Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's production workshop series. Today's workshop is Setting Expectations and Establishing Accountability. This workshop is sponsored by the Architectural Precast Committee. My name is Nicole Clow, Marketing Coordinator at PCI, and I will be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. All attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question, please type it into the questions pane. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Earlier today, we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. That handout for this webinar can also be found in the handout section of your webinar pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email pcimarketing at marketing at pci.org. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. PCI is a registered provider of AIA-CS, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEO. To start off the presentation, I would like to introduce Randy Wilson, Director of Architectural Precast Systems at PCI. Thank you, Nicole. As always, you did a fantastic job getting us started today. Mr. Scott Davis, our committee chair, is a new father. He had a baby, was born yesterday, so congratulations to Scott. He likes to introduce these being the chair of the committee, but I think he's got a lot bigger, better things to do than talk with us today. I don't feel slighted at all. Lee Baker is our committee vice chair. He's with Gate Precast. I don't think he had any kids this week, but he'll be at convention next week for our committee meeting. I want to welcome everybody to the Production Management Workshop. This series is through the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee. These topics that we have are suggestions that move the various topics to a virtual series format so that we can kind of do a little deeper dive in each one of these topics. If there is a topic that's near and dear to your heart that's associated with business, precast, customer, reach out, marketing, anything that you feel like is something that you want to learn more about, that's one of the things that we do here at the committee, so be sure and reach out to our committee and propose some of these subjects and these topics, and we'll do the research for you and put them as part of the series. This series is Building a Plant Culture, Setting Expectations, and Establishing Accountability is the current workshop number 11. Our presenter is Mr. Kevin Martlidge with OrgSource, and I'll do a brief introduction for him here in just a bit. This is a four-part series. The next workshop will be Developing and Mentoring Personnel, and then the last one will be Personnel Wellness and Life Balance Prioritization, and that's coming up in the next couple of months. If you want to look at the workshop number 10 and then also maybe see this workshop again because it's so riveting, then you could go to pci.org education tab and search production, and that way you'll be able to relive this experience. So in March and April, go ahead and mark the dates. It's March 22nd for workshop 12, April 19th for workshop number 13. With convention right in between the two, we'll do our best to get the registration for these out as quickly as we can, but obviously we'll be pretty busy for the next 10 days. So how these work is that we'll have a little bit opening remarks, which you just saw. We'll review PCI's antitrust policy and code of conduct policy, do a little bit of a topic overview, and then for about 40 minutes, Kevin and I will chat pattywhack, and then we'll open this up for questions and open discussion. If you have any questions as we go through, please send them to me in the chat box. We'll get to as many as we possibly can at the end of the end of the program. Like all PCI events, we will follow PCI's antitrust policy and compliance guidelines along with the code of conduct policy. These guidelines are to help participants and PCI activities avoid risks, and these risks are usually, these risks usually center around any pricing, discussion on pricing, discussion on controlling markets or controlling sales or dividing or allocating markets, and we don't talk about any of those kind of things at these events. If we do, then obviously Nicole's going to pull the plug, so because she's good at that. And the code of conduct policies, we treat everybody with equal respect in every event we do, and again, if you're ever in one of our PCI events and you feel like someone is not being respected, we expect you to step in and have a conversation and report that back to PCI. So this series actually originated back in 2019, which again seems like forever ago, as you know, pre-COVID is the marker. When we were at Fort Worth Convention, the committee passed around some surveys of what topics that were near and dear to the heart of the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee, and that's why we've given the last, you know, 10, now 11th webinar on various subjects. So we've tried to include some of the cultural strategies in our previous workshops, like quality culture, safety culture, communicating with customers, etc., but if you're like me, and you know, no offense to our speaker, a lot of the general culture training is derived from corporate America and has little or nothing to do with how to develop a high-performance culture at a precast plant. So that's what we've really tried to focus on here, is trying to take some, you know, overall business philosophy and kind of dive it down into usable information and strategies and processes in the precast concrete plant. So last year, in the fall, we did a production workshop in Milwaukee, and we're going to do another one in the fall, which that'll be announced here in the next few months. And we were there, we had a roundtable with a lot of precast plant managers and plant workers, and they were asking some, we were asking them some questions, what's important to them, and what they brought back to us was this series we're currently working on. So successful, what are some of the things successful companies do, which is, you know, your mission and vision statement, clear communication, and that we share the vision and execute accordingly. Basically, transparency, but what does all that mean? What does that all look like? Well, that's what we're defining, and that's what the goals are on the screen for this series. So the key themes, and I'll steal my own thunder, is empowerment through trust, common vision based on consistent principles and actions, established expectations through verbal and non-verbal communication. So what can you do as a manager or as an employee, what can you do to hold yourself responsible? And so Kevin and I have been bantering back about different books and stuff, but I think I've centered on this one, no pun intended, Principle-Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey. It's an oldie but goodie, mine's a pretty yellow copy from being stored in the basement for 20 years, but a lot of the stuff in it still holds true, and we're using that book for some insights and some inspiration to share with you. So Kevin is a great resource at OrgSource, again, no pun intended. I think that was planned. He's a great resource at OrgSource, and there's also good internet searches that just what