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
Listen More, Talk Less: A Business Leader's Secret Weapon
David Griffith takes us on a fascinating journey through his multi-faceted career, revealing timeless leadership principles that transcend industries and decades. Starting as IBM's top salesman in the late 1970s, Griffith rose through corporate ranks before pivoting to lead a material handling company and later transforming a historic nonprofit addressing poverty in Philadelphia.
What stands out in Griffith's approach is his refreshing humility and focus on developing others. "My goal was always to try and be the dumbest guy in an organization," he explains, highlighting his belief that great leaders are primarily "curators of talent" who assemble exceptional teams and give them space to excel. This philosophy proved particularly valuable during the 2008 financial crisis when his implementation of employee ownership through an ESOP created a culture where workers volunteered for reduced hours rather than seeing colleagues laid off.
Griffith's secret weapon throughout his career has been genuinely listening—to customers, employees, and the marketplace. His practical advice on conducting "muddy boots" management by getting into the field and asking simple questions ("How are we doing?" and "What can we do better?") demonstrates how leaders can stay connected to reality. This approach led to breakthrough moments, like when he transformed a customer relationship by noticing bent forklift forks and connecting them to workers' compensation issues, solving a pain point his competitors had missed entirely.
The conversation serves as both business history and masterclass in adaptability. As Griffith notes, "Those who are closest to the customer will win," a principle that remains true despite technological revolutions and market shifts. For leaders navigating today's complex challenges, his example of continuous learning, strategic foresight, and people-centered management offers a timeless blueprint for sustainable success.
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.
Hello and welcome to another Candid Conversation. I'm very excited today to be introducing you all to a gentleman by the name of David Griffith who, in the short time that David and I have reacquainted last month or two I guess, after maybe a 20-year absence after maybe a 20-year absence, I'm reminded of the amazing range of skills that we have in America. So with that as an introduction, I'd like to just good day, david.
Speaker 2:I'd like you to introduce yourself to this august body that listens to me. Well, no doubt that's a large group we're on. But anyway, good to reconnect. And again, I'm Dave Griffith and I've been in the material handling industry since 1993. But I'll give you a little bit of a background that goes there. And, ron, I got to believe it was during the Mejita days that you and I connected. We went back looking at my notes and I have fond memories of that time. So anyway, I live in New Hope, pennsylvania, with my wife Jackie. We've been married for 45 years. We have two adult children, two grandchildren, a little girl and a boy, and one very active Westie. Our third and she may show up somewhere in the filming here. And let's see career-wise.
Speaker 2:I went to Kenyon College in Game Bear, ohio. I went to work for IBM out of school as a systems engineer, met a girl who became my wife and realized I had to make a couple more bucks and I switched to sales. And I switched to sales and we had a really, really good run on the sales side. In 1978, 79, I was the number one salesman for IBM and I like to say that was the last time I made real money. But that launched a career within IBM. They had a habit If you could sell they would move you up the line. And we moved from New York to Philadelphia because Jackie went back to grad school at Bryn Mawr for master's in social work and we I worked in the city and then I, we moved and moved many, many, many times as I went up the IBM ladder. I was a marketing manager in Pittsburgh, I was on staff in Philly again. I got to know the PA Turnpike really well because Jackie was getting her advanced degree at Pitt and she didn't want to move and so I said, okay, I'll commute back and forth. And then I became branch manager up in Bethlehem, pennsylvania, which at that time was a very large office for IBM because of not the universities but also Air Products, best Steel, mack Truck and an awful lot of Tobiano Army Base, and we had Scranton in the mix. So I had a sublocation we had just it was the bottom performing branch when I took over and I'm pleased to say, we got it to number three in the country, not because of me but because, you know, I had the brains to hire some really, really good folks, had a really fun run, great job. Our daughter was born in Bethlehem and as a result of kind of doing that, I moved up to be administrative assistant to the president, which was a great development job, commuted back and forth because it didn't make sense to move. And coming out of that job, I became a regional manager in Detroit, which was not on our list of towns we wanted to go to, but we went, had a very interesting experience. There Was in the mid 80s and let's just say the economy was tough. Came back to Connecticut. We moved to Newtown, connecticut.
