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
Old Tools, New Minds
Two veterans compare notes across decades and land on a surprising culprit: speed. We’ve made decks faster, calls shorter, and data denser—yet clear thinking, discovery, and trust are harder to find. So we unpack how to win in a world that moves this quickly without letting the work get shallow.
We start with an honest look at craft. Flip charts forced logic; slides can hide it. That same trade-off shows up in sales. Features and price feel efficient, but real results come from visiting the operation, learning how money is made, and fixing pain the customer actually feels. We share field-tested rituals—loss reviews, win reviews, and customer councils—that reveal blind spots and shape offers that stick. There’s smart tech here too: AI models that predict companion parts and boost helpful upsells, but only because they’re tied to domain knowledge and genuine curiosity.
Culture becomes the engine. People do their best work when they’re known and safe to speak up. We talk about simple moves that change everything: time blocking that protects “think time,” a monthly “three-to-five fixes” habit anyone can own, and playful recognition that makes excellence visible. An ownership mindset—like an ESOP—teaches cause and effect, rewards small wins, and turns visibility tools from “surveillance” into shared gains. We also call out a quiet gap: parts, service, and sales management lack practical certification, so many learn to survive the job without ever learning the job. Internships, co-ops, and rotational training rebuild the bench and speed trust.
AI threads the conversation with nuance. Adoption is lower than the headlines suggest, and that’s normal; every breakthrough needs process change to matter. We argue for foundations first—teach measurement before automating it, teach thinking before prompting—and for using AI to buy back time you reinvest in relationships, strategy, and craft. The constant through every story is simple: reduce pain, earn trust, and create space to think. Do that, and the tools amplify you. Skip it, and the tools just make bad habits faster.
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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.
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation. This morning we're joined with one of my favorite wisdom sharers, David Griffith from the cold shores of Florida. He escaped the Northeast to get to Florida and found it was in his 20s. Is that true, David, that it was 20-something when you got there?
SPEAKER_01:We landed, it was 27. The iguanas were giving up the ghost, and uh they're telling me we've been down here for a week, and uh I think you know I never thought 57 would feel this good. So uh that that is not in the background. That is not uh that is not the uh Florida coast. But that that looks like the Hubbard Glacier. It's the glaciers from uh New Zealand.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, yeah. David and I wander all over the place. We're we're kind of kindred souls, we're we're similar. I'm not gonna say octogenarians, but I'm gonna say people that are uh eight times uh ten or seven to the tenth power or something of that nature. Yeah, you're close. Yeah, that's that's true. And uh I thought we start with uh just a discussion about the time when we started to now. Uh uh what are some of the biggest changes that we've seen, good or bad, and just talk about it. Uh uh and after we've gone through that uh list, move to something that worries the hell out of everybody today artificial intelligence. Uh and try and dispel some of that uh myth. But more importantly, how technology is affecting us. So that's kind of the way that David and I chatted before we started. What would you say, David, is the biggest change since you arrived, good or bad?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you know, it's when you asked the question, I was flipping through my brain. And I'm I'm gonna go back to my first job when I was a uh trainee for IBM. And we had to give presentations. And those of us who are old enough remember you did flip charts. You you you had you know the big flip chart paper and you planned your presentation, and then you uh, you know, your skill as a uh magical marker writer was severely tested. But um, you know, it forced you to put together a logical presentation. And fast forward now, um, you know, we go to PowerPoints, we go to uh Zoom, we go to actually AI taking a subject matter and creating charts, and then we edit. And, you know, I think somewhere along the line we lose something because if you made a mistake on the flip chart, it was a pain in the tail to correct. And if it was a, you know, you would take, you know, you might throw the whole thing out and redo it. But it forced you to think through the logic of the presentation and um where were you going to go? Whereas PowerPoint now, you you can get that done so freaking fast. I sometimes wonder if we lose something in the thought process. But that that would be one that would jump out to me. I'm doing a PowerPoint pitch for the church uh next week. You know, and I was just it kind of dawns on me, you know, how quickly I pulled that together. And then I send it around for edits and got all kinds of feedback, and I send it around again for edits. Um so that that's that's a simple one that I would just pick, you know, how we present our case in in uh to clients, to to people in general, and um, you know, what we're doing right here. I'm I'm sitting in Florida, you're you're out on the islands out there, you know. You know, that that wasn't around at all. How many times do we get on a plane to go see somebody for an hour? I mean, um, and and everybody's gonna have that same answer, but those are two that jump in mind real quick.
