Adaptability Over Availability for BSCs | The Magnetic Operator Ep.7

Welcome. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Magnetic Operator. What is your mo? It's a question I hope everyone is asking themselves. As we've been going through these episodes and having a lot of fun, up.

To seven episodes, we're just moving right along.

Moving right along. Well, today we're going to uncover something that I feel like is a top trait most building service contractors that I interact with, and that is adaptability.

Here's the thing about adaptability. It's not about being as flexible as a yoga instructor. It's not about being available like a 247 McDonald's. It's about making sure that you can problem solve, that you can enhance your process to be more efficient and that people are engaged. All of that has to do with adaptability. Caden here had an experience recently that I thought played right into this idea of adaptability, being able to adapt. Kaden, a few weeks ago, you embarked on an activity that caused you to have to go down a 450 foot building.

Yes.

On a rope. Tell us how that applies to adaptability.

Oh, gosh. So I was at a mastermind group with a bunch of other software CEOs, and it's a great time. And all of a sudden we were walking to this activity that.

You didn't know what the activity.

No, we didn't know what it was.

They're like, hey, that's part of this event.

There's a portion of it. It's like a surprise kind of thing.

Already he's adapting by taking the walk.

So we get to the parking garage of this building. Building. And as soon as we're walking around, all of a sudden I see ropes off the glass and someone's like, we are rappelling down a skyscraper. For me, I'm not incredibly terrified of heights, but get me on the edge of anything over 20ft and my heels hanging off the backside, my stomach was turning.

Well, 430 extra feet on that 20.

Yeah. So being adaptable in that sense, it was just the idea of putting yourself in a situation ready to receive, ready to explore, ready to go experience something and being adaptable to those conditions.

Well, speaking of conditions, you even had problems with the weather.

Yeah. So the, the group was very adaptable and flexible to us having to go down the side of the building. It started raining. I was literally at the top of the skyscraper and it was raining. It wasn't like a downpour, but it wasn't like, oh, I kind of felt a drop every once in a while. It was legit raining and the wind was Picking up.

Didn't it one time blow you off course?

Yeah. As I was going down the side, I went sideways three feet. That was a little scary.

So how did you adapt in that situation? What was your feeling in that moment?

In the moment, it was.

You took a breath.

Yeah, because it knocked me off course a little. But in that moment, I actually paused, I looked down and I said, I got this. And it was an interesting to be adaptable to the conditions, be adaptable to the experience. I didn't miss out because I was closed off and not willing to change.

Did some of those CEOs say no?

A couple of them did. I'm not here to bash.

No, we don't want to bash.

A lot of people took the opportunity. One of them, him and I went down pretty close together. And he straight up, he's like, it scared the hell out of me. Scariest thing I've ever done. And I was like, wow. And he still did it, you know, so it was just a great lesson to work on being adaptable and to go with it. In fact, even the next day, what was cool about the group I'm a part of is the next day, they showcased how adaptable they are. Adaptable doesn't mean you compromise the experience. It doesn't mean that you forego your expectation. It just means that you might have a different course or path to get to the same outcome, and you have.

To be willing to take that course.

Yeah. And so we had a chartered bus to this place in Denver, and it broke down like a mile and a half just on the way, everything going wrong. And, you know, the organization got 10 different Ubers to get US CEOs up to the experience. And in the end, the outcome should be the same, what you're driving to. And it allowed for all of us to still experience something incredible and great. Yet the organization, we as CEOs, had to be adaptable to the conditions and willing to just go with the flow. It doesn't mean that we don't have to compromise the experience or not do it and just cancel it out. It just means that the original intention of the path that we thought we would take in getting those experiences took a different turn.

So I love that. So today that's what we want to dive into, adaptability and what that means as a building service contractor, someone who owns or runs a business for services and being adaptable in your leadership role and how that's going to work. So let's dive in. All right. We are hitting our main segment of the show, as we've said in previous episodes, beyond Mach 1, taking Operation Supersonic, where the term one is okay, notable and elite. And we like to take a question. So today's question actually comes from Cameron and. And Cameron asks us, kayden, how can I balance day to day tasks with long term business needs? So one of the first things we always like to pinpoint is what relationship of the three we've mentioned in previous episodes. What relationship is this part of?