resonates with you. It really does take an hour of your time, and it's always good to self-improve by using, you know, inspiration, and hopefully this series of inspiration inspires you. So workshop 10, basically we talked about these four questions and answers. So if you want to go back and kind of understand what a good culture looks like from Kevin and my perspective, then I recommend you going back and look at those at the eLearning Center. And today we're going to talk about these four main topics, which is defining a high expectation culture, what elements are present and which are not, handling conflicting expectations, where is your focus, balancing the power, how to maintain control over potential chaos, which is my favorite, apply accountability to build trust, are we serving ourselves or are we serving our customers. So with that, for those that weren't on the first call, I'm not going to read Kevin's total bio because it is very impressive and very, very inclusive, but Kevin, I met Kevin when I started working at Eastside, and so I'll introduce him by heart instead of by the words on a page, and that, you know, Kevin's a smart dude. He's how to really get a feel for the individuals in the company. He can really pinpoint what's lacking, and then he knows how to ask the tough questions without being a bully, and he really helps people start to self-reflect and start to understand what is it that I should be doing, but what is it that I am doing, and where is the disconnect, and then insert that into 20 other individuals and being able to build cohesiveness. And by him doing that, I think PCI National has a staff like any other they've ever had in the, you know, 60, almost 70-year history. So with that, I'm going to throw a big question out to Kevin. He's been waiting for this. So, but first, I want to first share with you, Kevin and others, that we've received a lot of good feedback from our webinar last week, so I want to thank Kevin for helping prepare and execute this series, but the question is, when you're working with a company, what are the most common expected outcomes from your client's perspective? Well, thanks for having me again. I always enjoy talking with you and talking culture. So I appreciate the opportunity to come back. So, you know, some of the expected outcomes that our clients are looking for, especially around culture, is really just that outside perspective and helping them understand and be aware of kind of what's going on and what is taking away from their culture and what is enhancing their culture. And, you know, so typically, you know, the outcome is, like, I'll use PCI as an example, you know, we started with, you know, coming up with what does good look like from a cultural perspective, what are some of the key traits that we want to live by, the common values and the common understanding of what makes us a great organization from a cultural standpoint. We have great people, but we need to have a common language that we all understand and live by, so to speak, to help us, you know, reach our full potential. And so in the PCI perspective, it was, you know, helping to develop that what good looks like, helping them to, you know, working with the leadership team to figure out a way to assess against that. So where are we currently? And PCI had done some, you know, past work on that using a different format and different assessment to kind of come up with some key areas that they were wanting to focus on. So we used that and then also, you know, came up with our own way of assessing it. And then we just went to work, you know, it was how can we get this out? How can we further define what good communication looks like? What trust looks like? What collaboration looks like? What good conflict resolution works like? And how do we understand that? How do we define it? How do we get it to all of the staff so they know it and they live it and they breathe it? And, you know, we went as far as even putting some of the culture things specifically in job descriptions. So, you know, that was an expectation for PCI was to help us, you know, really integrate it into the what we're about. And so, and I think, you know, PCI was unique in that, you know, this was kind of the first time that the org source had dove into, you know, helping somebody define and build a culture, even though all our consultants have different backgrounds and specialties and things like that, we've all worked for a lot of different organizations all over the world. And it's really just, you know, our clients look for those opportunities to help them kind of shine the light and hold the mirror up to say, you know, what does good look like? And, you know, how can we achieve our full potential as a team from a cultural standpoint? And so while it was a unique engagement with PCI, I think it's a very typical one that all organizations are faced with. And what does good look like from a culture standpoint? And how can we get our employees from day one to buy into that culture and really understand the impact that they can make on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis, why they're working for us. So. Well, I think that out of all that, all I got was this is the first time you worked, we were your guinea pig. Yeah, you were. Well, you're a guinea pig, I guess, from that perspective, but it allowed us to use a lot of our resources that we have just in a different manner, you know, and so it was, I'm just kidding. It was a great opportunity. No, you're right, we were. You fooled me. Anyway, which isn't too hard. All right, so let's get into this a little bit. So what I wanted to start off with, and we, again, everything we do here, we've already discussed, but let's, you know, define expectations from a couple of perspectives. Okay, so you talked a little bit about kind of bigger overview, but let's dive a little bit deeper. So you look for, you know, what's expectations look like for, you know, personal career goals, interpersonal relationships, and professional relationships. And then secondly, expectations as it relate to a plant structure, how to get things done and assurance of an acceptable outcome. Yeah, so I think that that baseline setting is key, especially if you're looking from an expectation standpoint. And, you know, you have on there on the slide, you know, job descriptions. So, you know, I think we work with a lot of organizations on, you know, finalizing those job descriptions, updating them, making sure that they're in alignment with what that person is supposed to be doing. And then more importantly, you know, in alignment with the strategic goals of the organization and where we want to go. And so if you have that in place, that's great. I always encourage you to continue to keep them updated and to review them periodically. But what let's assume that you have that in place. The next thing is, is that and you're going to hear this a lot as we're going through this today is just the alignment. So how do you as a leader, or as a colleague or a peer, how do you how do you make sure that each employee understands their job description and their impact that they're able to make on the organization and the team to the same level that you do? And as a leader, how do you ensure that there's an opportunity and a level of trust