Kurt Kane, President and CEO of TruGreen

This week on CEOs You Should Know, we host Kurt Kane, President and CEO of TruGreen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to CEOs.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
You should know by iHeartMedia Chicago, the podcast that brings
you inspiring stories and insightful conversations with Chicago innovators and
business leaders that you should know.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Kurt Gain, President, CEO True Green, You've been there about
two years now, right, that's right, just under two okay,
fifteen thousand or so employees.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
At our peak in the summer season, when we're going
full boar with everybody out on the lawns and taking
care of everybody across the country, it's about fifteen thousand people.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, maybe a little over again, this is what my
research little over two million customers.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Yeah, two point three million as of last count.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, so needless to say, just a massive, massive operation.
So what surprised you the most in the last couple
of years.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, you know, I think when I came into it,
I was coming into the lawn care industry from a
different industry. I'd spent most of my career about twenty
five years of it and food and beverage from package
goods into restaurants, and I spent the last fifteen in
restaurants specifically, so I didn't know what to expect with
every thing.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Coming into the lawn care industry.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
But I think the thing that probably surprised me the
most was just how professional everybody was, how much they
cared about the customers and getting it right for everybody,
because it's a very high touch business, and the amount
of pride that people put into their lawns and the
amount that they care about their homes really comes through.
So it's a much more emotional business than I would

(01:22):
have expected, much more so than food and beverage, which
is already emotional because people really care about what they eat.
The amount of passion people have for how their home
represents in their own neighborhood and how it looks as
a whole was really surprising at me.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh that's interesting because I heard you in another interview
talk about coming from food and beverage and talking about
there was a trust between the brand and the consumer,
especially with food, because as you said, they're eating the
product right right, there needs to be a level of
trust there. And it put you firmly in the people business.
And basically, want to hear you're saying, I was going

(01:58):
to ask you if he's still if you still feel
here in the people business now that it's long care
and it sounds like you are.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, well, I think it's a it's a great point.
I think it really is the people business, and it's
it's on.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
All sides of it.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
And I think every business can describe itself as a
people business because really, you know, companies and businesses are
only as good as the people that they have doing
what they do. But this is a very high touch
people business. And you know, we've got teams of people
getting up early every morning to be able to get out,
get out into neighborhoods, get out into communities, make connections.

(02:30):
So there's that side of it. But then from the
customer side, again, it's a very emotional personal investment.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
People.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know, their biggest investment in most cases is their
home and so they really care about it. And you know,
when you bring those two things together, you end up
with a very people oriented business. And when we get
it right, it's because we build connections with our customers
and we really have good relationships with them. If we
get it wrong, it's always a people issue. It means
we didn't connect with that customer, we didn't help educate them,

(02:58):
we didn't talk with them about what we were trying
to do or where we were. But when we really
break it down, if we connect well with people, we
do great. If we don't connect well with people, then
we run into issues. So I think that really just
underscores how much of a people business.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
It really is under percent. And I had heard I
had read on day two of the job, you went
on right along right, you joined a specialist, You went
out and you saw what goes on in the field.
I have to think you probably learn more doing that
than anything a spreadsheet could tell you.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
It was my second day, and it would have been
my first day if I could have gotten over there
in time. But we have my first day. It was
actually getting announced at a board meeting in New York,
and then we got on the airplane and got down
to one of our supports center locations, which is in Memphis, Tennessee.
Had the opportunity to get out the second day with
one of our specialists.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
His name is James, and we had a great day.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I thought it was really important to have my
boots on the lawn very very early on so that
everybody in our company could see how I understand that's
where really the rubber, it's the road for us. It's
how we do on the lawn every day. And I asked, James,
you know, what do you what is it you like
about your job? And I got to talk with him
a lot, but the first thing he told me he
liked about his job was that he got to spend

