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So Brian, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
What a great podcast to be on.
Thank you, man. That means a lot to me.
How about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Sure. Well, what I did, we can start with what I did.
So I built a few large home improvement businesses, actually sold a couple of them to private equity a couple of years ago.
So today I spend my time writing books and mentoring others and just trying to make a positive impact in this world.
it's kind of the a fun life yeah yes and listeners we as you could probably tell with with the guests i like to vibe with them before the episode starts and i i feel as though our friend brian here has reached enlightenment and i'm excited to get into this because with with your background brian there there's so many different angles because we could talk about the negotiation with private equity and like those companies we can talk about building and managing those companies.
But I thought what was interesting is when we were just chit -chatting before, authenticity and connecting with others, that's really what we focused in on.
And when you think about authenticity and authentic connection, what does that mean to you?
Yeah. And to your point, by the way, while we could talk about negotiating with private equity, I probably wouldn't have had an opportunity to have a wonderful exit with private equity if I I didn't have an authentic business culture.
So I don't think it's either or.
I really think it's both end.
I think it's about value creation.
And if you can create value for the people inside of your organization, you're creating tremendous organizational value as well.
So I think it all works synergistically.
This is so good. This is so good.
And I think that's incredibly important for the folks who are like traditional dealmakers to really understand.
Because a lot of times we can get so transactional and focus just on like the dollars and the cents, but we forget that value comes from the value that we generate amongst ourselves within a culture, within an organization too.
Yeah. If you think about organizational performance in general, I think it all starts with the mindset of the people on your team, right?
Because mindset determines how people obviously think, how they feel, and how they behave, both when somebody is watching and when nobody is looking.
So mindset matters because it determines the performance of an organization.
And if you have an authentic culture and if you have people that have meaning and purpose in a business, they're simply going to perform better.
In fact, I could make the case that they could outperform any other organization, regardless of competitive landscape.
That's powerful. That's powerful.
And I think for the leaders who are listening to the podcast, I think they might be saying, okay, well, that's well and good.
We need people who have a great mindset.
And for the leaders, does that come down to their ability to lead and shape the mindset?
Or is it more of an issue of selecting the right people with the right mindsets or both?
Yeah, I think it is a combination.
I think while a leader shapes the culture through purpose and direction and mission and vision and those sort of things, if we have managers, managers tend to be the custodians of the company's culture because they're the ones that do the hiring.
They're the ones that do the terminating.
They're the ones that do the promoting.
They're the ones that are involved in compensation.
organization and when you peel back the curtain of any organization maybe the ceo thinks their culture is one thing but when you start to peel things back when you look at how an organization hires fires promotes compensates it'll tell you a whole lot about what the culture really is because that's how people think about the business and how people think is what the culture is you're absolutely right and i i think culture is one of those things that people have been focusing on a lot recently in the business world.
And there's a lot of change management, a lot of trying to culture scape here.
For people who are leading organizations and they say, all right, well, I'm recognizing I might need to make shifts in my company culture in order to affect the company mindset.
Where do they start with that?
Yeah, I think, and by the way, we used to have have a saying in our business.
I had plus or minus 600 employees in our organization.
So it was a rather decent sized organization.
And I never minded giving tours of my business to even people I competed with, because our saying was, if you want to copy our performance, you first have to copy what goes on inside of our people's heads and that's culture.
So where do you start?
If I could tell you a story.
So I live in Wisconsin during the summer and everybody in Wisconsin has a harley -davidson and i love hopping on my harley -davidson and driving up some country road i don't like to go fast i don't go on highways but i like wandering up a country road sometimes i'll go halfway up a road i don't like it i'll turn around i'll go back down i might pull over and smoke a cigar get back on my motorcycle and go and you know that's all fine when it's just me but imagine if i have 20 other harley -davidson's following me and they didn't know where they were going we're going halfway up this road now we're
turning around now we're stopping i would drive everybody crazy.
They would never want to follow me.
Just like people want to follow somebody that knows where they're going on a Harley.
The same is true in business.
People need to understand where am I going?
Why are we on this trip?
What are we aspiring to become and how do we win and what does winning look like?
So I think that if, if a company has a culture that might be in question, I think one has to start by examining the mission and the vision statement.
Maybe it's been years since the vision statement has been visited, and as we all know, it should be revisited every few years.
