Adam Robinson's Blog, page 5

This Week on Inc.: Why You Should Treat Job Applicants Like Customers

The unemployment rate is at a 16-year low, meaning most top-performing employees are already gainfully employed. And today’s job seekers have countless job opportunities at the tips of their fingers — through job boards, social media and other channels — making the job market even more competitive for employers.

Despite the competition for top talent, many employers wait up to 10 days to review and respond to job applicants. Read my latest Inc. post to learn how you can respond to job applicants quicker and treat candidates similar to how you treat customers.

TBTW Podcast Highlight: Human Capital Management as Risk Management

We’re taking a break from the podcast this week and sharing one of our favorite episodes.

Cathi Trippe, VP of Risk Management at Phil Long Auto, has 20+ years of experience in Risk Management and knows that one of the biggest risks in business is who you hire to run that business. She was featured my book, in The Best Team Wins: Build Your Business Through Predictive Hiring, because of her innovative human capital management practices. Click below to listen to this episode and learn from Cathi.

             

Follow Phil Long on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube,  and Google Plus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam Robinson:
Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Best Team Wins podcast, where we feature business leaders whose exceptional approach to talent management has lead to out-sized results. My name is Adam Robinson, and for the next twenty-five minutes, I’ll be your host as we explore how to build your business through better hiring. Today, on the program, I’m excited to welcome Cathi Trippe, Vice President of Risk Management at Phil Long Automotive, which is just outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Cathi, welcome to the program.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me.

 


Adam Robinson:
It’s great to have you here. One of the reasons, Cathi, I’m so excited that you’re on the program is, for our listeners, Cathi was one of our leadership case studies that we discussed in the book, The Best Team Wins. Today, we get to dive in and talk about your experiences, Cathi, in transforming the people practices at one of the most highly regarded retail automotive groups in the United States. I am excited to do that, so thanks for being here.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Yes. Thank you.

 


Adam Robinson:
As is the tradition here on The Best Team Wins podcast, we always start each show off on what we call the right foot, which is the best business or personal news that’s happened to you, Cathi, in the last seven days. What’s your right foot for the last week?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, last week we had a Twenty Event Club, which basically are employees that have worked here for twenty plus years, and we had eighty-six of them. We went down to the Royal Gorge, and went on a train ride, and had an Octoberfest meal, and got to see a bunch of retirees, and give out awards for people that have worked here a long time. It was a gorgeous day, and everybody had a nice time. It was fun and profound at the same time.

 


Adam Robinson:
That’s amazing. Eighty-six folks out of how many have been with you twenty years?

 


Cathi Trippe:
We have about a thousand employees. Eighty-six have been here for twenty years or more, and then we have thirty-six retirees that continue to join the function.

 


Adam Robinson:
Incredible, incredible. Well, it’s stuff like that that is the reason why we think so highly of what you’re doing at Phil Long, and the reason we’re talking to you here today, so that’s pretty cool. Let’s dive right in then, and we’ll go back and start at 2008, which as you talk about in the book, the impact of the financial crisis in 2008 and in 2009 hit the retail auto business pretty hard, hit everybody pretty hard, but in particular, car dealers. The subsequent recession caused some changes that needed to be made, really forced some decisions for you at Phil Long. That year, what you shared in the book is your organization had to manage through the layoff of about half of your workforce, that’s nearly eight-hundred people. Walk our listeners through that experience. I mean, from the moment you knew that it was required through to how you approached and handled that. I know that was a tough, tough time looking back, but just share that experience with us if you could.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, operationally, there’s a grid that you use trying to identify each dealership, each department, and you go through things like longevity, or the skills, or maybe a unique contribution, especially some of the sales people that have huge accounts, or have a huge following, or just have been around for so long they’re integral, and losing them would be a deficit. You kind of work off of this impersonal grid trying to figure out who stays, and who doesn’t. When you’re working on the operational piece, it’s kind of black and white. Then, when you’re left with the names, and the faces, and the people, and the human factor, it threw me, quite frankly, because I know a lot of people, and so you start to know their story, and you start to know this person just bought a house, this person just had a child, this person’s spouse has failing health – whatever it is.

 



Executing the plan, for me personally, was a little bit more than I could handle. I did go through with it, because it’s my job, but I have to say that professionally, that was definitely a growing pain for me. It took a lot for me to execute the separations, sitting across from somebody and telling them that through no fault of their own that they’re not going to have a place to come to work tomorrow. That was very difficult for me. I will say that looking back now, I think we were overweight with people, and we didn’t realize it because we were never forced to really examine it. The PC word is right-sizing, and there is some truth to that. We probably had too many employees to be efficient, and to be effective, and going through this process allowed us to really look at what we needed and what those people needed to bring to the table to be effective for sustaining us into the future.

 


Adam Robinson:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that personal experience with us. What, just to say that differently, what you’re saying is the financial crises and subsequent recession, as tough as it was, really forced you in the business to figure out what level of value was required for somebody, for that position to be needed in the stores? Is that accurate?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Yeah, and how many people it took to do it, and what those people should be good at, versus just kind of holding on to an employee count.

 


Adam Robinson:
Sure. Well, so when you started, I know you were really focused just on risk management, but post-recession, you picked up full ownership of all human resources and people related processes and operations inside the thirteen stores that Phil Long Automotive owns. You talked in the book about seeing opportunities to make positive changes in the wake of that downsizing, and it sounds like the right number of head count for the size of the business is one of those things, but what are some of the things that you changed and implemented that had a positive impact? Looking back on this negative experience, what good came from that?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, I think like a lot of organizations, we were very slow to staff back up again. Once bitten, twice shy. We were very slow, but I read in business periodicals that a lot of organizations kind of took their time to get staffed. I think that when we did it, the positive was that we got very clear on what kind of personality thrives in this industry. We kind of honed in on our interviewing practices of whether those people possessed it or not. One of them is that people who love this job love that every day is a different day, and you have an entrepreneurial spirit to be successful in your own way with very few parameters.

 



In contrast to that, employees that want a handbook that identifies every single thing that needs to be done, or a lot of rules and a lot of boundaries, and a script that’s top to bottom, this is how you do things, those people tend not to enjoy this. They don’t like the flexibility, they don’t thrive in a setting that allows for some art. They’re looking for more science. The other thing is, on a positive note, is that we really started creating an approval process for people that are outside of the standard, whether it’s their criminal background, or their motor vehicle report. This is the risk manager in me.

 






Cathi Trippe:
When we said, “Hey, this is the formula for success,” we put a process in place. If you want to deviate from it, we’ll listen. It’s got to be compelling, and then in has to be signed off by people. That had a huge impact on both rehires, and also people who showed that they don’t commit, meaning that they jump jobs frequently.

 


Adam Robinson:
I see, so what were you finding before then with managers, they knew a process existed, but they could override it if they wanted to because there was an empty seat to be filled?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Yes, that’s exactly how I would describe it, because there was a seat to be filled, yes.

 


Adam Robinson:
Okay. Well, so on that thread then, I mean, in an industry, in retail automotive, where, as you well know, the average turnover at the sales associate level, this past year, according to the industry workforce study, it was nearly seventy-five percent a year, in a professional role, which is quite high relative to other industries. Yet your organization has managed to reduce that number into the forties. How have you done that?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, I’ve been working on it since ’09. You know Mike, our leader, one of the things that he always is, “As soon as you can measure it, you can improve it.” The measurement that we were working off of before was only known by a handful of people, so it didn’t really have any impact on people who are hungry to make a move and to improve upon it. The first thing that we did is we starting putting that number out there, and then we broke it down. Who’s leaving? How long did they work here? Which department did they work? Where are the common threads? Measuring the number is first and foremost. I think that we got a clarity, again on the skill and abilities, that we needed for the role.

