September 28, 2023 • 39 mins
"The sole measures of success for an HR team, as far as I'm concerned , is, how good are you at knowing where the push and where the pull is?"
Bob Creviston is an avid storyteller who recounts his progression from football player at Cornell to Chief of HR at Agiliti Health, a world leader in Medical Equipment Management. His employee-focused leadership style and diligence in addressing challenges has made a lasting impact on his employees, business, and even countries’ labor laws.
In this episode we cover:
- Breaking down what the push and pulls are in HR and how balancing it affects overall business success
- What’s the single best leadership advice Bob ever received that he still uses today
- An example of condensing leadership onboarding processes from 6 months to 4 hours.
- How COVID impacted Agiliti, responsible for supplying respirators across the nation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Dardis (00:03):
everyone has a story that's shaped them.
People make it possible is acareer growth podcast focused on
inspiring stories fromsuccessful business leaders.
This podcast is meant forexecutives and professionals
looking to invest in themselves.
In this podcast, we willchallenge the assumptions behind
climbing the traditionalcorporate ladder and explore
pivotal stories that shape usall in our unique journeys.
(00:27):
Let's explore why it's peoplewho make it past.
Chris (00:32):
Hi everyone.
I'm Chris and welcome back toanother episode of people make
it possible.
Today, I'm here with maybe oneof the greatest storytellers
I've ever met.
Bob is currently the chief humanresources officer at agility
health.
And we'll hear a little bitabout it from Bob, but agility
is a medical equipmentmanagement company that helps
(00:53):
hospitals and health systemsaddress.
Various challenges.
So welcome Bob.
Thanks Chris.
It's good to have you here.
We've known each other for gosh,maybe about seven, eight years.
I'd say
Bob (01:05):
closer to
Chris (01:05):
probably nine.
That's great.
And we've And we've partnered asclient.
We've partnered as soundingboard for each other and that
sort
Bob (01:14):
of thing.
Chris (01:14):
So, you said you'd moved here.
We'll get into your career, buta little bit, but, but first
off, I always like to delve intomaybe childhoods of.
Of a lot of our guests.
So you grew up.
Born in Wisconsin.
Is that right?
Bob (01:27):
No, I was actually born in Kettering, Ohio.
Okay.
My dad worked for NCR at thetime.
In Dayton.
And then I think when I was 2,2, 2, 3 ish, we moved to a
Cedarburg Wisconsin, which was.
2020 minutes outside ofMilwaukee, just north Milwaukee.
So my dad went to work forSchlitz.
Brewing company at the time.
And we lived there until I was15.
(01:50):
And then we moved to battleCreek, Michigan, where he was at
Kellogg's.
Okay.
And then I went to college inIthaca.
New York came back to the kid orIllinois.
Went from Decatur to Chicago,Chicago to Minneapolis.
So when somebody asks me whereI'm from, my usual answer is I'm
just from the Midwest.
Chris (02:08):
Yeah.
And you've been everywhere inthe Midwest.
So what was dad's role atSchlitz and at Keller?
Bob (02:13):
My dad ended up being the head of HR.
Hedge slits.
He started as a HR directorcoming out of NCR.
And then at Kellogg's he was thechief human resource officer for
Chris (02:24):
18 years.
Okay.
Okay.
Very good.
Was that your influence to getinto HR or has it always been
not at all really?
Not
Bob (02:31):
at all.
I would love to say with somebig grants, if not at all, not
at all.
In fact.
Very rarely did he and I talkabout.
That kind of stuff like work oreven any of that guys.
I got some of it, I think,through osmosis.
Yeah, hanging out at parties andstuff, but yeah.
Very rarely was that aconversation?
So
Chris (02:48):
can you pinpoint what made you, because you kind of
glossed if it can be your goodCornell, your Alma mater is one
of the greatest human capitalschools in our nation.
So what, what pointed you inthat direction?
Bob (03:02):
Being good at football.
Okay.
I happen to be able to hitpeople just a little harder than
other people.
So I I had a lot ofopportunities that came my way.
My senior year.
It was different back then,right?
I mean, this is ancient history,but back in the eighties, they
didn't recruit you when you werea sophomore like they do now.
Right.
I mean, they really didn't startrecruiting until you were a
(03:24):
senior.
And a lot of times, not evenuntil December, January of your
senior year.
So.
I got sick.
My senior year, I was, I was agood football blur, and I was
getting recruited by a number ofdifferent schools.
I'd been accepted by all the big10 schools.
I.
Had applied to most of the midAmerican conference schools.
So, you know, the centralMichigan's all state, Miami of
(03:46):
Ohio, all those kinds ofschools.
Which really ticked my dad off.
Cause I think it was 20 bucksper application.
But I got sick.
My senior year of high school.
I got sick, like about January20th, which is my birthday.
And didn't go back to schooluntil the middle of March.
And so I missed all of therecruiting.
Like all the scholarships weregone.
(04:07):
At a number of places that weregoing to give me partials or
wanted me to walk on, but Imissed everything.
And then that's when the Ivyleague schools come in and it's
when the division three schoolscome in because they don't have
scholarships.
Ivy league can't provideathletic scholarships.
So.
Cornell was banging at my door.
Princeton.
Columbia university ofPennsylvania.
(04:29):
And I did a couple trips andfrankly, I just, I love the
Cornell campus.
It's one of the prettiest placesin the U S.
Which you would never think ofit being in New York, but that
finger lakes region in New Yorkis spectacular.
And I knew I couldn't go toschool in a big city.
Philadelphia was out in New Yorkcity.
Well, I would have nevergraduated.
I'd still be in school.
(04:49):
When I applied.
I actually really didn't knowwhat I was applying to.
So the ILR school.
Was one of the, one of the onesthat they recommended based upon
kind of my high school classesand where I was successful
English and that kind of stuff.
And so I applied there and I gotin and I understood what it was,
but I don't understand how hardit was to get in.
(05:10):
So they get something like23,000 applicants every year.
And they take 300 people.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, it's so it's crazy.
It's if you knew my high schoolcrew, you'd say it's really
crazy.
I got.
But when it came down toselecting school.
I sat down with my dad.
And to your point about Cornell.
(05:31):
When we were you know, fishingthrough it all, I looked at him
and I said, What can I just bean idiot to not go to the top
school in the world?
If I got in.
Like, even if I didn't want todo it at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Wouldn't I be an idiot to notgo.
And my dad being my dad lookedat me and said pretty much.
(05:53):
Yep.
That's pretty much the answer,but your choice, you.
They'll do what you want to do.
And and so that was all I gotthere and had no idea if I was
going to, like, it had no ideaif that was ultimately going to
be the career path.
Yeah.
If you know anything about theCornell ILR school, you know
that about 85% of the kids thatgo in and up at the law school
of their choice.
Which is the big impetus forpeople to go to Cornell.
(06:15):
Hi alarm because they get intoHarvard law.
They get into university ofPennsylvania.
I mean, they get in whereverthey want to go.
And there's very, very few.
I mean, if you think about 300kids, you could about 45 that
actually go into the workforce.
Everybody else is going to lawschool.
So it's I was one of the 45, Iguess.
Chris (06:34):
Wow.
I had not known that that wasthe path there.
Yeah, that's great.
And so did you end up playingfootball for them,
Bob (06:41):
played for a year and then tore my shoulder up and had
surgery of a screw in myshoulder.
I never was able to get the fullrange of motion back.
And so I hung up football tobecome a semi-serious student.
Chris (06:53):
Okay.
Very good.
And you've made it through andyou're ILR.
Education has clearly paiddividends in your career based
on some of the companies thatyou've worked for, one of my
favorite.
Stories is.
Some of the things that happenedto you when you were VP of HR at
waste management.
Like me being an avid golfer.
I hear waste management.
I immediately think of thetournament.
(07:15):
And what a party atmosphere thatis.
But tell me a little bit of anysort of.
Labor relations stories well ata
Bob (07:23):
waste management.
So when I went to wastemanagement, there was actually a
pivotal time in my career.
Where I was, I actually had madea choice of pivoting away from
labor relations and more towardsHR.
Okay.
So I had HR responsibility for.
Basically what I'll call theWestern Pennsylvania border to
(07:44):
the Eastern Colorado border.
But I only really had laborresponsibility for so I was
setting the strategy for Canadafor the most part.
Okay, but it was mostly handledout of our legal department in
Houston.
Chris (07:57):
Okay.
It was.
Yeah.
Just backing up.
I'm coming out of Cornell andfirst role out of school.
What was your welcome to HRmoment?
Do you have something thathappened to you where you didn't
know if you had the experienceto take it on, but you have to
do it.
Bob (08:13):
So when I graduated from Cornell, I went to work for my
mom.
Because she had bought a bar inlake Tomahawk, Wisconsin.
And she closed on that bar aboutthe same day I graduated.
So I drove from Ethica, NewYork, the lake Tomahawk,
Wisconsin, and worked in thatbar all summer long.
