Latest / Something Extra / Radically Honest Leadership w/ Robert Griggs

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Radically Honest Leadership w/ Robert Griggs · Something Extra

• 0:01
  Robert Griggs: How do you really get successful, and learn to grow the business?
• 0:05
  Robert Griggs: Well, you turn the pyramid upside down and we as leaders
• 0:09
  Robert Griggs: focus on the foundation.
• 0:11
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that load the trucks.
• 0:13
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that are doing the welding.
• 0:16
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that are keeping the lights on.
• 0:19
  Robert Griggs: Alright?
• 0:20
  Robert Griggs: And so our job as leaders is to make their lives
• 0:24
  Robert Griggs: better.
• 0:25
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 0:26
  Robert Griggs: And two things happen when that happens.
• 0:28
  Robert Griggs: Our customers' lives get better because we deliver
• 0:32
  Robert Griggs: our products on time with high quality.
• 0:35
  Robert Griggs: And then secondly,
• 0:38
  Robert Griggs: as a leader, my life gets better because I'm not focused on
• 0:42
  Robert Griggs: all the small minutia problems.
• 0:44
  Robert Griggs: I get to go out in space and go, where's the next place to
• 0:48
  Robert Griggs: grow?
• 0:52
  Lisa Nichols: It takes something a little more to lead with impact.
• 0:55
  Lisa Nichols: I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast
• 1:00
  Lisa Nichols: was inspired by our daughter, Ali, whose additional chromosome has shaped
• 1:04
  Lisa Nichols: how I see people in leadership.
• 1:06
  Lisa Nichols: Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the world
• 1:11
  Lisa Nichols: about what truly defines how they lead and serve others.
• 1:15
  Lisa Nichols: If you enjoyed today's conversation, please consider leaving a five star
• 1:19
  Lisa Nichols: review.
• 1:20
  Lisa Nichols: It helps more people discover the show.
• 1:23
  Lisa Nichols: And if you'd like to go deeper, my book, Something Extra, is available on
• 1:27
  Lisa Nichols: Amazon and through other major book retailers.
• 1:30
  Lisa Nichols: I'm thrilled to have Robert Griggs on the show today.
• 1:33
  Lisa Nichols: Robert is a true son of Missouri and a titan of the manufacturing industry.
• 1:37
  Lisa Nichols: He is the founder and chairman at Trinity Products and the author of the
• 1:41
  Lisa Nichols: book, Foundational Leadership.
• 1:43
  Lisa Nichols: Well, Robert Griggs, welcome to the Something Extra podcast.
• 1:47
  Lisa Nichols: I'm so delighted to have you today.
• 1:50
  Robert Griggs: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:51
  Robert Griggs: It's a real pleasure.
• 1:53
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 1:53
  Lisa Nichols: And I wanna give a shout out to Mary Anne Bingardee
• 1:57
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 1:57
  Lisa Nichols: That connected us.
• 1:58
  Lisa Nichols: And I know she's been important in your life and in the Trinity
• 2:02
  Lisa Nichols: story, But we were meeting one day, and she goes, you need to
• 2:07
  Lisa Nichols: know Robert.
• 2:07
  Lisa Nichols: And you and I had a quick little call, and I said, Robert, come
• 2:10
  Lisa Nichols: on to the podcast.
• 2:12
  Lisa Nichols: So
• 2:13
  Robert Griggs: She is quite the promoter as well and just a wonderful
• 2:17
  Robert Griggs: person.
• 2:17
  Robert Griggs: And so, I do a little speaking for them, and she comes
• 2:21
  Robert Griggs: out.
• 2:22
  Robert Griggs: I'm, on the board of her Missouri Made.
• 2:25
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 2:26
  Robert Griggs: And, she's involved with Missouri manufacturers and those sorts of things.
• 2:30
  Robert Griggs: So we have a lot of places where we meet up, so it's been
• 2:33
  Robert Griggs: great.
• 2:34
  Robert Griggs: She's awesome.
• 2:35
  Lisa Nichols: She is.
• 2:35
  Lisa Nichols: I could not agree more.
• 2:37
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I know that you are they call you a Missouri sun.
• 2:43
  Robert Griggs: True sun.
• 2:44
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 2:44
  Lisa Nichols: True sun.
• 2:45
  Lisa Nichols: You grew up in a small town in the Boot Hill.
• 2:47
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 2:48
  Lisa Nichols: Charleston?
• 2:49
  Robert Griggs: Yep.
• 2:49
  Lisa Nichols: And I think you came from a military family, farming community.
• 2:54
  Lisa Nichols: And here's what I wanna talk about.
• 2:56
  Lisa Nichols: You also went to Mizzou.
• 2:58
  Robert Griggs: Yes, ma'am.
• 2:59
  Lisa Nichols: And here's what I wanna talk about, Robert.
• 3:01
  Lisa Nichols: Two years after graduating from from Mizzou,
• 3:05
  Lisa Nichols: you started Trinity Products.
• 3:08
  Robert Griggs: I did.
• 3:09
  Robert Griggs: And, I knew I always wanted to start a business.
• 3:13
  Robert Griggs: And, you know, today, we helped, you know, they just had
• 3:17
  Robert Griggs: a on campus pitch competition where there were eighty pitches this
• 3:21
  Robert Griggs: last weekend.
• 3:22
  Robert Griggs: It's called Mizzou Startup Weekend.
• 3:25
  Robert Griggs: And there was nothing then.
• 3:27
  Robert Griggs: You know, you just kinda had to know you wanted to start a business
• 3:30
  Robert Griggs: and you were willing to take a leap.
• 3:33
  Robert Griggs: So I got a sales job, and they didn't treat me quite right.
• 3:36
  Robert Griggs: So some of us left, and we started a company.
• 3:39
  Robert Griggs: I was twenty three and,
• 3:42
  Robert Griggs: just started buying and selling, and and, you know, it
• 3:46
  Robert Griggs: just grew.
• 3:47
  Robert Griggs: And what I learned from all the things that if you've been around the
• 3:51
  Robert Griggs: military,
• 3:52
  Robert Griggs: there aren't, there aren't colors in the military.
• 3:56
  Robert Griggs: They're just people.
• 3:58
  Robert Griggs: So that's one of the things you learn.
• 3:59
  Robert Griggs: You grew up in a small town, the farm, you learn to work really,
• 4:02
  Robert Griggs: really, really hard.
• 4:04
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 4:05
  Robert Griggs: It's expected.
• 4:06
  Robert Griggs: And I don't care what age you are, it's expected.
• 4:09
  Robert Griggs: And so those things come together.
• 4:12
  Robert Griggs: And by treating people right, I wouldn't say that I've
• 4:16
  Robert Griggs: trained in leadership.
• 4:17
  Robert Griggs: I I've learned it.
• 4:19
  Robert Griggs: I've studied it, and I know what I wanna have happen to
• 4:23
  Robert Griggs: me, and I know what I'm willing to do for everybody.
• 4:26
  Robert Griggs: And it's been a really, really remarkable ride.
• 4:30
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I love that you just said that, because, you know, the age old
• 4:35
  Lisa Nichols: question, Robert, is, are you a born leader?
• 4:39
  Lisa Nichols: And I think there are some characteristics possibly, but
• 4:43
  Lisa Nichols: you learn along the way, and I think that that should give people hope.
• 4:46
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 4:47
  Lisa Nichols: And and I say that you never reached a summit.
• 4:49
  Lisa Nichols: You never there's always a next level.
• 4:52
  Lisa Nichols: Right, Robert?
• 4:53
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 4:55
  Robert Griggs: I will tell you, we do a lot of personality testing, and I
• 4:59
  Robert Griggs: think there are certain certain wiring in people that make it easier
• 5:03
  Robert Griggs: to be a leader.