Speaker 2:Before the tragedy I went to work with an IBM subsidiary, rome, which they had acquired, rolm, which was an interconnect company and was famous for voicemail. I can give you the origin of Digi, the voice and a lot of technology. There I worked on a project where we couldn't understand why Digi wasn't working and then we discovered that women's voices in two tones actually simulated the keys that you hit with zero pound, and zero pound was the hang-up code, was the hang-up at the time. So you know all these bright, you know million-dollar scientists and research guys and we finally figured out that it was so we had to change the tone and inflection. Just, you know, one of the little silly things that you remember in a career.
Speaker 2:But anyway we, when I was in Newtown, my son was born and so we had two small kids. We had moved around a tremendous amount and, on a personal note, we have alcoholism runs in both our families and both of us decided it was a really good idea to get sober. We had two small kids, families and both of us decided it was a really good idea to get sober. We had two small kids and we looked at each other after that experience said you know this, moving around and family and at the same time John Akers had gotten let go, ibm was going through some really, really tough times and they made the mistake of offering a really tough times and they made the mistake of offering a package that you had to be an idiot to not take Two years salary, investing of options not that that's a great deal and five years on your retirement, I mean it was. So I left on a Friday and Monday I went to work for MCI, running marketing for the business division.
Speaker 2:Culturally that was like going to the other side of the moon, it was run and gun and that that was just fascinating lesson that you know there's a whole nother world out there had a good run there and then, as I said, my wife and I said, you know, there's a whole nother world out there, had a good run there. And then, as I said, my wife and I said you know what do we want to do this? Bill McGowan, the founder, died and all of a sudden, you know, we had a change of control. So we had another transaction that was interesting and we decided we didn't want to move anymore. And we had one more move in us and her dad had a business that I've been on the board of in Bristol, pa, called Modern Group, a material handling company, a heister dealer, if you remember, ron Yep and I had the opportunity to buy into the business and joined the firm I've been on the board. So we moved down there and in 1993, we moved to New Hope and we've been here ever since.
Speaker 2:I worked my way up through the company, which I am grateful for. He didn't just start me, you know, at the head and really, really loved the industry, loved the people. We had a philosophy of sharing the wealth with the employees that Joe had that I really, really respected. And we got smart. We created, we were Vanguard's second 401k. We created, we were Vanguard's second 401k and we became an ESOP 20 years before we went to 100% and the beauty of that was we planned it so that we didn't have to leverage the company because every year we put money into both retirement plans and did some other things and we had a nice run.
Speaker 2:We grew quite a bit and somewhere along the line I guess in 2000 or so I got brought onto the Mejita board, was president of Mejita in 05. Again, great experience. Great friends in 05. Again, great experience. Great friends. Deep, deep respect for Liz Richards and her team and everything that she did and just really had a lot of fun growing the business. You know I've seen my kids' soccer games. You know all the things you're doing and, again, you know, leading a clear and straightforward life. Got active in our church here and had a terrific run.
Speaker 2:And then in 2003, we went ahead and pulled the trigger. Joe wanted to cash out and we had family, other family members who owned shares and we pulled the trigger on the ESOP and the guys asked me to stay on as CEO. We had an outside board, which was really, really critical, and I'm a big fan of outside family boards and I hired a team. We went through a number of expansions, became a Generac dealer. In the middle of that mix we dropped Heister and picked up Hyundai. The Hyster-Yale situation just wasn't necessarily a good deal for the dealers. I have a lot of respect for the guys at Hyster-Yale, don't get me wrong. But you know we needed to do what we needed to do and, frankly, the Generac business and the Arborist business and some of the other things just really took off. And so we do the ESOP.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden 07-08-09, you might remember the phone stopped ringing and we got through that experience and the ESOP wound up to be a huge strategic weapon. The ESOP wound up to be a huge strategic weapon. We had technicians come to us and say hey, dave, we'll work 30 hours rather than laying people off. I said everybody got it. The stock got hammered but the 401k protected. And we got through it, like lots and lots and lots of people did in the industry. But I'm really proud that we were able to do it.