And at the end of the summer, Ionly have two letters in my
(08:34):
life.
I wish I'd kept.
Only two.
And one was a letter from arecruiter, which is a thought,
I'll tell you that story anothertime.
But the other was a letter frommy dad that summer.
I get a letter from my dad whileI'm living above a bar running
my mom's bar.
On the night shift.
And the letter is very simple.
(08:55):
It says I did not pay for yourCornell education for you to run
your mom's bar.
They'll get an F and chop.
Chris (09:02):
You don't have that anymore.
I wish I had
Bob (09:04):
known that.
I do not have that letter.
But it was, yeah, he's got thisbig flowing script that it was
on his, on his Kellogg'sletterhead.
And I was like, ah, man, I wishI still had that letter.
But I went down the Rhinelanderand I went to the standard and
Poor's 100 and I had a hundredresumes and a hundred cover
letters, and I sent it to the Sand P 100 HR people.
And out of that 100, I got tworesponses.
(09:26):
One from Monsanto and one fromArcher Daniels, Midland.
Monsanto, never responded again.
ADM brought me down for aninterview of three weeks later.
I had a job.
Okay.
So.
Only by the grace of God.
I have no idea.
I didn't know anybody there.
My dad actually didn't knowanybody there.
Unlike, you know, he knew peoplebecause of his position at
(09:46):
Kellogg's.
Yeah.
He knew people all over theplace.
ADM didn't really play in thatworld.
Yeah.
Even though they supplied thatworld.
So it was an interesting job.
To this day.
I have no idea.
What they saw that got me hired.
And you talking about peopletaking chances on you.
They had a labor relationfunction.
That was six guys.
(10:09):
One of them was 29.
The rest of them were 54.
Yeah.
And one of them was actually 64and he was getting ready to
retire.
And that's who I was coming into backfill.
He was going to retire in thenext 18 months.
And so they wanted somebody tocome in and start from the
ground floor and.
ADM was a fascinating place towork.
It was hyper aggressive growingquickly.
(10:31):
Really forward-thinking when itcame to labor relations in a way
that probably 85, 90% of theother companies in the country
are not.
And they rolled the dice on meand I, I did nothing but carry
people's bags.
Take notes.
Schedule travel.
I was at everybody's whim fortwo years before I did anything.
(10:52):
And there's not many places totake number one to take the time
to do that.
Yeah.
But then when they said go forthand do good things, they threw
me and stuff.
I was like, are you kidding?
You're gonna let me do this.
This is crazy.
I mean, I was down in 30.
Sorry on Mexico.
Closing a deal on a flour mill.
With.
Eight eight Mexicans, I don'teven speak Spanish, you know,
and I'm sitting down there andtrying to figure out how we're
(11:14):
working this deal.
I mean, the one thing afteranother, there was a lot of
years where I spent more timeoutside the U S that I did
inside the U S.
And and it was all traveled to.
The Caribbean islands, centralAmerica, Canada, you know, all
in that range.
But it was, there was a lot oftimes.
(11:34):
I thought to myself, oh, how areyou getting yourself out of this
one?
It wasn't always so obvious.
There was actually two things Idid in that period of time.
That caused countries to changetheir labor laws.
Chris (11:49):
Two things that you
Bob (11:51):
read.
Two things.
I was a part of the, give me anexample.
In Canada, different provinceshave different laws regarding
strike replacements.
And, Quebec, currently, the lawis something like you can't use,
Supervisors or strikereplacements from outside of the
building of the strike.
So if you have, if this buildingis on strike and I've got five
(12:14):
supervisors here, I can usethose five supervisors to work
during a strike during a laborstrike, but I can't bring in a
supervisor from a building inOttawa or I can't bring a
supervisor from Toronto orWinnipeg.
It's got to be in the buildingthat's actually on strike.
Well, that wasn't the case.
Back when we had a very, veryvisible strike in Montreal.
(12:39):
We had just bought two flowers.
We bought all of Robyn hits,flour mills, but there were two
of them in Montreal.
One of them is both of themstill operate, but one of them
is actually a national monument.
Five roses flour, if you're everin Montreal, if you see that
sign, that's actually the flourmill.
And that flour mill went out onstrike.
And we brought in about 80people to run that facility.
(13:01):
And we ran it at a hundredpercent capacity, but they'd be
people.
Wow.
And so when they came, when theywent out with two 20, they came
back with way less than 220jobs.
And and if you know, Montrealor, you know, Quebec at all, you
will know that that did not setwell.
With the government.
And so they literally changedthe labor laws so that you can't
do that anymore.
(13:22):
That situation because of
Chris (13:23):
that situation.
Wow.
Well, I should say that facilityplayed a part in changing the
law.
I don't know if it was actuallythe final decision or not, but
it absolutely played a role.
Well, now you find yourself you're you're at
agility.
You were brought into agility asuniversal hospital services.
Yep.
That's correct.
(13:43):
You have seen a tremendousamount of change.
It's not just been, the name haschanged.
Talk a little bit about.
When you landed there to now.
What are some of the things thatyou're most proud of
accomplishing?
Bob (13:55):
You know, it's been a, it's been an interesting ride.
So I've been there 10 years.
When I came in.
It was a.
Original CEO.
He transitioned out after about18 months.
Okay.
We had these, the chairman was aCEO for about call it six
months, seven months.
Tom Leonard came in as thesecond CEO and that's really
(14:17):
when the change started tohappen.
And that was really getting backto what do we do really well?
How do we get rid of the stuffwe don't do?
Well.
And how do we get people focusedon the mission?
Yeah, it was, it's always been acompany of.
What I will call mission.
We lost it for a while.
When I first joined theorganization, I would say that
(14:38):
it was, it was in the phases ofgetting lost.
And part of it was because whenyou start to panic, Crazy stuff
happens.
Yeah.
You know, you start doing sillythings.
You start trying stuff.
You probably shouldn't try.
It was really not in a placethat it was moving forward.
In fact, I would have told youit was moving backward.
Chris (14:56):
And you're you're and you're talking about from a
revenue,
Bob (14:59):
from a growth.
I'm talking about all of theabove.
Yeah, right.
So it was really going backward.
And.
Tom came in and he just narrowedthe focus and he said, let's go
get the things we do reallywell.
Let's focus in the areas that weknow we can win.
And then let's grow byacquisition.
Which is what we've done.
So he took the business from 420million ish to 1.2 billion.
(15:23):
Over the last six years, sevenyears.
And it's been mostly by, youknow, there's been organic
growth embedded in there, butwe've had significant
acquisitions that we've donealong the way.
To really impact how thebusiness looks and.
Historically where we focused orwhere the business was focused
before.
(15:43):
Was what we call our Pete kneerental business.
So it's hospitals renting orleasing equipment to supplement
their own equipment.
So if you think about Pope, it'sa great example where hospital
only has X amount ofrespirators.
But they need Y.
Right.
So we would be the Delta inbetween.
And that was historically areally good business for us and
(16:05):
something that the old business,the UHS business.
Who wasn't solving for?
When that business starts toslow down?
How do you close that gap?
What are other things, are youdoing to make sure that you can
continue to grow?
And so the things that TomLeonard.
Layered in over the last fewyears are all businesses that
are not peak need.
(16:26):
Rental relevant it's surgicalrepair business, which I didn't
even know was a thing until webought it.
But that was a thing.
It's growing the surgicalservices business.
it's expanding into diagnosticimaging doing some of those
things that are not theequipment relevant.
And then we've made a purchaseof a company called size-wise,
which was one of the majormanufacturing.
(16:48):
Companies for bets andmattresses meet.
Chris (16:51):
Okay.
So a lot of peripheralbusinesses that.
It'll add to that.
Additional revenue growth.
Bob (16:57):
And it places that hopefully that you can buy and
then fold into your currentinfrastructure.
Right.
That's where you get the
Chris (17:03):
synergies.
You mentioned respirators talkabout.
The respirators business, whenCOVID hits the off from your
seat, what did.
Real quick story.
What did you guys see?
Well,
Bob (17:14):
we sold out.
I mean, our, our, our shelveswere empty.
Right?
I mean, there wasn't, therewasn't enough respirators.
This is why the government wascommissioning.
You know, general motors to gobuild respirators, which by the
way, are.
I'm sitting in a cornersomewhere collecting dust
because they never reallyworked.
But it's sorry.
General motors.
(17:35):
It's it was, it was panic,right?
I mean, it was mayhem.
I mean, they couldn't get ityet.
We had hospitals who wanted totake all one hospital system,
wanted to take all of ourrespirators that we had on the
entire east coast.
That was the order.
We want all of your respiratorsand, There are some companies
that would have done that.
Right.
There are some companies thatwould've said, okay.
Well, we're sold out.
Good.
(17:55):
It's all yours.
That wasn't, that's not the waywe run the way we think about
the business.
And it, you we know we have anobligation to the entire system,
not just a customer when itcomes to something, national
impact like that.
So we managed to keep everybodyhappy.
