Learning Without Scars
As a third-generation educator, it is easy to say that teaching and training are in the blood for Ron Slee. From his beginnings as a coach, through his time at McGill University, Ron developed a foundation for the work he does today. From working within dealerships, to operating a consulting company, creating a training business and running twenty groups, Ron has been directly involved in this Industry since 1969. Ron has been known as the industry expert for years, and has brought this expertise to bear through his training programs. Today, Ron provides specialized, job function based internet based subject specific classes, job function skills assessments, as well virtual seminars and webinars. These courses are designed for manufacturers and their dealers, as well as independent businesses in the construction equipment, light industrial, on-highway, engine, and agricultural industries through Learning Without Scars (www.LearningWithoutScars.com). This platform is a continuation of the work begun by Quest, Learning Centers which was established in 1996. This training is aimed at improving dealer parts and service operations through qualified people that are knowledgeable in using operational metrics and current market and operational best practice methods.
Learning Without Scars
Reimagining Retail and Workforce Empowerment
Unlock the secrets of employee development and performance reviews with insights from our esteemed guest, Emily Hardin, who is the Vice President of Culture at a large equipment dealership. We explore the art of aligning job targets with company culture using modern tools like the Predictive Index, comparing them to classic models such as DISC and Myers-Briggs. Discover the complexities faced by flat organizations and dealerships in crafting effective development programs, and learn how analyzing employee tenure can inform recruitment practices.
Shifting gears to retail, we uncover the strategic triumphs and challenges of giants like Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Walmart. From Coca-Cola's brand dominance to Amazon's data-driven evolution, we dissect the tactics these corporations employ to adapt to ever-changing consumer needs. As technology transforms customer interactions, we delve into how integrating modern communication tools like chat systems can bridge the gap between traditional practices and the digital age, enhancing both customer service and employee empowerment.
Finally, we examine the transformative power of leadership and technology on organizational structures and workforce dynamics. As businesses transition from small teams of innovators to structured entities, we emphasize leadership's role in supporting frontline employees and maintaining operational efficiency. We also tackle the shifting value of traditional education in a tech-driven world, offering alternative paths to success and highlighting the innovative potential of AI and automation. Join us for a captivating discussion on developing future leaders, fostering creativity, and embracing change in the modern workforce.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
I've had and recorded a discussion on performance reviews with Sonia Law from Australia, with Bruce Baker, who's in Canada with business, but he's from South Africa, so we recorded him from South Africa. David Jensen, who's in New Mexico, who was the head of HR for Sarah Lee for years, lee, for years. I've got another guy that's coming that used to be at a dealer and used to be at I'm going to call it fast food places. And you trying to get people to just talk about what they think the state of the world is relative to performance reviews. The state of the world is relative to performance reviews and what I'm trying to get people to consider, including Grant and others.
Speaker 1:If it isn't part of your core competency, outsource it. And HR is not. And the trouble with that. Well, recruiting is a classic area. There's a guy by the name of jay lucas who has a guy by the name of john dowling. They do hiring for hitachi on a contract, any, any employees they need, they'll get them, and it's on a fee basis, not a percentage basis like it used to be 25% of the first year or whatever the hell it was. So, slowly but surely, this stuff is changing and so that's what I'd like to talk about, and if you're already recording, we've got it. We've got it, so why don't we start? And I'll start with the basic question At your employer how do you manage employee development?
Speaker 2:So right now the quickest answer I can give you is it's handled at the local level. So that means that you know we can provide some training and development. Typically for us at the dealership it is, you know, training for our technicians and it's usually you know what type of equipment. What do we have new? What do you need to know? How do you change out, for example, f model? Those just came out so we have to do training on how to fix the F models. The other, you know, standard HR training we do and the standard IT training we do.
Speaker 2:But outside of that the organization is so flat that it can be really difficult and I think it is for a lot of organizations to do that type of really deep development that you need because of time away from the desk, because you don't have all that backup. But then you know you have different managers doing different things and it's just really hard to kind of create a program and develop employees the way you want to when there's not much of a succession plan, when there's just such a flat organization and everyone has different ideas, especially with most dealerships run which is it's all done at a local level and then the corporate office is more of a support staff rather than a driving factor. So that also has some impact for us where we're not necessarily in HR, the driving factor of saying, hey, everyone's going to do this exact same training and here are the goals of this training, and here's where we go long term. We leave it up to the general managers of each region to kind of tell us what they need and then we'll help them find it or we'll provide advice for those types of things, but we're not necessarily driving it forward. So I'd love to see it. You know, a development plan.