 



To your point, instead of just filling a position because somebody left, we put more effort into fitting the position, and really following the process, being held accountable to the process, kind of making people jump through a few more hoops before they brought people on board. I will say that I think one of the other things that we did to really bring the number into the forties is that we started this process that’s called a Care Meeting. Within two weeks of hire, somebody in HR goes and meets a person, in their work environment, and asks them questions. It’s almost like a magazine interview. Like, “Hey, who showed you around? Do you understand your pay plan? Do you know where the lunch room is?” Those kind of things. What we were able to do is nip some of the little things immediately.

 


Adam Robinson:
Like what? What are some of the little things?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Okay, so office supplies. People don’t know where to go for office supplies, and so they would start bringing in things from their home, or they would do without, or they wouldn’t say anything. One of them is, “Do you know who to go to for office supplies and things of that nature?” If their answer is, “No,” then we put them with that person right then and there, because chances are, they didn’t order business cards, or they have other issues. Some people have problems with log-ins, which as you know, is insanely frustrating. What do they do? They use somebody else’s log-in. We were just trying to get some of the little simple barriers identified, and also introduce them to Human Resources so that they know that they’ve got an ally, they’ve got somebody they can call or talk to when the time comes that they want to transfer, or they’re interested in a promotion, or they want to know more about something. They’ve just met an HR person one on one.

 


Adam Robinson:
It’s fascinating how the little things make all the difference in a new employee’s experience in the organization. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right there.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Thank you.

 


Adam Robinson:
You mentioned Mike before, and I know a large part of your role is working with ownership in the business to execute people strategy. Let’s talk about how you, as the leader in charge of the people side of the business, partner with your CEO, who I imagine, actually know, is all about growth, and all about progress, and all about innovation. You’re focused on good people process, and certainly you mentioned the risk manager in you, which sometimes run antithetical to an arm waving entrepreneur, speaking as one here. Talk about that. How do you partner with leadership in your organization and make this work?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Okay, well you used the word, “Innovation,” which I love. Car people, they’re exciting. They’re exciting. They’re very much givers. They want to know what’s going on everywhere, and then they get fueled by that when they see Jay Cimino, our CEO, as an example of that. I’ve seen it in other dealer groups as well. They’re fun people, and they like to have an energy to keep them charged. The worst thing that any supporting person can do is complain about not being invited to the table when they discuss these new ideas if they’re going to the table to say no. “No,” as in N-O. If you want to be invited, then you have to be there to foster their dreams, otherwise they’re not going to ask for your input.

 



When I go into these, my mindset is to drink the Kool Aid, get excited about whatever it is they’re excited about, and then apply some strategy that makes them compliant. If you just go with a wet towel mentality of, “That won’t work. If you do that we’re going to get this,” they don’t want to hear that. You have to … My feeling is you have to go with a mindset of I’m going to help you get what you want, but I’m going to protect your interests at the same time. “Maybe we can go down that road but take a different detour,” or, “Maybe we can do eighty percent of it, but this other twenty we might have to tweak.” I think that they’re receptive to that because as long as you’re not squelching the energy, and coming up with some solutions that they can live with, then you’re one of the guys, and then your mindset … You’re ideas are accepted. If you go in there, “No, no, no,” they’ll just quit inviting you.

 


Adam Robinson:
Absolutely. That is so true, Cathi. That is so true. What you’re saying is you’re going in to counter balance what would otherwise be potentially a one sided discussion about a new direction that needs some balance, and perhaps some risk mitigation, but the way to do that is not to just walk in the meeting and just throw shade on everything that gets brought up.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Yeah. My favorite line when I’m panicking is, “Tell me more. Tell me more.” Because somewhere in there I can get to what they’re really trying to achieve, what’s really meaningful to them. Then, to your point, the process allows more … There’s more opportunity in the process. You have to let them talk long enough to get past their idea, because they’ve already packaged it, you know what I mean? Because they’ve had more time to think about it, they’re coming with this one and done, and then we’re like, “Hey, maybe we could do this and not have to hire eight people that you’re going to layoff in month?” Or, whatever. That’s a lame example, but you know what I mean.

 


Adam Robinson:
Sure, sure.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Give them some fodder to consider.

 


Adam Robinson:
Yep. Well, so as we continue to talk about turnover here, what’s the one thing, you guys do so well with this, but what’s the one thing that you know needs to change in your organization, either something to be added, something to stop doing, something to do more of, for your organization to be able to drive that turnover even lower? Is there something that’s keeping it where it is right now?

 


Cathi Trippe:
The sales people, sales managers, and most auto industry people, are highly incentivized. It’s the way the manufacturers have designed it. Everything is tied to your advertising, your output, your units sold, your gross. They’re highly incentivized. The only way that turnover is going to be considered an integral part of their management style is if it’s an integral part of their pay plan. I’m not a big fan of demerits, but if you’re working on a tier that you’re in this range, and your turnover is this, then this is where you are, because I don’t see how they will shine a light on improving their people skills until their compensation is affected.

 


Adam Robinson:
Hit them right in the wallet?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Yeah.

 


Adam Robinson:
Yeah. Well, you know, what gets measured and paid out on absolutely gets done, and you bet that pay plans drive behavior. Are you seeing that? Are peers in the industry that you speak with either in your market, or around the country, implementing turnover targets into manager pay plans?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Not that I’m aware of and I have not found a way to [do this] … I don’t know what level does the buck stop. There is a certain level where probably the ones that deal with most of the employees, the line supervisors, I’m not convinced they should be demerited, but at some level, there should be. At some level, that is what will move the needle and take us … Your question was, “What’s the one thing?” That’s the one thing that will make a huge impact, because to your point, we’ve already done a lot. I think those incremental changes have already taken their effect. To bring it to the next level it’s going to take something a little punitive.

 


Adam Robinson:
Yep. Let’s shift then, Cathi, and talk a little bit about how you target folks. What’s the profile of the person that’s successful in your organization? The question I’ll ask you is does Phil Long hire for experience or hire for potential, and what would be behind that philosophy?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, I think that we hire for experience, but your question gives me pause, and I need to explore what potential really means to me. It’s a better word, I’ll give you that. I mean, it just sounds better. When you asked me that question, my mind immediately went to experience. The reason why we like experience is because the launch is quicker, and the training is more for shaping and continuity. It’s not really training to show you the job. It’s more of showing you how Phil Long does things, how you fit in here, how we can improve your finesse, how we can make you a better closer, how we can help you with the numbers. When you get somebody experience, you tend to have a lot of the heavy lifting out of the way. I’m not sure I like that answer. I think that is the answer, but I like the word potential, so it makes me want to think on that one more.

 


Adam Robinson:
Well, so many folks in the retail automotive industry are engaged in this argument now about, “Do you hire experience? Or do you bring somebody in out of another environment like a Starbucks, or out of a hotel, or out of a restaurant, and teach them the car business?” What do you see as just the percentage of hires? Are you bringing folks in with car experience? Maybe we should define experience a little more specifically? Is it any experience as long as it’s relevant? Or is it specifically car experience?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Specifically car experience, let’s talk about service. If you can get somebody that has manufacturer certification, which is a huge deal right now for Ford, Chevy, Mercedes, Audi. If you can get somebody already certified, that is humongous. They can do recall work, they help your numbers, you know there’s a whole host of things that that kind of experience comes with. When you talk about hiring service industry people, yeah, we have done that, and we love those people. We love them because hospitality is hospitality. If you can get that piece of it under your belt, then now you’re just learning the details of selling, or selling service, or selling a car.

 



To be honest with you, we don’t do a great job of laying out the learning curve. At the beginning, maybe the first two weeks, there’s a lot of patience and focus on training. Then, there’s a big expectation that you’ve learned it, and now you should be free to fly. I guess what I’m saying is, is if you’re hiring inexperienced people from another industry, for us to do a better job, that window of learning curve has to be a whole lot longer than two weeks, but unfortunately, I think that’s when people lose the interest to keep teaching.

