The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
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[Music] welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast
the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems I’m Trace Blackmore the host of
the scaling up H2O podcast and Nation how the heck is it that we are almost
out of 2022. wow I always think the years go
quickly of course this year was not without all of the trials and tribulations that it seems like we just
have every year it’s like hey what what can go different next and father time
just throws that at us we’re always getting something new to deal with it
but here’s the cool thing unlike other people people like you the scaling up
nation that listen to podcasts like this that try to find out what you don’t know that you need to know you are able to
weather the storm better in fact most of the water treatment companies is that I
talked to at the association of water Technology’s convention this year shared
with me that they are better off today than they were five years ago and let’s
look at all the things that have happened in five years folks we endured we continue to endure a pandemic and the
water treatment industry is taking that in strides we are learning how to get
better we are repositioning what we are learning and we are getting through that
storm and we are better for it speaking for myself my company here Blackmore
Enterprises we have learned so many lessons that we are now a stronger
company now I have to say we’ve got a lot more issues I mean it’s hard to find things still we’re paying more for
things it’s harder to to get them once you find them of course we’re all dealing with that but everybody’s
dealing with that it’s the companies that know how to navigate that and
they’re not reacting they’re trying to take a proactive approach to all these
issues and let’s face it if you’re in business if you’re alive on this planet
you are always going to have issues it’s what you do with those issues it’s how
you learn from those issues it’s how you pick yourself back up when you have
those issues that defines what your future is let’s face it you can’t change
the past but you can learn from the past and when you learn from the past you can
definitely direct your future and Nation you are going to meet somebody today and
I say meet you’ve actually heard him on this podcast before he’s been on at
least three times before and he is by far one of my most trusted coaches
mentors friends you attach whatever label you can to it he has helped me so
much I can’t wait to bring him on but before I do here is a brand new thinking
on water with James [Music]
welcome to thinking on water with James the segment where we don’t give you the answers we give you the topics and
questions for you to think about drop by drop now let’s get to it
in this week’s episode we’re thinking about mixing acid and water together
if you get this wrong it can be quite dangerous and destructive should you mix acid and water or vice
versa what happens when you mix acid and water together what’s the worst case that can occur if
you get this wrong what concerns could you have with feeding acid to a cooling tower Upstream
of an RO or other applications seriously take this week to think about
the proper way of mixing acid and water together and how acid should be fed in various applications
your safety and that of those around you may depend upon it be sure to follow hashtag tow 22 and
hashtag scalingup H2O to share your thoughts on each week’s thinking on water I’m James McDonald and I look
forward to learning more from you well James as always thank you for
helping us think and scale up Nation I am so excited to reintroduce you to one
of my most trusted mentors
Scout Nation I’m so excited to introduce my lab partner today a great friend a
mentor a coach Tim Fulton welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast
thank you trace great to be back with you yeah you were one of my first guests
what were you episode 20 21 22 I should have looked these things up I should be a much better host you deserve so much
better so Nation Tim and I have known each other we were at the rising tide
Mastermind live event just uh about two months ago and we were doing the math
and we were both appalled to find out it was approaching 15 years we’ve known
each other we were kids you and I met because a good friend of mine he
introduced me to you and he said that you put on this NBA like program boot
camp and I had to attend this it was the best class that I think I have ever
attended and I’m so glad that he gave me the recommendation and you’re getting ready to do another one of those what is
this like number 50 that you’ve done do you keep track of all the classes you’ve done no I keep track more of the number
of graduates and I think we’re over 3 000 graduates business owners who have
been through either what started off as the grow smart program for the Small Business Development Centers through UGA
here in Atlanta and then uh 10 years ago I started doing that same training uh
under the small business matters umbrella and uh I’ve been doing that now this is the 10th year for that I was
under the grow smart when you did that and I didn’t want it to be over and I remember when we had our last class is
it eight sessions you do it was eight or ten it might have been ten half day sessions then yeah so after number 10 I
was just thinking how am I going to get more information that I didn’t know I didn’t know and by the way you put that
phrase in my head and I have just been obsessed with that ever since I heard it how do I learn what I don’t know I need
to learn and that’s what your boot camp taught me and you and I spoke and then you uh encouraged me to join vistage of
which you were the chair of if people are listening and never heard of vistage how would you describe that
sure vistage was the very first CEO peer group program started here in
the U.S it’s now been around for about 60 years there are almost 30 000 members
worldwide now uh start off as as primarily a peer group for CEOs of small
mid-sized companies now they’ve got programs not only for the CEOs but for
the key Executives and the the emerging leaders but it’s it’s the largest today
the largest peer group Organization for Business Leaders uh in the world
and you call it a peer group but I always looked at it as a mastermind it was a bunch of people coming together
for the sole purpose of how do we make each other better and there was a specific agenda that you would follow
each and every month you of course would give us so much information for us to take home and continue learning after
the meeting was over but somebody always presented an issue or they presented what was going on with their company and
then the other nine members got to tear it apart in a very carefrontational way and that’s a word that I learned from
you we want to give people the information that they need to hear but it might be hard for them to hear it and
I’ve been a well I’m not anymore but I was a vistage member for just shy of 10 years and my company would not be
anywhere near where it is today had I not gotten all of that help from my
peers you know the peer group experience you know when vicious first got started it
was it was unique there weren’t groups like that then today and and I’m going to use Mastermind group peer group
because I think they’re very similar uh there are lots of different types of groups available today whether it’s
through vistage Trace you’ve got several Mastermind groups Chambers of Commerce
industry groups and the idea is really you know what we’ve learned over time is there’s just so much one that can be
learned from being a part of a group like this why go alone you know it’s you know one of the most common things I
hear from business owners is it’s Lonely at the Top right I’m having to make all these decisions by myself I don’t have
anyone to share sometimes the good news or the bad news wouldn’t it be nice to