Speaker 2:I know Portugal and I are kind of working on a project where, you know, we're trying to find succession, at least for the main roles. And how do we do that? What does that training entail? What is the best cadence for that? You know, what type of hands-on learning does that mean? What's the transition period? Look like those types of things where we can identify here's top talent, here's what they'll need in order to fill in that kind of next gap once it becomes open, and keeping them engaged. But you know, it's easier said than done too, because again, we play such a supporting role rather than a driving force, like some companies have HR to drive and force Everyone. We're going to do this as a succession plan and with the dealership it's more of like force Everyone. We're going to do this. This is a succession plan, and with the dealership it's more of like a hey, we think this could be a high-profile person. We need you to do these things. You know we can follow up on it.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day then it's up to that local region. But I like the local control, I like the corporate support structure. But I think that implies and let's talk about this every job function then you have to have a skills, knowledge and personality profile and we don't have that.
Speaker 2:We do. We have what's called the predictive index that we use and it gives us we can set job targets and we can kind of match the work style and the personal style to the job that best fits us. So there's not like a job target for every single parts warehouse person, for example. We set the target for what we think we need for our culture, for the company, what works best Corporately All across the organization. We require every candidate that we're interviewing to take one, and anyone that was here when we implemented it. We did ask them to take it. Not everyone did, but about 90% of the population did?
Speaker 1:Who built the predictive index?
Speaker 2:That was done by. I can't remember the name of the company. I know it's a predictive index company now, but it was basically the guy who created squares, uh, same guy who did the, the, uh, the four colored squares.
Speaker 1:He, he designed the pi to be a shorter that's, that's disc okay, yep which is the old sensor feel, feeler, intuiter, thinker, yes, okay, so Briggs-Myers squares disk all those things so you can compare stores' financial performance to the makeup of the employee's predictive index.
Speaker 2:True, yes, in a nutshell, yes.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:I look at them more than others. So I've been actually comparing people based on tenure. So you know I'm really looking at it. Start it with are our job targets correct? Are we hiring the right kinds of people? We have turnover, you know? Is it based off the predictive index? Do we have the right job target? Are we looking for the right people based on the role that we have? And obviously the predictive index in any assessment is just a piece of the puzzle. It's not the whole thing, it's just a piece. We have a pretty strong correlation between the PI job target and the match between the PI and how long the person will stay in that role. So, for example, they kind of color it green, yellow, orange and red and if they're in the green and orange they usually stay, you know, over six months to three years. Right now that's kind of the trend. If they're in the yellow or red, they're lasting less than three months.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what conclusion do you draw about? That you should not have yellow and red index people?
Speaker 2:the conclusion I I draw from that is and I'll do it from an hr side of things well, no I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm going this is leaning on you as a person now, not necessarily what you. You've got a lot of skills, background experience, training etc. In hr. So yellow, do I hire them or not?
Speaker 2:I tend to say I would not hire them, and that's because it's not fair to that candidate, because you're not putting them in a job in which they can succeed, because they don't match the job. If you have a high introvert who is an extrovert at sales job and has never been in sales before or had very little experience in sales, you're setting them up for failure, especially if that's what your company needs. For example and I've seen that we need high precision If you put someone who is not high precision and doesn't like detail work in a detail work job, they're going to get really frustrated very quickly because you've almost set them up for failure.
Speaker 1:I'm with you. How many jobs do you think out of? You know what percentage of the jobs that you have require? Yellow-red.
Speaker 2:Well, very few. Because they set the job target, so it's based off the red, yellow green orange. Because they set the job target, so it's based off the. The red, yellow, green orange is based off the job target. Do they match the job target?
Speaker 1:okay, let me interfere there for a second. So I'm I'm going to make it an athletic type of circumstance where I have a coach, I have stars and I have workers and in order to be successful as a team, a business, or sports or music or whatever, I need those three. Red yellow is part of those three. So what am I missing if I don't have red yellow? Am I missing the people? That would be challenging the status quo.
Speaker 2:That's very true. You would be yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You would be yes, yeah, and I do think and maybe I'm looking at it from a side of where we are now versus what I would do if we were in a perfect situation- Well, what I'd rather have you talk about is, if you could wave a wand, what would you have?
Speaker 1:Not necessarily what you're having to deal with, that transition from where we are now to where we should be. It's a bear, no matter what we do.
Speaker 2:That's true. In a perfect world I would probably have 10 percent, at least 10 percent at that minimum, because I do. You are right, you do need challenges, Like if you have a very high detailed work, well, you know your customers don't necessarily care about that. So from a technician's point of view, you might need someone who can gloss over it and give them the high level and then they can understand it. Someone who can gloss over it and give them the high level and then they can understand it. So I think you do need 10 to 15 percent disruptors within your organization because that's the thing that's going to really keep you moving.
Speaker 1:So Steve Clegg comes onto the table with his in Toro, the transaction analysis, and there's a direct correlation between customer predictive and employee predictive, and that makes it even more confusing. Customer service is all about relationships. It's two people conducting a transaction. It's like dating a man and a woman or whatever the heck your inclination is. And if that relationship, if the customer service provider is good at what they do, that relationship can never be broken. If there's a perception that the customer feels that they're not getting the support, not even true, but if their perception is they didn't get the support they want, they're gone. And I think in society today, customer loyalty when I say that, people laugh at me because they say there is no such thing as loyalty anymore. I still believe there is, but you have to provide everything that the customer needs and wants. I don't think we know what the customer needs and wants anymore. Am I wrong?