that allows that person if there is a question to safely come to you and say, hey, I just don't understand this piece of my job description, or I don't understand why I'm a part of this project and not this one, whatever that may be. There's that level of trust and transparency that they feel comfortable they can come and do that and have those questions and have that really, you know, you know, progressive, you know, conversation so that alignment is in place. And so once you you understand kind of what good looks like from say a job description and impact position, you can then set those expectations with a person. And I've found throughout my career, you know, I've spent almost 30 years in various levels of management with companies like FedEx, Xerox, big printing company out in New York City, a nonprofit here in Champaign, Illinois, where I live, as a director of credentialing. And as I look back through my career, the times when there was conflict around expectations, or there was issues around expectations, 99% of the time, that conflict or those that misalignment was because there was a difference in opinion or a different in difference in perception as to what something meant. So whether that was, you know, the outcome of a project we're trying to reach, we didn't all understand the goal the same way. Or we didn't, I thought that maybe my involvement with the team was at a different level than my manager did. So there was conflict there that we had to resolve. And anytime that you have that stuff that is not aligned in terms of what those expectations are, and the accountability around it, it allows for lost opportunity and lost time, because the person that isn't aligned, or the two people that aren't aligned, they're always going to be questioning what's going on, right? And they're not going to be focused on being the best they possibly can be, because there's all these questions about what that expectation is. So I think it's really important as a manager, and as a leader, that you're having those conversations with your team, no matter what level they're at, to make sure that, you know, we're really on the same page in terms of what the expectations are, what your responsibilities are, and what good looks like. And we continue to have those open and transparent conversations to ensure that alignment going forward as things come up. Yeah, because I think that what I've always seen in plants is when, again, talking about conflict and talking about, you know, setting expectations early on, is that the new guy comes in, and the new guy could be, or girl, could be ostracized for many reasons, because, you know, boys in the playground can be cruel. And being able to onboard somebody with that culture. And so sometimes when you look at some of the terms, when you look at onboarding, and you look at, you know, culture, and you look at, you know, empathetic type terms, they can come off as being kind of corny, or kind of nerdy, or kind of, you know, eye roll. How do you include some of those things to a new employee, especially when we're in this day and age to where employees show up at, you know, Monday at eight, ready to go, or four, whatever, and they leave at lunch and don't come back? Sure. How do you include some of that stuff without getting the eye roll, and then making sure that people do start to implement as they get there? Sure. I think that's a great question. And I think that, you know, you have to start from day one, and you have to have that understanding and that confidence as a leader, as an organization, that confidence and understanding of your culture, to the point where you feel comfortable talking about it. Because if there's eye rolling going around, then I would have to question, well, are we all really, you know, bought into that from an organizational standpoint? And, you know, ideally, you're almost going through, you're integrating your culture into the hiring process, even, where you're not only hiring for skill and background and all the traditional things that you do, but you also have some questions in there to test the person's ability to fit within the culture, and to challenge your culture in a positive way and to align with some of the the core values that you have as an organization. And I was reading an article the other day about from Gallup that they did a survey in that you know turnover is cost in US organizations over a trillion dollars a year. And it's up almost six to seven trillion dollars a year that is a lack of engagement by the employees that work at those organizations. That's that's how much they're estimating it's costing US companies because they're not properly engaging their teams on different levels and the research goes way deeper than we need to talk about today. But it's a huge number and so if you can really be confident about your culture, confident about hey this is what it means to work here, these are your expectations, this is how we're gonna hold you accountable, this is what you can expect, and you're doing that from the very first time you're meeting that person through an interview all the way to when they start to walk in your door for that very first time and even come back from lunch on that first day. They just are very aware that culture is important to us and expectations are important and trust is important and communication is important and all the things that we talked about last time and we're talking about this time. And so you really have to have that confidence as a leader and where you have not only buy-in but your organization has buy-in and then the whole entire team is holding each other accountable almost to those values that you have that you're holding true in your culture. And so you know you can't, it's not like you have to convince somebody that hey this is the way it is but you have to be very clear with them open and honest about this is what the culture is like. And if you see that you know we talked about tough conversations earlier, if you see that eye rolling during the onboarding process you need to time out. Hey do you have a question about that? You know let's talk about it seems like you're not you're not understanding this. How can I help you understand this a little further and really show them from day one that hey you know this is this is serious stuff. Not only is your job important and your expectations we're gonna hold you to but you know you got to be a part of this culture because we know that this is what's taking us to the next level. This is what's even setting us apart from some of the competition and this is what makes our organization a great place to work. I'm glad I'm glad you said that that was one of the thoughts that kept rolling to my head. It's direct competition. When I say direct I don't mean pre-caster to pre-caster. I mean a pre-cast industry versus the steel or the brick guy or the cast in place guy. So you know part of what really excites me about this sidebar, what I like about this is that we're helping the industry understand we are a professional industry. We have to hold ourselves accountable in the world of employment as one regard. So it goes back to a couple things we need to move on but one is when that onboarding person goes out in the plant having assurances that the your existing employees understand