Speaker 2:In a way that was tough. We got out of the rental business. At one point we were the 24th largest rental company in the US. We were super regional, but you could see United and Sunbelt and those guys coming, there was no way we were going to compete. We were going to compete and Paul Farrell, who works for me at the time, was my COO figured out a buyer, did a hell of a job moving it and, frankly, that capital got us through the recession, but the phones literally stopped ringing. It was quite a lesson and a lot of soul searching in those times, as many of my good buddies and colleagues, but you know, it's always dark, it's before it's absolutely black. And we got through it.
Speaker 2:Sun came up, different world Restructured the business and then, when I turned 60 in 2013, it was time for me to get out of the way. I wanted Paul and Steve to have the opportunity to run the business. They asked me to stay on as chairman which I still am today and I thought I was going to come down and run Episcopal Community Services, which is a large at that time, 142-year-old nonprofit in the city of Philadelphia dealing with the issues of poverty and homelessness, and I didn't think it was a great idea. I didn't think I was a good match. But I went down and interviewed and uh, you know, answered the call. My wife thought I was crazy. Um, she said what do you know about social work? Um, and thank God she was my secret weapon. I come home and you know, say you know, they're talking about this, they're talking about that. You know what do they mean and I didn't look too stupid.
Speaker 2:But I was the first non-priest, non-social worker to run the agency, and the board wanted somebody with business experience, and we went through a really, really fascinating transformation, went through a really, really fascinating transformation. My conclusion was a lot of agencies were doing maintenance. My team wanted to do transformation, and so I applied the lessons I learned with my team. I went out and hired the very best and the brightest I could find, and that turned out to be working moms with social work degrees, and I made it easy to have kids at the office. We paid fair wage and I built a team. That was just phenomenal. I mean, I would go to war with my CFO. Really strong, I had to fire the CFO I had. The board was a little bit asleep at the wheel on fiduciary responsibilities and we were using restricted funds in the wrong place and all stuff that we've all dealt with.
Speaker 2:And, to make a long story short, we decided to take on the issue of poverty in Philly and to do so with a different methodology that had been developed up in Boston from an outfit called MPATH, the Old Crittenton Women's Union, and it's based on the principle that when you are in deep, deep crisis your cognitive function is zero. Cognitive function is problem solving. Well, poverty is one of the deepest crises you can be in and for the folks who weren't addicted or didn't have behavioral health issues, it's soul-crushing. And what we discovered and we worked with is that if we could coach a person on small goals at first and then larger ones across the spectrum of things like housing, workforce development, medical care, set goals, the brain would start to heal and cognitive function would improve. And our basic goal was to add a poverty was a living wage with benefits and assets in the bank. We had a large endowment and we did a savings match of. We would match dollar for dollar up to $10,000 so that when you left the program you had 20 grand in the bank. You had a job if we coached you right and worked with you on all the issues at a living wage or a path to a living wage and jobs that had benefits. The efficacy rate of that went from 28 to 32 for traditional percent to mid 80s. Oh my, and just and again, I give full, full credit to the folks up in Boston, but the savings match was something we added and now there's about 130 agencies probably more since I retired who have adopted the methodology. And basically it's transformational, not maintenance.
Speaker 2:And my whole complaint with the system is you know, you got to maintain people when they're in crisis, but just doing that forever is not a long-term solution. And that's how I spent the last 11 years. When I turned 70, I retired, handed it off to a brilliant woman who we had brought in from another agency and thought I was going to retire again. And then my good friend, hank Landis calls me and he says well, you know a little bit about family businesses and I've been on a bunch of boards, both for-profit and non-profit. And he said I'd like you to come, you know, start coaching family businesses and maybe working with us a little bit and maybe you could attract some folks.
Speaker 2:And you know, at the same time I was a trustee at Drexel, I was chairman of the Academy of Natural Sciences, was doing some other stuff and I tried retirement for a month and my wife said I'd really like you to go talk to Hank and off we went. So that's a long, long-winded background, but you know I've got a lot of scar tissue. I write a little bit, I coach a little bit and just trying to give back. My wife and I have a simple philosophy we want to die with the dollar and have the last check bounce and we believe we've been blessed and so we're trying to support causes that we care about and stay active and that's kind of the bio. I don't know if my definition is short, but there you go.