I mean this is good like self reflection type of question, but trying to balance naturally what day to day tasks are versus long term. Day to day tasks exist with your frontline managers, supervisors trying to actually execute the work. And so Cameron, I'm not exactly sure your position, but let's say you are the CEO. Your responsibility of trying to hold a long term vision while still keeping a pulse on the operations and making sure that your operations are magnetic and elite is probably, if I were to assume where this question is coming from. And so a lot of the things that we've prepared today for this episode are going to answer in the mindset of you as a leader, working on you as a leader so that you can work better with your managers and supervisors who are working with the frontline.

But honestly, even giving yourself as a leader time, you and I both are in leadership roles in our current capacity and we have to balance the time of providing leadership thought leadership in the business. Right. But also the day to day and how that operates. And so I'm curious, Kaden, what does okay look like for a contractor in this situation? To this question, balancing day to day versus long term businesses, what's okay?

Yeah, I mean this is where you might start if you're below this. I think there's a step even before what okay looks like. But I often refer to being okay as you have a state of awareness. So you have identified that there are processes, there are playbooks that you could be executing on as an organization and that you would take responsibility as the leader to realize that, hey, I've got to build up processes for my team. I can't just have it all appear. And from the typical organizations that I've worked with, usually they're beyond the startup phase. Often we're talking about scaling operations, right. Going to an elite level of operations. There are many points that I could teach on for someone who is a mom and pop shop type of startup phase, but we're diving into these questions. These questions come up even beyond startup phase of how do I get to scale my organization? Because what happens when you start bringing on more clientele, when you start realizing that there are more employees to work with, you start just naturally having more overhead costs that come in. And if you don't manage it effectively, that's gonna balloon costs in the ability for you to deliver a service, which means you aren't gonna be as competitive. And if you aren't as proactive and efficient in your processes, that's gonna start dinging you. So. So no operator recognizes that the challenge is officially here, that it needs to be addressed, that it's a struggle, and that they want to do something about it. We often have referenced this many times. Becoming aware. The first step in change in anything is becoming aware. And that's the willingness of NOK operators. They're like stage one. They're okay. Because the beginning stages of becoming aware leads to probably taking more noteworthy or notable approach as a business owner, which means potentially asking or starting to actually take action.

I'm going to go off script here for a second. We have this idea of things coming to us in our schedules, disruptions, or people asking us to help them in certain things. Right. And oftentimes we feel like we have to take that on in the moment. Is that something that an okay operator is doing? Taking on those and saying yes, Being a yes man or woman? In that scenario?

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on that? Because that happens way too often. I think the disruption is what ultimately leads to us adapting in the wrong way almost.

Well, actually, it leads you to trying to be more available instead of adaptive. And actually being adaptable doesn't mean that you need to be available. And so to answer your question, yes, an okay operator is in a reactive state, which means they focus on being available for a client. They try and prioritize. Whatever comes at me, I'm gonna try and prioritize. And you live in a state of chaos. Right, Right. And so someone making noteworthy steps being notable. A notable operator is someone who is moving from the idea that adaptability and availability are two separate things. I love that being available means that you live in this cultural mindset in your company. You push it to managers that, hey, when a client reaches out to us, we make time, we cancel everything we're doing. Often clients just want things resolved if it's a very reactive thing. But we've talked about in past episodes how you can be more proactive in just ensuring that clients are satisfied. Right. In this instance, being adaptable is like, do you have processes? And are you willing to recognize that processes need to be built to actually Be more adaptable. And what that may look like is, hey, I'm gonna actually try and have a list, a prioritized effort on how can I be more adaptive in the industry. What technology exists out there that we need to be more adaptable to in embracing? And also if you aren't in an adaptable state, you aren't doing things that help you live in that adaptable state, which means that you aren't paying attention to clients needs. All you're focused on is a reactive standpoint. And so moving into this notable category is just like, hey, I'm going to make a more proactive approach or an active approach to being more adaptable with clients and understanding their needs, being able to anticipate the puck last episode or a couple episodes ago, right. So that would be someone who's notable in their operations, they're making effort. There's small changes here, trying to anticipate the punch, realizing that I got to figure out ways to be adaptable in the technology I'm using, how I'm managing my workforce and how I'm addressing client needs.

I think it's important to note that These owners, these CEOs of service providing companies often may think we have to increase our availability.

Right?

An open door policy. How many times have we heard that as leaders, hey, my door's always open. If your door's always open, your time is going to be filled with other people's problems, right? And so when Cameron, when you're asking how can I balance day to day tasks with long term needs, you have to look at what time are you giving yourself versus your managers or your frontline employees. And with your question, it's your leadership and your position and working with those managers. So as a notable operator, it's important to be adaptable and make yourself available. But not giving all your availability to other people, you have to give time to yourself to work on the business, not just in the business. And that actually brings us to the most important person in our Mach 1 framework, which is the elite MO who prioritizes adaptability. So Caden, how does the elite operator separate themselves from the okay or the notable operator?

