Inside Panasonic’s Gigafactory: No Blame, Big Results

[Transcript]

[: 00:00:00

Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

This episode is brought to you by Lockton. Rising benefit costs aren't inevitable for you or your employees when you break through the status quo. Independence matters, it means Lockton can bring you creative, tailored solutions that truly serve your business and your people. At Lockton, clients, associates, and communities come first, not margins and not mediocrity. Meet the moment with Lockton.

The EV revolution in our beloved auto industry is changing everything, and right at the heart of that is the battery supplier. No longer just a part supplier, but a key component in the supply chain that's shaping innovation, that's shaping how we do business in this industry, that's shaping culture.

We hear about these gigafactories, what even is a gigafactory? And how do you lead a gigafactory? Certainly, not something that can be led by the model of command and control that we have operated in this business for decades. No, no, no. No longer will you have a leader in a gigafactory that has to operate with technology, thousands of people operating at scale. No, we need leaders in that environment who inspire, who connect people, who build trust. Who know how to build a culture that can indeed handle and nurture the rate of change in technology that we desperately need in this industry. And so, today I am thrilled to bring on the show the leader of a battery gigafactory, in fact, not one, but two of the world's largest battery gigafactories. Please welcome to the show, Allan Swan, President of Panasonic North America. Allan, welcome to the show.

[: 00:03:00

[00:03:01] Jan Griffiths: It's great to have you, Allan, solve a mystery for us, please. What even is a gigafactory?

[: 00:03:08

We talk gigawatt because each battery is basically a kilowatt, and as you add that up, you have to move to gigawatt. And right now, in Nevada, over 40 gigawatt is produced, and when we get Kansas fully up and running, it'll be greater than 30 gigawatt and heading to a higher number.

[: 00:03:41

[00:03:42] Allan Swan: Yeah.

[: 00:03:42

[00:03:45] Allan Swan: About four and a half thousand people, 24/7, 365 days a year. We do not stop ever. And then in Kansas, we've currently got about 1200 and that'll move itself up to about 4,000 by the end of 2026.

[: 00:03:57

[00:03:59] Allan Swan: It's a lot of people. But it's great because it gives American people great jobs in a brand new industry, which is what is exciting about being here in America with those kinda gigafactories.

[: 00:04:09

But I have a simple question for you, how does a Scotsman end up running a gigafactory? And for those who are listening and are thinking, wait a minute, there's an accent there. As most of my listeners know, I am Welsh, and you are indeed Scottish.

[: 00:04:37

[00:04:38] Jan Griffiths: So how does that happen, Allan? How'd you get here to this role?

[: 00:04:41

I was Senior Vice President. I ran operations, really enjoying myself. And I got an opportunity to go to the Wild West in Nevada and joined the Gigafactory there with Panasonic and to support our customer. And I looked at it, I thought about it, I went there. My wife thought it was crazy, but I love a challenge. And for me, I was never gonna be in a position when I retired to look back and thought, I should have tried this.

So, I left Rolls Royce after many, many years and found myself in the Gigafactory in Nevada, thinking about how to support that particular customer and how to support four and a half thousand people, like you said, and grow a gigafactory. And the challenge has been amazing, and I absolutely have had the time in my life for the last seven years.

[: 00:05:43

[00:06:21] Allan Swan: So, maybe a little bit, to be fair, you kind of get stuck in the culture, so you do tend to play in that particular culture. So when I went over to Panasonic, couple of things I realized, first of all, Panasonic, Japanese, so very risk averse, and more corporate like a Rolls-Royce, like a United Technologies, et cetera. And our customer was like a wild child kind of customer. So the analogy I use is Panasonic go at 20 miles an hour, our customer goes at a hundred miles an hour, and we had to develop and evolve into how we could go maybe 50 or 60 miles an hour. So we had to acknowledge Panasonic's speed, but we had to acknowledge our customer speed. So I call ourselves the catalyst, and we developed, through high performance culture, we developed a way of being able to operate with a customer that's really fast moving and risk taking.

[: 00:07:09

[00:07:10] Allan Swan: With a company that we work for that's actually risk averse. And we've figured out a way of doing it, which I'm delighted to share about later on.

