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- [00:06]
A
If you're trying to develop leaders inside your business, but you're not seeing people step up the way you'd hoped, this conversation is for you. April Gray took over as company president after the loss of her husband, who founded the business more than 20 years ago. Now she's trying to grow the business while preserving the culture that made it successful in the first place. April thinks her biggest challenge is turning skilled technicians into strong people leaders. But in this conversation, head coach John Felkins helps her identify the one thing that has to be in place before her team can lead the way she needs them to. Let's get to it.
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B
Well, April, thanks for hanging out with us today and coming to visit.
- [00:49]
C
Thank you.
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B
I'd love to know a little bit about your business.
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C
Yes. Thank you. We are Atlas Surveying. We're in the southeast. We have four offices. Our home office is in Bluffton, South Carolina. And then we have Charleston, South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
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B
Okay.
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C
We are 22 years strong.
- [01:08]
B
Fantastic.
- [01:09]
C
Yes. And I come into this position of being president of the company after the loss of my husband, who is the founder. But because of our amazing leadership, we really didn't skip a beat. And I took over about two years ago, and we're in a position now where we're looking to, you know, what's next and how do we grow and how do we train up. It's been a huge learning curve, but I have a great team.
- [01:38]
B
I really respect the fact that you stepped into it and took the reins and continued to move it forward. Why did you decide to do that? I mean, you had a lot of options at that point.
- [01:49]
C
I did have options, but my husband's oldest son, my stepson, had been working for the company for a few years out of college, and he's a fantastic brain and support, and he has the charisma his father had. And so I knew if I could just buy him a few years, he could really become something in the company as well. Wow.
- [02:11]
B
What's the biggest challenge you're facing right now? What would you like to talk about?
- [02:15]
C
One of the reasons that I brought some of my leaders with me here today is to try to figure out how to build up leadership or teach leadership in an industry where, like, most of our supervisors have gotten to where they are because of their technical skills, because they can do the job, and not necessarily because they know how to manage people.
- [02:36]
B
Yeah.
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C
And so we're trying to teach people how to manage people when, like, they never necessarily were even managed themselves because of the way the growth of the company has come about. I mean, you know, you know, we went from five to 150 and so, you know, some of those five are still with us. And so they're in the leadership roles, but they didn't really learn that. So that's one of our biggest.
- [03:01]
B
The word that we use is leading people. We talk about managing things or managing processes, but leading people. And one of the hardest things to ask people to do is to give to others what they were never given, to be able to demonstrate for their team what wasn't demonstrated for them. And so you said you have five people that kind of come from the previous era of the company.
- [03:27]
C
That's approximate.
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B
Yeah, I did. So you've got a small core of people that kind of are from that previous generation or era. Do you feel like they embody the heart and the spirit of what you want to see across the whole company?
- [03:42]
C
Yes. I mean, that's another answer to the question before, why did I do this? And I think my husband had built such a great culture that I wanted that culture to be continued. And I was afraid if I brought someone else in that didn't know it, that it would change. So the culture that they bring is part of why they are where they are?
- [04:02]
B
Yeah, for sure. Have you ever written down what it is about what they bring or what the pillars are of the culture?
- [04:10]
C
Well, we've done maybe some outlines, but that's a good idea to help organize it a little better. But we know what we're going for and we've written down goals for how to keep moving it in the direction that we've been going or want to keep going.
- [04:30]
B
What's an example of one of the things about the culture that your husband created that you just, when you see it, you say to yourself, we're never not doing that.
- [04:39]
C
He was excited about the work he was doing. And my coo Keith is very much an excitement guy as well. He gets excited and so I love to see them enjoying their work. A lot of our employees have started as instrument operators, which is like an entry level, blue collar job. Some of them right out of high school don't know, you know, anything about anything. And they're learning technical skills and a lot of math. And when we see them get excited about moving to the next level and the next level and being like, I'm going to try to get licensed and you have to get college education for that these days. And so we support them through that. I mean, a lot of them are working and going to school. And it's just I, I like the excitement of the culture that my husband built.
- [05:32]
B
Yeah. I was thinking about what you were saying earlier that people have, you know, technical skills. Right. But we've seen it, I've seen it in a lot of different businesses and we've even seen it in our business that sometimes when you promote somebody that has strong technical skills to a leadership role, when they're not set up to win as a leader or they don't have the skills as a leader, what you do is you lose a good technician and gain a bad leader. Have you seen that happen?