• 5:04
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 5:05
  Robert Griggs: And, so I will give that.
• 5:08
  Robert Griggs: But everything I've learned, I read, I study,
• 5:12
  Robert Griggs: and what I found just to experience, and
• 5:16
  Robert Griggs: this would be with most people, the more you give, the more you receive.
• 5:20
  Robert Griggs: Now I don't give to get things in return.
• 5:24
  Robert Griggs: I give because it makes me feel good.
• 5:27
  Robert Griggs: But guess what?
• 5:28
  Robert Griggs: My my basket is overflowing.
• 5:31
  Robert Griggs: And so what happens is you teach people that
• 5:35
  Robert Griggs: if they're engaged with you and you're engaged with them and
• 5:39
  Robert Griggs: we are working for a common cause, what I've learned
• 5:43
  Robert Griggs: over the process is share the profits, share the information, share the
• 5:47
  Robert Griggs: heartache, share the successes, and then what happens as you go
• 5:51
  Robert Griggs: along, everybody gets better.
• 5:53
  Robert Griggs: And so I think what you're gonna find in the book is a
• 5:57
  Robert Griggs: combination of Jack Stack and the
• 6:01
  Robert Griggs: great game of business.
• 6:02
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 6:03
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 6:03
  Robert Griggs: Springfield Green Manufacturing.
• 6:05
  Robert Griggs: And then I combined, continuous improvement with it.
• 6:10
  Robert Griggs: And for that, we use a group called
• 6:14
  Robert Griggs: COCI Cycle of Success Institute.
• 6:16
  Robert Griggs: So we combine those two traits and taught everybody how to get
• 6:21
  Robert Griggs: better every day.
• 6:22
  Robert Griggs: We teach them how to run a business.
• 6:24
  Robert Griggs: I had a lot of people over my career say, they don't know how
• 6:28
  Robert Griggs: to run a business, and that's just not true because they run their household.
• 6:32
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 6:33
  Robert Griggs: And you have a top number and you have taxes that come out and
• 6:37
  Robert Griggs: you have a car payment, you have a house or a rent payment, and
• 6:40
  Robert Griggs: you buy food, you buy gas, you buy groceries, and if there's anything left
• 6:44
  Robert Griggs: over at the end, it's profit.
• 6:46
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 6:47
  Robert Griggs: So they know totally how to do it, and it's just engaging them
• 6:51
  Robert Griggs: and teaching them a lot of the nuances of business.
• 6:55
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Lisa Nichols: I love that.
• 6:57
  Lisa Nichols: Wow.
• 6:58
  Lisa Nichols: You just covered a whole bunch of information there
• 7:02
  Lisa Nichols: that that I
• 7:02
  Robert Griggs: I did.
• 7:03
  Robert Griggs: Did.
• 7:03
  Robert Griggs: But as you go into the details more, you you'll find the things
• 7:08
  Robert Griggs: it's just a broad stroke of what the book is about from,
• 7:14
  Robert Griggs: twenty twenty when it really changed, okay, to twenty
• 7:18
  Robert Griggs: three, four, or five.
• 7:20
  Robert Griggs: It's how I got to that point.
• 7:22
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 7:23
  Robert Griggs: And and making those decisions.
• 7:25
  Robert Griggs: So there's a lot more to the story than just
• 7:29
  Robert Griggs: a a two minute clip.
• 7:30
  Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
• 7:31
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Lisa Nichols: And I wanna dig in more, but I wanna go back because you had
• 7:35
  Lisa Nichols: said something.
• 7:36
  Lisa Nichols: You said, you know, you were had a sales job, and you were not
• 7:39
  Lisa Nichols: really treated fairly.
• 7:41
  Lisa Nichols: I think you got, snookered out of a five thousand
• 7:45
  Lisa Nichols: dollar commission, Robert.
• 7:47
  Lisa Nichols: Did.
• 7:47
  Lisa Nichols: And that was kind of a that was kind of a pivotal change for
• 7:51
  Lisa Nichols: you where you're like, you know, you wanna build something.
• 7:54
  Lisa Nichols: Here these are your words.
• 7:56
  Lisa Nichols: You go, I wanna build something where no one puts their hands in someone
• 7:59
  Lisa Nichols: else's pocket.
• 8:01
  Robert Griggs: Well and I was about to say that.
• 8:04
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 8:05
  Robert Griggs: Because it's very interesting.
• 8:07
  Robert Griggs: I keep my hand in my pocket.
• 8:08
  Robert Griggs: You keep your hand in your pocket.
• 8:10
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 8:11
  Robert Griggs: And what happens is,
• 8:14
  Robert Griggs: what I've a couple of things in that.
• 8:17
  Robert Griggs: You the the company gets to set the formula.
• 8:21
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 8:21
  Robert Griggs: And if you set the formula and you don't live by,
• 8:25
  Robert Griggs: well, guess that's not some place that people wanna be or and I was
• 8:30
  Robert Griggs: making seven hundred dollars a month,
• 8:34
  Robert Griggs: draw against commission and got paid commission.
• 8:37
  Robert Griggs: So I had a five thousand dollar commission check coming at Christmas,
• 8:41
  Robert Griggs: and I got twenty five dollars.
• 8:42
  Robert Griggs: And I called my boss and said, hey, man.
• 8:45
  Robert Griggs: What's going on?
• 8:46
  Robert Griggs: And he goes, Valley Steel didn't pay us.
• 8:48
  Robert Griggs: And Valley Steel at that time was a huge company in town in
• 8:52
  Robert Griggs: Saint Louis, and they were selling, I mean, two hundred million
• 8:57
  Robert Griggs: dollars in nineteen seventy eight when Steele was going
• 9:01
  Robert Griggs: for three hundred dollars a ton, you can't even amount it would be two
• 9:04
  Robert Griggs: billion or three billion today.
• 9:06
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 9:07
  Robert Griggs: And but in those days, anybody would answer the phone.
• 9:10
  Robert Griggs: You could call the president in a valley or you could call the CFO
• 9:14
  Robert Griggs: or
• 9:14
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 9:15
  Robert Griggs: So I called Harold Mabry, just and said, mister Mabry,
• 9:19
  Robert Griggs: it's Robert Griggs.
• 9:21
  Robert Griggs: We had this order, and he said, ask your boss how much money he
• 9:24
  Robert Griggs: owes me.
• 9:26
  Robert Griggs: So they had contra ed it.
• 9:29
  Robert Griggs: So I knew at that point that they were never gonna treat
• 9:33
  Robert Griggs: us right.
• 9:33
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 9:34
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 9:35
  Robert Griggs: So that's, and I like to take the
• 9:39
  Robert Griggs: high road on money, because two things
• 9:43
  Robert Griggs: happen if you don't.
• 9:44
  Robert Griggs: You create an enemy and you create somebody that has a long,
• 9:48
  Robert Griggs: long memory, and they tend to not forget
• 9:53
  Robert Griggs: and it just causes problems.
• 9:55
  Robert Griggs: So take the high road on cash, do your best, and,
• 9:59
  Robert Griggs: and keep going.
• 10:01
  Lisa Nichols: So, Robert, I just I love the philosophy.
• 10:04
  Lisa Nichols: We do have similar philosophies for sure.
• 10:06
  Lisa Nichols: You know?
• 10:07
  Lisa Nichols: And what I want to tell our our listeners is that
• 10:11
  Lisa Nichols: I know, like, Trinity is well over, like, three hundred
• 10:15
  Lisa Nichols: million dollar business today
• 10:17
  Robert Griggs: Yes, ma'am.
• 10:18
  Lisa Nichols: Which is crazy.
• 10:19
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, you started from nothing.