(04:11):
his day on his own. He didn't have to talk
with a lot of people, and you know, he could
just focus on what he was doing and what was
going on with his customers. And I said, well, bad news, James.
I got lots of questions for you. I'm stuck in
your truck with you, so I hope you can survive it.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
James, like, how do I get out of this? I
got to ride with this guy all day.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
I'm sure he did. But he's really talented.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
He's been with us for over twenty years, and you know,
he really loves what he does. And so we actually
have a lot of people go see James because he
really educates you. And he was super intentional about what
he wanted to share with me, and you know, he
kind of doled it out through the day and let
me go out and see what he does every day
as well. But I think spending time, you know, in
the field, getting out there to our branch location, seeing

(04:51):
what's happening on the ground is really really important because
that's where you know, the truth of the business really
lives all the time.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
You would you early about your past experience in food
and beverage, and your resume is insanely impressive. By no,
I mean your time with Mulson and you and Pizza Hut,
Wendy's all of it. So you have all that marketing experience,
high level marketing right global CMO president, and then you
come to True Green where your CEO and you're in

(05:20):
charge of everything. Do you still keep a close eye
on marketing? Is it hard to let it go since
you have it, it's like in your bones.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, Well, we have a terrific chief marketing officer, Alyssa Puquets,
and so she's more than capable of handling it. That said,
you know, she and I talk a lot, and it's
because it's fun and and you think about a career
in marketing. You know, my original career goal was one
day to make it to being a brand manager, you know,
and you know see what that was all about. And

(05:48):
for I've been fortunate to be able to progress beyond
the brand manager role and take on some of these
larger roles. But you know, brand brand marketing is and
brand management is about so much more than you know,
just the communication side or just the advertising side of it.
It's about really being clear about what your brand or
your business stands for. People talk about brand positioning, it's

(06:10):
really company positioning.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Who are you, what do you do? What do you
stand for?

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Can you communicate that all the way through the organization
so that everybody buys into it and feels like you're
actually accurately representing what the company is all about. And
I found that to be the case at Wendy's. I
found that to be the case at Pizza Hut. I'm
clearly finding that to be the case at True Green.
Where when you really get to the core of it
and you understand who you are as a company and

(06:35):
how you represent yourself as a brand, then everything you
do is really reinforcing the marketing idea. But it's it's
a lot more than you know what. I hate to
say the phrase just marketing, because marketing is incredibly involved
and there's a lot a lot to it, but the
aspect of it is I think it's it's bigger than

(06:56):
a marketing idea. I think it's a it's a corporate idea.
I think it's a identity idea. And if you get
if you get into that and you fall in love
with doing that, then you can see some really remarkable results.
And that's where we are on the journey with True Green. Okay,
I bother a less of probably more than she'd like,
because she happens to work in a world that I'm
very familiar with and.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
All to talk about. So we have some fun with that.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
But I also try to make sure that she's got
all the room she needs because she's incredibly talented and
has all all the all the ability that we need
her to have to be able to do her job
without me being the CMO.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Okay, but you're still going to be in there every
once in a while.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Every now and then.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Her office is next to mine, so she did draw
the shorts.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
She's got proximity problems, let's be honest. So along the
lines of corporate identity, it sounds to me like you're
deeply invested in storytelling. I mean, it's probably a big
part of your background, you know. How do you see
that in terms of shaping the story for True Green
for the next week month ten years.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, well, I think I think story is at the
heart of every good brand. And if you get to
any any brand and really understand it, they have great storytelling.
But it's because they usually embrace some kind of conflict,
Because every good story has conflict.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
At the center of it.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
There has to be tension, and if you think about it,
you know, there's there's a lot of different things that
you could focus on. But years ago I got introduced
to a great company called Character LLC. And they it's
a company founded by former illustrators and they are experts
at storytelling and they cut their teeth working on things

(08:28):
like Tony the Tiger and trying to represent him Chester Cheetah.
They did work for other things like that, and so
they've they've worked on amazing things. But going all the
way back to my time on Pizza Hut, spent time
with them to try and get to the core of
the story, to really understand, you know, what that brand
was about, what was the tension, what was it jousting against?