- [05:58]
C
We have, we have. And there was one instance where the guy actually came to us and he's like, yeah, this isn't working. He's like, can I go back to my role?
- [06:10]
B
Yeah, that's good. Self awareness.
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C
Yeah. I think the bigger struggle is trying to find a way to support them through that because I think everyone has some ability to like move around in different jobs. So there may be a kind of a higher level job that doesn't require quite as much. Maybe it's more of a job management than it is a people.
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B
People leadership.
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C
People leadership, yes.
- [06:39]
B
We'll get right back to our episode. But first, your team is worth every dollar you invest in them. And behind payroll, healthcare is one of the biggest expenses that businesses have. That's why I want to tell you about Christian Healthcare Ministries Groups program. It's a faith based alternative to traditional health insurance where members help pay each other's medical bills. It's a great option not only for individuals, but also for small businesses to care for their people in a way that's effective and affordable. Whether you're a church, a non profit, a school, or a family business, many Organizations report saving 30 to 50% compared to traditional health insurance. Of course, the goal isn't just cutting costs, it's being a wise steward of the resources you've been given. CHM has over 700 participating groups and they offer flexibility for companies of different sizes. So if you're responsible for your organization's healthcare benefits, contact chm. One of their representatives will walk you through your options and help determine whether the group's program is a good fit for your specific situation. Go to chministries.org entree or call 1-800-joinchm now let's get back to the episode. We have goals, the culture, the excitement, the passion. Have you written that down? Do you remind people? Do you talk to them about that? And maybe a list of a few other things that are really important to you?
- [08:07]
C
I'm going to say, no, I haven't yet.
- [08:09]
B
Okay.
- [08:10]
C
Cause it's been three years since my husband worked. We have had a long list of things, of course, that we're working through.
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B
Of course.
- [08:17]
C
But I do see that as part of the working process that we're going through.
- [08:24]
B
I would like to share some of the things that we do that maybe you can kind of put those in your back pocket. And then, you know, as I get the opportunity, I'm going to do this. But you sit in a role that is unique in the whole company, and that is the role that is the defender and the champion of the culture that your husband created. Nobody else can do that. Maybe those five people that have been with you for a long time, maybe they can kind of be your lieutenants in that and they can support you in that, but you're the only one that can do that. And so of all of the things that you have to do, I would encourage you to devote time to that. Just sitting down and even just writing, say, what are the things that I just absolutely love about our company culture? What do I want to see continue? What do I want to see in people that we hire and that we add to leadership? Those are your fingerprints on the organization, and only you can do that. And as much as it might be difficult to do or kind of, I don't know, awkward to do, you have to write it down and get it out of your head and out of your heart and share with your leadership team and say, this is what I'm seeing. Now, typically, we would tell people, hey, don't do that by any kind of poll or asking everybody what they think it should be. Because as the leader of the organization, you absolutely have to resonate with all of that. It can't be. This is what we all think it should be. This sounds good. It's gotta be. This is what matters to me. Now, in your situation, you do that and maybe you sit down with those five people or the key people that you want and say, does this sound consistent with who we've been over the years? And maybe they say, yeah, like across the board, that's all. Exactly who we are. Or they might say, well, I never thought of that one. Or I would say that one a little different. So some of that kind of conversation makes sense. But it. It absolutely has to resonate with you. That's where you start. Now, I'll tell you from there, we put that kind of stuff all over the place in our organization. What I mean by that is, we have meetings every week where we remind people of those things. We compensate people based on those things. We have T shirts with those things on them. We have them on walls in the buildings. We have them on coffee mugs, on our desks, all over the place. Because those things are so easy to forget and they're so easy to not see if we don't pay attention to them, because they're not on a profit and loss statement. You know, all those things that you googled when you first started, they don't show up there. They're not there. They're invisible. But that doesn't mean they're not real. They're absolutely real. And they're the glue that holds the whole organization together. So you have to make them visible and remind everybody, and I promise you that you will get sick of talking about it. Dave gets sick of talking about it. You know, we have to remind him. You got to tell this story. You got to tell that story, because it's the DNA of the organization. And at the end of the day, your people internalizing the DNA and living that DNA out is your competitive advantage. You know, just looking for every opportunity to remind your team, this is who we are. This is what makes us different. This is what it means to be a part of this family. That is your number one job. I know you have a lot to do.
