← Confessions of an Implementer
Confessions of an Implementer
S2E44 | My Employees Weren’t the Problem: I Was, with Hurricane Ken Dewitt
01:19:41
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- [00:00]
A
Do you believe that people can fundamentally change? Meaning, like, are you still deep down inside Hurricane Ken? You've just developed the tools and the skills to be able to rechannel or repurpose that type of energy, or do you believe that you fundamentally have changed as a human?
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B
I think I've changed.
- [00:24]
A
Welcome to Confessions An Implementer. I'm your host, Ryan Hogan. We share unique stories of EOS implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and challenges of the system in action. Let's jump in. Someone reached out to me before our last conversation or when we were going to record it, and he said something about a cowboy hat. He was like, oh, you're about to have the cowboy on. And so is this a thing? I love it, Ken.
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B
I, I can't fit it on this, but so everybody notices my little microphone and they said, well, you must be imus in the morning. I said, yes, I am.
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A
I love that. I love that. Is that, Is that something. Is that a proper. Is that something you wear? You. You wear.
- [01:13]
B
No, it's a real hat. And some. You know, this is a good confession of an implementer right here. There's such good camaraderie on the show. Maybe you know Jill Young or know of her. Years ago, we were, we were part of a super T group. Jonathan B. Smith, you know, formed a T group. A T group is groups of three or four implementers who get together to support one another in their journey. And Jonathan had the brilliant idea, why not have 12, why not not find 12 of the best people again? Long story short, he got in trouble with Gino or something. And I can. I don't know if I should ever tell that story, but. But he got, we called him Black Flag. Like on nascar, you know, if you get, you get a black flag, you're called off the track. And so I said, I know, let's. Let's go to the next quarterly meeting in Detroit, all in support of Jonathan. Jonathan's feeling all bummed out and everything. And I said, yeah, let's all be Johnny Cash. And of course, I go through the airport holding the hat on my hand and I show up. And of the other 10 people, I'm the only one in all black in a cowboy.
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A
They left you out to dry?
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B
They left me out to dry. I'm sitting there, I have. I have these dark sunglasses on. They think I'm. They think I'm some, Some star because I'm sitting in the Detroit Weston and people are going, who's that guy. Who's that guy over there? You know, he looks like a big cowboy and everything. And I had. I had on black shirt, jeans that my black hat and pictures got taken and. Same thing as hurricane. You know, once. Once you do something with a group of people you really are close to, they never let you forget it.
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A
You know, so. So many, like, fun stories there baked in. And one. One thing that reminds me of is, so I've been in the Navy now for the last 23 years. I started off as in.
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B
And you've had lots of practical jokes played on you.
- [03:23]
A
Yes, 100%. And so we did this. We did this thing. So basically, one of our. I was an air crewman, and as a part of that, like, I flew in helicopters in the back, and we did mine countermeasures. And there was this time that one person got in trouble, but nobody agreed with the reason that they got in trouble. And so in a. In a unific, a moment of unity, we all went out, like, seven of us. It only takes one person to send a helicopter out and you guide it out, you do all the things, and then you salute. But all seven of us went out and we just. We all did it. We got our butts chewed so bad for that, for our sense. Do you think if you all would have showed up like Johnny Cash, it would have been more like, I can't believe you. Or do you think that. That it would just been like, oh, they're just supporting Jonathan.
- [04:09]
B
Well, they would know we were just supporting Jonathan. And then, no, I can see in. In the military, you guys deserve to get your butts cheese. But, you know, behind. Behind the scenes, those guys were going, oh, smart little assholes. I wish I. Excuse me. Yeah, Wish I had done that, you know, when I was in there, because people admire, you know, when people support one another, and that's. Even if it's against the rules. I was in a fraternity once, and so that was. That was the way things went. I love it.
- [04:39]
A
And, you know, usually so 1. This is the first podcast I've done in the new year. And between vacations and everything else, it's been like. Like four weeks. And so I. I'm going to have to. To knock the rust off of this one. And usually what I do is, is I get like, right into your story, and we start to go, but I had this one word, and you've already. You've already said it out loud. And. And like, I just want to go right there and we'll come back to Your accounting experience and everything else. But you said this one. Or it's two words but one phrase, which is Hurricane Ken. Yeah. Who, who is this? Who is this Hurricane Ken?
- [05:14]
B
Well, Hurricane Ken is not somebody I'm proud of. He was a young 35 year old guy with about 30 employees, somebody I knew very well. And he, he was driven, you know, but being driven in a, when you own an accounting firm is one thing. You know, being driven when you're, when you're with six other groupmates like you were is another altogether. I was intense and I had a, I had a turnover problem and a performance problem of the people. And I couldn't figure it out. So I hired a workplace psychologist from the Birmingham area and I called him up and I said, I hear you do good work. And he says, yeah, I do. I said, what's your problem? He says, I got people who, you know, are not doing their damn work. And people, people who are, who are, you know, not taking initiative and they're, they're, they're quiet. And he goes, I'll be there, I'll be there Tuesday morning. And so he came, I said, yeah, find out what's wrong with these people. By Friday, he had talked to everybody. And he said, yeah, man, I found exactly what's wrong with these people. You're just not, you're not going to believe it, you're not going to like it. He says, it's you, you're an intense sob. And I mean, that's the kind of, you know, truth telling you want. But what a shock. I was 35 years old and he said, Ken, your, your greatest strength is often your greatest weakness. And this is something I've quoted a lot over the years because it's true, my intensity and my drive was what helped me grow a company to dozens of employees. But at the same time, I was not aware of that people were different than me. I wasn't aware at all. And that I was actually frightening them. And so it gets worse. I said, so I don't see myself doing this. And he said, ah, we psychologists call this a blind spot. It's a classic thing. Everybody sees it, but you don't see it. And I said, well, I don't believe it, number one. He says, well, go ahead and take your denial pills if you want denial pills. He said, but it's going to be true next week too. And he was, he was much more gentle on me than this. But, you know, years go by and I've, I've remembered the lesson and recounted it. So many times. So I said, I need help. I need help seeing it. I want to change. I thought, through the weekend. And he came in and he says, well, we're going to have a team meeting and we're going to roll out how we're going to help you. And so he literally said, do you see this little flag? And I'm showing you a flag. I don't know our listeners will be able to hear us, but it was a little flag. And he said, we got a set of flags here for you. You know, like at the beach when the wind is blowing, blue means all is calm. You don't even get one of those. You start with a yellow because that's your natural. My natur. Natural state is blowing.
