Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Transforming Elevator Workplaces Through Genuine Care and Gentle Leadership | Tom Esch, Part 1

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Transforming Elevator Workplaces Through Genuine Care and Gentle Leadership | Tom Esch, Part 1 · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I made a big mistake once.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I the day after our mechanic working with my brother many years ago uh told all the sales guys, stop interrupting me, stop interrupting me.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Sick of you guys interrupting me.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: I can't get my work done.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Next day, I go up to him and I said, Hey man, I'm sorry, but I can't find this.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the spark plug for the TS420?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta, I gotta have one right now.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I always ask people who won that fight?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: The mechanic who was like four inches bigger than me, 80 pounds heavier, or me, the thin older brother of the boss.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: And they almost always say, You won that fight.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I did.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I pulled rank.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: That night I talked to one of my professors.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was getting my degree in conflict resolution, and she read me the riot act.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: She said, Why did you pull rank?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Because I'm a salesman generating revenue.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: She said, How do you know that he wouldn't have made a mistake while fixing a saw or that he's not going to quit now because of how you treated him and pulled rank as brother of the boss?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then I realized she was right.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I went in the next day, and I apologized and said, You're right.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care about the schematics.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: And more importantly, I didn't listen to your request, and I steamrolled you, and that's wrong.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very sorry, and it won't happen again.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: And he smiled so big you would have thought the Packers won another Super Bowl.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: When talent is mission critical, call the Allred Group.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: With industry expertise, top talent, and exceptional customer service, you need the All-Red Group on your side.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Your priority is their priority.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Call now 404-890-0445.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to today's episode where we explore the critical intersection of leadership, communication, and organizational success.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is part one of my interview with Tom Ed, a renowned expert in workplace dynamics of conflict resolution, offering over two decades of experience in helping leaders understand the nuanced people stuff that can make or break a business.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll dive into how leadership skills, emotional intelligence, and conscious communication can transform workplace culture, prevent costly mistakes, and drive organizational performance.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a business owner, manager, or an aspiring leader, this conversation offers invaluable insights into creating more effective, human-centered workplaces.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tom, welcome to the show.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Matt.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Nice to be here with you.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I appreciate you taking the time, Tom.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's always a pleasure.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I love being able to talk with you, especially about you know being conscious in the workplace is is kind of how I would frame it up.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we can certainly dig more into that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you've had many, many years of become you know, being an expert, helping people get along, get through conflict.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: One of the favorite quotes I've heard you say is that if you have key leaders in place who are not skilled with people stuff, you are hurting your business.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I have seen this play out, but I want to just ask you, you know, what do you mean by that?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And can you give us an example of when you've seen key leaders hurt the business?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's a lot of them, Matt.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: I've been around the construction world 23 years and seen a whole lot of it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I think of one in particular happened not too long ago.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh guy has a uh CFO, very important ranking fellow in his company, uh, great estimator, who doesn't always treat people super well.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, sometimes he makes feet people feel downright stupid, um, raises his voice a little bit as as many do still in construction and uh isn't making a lot of friends, isn't building a lot of high trust, and got very close to losing a large job, over$20 million job.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Construction company, not a giant company, not a billion-dollar company by any means.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're saying this particular leader, because he's condescending and demeaning or or whatever the words are, to to customers or to others, they almost lost a$20 plus million dollar job.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: They got close to losing it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I was able to coach the owner, who's a wonderful guy, who doesn't have skills in the people stuff.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: He's not skilled in the people business, he's skilled in the construction business, sure, the concrete business.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's good at that, he's great at it, one of the best in the Midwest, but not skilled at the people stuff.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so this stuff had been happening for many years.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: So this was sort of a boiling point.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's when he brought me in to work with him.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I coached him on how to have the right kind of conversations with his CFO to manage the situation and uh salvaged a very big job.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was a piece of how the job was salvaged.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't the only thing, but it was a very important piece.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: More importantly, I think, or equally importantly, two of his younger key, strong up-and-coming leaders were getting very tired of some of the office behavior.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the reports I get now are that things have changed substantially.