- [11:54]
C
No, I hear you.
- [11:57]
B
When you think about that, do any ideas come to mind? You think, you know, I could do this or I could do that.
- [12:03]
C
I mean, a lot of ideas come to mind, but I think the writing it down and then having the conversations on a more regular basis. We're in the process of upfitting a new location in Charlotte and talked about, you know, what we're writing on the walls, and I need to follow through with that and make sure it gets actually gets put up there. And our core values, because I think our core values could be elaborated on or encouraged more regularly.
- [12:35]
B
Yep, that's one of the most powerful things that you can do. If you get your core values, you know, well communicated and you're reminding everybody of those, then what I would encourage you to do is look for opportunities to catch somebody doing something right. And when you see one of your team members live out one of your core values, drag that person to the front of the room and say, y' all see, Freddy? You see what Freddie did? This is what it means to be us. This is what it means to be a part of this team, a part of this family, and celebrate every chance that you can get when people do what you want them to do, because it's easy to be annoyed or see things that you're like, oh, why do we keep doing this? You know, as the leader, accountability is a real thing, and you have to. You know, you have to address those outages, but catch people doing what you want them to do, and that really will draw folks attention. Remind me kind of your. About your leadership meeting cadence. How often do you meet with that group?
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C
Well, we meet with them every two weeks. Okay. And we were doing it more often, but we've realized we were just going over the same things to some extent. So we're trying to have more purpose with those.
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B
Good.
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C
And so we were able. With adding purpose, we were able to cut down the number of meetings.
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A
Okay.
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C
And those are helpful because we can get. Keith and I can get a pulse on what's going on within each office and encourage each office to help the others in the things that they're doing. When someone has an issue, we say, hey, didn't you have that issue? We do a lot of sharing of crews. If one office gets busy, and so we have a different meeting that is weekly, that it's a bigger span of leadership. So it's a couple tiers down, but all together, that one's a quick meeting where we say, crew counts equipment needs. That's really the place where we can trade services within the company. Just trying to get everyone to act as a whole company instead of four offices.
- [14:47]
B
Yeah. Well, that, to me, sounds like the perfect venue to just take a couple minutes. I know that time is valuable. We put a thousand people in a meeting every week. That's a lot of payroll.
- [14:56]
C
Yes.
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B
So I get that. And you do it your way. Don't take what I'm saying and think, well, we have to do it exactly this way. But you do it your way and just look for people living out your core values.
- [15:06]
C
I think we do that a lot in that meeting.
- [15:09]
B
And you celebrate them.
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C
Yeah. You know, recently we had someone pass their licensing exam, and so, you know, they definitely get that congratulations there in that meeting.
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B
Yeah. So when they get that congratulations, do you directly tie it to one of the core values and say, this is what we mean when we say this in our core values?
- [15:28]
C
No, but we could.
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B
You could.
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C
I don't think we're as purposeful in that as we could be.
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B
For sure. That's what I would encourage you just. Really? Because it's in your head, it's in your heart. You know what you're looking at when you see it. But what you're trying to do is impart that to other people and get them to see what you're seeing.
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C
And it's an easy thing actually to trickle down because we have training meetings in office with like the, I hate to say lower level, but the lower level front line, closer to the front line, the frontline training kind of once a week. And that could trickle down to something in that each one of those meetings as well.
- [16:09]
B
Yeah, that would be fantastic. Does that seem like that would be helpful?
- [16:12]
C
Yes, I can do that.
- [16:14]
B
You can do that. I know you can. If you've done what you've done so far, you can do that. April, that's. Like I said, you're an incredible leader.
- [16:22]
C
Thank you.
- [16:23]
B
Well, thanks for coming and hanging out with us today.
- [16:25]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [16:26]
B
I enjoyed it.
- [16:28]
A
So it all comes down to your company culture. What makes you different? What are the values and behaviors that matter most? Because if you don't clearly define those things, your team can't live them out. And then you've got to communicate the culture over and over again. In fact, you'll probably get tired of hearing yourself say it before your team fully gets it. But that's how it becomes part of how everyone operates. If you're not sure what that looks like in your business, that's exactly what where an entree leadership coach can help. They'll help you identify what's really holding your business back and give you a clear plan to help you move forward and lead with confidence. Just click the link in the description to schedule your free 30 minute consultation. Call today and if you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, share and subscribe for more real world leadership content. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey and this is Entre Leadership.