cool if we could do that?
Brion
Yeah, that’d be. Have incredible I think there is so much opportunity and it is a new topic concept for a lot of them. They they don’t necessarily come in with that background or have been introduced to those topics. So yeah, I think that was the goal is to try to at least get them introduced or thinking about it or learning or wanting to learn more about it.
Because I think, yeah, the impact that could be had if they could embrace and look at some of these methods I think would be huge for our society. Yep.
Luke
Yeah. When I saw the premise of your show, even with that, the lean 6 Sigma. For good thing I’m. Like what does that mean? Interesting. And then as I’m doing the research on it, I’m like, that’s really cool. Like what a. Concept like how do you pull the good out of this? Literally you got people with big hearts and no, no and no. Not brain. No business brain is what I meant that came out wrong big heart but the business brain is lacking and you’re like you can help them to tie that together. You’re like we can make your big heart go even further right with because unfortunately. The world of nonprofits, for instance, revolves around what money that makes a lot of people uncle. Comfortable. And it does. Let’s be honest, I’m in that. So I’m in the business world, so it doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but there’s a lot of people that run these nonprofits, and they’re just like, I don’t like to talk about money or having to get like, like it or not. How do you think everything happens in the world? Unfortunately, you gotta have money, you know? So you, you have to know how to be resourceful with your money. You need to know how to use it effectively. Make your budget stretch for. Other right. And so how do you do that? You’re literally describing like the world of lean, like running efficient, smooth operations, right? You’re gonna be fast, efficient little variation, high quality, right. All those types of things in your lean 6 Sigma world there. And you’re like, so there’s so much valuable work that could go into these nonprofits, but they separate and they go. Nonprofit is different from business and you’re. I hate to say it. They’re not. It is a business. It’s just a different classification of a business. That’s all that, even at church, when people are like, that’s another big one too, because we work with some churches and you’re like, like it or not, your church is like, it’s a business. It has money that comes in. You have to do things with those resources, you pay employees, and work is done. I’m sorry. What is that? That’s a business, right? Like literally, that’s a business. I’m like, I get it, I get it. And I come from that background. My wife and I are both pastors too, so I’m like, I I understand that fellow pastor. But you have to understand that there are business aspects to it. So again, people in the nonprofit world, they try to separate or silo those two and they’re not separable. And when they, when you do separate them. That’s where we run into some problems unfortunately, like maintaining funds and everything and getting the most out of you’re here to help people. I can help you help more people.
Brion
And so I think that’s a nice segue into governments and government agencies and you’ve done a lot of work there. Very similar I think in a nonprofit maybe is we have this tax revenue coming in and we’re trying to maximize it. The use of that, that money for maximum. Benefits to the society and taxpayers and residents, and so tell us a little bit about that background and experience you have and what are some of the things you’re seeing that’s working well in the government sector.
Luke
Yes. So funny thing is, dodge being the word that’s going around or the phrase what you want to call it, dodge. And then the tariffs, the two. But Dodge is more important. What’s funny is this was actually written before Doge, but it is quite literally the answer for dodge. It was so weird because when Dodge came out and they were talking about it, my co-author and I were like. You have got to be kidding me because that is quite literally us addressing dodge. It was pretty wild, but so with the taxpayer dollars, it’s like we have these government organizations who have lost trust, right? They’ve lost trust. Well, why have they lost a lot of the trust? They’ve lost the trust because of transparency. Why have they lost the transparency? I’m gonna argue not because they’re bad people. I know that’s all over the news and we try. To spread that. This agency spent $1,000,000 on this corporate party and this was so horrible. You’re like, yeah, but was it like, if you’re in that organization, maybe if it was really for a celebration and it was going on, was it overkill? Sure. But my point is this. What we’ve got to understand where we’re working with things like government, it’s like we need transparency and communication with the people. Then that $1,000,000 for that party might not seem like such a bad thing. It seemed like such a bad thing because it was the way that it was presented or brought up, almost busted when you’re like, no, we meant to have a party and it was the annual event for all of our employees. I’m just saying that. And Be an example of where we misconstrue these things, but what I’ve noticed. Is with these organizations right now is they have to start to become more transparent. That means we’ve got to have these processes ironed out, mapped out. Why do we map visual right so you can see the OK what’s the process of this thing that we’re looking at? Let’s map these processes out. Let’s let the people see the process that we’re doing it. In real time, let’s let them see into some of the financials because they own the financials. They’re the taxpayers, they’re money. Right, so why don’t we just open up with that and let’s identify and work with the American people to say what are the true KPI’s here or OK R whatever you’re gonna use, but you’re if you’re using like your key performance indicators, OK, American public with government, it’s your taxpayer money. We want to be transparent. We’re gonna map these processes. You can see what they look like. You can see the budgets that we have now, what’s important, what are the key metrics that we should be getting out, Fund, Department of Education, these are the key metrics, right? American public we agree with these if these are what they should be and here’s why and they’re listed out. I think that’s a big piece of what we’re really miss. Using that transparency, that level of transparency, I know it will never happen at that level. I got it. I understand that. But I think even if we got to the point where we really understood if in the government I say we because we work a lot with the government, if we really even understood our own processes, because let’s be honest, most people top to bottom in the government. They turn over so fast, most people don’t actually know what the processes are. We just do, and I’m gonna be honest with you cause you said, what have I observed? Just do is what I’ve observed. People just do things like how do I move this from here to here? There’s no procedure necessarily. I just do it and I’ll find a way and it’s going to be different every single time. And so that’s what I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed the transparency, the lack of understanding, because there’s not, there’s not clarity or alignment where there’s an alignment. People process the technology, data and leadership in alignment, right? Those things need to be all lined up and we just don’t have it. And so every day, the government just. Does. I know it’s a very generic way to say it, that’s not in the book. Like that way. But they just do. Let’s just get it done. Just that. Revolutionize work. A guide to enterprise transformation. And like I said, we had no idea that dude was coming. And this isn’t like a government books for any organization. But it just happens to address a lot of the stuff that comes with, though.