SPEAKER_00:I I think you you make a wonderful point. Because it's so fast today and so easy today, Gemini co-pilot, chat GPT. You get an idea, you you start talking to the computer, it recognizes your voice, and then they pick it up and spit it back to you. And we don't really, and and I love your point, we don't really think through the whole thing, do we? We we're we've gotten kind of lazy in our minds intellectually.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, think about the sales call. And um, you know, the the great art of the sales call is to find the customer's pain and fix it. And you know, a lot of times, you know, I would not even open the flip chart or the the laptop and and really just engage the customer in a discussion, um, you know, or clients or friends, even, because a lot of customers became friends. And you know, my rule of of selling was always, you know, find the pain and fix it, whether you had the product or you knew how to fix it. And I just think, you know, what I worry about, and I see in a lot of Salesforce now, is just you know, thinking through the sales strategy, thinking through the product strategy, thinking where the customer's pain is. Um, we used to call it reads, speeds, and feeds, and we thought, you know, a lot of mistakes were were made. Well, you know, let me come in and start telling you what I got to sell versus what you need. Um, and I don't know if PowerPoint, I you know, I think PowerPoint is terrific, don't get me wrong. I mean, it's uh it certainly has saved the paper industry, but you know, it's uh it's it's just I I think we've lost think time.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things I I agree with that, one of the things that jumps into my head is have you worked with Japanese companies much? Uh yeah, for for a little bit, yeah. They have a PowerPoint and they'll put everything on one slide. And it's like there's a gajillion things on that slide, and they draw arrows up there talking back and forth, and and they they don't know how to present a damn thing. One you you and I talked about this one of the times we did before, and and the line that I remember you giving me is that we're we're um we're spending our grandchildren's legacy today. I I call it we're putting profit ahead of people. Grandchildren ahead of greed.
SPEAKER_01:And or greed ahead of grandchildren, rather. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, my my my when I was running the academy of that where I was working at the Academy of Natural Sciences, was you know, we're you know, yeah, grandchildren over greed ought to be what we're thinking about.
SPEAKER_00:It it sure would be. And then we're like you say, we're not thinking like we used to. We don't have that uh time. And and the argument I did I've done many chats like this is you know, and the argument that always comes back to me is we don't have time. And and I wonder why we're so uh fixated on fixing the problem today, the problem now, rather than finding a solution so that problem never comes back.
SPEAKER_01:Well, are you fixed? Yeah, are you fixing a symptom or are you fixing the cause?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that that's the other thing, but then we also, from a management leadership perspective, you're you're famous for going around and asking how everybody is and and getting to know people and building a culture. And and Patrick Lencioni's first book was The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, and Employees Feel Anonymous. Nobody knows who they are, they don't know if they're married, have children, sickness, parents, whatever. And I believe that's kind of true. And Muddy Boots, your your blog aims at that. You you went out to stores and talked to people.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I think you know, you go out into the field and you ask two questions. Um how how are you doing? How are we doing? And then the question of what can we do better. I I I you know it's Ron, it's it's evolved over time, but you know, my philosophy of of selling and marketing is that look, I'm I'm never going to be low price, but I'm always going to be low cost. And and what I mean by that is if yes, we have products, yes, we have services, but if we can help you move your business forward and solve your pain, your problems, then um we will lower your cost. And at the end of the day, you know, you're gonna have two identical products. But if one is helping you think through a strategy in your business or solve problems in your business and how to use the tool or how to use the product, um and again, it depends on the products. I mean, let's let's let's be very precise on that. But I think a lot of the value for an organization is the skill and the know-how, how to use the products you sell uh in the most effective and efficient way. And sometimes it has nothing to do with the product, but you have domain knowledge or expertise access that you guys say, hey, I know a guy. Let me bring him in. It's like I'm bringing an um AI specialist right now to companies and saying, I know what you think it is. I want you to listen to this guy and realize where the future is. Um and you know, and light bulbs are going off. But you know, the whole point of being in business is to lower your customers' pain and help them be successful. And if you take that approach, they're going to do business with you all day long. And frankly, I don't think that has changed since you and I started to today. I think that is a constant rule for success in the marketplace. You know, understand where the pain is and let's go fix it. And by the way, I got some products that you buy that'll help do it. It's a whole different way of thinking about selling versus, hey, I got a copier, it does 800 pages per second. You know, this much ink is going to save you electricity, and how many do you want? Oh, you already have 45 copiers, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, you know, it's it's I I I couldn't agree with you more, but what I will say is people don't do that anymore. Very few salesmen do that anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I it that's true. And you think about it, you know, how do we engage a customer these days? You know, that what we're doing right now is often the interface that we have versus that personal relationship of you know, sitting in a conference room and getting to know each other and and talking things through. Um, but the real issue of the sales is let me come visit your operation. Talk to me about what you do. You know, how do you make money? You know, it's uh, you know, what's what's what's the firm's goal? And if you understand that, and then you can design or figure out your product set and skills where that helps that, that sale becomes a hell of a lot easier. And I I still think there's people out there that do that really well. Oh, I but it's a it's it's a lost art.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, a good salesman doesn't sell a damn thing the customer buys. Because the customer I I used a guy would call me up. This is years ago. I got a problem, Ron. I said, What's the problem? They would tell me. And I'd say, Okay, you don't have a problem anymore. He said, Yeah, I got a problem. I said, No, no, it's mine. Let me let me work on it, I'll be back to you. And they'd hang up the phone. And they they trusted me. But you have to earn that trust. You you you gotta earn respect. You don't necessarily get what you deserve. You you get what you earn.