we need to keep this person. We need this person. That's why we hired this person and don't undermine what we're trying to do as a company because a guy comes out or a girl comes out in a plant and they go yeah did you go through their own boarding stuff and that undermines everything we're doing. So it's really important to kind of start this and you've taught me this start kind of bottom up. I mean it's your key folks at your plant, office and field and in the plant. Are they all on board with this? Do they know what's in the onboarding? That's part of the transparency we'll talk about but I want to hit this one because you and I talked about this too is the checks and balances. I think sometimes we feel like as a manager talking more to the folks that manage either a crew or in the office. We feel like the Lone Ranger and I think it's important that we have checks and balances because we talked about transparency. We talked about looking in the mirror and aligning our perceptions with reality and we'll talk about that too. But we put this up front because we wanted to hit this and that's checks and balances. How do you find the right person that you can go to and close the door and say you were in the meeting. Did I handle that okay? I mean you're the manager, they're the employee. How do you have that conversation and how do you give that vulnerability away? Yeah well I think you know let's just look at like the leader or the manager kind of employee kind of relationship and I think it goes back to what we were just talking about. It's building that trust and those checks and balances are you know I found when I was a leader over sometimes you know you know 50, 60, 70 people. I had some pretty big teams that weren't all in the same. We're all you know dispersed around the country and so forth that I had to set up those times where we were intentional about meeting right and so we had scheduled every other week or whatever works with your schedule. We had those those consistent feedback sessions right and I empowered my managers that worked for me when I was in the director of VP kind of level. I empowered them to have those conversations and help provide them some training to have those conversations and so at the very least you're having those consistent meetings where you can have those feedback sessions. If you don't have those that's okay but then you're you're left to okay something happened in a meeting now I have to go address that with that person which fire drills happen and I'll get back to that tomorrow and then you come around and you never end up talking to that person about the impact they had in that meeting whether it's be positive or negative but you have to be intentional about having those conversations and you know and if you're if you don't have those consistent times where you're scheduled to meet and you're intentional about hitting those and not postponing them and everything like that then when you do bring it up it could it could be you know threatening to a person especially if it's negative feedback right and so you have to be very intentional about how you're going to have that conversation even it's hey as you're as you're as somebody that's supporting you in your role as your leader as your as your manager or everyone call it I want to give you some feedback about how you act in that meeting or how you pose that question in the meeting yesterday and maybe did you think about the impact that it had on some other people and if you're approaching those conversations very openly and transparently and you're providing context to them as to why you're meeting instead of just saying you just screwed up at me I can't believe you said that you know it's a negative aspect yeah take the emotion out of it get to the facts you're gonna start building trust with those people and it may be difficult at first but as you're having those positive and negative conversations and you're being very intentional and supportive in the way that you're doing it it's going to continue to help build trust between you and that person and I think one last point I'd like to do on this terms of ongoing auditing of your culture and so forth is some of the organizations I've worked for where there's been a really good culture like teams that I've worked for and I just I could point to say the culture was great the employees start to hold each other accountable and it really doesn't become a leadership thing as much as it's each individual person is holding the other person accountable so you don't get into those situations where somebody's first day on the job and they go out on the floor the first time they're like oh can you believe this because that's just not what we do and if somebody is starting to talk negative or impacting the culture in a bad way or doing something that's kind of against our values there's enough trust in an open honest you know feedback that people start calling each other out on it and calling each other out in a very positive way and I think whether that's right or wrong I think ultimately that's a goal to get to where it's not as much of the leaders driving the culture they've set the expectations they've set what good looks like the team's all bought in but the team starts holding each other accountable and that's when teams really start to take off because there's just no room for things that come in and negatively impact our culture because we so believe in it we so understand what it's all about and why it's so important yeah I think deep deep rooting is that's a key that's a term I just I just created so I'm gonna copy right okay so the next question we have here is conflicting expectations and goals can cause problem stress and pain what can a company do to ensure we align the goal vision mission with you know why we're here and where's our focus with the desired and a consistent outcome sure and I like to put the term pain in there because it's it is painful don't align it is yep no it definitely caused pain and you know I think somewhere here you have chaos you know it's just pain and chaos when there's a lemon in there and so you know I think you know where the focused is that like we have it there's the trust and communication I'm you know you had a couple slides back you said trust is like the glue that holds things together and you know I know they're PCI we talked about trust and communication is kind of a lifeline of the DNA that makes PCI who they are in terms of a cultural standpoint and so you know I think the bullet points you have on the slide are key you know you got to separate the person from the problem you know I think when it comes to conflict or it comes to eye rolling or misalignment of expectations or all that there's a lot of emotion in that and maybe not visible emotion but maybe some mental emotion because somebody's wrestling with it in their mind whether that's visible to the those around them or just internally they're wrestling with why don't I understand this how can I understand this you know what is it that it needs to be further aligned and so I think as a leader and as a colleague you have to really understand the frame of mind that somebody is coming into a conversation with or you know the frame of mind you're taking into that conversation and really try to separate you