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A
Yes.
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B
And he said, when you see an orange flag and you'll never see anybody change the flag. When you see an orange flag, you come down the hall, you need to think, what did you just do in the last four to 24 hours? And he said, because you affected somebody and enough for them to change the color of the flag because they're afraid to confront you. Turns out that the fear to confront number one, that's common in almost all employees. They. They have one source of income, and they don't want to confront their boss even if. If they know they're right. So if you see this, think back to what you did. And I remember thinking, oh, yeah, I was kind of. I was kind of stern. And in fact, I thought I saw a tear on that young person, you know, when I was walking away from giving them some pointers. And over time to see it, I said, okay, well, what, so an orange flag is not good? And he said, no, not at all. So, but then we got this red flag, and I don't have one right here, but red with a black square in the middle of it. And I said, what does that mean? He says, we're pretty close, you know, full on storm here and you need to go home. And so I'm just embarrassed. And he finally said, well, you didn't ask about two red flags. I said, yeah, what about two red flags? He said, the whole office is evacuating, and we're leaving you to just blow around inside. Now, his point was this. He said, you're working with people who are different, and if you know anything about the disc. Profile. Disc. D stands for dominant, I for influential, and S for steady, and C for compliant. Well, most of my employees were S's and C's and that's true throughout the workforce. Most. Most People are steady or compliant. If they were d, they'd have their own company or they'd, you know, they'd be one of those fighter jocks or whatever. So the, the, the thing was, he says, you just, you've got to adjust your style to your audience. You've got to, you got to remember that not everybody is like you. But, but no one had ever taught me that you, you should adjust your style. And, and I have been working on that for literally 35 years. And I let the story slip in an EOS confessionary moment. And no one calls me Ken anymore. You know, they just, they call me Hurricane. And I, you know, when I'm flying places, I'll frequently be next to somebody. I'll strike up a conversation and, and somehow this story will come up and they say, you know, I'm a psychologist. Can I put that in my next book?
- [12:01]
A
There's been many books about you at
- [12:02]
B
this point, apparently now. So what I do is I use it as illustration because in teams there's dysfunction in that there could be one or two, usually at least one, but sometimes two or three dominant people. And when I'm telling teams about it, I've learned to notice where people are looking because I see people looking back and forth at each other like, does he know about this guy? Does he know about our hurricane? And I've even seen, there's, there's one fellow in particular out of Tennessee, this was 10 years ago. He said, oh my God. Kenny came to me after, he says, I'm Hurricane. But they, but here near the Kentucky border where we have Kentucky Fried Chicken, my nickname is Extra Crispy. So Extra Crispy. And he said, I want to change. I said, well, I don't know what we're going to do. We'll get you a chicken bucket or something to remember to not be extra crispy. Don't be Hurricane. Well, this story had a life changing impact on, on this gentleman. And he tells me every time I talk to him and call him once a year to see how he's doing. He says, I made a pivot in my life, but I didn't expect this to happen. He said we had a turnover problem and all of the, the best employees who had quit over the previous five years, they started showing up at the bank wanting their jobs back. And I got most of them. And so, you know, that's when I realized by being vulnerable, we implementers have to have to admit our own dumb mistakes. Because many business owners think they, they're the only ones that make Mistakes. They think, no, you know, I'm the only one that's got a problem. I'm the only one that can't get my employees to do this or so by being vulnerable, I've helped at least one community in Tennessee. A lot of people get their jobs back. And it, I laugh, but it's painful to me. You know, it's because I hurt people. And, and it's, it's funny to say it now, but it's, it's a serious thing. And I've gone to, you know, it's just energetic. You're energetic as well. You can just overdo it. So he ended up my lesson with saying, Ken, as a leader, you have to remember you're on stage 100% of the time. It's not fair. It's not fair at all. But whenever, and I have talks with strong minded visionaries and integrators and I say you're on stage 100% of the time. And the way he explained it to me, he said if you normally walk in the office past the receptionist and you're in a four or five times out of, out of five, you're in a good mood and you don't say anything to her because you're focused on driving into that, into the office and working on that problem. The first thing she's going to do is gather everybody at the water cooler and say, wait, storm is blowing. What's going on? Ken walked past me, didn't say anything, and that never occurred. No one ever told me in all of business school that you can, you know, you can negatively impact somebody and so you've got to consciously, positively impact them. It's a tough way to learn a lesson, don't you think?
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A
Pretty, pretty tough that in, you know, it's interesting because I've been on both sides of the fence in the Navy. I was enlisted and then I became an officer and I completely blew it at my first couple of companies as far as actions or moving too fast or distractions or moods or whatever the case may be. And it took those types of moments to eventually reflect back to when I was in E1. And I would look at officers and like you just you, you naturally or instinctively trust that they know, they know what's best. Because I'm, I'm just a 17 year old loose cannon and you've got someone that's college educated and everything else. And I remember like some mom where I saw like different officers do different things and, and like I was like, oh, that's interesting. And And I looked at those moments of like, I was always looking at people that were above me and, and how were they acting? And it, it changed my opinion on, on many different things. When, when you talk about the hurricane or the extra crispy, like, you know, were you, were you just an intense person and you were just like constantly going forward or, or were you a bit of a, of a jerk at times?