Speaker 1:No, it's kind of perfect. And for those of you in the audience listening to this, I'd like you to take note of our busy lives and how we define busy and what you just heard there's. There's really interesting nuggets in there that I take, and I think you can understand, after listening to David for a little bit, why I so much admire this man. But the but we all need help. Oh, we is much better than I, no question about it. And the interesting thing is your, your wife jackie, and my wife when she was here, marlene. You know she used to when I I tried to be home whenever our daughter was not in school, so that it was 24 7 when she was out of school and there were times where she would come to me and say haven't you got somewhere to go? You're getting in the way of our lives. The other thing that I find a little intriguing is my great-grandfather started what was called a school for wayward youth, for delinquent children, and in 68, when I came out of university, the market was tough, so I decided that I'd try and get some measure of the family and went to work there in the social work environment. So your wife, jackie, gets an awful lot of kudos from me.
Speaker 1:I think you and I, david, talked about the fact that technology has received nothing and as we transition in this world to much more technology, more people are going to have to follow the path that you did with multiple careers. We're going to have to retool ourselves. Lifelong learning is an absolute fact, a need, but it's tough, tough sledding. So it's, it's all over. Let me let me focus a little bit on the time that you worked with John Akers, a really talented guy who, I think, saved IBM, amongst others. What was your experience working with him?
Speaker 2:Well, I worked for Bob Labonte, who, who was president of the US. He reported to John Okay, sorry, yeah, and you know I spent a lot of time in the chairman's office because you know that relationship. I would argue that John was a tremendous sales leader. The challenge, in my opinion, and lots of us, is IBM, at the end of the day, was much more a manufacturing company, you know, and the large iron that it made was the backbone of IT for many, many years. And the debate that occurred were we going to be, you know, the low-cost manufacturer because of our balance sheet and our costs, or were we going to be we really didn't see the software revolution and the application revolution and the PC revolution and the handheld device coming and I mean, there's certainly brilliant scientists there that did. But you know, from my perspective, limited as it may be, those of us in the field saw what customers wanted and they wanted application solutions. They wanted, you know things going and you know one of the things you learn when you go to school in this field is Moore's Law, that every four years it's going to shrink in size and it's going to be a fourth as expensive technology. And so if you want to be the low cost manufacturer. At some point that rule kicks in and you know margins and everything else shrink and the real gold is in the software and the telecommunications and the interconnectivity.
Speaker 2:My specialty as an SE was communications and you know I switched to sales and it was almost unfair because you know I could understand what would work and what wouldn't work. But you know the real gift was, you know, talk to the customers and you know I, you know you learn in a hurry that if you can, you know, find the pain and fix it with a customer, you can go a long way. And if you can, you know my favorite question was tell me how you make money. And sometimes it'd be as a business, sometimes it'd be as an individual. And you know they said, well, ok, let's, let's go to work on those things. And I have some fun examples of those. But I'm not sure you know I've seen this with a lot of big companies where they start to believe their own stuff.
Speaker 2:And you know, business evolves, it's, it's evolutionary and there's always new developments, new technologies, I, I, I learned very early on that you got to practice radar, practice radar, and what I mean by that is you've got to look at? Are there opportunities or threats that are coming at you and what are you going to do with them? Are you going to take advantage? Are you going to hunker down? Are you going to be an early adapter?
Speaker 2:It's like when I sold the rental company, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that United Rental and Sunbelt and those guys were going to dominate the market because of their public size, public funding. They could buy 3,000 AWPs area work platforms when I was buying 200. And rental rate was a function of acquisition cost and so I could lose money and they'd be making money on the same price. So we got out of that business. We didn't want to go public, we didn't want to go big and I just think there's a million of those kind of decisions every day in business that you got to have the chutzpah to move on and if you don't move on, you get caught. I think on a much larger scale. That's what happened to Big Blue. Now Sam Pomizano, very good friend of mine, was AA in the office, became chairman and I give Gershner great credit that he moved us into a software services business. I don't know that I mean you know, IBM's got a lot of money.