have you know a group of peers that I could talk to about just the the issues I’ve got the decisions that I’ve gotten
that’s where uh a vistage group or a mastermind group comes in also provides
a level of accountability for members so that you know Trace if you show up in a
meeting and say you know what I’m I’ve got this this terrorist working for me I I need to let this person go I’m gonna
do it by next week well now I have 12 other people that have heard you say that and are gonna hold you accountable
for that decision and so it just brings a whole different level of accountability for business owners who
in some cases don’t always have that accountability on their own so you know
over time I’ve become a certainly a big fan of groups Mastermind groups because
I’ve just I’ve seen it work I’ve seen it work Tim you were one of the people that
really encouraged me to start the rising tide Mastermind it was about four years ago you and I met at a Chick-fil-A and
we decided we were both going to start Mastermind groups yeah and and uh you know all the great ideas come from you
know lunch at Chick-Fil-A I’m certain I’m certain of that Trace knowing you
and and knowing not only on on the intellectual side but on the emotional side I just I thought you’d be great at
this and you and you have been uh and the evidence is you know the number of groups and number of members that you’ve
gotten I don’t think it’s something that everyone is equipped to do I think it takes a particular DNA so to speak you
know for someone to want to be a facilitator for for these groups uh but
I know you know I I continue to enjoy it today and it’s great to see how much how much fun you’re having with it as well
well I really appreciate the encouragement and uh scaling up Nation for your information Tim and I get
together on a regular basis and one of the things we talk about is how can we help each other’s Mastermind groups and
Tim’s also one of those people that hold me accountable to do the things that I say that I’m going to do and Tim I
really appreciate that because I know the Verizon tide Mastermind is far better because you are in my corner
well thank you you’re very generous well speaking of the rising tide Mastermind you were so gracious with your time you
were we we have reverse Keynotes so we put our Keynotes on the very last day and you closed us out this past live
event and so many people got so much great information from what you shared
with us and what you shared with us was Talent matters and everybody loved it I
wanted to bring you on the scaling up H2O podcast so we could share with the scaling up Nation what you shared with
the rising tide Mastermind well thank you trace I I enjoyed speaking at your event they were a very
attentive group despite I don’t know what you all did the night before but uh yeah I could tell they were they were a
little a little exhausted that morning but they just seemed to perk up and they were a lot of fun they asked a number of
really good questions and or quite a quite attentive well since you brought it up what we did the night before was
called WhirlyBall and the way I can describe WhirlyBall is it’s lacrosse
meets bumper cars and everybody just they’d beat each other up with these
bumper cars it was the most fun we’ve ever had but we paid the price the next morning yeah but again they were they
were they all showed up and they were engaged you know for in for the the
presentation and maybe in part because of the topic you know Trace I’m not sure
that we have you and I have ever lived in a more in interesting time when it
comes to leading and managing employees and or a more difficult time to lead and
manage to be employees and engage employees so it we’re in rare air right
now I think when it comes to Talent everybody is trying to hire talent and
hardly anybody can find it so I think that’s why your podcast episode is going
to be so timely because how do we keep the people that we have so we don’t need
to find people we can’t find yeah so you know I’m sure many of your listeners have heard you know the great
resignation I think it’s 40 million employees over a course of about 12 months left their jobs uh last year some
retired some took a sabbatical some decided to take different jobs but we’ve
never seen such movement in the labor market in in Modern Times And so you
know what’s on the mind I know of many business owners is you know hey how do I find good people but maybe equally
important is how do I retain my people particularly my best employees how do I
keep them and what is it that they want and that’s you know what we really focused on at your event was the idea of
what is it that employees want what’s what’s interesting is in that regard nothing has changed over the last 20 or
30 years while we might think is we have different Generations in the workplace today that you know their their
motivation is different their expect rotations are different but according to the research not much has changed in
that regard and what what I cited for your group was the the Gallup study that
was done over 20 years ago LED primarily by their CEO Marcus Buckingham and it
was based on that research that he wrote uh his best-selling book Breaking All the Rules and in that book he shares
what were according to the research one of the largest research projects ever done by Gallup the 12 questions that
matter most to employees again this was over 20 years ago 12 questions that matter most and certainly they were
relevant at the time but you know what’s interesting is that they goubted the almost the exact same study a little
over two years ago Trace just imagining that certainly over 20 years much would
have changed in terms of what employees want and quite to the opposite what they
found is the exact same 12 question questions were at the top of minds of
employees today nothing has changed in terms of what employees want from their
employers so I know we don’t have you know time today to go through all 12 but
if you’d like I’d be happy to hit on just a couple of them that I think would be most interesting to your listeners I
would love if you did that Tim okay so you know the they were listed in the book uh in order of importance there’s a
hierarchy to these 12 questions they found uh some more important than others
but at the top of the list number one what employees said is tell me what you
expect let me know where it translated you know what what’s most important to
you is my boss is the company I’m working for what is it that you expect from me you know clear X clear
expectations and I think what they were saying there is how high is the bar you
want me as a salesperson and to bring in half a million dollars in sales are you expecting a million dollars in sales
maybe five million dollars in sales but help me understand where the bar is what
are your expectations and from this you know hopefully most companies go about
developing a job description for every position in the company a job
description that says trace this is your job here’s other here are the results that we expect here are expectations how
can we help you what support do you need but clear communication about our
expectations for your job performance that’s what employees are saying that’s more than anything else that’s what I
want to know is how how high up is that bar what are your expectations so that that was number one on the list and I
have to remind many of my clients mostly business owners of that on a regular basis anytime I have a business owner
who says yeah I need to hire fill in the blank whatever job it is my first question question of them will be so
what are your expectations for that position what does success look like in
that position and that should be clearly articulated in the job description so
that was one uh trace the second thing then another one that was near the top
that we’re seeing more and more evidence of today in terms of importance is that
it’s really important for employees particularly younger employees today to understand the why behind their work
what’s the purpose what’s the reason that I’m doing this job and in doing my
