March 17, 2025 • 46 mins
David Griffith takes us on a fascinating journey through his multi-faceted career, revealing timeless leadership principles that transcend industries and decades. Starting as IBM's top salesman in the late 1970s, Griffith rose through corporate ranks before pivoting to lead a material handling company and later transforming a historic nonprofit addressing poverty in Philadelphia.
What stands out in Griffith's approach is his refreshing humility and focus on developing others. "My goal was always to try and be the dumbest guy in an organization," he explains, highlighting his belief that great leaders are primarily "curators of talent" who assemble exceptional teams and give them space to excel. This philosophy proved particularly valuable during the 2008 financial crisis when his implementation of employee ownership through an ESOP created a culture where workers volunteered for reduced hours rather than seeing colleagues laid off.
Griffith's secret weapon throughout his career has been genuinely listening—to customers, employees, and the marketplace. His practical advice on conducting "muddy boots" management by getting into the field and asking simple questions ("How are we doing?" and "What can we do better?") demonstrates how leaders can stay connected to reality. This approach led to breakthrough moments, like when he transformed a customer relationship by noticing bent forklift forks and connecting them to workers' compensation issues, solving a pain point his competitors had missed entirely.
The conversation serves as both business history and masterclass in adaptability. As Griffith notes, "Those who are closest to the customer will win," a principle that remains true despite technological revolutions and market shifts. For leaders navigating today's complex challenges, his example of continuous learning, strategic foresight, and people-centered management offers a timeless blueprint for sustainable success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
I'm very excited today to beintroducing you all to a
gentleman by the name of DavidGriffith who, in the short time
that David and I havereacquainted last month or two I
guess, after maybe a 20-yearabsence after maybe a 20-year
absence, I'm reminded of theamazing range of skills that we
(00:30):
have in America.
So with that as an introduction, I'd like to just good day,
david.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'd like you to introduce yourself to this
august body that listens to me.
Well, no doubt that's a largegroup we're on.
But anyway, good to reconnect.
And again, I'm Dave Griffithand I've been in the material
handling industry since 1993.
But I'll give you a little bitof a background that goes there.
(01:02):
And, ron, I got to believe itwas during the Mejita days that
you and I connected.
We went back looking at mynotes and I have fond memories
of that time.
So anyway, I live in New Hope,pennsylvania, with my wife
Jackie.
We've been married for 45 years.
We have two adult children, twograndchildren, a little girl
(01:27):
and a boy, and one very activeWestie.
Our third and she may show upsomewhere in the filming here.
And let's see career-wise.
I went to Kenyon College in GameBear, ohio.
I went to work for IBM out ofschool as a systems engineer,
(01:55):
met a girl who became my wifeand realized I had to make a
couple more bucks and I switchedto sales.
And I switched to sales and wehad a really, really good run on
the sales side.
In 1978, 79, I was the numberone salesman for IBM and I like
(02:24):
to say that was the last time Imade real money.
But that launched a careerwithin IBM.
They had a habit If you couldsell they would move you up the
line.
And we moved from New York toPhiladelphia because Jackie went
back to grad school at BrynMawr for master's in social work
and we I worked in the city andthen I, we moved and moved many
(02:47):
, many, many times as I went upthe IBM ladder.
I was a marketing manager inPittsburgh, I was on staff in
Philly again.
I got to know the PA Turnpikereally well because Jackie was
getting her advanced degree atPitt and she didn't want to move
and so I said, okay, I'llcommute back and forth.
(03:08):
And then I became branchmanager up in Bethlehem,
pennsylvania, which at that timewas a very large office for IBM
because of not the universitiesbut also Air Products, best
Steel, mack Truck and an awfullot of Tobiano Army Base, and we
(03:30):
had Scranton in the mix.
So I had a sublocation we hadjust it was the bottom
performing branch when I tookover and I'm pleased to say, we
got it to number three in thecountry, not because of me but
because, you know, I had thebrains to hire some really,
really good folks, had a reallyfun run, great job.
(03:52):
Our daughter was born inBethlehem and as a result of
kind of doing that, I moved upto be administrative assistant
to the president, which was agreat development job, commuted
(04:13):
back and forth because it didn'tmake sense to move.
And coming out of that job, Ibecame a regional manager in
Detroit, which was not on ourlist of towns we wanted to go to
, but we went, had a veryinteresting experience.
There Was in the mid 80s andlet's just say the economy was
(04:35):
tough.
Came back to Connecticut.
We moved to Newtown,connecticut.
Before the tragedy I went towork with an IBM subsidiary,
rome, which they had acquired,rolm, which was an interconnect
(04:57):
company and was famous forvoicemail.
I can give you the origin ofDigi, the voice and a lot of
technology.
There I worked on a projectwhere we couldn't understand why
Digi wasn't working and then wediscovered that women's voices
in two tones actually simulatedthe keys that you hit with zero
(05:20):
pound, and zero pound was thehang-up code, was the hang-up at
the time.
So you know all these bright,you know million-dollar
scientists and research guys andwe finally figured out that it
was so we had to change the toneand inflection.
Just, you know, one of thelittle silly things that you
remember in a career.
But anyway we, when I was inNewtown, my son was born and so
(05:46):
we had two small kids.
We had moved around atremendous amount and, on a
personal note, we havealcoholism runs in both our
families and both of us decidedit was a really good idea to get
sober.
We had two small kids, familiesand both of us decided it was a
really good idea to get sober.
We had two small kids and welooked at each other after that
(06:09):
experience said you know this,moving around and family and at
the same time John Akers hadgotten let go, ibm was going
through some really, reallytough times and they made the
mistake of offering a reallytough times and they made the
(06:29):
mistake of offering a packagethat you had to be an idiot to
not take Two years salary,investing of options not that
that's a great deal and fiveyears on your retirement, I mean
it was.
So I left on a Friday andMonday I went to work for MCI,
running marketing for thebusiness division.
(06:50):
Culturally that was like goingto the other side of the moon,
it was run and gun and that thatwas just fascinating lesson
that you know there's a wholenother world out there had a
good run there and then, as Isaid, my wife and I said, you
know, there's a whole notherworld out there, had a good run
there.
And then, as I said, my wifeand I said you know what do we
(07:11):
want to do this?
Bill McGowan, the founder, diedand all of a sudden, you know,
we had a change of control.
So we had another transactionthat was interesting and we
decided we didn't want to moveanymore.
And we had one more move in usand her dad had a business that
I've been on the board of inBristol, pa, called Modern Group
(07:34):
, a material handling company, aheister dealer, if you remember
, ron Yep and I had theopportunity to buy into the
business and joined the firmI've been on the board.
So we moved down there and in1993, we moved to New Hope and
(07:54):
we've been here ever since.
I worked my way up through thecompany, which I am grateful for
.
He didn't just start me, youknow, at the head and really,
really loved the industry, lovedthe people.
We had a philosophy of sharingthe wealth with the employees
(08:15):
that Joe had that I really,really respected.
And we got smart.
We created, we were Vanguard'ssecond 401k.
We created, we were Vanguard'ssecond 401k and we became an
ESOP 20 years before we went to100% and the beauty of that was
(08:35):
we planned it so that we didn'thave to leverage the company
because every year we put moneyinto both retirement plans and
did some other things and we hada nice run.
We grew quite a bit andsomewhere along the line I guess
in 2000 or so I got broughtonto the Mejita board, was
(08:59):
president of Mejita in 05.
Again, great experience.
Great friends in 05.
Again, great experience.
Great friends.
Deep, deep respect for LizRichards and her team and
everything that she did and justreally had a lot of fun growing
the business.
You know I've seen my kids'soccer games.
You know all the things you'redoing and, again, you know,
(09:20):
leading a clear andstraightforward life.
Got active in our church hereand had a terrific run.
And then in 2003, we went aheadand pulled the trigger.
Joe wanted to cash out and wehad family, other family members
(09:48):
who owned shares and we pulledthe trigger on the ESOP and the
guys asked me to stay on as CEO.