[: 00:07:16

[00:07:26] Allan Swan: First of all, I would say if you ask people in Rolls Royce, what I do know, and they'd probably be surprised. So I kinda grew into this a little bit, I would say that to you. But I'm very authentic. I love a challenge. I am very resilient. Resilience is my favorite phrase, to be honest with you. And I really, really know, I don't look at KPIs, I look at how we operate with the people. Because if we get the people right, and we get the communication right, and we get working with them right, any KPI in the world will look after itself. That's what I believe in.

[: 00:07:56

[00:08:23] Allan Swan: Well, the atmosphere we were in, we had to figure out how to operate at this 50 or 60 miles an hour scenario. And the way we figured that out was to be very authentic in how we measure things, but to measure right from the base all the way up. So we do the same measurement, whether they are in a department or they are in an executive meeting, it doesn't matter.

My name is at the bottom of the org chart and I tell people that. And we've got one job as leaders, that's to make sure our people have got the right tools to do their job. They're accountable for doing the job. We are accountable to make sure they've got the right tools to do their job. And that's what we hone in on every single day. And by doing that, we created a real amazing culture that quite frankly, KPIs are irrelevant because you just keep blowing past them all the time. And everybody wins.

And we use this catchphrase, did you win today? We use that phrase a lot in the factories. Did you win today? And that doesn't matter whether you're a staff person working in procurement or a quality person working in as a staff person or whether you're an operator on the floor. It's irrelevant. Did you win today? That's a very simple phrase, but it's got a lot of stuff in it because, first of all, what are you trying to do to win? What does that even look like? So you have to know what that looks like. And so, we help people understand what that looks like a kinda scorecard so they know. And then, they just focus on that. And then we operate an escalation tool, that means that they don't have to worry about things that are outside their control. But that's how it all comes together. And it's been, like I said, it's the last seven years have just been amazing, so amazing. And watching people grow has just been the best thing ever.

[: 00:09:54

[00:10:03] Allan Swan: Yes.

[: 00:10:03

[00:10:38] Allan Swan: Exactly, that's spot on. And I would give, again, two phrases for people that may be useful. Number one is we're very clear that we change the world in the batteries we produce. Brings electrification, which obviously has green impact perspective. So we have very much a mission that anybody who works in our factories help change the world. That's number one. These are not in any particular order.

The second one would be, we change people's lives. We've got people coming to us who have had jobs but never really had a job like this where they can grow. And because it's so early in the electrification of auto makers, we're so early in it, the growth is huge. So when people come in, they can very quickly find themselves getting promoted. It's what they want to do. And we use this phrase: "We will create the environment for you to be whatever you want to be." That's the phrase we use and people take that, and we watch people change their lives, but not just for them, but for their families.

[: 00:11:34

[00:11:34] Allan Swan: And that, to your point, touches people's hearts and that's huge. And then, you get a very much motivated group of people who just want to do more and more.

[: 00:11:43

[00:11:47] Allan Swan: I have.

[: 00:11:49

[00:11:51] Allan Swan: Yep. The biggest one is resilience. That's the biggest one for sure. And if I may, again, I'll dip into the culture that we use. So one of the things we say to our people, first of all, we never blame anybody ever. Nobody gets to blame. So if we have a problem, we accept it with a grateful heart. That is our message. Then, we go about looking at that problem, understanding what happened, getting to the countermeasure, fixing it, and then we eliminate that particular problem. That's quite different from the industries I've worked in before.

[: 00:12:25

[00:12:28] Allan Swan: So nobody gets the blame and you accept the problem with a grateful heart. And then everybody think, focuses on it, and eliminates that problem. That's how we deal with the issues that happen, 'cause it's a big factory, there's lots of things happen in a day, to your point. Thousands of people. So things will happen. But we create an atmosphere where things happen, but then we deal with it.

And or, for other phrases is, we believe it is inevitable that you will fix the problem if you accept it with a grateful heart and no blame game, no blame culture. So these are some of the things that we created and it's been super successful, 'cause if you think in Nevada, I can focus on Nevada. Nevada's not a manufacturing area. It got lots of operational experience. It's mostly a tourism kind of part of the world. And so, we've got people who've basically have been in tourism who come into these factories. We train them. We're very thorough in our training and how we do it. We show 'em how we wanna work and they embrace it, and it's been, it's just been wonderful. All they need is energy and enthusiasm and boy do we have lots of that in Nevada and in Kansas, obviously now. But more in Nevada because that was the first one where we had to learn.