job am I contributing to something larger something more important so that
suggests a couple things number one it suggests that as a company we need to have a clearly stated Mission a purpose
why does this company exist and I’m sure many of your listeners have heard you know different examples of mission
statements and one of my favorites is the Ritz Carlton Hotel their mission statement ladies and gentlemen serving
ladies and gentlemen I love that yeah that’s one of my favorite examples because it’s so simple and yet so if you
if if any of you know our listeners have ever walked into a Ritz Carlton Hotel you can you can just feel that’s what
this this business is all about ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen well think about it okay so if
that’s the company vision and I’m one of those employees I’ve got a pretty good idea of how of what my purpose is as an
employee as a staff member is I need to exemplify that mission I’m one of those
ladies and gentlemen and it also suggests how I need to treat our
customers and our vendors and our stakeholders they all want to be treated as ladies and gentlemen so now I’ve got
clear expectations parameters around how I am to engage with anyone within this
hotel and so that’s what employees said is is help me understand how my job whatever
it might be connects to a larger purpose a larger Mission and and whether it’s
it’s the Ritz Carlton Chick-fil-A does a great job of helping their employees understand how their jobs whether you’re
working the counter you’re working in the kitchen whatever it might be how your job contributes to something larger
something more significant and you know Trace it’s interesting you know when I was a business owner I didn’t give much
thought to purpose or Mission either at a company level or or at an individual
level I couldn’t connect the dots between that and and and more sales and
more profit for my business and yet there’s a lot of research now that does
that the most recent research that I saw said that companies with a strong purpose a focus on purpose rather than a
focus on profit their results 384 percent better than the average
company within their industry strong purpose strong Mission outperform companies whose Focus tends
to be more on both Top Line and bottom line on the income statement revenue or profit 384 percent better performance
financial performance by focusing on on what’s most important to employees
Tim I know you’ve said it better than I’m going to try to misquote you but you’ve always said that in less people
understand why they get up and come to work for you they’re not going to care yeah until I know that you care it’s
it’s hard to hard to know what else might be important within the business you know Simon sinek helped me more than
anyone understand this idea of purpose he wrote a book called start with the why and in that book the kind of he says
it very early he did a famous Ted Talk and talked about the book and the most
impactful thing I remember he said was this he said people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it
people don’t buy what you do they don’t buy your product they don’t buy your service they don’t care as much about
that they’re more interested in why you do what you do your purpose your mission and that
really reinforced for me this the importance of not only again companies having a strong why so to speak
but then also making it easy for their employees to understand their own why and how it contributes to that larger
picture Tim is there a third question we should be asking yeah the third one that comes
to mind and this one uh Trace was the most interesting for me and it was do I have a best friend at work do I have a
best friend at work and I remember when I saw that uh from the study and in the book I thought well how could that be
how important could it be as an employee that I have a best friend at work
someone that I enjoy you know being around you know telling stories you know
sharing you know uh you know what’s going on with their families and what’s going on with my golf game and yet the
research number one you know the Gallup study clearly employees said I I’d like
to have a best friend at work it’s what’s gonna make me feel more fulfilled in my job it’s going to cause me to want
to come back to work even on days that I may not want to go to work it also impacts my job performance if I have a
best friend at work so all the research and there’s even been some um more recent research that has pointed to the
importance in terms of Employee Engagement the importance of employees having a best friend at work and yet
Trace what’s interesting is that I know very few companies that have specific strategies in place to Foster
relationships in the workplace between employees and even saying that sounds kind of crazy and yet the the research
is so valid about the importance of having these relationships at work and
you know some companies I find you know work on this they’ll they’ll form a you know a company soccer team they’ll have
holiday parties they will have you know Friday happy hours but I don’t think
companies have even begun to realize the importance that they play in helping
employees want to work together and building these relationships that at the
end of the day I think you know if an employee is sitting on the fence as to whether they want to take another job job or stay where they are sometimes the
thought of or you know Trace is my best friend and if I leave this job I won’t see Trace anymore I think I’ll stay
where I am I think companies underestimate the power of those relationships
Tim what are some suggestions that business owners can do to Foster relationships like that
well one is to not do what I see some companies do when they begin to see a
relationship you know building they’ll say oh you know we can’t have that the two of you going to lunch all the time
or the two of you talking all the time we’re going to separate you if uh Trace
we’re going to put you over in sales and Tim we’re going to put you in customer service we’re going to divide the two of
you because clearly this relationship is not conducive to high performing you
know uh work environment when in fact it actually is that’s one thing is just recognizing you know the impact of of
relationships in the workplace the second would be just looking for for easy I’ll call it an easy win
again it could be you know just hosting different events you know at the
workplace where employees are having opportunities to get together and have fun tell stories laugh with each other
that’s certainly an opportunity you know the looking for opportunities to put
employees and teams allowing them to work together as teams because I think when you work together on a team that’s
a great way to build relationships with the people that I’m working with and getting to know them in a deeper sense
uh finding out about their their education how they grew up about their
families their Hobbies their vacations and then you know all of a sudden you
know we’ve we’ve built a relationship and my performance is going up your performance has gone up we’re holding
each other accountable we’re supporting each other and that’s just the beginning of you know the positive aspects of
these relationships so but Trace to answer your question I think it just starts with recognizing the positive
effect of healthy relationships in the workplace Tim you mentioned performance and most
of us do reviews with our team members you say don’t do reviews what should we
be doing to make sure that we’re inspecting what we expect Trace that’s a
great question and one another thing that came out of the the Gallup study both 20 years ago and most recent is
that employees want to know how they’re doing they want to know you know am I meeting expectations am I exceeding
expectations they want to know how they’re doing they want feedback but they don’t want feedback you know once a
year in a performance review or even semi-annual or even on a quarterly basis