We had an outside board, whichwas really, really critical, and
I'm a big fan of outside familyboards and I hired a team.
(10:11):
We went through a number ofexpansions, became a Generac
dealer.
In the middle of that mix wedropped Heister and picked up
Hyundai.
The Hyster-Yale situation justwasn't necessarily a good deal
for the dealers.
I have a lot of respect for theguys at Hyster-Yale, don't get
(10:32):
me wrong.
But you know we needed to dowhat we needed to do and,
frankly, the Generac businessand the Arborist business and
some of the other things justreally took off.
And so we do the ESOP.
And then all of a sudden07-08-09, you might remember the
phone stopped ringing and wegot through that experience and
(11:00):
the ESOP wound up to be a hugestrategic weapon.
The ESOP wound up to be a hugestrategic weapon.
We had technicians come to usand say hey, dave, we'll work 30
hours rather than laying peopleoff.
I said everybody got it.
The stock got hammered but the401k protected.
And we got through it, likelots and lots and lots of people
(11:21):
did in the industry.
But I'm really proud that wewere able to do it.
In a way that was tough.
We got out of the rentalbusiness.
At one point we were the 24thlargest rental company in the US
.
We were super regional, but youcould see United and Sunbelt
and those guys coming, there wasno way we were going to compete
.
We were going to compete andPaul Farrell, who works for me
(11:45):
at the time, was my COO figuredout a buyer, did a hell of a job
moving it and, frankly, thatcapital got us through the
recession, but the phonesliterally stopped ringing.
It was quite a lesson and a lotof soul searching in those
times, as many of my goodbuddies and colleagues, but you
(12:08):
know, it's always dark, it'sbefore it's absolutely black.
And we got through it.
Sun came up, different worldRestructured the business and
then, when I turned 60 in 2013,it was time for me to get out of
the way.
I wanted Paul and Steve to havethe opportunity to run the
(12:32):
business.
They asked me to stay on aschairman which I still am today
and I thought I was going tocome down and run Episcopal
Community Services, which is alarge at that time, 142-year-old
nonprofit in the city ofPhiladelphia dealing with the
(12:54):
issues of poverty andhomelessness, and I didn't think
it was a great idea.
I didn't think I was a goodmatch.
But I went down and interviewedand uh, you know, answered the
call.
My wife thought I was crazy.
Um, she said what do you knowabout social work?
Um, and thank God she was mysecret weapon.
(13:17):
I come home and you know, sayyou know, they're talking about
this, they're talking about that.
You know what do they mean andI didn't look too stupid.
But I was the first non-priest,non-social worker to run the
agency, and the board wantedsomebody with business
experience, and we went througha really, really fascinating
(13:42):
transformation, went through areally, really fascinating
transformation.
My conclusion was a lot ofagencies were doing maintenance.
My team wanted to dotransformation, and so I applied
the lessons I learned with myteam.
I went out and hired the verybest and the brightest I could
(14:03):
find, and that turned out to beworking moms with social work
degrees, and I made it easy tohave kids at the office.
We paid fair wage and I built ateam.
That was just phenomenal.
I mean, I would go to war withmy CFO.
(14:23):
Really strong, I had to firethe CFO I had.
The board was a little bitasleep at the wheel on fiduciary
responsibilities and we wereusing restricted funds in the
wrong place and all stuff thatwe've all dealt with.
And, to make a long story short,we decided to take on the issue
(14:47):
of poverty in Philly and to doso with a different methodology
that had been developed up inBoston from an outfit called
MPATH, the Old CrittentonWomen's Union, and it's based on
the principle that when you arein deep, deep crisis your
cognitive function is zero.
(15:08):
Cognitive function is problemsolving.
Well, poverty is one of thedeepest crises you can be in and
for the folks who weren'taddicted or didn't have
behavioral health issues, it'ssoul-crushing.
And what we discovered and weworked with is that if we could
(15:28):
coach a person on small goals atfirst and then larger ones
across the spectrum of thingslike housing, workforce
development, medical care, setgoals, the brain would start to
heal and cognitive functionwould improve.
And our basic goal was to add apoverty was a living wage with
(15:50):
benefits and assets in the bank.
We had a large endowment and wedid a savings match of.
We would match dollar fordollar up to $10,000 so that
when you left the program youhad 20 grand in the bank.
You had a job if we coached youright and worked with you on
(16:11):
all the issues at a living wageor a path to a living wage and
jobs that had benefits.
The efficacy rate of that wentfrom 28 to 32 for traditional
percent to mid 80s.
Oh my, and just and again, Igive full, full credit to the
folks up in Boston, but thesavings match was something we
(16:35):
added and now there's about 130agencies probably more since I
retired who have adopted themethodology.
And basically it'stransformational, not
maintenance.
And my whole complaint with thesystem is you know, you got to
maintain people when they're incrisis, but just doing that
(16:58):
forever is not a long-termsolution.
And that's how I spent the last11 years.
When I turned 70, I retired,handed it off to a brilliant
woman who we had brought in fromanother agency and thought I
was going to retire again.
And then my good friend, hankLandis calls me and he says well
(17:22):
, you know a little bit aboutfamily businesses and I've been
on a bunch of boards, bothfor-profit and non-profit.
And he said I'd like you tocome, you know, start coaching
family businesses and maybeworking with us a little bit and
maybe you could attract somefolks.
And you know, at the same time Iwas a trustee at Drexel, I was
(17:45):
chairman of the Academy ofNatural Sciences, was doing some
other stuff and I triedretirement for a month and my
wife said I'd really like you togo talk to Hank and off we went
.
So that's a long, long-windedbackground, but you know I've
got a lot of scar tissue.
I write a little bit, I coach alittle bit and just trying to
(18:08):
give back.
My wife and I have a simplephilosophy we want to die with
the dollar and have the lastcheck bounce and we believe
we've been blessed and so we'retrying to support causes that we
care about and stay active andthat's kind of the bio.
(18:29):
I don't know if my definitionis short, but there you go.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
No, it's kind of perfect.
And for those of you in theaudience listening to this, I'd
like you to take note of ourbusy lives and how we define
busy and what you just heardthere's.
There's really interestingnuggets in there that I take,
(18:58):
and I think you can understand,after listening to David for a
little bit, why I so much admirethis man.
But the but we all need help.
Oh, we is much better than I,no question about it.
And the interesting thing isyour, your wife jackie, and my
(19:18):
wife when she was here, marlene.
You know she used to when I Itried to be home whenever our
daughter was not in school, sothat it was 24 7 when she was
out of school and there weretimes where she would come to me
and say haven't you gotsomewhere to go?
You're getting in the way ofour lives.
(19:40):
The other thing that I find alittle intriguing is my
great-grandfather started whatwas called a school for wayward
youth, for delinquent children,and in 68, when I came out of
university, the market was tough, so I decided that I'd try and
(20:04):
get some measure of the familyand went to work there in the
social work environment.
So your wife, jackie, gets anawful lot of kudos from me.
I think you and I, david, talkedabout the fact that technology
(20:28):
has received nothing and as wetransition in this world to much
more technology, more peopleare going to have to follow the
path that you did with multiplecareers.
We're going to have to retoolourselves.
Lifelong learning is anabsolute fact, a need, but it's
(20:49):
tough, tough sledding.
So it's, it's all over.
Let me let me focus a littlebit on the time that you worked
with John Akers, a reallytalented guy who, I think, saved
IBM, amongst others.
What was your experienceworking with him?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, I worked for Bob Labonte, who, who was
president of the US.
He reported to John Okay, sorry, yeah, and you know I spent a
lot of time in the chairman'soffice because you know that
relationship.
I would argue that John was atremendous sales leader.
(21:31):
The challenge, in my opinion,and lots of us, is IBM, at the
end of the day, was much more amanufacturing company, you know,
and the large iron that it madewas the backbone of IT for many
, many years.