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: Just from a couple conversations, skillful coached conversations that I was able to help him really do what he had not done and should have done 15 years ago.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So let me just kind of uh recap this.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It just so I can understand and and our listeners can.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like the CFO in this case was the one that that was kind of having the problem, but because the leader, his boss, the owner, didn't know how to uh rein him in and and say, listen, your behavior's out of line, that's that's what that's what you were able to coach him to to step up and say, Hey, this this needs to stop, essentially.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah, in in a way that that didn't blow things up.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it took you a little bit of work with the owner.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: He was able to hold him accountable and then absolutely took the coaching well, had the conversations, things shifted.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now they may not be done, we'll see where it goes, but at least we salvaged an important project and set the tone for a new kind of relationship.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: So awesome.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you talk about leaders who are unconscious.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean they don't they don't understand the full impact of the way they're communicating, they also don't understand the full impact of the role or the or the position they hold, the rank that they have.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's so easy to be unconscious.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: And if I've learned anything in my background, leaving the ministry where I where I was one day a Catholic priest, and then a week later I'm waiting tables at a hamburger joint in Milwaukee.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: I learned a lot about rank and privilege and how people treat you when you're in a certain role.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so often we're not fully conscious of how we are in that role.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I I've learned that people who have high rank tend to be unconscious, tend, of the needs, feelings, and experiences of those beneath them or in different that are on roles that have less rank than they have.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Man, let me ask you uh about that a little bit more because I'm fascinated.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what I'm hearing you say is that someone with high rank has more impact on those that they they deal with even more than they would otherwise.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much power in the role, and I would commend you and your listeners, your viewers, to a book called Um Power, a User's Guide, written by Dr.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: Julie Diamond.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Julie was one of my professors when I got my master's in conflict resolution work.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think she's one of the best in the world, and I'm not kidding you, from my my read of the literature around power and rank.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Julie is clearly one of the top leaders in the world.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: I was just part of one of her um six-week courses.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: I was the only one from the USA.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was Australia and Germany, and I don't know, a lot of different countries.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: She's known all over the world.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: And she talks a lot about the power of the role.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: That you may think of yourself as a kind, gentle, gracious, great listener.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden, you get into the role now.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're the CEO or the COO of a large organization.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: People start treating you differently.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: You have a different kind of awareness.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um, I saw this in the seminary as my friends got ordained.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Some of them got a little puffed up with their own power and their own ability to influence because of the role.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Now they're a priest teaching at Notre Dame, like a lot of power in that, a lot of influence in that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: And we and we all can go unconscious with within that role and be partly because of that role.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Now, not everyone, and and my teacher, Dr.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Arnold Mindel, is the one that I've learned from.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: He passed away this last year, big loss for the world and the people he's influenced.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: But he's the one who really educated me about the power of rank, the importance of paying attention to the role that you're in, positional power by your title, social rank by your gender education, race, psychological rank by your personality, your ability to be courageous and raise your hand at a meeting.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's people that will speak out.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: You and I know in the tough guy world, fearless people, men or women who stand up, say anything to anyone, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: They'll they'll tell the truth to this to the owner without a problem and sometimes get fired because of it, but they have psychological rank.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's another level of rank.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, and it's tricky to use it skillfully consistently.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and to kind of pull this back to, you know, elevators, construction.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the if if the owner says something versus the project manager or the or the admin, it's going to hit a lot harder.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be taken a lot deeper.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a lot more impactful to somebody because of the rank, is what I'm hearing you say.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: And the owners almost never want to admit it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: I I had a customer a couple of years ago in Chicago, tough Italian concrete people.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: If you know Chicago and uh Italian concrete people, it's the mafia was a real thing around there, Matt.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: It might still be, but tough dudes, and we're sitting around, and I start talking about rank.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Part of what you guys should be aware of as supervisors and foremen and superintendents is that you have high rank.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: And the owner spoke out, so interrupted me and said, Oh, there's no rank around here, Tom.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: We're all the same.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody around here is the same.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, with all due respect, sir, bull crap.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Is not true.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: It is not true.