And we made lots of mistakes that's where the resilience comes from.

[: 00:13:37

[00:13:54] Allan Swan: Yeah, well, but everyone's accountable, like I mentioned, my operators, they're accountable for doing the job. Our job is to give them the right tools, as I mentioned earlier on, so everyone's clear what they're accountable for. But the blame piece is if something happens, we never blame a person. We blame the process or the circumstance that happened, and our whole focus is on understanding it and then getting it fixed. That's the focus. The focus isn't what happens. There is no blame piece. And if I can touch on it, so we use what we call CIG, Control, Influence, and Gravity. So control means if a department's had a bad day, and it can happen, machine goes down, or something's happened, and they believe they're in control of recovering that situation, then it stays in the C category and it stays in that group who are accountable for making that happen.

Influence means you can't fix it yourself or your team can't fix it. You need someone else to help you yourself. Could be quality or engineering or something Yeah need to help you.

Gravity means you've tried to work with someone, say from engineering, from an influence perspective. You haven't been successful, and it automatically moves to gravity, which means a leader steps in, and that could be me. So, if I can play this out for you, we use dates as a key ingredient. So, if the control team, the team are managing their particular department, if they say, "Hey, I need this fixed by, I don't know, Friday," and they can't fix it by Friday, then they pull somebody in from an influence point of view, but they need it fixed by the following Friday. And the influence, so engineering go, we can't do that. Sorry, we're gonna be another week. It automatically goes to gravity and the situation will be that if it ends up in my desk, I am the one, I have to go to the team. I usually have to make a decision, but I have to go to the team and I have to explain what we're going to do.

[: 00:15:45

[00:15:48] Allan Swan: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

[: 00:15:49

[00:15:54] Allan Swan: Yes. It is yes.

[: 00:15:54

[00:15:55] Allan Swan: Yes. And it could end up at my desk. Now, typically, again, for everyone listening, typically what I end up in my desk is somebody needs money in a budget that they don't have, right? So I've gotta make a call, or very typically it's priorities. So the engineering may feel they've got a more higher priority than that particular line, and then I'll have to make that decision. And sometimes I'll go, I'll actually support the engineering team and say, "Actually, they do have the higher priority," but the fact that I go down to the line and explain it to the team, everybody's good. They're all cool with it because they understand why we made that decision. And it's up to me, it's my job to explain it.

Now, I don't get too many these days, 'cause we've obviously been driving it very solidly. So, I don't get too many gravities. But when I do, I've gotta go in the line. If my EVP gets it, he has to go in the line. If the quality VP gets it, she has to go in the line. So there's all these people who are all accountable, they have to go to that team and explain what happened. And that takes the blame away.

[: 00:16:53

[00:16:54] Allan Swan: We shoulder some of that accountability. So does that help on the accountability thing?

[: 00:16:58

[00:17:01] Allan Swan: Exactly.

[: 00:17:01

So we talk about speed, and you mentioned the fact that an EV customers can fall into a number of different categories. There are legacy EV customers, and then there are tech startup type customers, and they operate very differently. Some operate at speed and some not so much. So you talked earlier about how you've been able to bring that together within your culture because you have to deal with all of it.

[: 00:17:56

[00:17:56] Jan Griffiths: So how, Allan, how do you do that, please? What's the secret?

[: 00:18:02

And I looked at the CEO, he was across the table from me and I said, "Well, you know, to be honest with you," I said, "You're asking me the wrong question." And he looked at me, and I said, "What you should be asking me is does your cost curve match my cost curve? That's the question you should ask." I said, "Never does? We're good." And if my cost curve as the supplier is better than your cost curve, you've just won. But if my cost curve is worse than your cost curve, then we get together and we figure out what the gap is and we figure out a way to fix it. That's the difference. Does that make sense? Yes. Whereas this...

[: 00:18:56

[00:18:58] Allan Swan: Curve. Yeah. Sorry. Oh yes, my accent. Sorry, everybody. Yes, cost curve.