 


Adam Robinson:
Okay. Well listen, Cathi, that wraps up the main part of the content here that I wanted to cover with you today, but we do have time for a closing question. This is one we ask all of our guests. Here goes, are you ready?

 


Cathi Trippe:
Sure.

 


Adam Robinson:
If you were to come back on this show a year from now, and report on whether or not you accomplished the most important thing that you need to do in the next year, what is that thing?

 


Cathi Trippe:
My husband has this expression that, “The first one’s on you, the second one’s on me.” Meaning that if you make a mistake, or you fail in some way, that’s my fault, because I didn’t train you enough, or I wasn’t there to lift you up. I guess the one thing I would like to improve upon over the next year is the last ditch effort, before people leave us or before we decide that we’re not a fit. I would love to define what that last ditch effort looks like and how long it takes to make a decision. You don’t want to delay somebody who is antagonistic to the operation, but you saw something in them when you hired them, and I would just like all of our managers and coaches, if you will, to have one last ditch effort to make it a success. Then, if they leave, then you say, “Hey, you know what, at least I put everything I had into it. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

 


Adam Robinson:
Okay, Cathi. Great goals, great advice, and thank you for sharing that with us. Ladies and gentleman, that’s Cathi Trippe, vice president of risk management at Phil Long Automotive Dealerships, right outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Cathi, thank you so much for being the show and sharing your experience with us today.

 


Cathi Trippe:
Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed it, good questions, good thought starters.

 


Adam Robinson:
Okay, that is this week’s episode of The Best Team Wins podcast, where this week we’re featuring Cathi Trippe from Phil Long Automotive Dealerships. Stay tuned next week for our next show, we’ll see you then. Thanks everybody.

 

This Week on Inc.: Almost 50% of Hires Are Considered Failures. How Your Team Can Bounce Back After Letting Go of a Bad Hire.

Every business leader understands the negative consequences of a bad hire. Hiring someone who isn’t a fit for your team can disrupt team morale, lead to decreased productivity, have a negative impact on customer service and, as a result, cause profitability to take a hit.

The best businesses have a strategy in place to make sure bad hires don’t derail their teams. Read my latest Inc. post to learn how you can ensure a bad hire doesn’t throw your team off track.

New Podcast: Looking to Attract Millennial Talent? Your Team Needs to Humanize Recruitment

Maria Katris, Co-Founder and CEO of Built In, joined me on the podcast this week. In this episode, Maria discussed how the hiring landscape has changed since Built In was founded eight years ago, key ways millennials have redefined the job search, and the importance of humanizing recruitment.

Maria is an intrapreneur and entrepreneur with 15+ years of marketing, strategy and consulting experience and has worked in diverse industries including: healthcare, technology and in-home services. Prior to co-founding Built In, she founded Nanny Boutique, a Chicago-based nanny placement agency, which she sold within 2 years. Maria was also named to the 2017 Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40.

Connect with Maria on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Connect with Built In on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

This Week on Inc.: Most Employees at Amazon, eBay and Other Major Tech Companies Don’t Trust HR. Here’s Why That’s Dangerous.

A human resources leader is critical to the success of any organization. But recent data found that trust in HR is lacking – 70 percent of employees surveyed at major tech companies don’t trust HR.

Read my latest Inc. post to learn why this is dangerous and what your business can do to ensure the HR team builds trust and rapport with employees.

TBTW Podcast Highlight: Get the Right People in the Right Seat

We’re taking a break from the podcast this week and sharing one of our most popular episodes.

In two years, Smashtech has grown from zero to forty employees, all while being a bootstrapped company. Not only have they had incredible growth, but they’ve maintained a winning culture along the way. Co-founders, CEOs, and brothers, Omar Imani and Anwar Husain, say that it’s harder to scale people than it is to scale profits, so they are always getting the right person in the right seat.

Smashtech is a vertically integrated digital marketing company based in San Diego that creates and markets its health and wellness e-commerce brands. They’ve been listed as an Inc Magazine Top 50 Best Workplace and one of the best places to work by the San Diego Business Journal. Find out what these two entrepreneurs have learned about hiring and retaining the best team during their fast-paced growth on this episode of The Best Team Wins Podcast.

 

Listen to this episode on:

                         

iTunes                     Google Play             SoundCloud                Stitcher

 

Follow Smashtech: Facebook |  Instagram

This Week on Inc.: Harvard and MIT Say A.I. Isn’t Going to Steal Your Job, But Your Colleagues Who Embrace it Will

Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic in recent years. And as the use of A.I. continues to grow, many people fear automated processes will steal their jobs. But according to recent research from Harvard and MIT, A.I. won’t take away jobs, but rather make everyone work more efficiently.

Read my latest Inc. post to learn about several key benefits of adopting A.I. in the workplace.

New Podcast: Why Your Team Needs to Be More Intentional About Employee Accountability

This week, Kris Plachy, Founder and Master Executive Coach at Leadership Coach, LLC, joined me on the podcast. In this episode, Kris discussed the importance of organizations building an accountability structure and actionable tips for dealing with difficult people.

Kris has her own podcast, “How to Lead.” The podcast is exclusively for people who lead and manage other people. It will teach you how to manage difficult employees, how to have difficult conversations, how to coach top performers, so they don’t leave, and how to become a sought after manager and leader.

Kris is also the author of a book, Change Your Think: An Unexpected Way to Think about Managing People.

Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and Twitter. Learn more about his book, Change Your Think: An Unexpected Way to Think about Managing People.

Connect with Leadership Coach, LLC on LinkedIn and Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transcript

Intro: Welcome to The Best Team Wins podcast with Adam Robinson. He’s talking to today’s industry leaders and entrepreneurs about the people side of their business.

Adam Robinson: Welcome to The Best Team Wins podcast, where we feature entrepreneurs and business leaders whose exceptional approach to the people side of their business has led to incredible results. My name is Adam Robinson, and for the next 25 minutes I’ll be your host as we explore how to build your business through better hiring.

Adam Robinson: Today on the program, so excited to have Kris Plachy, the founder and master executive coach at Leadership Coach LLC, based in El Dorado Hills, California. Over 10 years ago founded this business, and her focus, as she will explain, is helping business owners navigate leadership challenges and be their best. Kris has her own podcast called “How To Lead”, exclusively for people who lead and manage others. I’ll let her talk about that here at the jump. Kris is also the author of the book “Change Your Think”, an unexpected way to think about managing people.

Adam Robinson: So much wisdom and experience here on the show today. Kris, thank you for being here.

Kris Plachy: It is my pleasure. I’m super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Adam Robinson: So, give us 30 seconds on Leadership Coach and what you’re up to.

Kris Plachy: Well, I help business leaders solve employee problems. That’s the simplest way I can say that. The clients that I work with are incredibly brilliant, talented. They’ve built successful businesses and sort of gone through that hustle and grind to get themselves to a point of success where they’re really excited, and then they have to start adding bodies, as you know, to support them and scale.

Kris Plachy: Then, inevitably, they run into issues. People aren’t performing, they’re not meeting their goals, they’re not demonstrating the same kind of work ethic maybe as the original people they started with. They have drama on the team, gossip and culture challenges. So, I sort of meet my clients in that moment of triage, where they know they need to do something because they have to start to get intentional about how they are literally managing and holding people accountable, and they don’t really have the tools to do that.

Kris Plachy: So, we put that together and get them on their way, so that they can go from their first 3 million to their first 10 million. That’s what we focus on. It’s a lot of fun.

Adam Robinson: If listeners want to learn more, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Kris Plachy: The best way is to go to leadershipcoachllc.com. That’s my website. You’ll find out a little bit more about me. You’ll find a link directly to the podcast, which is also on iTunes. The podcast, I think I’m at 130 somewhat episodes, and really that probably is the best way to get immediate resources in a unique space.

Kris Plachy: I certainly have found that there’s a lot of tools available for leaders, but I’m really very focused in this kind of accountability, difficult employees, difficult conversations, difficult situation space, so hopefully your listeners will find some tools there that can be helpful.