That last part is very important, because I think there are a lot of dusty mission and vision statements that haven't gotten that upgrade in a long time.
Right, and a vision statement should challenge people.
It should be something they aspire to become.
And they also should know what their role is in achieving whatever the end result is.
And that's when use the word authenticity before, that's where authenticity comes from, right?
It comes from people really having meaning and purpose inside of the business, something that isn't artificial.
It's not some slogan on a wall, but it's something that people feel like they become, come, they, they, they feel they're better people because of what they're doing during the day.
And I don't think it's a separation between work and home.
I think it's about, because they feed into each other and we take our work home with us and we take our home to work with us, whether we like it or not, it's just how it is.
So, you know, we should be, people deserve to have purpose and it makes us better people even at home.
I, I agree 100%. And I, I don't want to gloss over this too, because I think mission and purpose, those are things we hear a lot.
But when you think about that, what do those two terms mean to you within the culture of an organization?
Yeah. When I think about mission, first of all, it's why does this organization really exist?
What do we hear for?
Our mission statement was to do well and do good.
And we we simply defined it as, what does that mean?
It means the purpose of business is to make a decent profit decently.
What does it mean to make a decent profit decently?
How can we get everybody in our business involved in living the mission and not just having it a poster on the wall?
We've done a lot of cool things that we can talk about.
One program we did was a thing called Windows for a Cause in the home improvement business, just to share with you, get you in in the weaves of the window industry, when a customer buys new windows, you put new windows in their home and you take the old windows out and you typically throw them in the trash.
And that's a real shame.
And it does nothing to feed our mission statement of doing well and doing good.
It does for doing well, but not for doing good.
So we started working.
We took the old windows out of people's homes and we started working with local artists and community members and the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
And we would give them these old window sashes and we would ask people to turn them into beautiful art pieces and then once a year we would display all these art pieces on a big big big wall we would invite the public out for music and we would do a giant public auction and all the money raised would go to make a positive impact in the life of another individual in our community in fact the first year we did it this gentleman his name was john green he was a vietnam era war veteran that was stuck in a wheelchair for 40 years.
I mean, imagine that.
We raised enough money to get him a custom wheelchair that stands up.
John Green can stand up for the first time in 40 years off of windows that would normally go in the trash, painted by people in his community.
And what's so cool about that is the customer then becomes a co -producer in your mission statement.
And when you can make the a customer or co -producer, then I think it's like one plus one equals 10.
That's incredible. The synergy is outstanding.
And I think that's a really, really great tangible example of how you can both check that box of doing well in the business, but also doing good work in the community.
Right. And it's available to everybody in the business.
If you think about it way deep into the organization, you know, the installer has to do a great job taking out the window carefully because they know this window can make a difference in somebody's life.
The salesperson needs to do a great job earning the customer's business because they know those windows can make a difference in someone's life.
All through the organization, everybody gets to participate and own a piece of the mission statement of the business.
And that is authenticity.
Oh, that's powerful because you get more buy -in for this.
I think a lot of times people can kind of check that box and say, all right, I did my job.
I did an okay job and that was good enough and I could peace out after that.
But what you've done here is by creating this nexus between not only the fundamentals of the business, but also community development, people care a lot more.
They do. And they go home feeling really good about what they did all day.
And, again, when people feel good about what they do all day, they want to do even better tomorrow.
tomorrow i'm a firm believer that if people love what they do they tend to do everything a whole lot better so how do we create as a as business leaders an opportunity to not just have a mission statement sit on a wall but come up with really creative ways and drive it deep within the fabric of the organization getting true buy -in and involvement that's when special things really happen oh this is good this is great because this allows us to get a little bit deeper into the psychology of this too.
Because when you think about traditional negotiations, a lot of times it can be very transactional.
And the only thing keeping this deal together is the financial benefit to each party and then the consequences of contract breach. But the more you can get somebody to buy in and truly believe in the meaning, the meaning of the contract and like what it actually means beyond the dollars and the cents, now this is a contract that is more self -enforcing.
You don't need all these mechanisms of legality in order to enforce the contract.
People want to be in it.
And here, with what you've done with your organizations, is you've tapped into intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation is like, it's just on the outside.
Money coming in. That's why I do this thing.
But if there's intrinsic motivation, now they truly want to do it.