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and and again, and you know, we're talking about when we started and and now, and I just think that you know, there's certain fundamentals that don't change. And I just really think, you know, the ability to solve a client's problems and and and lower paying is I'm not sure technology helps or hurts that. I mean, it really, you know, I go back to the flip chart example. Are you taking the time to really think through, you know, a strategy to engage with a customer, a how you build relationships, how you build trust. Um, you know, what I worry about is in this online marketplace, everything, you know, you see feature, function, and price. And and in nowhere, when you kind of go through this, is well, here's the best way to use the product, or here are the applications, or, you know, these these are what we're design, or by the way, we're open to uh, you know, your suggestions. I I love running, I'm doing a lot of consulting these days, and uh I'm working with a um how do I describe it? They're really a uh a rental development shop and strategic planning shop. And they were really having trouble going the market and thinking about things. I said, okay, we're gonna do a customer council. And we brought in eight customers, a couple other good ones, a couple ones in the middle, and I got two to come that they weren't doing business with. And um, and we just started talking about you know, the whole marketplace of um fundraising. These were all nonprofits. And uh, you know, where where is your pain point? Where are your challenges? And what emerged out of that was um uh a really wonderful need statement. Like, well, you know, I can't afford four people in my advancement department. You know, I can only go after the big grants, not the little ones. Um there were there was just, you know, and feedback about where to go. And then the customers that were doing business with us started talking about where the company, you know, had some abilities for some things they'd like to see tweaked. And maybe we spent three, three and a half hours. I know we went through a hell of a lot of puffy. And um it was just this great discussion. And then at the end, I said, okay, now you got eight people you got to go back to and engage. And we locked down all eight customers or grew each customer because they had told us what they wanted and where they were struggling. So then if we're gonna go design a new product or a new offering or a new hire, it allowed us to do so with a level of intelligence. And, you know, this is where market research, I think it's been going on as long as you and I have been around and way longer than that. I don't think we we really listen to customers because of all this online stuff and discussion. Um you know, I I read a lot of bland stuff out there. And you know, I go I I go on LinkedIn and I see the articles or I see this or that, and I'm going, Jesus, this hasn't even been written by a human. Um things I think.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it it's I have a little exercise that I've been using for 30 years as a consultant called needs and wants. And we'd have the department people one night for an hour and a half sit in a room, we bring in pizza, and okay, folks, what do you think the customer needs and wants from us? And whatever they spit out, I put up on a flip chart. I'm not gonna use a a tablet or a computer at that point, but I'm gonna put it up so they can see this whole thing all evolving. And I don't edit it, I just put them up there. And after about an hour or a hundred items, whichever happens first, I say, okay, fine, let's consolidate these things. Which of these are similar? And we end up with a list of ten. I said, Okay, fine, that's the top ten. What's number one? And we rank them all the way down. Kill the meeting, it's over. Thanks very much. The next month I bring in customers, six to eight of them, just like what you did. The employees are sitting in front of the six or eight customers, they're a panel I'm moderating. I ask them the same question. What do you guys need and want from this company? And they are a little shy, but they get over it because I'm a bit of a jerk and I can get people talking, and I start writing them down. And we go through the whole thing, and then I rank them, and we end up with the top ten. And everybody, the cut, you all agree with that? Yep, that's terrific. Thanks very much. The following month, I bring them all back. I got the two lists of ten. I say, okay, congratulations. Which ones are identical? And we put those to the side. I'm not worried about those anymore. Which ones are on their list that aren't our nearest? What's going on? How come you didn't know that? What's on your list that they weren't interested in? Why do you do that? We do a lot of stuff because we've done it forever without re-evaluating whether it's necessary or not. And the interesting thing, and you bring up a wonderful point, here comes the internet today. And almost everybody has access, every customer has access to a dealer portal where they can go check a parts availability, check a parts price, they can check server stuff, all kinds of magic. And so I got a guy last night, he looks at our site, he's a contractor, small guy, he does his own buying, he does that after he's done a full day's work and had dinner, put his family to bed. He checks the part number, we got it, checks the price, he got it. Didn't place an order.
SPEAKER_01:The next morning, nobody does anything. Hey, Ron, hang on one sec. Do you want me to go with you at four? Okay. Sorry. The boss just walked in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no problem. So tomorrow morning, I want somebody from the parts department to call to call you up and say, hey Dave, I noticed last night you were looking at our website and you checked the part number. Yeah, you found out we have it, and yeah, we you you checked it. Tell me, did you buy it? I didn't see a place in order. And they said, Yeah, I did. Well, you didn't buy it from us. Do you mind ask telling me who you bought it from? And they tell me. I said, Well, okay, that's good. What do you particularly like about doing business with them? And they tell me we don't do any of that. Or let change that. Very few people do any of that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and and you know, here's uh no, it's exactly right. And it's just, you know, no, we have win reviews, we have loss reviews in the old days, and um, you know, it was uh a pretty pretty formal process. And the the thing that I you know, you talk about the parts business. My son runs the online parts business back uh back at Modern. And uh, you know, he's he's built an AI model now that you know they've that the team built and helped, and we're using it. And so if a customer calls up and wants this part, rather than searching through all the parts catalog, it immediately gives him all the likely parts that that guy's gonna need if he's doing doing this. So the upsell opportunity is huge. And the opportunity to say, hey, look, you know, you know, you decide what you want to do, but this is what people typically will order with this part and why. You know, you're gonna rip out the gaskets, you've got to put new ones in. Oh, yeah, okay, add that. And you know, I I marvel at at uh that's where you know you would kill for technology. But it's uh you're raised an interesting point because the you know I it's the human thinking and problem solving with domain knowledge that you know maybe AI is gonna get there, maybe not. I I just um you know, and then where's the accountability?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's the other problem that that's going to get really, really interesting. Well, AI told me to do this. Well, I'm except I'm hiring you to do it.
