Leadership Resilience And People-First Approach With Joe Caldwell

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode Welcome to another episode of the Change Proof Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and you're going to love my guest today. His name is Joe Caldwell. I met him a couple of months ago at an event that we were at together. He is the CEO of Bartlett and West, a 100% employee-owned S corp ESOP engineering, architecture, and construction company that focuses on leading communities to better tomorrows. His tenure with Bartlett and West has been a 30-year journey. He's held a variety of roles including project engineer, project manager, division director, market leader, marketing director, and now the CEO. Being focused on creating and developing deep relationships has been his focus at every stop along his career, and he is committed to helping others succeed. You're gonna hear that just from his own way of answering questions in addition to the things that he actually says. So this is a guy I think you're gonna learn a lot from. I know I have quality human and somebody we're gonna enjoy having a conversation with. So sit back and get ready for my discussion of leadership. Leadership Resilience with Joe Caldwell. All right, Joe. So I know this is not typically your bag to be on podcasts or what have you. It's not what you do day to day. It's fun to hear your bio be read by somebody else. I think it's kind of cool to be introduced or whatever, but not even talking about your CV at the moment. What I really wanna know is what's one thing that wouldn't be a part of your history as a leader that you would love for people to know about you at the outset of our conversation? One thing.

Sure. Yeah, sure. You know, I think about engineers and you think technically trained people, a lot of math and science. We get zero soft skills. So I got very fortunate when I got out of school to take a job with Bartlett West, who I'm still with to this day, 30 years later, and learned quickly that it's about the people, it's about the relationships. We have a phrase we use around here. We talk about investing in people both professionally and personally. There's certainly in our business, there's lots of skill training around the technical aspects of the job, making sure that you can do your job effectively, you can get Licensed, which was really important in our world. But the piece that really appealed to me right out of the gate was the personal investment, you know, building life skills, teaching people how to interact with others in an effective manner, how to have effective conflict with people, how to even have conflict, quite frankly, because engineers, technical people, a lot of times aren't very good at that. So I love the investment piece. And not being from Kansas, I thought I might be here 3 or 4 years. And kind of fell in love with the culture of, hey, we're going to invest in you as an individual. And that's one of the things I'm really proud of about Barlow West is we spend a ton of time, investment, and money in building, whether it's one-off training opportunities or development programs for people. So it's really important to our business. We tell people all the time that are new to the company, if we get shortlisted to interview for a project, all 3 or 5 of the companies, however many get shortlisted, They can all do the work from a technical standpoint. The differentiator is in how you handle the people skill part of that, what you're offering them, how you're connecting with them, understanding what they need out of this as an individual. So I could go on and on, but it's really kind of the people part of it that has been really appealing to me about our company and why I've been here for as long as I have.

I got that so firsthand when I came out to visit with you and your folks. I got that sense. And there's a lot in what you just said. I want to dig into a few of them. So hopefully I'll remember everything I wanted to ask you. But the first thing is, let's just establish a little sort of time context. You've been with this organization for 30 years, 3 decades. So if you got there and that's the way the culture was, how long has this organization been around? What's that look like?

Yeah. So it's going to be 75 years coming up here in a couple of years. So we've been around since 1951. I will say, you know, one of the things that appealed to me right out of the gate, as you mentioned in the bio, we are 100% S corp ESOP, which means every employee in the, in the business owns a piece of the company and the company funds that ownership. which is a really cool model. You're not investing your own money per se in that, but certainly the culture has changed over those 30 years and then it's evolved for the better. I would say back in the beginning, it was a little bit more partnership-oriented from a mentality standpoint. And then we had some leadership changes that occurred a couple of different times. And each one of those leaders added an element of the people-first mentality and really continued to build on that. You know, and from my perspective, had lots of experiences at this point. I am a huge believer of if the people in the Are happy and satisfied and challenged and want to come to work. Virtually everything else takes care of itself. Your clients are going to be happy. You're going to make money. You're going to have lots of opportunities. So if you start with the individuals in the business first, I just think it naturally leads itself to success.