(08:49):
Carry that through to Wendy's, you know, and at Wendy's,
our whole thing was about kind of this idea of
right versus charming. We always wanted to be right, but
we always wanted to be like Coble as well.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
And when we.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Embraced that and embraced that tension, it really fueled our story.
So we went out and picked big fights with McDonald's
all the time. Yeah, I was fortunate during my time there.
I was there for almost nine years, and we had
growth every year. Thirty five of my thirty seven quarters there,
we were positive on same restaurants sales, and I really

(09:21):
attribute the vast majority of that to the fact that
we got our story right. We were clear about what
we stood for. We were the antidote to what we
viewed as subpar fast food experiences, and we really had
our customers backs and we told that story and some
really big forums. So true Green, We're trying to do
the same thing, which is, you know, really get clear

(09:42):
about how we make it easy and affordable to have
a great looking lawn. But we encapsulated with a phrase internally,
which is trust the pros. The pros trust, and so
if you think about that, you know it's you know,
we have partnerships with the PGA Tour, We have partnerships
with minor league baseball. We take care of some amazing
properties like you know, Daytona Motor Speedway, Michigan Speedway, we

(10:05):
take care of all kinds of national parks. We take
care of the Biltmore estate, so you look at really Yeah,
so it's it's amazing when you think about these relationships
that we have. And so what we've tried to do
is help people understand that they're making a good choice
when they choose True Green, because we're the pros that
have their back. And the reason they can believe that

(10:25):
is because the pros who know best are choosing us
to have their back. So that is really the story
that we're out there trying to communicate overtly, and so
far it's really proven powerful since we landed on that
got it.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah. One of the questions I was going to ask
you later, I feel like you just answered it, was
what do you say to all the DII wires out
there who just aren't ready to give it up yet?
They're not ready to let the pros come in and
take over. But I guess you kind of here's the
here's here's the things we take care of. Yeah, we
can handle your lun.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Well and a lot of it too, is we also say, look,
look you do you let us do your lawn care
because you know, there's there's things that people love about
handling their own lawn, and in particular, a lot of
people love to cut their own grass. They find it
very satisfying. It's a defined task. They're proud of it.
What we do is actually help create the healthy lawn
and the healthy environment so that you can actually like

(11:14):
the output after you do that as a do it
yourself or if you choose to do that. And so
for us, it's really about look, think about how you're
spending your time. Think about, you know, how valuable your
time is, and the choices that you have, particularly on
the weekends, because a lot of people handle their lawn
care work.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
You know on the weekends.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Do you want to be able to go to your
kids' birthday party or you know, or spend time with
them on the weekend, take them off to go do something,
or do you want to be out.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
On your lawn.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
And for us, you know, we love being on your lawn.
And we've got professionals. We've got numerous phdes that specialize
in the law care needs of all the different regions
that we're in because we're a fully national company. We've
got almost over three hundred branch locations, and we have
local specialists to help you. So take advantage of all
that local knowledge and capability, and then you can go

(12:01):
in and complete the task. If you want to cut
your grass, knock your socks off, go do it. It's
going to look great and we're going to make sure
that it's healthy and ready for you to do that.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Right, But otherwise, go go go live your life. We
got this part of it.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, we've got this. Okay, We're built to do this.
And we don't want you to have to manage chemicals.
We don't want you to have to store items we
don't have to take. There's a lot that we do
to do what we do. We're just a better positioned
to do it and we love doing it. So again,
you can use your free time for a lot of
different things. If you let us take this.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Off your plate.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
That sounds like a pretty good arrangement. All right, let's
pivot a little bit. Let's go to your background. Sure
you don't mind, so, of course, now you grew up
in a suburb south of Chicago, lost more. You consider
yourself a Chicago guy.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, you know, I've moved a lot since then, but
I spent the first sixteen years of my life in Chicago,
and I was there during a peak opportunity when when
the Bears won the eighty five Super Bowl. That's a
kind of imprinting experience. Sure, So yeah, I have a
huge love for for Chicago. My son's actually at school
there right now in the universe, at the University of Chicago,
because we love the city so much. So I'm fortunate

(13:04):
to get back there a lot. I did move to Houston,
Texas halfway through high school and have spent a lot
of time in Texas since then. So I kind of
became an adopted Texan, okay, you know, because of all
the time I've spent there. But I've also lived in Cincinnati,
I've lived in Columbus, I've lived in Denver. I've lived
a lot of different places, and so it's given me