Speaker 2:It'll take them a long time, but you know we're back into software, we're back into solutions providing and outsourcing. But Microsoft, amazon, google, you know you can argue, even now some of the chip manufacturers, you know that are, you know, blowing it out. That could have been the world if they had been willing to risk and be innovative. Still a great company. Still a great company, but not what it could have been.
Speaker 1:That's what I wanted to hear about John Akers, I'm going to say he was the last peddler in IBM's history and Gerstner, I believe, saved the company on getting close to the customers again. Isn't the story that his first meeting with his team he asked for their largest customers and they couldn't tell him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't in that meeting. There's a lot of debate. All I know is he fired the two sales leaders. It was my old boss and you know he was take-no-prisoners kind of guy. Yeah, exactly, the company was in real trouble and it needed to have some massive surgery. I respect him a lot for taking it on.
Speaker 2:My sad part is if, look, you've got to listen to your customers, you've got to listen to your customers, you've got to listen to the people on the front line and I don't think we did a very good job of that, because there were a lot of us who saw what was coming and it got hung up in large company politics and doing this and protocol. You know my theory of muddy boots. You go into the field, you get your feet dirty, you ask two questions how are we doing? What can we do better? And you shut up and you listen and I think any business, any leader, needs to practice. You know nothing like firsthand customer feedback. Anytime I work with the board, I ask the CEO. I said, okay, who are your five calls this month? You know, go see a big customer, go see a customer you don't have and go see a small one. And you know, stay fresh.
Speaker 1:You know, what I believe is those who are closest to the customer will win, and it's all about the needs and wants of the customer. It's all about the relationship that is built by the person who deals with the customer, whether that's a salesman or an SE or whoever. And we get caught up in our own egos. And we get caught up in our own egos and we don't believe that there's much that we can learn from the outside world, which is the biggest trap. If you don't have an open mind, you're crazy. David Jensen, who's a contributor of ours, was the HR executive for Sarah Lee and he's built what is called a tabletop exercise for us. It's part of leadership evaluation. Whether you're open-minded or closed-minded on anything. Yeah, and how the heck can you be a leader if you're closed-minded about anything at any time?
Speaker 2:And how the heck can you be a leader if you're closed-minded about anything at any time? Well, you know, look, my lifelong philosophy has been the better the talent, the better the impact, the better the income. And so my view of a leader is to be the curator of talent, curator of strategy, and to do that as a team sport. You know, this idea of you know, the mythological leader, you know, saved the day. Business is way too complex and you know, my goal was always to try and be the dumbest guy in an organization. My wife would always tell me I succeeded way early. But it's, you know, you think about it. I mean, you just, you really need to build a team, turn them loose and give them, you know, some bandwidth and give them some guardrails, and, you know, good things will happen.
Speaker 2:Some of these young kids that are coming out of school right now, or with five or six years experience, it's extraordinary what they know how to do and, frankly, we don't, you know, I think there's an obligation to let them get experience, let them get exposure. But, christ, you know, the energy level that these kids have right now, you know, is phenomenal, and they, you know, all they want is a little respect and the opportunity to learn and, you know, an opportunity to be rewarded if they hit a home run and, you know, get credit for it. I mean, it's not that complicated talent that it's. You know, it's not a skill we're necessarily taught. And how to recruit, how to manage, how to coach. You know, god, I would have killed for when I was a marketing manager in Pittsburgh to know what I know now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would kill, yeah, but you know I say the transition from doer to leader is the most difficult in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's kind of that's what got IBM in trouble. We promoted all the good sales guys. Yep, we should let the good sales guys to be salesmen, and if they wanted to move up, fine. But you know, let's look for best talent be salesmen. And if they wanted to move up, fine. But you know, let's look for best talent across the spectrum. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my statement is tell me how many superstars made good coaches? Yeah, and there aren't many. I use the example of Bill Russell all the time. But the other thing is the other parallel I draw is the conductor of an orchestra is the only musician that has his back to the audience, to the customer, and his success or her success that's an interesting point too. There's very few female orchestra conductors, but that's another subject. Yeah, conductor's, but that's another subject. Yeah, but their success is predicated on how good that team of musicians in front of them is, and every one of the section leaders is. You know strings and horns, etc. Yeah, they're brilliant, but if they aren't, you're done.