know the emotion and the person specifically from the problem and I always recommend you get right to the facts you talk about specifics you don't talk about well he said she said this or whatever you get to the specifics about hey when you made this comment this is the way I perceived you did to come across did you think that was positive or negative and almost you know work with them on helping them understand the impact that they had I think the next thing you'll focus on those mutual interests and not your positions you know I think sometimes you're having those tough conversations you have to come into it as hey I'm the I'm the manager I'm the director I'm the VP I'm the owner whatever but at the end of the day you're there for mutually serving intentions you're both there for the betterment of the organization unless there's somebody just coming into it with just malice and going after you and that could be a possibility I guess but you need to go at it from a standpoint of you know we're all here for the same reasons we have mutually serving intentions you know I'm here for to support you you're here to support me let's come to some kind of agreement as to what this is and here's the facts of the things that I'd like to further talk to you about tell me your perspective am I totally off base have a level of kind of empathy and understanding as you're approaching some of those conversations and and there are some situations you're got to be hey I'm the leader this is the way it's got to be but in those situations you're providing them the context the reasoning why behind some of your decisions and I love the invent options for mutual gain and insist on using objective criteria I mean you know get to the facts and in asking them hey you know I've had that conversation so many times with employees where I have to have that tough conversation about something I felt like they did that was you know outside of their expectations or their accountability that I'm holding them to and I'm like tell me what your thoughts are on this tell me if I'm crazy or I saw it a different way or why did you approach it that way help me understand and let's come up with a common solution for next time and sometimes it even comes back to her I'm just misaligned with what they were trying to do you know and so there there has to be that that level of trust and that level of you know collaboration so to speak as you're trying to you know resolve some conflict but it all comes down to communication and being there for the mutual interest of each other in the organization right and we we talked about you know trust communication and it all goes back to the to the defining principles and the culture of the of the company because that's that's kind of the guiding the guiding light so to speak so again you know when you start talking about you know where their focus is you know and you know how do you how do you get that alignment between you know the problems of stress and the pain and then you know the desired outcome sure I'm sorry that was that a question about how do you how do you align that yeah I mean we're just making a comment about well I tend to but yeah you talked about you know your your your actions are kind of rooted in the in the the tactics that we just went through and now how do we apply those tactics sure well I think you just have to when you're having those conversations or you're setting those expectations you have to make sure as the leader and as the people that are in there they're having a conversation with that there's clear expectations going forward okay we all agree that this is how we're going to move forward we you know we've had a discussion I've heard your point of view or my point of view we've come to an agreement this is how we're gonna move forward let's stick to that and so I think that's a key thing is to a lot of times we'll have the conversation but we don't have clear outcomes we don't have clear actions that need to change or that need to be adjusted on either side of the equation to make sure that we're moving forward and we're eliminating that pain going forward because how many organizations I've worked for that you know you're talking about the same situations over and over and over again right and it's just like okay look we're gonna fix it here let's go forward and this is how we're gonna do it we need to stick to that we're all in agreement that's how we need to stick stick to it and you need to do it yeah and that's and that's where I find kind of insight inside stuff is that whenever someone sends you an email of course emails a lot of times are impersonal words have different meanings and if your your mind is on something else and you read an email and says what the hell is that guy talking about and then sometimes I'm sure I send emails out and people go what in the world is he talking about yeah taking the time again like that's what I like about this whole you know reality versus fantasy and self-reflection is that yeah yeah we really I think we could do a lot better job in our lives if we just stop and try to show you know listen to be understood listen to the point of understanding and clearly communicate to the point of understanding and and without being you know nauseating be able to say you know it's like my ten-year-old now repeat back to me what I instructed you to do yeah he's really he's really good about doing the first thing I asked him to do but if I ask him to do three things the third thing never gets done so I think I think everyone can relate to that so I think it's really important that and we talked also about you know the you know having it having a performance agreement which goes back to the the onboarding situation is being able to say in your job description here's a set of here's a set of company goals these are these are must-haves you these are cultural these are principles if you have a question as long as it falls in line there you're not going to get in trouble here's then here's the next section of of the do's and don'ts and then here's what we expect out of you so we're gonna hand you a we expect you to give a Z we don't need to know what is in between so I think that's that's one of the key things that we we've been you know kicking around in the last couple weeks and yeah the other the other question was give some solutions to our to our folks how to balance empowering our team members and maintaining overall control over potential chaos you know sometimes we have managers that are control freaks sometimes we have managers that are completely hands-off sometimes we have employees or co-workers that you know you know he's going out there you know he's not gonna it's not gonna be good and the others you're like oh he'll be fine so how do you how do you manage that how do you manage the the the control the will the desire to control but yet knowing that you need to just just let things go sometimes sure yeah I mean I think it just depends on the on the situation right and in a perfect world you know you you've set the expectations everybody understands it we're on alignment we have you know mechanisms in place whether they be key performance indicators or quarterly performance reviews or bi-weekly meetings like we talked about before that there's that constant transparent and