(13:24):
an opportunity to see a lot of the country. But
underneath it all, if you asked me, am I still
a Chicago guy and his deep dish pizza the only
kind of pizza, the answer is yes.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
So it is baseball season, Cubs or Socks I gotta know.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Well, I'm from the South Side, so I'm a Socks fan,
even though that's been a little bit painful or.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
A lot painful of late. But yeah, we're hoping they
pull it together.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Okay, that's gonna be a while, but we'll see, all right,
good to know, I know. So, So you played D
one tennis four years at West Point, right, yep? After
that military service, right, I unbelievable experiences and I am
curious just how did shape you, not just as a person,

(14:03):
but how did it shape you professionally? Like, how did
those experiences being at West Point, playing competitive tennis, being
in the military create The President's CEO that I'm talking to.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Today, Well, I appreciate the question, and I think it's
I think they they built together together, they were they
were additive.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
I think as as a whole.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know, West Point obviously, you know famous for it's
it's leadership development, and you know what goes on there.
But when you show up, you're just an eighteen year
old kid and you don't know what you're stepping into
and you don't know what to expect. I can't imagine,
and you don't know where it's going to lead you know.
But to me, I was really fortunate to be surrounded
by just amazing people and everybody you meet is more

(14:45):
accomplished than the last. But I think the thing that
I love about West Point so much and the experience
that I had there is nobody is full of themselves there.
You know, West Point of tracts a kind of individual
and a kind of leader that be really accomplished and
really talented, but they're also really humble and grounded. And

(15:05):
that's the kind of leaders that the army needs, and
that's what West Point really tries to embed in everybody.
There's a great phrase that I think people haven't in
their mind. It's really reinforced very quickly, which is leaders
eat last. And the whole mindset is your job is
to take care of your troops first. And if you
think that way all the time, and it is embodied

(15:27):
if you go to any military facility, and you know,
any army post, anywhere you go into the field, you're
going to see the troops being taken care of first.
And that's a really important lesson that West Point instills
in you very very quickly. So I think that's probably
the most important lesson. I think anybody that he can have.
For me, playing you know, tennis for Army was a

(15:49):
dream come true. I was a pretty good high school
tennis player. I wasn't like a top recruit for Army. Actually,
I was the last recruit that came in in my
class recruited, none of the recruited none the less.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
But that means I got to play.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Everybody was trying to walk on the team and always
had to battle for my spot.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
And so we singles, doubles both.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I played both, played both, but but for me, it
just it taught me a lot about grit and heart.
And again, if you don't have all the talent in
the world, then you have to dig in. And so
I was usually pretty good about finding ways to win,
even if I wasn't the best guy on the court.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
So I loved it.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Gave me the chance to travel around I'm really the
all the Northeast, compete against some great schools.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
And uh and and learn a lot from it.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
But I think the most important part it taught me
was even if you don't have all all the talent,
if you put in the work, you put in the effort,
and you have the heart, then you can still come
out on top, and so you know, I carried that
into my military service, I carried that into my professional career,
and you know, I think it's really really paid off.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
At what point will you be writing a book, because
it sounds like there's a book in there.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
No, I guess there.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
I guess there could be if anybody would want to
read it is probably a bigger question. But I think
the best thing I could talk about in the book
is all the leaders I've learned from and the experiences
I've had along the way, because I've been fortunate, I've
really you know, I lucked into some great leaders initially,
and then I've really sought out the opportunity to work
for great leaders since then. And those are really the

(17:17):
lessons that.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Stick with you. So maybe that would make a great
book someday.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Probably, I mean your experience alone. So I heard you
in an interview. You said there's two kinds of people
in the world, those who complicate and those who simplify.
Are you striking as someone who seemingly on the simplify
side of the ledger? I guess with fifteen thousand employees,
you have to find ways to simplify when possible. But
how do you apply that to your day to.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Day Yeah, well, I think, you know, to me, it's
and we all go through our lives meeting a lot
of different people. And you know when when I as
I share that there's two kinds of people, and I
think what you find is there's some people who try
and make sure you know how smart they are all
the time by making things seem hard or making their
knowledge seem hard earned the right, you know, and that's
you know that can you know, be in interesting, you