• 10:21
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 10:22
  Robert Griggs: You know, there's something really important happening this year,
• 10:27
  Robert Griggs: the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America.
• 10:31
  Robert Griggs: And it's funny.
• 10:32
  Robert Griggs: I get to travel around.
• 10:33
  Robert Griggs: I grew up in the military, so I I was all over with my
• 10:36
  Robert Griggs: dad.
• 10:37
  Robert Griggs: My dad was in Korea, and we've been to Europe and lived in Germany.
• 10:41
  Robert Griggs: And I saw the Berlin Wall, okay, and Brandenburg
• 10:45
  Robert Griggs: Gate.
• 10:46
  Robert Griggs: And so, I remember that point.
• 10:49
  Robert Griggs: And, I do remember I was, man, probably in second
• 10:53
  Robert Griggs: grade, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• 10:56
  Robert Griggs: So what we find here is even though some people
• 11:00
  Robert Griggs: might not wanna believe it, if you
• 11:03
  Robert Griggs: really work hard, you're gonna get better than most people
• 11:08
  Robert Griggs: around the world.
• 11:09
  Robert Griggs: If you haven't been to Africa or you haven't been to places you
• 11:13
  Robert Griggs: don't know what poor is.
• 11:14
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 11:15
  Robert Griggs: And
• 11:15
  Lisa Nichols: True.
• 11:16
  Robert Griggs: I grew up in Southeast Missouri, and I grew up on a farm.
• 11:19
  Robert Griggs: And there were a lot of people that it was scary.
• 11:22
  Robert Griggs: And so the point being is America is a place where if you,
• 11:27
  Robert Griggs: put your will to it, good things can happen.
• 11:31
  Robert Griggs: Now it doesn't always work.
• 11:33
  Robert Griggs: There's luck involved, a lot of luck, a lot of opportunity.
• 11:37
  Robert Griggs: I say this,
• 11:39
  Robert Griggs: success is where opportunity and preparedness meet.
• 11:43
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 11:44
  Robert Griggs: So you have to put yourself in that position, and and I
• 11:48
  Robert Griggs: do a lot of speaking at the zoo and kids will ask me well
• 11:52
  Robert Griggs: or people will say, well, I worked hard.
• 11:55
  Robert Griggs: Success in that also comes with the risk.
• 11:59
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 11:59
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 12:00
  Robert Griggs: And risk doesn't have to be borrowing money.
• 12:03
  Robert Griggs: Risk is, did you walk up to your boss and say, how can I
• 12:06
  Robert Griggs: help you?
• 12:08
  Robert Griggs: And how can I be supportive of of you?
• 12:11
  Robert Griggs: And by having the risk to say that, the
• 12:16
  Robert Griggs: gumption or the will, what happens is the more risk you
• 12:20
  Robert Griggs: take, the more reward you get because people see it.
• 12:24
  Robert Griggs: And and so risk is one of those things, but without risk,
• 12:28
  Robert Griggs: okay, reward gets tricky, and it has to be thought about in
• 12:33
  Robert Griggs: not just monetarily.
• 12:34
  Robert Griggs: It's all the other factors in
• 12:36
  Lisa Nichols: it.
• 12:36
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 12:37
  Lisa Nichols: And success.
• 12:37
  Lisa Nichols: So good.
• 12:38
  Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
• 12:39
  Lisa Nichols: Well, we've already talked about your book a little bit, but you did, your
• 12:42
  Lisa Nichols: book came out in twenty twenty three.
• 12:44
  Lisa Nichols: It's called foundational leadership, and I love the subtitle, growth doesn't
• 12:48
  Lisa Nichols: start at the top.
• 12:51
  Robert Griggs: It doesn't.
• 12:53
  Robert Griggs: And so when we go back into this thought process and something
• 12:57
  Robert Griggs: I learned and,
• 12:59
  Robert Griggs: so I'm gonna hold up a v.
• 13:01
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 13:02
  Robert Griggs: And there's the pyramid and Lisa and Jenny and me
• 13:06
  Robert Griggs: and a lot of people are at the top thirty percent of that pyramid.
• 13:09
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 13:10
  Robert Griggs: Pretty successful,
• 13:12
  Robert Griggs: are gonna get paid almost no matter where we go.
• 13:15
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 13:16
  Robert Griggs: Something
• 13:16
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 13:17
  Robert Griggs: A decent wage.
• 13:18
  Robert Griggs: And so how do you how do you really get successful
• 13:22
  Robert Griggs: and learn to grow the business?
• 13:24
  Robert Griggs: Well, you turn the pyramid upside down and we as leaders
• 13:28
  Robert Griggs: focus on the foundation.
• 13:30
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that load the trucks.
• 13:32
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that are doing the welding.
• 13:35
  Robert Griggs: It's the people that are keeping the lights on.
• 13:38
  Robert Griggs: Alright?
• 13:39
  Robert Griggs: And so our job as leaders is to make their lives
• 13:43
  Robert Griggs: better.
• 13:44
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 13:44
  Robert Griggs: And two things happen when that happens.
• 13:47
  Robert Griggs: Our customers' lives get better because we deliver
• 13:51
  Robert Griggs: our products on time with high quality.
• 13:54
  Robert Griggs: And then secondly,
• 13:57
  Robert Griggs: as a leader, my life gets better because I'm not focused on
• 14:01
  Robert Griggs: all the small minutia problems.
• 14:03
  Robert Griggs: I get to go out in space and go, where's the next place to
• 14:07
  Robert Griggs: grow?
• 14:07
  Robert Griggs: You don't go from, let's see.
• 14:10
  Robert Griggs: We were,
• 14:12
  Robert Griggs: two point two million in nineteen seventy nine.
• 14:14
  Robert Griggs: We got to six million in two thousand.
• 14:16
  Robert Griggs: And two thousand was the point I realized I couldn't do this by myself.
• 14:20
  Robert Griggs: I needed something else, and I got handy Jack's deck book, great game
• 14:25
  Robert Griggs: of business and sharing the profits.
• 14:26
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 14:27
  Robert Griggs: And I I dove in.
• 14:29
  Robert Griggs: I go I taught financial literacy as much of my job was
• 14:33
  Robert Griggs: teaching, because we don't control
• 14:38
  Robert Griggs: the outcomes in business a lot.
• 14:39
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 14:40
  Robert Griggs: There's a war going on.
• 14:41
  Robert Griggs: There's gas prices going up their fuel.
• 14:43
  Robert Griggs: There's out kind outside constraints that affect a lot of our success.
• 14:48
  Robert Griggs: So from two thousand and great game of business to two thousand
• 14:52
  Robert Griggs: and ten, we went to sixty seven million dollars from SIP.
• 14:56
  Robert Griggs: Alright?
• 14:57
  Robert Griggs: Then I learned again there, I go,
• 15:01
  Robert Griggs: although they can manage the expenses and the outcome, how are
• 15:05
  Robert Griggs: they affected?
• 15:06
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 15:07
  Robert Griggs: How do they affect it daily?
• 15:09
  Robert Griggs: And so then I was at a seminar and I saw, continuous improvement.
• 15:15
  Robert Griggs: I had always felt like continuous improvement that made it difficult
• 15:19
  Robert Griggs: or was gonna be hard and you're a black belt and you're on blah
• 15:22
  Robert Griggs: blah blah.
• 15:23
  Robert Griggs: So what what I learned at then in two thousand ten was
• 15:28
  Robert Griggs: continuous improvement goes,
• 15:31
  Robert Griggs: what's not working?
• 15:33
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 15:33
  Robert Griggs: That's it.
• 15:34
  Robert Griggs: That's all the question is.