Speaker 2:No, and I don't think you're wrong, and I think there are also factors that you know. I think customer loyalty exists, but let's say that it's between you know the tide laundry detergent and the downy laundry detergent and you are a loyal customer to tide but if, for whatever reason, that week you are, you don't have the money to do that, you might go to downy because that's what you can afford and you have to have it. So I do think that that exists. I think there's a lot of different factors, you know, from a business standpoint too, and it's hard to provide each of them. But I think it's also important for us as a business to really look at and understand. I think from a business perspective, we have been looking at our bottom line more than the customer, and I think it used to be different, where we used to look at the customer from a holistic perspective. How can we negotiate and work this out together? And now it's just going. This is what we got to have the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I call that profit over people and it's been the last 20 years. There's been a really dramatic and it goes pre-covid, but covid really accelerated it. Everybody started looking at what the hell am I doing?
Speaker 2:well, and and I think about from amazon too uh, when you know, when back in the 90s and early 2000s, like you, went to the store, for example, we went to the grocery store the other day and I was like I remember when I went to the store and this was the only brand you can get, and now there's like 50 bazillion brands and things that I've never, ever seen before, that are always popping up, and there's just always something new and different. And so it was that mentality of, well, I don't just have to go to you, I can now go shop around and do Timu or Shein or you know, all these different places that we never had access to before. So it also changes that dynamic a good bit too.
Speaker 1:There's voice options. It's really getting interesting sales. It ain't exhausting, pardon, it's exhausting, it's getting exhausting.
Speaker 2:Oh I know, pardon, it's lasting, it's good, it's lasting.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know Well, I like grocery shopping. You know I used to do that for us and because I never really had time to do it the way before and I spent a lot of time in grocery stores looking at all of this stuff. And there's an old sales and marketing example of Coke. When they started exploding the brand Remember New Coke and Diet Coke and all the rest All they were doing was trying to control shelf space, which chokes out competition. It's clever as hell, but you know, sooner or later people catch on, and it really. And so here comes Amazon and I read like an idiot. So I was hanging around bookstores and some of them I really. There's one in Durango that is almost romantic. You go in there and they've got old Chesterfields. You can pick up a book, sit down and read it, put it back on the shelf and they don't mind.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Jesus talk about. You know that's a dinosaur. So here comes Amazon and they started. Bezos was pretty damn smart. We started with books because books did not provide a broad enough base. Their inventory space, money, etc. Was limited. So whenever I went to buy a book I had to order it, so I had to wait, I had to pay the freight. And here comes Bezos says well, you have to wait, we'll get it for you.
Speaker 1:You have to pay the freight. Well, we'll charge you less, charge you less. And then, as time passed, here comes Amazon Prime and you're now paying 120 or whatever it is for the year. So you get free freight. Well, that restricts the number of the audience, the market size, to people that buy a lot of. And then he got smart and said well. And then he got smart and said, well, we'll do it with television, we'll do it with a studio.
Speaker 1:So I mean, all of a sudden they permeate the whole world become the largest retailer in the world, and Walmart, which was previously the largest retailer in the world, in North America Gallery in French, was the same thing in Europe. Walmart said hey, wait a second. And Sam's model was I'll carry your product, and only your product, as long as you guarantee me you will never have my shelf be entry. And he said but I'm going to pay you when they buy it. So he had no inventory cost, which made him the low-cost provider, which is why Walmart became so successful. Here comes Bezos, a new model, and it's now data-driven. Emily, not transaction-driven, and the people that are facing the customers.
Speaker 2:we've left them behind Interesting on Walmart, though they're starting to figure out that their data is wrong.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:And that's causing even more issues, and I actually have a personal story on that one but I won't get into it on this call. But Walmart's data is incorrect and they knew it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, statistics was one of my majors in university. It's amazing what you can do with mathematical statistics not sports and that kind of stuff Because the size of the transaction and the time between the two transactions is a very accurate predictor of future actions. And I talk to a lot of people, a lot of dealers, a lot of manufacturers. Nobody's paying any attention to that. So when the buying pattern of a customer changes, it gets longer. You don't have the report that goes to anybody that says it's happened. George that used to buy every month for the last 50 years hasn't bought in 60 days. You don't know. Nobody calls the customer, says to themselves they don't really care, and I think that's where HR has become. So your predictive interest I think that's wonderful. Local control I think that's even better because every market is different and it's different personalities. But I don't know that we give enough attention to the fact that we're not in a static business world, that we constantly need to be changing and improving and making it better.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:Like the people on the counter in the parts department, answering the phone, greeting the people who walk in. Walk-in business is almost non-existent anymore. It's cheaper and easier for everybody to work on the phone. You don't have hardly any of your business come in on the Internet and your business system doesn't support it.