Yeah. Do you have any sense of the reason why this has been a cultural, almost like a gene in the DNA of this organization? Because. Like you said, it's an engineering firm, engineering, architectural, and construction sort of ecosystem. Engineers are pretty buttoned up, as I would say. I went to school with a bunch of engineers and was on swim team, actually on a collegiate swim team with a bunch of engineers, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers. And I remember that about them then. These guys were, they were left brain, really.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. We all can kind of be stereotyped into that, but I think to answer your question, Somebody way smarter than me and with a lot more people skills than I will ever have decided, hey, we know that we need to differentiate ourselves in some way, shape, or form. And they quickly started adopting programs and bringing them to the company. You know, one of them we call Mandeville. It's a very old system. It's a way of communicating. Listening is really the key skillset there and hearing what's important to people and understanding why it's important to them. We all go through what we call Mandeville training within the business, and you can certainly use it for your clients. You can use it with your coworkers. We tell people you can even use it outside, whether you work in a social services organization, might be helpful at home with your friends. To connect with people is really important. So somebody many years ago said, this is an important part of our business and we need to be really good at it if we're going to be different from all the other engineers that are out there. So that's kind of foundational for us.

Yeah, that's a differentiator for sure. And it's funny too, because I was a lawyer for just about 2 decades myself. And one of the things that I would always say at a certain point in my career, and certainly since then, is that the client management side of the legal profession is— was so lacking, was so missing. And missing certainly when we were getting our formal education. I mean, primarily through 3 years of law school, there was just nothing that I can recall that was devoted to that. Right. And I imagine for engineers, not a lot different, that, that just not a— I don't call it a soft skill because I think that's almost It's not pejorative, but it's like diluting the value of what it truly is.

Yeah.

What could be more important, frankly, than managing clients, managing their expectations, managing the process? And what I see, and I'm gonna ask you about this too, and maybe this is not what you see in your organization, but maybe you see it, observe it in others. I've detected that communication has gotten worse and worse over time. You're laughing. All right. So what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah. If I've got a hot button, it's only communicating through email. I struggle with it. I think email is a great tool for certain things, but it's not going to deepen relationships. It's not going to get the other person to know you and you to know them. It's not for you to understand what the client really wants from their needs. It's a factual, here's what you needed to know. I'm recapping our meeting. Here's our next meeting. But you're not— when you have a conflict, you have something you need to kind of debate out with somebody. You're not doing it through email and we're guilty of it too, but I think just by and large, people People are so guilty of behind-the-screen kind of communication. And to me, there's nothing more powerful than— I prefer to be sitting in your office with you, Adam, having this conversation. Next best thing is to do it by video. And third would be picking up the phone. And my very last is let's email about it.

Yeah. You know, not to sort of morph into putting on our social scientist hat or anything, but, you know, just working with a lot of people, dealing with a lot of people as we both do, it feels like sometimes people are hiding, that there's this convenient way to sort of hide behind that form of communication where Whereas, like you say, when you're doing it this way or in some way face-to-face or then beyond out from there, you have to listen. And that's a tough skill for sure. And you need to be able to think on your feet, which also requires a certain— it's not intelligence, it's emotional acumen, if anything. But it's just, and I think in doing that, it helps you to grow because when your world is from behind some, the safety of a platform like email or text or some other form like that. The kind of skills that we've adapted over God knows how many years we care to say as a species to continue to evolve and actually still be around. Our company researches and trains on resiliency. I mean, the human species is a very resilient species because we've had to adapt. That's the true nature of it, right? Darwin wasn't really— the quote is misquoted frequently. It's not the survival of the fittest. It's a survival of those that adapted. Those that adapt to change are the ones that survive. So I suspect that when we lose our capacity to communicate in the way that you just said, in a more personal and intimate way, that our capacity to adapt is also not being positively impacted in that process.

Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I'd add to that too is, you know, I think about email and I can read your message on the screen, but I can't see you. And there's this notion, or it's really important if you're going to really be successful with the other person, you got to care about them. And one of the best ways that you can figure out, is somebody struggling through this conversation? Are they agreeing with you in this conversation? Is to be able to see them, read the body language and ask them specifically, hey, it looks like you're uncomfortable. Tell me more about what you're thinking. What do you disagree with me on? I can't do that through an email unless you specifically say, I disagree with you. So I think that's an element to meeting with people. And communicating with them. It's so important to be able to see them and react to how they're reacting, not just their words.