- [16:59]
B
Well, sometimes actually a jerk. And, and at the root of it, you know, perhaps you were trained better than I to, to withstand a verbal attack from somebody. The fight or flight instinct is just an instinct in people. And, and like right now I'm, I'm thinking about the Black Swan group, which I've done some training under. It's the negotiating group, Chris Voss and Jonathan Smith, and they have a new book out that's really popular, but they. Oh yes, yes, it came yesterday, I think. And so I've go to their training because it helps me. And, and as you know that they're all hostage negotiators where, where they're guaranteed to be talking with somebody tense because they've been caught robbing a bank and, and have, have a gun and, and the only way they think they can get out of it is to threaten somebody. So they have to control themselves and their reaction. And even the great Viktor Frankl, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning, he is famous and I can never quote him directly, but he says there's an instantaneous moment when you have some stimulus of some type. And in his case he was talking about being beaten, for example, in a concentration camp. You have a moment to choose your reaction. And what happens is most of us instinctively react. And that's, that was the root of my problem, was that I felt I was being challenged. I felt, and this, unfortunately, in the early years happened in some of my sessions and people, people would say, yeah, we saw the hurricane. Can we know what you're talking about now? So you've probably had something you deeply believe, challenged and, and you know, if you don't notice and step back and see that the attack is just a challenge, you know, you can kind of bow up. And I'm sure your training, your training is supposed to kick in and it does for, for guys, veterans like you guys. But those of us who've never had that kind of training, we learn it the hard way. And so I have really powerful business owners, visionaries who founded their company, you know, 30, 40 years ago. And I have to, to this day, they're in their 70s, some of them, and I say, I have to ask you to remember that when you think out loud, that young person or that middle aged person, they see you as a God who founded this business. They don't know you're just thinking out loud. I said, what do you think they're thinking? And they said, they're thinking I'm telling them what to do. And I said, that's exactly. And they'll drop everything. And then their boss comes in and says, what are you doing? Well, business founder came by and told me to do this. So in the implementer community, that's known as an end run around the chain of command and it's unintentional. 99 out of 100 times. This is horrible to admit. I remember once saying, things are too calm around here. I'm just going to change the flag to red myself and walk out. And I did that one time and, and I came back and said, yeah, I was just joking. And they were, they, they didn't think it was funny.
- [20:56]
A
As you describe your, your younger self and the intensity and, and maybe a little bit of the abrasiveness, like the first step was identifying. And it took, it took an outsider to come in, talk to a few people and then give you the feedback. The, the tough, the candid feedback of like, hey, you, you're actually the problem. I think Taylor Swift has a song about this. It's, it's you, it's me. I don't know, but you were the problem. What, like how did you. This might be a two parter. Like one, how did you work on that? And two, like as an intense and probably very confident person and you might have thought that like, you know, you're over top. Like, yes, we're working as a team, but it's my team and I direct this. Like, how did you, how did you give some of that authority to the team to, to swap out flags to tell you, hey, you're being an like that, that's, that sounds like a very tough thing to do.
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B
The last part of this, this secret was that I had one employee who was not afraid of me. And to this day she's still a dear friend. And this is when I knew. I'm reaching for a prop over here.
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A
I'm gonna hurricane Ken. Amana. Amana. Props.
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B
Yeah. And, and so this young lady came to me and said, you know, this flag system, I'm worried about it not working because, you know, I know you, I've worked with you for five years. And you, you know, she said, and if the, if this if the flags don't work, I'm going to give you this pill. Now, what you can see as I'm holding up is a pill that's about
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A
a. Anti Grumpy pills. I love that.
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B
She said, I'll give you this pill. I said, donna, that's a single pill. And she said, yeah, that's it. I said, I don't think I can swallow a pill that big. She said, ain't for swallowing, buddy. And so she was going to give me this serious pill in the worst way you can imagine possible. But that was her way of saying, this is real, son. Do something about it or you'll lose everybody. And so that's, that's the hardest thing we implementers do is when we see whether it's the hurricane can or whether it's, it's. I mean, we can all be children, we're all children growing up. And sometimes we act childish when we see behavior that's not really functional. It's a, it, it requires bravery that we call it out because sometimes it's not between sales and ops, it's between the, the, the two partners that run the business. And so we have to risk our job. And, and to do that, we, we certainly tell him up front. He said, there may be a time when I have to tell you something you really don't want to hear. First time I'm going to try to tell you privately between sessions. The second time I'm going to call it out in front of the team. And the third time I'll call it out in front of the team and I, So we, we try to get that understanding that, you know, maybe this will never happen. But take it from me, I wish somebody had called me out and had just told me, yes, you've got to learn to speak the language of people you work with. And truly, I carry a cheat sheet that says when you're talking to S's and C's, do this, don't do this. I mean, I tried to get them to wear a T shirt that said that, but, you know, that wasn't going to work. So to this day, my own employees who've studied disc and I make them take the Disc profile and the Colby profile to, to learn their work styles. And sometimes the work styles are quiet and meek and sometimes. So use profiling tools to know if you're predisposed to be a person and then understand and recognize the people you're working with are probably not exactly like you. And the same thing in Black Swan training. They say, find out if you're talking to an assertive, an accommodator or, or a, I forget, an analyst, I think they call it. So I have to, I mean, like you, you mentally prepared for this interview. I have to mentally prepare for the day and, and, you know, ask the good man above to give me the right words and to calm me and give me discernment to notice if I'm getting too much into this. But for implementers and for bosses, I think the easiest thing to do is this simple test. If it starts becoming about me, it's probably not a good time coming up, does that make sense? If it starts becoming about my ego, my need to convince this person to do something, my feelings that I've been challenged, that Viktor Frankl would say, take a moment. You, you have a choice coming up and, and learning that I had a choice and then seeing that choice, I still screw up. I still, So I, I've really worked on some innovative training. Now you're going to wonder, man, is this guy crazy. I noticed that some of the calmest people I know happened to ride horses. Have you ever noticed that?
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A
I haven't. That's really interesting.
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B
Well, I'm thinking of a couple from Phoenix, Arizona. Susan Dyer is an equestrian and she shows horses. And she is just always smiles. You know, it's like one of those people like a realtor who, who's just bubbly all the time and, and calm and listens and pays attention and, and I, she gave a seminar to, to the implementers at, at, at one of our quarterly meetings. And I remember just, wow, I want to, I want to be like that. And, and I made the connection that, you know what, she's that way because she deals with horses, the most sensitive animals on the planet. Almost a horse can know where your eyes are going. And so when I took, I, I reasoned that I would take horseback riding lessons at age 65 in order to control my, my demeanor and, and it would be less embarrassing to practice on a horse than with people. So I, and I enjoyed it. I mean, I met a young lady who had leased a horse and she gave me basic riding lessons and it was in the ring and everything. And she would tell me, she says, Ken, at 23 years old, she's brave enough to say, Mr. Ken, look up. I said, why do you keep saying look up? She says, you're looking at the horse and the horse does not know why it's looking at you while you're looking at it. Yeah. I go, how can the horse see? Well, she said the horse's eyes are on the side, so you've got to look where you want to go. For example, when you're riding the reins and you see that barrel over there. Not that I'm a barrel racer. I'm not. I mean, we're going to walk around that barrel. You look at that barrel because the horse then says, okay, we're going to that barrel. Now, people are perhaps more sophisticated than that, but not really. They. They're. If you're. If I'm on stage 100 of the time and I'm looking at the neck of the horse and the horse is going, what the heck you looking at me for? Where are we going?