Get the respirators out, getthings moved around as COVID
(18:17):
tended to hit much like the fluand a lot of cases, it moved
across the country east to west,which is you think about the flu
every year.
That's exactly how it goes.
And so we could move things eastthe west and moderately, keep up
with it.
I mean, it was the, the demandwas way, much more than the
supply.
The best we could.
But I mean, it was, it was crazyfor two years.
Chris (18:39):
Wow.
Well, let's get a little intophilosophies that you have as a
human capital leader.
I know a number of theindividuals on your team.
I may or may not have asked themto to give me a little insight.
And quite frankly, like, what Ihear is you're very employee
focused.
Very employee centric, where youever vary what they say.
(19:00):
you have a very good pulse onwhat is needed from your people.
Share with me.
If you would, any lesson thatyou had in your career as to why
that needs to be a focus or whatdeveloped that passion in you?
Bob (19:13):
You know, an interesting thing happens when you're
sitting at the bargaining tableall the time.
Right.
I'll just tell you, there was afew things early in my career.
That happened.
And there's one that I justalways come back to for this
conversation.
So I was sitting in Galesburg,Michigan.
Alright, I'm sorry, Galesburg.
Illinois.
And it was soybean plant and nota huge plant, you know, maybe 30
(19:35):
people, 35 people.
But it's an old plant.
They'd probably been there.
40 years.
And we were in bargaining andgot all through bargaining and
it had been a pretty rough go.
I was doing some takeaways andthis was probably in my first
five or six contracts I evernegotiated.
And it was with the AmericanFederation grain Millers at the
(19:56):
time, which doesn't exist today.
But the business agent wasn'tdoing a lot of the talking, the
local union president who was aguy named red.
And I don't remember rent's lastname cause I didn't have to
because his name was.
But we got all done.
You know what?
I'm sitting there I'm probably24 at this point, maybe 23 even,
and I'm sitting there and he'sat least 58.
Like he's to me at 24, he'sancient.
(20:18):
Right.
I.
And he looks at me and goes.
You know, I just want to say,thank you.
And I'm thinking.
I just took away.
You're punching.
I just took.
You know, I just added cost toyour benefits.
I gave you The 15 cent increase.
And.
He goes.
I just want to thank you.
And I said before, and he goes,I've done every one of these
(20:40):
contracts for the last 30 years.
And you are the only person I'veever sat down with that.
I thought, listen.
And I thought.
That's that's a good thing toknow.
That's great.
Right.
And I'll be honest with you,Chris.
I don't do.
Anything more than that.
That's your comment aboutemployee focused.
(21:02):
I'm happy to listen.
Right.
And it's amazing the things youlearn when you shut your mouth
and you actually hear whatpeople are saying.
And not, you're not formulatingthe answer is they're saying it.
Yeah, just sit back.
I just empty my head and I justlistened.
Chris (21:18):
I really appreciate that.
And I also appreciate that.
When you said, shut your mouthand listen, you aren't afraid to
open your mouth and challengewhen needed.
So my question is this, arethere any Misconception or
approaches.
That are typical within ourindustry.
That you would debunk.
(21:38):
Either from an HR perspective ora leadership perspective.
Bob (21:42):
Unfortunately thinking around HR, there's probably more
that I could validate.
You know, it's, I think one ofthe challenges for HR.
Is finding that place.
Were They're adding value andnot worrying about their job.
So it's, how do you challenge ina way, how do you make a
difference and challenge in away that you're not worried
about?
(22:02):
Are they going to walk you outthe next day?
Because generally speaking, andthis is not every company, but
generally speaking.
HR is, is is a cost center.
Right.
I mean, it's, it's where peoplego to.
In some cases because they don'thave any other home for them.
And I hate to say that, but we,you see that more times than not
in a lot of cases.
And what I've found is that.
(22:24):
Where you have really good HRpeople.
You create am I talked to myteam about this.
What are we doing?
That's creating a poll.
Paul what's the pole, right?
So the organization is pullingyou into things.
We need more of this.
If you're listening well, youcan figure out where that pole
(22:45):
is and you can build on it.
If we're always having to pushleadership trainings, a great
example, right?
If I have to push leadershiptraining all the time.
Leadership trainings on beingeffective.
Right.
Cause if it was being effective,people would want more of it.
That's one of the sole measuresof success, as far as I'm
concerned for an HR team.
(23:05):
How good are you at knowingwhere the pole and where the
push is?
Look, there's some things youhave to push.
You have to do compliancetraining.
You don't want to get, nobodywants to do it.
I get it.
You don't have any choice socks,socks, right?
I get it.
But there's a whole bunch ofthings that we do.
That if you were getting calledinto the meeting because they
are asking you in, not becauseyou're barging in.
(23:27):
You're not breaking down thedoor.
That's that's where the pole is.
And you know, you say debunk themyth.
The myth is that never happens.
Right.
That's the myth.
I can point you to 10 thingsthat we do that every day people
want more of.
And that's that happens on everyHR team.
I don't think HR people arereally good at identifying that
(23:50):
or knowing how to build on that.
And that's probably thechallenge.
Chris (23:55):
Yeah.
You talked about the individual.
When you were young that said, Iwant to thank you for listening.
So that wasn't necessarilyadvice, but that was something
that you said on.
This is somebody found value inthis.
I'm going to do this more, buthow about from a strict advice
standpoint, whether it be.
From your mom late at night whenyou were closing the bar.
(24:16):
Or your all man, you better getan African job.
What is some advice that hasstuck with you and remained true
throughout your career?
Bob (24:25):
So I have three things that I fall back on it and read was
one of them.
And I always think of it as Ihave some advice that was at me.
And some advice that was to me.
Okay.
My very first day of work.
Like literally day one incorporate America.
Dale Benson, who was.
Head of employee relations.
(24:46):
So.
Dale had been there since 1946,he came off a battleship.
And the Japanese corridor.
Was a gunnery mate.
So he's deaf good leg, twohearing aids.
I you'd swear.
He had a button in his pocketthat when the conversation was
over, those hearing aids wouldjust start the whistle.
And he couldn't hear anythingand they start wandering around
(25:06):
and that the conversation wasdone.
So he calls me into his officeand he's sitting there.
And it's one of those officesituations where there's no
cattle walls, right.
It's just this.
So there's right outside of hisarea, right outside of his
office.
He had the only office, therewas a line of.
Four dusks here.
(25:26):
And three desks here and that'sall you saw.
And he looks out and he says,what do you see when you look
out this window?
And I looked at him and I said,I see.
Six guys on their phone.
Little did I know it was goingto be the only time for the next
five years at all.
Six of those people would be inthe office at the same time.
Like never happened again.
(25:48):
But I said, I see six guys onthe phone.
And he looks at me and he says,You know what I see.
He said, I see six guys.
The do things six differentways.
That have to figure out how toget to the same end.
With different tactics.
And then I have to figure outhow to help make sure that they
(26:08):
do that every single time theywalk out the door.
So I'm going to get to know youover the next couple of years.
And as I do that, I'm going tohelp you get to that place over
the next couple of years.
And you will get there and youwill be successful because
that's what we do here.
And I thought.
To this day, I think it's thesingle best piece of leadership
(26:30):
advice I've ever gotten.
Chris (26:31):
I understand who your people are, how they function
and
Bob (26:34):
understand them, understand the differences we should
really.
I mean, if you'd have knownthese six guys you'd have gone
really.
You would never known, they alldid the same thing.
I mean, you could not have sixmore different people,
especially in central Illinois.
You could not have had six moredifferent people doing something
in your, you could not imagineit.
And.
(26:54):
He really, he listened.
Right.
Dale was great at, even thoughhe was deaf.
He was great at figuring outwhat you needed to be successful
and then putting you in a placeto get that.
And expand on it.
That's really good.
That group of people did thingsmove mountains.
And had more authority.
To do stuff.
(27:15):
Than any group of HR people I'veever been around.
Wow.
And we're valued in theorganization.
Yeah.
Pulled into things all the time.
Yeah.
The most HR people aren't eveninvited in the building.
Chris (27:26):
Let's go back to.
The whole concept of identifyingpoles.
Within the cause I love thattalking about.
We have to push stuff and wehave to pull stuff.
So regarding poles within theirorganization, that's a new term
to me.
I haven't necessarily heard thatnight.
Love it.
I'm going to probably steal thathere.
So selfishly, I'm going to say,could you.
(27:47):
Give an example, or maybe anyadvice to our listening
audience.
Who's primarily human resources.
Leaders has to, if they wantedto try to identify.
And multiply on that pole.
What would the advice be forstep.
One or two to get back done.
Bob (28:05):
Find the winds.
Right.
I'll give you an and I'll giveyou an example.
So when I, when I started here,For onboarding of a leader.
When you were going to onboard aleader.
What, what did you, do?
You bring them in?
Yeah.
Probably spend some time in aclassroom learning about the
business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give them a little bit of timeto meet their team.