Again, I see this too. I'm not sure if you do as well with millennial age employees, folks in the workforce that are Gen Z or millennials that I've heard talk about sort of a passive-aggressive behavior that they see. So that's somebody that will only communicate by email or text, or that's what they do more often than not. There's sort of one tone. That's a very different tone than when that same person, a team member, let's say, is on a Zoom meeting or in a Teams meeting or something of the sort, and that they're all sort of amenable, flexible, approachable. But then the communication that follows by email or text or something is sharp and abrupt and is different. It's passive-aggressive. That's the term I've heard those folks in, in that demographic use to describe that. So I think they're feeling it. As well, that people will retreat to that safer, what seems like a safe space, oddly enough, to then be aggressive.

Yeah.

Because some things don't seem to make sense.

Yeah. It's easy for me to be brave and opinionated when I don't have to look at you.

Exactly.

When I have to look at you, I have to respect who you are. I have to think about, hey, if I was on the other side of this table, how would I receive the message I'm getting ready to send? You know, all those kinds of things. And that's why it's like, if it's even remotely contentious, you ought to be Picking up the phone at a minimum.

Yeah. Bartlett and West values training. That's how you and I even got to meet was because you guys valued the, the employee development component. I would love to just scratch a little under the surface or go as deep as you want to go in terms of why was— so bringing me in to facilitate a workshop that was based on our research and theories around resiliency and also give it to those folks, those senior leaders that I had the privilege to spend time with to really used our— a bit of process we provided to dig into the resilience of the organization, resiliency of the teams, and what people were identifying as things that could improve or areas for growth, or even their own personal commitments to what it is that they're modeling to others by their own habits, for example. I'd like to get your sense, 'cause I'm sure you were integral in the decision to have that topic brought to life. Can you shed some light on Yeah, what was the catalyst for that, Joe?

Yeah, sure. So that's a long conversation unto itself, I think. So I want to give credit where credit's due. I had very little to do with you coming to the table. The marketing team and the folks that were on the planning committee did a great job of selecting you. So I want to make sure to give credit where credit is due on that. But of course, throughout the organization, we are very supportive of our employee owners. We know in the times that we've been through, we've all been through COVID here recently in the pandemic, and we're coming out of that. But in our industry in particular, workload is extremely The ability to find people is extremely difficult. Our backlog is pushing 4 times what it was in July of 2020. So we're coming up on 4 years and have quadrupled the backlog. So you can imagine the mentality that some people might have around that in terms of, holy cow, this workload's never going to go away. I'm stressed out. I'm feeling burnout. You know, and this is the first time that we met in person for this event. Since early 2020. So we thought, what a better topic, or the team that put it together thought, what a better topic than to talk about resiliency. And to be honest with you, we did not think about it in terms of recovery. So we all kind of had the hood popped open and we're like, oh wow, that's a totally different way to look at what resiliency really means in terms of recovery. And certainly thankful for that. But yeah, it really has to do with taking care of people. We have committed our company to a flexible work environment. So what that means in our space is we hear companies saying, hey, come back to the office. You're going to sit here from 8 to 5. You can leave for a lunch break, but you got to be in the office kind of thing. And then there's a few companies that are being more remote about it. And, and we've kind of said, hey, you know what? We hire professionals. We trust you to do your job. We are trying to help you succeed in this new life that we're all experiencing, quite frankly. And expectations are changing in the work world for sure. And so we're trying to be responsive to that and even be leading in that. We committed to this flexible work environment. But we also understand that that creates its own stresses. One of the common things you hear at home or people who work from home 100% is, man, I'm having a hard time determining when my work life starts and ends. And it just is kind of ongoing all the time. And that creates stress for people. So this topic was just very natural to us to explore some more. And it was great how you presented it to us. And I'll say for me selfishly, boy, I'd never used the term recovery with resilience. I always thought resilience was you're tough, get up off the mat, you know, get punched and get back up again, you know, just that kind of plow through kind of mentality. And I think that's very typical of people, especially in the Midwest. It's pride in how hard you work and the hours you put in and the blood you got as you're wiping off your face at the end of the day. And, and I never thought about it from a recovery standpoint, but what a powerful message that was and timely, quite frankly, for our folks to hear. And yes, I've seen some changes and for the better. So.

Well, you're anticipating my next question, so—

Okay.

Because I'd love to get a sense of— I'm not— it may sound self-serving. I'm, I'm actually— I'm happy to hear it from a selfish standpoint, but I'm just really curious. What do you think resonated with people? And do you see people now kind of given permission to think about it differently the way you just said? Do you see people taking the invitation to think about it differently, or do we get back to that status quo bias that is more prevalent And it is prevalent everywhere anyway, because it's kind of how humans are baked. You know, changes, behavioral changes especially, can be really, really tough. So

yeah,

what do we see so far, just a few months later?