SPEAKER_00:You know, well, you you mentioned AI and and your son, and not to take anything away from that, but I was using Bill and the In the 70s for repairs. So a guy comes in, he wants his turbocharger changed, fixed. Here's the list of parts that go in that turbocharger. Here's the frequency of use for every single one of those things. Today we've got life cycle management statistics coming out the wazoo. Hardly anybody ever uses those. Your son's an aberration. He's far and far ahead of because he's thinking. Well, you know, he he's motivated, let's put it that way. Yeah, well, you know, the the one of the books, and and you've heard me talk about this, is indistractable. And it deals with setting your your day up with blocks of time rather than to-do lists. And it it's been a wonderful help for me because it took all the stress away from what I I do. But almost invariably, to anybody I talk with, their biggest enemy is time, they don't have enough time. And so I asked them, you know, what are you doing? So somebody would come to my office, and I used to use this example in a service management class all the time. Somebody comes to your office door, Mr. Service Manager, and wants to ask you a question. What do you do? Well, I give them an answer. Really? Why? Well, he came to me for an answer. So he can park his brains at the door, and you're gonna answer all his questions. Is that what you're saying? No. Well, how do you force him to come to it with a solution? Why don't you ask him what do you think you should do? Well, that takes too much time. I don't have time. Oh, really? So you're gonna continue to do this forever? You know, it's it's ludicrous. And and that's an answer in the parts management job, too. George, I can't get this part. Where where have you looked? It it it's it's simple stuff, David.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's the common sense. And you know, my fear is that these systems, you know, the the real art in these systems is going to be to train them and move that domain knowledge and that interest, and then one would hope would free up your time for think time, customer interaction, thinking about what's the next campaign, what's the next deal that we want to run? Um, and you know, what I worry about is that we're gonna double the speed of transaction, but we're not gonna double the speed uh the availability think time. And and to, you know, what you want is everybody looking at the big picture and saying, is there a better way? Is there an opportunity that just blew by here that we want to grab hold of? And you know, I think the other side of that is giving people permission to do that and and and pushing down, you know, one of the great values of, you know, we we, as you know, Ron, we're 100% Aesop now. So every employee at Modern is an owner. And congratulations, that's a heck of accomplishment. Well, and and you know, it's been okay, it's coming up on 20 years. And what what we've had a chance to see in a major way is that everybody owns it and everybody understands what drives the share price. That's not an easy thing to get across, but every year we train, we talk. But you see people come up and saying, hey, you know, we could do this for safety. We could um, you know, could we look at these kind of things in the band that might save something? Um it's interesting, you know, we put cameras in all the bands, and um uh we were able to really, we had two or three folks who were causing us a lot of problems with speeding tickets and you know, rest of my stuff. And it goes on, but the one, the one that really cracked me up, you'll enjoy this given you know our history. We uh the the camera also monitors whether the engine's on or not. And we had a couple guys who literally they'd be at a job, and the the edge was never turned off. And we finally said, What are you doing? He says, Well, it's really hot out here. And when I get back in, I like the air conditioning to be running. And in the winter, they were running the heat. Now you can imagine the gas we were burning and the pollution and all that, but you know, we had got guys out on the road, and we said, Hey, you know, dude, you know, let's think about this. It, you know, it but it's, you know, as you well know, you make money by chipping away at the low-hanging fruit. And, you know, there's a case where technology gave us visibility and the guys, we why are you spying on me? I said, Well, why are you running gas the whole time? It wasn't me, it was the guys who are running the business now, but they tell me that story. And, you know, I I think there's opportunities with technology and monitoring and and just self-awareness, you know, and training people that, you know, um, that's why I love, you know, I always loved, you know, if we did well, everybody did well. Yeah. Um, and and so, you know, there was a built-in incentive model that that people would pay attention to the little stuff, yeah, which adds up to be big stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I that's another exercise I've had for years, either three or five things, and once a month I want you to give me a list of three or five things that are going to make your job easier, make the company more money, save the company mu save the company money, or eliminate something. And every month I would get it from everybody and we'd sit down and talk about it. And if it was a good idea, said, okay, fine, it's your idea, go make it happen. So, you know, they've people are afraid to stick their head up for fear they're going to embarrass themselves. And I want to cry and create an environment where you can say whatever you want, whenever you want to me about anything you want, without fear.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you knew my expression of that one is make it safe to name the elephant. And and especially if you're the elephant. Precisely. Yeah. And uh, we I think we've talked about this before. We literally had little stuffed elephants around, and they were in the conference room. If you grabbed the elephant, people knew that you had something to say. And I made damn sure, I have holes in my tongue on this one, that you were safe. And um, and it uh it it really was an interesting culture change, but you know the worst thing you can do is overreact to something. But you know, that's interesting, used to be you know, one of my favorite phrases. Then I had to think about it. But I love people on people on the ground, you know, know it, but it's uh and that's a cultural bias, and that's not going to come from technology.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no, no, no, not at all. We at Finning, you you bring up a memory. We used to give trophies out once a quarter, and there were three trophies. One had a dollar sign on the top of it, one had an idea, like a light bulb on the top of it, and one had a horse's ass. And the managers all voted for for each other. Who's the guy that had the best idea? Who's the guy that made the most money, and who was the biggest pain in the ass to deal with? And we had a you know, it wasn't virtual in those days, but we had a meeting every quarter where everybody came together and we handed them out and made a big fuss about it, put pictures up, framed the pictures, gave it to them, and they hung them in the store. We did the same thing for in-store merchandising. Send me a picture of your shop. What do you got on the floor in the parts department? What in the service department? You selling hand gloves, pull them, come along, is all everything, anything. It's a retail store, damn it. Let's have some fun.