Speaker 2:And I think what's interesting too and to take the phone is you have a whole generation that's now on the counter. Who's afraid of the phone except for texting, except for, like, instant messaging, like you said, our, our internet capabilities. We don't have a chat like, hey, like I. If you put a chat and said, hey, what location are you in? What are you needing? People would be typing in all day. You know, I need this, I need that, can you get it for me? You have someone on the computer going like, yes, I can get that for you right now. Here's the part, here's the order number, everything. It would make both parties happy in a sense.
Speaker 2:Um, interestingly enough, I think that being able to order a piece of equipment I know that there's a lot of different pieces to it, but the new generation that's coming in we should be going hey, you can do this like a car, here's a paver, here's all the different models that you have, here's all the different pieces and order it, because the people on the counter also just want to look at the internet all day and they're used to it, and so, therefore, you're generating more work for them, and they are probably then going to shift their mindset to oh I can, I can do this, I can do this, I can take control of this and make it my own. Uh, in a sense, because those guys are. If they're not on the computer, they're on their phones, and so if you give them something that they're comfortable with, they're more likely to do something as well. But of course, it's a balancing act right now, because we're between two different worlds.
Speaker 1:So that's the red-yellow, and I don't disagree with you. You can't have too many of those people because you're going to drive everybody nuts. But customer facing people, I would have a question that next week, from Monday through Friday, everybody that touches a customer would ask the same question. Right, and somebody the following week will be pouring through that, coming up with three or four conclusions out of that of something that we should be doing, that we're not doing now and we don't do that. A customer leaves us, you know. An employee leaves. We have an exit interview. I hope. Find out what you know. Here we go, but a customer leaves. We don't have that. I would love to call the guy. You know I used to do this personally in my consulting business.
Speaker 1:I did it and you know, after a while, if you do it well, nobody leaves. But what did I do? Wrong is the question you're trying to get answered. What was it that you wanted us to do differently? It's not the what did I do? You craft the question in such a way that it's not going to be slamming you or insulting you if they say yes, and you find out all kinds of things, and the one that I like the most is who are you going to instead of us? And they'll tell you because they're trying to help and what is it you particularly like about dealing with that supplier? And whatever the hell they tell you, then pay attention because you're not giving them that.
Speaker 2:And here's a question for you how do you, when you ask people to do that, how do you get around the ego?
Speaker 1:Because I feel like that's a big one.
Speaker 2:You know when they lose it. When they lose a customer, they're like oh yeah, he just was disgruntled. I don't like working with them and instead of really kind of being honest with why they actually left like it was my team, like I- need to work on it. How do you get around that?
Speaker 1:I have a lot of interactions with groups. So, example I'll go into Charlotte and I'll get the parts, guys, and maybe once a month I'll buy pizza and we'll talk for an hour and a half. And maybe once a month I'll buy pizza and we'll talk for an hour and a half. And it's uncomfortable discussions at the beginning because they don't trust you and you got to have trust. And too many employees are what I call obedient. They do what they think the boss wants or what the boss wants, rather than saying, well, why are we doing that? And once you get that level of openness and dialogue, then the ego goes away altogether. And you're right, I'm going to be the smartest one in the room. I learned a valuable lesson, emily, when I was a teenager. I'm going to be the smartest one in the room. I learned a valuable lesson, emily, when I was a teenager. I was a competitive swimmer and I learned very quickly that I'm not competing with anybody other than myself, and most people are competing with others in their workforce, which is where the ego comes from. I can't look bad, matter what the hell I can. I'm going to suck up to that guy because you know, whatever it is and it's all. It's all counterproductive stuff.
Speaker 1:My standard illustration is the only musician that has his back to the audience is the conductor. So look at management, look at leadership. The conductor is going to succeed if the leaders of each of the sections of the orchestra are good themselves and will make their members look better than themselves. That's true, you know, and that's a hard thing. I think one of the hardest transitions is to go from being a doer to being a leader.
Speaker 1:As a doer, you're completely dependent on your own performance. As a leader, you're dependent on other people's performance, and a lot of us. I'm one. I'm a control freak, but you have to learn to get over it. And it goes back performance reviews. It used to be a check off the box and most often than not it would be conducted at the same time as we do wage and salary review. So you know the employees got their backup, but defensive as hell and you know the boss is kind of. I mean, it's a counterproductive experience and most bosses don't want to do it, don't know how to do it. You probably see that more than anybody.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. We're about to go into it and I already got my helmet on and I'm ready for the war and I'm ready for the war.