Yeah, I think back to that concept of Mandeville. You know, we teach our people Mandeville— talk to people, ask them open-ended questions, listen to them, ask follow-up questions, but get to the understanding of what they're really trying to tell you. So I feel like our culture was already down the path I think what this has helped us do is talk about it with different terminology to think about it in a different way. And so it's certainly given people permission to go, hey, you know what, here's what's really going on, or I'm dealing with this and I need some time to do X, Y, and Z. I won't say that I feel like everybody has come forward and said, hey, I'm doing these things, you know, let— can I do this? And we've always been a very permissive and flexible environment, but I think people have more confidence to say, you know what, I found a spot I need to spend a little time in recovery and doing things that help me get there. So, um, I'll say that. And I think we're attempting and we're trying and we keep reminding ourselves to provide ourselves time between meetings is a simple thing, but you go, okay, don't start the next meeting right at 4 o'clock as you're coming up to that point in time, give yourself some breathing space and some time to recover a little bit. So I'm seeing more and more of that. But yeah, I see things. I hear people talk about legs up on the wall.

I was going to ask you about that.

Which admittedly I haven't tried yet, but I've done some other things. But yeah, so people are trying stuff, which is good.

Yeah. And I think if I could say the hardest part for folks to, on the implementation side, after they've got it, they understand it, it's not super hard to get. And then there's this sort of level of buy-in, say, I'm willing to look at that more carefully and even try some stuff. I think the next hurdle is understanding that these do not have to be long breaks. That when often when people hear recovery, they think, okay, so this is like a sabbatical you're talking about, or it's strictly PTO. Which, look, the statistics are pretty clear, and they're kind of stark as well, which is that in the United States, on average, an employee leaves 10 days of PTO unused. That's just what it looks like. 10 days of unused PTO sits on the shelf. So there's that for sure.

Don't look at me, Adam.

I'm not looking at you, brother. Not on that one. It is not an inquisition. So feel free to not answer an unasked question. Right? But these short breaks, there's the research we've also got of others that have told us the same thing, which is that these real sort of incremental breaks that are more consciously established throughout the day can make this massive difference, even 5 minutes. So you're right. One basic thing is It can become more than just like a, hey, don't do this, but actually, this is not how we operate around here, that one meeting runs right up against another.

Right.

Right. So it takes some artfulness to create a meeting that's 40 minutes or 50 minutes long and land the plane on time. Like, you guys are in a precise space. Like, your occupation is about precision. Well, so it's like—

we're also about charging our time to projects, which get charged to clients. And if we have downtime that doesn't get charged to projects, you know, that impacts the business as well, and not a positive way. Dollars and cents-wise, could impact the business very positively if people are fresher, more productive, ready to work when it's time to work.

Having come out of the legal profession, I understand the billing process so well. And again, lawyers be not terribly different than engineers in this respect. The idea of going, hey, our meetings are going to go up to a point where it allows for somebody to have that that 5-minute break or 10-minute break. And you go, not dissimilar from a therapist, those meetings. And if you're in therapy, those are hours out. You pay for an hour, you get 50 minutes. You know, you go to a massage therapist, you pay for an hour, you get 50 minutes. Because, you know, they understand, like, to go from client to client or patient to patient, by the third patient, you'd have no patience.

Yeah, right, right, right. You'd have no patience.

You're done. You're finished, right? Yeah. So I think it's that and then being creative in the what to do. So like, obviously the way that you construct a meeting becomes its own little micro training, how you do meetings differently. Like we talked about this, doing a walk and talk is good for certain things. Sort of these meetings where there's some element of it is, can be done standing like a standing desk or a, you know, standing meeting. Those meetings always go on time or shorter when people are standing for them, et cetera. And then it's that what do What do you do in between? Because people lean, lean toward that multitask. So it's like, I'm done. Let's say I am done doing this meeting. The next thing I'm gonna do is jump into another area that needs my attention. I might just check my emails in between the meetings. Or if you're working from home, it might mean, oh, this is a perfect time for me to put up the laundry. Yeah. Or it's a great time to prepare or check in with my kids or whatever it might be. And what we see is that that's the real issue. That when the brain doesn't get the break, even when it supposedly has break time but doesn't utilize that time for something that actually is restorative, well then it's no different than if you just went meeting right after meeting right after meeting.