clear communication regarding how things are going and how people are doing and that the employees understand how they can impact those goals of their job and the goals of the organization on a hourly even daily weekly basis right and so if all that's aligned and we understand that we have mechanisms in place to discuss it when there's differences in agreement and we're being intentional as much as we can as we're addressing some of these things then you know you're empowering your employees in a different way because you're empowering them because they understand what's what's required from them right and there's not this this question about well what does that mean and if there is then they're asking you about it and so you know if you have that manager that likes to be the micromanager right that's tough to give up some of that but I think that's where as a leadership team as we start to understand our culture and so forth that it's okay to micromanage in some cases but there's also instances where you shouldn't be and in the instances where you do need to micromanage or you feel like you need to be a whole you know really tight on something then you tell people that you've been up with why you're why you're doing that right you're providing them that context why well I following up with every single day on this project probably because it's it's it's super important to the organization we're putting a lot of trust in you to help get this done and for this project I need to be very you know close to the vest and and watching over as to how things are going I've all been a trust you can get it done where you know hey this other project is still important but you have a little bit more leeway in terms of I'm not gonna be checking in on you every day but I expect some communication back from you once a week or whatever it might be so I think you know that bullet point there was his empowering people for your clear directions and boundaries I think that that's huge then you're providing that context around when you have to micromanage and be involved at a different level versus, hey, you know, you have clear direction, go do it, right? You're trusting them to get the job done. Well, I think the boundaries is the most important part there. Because if I put myself in the shoes of somebody out in the plant, especially someone with, you know, two years or less, or I'm just now starting a new role, sometimes personalities would tend not to go ask the question, am I doing this right? Is this the right tool to use? Are the other people in my crew just punking me? You know? So sometimes to be able to have the conversation to say, if you have a question, you know, come see me. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to use the wrong tool. I don't want, if you don't know how to use the tool, come to me, we'll teach you. Any question whatsoever, don't act until you come and talk to us. And then start to see, you know, what's the progress? How do you open up those boundaries? You know, how do you take the bumpers off the bowling lane? I think that process of, here's your boundaries today, we're trying to get you to the point where the boundaries are away, are open, but we'll always have a little bit of a boundary, because everybody does. So I think that's important. And then when chaos arrives, talk about some of those solutions. Yeah, so when that chaos arrives and, you know, I like to talk about, you know, kind of conflict resolution. So when that chaos arrives, you have to almost triage it, right? Because if it, depending on what the chaos is, if it's super impactful to the organization, or it's just two team members not getting along, or a project went AWIRE, or whatever it might be, you have to always, you know, approach that chaos with how important is the outcome to resolving that? And how much energy into the relationship do I need to have? And how can I use the trust that I already have to resolve that chaos? And, you know, ultimately, at the end of the day, you're going in there with the facts, you're going in there very intentionally providing context as to why you're jumping into the situation, why this is now considered chaos, for lack of a better term, and why it's important that we resolve this in a way that we continue to maintain trust and build trust as we resolve this conflict or this chaos. And so I think, you know, the best approach to it, whether you're in that triage, oh, my gosh, you know, there's a fire drill, we got to solve it right now, or it's still chaotic, but we have time to kind of work through it. You have to go back to the facts and the expectations. And that's when it's even more important to get the emotion out of that conversation. Because that's the easiest thing to do is, oh, my gosh, look, here we go again, or whatever it might be. It's going to cloud your judgment a little bit. And it's tough as a leader to take that step back. Let's get to the facts. Okay, here's the problem. How are we going to fix it? Okay, we all agree to that. We all understand how it's going to happen. Let's go make it happen. And oh, by the way, I'm going to stay on top of this until it gets resolved fully. And then, you know, the hardest part of all that is coming back then and say, okay, what did we learn from that situation? And how do we adjust things going forward? Because we always want to try to fix it or resolve it, but we don't ever come back and say, how can we, you know, sustainably change it, so we don't run into that again. All right. All right. So let's go to this. I got some, I had some follow ups to that. And I got a couple other questions that's come in too. So if you have a question, be sure to put it in and that way I can, we can get it answered. So this is kind of a biggie, I think. I think kind of puts the bow on the present, so to speak. So, you know, we all have these personalities and perceptions, go figure. But I state that because there's not a one size fits all method to holding people accountable for their attitude and actions. But what's the optimum process and timing to approach someone who did not achieve the promised result? And again, we're not talking about dismissal or anything, you know, any legality here. We're talking about somebody that you want in your organization, you want to keep them in your organization. They've gone through the process, the ideal situation. It's just that it just seems that they have not achieved the promised result. And maybe it is a repeat offender. But just how do you help bring that person up? How do you hold them accountable? Yeah, I think, you know, in terms of timing, when you have those conversations, I'm always, you know, the sooner the better. The longer things fester, the longer you let things go, the better chance you have for them to have the same issue again. The facts are going to get distorted the longer you wait. And so I'm a true believer that, you know, if there's something there you hold somebody accountable to, the quicker you address it, the better. Now you have to be, you know, very careful, because depending on what it is, you don't want to, you know, throw somebody in a bus in front of their whole team, you know, so maybe you're having a conversation immediately after he said, Hey, can you stay back for a second, I'll talk to you about