Adam Robinson: You have a wealth of experience leading and managing high performing teams and helping leaders do the same. What was the background or observation or experience in your life that inspired you to do this? Were there common themes or experiences you were seeing? Take us through that.

Kris Plachy: Well, you know, I got my first management job when I was 25 years old, and just like most people I know, I was just thrown into the role. I didn’t have any resources. I think I got a one week training class six months after I got promoted. So, I had to very quickly figure out … I was also managing everybody that I had worked with, and I was managing in a startup culture. So, there wasn’t a lot of time for downtime. We had to figure it out.

Kris Plachy: I really had to sort of decide, you know, am I going to make this job my enemy or am I going to learn how to become really exceptional at managing. I had been very good as an individual contributor, and so I took what I knew about performing as an individual contributor, and in sales primarily, and I started to really think about, okay, so these people work for me, but they really are still like my clients. If I think about them that way, it inverted the needs that I was focusing on. Instead of focusing on what I need, I was giving them my attention and focusing on what they need, and then building boundaries and structure around accountability.

Kris Plachy: So, I sort of just naturally built a structure that worked for me. Then, of course, I proofed it out because I was successful, and I continued to be successful in leadership roles for years, so much so that when the organization I worked for was looking at significant problems and management issues that were causing risk problems for the organization, they asked me to create and build a performance coaching team for the enterprise that modeled after what I had already done with my teams. I did that for the last four years that I was in my “job job”.

Kris Plachy: So, the philosophy that I built naturally through … You know, I stand on the shoulders of giants, right? This is nothing that I made up. This is just me being a sponge and a student of the people that came before me, taking all of what I learned and then building my own business on it, and finding that it resonates, you know? Simple, not over complicated approaches to how we can connect and communicate with our staff and build accountability cultures. It’s not really that complicated. It takes work, there are things we have to do differently, but it’s not as hard I think as a lot of people believe that it will be.

Adam Robinson: I want to dig into something that you referenced, this transition from individual contributor to leader of others, of doing things versus getting things done through the work other people produce. In entrepreneurship, it’s a tough transition. Most of us start the business because we’re good at doing the thing, and then we do the thing more, and then we hire more people and we’re doing the thing, and then at some point, we get stuck and we realize that we have to teach and train others.

Adam Robinson: What are some of the common challenges you see entrepreneurs and your clients face as they move from being the star performer to helping produce star performers?

Kris Plachy: Yeah. Gosh, that’s such a good question, and it really is … I think it is kind of the bridge that you have to walk on if you want to take your organization to the next level, right? It’s painful. Sometimes I even tell people, it’s like going through the birth canal. You have to go through it to get there, and yet there’s so much that you have to kind of look at, even in yourself, about who you want to be as a leader and who you want these people to be and what you’re willing to do with your time.

Kris Plachy: So, some of the key things that I identify, that I’ll cover really quickly and then we can dig into the ones that you want, is what you’re talking about first, which is a failure to lead. I know how to hustle, I know how to grind, I know how to sell, I know how to have a vision. I know how to see what I want to create in the world, and I know how to get it done. But, now, I have to get it done through 30 people, and that requires that instead of looking out and up, I have to look in. I’ve got to start having some of that operations look into my organization instead of just the dream and the hours that you put in to make it work. It’s a skillset.

Kris Plachy: I believe everybody is capable of adapting and creating a stronger leadership culture within themselves and within their organization, so that’s one of the things we look at. The second thing that I think is really, really critical, that a lot of my entrepreneur business owner clients do, is they build their organization originally with a core group of people. Most founders tap the resources of friends, colleagues that they worked with before, even family members, and this little cohort kind of gets it off the ground. Then, as the organization grows, we bring more and more people in, but we don’t really know what we’re doing. We’re just bringing people in who can do stuff, right?

Adam Robinson: Right.

Kris Plachy: But, then we end up with this organization that now we have to kind of formalize and make a little more sophisticated, and so we start giving people titles. So, “Oh, well, you know, John’s been here and he knows how to do that pretty well, so we’re going to make him the COO, and Carol’s really good at that so let’s get her to be the CFO.” But, as we exponentially keep growing, we realize, okay, wait a minute, Carol’s really not a CFO. Carol’s a good bookkeeper, but she’s not a CFO. But, now, she’s the CFO. You know, she’s been here a long time, so what do I do about that?

Adam Robinson: What do you do about that?

Kris Plachy: What I find is that my clients are looking at the players they have … And, gosh, you can probably totally relate to this. They’re looking at the players that they have, and they’re designing the game of their business based on their players. What I like to get my clients to look at is what is the game that you’re playing, and then we’ve got to go get the right players. But, the allegiance that so many of my business owner clients have, loyalty to the people who started with them, but at the demise sometimes of the success of their business …

Kris Plachy: Those are tough leadership decisions. If we don’t have management systems in place, processes in place, goals, coaching sessions, talking to people about their performance, giving feedback, when all of that doesn’t exist, it’s really, really hard to assess how well people are contributing to your organization. So, that’s the other really big kind of pitfall that I meet my clients in.

Kris Plachy: I’m just recently having this conversation with a client of mine who has two business partners, and he’s woefully aware now that they’re really not partners. They are just guys who are getting paid to show up in the building, but they’re all equal partners. He’s like, “What do I do about that? Do I buy them out? How do I handle that? ‘Cause they’re not going to help me run this business.”

Adam Robinson: Yeah. So much of … I mean, I was having this conversation this week with someone who was talking to me about starting a business, and she … Her question was, okay, I want to get some people involved, but I don’t have a lot of capital. What’s the appropriate amount of equity to give somebody to be an early employee? What’s the percentage? You know, the alarm bells just start going off in my head, because, of course, I’ve done this before in prior businesses.

Adam Robinson: Someone told me once … equity is for owners, salary or base pay is for doing stuff. Just because you’re an owner, doesn’t entitle you to a job. Boy, nothing is more valuable than the equity later. It’s not worth much now, but, man, it really complicates things because you end up … It’s the fastest way to ruin Thanksgiving, is start giving equity to friends and family members, you know?

Kris Plachy: Yes. Yeah, friendships and … Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Absolutely.

Adam Robinson: So, for the listener crying silently now as they listen to this-

Kris Plachy: How do I get out of here?

Adam Robinson: … because it’s their life, what in your experience is the appropriate time to have that “conversation conversation” approach-

Kris Plachy: Oh, gosh. Well, yeah.

Adam Robinson: … with a friend or partner? I mean, ’cause that can go horribly wrong.

Kris Plachy: Yes. Well, honestly, I think, in the perfect world, it’s before we even start, right? I talked with another woman last week who’s 50/50 business partners, and one of the dads is the attorney and the brother is this, and I’m like, “Holy moly,” and she wants to get out of the partnership and she’s totally bound by everything.

Kris Plachy: So, the way out is you have to negotiate roles. Everybody has to have a clear role. When I talk to people who are co-CEOs, I’m like, “What does that mean? Who does what? Who’s in charge? Where’s the belly button? Who makes decisions?” So, often times you have to bring somebody in to help you vet out what are the roles, what are the responsibilities of each one of those roles, and what are the goals that these people have within the role, and how are you assessing and evaluating their performance within the role. ‘Cause there’s the role, which you know very well, you write out what a role will do for the organization, how it will contribute to the organization, and then you put a body in the role, and whoever’s in the role, that’s who we have to hold accountable.

Kris Plachy: So, the first step I always look at is we have to build some accountability structures here. The way we do that is we set up clear expectations, roles, goals and feedback. That’s the beginning. We have to have that in place. Because, a lot of times, people make their mind up that somebody’s not contributing, and maybe they really are, but it’s because it’s very emotional, they’re not seeing anything very clearly, or maybe we just have to realign responsibilities and give them something very specific to be focused on, and they’ll be a rockstar.