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: You're not all, and from the eyes of God, yes.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: From some giant view, yes, we're people, we're humans, we're red-blooded people.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: But you can fire Joe, and Joe can't fire you.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that is not a small difference.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: You are not the same when it comes to having influence and power.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: And the owners often, you know, they'll they'll, you know, if you're going out for lunch in a car, the the owner says, Oh, I'll sit in the back, I'll sit in the, you know, often, not always, but often, like, you know, you go ahead, you're I'm nobody, I'll just sit in the back.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes the owners, in the especially in the blue-collar world, don't hold their rank strongly enough.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: They they make both errors, they use it unconsciously, and then they underuse it.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Those are the two polarities of rank that are so common.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: They, especially here in the Midwest, maybe maybe in Atlanta and all over the country, but um, there's this Minnesota nice, right?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm from Minnesota, and it's this Minnesota nice, and it there's some truth to it that we are nice, we're we are deferential, and so nice is what I'm hearing you say.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: Too nice, too indirect.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: So they're so it can go either way, and then you're too nice, you're too nice, and then you know what happens.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Then they blow up, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: Too nice, too nice, too, and then they're mean, then they're controlling, then they're not building trust because now they're upset because they weren't strong enough up front when they hired a guy, or when they were negotiating for the job description, or working out the roles.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I'm hearing you say is is that there's a lot going on that that flies under the radar that we may not consciously whether whether I'm the boss or whether I'm the the you know the helper starting on day one, there's a lot of rank, there's a lot of psychologically, I don't you know, I I can't articulate it, but I'm feeling it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and so becoming conscious is becoming more aware of my rank or my lack of rank and and so-and-so's rank and and how how those uh dynamics are are playing out in a very real way.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool, very cool.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: How uh how do you help people begin to get conscious?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you gave us an example of coaching the owner as he dealt with the CEO.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: You gave us a coach of uh the the uh the example of telling that that owner that no, that's that's bull crap, there is rank here, and we're gonna get conscious about it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: How how do you normally go about that?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first you have to have enough pain, Matt, like any change process.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: If if the company is making millions and billions of dollars and people are happy and and they're retaining workers and they're finding enough workers, which is almost nowhere in your world or my world, but if there were that world, that man or woman would not be interested.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: But if there's enough pain, if they've had injuries, as some of my customers have had lots of injuries, or or if they have people turning over, churning over through workers, or they have really important high-level people that have been around 15 to 25 years now quitting because they're just sick and tired of something.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: That could be enough pain for somebody to reach out to me or somebody in my business and say, Can you help me?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think we got some problems around here.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they often don't see themselves as part of the problem.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: They almost always say it's those foreman, they're not holding people accountable.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Just yesterday I was talking to an owner, um, and they she said they they they put a bunch of money aside to give everybody a bonus at the end of the year, put a big lump of money, a lot of money.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then they said, if you wreck things or lose things, we're gonna knock dollars off of that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And at the end of the year, they were in the negative.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody got a bonus, nobody got a bonus, and there's lots of reasons for that, but but how how how do I help?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I first of all assess whether there's enough pain for them to really want to change or really want to become aware and might make some improvements, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: And some of the time they really do, man.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's those are the people that I'm looking for, those who really want to change, who really want to make their world better, and and for business reasons and for personal health reasons.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: And coaching is one tool, training is one tool, um reading articles and books is another tool.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you and I mentioned someone recently we know that that is very sick.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: If if somebody has like a very serious illness, that can and the right amount of pain, that can wake them up to something that that they hadn't seen before, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: It can sort of make an opening.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I think sort of the spirit creates sometimes these openings that have nothing that look like they have nothing to do with business, but they have something a lot to do with somebody's personal awareness.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody has been divorced, if somebody gets divorced and crashes the car, and their son has to go for chemical abuse treatment.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: Those are three big whammies, and and the business is struggling.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's actually a great, that's often the kind of thing where people have at least a couple of things like that, and they come to me saying, I need help.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: Verpersis, everything's going great.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then you know, my my tools are coaching, training, studying, you know, reading things, peer group, peer learning.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing more and more peer learning where you sit in circles with other owners and leaders, or I'm starting a public works director's peer learning group where you sit in a circle and you share your wisdom and experience, much like a 12-step group might get together and share their life experience.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds like it's uh it's something that most people won't come to until and unless they they have some kind of I don't want to say breakdown, but some kind of midlife crisis or some kind of hit a wall.