And the debate that occurredwere we going to be, you know,
(21:58):
the low-cost manufacturerbecause of our balance sheet and
our costs, or were we going tobe we really didn't see the
software revolution and theapplication revolution and the
PC revolution and the handhelddevice coming and I mean,
(22:24):
there's certainly brilliantscientists there that did.
But you know, from myperspective, limited as it may
be, those of us in the field sawwhat customers wanted and they
wanted application solutions.
They wanted, you know thingsgoing and you know one of the
(22:45):
things you learn when you go toschool in this field is Moore's
Law, that every four years it'sgoing to shrink in size and it's
going to be a fourth asexpensive technology.
And so if you want to be thelow cost manufacturer.
At some point that rule kicksin and you know margins and
(23:09):
everything else shrink and thereal gold is in the software and
the telecommunications and theinterconnectivity.
My specialty as an SE wascommunications and you know I
switched to sales and it wasalmost unfair because you know I
(23:31):
could understand what wouldwork and what wouldn't work.
But you know the real gift was,you know, talk to the customers
and you know I, you know youlearn in a hurry that if you can
, you know, find the pain andfix it with a customer, you can
go a long way.
And if you can, you know myfavorite question was tell me
(23:53):
how you make money.
And sometimes it'd be as abusiness, sometimes it'd be as
an individual.
And you know they said, well,ok, let's, let's go to work on
those things.
And I have some fun examples ofthose.
But I'm not sure you know I'veseen this with a lot of big
companies where they start tobelieve their own stuff.
(24:16):
And you know, business evolves,it's, it's evolutionary and
there's always new developments,new technologies, I, I, I
learned very early on that yougot to practice radar, practice
radar, and what I mean by thatis you've got to look at?
Are there opportunities orthreats that are coming at you
(24:38):
and what are you going to dowith them?
Are you going to take advantage?
Are you going to hunker down?
Are you going to be an earlyadapter?
It's like when I sold the rentalcompany, it didn't take a
rocket scientist to see thatUnited Rental and Sunbelt and
those guys were going todominate the market because of
(25:00):
their public size, publicfunding.
They could buy 3,000 AWPs areawork platforms when I was buying
200.
And rental rate was a functionof acquisition cost and so I
could lose money and they'd bemaking money on the same price.
So we got out of that business.
(25:21):
We didn't want to go public, wedidn't want to go big and I
just think there's a million ofthose kind of decisions every
day in business that you got tohave the chutzpah to move on and
if you don't move on, you getcaught.
I think on a much larger scale.
That's what happened to BigBlue.
Now Sam Pomizano, very goodfriend of mine, was AA in the
(25:44):
office, became chairman and Igive Gershner great credit that
he moved us into a softwareservices business.
I don't know that I mean youknow, IBM's got a lot of money.
It'll take them a long time, butyou know we're back into
software, we're back intosolutions providing and
(26:05):
outsourcing.
But Microsoft, amazon, google,you know you can argue, even now
some of the chip manufacturers,you know that are, you know,
blowing it out.
That could have been the worldif they had been willing to risk
and be innovative.
Still a great company.
(26:26):
Still a great company, but notwhat it could have been.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
That's what I wanted to hear about John Akers, I'm
going to say he was the lastpeddler in IBM's history and
Gerstner, I believe, saved thecompany on getting close to the
customers again.
Isn't the story that his firstmeeting with his team he asked
(26:51):
for their largest customers andthey couldn't tell him?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, I wasn't in that meeting.
There's a lot of debate.
All I know is he fired the twosales leaders.
It was my old boss and you knowhe was take-no-prisoners kind
of guy.
Yeah, exactly, the company wasin real trouble and it needed to
(27:18):
have some massive surgery.
I respect him a lot for takingit on.
My sad part is if, look, you'vegot to listen to your customers,
you've got to listen to yourcustomers, you've got to listen
to the people on the front lineand I don't think we did a very
good job of that, because therewere a lot of us who saw what
(27:39):
was coming and it got hung up inlarge company politics and
doing this and protocol.
You know my theory of muddyboots.
You go into the field, you getyour feet dirty, you ask two
questions how are we doing?
What can we do better?
And you shut up and you listenand I think any business, any
(28:01):
leader, needs to practice.
You know nothing like firsthandcustomer feedback.
Anytime I work with the board,I ask the CEO.
I said, okay, who are your fivecalls this month?
You know, go see a big customer, go see a customer you don't
have and go see a small one.
And you know, stay fresh.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
You know, what I believe is those who are closest
to the customer will win, andit's all about the needs and
wants of the customer.
It's all about the relationshipthat is built by the person who
deals with the customer,whether that's a salesman or an
SE or whoever.
And we get caught up in our ownegos.
(28:48):
And we get caught up in our ownegos and we don't believe that
there's much that we can learnfrom the outside world, which is
the biggest trap.
If you don't have an open mind,you're crazy.
David Jensen, who's acontributor of ours, was the HR
executive for Sarah Lee and he'sbuilt what is called a tabletop
(29:13):
exercise for us.
It's part of leadershipevaluation.
Whether you're open-minded orclosed-minded on anything.
Yeah, and how the heck can yoube a leader if you're
closed-minded about anything atany time?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
And how the heck can you be a leader if you're
closed-minded about anything atany time?
Well, you know, look, mylifelong philosophy has been the
better the talent, the betterthe impact, the better the
income.
And so my view of a leader isto be the curator of talent,
curator of strategy, and to dothat as a team sport.
(29:53):
You know, this idea of you know, the mythological leader, you
know, saved the day.
Business is way too complex andyou know, my goal was always to
try and be the dumbest guy inan organization.
My wife would always tell me Isucceeded way early.
(30:14):
But it's, you know, you thinkabout it.
I mean, you just, you reallyneed to build a team, turn them
loose and give them, you know,some bandwidth and give them
some guardrails, and, you know,good things will happen.
(30:36):
Some of these young kids thatare coming out of school right
now, or with five or six yearsexperience, it's extraordinary
what they know how to do and,frankly, we don't, you know, I
think there's an obligation tolet them get experience, let
them get exposure.
But, christ, you know, theenergy level that these kids
(31:00):
have right now, you know, isphenomenal, and they, you know,
all they want is a littlerespect and the opportunity to
learn and, you know, anopportunity to be rewarded if
they hit a home run and, youknow, get credit for it.
I mean, it's not thatcomplicated talent that it's.
(31:28):
You know, it's not a skillwe're necessarily taught.
And how to recruit, how tomanage, how to coach.
You know, god, I would havekilled for when I was a
marketing manager in Pittsburghto know what I know now?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, I would kill, yeah, but you know I say the
transition from doer to leaderis the most difficult in the
world.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, it's kind of that's what got IBM in
trouble.
We promoted all the good salesguys.
Yep, we should let the goodsales guys to be salesmen, and
if they wanted to move up, fine.
But you know, let's look forbest talent be salesmen.
And if they wanted to move up,fine.
But you know, let's look forbest talent across the spectrum.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, my statement is tell me how many superstars
made good coaches?
Yeah, and there aren't many.
I use the example of BillRussell all the time.
But the other thing is theother parallel I draw is the
conductor of an orchestra is theonly musician that has his back
(32:33):
to the audience, to thecustomer, and his success or her
success that's an interestingpoint too.
There's very few femaleorchestra conductors, but that's
another subject.
Yeah, conductor's, but that'sanother subject.
Yeah, but their success ispredicated on how good that team
of musicians in front of themis, and every one of the section
(32:56):
leaders is.
You know strings and horns, etc.
Yeah, they're brilliant, but ifthey aren't, you're done.
I, I traveled across the country, just as a quick side, with
Frank Sinatra's business agent.
That would be interesting.
Yeah, it sure was.
It was five, six hours.
(33:17):
I was fascinated and we livedin Palm Springs, which is where
Sinatra was living at the timeand there's all kinds of crazy
stories about him.
But his agent said to me hecould stand at the side of an
orchestra and tell you whichinstrument was out of tune.
So his craft was having thattone, that ear.