Building off of that adaptability versus availability is they protect their time with their priorities. And it's really hard at times to say no. If you intentionally set and prioritized your time and actually had an intention on your calendar that was like, I'm doing this from this time to this time. What happens is you question naturally because you have something on the calendar, you naturally are in a state of protection in the sense like, well, if I'm going to stop what I'm doing to give you time for this, it's got to be more valuable than what that is. And if you don't make time to develop a culture and processes of learning how to be adaptable, kind of going back to the experience I shared at the beginning, the organization that was running the event culturally, they had processes set up, playbooks set up, that they were infused in these moments. If then this happens, here's how we become adaptable, here's how we change. And if you don't have that, then you experience those moments in a very reactive state.

Yeah, yeah.

And so the elite magnetic operator literally shows up every day making sure that things are time blocked on their calendar, that priorities actually have a spot on their calendar and perhaps we could probably spend an entire episode on time management. So maybe that's going to be upcoming.

Foreshadow.

Yeah, we can dive into that another time. But they aren't bogged down or phased by problems popping up because they've built processes in a way that trains leaders, that trains the managers and supervisors how to handle those moments, how to anticipate moments of needing to be adaptable and, and when you as a leader lead with that cultural priority and show the way that it needs to be done, your entire organization. Cameron, going back to your question, that allows you to manage the day to day tasks while being able to focus on the long term business needs. Because I don't know when it originated, but like you take a jar, you first put all of the water in and then you have no space for the sand or the rocks, right? Yeah. It's actually the premise of the whole eos. Right. Rocks first, rocks first, then fill it with sand, then put in the water. When you prioritize the long term business needs, you actually still have a ton of time for managing day to day things and being semi involved in those things. But like when you put the rocks first, that means that they're bigger, they're more important things for you to be working on that the value that the ROI that it's going to deliver to your organization actually means something. And going back to what you said earlier, that's what happens by working on your business instead of in your business, it doesn't mean you won't ever work in your business again. It just means that you actually prioritize and move the needle. By working on the business, moving the needle forward and setting up the cultural boundaries of here's how you're going to be adaptable in scenario A, B or C, you aren't going to be able to anticipate everything perfectly. But 80% processed out and established means that you're going to get your time back. You're going to allow yourself to be happier with the outcomes that the team produces. All because you're developing a culture of being adaptable to the circumstances that present themselves day to day.

Love that. So here's a thought. It's often said, all failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation. What does that mean to you?

A market is shifting or a trend? Here's a prime example. Covid. We've referenced this a couple times before in the cleaning business. That was an adaptability moment.

The best ones actually adapted in that moment.

Really quick, hey, how else am I going to provide value to my clients? How am I going to show up for my clients in a much more efficient way? How am I going to prove that things are not only clean, be transparent, like there was a lot of opportunity. That said, if you're going to make it, you've got to be willing to adapt to this market condition because the market condition changed. Here's where market conditions change. Market conditions change based off of client needs, technology advancements and workforce management. Every single one of those things were affected in Covid. Yeah, client satisfaction went to a whole new level. Right.

It went down because they weren't providing enough transparency.

I meant the need for client satisfaction went to a whole new level. Technology integration, being able to have that visibility skyrocketed. People were searching for ways to see what was happening. And at the end of the day, people showing up to work, people getting sick right and left. Like your ability to adapt. Workforce availability, customers that we worked with, we had customers that had to furlough a bunch of their employees because a huge sector of their business was shut down because the servicing wasn't needed. While as others like upticked depending on the types of facilities that you service. So that was like the real world implications of building service contractors needing to adapt. And again, if you didn't have a culture, and now I will say, like you as the CEO, if you have the cultural mindset of being adaptability, it trickles down to your operations.

Yeah.

But you would then respond in a reactive state in that moment. Whereas it didn't have to all be up to you as the building service contractor CEO. Right. It didn't have to be up to you to say, hey, how are we going to adapt? The organization knew, here's how we adapt in these circumstances, we're ready to go, boss. Right. That's what I think of a failure, is a failure to adapt. And, and those that failed in those moments failed to adapt.

Love that. So if we go into and dive into what the elite MO can do today to increase that adaptability. Let's get into that real quick.

