January 27, 2025 • 67 mins
Unlock the secrets of employee development and performance reviews with insights from our esteemed guest, Emily Hardin, who is the Vice President of Culture at a large equipment dealership. We explore the art of aligning job targets with company culture using modern tools like the Predictive Index, comparing them to classic models such as DISC and Myers-Briggs. Discover the complexities faced by flat organizations and dealerships in crafting effective development programs, and learn how analyzing employee tenure can inform recruitment practices.
Shifting gears to retail, we uncover the strategic triumphs and challenges of giants like Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Walmart. From Coca-Cola's brand dominance to Amazon's data-driven evolution, we dissect the tactics these corporations employ to adapt to ever-changing consumer needs. As technology transforms customer interactions, we delve into how integrating modern communication tools like chat systems can bridge the gap between traditional practices and the digital age, enhancing both customer service and employee empowerment.
Finally, we examine the transformative power of leadership and technology on organizational structures and workforce dynamics. As businesses transition from small teams of innovators to structured entities, we emphasize leadership's role in supporting frontline employees and maintaining operational efficiency. We also tackle the shifting value of traditional education in a tech-driven world, offering alternative paths to success and highlighting the innovative potential of AI and automation. Join us for a captivating discussion on developing future leaders, fostering creativity, and embracing change in the modern workforce.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've had and recorded a discussion on performance
reviews with Sonia Law fromAustralia, with Bruce Baker,
who's in Canada with business,but he's from South Africa, so
we recorded him from SouthAfrica.
David Jensen, who's in NewMexico, who was the head of HR
for Sarah Lee for years, lee,for years.
(00:23):
I've got another guy that'scoming that used to be at a
dealer and used to be at I'mgoing to call it fast food
places.
And you trying to get people tojust talk about what they think
the state of the world isrelative to performance reviews.
(00:44):
The state of the world isrelative to performance reviews
and what I'm trying to getpeople to consider, including
Grant and others.
If it isn't part of your corecompetency, outsource it.
And HR is not.
And the trouble with that.
(01:05):
Well, recruiting is a classicarea.
There's a guy by the name ofjay lucas who has a guy by the
name of john dowling.
They do hiring for hitachi on acontract, any, any employees
they need, they'll get them, andit's on a fee basis, not a
percentage basis like it used tobe 25% of the first year or
(01:27):
whatever the hell it was.
So, slowly but surely, thisstuff is changing and so that's
what I'd like to talk about, andif you're already recording,
we've got it.
We've got it, so why don't westart?
And I'll start with the basicquestion At your employer how do
(01:57):
you manage employee development?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So right now the quickest answer I can give you
is it's handled at the locallevel.
So that means that you know wecan provide some training and
development.
Typically for us at thedealership it is, you know,
(02:22):
training for our technicians andit's usually you know what type
of equipment.
What do we have new?
What do you need to know?
How do you change out, forexample, f model?
Those just came out so we haveto do training on how to fix the
F models.
The other, you know, standardHR training we do and the
standard IT training we do.
(02:42):
But outside of that theorganization is so flat that it
can be really difficult and Ithink it is for a lot of
organizations to do that type ofreally deep development that
you need because of time awayfrom the desk, because you don't
have all that backup.
But then you know you havedifferent managers doing
different things and it's justreally hard to kind of create a
(03:04):
program and develop employeesthe way you want to when there's
not much of a succession plan,when there's just such a flat
organization and everyone hasdifferent ideas, especially with
most dealerships run which isit's all done at a local level
and then the corporate office ismore of a support staff rather
(03:27):
than a driving factor.
So that also has some impactfor us where we're not
necessarily in HR, the drivingfactor of saying, hey,
everyone's going to do thisexact same training and here are
the goals of this training, andhere's where we go long term.
We leave it up to the generalmanagers of each region to kind
(03:49):
of tell us what they need andthen we'll help them find it or
we'll provide advice for thosetypes of things, but we're not
necessarily driving it forward.
So I'd love to see it.
You know, a development plan.
I know Portugal and I are kindof working on a project where,
you know, we're trying to findsuccession, at least for the
main roles.
(04:09):
And how do we do that?
What does that training entail?
What is the best cadence forthat?
You know, what type of hands-onlearning does that mean?
What's the transition period?
Look like those types of thingswhere we can identify here's
top talent, here's what they'llneed in order to fill in that
kind of next gap once it becomesopen, and keeping them engaged.
(04:31):
But you know, it's easier saidthan done too, because again, we
play such a supporting rolerather than a driving force,
like some companies have HR todrive and force Everyone.
We're going to do this as asuccession plan and with the
dealership it's more of likeforce Everyone.
We're going to do this.
This is a succession plan, andwith the dealership it's more of
like a hey, we think this couldbe a high-profile person.
We need you to do these things.
(04:51):
You know we can follow up on it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
But at the end of the day then it's up to that local
region.
But I like the local control, Ilike the corporate support
structure.
But I think that implies andlet's talk about this every job
function then you have to have askills, knowledge and
(05:20):
personality profile and we don'thave that.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
We do.
We have what's called thepredictive index that we use and
it gives us we can set jobtargets and we can kind of match
the work style and the personalstyle to the job that best fits
us.
So there's not like a jobtarget for every single parts
(05:46):
warehouse person, for example.
We set the target for what wethink we need for our culture,
for the company, what works bestCorporately All across the
organization.
We require every candidate thatwe're interviewing to take one,
and anyone that was here whenwe implemented it.
We did ask them to take it.
(06:07):
Not everyone did, but about 90%of the population did?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Who built the predictive index?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That was done by.
I can't remember the name ofthe company.
I know it's a predictive indexcompany now, but it was
basically the guy who createdsquares, uh, same guy who did
the, the, uh, the four coloredsquares.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He, he designed the pi to be a shorter that's,
that's disc okay, yep which isthe old sensor feel, feeler,
intuiter, thinker, yes, okay, soBriggs-Myers squares disk all
those things so you can comparestores' financial performance to
(07:01):
the makeup of the employee'spredictive index.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
True, yes, in a nutshell, yes.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I look at them more than others.
So I've been actually comparingpeople based on tenure.
So you know I'm really lookingat it.
Start it with are our jobtargets correct?
Are we hiring the right kindsof people?
We have turnover, you know?
Is it based off the predictiveindex?
(07:32):
Do we have the right job target?
Are we looking for the rightpeople based on the role that we
have?
And obviously the predictiveindex in any assessment is just
a piece of the puzzle.
It's not the whole thing, it'sjust a piece.
We have a pretty strongcorrelation between the PI job
target and the match between thePI and how long the person will
(07:54):
stay in that role.
So, for example, they kind ofcolor it green, yellow, orange
and red and if they're in thegreen and orange they usually
stay, you know, over six monthsto three years.
Right now that's kind of thetrend.
If they're in the yellow or red, they're lasting less than
(08:19):
three months.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Okay, so what conclusion do you draw about?
That you should not have yellowand red index people?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
the conclusion I I draw from that is and I'll do it
from an hr side of things well,no I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm going this is leaning on you as a person now,
not necessarily what you.
You've got a lot of skills,background experience, training
etc.
In hr.
So yellow, do I hire them ornot?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I tend to say I would not hire them, and that's
because it's not fair to thatcandidate, because you're not
putting them in a job in whichthey can succeed, because they
don't match the job.
If you have a high introvertwho is an extrovert at sales job
and has never been in salesbefore or had very little
experience in sales, you'resetting them up for failure,
(09:09):
especially if that's what yourcompany needs.
For example and I've seen thatwe need high precision If you
put someone who is not highprecision and doesn't like
detail work in a detail work job, they're going to get really
frustrated very quickly becauseyou've almost set them up for
failure.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I'm with you.
How many jobs do you think outof?
You know what percentage of thejobs that you have require?
Yellow-red.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, very few.
Because they set the job target, so it's based off the red,
yellow green orange.
Because they set the job target, so it's based off the.
The red, yellow, green orangeis based off the job target.
Do they match the job target?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
okay, let me interfere there for a second.
So I'm I'm going to make it anathletic type of circumstance
where I have a coach, I havestars and I have workers and in
order to be successful as a team, a business, or sports or music
(10:13):
or whatever, I need those three.
Red yellow is part of thosethree.
So what am I missing if I don'thave red yellow?
Am I missing the people?
That would be challenging thestatus quo.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That's very true.
You would be yes.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You would be yes, yeah, and I do think and maybe
I'm looking at it from a side ofwhere we are now versus what I
would do if we were in a perfectsituation- Well, what I'd
rather have you talk about is,if you could wave a wand, what
would you have?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Not necessarily what you're having to deal with, that
transition from where we arenow to where we should be.
It's a bear, no matter what wedo.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
That's true.
In a perfect world I wouldprobably have 10 percent, at
least 10 percent at that minimum, because I do.
You are right, you do needchallenges, Like if you have a
very high detailed work, well,you know your customers don't
necessarily care about that.
So from a technician's point ofview, you might need someone
(11:20):
who can gloss over it and givethem the high level and then
they can understand it.
Someone who can gloss over itand give them the high level and
then they can understand it.
So I think you do need 10 to 15percent disruptors within your
organization because that's thething that's going to really
keep you moving.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So Steve Clegg comes onto the table with his in Toro,
the transaction analysis, andthere's a direct correlation
between customer predictive andemployee predictive, and that
makes it even more confusing.
Customer service is all aboutrelationships.
(11:57):
It's two people conducting atransaction.
It's like dating a man and awoman or whatever the heck your
inclination is.
And if that relationship, ifthe customer service provider is
good at what they do, thatrelationship can never be broken
(12:19):
.
If there's a perception thatthe customer feels that they're
not getting the support, noteven true, but if their
perception is they didn't getthe support they want, they're
gone.
And I think in society today,customer loyalty when I say that
(12:40):
, people laugh at me becausethey say there is no such thing
as loyalty anymore.
I still believe there is, butyou have to provide everything
that the customer needs andwants.
I don't think we know what thecustomer needs and wants anymore
.
Am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
No, and I don't think you're wrong, and I think there
are also factors that you know.
I think customer loyalty exists, but let's say that it's
between you know the tidelaundry detergent and the downy
laundry detergent and you are aloyal customer to tide but if,
for whatever reason, that weekyou are, you don't have the
(13:18):
money to do that, you might goto downy because that's what you
can afford and you have to haveit.
So I do think that that exists.
