Process Science Unveiled For Business Transformation with Samuel Drauschak

Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves, get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hello freed Freedom Nation. It's Jeff here once again. And it is another episode of The Freedom nation Podcast. Today, we have Sam draw shack on Sam is what he calls a process scientist. So we will dig into that a little bit more and learn a little bit about him. So Sam, welcome to the show, my friend.

Thank you. Thank you, Jeff, for having me.

I am so glad to have you on here. Well, why don't we kick it off? Well, like we always do, and tell us your story. How'd you get to where you are today?

Absolutely. So my story actually starts with me studying to be a doctor. So I always start all the way back because I have a science, background biology, chemistry, psychology. And at the last minute after working in the hospital for a while I decided it wasn't the route for me. Health Sciences and taking care of people wasn't going to be my, my passion. So I just I just found myself out there with a biology and psychology degree. And I entered the business world. And I my whole story is really trying to find work that I could stomach, you know, as a young person, because I didn't have a plan that it my plan evaporated in a way. It was really just how do I find a living that's enjoyable for me. And with that, I slowly gravitated towards doing process improvement work and process engineering, which is a fairly well known discipline, but it's still very broad. And it comes from manufacturing mostly. But I entered the workforce right after the recession. So right after 2008 is when I entered the workforce. And we were all just starting to digitize more. And that trend has obviously continued exponentially till now. So this this demand for process work in a more digital world is where I've made my career. And my story of that career is I started with internal process engineering and doing engineering for bio chemical and water treatment companies. And then I moved into consulting, I consulted with Accenture, I consulted internally for a few jobs. And my focus was always process engineering for digital services, financial services and things like that. And I loved it. I really loved studying Lean and Six Sigma and the history of process improvement and how do we consult and how do we help businesses apply these methodologies in a more digital space. But then my story culminates really in I just kept seeing gaps. And I kept seeing things that I'd like to do differently than what my boss was telling me to do, or what the client was saying this is the right not the right way to do it. And I wanted to be able to find a way to express myself in this space and experiment with new methods and experiment with bringing process improvement into the 21st century. Are we still in the 21st? We're in the 12. Yet we're in the 21st 21st. Yeah, think of as like myself. Yeah, time is moving. But yeah, so bringing process improvement in 21st century. And to do that, I really had to start going off on my own. So right now, in 2015, I was not in a position financially, where I could quit my corporate job. But I just started taking on free clients on the side, I started experimenting, I started putting together my own materials, my own methods to express this process work. Eventually, I became a self proclaimed process scientists, as you mentioned, and we can, we can dig into the details of that if there's interest. But that was it. And then I really just started to build slow, slow, slow, and then I was able to go off on my own, probably around 2020. It took me a few years. And then I went off on my own brand. And since then I've done consulting work. And now I've just recently started a company called true evil, which is a software company that's highlighting a lot of this process science knowledge and trying to make it more accessible to people who may not be able to afford hiring Accenture, or Bain or McKinsey for their small or medium businesses, but trying to make access to these great consulting tools for everybody. So that's my journey in a nutshell. I don't want to wax too eloquent, but I'm happy to delve into any or all parts of that.

Well, and I think you know, when we look at an inquiry for people that listen and watch on YouTube and everything else, you you've lived the exact Freedom Day process, you know, that we talk about the Freedom Day method, you know, you figured out okay, this is what's gonna cost me to be able to jump out, you figured out okay, I need to create some kind of little side gig. So you created a little side gig. built that up to where Okay, now it's starting to be a real money that's coming in And now I can swap out and flip out into the real, you know, going out into the world where I have income coming in, that I can count on. And now you're going into that final phase of the Freedom Dave method, which is your, you're looking at, okay, how do I make more of me? And use software to do that? How can I, how can I get to where I have passive income coming in, and I'm not there, you know, in the middle of the consulting realm constantly. So you know, you've done it the right way that we teach people to do it, you know, you don't just go quit your job, and then try and figure this out, you figure it out while you're going while you're still getting paid by somebody else. And then you get to the point where you're at today. So kudos, you've done an awesome job of getting to where you need to be stably, where you're not having to scramble and try and find another job to pay the bills.

Thanks. Yeah, it certainly wasn't overnight. But yeah, like you said, the method, the method, definitely that you described is the one I followed intuitively, and it really did work for me. And there's a time where you really have to grind, and you have to put in a lot of hours. But I think that's the reality. And as long as it's something, at least in my own experience, if you're passionate about it, and it's really what you want to be doing, it's the same hours, you'd be spending doing something for fun or working on your favorite hobby.