Brion
What’s the title of the book?
Luke
With the government right now, I think they could make such good strides for Lean 6 Sigma for good if they just use some of the concepts that we preach, which is. Visual workplace, right, make things visual. Let’s just use like visual controls, visual workplace. Imagine if the American people could even see 25% of what’s going on in the government, how much better they would feel about it. We just made things visual. That’s straight up right. Not now that that’s straight up out of our world as master black belts. We try to visualize everything. Right. Imagine if we did. Yeah, just put it together. A visual workplace. What if we put together a dashboard for the Department of Education? A dashboard for.

Luke
I don’t know whatever Department of Energy. Whatever. Right. What if we just like dashboards here? Where? Where? Here’s what the budget is in. Here’s the KPIs. Here’s how we’re performing according to them. And there’s only 5 KPIs, not 1000 to confuse everybody, which you normally see. Right, so just simple things like that and that would take leadership leading that effort. So when you say people process technology data, the leadership starts with the leadership works its way down leadership and people then down into processes are in alignment with what we’ve designed as being the key performance indicators. Right. So people processing the data that’s fueling that. So all these things people, process technology, what technology can be used to automate these things to supplement humans, not keep firing everybody, right? We don’t need to go in and just. Chop off every branch and be like hey, every leaf on the tree needs to go away. Timeout. Let’s go back to what automation with the old Toyota Way. Of it’s this. Is how does it supplement the human now? Like how does it replace the human? Then let’s supplement the human. Let’s go back to AI being my helper, not my replacement. And if we can get to that, I think the American people would be a lot more. We’ll see, not nicer. In response to what’s going on. But again, that’s a lot of words.
Brion
Yeah, I think the other thing that could benefit is that once that infrastructure is put in place, the next. Official comes in the next election cycle. You can build off that or tweak it or modify it. You don’t have to start. Over. And you can really see the bigger picture, and I think there’s a lot more agreement at the higher level of those key metrics key initiatives. I don’t think that would change that much. And maybe just how we. Roll it out or what? Our approach might be might differ a little bit, but that infrastructure I think could really hold up over. Terms and cycles and things like that. Where then the next group can come in and and tweak it and make changes and then see how that’s working. If it’s working better or not as well. And make adjustments instead of throw away the old stuff and start new and then that takes time to get going. Yeah. I think that infrastructure could be really powerful to continue. Or tweak whatever was being done before and shift it without, yeah, dismantling it.