(33:41):
That was untouchable.
Now, whether you like him ornot is a separate deal.
But the other thing, like yousay, going back, that I would
kill every step along the way.
Every year that goes by.
If we're not learning something, we're dying.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And I mean it's well.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I also think, just you know, staying active is just
vital.
I mean, I, you know I will worktill the day I can, and you
know, and work is looselydefined, but it's, you know,
might be volunteering, it mightbe volunteering, it might be
doing whatever, but it's sittingaround and you just can't play
(34:28):
that much golf.
You might be able to fish thatmuch, but that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I say you have to retire to something, not from
something.
Yeah, I agree, you findsomething that gives you.
If you still get excited, ifyou still got the creative
juices and you still cancontribute and you're healthy,
why not keep going?
Age is just a number, forgoodness sake.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, yeah, and that's where I think board
service and outside boardservice is is such a field that
you know, I think morebusinesses really need to
evaluate.
I mean, people get as afraid ofoutside directors and uh, you
know, I just sent you thearticle on fiduciaries.
I mean it's it's reallyimportant to have outside
(35:14):
directors in a business and it'sit.
The optics are are are good,getting advice is good, having
somebody who cares about you andthe business and is willing to
speak truth to you.
You know they don't have tohave Sunday dinner with you.
That's the great value of anoutside director, Yep.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The other thing, though, is it continues to give
you again.
You have to be open-minded todifferent perspectives.
Yep, and you know the energy ofthe younger people.
It's not just their energy,their intelligence, the level of
utilization that they have oftheir brain power, their scope
(35:57):
is so much let me call it better, different words I can use than
you and I had.
You know, I was in school inthe 60s, you were in school in
the 70s, and just that 10-yeardifference was remarkable.
Think about the fact thatcommunications was your
specialty as an SE, and youtransitioned that into MCI.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
You know Well yeah, Well, one was well, one was data
, one was dial time.
Well, actually they were bothdata.
But no, my big claim to Franceis I still get nine bucks a year
from the government for mycompression bandwidth check bit
Me and a fellow guy, we got down, we had a customer and in those
(36:41):
days, data you know it wasdirty.
I mean, the line was dirty, andso you had to punch through
what they call check bits on itand we figured out an algorithm
that was a hell of a lot moreefficient.
And so if the algorithm wassent at the start and at the end
and they matched, you wouldmake the assumption that what
(37:04):
was transmitted was fine, and ifit didn't, you resent it, and
so the efficiency of that wasgood.
And there was a lot of struggleto figure out the right
algorithm that would give you atrue pattern.
And we sat down one night Backin the days, we had a six-pack,
probably, and we figured it out,and that now is used in two
(37:26):
satellites that are still up inorbit.
And again, we get nine bucks ayear.
That's our deal.
I refuse to cash them just topiss the government off.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, it's also interesting that you and I grew
up in a bit world, a zero one,and now we're in a qubit world,
which is something else.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well, I just look at the macro language translators
and the artificial intelligenceand you know, I just you know my
wildest dreams.
Yeah, it's a whole differentdiscussion.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, it really is, and it brings you back.
People are what are going tomake this, and we need to have
people and thank you for doingthis that are willing to share
their wisdom and I sincerelycall it wisdom.
People that are thought leadersA perspective that's different.
People that are experiencedThey've got scars.
(38:21):
People that are prepared totake risks.
They're reformers, andrisk-taking is something that we
get smacked up the side of thehead for.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, and we also got to remember the other side of
that is to be really goodlisteners.
And the older I get, the more Irealize the importance that.
You know there's a lot of newdogs in town and you know you
(38:51):
just need to.
You know I think curiosity isone of the great traits.
It is you know just kind ofwell how does that work and why
do you do it that way, and youknow, and just you know, kind of
looking beyond the obvious.
You know I have a story I tell.
(39:13):
You know we talk about findingthe customer's pain and fixing
it.
I had a young salesman.
We walked into a warehouse andI walk in with him.
I'm you know running modern atthe time and all the forks on
the, on the forklifts are bent,some of the overhead guards are
bent, there's like broken shitin the corner and I'm kind of
(39:38):
looking at the rack and there'snot too many corners that have
been made clean.
And so we go into the offices.
The guy was with a competitor.
We were trying to, you know,get introduced.
He brought me thinking thatwould help.
And so we sit down, we gothrough president's days and I
said do you mind if I ask you aquestion?
(39:59):
And he said no, sure, fine.
He says how's your workers comp?
And he turns white.
And I said he said why do youask?
He says, well, I'm willing tobet your mod rate's way over one
and you're probably gettinghammered as a matter of fact.
(40:19):
That's accurate.
I'm not too happy, but what'sthat got to do with you guys?
I said suppose we could addressthat.
He said what do you mean?
He says well, I'm getting thatmost of your workers' compacts
are guys running into things,breaking things, getting injured
, cleaning up.
And the guy said well, yeah, Isaid so what if we put telemetry
(40:44):
on the truck that measuredG-forces and would shut them
down over a certain limit andwouldn't start unless you went
through a safety check and theseatbelt was on and all that
good stuff.
And the guy says you can dothat.
And I said, yeah, we could dothat.
And the guy says you can dothat.
And I said, yeah, we could dothat.
And he said, well, you know,I've got these trucks that are
(41:05):
competitive.
I said, well, why don't you letme put them on the trucks?
Here's what it'll cost and I'mwilling to bet.
Six months later you and I willbe able to talk.
We put the telemetry on.
You know it's the G-forcemeasure, it's standard in the
industry.
Now, this was in the early daysand, to make a long story short,
(41:26):
when the time came to renew thefleet, the guy calls me up and
says send your salesman over.
Salesman goes over and I saidwhat are you looking for?
He gave me the number.
The salesman went over, gavehim a quote.
The guy didn't ask about price.
He did not ask about price andI I use that story all the time
(41:48):
to say find the customers painand fix it.
And the young salesman said howdid you know?
I said, well, you're in theindustry.
What were you looking at?
I said you gotta, you gottaknow your territory, know if you
ever go deer hunting, you knowyou don't sit in any tree in the
tree stand.
You look for the trail to wherethe deer have been going by.
(42:09):
The same thing, and I had morefun coaching that young man than
anything I've done in a longtime.
And you see, I think that's thejoy of being in management and
being a leader, is taking theseyoung pups and, you know,
showing an interest in them.
Seeing that, I get great joy inseeing them succeed.
(42:31):
And, by the way, that was hissale, not mine.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yeah, the other part of what you did was you with
experience, and this is anunusual combination.
You with experience and this isan unusual combination had
fresh eyes when you walked intothat building.
You were looking at it withfresh eyes and you saw that.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I was looking at it with trained eyes and my point
is that's what I was trying toteach salesmen, exactly, exactly
.
And I see that all the time nowand I'm saying look, you know,
ask the question.
You know how do you make money,what's your bonus based on,
what's pounding you?
And then you know, rather thangoing in with read speeds and
(43:11):
feeds, as the old IBMers wouldsay, um, figure out what in your
product line can, can help thisguy or somebody you know can
help them.
Um, you know partnerships go along way to, you know, can help
them.
You know partnerships go a longway to, you know to to having a
relationship.
But this has been really fun,ron, thanks.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
And and and thank you , and I.
I just want to make a couple ofother small observations and
then we'll we'll wrap this.
I think it was 1977, I wentinto a Kodak distribution center
in Zurich Excuse me, stuttgartand when we walked in it was the
(43:54):
main distribution center forall of Europe for film, for
cameras, for everything.
When we walked into thedistribution center the lights
went on.
It was completely automated,everything driven by the
computer.
And your comment abouttelemetry.
(44:14):
I remember going to adistribution center again, or
warehouse, whatever you want tocall these things, in Chicago,
and I was designing warehousesin those days and the people
that were picking and processingorders were given a day's worth
of labor when they arrived.
And I was working at aCaterpillar dealer and we would
(44:36):
give an order to an order pickeras it came off the printer.