[: 00:19:04

[00:19:05] Allan Swan: But that's an example of the philosophy of how we operate and how you can deal with legacy and with, to your point, of new tech startups. And how you just approach it completely differently and you deal with a different way of doing; working with it. And you get rid of that wasted time, to your point. And it's 70 batteries a second, we can't afford.

[: 00:19:25

[00:19:27] Allan Swan: And we don't stop every, it's like I said, 365 days a year, we work. So we can't do that. We have to find another way where speed and not stopping is key. We can't do it. So if you find yourself in that, us and them, in that whole thing, that'll be a disaster. That would be a disaster.

[: 00:19:42

[00:19:57] Allan Swan: So it's interesting, as ever it starts somewhere and builds into something else. So, actually, it was originally Rolls Royce, brought this in as a high performance culture, and I was part of that when I was in Indianapolis. And it worked really well to a point, to your comments earlier about it's more of a traditional command and control business. So it didn't really land. Panasonic are more of a command and control business, that's how they operate. But we had to do something different. So I had this tool bag, if you like, of high performance culture, and then we adjusted it.

[: 00:20:30

[00:20:30] Allan Swan: So we played around with it and helped it figure a way out of how we could make it work better. So we had it partly, and then we adjusted it to suit the environment and the culture we wanted to create in the gigafactory. And by doing that, we've just learned and we've grown and grown and grown. So we keep changing it and tweaking it. And we get feedback from our people and stuff like that, and we go back and forward and we just keep working on it. So, it started off as one thing in Rolls Royce and then morphed into something completely different as it does.

[: 00:20:59

[00:21:00] Allan Swan: So that's where it came from.

[: 00:21:00

[00:21:13] Allan Swan: So, there is a turnover at leadership, sometimes, if we can't, if we've got it wrong. We do spend a lot of time on the interview process to really make sure that the person can be comfortable in that culture, because not all are.

[: 00:21:28

[00:21:28] Allan Swan: And I've met some amazing people from around, the auto industry and others, and they are just amazing. I mean, their resumes are to die for, quite frankly, but their mindset isn't right. And unfortunately, we haven't chosen them because the mindset, it won't work. Because you can't be in an ivory tower somewhere sending emails. That's not, you gotta have your sleeve rolled up and go on the floor and do the thing. And like I said, go and talk to teams and talk and really spend a lot of time on there. And if you don't have that mindset, it won't work. And some people can adjust really well, others not.

And then one other thing I would saying, Jan, which is interesting. We actually like to be uncomfortable, 'cause we're in this disruptive phase, right?

[: 00:22:08

[00:22:09] Allan Swan: That's where we are right now. We're not in a settled industry or anything. We're quite disruptive, so you have to feel uncomfortable. So problems coming at you, that's why we accept 'em. We have grateful heart because problems will come at you every day. But your attitude to win through that problem and to work that culture is really, really important. Not everyone has that mindset.

My biggest problem right now is trying to find people with the right mindset. It's a problem. So we try and find people who will adjust and morph into something and learn it and willing to learn it. But it does take time.

[: 00:22:39

[00:22:41] Allan Swan: And they gotta be open to it, a hundred percent. If they're not, then that's a problem.

[: 00:22:43

[00:22:54] Allan Swan: Absolutely, yes.

[: 00:22:55

[00:22:55] Allan Swan: Absolutely is.

[: 00:22:56

[00:22:59] Allan Swan: No. Can't do it. Can't do it. And I've met many, many people and they've been amazing. They've been absolutely like superstars but their mindset wasn't right, and that won't work. It will not work. It will fail.

[: 00:23:10

[00:23:12] Allan Swan: Oh, it'll destroy the team.

[: 00:23:13

This episode is sponsored by UHY. Did you know suppliers now spend 157 hours on an average RFQ and still face the same roadblocks as 20 years ago? UHY and the Center for Automotive Research, break it all down in their new white paper. Get the insights and see what's really changed in 2025. Download your copy. There's a link in the show notes.

[: 00:23:49

[00:23:49] Jan Griffiths: And then, you see leaders who are reluctant to take the necessary action because they go, Oh yeah, but you know, he or she. Look at the numbers. Yea, right. And I had to take an action based on that many years ago, and it felt good because I knew that I was doing something that was right for the culture.