SPEAKER_01:And that's where the issue is how do you make it fun and how do you make it safe? Yep, safe is big. Yep, and and you know, everybody has options, and um, you know, you know, the other great lesson is people are just wired differently, thank God, because if we're all one type, we never could build a business. And um I I'll never forget we had a guy who worked in our parts counter for 30 years, and he he went to become manager of the parts department, but he knew parts inside and out. And I and I asked him, I said, why, you know, you bright guy. I said, why why here? He said, look, I I have a a secure job with good benefits, I I love what I do. Um, and you know, I, you know, is there stress? Yes, but for me, this is a job I can handle. And by the way, I coach in the evenings, I have, you know, my family, and you know, I I uh I'm money isn't the most important thing to me. And you know, he needed it to pay the bills, but I I it just struck me. Here's a guy who's got his shit together a hell of a lot better than I do, you know, when you think about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it's it's true. Different people have different views of work-life balance, and I I use that for expression just because that's the common one today. But it it um, you know, all the way through our lives we're taught to be obedient, to protect us when we're little, to learn how to do arithmetic in English, to learn how to do a job, and nobody really gives us permission to fail. And I want to give people the permission to make mistakes, to fail, without getting killed in return. Uh a little tidbit. I was working in the warehouse one day at Hewitt early in my career, so I got sweatpants and sweatshirt, and I'm dirty, covered with stuff, I'm moving things around. And uh, and the chairman of the company comes out, Bob Hewitt, and he was an elegant guy, about 6'3, 6'4. He's got a three-piece suit on. He puts his arm around my shoulders, he said, Ron, I'm really disappointed in you. And I looked up at him, and you know the kind of jerk I am. I said, Me too, Bob, what's your concern? And you could see his face just disappear. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. He said, When you're finished, come to my office. I want to talk to you. You know, silly, like, what are you gonna do? Shoot me? What's this? That's manipulation personified. I worked in a prison, I was taught how to manipulate people, believe me. But there's another other case, the son-in-law of the dealership. He was the vice president of product support, and I was a general parts manager. And I I went to him and I said, Look, I've only got a half day's work. I need you to give me more to do, otherwise, I'm gonna start going home at noon. And a couple weeks later, I went back and reminded him, and I said, Don't forget, you gotta give me more work. So the month end comes and goes, and the first day of the next month I could I leave at noon. Second day I leave at noon. Third day I leave at noon, but I'm left a note on my desk, come see me tomorrow. So I go to his office. He says, What are you doing? I said, I told you what I was doing. Well, you can't go home at noon. I told you I was gonna go home at noon. You didn't give me more work, so I went home at noon. What do you want me to do? Put my feet up and read a book? He said, You stay here all day, and he loaded me up. I did it to him again one more time. He said, Go away. You know, it's we we don't understand the capacity and the potential of somebody like that gentleman was perfectly happy, an expert in his field, he loved it, he did it well, he coached at night, he contributed to society, he had a happy family. Life is good, like you say, he has his stuff together better than you and I.
SPEAKER_01:And and and there's the challenge of management, because how do you hire a mix of that? And and how do you you know respect that so that everybody is valued and and the recognition that without people like that, the parts shop doesn't work, you know, without people who you know, everybody has uh you know a place and a gift and a and a role. And you know, the arrogant salesman used to drive me nuts. You know, come here, well, I'm the most important guy in the world. And I said, okay, nobody's gonna fix your truck. What's gonna happen? Well, or you know, and it's just you know, this this idea of respect for the team, you know, if there's not a quarterback alive that doesn't love his front line.
SPEAKER_00:And give them a hell of a reward at the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. I mean, it, you know, and and you know it's just I think there's you know, there's a lot to be learned in that lesson, you know. Um and it it's uh I'm always fascinated by the dynamics of the sports team, you know, and so that, you know, that and again, that's where this isolation in technology gives me pause. You know, it's it's the um I love the productivity. I love the fact that you and I can do this 15,000 miles apart or whatever the hell we are, probably 10,000. And you know, it's it's you know all to the good, but how do you maintain that human interaction, that relationship building, the the ability to assess and really evaluate a customer's needs or an employee's needs. And and to my mind, you can use technology, but then you got to be intentional with your time and say, hey, I want to, you know, I want to connect with you. Um, I uh we run a scholarship program, and you know, I I called the dad the other day and I said, Hey, you know, your daughter hasn't gotten it in. And he says, you know, thank you. I had no idea. And I said, Well, look, I mean, she's obviously really smart, um, given where she is, you know, I'd I'd love to see her compete. And um, you know, I probably got hell from the daughter, but I really didn't care because I wanted to make sure she, you know, she had the opportunity. But, you know, it's it's it's those kinds of things that build, you know, a family at work. And I I I just really think, and this is one of the reasons I love smaller businesses and you know, IBM, there's no way you could do it. But in a company of a hundred hundred people, you get to you get to know everybody if you're intentional about it. And to me, that's that's a pretty big lever that you can pull.