I think there's a lot ofdifferent factors, you know,
from a business standpoint too,and it's hard to provide each of
them.
But I think it's also importantfor us as a business to really
look at and understand.
I think from a businessperspective, we have been
(13:41):
looking at our bottom line morethan the customer, and I think
it used to be different, wherewe used to look at the customer
from a holistic perspective.
How can we negotiate and workthis out together?
And now it's just going.
This is what we got to have theend.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, I call that profit over people and it's been
the last 20 years.
There's been a really dramaticand it goes pre-covid, but covid
really accelerated it.
Everybody started looking atwhat the hell am I doing?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
well, and and I think about from amazon too uh, when
you know, when back in the 90sand early 2000s, like you, went
to the store, for example, wewent to the grocery store the
other day and I was like Iremember when I went to the
store and this was the onlybrand you can get, and now
there's like 50 bazillion brandsand things that I've never,
ever seen before, that arealways popping up, and there's
(14:36):
just always something new anddifferent.
And so it was that mentality of, well, I don't just have to go
to you, I can now go shop aroundand do Timu or Shein or you
know, all these different placesthat we never had access to
before.
So it also changes that dynamica good bit too.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
There's voice options .
It's really getting interestingsales.
It ain't exhausting, pardon,it's exhausting, it's getting
exhausting.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh I know, pardon, it's lasting, it's good, it's
lasting.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh, I know Well, I like grocery shopping.
You know I used to do that forus and because I never really
had time to do it the way beforeand I spent a lot of time in
grocery stores looking at all ofthis stuff.
And there's an old sales andmarketing example of Coke.
When they started exploding thebrand Remember New Coke and
(15:29):
Diet Coke and all the rest Allthey were doing was trying to
control shelf space, whichchokes out competition.
It's clever as hell, but youknow, sooner or later people
catch on, and it really.
And so here comes Amazon and Iread like an idiot.
(15:50):
So I was hanging aroundbookstores and some of them I
really.
There's one in Durango that isalmost romantic.
You go in there and they've gotold Chesterfields.
You can pick up a book, sitdown and read it, put it back on
the shelf and they don't mind.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, but Jesus talk about.
You know that's a dinosaur.
So here comes Amazon and theystarted.
Bezos was pretty damn smart.
We started with books becausebooks did not provide a broad
enough base.
Their inventory space, money,etc.
Was limited.
So whenever I went to buy abook I had to order it, so I had
(16:28):
to wait, I had to pay thefreight.
And here comes Bezos says well,you have to wait, we'll get it
for you.
You have to pay the freight.
Well, we'll charge you less,charge you less.
(16:50):
And then, as time passed, herecomes Amazon Prime and you're
now paying 120 or whatever it isfor the year.
So you get free freight.
Well, that restricts the numberof the audience, the market
size, to people that buy a lotof.
And then he got smart and saidwell.
And then he got smart and said,well, we'll do it with
television, we'll do it with astudio.
So I mean, all of a sudden theypermeate the whole world become
(17:12):
the largest retailer in theworld, and Walmart, which was
previously the largest retailerin the world, in North America
Gallery in French, was the samething in Europe.
Walmart said hey, wait a second.
And Sam's model was I'll carryyour product, and only your
product, as long as youguarantee me you will never have
(17:35):
my shelf be entry.
And he said but I'm going topay you when they buy it.
So he had no inventory cost,which made him the low-cost
provider, which is why Walmartbecame so successful.
Here comes Bezos, a new model,and it's now data-driven.
(18:01):
Emily, not transaction-driven,and the people that are facing
the customers.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
we've left them behind Interesting on Walmart,
though they're starting tofigure out that their data is
wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And that's causing even more issues, and I actually
have a personal story on thatone but I won't get into it on
this call.
But Walmart's data is incorrectand they knew it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, statistics was one of my majors in university.
It's amazing what you can dowith mathematical statistics not
sports and that kind of stuffBecause the size of the
transaction and the time betweenthe two transactions is a very
accurate predictor of futureactions.
(18:46):
And I talk to a lot of people,a lot of dealers, a lot of
manufacturers.
Nobody's paying any attentionto that.
So when the buying pattern of acustomer changes, it gets
longer.
You don't have the report thatgoes to anybody that says it's
happened.
George that used to buy everymonth for the last 50 years
(19:07):
hasn't bought in 60 days.
You don't know.
Nobody calls the customer, saysto themselves they don't really
care, and I think that's whereHR has become.
So your predictive interest Ithink that's wonderful.
Local control I think that'seven better because every market
(19:29):
is different and it's differentpersonalities.
But I don't know that we giveenough attention to the fact
that we're not in a staticbusiness world, that we
constantly need to be changingand improving and making it
better.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Great.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Like the people on the counter in the parts
department, answering the phone,greeting the people who walk in
.
Walk-in business is almostnon-existent anymore.
It's cheaper and easier foreverybody to work on the phone.
You don't have hardly any ofyour business come in on the
Internet and your businesssystem doesn't support it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And I think what's interesting too and to take the
phone is you have a wholegeneration that's now on the
counter.
Who's afraid of the phoneexcept for texting, except for,
like, instant messaging, likeyou said, our, our internet
capabilities.
We don't have a chat like, hey,like I.
If you put a chat and said, hey, what location are you in?
(20:40):
What are you needing?
People would be typing in allday.
You know, I need this, I needthat, can you get it for me?
You have someone on thecomputer going like, yes, I can
get that for you right now.
Here's the part, here's theorder number, everything.
It would make both partieshappy in a sense.
Um, interestingly enough, Ithink that being able to order a
(21:02):
piece of equipment I know thatthere's a lot of different
pieces to it, but the newgeneration that's coming in we
should be going hey, you can dothis like a car, here's a paver,
here's all the different modelsthat you have, here's all the
different pieces and order it,because the people on the
counter also just want to lookat the internet all day and
(21:25):
they're used to it, and so,therefore, you're generating
more work for them, and they areprobably then going to shift
their mindset to oh I can, I cando this, I can do this, I can
take control of this and make itmy own.
Uh, in a sense, because thoseguys are.
If they're not on the computer,they're on their phones, and so
(21:46):
if you give them something thatthey're comfortable with,
they're more likely to dosomething as well.
But of course, it's a balancingact right now, because we're
between two different worlds.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So that's the red-yellow, and I don't disagree
with you.
You can't have too many ofthose people because you're
going to drive everybody nuts.
But customer facing people, Iwould have a question that next
(22:17):
week, from Monday through Friday, everybody that touches a
customer would ask the samequestion.
Right, and somebody thefollowing week will be pouring
through that, coming up withthree or four conclusions out of
that of something that weshould be doing, that we're not
(22:40):
doing now and we don't do that.
A customer leaves us, you know.
An employee leaves.
We have an exit interview.
I hope.
Find out what you know.
Here we go, but a customerleaves.
We don't have that.
I would love to call the guy.
You know I used to do thispersonally in my consulting
(23:03):
business.
I did it and you know, after awhile, if you do it well, nobody
leaves.
But what did I do?
Wrong is the question you'retrying to get answered.
What was it that you wanted usto do differently?
It's not the what did I do?
You craft the question in sucha way that it's not going to be
(23:24):
slamming you or insulting you ifthey say yes, and you find out
all kinds of things, and the onethat I like the most is who are
you going to instead of us?
And they'll tell you becausethey're trying to help and what
is it you particularly likeabout dealing with that supplier
?
And whatever the hell they tellyou, then pay attention because
(23:45):
you're not giving them that.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And here's a question for you how do you, when you
ask people to do that, how doyou get around the ego?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Because I feel like that's a big one.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You know when they lose it.
When they lose a customer,they're like oh yeah, he just
was disgruntled.
I don't like working with themand instead of really kind of
being honest with why theyactually left like it was my
team, like I- need to work on it.
How do you get around that?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I have a lot of interactions with groups.
So, example I'll go intoCharlotte and I'll get the parts
, guys, and maybe once a monthI'll buy pizza and we'll talk
for an hour and a half.
And maybe once a month I'll buypizza and we'll talk for an
hour and a half.
And it's uncomfortablediscussions at the beginning
(24:39):
because they don't trust you andyou got to have trust.
And too many employees are whatI call obedient.
They do what they think theboss wants or what the boss
wants, rather than saying, well,why are we doing that?
And once you get that level ofopenness and dialogue, then the
(25:02):
ego goes away altogether.
And you're right, I'm going tobe the smartest one in the room.
I learned a valuable lesson,emily, when I was a teenager.
I'm going to be the smartestone in the room.
I learned a valuable lesson,emily, when I was a teenager.
I was a competitive swimmer andI learned very quickly that I'm
not competing with anybodyother than myself, and most
(25:24):
people are competing with othersin their workforce, which is
where the ego comes from.
I can't look bad, matter whatthe hell I can.
I'm going to suck up to thatguy because you know, whatever
it is and it's all.
It's all counterproductivestuff.
My standard illustration is theonly musician that has his back
(25:45):
to the audience is the conductor.
So look at management, look atleadership.
The conductor is going tosucceed if the leaders of each
of the sections of the orchestraare good themselves and will
make their members look betterthan themselves.
(26:07):
That's true, you know, andthat's a hard thing.
I think one of the hardesttransitions is to go from being
a doer to being a leader.
As a doer, you're completelydependent on your own
performance.
As a leader, you're dependenton other people's performance,
(26:33):
and a lot of us.
I'm one.
I'm a control freak, but youhave to learn to get over it.
And it goes back performancereviews.
It used to be a check off thebox and most often than not it
would be conducted at the sametime as we do wage and salary
review.
So you know the employees gottheir backup, but defensive as
hell and you know the boss iskind of.
I mean, it's acounterproductive experience and
(26:54):
most bosses don't want to do it, don't know how to do it.
You probably see that more thananybody.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Oh yeah.
We're about to go into it and Ialready got my helmet on and
I'm ready for the war and I'mready for the war.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
When I was still an employee and when I stood in in
certain leadership roles anddealerships, the first thing I
did was separate those twoevents.
The wage and the performancewere six months apart.
First of all, performance isdynamic.
It's got to be all the time.
It's every week, it's everyinteraction.
You got to be out on the floorwith the people, not behind a
door, and the thing this youngergeneration, they do not know
(27:36):
the jobs anymore.
They can't go out and do thejobs that they're supervising.
Now.
How the hell does that work?
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
No, that predictive index is really good.