Speaker 1:When I was still an employee and when I stood in in certain leadership roles and dealerships, the first thing I did was separate those two events. The wage and the performance were six months apart. First of all, performance is dynamic. It's got to be all the time. It's every week, it's every interaction. You got to be out on the floor with the people, not behind a door, and the thing this younger generation, they do not know the jobs anymore. They can't go out and do the jobs that they're supervising. Now. How the hell does that work? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, that predictive index is really good. Steve's market transaction analysis is really good. Our skills and knowledge assessments are really good. Put them together and you've got have decent chances succeeding. But the definition of each job function of the personality profile, not the skills and knowledge so much. But are you open or closed? Are you willing to explore different options or are you just shut down? That's the end of it. Just tell me what. Don't confuse me. Just tell me what to do. I'm in Russia and working and it's the only place that ever happened to me. A guy who's got a master's a very smart young man. He's in his thirties, he's married, he's got children. I'm asking him questions like you know, if you could wave a wand, what's the thing that you would do to make your life easier at work that would make the company better? He said don't. Don't do that to me. Just tell me what you want me to do and go away. What kind of a life is that I mean, dear lord?
Speaker 1:people like that I bet you, I bet you, 80 plus of your employees are like that and that's and I think you're a well-run company. You know it's remarkable. So how does a dealer who's got 20 million bucks in business maybe has 50 employees? How do they survive in this environment?
Speaker 2:I think at different levels of the business you have to have different kind of subsets of people. So, for example, in an environment like that, I would almost consider it, you know, a startup by size in a sense, where you have to have like a lot of people who are hungry, who are driven, who want to work, who want to change, who want to innovate, and then once you get to a certain size I'd probably say once you start getting to probably about 75 to 100 people that's really where you kind of want to have some of those worker bees who just come in, get the job done and then you have innovators and as you just get bigger and bigger, you want to have more of those worker bees and more of those individual contributors and you will kind of want your top legions of that I'm not legions, this is not the right word, but your top leadership to be more of those innovators at the top to kind of pull the business forward so it doesn't get complacent.
Speaker 2:But it's almost like you start at the bottom of the pyramid and it's all the innovators and then that kind of builds to a smaller, smaller peak as you grow and grow as a business. And I really do think that's because when you're at a small company you're wearing a bunch of different hats and as you add more people who can kind of do that, hey, you just do this piece of the work, hey, you just do this piece of the work, you just do this piece of the work and it works like a well-oiled machine like BMW, for example. You put this tire on, you put this tire on, you put this bolt on that tire and you put that bolt on that tire and you put that bolt on that tire and it works because it flows. And you need that when you get to be a large organization because at a certain volume, the people that are dynamic and innovative, they can't handle all the workload anymore because there's just too much of it to go around, go around.
Speaker 2:And I also think at a certain point when you're at startup or small level, like it's exciting, but you probably burn people out a whole lot more, you know, especially if they're not, you know, engaged or you know have certain flexibilities and things like that, because in a smaller business you could have more flexibility, in a larger business you can't. So then you also need, you know, the people who show up nine to five. They come, they work, they get their thing done Great. And then you start getting those innovators too and those disruptors who need more time to think, because now any decision that they make is going to go across a larger band which is going to. You have to think through that a little bit more than you could at a smaller level, more than you could at a smaller level. But I do think if you're a small company, you need more disruptors, and the bigger you get you need less.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, the small business, the transition you talked about. I've always dealt with an inverted pyramid. The flat line is the top and it's the biggest number of employees, and it comes down to the leader at the bottom, and the role of the leader is to give the tools, the technology, the training, whatever the hell those people that are touching the customer need, and the people at the top, which are the you know that's the largest majority. I would you know if I could wave a wand. I'd assign customers to individuals and I would say if you ever lose a customer, I'm getting rid of you. If you keep all the customers, I'm going to reward you like you wouldn't believe. So I got the pain and you know the stick and the carrot.
Speaker 1:But in every sales organization that I've ever dealt with, I've assigned customers and said their core customers. There's additionals, but these core customers you do not lose them, period, end of story. They're yours and they're ours. And the Chinese, the Japanese, taught us that in the 80s and they kicked the hell out of us. So gross, domestic. Everything that we do in society, in life, is predicated on quote quote productivity.
Speaker 2:What is productivity?
Speaker 1:What is productivity? Well, what is productivity? Well, so look at gross domestic product. The formula is very simple the sum total of all the goods and services that are generated in a country, divided by the number of employees in the workforce. And over the last 40 years at least, probably longer. And over the last 40 years at least, probably longer. It's a measure of how well the economy is going in a government, and the governments get elected that way. And if you want to influence the gross domestic product, just reduce the workforce.
Speaker 2:And I know that's cynical, but that's exactly what's been going on.
