Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: Values Driven Leadership, with Dina Dwyer-Owens (Franchising, Business, Morals, Ethics)

Transcript

REMASTERED: Values Driven Leadership, with Dina Dwyer-Owens (Franchising, Business, Morals, Ethics) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Host: I am honored today to introduce to you somebody who is
• 0:53
  not only a thought leader, but much more importantly, a
• 0:56
  practitioner. Dina Dwyer Owens, you may recognize her as faith
• 1:01
  brown on Undercover Boss, which was one of the most popular
• 1:04
  episodes from that reality TV show. She's also an author, and
• 1:08
  we're going to talk about some of her stuff today around her
• 1:11
  first book was called live rich and then values. Inc, her real
• 1:15
  life job as the co chair of the Dwyer Group, which is a billion
• 1:20
  dollar, well over a billion dollar organization that is in
• 1:24
  sort of the franchise space. Anyways, I'm excited and
• 1:28
  honored. Dina, welcome to the show.
• 1:30
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: Thank you. I'm the one who's honored here. I so
• 1:33
  appreciate the opportunity to share with all your listeners
• 1:36
  about what's most important to me at the Dwyer Group.
• 1:39
  Host: Yeah. So how did the Dwyer group get started?
• 1:42
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: Well, my father, Don Dwyer founded the
• 1:44
  company in 1981 and he had a vision for having a collection
• 1:48
  of Franchise Businesses basically serving the same
• 1:51
  customer base. And he was just so clear about his vision, his
• 1:55
  mission and his values. In fact, his mission statement still
• 1:58
  lives on today, and that's to teach our principles and
• 2:01
  systems. Franchising is all about systems of personal and
• 2:06
  business success, so that all people we touch live happier,
• 2:10
  more successful lives. So it's a great way to wake up every day.
• 2:13
  We're in the business of helping people have a better quality of
• 2:15
  life. We just happen to use franchising as our vehicle to do
• 2:19
  that. And when Don founded the company, he also had always been
• 2:22
  a student of leadership. Those listening are all students of
• 2:25
  leadership. Here. We all want to get better. And Don said, How do
• 2:29
  I really start this company off right with the right foundation?
• 2:32
  And what he had learned by studying great leaders was that
• 2:35
  they were always clear about their values, and that they put
• 2:38
  their values in writing, and then they put their values to
• 2:40
  work, and they worked hard to practice those values day in and
• 2:42
  day. In and day out. So when he launched the business in 81 he
• 2:45
  launched it with what he coined his code of values. And you
• 2:49
  know, looking back, there are probably more emotionally based
• 2:52
  beliefs, things like loyalty as meaning to our lives. We must
• 2:56
  count our blessings every day in every way, and one that I will
• 3:00
  never forget. And unfortunately, we lost Don in 1994 but one
• 3:04
  value as a kid growing up in his business was re earning our
• 3:08
  position every day in every way. So he always said, celebrate the
• 3:11
  victories of the past. Learn from the mistakes, but be better
• 3:13
  today than you were yesterday. So Don, again, had this vision,
• 3:17
  and he began to build the company with rainbow
• 3:20
  International, which was the flagship Company, which was back
• 3:23
  then, a carpet dying and cleaning company. So we could
• 3:25
  come into your house, if you had that good old tan shag carpeting
• 3:29
  and you wanted it to take care of some stains, we could make
• 3:32
  that a nice brown shag carpeting. That industry has
• 3:35
  changed. So rainbow today is a restoration and carpet cleaning
• 3:39
  company mostly focused on fire and fly restoration. And then he
• 3:42
  bought a company called Mr. Reuter, and it was actually a
• 3:44
  penny stock that he ended up doing a reverse merger on in 93
• 3:48
  and took the company public, started up some brands like Mr.