Steve's market transactionanalysis is really good.
Our skills and knowledgeassessments are really good.
Put them together and you'vegot have decent chances
succeeding.
But the definition of each jobfunction of the personality
profile, not the skills andknowledge so much.
(28:17):
But are you open or closed?
Are you willing to exploredifferent options or are you
just shut down?
That's the end of it.
Just tell me what.
Don't confuse me.
Just tell me what to do.
I'm in Russia and working andit's the only place that ever
happened to me.
A guy who's got a master's avery smart young man.
(28:39):
He's in his thirties, he'smarried, he's got children.
I'm asking him questions likeyou know, if you could wave a
wand, what's the thing that youwould do to make your life
easier at work that would makethe company better?
He said don't.
Don't do that to me.
Just tell me what you want meto do and go away.
What kind of a life is that Imean, dear lord?
(29:00):
people like that I bet you, Ibet you, 80 plus of your
employees are like that andthat's and I think you're a
well-run company.
You know it's remarkable.
So how does a dealer who's got20 million bucks in business
(29:22):
maybe has 50 employees?
How do they survive in thisenvironment?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think at different levels of the business you have
to have different kind ofsubsets of people.
So, for example, in anenvironment like that, I would
almost consider it, you know, astartup by size in a sense,
where you have to have like alot of people who are hungry,
who are driven, who want to work, who want to change, who want
(29:51):
to innovate, and then once youget to a certain size I'd
probably say once you startgetting to probably about 75 to
100 people that's really whereyou kind of want to have some of
those worker bees who just comein, get the job done and then
you have innovators and as youjust get bigger and bigger, you
want to have more of thoseworker bees and more of those
(30:13):
individual contributors and youwill kind of want your top
legions of that I'm not legions,this is not the right word, but
your top leadership to be moreof those innovators at the top
to kind of pull the businessforward so it doesn't get
complacent.
But it's almost like you startat the bottom of the pyramid and
(30:35):
it's all the innovators andthen that kind of builds to a
smaller, smaller peak as yougrow and grow as a business.
And I really do think that'sbecause when you're at a small
company you're wearing a bunchof different hats and as you add
more people who can kind of dothat, hey, you just do this
piece of the work, hey, you justdo this piece of the work, you
(30:57):
just do this piece of the workand it works like a well-oiled
machine like BMW, for example.
You put this tire on, you putthis tire on, you put this bolt
on that tire and you put thatbolt on that tire and you put
that bolt on that tire and itworks because it flows.
And you need that when you getto be a large organization
because at a certain volume, thepeople that are dynamic and
(31:19):
innovative, they can't handleall the workload anymore because
there's just too much of it togo around, go around.
And I also think at a certainpoint when you're at startup or
small level, like it's exciting,but you probably burn people
out a whole lot more, you know,especially if they're not, you
know, engaged or you know havecertain flexibilities and things
(31:40):
like that, because in a smallerbusiness you could have more
flexibility, in a largerbusiness you can't.
So then you also need, you know, the people who show up nine to
five.
They come, they work, they gettheir thing done Great.
And then you start gettingthose innovators too and those
disruptors who need more time tothink, because now any decision
that they make is going to goacross a larger band which is
(32:02):
going to.
You have to think through thata little bit more than you could
at a smaller level, more thanyou could at a smaller level.
But I do think if you're asmall company, you need more
disruptors, and the bigger youget you need less.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It's interesting, the small business, the transition
you talked about.
I've always dealt with aninverted pyramid.
The flat line is the top andit's the biggest number of
employees, and it comes down tothe leader at the bottom, and
the role of the leader is togive the tools, the technology,
(32:36):
the training, whatever the hellthose people that are touching
the customer need, and thepeople at the top, which are the
you know that's the largestmajority.
I would you know if I couldwave a wand.
I'd assign customers toindividuals and I would say if
you ever lose a customer, I'mgetting rid of you.
(32:59):
If you keep all the customers,I'm going to reward you like you
wouldn't believe.
So I got the pain and you knowthe stick and the carrot.
But in every sales organizationthat I've ever dealt with, I've
assigned customers and saidtheir core customers.
(33:20):
There's additionals, but thesecore customers you do not lose
them, period, end of story.
They're yours and they're ours.
And the Chinese, the Japanese,taught us that in the 80s and
they kicked the hell out of us.
So gross, domestic.
Everything that we do insociety, in life, is predicated
(33:42):
on quote quote productivity.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
What is productivity?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
What is productivity?
Well, what is productivity?
Well, so look at gross domesticproduct.
The formula is very simple thesum total of all the goods and
services that are generated in acountry, divided by the number
of employees in the workforce.
And over the last 40 years atleast, probably longer.
And over the last 40 years atleast, probably longer.
(34:09):
It's a measure of how well theeconomy is going in a government
, and the governments getelected that way.
And if you want to influencethe gross domestic product, just
reduce the workforce.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And I know that's cynical, but that's exactly
what's been going on.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And so here comes robotics, here comes artificial
intelligence, here comes aproliferation of technology
changes in the last 80 years Onemajor event every decade.
And I mean we tilt, we'reoverloaded, you can't handle it,
so you give up.
I ran computer businesses.
(34:56):
I ran software companies.
At some point in the 80s Istopped trying to keep up
because it was changing so damnfast, said okay, I have to do
something else.
And today, people that arecoming in as management out of
universities I'm not sure I'dhire anybody out of a university
today.
I don't know that they.
(35:21):
You know, emily, you've got amaster's degree, right, okay,
(35:44):
okay.
So if I was to look atundergraduate degrees, I would
say that I want anybody who getsa degree to be able to be work
ready and be able to earn aliving wage.
And then you and I go look atthe universities and I bet you
we could kill 75% plus of theclasses that are in their
curriculum, absolutely.
So the university's goal is toget money.
They don't give a hoot about.
(36:05):
You know what they're doing.
My grandson, you know prettysharp kid works hard.
He's my grandson.
He's got to be perfect, right.
He wanted to be a nuclearengineer.
He applied to Purdue, which isone of the better schools in the
country.
He got accepted $350,000 for afour-year degree.
With all of his scholarships itcame down to $170,000.
(36:29):
And this kid's 17 years old,maybe five months, and we're
talking about it.
And I said well, what are yougoing to do?
He said I'm not doing that.
I'm going to go into themilitary.
I said, oh really?
He said, yeah, they have anexam.
You're probably familiar withit like and the act, and it's it
.
He said if I score high enoughon that exam, I can get into the
(36:53):
nuke program, which is a veryso he did this program he got
that.
he's in the top, I don't know.
Three percent, two percent,some.
It's an obscene number.
I just carry the luggage besidethis kid.
He's unbelievable, unbelievable.
So my daughter said, becauseevery service came for him Coast
Guard, army, air Force, marines.
She said forget the Army,forget the Marines, I'm not
(37:16):
giving them cannon fodder.
So you want to be in the Navyor the Air Force, go for it.
So he goes to the recruiter inthe Navy.
Now this guy is six months awayfrom his 18th birthday and he
goes and says I want to enlistwhen I graduate from high school
.
And he's got a 4.0 GPA, I meanthere's nothing wrong anywhere.
(37:40):
And they say, oh, that'sterrific, let's fill out the
forms.
He said no, no, no, you don'tunderstand.
I will enlist in the Navy ifyou get me in the new program.
So he did so February.
He's now 19.
His birthday is the 1st of July.
(38:06):
So let's say 19 and a half.
He'll have a nuclearengineering degree and an
astrophysics degree at noexpense.
So now I look at the counter, Ilook at the warehouse, I look at
kids coming in in the summer asinterns or whatever, and we
don't try and challenge them tolearn what they're good at and
(38:27):
give them an option as to whattheir life could be like, and I
think we lose a lot of oomphthat way.
I would deal with guidancecounselors, like right now, and
you know we used to have peopleone year before they graduated
undergraduate or master's andthe youngest manager would lead
(38:50):
them and we'd have, depending onthe size of the company in the
year, anywhere from six to 18 ofthem a year, two different
companies, and I was theyoungest and I led those guys in
the first month and, gals, Iput them on the warehouse floor
picking parts and putting partsaway dirty work, physical work,
sweaty, sweaty work, hard workand I'd lose a third of them in
that first month.
The rest of them, if theystayed, we'd bounce them around
(39:15):
a bunch of different things,expose them to a bunch of
different things, so that theycould and we'd offer them a job
when they graduated If they cameback to us.
We put them on an 18-monthprogram three months in each
department actually doing work,part service, sales, rentals,
finance, five, so that's 15months, and the last three
(39:38):
months were the ones yourfavorite, so that you could go
back and, you know, really findout if that's what you're.
So and and we did that at thecaterpillar dealer in british
columbia when I arrived in 78.
And we did that at theCaterpillar dealer in British
Columbia and when I arrived in78, we had 53 stores Every
branch manager, every departmentmanager, had come into the
(39:59):
company that way.
Now you talk about a culturethat's hard to break, and almost
all those people were red andyellow.
It was really weird becausealmost every day they'd be out
on the floor saying, geez, can'twe do that better?
Isn't there another way wecould do that?
Why don't you think about that?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Didn't Bill Gates say , or was it?
No, it was not Bill Gates, itwas.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Steve Jobs probably.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Steve Jobs, who said the best people to hire are the
laziest because they'll find away to get the job done faster.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Well, I've always said everybody wants to do a
good job, everybody can do morethan they think they can, and
everybody is fundamentally lazy,and I think that's a positive
attribute, because they're goingto find the best way to do it,
absolutely.
You know the difference betweeneffective and efficient.
Efficient is doing things well,effective is doing the right
things.
I'd rather effectiveness ratherthan efficiency.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I will actually say probably it's the lazy.
It's the laziness in us, butthe disruptor in us that
actually creates the shortcut,because you have the worker bees
who do come in and they'll dothe work, but they're not going
to they're not going to find abetter way to do it, they know
how to do it, they're not goingto change it, they're just going
to do it.
They're not going to find abetter way to do it, they know
how to do it, they're not goingto change it, they're just going
(41:15):
to do it.
And then you're going to havethose disruptors who are going
what's a quicker, faster way toget this done?
So I can go back to my dailylife.
And I do think that if we haveenough of, if an organization
and this is, I think, going tobe the next struggle in the
coming performance kind of warsis going, especially with AI,
you know we can get things donefaster.