So there's less of a monitoring cost for the managers to actually make sure and patrol to make sure that everybody's doing what they need to do.
But then also there's going to be greater levels of productivity, which allows people to perform at a higher level because they genuinely want to do well.
Yeah. And, and it, and it's available to everybody.
It's not just for a limited class inside of the business is because I think there was a time when we would make a donation to a, a good nonprofit, but I would write a check and it it would feel like it was just going in a river and it was gone and never could see the results of it and we thought this there has to be more how do we how do we bring life to what we do how do we how are we able to see the impact of what we're able to to put our efforts in and not just the executive leadership team but every single individual in the organization just to give you one more example we were in the the bath
and shower business and in that industry it's a it's an interesting business.
Along with windows, we did baths and showers, and you see a lot of really sad stories when you go into people's homes.
There are a lot of veterans that have served our country proudly, yet sadly, they have a bathtub that's impossible to step over, and they are petrified of taking a shower in their own home because they know it's dangerous.
We started coming up with a program.
It was called Baths for the Brave. It still is going on today, where we would surprise veterans with free safe shower systems just in time for Veterans Day.
And it wasn't just happening in Wisconsin.
We aligned ourselves with other like -minded companies across the country.
Last year, in 31 different states, veterans were surprised with free showers installed by really hardworking people that get such joy out of wanting the change of veterans' life.
They would volunteer.
Let me be the one to install that shower for this veteran.
Again, it's just how do do you, how do you really create a, a co -producing opportunity of meaningful culture and, and with full participation in your business.
And as you do so, and by the way, I write about this a lot in my book that's coming out beyond the hammer.
So it really can change, not just the mindset of everybody in your business, but the absolute performance of an organization.
Yes. Oh, this is is good now now but brian we have to this isn't just all like unicorns and rainbows here because i i know you're bringing the this heart -centered message and this approach which is which is really powerful right and i'm and maybe this not might not have been in your case but maybe other people have run into this where they say okay i want to do this good work for the community within the organization but then there's resistance internally because they say hey that doesn't help the bottom bottom line.
That's not where we should be allocating those resources for those people who want to create that positive change.
How can they go about having those conversations?
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Yeah. Cause marketing, like we were just speaking about, is one piece of authenticity and one piece of culture.
I think another piece of it is how do you give meaning and purpose to people inside of your organization?
Well, one way to do that is to empower them to think like business owners.
And the reason why I think a lot of companies are somewhat hesitant to invest in certain things in their business.
And it could be, by the way, it could be the business owner that has one, two, or three employees.
And they know they need to hire somebody else, but they are afraid to because they don't know, they know that person is going to be expensive.
And what if business isn't good next month or next year?
And now they have all this overhead or who's going to train them, all of these things.
And I think what happens is business, if a business does a great job forecasting, if they're confident in being able to predict the future through forecasting and such, then they're more confident being able to invest in the business, whether it's people, or anything.
Forecasting is an opportunity for empowerment with people.
A forecasting shouldn't live with the CEO. Forecasting should live very, very close to each business unit so they're able to report up to how the business is doing.
It's a form of empowerment, it's a form of confidence, and it's also super important in my opinion in having an authentic culture because people understand wow I know my business really well as as as people know their business really well uh the CEO is more likely to invest in things that make a positive impact in the community because they know the bottom line is going to come through there is so much to explore with that response Brian this is great because essentially we want I want people to think like business owners.
And the terms that come to mind with that is it's ownership, but then also accountability, too.
So it's like I'm not just coming to a job, clocking in, clocking out.
I'm owning this business unit.
I am responsible for it.
And so what I'm realizing is that when it comes to everything within the business, whether it's you trying to negotiate for a promotion or you trying to negotiate for a greater impact in the community, you're not going to be in a good position and you won't have any leverage to make that request unless you're doing an exceptional job in your business.
It certainly does put you at an advantage when trying to ask for a raise or something like that, right?
Right. And look, I think as a business, you have to decide as you want to grow your business.
How how do we grow?
Do we want policies to guide our decisions?
Do we want do we want mistakes to be punished because it's all about the policy?
Or do we want to have an environment of empowerment where where we understand mistakes might happen, but it would be indecision that's frowned upon?
And it's OK to be wrong.
Just don't be wrong for long.
I mean, you can make a mistake, just get off of a bad mistake.