Whether it was one item or 20items, it didn't matter a damn.
And what we did is we went backand we batched the orders
together because we recognizedthere was different priorities
for different orders.
And people still don't do that.
So the counter guy, the fieldservice guy, those are my high
(45:00):
priorities, and again it'sexperienced fresh eyes, but
being prepared to take a riskand being prepared to fail, and
failure is what where we learnthe lessons.
So I I really appreciate thetime, david, and I appreciate
the audience, and I hope thateverybody who started with us is
(45:20):
still with us and that you'vegot a lot to think about.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
They're probably asleep, but that's okay To all
the guys traveling along here.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, thank you very much for this time and to
everybody listening, a bigmahalo from Hawaii and I look
forward to having you withanother.
Hello and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
I'm very excited today to beintroducing you all to a
gentleman by the name of DavidGriffith who, in the short time
that David and I havereacquainted last month or two I
guess, after maybe a 20-yearabsence after maybe a 20-year
absence, I'm reminded of theamazing range of skills that we
(00:30):
have in America.
So with that as an introduction, I'd like to just good day,
david.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'd like you to introduce yourself to this
august body that listens to me.
Well, no doubt that's a largegroup we're on.
But anyway, good to reconnect.
And again, I'm Dave Griffithand I've been in the material
handling industry since 1993.
But I'll give you a little bitof a background that goes there.
(01:02):
And, ron, I got to believe itwas during the Mejita days that
you and I connected.
We went back looking at mynotes and I have fond memories
of that time.
So anyway, I live in New Hope,pennsylvania, with my wife
Jackie.
We've been married for 45 years.
We have two adult children, twograndchildren, a little girl
(01:27):
and a boy, and one very activeWestie.
Our third and she may show upsomewhere in the filming here.
And let's see career-wise.
I went to Kenyon College in GameBear, ohio.
I went to work for IBM out ofschool as a systems engineer,
(01:55):
met a girl who became my wifeand realized I had to make a
couple more bucks and I switchedto sales.
And I switched to sales and wehad a really, really good run on
the sales side.
In 1978, 79, I was the numberone salesman for IBM and I like
(02:24):
to say that was the last time Imade real money.
But that launched a careerwithin IBM.
They had a habit If you couldsell they would move you up the
line.
And we moved from New York toPhiladelphia because Jackie went
back to grad school at BrynMawr for master's in social work
and we I worked in the city andthen I, we moved and moved many
(02:47):
, many, many times as I went upthe IBM ladder.
I was a marketing manager inPittsburgh, I was on staff in
Philly again.
I got to know the PA Turnpikereally well because Jackie was
getting her advanced degree atPitt and she didn't want to move
and so I said, okay, I'llcommute back and forth.
(03:08):
And then I became branchmanager up in Bethlehem,
pennsylvania, which at that timewas a very large office for IBM
because of not the universitiesbut also Air Products, best
Steel, mack Truck and an awfullot of Tobiano Army Base, and we
(03:30):
had Scranton in the mix.
So I had a sublocation we hadjust it was the bottom
performing branch when I tookover and I'm pleased to say, we
got it to number three in thecountry, not because of me but
because, you know, I had thebrains to hire some really,
really good folks, had a reallyfun run, great job.
(03:52):
Our daughter was born inBethlehem and as a result of
kind of doing that, I moved upto be administrative assistant
to the president, which was agreat development job, commuted
(04:13):
back and forth because it didn'tmake sense to move.
And coming out of that job, Ibecame a regional manager in
Detroit, which was not on ourlist of towns we wanted to go to
, but we went, had a veryinteresting experience.
There Was in the mid 80s andlet's just say the economy was
(04:35):
tough.
Came back to Connecticut.
We moved to Newtown,connecticut.
Before the tragedy I went towork with an IBM subsidiary,
rome, which they had acquired,rolm, which was an interconnect
(04:57):
company and was famous forvoicemail.
I can give you the origin ofDigi, the voice and a lot of
technology.
There I worked on a projectwhere we couldn't understand why
Digi wasn't working and then wediscovered that women's voices
in two tones actually simulatedthe keys that you hit with zero
(05:20):
pound, and zero pound was thehang-up code, was the hang-up at
the time.
So you know all these bright,you know million-dollar
scientists and research guys andwe finally figured out that it
was so we had to change the toneand inflection.
Just, you know, one of thelittle silly things that you
remember in a career.
But anyway we, when I was inNewtown, my son was born and so
(05:46):
we had two small kids.
We had moved around atremendous amount and, on a
personal note, we havealcoholism runs in both our
families and both of us decidedit was a really good idea to get
sober.
We had two small kids, familiesand both of us decided it was a
really good idea to get sober.
We had two small kids and welooked at each other after that
(06:09):
experience said you know this,moving around and family and at
the same time John Akers hadgotten let go, ibm was going
through some really, reallytough times and they made the
mistake of offering a reallytough times and they made the
(06:29):
mistake of offering a packagethat you had to be an idiot to
not take Two years salary,investing of options not that
that's a great deal and fiveyears on your retirement, I mean
it was.
So I left on a Friday andMonday I went to work for MCI,
running marketing for thebusiness division.
(06:50):
Culturally that was like goingto the other side of the moon,
it was run and gun and that thatwas just fascinating lesson
that you know there's a wholenother world out there had a
good run there and then, as Isaid, my wife and I said, you
know, there's a whole notherworld out there, had a good run
there.
And then, as I said, my wifeand I said you know what do we
(07:11):
want to do this?
Bill McGowan, the founder, diedand all of a sudden, you know,
we had a change of control.
So we had another transactionthat was interesting and we
decided we didn't want to moveanymore.
And we had one more move in usand her dad had a business that
I've been on the board of inBristol, pa, called Modern Group
(07:34):
, a material handling company, aheister dealer, if you remember
, ron Yep and I had theopportunity to buy into the
business and joined the firmI've been on the board.
So we moved down there and in1993, we moved to New Hope and
(07:54):
we've been here ever since.
I worked my way up through thecompany, which I am grateful for
.
He didn't just start me, youknow, at the head and really,
really loved the industry, lovedthe people.
We had a philosophy of sharingthe wealth with the employees
(08:15):
that Joe had that I really,really respected.
And we got smart.
We created, we were Vanguard'ssecond 401k.
We created, we were Vanguard'ssecond 401k and we became an
ESOP 20 years before we went to100% and the beauty of that was
(08:35):
we planned it so that we didn'thave to leverage the company
because every year we put moneyinto both retirement plans and
did some other things and we hada nice run.
We grew quite a bit andsomewhere along the line I guess
in 2000 or so I got broughtonto the Mejita board, was
(08:59):
president of Mejita in 05.
Again, great experience.
Great friends in 05.
Again, great experience.
Great friends.
Deep, deep respect for LizRichards and her team and
everything that she did and justreally had a lot of fun growing
the business.
You know I've seen my kids'soccer games.
You know all the things you'redoing and, again, you know,
(09:20):
leading a clear andstraightforward life.
Got active in our church hereand had a terrific run.
And then in 2003, we went aheadand pulled the trigger.
Joe wanted to cash out and wehad family, other family members
(09:48):
who owned shares and we pulledthe trigger on the ESOP and the
guys asked me to stay on as CEO.
We had an outside board, whichwas really, really critical, and
I'm a big fan of outside familyboards and I hired a team.
(10:11):
We went through a number ofexpansions, became a Generac
dealer.
In the middle of that mix wedropped Heister and picked up
Hyundai.
The Hyster-Yale situation justwasn't necessarily a good deal
for the dealers.
I have a lot of respect for theguys at Hyster-Yale, don't get
(10:32):
me wrong.
But you know we needed to dowhat we needed to do and,
frankly, the Generac businessand the Arborist business and
some of the other things justreally took off.
And so we do the ESOP.
And then all of a sudden07-08-09, you might remember the
phone stopped ringing and wegot through that experience and
(11:00):
the ESOP wound up to be a hugestrategic weapon.