(28:26):
You know, maybe an hour.
I like to, and most of yourteam, by the way, in our
business, because we're all overthe place.
Our team is all geographicallychallenged.
Right?
I mean, I, I have people inAtlanta and in Houston and.
Kansas city.
Right?
So it's, you never really get tomeet all your team and the one
time for the most part.
(28:47):
And so leaders take a reallylong time to get up to speed.
I mean, especially if you can doit fairly fast, if you're all in
the same building.
But for the most part.
In today's environment,especially for on zoom calls all
the time.
Right.
It takes a really long time toimplement Dale's advice.
Right.
So knowing what, what does Chrisneed to be successful?
(29:08):
How do I need to interact withthem?
What are some of the things youreally wants to do with this
career?
How do I help him do that?
It can take you a year to figurethat out.
Yeah.
So I brought in a process that Ihad developed a waste
management.
That is for leaders to onboard.
How do you onboard a leader andtake six months of learning and
(29:28):
convince condense at the fourhours.
And nobody believed it rightwhen I first did it.
They, you know, they're all theskeptics in the world until I
did it the first time.
And then when I did it the firsttime, Two of those guys in that
room became leaders within thenext six months and they wanted
to do it and then two other oneswanted to do it and then
(29:49):
somebody else heard about it andthen they wanted to do it.
Yeah.
And so you have to find the winsand you have to find the
champions that will give you thenod.
And you have to be able toarticulate the why, why is this
the thing you want to do?
But at the end of the day, it'sall about.
Is it helping the business besuccessful?
Right.
Could they see the differencebetween this team that didn't do
(30:11):
it and how long it took leadersto get up to speed and running a
hundred percent.
And this team that did do it.
And without exception.
Every one of them could see thedifference.
So that's a, that's an easyexample for me, because it's one
that we live through.
But there's examples like thatall across.
I mean, you can find that, thattype of example, in In your
(30:34):
performance planning, you canfind that type of example in
your interviewing process andstructure.
I mean, all of those there'splaces embedded in there.
Frankly, you can find it even incomp and benefits.
Yeah.
Chris (30:46):
Right.
Your wins and just try tomultiply those as much as you
can.
Yep.
That's great.
All right, so now I guess ourcornerstone question that we
have for you, you are in aposition that a lot of young
professionals within ourindustry aim for.
They want to be that C-suite.
Be careful what you ask for.
Fair.
You think about red and youthink about Dale and all the
(31:09):
people who you've met along theway.
Is there a moment in your careeror is there a person in your
career rather that because ofthe support or because of the
advice that they gave you, youare in the position that you are
today, who for you has made thispossible.
Bob (31:26):
I said there was three people that gave me advice.
Right.
So there was red, there wasDale.
And then the one is the one Iprobably fallen back on.
The most personally.
To get me through to where I amtoday.
And so that diverse group ofguys, and I don't mean diverse
just from ethnicity andstandpoint.
(31:46):
But.
The way they all existed andlived.
One of them was who ended upbeing my boss.
I named Paul Perkins.
Paul was one of the.
He ended up being my daughter'sgodfather.
So if that tells you.
Yeah.
Can you think about how I feltabout Paul?
Paul passed away a few yearsago.
But there was a period of timewhere I was really struggling
(32:08):
with the training process.
Right.
First two years of my career,I'm carrying everybody's bags,
I'm taking everybody's notes.
I'm putting this is back in thedays of typewriters, right?
So I'm typing everybody'scontracts and.
Killing myself with whiteout.
I was my favorite thing in theworld was white out.
And, and I was annoyed one day.
So I sat in with Paul and Paullooks at me and he says, I just
(32:31):
want you to do one thing for me,just shut up.
Literally shut up and do onething.
I was like, all right, what'sthe one thing he said, Put your
head down and do the work.
On what you do when you getfrustrated, when you get
annoyed, when you get angry.
Put your head down and do thework.
(32:51):
And good things will happen.
And you know what, every time inmy career I've gotten off track
frustrated, annoyed.
Disillusioned.
Whatever it is.
I can always find the work thatneeds to be done.
And if I put my head down and dothe work.
It's amazing how much getssolved.
And I actually gave that adviceto one of our interns who
(33:15):
decided she thought it would bea value to sit down with me.
And she asked me almost theexact same question.
And I said that to her.
And she, she looks at me and shegoes, You know, I think that's
what my dad has been telling mefor years.
But I always fall back to perks,voice in my head saying just,
you know what, it's, it's onlystressful because you're making
(33:35):
it stressful.
Put your head down and do the
Chris (33:37):
work.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
Awesome.
Well, Bob, thank you for beingon.
Give her, give us an example ofmaybe something coming up for
you, either professionally orpersonally, that you're looking
forward to.
Bob (33:49):
Agility has been around about 90 years and in that
period of time, we've had fiveCEOs.
And I spoke earlier about theoriginal CEO.
I really should have said myfirst CEO.
And he's stuck around for abouta year and a half after I
joined.
Then Tom Leonard came in and Tomwas here seven and a half years,
give or take.
(34:09):
And recently Tom Benning tookover.
Tom, took over end of March,middle part of March, when Tom
Leonard retired.
Tom Benning is really a forwardthinking, high accountability
kind of CEO.
And as he stepped into the role,he had a couple of years under
his belt.
We had brought him in, duringthe early part of COVID to be a
(34:33):
succession planning play.
And, and really he's...
to the organization and he has,uh, he has some time to learn,
uh, about the company and aboutthe business that we do and how
we do it.
Well, COVID left some challengesin its wake As I spoke earlier
about it being good for theorganization from the standpoint
of we were sold out, the backend of COVID has been
(34:55):
challenging for the organizationbecause hospitals changed really
how they were buying and whatthey were buying and their
timing of their buying.
So we've had to change withthat, as often happens in
business.
It's either adapt or die, right?
As we're coming out of 2023,we've had some challenges we've
had to overcome.
(35:15):
We've had to do some reallyhard, uh, strategic planning and
take our time to figure thatout.
And Tom has been leading thatcharge.
We brought some really greatpeople in over the last couple
of years to help us lead thisorganization and work in this
organization.
And thankfully, we have many,many people that have been in
(35:38):
this organization a long time.
Uh, it's very much a missiondriven company and people find
the mission, something that theybuy into.
They stick around.
We have a fairly simple missionstatement, but what extremely
powerful mission statement andit's.
Every interaction has the powerto change a life.
(35:58):
And the team members that buyinto that, that believe in that,
act.
In that way and really focustheir work in that way.
We have examples every day ofpeople helping, supporting,
assisting, saving, other folks,lives and it's really, really
(36:19):
amazing to hear some of thosestories.
Especially in times of nationaldisaster, we talked a little bit
about COVID and I talked aboutthe business.
Really, I should have talkedabout the people because we had
people running into the fireevery day for three years.
We had people in hospitals.
We had people cleaningequipment.
(36:41):
We had teammates that werereally, truly heroes during that
period of time.
Getting people on respirators,driving stuff to places in the
middle of the night.
Just amazing stories that youwould hear.
Uh, really powerful,invigorating, hopeful stories.
(37:02):
And so when you have anorganization like that, you, you
just, you just have to believe.
that you are going to overcomebecause it truly is, uh, it is
truly one of those companiesthat just does the right things.
We've had some challenges.
We've gotten past those.
We're working towards the end ofthe year.
I'm excited to see how this yearends.
(37:23):
Uh, I'm probably more excited,even more excited to see how
next year starts.
We have a lot of great momentumand we have a lot of great folks
that are really pulling in theright directions and lending not
only their, their heads andtheir hands, but their hearts.
And that's really, uh, reallycritical to the success of this
(37:44):
company.
So.
We have, uh, we have a lot ofthings to look forward to, and
I'm very, very hopeful andoptimistic that this company
will continue to be thedifference maker that we are.
Probably one last point, um, ifyou don't know anything about
Agility, Agility really doeshave a unique placement in the
(38:09):
healthcare community, and thatnobody does what we do.
We have.
Our lines of business, our scopeof business, the size and scale
of what we do is unmatched, uh,by any company out there.
We, uh, I don't care if you'retalking about GE, Philips,
Aramark, Primatics, whoever.
Nobody does all the things we doat the scope and level that we
do it.
(38:30):
Which...
makes it a really, reallyinteresting place to be because
there are a lot of differentplaces we can look levers.
We can pull, uh, businesses thatwe can look at to bring in to
continue to build and grow andbe successful.
So for our teams, I think thatis a Really important and
(38:52):
significant thing to keep trackof.
Uh, sometimes when you're, whenyou're struggling, it's good to
have light.
And, uh, I always look at thatas, as light.
So, we have a lot to lookforward to.
And I'm, I'm, can't wait to seewhat 24 brings.
Chris (39:07):
That's great.
Thank you.
Well done.