And then, people open up because they realize, oh wow. You know, now that this person, this command and control, micromanager, maniacal, crazy person is gone. I can be who I wanna be. And then you see leaders start to come up and thrive and you see their potential.

[: 00:24:27

[00:24:27] Jan Griffiths: So they really strangle the potential of others when you have those people in the organization.

[: 00:24:33

[00:24:43] Jan Griffiths: Isn't that true? Yes.

[: 00:24:44

[00:24:45] Jan Griffiths: Yes.

[: 00:24:45

[00:24:55] Jan Griffiths: Yeah.

[: 00:24:55

So I took it, it took me a month. It wasn't like I got it overnight. It took me a month and we got the door and we put it in. And I went down and we celebrated, we opened the door. We had a funny kinda door thing. We did the ribbon. Anyway, so we did the door thing and here's what happened: Number one, people could see that this gravity thing really did work. For what would most people would think would be a tedious issue, but to that team, it was really, really important.

But for the GM, people were testing the GM and saying, "You don't have the authority you think you have, 'cause we are asking you for a door and you can't make that happen." And he did because we got the door in. So now, the GM, people are like, "Oh, you really can make things happen." So they warned more to the GM, which is, this is the objective, of course. And we put the door in. Simple, simple story, but it had such an effect all for a door. But it made such an impact. And of course, the whole factory knew about it and HPC just took off. And it's always the simple, very simple, small, tedious things or like people would think are tedious that actually have the biggest impact.

[: 00:26:55

[00:27:08] Allan Swan: Yes, exactly.

[: 00:27:08

[00:27:18] Allan Swan: People, like I said, particularly in Nevada, I'll use Nevada, but even in Kansas, actually, they're not familiar. These machines are, there's bells and whistles everywhere. There's lights everywhere. I mean, they're daunting if you're not familiar in that environment. So what we do with the people is we make sure we have people with the right mindset, first of all, we always talk about mindset with the people. And then we actually get them to go and take a look at what those machines are.

And our biggest turnover, attrition is always in the first two months, 'cause people come and go, "Okay, I can't do this." Do you know what I mean? They feel uncomfortable. So we try and get them in the factory, let them see it, get a feel for it and all, and try and do as much as we can, kinda field work, if you like, before we make that selection with them and if we get the right people. So it is our responsibility to make sure we help and pick the right people. People that have real energy and enthusiasm and want to and are willing.

[: 00:28:15

[00:29:01] Allan Swan: No. Albeit sometimes that happens, right? Sometimes somebody will open up and they'll pay an extra dollar and we'll lose some people, that will happen. So I'm not saying that we're a hundred percent always good, but I'll give you some examples. In Nevada, for example, we have buses. And so, we talk to our people and there's about a 30 minute drive out to Nevada from Reno Central, and it can be a little bit daunting.

So, when we talk to the people, some of the people said, it'd be really helpful if you could give us some sort of transportation, so we do. So we pay for all these buses and they go around the small towns in and around the greater Reno area, and they bring them in to the plant. So the person can either walk down if they don't have a vehicle, their own car, or they can take their car to a certain spot and stop and then just jump on the bus. The bus has got wifi, et cetera. And so, for 30 minutes on the way in, they can chill out a little bit and we can bring 'em to work. They don't spend money on gas, et cetera, et cetera. So that, so there's things we will maneuver around what we think is that topic, and that's where the people are really great 'cause they'll tell us, and then we'll figure out a way of getting rid of that problem.

[: 00:30:05

[00:30:32] Allan Swan: We do lots of celebrating. So, like I said, first of all, 'Did you win today?' Is a huge thing. And the team knows whether they've won, 'cause we have this traffic light chart. Although, we don't do amber, only red or green. Amber, we get rid of, 'cause that's a bit of a cop out, I believe, so we don't use that. But we measure a lot from that perspective. The team know whether they've won or not, no matter what team it is. And then we celebrate a lot. So we do a lot of celebration if people get to a certain performance level.

We also measure culturally how they're performing and so how well are they operating as a team, so we measure that too. And on that, we do celebrations around that as well, so to get. The swag and various other things we do. So we're constantly celebrating.