Luke
What’s the phrase we know shift happens right and again back to our using lean and Six Sigma. The world to come from shift happens. We know it. Like you said, election cycles shift happens. It’s OK if you’ve built A6 Sigma quality level, there’s what shift can happen and you’re gonna be OK. You’re still in the parameters. So if you think much bigger scope, you’re still in the taxpayer. Spec limits. Right. So you’re just going to shift here and here, but you’re still in, you’re still in those spec limits and that that’s what really matters like what you’re saying there? If you built. A robust design like that, but that’s like I’m gonna go back to the word transparency because you have to have buy in from the people, buy is gonna come from when they have a general understanding of it. Not everybody can understand. I get it. You could literally show every transparent penny and still people you know aren’t gonna understand. Not everybody can understand everything. But you do. Have to have a government that is. Is accountable, transparent and they really are better. I’ll even say this to you better at communicating what they’re doing because they may already be doing a bunch of this stuff. Like you said, there’s a lot of infrastructure that’s there, but we don’t know that I work in the government. I get it. But generically speaking, a lot of people don’t know that infrastructure is there and just. The government so jacked up. Like. OK, if they just communicated with you, you’d actually realize that about 80% of the stuff you already need or are complaining about already there be. Honest with you? It’s just they didn’t. They haven’t told you that. And all they keep all they keep exposing because the media does with the media does is showing you all the negative stuff. There’s a lot of good stuff under the hood too, right? A lot of good things that happen not not pro big government of course. But what I’m saying though is if they communicated with us and if they were transparent with us, but beating that dead horse at this point. This kind of helps a little bit with that. With that book is talking about the alignment of the. Key. Pieces and that really would transforming works, not about transforming the way we do work. Like every day, it’s actually taking most of the stuff you already have and just putting everything into a nice alignment. It’s not saying, oh, you got to go do work a completely different way. No revolutionize. Doesn’t mean you need to reinvent. That’s not what revolutionized work is about. It’s not reinventing your work. It’s revolutionizing it, which means put everything into alignment. Take the pieces that are probably already there, and you’re probably only missing maybe one or two. Puzzle pieces out of the whole puzzle. Right. You’re not going to get a whole new puzzle laying out the pieces and rebuilding it. No, it’s like you’ve already got the frame. You got a bunch of pieces and you just got to put the pieces of puzzle together and then see where there’s a gap here or there. And then the alignment comes to play. But that’s more revolutionized work. For profit nonprofit government, it’s not about reinvent. If they’ll revolutionize very different.
Brion
I think we could continue for another hour if you’d like, but I really appreciate your time. Tell us about the organization. How can they learn more?
Luke
The easiest way to start would be either hit up one of our team members LinkedIn, because then you’ll see everything right on it. That’s the quickest way, but full armorranch.org fullarmorranch.org is where that the house is at. And like I said, just cause we say drug and alcohol rehab Center for veterans, first responders, marriage, you name it, anything. But that’s full armorranch.org and that is. And there’s all the information you would need about the 501C3 is there, but then for the actual consulting and the training and stuff like that is on that’s on the A6 16.com is the name of the company, the name of the company is value added 616 and so. The 8 value added 616. I’ll throw this out there real fast. So for my fellow nerds you should understand this. So there’s two reasons for the 616 is it’s the area code and we started OK in Michigan, 2nd for my Marvel fans it is planet Earth. When Captain Marvel is speaking, she says I’m on planet 616. So for my Marvel friends, it’s value added for the whole Earth. But there you go. But so VA 616 is where you get like the for profit stuff and that’s where do the training call coaching, consulting the projects we work on all that type of stuff and the books on revolutionized work is on Amazon. And Goodreads and everything else, but again, full armorranch.org for this show specifically, if you have anybody who you think needs assistance, needs help, needs encouragement. If it’s you or somebody you know or love, please reach out. We’d love to talk. To you, if there’s anything we can do to serve you, we will go above and beyond to just help you restore every aspect of your life to get purpose back into what you do. So we want to help you add value to the lives of those around you and. The people you. Love. So that’s fullarmorranch.org.
Brion
That’s awesome. And where is the ranch located in Texas or?
Luke
It’s in Seguin, TX. It’s just OK, it’s.
Brion
Where’s? That.
Luke
About 35 minutes outside of San Antonio and about like maybe an hour and 15 or so ish out of Austin. And then I’m in New Braunfels, TX and it’s about 40 minutes from here. It’s about it’s. So it’s like in this triangulated area between New Braunfels, San Antonio and Austin. We’ll put it. Everything’s less than 90 minutes. Away from that whole zone, anything you can think of, that whole area of Texas?
Brion
Nice. Yeah, and we’ll link up to all that in the notes and put in your LinkedIn profile. Is that the best way for people to get a hold of you?
Luke
It is unless you just want to reach out to lucas.chesla@valueadded616.com or Sarah@valueadded616.com or I guess at LinkedIn is nice and easy. Just hit us up there, we check it every day, so yeah.
Brion
Great. That’s awesome. Very inspiring. It’s awesome what you’re doing and keep up the great work. Yeah, hopefully some others will be inspired to look in it for their nonprofit. Or maybe they work in a government agency and said we should probably check this out a little bit more or in their personal life. I think you really, I think all people see that this can be applied anywhere and any problems you’re dealing with relationship problems. Think about it in that framework. Personally can attest to that too, that it does help if you can work through what is the problem and what is the root cause. It it really does help you think through some of these really challenging things, even if it’s not related to business.
Luke
Yes, Sir, absolutely. Anything you can use this, but thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. It was great getting to know you and I again. I genuinely appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you.
Brion
Yeah. Thank you. So. Much.

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