Kris Plachy: But, often times, we’re just really nebulous. Leaders who own their own business, they just want everybody to read their mind and do the work, and things are pretty gray. We tighten that up and give people ways to win and shine, and a lot of times people step right into it.

Adam Robinson: To the tactics of that … You focus on helping people who manage people. What’s the playbook for that new manager or that entrepreneur transitioning from doer to manager that you find works?

Kris Plachy: Well, we’ve got to know … In fact, I think this was on your last podcast. Why are you running this business, and what are the values of your business and you? What are your values? What are your expectations of people who work for you? Expectations are behavior based and they’re driven from values. They come out of those values, right? We have to know what does it mean to work here, and how are you going to hold people accountable, because the truth is, Adam, most performance issues are related to behaviors that people demonstrate, not tactical widget counting stuff.

Adam Robinson: Right.

Kris Plachy: It’s what they do. It’s how they do their work. So, most leaders do not set expectations verbally and write them down and communicate them, they think people can read their mind and know what they expect of them.

Adam Robinson: Well, as I say, it took me a long time to figure that out, that me pointing at my desk and saying, “Just do this,” [crosstalk 00:15:18] I’ve been doing for 15 years is not effective.

Kris Plachy: It’s not effective. And that’s normal, right? I mean, that’s the beautiful part about working with a business owner, is how incredibly talented and smart they are. It’s just you’ve got to slow it down enough to really think about what do you expect of this group of people that you work with. Once we’ve got expectations in place, then we have to look at, okay, what are the responsibilities and the roles and the goals, and we have to measure them. We need key performance indicators.

Kris Plachy: Every single client that has hired me that’s been around three to five million in revenue, they don’t have any key performance indicators other than two of the business ones. They don’t have them for their senior engineer or their accounting manager. There’s no KPI. So, how do you actually assess somebody’s performance if you have nothing measurable?

Adam Robinson: You used a term I’ve never heard before, and immediately love. You said, “Where’s the belly button?” What do you mean?

Kris Plachy: Well, gosh, I wish I could remember who I heard that from. But, you know, you think about, like, I want one belly button to push. I learned it so long ago. I used to say it in the company I worked for when there was big projects and nobody was accountable. It used to drive me crazy. I would ask, “Who’s the frickin’ belly button? Who’s in charge?” Who’s the person I can walk up to, literally, sort of in this metaphorical place that we’re living in, and push their belly button, because they’re the ones who are responsible.

Kris Plachy: Everybody wants to know who’s in charge. That’s just tribal mammal crap, right? Who’s the boss? And if there isn’t one … And I know everybody wants to say, “We shouldn’t be managers. We should be … ” No. If we want success, we have to have structure in place, and there … I mean, can you tell, I’m pretty lit up about it. Like, you have to be willing, if you’re running an organization, you have to be willing to be the boss, and say no, and be decisive. If it’s not going to be you, then you give … You say, “The person in charge is Sally, and she runs the marketing department, and she’s going to be making decisions about marketing,” and you give her the authority to do that.

Adam Robinson: So, I’m going to pull the pin on this hand grenade. I feel like I’m setting you up for a rant here, but what’s your opinion of flat organizations? It’s very in vogue, a manager free environment, and there have been various examples of this working to various degrees of success or not. In your opinion, do flat hierarchies work?

Kris Plachy: Well, I think what is … Zappos is the big one, right? What do they call it? There’s a word for it. [inaudible 00:17:54]. It’s not hierarchy, but … Oh, God. There’s a word for it, and I can’t remember. But, Google tried it, and they put all the managers back.

Kris Plachy: So, I think if you wanted to build an organization like that, from the beginning, and you were versed in it as a leader, and it aligned with who you are as a leader and your personality style, I think it’s … I’m sure it’s doable. I had a client who tried to implement it after she’d been in business for 15 years, failed miserably. Because the culture, it’s the Drucker quote, “Culture eats your strategy for breakfast”. So, if your culture is designed to be reliant on a decider, a manager, that kind of a structure, it’s very difficult to completely usurp an entire culture.

Kris Plachy: I think you could probably build it that way, but in my opinion, I think you can have lovely, meaningful, graceful, kind, powerful, successful management structures. I think we think that they’re bad, I don’t think that’s true. They can be very effective and people thrive.

Adam Robinson: In your model, it sounds like, and it is consistent with how we do this at [Hireology 00:19:19], the values dictate all else, right? Everything else flows from the who we are statements. How do you help those entrepreneurs looking to develop core values who aren’t doing it from day one, they’re doing it from the tenth year? They realize I’m going to do this differently.

Adam Robinson: That’s fairly daunting, because at that point they’ve got culture by default, not design.

Kris Plachy: Exactly.

Adam Robinson: It’s a big shift.

Kris Plachy: Yes.

Adam Robinson: How do you tackle that?

Kris Plachy: Well, the first step is just to get them clear, right? The good news about values is most people know what their values are once you create opportunity for them to talk about them. I’ve done that with several clients just in the past several months. It’s just conversational. It’s tell me what’s important to you. Tell me what lights you up. Tell me what frustrates the hell out of you. Tell me what makes you excited.

Kris Plachy: We can come up with a … I don’t think it’s that complicated to identify peoples’ values. I have a list people can look at. We just flush this out, and then we look at, by extension then, if you value honesty, then what does that mean that you expect of people that work with you? How does that extend into your work? Well, I expect them to tell me the truth. I expect them to tell me if I’m going down the wrong path. I expect them to be to work on time. I expect them to care about their projects.

Adam Robinson: Right.

Kris Plachy: I just listen. I let people kind of dump, ’cause I think if you’re brainstorming you should be trying to capture it. So, we just capture all that, and then slowly work through the funnel of what are the top five here. What matters most?

Kris Plachy: Once they know that, then we get into, like I said, these points of incredible discomfort, because they can see, okay, this actually is what’s most important to me, and yet look at these people working for me. How did they get here? Why did I hire this person? So, that’s where the point of discomfort is, is, yes, you might have promoted some people, you might have brought some people into your organization. You might have made some decisions about your organization that really were shortsighted and now, yes, we’re going to have to deconstruct. We’re going to have to … I have a client right now where she’s got two people in jobs that they shouldn’t be in, and she knows it. So, she’s going to have to make them an offer to do something else.

Adam Robinson: I mean, if I’m talking to a group, I ask the question, “Raise your hand if you know that there’s that one person in your company that, when you go to sleep at night, before your head hits the pillow, your last thought is how in the world did this person get a job in my company, and why do they still have one.” Everyone, of course, will raise their hand and laugh, and my next question is, “Why are you not doing anything about that?”

Kris Plachy: Exactly.

Adam Robinson: Why don’t they do anything about it?

Kris Plachy: ‘Cause it’s uncomfortable. I mean, I’m oversimplifying, but that’s the truth. It’s a difficult conversation, which they don’t know how to have, because nobody’s taught them. I mean, when did you take the class, right? I didn’t take the “how to have difficult people conversations in my lifetime”. So, it’s easier to just keep them.

Kris Plachy: You know, I did a podcast a couple of months ago, the title of it is “Are you paying people to ruin your company?”, because that’s what’s happening, right? I’m paying them a salary every day to not help my company thrive, but it really is … As soon as clients see there is a strategy to address performance and have a conversation and hold them accountable, people will either change their behavior and improve or they won’t, and then it’s clean. But, right now, it’s not clean because it’s all in our head, it’s very opinion oriented. There’s relationships there that we’ve had for a long time, but it’s all fixable. I promise.

Kris Plachy: Anybody listening to this, I promise you, there are solutions for this. You do not have to keep Peggy at the front desk, whatever, for the rest of your life. We can move through this, and Peggy can decide to be amazing or not.

Adam Robinson: Absolutely. That’s a good segway into … I want to spend a minute here talking about your book. What can readers expect to learn from “Change Your Think”? What does that mean, and what does changing your think entail?