on average they want feedback every seven days that’s what the survey said
every seven days I expect to hear something from my supervisor as it
relates to my my job performance so that’s what I recommend to my clients is more frequent feedback on employee
performance because that’s what employees want as well so that’s on one side of the equation in terms of
performance reviews you’re absolutely right when I’m telling my clients is stop the madness because performance
reviews again annual semi-annual they don’t work and there’s a there’s a ton
of evidence research that supports that that they tend to have more of a negative impact on employee performance
because again they’re waiting six to 12 months to hear how they’re doing that’s that’s way too long so stop doing the
annual semi-annual performance review and instead instead do what my friend
Gary Markle who is an expert on this subject and and works with big companies
helping them make the change that I’m about to suggest from doing performance
reviews to what Gary suggests and that’s doing performance previews
well you may say Temple that Tim that’s just a simple rearranging of words but it’s not because what we’re doing is
we’re shifting in that annual meeting or semi-annual meeting instead of talking about the past which we should have been
having those discussions again every seven days in these meetings now we’re going to talk about the future
to trace you come in for your semi-annual performance preview and I say Trace number one thank you you’re
you’ve exceeded expectations in terms of job performance you and I look at your numbers every seven days today what I
want to talk about is the next six months and how can we as a company support you and help make sure you’ve
got all the resources the training the budget to be equally successful going
forward how can we help you be more successful the next six months so that’s
the beginning of a performance preview and that’s what I’m suggesting that you
now begin doing in lieu of the performance reviews
it has such a better tone to it most likely the people know where they
weren’t performing do you point that out do you assume that they already know that how do you handle something that
you do need to help correct again the assumption is you and I have been talking about your performance on a
regular basis hopefully every week every seven days you’re seeing metrics you’re
seeing key performance indicators there’s full transparency in terms of your job performance so there’s no
surprise you know how you’re doing so now when we get together for this six month meeting we don’t need to talk
about the past because you and I have talked about that on a consistent basis what we need to talk about in this
meeting is is the future and how can we help you get to the next level what do
you need from me and from the company to be even more successful that’s what we
want to talk about in this meeting Tim one of the stories that you shared with the rising tide Mastermind was
about sea world and how they train whales what can we take away from that
yeah Trace that’s one of my favorite stories I’ve been sharing that story for for quite a while and it also kind of
brings back memories because I can remember as a child going uh in in I grew up in Miami and we had Sea Aquarium
and they had Shamu as well and they had the porpoises that were well trained so
this story always really resonates for me and the the idea is you know if I’m a whale trainer if I’m training Shamu and
the idea is that I need Shamu to jump say 30 feet out of the water as a part
of of the performance how do I do that how do I train Shamu to do that well if
it’s me or you you know we’re going to take the the the the easiest path possible so you and I are going to climb
the ladder all the way up to 30 feet we’re gonna grab a fish out of the pail
we’re gonna look down at Shamu who’s sitting in the water and we’re gonna we’re gonna say very simply
jump Shamu jump with hopes that that that whale will
leave the water elegantly jump 30 feet grab the fish from our our hand and The
Crowd Goes Wild Well I don’t have to tell your audience the chances of that happening are slim to nil not going to
happen no what I have to do and train I’ve got to train this whale and what what they do what’s interesting is Sea
World and other places when they train the whale to do this they start off with
the the the Rope the training row below the surface of the water the Rope is
actually on at the bottom of the pool and so then they encouraged Shamu to go
over the Rope on the bottom of the pool and what Shamu does that pretty easy task at that point Shamu
gets rewarded it gets a fish it gets patted it gets played with but we provide as much positive reinforcement
as possible we celebrate Shamu’s performance so then we we raise the Rope
another foot and we do the same thing once again and we continue to raise the
Rope incrementally over time until we at some point we reached that 30 foot Mark
over above the water well at this point Shamu has gotten so accustomed to going
over that the rope that 30 feet out of the water is no big deal because at each
increment we have celebrated a Shamu’s performance it’s gotten fed fish it’s
gotten padded but Trace what’s interesting what the trainers do every once in a while Shamu doesn’t quite make
it over the Rope doesn’t quite make it high enough to get a fish and so what do the trainers do when Shamu doesn’t
perform no nothing the idea is that rather than than
penalize Shamu rather than criticize Shamu the best thing they could do is
ignore that behavior because what happens in Shamu is no different than URI we know what success success has
been defined for us right jump over the rope and if I don’t make it no one needs to tell me that I failed I’m the first
one to know that I have failed to meet your expectations and I’m going to try to do better next time that’s just human
nature so we don’t have to criticize Shamu we don’t have to punish a move we’re going to ignore that because Shamu
already knows that he or she has failed and we’re just going to try it again and the next time around more likely than
not Shamu is going to jump as high as we needed to and we’re going to be back to celebrating that performance so the
whole idea is that we celebrate success and we under criticize failure and to me
that’s a real really good prescription for leadership whether it’s Shamu or if
it’s your best employees over celebrate under criticize Tim would you say the rope in this story
when we bring it into business is the scorecard yeah it’s whatever expectations that we talked about
earlier that we have set for this position at this time that’s where the Rope is and again we’ve established that
in the job description we’ve had you know many meetings and conversations about our expectations we have over
communicated you know as a company what our expectations are so there’s no question what it is that we expect from
you as our employee something I would like to ask you about because I think people are still not
knowing how to deal with it do employees stay home and work remotely or does
everybody now need to come back into the office and Tracy I’m really glad you asked that because that’s a question I’m getting
from a lot of my CEO clients you know as covid has has seemed to have settled
down to some degree and employees feel comfortable with the idea of coming back
to the office the question is do we have them come back full time do we have them come back part-time is it a hybrid
approach they work from home couple days they come to the office a couple days or do we just allow them to to work from
home 100 percent now that between 30 40 percent of employees are now working full-time from home so that’s the
question that many business owners big companies and small are wrestling with
is what what should I do what what should I allow what should I enforce and
Trace what I have found is I think that in asking that I think that they’re asking the wrong question and you know
so much about leadership is is not having all the answers but having the right questions and I think the the