Yeah. Or, you know, once you once you switch over to that as your full time job, now, it's the hours that you are spending working for somebody going God, I wish I could just do it this way. And now you get to do it that way, which is fantastic. In that that's, then it's not really work or a job anymore. Now, it's just fun. So let's talk about that, you know, your typical client that you work with, you know, on an individual one to one level, not necessarily with the software right now, but on an individual one to one level, who you typically working with.

Sure. So my business right now is a lot of referral business. And I only started with that, because there's not a real construction to the process science methodologies that I use. So I would say the closest thing out there is if you're going to hire a strategic consultant, or even a management consultant to do some software implementation, or large project work, and really the heavy process remodeling, process analysis, organizational redesign, you know, they call it operating model transformation, digital transformation, all the buzzwords, I've got a lot of skills to walk clients through that lifestyle cycle of project, and I'm really not constrained to a particular industry, I can do small, I can do big. So I've worked with companies all the way from startup all the way through fortune 100 enterprise. So at this point, my perfect client is the one that is a referral client, somebody has worked with me before or you know, just recently, they were a C suite executive at one company, and they moved to another and they realized over there, I need more process help. So they reach out. And the people who have an awareness of process work, who are open to more innovative methodologies, and who are open to somebody who's a straight shooter, and just tells them what's going on in their business. I look more for client fit from a personality perspective than a particular client niche.

Well, and I think that's the bigger part of it, because you're going to spend a lot of time together. And you're going to get into some things that they're probably not going to be comfortable with. But you've got to kind of irritate and and say, Okay, well, you need to do this so that you'll get to this point.

Yeah, well, and you know, talk about the word freedom, freedom to me is being able to say no to clients that I think got fit. I mean, I think that's a big one. Because, like you said, it could be maybe a strange business, or maybe I have no experience in industry. But if somebody has the right mindset, and they really legitimately want the work, and they seem like they're somebody who's willing to commit to it and go through business changes, and be a champion in their business, for this type of work, then those are the best clients. And those are the clients, I try to look for more so than any other type of the other dimension of the engagement.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's talk a little bit about process science. I mean, you You talked a little bit about it. But what you know, when you define that, what, in your view, because it's your term, what in your view is process science?

Sure. So process science versus process improvement, or some of the other process engineering that you might hear floating out there process in general is not a very standard discipline. Now, it's so encompassing, right, people who do process work, they can be anything. And the idea I'm trying to get out there behind process science, and it's a lot of the foundation of my work as a consultant. And a lot of the work I've done academically in the field is that you if I analyze the process, I should be able to have another person who understands the right methods and the right techniques, analyze the process and for whatever business purpose get the same results as me. Whereas today, a lot of consultancies, and you hire consultancies, their whole thing is your hiring, our experience and our anecdotal opinion and our 30 years of looking at this kind of scenario, and being able to tell you what we think is going on, and really the scientific aspect of what we're trying to do and what I endeavour do with my consulting is that you don't need somebody with 30 years of experience. If you have the right tools and you have the right mindset. This is just like a science experiment. I should be able to get the data in a structured way. And whatever the outcome you need for your business, you should be able to do it. If you have the right tools and instruction, they should be able to do it, I should be able to do it. This is not a matter of hey, I'm not trying to pretend I'm, I've done this a lot. And that's why I'm the expert, you should be hiring. Because I believe that's what's gonna scale this is really going to get process engineering to the next level, which is having a scientific approach and a scientific mindset. And being able to write the right data down, do the right calculations and explain and expose that to people. I think that's the nature of science. So that's my short answer, you know, really trying to bring a scientific rigor and a scientific discipline to process work so that this work can really grow as a domain of knowledge versus just recreating the wheel and every engagement.

Well, and I think you know, that the other part of that is the repeatability. I think that's out of all the stuff that you said that repeatability. Okay, anybody that has knowledge of it should be able to follow the same processes that you're going through and get the same result from that perspective. So if you, in a lot of cases, if you can train the trainer's within the organization, you don't then have to have that reliance on the guy who's been around for 30 years, who may or may not be around for another five or 10, you never know.

Right? And this is the this is part of the issue that I have with consulting. And I won't be on the soapbox for more than a few seconds. But you can't, the incentives are all wrong, right? Because across the science, every engagement I go to I'm aggressively trying to empower and upskill my clients, so they don't need me in the room, which is not a really great sustainable business for me as an independent consultant. Because I want to be the last person you see, because you should be able to do this after I leave other consultancies, whose whole business is based on staying alive and getting consulting business, there's no incentive there for them to scientifically expose their methodology, make it replicable to your point, make it repeatable, so that the next time it comes up inside somebody's business, they have the skills to do it themselves, because then they're out of a business at that client. So there's an inherent conflict of interest that for me, in my career, I've tried to combat and that's part of the reason why I did have to go off on my own. Because if you're trying to do the right thing for clients, you should be putting yourself out of a job every time you have a job. And that's a hard thing to do at scale.