(18:01):
know kind of group people to engage with the people
that that I really tend to appreciate. And maybe it
goes back to you know, those people I described at
West Point was everybody had enough going for them. They
didn't feel the need to try and tell you how
spectacular they were, how smart they were, how whatever. It
was the opposite of that. Everybody was always you know,
poking fun to each other, kind of bringing each other down.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
They weren't driven by insecurity.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, and so I think that aspect of people are
really simplify, I think is a unique it's a unique
talent for people to be able to take something that's
very complicated, and most businesses are super complicated. When you
really get down to it. There's a lot going on
to accomplish what almost any business does every day. But
if they can simplify it and bring it down to
the core of what makes that business special, and you know,

(18:45):
really reinforce that with people, then I think that's a
really powerful thing. And almost every brand or business that
I've seen it does well does that. You're crystal clear
about who they are, what their mission is, and they're
relentless about making sure everybody that joins that organization knows
that too. So I think, you know, it's it's really
being if you if you're somebody who is a simplifier

(19:08):
of the complicated, that's really really powerful and I've seen
people do amazing things when they do that.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
So to that point, and I only have a couple
more questions for you. Can you talk about one team
together your company culture and how how would you how
would you describe that to an employee on their first day?

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, well, when we when we got it.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
When I first came into my role, I spent a
lot of time in the field when all of our
different operating regions had the opportunity to talk to people
and and one of the things that I heard was
we were we were we were too siloed in the
way we were going about our work. Our sales teams
and our marketing teams felt removed from what was happening
with our field production and operations team. Historically those had

(19:50):
been very close, but that you know, over the past
several years, decisions had been made that really tried to
drive them apart so they could focus more on their
functional area of excellence rather than trying to drive collaboration.
And so as I kept talking to people, what I
heard was how much people missed the collaboration, how much

(20:11):
they missed the connection because of a lot of a
lot of the good in the business was actually in
the gray area between the functions rather than I'm a
salesperson or I'm.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
A lawn tech.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
It was, okay, how do we work together to be
able to have these these things?

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Really, you know, you have the synergy that they deserve.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Breaking down breaking down the barriers.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
And so people they felt like they had to go
around our systems to try and work together, rather than
the system enabling them working together. And that's where we
came with with one team together as our cultural pillar.
It's like, look, we're going to succeed together. Our incentive
structures are going to align around us succeeding together, and

(20:52):
we're going to encourage you to work together.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
And we really mean it. So understand that you're empowered.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Understand that locally have the opportunity to make decisions, and
at the same point, understand that it's the expectation that
not only are we working together, but that internally we
have each other's backs to be able to support, you know,
the kind of outcomes that we need together. So we
talk a lot about one team together. It's a phrase
I use a lot in my personal life, team together

(21:18):
when I talk about my family, when I talk about
my kids, you know.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
And so we.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Landed on it pretty quickly, but I think our organization
really needed to hear it, and most importantly, we needed
to live it. And they've seen it, I think, and
we've seen it in our employee engagement scores. You know,
over the past two years since we really started talking
about that idea, we've seen people and across our company
become more engaged significantly so and we've seen the brand

(21:45):
get healthier as we've been executing around that idea as well.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
So it's really powerful.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
That's one thing to It's one thing to say it,
you know, it's another thing to actually activate and if
it's resonating and clearly something, something's working. So here, we're
recording in Nashville, right, HQ is here correct.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
We call it our support center, but yes, we have
two support centers, ones here in Nashville and our other
support center is in Memphis. But our Nashville Supports Center
is new. We opened it in January of this year. So, okay,
first year here in Nashville.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, if there was something you wanted to tell people
in Nashville about your place here in the community, what
would that be.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Well, I think you know, we're here in Nashville for
a lot of reasons, and I think you know the
the investments that people here in the leadership and the
broader city government have made and across the state to
have us here in Middle Tennessee to start out with. Again,
we've had a great presence in Memphis for for many years.
We had the option and the need to be able