Right, right.

And that's behavioral change that's, that's on the table. Yeah.

I'll admit something that's very simple and kind of embarrassing and dumb, but my family and I never realized what I was doing at the time, but there are times where I would drive and it could be for hours, I mean, 2, 3 hours, and I would have, radio off and I'm just driving in silence. And fortunately, where I live, when you're talking about driving, you're not in stop-and-go traffic. You're able to move. It's very— there's no stress to the drive. And so what I realized after seeing you speak was, I think in the back of my head, not knowing what I was doing, I was— my recovery period sometimes to get in my car. I've got a 30-minute drive to where I'm going, turn off the radio, and it's just silence. And I'm just kind of letting go of things and you're decompressing. And I was telling somebody, because I, I work typically about 30 minutes from my home, people are like, wow, that's a long way to go. I said, you know, it is, but it's also good for me because when I get home, I am decompressed and I'm ready to focus on what's in front of me next, my family, and be really into that. Whereas sometimes I work in an office that's closer to home, about 5 minutes, and it's not uncommon for me to walk in through the door still on my phone thinking about what just happened. I come in talking about what just happened kind of thing, and I'm Realizing, okay, I'm not separating. I'm not giving myself time to essentially let that go. If I can move on and be present in the next space,

it's just the developing of a consciousness around it. As you say, the idea that pride in the grind—it's a Midwest thing for sure, but it's no different, honestly. And there's so many other places where might call it something different, but that idea of like if I'm not, you know, if there's no pain, there's no gain.

Right, right.

I think that's sort of on a. On an ideological level, that's the impediment. Because ultimately, if you were an athlete training for an Olympic event or something, you would want to work yourself hard. You practice hard, you work on all the skills, et cetera. But you would never think of starting that all-important event, whatever it might be, that competition depleted, tired, distracted. I mean, you certainly wouldn't succeed if that was your approach. Yeah. So, so it's an interesting thing. It is.

Swimming is a great example of that. What do you do before the biggest meets of the year? You rest, you taper, you know?

Yeah.

Our daughter was a swimmer as well, so I'm— I don't know anything about it, but I remember those periods of time where they would work, work, work, and then there'd be these lulls before the big races and the big meets. It's like, so how's things going? Well, we're resting right now. It's like, well, resting? The race is coming up. What are you doing? You're going to get out of shape. I know, it's very purposeful. It's like, okay, that's good.

Yeah, I swam in college and we called that in high school too, it was called taper.

You're right, right.

This was the taper time. And it's interesting because I had a guy— for good fortune to meet somebody at the YMCA that I swim at. And this just coming out of COVID and this guy was swimming in the lane next to me, only he was swimming about twice as fast as me. So it was literally Like experiencing what it would be like to have a dolphin like next to you. Just because I don't swim slowly, but this guy was literally like just— I got out of the water at a certain point because he was just continuing to go and I was finished. I was toast. I got my workout in. I get out and I'm looking at this other man who seemed about to be my age walking up and down the pool and said, okay, I gotta go talk to him. Obviously he's the guy's coach. It turns out it's not just his coach, it's his dad. And the young man in the pool which at the time I think I met him, maybe he was 21, 22, something like that. His name is Michael Andrew. It's on the—

I know Michael.

Oh, you know Michael? Do you know him personally? You just know his—

I do. And his father's Peter.

Yes.

His mother's Tina. Yep, we know them.

Wow.

My daughter and him swam together for quite some time. So he is a phenomenal athlete though. Wow.

He is a phenomenal athlete. What was interesting, in a short while talking to his dad, talking to Peter, I realized we had the exact same philosophy. We did an interview with him on the podcast, him and his dad together.

Oh, cool.

Maybe about 2 years ago or something, right before his first Olympic event, Olympics, and where he won. I think he was a gold medalist in the 4x400 meter IM. So I said to him, I go, I gotta just understand a little bit about this training method that you— and are you part of the Olympic training, like apparatus? He says, no. He says, I'm like persona non grata there. They don't want to talk to me. They're pissed. Because he's not training in Colorado Springs, doing any of that. His whole methodology was that you create recovery while the training process is going on. Because the way we used to do it was we would train like dogs. I mean, just like sled dogs, like with the whip, for, I don't know, 4 months. And that meant doubles, right? Probably what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Morning practice, afternoon practice. You're swimming like, I don't know, 8,000 to 10,000 yards a day. And what would happen is, yeah, you would get to that place where you'd hit that sort of peak of your practice, and then they would slowly taper you off to the time when you would swim in the meet, and then you would have these great results.