Yeah. Now, are you working? Typically, you know, as you're coming in and helping them design processes and, you know, analyze what's going on now? Are you working with other disciplines? Like, let's say software implementation, folks, and, you know, maybe marketing implementation, folks?

Absolutely. So I would say, what I have under process science is everything. It's it's the study of change, okay, essentially, because everything in process is everything that exists in motion could be described in process terms. So everything falls under the jurisdiction of process analysis, you getting up and making breakfast in the morning, up to like Merchandising, and ecommerce for the largest companies in the world. And if you look at the scope of that, how do you change one process from how to stay to another, it by its nature has to be an integrated discipline. And, you know, I would say the big three are, you know, you've got your process engineering skill set, you've got your project management skill set, because every time you make a process change, it has to be a project. And then you have to have your change management skill set, which is if you're going to be able to get a process from one end to another, or one design to another, you have to use all three of those in a pretty integrated fashion. And then, of course, to your point of, do I work with software people do I work with marketing people, whatever the nature of the project is, you have to work with all those people, because they're going to be involved in the change the requirements. So it's really bringing all together and saying, there's not a lot of difference. If I'm going to get one process from A to B, I've got to be able to talk at least and act on all of those different things to make it happen. Otherwise, it's you don't have the whole the whole toolset.

Now, I mean, do you act, the EC, your role is almost a little bit more of a coach or kind of the quarterback of the team.

I like to be the coach, I often end up being the quarterback by accident. But yeah, I would love I it's both and reality, you know, you get hired to be the quarterback, or you get hired to be the person who's catching the ball. Also, you get hired to be every role, because clients just want it done. But ultimately, to the point I made earlier, I want to be the coach and part of moving into a software company so that I can just be the coach virtually, and people can also coach themselves because to me, the only scalable and sustainable value you can bring to clients for this kind of work is to coach them and upskill them. So that's really my take and I try to play that role of wear that hat as much as I can. And I do offer executive coaching and C suite level coaching also to kind of help organizations move through those changes. But I would love to say that's a huge part of my revenue but it's probably less than temporary.

People just want the thing solved they don't like just to fix the problem and get done so I can I don't have to do it. Yeah, I always I don't push it. I see that in my my exit planning side of my business, it's like my friend John Danny, who created the exit map. He's, he always it's, you're the coach, you're not the quarterback, the quarterback is the guy who's running that business guy or gal who's running that business. They're the ones that have to be out on the field playing. You're there as a coach. And you know, I same thing I get tied into it sometimes when you know, you need financials, and oh, well, I don't know how to, okay, just get out of my way, let me get in there. I'll put them together for you just to get this thing moving.

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's you have to aggressively keep yourself out of it, if you want to be sustainable and scalable, even as you as an individual contributor. And it's been one thing that I try to live it because I help clients with it so much. And it's also how I was able to get myself into entrepreneurial position, which is, you can't get you can't get trapped in the weeds all the time. You've got to be able to delegate you got to be able to manage. And like you said, if I can be the person who's always avoiding taking the quarterback role, you have to you have to set that example, too. And it's kind of ironic, because you go into places and to set a good example. And coach people you want to do as little work as possible on Absolutely,

yeah. So it's, I need to be a great example for you that this is the way you should be in your

business. Exactly. Because a lot of people just in their own way, as I'm sure you've seen in your work, yeah. Oh, god,

yes. Let's transition over to something new in your business now, which is the software side of the business. So explain where you're going with that? Sure.