- [29:03]
A
That's. Well, I learned something. Well, I've learned a ton of stuff new. If you could. If you could look at my notes right now, but I never. I never knew that. And that's. That's super interesting. And it also like to use horseback riding as a means in which to, like, evolve and, and grow professionally and personally. That's super interesting. Do. This is going to be a tough question.
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B
Sure.
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A
Do you believe that people can fundamentally change? Meaning, like, are you still deep down inside Hurricane Ken, you've just developed the tools and the skills to be able to rechannel or repurpose that type of energy, or do you believe that you fundamentally have changed as a human?
- [29:46]
B
I think I've changed, but it's, you know, it's to the nature of human beings. We're. We're, you know, created in God's image, but we're animals. And, you know, we have this dark side, every one of us, And. And so some of those people probably can't change or they don't want to change. You know, if you want to change, I know you can. I know that I can. And so I've used all kinds of coaches. You know, we coach leadership teams directly, but. And not necessarily the individual leader in a traditional life coaching situation. I've had some excellent coaches. I've had sales coaches. I have spiritual coaches. I have Bible coaches. I have business coaches, relationship coaches. So the change starts with a desire that you recognize that's not good. I mean, I'm hurting that person, and I don't want to be that way. I'm embarrassed. You haven't made me blush yet. But when you do, I'll be as orange as that little circle behind me when it happens. And so I. I think fundamentally, you start out instinctual because we're all. Any psychologist will tell you there's some wounded moment in, in our childhood lives that, that cause us to, to fight back and snap back. And so my father was, you know, a dairy farmer turned small businessman, and his father started with a belt on him and, and there were eight of us kids. And so a couple of times in my life I pushed my dad too far and, you know, got. Got the whipping that, that country boys, you know, talk about. And it's traumatic, but I love my dad and, and became, he became my best friend. But everybody's hurt or. Gino Wickman says we're all misfit toys in a certain way. And so, yes, I believe people can change. They've got to, though, want to. My father was an alcoholic and he was a drunk. From, he tells, he told us from age 16 to 30 when he, and this was after he came back from World War II and after he, he did not do combat or anything. You know, he was stateside mechanic. But he, he started drinking and, and, and then he went to aa, Alcoholics Anonymous, and, and the way he stayed sober was to go every single evening after work. So he had to want to change. He. You have to. Tenants of AA say until you hit rock bottom, you're not, you're not really going to change. You got to want to. And that want to usually comes when you, you lose somebody precious to you or realize that you almost do, whether it be something you say to your, your child or your, your spouse or to one of your, one of your employees, when, when you realize that you've done the wrong thing. And so that deep hurt has to be greater than the anger. It has to be greater than, than the, than, than the temptation. And then it's a matter of saying, I want to change. I need help changing. I'm going to get, I'm, you know, I've got family members who are in substance abuse programs and, and the more I share that, the more people on break share. Yeah, it's happened to me. I'm figuring about a quarter to half of people have know somebody, if not more, that are, that are in, you know, substance abuse programs and ultimately they want to change. And they go in and out and they go in and out until something bad enough happens that they lose somebody or a relationship and they realize the cost is, is greater than the pain of changing. So I think people can change. It's just a matter of whether we hit rock bottom or not.
- [34:27]
A
All right, quick break. Friends. Do you find it impossible to hire and retain top sales talent? Or worse, are you paying insane recruiter fees? Who are all using outdated hiring processes. Yeah, I was too, at Hunt a Killer, we were spending hundreds of thousands on recruiter agency fees. And after I sold that company in 2012, 25, I started talent Harbor. And the whole vision here was to make sales recruiting accessible to small and medium sized businesses. Because the organizations that can hire and retain world class people are the ones that ultimately win. Most organizations rely on things like ZipRecruiter or LinkedIn and they get hundreds, if not thousands of resumes. But we find that the best salespeople are already perfectly placed somewhere else. And that's why our approach is to go after them. And we do that through a business model called recruiting. As a service, we do not charge commissions, we do not have success fees, we don't have contracts, we don't have long term engagements. And we become an extension of your team as expert sales recruiters. If you're tired of the same old recruiters and want to actually grow your sales team, check us out@talent harbor.com that's Talent Harbor. T A L E N T H A R B O R dot com. Let's get your next sales superstar hired. When moments that had. And I don't know whether it's like a trigger or like the, the moments in the past that used to turn you into Hurricane Ken, like when those things happen today, your reaction is obviously different. Is the, is the, is the way that it feels different or is it like the same things do create the same kind of emotional reactions?
- [36:23]
B
Yeah, the emotional reactions happen. But somehow I've learned it's almost like being disembodied and watching the situation. I've learned that, okay, this person is challenging me. This person just called something in eos, which I think is the greatest thing since the Bible was written. But the, the, this person has just called it a bunch of BS and I go, wait a minute now I beg to differ. But inside I'm doing that. So it's called being triggered. And so when I'm triggered, I have come to realize that I can see it developing. I can start to feel it coming on before it actually comes out in a sharp remark. Although I mean literally, in the last four months, I had a brilliant young construction executive point out something to me and I said, I, I came back with a snarky remark and, but, but the rest of the team was cool. And they said, you know, 10 minutes later they said, now did you see Hurricane Ken come out? My own teams are treating me now, so. And I said, yeah, I did. And, and, and the Owner, the company said, you know, you probably could have handled that differently. I'm sorry. I really am. And you know, I apologize. I take ownership of it and I say I'm going to try to do better. And I really apologize to all of you. And so it still happens. It's just whether I, you know, count to three and choose to be curious rather than angry, or curious rather than stomp somebody or react to them. And my own daughter and my wife, you know, are. My daughter's 28 now. My wife's. We've always been known each other since high school almost 50 years ago. And she will tell me, I, I see it happening to you, you know, so I don't know if I've answered your question precisely enough. But yes, people can change. It takes, it takes treatment, self treatment. React.