But if we don't give people an opportunity, you know, you've heard the expression, you know, it's okay to fail.
I mean, it is. And it's, look, it's hard. I get it.
It's hard for a small business owner to release control when it's their business and livelihood and retirement and it's their money on the line.
It's really difficult to say, I want to empower people.
people. But I think empowerment happens in little steps.
If you choose to empower people, then you have to say, what business are you really in?
And if you would have asked me when I first started my business back in 2009 on a plastic folding table with $3 ,000 in cash, I would have said we were a construction company.
If you'd have asked me, I don't know, eight years ago, I would have said, well, you know, we're a sales and marketing company that happens to be in home improvements.
But the truth is we were a training organization.
And, and when you're a training organization, if you model your business as a training organization, it's actually one of the pillars in the book.
You then can empower people, but you, it's difficult to just empower people without first modeling your business as a training organization.
Every opportunity, every opportunity is an opportunity for training.
And, and that means there's an opportunity for for documenting everything.
So if you can document and train, guess what?
You can start to empower, and then you have a really fantastic business.
And this goes back to what you were talking about with mindset as well, because you as a leader changed your mindset about really the essential elements of what your company was.
Yeah, yeah. It's true, and I think it's a powerful thing.
And again, to your point, the employee that wants to negotiate for an increase in their salary what they're probably not doing is they're probably not at home at their kitchen table looking for a different job because they feel fulfilled they feel like they have meaning they feel like they're making a difference in the business they feel like they have purpose they feel like they're a leader and and instead what they want to do is they want to find an opportunity to grow with you and that's that's like perfect and it's such a completely different mindset said, because I think in a lot of other organizations,
it's seen as an antagonistic type of thing, a tug of war.
I want more value for what I'm giving the company, and the company does not want to give me more value.
And so the company is often thinking, how can I get as much as possible from my team without while paying them as little as possible?
But here again, we're bringing that whole win win mentality into this.
And we recognize that it changes our perspective on retention as well.
100%. Well, look, I'll give I'll give one nugget to your to to your listeners or viewers if you're struggling with high turnover most businesses that are of any kind of a size have what's called an exit interview when the employee is leaving they ask them a bunch of questions and the exit interview is like an autopsy it's like too late they've they're already gone and my suggestion is don't do an exit interview how about a stay interview let's while they're working there let's ask them some questions you know what what makes you want to come to work every day?
What would make you one day want to leave?
What is one thing the organization is doing wrong?
What do you need out of your leader that you're not getting?
Those four questions, the stay interview can really give you great insight on the culture of your business, the mindset of your team, and the true needs of the people that you work with.
Brian, when we were chit -chatting before, one of the things you said is you wanted to make it practical.
And this has been and continues to be I'm not letting you go yet.
This continues to be incredibly practical.
Because again, we can see how these small tweaks that we can make will make pay massive dividends down the road as it relates to really the relationship that we are continuously cultivating with the folks on our team.
So this is incredibly powerful.
Yeah. And I think what happens I think the risk for a lot of business leaders is that as as an organization starts to grow and you start to add layers and layers and layers to an org chart, what happens is the CEO gets further and further and further away from the customer.
Right. And so there, so sometimes decisions can get made in an ivory tower.
So how do you, another form of empowerment is how do you listen to those that are closest to the customer?
And by the way, not just give them a voice, but give them a megaphone because when people that are closest to the customer, they're going to know where the organization is getting it right and getting it wrong and often have a better solution because they're very, very close to the customer.
And again, authenticity, importance of culture, these are the things that people care about.
People want to feel heard. They want to feel like they make a difference.
They want to feel that their voice matters.
And these are the things when we talk about authenticity, it's just simply real and it's real that people want to feel heard you're spot on i mean it goes down to validation and respect really because the people feel appreciated there that's right and when people feel appreciated again they're they're probably not applying to your competitor they're they're they're in it with you i heard this saying and i don't know who said it but it was if you want to to build a mighty ship to sail across the ocean, don't just hire a whole bunch of people and teach them how to swing a hammer.
First, get them to yearn for the open sea, and they will build a more magnificent ship than you could ever imagine.
And I think the same is true in leadership.
It's how do we get our people to yearn for the open sea?
How do we get them to buy into something bigger?