• 3:52
  Electric and air serve and Mr. Appliance. And after his
• 3:55
  passing, we bought a company called the glass doctor. And
• 3:58
  from there, the grounds guys and Mr. Handyman and Molly made and
• 4:02
  five star painting, and I'm probably forgetting some Window
• 4:04
  Genie. So today, our key business is being a values
• 4:08
  guided world leader of franchise brands that focus on enhancing,
• 4:13
  repairing and maintaining customers, homes and businesses.
• 4:16
  But my mind still to net it all out. It's about helping anybody
• 4:19
  we touch have a better quality of life. And again, franchising
• 4:22
  is the vehicle we happen to use to do that, whether it's
• 4:24
  touching our franchisees lives, our customers lives, our vendors
• 4:28
  lives, it's all about making a positive impact.
• 4:31
  Host: Yeah. So talk to me about "live rich". Okay, so you you
• 4:35
  use that a lot. Rich is actually an acronym.
• 4:38
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: So in 1993 I mentioned we took our company
• 4:41
  public, which was a big step for our founder and my father, and
• 4:45
  then, unfortunately, in 1994 he died of a sudden heart attack at
• 4:48
  the age of 60. So quite a young man. So one of the things that
• 4:52
  we knew as a leadership team was we had to keep this culture
• 4:55
  special. It's what attracted the strong franchisees we had. It's
• 4:58
  what attracted the great team that. We had, they were aligned
• 5:01
  in those values. So we knew we had to keep that foundation
• 5:03
  strong. We took Don's original values, his belief system, and
• 5:08
  we operationalized it. So that's where rich came from, and rich
• 5:12
  stands for respect, integrity, customer focus and having fun in
• 5:18
  the process. So when we say we live rich at the Dwyer group. Of
• 5:21
  course, we're in business to make money at the end of the
• 5:23
  day, but it's about how we treat people, and when we treat people
• 5:27
  with respect and dignity, we provide a quality of product or
• 5:30
  service profits. The profits are the applause We get. As my
• 5:33
  friend Ken Blanchard would say, I have to say we're guilty of,
• 5:36
  over the years, going down some bunny trails you get excited
• 5:40
  about other businesses that are franchisable or franchise, and
• 5:43
  yet our teams had to come back stay focused on what we're
• 5:45
  really great at, and that's these home service type
• 5:49
  businesses.
• 5:51
  Host: What do you think is the difference between the companies
• 5:54
  that successfully franchise and they start to successfully
• 5:57
  scale, and then the ones that can never really create that
• 6:02
  scale?
• 6:03
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: Yeah, a couple of things. You know, it has a
• 6:05
  lot to do with the people. People are a pedigree at the
• 6:10
  Dwyer group and at all franchise companies, because it takes the
• 6:14
  people to create the systems and then coach the franchisees to
• 6:18
  those systems. So at Dwyer, and again, a franchise, you're
• 6:21
  right. It's all about taking What's complicated about
• 6:25
  business and streamlining that into a system or process, then
• 6:29
  training to that system or process and making sure people
• 6:33
  are living up to it. And then, unfortunately, these are
• 6:35
  independent small business owners. Every franchisee is a
• 6:37
  small business owner and and even though we want them all to
• 6:41
  follow the systems perfectly, that's not going to happen.