The ESOP wound up to be a hugestrategic weapon.
We had technicians come to usand say hey, dave, we'll work 30
hours rather than laying peopleoff.
I said everybody got it.
The stock got hammered but the401k protected.
And we got through it, likelots and lots and lots of people
(11:21):
did in the industry.
But I'm really proud that wewere able to do it.
In a way that was tough.
We got out of the rentalbusiness.
At one point we were the 24thlargest rental company in the US
.
We were super regional, but youcould see United and Sunbelt
and those guys coming, there wasno way we were going to compete
.
We were going to compete andPaul Farrell, who works for me
(11:45):
at the time, was my COO figuredout a buyer, did a hell of a job
moving it and, frankly, thatcapital got us through the
recession, but the phonesliterally stopped ringing.
It was quite a lesson and a lotof soul searching in those
times, as many of my goodbuddies and colleagues, but you
(12:08):
know, it's always dark, it'sbefore it's absolutely black.
And we got through it.
Sun came up, different worldRestructured the business and
then, when I turned 60 in 2013,it was time for me to get out of
the way.
I wanted Paul and Steve to havethe opportunity to run the
(12:32):
business.
They asked me to stay on aschairman which I still am today
and I thought I was going tocome down and run Episcopal
Community Services, which is alarge at that time, 142-year-old
nonprofit in the city ofPhiladelphia dealing with the
(12:54):
issues of poverty andhomelessness, and I didn't think
it was a great idea.
I didn't think I was a goodmatch.
But I went down and interviewedand uh, you know, answered the
call.
My wife thought I was crazy.
Um, she said what do you knowabout social work?
Um, and thank God she was mysecret weapon.
(13:17):
I come home and you know, sayyou know, they're talking about
this, they're talking about that.
You know what do they mean andI didn't look too stupid.
But I was the first non-priest,non-social worker to run the
agency, and the board wantedsomebody with business
experience, and we went througha really, really fascinating
(13:42):
transformation, went through areally, really fascinating
transformation.
My conclusion was a lot ofagencies were doing maintenance.
My team wanted to dotransformation, and so I applied
the lessons I learned with myteam.
I went out and hired the verybest and the brightest I could
(14:03):
find, and that turned out to beworking moms with social work
degrees, and I made it easy tohave kids at the office.
We paid fair wage and I built ateam.
That was just phenomenal.
I mean, I would go to war withmy CFO.
(14:23):
Really strong, I had to firethe CFO I had.
The board was a little bitasleep at the wheel on fiduciary
responsibilities and we wereusing restricted funds in the
wrong place and all stuff thatwe've all dealt with.
And, to make a long story short,we decided to take on the issue
(14:47):
of poverty in Philly and to doso with a different methodology
that had been developed up inBoston from an outfit called
MPATH, the Old CrittentonWomen's Union, and it's based on
the principle that when you arein deep, deep crisis your
cognitive function is zero.
(15:08):
Cognitive function is problemsolving.
Well, poverty is one of thedeepest crises you can be in and
for the folks who weren'taddicted or didn't have
behavioral health issues, it'ssoul-crushing.
And what we discovered and weworked with is that if we could
(15:28):
coach a person on small goals atfirst and then larger ones
across the spectrum of thingslike housing, workforce
development, medical care, setgoals, the brain would start to
heal and cognitive functionwould improve.
And our basic goal was to add apoverty was a living wage with
(15:50):
benefits and assets in the bank.
We had a large endowment and wedid a savings match of.
We would match dollar fordollar up to $10,000 so that
when you left the program youhad 20 grand in the bank.
You had a job if we coached youright and worked with you on
(16:11):
all the issues at a living wageor a path to a living wage and
jobs that had benefits.
The efficacy rate of that wentfrom 28 to 32 for traditional
percent to mid 80s.
Oh my, and just and again, Igive full, full credit to the
folks up in Boston, but thesavings match was something we
(16:35):
added and now there's about 130agencies probably more since I
retired who have adopted themethodology.
And basically it'stransformational, not
maintenance.
And my whole complaint with thesystem is you know, you got to
maintain people when they're incrisis, but just doing that
(16:58):
forever is not a long-termsolution.
And that's how I spent the last11 years.
When I turned 70, I retired,handed it off to a brilliant
woman who we had brought in fromanother agency and thought I
was going to retire again.
And then my good friend, hankLandis calls me and he says well
(17:22):
, you know a little bit aboutfamily businesses and I've been
on a bunch of boards, bothfor-profit and non-profit.
And he said I'd like you tocome, you know, start coaching
family businesses and maybeworking with us a little bit and
maybe you could attract somefolks.
And you know, at the same time Iwas a trustee at Drexel, I was
(17:45):
chairman of the Academy ofNatural Sciences, was doing some
other stuff and I triedretirement for a month and my
wife said I'd really like you togo talk to Hank and off we went
.
So that's a long, long-windedbackground, but you know I've
got a lot of scar tissue.
I write a little bit, I coach alittle bit and just trying to
(18:08):
give back.
My wife and I have a simplephilosophy we want to die with
the dollar and have the lastcheck bounce and we believe
we've been blessed and so we'retrying to support causes that we
care about and stay active andthat's kind of the bio.
(18:29):
I don't know if my definitionis short, but there you go.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
No, it's kind of perfect.
And for those of you in theaudience listening to this, I'd
like you to take note of ourbusy lives and how we define
busy and what you just heardthere's.
There's really interestingnuggets in there that I take,
(18:58):
and I think you can understand,after listening to David for a
little bit, why I so much admirethis man.
But the but we all need help.
Oh, we is much better than I,no question about it.
And the interesting thing isyour, your wife jackie, and my
(19:18):
wife when she was here, marlene.
You know she used to when I Itried to be home whenever our
daughter was not in school, sothat it was 24 7 when she was
out of school and there weretimes where she would come to me
and say haven't you gotsomewhere to go?
You're getting in the way ofour lives.
(19:40):
The other thing that I find alittle intriguing is my
great-grandfather started whatwas called a school for wayward
youth, for delinquent children,and in 68, when I came out of
university, the market was tough, so I decided that I'd try and
(20:04):
get some measure of the familyand went to work there in the
social work environment.
So your wife, jackie, gets anawful lot of kudos from me.
I think you and I, david, talkedabout the fact that technology
(20:28):
has received nothing and as wetransition in this world to much
more technology, more peopleare going to have to follow the
path that you did with multiplecareers.
We're going to have to retoolourselves.
Lifelong learning is anabsolute fact, a need, but it's
(20:49):
tough, tough sledding.
So it's, it's all over.
Let me let me focus a littlebit on the time that you worked
with John Akers, a reallytalented guy who, I think, saved
IBM, amongst others.
What was your experienceworking with him?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, I worked for Bob Labonte, who, who was
president of the US.
He reported to John Okay, sorry, yeah, and you know I spent a
lot of time in the chairman'soffice because you know that
relationship.
I would argue that John was atremendous sales leader.
(21:31):
The challenge, in my opinion,and lots of us, is IBM, at the
end of the day, was much more amanufacturing company, you know,
and the large iron that it madewas the backbone of IT for many
, many years.
And the debate that occurredwere we going to be, you know,
(21:58):
the low-cost manufacturerbecause of our balance sheet and
our costs, or were we going tobe we really didn't see the
software revolution and theapplication revolution and the
PC revolution and the handhelddevice coming and I mean,
(22:24):
there's certainly brilliantscientists there that did.
But you know, from myperspective, limited as it may
be, those of us in the field sawwhat customers wanted and they
wanted application solutions.
They wanted, you know thingsgoing and you know one of the
(22:45):
things you learn when you go toschool in this field is Moore's
Law, that every four years it'sgoing to shrink in size and it's
going to be a fourth asexpensive technology.
And so if you want to be thelow cost manufacturer.
At some point that rule kicksin and you know margins and
(23:09):
everything else shrink and thereal gold is in the software and
the telecommunications and theinterconnectivity.