(41:36):
We can get them done with morepower.
What happens if we gave peoplemore time?
If we gave people more time, doyou think they would be able to
think about new creative ideas,or have the time to think about
new creative ideas and actuallybe more of a disruptor than if
they just sat behind a desk allday and said you know what?
(41:58):
I'm just I'm gonna go in, getout, move on with my life, got
other things to do.
Do you think they would they?
Speaker 1 (42:06):
would have more time to be creative a good group.
A good number of people would,but the problem is most people
aren't oriented that way.
We've been taught to beobedient, and obedience doesn't
lead to thinking.
Obedience leads to.
You know, we've got roboticstoday.
(42:27):
They just breathe and haveblood in their bodies and you
know, when you look at the bigcompanies and the fact that we
have to automate things, whatyou're going to do is robotics
are going to replace a wholebunch of people and you know
it's kind of.
This is a little bit off toppingdown, but we've spent hundreds
(42:48):
of trillions of dollars ontechnology and almost zero on
sociology.
Hundreds of trillions ofdollars on technology and almost
zero on sociology.
So how does society work when75 million people are at work
getting income and 225 millionpeople are not?
Will they go back to school?
Will we give them a living wage?
(43:09):
How does society operate inthat environment?
What happens to your psyche?
You know your self-worth, yourself-esteem.
You know it's really weird.
So if you weren't doing whatyou're doing, if you weren't
involved in culture and employeedevelopment and human relations
(43:30):
, what do you think you'd wantto do?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
employee development and human relations.
What do you think you'd want todo?
So that's actually a reallygood question.
So I always wanted to be anarchitect or mechanical engineer
, and the sole purpose for that,if I distill it down, is design
.
I am a creative, so I love todesign, whether that's interior
(43:53):
design or whether that's like Iwant it to be, an imaginary
Disney world.
So I wanted to build rollercoasters, but it wasn't really
the building of the rollercoaster, it was more of the OK,
we have this theme on the rollercoaster like here's what we
need to make it magical, here'swhat we have to put here to like
really catch people's eyesmagical.
(44:15):
Here's what we have to put hereto like really catch people's
eyes.
And so I, I think I would goback to school or I would tell
my past self to go intoarchitecture and design work and
go, go, do that, because I andI I do it for my friends.
Now they actually call me soafter work if I go to a friend's
house, or I have a guy friendwho just bought his first house,
(44:36):
so he's like I don't have agirlfriend help me decorate, so
I just find things for him andsend it to his house and you
know, tell him where to put itand he, you know, decorate so um
.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
I enjoy that so that goes back to performance reviews
.
In my view, on steroids, that'sa person who understands that
there's a gap in their knowledgeand understanding and they look
around and find somebody thatcan help them to fill that gap,
and I think that's where societyis going to go.
(45:08):
But boy, oh boy, it's going tobe like I'm not going to see it.
It takes too long.
My example all the time is 1880, the steam engine was replaced
by an electric engine andeverybody changed to the
electric engine because it wascost effective.
But it took a generation, 20years, before the electric
(45:38):
engine had processes that weredesigned to take advantage of
them.
And then I come forward to 1950with the arrival of the computer
in society and to monumental inthe way of a change Cell phone,
Amazon, AI, data dictionaries,all this stuff, the internet,
(46:03):
and I think we've scared a wholebunch of people.
So now the younger generationmy granddaughter's, 23, just got
her master's smart, the samething as her brother, and she
says you know, Poppy, we have ageneration we call it quiet
quitting.
I said what the hell is that?
We only do as much work as isnecessary to get our check and
(46:28):
we go home and do what we wantto do so.
They use work and income as avehicle to enable them to do the
things they really want to do,and your generation is older
than my granddaughter.
My generation is older thanyours and my granddaughter is
probably going to have seven oreight careers over her lifetime.
I basically had two and youwere probably going to have
(46:50):
three or four Careers not jobs,careers and wouldn't it be
wonderful if you did that designwork.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
It would be.
You know, it would be really,really interesting.
There's so much you can do withit.
I think that, and I think formost people too, the scary
except for the youngergeneration, because they have
nothing left to lose, like we.
Actually, we have an employeewho just left and was going to
(47:21):
move to a totally differentstate and start over and do
something new, and I was likethat's really exciting.
I wish I could do that, but atthis point you know it's more,
you know you have less to lose.
I guess, when you're younger,maybe or maybe that's just that
generation and our, mygeneration is kind of somewhere
between we were taught to work,we were taught how to work, and
(47:43):
also we were also taught to liveour dreams.
And it's a rock and a hardplace which is Do we go and do
that?
Do we go and do that?
What if it doesn't work out?
What happens?
You know, because we're still,I think our generation will be
easier to get to hire, becauseif you have a gap in your resume
, we're like, yeah, it's okay,like can you actually just do
the work, we're cool with it?
(48:04):
And the generation ahead of usis like, no, you have a gap in
your resume.
You've jumped all over theplace like we can't hire you,
you'll never stay, and so itsaid, currently it's one of
those.
Our generation will probablymiss out on a lot of different
opportunities because we weretoo and myself included too
afraid to go and pursue thembecause you're, you know, a your
(48:25):
work is your purpose, and thenb, you're like I'm gonna go
pursue something.
I have no idea how to do it orwhat to do, and that's fine and
all well and good.
But there's also so many otherpeople doing the exact same
thing and so much out there likehow do I even start?
What do I do?
Like I don't, I still havebills to pay, I might have kids,
(48:48):
like those types of things.
So it's this almost maybe whenwe're older and and we can and
we will, you know, and I'm proudof this younger generation, in
a way, it's it's annoying andfrustrating, but that's also how
, with all this ai andeverything they're going, all
this is going to be obsolete.
We got to find a new wayforward and I'm proud of them
for doing that, because they are, they are thinking about it the
(49:10):
right way.
What?
What's the new way forward?
Because a job like HR kind oflike we said it really could be
either AI driven, with, you know, a human element to it.
Ai driven in the sense thatthere's a lot of technology out
there.
You upload your handbook andthe employee can go what is the
PTO policy?
And it spits it out.
(49:31):
What is my PTO balance?
And it spits it out.
But is my PTO balance?
And it spits it out.
But then you have that onehuman element that really could
be more of a contractor, like myjob will probably end up being
more of a contractor, because Icould go hey, let me go look up
your handbook.
Okay, this is the rules.
Okay, well, let's kind of playthe situation from a legal
(49:52):
standpoint and we can kind ofhandle the people.
But you need less of us andmore technology, where my role
will essentially not be obsoletebecause you still need the
people side of it.
But it will be different, itwill be much different in the
future.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, what's also interesting is when you cut to
the other end, and it'sretirement time.
People retire without havingsomething to retire to, and when
they stop work, they completelylose their identity.
That's very true, you know.
I say this to everybody.
(50:30):
What would you do if youweren't afraid?
And those folks that areretiring, they're scared to
death and today not very many ofthem can afford to live on
their Social Security or theirpension because they don't plan
things.
So it's interesting.
I've enjoyed this discussion.
(50:52):
We've covered a fair amount ofground.
Have we missed anything majorfrom your perspective?
Speaker 2 (51:14):
period that there's just so many what ifs and so
many.
What could we do and how couldwe do it?
That I don't think that there'sa right or wrong answer.
I just think that you know,kind of like with COVID, you you
kind of take it by the hornsand you you have to wrestle with
it and figure it out, andthat's kind of what we're going
to have to do in this next fewyears.
But I think I mean overall, Ithink we just have to meet
people where they are too.
As a business, we have to.
(51:35):
Also, we as a business have tolook at ourselves and go are we
doing the right thing for thecustomer and for our employees?
If not, how do we make it?
so we can, because I do thinkthat'll be.
I think everyone's gettingtired of the technology and all
of this, but if you can maketheir lives easier, like United,
thank you.
(51:56):
United Shout out to United.
You have made the customerservice portal so much easier,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm going to do a wrap as ifI was driving this thing and
thank you for your participationand thank you for everybody
who's listening, and I lookforward to having another candid
conversation with you in thenear future.
Mahalo, and that's the end ofthe recording as far as what I'm
going to use, but don't leavethe design dream too long.
(52:31):
How old are you now?
33.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Say now 33.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Say again 33.
The guy that was the head ofpsychology at McGill University
when I was there in the 60sPenfield was his name.
He said at the age of 50, Ithink it's younger today.
You should change your career,not just change your job, change
(52:56):
your career Completelydifferent.
You'll extend your life by 10years Because you get
re-energized.
And we don't realize how much ofa rut we fall into.
And at 33, hell, you're young,it's, it's wonderful, but you
know you're in a rut.
Yeah, but you, you've still gotmore to contribute, to grant
(53:23):
into the company, you know.
So if I was your boss, I'd youknow.
This is fine, I might haveseven years if I'm lucky, but I
would start talking with you nowabout what's your next step and
if design is part of it.
What I would suggest to you iswhy don't you take a couple of
(53:45):
classes on marketing?
I think the design andintellectual challenges there
might appeal to you.
Don't know, just you know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I have I, you know I almost got my master's degree in
marketing, isn't?
Speaker 1 (54:01):
that something when I was looking at master's degrees
.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
So you are.
You are not wrong.
I actually I don't know ifGrant showed you any of the
things I've created, and so I'veused the AI Canva, which is
very intuitive, it's kind oflike and I've created like a
packet.
So all of our new hires now geta summarized packet of
everything you need to know.
On day one.
They have all this informationeverywhere, but it's just the
(54:26):
condensed, colorful, summarizedcatalog of all the things you
need to know.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
So what I would?
I don't know if you do this,but after an employee has been
there three to six months, I'dhave lunch with them and say
okay, you've been here thislength of time, you've still got
fresh eyes.
What do we do?
That's absolutely stupid andyou'd be amazed what they tell
you.
Stupid and you'd be amazed whatthey tell you.
(54:56):
Okay, so you got to promise meyou will send me the recording.
I will send you the recordingright now, okay, and I will
thank you very much and I willleave you be and I'll get on
with my day too.
I got to figure out whathappened with Zoom, because
Microsoft are very devious onhow they do this.
Ibm was the same way.
(55:17):
They're all like that.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
And I'm not sure if it's not on our end, because
anyone else who sends me Zoom,it's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Really.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So I don't know if it's not on our end.