Thank you for turning into learnmore about bob and his story if
you think someone may benefitfrom something we've talked
about today go ahead and sharethis episode with them We love
to hear your thoughts in thisepisode on every episode quite
frankly so hit follow leave areview and hit that five star
button if you would on applepodcasts And please subscribe
(39:30):
and tune in next month to hearmore stories from influential
leaders and remember The road tosuccess has many twists and
turns and is paved by people youencounter along the way
Regardless of what you're tryingto accomplish within your
company or your career rememberit's people who make it possible
everyone has a story that's shaped them.
People make it possible is acareer growth podcast focused on
inspiring stories fromsuccessful business leaders.
This podcast is meant forexecutives and professionals
looking to invest in themselves.
In this podcast, we willchallenge the assumptions behind
climbing the traditionalcorporate ladder and explore
pivotal stories that shape usall in our unique journeys.
(00:27):
Let's explore why it's peoplewho make it past.
Chris (00:32):
Hi everyone.
I'm Chris and welcome back toanother episode of people make
it possible.
Today, I'm here with maybe oneof the greatest storytellers
I've ever met.
Bob is currently the chief humanresources officer at agility
health.
And we'll hear a little bitabout it from Bob, but agility
is a medical equipmentmanagement company that helps
(00:53):
hospitals and health systemsaddress.
Various challenges.
So welcome Bob.
Thanks Chris.
It's good to have you here.
We've known each other for gosh,maybe about seven, eight years.
I'd say
Bob (01:05):
closer to
Chris (01:05):
probably nine.
That's great.
And we've And we've partnered asclient.
We've partnered as soundingboard for each other and that
sort
Bob (01:14):
of thing.
Chris (01:14):
So, you said you'd moved here.
We'll get into your career, buta little bit, but, but first
off, I always like to delve intomaybe childhoods of.
Of a lot of our guests.
So you grew up.
Born in Wisconsin.
Is that right?
Bob (01:27):
No, I was actually born in Kettering, Ohio.
Okay.
My dad worked for NCR at thetime.
In Dayton.
And then I think when I was 2,2, 2, 3 ish, we moved to a
Cedarburg Wisconsin, which was.
2020 minutes outside ofMilwaukee, just north Milwaukee.
So my dad went to work forSchlitz.
Brewing company at the time.
And we lived there until I was15.
(01:50):
And then we moved to battleCreek, Michigan, where he was at
Kellogg's.
Okay.
And then I went to college inIthaca.
New York came back to the kid orIllinois.
Went from Decatur to Chicago,Chicago to Minneapolis.
So when somebody asks me whereI'm from, my usual answer is I'm
just from the Midwest.
Chris (02:08):
Yeah.
And you've been everywhere inthe Midwest.
So what was dad's role atSchlitz and at Keller?
Bob (02:13):
My dad ended up being the head of HR.
Hedge slits.
He started as a HR directorcoming out of NCR.
And then at Kellogg's he was thechief human resource officer for
Chris (02:24):
18 years.
Okay.
Okay.
Very good.
Was that your influence to getinto HR or has it always been
not at all really?
Not
Bob (02:31):
at all.
I would love to say with somebig grants, if not at all, not
at all.
In fact.
Very rarely did he and I talkabout.
That kind of stuff like work oreven any of that guys.
I got some of it, I think,through osmosis.
Yeah, hanging out at parties andstuff, but yeah.
Very rarely was that aconversation?
So
Chris (02:48):
can you pinpoint what made you, because you kind of
glossed if it can be your goodCornell, your Alma mater is one
of the greatest human capitalschools in our nation.
So what, what pointed you inthat direction?
Bob (03:02):
Being good at football.
Okay.
I happen to be able to hitpeople just a little harder than
other people.
So I I had a lot ofopportunities that came my way.
My senior year.
It was different back then,right?
I mean, this is ancient history,but back in the eighties, they
didn't recruit you when you werea sophomore like they do now.
Right.
I mean, they really didn't startrecruiting until you were a
(03:24):
senior.
And a lot of times, not evenuntil December, January of your
senior year.
So.
I got sick.
My senior year, I was, I was agood football blur, and I was
getting recruited by a number ofdifferent schools.
I'd been accepted by all the big10 schools.
I.
Had applied to most of the midAmerican conference schools.
So, you know, the centralMichigan's all state, Miami of
(03:46):
Ohio, all those kinds ofschools.
Which really ticked my dad off.
Cause I think it was 20 bucksper application.
But I got sick.
My senior year of high school.
I got sick, like about January20th, which is my birthday.
And didn't go back to schooluntil the middle of March.
And so I missed all of therecruiting.
Like all the scholarships weregone.
(04:07):
At a number of places that weregoing to give me partials or
wanted me to walk on, but Imissed everything.
And then that's when the Ivyleague schools come in and it's
when the division three schoolscome in because they don't have
scholarships.
Ivy league can't provideathletic scholarships.
So.
Cornell was banging at my door.
Princeton.
Columbia university ofPennsylvania.
(04:29):
And I did a couple trips andfrankly, I just, I love the
Cornell campus.
It's one of the prettiest placesin the U S.
Which you would never think ofit being in New York, but that
finger lakes region in New Yorkis spectacular.
And I knew I couldn't go toschool in a big city.
Philadelphia was out in New Yorkcity.
Well, I would have nevergraduated.
I'd still be in school.
(04:49):
When I applied.
I actually really didn't knowwhat I was applying to.
So the ILR school.
Was one of the, one of the onesthat they recommended based upon
kind of my high school classesand where I was successful
English and that kind of stuff.
And so I applied there and I gotin and I understood what it was,
but I don't understand how hardit was to get in.
(05:10):
So they get something like23,000 applicants every year.
And they take 300 people.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, it's so it's crazy.
It's if you knew my high schoolcrew, you'd say it's really
crazy.
I got.
But when it came down toselecting school.
I sat down with my dad.
And to your point about Cornell.
(05:31):
When we were you know, fishingthrough it all, I looked at him
and I said, What can I just bean idiot to not go to the top
school in the world?
If I got in.
Like, even if I didn't want todo it at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Wouldn't I be an idiot to notgo.
And my dad being my dad lookedat me and said pretty much.
(05:53):
Yep.
That's pretty much the answer,but your choice, you.
They'll do what you want to do.
And and so that was all I gotthere and had no idea if I was
going to, like, it had no ideaif that was ultimately going to
be the career path.
Yeah.
If you know anything about theCornell ILR school, you know
that about 85% of the kids thatgo in and up at the law school
of their choice.
Which is the big impetus forpeople to go to Cornell.
(06:15):
Hi alarm because they get intoHarvard law.
They get into university ofPennsylvania.
I mean, they get in whereverthey want to go.
And there's very, very few.
I mean, if you think about 300kids, you could about 45 that
actually go into the workforce.
Everybody else is going to lawschool.
So it's I was one of the 45, Iguess.
Chris (06:34):
Wow.
I had not known that that wasthe path there.
Yeah, that's great.
And so did you end up playingfootball for them,
Bob (06:41):
played for a year and then tore my shoulder up and had
surgery of a screw in myshoulder.
I never was able to get the fullrange of motion back.
And so I hung up football tobecome a semi-serious student.
Chris (06:53):
Okay.
Very good.
And you've made it through andyou're ILR.
Education has clearly paiddividends in your career based
on some of the companies thatyou've worked for, one of my
favorite.
Stories is.
Some of the things that happenedto you when you were VP of HR at
waste management.
Like me being an avid golfer.
I hear waste management.
I immediately think of thetournament.
(07:15):
And what a party atmosphere thatis.
But tell me a little bit of anysort of.
Labor relations stories well ata
Bob (07:23):
waste management.
So when I went to wastemanagement, there was actually a
pivotal time in my career.
Where I was, I actually had madea choice of pivoting away from
labor relations and more towardsHR.
Okay.
So I had HR responsibility for.
Basically what I'll call theWestern Pennsylvania border to
(07:44):
the Eastern Colorado border.
But I only really had laborresponsibility for so I was
setting the strategy for Canadafor the most part.
Okay, but it was mostly handledout of our legal department in
Houston.
Chris (07:57):
Okay.
It was.
Yeah.
Just backing up.
I'm coming out of Cornell andfirst role out of school.
What was your welcome to HRmoment?
Do you have something thathappened to you where you didn't
know if you had the experienceto take it on, but you have to
do it.
Bob (08:13):
So when I graduated from Cornell, I went to work for my
mom.
Because she had bought a bar inlake Tomahawk, Wisconsin.
And she closed on that bar aboutthe same day I graduated.
So I drove from Ethica, NewYork, the lake Tomahawk,
Wisconsin, and worked in thatbar all summer long.
And at the end of the summer, Ionly have two letters in my
(08:34):
life.
I wish I'd kept.
Only two.
And one was a letter from arecruiter, which is a thought,
I'll tell you that story anothertime.
But the other was a letter frommy dad that summer.
I get a letter from my dad whileI'm living above a bar running
my mom's bar.
On the night shift.
And the letter is very simple.