something, whatever it might be. But depending on that level of trust that you have there, you can you can address it in different ways. And I think, you know, we didn't really talk about this a lot in this webinar, we touched on last time a little bit, but it's all about that self awareness. And so as a leader, you're not only self aware about how you impact others, but you also have a really good understanding about how others on your team, you know, react in different situations, the different personalities, they bring to the table, the different skill sets, they bring to the table, how they like to have discussions with you, what does work, what doesn't work. And so as a leader, you always have those things in your head. And so you want to address these things, the accountability things as quickly as possible, and as efficient and transparently as possible. But you may have to adjust your approach to it sometimes, right? There may be I had I had some employees, they're just like, shoot to me straight, Kevin, tell me what I did wrong. I don't want to talk about all this other stuff. And or other people, it's like, you know, how to kind of ease into it, you know. So you really as a leader, the more you can understand your team, and you understand even your colleagues that may be on the same team at the same level with you, the better those interactions are going to be, the better trust is going to be built over time. And when things chaos, conflict and stuff happens, trust will be impacted, but it's gonna be impacted a lot less level or a lot, a lot smaller level than if you're just treating everything the exact same way with every single person. Well, that's, yeah, because that's kind of what I was just writing notes and stuff, because that's kind of the guy I am. But when you said the self-awareness thing was was big to me, because typically, when you're holding somebody accountable, they probably did something wrong. That wrong move might have been on the rake up where the shovel goes, or the hammer up where the screwdriver goes on the on the tool board. Or it could be something that where you're on the radio saying, I need you to get out here to aisle four. There's a problem. So we got all these different situations out there that you've got to, you've got to, like you said, you're triaging it. And I think as a leader, whether you're, again, you're, you're, you could be the lowest guy on the totem pole or girl in the totem pole, you still have an opportunity to lead by understanding how your actions are going to affect others' actions. And I always use the parenting analogy of, you know, your kid falls in the sidewalk and scrapes their knee. Are you going to run over there and act like they, you know, broke a leg? Or are you just going to go, are you going to just not even respond? Or are you just going to go over and say, let's see that. Yeah, that's pretty bad, but I think you'll be okay. And just, I think it's extremely important that we, that we self-reflect because as, as in a stressful situation, we can really go off the edge and that can just cause a big problem. So I think when you said use the opportunity to demonstrate leadership and we put that in the slide, I thought that was, I think that's a powerful thing to take away from, from this, this series. I totally agree. And I think another key point of this too is, you know, because a lot of times when I talk to you about culture and kind of going over this, you're like, okay, so I have to always come in, you know, soft-spoken, tell me how you're feeling. Like, it's not that, that kind of leadership. You may have to be that kind of person at sometimes, you know, but it's also okay to come in and I may have to drop the heavy hand on this situation because of the importance of it or because it's repeated and, or because it's whatever. And I think, you know, using opportunity to demonstrate leadership is like you said, really understanding the situation, what best approach to use in that situation to get the result that's needed and to, you know, have that servant mindset as you're approaching that as much as possible, but also realize that, hey, you've got responsibilities too, right? And you may have to come in there a little bit more heavy handed because of the situation, because of whatever it might be going. And that's okay, but provide that context, right, to that individual, because that's what's going to, you know, keep building that trust and allow for future conversations to take place more effectively. Definitely. And then we wanted to try to get to enhancers and detractors. So we have a few, few points here that we thought was very important to share with everybody. And I'll let you just kind of expand on a couple of those. Sure. So I think we're pretty clear as we've gone through this, you know, having that clearly defined culture, values, processes, even roles, responsibilities, you know, it's very important to have those outlined, articulated, understood by all those involved. And we're constantly working on how can we further align understanding around those things from all different perspectives, backgrounds, skill sets, levels of the organization, everything. So we're never going to be perfect, but the more we can align that, the more it's going to enhance our efforts in terms of culture and specifically in setting expectations and accountability. You got to have confidence in the process. I mean, I think that's probably one of the bigger things that you can do as a leader is own it, go in there, understand it yourself, lead with intention, be a leader in all situations, have the confidence that yes, this, you know, this is what takes us to the next level. This is what sets us apart from competition. This is like just so important to our organization and approach things with that. And if you aren't confident, then you got to have the ability to go have conversations with the people you need to, to build that confidence up. So it's just as much making sure your team is aligned with the understanding of what good looks like, roles, responsibilities, as much as it's your responsibility to have that understanding to level where you can approach things with that confidence you need. And then as far as detractors, I mean, I think we've kind of talked about it, you know, the opposite of those things, poor alignment between structures and systems, you know, and how many organizations have I worked with or worked for that, you know, the things that we do just aren't aligned with, you know, what we're trying to achieve as an organization and it's making it difficult to achieve those things. So I understand perfectly what I need to do, but the systems that I have to do that make it difficult, which cause misalignment. And so, you know, as a leader and as an organization, can we go through and look at, okay, is it just a knowledge thing that is causing the misalignment or is there systems and structures and processes that we could enhance to continue to impact that alignment? And so, you know, it's not just about understanding and alignment with your people, but it's also, you know, align your whole organization, your plant. What are some of the pain points that may be causing the chaos from a systems or structure standpoint? And then holding yourself accountable in the middle of the