I know Paul, I had Paul wasgoing to talk with Portugal and
just see if there was something.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
There must be a firewall then that they're using
, because I had a Zoom meetingyesterday.
I do them all the time.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, I used to not have problems getting them, and
then all of a sudden we kind ofswitched some things around, and
it's not just you, it's anyonethat sends me a Zoom, I'm like,
send it to me in the emailbecause it's still not coming
through.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I I feel better now believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, yeah it's not you, it's me yeah, no, it's us.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
It's us, not you or me.
But anyways, thank you verymuch and I look forward to the
recording and I'll send you someof the transcriptions I get out
of it so you can see what itdoes.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Sounds great.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Be good, this is Shaka baby, see you.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Thanks, no-transcript .
I've had and recorded a discussion on performance
reviews with Sonia Law fromAustralia, with Bruce Baker,
who's in Canada with business,but he's from South Africa, so
we recorded him from SouthAfrica.
David Jensen, who's in NewMexico, who was the head of HR
for Sarah Lee for years, lee,for years.
(00:23):
I've got another guy that'scoming that used to be at a
dealer and used to be at I'mgoing to call it fast food
places.
And you trying to get people tojust talk about what they think
the state of the world isrelative to performance reviews.
(00:44):
The state of the world isrelative to performance reviews
and what I'm trying to getpeople to consider, including
Grant and others.
If it isn't part of your corecompetency, outsource it.
And HR is not.
And the trouble with that.
(01:05):
Well, recruiting is a classicarea.
There's a guy by the name ofjay lucas who has a guy by the
name of john dowling.
They do hiring for hitachi on acontract, any, any employees
they need, they'll get them, andit's on a fee basis, not a
percentage basis like it used tobe 25% of the first year or
(01:27):
whatever the hell it was.
So, slowly but surely, thisstuff is changing and so that's
what I'd like to talk about, andif you're already recording,
we've got it.
We've got it, so why don't westart?
And I'll start with the basicquestion At your employer how do
(01:57):
you manage employee development?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So right now the quickest answer I can give you
is it's handled at the locallevel.
So that means that you know wecan provide some training and
development.
Typically for us at thedealership it is, you know,
(02:22):
training for our technicians andit's usually you know what type
of equipment.
What do we have new?
What do you need to know?
How do you change out, forexample, f model?
Those just came out so we haveto do training on how to fix the
F models.
The other, you know, standardHR training we do and the
standard IT training we do.
(02:42):
But outside of that theorganization is so flat that it
can be really difficult and Ithink it is for a lot of
organizations to do that type ofreally deep development that
you need because of time awayfrom the desk, because you don't
have all that backup.
But then you know you havedifferent managers doing
different things and it's justreally hard to kind of create a
(03:04):
program and develop employeesthe way you want to when there's
not much of a succession plan,when there's just such a flat
organization and everyone hasdifferent ideas, especially with
most dealerships run which isit's all done at a local level
and then the corporate office ismore of a support staff rather
(03:27):
than a driving factor.
So that also has some impactfor us where we're not
necessarily in HR, the drivingfactor of saying, hey,
everyone's going to do thisexact same training and here are
the goals of this training, andhere's where we go long term.
We leave it up to the generalmanagers of each region to kind
(03:49):
of tell us what they need andthen we'll help them find it or
we'll provide advice for thosetypes of things, but we're not
necessarily driving it forward.
So I'd love to see it.
You know, a development plan.
I know Portugal and I are kindof working on a project where,
you know, we're trying to findsuccession, at least for the
main roles.
(04:09):
And how do we do that?
What does that training entail?
What is the best cadence forthat?
You know, what type of hands-onlearning does that mean?
What's the transition period?
Look like those types of thingswhere we can identify here's
top talent, here's what they'llneed in order to fill in that
kind of next gap once it becomesopen, and keeping them engaged.
(04:31):
But you know, it's easier saidthan done too, because again, we
play such a supporting rolerather than a driving force,
like some companies have HR todrive and force Everyone.
We're going to do this as asuccession plan and with the
dealership it's more of likeforce Everyone.
We're going to do this.
This is a succession plan, andwith the dealership it's more of
like a hey, we think this couldbe a high-profile person.
We need you to do these things.
(04:51):
You know we can follow up on it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
But at the end of the day then it's up to that local
region.
But I like the local control, Ilike the corporate support
structure.
But I think that implies andlet's talk about this every job
function then you have to have askills, knowledge and
(05:20):
personality profile and we don'thave that.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
We do.
We have what's called thepredictive index that we use and
it gives us we can set jobtargets and we can kind of match
the work style and the personalstyle to the job that best fits
us.
So there's not like a jobtarget for every single parts
(05:46):
warehouse person, for example.
We set the target for what wethink we need for our culture,
for the company, what works bestCorporately All across the
organization.
We require every candidate thatwe're interviewing to take one,
and anyone that was here whenwe implemented it.
We did ask them to take it.
(06:07):
Not everyone did, but about 90%of the population did?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Who built the predictive index?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That was done by.
I can't remember the name ofthe company.
I know it's a predictive indexcompany now, but it was
basically the guy who createdsquares, uh, same guy who did
the, the, uh, the four coloredsquares.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He, he designed the pi to be a shorter that's,
that's disc okay, yep which isthe old sensor feel, feeler,
intuiter, thinker, yes, okay, soBriggs-Myers squares disk all
those things so you can comparestores' financial performance to
(07:01):
the makeup of the employee'spredictive index.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
True, yes, in a nutshell, yes.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I look at them more than others.
So I've been actually comparingpeople based on tenure.
So you know I'm really lookingat it.
Start it with are our jobtargets correct?
Are we hiring the right kindsof people?
We have turnover, you know?
Is it based off the predictiveindex?
(07:32):
Do we have the right job target?
Are we looking for the rightpeople based on the role that we
have?
And obviously the predictiveindex in any assessment is just
a piece of the puzzle.
It's not the whole thing, it'sjust a piece.
We have a pretty strongcorrelation between the PI job
target and the match between thePI and how long the person will
(07:54):
stay in that role.
So, for example, they kind ofcolor it green, yellow, orange
and red and if they're in thegreen and orange they usually
stay, you know, over six monthsto three years.
Right now that's kind of thetrend.
If they're in the yellow or red, they're lasting less than
(08:19):
three months.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Okay, so what conclusion do you draw about?
That you should not have yellowand red index people?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
the conclusion I I draw from that is and I'll do it
from an hr side of things well,no I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm going this is leaning on you as a person now,
not necessarily what you.
You've got a lot of skills,background experience, training
etc.
In hr.
So yellow, do I hire them ornot?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I tend to say I would not hire them, and that's
because it's not fair to thatcandidate, because you're not
putting them in a job in whichthey can succeed, because they
don't match the job.
If you have a high introvertwho is an extrovert at sales job
and has never been in salesbefore or had very little
experience in sales, you'resetting them up for failure,
(09:09):
especially if that's what yourcompany needs.
For example and I've seen thatwe need high precision If you
put someone who is not highprecision and doesn't like
detail work in a detail work job, they're going to get really
frustrated very quickly becauseyou've almost set them up for
failure.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I'm with you.
How many jobs do you think outof?
You know what percentage of thejobs that you have require?
Yellow-red.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Well, very few.
Because they set the job target, so it's based off the red,
yellow green orange.
Because they set the job target, so it's based off the.
The red, yellow, green orangeis based off the job target.
Do they match the job target?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
okay, let me interfere there for a second.
So I'm I'm going to make it anathletic type of circumstance
where I have a coach, I havestars and I have workers and in
order to be successful as a team, a business, or sports or music
(10:13):
or whatever, I need those three.
Red yellow is part of thosethree.
So what am I missing if I don'thave red yellow?
Am I missing the people?
That would be challenging thestatus quo.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
That's very true.
You would be yes.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You would be yes, yeah, and I do think and maybe
I'm looking at it from a side ofwhere we are now versus what I
would do if we were in a perfectsituation- Well, what I'd
rather have you talk about is,if you could wave a wand, what
would you have?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Not necessarily what you're having to deal with, that
transition from where we arenow to where we should be.
It's a bear, no matter what wedo.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
That's true.
In a perfect world I wouldprobably have 10 percent, at
least 10 percent at that minimum, because I do.
You are right, you do needchallenges, Like if you have a
very high detailed work, well,you know your customers don't
necessarily care about that.
So from a technician's point ofview, you might need someone
(11:20):
who can gloss over it and givethem the high level and then
they can understand it.
Someone who can gloss over itand give them the high level and
then they can understand it.
So I think you do need 10 to 15percent disruptors within your
organization because that's thething that's going to really
keep you moving.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So Steve Clegg comes onto the table with his in Toro,
the transaction analysis, andthere's a direct correlation
between customer predictive andemployee predictive, and that
makes it even more confusing.
Customer service is all aboutrelationships.
(11:57):
It's two people conducting atransaction.
It's like dating a man and awoman or whatever the heck your
inclination is.
And if that relationship, ifthe customer service provider is
good at what they do, thatrelationship can never be broken
(12:19):
.
If there's a perception thatthe customer feels that they're
not getting the support, noteven true, but if their
perception is they didn't getthe support they want, they're
gone.
And I think in society today,customer loyalty when I say that
(12:40):
, people laugh at me becausethey say there is no such thing
as loyalty anymore.
I still believe there is, butyou have to provide everything
that the customer needs andwants.
I don't think we know what thecustomer needs and wants anymore
.
Am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
No, and I don't think you're wrong, and I think there
are also factors that you know.
I think customer loyalty exists, but let's say that it's
between you know the tidelaundry detergent and the downy
laundry detergent and you are aloyal customer to tide but if,
for whatever reason, that weekyou are, you don't have the
(13:18):
money to do that, you might goto downy because that's what you
can afford and you have to haveit.
So I do think that that exists.
I think there's a lot ofdifferent factors, you know,
from a business standpoint too,and it's hard to provide each of
them.
But I think it's also importantfor us as a business to really
look at and understand.
I think from a businessperspective, we have been
(13:41):
looking at our bottom line morethan the customer, and I think
it used to be different, wherewe used to look at the customer
from a holistic perspective.
How can we negotiate and workthis out together?
And now it's just going.
This is what we got to have theend.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, I call that profit over people and it's been
the last 20 years.
There's been a really dramaticand it goes pre-covid, but covid
really accelerated it.