proper question is not you know home versus office versus hybrid the more
important question today Trace that I think business owners and leaders need to be asking is do I trust my employees
do I trust my employees because if I have full trust in my employees to do
what’s best for the company to do what’s best for them to do what’s best for
their colleagues they’re going to decide you know should I be working from home should I go to the office should I be
here on Mondays and there on Tuesdays they’re going to make the right decision
if I trust them to do that I think nine times out of ten they’re going to make the right decision I don’t think I need
to legislate that decision and I think that’s the mistake that many business owners are doing they’re trying to make
that decision for their people versus again if I’ve set the bar if I’ve set expectations and I said trace this is
what I expect from you over this period of time this is where the bar is set I’m going to leave it up to you to decide
whether you can achieve those results from home from the office a little bit
of both and then I’m going to support you in that decision because I trust you to make the right decision and what I
see is unfortunately there’s a lot of mistrust in the workplace and as a
result of that mistrust then I I figure hey I can’t trust Trace to make that decision on his own so I’m going to
legislate that you come in on Mondays and stay home on Tuesdays and come in on
Wednesdays because I don’t think you can make that decision on your own to me that speaks of a very unhealthy
organizational work culture well you mentioned culture let’s talk about that how do you make sure you have
the culture that your business thrives on when people aren’t coming into the
office yeah that’s a week we could spend a whole afternoon on that question the
idea of culture you know at the heart of any organization’s culture or their core
values what is it that we believe in core values are those those fundamental
principles that we’ve agreed that you know we navigate you know our business by and ideally we’ve identified you know
a handful five to seven core values for our company and then it stores core
values and and our willingness to abide by those core values that then uh Drive
the the culture of our business that determine you know how people behave how we make decisions how do we interact
with each other so it’s the core values that then uh essentially create our
organizational cultures so it starts with determining those core values and
then back to your question Jim Collins the famous author was asked a similar
question the question was you know how do I get uh our people to buy into our
core values and translate it how do we get people to fit into our culture and
his response was really interesting he says you don’t you don’t do that he said you hire
people you hire people who already possess those values you
hire people who already live by those values because you’re not going to get someone to abide by those values if
they’ve not already done so prior to joining your company it’s like if if one of my core values is is competition you
know we want to compete you know at the highest level you know we compete really hard as a company and if you’re a trace
if you’re not a competitive person when I hire you to join my company you’re not just magically going to become
competitive it’s not going to happen and so all of a sudden you’re going to be a bad fit on a team that’s highly
competitive so I’m going to try to force you into a competitive environment when you’re not a competitive person that’s a
mistake on my part that’s not your mistake and hiring you into my culture knowing you’re not a competitive person
that’s that’s a bad hire that’s on me so it starts uh hiring people who share our
beliefs who share our values who then men will become a natural fit within our
culture Tim with all of your experience working with leaders what do you think is the
most important thing we should be doing in today’s environment Trace that’s a that’s another one that
we could we could spend an entire day talking about I’d love love to be able to talk about it but what comes to mind
and it’s not my idea I recently had the fortune of hearing Alan malole
interviewed if you don’t know Alan if your listeners don’t know Alan malole he was the CEO at Boeing aircraft for a
number of years very successful and then in 2008 he was hired by Ford Motor
Company to become their CEO and for those of you who don’t remember 2008
that was the beginning of the one of the worst economic recessions we’ve had In Our Lifetime 2008 so malole gets hired
to take over four in 2008 at the time they were running a deficit of 17
billion dollars they were on the brink of bankruptcy as were the other car manufacturers at the time you may recall
Ford was the only car manufacturer domestic car manufacturer that refused
to take bailout money from the federal government GM Chrysler they took they took large amounts of bailout money
malole told the federal government to keep their money we’re going to do this on our own we’re going to turn around
this company on our own and he did so very successfully uh turn around during
the recession turned Ford around so that’s the background but he said something really interesting in this
interview about leadership he said one of the most important things as a leader he said is self-awareness
self-awareness understanding who we are as a leader what is it that we do well what is it you know what are our
weaknesses what do we need to work on where are we deficient he said it’s it’s self-awareness is so
important and he decided to research that I’d heard before there was a study that was done of very successful leaders
and they were asked to rate themselves on a scale of one to ten on their leadership Tracy average score that they gave
themselves was a four on a scale of one to ten and so what that suggests is that you know the great
leaders you know understand that hey on a you know I’m good but I’ve got a long
ways to go I can get much better self-awareness and so malali talked
about and he said hand in hand with self-awareness is understanding that we all As Leaders that we all have blind
spots blind spots meaning I can see what’s in front of me I can see to my right I can
see it on my left but I can’t see behind me what’s going on behind me what’s up you
know what are my blind spots what am I not seeing and so as Leaders we all have blind spots we we live with those blind
spots day in and day out we have to and he suggested that you know for
leaders I in your blind spots there are three questions that our employees are asking
about us on a regular basis the first question is you know relating to
employees is do they know who I am as a person do my employees know who I am do they
understand what my values are do they understand what my principles are do they understand my history do they
understand you know what’s important to me do my employees get me
that’s the first question that any leader needs to ask of themselves is you know to what degree maybe on a scale of
one to ten do my employees understand me as a leader as a as a human being as a
father as a manager do they get made the second question you said equally
important that leaders need to be able to ask relative their employees is do
they know where I’m going in terms of directing this company do they know where I’m going do they
understand the direction of this company the vision that I have for this company one year three year five year ten year
what’s our big hairy audacious goal that’s what Jim Collins referred to Vision as your your beehag your big
hairy audacious gold door do my employees understand where I want to take this company if I have I
effectively outlined for them the direction for this company that’s the
second question and then the third question I thought was maybe the the most interesting of
the three again relating back to the employees the leader needs to ask themselves to to what degree do I
understand them the employees not as employees