Kris Plachy: Well, goodness, yeah. It’s a big ask. I’ll give you a minute. Here we go.

Kris Plachy: The way that you think about your business, the people who work for you, your clients, yourself, influences your behavior, which drives the results that you get. If you think that someone on your team is lazy, that will influence how you interact with them, which will drive the results that you get as a manager. If you think that someone is disrespectful, that will influence your behavior, which will change your results in that relationship with that person. If you think that someone is hard to talk to, that will influence your behavior, which will then drive the results that you get.

Kris Plachy: So, if we want to change the results that we’re getting, we have to decide to think differently. Classic example of founders is, I don’t have time to deal with this issue. I don’t have time to develop my team. So, when I believe I don’t have enough time, what do I inevitably not make time for … is investing in my staff. Then we have to decide, is that line of thinking, that belief that you have about who you are and what you want to do in the world, is that helping you get the results that you want. If you want to change that, you have to start to intentionally choose thoughts that are more aligned to the leader that you want to be and want to grow into, to build the organization that you want to have.

Kris Plachy: It takes a level of consciousness and intentionality that a lot of us haven’t had. All of us are this way in different parts of our lives. So, that’s really the crux of the book, and what I provide in the book are a ton of different examples of how the way that leaders think and managers think about their team influences the results, not only that they get as a leader, but also that drives the results of the team. How the leader thinks drives the performance of the organization. Your brain, especially when you’re the business owner, your brain is your instrument for success.

Adam Robinson: That’s the final word, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been learning from Kris Plachy, founder and master executive coach at Leadership Coach LLC. We’ll have links to Kris’ podcast and book in the show notes. Kris, thank you so much for being with us on the program today.

Kris Plachy: It’s my pleasure. It was fun. Thanks, Adam.

Adam Robinson: That’s a wrap, folks, for this week’s episode of The Best Team Wins podcast, where we’re featuring entrepreneurs and business leaders whose exceptional approach to the people side of their business has led to incredible results. My name is Adam Robinson, author of the book “The Best Team Wins”, which you can find online at www.thebestteamwins.com.

Adam Robinson: Thanks for tuning in. We will see you here next week.

Outro: Thanks for listening to The Best Team Wins podcast with Adam Robinson. You can find out more information about Adam and his book “The Best Team Wins: Building Your Business Through Predictive Hiring” at thebestteamwins.com.

Outro: Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

 

This Week on Inc.: Here’s The Number 1 Criteria the Largest Generation in the Workforce Looks For in Employers

While millennials will make up about 35 percent of the workforce by 2020, many employers still have negative views of millennials and their work ethic, often thinking of them as entitled. But in reality, millennials expect no different than their parents’ generations.

Read my latest Inc. post to learn what millennials expect from employers, and how you can adjust your recruiting strategy to attract top millennial talent.

New Podcast: How Building a Network of Talent Can Help You Hire Your Best Team

Wayne Sleight, Chief Operating Officer at 97th Floor, joined me on the podcast this week. In this episode, Wayne talked about how 97th Floor has built a network of talent to continuously hire the best team and the company’s process for establishing core values.

He also discussed 97th Floor’s status as a ROWE-certified company. The idea behind ROWE, a human resources management strategy, is to give employees 100% autonomy in exchange for 100% accountability.

Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Connect with 97th Floor on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transcripts:

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Best Team Wins Podcast with Adam Robinson. He’s talking to today’s industry leaders and entrepreneurs about the people side of their business.

Adam Robinson: Welcome to The Best Team Wins podcast, where we feature entrepreneurs and business leaders whose exceptional approach to the people side of their business has led to incredible results. My name is Adam Robinson and for the next 25 minutes, I’ll be your host as we explore how to build your business through better hiring.

Adam Robinson: Today, on the show, we have Wayne Sleight, chief operating officer at 97th Floor located in Lehi, Utah. Founded in 2005 by Chris Bennett who currently serves as the CEO. Wayne and 97th Floor currently have 70 employees and are looking forward to a strong finish to this year, I’m sure. Wayne, we are excited to have you on the program. Thanks for being here.

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me.

Adam Robinson: So, a couple fun facts, it sounds like, under your stewardship, the company’s created a pretty amazing culture, which I’m excited to dive into with you. You’ve been recognized as one of the best in the country by Inc., by Entrepreneur, and Fortune magazine, so congratulations there. I see you are recognized as a maverick of the year at the American Business Awards a couple years ago, and Utah Business magazine had you listed in the 20s list. There’s a lot going on there. What does maverick of the year mean? Tell me about that.

Wayne Sleight: I have no idea, Adam. Honestly, a lot of people inside the 97th Floor and people that know me, know that I hate awards. I think it’s just all a joke. I mean, even if you go to celebrity, like Grammy’s and that kind of stuff. They all serve a purpose, and in the business world, they serve a purpose, but they’re probably even more so phony. It was just one of those awards we have a team that does them.

Wayne Sleight: For the longest time, I thought and I said, you know, 97th Floor, I never want us to do, you know, submit for awards and whatnot. But I do see, you know, there is a benefit to them for new employee’s, clients, they look to those types of things without researching too much about the company and it’s kind of like that quick little testament. That particular one was just, I think people that just do things a little different in the business world instead of the status quo and that’s 97th Floor. I just happen to be the one that they put the name on. I think 97th Floor does do things quite differently than most companies. I think it fits us.

Adam Robinson: I look forward to diving into all of the things that you’re doing well and in an innovative fashion. Before we dig into that, give us 30 seconds on the business. What are you guys are focused on?

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, so we’re a marketing agency, digital, which most marketing is digital these days, so it’s kind of redundant to say digital marketing. Anything from SEO, paid ads, like AdWords, Facebook ads, any other social network. We create a lot of content, so we have designers, developers, video, pretty much anything to help companies grow through a digital channel, that’s where we can help them.

Adam Robinson: If listeners want to learn more, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Wayne Sleight: Just our website, 97thfloor.com. Yeah, it’s easy enough.

Adam Robinson: Okay. All right, let’s talk about the people side of the business. You and I were talking before we went live that it was about four years in when you joined the business. Give us a lay of the land of the business then and as it pertains to operations, including, you know, talent, hiring, and retention, then what was it like? You know, today what’s different? What have you done that you think is improved that part of what you’re doing?

Wayne Sleight: Perfect. Okay, yeah. Chris Bennett, like you mentioned, he started the company in 2005. We’re coming up on our 13 year anniversary here next month. I joined about four or five years in, in 2009. It was just us two. When I first joined, it was just Chris. He started 97th Floor as more of a lifestyle company, like a lifestyle entrepreneur where, you know, he was doing great work for clients, had some pretty decent sized clients for himself. He used some contractors to help him, but for the most part, you know, he just wanted to work from home, be able to travel with his family, be there for family, and kind of manage things himself.

Wayne Sleight: I’ve known Chris my whole life. We’re actually related now. I just wanted to get in the business. He gave me some little side projects. Long story short, it naturally developed into a full time [inaudible 00:05:12], just us two working from our homes. It didn’t feel like a real company if you will, but like we said, we did good work. We had some pretty … a couple of big national clients. Things were good, but in terms of a company, like, no insurance, no other employee’s, no office, like none of that type of stuff.

Wayne Sleight: No real plans, just to grow. We didn’t need to grow that often. We didn’t lose clients often. Things were very easy. About six years ago is when we started taking things a little bit more serious and wanting to change it from just a small, you know, two-person shop, working from home, and some contractors to a natural office, and try to grow. Over the years, things have changed quite drastically these last six years.

Wayne Sleight: I always say we’ve been a brand for, you know, 13 years now, but a real company for about six. We’re still a little bit new to it. When we first started hiring and you know, building out the team, and had the office, and all that kind of stuff, all the policies, and like the HR type stuff that came with it and neither Chris or I had any experience in that, we defaulted to, well, what was the last three jobs that each of us worked at? Like, what were the policies there? Okay, what were the benefits that I had? What were the perks? And we just implemented all of that typical stuff that we had at our previous, you know, jobs.