My specialty as an SE wascommunications and you know I
switched to sales and it wasalmost unfair because you know I
(23:31):
could understand what wouldwork and what wouldn't work.
But you know the real gift was,you know, talk to the customers
and you know I, you know youlearn in a hurry that if you can
, you know, find the pain andfix it with a customer, you can
go a long way.
And if you can, you know myfavorite question was tell me
(23:53):
how you make money.
And sometimes it'd be as abusiness, sometimes it'd be as
an individual.
And you know they said, well,ok, let's, let's go to work on
those things.
And I have some fun examples ofthose.
But I'm not sure you know I'veseen this with a lot of big
companies where they start tobelieve their own stuff.
(24:16):
And you know, business evolves,it's, it's evolutionary and
there's always new developments,new technologies, I, I, I
learned very early on that yougot to practice radar, practice
radar, and what I mean by thatis you've got to look at?
Are there opportunities orthreats that are coming at you
(24:38):
and what are you going to dowith them?
Are you going to take advantage?
Are you going to hunker down?
Are you going to be an earlyadapter?
It's like when I sold the rentalcompany, it didn't take a
rocket scientist to see thatUnited Rental and Sunbelt and
those guys were going todominate the market because of
(25:00):
their public size, publicfunding.
They could buy 3,000 AWPs areawork platforms when I was buying
200.
And rental rate was a functionof acquisition cost and so I
could lose money and they'd bemaking money on the same price.
So we got out of that business.
(25:21):
We didn't want to go public, wedidn't want to go big and I
just think there's a million ofthose kind of decisions every
day in business that you got tohave the chutzpah to move on and
if you don't move on, you getcaught.
I think on a much larger scale.
That's what happened to BigBlue.
Now Sam Pomizano, very goodfriend of mine, was AA in the
(25:44):
office, became chairman and Igive Gershner great credit that
he moved us into a softwareservices business.
I don't know that I mean youknow, IBM's got a lot of money.
It'll take them a long time, butyou know we're back into
software, we're back intosolutions providing and
(26:05):
outsourcing.
But Microsoft, amazon, google,you know you can argue, even now
some of the chip manufacturers,you know that are, you know,
blowing it out.
That could have been the worldif they had been willing to risk
and be innovative.
Still a great company.
(26:26):
Still a great company, but notwhat it could have been.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
That's what I wanted to hear about John Akers, I'm
going to say he was the lastpeddler in IBM's history and
Gerstner, I believe, saved thecompany on getting close to the
customers again.
Isn't the story that his firstmeeting with his team he asked
(26:51):
for their largest customers andthey couldn't tell him?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, I wasn't in that meeting.
There's a lot of debate.
All I know is he fired the twosales leaders.
It was my old boss and you knowhe was take-no-prisoners kind
of guy.
Yeah, exactly, the company wasin real trouble and it needed to
(27:18):
have some massive surgery.
I respect him a lot for takingit on.
My sad part is if, look, you'vegot to listen to your customers,
you've got to listen to yourcustomers, you've got to listen
to the people on the front lineand I don't think we did a very
good job of that, because therewere a lot of us who saw what
(27:39):
was coming and it got hung up inlarge company politics and
doing this and protocol.
You know my theory of muddyboots.
You go into the field, you getyour feet dirty, you ask two
questions how are we doing?
What can we do better?
And you shut up and you listenand I think any business, any
(28:01):
leader, needs to practice.
You know nothing like firsthandcustomer feedback.
Anytime I work with the board,I ask the CEO.
I said, okay, who are your fivecalls this month?
You know, go see a big customer, go see a customer you don't
have and go see a small one.
And you know, stay fresh.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
You know, what I believe is those who are closest
to the customer will win, andit's all about the needs and
wants of the customer.
It's all about the relationshipthat is built by the person who
deals with the customer,whether that's a salesman or an
SE or whoever.
And we get caught up in our ownegos.
(28:48):
And we get caught up in our ownegos and we don't believe that
there's much that we can learnfrom the outside world, which is
the biggest trap.
If you don't have an open mind,you're crazy.
David Jensen, who's acontributor of ours, was the HR
executive for Sarah Lee and he'sbuilt what is called a tabletop
(29:13):
exercise for us.
It's part of leadershipevaluation.
Whether you're open-minded orclosed-minded on anything.
Yeah, and how the heck can yoube a leader if you're
closed-minded about anything atany time?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
And how the heck can you be a leader if you're
closed-minded about anything atany time?
Well, you know, look, mylifelong philosophy has been the
better the talent, the betterthe impact, the better the
income.
And so my view of a leader isto be the curator of talent,
curator of strategy, and to dothat as a team sport.
(29:53):
You know, this idea of you know, the mythological leader, you
know, saved the day.
Business is way too complex andyou know, my goal was always to
try and be the dumbest guy inan organization.
My wife would always tell me Isucceeded way early.
(30:14):
But it's, you know, you thinkabout it.
I mean, you just, you reallyneed to build a team, turn them
loose and give them, you know,some bandwidth and give them
some guardrails, and, you know,good things will happen.
(30:36):
Some of these young kids thatare coming out of school right
now, or with five or six yearsexperience, it's extraordinary
what they know how to do and,frankly, we don't, you know, I
think there's an obligation tolet them get experience, let
them get exposure.
But, christ, you know, theenergy level that these kids
(31:00):
have right now, you know, isphenomenal, and they, you know,
all they want is a littlerespect and the opportunity to
learn and, you know, anopportunity to be rewarded if
they hit a home run and, youknow, get credit for it.
I mean, it's not thatcomplicated talent that it's.
(31:28):
You know, it's not a skillwe're necessarily taught.
And how to recruit, how tomanage, how to coach.
You know, god, I would havekilled for when I was a
marketing manager in Pittsburghto know what I know now?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, I would kill, yeah, but you know I say the
transition from doer to leaderis the most difficult in the
world.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, it's kind of that's what got IBM in
trouble.
We promoted all the good salesguys.
Yep, we should let the goodsales guys to be salesmen, and
if they wanted to move up, fine.
But you know, let's look forbest talent be salesmen.
And if they wanted to move up,fine.
But you know, let's look forbest talent across the spectrum.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, my statement is tell me how many superstars
made good coaches?
Yeah, and there aren't many.
I use the example of BillRussell all the time.
But the other thing is theother parallel I draw is the
conductor of an orchestra is theonly musician that has his back
(32:33):
to the audience, to thecustomer, and his success or her
success that's an interestingpoint too.
There's very few femaleorchestra conductors, but that's
another subject.
Yeah, conductor's, but that'sanother subject.
Yeah, but their success ispredicated on how good that team
of musicians in front of themis, and every one of the section
(32:56):
leaders is.
You know strings and horns, etc.
Yeah, they're brilliant, but ifthey aren't, you're done.
I, I traveled across the country, just as a quick side, with
Frank Sinatra's business agent.
That would be interesting.
Yeah, it sure was.
It was five, six hours.
(33:17):
I was fascinated and we livedin Palm Springs, which is where
Sinatra was living at the timeand there's all kinds of crazy
stories about him.
But his agent said to me hecould stand at the side of an
orchestra and tell you whichinstrument was out of tune.
So his craft was having thattone, that ear.
(33:41):
That was untouchable.
Now, whether you like him ornot is a separate deal.
But the other thing, like yousay, going back, that I would
kill every step along the way.
Every year that goes by.
If we're not learning something, we're dying.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And I mean it's well.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I also think, just you know, staying active is just
vital.
I mean, I, you know I will worktill the day I can, and you
know, and work is looselydefined, but it's, you know,
might be volunteering, it mightbe volunteering, it might be
doing whatever, but it's sittingaround and you just can't play
(34:28):
that much golf.
You might be able to fish thatmuch, but that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I say you have to retire to something, not from
something.
Yeah, I agree, you findsomething that gives you.
If you still get excited, ifyou still got the creative
juices and you still cancontribute and you're healthy,
why not keep going?