Speaker 1:And so here comes robotics, here comes artificial intelligence, here comes a proliferation of technology changes in the last 80 years One major event every decade. And I mean we tilt, we're overloaded, you can't handle it, so you give up. I ran computer businesses. I ran software companies. At some point in the 80s I stopped trying to keep up because it was changing so damn fast, said okay, I have to do something else. And today, people that are coming in as management out of universities I'm not sure I'd hire anybody out of a university today. I don't know that they. You know, emily, you've got a master's degree, right, okay, okay. So if I was to look at undergraduate degrees, I would say that I want anybody who gets a degree to be able to be work ready and be able to earn a living wage. And then you and I go look at the universities and I bet you we could kill 75% plus of the classes that are in their curriculum, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So the university's goal is to get money. They don't give a hoot about. You know what they're doing. My grandson, you know pretty sharp kid works hard. He's my grandson. He's got to be perfect, right. He wanted to be a nuclear engineer. He applied to Purdue, which is one of the better schools in the country. He got accepted $350,000 for a four-year degree. With all of his scholarships it came down to $170,000. And this kid's 17 years old, maybe five months, and we're talking about it. And I said well, what are you going to do? He said I'm not doing that. I'm going to go into the military. I said, oh really? He said, yeah, they have an exam. You're probably familiar with it like and the act, and it's it. He said if I score high enough on that exam, I can get into the nuke program, which is a very so he did this program he got that.
Speaker 1:he's in the top, I don't know. Three percent, two percent, some. It's an obscene number. I just carry the luggage beside this kid. He's unbelievable, unbelievable.
Speaker 1:So my daughter said, because every service came for him Coast Guard, army, air Force, marines. She said forget the Army, forget the Marines, I'm not giving them cannon fodder. So you want to be in the Navy or the Air Force, go for it. So he goes to the recruiter in the Navy. Now this guy is six months away from his 18th birthday and he goes and says I want to enlist when I graduate from high school. And he's got a 4.0 GPA, I mean there's nothing wrong anywhere. And they say, oh, that's terrific, let's fill out the forms. He said no, no, no, you don't understand. I will enlist in the Navy if you get me in the new program. So he did so February. He's now 19. His birthday is the 1st of July. So let's say 19 and a half. He'll have a nuclear engineering degree and an astrophysics degree at no expense.
Speaker 1:So now I look at the counter, I look at the warehouse, I look at kids coming in in the summer as interns or whatever, and we don't try and challenge them to learn what they're good at and give them an option as to what their life could be like, and I think we lose a lot of oomph that way. I would deal with guidance counselors, like right now, and you know we used to have people one year before they graduated undergraduate or master's and the youngest manager would lead them and we'd have, depending on the size of the company in the year, anywhere from six to 18 of them a year, two different companies, and I was the youngest and I led those guys in the first month and, gals, I put them on the warehouse floor picking parts and putting parts away dirty work, physical work, sweaty, sweaty work, hard work and I'd lose a third of them in that first month. The rest of them, if they stayed, we'd bounce them around a bunch of different things, expose them to a bunch of different things, so that they could and we'd offer them a job when they graduated If they came back to us. We put them on an 18-month program three months in each department actually doing work, part service, sales, rentals, finance, five, so that's 15 months, and the last three months were the ones your favorite, so that you could go back and, you know, really find out if that's what you're.
Speaker 1:So and and we did that at the caterpillar dealer in british columbia when I arrived in 78. And we did that at the Caterpillar dealer in British Columbia and when I arrived in 78, we had 53 stores Every branch manager, every department manager, had come into the company that way. Now you talk about a culture that's hard to break, and almost all those people were red and yellow. It was really weird because almost every day they'd be out on the floor saying, geez, can't we do that better? Isn't there another way we could do that? Why don't you think about that?
Speaker 2:Didn't Bill Gates say, or was it? No, it was not Bill Gates, it was.
Speaker 1:Steve Jobs probably.
Speaker 2:Steve Jobs, who said the best people to hire are the laziest because they'll find a way to get the job done faster.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always said everybody wants to do a good job, everybody can do more than they think they can, and everybody is fundamentally lazy, and I think that's a positive attribute, because they're going to find the best way to do it, absolutely. You know the difference between effective and efficient. Efficient is doing things well, effective is doing the right things. I'd rather effectiveness rather than efficiency.
Speaker 2:I will actually say probably it's the lazy. It's the laziness in us, but the disruptor in us that actually creates the shortcut, because you have the worker bees who do come in and they'll do the work, but they're not going to they're not going to find a better way to do it, they know how to do it, they're not going to change it, they're just going to do it. They're not going to find a better way to do it, they know how to do it, they're not going to change it, they're just going to do it. And then you're going to have those disruptors who are going what's a quicker, faster way to get this done? So I can go back to my daily life.