SPEAKER_00:Um how how do you know an employee is doing a good job?
SPEAKER_01:Um you know, it's um that's that's a a great question, Ron. And uh, you know, my you know, I'm gonna give you two answers.
SPEAKER_00:If if if it's hardly surprising, sir.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know, I know, but you know, if it's a mechanic, I'm gonna look at uh mechanics easy.
SPEAKER_00:Go into the office, take away, go away from the shop floor. I'm not gonna let you get the easy one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. Um well, there's still deadlines, there's still work parks, there's all that stuff. What I would tell you around is if um you're walking around, they look up and they smile and they're excited and they tell you something they're doing or they want to share something. Whereas the people who like, oh, here comes the boss, and I hope he's not walking into my cube. Um I and I think people, you know, if they're willing to engage, if if um I'm kind of thinking on the go here, that's a great question.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, people who, hey, let me show you what I'm doing. Let me let me uh um, you know, how's it going? And you don't get a pat answer. Um, I mean, that that would be, you know, just kind of my my experience. And um and and probably the other way now is do I know their story because they've shared it with me? I I think might be the way, you know, how's your son doing? You know, he was in the hospital, you know, how's he feeling? You know, um, yeah. Um yeah, every everybody's got something they're proud of, and and are you aware? You were president of Mejida too for a while, weren't you? One year, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I was on the board for a long time. Does Mejida have any help that they give for management certifications or oh yeah, no, no.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, most trade associations have all kinds of education concept. I was president Mejida in 05, so that's making me feel really freaking old.
SPEAKER_02:But uh don't do that, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00:What year did you start at IBM leaving? When you left school, you went right to IBM, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I I graduated in 76, and in August of that year I were I went to work for IBM.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so 1976. That puts you at the 50-year mark. You could. I started in 69. I started teaching in 65, so that's 60 years. Yeah. You you know, we want to talk about old stuff. I have part of learning without scars. We have a certification program we're we're trying to come up with. We have got and we start every management function in part service, selling, marketing, and customer service. You have 120 questions, multiple choice, and you get a score zero to forty percent, forty to sixty, sixty to eighty, eighty to a hundred. And they're not easy. So I take a guy who's worked the counter, I take a guy who's been a foreman on the floor, I take a guy who's done warranty, I take a product support sales manager, and I give them the test. Where do you think they score? What's your you know, guts say?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I the systems engineer me has got to ask a question. I mean, I don't know. Ask a question. What what are the nature of the questions? Okay, with the jobs, I think. I I'm gonna guess, depending, you know, the guys who have been there for a year.
SPEAKER_00:20 30 years.
SPEAKER_01:30 years. Okay, so a 30-year employee, it better be somewhere in the 70s.
SPEAKER_00:In the 50s is a high amorti. Yeah. And the reason is they don't know what the job is. They figured out how to do the job to survive, but that ain't the job. The customer walks into the counter, sits down with a salesperson to have a chat. He gets up and leaves, he didn't buy anything. The customer never calls back. That's part of the job. They never consider that. Making upbound phone calls. I used to stick a pick up the receiver at the counter, David, and put the receiver at the guy's ear. I say, What's that noise? And he looks at me like I'm crazy. It's the dial tone, because they never hear it. So I'm talking to two schools on Tuesday, I guess, Tuesday or Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and there is certification in the automotive industry, there is certification for nurses, for accountants, etc. etc. But there's no certification for parts management or service management or sales management.
SPEAKER_01:There's there's sales manager schools, but I often wonder what they're really. You see, my in my experience, the best salesmen often make the worst sales managers. No question. And the best and the and the best sales managers sometimes are salesmen who didn't do so well. And and I I think there's absolutely a linkage there.
SPEAKER_00:I I love your analogy to the sports industry because the superstars. Can you name one superstar who was a good coach? I can name one, and I love the guy. What are you thinking about?
SPEAKER_01:Bill Russell. Oh. I was thinking football. Yeah, no, that that is a good example.
SPEAKER_00:Only one year did he not win a national championship. University of of San Francisco, two years running, NCAA, every year at the Celtics, except the first year he was player coach. He didn't know how to do it. The second year he won it again. In football, I can't think of one. But your other analogy, the guy that's not the superstar, Scotty Bowman, great coach, yeah, was not a good player. No, Wayne Greske tried to coach, couldn't coach to save his life.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he couldn't. Teach what he did.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, it's it's yeah, it it sometimes and that gets back to uh different personality profiles on hiring. Jake Jay Lucas that did uh Jordan Sitter and I did one yesterday, a podcast. And he's a particularly talented guy. And I said, How do you know when you're you're giving a client somebody who fits their culture? He said, We don't. I said, Well, why don't you? He says, Because the company doesn't know their culture. And there's a critique that's interesting, isn't it? So at at Finning and at Hewitt in Canada, we used to hire somebody as a summer intern before they graduated, either undergraduate or master's. And at Finning, we always had the youngest manager lead them, and that was me in both cases. In Hewitt, it was much smaller, so we only had two or three people. But at Finning, we had 12 to 20 people. And I'd stick them on the warehouse floor for the first 30 days, and they're receiving parts, putting parts away, counting parts, picking parts, dirty, sweaty, hard work, and I'd lose about a third of them. Thank you very much. That's a qualifier. The rest of them, we bounced around through all the jobs, guaranteed them a job if they graduated, and came back and we gave them an 18-month training program, three months in every department. After that, they either got a small branch or a small sales territory. I got to finning in 1978. They've been doing that since 1965. Every parts manager, every service manager, every branch manager had come through the company that way. Can you imagine trying to break that culture apart?