(22:44):
to have a support center that had better accessibility through
an airport that went some more places, and so you know,
Nashville was one of the options. We were considering for
it well. We also considered other cities, but what we
found was that the city leaders here have a real
vision for what they're trying to get accomplished. We knew
it was a great place to be able to attract

(23:06):
really good talent. So there was a lot that we
liked about, you know that aspect of of Nashville. And
the biggest thing I think the people in Nashville should
know is we want to be a big and meaningful
part of the community. I'm personally excited about what Nashville represents.
I'm a big country music fan. Love to see that
really love songwriters and songwriting and Nashville. As we talked

(23:28):
about storytelling, Nashville is all about storytelling absolutely, so I
think it's a great environment for us to do what
we want to do. I also want the people in
Nashville to know, Look, we're We're really good at what
we do. We're here to help you with your long
care needs. At the same time, but you know, the
biggest thing is we want to be part of this community.
We're investing in the community in a lot of ways
with local community initiatives. You're going to see us, You'll

(23:52):
see our branding on the dugout at the you know,
at the at the minor league baseball stadium here, you know,
and being able to to you know, be a big
part of that is part of our investment in the community.
But we're excited about being here and we've got a
brand new office in Franklin. People have been really enjoying
working there and so far we're off to a great start.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
That's great, that's great, We're about wrapped up. Here's anything
that I didn't cover that you wanted to touch on.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well, I think you know the aspect of you know,
what does it mean to be a brand storyteller and
how do you carry that into the CEO role because
a lot of people ask questions about a marketer that
steps into a CEO role and what's that transition like.
And I would say for me personally, it's it's been
really natural. And when I look at a lot of

(24:41):
the great CEOs that that I look at and respect
and admire, a lot of them come out of a
out of a brand management background.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
So I think there's a lot of lessons to learn there.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
But I also think it's important to know what you
don't know and you know how you can rely on others.
We've got a fantastic CFO at our companies n been done,
a terrific leader, a great partner or head of production
and operations, Bill Houseback is amazing.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
He's been with True Green for over forty years, and
so you.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Know, those are areas that I didn't have as much
depth of experience with, but being able to get into
those relationships. And Ben and I actually used to work
together at Pizza Hut years ago, so I knew Ben
before I came here. But I think as a CEO,
a lot of times people think you have all the answers.
What I would encourage people, I don't care what level
of leadership you're in, don't stop asking questions because very

(25:33):
rarely do you have all the answers. And if you
acknowledge that and know that on the way in and
have humility around it, you're going to get to a
lot better outcome. So that'd be probably my biggest tip
for anybody on leadership. I think it's really.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Important to know that, so go into every day wanting
to learn something new, but also surround yourself with really
good and really smart people.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
I think it's incredibly important. And if the people who
are on your team are more talented than you. Some
people get defensive about that. I will tell you that's
the greatest gift you can ever have. And then your
job as a leader is to be able to help
encourage them, set them up for success, help them grow
their careers, and have good things happen for them.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, this ties right back to what you were saying
about being at west Point. Don't be full of yourself. Yeah,
no reason to be insecure, right, everyone around you doing
great things. It's good for everybody.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, and you've shared some nice things about my career
journey and the journey I've been on. If you ask me,
the thing I'm most proud of in my career, outside
of having some good results on some great brands that
I really love and care a lot about, the thing
I'm most proud of is I've had over twenty people
that have worked for me at one point in my
career that have either become cmos presidents or CEOs, and

(26:44):
so if I was a small part of their leadership
development journey along the way, that feels really good. But
what it reinforces again is get great people on your
team and set them up to be able to flourish,
and they will go do amazing things and then champion
them every step of the way along their journey and
have helped great things happen in their career in whatever

(27:06):
way you can. It's amazing to see how much that
pays off.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
That's great. You're just creating this entire ecosystem of really great,
talented people out doing good things. Amazing. So Kurt Kane,
president CEO of True Green, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Me too.