(08:55):
It says I did not pay for yourCornell education for you to run
your mom's bar.
They'll get an F and chop.
Chris (09:02):
You don't have that anymore.
I wish I had
Bob (09:04):
known that.
I do not have that letter.
But it was, yeah, he's got thisbig flowing script that it was
on his, on his Kellogg'sletterhead.
And I was like, ah, man, I wishI still had that letter.
But I went down the Rhinelanderand I went to the standard and
Poor's 100 and I had a hundredresumes and a hundred cover
letters, and I sent it to the Sand P 100 HR people.
And out of that 100, I got tworesponses.
(09:26):
One from Monsanto and one fromArcher Daniels, Midland.
Monsanto, never responded again.
ADM brought me down for aninterview of three weeks later.
I had a job.
Okay.
So.
Only by the grace of God.
I have no idea.
I didn't know anybody there.
My dad actually didn't knowanybody there.
Unlike, you know, he knew peoplebecause of his position at
(09:46):
Kellogg's.
Yeah.
He knew people all over theplace.
ADM didn't really play in thatworld.
Yeah.
Even though they supplied thatworld.
So it was an interesting job.
To this day.
I have no idea.
What they saw that got me hired.
And you talking about peopletaking chances on you.
They had a labor relationfunction.
That was six guys.
(10:09):
One of them was 29.
The rest of them were 54.
Yeah.
And one of them was actually 64and he was getting ready to
retire.
And that's who I was coming into backfill.
He was going to retire in thenext 18 months.
And so they wanted somebody tocome in and start from the
ground floor and.
ADM was a fascinating place towork.
It was hyper aggressive growingquickly.
(10:31):
Really forward-thinking when itcame to labor relations in a way
that probably 85, 90% of theother companies in the country
are not.
And they rolled the dice on meand I, I did nothing but carry
people's bags.
Take notes.
Schedule travel.
I was at everybody's whim fortwo years before I did anything.
(10:52):
And there's not many places totake number one to take the time
to do that.
Yeah.
But then when they said go forthand do good things, they threw
me and stuff.
I was like, are you kidding?
You're gonna let me do this.
This is crazy.
I mean, I was down in 30.
Sorry on Mexico.
Closing a deal on a flour mill.
With.
Eight eight Mexicans, I don'teven speak Spanish, you know,
and I'm sitting down there andtrying to figure out how we're
(11:14):
working this deal.
I mean, the one thing afteranother, there was a lot of
years where I spent more timeoutside the U S that I did
inside the U S.
And and it was all traveled to.
The Caribbean islands, centralAmerica, Canada, you know, all
in that range.
But it was, there was a lot oftimes.
(11:34):
I thought to myself, oh, how areyou getting yourself out of this
one?
It wasn't always so obvious.
There was actually two things Idid in that period of time.
That caused countries to changetheir labor laws.
Chris (11:49):
Two things that you
Bob (11:51):
read.
Two things.
I was a part of the, give me anexample.
In Canada, different provinceshave different laws regarding
strike replacements.
And, Quebec, currently, the lawis something like you can't use,
Supervisors or strikereplacements from outside of the
building of the strike.
So if you have, if this buildingis on strike and I've got five
(12:14):
supervisors here, I can usethose five supervisors to work
during a strike during a laborstrike, but I can't bring in a
supervisor from a building inOttawa or I can't bring a
supervisor from Toronto orWinnipeg.
It's got to be in the buildingthat's actually on strike.
Well, that wasn't the case.
Back when we had a very, veryvisible strike in Montreal.
(12:39):
We had just bought two flowers.
We bought all of Robyn hits,flour mills, but there were two
of them in Montreal.
One of them is both of themstill operate, but one of them
is actually a national monument.
Five roses flour, if you're everin Montreal, if you see that
sign, that's actually the flourmill.
And that flour mill went out onstrike.
And we brought in about 80people to run that facility.
(13:01):
And we ran it at a hundredpercent capacity, but they'd be
people.
Wow.
And so when they came, when theywent out with two 20, they came
back with way less than 220jobs.
And and if you know, Montrealor, you know, Quebec at all, you
will know that that did not setwell.
With the government.
And so they literally changedthe labor laws so that you can't
do that anymore.
(13:22):
That situation because of
Chris (13:23):
that situation.
Wow.
Well, I should say that facilityplayed a part in changing the
law.
I don't know if it was actuallythe final decision or not, but
it absolutely played a role.
Well, now you find yourself you're you're at
agility.
You were brought into agility asuniversal hospital services.
Yep.
That's correct.
(13:43):
You have seen a tremendousamount of change.
It's not just been, the name haschanged.
Talk a little bit about.
When you landed there to now.
What are some of the things thatyou're most proud of
accomplishing?
Bob (13:55):
You know, it's been a, it's been an interesting ride.
So I've been there 10 years.
When I came in.
It was a.
Original CEO.
He transitioned out after about18 months.
Okay.
We had these, the chairman was aCEO for about call it six
months, seven months.
Tom Leonard came in as thesecond CEO and that's really
(14:17):
when the change started tohappen.
And that was really getting backto what do we do really well?
How do we get rid of the stuffwe don't do?
Well.
And how do we get people focusedon the mission?
Yeah, it was, it's always been acompany of.
What I will call mission.
We lost it for a while.
When I first joined theorganization, I would say that
(14:38):
it was, it was in the phases ofgetting lost.
And part of it was because whenyou start to panic, Crazy stuff
happens.
Yeah.
You know, you start doing sillythings.
You start trying stuff.
You probably shouldn't try.
It was really not in a placethat it was moving forward.
In fact, I would have told youit was moving backward.
Chris (14:56):
And you're you're and you're talking about from a
revenue,
Bob (14:59):
from a growth.
I'm talking about all of theabove.
Yeah, right.
So it was really going backward.
And.
Tom came in and he just narrowedthe focus and he said, let's go
get the things we do reallywell.
Let's focus in the areas that weknow we can win.
And then let's grow byacquisition.
Which is what we've done.
So he took the business from 420million ish to 1.2 billion.
(15:23):
Over the last six years, sevenyears.
And it's been mostly by, youknow, there's been organic
growth embedded in there, butwe've had significant
acquisitions that we've donealong the way.
To really impact how thebusiness looks and.
Historically where we focused orwhere the business was focused
before.
(15:43):
Was what we call our Pete kneerental business.
So it's hospitals renting orleasing equipment to supplement
their own equipment.
So if you think about Pope, it'sa great example where hospital
only has X amount ofrespirators.
But they need Y.
Right.
So we would be the Delta inbetween.
And that was historically areally good business for us and
(16:05):
something that the old business,the UHS business.
Who wasn't solving for?
When that business starts toslow down?
How do you close that gap?
What are other things, are youdoing to make sure that you can
continue to grow?
And so the things that TomLeonard.
Layered in over the last fewyears are all businesses that
are not peak need.
(16:26):
Rental relevant it's surgicalrepair business, which I didn't
even know was a thing until webought it.
But that was a thing.
It's growing the surgicalservices business.
it's expanding into diagnosticimaging doing some of those
things that are not theequipment relevant.
And then we've made a purchaseof a company called size-wise,
which was one of the majormanufacturing.
(16:48):
Companies for bets andmattresses meet.
Chris (16:51):
Okay.
So a lot of peripheralbusinesses that.
It'll add to that.
Additional revenue growth.
Bob (16:57):
And it places that hopefully that you can buy and
then fold into your currentinfrastructure.
Right.
That's where you get the
Chris (17:03):
synergies.
You mentioned respirators talkabout.
The respirators business, whenCOVID hits the off from your
seat, what did.
Real quick story.
What did you guys see?
Well,
Bob (17:14):
we sold out.
I mean, our, our, our shelveswere empty.
Right?
I mean, there wasn't, therewasn't enough respirators.
This is why the government wascommissioning.
You know, general motors to gobuild respirators, which by the
way, are.
I'm sitting in a cornersomewhere collecting dust
because they never reallyworked.
But it's sorry.
General motors.
(17:35):
It's it was, it was panic,right?
I mean, it was mayhem.
I mean, they couldn't get ityet.
We had hospitals who wanted totake all one hospital system,
wanted to take all of ourrespirators that we had on the
entire east coast.
That was the order.
We want all of your respiratorsand, There are some companies
that would have done that.
Right.
There are some companies thatwould've said, okay.
Well, we're sold out.
Good.
(17:55):
It's all yours.
That wasn't, that's not the waywe run the way we think about
the business.
And it, you we know we have anobligation to the entire system,
not just a customer when itcomes to something, national
impact like that.
So we managed to keep everybodyhappy.
Get the respirators out, getthings moved around as COVID
(18:17):
tended to hit much like the fluand a lot of cases, it moved
across the country east to west,which is you think about the flu
every year.
That's exactly how it goes.
And so we could move things eastthe west and moderately, keep up
with it.
I mean, it was the, the demandwas way, much more than the
supply.
The best we could.
But I mean, it was, it was crazyfor two years.