• 18:01
  unknown: Yep.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Going 100 miles an hour and go, oh my gosh, I need to reassess.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, I think that's very true.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Now I do I do plenty of work where somebody hasn't had all their crisis.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: I was just with an HR director here today in the twin cities of a major city talking to them about coaching for their people.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: There hasn't been the car hasn't crashed yet.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they have had some issues, um, but they're they're trying to be proactive.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: They're saying we know there were some issues.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: We don't want any more of that.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: We have four new leaders, relatively new supervisors.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: Can you come and train them to get better at the people stuff?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: They're not naturally great at giving feedback, at listening really carefully, at having a crucial conversation that goes well, at building trust by appreciating people and saying, good to see you, Matt.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they I mean guys, boot clerk guys don't talk like that anyway.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: They they have their own ways of showing appreciation, but it's not.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, Matt.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so happy to see you.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: How are you feeling today?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: Some do, but many don't.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: And they have their own ways, and and I I help them within their culture to do the right things to build up the people's stuff.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, thank you for listening.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is Matt with a brief message from our sponsor.
• 19:21
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• 19:25
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• 19:31
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• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And now, back to the show.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: So as they build up the people stuff, as you say, what's what's the outcome?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's that's a big question.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: It depends on it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Assuming you get the results you wanted, and you know, obviously they're coming to you for coaching or training or yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: What what's kind of the ideal?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, in in one specific case here in Minnesota, um a customer came to me, good size general contractors, saying their foreman weren't holding people accountable.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: This is often what I hear, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the owners and leaders almost never understand how they are connected to that problem.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: And in this case, they didn't want to go in that deep.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I said, fine, I'll help.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I trained their 15 top guys on how to have a crucial conversation, which I call conscious conversation.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's you've read the book Crucial Conversations by Joseph Granny.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Mentioned that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: Great book for your listeners if they haven't read Crucial Conversations, kind of a textbook on that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: But Granny and his friends don't say much at all about rank and power.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: They seem to assume you can have these crucial conversations with anyone.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of mentioned a couple times, but um, in this case, this company, um, the owners, a lot of rank and power, not real interested in getting super conscious about it themselves in that moment, but interested in their foreman learning it.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I did four sessions, I think four or three hour sessions over the course of a year.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: We did one a quarter, and we measured beforehand and we measured after two things their comfort level and their number of conversations.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: And their comfort level went up 41%.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: And the actual number of crucial conversations or conscious conversations, as I call them, went up 50%.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: So that was a big result.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't really explain why I call them conscious.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I was talking about Granny, crucial.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I call them conscious because I take everything Granny wrote and did, it's all great stuff, all that is good, and I build on it with the rank and power knowledge and awareness that you not only have to do all the things Granny and his friends talk about, but if you really want a successful one, especially if you're talking to somebody who may be ranked above you.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Either by position or by psychology.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: You might have someone just below you, but they're super outspoken, super expressive, and you're quiet and shy and you hate conflict.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: And this person is fearless, and they're a half step below you in a conflict, they're going to win most of the time.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's my been my experience.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: So in that one case, we we we move the needle on their comfort level and capacity for a number of these conscious conversations where they they were not only practicing all the great skills around crucial conversations, but they were also aware of their rank and using it with more awareness, which sometimes means bringing more heat to the game and often means backing off a little bit, having a little more grace, a little more gentleness, a little more careful framing of things up front.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that was one example.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's one thing we did that went very, very well.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a, you know, you you gave us the example of the the$20 plus million dollar project that that almost got lost?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously that's a that's a big number, it's a big dollar figure.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a way of quantifying, you know, how much, you know, performance-wise, you know, you you mentioned that opening quote that I shared of you know, it's hurting your business.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way to say, you know, if you have more conscious leaders, you will be more profitable?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and how would you go about doing that?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've tried really hard, Matt, and I I have a couple instances where I have done it.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, mostly outside construction, frankly.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I had worked with a small banking firm here in Minneapolis more than 10 years ago.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: They were ready to fold.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I did a number of mediation sessions with the top leaders, and they were able to hold the business together.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I asked them one day, about a month after that, after they really repaired the damage they were had created amongst each other.