Speaker 1:I, I traveled across the country, just as a quick side, with Frank Sinatra's business agent. That would be interesting. Yeah, it sure was. It was five, six hours. I was fascinated and we lived in Palm Springs, which is where Sinatra was living at the time and there's all kinds of crazy stories about him. But his agent said to me he could stand at the side of an orchestra and tell you which instrument was out of tune. So his craft was having that tone, that ear. That was untouchable. Now, whether you like him or not is a separate deal. But the other thing, like you say, going back, that I would kill every step along the way. Every year that goes by. If we're not learning something, we're dying.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean it's well.
Speaker 2:I also think, just you know, staying active is just vital. I mean, I, you know I will work till the day I can, and you know, and work is loosely defined, but it's, you know, might be volunteering, it might be volunteering, it might be doing whatever, but it's sitting around and you just can't play that much golf. You might be able to fish that much, but that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I say you have to retire to something, not from something. Yeah, I agree, you find something that gives you. If you still get excited, if you still got the creative juices and you still can contribute and you're healthy, why not keep going? Age is just a number, for goodness sake.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and that's where I think board service and outside board service is is such a field that you know, I think more businesses really need to evaluate. I mean, people get as afraid of outside directors and uh, you know, I just sent you the article on fiduciaries. I mean it's it's really important to have outside directors in a business and it's it. The optics are are are good, getting advice is good, having somebody who cares about you and the business and is willing to speak truth to you. You know they don't have to have Sunday dinner with you. That's the great value of an outside director, Yep.
Speaker 1:The other thing, though, is it continues to give you again. You have to be open-minded to different perspectives. Yep, and you know the energy of the younger people. It's not just their energy, their intelligence, the level of utilization that they have of their brain power, their scope is so much let me call it better, different words I can use than you and I had. You know, I was in school in the 60s, you were in school in the 70s, and just that 10-year difference was remarkable. Think about the fact that communications was your specialty as an SE, and you transitioned that into MCI.
Speaker 2:You know Well yeah, Well, one was well, one was data, one was dial time. Well, actually they were both data. But no, my big claim to France is I still get nine bucks a year from the government for my compression bandwidth check bit Me and a fellow guy, we got down, we had a customer and in those days, data you know it was dirty. I mean, the line was dirty, and so you had to punch through what they call check bits on it and we figured out an algorithm that was a hell of a lot more efficient. And so if the algorithm was sent at the start and at the end and they matched, you would make the assumption that what was transmitted was fine, and if it didn't, you resent it, and so the efficiency of that was good.
Speaker 2:And there was a lot of struggle to figure out the right algorithm that would give you a true pattern. And we sat down one night Back in the days, we had a six-pack, probably, and we figured it out, and that now is used in two satellites that are still up in orbit. And again, we get nine bucks a year. That's our deal. I refuse to cash them just to piss the government off.
Speaker 1:Well, it's also interesting that you and I grew up in a bit world, a zero one, and now we're in a qubit world, which is something else.
Speaker 2:Well, I just look at the macro language translators and the artificial intelligence and you know, I just you know my wildest dreams. Yeah, it's a whole different discussion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is, and it brings you back. People are what are going to make this, and we need to have people and thank you for doing this that are willing to share their wisdom and I sincerely call it wisdom. People that are thought leaders A perspective that's different. People that are experienced They've got scars. People that are prepared to take risks. They're reformers, and risk-taking is something that we get smacked up the side of the head for.
Speaker 2:Well, and we also got to remember the other side of that is to be really good listeners. And the older I get, the more I realize the importance that. You know there's a lot of new dogs in town and you know you just need to. You know I think curiosity is one of the great traits. It is you know just kind of well how does that work and why do you do it that way, and you know, and just you know, kind of looking beyond the obvious. You know I have a story I tell. You know we talk about finding the customer's pain and fixing it. I had a young salesman. We walked into a warehouse and I walk in with him.