Chris (18:39):
Wow.
Well, let's get a little intophilosophies that you have as a
human capital leader.
I know a number of theindividuals on your team.
I may or may not have asked themto to give me a little insight.
And quite frankly, like, what Ihear is you're very employee
focused.
Very employee centric, where youever vary what they say.
(19:00):
you have a very good pulse onwhat is needed from your people.
Share with me.
If you would, any lesson thatyou had in your career as to why
that needs to be a focus or whatdeveloped that passion in you?
Bob (19:13):
You know, an interesting thing happens when you're
sitting at the bargaining tableall the time.
Right.
I'll just tell you, there was afew things early in my career.
That happened.
And there's one that I justalways come back to for this
conversation.
So I was sitting in Galesburg,Michigan.
Alright, I'm sorry, Galesburg.
Illinois.
And it was soybean plant and nota huge plant, you know, maybe 30
(19:35):
people, 35 people.
But it's an old plant.
They'd probably been there.
40 years.
And we were in bargaining andgot all through bargaining and
it had been a pretty rough go.
I was doing some takeaways andthis was probably in my first
five or six contracts I evernegotiated.
And it was with the AmericanFederation grain Millers at the
(19:56):
time, which doesn't exist today.
But the business agent wasn'tdoing a lot of the talking, the
local union president who was aguy named red.
And I don't remember rent's lastname cause I didn't have to
because his name was.
But we got all done.
You know what?
I'm sitting there I'm probably24 at this point, maybe 23 even,
and I'm sitting there and he'sat least 58.
Like he's to me at 24, he'sancient.
(20:18):
Right.
I.
And he looks at me and goes.
You know, I just want to say,thank you.
And I'm thinking.
I just took away.
You're punching.
I just took.
You know, I just added cost toyour benefits.
I gave you The 15 cent increase.
And.
He goes.
I just want to thank you.
And I said before, and he goes,I've done every one of these
(20:40):
contracts for the last 30 years.
And you are the only person I'veever sat down with that.
I thought, listen.
And I thought.
That's that's a good thing toknow.
That's great.
Right.
And I'll be honest with you,Chris.
I don't do.
Anything more than that.
That's your comment aboutemployee focused.
(21:02):
I'm happy to listen.
Right.
And it's amazing the things youlearn when you shut your mouth
and you actually hear whatpeople are saying.
And not, you're not formulatingthe answer is they're saying it.
Yeah, just sit back.
I just empty my head and I justlistened.
Chris (21:18):
I really appreciate that.
And I also appreciate that.
When you said, shut your mouthand listen, you aren't afraid to
open your mouth and challengewhen needed.
So my question is this, arethere any Misconception or
approaches.
That are typical within ourindustry.
That you would debunk.
(21:38):
Either from an HR perspective ora leadership perspective.
Bob (21:42):
Unfortunately thinking around HR, there's probably more
that I could validate.
You know, it's, I think one ofthe challenges for HR.
Is finding that place.
Were They're adding value andnot worrying about their job.
So it's, how do you challenge ina way, how do you make a
difference and challenge in away that you're not worried
about?
(22:02):
Are they going to walk you outthe next day?
Because generally speaking, andthis is not every company, but
generally speaking.
HR is, is is a cost center.
Right.
I mean, it's, it's where peoplego to.
In some cases because they don'thave any other home for them.
And I hate to say that, but we,you see that more times than not
in a lot of cases.
And what I've found is that.
(22:24):
Where you have really good HRpeople.
You create am I talked to myteam about this.
What are we doing?
That's creating a poll.
Paul what's the pole, right?
So the organization is pullingyou into things.
We need more of this.
If you're listening well, youcan figure out where that pole
(22:45):
is and you can build on it.
If we're always having to pushleadership trainings, a great
example, right?
If I have to push leadershiptraining all the time.
Leadership trainings on beingeffective.
Right.
Cause if it was being effective,people would want more of it.
That's one of the sole measuresof success, as far as I'm
concerned for an HR team.
(23:05):
How good are you at knowingwhere the pole and where the
push is?
Look, there's some things youhave to push.
You have to do compliancetraining.
You don't want to get, nobodywants to do it.
I get it.
You don't have any choice socks,socks, right?
I get it.
But there's a whole bunch ofthings that we do.
That if you were getting calledinto the meeting because they
are asking you in, not becauseyou're barging in.
(23:27):
You're not breaking down thedoor.
That's that's where the pole is.
And you know, you say debunk themyth.
The myth is that never happens.
Right.
That's the myth.
I can point you to 10 thingsthat we do that every day people
want more of.
And that's that happens on everyHR team.
I don't think HR people arereally good at identifying that
(23:50):
or knowing how to build on that.
And that's probably thechallenge.
Chris (23:55):
Yeah.
You talked about the individual.
When you were young that said, Iwant to thank you for listening.
So that wasn't necessarilyadvice, but that was something
that you said on.
This is somebody found value inthis.
I'm going to do this more, buthow about from a strict advice
standpoint, whether it be.
From your mom late at night whenyou were closing the bar.
(24:16):
Or your all man, you better getan African job.
What is some advice that hasstuck with you and remained true
throughout your career?
Bob (24:25):
So I have three things that I fall back on it and read was
one of them.
And I always think of it as Ihave some advice that was at me.
And some advice that was to me.
Okay.
My very first day of work.
Like literally day one incorporate America.
Dale Benson, who was.
Head of employee relations.
(24:46):
So.
Dale had been there since 1946,he came off a battleship.
And the Japanese corridor.
Was a gunnery mate.
So he's deaf good leg, twohearing aids.
I you'd swear.
He had a button in his pocketthat when the conversation was
over, those hearing aids wouldjust start the whistle.
And he couldn't hear anythingand they start wandering around
(25:06):
and that the conversation wasdone.
So he calls me into his officeand he's sitting there.
And it's one of those officesituations where there's no
cattle walls, right.
It's just this.
So there's right outside of hisarea, right outside of his
office.
He had the only office, therewas a line of.
Four dusks here.
(25:26):
And three desks here and that'sall you saw.
And he looks out and he says,what do you see when you look
out this window?
And I looked at him and I said,I see.
Six guys on their phone.
Little did I know it was goingto be the only time for the next
five years at all.
Six of those people would be inthe office at the same time.
Like never happened again.
(25:48):
But I said, I see six guys onthe phone.
And he looks at me and he says,You know what I see.
He said, I see six guys.
The do things six differentways.
That have to figure out how toget to the same end.
With different tactics.
And then I have to figure outhow to help make sure that they
(26:08):
do that every single time theywalk out the door.
So I'm going to get to know youover the next couple of years.
And as I do that, I'm going tohelp you get to that place over
the next couple of years.
And you will get there and youwill be successful because
that's what we do here.
And I thought.
To this day, I think it's thesingle best piece of leadership
(26:30):
advice I've ever gotten.
Chris (26:31):
I understand who your people are, how they function
and
Bob (26:34):
understand them, understand the differences we should
really.
I mean, if you'd have knownthese six guys you'd have gone
really.
You would never known, they alldid the same thing.
I mean, you could not have sixmore different people,
especially in central Illinois.
You could not have had six moredifferent people doing something
in your, you could not imagineit.
And.
(26:54):
He really, he listened.
Right.
Dale was great at, even thoughhe was deaf.
He was great at figuring outwhat you needed to be successful
and then putting you in a placeto get that.
And expand on it.
That's really good.
That group of people did thingsmove mountains.
And had more authority.
To do stuff.
(27:15):
Than any group of HR people I'veever been around.
Wow.
And we're valued in theorganization.
Yeah.
Pulled into things all the time.
Yeah.
The most HR people aren't eveninvited in the building.
Chris (27:26):
Let's go back to.
The whole concept of identifyingpoles.
Within the cause I love thattalking about.
We have to push stuff and wehave to pull stuff.
So regarding poles within theirorganization, that's a new term
to me.
I haven't necessarily heard thatnight.
Love it.
I'm going to probably steal thathere.
So selfishly, I'm going to say,could you.
(27:47):
Give an example, or maybe anyadvice to our listening
audience.
Who's primarily human resources.
Leaders has to, if they wantedto try to identify.
And multiply on that pole.
What would the advice be forstep.
One or two to get back done.
Bob (28:05):
Find the winds.
Right.
I'll give you an and I'll giveyou an example.
So when I, when I started here,For onboarding of a leader.
When you were going to onboard aleader.
What, what did you, do?
You bring them in?
Yeah.
Probably spend some time in aclassroom learning about the
business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Give them a little bit of timeto meet their team.
(28:26):
You know, maybe an hour.
I like to, and most of yourteam, by the way, in our
business, because we're all overthe place.
Our team is all geographicallychallenged.
Right?
I mean, I, I have people inAtlanta and in Houston and.
Kansas city.
Right?
So it's, you never really get tomeet all your team and the one
time for the most part.
(28:47):
And so leaders take a reallylong time to get up to speed.