chaos. I mean, I guess the biggest thing as a leader, you know, how many times where I've let the emotion get the better of me in front of my team, or I handled a situation maybe not as effectively as I could have, and it negatively impacted the culture and the trust. And I think, you know, Randy, you said it earlier, you know, that self awareness is so important and took me a long time in my career as a leader to finally realize how important it is for self-development in terms of understanding how to approach people, how to be a leader, how to, you know, reading books, going to webinars, you know, attending training classes, whatever. But it's, you need to work on your development as well so you're able to effectively hold yourself accountable with that confidence you need when that chaos arise. Yeah, I just, I like to tell stories on myself, so I do, and I have an audience. But anyway, when I started, yeah, when I started in sales, that was before cell phones, that was, got a 1990 Taurus four-door, beauty, I know, I got a good picture, don't you? Driving through the flatlands and hills of Ohio, Pennsylvania, my boss gave me the whole, you know, series of cassette tapes to listen to while I was in the car, and I listened to them. I didn't listen to the radio, I listened to the to the tapes on, you know, Napoleon Hill and, you know, all of the greats, and I just played them over and over and over again. Half the time I wasn't listening, I was, you know, paying attention to the road or thinking about my immunity coming up, but they just kind of got embedded into my head, and that's the self-discipline that is now coming through and everything that I do, basically. But I wanted to, so I just, it's just a, I said that because I'm hopeful, and that's a little voice of encouragement to everybody that it is important that you do, you know, get books, get tapes, go to the internet, watch the YouTube videos, and listen to some of the old Napoleon Hill and some of those folks that, Earl Nightingale, and it opened your heart a little bit, it just, it brings true to today's day and age. So I do have a couple of questions in here. So one question, which I kind of rose right to the top in my head, can departments have different culture that still align with the overall plant culture? Wow, wow, that's a great question. That's a doozy, buddy. Yeah, that is, we might need to, let's extend this an hour and we'll talk about that one. So, no, I think, I appreciate whoever asked that, that's so awesome, because you talk a lot about, within organizations, the silos that occur between departments, and how do you break those silos down, right? And so what my recommendation is, if you want to go, because I love that, because you want each department and each team to have their own identity, but also, like, we're talking about how important it is for individuals to have self-awareness. It's just as important for that team to have self-awareness as to how they're impacting others and how they're approaching things. And so, you know, if I was to come into an organization, you know, and talk about culture and say there's four different departments, I think that the biggest, the part where I would focus first is, okay, as an organization, let's come up with what good looks like from a culture standpoint. Here's our values, here's our expectations, there's our accountability, all that kind of stuff that we've talked about. And then after you have that set, it's then having conversations with those departments. Okay, what does that mean to you? And how do you, as a department, impact that overall culture of the association or the organization? What are the things that are important to you that you can provide to the overall success of the culture? How are you going to support it? What are things that you currently are doing that are detractors to what has been set for the organization? And ideally, is that organizational culture model is being developed, you're pulling in department heads or representatives from those departments to help develop that. So it's not like this big, okay, we went off on a retreat for two days and came up with this document, now go make it happen, right? You want people involved in the development of that. So that's a great question. I think it has to start with what looks good for the organization, and then giving the empowerment to the department heads who help develop the organizational culture to interpret that and to come up with how they're going to impact that in a positive way and what things they're going to work on to help support that overall thing. But absolutely, I think I encourage those, you know, all teams, all departments to come up with what that looks like. So that's kind of a middle-out kind of approach. Because again, if you're going, you're walking into a 30-year-old company with, you know, some sort of entrenched management, but they finally saw the light and said, you know what, we really need to take a look at this. That's kind of a middle-out approach from that perspective. I'd love it, getting your managers together and saying, all right, our goal is high quality, or our goal is, you know, low-cost leader or whatever. And how does your department, how can you enhance and then find, this goes back to me, I guess, because I hate accounting. I hate accounting. So if there's accountants on here, I love you. I hate when you call me and say your expense report's not right, or your estimate is off by $1,219.22. I don't care. It's a $4 million job. So, but I understand how being accurate in a, how an accountant defines accuracy is important for the overall organization, because it aligns the culture. And I'll put it in a plant perspective. I also could understand where a person in the plant might turn to the steel shop and say, I would really like for you guys to package up the plates and the anchors and the inserts and the rebar and anything else that goes into our panels a certain way, because you can save us 20% on our labor hours. It only costs you 10% more, and we're willing to give you 10% more on your part of the estimate, because you're saving us over here. So do you realize why we're asking you to go that extra step? We know it's extra work. We know it's extra, you know, muscle, but can you see how that really advances our overall organization and aligns with our culture? And that's a perfect example. Yeah. And I've found that to be something that was successful in companies. So because of my long stories, we're at a good time. And so I really appreciate Kevin for helping us through this and giving us insights. So thank you, Kevin. And- Thank you. I thank everyone that's on the call today. And if you have any other topics that you'd like us to address, please email me. And then the next couple ones will be on March 22nd and April 19th, and you can email me at rwilson at pci.org, and I'll push it back to Nicole. Perfect. Thank you, Randy. So on behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank Kevin and Randy for a great presentation. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. Thank you again. Have a great day and please stay safe.

Nicole Clow

PCI

production workshop series

setting expectations

establishing accountability

Randy Wilson

Architectural Precast Systems

Kevin Martelange

OrgSource