Right. Yep.

And this guy doesn't do that with his son.

Right.

Because what we also see is that there's a lot of injury. In swimming. Shoulders get blown out, knees get blown out. And what I saw in college, because I started late and these guys were— a lot of them had been swimming since they were 5 or 6 years old in, like, organized swimming, right? All that kind of stuff. They were burnt out mentally.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

They were finished. They were, like, literally toast by that point in time. And so, with Michael, his dad doesn't grind him with the yardage or the meterage. Like, instead, He gives him sufficient rest and recovery so that he's always strong. His practices are strong. His meet performances are strong. And he's proof to this day that that process, at least in the swimming arena, works.

Right. Yep. Yeah, he's a great story and it's a great family. Really neat people.

They really are. Yeah. And wish him luck because obviously he's going to be swimming in Paris This summer,

right?

Super exciting. Wow.

Yeah, fun stuff.

Yeah. And your daughter, she's still swimming?

No, she's graduated, but she is coaching. She's actually coaching at the University of Virginia. And the guy that's the head coach there, Todd DeSorbo, is very much like Peter Andrew in terms of it's quality training over quantity training. And he's going to be the head Olympic coach for the U.S. team this year. He's won 4 women's NCAA titles in a row, so he's pretty accomplished.

Cavaliers. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's so good to hear. I did not know that. But what's wonderful is that I think what's happening is that people are coming around to this new understanding. I'm not sure, did— obviously, I started out with your group talking about my lifeguard experience and that traumatic story. I didn't talk about competitive swimming in that. Did you connect the dots between the recovery, the sort of our theory about recovery and resilience? Did you connect it to swimming?

Well, not until after. I'm viewing the physical take on swimming or any other kind of athlete— athletic thing as different from what I'm gonna call mental recovery. Right, wrong, or indifferent. But as you think about it and you start to talk through it, you're like, it's a no-brainer. You think about back to your example, if you're swimming thousands of yards a day, you know, at At some point, your practice— your— the way you're practicing, you're sloppier, you're not paying attention to technique and all those things that are really important, especially if you're a sprinter in swimming. And you start to introduce or develop bad habits because I'm just trying to trudge through all of this, you know. And then you think about the mental impact of that and how you feel as you get out of the pool, so to speak. It's really no different at work. Maybe we're taxing ourselves more mentally. But then it kind of wears you out physically. You know, you're not getting the proper amount of rest, you're not sleeping well because, hey, I got to get up at 4:30 to accomplish this before the workday starts, or I'm not going to bed on time, or I'm not eating right because I'm running through from one thing to another. And so it just makes complete sense that those two, whether it's athletic training or it's working, that those paths are very similar in terms of how it wears on you as an individual, both mentally and physically.

Yeah. So I guess I want to get your, your thoughts on this now. Is there a conflict between the concept as you understand it, and meaning the place of recovery for recovery in the creation of longevity and let's say, and capacity or performance, and the idea that a business is based on numbers and it's just math on a certain level, especially if the business creates revenue by a certain number of hours being applied to a certain project, et cetera. Are those 2 things opposed in some way? And if so, I'm putting you squarely under the heat lamp here to say this, but is there a way you can see to reconcile those 2 things? And if you don't know, obviously, please just say whatever's true for you.