I mean, especially if you can doit fairly fast, if you're all in
the same building.
But for the most part.
In today's environment,especially for on zoom calls all
the time.
Right.
It takes a really long time toimplement Dale's advice.
Right.
So knowing what, what does Chrisneed to be successful?
(29:08):
How do I need to interact withthem?
What are some of the things youreally wants to do with this
career?
How do I help him do that?
It can take you a year to figurethat out.
Yeah.
So I brought in a process that Ihad developed a waste
management.
That is for leaders to onboard.
How do you onboard a leader andtake six months of learning and
(29:28):
convince condense at the fourhours.
And nobody believed it rightwhen I first did it.
They, you know, they're all theskeptics in the world until I
did it the first time.
And then when I did it the firsttime, Two of those guys in that
room became leaders within thenext six months and they wanted
to do it and then two other oneswanted to do it and then
(29:49):
somebody else heard about it andthen they wanted to do it.
Yeah.
And so you have to find the winsand you have to find the
champions that will give you thenod.
And you have to be able toarticulate the why, why is this
the thing you want to do?
But at the end of the day, it'sall about.
Is it helping the business besuccessful?
Right.
Could they see the differencebetween this team that didn't do
(30:11):
it and how long it took leadersto get up to speed and running a
hundred percent.
And this team that did do it.
And without exception.
Every one of them could see thedifference.
So that's a, that's an easyexample for me, because it's one
that we live through.
But there's examples like thatall across.
I mean, you can find that, thattype of example, in In your
(30:34):
performance planning, you canfind that type of example in
your interviewing process andstructure.
I mean, all of those there'splaces embedded in there.
Frankly, you can find it even incomp and benefits.
Yeah.
Chris (30:46):
Right.
Your wins and just try tomultiply those as much as you
can.
Yep.
That's great.
All right, so now I guess ourcornerstone question that we
have for you, you are in aposition that a lot of young
professionals within ourindustry aim for.
They want to be that C-suite.
Be careful what you ask for.
Fair.
You think about red and youthink about Dale and all the
(31:09):
people who you've met along theway.
Is there a moment in your careeror is there a person in your
career rather that because ofthe support or because of the
advice that they gave you, youare in the position that you are
today, who for you has made thispossible.
Bob (31:26):
I said there was three people that gave me advice.
Right.
So there was red, there wasDale.
And then the one is the one Iprobably fallen back on.
The most personally.
To get me through to where I amtoday.
And so that diverse group ofguys, and I don't mean diverse
just from ethnicity andstandpoint.
(31:46):
But.
The way they all existed andlived.
One of them was who ended upbeing my boss.
I named Paul Perkins.
Paul was one of the.
He ended up being my daughter'sgodfather.
So if that tells you.
Yeah.
Can you think about how I feltabout Paul?
Paul passed away a few yearsago.
But there was a period of timewhere I was really struggling
(32:08):
with the training process.
Right.
First two years of my career,I'm carrying everybody's bags,
I'm taking everybody's notes.
I'm putting this is back in thedays of typewriters, right?
So I'm typing everybody'scontracts and.
Killing myself with whiteout.
I was my favorite thing in theworld was white out.
And, and I was annoyed one day.
So I sat in with Paul and Paullooks at me and he says, I just
(32:31):
want you to do one thing for me,just shut up.
Literally shut up and do onething.
I was like, all right, what'sthe one thing he said, Put your
head down and do the work.
On what you do when you getfrustrated, when you get
annoyed, when you get angry.
Put your head down and do thework.
(32:51):
And good things will happen.
And you know what, every time inmy career I've gotten off track
frustrated, annoyed.
Disillusioned.
Whatever it is.
I can always find the work thatneeds to be done.
And if I put my head down and dothe work.
It's amazing how much getssolved.
And I actually gave that adviceto one of our interns who
(33:15):
decided she thought it would bea value to sit down with me.
And she asked me almost theexact same question.
And I said that to her.
And she, she looks at me and shegoes, You know, I think that's
what my dad has been telling mefor years.
But I always fall back to perks,voice in my head saying just,
you know what, it's, it's onlystressful because you're making
(33:35):
it stressful.
Put your head down and do the
Chris (33:37):
work.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
Awesome.
Well, Bob, thank you for beingon.
Give her, give us an example ofmaybe something coming up for
you, either professionally orpersonally, that you're looking
forward to.
Bob (33:49):
Agility has been around about 90 years and in that
period of time, we've had fiveCEOs.
And I spoke earlier about theoriginal CEO.
I really should have said myfirst CEO.
And he's stuck around for abouta year and a half after I
joined.
Then Tom Leonard came in and Tomwas here seven and a half years,
give or take.
(34:09):
And recently Tom Benning tookover.
Tom, took over end of March,middle part of March, when Tom
Leonard retired.
Tom Benning is really a forwardthinking, high accountability
kind of CEO.
And as he stepped into the role,he had a couple of years under
his belt.
We had brought him in, duringthe early part of COVID to be a
(34:33):
succession planning play.
And, and really he's...
to the organization and he has,uh, he has some time to learn,
uh, about the company and aboutthe business that we do and how
we do it.
Well, COVID left some challengesin its wake As I spoke earlier
about it being good for theorganization from the standpoint
of we were sold out, the backend of COVID has been
(34:55):
challenging for the organizationbecause hospitals changed really
how they were buying and whatthey were buying and their
timing of their buying.
So we've had to change withthat, as often happens in
business.
It's either adapt or die, right?
As we're coming out of 2023,we've had some challenges we've
had to overcome.
(35:15):
We've had to do some reallyhard, uh, strategic planning and
take our time to figure thatout.
And Tom has been leading thatcharge.
We brought some really greatpeople in over the last couple
of years to help us lead thisorganization and work in this
organization.
And thankfully, we have many,many people that have been in
(35:38):
this organization a long time.
Uh, it's very much a missiondriven company and people find
the mission, something that theybuy into.
They stick around.
We have a fairly simple missionstatement, but what extremely
powerful mission statement andit's.
Every interaction has the powerto change a life.
(35:58):
And the team members that buyinto that, that believe in that,
act.
In that way and really focustheir work in that way.
We have examples every day ofpeople helping, supporting,
assisting, saving, other folks,lives and it's really, really
(36:19):
amazing to hear some of thosestories.
Especially in times of nationaldisaster, we talked a little bit
about COVID and I talked aboutthe business.
Really, I should have talkedabout the people because we had
people running into the fireevery day for three years.
We had people in hospitals.
We had people cleaningequipment.
(36:41):
We had teammates that werereally, truly heroes during that
period of time.
Getting people on respirators,driving stuff to places in the
middle of the night.
Just amazing stories that youwould hear.
Uh, really powerful,invigorating, hopeful stories.
(37:02):
And so when you have anorganization like that, you, you
just, you just have to believe.
that you are going to overcomebecause it truly is, uh, it is
truly one of those companiesthat just does the right things.
We've had some challenges.
We've gotten past those.
We're working towards the end ofthe year.
I'm excited to see how this yearends.
(37:23):
Uh, I'm probably more excited,even more excited to see how
next year starts.
We have a lot of great momentumand we have a lot of great folks
that are really pulling in theright directions and lending not
only their, their heads andtheir hands, but their hearts.
And that's really, uh, reallycritical to the success of this
(37:44):
company.
So.
We have, uh, we have a lot ofthings to look forward to, and
I'm very, very hopeful andoptimistic that this company
will continue to be thedifference maker that we are.
Probably one last point, um, ifyou don't know anything about
Agility, Agility really doeshave a unique placement in the
(38:09):
healthcare community, and thatnobody does what we do.
We have.
Our lines of business, our scopeof business, the size and scale
of what we do is unmatched, uh,by any company out there.
We, uh, I don't care if you'retalking about GE, Philips,
Aramark, Primatics, whoever.
Nobody does all the things we doat the scope and level that we
do it.
(38:30):
Which...
makes it a really, reallyinteresting place to be because
there are a lot of differentplaces we can look levers.
We can pull, uh, businesses thatwe can look at to bring in to
continue to build and grow andbe successful.
So for our teams, I think thatis a Really important and
(38:52):
significant thing to keep trackof.
Uh, sometimes when you're, whenyou're struggling, it's good to
have light.
And, uh, I always look at thatas, as light.
So, we have a lot to lookforward to.
And I'm, I'm, can't wait to seewhat 24 brings.
Chris (39:07):
That's great.
Thank you.
Well done.
Thank you for turning into learnmore about bob and his story if
you think someone may benefitfrom something we've talked
about today go ahead and sharethis episode with them We love
to hear your thoughts in thisepisode on every episode quite
frankly so hit follow leave areview and hit that five star
button if you would on applepodcasts And please subscribe
(39:30):
and tune in next month to hearmore stories from influential
leaders and remember The road tosuccess has many twists and
turns and is paved by people youencounter along the way
Regardless of what you're tryingto accomplish within your
company or your career rememberit's people who make it possible
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