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think you guys saved in this process?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: And they said 500,000, you know, half a million, uh, roughly give or take, give or take, a couple hundred thousand.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they they thought it was a about a they I think they said two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: So when I give the quote, I say two hundred and a quarter of a million.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: So they had three, four conversations, and they told me they saved at least a quarter of a million, maybe half a million.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's awesome.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: That was one awesome case.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: Another guy said I I saved him and his small um work group about 70,000.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: They had been losing workers, they had too much turnover.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: You and I both know it costs a lot to lose a good worker, it costs a lot of an entry-level worker.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, yeah, not$50,000, but it might cost$5,000 to lose a good entry-level worker that you had to find and onboard and train in.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: But if you lose somebody making$100,000 or$140,000, that might be a$50,000 to$70,000 cost to your business.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: That stuff is hard to calculate.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: The construction guys could care less, and I'm sure the elevator people, men and women, they don't track that.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's not that they don't care, they don't have the time to track what it costs when the fourth person has left and it's not even.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I've tried because it was really focused on injury prevention.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: I've tried my best to get them to get me some hard numbers.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's been very difficult, but I would say I probably saved them, you know, 200 grand a year over three or four years.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: So well over half a million, I think, the the pro the project that I did down there.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as you bring up injury prevention, I'm just thinking back to one of my first jobs out of college.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a bottling company, had you know lots of plants all over the country, and and the you know, talking about injury prevention.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: That the I remember them saying the safety guy had saved a million dollars in you know just managing that.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're able to then to your you know what you're doing, coach people into having better behavior.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's a lot of money on the line, I guess, is my point.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely a lot of money on the line, and it's hard to quantify.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's possible I could go in and coach two or three people and nothing would change, or very little would change.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's what's hard.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm honest with people, I don't promise the moon, you know, especially if it's a full-blown culture change, you know.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I've had some of those that haven't gone so well.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: Most of them go well, but occasionally you do the work, they invest the money.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it's almost always because the top owners didn't take it seriously enough.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: That the owners, the founders, that's what I was gonna ask you, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: If if the owners, the leaders, the those who you know, if leadership doesn't take it seriously, then there's no accountability all the way down.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: They see the the consultants say the fish rots from the head.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's very mean, it's very nasty, it's very edgy.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Consultants speak, but it's true that if the leaders aren't setting the tone, the culture is shaped by the leaders.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's amazing.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: They come in, Tom, the culture's horrible around her.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: These guys are horrible, you know, they're these foreman aren't they they lose stuff, they wreck stuff, they these guys just banged a pike, it pipe broke the pipe, it cost me$30,000 because they wrecked, you know, they wrecked$30,000 error.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's the workers, and I want to say, no, it's it's what you allowed.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, yes, there's a freak error, yes, there's mistakes that happen, of course.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: But if this is repetitive problems over years, time culture shaped by what you allow and what you don't allow, the leaders shape, the parents shape the family, the kids don't shape well.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes the kids do shape the family, but it's because the parents allow it, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's the parents let the kids shape the family again.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Back to back to the leader.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: How would you help a leader in in that case?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they've got a$30,000, you know.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it goes back to, you know, they've already done the training and and they just aren't, you know, maybe that's more pain.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna continue to create their own pain.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I just had this conversation with someone yesterday, and it was that was the number they told me.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: $30,000 error.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I asked if they were interested in changing the culture, and they're not that interested, they're too busy.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: This is classic, and I'm sure the elevator world is the same way.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and I said, Are you interested in me just coming to give a dog and pony show keynote speech at your safety day?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Are you interested in more substantial change?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the answer was pretty clear.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: They they want a they want a good dog and pony show, they want some entertainment, they want me to sort of set the tone for what they want to work on, but they they're too busy to do anything different.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Too busy making money to to slow down enough to to save millions of dollars.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh, you know, I don't I don't mind doing a show, but as long as everybody knows, and as long as they know this is not gonna change anything.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: I can come in and I'm I enjoy contributing and getting people engaged and putting out a theme.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't mind doing that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't do it every day, but I don't mind once in a while.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: I I like the people that run the company, I like the company, I'm part of an association they're part of.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: I want to help them, but I really want to help them go deeper, and they may or may not want that, and that's fine.