Everybody started looking atwhat the hell am I doing?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
well, and and I think about from amazon too uh, when
you know, when back in the 90sand early 2000s, like you, went
to the store, for example, wewent to the grocery store the
other day and I was like Iremember when I went to the
store and this was the onlybrand you can get, and now
there's like 50 bazillion brandsand things that I've never,
ever seen before, that arealways popping up, and there's
(14:36):
just always something new anddifferent.
And so it was that mentality of, well, I don't just have to go
to you, I can now go shop aroundand do Timu or Shein or you
know, all these different placesthat we never had access to
before.
So it also changes that dynamica good bit too.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
There's voice options .
It's really getting interestingsales.
It ain't exhausting, pardon,it's exhausting, it's getting
exhausting.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh I know, pardon, it's lasting, it's good, it's
lasting.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh, I know Well, I like grocery shopping.
You know I used to do that forus and because I never really
had time to do it the way beforeand I spent a lot of time in
grocery stores looking at all ofthis stuff.
And there's an old sales andmarketing example of Coke.
When they started exploding thebrand Remember New Coke and
(15:29):
Diet Coke and all the rest Allthey were doing was trying to
control shelf space, whichchokes out competition.
It's clever as hell, but youknow, sooner or later people
catch on, and it really.
And so here comes Amazon and Iread like an idiot.
(15:50):
So I was hanging aroundbookstores and some of them I
really.
There's one in Durango that isalmost romantic.
You go in there and they've gotold Chesterfields.
You can pick up a book, sitdown and read it, put it back on
the shelf and they don't mind.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, but Jesus talk about.
You know that's a dinosaur.
So here comes Amazon and theystarted.
Bezos was pretty damn smart.
We started with books becausebooks did not provide a broad
enough base.
Their inventory space, money,etc.
Was limited.
So whenever I went to buy abook I had to order it, so I had
(16:28):
to wait, I had to pay thefreight.
And here comes Bezos says well,you have to wait, we'll get it
for you.
You have to pay the freight.
Well, we'll charge you less,charge you less.
(16:50):
And then, as time passed, herecomes Amazon Prime and you're
now paying 120 or whatever it isfor the year.
So you get free freight.
Well, that restricts the numberof the audience, the market
size, to people that buy a lotof.
And then he got smart and saidwell.
And then he got smart and said,well, we'll do it with
television, we'll do it with astudio.
So I mean, all of a sudden theypermeate the whole world become
(17:12):
the largest retailer in theworld, and Walmart, which was
previously the largest retailerin the world, in North America
Gallery in French, was the samething in Europe.
Walmart said hey, wait a second.
And Sam's model was I'll carryyour product, and only your
product, as long as youguarantee me you will never have
(17:35):
my shelf be entry.
And he said but I'm going topay you when they buy it.
So he had no inventory cost,which made him the low-cost
provider, which is why Walmartbecame so successful.
Here comes Bezos, a new model,and it's now data-driven.
(18:01):
Emily, not transaction-driven,and the people that are facing
the customers.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
we've left them behind Interesting on Walmart,
though they're starting tofigure out that their data is
wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And that's causing even more issues, and I actually
have a personal story on thatone but I won't get into it on
this call.
But Walmart's data is incorrectand they knew it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, statistics was one of my majors in university.
It's amazing what you can dowith mathematical statistics not
sports and that kind of stuffBecause the size of the
transaction and the time betweenthe two transactions is a very
accurate predictor of futureactions.
(18:46):
And I talk to a lot of people,a lot of dealers, a lot of
manufacturers.
Nobody's paying any attentionto that.
So when the buying pattern of acustomer changes, it gets
longer.
You don't have the report thatgoes to anybody that says it's
happened.
George that used to buy everymonth for the last 50 years
(19:07):
hasn't bought in 60 days.
You don't know.
Nobody calls the customer, saysto themselves they don't really
care, and I think that's whereHR has become.
So your predictive interest Ithink that's wonderful.
Local control I think that'seven better because every market
(19:29):
is different and it's differentpersonalities.
But I don't know that we giveenough attention to the fact
that we're not in a staticbusiness world, that we
constantly need to be changingand improving and making it
better.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Great.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Like the people on the counter in the parts
department, answering the phone,greeting the people who walk in
.
Walk-in business is almostnon-existent anymore.
It's cheaper and easier foreverybody to work on the phone.
You don't have hardly any ofyour business come in on the
Internet and your businesssystem doesn't support it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And I think what's interesting too and to take the
phone is you have a wholegeneration that's now on the
counter.
Who's afraid of the phoneexcept for texting, except for,
like, instant messaging, likeyou said, our, our internet
capabilities.
We don't have a chat like, hey,like I.
If you put a chat and said, hey, what location are you in?
(20:40):
What are you needing?
People would be typing in allday.
You know, I need this, I needthat, can you get it for me?
You have someone on thecomputer going like, yes, I can
get that for you right now.
Here's the part, here's theorder number, everything.
It would make both partieshappy in a sense.
Um, interestingly enough, Ithink that being able to order a
(21:02):
piece of equipment I know thatthere's a lot of different
pieces to it, but the newgeneration that's coming in we
should be going hey, you can dothis like a car, here's a paver,
here's all the different modelsthat you have, here's all the
different pieces and order it,because the people on the
counter also just want to lookat the internet all day and
(21:25):
they're used to it, and so,therefore, you're generating
more work for them, and they areprobably then going to shift
their mindset to oh I can, I cando this, I can do this, I can
take control of this and make itmy own.
Uh, in a sense, because thoseguys are.
If they're not on the computer,they're on their phones, and so
(21:46):
if you give them something thatthey're comfortable with,
they're more likely to dosomething as well.
But of course, it's a balancingact right now, because we're
between two different worlds.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So that's the red-yellow, and I don't disagree
with you.
You can't have too many ofthose people because you're
going to drive everybody nuts.
But customer facing people, Iwould have a question that next
(22:17):
week, from Monday through Friday, everybody that touches a
customer would ask the samequestion.
Right, and somebody thefollowing week will be pouring
through that, coming up withthree or four conclusions out of
that of something that weshould be doing, that we're not
(22:40):
doing now and we don't do that.
A customer leaves us, you know.
An employee leaves.
We have an exit interview.
I hope.
Find out what you know.
Here we go, but a customerleaves.
We don't have that.
I would love to call the guy.
You know I used to do thispersonally in my consulting
(23:03):
business.
I did it and you know, after awhile, if you do it well, nobody
leaves.
But what did I do?
Wrong is the question you'retrying to get answered.
What was it that you wanted usto do differently?
It's not the what did I do?
You craft the question in sucha way that it's not going to be
(23:24):
slamming you or insulting you ifthey say yes, and you find out
all kinds of things, and the onethat I like the most is who are
you going to instead of us?
And they'll tell you becausethey're trying to help and what
is it you particularly likeabout dealing with that supplier
?
And whatever the hell they tellyou, then pay attention because
(23:45):
you're not giving them that.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And here's a question for you how do you, when you
ask people to do that, how doyou get around the ego?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Because I feel like that's a big one.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You know when they lose it.
When they lose a customer,they're like oh yeah, he just
was disgruntled.
I don't like working with themand instead of really kind of
being honest with why theyactually left like it was my
team, like I- need to work on it.
How do you get around that?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I have a lot of interactions with groups.
So, example I'll go intoCharlotte and I'll get the parts
, guys, and maybe once a monthI'll buy pizza and we'll talk
for an hour and a half.
And maybe once a month I'll buypizza and we'll talk for an
hour and a half.
And it's uncomfortablediscussions at the beginning
(24:39):
because they don't trust you andyou got to have trust.
And too many employees are whatI call obedient.
They do what they think theboss wants or what the boss
wants, rather than saying, well,why are we doing that?
And once you get that level ofopenness and dialogue, then the
(25:02):
ego goes away altogether.
And you're right, I'm going tobe the smartest one in the room.
I learned a valuable lesson,emily, when I was a teenager.
I'm going to be the smartestone in the room.
I learned a valuable lesson,emily, when I was a teenager.
I was a competitive swimmer andI learned very quickly that I'm
not competing with anybodyother than myself, and most
(25:24):
people are competing with othersin their workforce, which is
where the ego comes from.
I can't look bad, matter whatthe hell I can.
I'm going to suck up to thatguy because you know, whatever
it is and it's all.
It's all counterproductivestuff.
My standard illustration is theonly musician that has his back
(25:45):
to the audience is the conductor.
So look at management, look atleadership.
The conductor is going tosucceed if the leaders of each
of the sections of the orchestraare good themselves and will
make their members look betterthan themselves.
(26:07):
That's true, you know, andthat's a hard thing.
I think one of the hardesttransitions is to go from being
a doer to being a leader.
As a doer, you're completelydependent on your own
performance.
As a leader, you're dependenton other people's performance,
(26:33):
and a lot of us.
I'm one.
I'm a control freak, but youhave to learn to get over it.
And it goes back performancereviews.
It used to be a check off thebox and most often than not it
would be conducted at the sametime as we do wage and salary
review.
So you know the employees gottheir backup, but defensive as
hell and you know the boss iskind of.
I mean, it's acounterproductive experience and
(26:54):
most bosses don't want to do it, don't know how to do it.
You probably see that more thananybody.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Oh yeah.
We're about to go into it and Ialready got my helmet on and
I'm ready for the war and I'mready for the war.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
When I was still an employee and when I stood in in
certain leadership roles anddealerships, the first thing I
did was separate those twoevents.
The wage and the performancewere six months apart.
First of all, performance isdynamic.
It's got to be all the time.
It's every week, it's everyinteraction.
You got to be out on the floorwith the people, not behind a
door, and the thing this youngergeneration, they do not know
(27:36):
the jobs anymore.
They can't go out and do thejobs that they're supervising.
Now.
How the hell does that work?
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
No, that predictive index is really good.
Steve's market transactionanalysis is really good.
Our skills and knowledgeassessments are really good.
Put them together and you'vegot have decent chances
succeeding.
But the definition of each jobfunction of the personality
profile, not the skills andknowledge so much.
(28:17):
But are you open or closed?
Are you willing to exploredifferent options or are you
just shut down?
That's the end of it.
Just tell me what.
Don't confuse me.
Just tell me what to do.
I'm in Russia and working andit's the only place that ever
happened to me.
A guy who's got a master's avery smart young man.
(28:39):
He's in his thirties, he'smarried, he's got children.