Yeah, no, I think absolutely it makes sense. I think certainly as business people, we typically all are business people at the end of the day. We need to and want to make money for the success of our business. At At the same time, though, you know, this is one of the things I've always loved about Barlow West, and it's that investment in people piece is, hey, first and foremost, I'm concerned about you, Adam, as a person. I want you to be successful at your job. I want you to be successful in life outside of your work life. You know, the whole person is really important. And if the whole person's in a really good spot, you're going to come here and you're going to do your best work. And you may be able to do your best work in 6, 7 hours and be way better than somebody who's working 12-hour days. And so I absolutely see a connection, and that's why I love the place that I've worked at for 30 years, is I feel like that connection's always been there to go, hey, you know what, yeah, we want to work hard, but we're also going to quote unquote play hard. And part of play hard might mean the recovery piece and put yourself in a good spot mentally, physically, but make sure you're taking care of the whole person. So for us, That connects really well. Uh, you know, we talk about bringing your whole self to work and how important it is that we want you to be healthy mentally, physically, so you can be the best version of you, quite frankly. And the best version of you is going to do the best work, which in the end is a good outcome for our clients and for our company.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm thinking just back to my days in the law and the fact that many firms to this day— I mean, in fact, I think the majority, if not some very high percentage of, of, of them, There's like a quota for hours. And it's just like, that's how you make, you justify your salary. And then beyond that, how your bonus might look based on 2,200, 2,500, 3,000, you know, like a lot of hours in a year. So that's what I was sort of—

We have that in our space too. I know that I could go out or we, anybody in our company could go out and probably make more money from a salary and bonus standpoint if you want to. Then you have to evaluate what does that mean to me as the individual? How hard am I willing to drive myself?

Yeah.

To make an extra 15% or whatever the number is. And you ultimately, you have to make a decision as an individual about what kind of balance do I want? Hey, I'm a competitive person. I love to win, but I also love that I can see people be happy. And if I feel like all you're doing is working from sunup to sundown and you're spending 6 hours in bed, maybe you're not gonna be happy and it's not gonna be fun for you and you're not And do your best work. And you know what, we have people that quit occasionally, and they'll come to me and we'll talk about it. And I say, you know what, I want you to be happy at Barlow West, but if you can't be happy here, I want you to go find somewhere you can be happy. Because at the end of the day, what's most important to me is that you're a happy and healthy individual. Again, hope it's here, but if it's not, go find your spot where you really fit.

You guys are— I don't want to say you're atypical. I mean, I think in my experience you're atypical. So to whatever extent, because— It's the

only lens I know, fortunately.

Yeah. And like you said, it's the place you began. So how beautiful it is that you didn't have to first get into the meat grinder and then have to figure out, well, this doesn't work for the kind of life I want to lead. I had to get out. I got— chose to get out of the legal profession because I felt like it was a maze I couldn't figure my way out of. And at the time, I couldn't have because it just Just that was the level of my consciousness. I think knowing what I know today, I would have been able to apply perhaps that then and done it differently. But I just wasn't resourced at the time. But at least what I have going had going then was an awareness that that was not sustainable. Yeah, I meet a lot of people that don't recognize their limitations in many ways. They put themselves. It's kind of a I'm being selfless, but it's really again. And things that you just— life will teach you stuff. My father-in-law was a worker bee, and, you know, he's not around anymore. I miss, literally miss him every day. And he didn't take care of himself. And he used to think that because he put everything, family and all those responsibilities before himself, that that was the equivalent of being selfless. Yeah. And I said to him back then, I said, no, Dad, I think it is selfish actually for you to not take care of yourself because And then sure enough, what it was, he just left before he needed to. And we're all, the loss was ours because he wasn't around. So yeah, I so appreciate how committed your organization and you are, Joe, to people priority thing.

Mm-hmm.

Again, you hear people use those terms, people first, and then I'll work in those organizations, whether it's on that side of just doing a keynote or we do consulting work with them, some of them. And what I'll see is that people, like you dig down deeper, you look more closely and people don't come first.

Right.

Bottom line comes first. And then if it's a happy coincidence that people are also happy, then so be it. But that's different, right?

Yeah.

So yeah. Well, listen, I have so been looking forward to the conversation. I knew it would be the case and it was just everything I would've wanted. Joe, thank you so much for making the time. And want to ask you too, is there one thing that yourself changing now or looking at changing, you know, when it comes to your own resiliency?

Well, I'll tell you 2. One, I'm no longer embarrassed to tell my, my family that I rode home without the radio on, so I feel good about that. But I am being more purposeful about waking up in the morning and put my feet on the floor and kind of gathering my thoughts, and I go drink 20 ounces of water. Yeah,

good

man. I'm not a coffee guy anyway, but I purposely go out and say, okay, I'm gonna have my 20 ounces right now. And I'm trying to— some of the breathing stuff and, and, you know, pausing and kind of mentally gathering where am night right now, you know, trying to end meetings 5, 10 minutes early so we can have some space. You know, all of those things are still on my mind and haven't left, which I will say for you is unique because by now this far away, you know, it's been a month or whatever it's been, maybe 6 weeks. Generally speaking, I've probably said, yeah, I tried. I've forgotten some of the stuff I picked up from that conversation. I haven't done that in this case. I'm enjoying it. So appreciate you having me. It's a lot of fun.