- [39:01]
A
You talked a little bit about apologizing and, and it's like I've apologized a lot kind of in the past. What, what I have experienced though, is when it is a. When it is a real mistake with like a true and authentic apology, it is, it is some of the hardest things that I've ever had, had to do. And I, I don't even, I. I don't even remember the moment, but I remember the apology. It was my last company and it was. My integrator had done something. Some days went by, he brought it back up and like, getting that, that like, I'm really sorry out without getting emotional, like, that is. That is really hard and it's really impactful in my experience as well.
- [39:47]
B
Here's another little story about apologies, because I had. Whether he's called crispy or tornado or cyclone or hurricane, I've had a number of these conversations. And he says, I also see myself do it. And I say, I'm sorry. And I say, let me tell you a little story about saying you're sorry. It's got to be sincere like you talk about, because the first few times you do it, it might not be. I didn't get to go to camp as a kid. There's too many of us and no money to do it and summer camp. So I took my own daughter to summer camp, got to stay overnight with other parents and such. And you've probably heard this lesson where they take you down to a tree where they have a gathering and they say, we need a volunteer. They hand you a big nail and a hammer and say, hammer this nail into that tree. And you know where I'm going here. Now pull it out and tell the tree you're sorry. And then you look up and there are just a hundred holes in that tree, you know, from where they've been given this lesson. And you just realize that the lesson is you can say you're sorry, but the first thing to remember about you're sorry is that the hole is still there. That, that. And so a genuine apology realizes, oh, my God, I have just wounded you. And now without being that dramatic, but that, you know, saying you're sorry is what some of us used to do just to de. Escalate, it wasn't real, but when you realize that you've really scared somebody or hurt somebody, saying you're sorry is it, it's, it's easier than it used to be, but it points to a failure. And, and so, you know, you can, you can beat yourself up over that failure or you can forgive yourself and you got to forgive yourself for the failure so that you can genuinely apologize to the other person, humbly ask for their forgiveness and realize. And it's best to have the knowledge that they may not want to give it to you, that, that, you know, it just was more than they could handle. And that makes it worse, of course, if that happens. But no, it's a little rock bottom that I bounced off of when I, when I hit that.
- [42:29]
A
So what's interesting about, about, like this, this conversation is, this, is. This has a lot to do with leadership and like, being able to like, lead and manage thyself, like, can often translate into more effective leadership inside of a workplace. And what's interesting is, like, a lot of the challenges that you talk about, I'm sure a lot of vision, like visionaries are 100 yards downfield and everybody else is still like, in the huddle waiting for the play. And that's a great way. Like, and these challenges haven't stopped.
- [43:04]
B
So.
- [43:05]
A
And it seems to be a generational thing. So every time there's a new generation, it's like, oh, this generation is so lazy and they, they don't do anything and, and they ask questions and like, what, what, what are some ways that, like these, these things can be applied into like, leadership and, and leading the next generation?
- [43:25]
B
You know, I write a blog and, and I enjoy it. I, I've been writing since I was probably freshman in college. I wrote an essay about my dad passing away. You know, one of those freshman essays. They say write about the biggest thing that ever happened in your life. And I was 14 and my dad passed away. And so they handed out the article and everybody wrote it. And deep down in this drawer from 40 plus years ago, I have those comments people said. So that made me try to communicate. Now I'm always going somewhere with my story. I wrote recently someone asked me name, name three things you've really learned after 40 plus years of being in business. And I thought for a while and I, I broke it down this way and I think I published this blog recently on LinkedIn, so if anybody wants to look it up. I don't remember the title, but I remember thinking, number one, everything is my fault, number two, I must manage others and number three, I must manage myself. So let's unpack those three things. And I tell people, if you're going to be a leader in a business, oftentimes you're picked because you're technically really good. For example, if you're good in building the widgets, you're often asked to be the head of operations. Well, technical skill and leadership skills and management skills got nothing to do with one another. But that's the main reason we promote people, is he seems to know all about building these bucket trucks. Let's make him in charge of all the people building these bucket trucks. So that's a fundamental mistake by business owners to think that anybody knows how to manage anybody else because frankly, we just don't train people to do it. So everything is my fault is a mantra because we tell our clients in the very first meeting, if you have a victim mentality that everything's not my fault, then this is not going to go well for you, this running a business, because you picked the person who you're up unhappy with. You hired them, you, you oriented them or you didn't, you threw them on the job and said, just watch Bob, you trained them or you didn't, you didn't train them. So why are they supposed to know something? And the thing I hear most common is he's really great at welding, but he's just not a leader or a manager. And I go, well, tell me when you were trained to be a leader or manager. And it's just like personal finance. There's two things in America we don't teach is how to manage your money and how to be a leader and a manager. So people have to learn. I, it's my fault as a business owner everything that happens in my business. Now that's not just corny, that's just true. I get to choose who works for me and whether I keep them or not. And, and, and I should choose to, not, not to tolerate their performance but to train them, transfer them or terminate Them I could have made a hiring mistake. And people make mistakes all the time and they transfer, transfer, transfer. So everything in business is my fault. Secondly, I must manage others, that if I'm going to lead anything, I've got to manage others. I've got to learn to speak their language. I have to learn to see that. As Michael Gerber in the E Myth Revisited back in 1999, the first business book that really changed my life, he says there's three basic personalities. There's the entrepreneur, there's the manager, and there's the technician. And each of them are oil and vinegar to each other. But each of them needs the other desperately because a technician run business is going to put itself out of business trying to be perfect all the time. A manager run business won't be able to fix anything because it doesn't anything about technician and an entrepreneur is you going to do what we do, you know, we're going, we're going to be down the field saying everybody, everybody follow me, you know, and, and they're all looking the other way. So I must, everything's my fault. I must learn to manage others. And then as we've already talked, I must manage myself. I must have the discipline to stay focused. Entrepreneurial types tend to see so many opportunities, you know, and so in eos we have this concept Jim Collins brought up called the core focus to stay focused. It is better to be a two item business that you're best in the world at than to be a Swiss army knife that nobody would hire you for any one of those things. So but entrepreneurs have their customers say to them, hey, and I was with a company this week, they do concrete road paving and they can do fences. And people ask them to do fences but they don't. And the entrepreneur wants to do fences and the other guy's saying, hey, find a fence guy to do that. I'm a paver, you know, I'm an asphalt guy. No, no, we can do this. And so you got to manage yourself. You got to stop yourself from your own instincts while being brave enough to do what you have to do. So that's what I've learned. Everything's my fault. I must learn to manage others and lead others and I must to do those things, manage myself. Be the person that says, yeah, I know I can do 12 things, but I'm an EOS implementer. Why do I need to also help people with their sales or their operations? There's the smartest ones in the room on that. I don't need to get another degree, another certification.