but as people as human beings to what degree do I understand them
what’s important to them do I understand you know their families do I understand where they’ve come from in terms of
growing up do I understand where they want to go after they leave my company to what degree do I understand them
so I would suggest Trace to your listeners all of whom I’m sure are leaders within their companies is to
think about those three questions and if they were to pose those three questions what responses would they get from their
employees to what degree would their employees be able to answer those questions to what degree do they
understand their own blind spots how self-aware are they as Leaders I think
that’s really important today for every leader Tim that’s great there’s so many things
I want to ask you but what I’m going to ask you is back in 1992 you were a
business owner living in South Florida and you experienced Hurricane Andrew what was that like
boy that’s now you’re taking me taking me way back well you know I it was early
in my career and a Flash Forward for a second because if there’s one character trait that I have found maybe most
important for particularly for small business owners it’s it’s resilience
yo what do you do when when you take a hard hit when you take a hard hit when
your company takes a hard hit how do you respond do you get up and dust yourself off or do you stay on the ground and say
I I don’t think I can go any further how resilient are you how resilient is your company well I had a test I had a test
of my resilience in 1992 I was a business owner in in Miami Florida
specifically Homestead which is a suburb of of Miami south of Miami and in 1992
Hurricane Andrew came our way and it was a terrible terrible natural disaster
thousands of people died billions of dollars of damage both to businesses and
to homes people were displaced for long periods of time I’ll never forget it I
mean we were we were huddled down into my mom’s hallway when the hurricane came
over our heads and the winds were like 140 miles per hour they were much worse
in other parts of the of the city so I remember the hurricane had passed and we
walked outside and there was total devastation houses just completely removed from their foundations cars 100
yards from where they started trees disappeared and just uh total
Destruction and after a couple days I was able to to
revisit my neighborhood where we lived the subdivision that we lived in Homestead and again it was
unrecognizable I I got lost trying to find my house because the the landmarks
that had been there before were no longer there that the trees and the houses and the street signs were all
gone and I remember you know finally getting to my house getting to my street parking the car and I couldn’t say a
word I was dumbfounded I just couldn’t believe what I what I was seeing I couldn’t believe that such Devastation
could occur and I was walking the neighborhood taking a walk around looking at you know this house and that
house and this street and this morning though the loss that we had taken and I came across and and thinking
how were we ever going to come back from this both as a family and and as a
business and I came across a friend of mine who was doing the same thing he was walking the neighborhood as well and it
was it was nice to see a friendly face and we shook hands and we compared stories where were you when the storm
came over where were you what was it like comparing stories and then the next thing is you know well you know what
have you lost and well I’ve lost my house I’ve lost the business uh good friends of you know have left so you
know started to share our losses and bemoaning you know the tragic uh loss of
from the storm and and my friend said something the moment Trace that has stayed with me forever if he was here
today I would thank him again because after I after hearing of all my losses he stopped me for a second he I paused
and he said Tim you know at the end of the game all the pieces go back in the
box at the end of the game all the pieces go back in the Box because up to that point I assume that
all that stuff was mine car was mine Furniture was mine the house is mine the business was mine and
I I never entertained the idea that maybe all that stuff wasn’t necessarily mine maybe it was just common goods and
now they were they were no longer there they were someplace else at the end of the game all the pieces go back in the
box and and that really changed my perspective on life going forward that I
was much up to that point you know as a young business owner it was about collecting stuff collecting assets
collecting a nice house and a nice car and a nice business it was all about accumulating wealth and accumulating
assets and that storm as difficult as it was taught me a very important lesson that life is not so much about
collecting stuff but more about enjoying what it is that we have tangible and
intangible again with that understanding that at some point in life all that
stuff just goes back in the box goes to somebody else and that really
changed my perspective about life and it demonstrated to me that I I had some bit of resilience because we did come back
we rebuilt the house rebuilt the business successfully and suggested that I had
some some bit of resilience thank goodness Tim you originally shared this story with me 15 years ago when I was in your
grow smart class and it profoundly impacted me the way you tell it you
don’t have to be there it just it just makes sense and the resilience that you
showed getting back to where you are today but then also how you tell that story it changed everything for me
because I gotta say as a small business owner I was collecting stuff and at the
end of the day it’s about the relationships in your life and that gave me words to better focus what was
important and I want to thank you for that oh you’re very welcome thank you well Tim I Ask of all of my guests
lightning round questions and I’ve already asked you my usual lightning round question so I’ve got some new ones
for you if your game yes uh hesitant yes I’m sure you are
going to do fine and uh the point values are triple so it’s anybody’s game at
this point okay I’m ready all right so your first question is if you had a magic wand what would you change in the
world magic wand what would I change in the world you know trace my I have a number
of passions but certainly uh small business means as much to me other than
family probably as much than anything else is is because I have I have so
enjoyed you know the opportunity that I’ve had to be a small business owner and and and then be a coach and a mentor
to small business owners so I think it would be that you know that it would be easier for people to be able to start
businesses easier to grow those businesses easier to enjoy the
experience of a small business owner I think as a society as a country as a
government I don’t think we do it intentionally but a lot of what happens doesn’t always benefit small business
owners isn’t always mindful of what’s best for those entrepreneurs and if I
could change anything it would be just a mindset that that we should do more to support the men and women who choose to
start their own businesses and and give jobs to the millions of people that wouldn’t have jobs otherwise
Tim everybody has a superpower how would you describe yours something that I have worked on over
time not something I necessarily uh was born with was is I think is the ability
to not only to to listen to be able to listen and then to be able to question
and much of what much of what I’ve learned in both those areas to listen
and to question comes from my mom she was fabulous both as a listener she
would listen to me you know talk about anything without ever interrupting me or
or making me feel defensive she was a great listener and then she was she
asked beautiful questions and I didn’t know it at the time it wasn’t until later in life that I noticed how good
she was how skillful she was in being both a good listener and and a good