So the software side of the business, I'm really excited actually to share that our first software product that's enabling better process science and process work, we're going into sort of alpha testing next month, and we're hoping to release the products this last quarter of this year, at least for people who are who are interested in being early adopters. And the tool is a process mapping tool. And before you think anyone who's interested in this field, you know, it's just gonna be another, here's a 50 million shapes and a blank page, we've tried to go away from that, to reduce the learning curve and make this more effective. So it has a lot of unique features, I won't go into them, but it's really hoping to change the game and process mapping. And I, I always tell clients that I tell people in general, process mapping is the most important part to make the science real, because it's the tool that if you get the right data that describes a process, that's going to give the rest of the work, all of the structure and the standardization and the normal data that you need, so that you can do it. And a lot of people are afraid of process mapping. So I'll tell you, you know, especially you told me, you have a lot of entrepreneurs, you have a lot of small business owners in your audience, one of the biggest things I recommend to small businesses take the time to write down your process, because it will change the way you think if you just write down what you're doing, because a lot of people think they know. But even if just you and a partner, writing it down, or even just for yourself, trying to put it on paper really tells you how much you know what's going on in your business. But a lot of people are intimidated, because the only things out there are blank pages. So we're really trying to change that in our first tool, which is giving you a structure or giving you a language giving you guidance, and help you make these documents easily in a way that it gives you the guidance so that you can get get great process data and you can start having great process conversations. So that's our first tool. And we're hoping that it starts a broader conversation about process work that everyone can get into.

I tell you that is that was probably the biggest change in my life. You know, I sold my business about this time last year and launched a new wealth management practice that really focused on a couple of different areas. And I will tell you, that was the one conscious thing that I was like, You know what, at some point, I'm probably gonna have somebody working with me, as I launched this, which I have since. And I just literally every single thing that I did, I wrote down every step of the process, because in the past, you know, we've been successful in spite of ourselves. In a lot of cases there were, you know, it's all in our heads. And this is what we do and all that, but I you know, just consciously writing that stuff down. One was, I mean, it's helpful for the future. But I mean, even that was helpful for me of documenting all those processes, because then you start to look at it and go, Well, why am I doing that? You know, if you keep following that same thing, and why am I doing that, that doesn't really add or subtract from anything. Okay, well just remove that step. I think it's just amazing. So I applaud you for what you're doing.

Thank you. Yeah, and what you said, I just can't. You know, this is where I could talk for hours on this, because I'm so passionate about this topic you just said but for most people and for those of you listening, what Jeff just described is what a lot of people they go through just by trying just by writing it down, especially we live in a more digital world. Now you can't walk into the proverbial office and just look around and use your intuition to see what's going on anymore. Because we're mostly virtual or we live in a hybrid environment, and just writing it down and being able to articulate to yourself or others what is the process it activates your common sense. I would say that 90% of my work is done if I can do To accurately get a process map in place and show people what their business is actually doing. So I want to bring that clarity, I want to bring that vision to other people. And I want to make it a process that people don't feel intimidated to engage with. And that's really what the process mapping software is meant to help.

Love it. Absolutely love it. Well, let's, let's flip over to the Fast Five questions now. So first question, you wake up in the morning, and your business is gone? Yeah. 500 bucks in your pocket, laptop computer place to live food and drink? What are you going to do first?

Sure. So the nature of a software business is is pretty capital intensive, unfortunately, especially if you're trying to build software from the ground up. So I would have to scrap that idea. And I would honestly wake up and just do what I'm doing on the consulting side. And I would start over. Yeah, if I had to start over with that. There's nothing stopping me. I don't have like the consulting side of the house. It's not a capital intensive business. And I love it. I love what I do. You know, I have greater aspirations. But I would just go out there and start again, I do it better and try to build back up and get that momentum because I feel like I'm on the path that I want to be on. So there's not a huge I don't think there'd be a huge pivot there.

Yeah. Excellent, excellent. What's the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Oh, I think bad clients are. And I could go into specifics. I've taken on some bad clients. And those tend to be there's nothing that perverts your passion for a particular kind of work than taking on a bad client that just won't work with you stomps all over you trying to force you to do things that you don't want to do or not in your integrity. So, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I think experience and also some financial flexibility allows you to say no, and allows you to kind of listen to those red flags when you're dealing with clients. But I'd say that those are definitely the biggest mistakes in my career, which is nothing about money, nothing about oh, I went this way or that way, I always try to live in experimenting mode. But in taking on clients, I knew were bad. And I knew were gonna give me a hard time. Because I just I didn't have the boundaries to say no. And I regretted and I had to learn the hard way from those experiences.

Oh, yeah, that's, it's the painful way. And the fortunate situation, when you get to the point where you have enough of them coming in that you can say, No, that's the greatest day of your business, is being able to say no, sometimes you just can't at the beginning, you've got to take what you get. But yeah, that day, it was nice this time around starting up a practice where it was like, Okay, if you're automatically a jerk right out of the gate, you aren't going to get any better. You know, I if I talk to somebody, and they're like, Well, I've been divorced four times, it probably wasn't their fault, I'm guessing. Or you're a really bad judge of character. But yeah, I totally agree with you on that. What's a good book that you would recommend to our audience?