- [49:58]
A
I was. I was. As you were going through those, I was looking through my notes because I took a. I have this. I use. I think it's called OnePage or some sort of, like, digital notebook. And I have this thing called Life Life mottos. And every time I hear something good, I put it on there. And the last one that I heard, which was halfway through last year, was everything is all my fault. And I loved it so much that I opened up my phone right then and there and wrote it down. Because it, it's just. It takes you right out of a victim mentality. Like, I think all too many, all too often, people. People are like, why is this happening to me? And, like, why did this person do this?
- [50:35]
B
Or why?
- [50:36]
A
But if you can accept, like, accountability for everything that happens under your watch, it just, it flips the script. And you. You just sort of go through life with. With a different perspective.
- [50:49]
B
The key is to know you're going to screw up. Managers and leaders say to me, but I don't want to make a mistake. And I said, well, that's. That's the first mistake you're making right there is to think you won't. So I've. I. I generally say this now, do you know how baseball works? And they go, well, yeah, what, are you kidding me? I said, who makes the Hall? What percentage batting average? Oh, you know, anybody bats 300, 350, they're going to make it. I go, that's right. Which means they look stupid. 7 out of 10 times, right? They swing and, you know, they even twist themselves down to the ground. They swung and missed so hard. I said, now business has got a better batting average. If you can score an 800 average in business, you're a superstar. You're really good. If you're 700, which means two to three times out of 10, you're going to do a belly flop when you take a dive. And I think we both know that. While the Blue Angels and those fighter pilots of those display squadrons are the most amazing men in the world, I remember watching one of their programs and, you know, they get taken apart after every flight. And. And it's something about you warriors that, that somewhere you learn that I will screw up, but hopefully no one died. And if they didn't, I need to forgive myself and steal myself for the next time. Is that not accurate? Is that. Is that how you guys.
- [52:36]
A
It's very.
- [52:36]
B
Come to think about.
- [52:37]
A
It's very accurate. And I don't what's interesting about this I talk about this all the time. I talk about this even, even because one of our core values is growth mindset. And I talk about, like, to have a growth mindset, you need to understand that you're going to fail and that that's a part of the growth. And it's very wise. It's not that we wake up every morning as, as business leaders and entrepreneurs and coaches and everything else and say, you know what? Today my goal is to fail. Like, that's our goal is not to fail, but we understand in order to achieve the things that we want to achieve, it's going to take failure and learning. And what's interesting about the military, I share the story all the time, and it's pretty much the same story you just shared, which is like, when you're going through training, there's nobody. There's nobody telling you, like, hey, failure is acceptable. Like, the whole thing through training is, like, to perfect it. But that's a part of training and a part of getting yelled at and a part of debriefs and after action reports is like, failure is built into the mechanics. The mindset is perfection. But the training to get there is constant failure. And it's why I talk about this a lot as well. It's why I think veterans are some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet if you can get them to get out of their box. The problem is that the military puts us into a box. We have a mission. We complete that mission, we have a certain thing, and we're not supposed to really think outside of the box all too often, because that's when people get hurt. And if you can take a veteran that's gone through, like, the constant failures and building that resilience, and you can get them to think big and break from the box, those are some of the best entrepreneurs I've worked with.
- [54:18]
B
They really are. And they tend to be more humble. They tend to be servant leaders who realize that business is harder than it looks, but it's way less complicated that we make it. Most of the time, it's. There's still a relationship between people. It's teaching. You know, when you bring a new guy into the team, or in your case, the squad or something, you know, the last thing you want to do is make him feel like he doesn't belong. You know, this guy may save your life. So how do you get comfortable with people? That's why we do things at the annual planning days. The most important part of the annual planning is team health. And so we talk frankly about. You've heard about the book, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And ultimately the first dysfunction is always insufficient trust to confront a problem. Insufficient trust that's built around, well, you're my boss. If can I trust you, can I bring up something that's not working well, or are you going to yell at me with that stern looking face you have, that, oh my gosh, you've got all this gray hair and you know, you must know more than I do. And it's just not true, as you found out. But people have to, have to be, have to consciously and intentionally create a culture of psychological safety. And in eos, we call that the team health portion of vision, traction and healthy. And to do that, people just have to be comfortable. So perhaps you've been through an annual session. If you haven't, we'll share little stories about ourselves, like, where's my hometown? What was my family like growing up? What kind of job did I have? Let's now start to share something a little vulnerable. Tell me about the worst job experience you ever had in your life. I have like half a dozen, two dozen maybe. Tell me about a challenge you faced growing up. When you get to know people just on that level, trust starts to seep in. You start to go, I don't understand why the dude is wound about this topic. You know, if you understand how people grew up, whether they, they were an open warfare kind of argumentative family, I like to say my Irish and Italian friends, or they were artificial harmony family. I like to say my Southern Baptists, my German friends, you know, my, my, my proper English people. And that, you know, how you, you'll get on a team and one guy is just ready to mix it up and everybody else shrinks back from them because they grew up in a family like that. Now some actually grew up where mom and dad said, hey brothers, let's work this out. As opposed to a dad who, who's got eight kids, has no patience to say that and just will take his belt off and hit you. So people are conditioned from, from a young age to be the way we are. And that's, that's one of the secrets I guess I've learned in addition to everything's my fault, I must manage others, I must manage myself, is that we got to figure out and help people get past their worries. Because, you know, in the military, you, you've got a system that says, you know, we can bark at you and everything and make you do physical PT and run laps and all those tough things. You Guys do in the workplace, we have to treat people more like volunteers, and we tend to treat them with such kid gloves that we forget that they're worried about something, they're fearful about something. We have to learn to say, you know, the word encourage means to give courage. Encourage someone. We have to learn to give courage that, look, I trust you. You can trust me. I care about you as a person and I care about excellence, and I want you to care about excellence. So I'm going. Can we agree that I'm going to coach you on this? Because a lot of employees and bosses allow that. No, I can't say anything about that. I'm just going to work around them. I'm going to give somebody else the job or I'll do the job for them, which is the worst thing that can happen. So my job as an implementer is to encourage managers to develop a real trusting relationship with their co workers, with one another first. Because the reason I think you warriors train so much is that it's expensive to train in battle, is it not? Yeah, yeah. So low stakes training is a lot better. And that's a term that, you know, the black swan people use is. So managers need to learn in cohorts with one another. And in the one thing exercise, we actually create a cohort where we start with the top manager and say, we're going to tell you a wonderful thing about you. But on the second round, we're going to make a suggestion to you. Is that okay? Now, some people on the team reach for their air sickness bag right then and say, we're really going to do this? We're going to. I said, yes, we are. And nobody gets a pass. And of course, I've talked with the owner or the before. Then I don't surprise them with this. I say, you're the one that's going to have to model the. Let me hear it. Behavior. And without fail, everybody loves round one, the compliments. And I end up saying, who doesn't like an atta boy? Everybody likes an atta boy. Now, some of them, you know, don't need them. But. But deep down, when you tell somebody truly, look, Ryan, it's an amazing podcast you have. Please keep doing what you're doing. You're making such a difference for the world. It may be one manager at a time, one listener at a time, but do you realize you could change a whole community? Now you tell somebody that it feels good to them, and now may I give you some suggestions? You said this one time. Now I don't have anything because you've done a great job. You really have. But we've got to help our employees know that we care about them, we care about them as a person. They can trust us. I'm going to get control. I'm going to be in control of myself. We'll have a safe word if we have to, if we're upset with one another and let's pursue excellence together. Perfection. No, but if we can get it to 8 out of 10, we're going to do really well.