How do we get them involved in where we're doing things right and where we're getting things wrong uh toyota by the way it's interesting they do a thing it's called an andon cord uh if you were to go to a toyota factory at all the different stations all the way around the the the line the manufacturing line every station has an andon cord it's a rope that you pull and when they pull the rope and by the way every person on the line is not asked to they're empowered to pull the line if anything ever goes wrong and when they pull the line the entire line stops.
So maybe somebody on the line is trying to, I don't know, screw in a headlamp on a car and the screws aren't lining up.
They'll pull the Andon cord because they realize that it's probably not a problem here.
The problem is earlier on in the production line.
So the people are empowered to solve the problems. Giving your people closest to the customer a loud voice is giving them an Andon cord. And we want our people to have an Andon cord because it's empowering because it helps them solve.
It helps you as a leader create a better business.
And you know what? That's not a bad thing.
I agree. It's not a bad thing.
And the process can be very scary, too.
That's right. And so for those leaders, when it comes to that fear of letting go, because we've talked about empowering your team, getting them to get a sense of ownership and encouraging them to make decisions and let their voices be heard. There might be some some leaders who might feel as though the power that they had within the organization is slipping through their grasps.
And so what would you say to that leader to help them feel a little bit more comfortable and confident with this method of empowerment?
Yeah. So if we're going to empower others, right, we have to train them for sure.
And often what happens in businesses is if you're hiring a new salesperson, you probably train them for a couple of weeks before you let them talk to to a customer.
If you're hiring somebody else, and maybe in your call center, you probably train them for a week before you let them talk to a customer.
But what often happens is a manager gets stuck into a role without any real training at all.
It's just more out of need.
Oh, you have the most experience, I'm going to make you a manager.
And that can often be a train wreck.
I think 60 % of US adults leave a job because of a manager.
And managers get a bad rap that way, way.
Because in fact, they just weren't trained and developed.
So how does a leader, how does a leader let go a little bit and empower their managers?
I think it's about understanding that that managers need, first of all, first of all, it's not a leader or a manager.
You know, sometimes it's the same person.
It's just two different hats, right?
Sometimes we have to wear a manager hat where we're navigating the day -to -day complexities inside of the business.
And sometimes we have to wear a leadership hat.
We're actually trying to drive change, changing human human behavior change, everything, but to do both of those things effectively, whether it's us or somebody else in that role, they need both levers of influence and levers of control.
And a business can't just be all rah, rah.
I think about it like, I heard your Ted talk and I know you have at least one kid, but how many kids do you have?
Now it's two. Now it's two.
All right. So let's just pretend for a moment that you have your two kids are going to have a giant party in your backyard and you're inviting all the neighborhood kids over and you've got like 50 kids in your backyard you probably need a fence around the backyard or you're not going to be parent of the year as they run off and run across the street right so the fence acts as a lever of control like in a bit like at a party you need a fence a business needs a lever of control needs something to frame out what where the stopping points are but if you only had a fence around around your backyard
and had all the kids over and nothing for them to do.
It would feel more like a prison.
So you also need levers of influence, a bouncy house, you know, a swing set.
So a business needs both levers of influence and levers of control.
The managers need that.
And when you teach the managers, when is it time to use your control to put your management hat on?
When is it time to use your, your influence to put your leadership hat on?
What are the tools to do that well again i think then a man an owner can start to step back more and more and more because the odds are they'll probably do a better job than the owner can themselves because they're so busy doing everything else incredible and brian with that you just helped me to understand why dominic's birthday party last month was so chaotic i appreciate that oh man brian this this This has been so great, so great.
And I want to make sure that we give the listeners an opportunity to learn more about your work, your book, and how they can get in touch. Yeah, that's great.
And I thank you very much. The book, Beyond the Hammer, available right now on Amazon for pre -order.
It's really cool. It's a fresh approach to culture, leadership, people development.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
I wrote it in two parts.
The first part is a parable because I think stories stick.
So the first part is a parable where there are five foundational pillars of leadership that reveal themselves.
And the second half switches from storytelling to strategy, where it's very actionable on how to truly plug these into your organization.
And you'll have a better team, a better business, and you'll sleep better at night as well.
So be on the hammer.
Amazing. Brian, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me.
You have such a great audience.
You have such a great show.
I really appreciate everything you do.
Thank you. Thank you.
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