Speaker 2:I'm you know running modern at the time and all the forks on the, on the forklifts are bent, some of the overhead guards are bent, there's like broken shit in the corner and I'm kind of looking at the rack and there's not too many corners that have been made clean. And so we go into the offices. The guy was with a competitor. We were trying to, you know, get introduced. He brought me thinking that would help. And so we sit down, we go through president's days and I said do you mind if I ask you a question? And he said no, sure, fine. He says how's your workers comp? And he turns white. And I said he said why do you ask? He says, well, I'm willing to bet your mod rate's way over one and you're probably getting hammered as a matter of fact. That's accurate. I'm not too happy, but what's that got to do with you guys? I said suppose we could address that. He said what do you mean? He says well, I'm getting that most of your workers' compacts are guys running into things, breaking things, getting injured, cleaning up. And the guy said well, yeah, I said so what if we put telemetry on the truck that measured G-forces and would shut them down over a certain limit and wouldn't start unless you went through a safety check and the seatbelt was on and all that good stuff. And the guy says you can do that. And I said, yeah, we could do that. And the guy says you can do that. And I said, yeah, we could do that. And he said, well, you know, I've got these trucks that are competitive. I said, well, why don't you let me put them on the trucks? Here's what it'll cost and I'm willing to bet. Six months later you and I will be able to talk. We put the telemetry on. You know it's the G-force measure, it's standard in the industry.
Speaker 2:Now, this was in the early days and, to make a long story short, when the time came to renew the fleet, the guy calls me up and says send your salesman over. Salesman goes over and I said what are you looking for? He gave me the number. The salesman went over, gave him a quote. The guy didn't ask about price. He did not ask about price and I I use that story all the time to say find the customers pain and fix it.
Speaker 2:And the young salesman said how did you know? I said, well, you're in the industry. What were you looking at? I said you gotta, you gotta know your territory, know if you ever go deer hunting, you know you don't sit in any tree in the tree stand. You look for the trail to where the deer have been going by. The same thing, and I had more fun coaching that young man than anything I've done in a long time. And you see, I think that's the joy of being in management and being a leader, is taking these young pups and, you know, showing an interest in them. Seeing that, I get great joy in seeing them succeed. And, by the way, that was his sale, not mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other part of what you did was you with experience, and this is an unusual combination. You with experience and this is an unusual combination had fresh eyes when you walked into that building. You were looking at it with fresh eyes and you saw that.
Speaker 2:I was looking at it with trained eyes and my point is that's what I was trying to teach salesmen, exactly, exactly. And I see that all the time now and I'm saying look, you know, ask the question. You know how do you make money, what's your bonus based on, what's pounding you? And then you know, rather than going in with read speeds and feeds, as the old IBMers would say, um, figure out what in your product line can, can help this guy or somebody you know can help them. Um, you know partnerships go a long way to, you know, can help them. You know partnerships go a long way to, you know to to having a relationship. But this has been really fun, ron, thanks.
Speaker 1:And and and thank you, and I. I just want to make a couple of other small observations and then we'll we'll wrap this. I think it was 1977, I went into a Kodak distribution center in Zurich Excuse me, stuttgart and when we walked in it was the main distribution center for all of Europe for film, for cameras, for everything. When we walked into the distribution center the lights went on. It was completely automated, everything driven by the computer. And your comment about telemetry.
Speaker 1:I remember going to a distribution center again, or warehouse, whatever you want to call these things, in Chicago, and I was designing warehouses in those days and the people that were picking and processing orders were given a day's worth of labor when they arrived. And I was working at a Caterpillar dealer and we would give an order to an order picker as it came off the printer. Whether it was one item or 20 items, it didn't matter a damn. And what we did is we went back and we batched the orders together because we recognized there was different priorities for different orders. And people still don't do that. So the counter guy, the field service guy, those are my high priorities, and again it's experienced fresh eyes, but being prepared to take a risk and being prepared to fail, and failure is what where we learn the lessons. So I I really appreciate the time, david, and I appreciate the audience, and I hope that everybody who started with us is still with us and that you've got a lot to think about.
Speaker 2:They're probably asleep, but that's okay To all the guys traveling along here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you very much for this time and to everybody listening, a big mahalo from Hawaii and I look forward to having you with another.