• 15:35
  Robert Griggs: You put a group of people that work together that are doing the job
• 15:39
  Robert Griggs: and you go, what's not working?
• 15:40
  Robert Griggs: You put it on spreadsheet.
• 15:43
  Robert Griggs: You organize it by, the priorities of we monetize,
• 15:47
  Robert Griggs: we organize, and we prioritize, and then you fix things, and then you meet
• 15:51
  Robert Griggs: again in two weeks, and you fix more things.
• 15:54
  Robert Griggs: And then what happens in this is you've taken all the barriers,
• 15:59
  Robert Griggs: the impediments to success for the people that are working for you
• 16:03
  Robert Griggs: out of the way.
• 16:04
  Robert Griggs: You make a standard that we all agree upon that they have the power
• 16:08
  Robert Griggs: to have input on and you walk in and say, you're
• 16:12
  Robert Griggs: giving me twenty feet an hour at sixty five percent productivity.
• 16:16
  Robert Griggs: So I need sixty five feet.
• 16:18
  Robert Griggs: Alright?
• 16:19
  Robert Griggs: And then you go back and track.
• 16:21
  Robert Griggs: Anything worth doing anything worth doing is worth,
• 16:25
  Robert Griggs: tracking.
• 16:26
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 16:26
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 16:27
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 16:27
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 16:28
  Robert Griggs: And then you post it.
• 16:29
  Robert Griggs: And so we just continue to get better.
• 16:32
  Robert Griggs: And then in twenty three, we did three hundred and some maybe
• 16:36
  Robert Griggs: two eighty five to three ten depending on
• 16:41
  Robert Griggs: so it wasn't me doing that.
• 16:43
  Robert Griggs: It was this system that's in this book that you would buy and read,
• 16:46
  Robert Griggs: and it was it's just a plan.
• 16:49
  Robert Griggs: I don't know why everybody doesn't run their business this way.
• 16:53
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 16:53
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
• 16:55
  Lisa Nichols: Boy, you just you just gave us tons of gold nuggets in there,
• 16:59
  Lisa Nichols: Robert.
• 16:59
  Lisa Nichols: So the book that that Robert's talking about is Jack Stack's
• 17:03
  Lisa Nichols: book, Great Game of Business, and it really kind of changed you know,
• 17:07
  Lisa Nichols: it was a paradigm shift for you for sure.
• 17:11
  Lisa Nichols: You know, what about this the five percent rule?
• 17:14
  Lisa Nichols: So you you kinda struck a deal, and you did.
• 17:17
  Lisa Nichols: I loved because I read that where you went through and you taught all
• 17:20
  Lisa Nichols: of your employees financial literacy.
• 17:22
  Lisa Nichols: You taught them how to read financial statements, all of that.
• 17:25
  Lisa Nichols: But tell us about the five percent rule and the profit sharing, and how
• 17:29
  Lisa Nichols: did this transform the behavior?
• 17:32
  Robert Griggs: So when you get to the first part of
• 17:36
  Robert Griggs: when you're when you're you're giving key numbers, key metrics in your
• 17:40
  Robert Griggs: business.
• 17:40
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 17:41
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 17:41
  Robert Griggs: And ours, we were a combination fabricator,
• 17:46
  Robert Griggs: which is has high margins, distributor, and broker.
• 17:49
  Robert Griggs: So we went out into the marketplace.
• 17:52
  Robert Griggs: It's so easy to get data today, but when we started in two
• 17:56
  Robert Griggs: thousand, your banks helped supply it.
• 17:59
  Robert Griggs: And so we found that the top companies that we compared ourself
• 18:03
  Robert Griggs: to had a five percent net return on sales.
• 18:06
  Robert Griggs: So if you sold a thousand dollars, you made you made
• 18:11
  Robert Griggs: fifty dollars.
• 18:11
  Robert Griggs: And so it's just a number.
• 18:14
  Robert Griggs: We compared ourselves and then what we found is so if
• 18:18
  Robert Griggs: five was the top,
• 18:20
  Robert Griggs: what was the number that sustained our business?
• 18:23
  Robert Griggs: So three and a half percent net return on sales was the bottom
• 18:27
  Robert Griggs: because we had to make that much money to buy new equipment
• 18:32
  Robert Griggs: and to give raises and do all that.
• 18:34
  Robert Griggs: So the bottom is three and a half percent net return on sales.
• 18:37
  Robert Griggs: If we don't get above that, there's no bonusing.
• 18:40
  Robert Griggs: And then for every five, points above that, we
• 18:45
  Robert Griggs: went to twenty percent of the profits.
• 18:47
  Robert Griggs: So for example, if we had a,
• 18:51
  Robert Griggs: ten million dollar business, at five percent net return on sales
• 18:55
  Robert Griggs: would be five hundred grand, and we would say are a hundred thousand dollars
• 19:00
  Robert Griggs: with all the employees.
• 19:01
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 19:01
  Lisa Nichols: And
• 19:01
  Robert Griggs: so it would be divided up.
• 19:03
  Robert Griggs: Now I had people,
• 19:06
  Robert Griggs: say to me, well, why would you give somebody a hundred thousand dollars?
• 19:09
  Robert Griggs: And I go, would you like to motivate them to be in the top
• 19:13
  Robert Griggs: of all your peer groups every single month, year, forever?
• 19:18
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 19:18
  Robert Griggs: Because you can't do it yourself.
• 19:21
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 19:21
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 19:21
  Robert Griggs: And and so I I went and took this a little further.
• 19:26
  Robert Griggs: Let's say we sold a hundred million dollars, okay, which we would
• 19:30
  Robert Griggs: make five million dollars on.
• 19:32
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 19:33
  Robert Griggs: Would you share a million dollars?
• 19:36
  Robert Griggs: And here's where the numbers go.
• 19:38
  Robert Griggs: Robert Griggs is gonna have to pay forty five percent in taxes.
• 19:42
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 19:43
  Robert Griggs: Alright?
• 19:44
  Robert Griggs: So what I've done is I've put uncle Sam in as my
• 19:48
  Robert Griggs: partner.
• 19:49
  Robert Griggs: And,
• 19:51
  Robert Griggs: so I'm sharing a million dollars with everybody.
• 19:54
  Robert Griggs: Do you think everybody shows up?
• 19:55
  Robert Griggs: Do you think the wives and the sons and the daughters and all the
• 19:59
  Robert Griggs: people hear about this and go, this is what I got and show up
• 20:03
  Robert Griggs: at work and are happy.
• 20:05
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 20:06
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 20:06
  Robert Griggs: And it only cost me fifty five percent of what I would have made
• 20:10
  Robert Griggs: on that million.
• 20:11
  Robert Griggs: So I weighed the balance and said, I would rather them have
• 20:15
  Robert Griggs: it demotivated because I promise you we're gonna make more.
• 20:20
  Robert Griggs: And then the other part people, businesses would say is I'm afraid.
• 20:25
  Robert Griggs: Most business people are afraid to show somebody the books,
• 20:29
  Robert Griggs: because,
• 20:31
  Robert Griggs: really, in a ten year period, you knock it out of the park a
• 20:35
  Robert Griggs: couple of times.
• 20:35
  Robert Griggs: You really take it badly a couple of times, and everything else is kinda
• 20:40
  Robert Griggs: down the middle.
• 20:41
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 20:41
  Robert Griggs: But people think if you make a million dollars, you make it a hundred
• 20:45
  Robert Griggs: thousand dollars a month.
• 20:46
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 20:47
  Robert Griggs: And it ends up being a million dollars.
• 20:48
  Robert Griggs: Well, really, it's not.
• 20:49
  Robert Griggs: You might make six hundred grand in one month, lose two hundred.