questioner and so those are two things that I have worked on a lot over time
and I’ve got a lot more room to go but those are two things is I guess I pride
myself uh the investment that I’ve made and the the benefit that I’ve had from both of those
I would definitely agree with that answer I am the recipient of your
questions I don’t think you’ve ever given me advice you’ve just asked some great questions oh thank you
Tim when the city of Sandy Springs erects a statue of you what do you want
the inscription to say he cared very simple he cared Tim I love having our regular
meetings and I love sharing the scaling up Nation with a man that I am very
proud to call my friend thank you for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast very welcome Trace thank you for for
having me back and I feel privileged to to have you as a as a friend and uh look
forward to just continuing to work with you much longer
Nation I cannot say enough good things about the individual that you just heard
I know you’re probably sick of hearing me say that but he has just been such an
incredible force in my life and as I’ve mentioned on other shows as I mentioned
on this interview I don’t think he has ever given me a lick of advice he is
phenomenal Tim Fulton is a master of the question and he digs in with the
questions and he has solved so many of my issues with the questions and Tim I
have told you this on this podcast I’ve told you this in my office you are not a
good water Trader you don’t know anything about water treatment but it doesn’t matter I know about water
treatment I know how to run a water treatment business and the questions
that you ask me allow me to think about whatever issue that is plaguing me at
the moment in a different way I never thought of it that way before and then
you’ll ask me a question about that and I go deeper into that and by the time we
finish our meeting and this happens every single meeting I’ve got ideas that
I had never had around that issue Nation I would not have this pod cast without
Tim Fulton without my entire vistage Mastermind I’ve been in that Mastermind
for almost 10 years and then I decided to move on and start the rising tide
Mastermind but it was in that vistage group that I brought up the idea of the
scaling up H2O podcast and carefrontationally they challenged me
about doing this podcast there was a lot of good but there was also a lot of
unintended consequences let’s face it it takes a lot of my time to do this
podcast and I don’t try to stand still very long so I don’t have a lot of extra
time to give and it was that Mastermind that helped me realize that this was a
big commitment and I could do it but in order to do it the way it deserved to be
done and I had to commit a lot more time than I originally put to this project I
went into this eyes open and so many people within that group helped me get
that way and I think that’s why we’ve been on the air for over five years now
it’s hard to believe so I hope that you have a group of advisors that you can
take your issues to life is way too short to do it alone and folks if you
are alone trying to do life you are doing life in correctly I have always
had a group of people in all aspects of my life that I have called upon to help
me get through life what are the blind spots that Tim and I were talking about that all leaders have I’m not immune to
that but they’re blind spots I don’t see them my team tells me all the time what
my blind spots are and that’s so okay because I can get better or I can
Empower somebody to do what I’m not able to do and it’s most likely something
that I don’t want to do and they love to do it I didn’t know these things until
people pointed them out to me so I hope that you have a group like this if you
do not consider vistage we’ve been talking about vistage on this podcast and we’ll have how to contact them on
our show notes page and of course there’s always the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is
a group of industrial water Traders and companies that serve industrial water treatment companies so we don’t have to
explain what it is we do in order to explain our problem we can just simply
go into whatever our issue is and then that group of directors helps that
person with that issue and folks it’s not always technical most of the time time it’s something they’re dealing with
personally I myself have had some issues that I’ve shared with the Mastermind
that The Mastermind has helped me with so everybody has issues there is no
doubt about that but how does somebody utilize their best self in order to
solve those issues well the way you do that you can’t do it alone so I urge you to find a group that can help you with
that if you want to look into the rising tide Mastermind it’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash Mastermind and you can
read all about the rising tide Mastermind and by all means check out vistage and ask people around I want you
to find a group not necessarily my group although it might be the right group for you but you need a group none the less
earlier when I was interviewing Tim I did not remember all the numbers of the
episodes that Tim has been and on so I have now looked them up so I can be a
better podcast host at the tail end of the show than I was in the beginning of the show so Tim was one of my very first
guests he wanted to help me with content when he helped me process the fact that I wanted to do a podcast so episode 22 I
introduced the scaling up Nation to Tim Fulton and then this is my favorite
episode it’s episode 92. Connor Parish actually interviewed me and he asked me
what my favorite episode was and I answered it episode 92 because Tim
Fulton invited me to speak at his conference and it was one of the most
intimidating things that I’ve ever done but it was also one of the most rewarding things that I have ever done
and there’s a Maya antaloo quote and I’m always misquoted but it goes somewhere
around people won’t remember what you said they won’t remember what you did
but they’ll always remember how you made them feel I love that quote I hope that
this show makes you feel a little bit better as you’re driving from account to
account but one of the reasons that 92 is one of my favorite episodes is because I remember how I felt going
through that process and I want to steal a little bit of 92’s Thunder if you haven’t listened to it yet but Tim and I
met and one of the meetings that I just shared with you that we have on a very regular basis and I asked him about the
conference that he puts on it’s called the small business matters conference and if you’re in the Atlanta area he
heck if you’re even close by you want to go to the small business matters conference because it is just action
packed with all this business knowledge and he does it in a TED Talk style format and I asked him I said Tim do you
have all the speakers for your upcoming conference and Tim said I do we have everybody
booked but then he kind of read into my question a little bit more and he said why do you ask again Tim is the master
of questions and I let Tim know that I just always thought it would be an honor
to speak at one of his conferences so he looks down at his notes again he said Trace I seem to have made a mistake we
have one opening and he made a spot for me to speak at his conference I will
never forget how Tim Fulton made me feel that day that is why episode 92 is my
favorite and then Tim came back on episode 114 and we spoke to the scaling
up Nation about what the heck a mastermind was because I know that’s a concept that not a lot of people know
about and Tim was very instrumental in me starting the rising tide Mastermind
and Tim started his Mastermind as well they have the same birthday days and we
compare notes with each other and we try to always make sure that we’re helping each other with best practices so that
was Tim coming on helping the world know what the term Mastermind means so there
you go there are three episodes that if you need a bigger fix of Templeton
episode 22 episode 92 and episode 1 14.