I appreciate you, sir. I appreciate the fact that these folks Are being led by somebody like you.

Yeah. We're a team.

Yeah. Way cool. Well, I love that conversation with Joe. He is such a quality, quality person. And probably you're sitting there, if you're being led by somebody right now, meaning you're not in the top spot, you probably might be thinking, God, I would love to work for a guy like Joe Caldwell. That's the kind of leader I think we all enjoy being led by. And if you are in fact in that top spot or leading other people in any role, whatsoever. I think you can take Joe's model as one that is, it's possible for all of us to be thinking, truly thinking about people being our priority, not just in words, not just as part of our offsites or the times of the year when we are focused on our values, but each and every day. I think that's what Joe exudes. And frankly, he gives the credit to Bartlett and West itself as an organization, as a culture, The group of folks that started this long before he got there, organization has now been around for 75 years or soon to celebrate its 75th anniversary in the engineering space. And the culture has continued to evolve, to use Joe's words. But when he got there, they were focused on taking care of their people. And to this day, that has remained a priority and perhaps even an increased focus on that, given the fact that our world is as stressed out in many ways and people are feeling greater levels of anxiety and the signs of their depletion are showing as burnout is on the rise. And we all know that this is real. This is not a sky is falling. Nobody's making this up. This is the actual state of affairs across many demographics, of course, but we're seeing it in the Gen Z and millennial groups even at higher rates than with some other people. And so having that conversation today with Joe, really focusing on what that looks How do you deploy that? How do you implement in a world where results are the first and last focus and priority? Business runs on results. Business runs on numbers. We get that. Joe gets that certainly. And yet to integrate these 2 things and not see them as mutually exclusive, how do you take care of your workplace wellbeing and really focus your culture on people at the same time that you drive results for the bottom line? This is the masterwork. This is the part that requires, if you're not expert at this, and most leaders that I've met are not actually expert at that, then this is an area where you want to show your willingness to learn, your humility, your vulnerability even in bringing in people or resources that can assist you in bringing those 2 things together, reconciling these 2 things that seem to be at odds and not simply having pride in the grind, which I think many us were raised to believe that this is the only sort of realistic way to ensure that you will meet the demands and that you'll also be resilient. That's an archaic way to look at it today. Based on our research, it's clear that paradigm is not sustainable and that is not going to be the paradigm that will lead us forward. So we got to unpack a lot of that and even discover that we had some things in common that we didn't even realize out of my history as a competitive swimmer and Joe's daughter, who's also a very highly Accredited swimmer of her own right, and now a coach and working with the person who's going to lead and head up the Olympics for swimming and a different philosophy, a philosophy that is based in the research that we have been creating ourselves and the research that we've relied upon ourselves as well. This idea that resilience is baked out of recovery rituals, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, even rituals for our recovery, and not about how it is that we are able to grind it out better or grit. Grit better than others. So love the conversation. Again, Joe is such a solid guy. I learned a lot. I hope you did as well. And if this is something you think would benefit others, whether there are people that you are leading, people that you are being led by, colleagues, friends, family, et cetera, please share this episode with those that you think, again, would enjoy it. That is always helpful to us to see this community expand. Also, if you wouldn't mind taking that 30 seconds, perhaps that it takes to provide a rating of the show on the platform that you consume this podcast. So 5 stars is always great, but whatever the rating is that you would take the time to provide is valuable feedback for us. And we value you in so many ways and for your time. We thank you for that. And I'll say lastly, if you're checking in on yourself, just wanting to find out how resilient you are in this very moment, rankmyresilience.com is our way for you to do that. It is a huge dataset now of information we've collected over many years, almost 8,000 resilient leader assessments conducted so far. This is a free tool for you. rankmyresilience.com for yourself. 3 minutes later, you're gonna, you're gonna get a score in those 4 important realms of resilience, as well as some resources that may help you to create the kind of rituals that Joe and I were talking about today. Again, I wanna say thank you so much and have a beautiful rest of your day. Thanks

for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience toolkit, visit changeproof.com. Thank you. To take the free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.