• 20:53
  Robert Griggs: And so by teaching them how the business works and fluctuates,
• 20:57
  Robert Griggs: it makes it keeps them very calm because they realize
• 21:01
  Robert Griggs: when things are bad, they're gonna get better, and they realize when things are
• 21:05
  Robert Griggs: good, unfortunately, keep your head down because they're gonna
• 21:08
  Lisa Nichols: because it's gonna get worse.
• 21:10
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 21:10
  Robert Griggs: And so it's funny.
• 21:12
  Robert Griggs: It takes all the pressure off me.
• 21:15
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Robert Griggs: I didn't have any pressure.
• 21:17
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Robert Griggs: Tell me what's not working.
• 21:19
  Robert Griggs: I'm gonna fix it.
• 21:20
  Robert Griggs: When I fix it, I'm gonna ask you the question.
• 21:22
  Robert Griggs: Why aren't you doing what we all agreed to?
• 21:25
  Robert Griggs: And then they'll say, well, something broke and I go, well, why didn't you
• 21:28
  Robert Griggs: write a work ticket on it?
• 21:30
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 21:30
  Robert Griggs: There's always a reason that the process doesn't get
• 21:33
  Lisa Nichols: Sure.
• 21:33
  Lisa Nichols: Sure.
• 21:34
  Lisa Nichols: For sure.
• 21:35
  Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
• 21:35
  Lisa Nichols: This is so good, Robert.
• 21:36
  Lisa Nichols: But we do need a quick take a quick break, and we'll be right
• 21:39
  Lisa Nichols: back with Robert Griggs on the Something Extra podcast.
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• 22:12
  Lisa Nichols: Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast with Robert Griggs.
• 22:16
  Lisa Nichols: So Robert, in twenty twenty one, talked to me about this.
• 22:20
  Lisa Nichols: You took the business to an ESOP.
• 22:23
  Robert Griggs: Correct.
• 22:24
  Robert Griggs: It kinda felt in with our philosophy.
• 22:28
  Robert Griggs: You know, as a business person that is growing
• 22:32
  Robert Griggs: and let's take it from, you know, let's take it from, seventy
• 22:37
  Robert Griggs: nine or, I mean,
• 22:39
  Robert Griggs: let's see.
• 22:40
  Robert Griggs: What was it?
• 22:40
  Robert Griggs: Ninety three when I bought my partner out from two point two million
• 22:44
  Robert Griggs: to three hundred million.
• 22:46
  Robert Griggs: Every amount I mean, I lived a great life, but every amount of money
• 22:49
  Robert Griggs: I made got put back into business.
• 22:51
  Robert Griggs: Yes.
• 22:52
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 22:52
  Robert Griggs: And so you have to have I went to everybody and said, guys,
• 22:56
  Robert Griggs: I need a liquidity event.
• 22:58
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 23:00
  Robert Griggs: I'm getting old.
• 23:01
  Robert Griggs: I need to cash out.
• 23:02
  Robert Griggs: And so we looked at putting it into the private market, and then
• 23:07
  Robert Griggs: I just thought I really would rather there's some advantages
• 23:11
  Robert Griggs: or it didn't take anything.
• 23:14
  Robert Griggs: All the ESOP people go, well, your business is perfect because they all know
• 23:18
  Robert Griggs: how to read an income statement in the balance sheet.
• 23:20
  Robert Griggs: They know what business is.
• 23:21
  Robert Griggs: They're not gonna be afraid of it.
• 23:23
  Robert Griggs: So we ended up doing an ESOP.
• 23:26
  Robert Griggs: Had a couple really good years, and then the last two years have not
• 23:30
  Robert Griggs: been good.
• 23:31
  Robert Griggs: One of the years was the worst we've had, but as I go back,
• 23:35
  Robert Griggs: our job is just to show up and get better every day.
• 23:39
  Robert Griggs: Operationally, we did really well.
• 23:42
  Robert Griggs: We had some initiative during that period of time.
• 23:45
  Robert Griggs: We increased our productivity at the mill from about forty
• 23:49
  Robert Griggs: thousand tons a year to fifty five thousand tons a year.
• 23:54
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 23:54
  Robert Griggs: We, put on a product line called Tri Loc, which we invested ten
• 23:58
  Robert Griggs: million dollars in that we have a patent that we're now it's a press
• 24:02
  Robert Griggs: fit connection.
• 24:03
  Robert Griggs: We're now selling it.
• 24:05
  Robert Griggs: We've got an order in Nigeria.
• 24:07
  Robert Griggs: We're just shipping pipe to Nigeria to go under the Niger River.
• 24:11
  Robert Griggs: We have patents in the EU.
• 24:14
  Robert Griggs: We have patents in Africa and the Middle East.
• 24:17
  Robert Griggs: So we were doing a lot of really, really good things.
• 24:20
  Lisa Nichols: Good things.
• 24:21
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 24:21
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 24:22
  Robert Griggs: The market just gets in the way.
• 24:23
  Robert Griggs: And so as you learn, you don't like it,
• 24:27
  Robert Griggs: but you realize when it's bad here's the thing I would say to everybody.
• 24:31
  Robert Griggs: Guys, it's not good.
• 24:32
  Robert Griggs: So guess what's gonna happen?
• 24:33
  Robert Griggs: And they look at me and they go, it's gonna get good.
• 24:36
  Robert Griggs: Now
• 24:37
  Lisa Nichols: we're in that
• 24:39
  Robert Griggs: yeah.
• 24:39
  Robert Griggs: We're in that position right now.
• 24:40
  Robert Griggs: We've had a great first quarter.
• 24:43
  Robert Griggs: Second and third quarter are shaping up really, really nicely,
• 24:48
  Robert Griggs: and we're involved in the infrastructure business.
• 24:50
  Robert Griggs: So, you know,
• 24:53
  Robert Griggs: the the Francis got Key Bridge, for example, the one that went down in
• 24:57
  Robert Griggs: Baltimore.
• 24:58
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 24:58
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 24:58
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 24:59
  Robert Griggs: We're we're putting the foundational pipe in for that.
• 25:02
  Robert Griggs: We've built pipe.
• 25:03
  Robert Griggs: We're the number one large diameter, meaning twenty four and above structural
• 25:07
  Robert Griggs: pipe manufacturer in America.
• 25:09
  Robert Griggs: And so we've done the Javits Center, of,
• 25:13
  Robert Griggs: Newark Airport, Venetia Bay Bridge.
• 25:17
  Robert Griggs: You know, the only thing you all might see is when you drive by
• 25:21
  Robert Griggs: a Topgolf, okay, all over the country, you've probably done twenty
• 25:25
  Robert Griggs: five of those.
• 25:26
  Robert Griggs: So or signs, quick trip signs, and you
• 25:30
  Robert Griggs: you would be shocked at how many signs we planted across America.
• 25:34
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 25:34
  Lisa Nichols: What a what an awesome story.
• 25:36
  Lisa Nichols: What an awesome story.
• 25:37
  Lisa Nichols: And the thing is, you know, Robert, as you're talking, I mean, that's the
• 25:41
  Lisa Nichols: other thing that people need to understand.
• 25:43
  Lisa Nichols: There's ebbs and flows.
• 25:44
  Lisa Nichols: And you said it yourself.
• 25:45
  Lisa Nichols: There's market conditions that we can't control, but let's control what we can control.
• 25:50
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 25:50
  Lisa Nichols: Let's focus on we what we can control, and there are plenty of those
• 25:54
  Lisa Nichols: things.
• 25:54
  Lisa Nichols: But let me ask you about this.
• 25:56
  Lisa Nichols: I think this is really,
• 25:59
  Lisa Nichols: I think this is I like this.
• 26:01
  Lisa Nichols: You have a no lying policy.