Sure. So this might be a little heavy, but it's the Toyota way. And that's actually yeah. Jeff liker, yeah, it's, that are the machine that changed the world. But the Toyota way, I think, is the better of the two. And it's really just about the history of lean and the Toyota company and the Toyota way of doing business. And I think that, again, it's a bit dry, there's not much of a like huge storytelling there. But it really changed the way I thought. And as somebody who's either into business as an employee, or a business owner, yourself, being able to think and process terms, being able to have a little bit more vernacular of what makes a good process versus a bad process. I think it's really foundational to living a productive, efficient life. And I couldn't recommend it more if you don't have that background, or that exposure, to just sit down, learn what Toyota did learn some of the Japanese terms, learn some of the language and really learn what the history of process improvement, because I think it's eminently relevant now. And it will continue to be relevant for the rest of our careers until we all automated I suppose.

Well, and it's a really interesting history for them, you know, because it was really us. Yes, after the war, sending over all these process, people like Peter Drucker and saying, you know, help them out, help them grow. And they just ate it up and built it into, you know, the entire world that exists in that in Japanese manufacturing. So yeah, it's, I've had friends, recommend the book, I've read part of it. And yeah, it's a really interesting story, to really hear how you know, all that occurred. Yeah,

well, in World War Two is just such a fascinating time in our history, too. So it has that historical context. It just gives you a broader context of how a nation extremely poor and resources and recovering from a war really figured out by necessity. What makes a great process and it's just, it is it's a fascinating story.

Well, and it's, I mean, you know, when I when we talk about, you know, oh, well, stuff coming from China or India is cheap right now, that used to be Japan. You know, it's it was poorly manufactured, there wasn't much and then they really develop the point where quality was such an important part of their world that it's, it's really amazing to see how that happened, you know, over a period of 50 to 60 years. What's a tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend?

Sure. So it may seem simple, but a tool that's really helped me is the task panel on Google on Gmail, or Gmail, I have all these mail programs. I know, I know, Outlook, and some of the main ones have the analog. But I used to always have a written to do list. Yeah. And, you know, when I was pushing myself digitize everything, it was the one thing that I found, you know, like, a notepad that's right in your central place was kind of missing. But then I realized all these email tools have one. And it really changed the way I thought about it, because I got my email. But I've always got a sort of a short task list of, here's things I need to do quickly. Right there in the email pain. Yeah. So it may seem like a simple tool. But that one really, really changed the game for me, because it just had me organized everything because you're an email, so much of the time just had everything in one place. And I wasn't constantly scrambling. So I think that's really healthy in my work. And I highly own

if they're into it. Yeah. on all your devices, I'm assuming and everything else, too. So

yeah, it's really just the idea of email management is such a, something that everyone does. And a lot of people don't really put a lot of time into thinking how to optimize it. So making sure the right things are an inbox versus the side panel versus your, you know, other types of lists. So that was, that was a big one.

I love it. Love it. All right. Last question. What is your definition of freedom?

My definition of freedom beyond being able to say no to bad clients is just being able to generally not work on things I don't want to work on. Okay, you know, having having low enough costs that I can always work on things that I want to work on. That's freedom today. Okay, I think this thing

will fantastic. So Sam, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way,

the best way is to reach out to me directly, I'm at sam@travel.com, my company's T ru VLE. And if you want to get plugged in with our product that I mentioned earlier, that's coming out, you just go to google.com. It's the only page we have, it's pretty scrappy. And you just sign up your email and say, I want to be in the know for this product. And then you'll you'll hear from us. But yeah, I always tell people, if you want to talk to me about anything, if you're just a process, not if you're looking for consulting, if you're looking for coaching, feel free to reach out to me, I'm Sam, draw shack on LinkedIn, or sam@drupal.com, whatever is easiest. And that's pretty much it.

Cool. And we'll we'll we'll make sure that stuff is in the show notes. Whether you're listening to this or watching it. So Sam, thank you for being on today. It was great. It was very interesting. I love what you're doing. I love people that create their own their own category. And I love what you're doing with that. So thank you for being on today. Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure. Appreciate it. So folks, make sure you reach out to Sam, if you're interested in the software, certainly make sure that you contact them on the website so that you can get on the list, whether you're a consultant or whether you are a small business and might want to use something like that. We do these shows twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So make sure that you are subscribed to the channel, whether it's on the YouTube channel, or whether it is on the podcast channels. We are on all major podcast channels. So make sure that you hit that subscribe button and if you can give us five star rating because that helps get us in front of more people like yourself. So thanks a lot and we will see you back here the very next time.