But the biggest thing we do is we say thank you. So you can write a card, little high performance card, you just write it out and you give it to your colleague and they can get it. We do high five points, so if someone, you see someone doing something, behaviorally, that you're really impressed with. There's a set, there's four or five, five or six different behaviors. You can send somebody a high five to get points, points turns into money, et cetera. So, there's a constant rhythm of celebration in and around both factories actually, so anybody can do it. And it's by watching somebody or seeing somebody or maybe their interaction with you, you can do high five. So there's a constant theme of celebration that's they're undercurrent of everything that we do.

[: 00:31:57

[00:31:59] Allan Swan: A little bit, yeah.

[: 00:32:00

[00:32:01] Allan Swan: That exact same process as that. It's the same process we call a high five, but it's the same thing.

[: 00:32:07

[00:32:30] Allan Swan: Right. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And that's what we do. So that fits in with everything that we're trying to do. And of course, as you know, from a leadership point of view, if we walk the talk in particular and they can see us, and I keep telling my team members, leaders, if you're talking, it's irrelevant, it's how you behave is gonna be the key. Because people are gonna see you and we know how to do that.

And we've been, look, did we get it? Did we get it right at the beginning? No, we had to learn our way through it. We mean, we've been doing this for seven years now, so it's taken a little bit of a while, but we've really crafted something beautiful and we've now taken that over into Kansas and the Kansas team are up and running. And they're excited, we had a huge celebration with them and we actually asked them to fill in a small card on why they joined Panasonic, and some people were just, I mean, it touched your heart.

[: 00:33:17

[00:33:18] Allan Swan: It touched your heart what they wrote. They wanted to help change the world, or they wanted to get a really great job so they could support their children. And none of it mentions KPIs ever, nobody mentions KPIs. It's about the people. It's always about the people. But it's huge. It's very huge

[: 00:33:37

[00:33:40] Allan Swan: I think authentic, if you ask me. I think one word would be authentic. I do not fear about like if it's a problem, I'm in there, my sleeves are rolled up. I don't care that I'm the president. I'm in the middle of it. I don't do a lot, I'll just ask some really dumb questions as a president and talk away with the people. And sometimes, I can help because there's a priority there or something, and I can help clean that up a little bit and I just ask questions.

But we spend a lot of time doing that. We do gamba walks every day. So every day we're on the floor, we walk every day on the floor and we go to a different department. And again, we let the team tell us the story and then we either coach them or we see whether they need help. And there's just a constant dialogue, so people never fear that they're on their own. And they've got a burden on their shoulder and like they're frustrated, like the famous door story. They don't feel frustrated. They feel, "Hey, if I've got a problem and I wanna describe it, I know somebody's gonna listen." And that's huge.

[: 00:34:39

[00:35:08] Allan Swan: Yep. That's what we focus on. Now, do I still have a situation sometimes where's machine down longer than it should be? Yes. But then it comes to gravity really fast. And the beautiful thing about gravity, I know we call it gravity, but the beautiful thing about that escalation is we can see that super fast.

We actually had some operators sit in the room, in Nevada actually, and so we measure everything every day. SQCDP, that's what we measure: Safety, quality, delivery, cost, people. Every day. And these operators come in and they know in their team meeting that they talk SQCDP. They were pleasantly surprised to see when the executive team get together to talk SQCDP. It's the same number. It's just an aggregate of the departments, but it's the exact same process. Nothing changes. So the transparency is really easy to see it is a language, but people are comfortable with that language. 'cause we all speak the same language basically.

Yeah. So it really helps. Yes, it's really helped. And the thing I can point to, if I may, is safety is the lowest that's ever been. Quality is the best that's ever been. I mean, the quality numbers are off the charts actually. They're really, really, really good. Our output to our customer, 70 batteries a second.

That's a lot of batteries for every second. Yeah. And the team pull it off every day. Every day. So it's just beautiful. There are some other things we do. They get bonuses twice a year. It's other things. But there's a huge celebratory, celebratory, focus as well. Yeah. Which makes it inspiring because ultimately a gigafactory has no windows.

It's three floors, very little windows. Yeah. And you're wearing, you're in a dry room, so you're wearing all the uniform, you got masks on and hair nets on and everything like that. So it's a clean room environment. So it's tough. It's a tough environment. Yeah. So we have to find a way that makes sense for the employee as well as makes sense for what we're trying to achieve.