Nation I know you’re always trying to keep your calendar up to date so you can keep that full of events that you the
professional water Trader can attend well Bulma International is having their
winter business meeting January 20th through 23rd in Scottsdale Arizona I was
on the board of the Atlanta Bulma for three years and I have to tell you they
are a very fine organization so if you are in the building owner and Managers
Association industry which is mostly Office Buildings this is something that
you want to attend you definitely want to make sure that they understand what
it is that you do but here’s what you do and here’s how people failed when I was
involved with Bulma new vendor members would come in and that’s what I was I
was a supplier to that group and they would complain that they wouldn’t get
extra business and I have to say our firm did very well with Boma and we
really were successful in gaining new relationships how did we do that we
didn’t focus on what we could get that is the bottom line whenever you are
trying to join an organization your focus should not be getting your focus
should be giving and I did this with awt I did this with Bulma and it paid back
people saw that I was willing to educate that I was willing to give my time my
experience and because of that people reciprocate so if you’re a member of an
organization and you’re not involved you’re probably not getting out of that organization what you probably could get
out of that organization so I ask that you retune how you think about that now
of course I just mentioned the association of water Technologies and one of my absolute favorite things to do
each and every year is teach in the association of water Technologies Technical Training seminars so be on the
lookout for me there I hope to see you there it is my favorite thing that I do
and we do that twice a year so more information about the Technical Training
seminars you can go to our website and we will have all of that for you there of course if you’re wondering what we
talk about at the Technical Training well we do some sales training in fact I do this sales training and what I’ve
tried to put together is a compilation of not just how to sell but why why
people buy how to communicate how do you know when it’s a real objection versus
you didn’t cover something that you should have and I don’t like pressure sales so this is about solution finding
if the customer has an issue how can you help get them to the most perfect
solution so that is the sales training that we do that’s the first day and then
concurrently to the sales training we also have ultra filtration training so
this is a very in-depth course if you are in the commercial or industrial
market for reverse osmosis ultra filtration EDI and all the different
membrane Technologies you are going to get a fire hose full of information
there but here’s the problem you got to choose between me and sales training or
going to ultra filtration so you’ll have to make that choice then we have two
separate programs that run concurrently for the main bulk of the program we have
fundamentals and applications training this is where we tried to build the
found Foundation of water treatment and we have so many people that have been in
the industry for either a short while maybe just a couple years or maybe they’ve been in the water treatment
industry for years and they figure they don’t need to take this foundation’s
class they say oh this is below me Nation we have painstakingly written
this course material so even if you know this information very well you will
learn it in a new way so you will be able to explain it better to your
customers it was Albert Einstein that said to know something you have to explain it well to a five-year-old what
he meant by that was if somebody had absolutely no context could you explain
it so they can understand and I know a lot of people in this industry that are
brilliant but they cannot explain what it is that we do that’s a hard job on
its own so we help people do that and we also help all the people that are newer
in the industry understand our industry better giving a foundation for the
principles of water treatment now what I recommend is that you take the
fundamentals and applications training whomever you are and then you come back
to the next time it’s offered and you take the water treatment training now
water treatment training is designed to show that you are prepared for the certified water technologist examination
now let me be clear that is not a course that teaches the certified water technologist exam it just explains some
of the information that you may or may not be tested on so for people that are
on that track you probably want to take that course now it used to be we offered
the examination right after that course but now you do not have to put yourself through that stress you could go to one
of the testing centers right by your home and you will do fine because the
computer-based testing solves so many issues I’m sure you’ve heard me speak on previous episodes where people have
misnumbered their test exam they have answered question 10 and question 9
because they left nine blank and then they went all the way through the 200 questions and when they stopped they
were at 199 and they didn’t remember where it was they made that issue well
you just can’t do that with the electronic version so it gives you lots
of tools that you just didn’t have when it was a paper version so don’t think that it’s a bad thing that the awt
doesn’t offer that examination in person anymore it’s actually much more to your benefit also the awt is offering a-s-se
12080 training so if you are interested in that if you are in the Water
Management plan business or you want to learn more about that by all means you
should extend that training and then of course we do the Wastewater training as
well so there’s so much that the awt offers there’s something for everybody
and I recommend you keep coming back until you take it all you just can’t get
this stuff anywhere else Nation lots of notes from this show on
our show notes page go to scalinguph2o.com go to this show and we will have all of the notes for you just
go to episode 286 and you will see all the material that Tim alluded to but we
didn’t have time to talk about and you will definitely learn a lot more when
you go to our show notes page speaking of our show notes page many listeners
have contacted me and said wow you guys have done such a great job improving
your website well thank you for that and thanks to the scaling up H2O team for
all of the work that they have been doing to improve the website to make all
the content that we’ve made available to you so much easier to find so if you
have not been on our website in a while it’s scaling up h2o.com Nation I love
bringing this show to you I love introducing you to to some people that means so much to me I hope you have a
great week and I’ll have a brand new episode for you next Friday take care everyone
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