Yeah. Cameron. So we have three things that we want you to write down. Said it before and I'll always say it again, it's not what is taught, it's what's caught. So however this applies to you, write down how you're going to go and take it away and do something about it. But the three things that I want to talk about today should increase your adaptability as your organization. Number one, going back to one of those things I just mentioned, which was like that. Workforce management, cross training. Invest in your employees, like train them. Because it's no secret that our number one problem as an industry is just management of employees. Turnover of employees. Right. You can't eliminate that in its entirety. But what you can do is make it so that your processes and your people are trained in such a way that it allows you to be more adaptable to client demand and need. That all of a sudden comes up because you have more resources that are deployable to that problem because you invested in cross training. So going back to long term business needs of your question, Cameron, That's a long term business need that sometimes in a reactive state of day to day you aren't focused on. But if you say, hey, every week I'm going to host a training with this group and this is what it means to be adaptable. I'm taking the time and energy to cross train and you explain that we are cross training because business needs can change. And I want you guys as employees empowered to be able to change in the circumstance and not feel overwhelmed and stressed out. So this is us taking a proactive measure by investing in cross training. So that's number one. Number two is future scenario planning. I could probably do a whole deep dive conversation and what it means to anticipate the puck. And I've operated this way so many times. I anticipate a lot up here, but I'm the only one that knows what's going on up here.

That's true. And he often plays. What is Caden thinking? It's really hard sometimes. But we figure it out.

Yeah. And so the future scenario planning involve the team. I did this yesterday. There's a topic of concern I brought up with the executive team that was Way into the future wasn't, hey, next week we need to make this shift or changes. I'm trying to anticipate what if and what I believe that allowed us to do in this scenario was prepare for a future playbook of running an adaptability playbook in that scenario. And if that situation ever needs to happen, I think the executive team is way more versed in and ready into the types of discussions we're going to have to have if that scenario were to play out. That's number two, is go into future scenario planning, go do it with your other executives if you have other executives on board. If not, do it with your senior level management in these scenarios. Here's how I would like us to plan out and to have the processes play out. And it will make it so that in those moments of chaos that tend to just happen, that you are ready to be adaptable to the situation because six months prior you ran the play in practice of what it meant to anticipate that puck coming to you.

I think before we move on to three, an aspect of being a leader is making sure you're hearing from your management and frontline staff the actual challenges that you are going through now to future scenario plan. Right? So one trick that I've heard and I want to implement more of is having the frontline and the management actually write down what they did, challenges they faced, and then what are resolutions to those problems. And by actually just documenting that and keeping it forthright in front of you, it gives you the better chance to actually create what you're saying. Kaden, which is planning for those disruptions or those problems. And again, to point number one, you're able to then train on those challenges. How do I take these on? Basically the idea folks is you want to turn yourself into multiple people in your organization so that you can trust that they're going to take care of it and they don't need to call You Remember that one time we went to a seminar and it was with a bunch of CEOs and building service contractors and facility managers and there were so many CEOs directors in the hallway on phones, making calls and putting out fires. And the reason they had to do that is because they did didn't have a process that allowed other people that solved the problem without them. So instead of being able to work on the business, learn, grow, implement, build, they had to do the things, hey, go do it this way. Because it wasn't documented, it wasn't given to them.

I made a joke in that instance to Someone, it was kind of funny. It just shows that X, Y and Z isn't in place.

Yeah.

And he was a facility director that came out. He's like, not me. He's just like, my number two was more qualified than I am. And I was like, exactly. So he was able to fully participate, play full out at the conference, to learn, to educate, to move his organization forward, because he had a number two and a number three and a number four that he had full trust in being able to run operations. He didn't need to be there. So, yeah, future scenario planning. The. The third thing.

Yeah, this plays right into it.