And we've, we think we've found it. It will evolve, it'll continue to evolve, which is what makes it kind of exciting. But people love it and it's great and we get an amazing output and we manage to sell these products to our customers, and the customers are happy and therefore it's great. And then the biggest thing for me, Jan always is we're giving American people jobs in this brand new market. Yes. And that's huge. So right now we're at 8,000. We believe we can get up to 20,000 as the years progress. And that's my dream. My dream is that we get to 20,000 people and we give 20,000 people in America an opportunity to be in this brand new industry and to be successful for them and their families.

[: 00:37:35

[00:37:42] Allan Swan: Yeah, sure.

[: 00:37:44

[00:37:50] Allan Swan: Their can-do attitude is off the charts. I mean, off the charts. That's been the most inspiring thing for me to be honest with. There is nothing that's impossible. In the UK, you might have that attitude as an individual, but the kinda system around you and stuff like that doesn't allow you to be like that. Here? Boom. You can absolutely do that. It is the inspiration and the can do attitude is off the chances is why I love it, to be honest.

[: 00:38:14

And then, like you say, the American psyche that you can do anything. Even in my fifties, that I could walk away from a corporate role and start my own business. People applauded me for that. Whereas, I think, back home, like people might have said, oh, you know, wait a minute now.

[: 00:38:52

[00:38:52] Jan Griffiths: Who do you think you are? Don't get ahead of your skis. Whoa, slow down. Whoa, whoa. So, yeah, I think it is a tremendous land of opportunity, as they say. Going a little bit more personal, when you walk into that plant in the morning, what's the very first thing that you do?

[: 00:39:10

[00:39:11] Jan Griffiths: Yep.

[: 00:39:11

[00:39:38] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. What about when you wake up in the morning? What's the very first thing you do to set yourself up for success for the day?

[: 00:39:44

[00:40:08] Jan Griffiths: Yeah.

[: 00:40:09

[00:40:19] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I think it's important. It took me a long time to learn that. I started, you wake up in the morning, what's the true thing you do right?

[: 00:40:26

[00:40:26] Jan Griffiths: You look over your phone. And you know, China's cranking. You get Europe's been up for a while and you immediately start to feel this obligation to get into those emails and answer them, but you are not ready. You are not ready.

[: 00:40:41

[00:40:42] Jan Griffiths: Your heart and your mind are not in the right place. And it took me a while to learn that. But when I started to get some space in the morning and my mornings routines have changed, I've gone from doing a 5:00 AM workout class. I don't do that anymore, but I work out. I work out a little bit later in the morning. You know, it evolves, it changes, but the important thing is to get your head in the right place because you're dealing with people.

[: 00:41:06

[00:41:06] Jan Griffiths: And you wake up and you jump into something and you are crabby and you fire off a nasty email. Not good.

[: 00:41:12

[00:41:14] Jan Griffiths: Not good.

[: 00:41:14

[00:41:18] Jan Griffiths: That's a good idea. That's a good idea. What podcasts you listen to?

[: 00:41:22

[00:41:53] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I've recently added Bloomberg, Squawk Box, and the Wall Street Journal podcast. And you know, Bloomberg has so many, but I love it because some of them are really short, quick hits and then others you can choose.

[: 00:42:09

[00:42:23] Jan Griffiths: Yeah.

[: 00:42:24

[00:42:27] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. What do you do to relax?

[: 00:42:29

[00:42:43] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, that's lovely. Parting words, Allan, words of wisdom, if you will. Based on your experience, in what you're going through right now for our audience, for leaders out there in the auto industry, who are grappling with this tremendous amount of change. I know deep down inside, they want the type of culture that you described. We have to get there because otherwise we're not gonna be able to get around this idea of speed and agility that we desperately crave and need. What would you tell them? Where should they start?

[: 00:43:20

[00:43:52] Jan Griffiths: That's it. Small steps, incremental steps of improvement, one step at a time.

[: 00:43:57

[00:43:58] Jan Griffiths: That's it. Well, Allan Swan, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

[: 00:44:02

[00:44:04] Jan Griffiths: Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice, and don't forget to download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership PDF by clicking on the link below and remember. Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.