Age is just a number, forgoodness sake.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, yeah, and that's where I think board
service and outside boardservice is is such a field that
you know, I think morebusinesses really need to
evaluate.
I mean, people get as afraid ofoutside directors and uh, you
know, I just sent you thearticle on fiduciaries.
I mean it's it's reallyimportant to have outside
(35:14):
directors in a business and it'sit.
The optics are are are good,getting advice is good, having
somebody who cares about you andthe business and is willing to
speak truth to you.
You know they don't have tohave Sunday dinner with you.
That's the great value of anoutside director, Yep.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The other thing, though, is it continues to give
you again.
You have to be open-minded todifferent perspectives.
Yep, and you know the energy ofthe younger people.
It's not just their energy,their intelligence, the level of
utilization that they have oftheir brain power, their scope
(35:57):
is so much let me call it better, different words I can use than
you and I had.
You know, I was in school inthe 60s, you were in school in
the 70s, and just that 10-yeardifference was remarkable.
Think about the fact thatcommunications was your
specialty as an SE, and youtransitioned that into MCI.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
You know Well yeah, Well, one was well, one was data
, one was dial time.
Well, actually they were bothdata.
But no, my big claim to Franceis I still get nine bucks a year
from the government for mycompression bandwidth check bit
Me and a fellow guy, we got down, we had a customer and in those
(36:41):
days, data you know it wasdirty.
I mean, the line was dirty, andso you had to punch through
what they call check bits on itand we figured out an algorithm
that was a hell of a lot moreefficient.
And so if the algorithm wassent at the start and at the end
and they matched, you wouldmake the assumption that what
(37:04):
was transmitted was fine, and ifit didn't, you resent it, and
so the efficiency of that wasgood.
And there was a lot of struggleto figure out the right
algorithm that would give you atrue pattern.
And we sat down one night Backin the days, we had a six-pack,
probably, and we figured it out,and that now is used in two
(37:26):
satellites that are still up inorbit.
And again, we get nine bucks ayear.
That's our deal.
I refuse to cash them just topiss the government off.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, it's also interesting that you and I grew
up in a bit world, a zero one,and now we're in a qubit world,
which is something else.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well, I just look at the macro language translators
and the artificial intelligenceand you know, I just you know my
wildest dreams.
Yeah, it's a whole differentdiscussion.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, it really is, and it brings you back.
People are what are going tomake this, and we need to have
people and thank you for doingthis that are willing to share
their wisdom and I sincerelycall it wisdom.
People that are thought leadersA perspective that's different.
People that are experiencedThey've got scars.
(38:21):
People that are prepared totake risks.
They're reformers, andrisk-taking is something that we
get smacked up the side of thehead for.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, and we also got to remember the other side of
that is to be really goodlisteners.
And the older I get, the more Irealize the importance that.
You know there's a lot of newdogs in town and you know you
(38:51):
just need to.
You know I think curiosity isone of the great traits.
It is you know just kind ofwell how does that work and why
do you do it that way, and youknow, and just you know, kind of
looking beyond the obvious.
You know I have a story I tell.
(39:13):
You know we talk about findingthe customer's pain and fixing
it.
I had a young salesman.
We walked into a warehouse andI walk in with him.
I'm you know running modern atthe time and all the forks on
the, on the forklifts are bent,some of the overhead guards are
bent, there's like broken shitin the corner and I'm kind of
(39:38):
looking at the rack and there'snot too many corners that have
been made clean.
And so we go into the offices.
The guy was with a competitor.
We were trying to, you know,get introduced.
He brought me thinking thatwould help.
And so we sit down, we gothrough president's days and I
said do you mind if I ask you aquestion?
(39:59):
And he said no, sure, fine.
He says how's your workers comp?
And he turns white.
And I said he said why do youask?
He says, well, I'm willing tobet your mod rate's way over one
and you're probably gettinghammered as a matter of fact.
(40:19):
That's accurate.
I'm not too happy, but what'sthat got to do with you guys?
I said suppose we could addressthat.
He said what do you mean?
He says well, I'm getting thatmost of your workers' compacts
are guys running into things,breaking things, getting injured
, cleaning up.
And the guy said well, yeah, Isaid so what if we put telemetry
(40:44):
on the truck that measuredG-forces and would shut them
down over a certain limit andwouldn't start unless you went
through a safety check and theseatbelt was on and all that
good stuff.
And the guy says you can dothat.
And I said, yeah, we could dothat.
And the guy says you can dothat.
And I said, yeah, we could dothat.
And he said, well, you know,I've got these trucks that are
(41:05):
competitive.
I said, well, why don't you letme put them on the trucks?
Here's what it'll cost and I'mwilling to bet.
Six months later you and I willbe able to talk.
We put the telemetry on.
You know it's the G-forcemeasure, it's standard in the
industry.
Now, this was in the early daysand, to make a long story short,
(41:26):
when the time came to renew thefleet, the guy calls me up and
says send your salesman over.
Salesman goes over and I saidwhat are you looking for?
He gave me the number.
The salesman went over, gavehim a quote.
The guy didn't ask about price.
He did not ask about price andI I use that story all the time
(41:48):
to say find the customers painand fix it.
And the young salesman said howdid you know?
I said, well, you're in theindustry.
What were you looking at?
I said you gotta, you gottaknow your territory, know if you
ever go deer hunting, you knowyou don't sit in any tree in the
tree stand.
You look for the trail to wherethe deer have been going by.
(42:09):
The same thing, and I had morefun coaching that young man than
anything I've done in a longtime.
And you see, I think that's thejoy of being in management and
being a leader, is taking theseyoung pups and, you know,
showing an interest in them.
Seeing that, I get great joy inseeing them succeed.
(42:31):
And, by the way, that was hissale, not mine.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yeah, the other part of what you did was you with
experience, and this is anunusual combination.
You with experience and this isan unusual combination had
fresh eyes when you walked intothat building.
You were looking at it withfresh eyes and you saw that.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I was looking at it with trained eyes and my point
is that's what I was trying toteach salesmen, exactly, exactly
.
And I see that all the time nowand I'm saying look, you know,
ask the question.
You know how do you make money,what's your bonus based on,
what's pounding you?
And then you know, rather thangoing in with read speeds and
(43:11):
feeds, as the old IBMers wouldsay, um, figure out what in your
product line can, can help thisguy or somebody you know can
help them.
Um, you know partnerships go along way to, you know, can help
them.
You know partnerships go a longway to, you know to to having a
relationship.
But this has been really fun,ron, thanks.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
And and and thank you , and I.
I just want to make a couple ofother small observations and
then we'll we'll wrap this.
I think it was 1977, I wentinto a Kodak distribution center
in Zurich Excuse me, stuttgartand when we walked in it was the
(43:54):
main distribution center forall of Europe for film, for
cameras, for everything.
When we walked into thedistribution center the lights
went on.
It was completely automated,everything driven by the
computer.
And your comment abouttelemetry.
(44:14):
I remember going to adistribution center again, or
warehouse, whatever you want tocall these things, in Chicago,
and I was designing warehousesin those days and the people
that were picking and processingorders were given a day's worth
of labor when they arrived.
And I was working at aCaterpillar dealer and we would
(44:36):
give an order to an order pickeras it came off the printer.
Whether it was one item or 20items, it didn't matter a damn.
And what we did is we went backand we batched the orders
together because we recognizedthere was different priorities
for different orders.
And people still don't do that.
So the counter guy, the fieldservice guy, those are my high
(45:00):
priorities, and again it'sexperienced fresh eyes, but
being prepared to take a riskand being prepared to fail, and
failure is what where we learnthe lessons.
So I I really appreciate thetime, david, and I appreciate
the audience, and I hope thateverybody who started with us is
(45:20):
still with us and that you'vegot a lot to think about.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
They're probably asleep, but that's okay To all
the guys traveling along here.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, thank you very much for this time and to
everybody listening, a bigmahalo from Hawaii and I look
forward to having you withanother.
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