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: I you know, I wouldn't want to do it every year for them because I I want to make a substantial difference, and that's what I'm that's what I'm about, is making a substantial difference.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: If I am the worker and and my boss is being toxic, yeah, you know what what can I possibly do besides just leaving and finding another job?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or or or is that the best thing to do?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: It depends on the level of trust and the level of respect, and those are different things.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: But if there's some trust and some respect, and if you have the courage, I say go have the conversation.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Again, it's delicate, it's it's it's not an easy conversation, but I can't.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody do do that with.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how much training does somebody need to have the conversation?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, does does reading the book equip someone to actually challenge the?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: I say it depends on someone's natural skill level.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I have a younger brother who's really skilled.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: He he's the owner of Esh Construction Supply, and he won't mind me saying he's really, really skilled at the people stuff, and always has been.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Partly because he was the fourth of four boys and grew up in a rough and tumble family with lots of sports, lots of wrestling, lots of grabbing him by the ankles and hanging them over the stairs, stuff like that.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: And my brother used to, older brother would say, uh, you got 10 seconds with the BB gun, 10 seconds, and then he'd shoot him, you know.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how you develop people skills.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is he being tortured by your siblings?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is one way to develop them.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Shoot him with a BB gun.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: And he he'd yelp, and he, you know, I felt horrible.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Years later, we all had to apologize, but he he he learned to navigate in a tough guy, brother culture, and learned to be really skillful.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: And now he runs a really, really wonderful, highly respected, highly profitable business, partly because he's so darn good at the people stuff.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: He's so darn careful.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I had to talk to him.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: He was my boss.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was never the owner.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: I worked for him for 10 years selling supplies, and I so he's my younger brother, I'm the older brother, but he's the owner boss, and I'm working for him.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a nice balancing of rank, and it's partly why we got along really well most of the time.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: But we had a moment where I had to come and talk to him.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Not easy, but I was able to do it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: So if somebody isn't skilled and they don't have a brother like mine, and they don't have trust or respect, be very careful.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: But if there's enough trust and enough respect, and if you go read the books, watch the videos, but then practice with someone or get a coach, somebody that can train you and help you work through it.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm a big advocate for people.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: If there's some trust, enough trust and respect, and the the the trust especially can break down.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: They both can break down.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but if there's enough substance there, if you really respect the person, but all of a sudden you don't trust them because they yelled at you one day, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: But you used to trust them.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: I would and you want to keep your job, go in and have the conversation and focus on yourself, focus on how their behavior impacts you, because you're probably not going to change them.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: But you can, if they have any conscience and any desire to keep you as a worker, and you focus on yourself and you say, Listen, when you yelled at me twice in front of my client, that really stung, and I didn't appreciate it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I don't want to work hard for you when you treat me like that.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that would be one way to frame a conversation and you thank you.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that gives a certainly an example of of how to focus on yourself and how to how to how to be, I guess, authentic and open about it without without kind of pointing the finger, right?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's the default, maybe is you're this, you're that, you see, you're the problem, you're yeah, you know, focus.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's the you know, the IU language, you know, when you I feel, I feel, you know.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: But but if you can keep the focus on your experience, and then you eventually got to make the request, you gotta say, are you willing to look at that?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Are you willing to not do that?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: Are you willing to find out why you were so mad at me that you yelled at me?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe I'm doing things unconsciously I don't know about.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that's the attitude you want to carry in, especially if you're lower ranked.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_03: You helped create the problem.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta own, you gotta own a part of it, right?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: And share your experience and then and then challenge them.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I did that with my brother one time very strongly.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um I guess back to power and rank for just a minute.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: You you mentioned you know, the more rank we have, the less aware we tend to be of others.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um is that a hard thing for for a lot of people to see that that hey, just because of your title, you you now have rank, or or you know, sometimes you get somebody who's a peer, well no, now you've promoted and you're managing these people.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that I I've seen it many times where that doesn't go well.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, it doesn't always go well.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: If if the person is having enough pain and if they go through a coaching process andor a 360 process where they get feedback from others, that's where a 360 can be very useful.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: If the person is relatively unconscious of their impact, if they have no idea that they are actually a poor listener and not good at holding people accountable, and they've never thought much about that, and then they hear six people telling them that's true, that's hard to ignore.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: And and and I've had many moments where somebody, and and it's my job to deliver the bad news, right?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's uh I kind of enjoy it in a crazy way.