• 6:43
  It'll never happen. We have 2800 franchises today. The majority
• 6:46
  of them do a beautiful job living by the system, and those
• 6:50
  are the ones realizing the most success. But unfortunately, some
• 6:54
  feel like they've got their own ideas, and you coach them up,
• 6:57
  and if you can't coach them up to follow the systems, you have
• 6:59
  to coach them out, because it's not fair to the other franchises
• 7:03
  who are committed to delivering the brand promise, which is
• 7:06
  really what the systems do. And if I talk just for a second
• 7:10
  about the distinction about the Dwyer group's core values, we
• 7:14
  would not be where we are today. We've grown at a pace of about
• 7:17
  50% the last three years, some of that through acquisition, but
• 7:21
  a lot of that through organic growth. And if it weren't for
• 7:24
  the alignment of our team around our core values, I don't think
• 7:29
  we could be here, because it's one thing to have great systems,
• 7:31
  but if you don't have great people that really believe in
• 7:34
  those systems and believe in delivering that value to the
• 7:37
  customer, you're right. That is who we're competing with. We're
• 7:39
  competing with who's going to solve the customer's problems,
• 7:42
  even around our values, we had to create a system for keeping
• 7:47
  those values front and center. We learned our lesson when Don
• 7:50
  Dwyer passed away in 94 he was the one who would hold us
• 7:53
  accountable to the original values. So he'd let you know if
• 7:56
  he felt you were loyal today or you weren't. You know the values
• 7:59
  weren't that black and white. Well, today, our values are very
• 8:02
  clear. One of our values is continuously striving to
• 8:05
  maximize internal and external customer loyalty. And the
• 8:09
  internal customers are our employee. The external customer
• 8:12
  is you, the person who's calling us to your home or business to
• 8:15
  take care of, keeping your again, your home or business
• 8:18
  comfortable. So the values really have been the foundation
• 8:22
  for our success, but had we not put a system in place, we
• 8:25
  wouldn't be where we are today. And I think people make this
• 8:28
  more complicated than they need to, but they're not in
• 8:30
  franchising. So, you know, as a franchise organization, we
• 8:33
  always think about system, systems, systems. If something's
• 8:35
  not working, it's probably because the system is not there
• 8:38
  or people haven't been trained to it. So we when we created the
• 8:42
  operationalized code of values, we knew as a leadership team,
• 8:45
  number one, we couldn't just throw them in the face of our
• 8:48
  employees and say, hey, look, starting today, these are going
• 8:50
  to be the new values we're going to follow. Instead, we said to
• 8:53
  our employees, and we didn't realize we were being so smart
• 8:56
  when we gamified our values, but we basically said to our
• 8:58
  employees, we think this is going to be the solution to
• 9:01
  keeping our culture special. We handed them handed them a
• 9:03
  laminated card. On one side of the card had the original
• 9:05
  values, Don's values. On the other side of the card had the
• 9:08
  new operationalized values, the rich values. And we said, we
• 9:11
  need your help for the next 90 days. We want you guys to study
• 9:14
  these values, and in order to show our commitment to you, we
• 9:18
  want you to give us feedback anytime you catch a management
• 9:21
  team member violating a value, we want you to give us a beep.
• 9:24
  And as silly as that sounds, it worked. So the employees really
• 9:29
  studied these values, much more than I would have ever imagined,
• 9:32
  because they loved the idea of catching their bosses doing
• 9:35
  something wrong. So if you could imagine the Road Runner running
• 9:38
  through our building for 90 days, that's what it sounded
• 9:41
  like around here. We were being beeped. It's just a verbal beep,
• 9:43
  beeped right and left, because we were so bad at the new
• 9:47
  operationalized values. So once we played that game, we brought
• 9:50
  the team back together, we asked them what they thought, and they
• 9:53
  loved it, and they added a value that I think is the toughest one
• 9:55
  we have today. But we said, okay, so going forward, because
• 9:58
  this, this. Not die. When the CEO of the company dies or the
• 10:03
  leadership team dies in this company, it's got to be
• 10:05
  sustainable. So let's create a system. We said, anytime we have
• 10:09
  the meeting of three or more of our team members or our
• 10:11
  franchisees, we're simply going to bring the values front and
• 10:15
  center in that meeting. So before we talk about anything
• 10:18
  else, we're going to either review all 15 values in our
• 10:21
  case, because they're really behavioral statements, if you
• 10:24
  want to think about them being that black and white, and
• 10:27
  sometimes we might just highlight a value that we're not
• 10:28
  so good at. Maybe we've gotten some feedback from a customer
• 10:31
  that we're not doing a great job responding in a timely fashion,
• 10:33
  for example, or maybe we highlight a team member who's
• 10:36
  gotten exceptional feedback. The bottom line is, at the beginning
• 10:39
  of every meeting of three or more, we should take a deep
• 10:41
  breath and reflect on our values. And most of our team
• 10:44
  members, not all of them, because we're a fast growing
• 10:47
  company, many of our team members can do that by heart
• 10:49
  with heart, as we call it. It's not just a memorization act. We
• 10:53
  want people to internalize the values so that when a problem
• 10:56
  occurs, what happens in your mind is you could write to a
• 10:59
  value, or maybe a number of values that can be the solution
• 11:01
  to the problem. We do it out loud, and sometimes, again,
• 11:04
  we'll go over all 15 values. Sometimes we'll just highlight
• 11:06
  the key areas, showing respect for all people, acting with
• 11:09
  integrity and all dealings and serving customers with
• 11:11
  enthusiasm. It just kind of depends on how many meetings
• 11:13
  you're in in a day. Sometimes it seems, oh, all 15 again. Can we?