SPEAKER_01:I I would think, I mean, that's just fundamental. You know, I am a huge fan of co-op education. I just sat down after uh, I guess eight years as being a trustee at Truxley University. They and uh Boston are two of the really strong co-op programs. And I had a student, excuse me, a faculty member. We were just talking about the attributes, and he said there's two great gifts in a co-op. One is if you know what you want to do and you go co-op and you discover that you hate it, you haven't spent four years get a job, and then you know, be well down the road before you realize that you it it's it's not a match, if you will. And the other side of it is if you do find you love it, you then tune your curriculum for the next two. Yeah, you you go, man, I'm going all in on this, but I I'm doing it with a passion because I've seen what, you know, I've seen the future and I like it. Um and and the the other one that I love is and we did this when I was running the nonprofit, is but interns who need a thousand hours of field work. And it it it was almost criminal. We would we would have eight or ten interns on and at the end of their their cycle. I would always hire two. And if if six had busted their butt, I would pick up the phone and and make sure my my my colleagues in the industry interviewed them. And I was committed to trying to help them get the job. And you know, when that word went out, boy, we got the best and the brightest. And it was uh it was almost illegal. I mean, we we got great, great talent.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think that's something else that companies fail miserably at. They don't provide mentors, they don't use interns enough, they don't develop a bench strength, they don't ask their employees to train, sit beside and help other people. And I think we could get a hell of a lot further with that. That's the greed over your grandchildren. You know, it's um make make everybody better. You know, I don't know if we've talked about this. I was a swimmer competitively as a kid, and the one of the best lessons I ever learned, and I was about 14, I think. I never lost a right side Canadian records for years. But I'd be sick leaving home, I'd be sick when I got to the pool, and if there was anything left before I went out to the blocks, I'd I'd be sick again. And it bothered me. I said, What the hell's the matter with you? Do you need to win that bad, or are you afraid to fail that bad? And I came to peace with it saying that if you take one to its extreme, you take your strongest attribute to its extreme, it's your biggest weakness. It's true in life. And uh when I came to that conclusion, the other thing that came to me is, well, the only person that you need to compete with in life is yourself, not anybody else. And that helped me in business. All I was never trying to get the job ahead of you or get the raise ahead of you. I just did my job. As a result of that, the company gave me all kinds of things to do that was fun. I got all the tough stuff. Go fix that. I love that stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I yeah, there's there's and I I 80% agree with that, but I also think sometimes you gotta compete to learn, if you will. Um, you know, you gotta you um and and compete's the wrong word, but shadow or partner.
SPEAKER_00:I I love observer. I love you, man. It's not a it's not a hundred percent. You need to you be need to be able to light a fire under somebody who could conceivably be complacent. Yep. And then you got the argument both were like the gentleman that has life that are better together better than you and I. Yeah. Half of them you have to leave alone because they got it figured out. The other half you got to help them get there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and that's and and that's really kind of my I mean, yeah. Me too. What I always prided myself on was the ability to see a spark in somebody and and really challenge them to light the fire, if you will, to totally butcher that analogy. But you know, I I I remember when I was running the nonprofit, I had somebody come in who wanted to volunteer. And um she was a rock star, but a new mom. And we we figured out how to make that work, and she wound up becoming my chief operating officer. And you know, it was just because oh my god, this is this person has got just enormous talent, but let's figure out how to solve her family need.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and we were able to work that out and turn this off. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, no, that's fine. The the you know, and and I use that's that's a great example on the on the flip side, too. My grandson is on the autism spectrum, and we know a hell of a lot more about it today than we did 40 years ago. And 40 years ago we would call it retarded, but he's a four-point student. He wanted to go into I think I might have told you this, wanted to do nuclear engineering and at Purdue it was$350,000. For me, when I went in the 1800s, it was you know two grand for four years. So we have in a department, well, we have 168-hour classes, so I've got about sixteen, eighteen hundred hours of learning. Ten hours of learning with us is an academic credit at any vocational community college, public, private university. So I've got about 180 credits that you can get. In other words, you can get a bachelor's degree from us or an associate's degree, and that's cool. Our classes are a hundred bucks. I'm dealing with a large school in Texas that has 700,000 students. Big well, it's a consolidation of schools in the Dallas Metroplex. Okay, so it's junior colleges, it's vocational, it's public, it's colleges, the whole thing. And I say, You're gonna be able, your students are gonna be able to get a degree for about$2,500,$3,500 from us. He said, Well, we we we we can't use you then. I said, Why not? He said, Well, that's a hell of a cheaper than what we're charging. I said, Okay, I'll tell you what, I'll charge you my price. You package it differently, and you charge whatever you want. He said, Oh, we could do that. And then I said to him, think about what you just said to me. And then the other thing that's interesting talking to the schools, this is kind of weird. I have to charge sales tax. There's no university in the country, no technical school in the country that charges sales tax. Why the hell, because I don't have a professor in front of a classroom, do I have to charge sales tax? There's a lot of weird things out there.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of life. Yeah, just go look at the tax code if you want to see. Don't don't start that's don't get me started. No hard. I mean I I well, and regulation and you know, all that stuff. I mean, there's well, anyway, that that that that gets across. Well, I think we've wandered all over the place here, Ron.