• 26:03
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Lisa Nichols: And if you lie, you're fired.
• 26:07
  Lisa Nichols: But you have also a caveat where you say you can
• 26:12
  Lisa Nichols: recant that, and you will be forgiven.
• 26:15
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 26:16
  Lisa Nichols: But, you know, I mean, where did that come from?
• 26:21
  Robert Griggs: It comes from we do a lot of business over the phone and,
• 26:25
  Robert Griggs: you know, over the course of this, you have young salespeople, and everybody
• 26:30
  Robert Griggs: wants their customer to be happy.
• 26:32
  Robert Griggs: And it's very easy to say, yes.
• 26:34
  Robert Griggs: The truck is loaded
• 26:37
  Robert Griggs: or da da da instead of and what I really wanted to teach
• 26:42
  Robert Griggs: everyone was this.
• 26:43
  Robert Griggs: I don't know the answer.
• 26:44
  Robert Griggs: Let me get it for you.
• 26:46
  Robert Griggs: Or if you think the answer is bad, we
• 26:50
  Robert Griggs: we deliver bad news first.
• 26:53
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 26:54
  Robert Griggs: That's our mission.
• 26:55
  Robert Griggs: So you come in, we have a thing we call eat the frog.
• 26:59
  Robert Griggs: How would you eat a frog?
• 27:00
  Robert Griggs: Now I stole this from buying Tracy.
• 27:02
  Lisa Nichols: Everything Tracy.
• 27:04
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Robert Griggs: Everything I've done in my life, I've stole stolen from someone.
• 27:09
  Lisa Nichols: Yep.
• 27:09
  Robert Griggs: But eating a frog is so every salesman has a frog on their desk.
• 27:13
  Robert Griggs: And so the night before you leave, you write down all the things
• 27:17
  Robert Griggs: that have to get done and you start with the worst one.
• 27:20
  Robert Griggs: I'm making that call.
• 27:21
  Robert Griggs: I made all my call bad calls on the way to work.
• 27:24
  Robert Griggs: Hey, Jim.
• 27:25
  Robert Griggs: Our truck didn't go out last night.
• 27:27
  Robert Griggs: You let me know what I have to do.
• 27:29
  Robert Griggs: I'm driving over to a plant right now, and I'm gonna get all the
• 27:32
  Robert Griggs: information.
• 27:32
  Robert Griggs: So guess what?
• 27:33
  Robert Griggs: Two things happened.
• 27:34
  Robert Griggs: I've gotten it off my chest.
• 27:36
  Robert Griggs: Jim has a chance.
• 27:37
  Robert Griggs: He's mad at you.
• 27:39
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 27:40
  Robert Griggs: But he also has a chance if you tell him early to figure out
• 27:44
  Robert Griggs: how to solve his situation with his labor and his things.
• 27:48
  Robert Griggs: And so,
• 27:50
  Robert Griggs: it it just went that way.
• 27:52
  Robert Griggs: And here's another thing to understand.
• 27:55
  Robert Griggs: I can fix a mistake.
• 27:56
  Robert Griggs: I can't fix a lie.
• 27:58
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 27:58
  Lisa Nichols: That's true.
• 28:00
  Robert Griggs: You lose credibility with people when you lie.
• 28:03
  Robert Griggs: And so I am going to tell you a quick story.
• 28:06
  Robert Griggs: I told a friend of mine, two days ago.
• 28:08
  Robert Griggs: I was on a podcast, and he goes, are you gonna tell him the
• 28:11
  Robert Griggs: Anchorage, Alaska story?
• 28:13
  Robert Griggs: And I go, yeah.
• 28:13
  Robert Griggs: Sure.
• 28:14
  Robert Griggs: And here's the thing.
• 28:15
  Robert Griggs: We tell everybody everything, and we mostly
• 28:19
  Robert Griggs: start with the bad and then go to the good.
• 28:22
  Robert Griggs: So Right.
• 28:24
  Robert Griggs: We had a call system set up for the salesman because I grew
• 28:28
  Robert Griggs: up in the old days where you made a hundred calls a day and
• 28:31
  Robert Griggs: you would you would get a hold of twenty people.
• 28:33
  Robert Griggs: And of that twenty people, you would get three inquiries.
• 28:36
  Robert Griggs: And of those three inquiries, you'd close one.
• 28:38
  Robert Griggs: So it was a numbers game, and it just gave us something.
• 28:40
  Robert Griggs: So one of the salesman,
• 28:44
  Robert Griggs: who,
• 28:46
  Robert Griggs: unfortunate well, fortunately, was a number two salesman.
• 28:49
  Robert Griggs: We this is a story of when AT and T had minutes
• 28:54
  Robert Griggs: and you got charged per minute, okay, of LV long distance.
• 28:58
  Robert Griggs: So this was a long time ago.
• 29:00
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Robert Griggs: We my, accountant young lady came in and said, I think AT
• 29:06
  Robert Griggs: and T has overcharged us by, fifty grand on our phone
• 29:10
  Robert Griggs: bill.
• 29:10
  Robert Griggs: And I go, no way.
• 29:11
  Robert Griggs: And so they did.
• 29:12
  Robert Griggs: They do they had it should have been six cents a minute and
• 29:16
  Robert Griggs: they charge us nine.
• 29:18
  Robert Griggs: So but she goes this was a Friday afternoon on the way home at
• 29:21
  Robert Griggs: four thirty.
• 29:22
  Robert Griggs: She goes, I got really bad news.
• 29:25
  Robert Griggs: She goes, x y z salesman called Anchorage, Alaska
• 29:29
  Robert Griggs: time and temperature four thousand time.
• 29:33
  Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
• 29:34
  Lisa Nichols: Four thousand times?
• 29:36
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 29:38
  Robert Griggs: Now, this is a lying thing.
• 29:41
  Robert Griggs: So he got fired, but it also comes
• 29:45
  Robert Griggs: back to something that I learned as you change now when you're
• 29:49
  Robert Griggs: learning.
• 29:50
  Robert Griggs: I had the goal set up incorrectly.
• 29:52
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 29:53
  Robert Griggs: I I had making the number of calls and and that sort of thing.
• 29:57
  Robert Griggs: So it so I would tell everybody in business.
• 30:00
  Robert Griggs: What you started as your matrix of what happened, is calling really
• 30:05
  Robert Griggs: the thing that it just number of calls, or is it am I on
• 30:09
  Robert Griggs: the phone with somebody and building a relationship?
• 30:12
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 30:12
  Robert Griggs: And so how do you measure that?
• 30:14
  Robert Griggs: So partly, it was my fault,
• 30:18
  Robert Griggs: but that's how we change.
• 30:20
  Robert Griggs: So the recant thing is,
• 30:23
  Robert Griggs: listen, you get put under pressure and you say something, you call your customer
• 30:26
  Robert Griggs: back and say, Jim, I just checked.
• 30:28
  Robert Griggs: It's not gonna be there.
• 30:29
  Robert Griggs: And you walk into your boss and you say, hey, man.
• 30:32
  Robert Griggs: I told them that, but I fixed it.
• 30:33
  Robert Griggs: And so but because people looked at me and go, man, you know,
• 30:37
  Robert Griggs: if you if you're fired or lied, are we gonna have anybody here?
• 30:40
  Robert Griggs: And I go, yeah, we are because we're not gonna lie and all we're
• 30:43
  Robert Griggs: gonna do is tell the truth.
• 30:45
  Robert Griggs: We're gonna get to the finish line faster without having
• 30:49
  Robert Griggs: to create trouble.
• 30:52
  Robert Griggs: So that one was instituted.
• 30:54
  Robert Griggs: We still live by it.