I'm asking him questions likeyou know, if you could wave a
wand, what's the thing that youwould do to make your life
easier at work that would makethe company better?
He said don't.
Don't do that to me.
Just tell me what you want meto do and go away.
What kind of a life is that Imean, dear lord?
(29:00):
people like that I bet you, Ibet you, 80 plus of your
employees are like that andthat's and I think you're a
well-run company.
You know it's remarkable.
So how does a dealer who's got20 million bucks in business
(29:22):
maybe has 50 employees?
How do they survive in thisenvironment?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think at different levels of the business you have
to have different kind ofsubsets of people.
So, for example, in anenvironment like that, I would
almost consider it, you know, astartup by size in a sense,
where you have to have like alot of people who are hungry,
who are driven, who want to work, who want to change, who want
(29:51):
to innovate, and then once youget to a certain size I'd
probably say once you startgetting to probably about 75 to
100 people that's really whereyou kind of want to have some of
those worker bees who just comein, get the job done and then
you have innovators and as youjust get bigger and bigger, you
want to have more of thoseworker bees and more of those
(30:13):
individual contributors and youwill kind of want your top
legions of that I'm not legions,this is not the right word, but
your top leadership to be moreof those innovators at the top
to kind of pull the businessforward so it doesn't get
complacent.
But it's almost like you startat the bottom of the pyramid and
(30:35):
it's all the innovators andthen that kind of builds to a
smaller, smaller peak as yougrow and grow as a business.
And I really do think that'sbecause when you're at a small
company you're wearing a bunchof different hats and as you add
more people who can kind of dothat, hey, you just do this
piece of the work, hey, you justdo this piece of the work, you
(30:57):
just do this piece of the workand it works like a well-oiled
machine like BMW, for example.
You put this tire on, you putthis tire on, you put this bolt
on that tire and you put thatbolt on that tire and you put
that bolt on that tire and itworks because it flows.
And you need that when you getto be a large organization
because at a certain volume, thepeople that are dynamic and
(31:19):
innovative, they can't handleall the workload anymore because
there's just too much of it togo around, go around.
And I also think at a certainpoint when you're at startup or
small level, like it's exciting,but you probably burn people
out a whole lot more, you know,especially if they're not, you
know, engaged or you know havecertain flexibilities and things
(31:40):
like that, because in a smallerbusiness you could have more
flexibility, in a largerbusiness you can't.
So then you also need, you know, the people who show up nine to
five.
They come, they work, they gettheir thing done Great.
And then you start gettingthose innovators too and those
disruptors who need more time tothink, because now any decision
that they make is going to goacross a larger band which is
(32:02):
going to.
You have to think through thata little bit more than you could
at a smaller level, more thanyou could at a smaller level.
But I do think if you're asmall company, you need more
disruptors, and the bigger youget you need less.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It's interesting, the small business, the transition
you talked about.
I've always dealt with aninverted pyramid.
The flat line is the top andit's the biggest number of
employees, and it comes down tothe leader at the bottom, and
the role of the leader is togive the tools, the technology,
(32:36):
the training, whatever the hellthose people that are touching
the customer need, and thepeople at the top, which are the
you know that's the largestmajority.
I would you know if I couldwave a wand.
I'd assign customers toindividuals and I would say if
you ever lose a customer, I'mgetting rid of you.
(32:59):
If you keep all the customers,I'm going to reward you like you
wouldn't believe.
So I got the pain and you knowthe stick and the carrot.
But in every sales organizationthat I've ever dealt with, I've
assigned customers and saidtheir core customers.
(33:20):
There's additionals, but thesecore customers you do not lose
them, period, end of story.
They're yours and they're ours.
And the Chinese, the Japanese,taught us that in the 80s and
they kicked the hell out of us.
So gross, domestic.
Everything that we do insociety, in life, is predicated
(33:42):
on quote quote productivity.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
What is productivity?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
What is productivity?
Well, what is productivity?
Well, so look at gross domesticproduct.
The formula is very simple thesum total of all the goods and
services that are generated in acountry, divided by the number
of employees in the workforce.
And over the last 40 years atleast, probably longer.
And over the last 40 years atleast, probably longer.
(34:09):
It's a measure of how well theeconomy is going in a government
, and the governments getelected that way.
And if you want to influencethe gross domestic product, just
reduce the workforce.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And I know that's cynical, but that's exactly
what's been going on.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And so here comes robotics, here comes artificial
intelligence, here comes aproliferation of technology
changes in the last 80 years Onemajor event every decade.
And I mean we tilt, we'reoverloaded, you can't handle it,
so you give up.
I ran computer businesses.
(34:56):
I ran software companies.
At some point in the 80s Istopped trying to keep up
because it was changing so damnfast, said okay, I have to do
something else.
And today, people that arecoming in as management out of
universities I'm not sure I'dhire anybody out of a university
today.
I don't know that they.
(35:21):
You know, emily, you've got amaster's degree, right, okay,
(35:44):
okay.
So if I was to look atundergraduate degrees, I would
say that I want anybody who getsa degree to be able to be work
ready and be able to earn aliving wage.
And then you and I go look atthe universities and I bet you
we could kill 75% plus of theclasses that are in their
curriculum, absolutely.
So the university's goal is toget money.
They don't give a hoot about.
(36:05):
You know what they're doing.
My grandson, you know prettysharp kid works hard.
He's my grandson.
He's got to be perfect, right.
He wanted to be a nuclearengineer.
He applied to Purdue, which isone of the better schools in the
country.
He got accepted $350,000 for afour-year degree.
With all of his scholarships itcame down to $170,000.
(36:29):
And this kid's 17 years old,maybe five months, and we're
talking about it.
And I said well, what are yougoing to do?
He said I'm not doing that.
I'm going to go into themilitary.
I said, oh really?
He said, yeah, they have anexam.
You're probably familiar withit like and the act, and it's it
.
He said if I score high enoughon that exam, I can get into the
(36:53):
nuke program, which is a veryso he did this program he got
that.
he's in the top, I don't know.
Three percent, two percent,some.
It's an obscene number.
I just carry the luggage besidethis kid.
He's unbelievable, unbelievable.
So my daughter said, becauseevery service came for him Coast
Guard, army, air Force, marines.
She said forget the Army,forget the Marines, I'm not
(37:16):
giving them cannon fodder.
So you want to be in the Navyor the Air Force, go for it.
So he goes to the recruiter inthe Navy.
Now this guy is six months awayfrom his 18th birthday and he
goes and says I want to enlistwhen I graduate from high school
.
And he's got a 4.0 GPA, I meanthere's nothing wrong anywhere.
(37:40):
And they say, oh, that'sterrific, let's fill out the
forms.
He said no, no, no, you don'tunderstand.
I will enlist in the Navy ifyou get me in the new program.
So he did so February.
He's now 19.
His birthday is the 1st of July.
(38:06):
So let's say 19 and a half.
He'll have a nuclearengineering degree and an
astrophysics degree at noexpense.
So now I look at the counter, Ilook at the warehouse, I look at
kids coming in in the summer asinterns or whatever, and we
don't try and challenge them tolearn what they're good at and
(38:27):
give them an option as to whattheir life could be like, and I
think we lose a lot of oomphthat way.
I would deal with guidancecounselors, like right now, and
you know we used to have peopleone year before they graduated
undergraduate or master's andthe youngest manager would lead
(38:50):
them and we'd have, depending onthe size of the company in the
year, anywhere from six to 18 ofthem a year, two different
companies, and I was theyoungest and I led those guys in
the first month and, gals, Iput them on the warehouse floor
picking parts and putting partsaway dirty work, physical work,
sweaty, sweaty work, hard workand I'd lose a third of them in
that first month.
The rest of them, if theystayed, we'd bounce them around
(39:15):
a bunch of different things,expose them to a bunch of
different things, so that theycould and we'd offer them a job
when they graduated If they cameback to us.
We put them on an 18-monthprogram three months in each
department actually doing work,part service, sales, rentals,
finance, five, so that's 15months, and the last three
(39:38):
months were the ones yourfavorite, so that you could go
back and, you know, really findout if that's what you're.
So and and we did that at thecaterpillar dealer in british
columbia when I arrived in 78.
And we did that at theCaterpillar dealer in British
Columbia and when I arrived in78, we had 53 stores Every
branch manager, every departmentmanager, had come into the
(39:59):
company that way.
Now you talk about a culturethat's hard to break, and almost
all those people were red andyellow.
It was really weird becausealmost every day they'd be out
on the floor saying, geez, can'twe do that better?
Isn't there another way wecould do that?
Why don't you think about that?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Didn't Bill Gates say , or was it?
No, it was not Bill Gates, itwas.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Steve Jobs probably.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Steve Jobs, who said the best people to hire are the
laziest because they'll find away to get the job done faster.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Well, I've always said everybody wants to do a
good job, everybody can do morethan they think they can, and
everybody is fundamentally lazy,and I think that's a positive
attribute, because they're goingto find the best way to do it,
absolutely.
You know the difference betweeneffective and efficient.
Efficient is doing things well,effective is doing the right
things.
I'd rather effectiveness ratherthan efficiency.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I will actually say probably it's the lazy.
It's the laziness in us, butthe disruptor in us that
actually creates the shortcut,because you have the worker bees
who do come in and they'll dothe work, but they're not going
to they're not going to find abetter way to do it, they know
how to do it, they're not goingto change it, they're just going
to do it.
They're not going to find abetter way to do it, they know
how to do it, they're not goingto change it, they're just going
(41:15):
to do it.
And then you're going to havethose disruptors who are going
what's a quicker, faster way toget this done?
So I can go back to my dailylife.
And I do think that if we haveenough of, if an organization
and this is, I think, going tobe the next struggle in the
coming performance kind of warsis going, especially with AI,
you know we can get things donefaster.
(41:36):
We can get them done with morepower.
What happens if we gave peoplemore time?
If we gave people more time, doyou think they would be able to
think about new creative ideas,or have the time to think about
new creative ideas and actuallybe more of a disruptor than if
they just sat behind a desk allday and said you know what?
(41:58):
I'm just I'm gonna go in, getout, move on with my life, got
other things to do.
Do you think they would they?
Speaker 1 (42:06):
would have more time to be creative a good group.
A good number of people would,but the problem is most people
aren't oriented that way.
We've been taught to beobedient, and obedience doesn't
lead to thinking.
Obedience leads to.
You know, we've got roboticstoday.