SPEAKER_00:Let me let me give you one last tidbit and then let's close this up. The job postings right now in the United States, a little over four percent of them mention our artificial intelligence. With all the hubbub and media and everything else you hear about artificial intelligence, everybody I mentioned that statistic to was published yesterday, is shocked.
SPEAKER_01:Are you I'm not at all, I'm surprised it's that low. I I actually think let me give you an analogy. Go back 1985, and somebody asks you, do you know Microsoft or do you know Apple? And you know, right now, if you don't know how to use a PC, you're a freaking dinosaur. And and you know, I I go back to uh you know when the first you know intelligent phones came out and um the ability to use Salesforce, for example, to to to be a deal. I mean, there's there's just some technologies that are going to become part of our infrastructure and our work tools. And and I think AI is still you know, I'm spending a lot of time in the AI space just trying to really understand the impact on early childhood learning and how do you get a child to learn rather than learn how to use AI to get an answer? And and there's a huge challenge in my mind, and that I'm working with some of the inner city schools and they're out of school time programs. And how do you, you know, I I want to teach you how to use a ruler before you use an electronic tool to measure. I want you to know what an inch is, what a foot is, what a yard is, a cubic foot. I have no trouble if you use the device to go, but I want you to understand the logic and back of it. And and I could give you that in multiple disciplines. And I think AI is going to become or is becoming um the tool. You know, um, I I I I I'm not shocked at that at all. The question is, I now the next question I'd ask is, well, what do you mean by AI?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's well that's what they just put it in perfunctually to make it attractive. And and it's much I'm surprised it's that high, to be honest. Really? Yeah, so here let me let me give you this. 1988, my standard or 1888, excuse me. The electric engine replaced the steam engine. It was cheaper, everybody did it. Nobody changed the process, method, procedure, anything for 20 years. There's a book called The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge. It takes a while for uh society, people to adapt to new technologies. You mentioned the computer, you mentioned the phone. I was trained, I had computer science as a minor, so I wired unit record equipment. I am a dinosaur.
SPEAKER_01:So in punch cards for coding.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, same, same, same here. So 1950, here comes the computer, and I'll go every 10 years, we can come up with a major disruptive change. 1950 computer, 1960 database, 1970 internet, all the way along. And the further we go, the further behind everybody gets because nobody's keeping up. I can't keep up. I ran software companies, I stopped trying to keep up.
SPEAKER_01:Well, but it but you know, look, you know, Moore's law, right? Yep. Four times the power at four times less price, and apparently 55 times electricity and heat. It's uh, you know, what I'm I'm waiting for all these guys building data centers and electrical grid, and then somebody's gonna come out with a low-powered chip, and and the model's gonna just change.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um you can put that in the file. I'm telling you, that's coming.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I agree. But here's another one that 50% of the electricity that's generated at the source is lost by the time it gets to the place that it's consumed. And nobody is looking at how we transmit electricity better. Well, and and part of that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and and in there lies the logic for solar wind and you know, short, short grid reach. But it's um no, that that to me is is is going to be uh, you know, the speed of that change and and how it gets used. And you know, I I want to I want to be the judge in court when he gets a brief that's done by AI. And and um, you know, there's there's some cases where AI is, you know, kind of killed the lawyer because it was wrong. But you know, think about the industries, you know, what's gonna happen in the legal industry when paralegals can do in a minute what used to be a hundred hours.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sitting with my doctor the other day, and I'm talking about the fact that I can't sleep well. He said your brain needs to have a rest at night, too. So don't be upset about that. It comes back just like your body. And we started talking about AI. He said, What's problematic about that is a lot of creative people, musicians, wake up in the middle of the night with music, they get up and they go write it up, and that becomes a hit song. How's AI gonna work with that? So there's all kinds of ramifications to this silly question, isn't it though? And that is a really yeah, and everything. So we better stop now because we can keep going forever. And you know, I I I don't want to say this to you, but it's at now, it's uh 10 o'clock in the morning and it's 78 degrees. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, it's uh 302 and it's 54. I love you, man.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm and I'm closer to the equator than you are. Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth? That's that's a shocking. I wonder what it's like in the Caribbean. Did it get down that far? I you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I've been um I again, we've we've just been kind of catching up on a lot of stuff this week. Well, look, I don't know who's going to benefit from this uh deal, but I I I gotta tell you, I have. I always enjoy matching notes with you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, one of the things that I try and do with all of these is provoke people to think. And we're we're getting a lot of hits, so I think some of it is resonating. Our podcasts are a little longer than most. Thank you for that. But it's the quality of the people that are in the conversation. I just asked the questions. No, Ron, it's it's the hairline and the beards. On that, I'm going to say thank you, Mahalo, my friend, and thank you to everybody who's listening today. And we look forward to you being with us at the next conversation. Mahalo. Thank you, David.