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: I like being the one to say, all right, you're a good man, you're doing a lot of things right, but consider this could be a blind spot for you.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the feedback.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think about that?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if he says they're all full of crap, they're all full of crap, there's not a lot I can do to that guy, and occasionally do that, but but they rarely do that.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: They they mostly say, Wow, I didn't, I had no idea about that.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then then I'll ask, what's that costing you?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: What's the impact of that?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I my coaching sometimes gets personal, Matt, and I'll say, Is that happening anywhere else in your life?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Probably.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: Guy's on his third marriage, you know, often trouble at home.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh we're uh we're about to run out of time here, but uh I wanted to just kind of um and with you you had shared that uh you know it's possible to make a really bad mistake and repair the damage.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um obviously that sounds like a big one, but how would you uh coach somebody into repairing the damage?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what if somebody does make a big mistake?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I made a big mistake once.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: I I a day after our mechanic working with my brother many years ago uh told all the sales guys, stop interrupting me, stop interrupting me.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: Sick of you guys interrupting me.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: I can't get my work done.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: Next day, I go up to him and I said, Hey man, I'm sorry, but I can't find this.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the spark plug for the TS420?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta, I gotta have one right now.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I always ask people who won that fight?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: The mechanic who was like four inches bigger than me, 80 pounds heavier, or me, the thin older brother of the boss.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: And they almost always say, You won that fight.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I did.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: I pulled rank.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: That night I talked to one of my professors.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was getting my degree in conflict resolution, and she read me the riot act.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: She said, Why did you pull rank?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Because I'm a salesman generating revenue.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: She said, How do you know that he wouldn't have made a mistake while fixing a saw or that he's not going to quit now because of how you treated him and pulled rank as brother of the boss?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then I realized she was right.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I went in the next day, and I apologized and said, You're right.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care about the schematics, and more importantly, I didn't listen to your request, and I steamrolled you, and that's wrong.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very sorry, and it won't happen again.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: And he smiled so big you would have thought the Packers won another Super Bowl, and I'm a Vikings fan.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: So that it ended well, but that was that was one way that I apologized.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: I had to do that.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: It took the change, right?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: It took you getting conscious about your impact.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say poll rank, I've never thought of it that way, but it it it's an abuse of rank.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: That term poll is an abuse, absolute abuse of my rank with him.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: And and my brother later told me his most valuable guy was that mechanic.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if he had left, you'd have been in big trouble with big with your little brother.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Big trouble with my brother, big trouble with my little brother.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, so that's you know, I mean, there's lots of ways to make a good apology.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: I have a book called Personal Accountability and Power, where I talk about how do you make a genuine apology.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: There's lots of there's lots of info on there about how do you really and some even say don't apologize, just change your behavior.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, don't don't waste your time saying, Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm late.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: Just be on time.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: But if it's a substantial mistake, you've got to own it, you've got to reflect on it, you gotta own it, you gotta admit what you did wrong and name where the breakdown happened, that you're aware of how the breakdown happened and you're committed to changing it.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then it doesn't hurt if you buy them a six-pack of beer or a pizza or something to make to show them you really care.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's your penance.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, beautiful.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Any parting words that we could give to our audience before we let you go?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: The world is in a tough place, folks.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: Find a way to be gentle, find a way to open your heart, and find a way to um work with good people like Matt.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm super impressed with Matt as a man of good heart, a man of deep faith, and a man who genuinely cares.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of this just comes down to genuine care, self-care, care for the people you're working with, and um work together.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, Tom.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: I and uh what I'm hearing you say is we can we can all work together to make our homes, our workplaces, the world a better place as we get more conscious and and more intentional about how we interact with each other.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and we're gonna have to.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: The world is heating up on every level.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there seems like there's just a lot of trouble and conflict in the world, and it calls on us to dig deeper into our hearts to find ways to use our power for the common good, I would say.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: Whether it's a business, home, or community.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: Totally agree.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tom, thank you so much.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed every single minute.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wish you the best and uh try to stay warm in Minnesota.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing my best.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: All right, man.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: Good to be with you.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: All right, bye-bye.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Please like and subscribe.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay safe.