• 30:55
  Robert Griggs: And then the second one that happened probably ten years ago, that was twenty
• 30:59
  Robert Griggs: years ago, which took me a long time to find out,
• 31:03
  Robert Griggs: no drama.
• 31:07
  Robert Griggs: Because there
• 31:09
  Lisa Nichols: That's good.
• 31:10
  Robert Griggs: There are people and organizations that are drama kings and queens.
• 31:14
  Lisa Nichols: They love it.
• 31:14
  Lisa Nichols: They love it.
• 31:15
  Lisa Nichols: They relish the drama.
• 31:17
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 31:17
  Robert Griggs: And so what we did, and that started ten years ago, we
• 31:21
  Robert Griggs: know who the drama people are and we coach them up and say, I
• 31:25
  Robert Griggs: gotta be honest with you.
• 31:26
  Robert Griggs: This is not working for us.
• 31:28
  Robert Griggs: And so we we coach them to change.
• 31:30
  Robert Griggs: And if they can't change, we just ask them to move on.
• 31:34
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 31:34
  Robert Griggs: Because our regular lives and businesses are too hard
• 31:38
  Robert Griggs: to get caught.
• 31:39
  Robert Griggs: It's not
• 31:39
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 31:40
  Lisa Nichols: Agreed.
• 31:41
  Robert Griggs: Our rules are this.
• 31:43
  Robert Griggs: We have a boss.
• 31:44
  Robert Griggs: It's the customer.
• 31:45
  Robert Griggs: Serve them.
• 31:47
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 31:48
  Robert Griggs: Secondly, serve your employees by share we share the profits and we
• 31:52
  Robert Griggs: treat them fairly.
• 31:54
  Robert Griggs: Third, no lying.
• 31:55
  Robert Griggs: If you lie, you're fired.
• 31:56
  Robert Griggs: And then the fourth new one is,
• 32:00
  Robert Griggs: no drama.
• 32:01
  Lisa Nichols: No drama.
• 32:02
  Robert Griggs: No drama.
• 32:03
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 32:04
  Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
• 32:04
  Lisa Nichols: Well, it doesn't do anybody any good, and it pulls everybody else down.
• 32:09
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 32:09
  Lisa Nichols: So I love I love those rules.
• 32:11
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I'm gonna ask you one more question, and then, we
• 32:15
  Lisa Nichols: do need to wrap up, and I'll ask you something extra.
• 32:19
  Lisa Nichols: But I know that you are you know, you talked about continuous improvement.
• 32:25
  Lisa Nichols: I know from reading about you, Robert, and even the short time that I've
• 32:29
  Lisa Nichols: been able to talk to you, you are a continuous learner.
• 32:33
  Lisa Nichols: You I mean, you said
• 32:35
  Robert Griggs: heard about it.
• 32:35
  Lisa Nichols: You know?
• 32:36
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, I've heard you quote Brian Tracy,
• 32:39
  Lisa Nichols: which I absolutely love to eat that frog.
• 32:41
  Lisa Nichols: I'll tell you I'll tell you something really funny.
• 32:44
  Lisa Nichols: So one day, I was trying to I was imparting these business principles to
• 32:48
  Lisa Nichols: our grandson.
• 32:49
  Lisa Nichols: And I was saying in Steuer, you know, they're because it was something about
• 32:52
  Lisa Nichols: homework, and he really it was a subject he really didn't like.
• 32:55
  Lisa Nichols: And I'm like, well, Brian Tracy says, you eat the frog.
• 32:59
  Lisa Nichols: And I said, that means you do what you like the least the first.
• 33:02
  Robert Griggs: Yeah.
• 33:03
  Lisa Nichols: And he goes, well, Yaya, it could also be eat the peas.
• 33:08
  Robert Griggs: It could be.
• 33:09
  Lisa Nichols: And I said, yes.
• 33:10
  Lisa Nichols: Because he will not eat anything green.
• 33:12
  Lisa Nichols: So, but, anyway but I know you're a big reader.
• 33:16
  Lisa Nichols: And, you know, I read this that here's some of your favorite books,
• 33:20
  Lisa Nichols: and I wanted you to comment if there's anything else, To Kill a Mockingbird.
• 33:25
  Robert Griggs: Oh, I love that one.
• 33:26
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 33:26
  Lisa Nichols: Skates of Fire.
• 33:27
  Robert Griggs: From the south, so you know what that one is.
• 33:29
  Lisa Nichols: I do.
• 33:30
  Lisa Nichols: I do know what that one is.
• 33:31
  Lisa Nichols: Is.
• 33:32
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 33:32
  Lisa Nichols: I do.
• 33:33
  Lisa Nichols: Think and Grow Rich, The Great Game of Business.
• 33:35
  Lisa Nichols: We've already talked about Jack's Snacks book, Warren Buffett.
• 33:38
  Lisa Nichols: I would say anything by Warren Buffett.
• 33:40
  Lisa Nichols: Uncle Warren.
• 33:41
  Lisa Nichols: Anything my uncle Warren's great.
• 33:43
  Lisa Nichols: Elon Musk's book, Shoe Dog, that's a good one, by
• 33:48
  Lisa Nichols: Phil Knight.
• 33:49
  Lisa Nichols: Do you have any other ones that have just been really,
• 33:54
  Lisa Nichols: inspirational and and foundational for you?
• 33:57
  Robert Griggs: You know, the people don't the the Think and Grow Rich,
• 34:01
  Robert Griggs: okay, that is such a great story because it takes something
• 34:05
  Robert Griggs: nearly a hundred years ago, but all the principles are exactly
• 34:09
  Robert Griggs: the same.
• 34:10
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 34:11
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 34:11
  Robert Griggs: And so what it if you read think think and grow rich, what you're
• 34:15
  Robert Griggs: gonna find is all of this basic
• 34:19
  Robert Griggs: principles of treat people correctly, do the right thing.
• 34:24
  Robert Griggs: You know, I'm gonna go ahead and say eat the frog.
• 34:27
  Robert Griggs: Listen.
• 34:27
  Robert Griggs: When we make a mistake, we fix it.
• 34:30
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 34:31
  Robert Griggs: And when we mess something up, we are on the plane, and I've got
• 34:35
  Robert Griggs: one of my best customers ever,
• 34:38
  Robert Griggs: on things that we truly did poorly.
• 34:40
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 34:41
  Robert Griggs: And, we thought we had systems in place, and we opened
• 34:45
  Robert Griggs: a second plant.
• 34:46
  Robert Griggs: And the the the the tribal knowledge here's another thing.
• 34:51
  Robert Griggs: When you think you have everything and you might have everything,
• 34:55
  Robert Griggs: locked down at home base, when you have a satellite base,
• 34:59
  Robert Griggs: you it's hard.
• 35:00
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 35:01
  Robert Griggs: And things get missed.
• 35:03
  Robert Griggs: And so,
• 35:05
  Robert Griggs: recently, I just read a really good one, but it was,
• 35:10
  Robert Griggs: Liar's Poker.
• 35:14
  Robert Griggs: And the reason I like that one is it talks about the bond market
• 35:17
  Robert Griggs: and the stock market of the eighties.
• 35:20
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 35:20
  Robert Griggs: And it gives you an idea of what Wall Street
• 35:24
  Robert Griggs: is like, which is scary.
• 35:27
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 35:27
  Robert Griggs: How they fix the game for them, but it's it's part of the world.
• 35:32
  Robert Griggs: And I just keep reading.
• 35:34
  Robert Griggs: I read things that I like.
• 35:36
  Robert Griggs: I read a lot of history.
• 35:39
  Robert Griggs: I'm excited about, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary because
• 35:43
  Robert Griggs: I know a lot about about the revolution.