(42:27):
They just breathe and haveblood in their bodies and you
know, when you look at the bigcompanies and the fact that we
have to automate things, whatyou're going to do is robotics
are going to replace a wholebunch of people and you know
it's kind of.
This is a little bit off toppingdown, but we've spent hundreds
(42:48):
of trillions of dollars ontechnology and almost zero on
sociology.
Hundreds of trillions ofdollars on technology and almost
zero on sociology.
So how does society work when75 million people are at work
getting income and 225 millionpeople are not?
Will they go back to school?
Will we give them a living wage?
(43:09):
How does society operate inthat environment?
What happens to your psyche?
You know your self-worth, yourself-esteem.
You know it's really weird.
So if you weren't doing whatyou're doing, if you weren't
involved in culture and employeedevelopment and human relations
(43:30):
, what do you think you'd wantto do?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
employee development and human relations.
What do you think you'd want todo?
So that's actually a reallygood question.
So I always wanted to be anarchitect or mechanical engineer
, and the sole purpose for that,if I distill it down, is design
.
I am a creative, so I love todesign, whether that's interior
(43:53):
design or whether that's like Iwant it to be, an imaginary
Disney world.
So I wanted to build rollercoasters, but it wasn't really
the building of the rollercoaster, it was more of the OK,
we have this theme on the rollercoaster like here's what we
need to make it magical, here'swhat we have to put here to like
really catch people's eyesmagical.
(44:15):
Here's what we have to put hereto like really catch people's
eyes.
And so I, I think I would goback to school or I would tell
my past self to go intoarchitecture and design work and
go, go, do that, because I andI I do it for my friends.
Now they actually call me soafter work if I go to a friend's
house, or I have a guy friendwho just bought his first house,
(44:36):
so he's like I don't have agirlfriend help me decorate, so
I just find things for him andsend it to his house and you
know, tell him where to put itand he, you know, decorate so um
.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
I enjoy that so that goes back to performance reviews
.
In my view, on steroids, that'sa person who understands that
there's a gap in their knowledgeand understanding and they look
around and find somebody thatcan help them to fill that gap,
and I think that's where societyis going to go.
(45:08):
But boy, oh boy, it's going tobe like I'm not going to see it.
It takes too long.
My example all the time is 1880, the steam engine was replaced
by an electric engine andeverybody changed to the
electric engine because it wascost effective.
But it took a generation, 20years, before the electric
(45:38):
engine had processes that weredesigned to take advantage of
them.
And then I come forward to 1950with the arrival of the computer
in society and to monumental inthe way of a change Cell phone,
Amazon, AI, data dictionaries,all this stuff, the internet,
(46:03):
and I think we've scared a wholebunch of people.
So now the younger generationmy granddaughter's, 23, just got
her master's smart, the samething as her brother, and she
says you know, Poppy, we have ageneration we call it quiet
quitting.
I said what the hell is that?
We only do as much work as isnecessary to get our check and
(46:28):
we go home and do what we wantto do so.
They use work and income as avehicle to enable them to do the
things they really want to do,and your generation is older
than my granddaughter.
My generation is older thanyours and my granddaughter is
probably going to have seven oreight careers over her lifetime.
I basically had two and youwere probably going to have
(46:50):
three or four Careers not jobs,careers and wouldn't it be
wonderful if you did that designwork.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
It would be.
You know, it would be really,really interesting.
There's so much you can do withit.
I think that, and I think formost people too, the scary
except for the youngergeneration, because they have
nothing left to lose, like we.
Actually, we have an employeewho just left and was going to
(47:21):
move to a totally differentstate and start over and do
something new, and I was likethat's really exciting.
I wish I could do that, but atthis point you know it's more,
you know you have less to lose.
I guess, when you're younger,maybe or maybe that's just that
generation and our, mygeneration is kind of somewhere
between we were taught to work,we were taught how to work, and
(47:43):
also we were also taught to liveour dreams.
And it's a rock and a hardplace which is Do we go and do
that?
Do we go and do that?
What if it doesn't work out?
What happens?
You know, because we're still,I think our generation will be
easier to get to hire, becauseif you have a gap in your resume
, we're like, yeah, it's okay,like can you actually just do
the work, we're cool with it?
(48:04):
And the generation ahead of usis like, no, you have a gap in
your resume.
You've jumped all over theplace like we can't hire you,
you'll never stay, and so itsaid, currently it's one of
those.
Our generation will probablymiss out on a lot of different
opportunities because we weretoo and myself included too
afraid to go and pursue thembecause you're, you know, a your
(48:25):
work is your purpose, and thenb, you're like I'm gonna go
pursue something.
I have no idea how to do it orwhat to do, and that's fine and
all well and good.
But there's also so many otherpeople doing the exact same
thing and so much out there likehow do I even start?
What do I do?
Like I don't, I still havebills to pay, I might have kids,
(48:48):
like those types of things.
So it's this almost maybe whenwe're older and and we can and
we will, you know, and I'm proudof this younger generation, in
a way, it's it's annoying andfrustrating, but that's also how
, with all this ai andeverything they're going, all
this is going to be obsolete.
We got to find a new wayforward and I'm proud of them
for doing that, because they are, they are thinking about it the
(49:10):
right way.
What?
What's the new way forward?
Because a job like HR kind oflike we said it really could be
either AI driven, with, you know, a human element to it.
Ai driven in the sense thatthere's a lot of technology out
there.
You upload your handbook andthe employee can go what is the
PTO policy?
And it spits it out.
(49:31):
What is my PTO balance?
And it spits it out.
But is my PTO balance?
And it spits it out.
But then you have that onehuman element that really could
be more of a contractor, like myjob will probably end up being
more of a contractor, because Icould go hey, let me go look up
your handbook.
Okay, this is the rules.
Okay, well, let's kind of playthe situation from a legal
(49:52):
standpoint and we can kind ofhandle the people.
But you need less of us andmore technology, where my role
will essentially not be obsoletebecause you still need the
people side of it.
But it will be different, itwill be much different in the
future.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, what's also interesting is when you cut to
the other end, and it'sretirement time.
People retire without havingsomething to retire to, and when
they stop work, they completelylose their identity.
That's very true, you know.
I say this to everybody.
(50:30):
What would you do if youweren't afraid?
And those folks that areretiring, they're scared to
death and today not very many ofthem can afford to live on
their Social Security or theirpension because they don't plan
things.
So it's interesting.
I've enjoyed this discussion.
(50:52):
We've covered a fair amount ofground.
Have we missed anything majorfrom your perspective?
Speaker 2 (51:14):
period that there's just so many what ifs and so
many.
What could we do and how couldwe do it?
That I don't think that there'sa right or wrong answer.
I just think that you know,kind of like with COVID, you you
kind of take it by the hornsand you you have to wrestle with
it and figure it out, andthat's kind of what we're going
to have to do in this next fewyears.
But I think I mean overall, Ithink we just have to meet
people where they are too.
As a business, we have to.
(51:35):
Also, we as a business have tolook at ourselves and go are we
doing the right thing for thecustomer and for our employees?
If not, how do we make it?
so we can, because I do thinkthat'll be.
I think everyone's gettingtired of the technology and all
of this, but if you can maketheir lives easier, like United,
thank you.
(51:56):
United Shout out to United.
You have made the customerservice portal so much easier,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm going to do a wrap as ifI was driving this thing and
thank you for your participationand thank you for everybody
who's listening, and I lookforward to having another candid
conversation with you in thenear future.
Mahalo, and that's the end ofthe recording as far as what I'm
going to use, but don't leavethe design dream too long.
(52:31):
How old are you now?
33.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Say now 33.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Say again 33.
The guy that was the head ofpsychology at McGill University
when I was there in the 60sPenfield was his name.
He said at the age of 50, Ithink it's younger today.
You should change your career,not just change your job, change
(52:56):
your career Completelydifferent.
You'll extend your life by 10years Because you get
re-energized.
And we don't realize how much ofa rut we fall into.
And at 33, hell, you're young,it's, it's wonderful, but you
know you're in a rut.
Yeah, but you, you've still gotmore to contribute, to grant
(53:23):
into the company, you know.
So if I was your boss, I'd youknow.
This is fine, I might haveseven years if I'm lucky, but I
would start talking with you nowabout what's your next step and
if design is part of it.
What I would suggest to you iswhy don't you take a couple of
(53:45):
classes on marketing?
I think the design andintellectual challenges there
might appeal to you.
Don't know, just you know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I have I, you know I almost got my master's degree in
marketing, isn't?
Speaker 1 (54:01):
that something when I was looking at master's degrees
.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
So you are.
You are not wrong.
I actually I don't know ifGrant showed you any of the
things I've created, and so I'veused the AI Canva, which is
very intuitive, it's kind oflike and I've created like a
packet.
So all of our new hires now geta summarized packet of
everything you need to know.
On day one.
They have all this informationeverywhere, but it's just the
(54:26):
condensed, colorful, summarizedcatalog of all the things you
need to know.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
So what I would?
I don't know if you do this,but after an employee has been
there three to six months, I'dhave lunch with them and say
okay, you've been here thislength of time, you've still got
fresh eyes.
What do we do?
That's absolutely stupid andyou'd be amazed what they tell
you.
Stupid and you'd be amazed whatthey tell you.
(54:56):
Okay, so you got to promise meyou will send me the recording.
I will send you the recordingright now, okay, and I will
thank you very much and I willleave you be and I'll get on
with my day too.
I got to figure out whathappened with Zoom, because
Microsoft are very devious onhow they do this.
Ibm was the same way.
(55:17):
They're all like that.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
And I'm not sure if it's not on our end, because
anyone else who sends me Zoom,it's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Really.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So I don't know if it's not on our end.
I know Paul, I had Paul wasgoing to talk with Portugal and
just see if there was something.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
There must be a firewall then that they're using
, because I had a Zoom meetingyesterday.
I do them all the time.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, I used to not have problems getting them, and
then all of a sudden we kind ofswitched some things around, and
it's not just you, it's anyonethat sends me a Zoom, I'm like,
send it to me in the emailbecause it's still not coming
through.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I I feel better now believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, yeah it's not you, it's me yeah, no, it's us.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
It's us, not you or me.
But anyways, thank you verymuch and I look forward to the
recording and I'll send you someof the transcriptions I get out
of it so you can see what itdoes.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Sounds great.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Be good, this is Shaka baby, see you.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Thanks, no-transcript .
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