Speaker 2:And I do think that if we have enough of, if an organization and this is, I think, going to be the next struggle in the coming performance kind of wars is going, especially with AI, you know we can get things done faster. We can get them done with more power. What happens if we gave people more time? If we gave people more time, do you think they would be able to think about new creative ideas, or have the time to think about new creative ideas and actually be more of a disruptor than if they just sat behind a desk all day and said you know what? I'm just I'm gonna go in, get out, move on with my life, got other things to do. Do you think they would they?
Speaker 1:would have more time to be creative a good group.
Speaker 1:A good number of people would, but the problem is most people aren't oriented that way. We've been taught to be obedient, and obedience doesn't lead to thinking. Obedience leads to. You know, we've got robotics today. They just breathe and have blood in their bodies and you know, when you look at the big companies and the fact that we have to automate things, what you're going to do is robotics are going to replace a whole bunch of people and you know it's kind of.
Speaker 1:This is a little bit off topping down, but we've spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on technology and almost zero on sociology. Hundreds of trillions of dollars on technology and almost zero on sociology. So how does society work when 75 million people are at work getting income and 225 million people are not? Will they go back to school? Will we give them a living wage? How does society operate in that environment? What happens to your psyche? You know your self-worth, your self-esteem. You know it's really weird. So if you weren't doing what you're doing, if you weren't involved in culture and employee development and human relations, what do you think you'd want to do?
Speaker 2:employee development and human relations. What do you think you'd want to do? So that's actually a really good question. So I always wanted to be an architect or mechanical engineer, and the sole purpose for that, if I distill it down, is design.
Speaker 2:I am a creative, so I love to design, whether that's interior design or whether that's like I want it to be, an imaginary Disney world.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to build roller coasters, but it wasn't really the building of the roller coaster, it was more of the OK, we have this theme on the roller coaster like here's what we need to make it magical, here's what we have to put here to like really catch people's eyes magical. Here's what we have to put here to like really catch people's eyes. And so I, I think I would go back to school or I would tell my past self to go into architecture and design work and go, go, do that, because I and I I do it for my friends. Now they actually call me so after work if I go to a friend's house, or I have a guy friend who just bought his first house, so he's like I don't have a girlfriend help me decorate, so I just find things for him and send it to his house and you know, tell him where to put it and he, you know, decorate so um.
Speaker 1:I enjoy that so that goes back to performance reviews. In my view, on steroids, that's a person who understands that there's a gap in their knowledge and understanding and they look around and find somebody that can help them to fill that gap, and I think that's where society is going to go. But boy, oh boy, it's going to be like I'm not going to see it. It takes too long. My example all the time is 1880, the steam engine was replaced by an electric engine and everybody changed to the electric engine because it was cost effective. But it took a generation, 20 years, before the electric engine had processes that were designed to take advantage of them.
Speaker 1:And then I come forward to 1950 with the arrival of the computer in society and to monumental in the way of a change Cell phone, Amazon, AI, data dictionaries, all this stuff, the internet, and I think we've scared a whole bunch of people. So now the younger generation my granddaughter's, 23, just got her master's smart, the same thing as her brother, and she says you know, Poppy, we have a generation we call it quiet quitting. I said what the hell is that? We only do as much work as is necessary to get our check and we go home and do what we want to do so. They use work and income as a vehicle to enable them to do the things they really want to do, and your generation is older than my granddaughter. My generation is older than yours and my granddaughter is probably going to have seven or eight careers over her lifetime. I basically had two and you were probably going to have three or four Careers not jobs, careers and wouldn't it be wonderful if you did that design work.
Speaker 2:It would be. You know, it would be really, really interesting. There's so much you can do with it. I think that, and I think for most people too, the scary except for the younger generation, because they have nothing left to lose, like we. Actually, we have an employee who just left and was going to move to a totally different state and start over and do something new, and I was like that's really exciting. I wish I could do that, but at this point you know it's more, you know you have less to lose.
Speaker 2:I guess, when you're younger, maybe or maybe that's just that generation and our, my generation is kind of somewhere between we were taught to work, we were taught how to work, and also we were also taught to live our dreams. And it's a rock and a hard place which is Do we go and do that? Do we go and do that? What if it doesn't work out? What happens? You know, because we're still, I think our generation will be easier to get to hire, because if you have a gap in your resume, we're like, yeah, it's okay, like can you actually just do the work, we're cool with it? And the generation ahead of us is like, no, you have a gap in your resume. You've jumped all over the place like we can't hire you, you'll never stay, and so it said, currently it's one of those. Our generation will probably miss out on a lot of different opportunities because we were too and myself included too afraid to go and pursue them because you're, you know, a your work is your purpose, and then b, you're like I'm gonna go pursue something. I have no idea how to do it or what to do, and that's fine and all well and good. But there's also so many other people doing the exact same thing and so much out there like how do I even start? What do I do? Like I don't, I still have bills to pay, I might have kids, like those types of things. So it's this almost maybe when we're older and and we can and we will, you know, and I'm proud of this younger generation, in a way, it's it's annoying and frustrating, but that's also how, with all this ai and everything they're going, all this is going to be obsolete. We got to find a new way forward and I'm proud of them for doing that, because they are, they are thinking about it the right way. What? What's the new way forward?