Wayne Sleight: It was fine for a while, but there was, you know, certain things, I probably say like the one story of the straw that broke the camels back, if you will. We had this one employee and Chris actually was about to fire this person the next day and we were talking about it. It was just a weird like out of body experience. Like, what are we doing? This employee was a designer. Amazing, probably, you know, at the time, our best designer. He’s helped us so much through the years.

Wayne Sleight: The reason we were going to fire him is because we had a clock in, clock out policy and this person showed up about five or ten minutes every single day late. That was one of our policies that you had to clock in at 9:00 am or 8:00 am. I forget, but exact time. Anyways, so we asked ourselves, why are we about to fire this person just because they’re, you know, not following one little rule that we only implemented because that was our last, you know, jobs had, had this type of rule.

Wayne Sleight: It’s finally a time where we started, you know, picking up our head and out of the dirt and questioning everything we did. Well, why do we do this? Why do we do this? Basically, it came down to before we, you know, when we were just working from our houses, just the two of us, and even Chris before I joined him, he really loved his job. I love my job when I first started working with Chris because of all the freedom because we got to do what we wanted. We didn’t have to focus on, you know, all these lame policies, and rules, and what not.

Wayne Sleight: So, that’s what started changing it for us. Actually, Chris talked to him the next day about being late. He opened up and he explained that the reason he was late, he lives a bit further away from the office, our office at the time. He wanted to help his wife get the kids ready for school before coming into the office. That’s why he came in a few minutes late every single day.

Adam Robinson: It changes your perspective a little bit.

Wayne Sleight: Exactly. Both Chris and I are family men and a very family-oriented company. That’s something we want to support our team members and being a good wife, being a good husband, being good parents. Anyway, so after that, we started changing everything we’ve done. Like I said, over the years, I mean, still to this day, but especially that first year, I mean, we just ripped everything apart and started putting in things. Basically, the mantra was like we need to make this a workplace that both of us still love to come into. If a policy doesn’t fit our lifestyle and what we’d want to be happy with, then we’re not going to do it for the rest of the team. That’s kind of our guiding principle to this day.

Adam Robinson: You’ve hired ten people or so, for the last six years since, as you said, started to get serious about it and make this your real business. What’s the experience been for you? You know, one a month, approximately. You know, in six years, adding 70 people, that is not easy. It means something is going right from a sales and delivery standpoint. How do you keep all that moving? You know that backfilling roles, adding new roles, managing that process at 70 members on that team, that becomes approaching a full-time role.

Wayne Sleight: Our business model, we warrant [inaudible 00:10:04] an agency. It’s a service based company, so I mean, we have some tools that we use for our clients, but it’s not like we’re selling those tools. It’s all, you know, manual labor if you will. Let me backtrack, I guess. When we first started hiring, that was a huge pain. I remember going through hundreds and hundreds of resumes. We put out job ads on LinkedIn, the local service here. In Utah Wikinews and a couple of other things.

Wayne Sleight: I go through tons and tons of resumes, taking me a ton of time. I’d probably invite 30 people in for interviews. It was crazy. That took so much time just to hire, you know, one person. Same with the second round of interviews and what not. Over the years though, not the last two years, maybe three years, we haven’t done any job ads. We get about 200, at least 200 resumes a month. It’s because of the … and we don’t have to really hire from resumes that often for key positions.

Wayne Sleight: How we did that is over the years, first, we started implementing an internship program, where we actually use them as employees. They’re paid. It’s just, I mean, they’re not doing the most complicated tasks. At that point, as people, you know, graduate, we are building out in network so we know when we do need to hire, we already have a network of people. And then, from that, we started, we called it, kind of like our farm lead. There’s a lot of different names for it, but basically like a minor league in a professional sports, you know, team like NBA, G league where at first, we only accepted clients that met a certain requirement. We called it enterprise, a minimum monthly spend, the size of the company, that type of stuff.

Wayne Sleight: We turn away a lot of business that, not necessarily like mom and pop shops, but you know, smaller businesses with smaller spends and what not. About four years ago, we opened that up to where we started taking on those clients and we’d have people before they got in a leadership position, they had to be a leader on that team. Before they started working on our main accounts, like new hires, they would come in and work on that one. It’s almost like a bridge between an intern to a full-time employee. I mean, they work full-time, benefits, all that kind of stuff, but they weren’t working on our main accounts, the ones truly keeping us in our business.

Wayne Sleight: We still have that today. At this point when, you know, a key position on like a key client, someone leaves or quits or we have to let go of them for whatever reason, we already have, you know, people that are, you know, on deck to come in. At this point, hiring really isn’t a headache for us just because we bill out that two layer, you know, network.

Adam Robinson: I mean, what a competitive advantage. I was talking to someone yesterday here in our office who is a director of talent acquisition at a creative agency, who said, precisely the opposite thing to me. They told me that recruiting for creative talent and account focus folks was impossible and it was a constant battle and firefight. Everyone is always trying to take people and pay another, you know, $1,000 a year to, you know, get people to move and that it was a total war zone.

Adam Robinson: It sounds like you have the exact opposite experience because you built a farm system. I guess my question is, what prompted you to do that? I mean, it’s not easy to do, but boy, what a payoff.

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, and I guess I will backtrack. That was an issue, what person the other day was telling you. That was a big issue for us and we still see it a little bit in more senior level positions, I mean, we do try to promote from within first. We do still hire externally for that from time to time and that gets a little bit more competitive and your traditional months-long process, going back and forth. But, we used to get poached a lot. At this point, we don’t investors. We don’t have, me and Chris have 100% control of the company, so we’re able to pay people what we want to pay them. We’re able to make the margins we want to make.

Wayne Sleight: We’ve had CPA’s over the years, you know, tell us that we need to cut our spend in payroll to have industry averages and what not. We’d rather not have to go through that, which we did in years past, where we’d have people being left, or be poached away from us. Between benefits, pay, perks, I think we’re or I know we’re extremely competitive because it’s pretty rare for us to lose someone to a competitor. One, we don’t have much turnover with employees. If it is, they’re, you know, starting their own company in the year, or something like that, that there’s nothing we could do. In fact, we encourage them to do that kind of stuff, pursue their dreams.

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, that’s kind of why would say we’re not battle that very often, at this point, just because anytime people get offers from other places, they’re already making more money, or it’s about the same, but the perks and benefits at 97th Floor are better, so.

Adam Robinson: That’s incredible. I mean, you’ve hinted at it. It’s having a strong set of values that drive the business. Do you have formal core values that you can share with us and if so, how do you make those real in a daily operating sense?

Wayne Sleight: That’s a perfect question right now. We just are redoing those. We’ve never like had them plastered, like plastered on the wall over the office because we used to be under the mindset that that is just a bunch of words and we are all about action. We are doers, not just talkers. We were kind of anti that, but now that the company has grown and I know we’re still a small company, you know, about 70 employee’s, that’s not huge. But, not everyone gets to, you know, talk with Chris all the time, or me, and or some other leader in the company.

Wayne Sleight: So, we’re actually doing that right now. We did a big survey, company-wide, to see what everyone, including interns, what they thought our values were. And then, the other question was what they would like our values to be. We’re actually collecting that right now. Next month, we have a leadership retreat that we’re going out of state for and we’re going to go through those and finalize them and have like our official ones that we were always so anti against. Even though we’re doing this, we still want to and maybe that will be one of the values. I’m not sure exactly what word would best describe that, but keep that mentality that we’re doers and talk is cheap. You know, throwing words up on a wall means nothing.

Wayne Sleight: How we’ve kind of done it in the past of showing values is well, this person was promoted, or this person was hired, or this person, I guess, bonus, you’re not publicly, you know, typically, publicly, addressing that, but individually you are. Giving them reasons why that promotion happened, why that hire happened, or if it’s individual, why that bonus was given.