• 11:17
  Can we just focus on one that we know we need to get better at?
• 11:19
  There's one that's very topical. You know, if you think about,
• 11:22
  we're having a meeting about customer service, but we want to
• 11:24
  talk about one of the values that has to do with customer
• 11:26
  loyalty.
• 11:27
  Host: Okay, so let me play the devil's advocate here, right?
• 11:30
  Like we don't have the extra two minutes to spare to do this.
• 11:35
  What do you say to that?
• 11:36
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: This is what I say to the leader. You don't
• 11:38
  want to hear the whining. This is who we are. This is the only
• 11:42
  way that we're going to keep these values front and center,
• 11:44
  and the minute we start getting lazy about it, I liken it to
• 11:48
  people who do a good job of brushing their teeth, but they
• 11:50
  don't floss their teeth very often. And what happens when you
• 11:53
  don't floss your teeth very often? You get rot, you get
• 11:56
  decay. And what happens when you start having decay? It not only
• 11:58
  affects your teeth, it affects major organs in your body. And
• 12:02
  in my mind, it's up to the leader to stay firm on the fact
• 12:06
  that you've got to keep the values front and center, because
• 12:09
  the minute you quit flossing, you're going to get decay. You
• 12:13
  start getting decay. Organs start shutting down. Your body
• 12:15
  is not going to be at optimal health. It's the same thing with
• 12:18
  a franchise organization or any organization, the values have to
• 12:21
  remain front and center, and the minute we start getting lazy
• 12:24
  about it, we lose an opportunity to really be great when properly
• 12:27
  practice values inflict pain. They make some employees feel
• 12:31
  like outcast. They can limit an organization's strategic and
• 12:34
  operational freedom and constrain the behavior of its
• 12:37
  people. They leave executives open to heavy criticism for even
• 12:40
  minor violations, and they demand constant vigilance. So
• 12:43
  this value step is not for everybody. It's really not for
• 12:47
  the faint of heart. I have a quick example for you. I was
• 12:50
  just at a I'm on the board of lead like Jesus, which is a Ken
• 12:53
  Blanchard nonprofit organization. It's about
• 12:55
  teaching that Jesus is the greatest leadership role model
• 12:57
  of all times. It's not about being a believer in Jesus. You
• 13:00
  know that then he was a prophet for some but it's about the fact
• 13:03
  that he was such a great leader and and the founder and owner of
• 13:07
  all the Omni resorts, they shared a story about his values,
• 13:11
  and they said, here's the guy who goes up to his values, and
• 13:13
  the numbers is not what drives it, it's it's what's right,
• 13:17
  doing the right thing. So, you know, they have these terrible
• 13:19
  adult stations on TVs in these hotel rooms. They're poison.