• 35:46
  Robert Griggs: So I tell people, and I was just at a Mizzou class, and I
• 35:50
  Robert Griggs: said, imagine,
• 35:52
  Robert Griggs: two hundred and fifty years ago, Ben Franklin, George Washington,
• 35:57
  Robert Griggs: Hamilton,
• 35:59
  Robert Griggs: John Adams, anybody that signed that declaration of independence,
• 36:05
  Robert Griggs: if we had lost, they would have been hung in Philadelphia and New
• 36:09
  Robert Griggs: York and then their bodies taken and then hung on the Tams River.
• 36:13
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 36:14
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 36:15
  Robert Griggs: So how much courage did you have to have, okay, to go
• 36:19
  Robert Griggs: through and realize that everything that you work for
• 36:23
  Robert Griggs: probably sixty forty was gonna get taken away.
• 36:27
  Robert Griggs: There was no odds on that this was gonna work.
• 36:30
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 36:31
  Robert Griggs: The Ken Burns episode that war of independence,
• 36:35
  Robert Griggs: I'm I'm watching the first few episodes again.
• 36:39
  Robert Griggs: You everybody should watch that because you don't realize how
• 36:43
  Robert Griggs: empowering.
• 36:44
  Robert Griggs: In order to get from Virginia to Philadelphia, okay, it took
• 36:48
  Robert Griggs: ten days.
• 36:49
  Robert Griggs: So they're riding on a coach or a horse to go to the Continental
• 36:53
  Robert Griggs: Congress.
• 36:54
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 36:55
  Robert Griggs: Would anybody do anything for ten days and not be doing business today and
• 36:59
  Robert Griggs: have enough courage to do it for other people?
• 37:03
  Robert Griggs: And what you're gonna learn is we had the we had the
• 37:07
  Robert Griggs: north that wasn't involved in slavery, and we had the south that was involved
• 37:10
  Robert Griggs: in slavery, but they kinda tabled that topic because they wanted
• 37:14
  Robert Griggs: to become a country.
• 37:16
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 37:16
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 37:17
  Robert Griggs: And they go, that's a fight I can't get they couldn't take on that
• 37:20
  Robert Griggs: fight today, but a hundred years later, we took on that fight.
• 37:23
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 37:24
  Robert Griggs: And right.
• 37:25
  Robert Griggs: I was just out at the Reagan Library, and if anybody gets out there,
• 37:30
  Lisa Nichols: I've heard nothing but amazing things about the Reagan Library.
• 37:35
  Robert Griggs: He was the first president that I remember that
• 37:39
  Robert Griggs: I caught on to that made me feel good.
• 37:42
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 37:43
  Robert Griggs: And made me feel how important and he's an Illinois native and,
• 37:48
  Robert Griggs: you know, he worked in, for the actors studio, the unions,
• 37:52
  Robert Griggs: so he understood people.
• 37:54
  Robert Griggs: And there's just I'm really proud to be an American,
• 37:58
  Robert Griggs: and I'm I'm lucky, lucky lucky lucky
• 38:02
  Robert Griggs: that I am, and I'm lucky to have all these great people that
• 38:07
  Robert Griggs: work for us that and they deserve all the good fortune that they're having.
• 38:11
  Lisa Nichols: I agree.
• 38:12
  Lisa Nichols: I agree.
• 38:13
  Lisa Nichols: Well, Robert, just real quick, and I'm gonna ask you about something extra.
• 38:17
  Lisa Nichols: If you've not seen the Reagan movie,
• 38:20
  Lisa Nichols: watch the Reagan movie.
• 38:21
  Lisa Nichols: It is so good, so well done.
• 38:24
  Lisa Nichols: I just came away from there just feeling so patriotic, and
• 38:28
  Lisa Nichols: it it's just a fantastic movie.
• 38:32
  Lisa Nichols: But I have to ask you, Robert.
• 38:34
  Lisa Nichols: This is called Something Extra.
• 38:35
  Lisa Nichols: I ask every one of my guests, what do you believe is the something
• 38:39
  Lisa Nichols: extra that every leader needs?
• 38:42
  Robert Griggs: Well, I what I do extra is I went in the plant
• 38:47
  Robert Griggs: every day and I learned everybody and I asked them about their family and
• 38:50
  Robert Griggs: I kept up with them.
• 38:52
  Robert Griggs: And the other something extra that we did,
• 38:56
  Robert Griggs: in the when I was a kid, there was family there to support
• 39:00
  Robert Griggs: you, so you always kinda had a backstop.
• 39:03
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 39:04
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 39:05
  Robert Griggs: Mhmm.
• 39:05
  Robert Griggs: There there's not many backstops today, so Trinity
• 39:09
  Robert Griggs: ended up being a back stop for people.
• 39:11
  Robert Griggs: So if somebody had car trouble and things went wrong, we loan
• 39:15
  Robert Griggs: them money to get their car fixed.
• 39:17
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, I love that.
• 39:19
  Robert Griggs: We went the extra mile because, guess what,
• 39:23
  Robert Griggs: Somebody needs to do it, and we need them.
• 39:25
  Robert Griggs: And we never had a bad feeling if something went wrong and they didn't
• 39:29
  Robert Griggs: pay it back or the world ended.
• 39:31
  Robert Griggs: It wasn't that.
• 39:31
  Robert Griggs: We did it because we wanted to do good things.
• 39:34
  Robert Griggs: And what happens when you do good things for people,
• 39:38
  Robert Griggs: they talk about it.
• 39:40
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 39:40
  Robert Griggs: And when you do bad things for against people, they
• 39:43
  Lisa Nichols: talk about it.
• 39:44
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 39:45
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 39:45
  Robert Griggs: So why not do good things and make them wanna be involved with you
• 39:49
  Robert Griggs: and make them go the extra mile for you and make let them
• 39:53
  Robert Griggs: be successful while you're being successful.
• 39:56
  Robert Griggs: Right?
• 39:56
  Robert Griggs: So the more you give, the more you receive and,
• 40:00
  Robert Griggs: enjoy it and, you know, just show up and work hard every day.
• 40:04
  Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
• 40:06
  Lisa Nichols: This has been so good.
• 40:08
  Lisa Nichols: You are just a a wealth of wisdom, Robert, and,
• 40:13
  Lisa Nichols: I appreciate you making the time so much to be on the show today.
• 40:16
  Lisa Nichols: And I really do believe that your story is gonna help other people.
• 40:20
  Lisa Nichols: And Well,
• 40:21
  Robert Griggs: I hope.
• 40:21
  Lisa Nichols: That's And that's why yeah.
• 40:23
  Lisa Nichols: That's why we do this podcast seriously.
• 40:26
  Lisa Nichols: So
• 40:27
  Robert Griggs: And that Jack and I said, Jack, you changed my life when I read
• 40:31
  Robert Griggs: your book.
• 40:31
  Robert Griggs: Okay?
• 40:32
  Robert Griggs: And so I asked Jack to do the forward for our book and
• 40:36
  Robert Griggs: he said, I really like the avenue you took it from the shop out.
• 40:40
  Robert Griggs: And so I just hope that one person reads that book and changes something
• 40:44
  Robert Griggs: they do and something successful
• 40:47
  Robert Griggs: happens for them.
• 40:48
  Robert Griggs: And that would be a great thing to know.
• 40:50
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 40:51
  Lisa Nichols: Well, thanks again, Robert.
• 40:52
  Lisa Nichols: This has been delightful for me.
• 40:54
  Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
• 40:58
  Announcer: Copyright Technology Partners Inc.
• 41:00
  Announcer: Twenty nineteen.
• 41:01
  Announcer: To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi
• 41:05
  Announcer: dot co slash podcast.
• 41:08
  Announcer: If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review.
• 41:11
  Announcer: Thank you for listening to Something Extra.