The third thing is investing in yourself. Like, adaptability starts with you. Any leadership problem starts with you looking in the mirror. And that stings sometimes. And the state of becoming aware is always that first step of like, hey, this starts with me. So does my team see me investing in myself? Does my team see me learning how to anticipate the puck that the pass is coming and I'm going to be in the right spot because I am doing what is necessary to be ready for the moments of being adaptable Again, kind of going back into those three categories. The best things you can learn to be adaptable in is anticipating client needs, technology advancements. And I'm not talking about like just software, right? I'm talking about technology. I'm talking about robotics. I'm talking about technology advancements, even in chemical and supply and all of those aspects, those advancements that allow you to be more well versed in what is available and how you can adapt new technology and adopt new solutions into your processes, allows you to become more productive, to do things more efficiently. And the third one being the management of staff. Right. So I often think that leaders need to adopt this mindset of becoming. I was at a conference years ago, we'll just leave it at that. Probably like eight years ago. It was one of the first times that I had heard it and I couldn't tell you exactly who it was. I don't remember what the conference was called, but I was there. And the speaker up on stage said to the audience, I am not the CEO that this company needs in two years from now. In my mind, I was like, what's about to happen? And he said, I've got to take responsibility today. That makes me the ideal candidate and the best CEO in two years from now. And I was like, that is so cool. That's an incredible mindset. So it means when it's time to invest in yourself, when it's time to Say, hey, who do I need to become? What kind of organization do I need to have? How do I play a part in leading that organization? And then you start realizing maybe some gaps in who you are and your belief systems and what you need to do to address those. But I would say that's the third thing, Cameron. The third thing is probably the most important here, which is invest in yourself. Adaptability starts with you.

Love that. Being able to work on the business will start with that mindset shift. I feel like when we read raise your game and other books that helped us realize our potential as leaders, it gave us the fuel to say, hey, I do need to work on myself. I need a coach, I need a mentor. I need training, and I need to give myself time to learn that not only for myself, but. But for the employees that we lead. You see that picture all the time. A boss is someone who's cracking the whip and pushing people along. We're not bosses.

Right.

We are leaders in an organization that's trying to better help our employees, help our customers. But even to your point that was made in previous episodes, it's not your people that matter most. It's your process. And part of that process is giving yourself time. Because if you give yourself time, you're going to build the processes. If you build those processes, it helps the people. And if your people are helped and they feel taken care of and they know what to do, that's when good service is delivered.

Yeah.

So investing in yourself is huge. And it starts with a mindset shift now to close out. It has to be said. And this is something that I've learned in my career. It is an excuse. And people hate that I say that. But when people say, I don't have time to make time, I don't have time to do this thing, yeah, that is an excuse. And people are going to chirp at me because of that saying, but I tell you now, priorities and being able to adapt, giving yourself time, it's an excuse. What are your thoughts? I don't have time. I don't have time to make time. I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to build a process.

If that's what you think, then I'm.

A culprit of that. I say it too often and it grinds my gears when I say it out loud. But everybody does it, right? Everybody does it.

Yeah. It's like whether you think you can or you think you can't.

You're right. Yeah.

That was on sync. Here's the deal if you believe that you are correct. And what's challenging here is, I said it earlier, true adaptability doesn't mean compromising performance or efficiency. So you're just like, oh, if I take time away, I'm gonna lose out on paying attention to clients and whatnot. No, it just means that you're constantly gonna be in a reactive state and it's always like, the buck's gonna stop with you. So it starts with a mindset shift. It starts with becoming aware. And for those that have that belief system, your first step is to work on challenging that belief. It's going to come from you believing that there is more time, that there is a better outcome. That you as an entrepreneur didn't leave the corporate world if you had a job going out somewhere else. Like you didn't get into this to just work harder and more hours than you did in a 9 to 5. Like as an entrepreneur you had a dream. And that dream was probably rooted in creating financial freedom. It was rooted in being flexible with your own time, being able to spend more time with family. Whatever it is for you as an entrepreneur, that's why you do it. And you like to be the person that gets to be involved and make big decisions. Well, the first decision you need to make is the fact that your responsibility as the owner, as the CEO, as the main head honcho. I'll back that up. You don't even have to be the CEO. You could be a high end senior leader, an operator. Yeah. The mind shift has to begin with you. Everyone can take 30 minutes out of their week to start investing in time. That makes them more aware, more strategic. And you will start seeing your organization being able to scale to the next level of growth and winning because you are making that investment. So you do have time to make time, if you believe it 100%.

So Cameron, just as a recap, invest in cross training, future scenario planning, invest in yourself. And that will help you work through the day to day and do the long term progress updates to your business. Working on the business, not just in it, and that's a hard balance to find. But by doing these things, that's going to get you in a place where you feel like you can give time on your calendar, own your calendar, block it off, give yourself time to invest in the long term side of the business while you get the operation to a place where you can trust your managers to start doing those day to day tasks so you can focus on that mindset shift and update.

Yeah, well, that's it. For today's episode. Again, if you have thoughts, feedback, we pull these questions from our audience. If you have a question that you want us to answer, email vip kadenhutchins.com and we'll take a look at answering it in these episodes. Thanks everyone.

See ya.