Wayne Sleight: We back them up with values, so that was kind of our way of broadcasting our company values was by showing it in who we hire, promote, or even terminate, in certain cases if it was warranted to make it, you know, publicly known. At least in terms of the company. Well, why was this person terminated? That’s kind of what we’ve done before, but yeah, now we’re getting to a point where we will have those, you know, four or five, or however many core values that we all memorize and what not.

Adam Robinson: I’ve heard it said on the show a couple of times, that core values are the path by which you scale the culture of the business once you hit 70 or so people. To what extent was that weighing your mind, as you thought about whether or not to go through this process, because it’s not a small, I mean, surveying the whole company and arriving at an end result here, is a big effort? You know, what was on the mind of you and Chris as a reason to do this?

Wayne Sleight: It actually wasn’t either of ours, it was other people in the company asking for it. I think that right there, I know it’s a small example, but I think that says a lot about our company is, by far the majority of good ideas that come out of the company and that we implement, it’s not Chris, it’s not Wayne, it’s not you know, Paxton, and Shantaya, or any other senior-level leader in the company, it’s the rest of the employee’s. So yeah, it was just asked for my multiple people.

Wayne Sleight: I fought it like I typically do always, but they convinced me. They brought up a lot, you know, good points. One of them that stuck with me the most, it’s very simple, is just, you know, yeah, Wayne, you know what the values are, what matters to us, like Chris does, people that have been here for years, but go ask that intern that’s been here two weeks and see what they say. It’s true. I do that. They don’t know. They say what they hope 97th Floor is.

Wayne Sleight: You know, through the interview process and reputation in the community, they know of some, but they don’t know of all the things. I do think, as you get to a certain point, I mean, we haven’t done it yet, so I can’t say for sure if it’s going to be good for 97th Floor, but I think it will because, you know, 70 employee’s, it’s just hard to spend one on one time with them all the time. We’re busy, you know, doing work, so we can’t do that all the time. It will be good for them to be able to see it and be reminded.

Wayne Sleight: Hopefully, they understand that’s just talk, that’s just words they read when they first are hired, or maybe it’ll be on a wall or something. Hopefully, they start believing it as, you know, the months go on, years go on at the company and they see they’re rewarded because of those values. They see that other people are brought into the company, and that’s when the trust and belief start coming.

Adam Robinson: I want to ask you about something that I read about on your blog. You’re a ROWE certified company. ROWE stands for results only work environment. From what I understand, it’s a human resource management strategy, created by two individuals. The idea is to give the members of your team 100% autonomy to do their work in exchange for 100% accountability. Talk to us about what that means. That’s fascinating.

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, I mean, you summed it up very easy right there. It’s 100% autonomy that the employee gets, 100% accountability that the employer gets. There’s a lot of reasons, like I said, back so we wanted a place that me and Chris enjoyed working at instead of, you know, just have our own set of rules and everyone else has to obey other ones. For us, we wanted to maintain that freedom that we had when it was just us two and we wanted to give that to everyone else in the company.

Wayne Sleight: That said, there are some things that we customized for our type of business. I think any business that is going to be a ROWE or similar, they kind of have to figure out exactly their business model because everything is different obviously. But yeah, I think there’s also a part of it is that we didn’t want to get in those conversations, which we were and I think both Chris and I are nice guys.

Wayne Sleight: When you have excuses of why this piece wasn’t designed on time or you know, the client wasn’t notified, or an email wasn’t responded to here, like, little things that occur in our business, there was always excuses. We always hated dealing with excuses of personal lives. You’d heard about, you know, well, I was sick, or this was happening, and we couldn’t, you know, hold anyone into the fire for that because we felt sorry for them. Where with ROWE, you don’t feel sorry, because you never talk about that type of stuff. I mean, you do if you’re like friends and you’re just shooting the breeze.

Wayne Sleight: When it comes to work, you don’t talk about personal stuff because you can’t say, “Well, I didn’t have enough time because we don’t track time. There is no time.” So yeah, that’s kind of why implemented it. We did it really slowly over about three years. About two years of testing things out, trying different things before we fully implemented it. It’s been about four years now, I want to … three or four years now. We track three different things before we implemented and then after.

Wayne Sleight: They were things like employee retention rate. Seeing how often people turnover, along with their happiness levels, which is just a one to ten surveys that we’d send out. I think at the time it was monthly. We’d look at client retention rate to see how well the work we were providing to customers. And then, the last one was revenue per employee. Basically, what we do, see if we’re being as efficient as before. All three of those metrics have increased from after implementing this.

Wayne Sleight: It’s been a big success for us. A lot of people recognize that. That’s kind of what our culture is about. It’s definitely one of the biggest aspects of our culture, but it’s not it completely. There’s other factors that make up our culture, obviously.

Adam Robinson: As we wrap up here, what would you say is over the time you’ve been there, the greatest lesson you’ve learned about managing the people side of a people focused business like a creative agency?

Wayne Sleight: Yeah, I think the main one, I’m not sure what is the best too, kind of cheesy way to say it, but it’s basically just to treat people how you would want to be treated, right? That golden kindergarten rule, I guess.

Adam Robinson: It holds up over the years, doesn’t it?

Wayne Sleight: It does, right? We just put ourselves in their shoes. I mean, we’ve even cut positions away at 97th Floor and services that we’ve wanted to do because we see an opportunity in the market. We have clients asking for it. We’re like, oh, that’s a way to make money, so we’ve done. We’ve, you know, hired for it. We’ve asked people to do it and then once we started realizing, we’re like, that’s a crappy job. Like, we don’t want to do it. How can you manage someone if you’re not willing to actually do it as well?

Wayne Sleight: We actually cut that out. That might be a bad business perspective from a profits standpoint, but every position that we have in the company, Chris or I, or anyone else would be happy to do if we haven’t done it already, ourselves. At least for sanity, and again, our goals are different than I think a lot of companies. We do want to grow. We set growth numbers, in terms of revenue, but that’s just, I tell people this all the time, if we don’t hit those, I don’t care. There’s other things that actually matter to us.

Wayne Sleight: That’s our mission. That’s our vision. Numbers, like revenue numbers, that doesn’t matter. If we stay at 70 employee’s and we’re doing just under $10-million in revenue this year, if we stay at this point forever, we’re happy. Revenue is just kind of a side thing. Treating people like people and like yourself, that goes a long way. You change how you think about policies, and rules, and perks. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of company’s do a lot like, I love ping pong, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve written a lot about ping pong because a company I worked at before here, was heavy into ping pong and I think it represents a lot in the business culture.

Wayne Sleight: I think a lot of companies and like leaders think like, I’m just going to fun policies because that sounds cool. You never see them playing ping pong because they don’t care about that, right? They’re going home and they’re with they’re friends and family, you know, taking the boat out or whatever. Like, well yeah, that’s what other people want to do too. They don’t want to be like slaves and having to play ping pong in this office all day. Maybe some of them do. Basically, try to put perks in, and rules, and policy that you would … because that’s what your team is going to enjoy as well, for the most part.

Adam Robinson: Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the final word you’ve been learning from Wayne Sleight, chief operating officer at 97th Floor. Wayne, thank you so much for being with us on the show today.

Wayne Sleight: Thanks, Adam.

Adam Robinson: That is a wrap ladies and gentlemen for this week’s episode of The Best Team Wins, where we feature entrepreneurs and business leaders, who’s exceptional approach to the people side of their business, has led to incredible results. My name is Adam Robinson, author of the book, The Best Team Wins, which you can find online at www.thebestteamwins.com. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you here next week.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Best Team Wins podcast with Adam Robinson. You can find out more information about Adam and his book, The Best Team Wins, Building Your Business Through Predictive Hiring at thebestteamwins.com. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next week.