• 13:24
  They're poison. And this guy was in one of his hotel rooms one
• 13:27
  night and realized they had these adult channels. You know,
• 13:30
  he doesn't know every single working of the the hotel can't
• 13:33
  possibly 30,000 employees a big, big operation. And he says, What
• 13:38
  are we doing here? Why do we have this? He got with his
• 13:40
  management team, and they disconnected all of the adult
• 13:43
  channels. Now that takes courage, but that's following
• 13:47
  your values all the way through. You know what? As a customer,
• 13:50
  guess where I'm going to stay? Because I respect that. He's got
• 13:53
  the courage to make that kind of decision, losing millions a year
• 13:56
  but not having the adult stations. But he's not really
• 13:58
  losing millions a year because he's living up to his values.
• 14:00
  What's most important? Because when you do that, it translates
• 14:03
  into financial results. We're proof of it. At the Dwyer group,
• 14:06
  we had a private equity partner who took us private in 2003 sold
• 14:10
  us in 2010 Three years later, came knocking on our door to buy
• 14:14
  us back, because they were having a hard time putting a new
• 14:17
  $1.5 billion fund they had raised to work with great
• 14:20
  companies, and they said, What we love about Dwyer is your
• 14:23
  culture, the mission that you have the leadership team. And of
• 14:27
  course, the growth opportunities are huge. Every franchisee has
• 14:29
  an opportunity to grow their business. My attitude, and I say
• 14:32
  this in the book a couple of times, the rewards are really
• 14:35
  too great to ignore. And is it easy? No, it's not easy, getting
• 14:39
  clarity about your vows. It's not easy making sure that you're
• 14:42
  leading with them, because we are human beings, and we fail
• 14:45
  every day. You know, every day, probably somebody could beat me
• 14:48
  for not living up to the value, to the degree that I should be,
• 14:51
  but I'm doing my best. I'm striving to live those and
• 14:54
  that's all we can ask of our team. And we're surrounded by
• 14:57
  people at Dwyer who work hard to live up to those values. Is
• 15:00
  every day our values have surrounded us with people that
• 15:03
  are like minded, that really care about that customer
• 15:05
  experience that you talked about early on. Without the values,
• 15:08
  though, we wouldn't be able to do this, I'm certain.
• 15:11
  Host: Yeah, Dina, I do have one other question that I want to
• 15:13
  make sure to ask you. But before I do that, where do you want
• 15:16
  people to go to connect with you? You know, learn more.
• 15:21
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: Yeah, they can simply go to Dina Dwyer
• 15:23
  owens.com and it's D, W, y, E, R, owens.com.
• 15:29
  Host: Okay, so here's our last question. Let's say there's
• 15:32
  somebody out there listening, and maybe they run a franchise,
• 15:36
  maybe they have a small business, maybe they are mid
• 15:40
  level manager at some large public organization, and they're
• 15:43
  not, they don't have ownership, but they have leadership to the
• 15:47
  leader that's out there listening right now. What action
• 15:51
  would you encourage them to immediately take?
• 15:54
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: The first action would be is discover if
• 15:56
  you do have clearly written values, because most of the
• 15:59
  time, organizations have done a lot of work, whether, again,
• 16:02
  it's a church or a for profit business, they've done a lot of
• 16:05
  work thinking about what's important to them. So I would
• 16:08
  say, dig those up. Dig those values up. Get with key leaders
• 16:11
  in that organization. It could even be a family. It could be a
• 16:14
  parent who's listening and sit down and talk about those,
• 16:17
  revisit them, polish them up, and again, download the Create
• 16:21
  your culture workbook, or invest in values. Inc, there's some
• 16:24
  very clear directions at the back of values. Inc, too, on how
• 16:27
  to then take that to the next level, so that you truly can
• 16:30
  create a system around keeping your values front and center so
• 16:33
  you don't forget who you are and what you want to stand for in
• 16:37
  this world.
• 16:37
  Host: Well, Dina, thank you so much for your time today, and we
• 16:40
  appreciate you taking the time.
• 16:42
  Dina Dwyer-Owens: Thank you for the opportunity, and I hope that
• 16:51
  the listeners will join this movement. We really can change
• 17:03
  the world one person at a time.