- [62:06]
A
So we just did our annual last week and we're self implementing. My last company, we had an expert implementer that was helping us through the process. This, this new company is still growing. And so, you know, having been through six years of, of EOs, you know, we're, we're doing okay self implementing. And one of the things that I told the team because we didn't run the annual exercise, it's, it's still just Alon and I on, on like the leadership team, we just promoted one person. But that'll start from this point forward. But I, I flash that at, at all of them of like when we do our annuals at the SLT level, then the departmental level, one of the exercises is being able to tell what's the one thing to start or stop. You know, what's, what's one suggestion or feedback. And everybody, everybody was like, we have to do that.
- [63:00]
B
Yeah.
- [63:01]
A
And you're right. So on my last team, somebody, somebody bowed out and she was about two weeks into the job, she was our CEO and we went through that start, stop and she was like, I'm, I, I don't want, I'm too new to the team and, and I'm not comfortable doing it. And that was, that was tough.
- [63:21]
B
Well, sometimes somebody brand new I might let have a pass during the, the first thing and let them observe. But generally, no, you know, we don't give passes. And it's, it's, it's possible you've uncovered, you know, a weakness that just had to be uncovered because if we're going to lead people, we've got to be willing to coach them and, and we've got to learn to be coachable. So if somebody, this is why I tell people when we're doing the organizational, I mean the accountability chart, don't use ego to say I want to be the lead person. Realize you're going to have to lead, manage and hold people accountable. I had a focus day yesterday with a team of, of brilliant engineers and, and I said here's the, the first thing we're going to do is, is when you have your accountability chart seat built out and you are a leader. You have to lead, manage, encourage and hold people accountable or lma. And I briefly tell them, have any of you ever been taught to lead, manage and hold people accountable? I've gotten to where I just asked that bluntly and they say frankly no and, and I don't know how to do it. I said well you can learn, you can learn, but you've got to want to learn. But if you find that you cannot learn and don't want to learn, you owe it to us to tell us and we'll do, we'll, we'll find you a job in the department but somebody else is going to have to lead this department because not leading, managing and holding people accountable. You know, see my three things, it's including yourself, it's just non optional. So we have to acknowledge though that people haven't been trained. So that's what EOS is good about is that we tell people look, you can run your business. Even people that come out of business school, 95% of them are not trained how to manage and lead people. We're trained in the science of business, not the art of business or the art of leadership. And if we're lucky, we work for a company that has spends money on training. And if we're lucky we work at an EOS company where they start to invest money in employee training and especially, you know, books like how to be a Great boss. Books that introduce leading, managing and holding people accountable. But if I were to give advice to young people today, I would say just no, you've got to become a student of business. And to be a student of business you have to be a student of personalities and relationships with yourself and with others. And most of the lessons you're going to learn are going to be the hard way. But you know, excellence is the right mindset. Perfection may be the pursuit, but excellence is the mindset. And excellence allows for mistakes. It allows for learning. You just want to have a better batting average than the others.
- [67:01]
A
Kudos to some of the programs that EOS has. Like one thing that we've been adamant about is sending our team to great boss workshops.
- [67:10]
B
I think that's great.
- [67:11]
A
And here's here's been like the mind blow Alana and I were just talking about this last week is one of our teammates went maybe two or three months ago and Alana sits on or was sitting on the operations team. Now she's elevating and delegating. But she was going to the operations and we sent, we sent our ops manager there, and she walked into the L10 that week and there was like 15 issues, and all of them were like, great boss related based upon something she learned. So everything was like, great boss in parentheses. And we should be doing this. We should be thinking about this. We, we always look for, for those types of opportunities to invest. I think there's a lot of organizations out there that want to invest into, like, building their leaders, but they don't have the capacity or the resources internally to can. To do those things. Where, where do you see them going
- [68:03]
B
if you don't have the capacity? You got to build it. And the way you build it is to realize first that as a leader on the senior leadership team, you are, to use a basketball analogy, remember when Michael Jordan got older, he became a player coach as opposed to just a player. And so I have come to realize that I have to. Perhaps I was a good player. Perhaps I was an average player. You know, some of the best coaches in the world were average players, but they could see other people. I said, but for this company to grow and achieve our dream of growing, we have to transition from being the best player to being a player coach and eventually then move. Move to coach as a. And move to teacher and mentor rather than just, just do the place. And our natural tendency is, is when our players struggle, we just fill in for them. Nobody ever learns when you do that. So the delegate and elevate tool, as you probably remember, is, is to. Is to free up time that allows you to start investing yourself, being a teacher to your younger and fellow employees. And then when the, the other parts of EOs start kicking in and you start getting better employees there, you need fewer employees. They take more initiative. You start targeting the right customers that are right for you and recognizing the ones that are not right for you and either parting ways with them or finding negotiated settlements, if you will, so that they become better. So now the money's starting to flow in. I am noticing that there are terrific entrepreneurial companies. Eos, number one, has the Great Boss workshop. But that's a workshop I'm seeing. Have you, have you heard, obviously you know what a cohort is? A cohort is a learning group. But combine a learning management system with a cohort and, and there's two companies I know of. One's called Level 10 leaders out of Boulder, Colorado, and another is called Oxygen something. But, But I've been a student of how People learn and I've noticed companies that are effective at it and, and level 10 leaders and, and oxygen have like 6 to 12 week courses that are, yeah, maybe they cost 1200 or 1500 or $2000 per participant. But think of what one turnover, one rehire, one person who leaves with institutional knowledge really costs a company and it's many times the cost of training. So while people don't have money up front, I say, well, let's just take a little bit. And I started out with, you know, $500 or a thousand dollars in my training budget and over time I could afford better training. So we've got to become a learning organization. We either have to create our own time through delegating and elevating to train people and simple sharing time with them doesn't cost additional money. It certainly takes people out of the field. But think if one fewer mistake is made a week because you train somebody, you're, it's self financing. And so as the profits then start to come in, Ryan, then you can invest in real money in really effective and fast training.