Speaker 2:Because a job like HR kind of like we said it really could be either AI driven, with, you know, a human element to it. Ai driven in the sense that there's a lot of technology out there. You upload your handbook and the employee can go what is the PTO policy? And it spits it out. What is my PTO balance? And it spits it out. But is my PTO balance? And it spits it out. But then you have that one human element that really could be more of a contractor, like my job will probably end up being more of a contractor, because I could go hey, let me go look up your handbook. Okay, this is the rules. Okay, well, let's kind of play the situation from a legal standpoint and we can kind of handle the people. But you need less of us and more technology, where my role will essentially not be obsolete because you still need the people side of it. But it will be different, it will be much different in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's also interesting is when you cut to the other end, and it's retirement time. People retire without having something to retire to, and when they stop work, they completely lose their identity. That's very true, you know. I say this to everybody. What would you do if you weren't afraid? And those folks that are retiring, they're scared to death and today not very many of them can afford to live on their Social Security or their pension because they don't plan things. So it's interesting. I've enjoyed this discussion. We've covered a fair amount of ground. Have we missed anything major from your perspective?
Speaker 2:period that there's just so many what ifs and so many. What could we do and how could we do it? That I don't think that there's a right or wrong answer. I just think that you know, kind of like with COVID, you you kind of take it by the horns and you you have to wrestle with it and figure it out, and that's kind of what we're going to have to do in this next few years. But I think I mean overall, I think we just have to meet people where they are too. As a business, we have to. Also, we as a business have to look at ourselves and go are we doing the right thing for the customer and for our employees? If not, how do we make it?
Speaker 2:so we can, because I do think that'll be. I think everyone's getting tired of the technology and all of this, but if you can make their lives easier, like United, thank you. United Shout out to United. You have made the customer service portal so much easier, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to do a wrap as if I was driving this thing and thank you for your participation and thank you for everybody who's listening, and I look forward to having another candid conversation with you in the near future. Mahalo, and that's the end of the recording as far as what I'm going to use, but don't leave the design dream too long. How old are you now? 33.
Speaker 2:Say now 33.
Speaker 1:Say again 33. The guy that was the head of psychology at McGill University when I was there in the 60s Penfield was his name. He said at the age of 50, I think it's younger today. You should change your career, not just change your job, change your career Completely different. You'll extend your life by 10 years Because you get re-energized.
Speaker 1:And we don't realize how much of a rut we fall into. And at 33, hell, you're young, it's, it's wonderful, but you know you're in a rut. Yeah, but you, you've still got more to contribute, to grant into the company, you know. So if I was your boss, I'd you know. This is fine, I might have seven years if I'm lucky, but I would start talking with you now about what's your next step and if design is part of it. What I would suggest to you is why don't you take a couple of classes on marketing? I think the design and intellectual challenges there might appeal to you. Don't know, just you know.
Speaker 2:I have I, you know I almost got my master's degree in marketing, isn't?
Speaker 1:that something when I was looking at master's degrees.
Speaker 2:So you are. You are not wrong. I actually I don't know if Grant showed you any of the things I've created, and so I've used the AI Canva, which is very intuitive, it's kind of like and I've created like a packet. So all of our new hires now get a summarized packet of everything you need to know. On day one. They have all this information everywhere, but it's just the condensed, colorful, summarized catalog of all the things you need to know.
Speaker 1:So what I would? I don't know if you do this, but after an employee has been there three to six months, I'd have lunch with them and say okay, you've been here this length of time, you've still got fresh eyes. What do we do? That's absolutely stupid and you'd be amazed what they tell you. Stupid and you'd be amazed what they tell you. Okay, so you got to promise me you will send me the recording. I will send you the recording right now, okay, and I will thank you very much and I will leave you be and I'll get on with my day too. I got to figure out what happened with Zoom, because Microsoft are very devious on how they do this. Ibm was the same way. They're all like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm not sure if it's not on our end, because anyone else who sends me Zoom, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if it's not on our end. I know Paul, I had Paul was going to talk with Portugal and just see if there was something.
Speaker 1:There must be a firewall then that they're using, because I had a Zoom meeting yesterday. I do them all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to not have problems getting them, and then all of a sudden we kind of switched some things around, and it's not just you, it's anyone that sends me a Zoom, I'm like, send it to me in the email because it's still not coming through.
Speaker 1:I I feel better now believe it or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's not you, it's me yeah, no, it's us.
Speaker 1:It's us, not you or me. But anyways, thank you very much and I look forward to the recording and I'll send you some of the transcriptions I get out of it so you can see what it does.
Speaker 2:Sounds great.
Speaker 1:Be good, this is Shaka baby, see you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, no-transcript.
