The term “performance” will generally cover a range of human behaviors of a specific kind. This behavior will be either more frequent, aesthetically pleasing, or cultural. When the classification is widened, two types of performances fall under the categories of everyday performance and aesthetic, cultural, or extra-daily performance. The president of Woodside Quality LLC, David Allway, is always improving his understanding of how people affect processes and how to enhance human behavior and performance.
The Journey to the Destination
Growing up as an athlete in the house of one of the original American authorities on the Toyota Production System, David’s approach to human performance process optimization and improvement came naturally. As his academic and athletic careers developed, he started to intuitively combine the ideas of industrial engineering and exercise science. After a brief period of pursuing the professional ranks and the conclusion of his playing career, he went back to school to start his advanced studies.
Whether it’s leading small groups of top officials or working on manufacturing or warehouse floors, speaking at large conferences, or navigating the corridors of Congress, he has led teams of more than 200 people and coached everyone from young prodigies to elite athletes. When Rip Stauffer and David Allway founded Woodside Quality LCC, they had the chance to combine their expertise and knowledge to start working on streamlining procedures and boosting the effectiveness of services provided to veterans at the Veterans Administration. They viewed the chance as an opportunity to repay those who had served in the military. The largest federal client they still have is the Veterans Administration.
Performance improvement, project management, and analytics assistance are services offered to Federal clients by Woodside Quality LLC, a CVE Certified Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. In terms of successfully resolving complex issues, Woodside Quality has a long history of success. Their advisors are professionals with advanced degrees and years of experience whose lives have been dedicated to the transformation of operations via careful research with experience in service, healthcare, manufacturing, defense, finance, information technology, and product development.
David adds, “We are the organization you want by your side when you are not sure who to trust.“
Integrity-based Approach
Woodside Quality is an integrity-based strategy consulting company. Its mission is to solve its clients’ most challenging problems and provide them with the answers they need. It spends hardly any time pursuing work, making proposals, or marketing. Having devoted a significant portion of his professional life to researching human behavior and performance, David makes a concerted effort to associate with the best in the business. He is constantly learning from his team who never turn down a challenge. Woodside Quality continues to expand through word-of-mouth recommendations because their clients know they can depend on them to deliver top-notch work without ever having to worry about their integrity. Due to its emphasis on finding solutions rather than chasing profit, Woodside Quality stands out among its competitors.
David and his team have worked on initiatives since the foundation of Woodside Quality that his contemporary’s thought were too risky. They have signed non-compete agreements that prevented them from receiving substantial pay checks, and they have staked their reputations on the suggestions they have made. All of this has contributed to their reputation for having the utmost integrity and honesty.
A Multi-Skilled Leader
David Allway is a skilled executive adviser, mentor, coach, and facilitator with more than 20 years of expertise utilizing systems thinking to analyze human performance and find creative solutions to promote greater efficiency and improve cultural responsiveness inside organizations. David is an expert in process optimization and transformation through strategic alignment. He is a third-generation Lean Sensei and Six Sigma Master Black Belt. As President of the small company, Woodside Quality, he continues to deal daily with the company’s biggest clients and their most challenging issues. But the time he spends working with and assisting his team in the acquisition of new abilities, though, is what he enjoys the most. He relishes the opportunity to pick up new abilities from them. His philosophy is to support his staff in starting their own businesses.
As David states, “the best part of my job is when I get to work with one of our former employees on a project in their own company.”
Considering Factors for Solutions
David looks for the most straightforward answers as he and the team become more dependent on technology and the world’s infrastructure. He always sought the route of least resistance for the construction of most processes because he was raised in the home of a Lean Sensei. He then searched for methods to improve them. He believes that much of society has reached a point where they automate right away without even realizing what they should be doing in the first place. “The first step we take in correcting a process is to ask ourselves, do we even need this process?” David constantly says to himself. Mr. Allway feels that real leaders are those who ascend to the top rather than those who are installed at the top of companies. The fact is that organizations need to be able to recognize and honor their leaders from every position within the organization. Only those with prior teamwork experience in high-stress settings, as well as those with leadership experience, are hired at Woodside. Any employee inside the organization may volunteer to take the lead, depending on the details of the work.
Self-Analysis is Essential
According to David, every firm needs to take a deep breath and consider whether their technology is doing the work for them or the other way around. He believes that right now, pausing to evaluate our people, processes, and risks is the biggest advancement we can make in supply chain technology. Before stepping forward, he asks himself, are we thinking of our people? Do they have the training they require? Are they safe? Do they love their work? Do they feel capable of offering comments and contributing to the improvement of their circumstances? Are we following the proper procedures, are the technologies at our disposal enabling us to carry out the proper actions in the proper manner? Or have we started to establish procedures and put in the necessary work to support our constantly expanding technological stack? What are our dangers, to sum up? Are we more exposed as a result of technology? Do we comprehend what we’re forecasting? Where do we get our goods from?
The global supply chain is broken, and since technology is pervasive, David wants to challenge everyone in the industry to consider how they might collaborate as a human race to address issues, rather than relying solely on technology to do it.
Success for Him
For David, success is a straightforward idea, and he could never understand whether he had actually attained it. According to him, the true measure of success is what others think of you when you’re not there and the impact you’ve had on the lives of those you come into contact with. David has been mentored by an amazing number of people who have given him opportunities even when he wasn’t convinced that he deserved them. He has put a lot of effort into paying it forward and is giving as many people opportunities as he can.
“In the end, success will be realized by the number of people who say nice things at my funeral and that my children and grandchildren can see the benefits of hard work, integrity, and investing in others.”—adds David Allway.
Vision and Guidance
Future plans for Woodside Quality include observing market signals, listening to customers, working across generational lines, and seeking straightforward answers to the most challenging issues. David wishes for his team to continue answering the call and pushing themselves at every opportunity. He counsels the upcoming generation of leaders to never stop learning, never stop pushing themselves, and never stop asking questions. Since he was 16 years old, he has never worked fewer than two jobs, and he has always sought out and hired his former coaches, mentors, teachers, and supervisors so that he could continue learning from them. David seeks out the most talented people from non-traditional backgrounds so that they can challenge conventional wisdom and work in tandem with the more experienced minds present.
Written by Steve Sanchez.