- [72:14]
A
Two things. Well, one, you've been super generous with your time and I just looked at the past so I just wanted to thank you. Hopefully I did. Didn't hold you back from any meetings. Number one, what do you look for in clients? Like what is, what is kind of your perfect client and is it geography based? Do you get on planes? What do you, what do you look for?
- [72:36]
B
The chemistry between us ultimately has to be right. And you know, I want to help anybody and I think I can help anybody. But the more so the thing to do is to spend some time with people and ask, you know, do we feel like we're really working well together? And so when you take a 90 minute meeting with an implementer, there's two reasons you're taking it. Number one is EOS for us or not? Number two, is this person the right person to walk with me or not? So when I was younger I got on planes. Now I'm fortunate enough. I've got people coming in from hours away. Sometimes they fly into Birmingham. And I'm excited about a team that just joined me from Charlotte that's going to be coming in from Birmingham. But it has to just feel good in the early conversation like you and I know we'd get along royally, but if it's strained or if you say, I can't see myself listening to this person for, you know, a few hours a day and conversing with them. So good implementers are looking for the, for the right chemistry for me. And I've come to learn that some people can, can have an attitude that EOS is just so ridiculously simple. You know, I welcome skeptics. I tell people on every team, there's always skeptics on the team. But if, if you think that this is beneath you, I'm not your guy, because this is simple stuff that's hard to actually do. And, and, and we, you know, if we can't, if, if, if, if I sense there's a lot of blame on others and they won't, I, I confront them. I said, I have to, I have to tell you that, you know, this is going to be something where I'm going to tell you that everything's your fault. And I'm kind of unforgiving about that. If that's going to bug you, we shouldn't work together. And so really, you're coming down, Ryan, and I hope you can edit some of this into something useful.
- [75:01]
A
It's all very useful, by the way.
- [75:04]
B
It comes down to, do these people have agreeable core values to you? It's the very same thing that makes a right person in the right person, right seat combination. Can I see that? This is somebody who wants to learn, who will take accountability, who realizes they're not perfect. Can I, can I see a desire to do better? Do I see a genuine care for their employees? And so, you know, sometimes private equity doesn't have such a, a rosy reputation. It's, it's, it's nine out of 10 May, you know, they're looking to turn their business over in three to five years for an investment. And they're, they're way less patient than most of the, the kind of companies I work with. They, they're not, they want a valuable company, but it's not the goal to build it, to sell it in three or five years. The goal is to calm my life, to, to be the kind of business owner that I'm aspiring to be, as opposed to being somebody who just looks at people as pawns. And so if I sense that's going on, I, I tell them I'm not your guy. I don't think we'd be a good match. And, you know, that's hard to do when you, early on, when you need, when you need the income and you're starting your business, you take customers and you compromise.
- [76:33]
A
We've done that. We, we've done. Even on the business service side, we did it. And, and this, this was kind of my first experience with this so I've got 12 years. Ish background in consumer products. And so we had thousands of individual customers, and we started this. We started taking on clients, and, you know, our prices were low, and we would take anybody. And now we're to the point where we've increased our prices, which gives us a certain kind of threshold of. Of a type of client. And we've gotten very clear on the core values alignment.
- [77:06]
B
Good.
- [77:07]
A
Because when. When there's not. When that doesn't exist, like, it's. It's not just about hurting us. It's like the team gets hurt in that. And.
- [77:14]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. And. And when your employees say, can I trust you? They're. They're trusting you not to put you with a jerk.
- [77:22]
A
Yep, that's exactly right.
- [77:24]
B
Who's going to abuse you? Well, look, I. I'd help you anytime, and I will, whether or not we're on camera, whether you just want to call once a week, every Friday, and we'll chat. So I love it. Yeah, I. And you do that for other people. I mean, you share these things. You ask good, penetrating questions. Keep doing that, because none of us want to admit it, that we eventually, we're okay. And it's a very freeing moment to say, you know what? I don't know half of what I need to know. Teach me something. And it's us old gray hairs that are saying that, you know, so say it when you got a good, healthy head of black hair like you have right now.
- [78:08]
A
Well, Ken, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I realize, especially for you, it's late right now. It's a Friday. It's. And so there's just so much wisdom that came out of this conversation. So I appreciate you sharing your stories, your experiences, lessons learned, things you would do different.
- [78:23]
B
Let's go out on the back. On the back deck and have one right now. So the only thing you're holding me up from is lighting that puppy.
- [78:30]
A
I love it. Thanks again. And actually, real quick, how can someone get a hold of you? So someone just listen to this whole thing, and they're like, I need. I need some hurricane. Or maybe just Ken, not Hurricane Ken, but I need something in my life. How can they get a hold of you?
- [78:45]
B
It's just a simple email, you know, kdwetosworldwide.com or you can Google Ken DeWitt with a plus EOS, and it'll go just about to my landing page on EOS Worldwide. And there's a form people fill out. I love helping and counseling people. I'm careful not to overdo it, but I really will answer the emails. I'm in my late 60s. I'm excited to have a career that I have plenty of time. You know, I handle a certain number of clients, and I have time to help people, and it gives me purpose in life to help people. So thank you for letting me help people.
- [79:33]
A
Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on, Ken.