The Scrub S2E5: Leadership in the Cleaning Industry with Mike Sawchuk

Improve your organization's marketing and sales as well as management and field operations by tuning in to the Scrub. Welcome to episode five of the Scrub. I'm your host, Sam. Alongside me is Caden, and we have a good show planned out for you. Glad to be back. Today's topic is leadership in cleaning. We got a special guest coming on the show. He's someone who has over 30 years of experience leadership experience in the cleaning industry. And we are just excited to introduce him shortly. But to recap what we did in our last episode, Gloria Strothers joined us to talk about employee appreciation. And we learned that studies indicate that employees that feel valued do better work and they stick around longer. And Gloria provided some great insights on the topic, notably saying that to make an employee feel seen and appreciated, managers can take the time to know them on a personal level and understand what the employee values about their job. And that rings so true. Kate and I go through that all the time when we're working with our employees here at Clean Intelligent. And to recap also, our porcelain thought from Caden is he introduced us to the sandwich method. Everyone loves a good sandwich, even when it involves feedback. It's a good, bad, good sandwich. By sandwiching your negative feedback with positive feedback, you create more trust in your employee as well as addressing the issues at hand. So really great episode. If you haven't listened to it, go check it out. But today's episode, Caden, tell us a.

Little bit more about it for sure today. Well, so our last few episodes this season have been focused on taking care of the employees that you already have. Our guests and our own research have revealed that managers have an incredible impact on their employees experience. That impact can be positive, resulting in happy employees who stick around, or it can be negative, meaning high turnover, dissatisfaction, disgruntled employees. And so today we bring in Mike Sawchuk to talk about leadership in cleaning organizations. So here's Mike.

Mike Sawchuk is a facilities management executive coach with 30 years of leadership experience in the professional, professional cleaning industry. He specializes in helping small to medium sized building service contractors grow their sales and profits, improve customer satisfaction and experience, and enhance their overall operational excellence.

Welcome Mike, to the Scrub. It is great to have you and I really appreciate, before we get started, participating in our National Cleaning Week series videos a couple weeks back. It was great to have you participate. So thank you for everything you do for the industry and specifically for helping Clean Intelligent out with that mini video series.

Thank you, Kate. And it was my pleasure. It was truly my pleasure.

Wonderful. Well, we're going to Dive right in. And we really want to just start with the breadth of experience you have in this industry. And we'd love to know how you got started in the industry and what got you to where you are today.

Well, it got started around 30 some odd years ago. My wife fell in love with beautiful British Columbia up here in Canada. So we moved out there and I really had no position to go to. And then looked into papers and there's someone looking for an individual to put together a business plan. It was a business plan for a small chemical manufacturing company out there. And that was my first taste. I came in there, developed a business plan for them. They said the plan was good. Now do you have the capability of implementing what you put on paper? And I did and the rest is history. I've spent some time working for small and very large chemical manufacturers as well as local, regional and national distribution company. So it's been a very diverse, enjoyable experience in the professional cleaning industry.

Awesome. That's great. I mean, when it comes to experience, I honestly, I think when, so I'm a football guy, you can tell I got the jersey on the wall. And when it comes to football, like the playoffs roll around, people always ask me, do you think it's going to be this, this team with a really great rookie quarterback or is it going to be the quarterback that's been in it for so long? I always err on the side of experience. Sure there's some stars that, that come out in, in the rookie, like the way they do things on a rookie side. But man, when you got guys like Mike coming in giving you a business plan, I'm going to go with Mike every day because he's got the plan and he's got the experience. And so as I was thinking about having like you coming onto the show, that that's what came to my mind. I was like, man, this is somebody who has so much experience. And so to, to follow up with that for you. What does it mean to be a leader in the cleaning industry?

I view it as, first of all, I don't know if I'm a leader. There's a lot of great people, great leadership profiles in manufacturing, in distribution, and we're working with in house cleaning operations and bscs as well as our industry association, the issa. So there's a lot of great people, great leaders and, and I am privileged to be counted as one of them. What it means is a responsibility of taking and driving constant improvements. I think we're blessed. We have some great people. I remember from the past who actually took the time to mentor me. And they literally had that attitude. If you wanted to learn and you had the ability to learn, they'll teach you. However, if you didn't show them any respect, they would just as quickly tell you to take a hike. And I think in our industry, the same thing. There's a lot of bright young people entering in all areas of the business. And the businesses right now, I think is the beginning of probably the next five or seven years of significant change. Of significant change. And those that keep up will survive. And those that don't keep up are going to be left behind. And I think that what you're seeing is that rationalization over the past 10 years or so, whether it be manufacturing, distribution or BSCs. You look at some of them have had great strong leadership and they went on to acquire. Others have given up. They said, okay, you know, I don't have it in me anymore to leave. I'll cash in my chips when the cash in is good. Others were forced out and had to pick up their marbles best they can. And with the I really think that we're going now into the fourth industrial revolution and where you have things like 5G fueled volume and speed, a blockchain enabled secure transactions, Internet of things and artificial learning and machine learning, on it goes. And it's going to be significant change. And when people aren't able to keep up internally with the changes that are happening externally, including the cleaning industry or fm, as was stated by a great leader from GE many years ago, you're going to be left behind. You have to keep up to those changes or you will be disrupted. I do believe next five years, tons of changes and there's going to be a lot of disruption. And I'd like to be part of that group of people that, that assist the younger generation coming in and shorten. That's all we're doing is really shortening their learning curve because they're bright, they have the ability to learn, they have the desire to learn. And all we're going to try to do is shorten their learning curve.

Very good. Caden. Thoughts?

I love it. I think it's a perfect segue into kind of what we're trying to dial in and discuss today. You're talking about all of these changes that are going to be taking place, that have taken place, that are in the middle of taking place. Right. A key part of that is those involved in leadership and management. And I would love to hear your thoughts, Mike, on what you think management practices are going to look like as we move forward, as well as how those management practices impact those frontline employees and specifically the differences in what needs to change to ensure that these employees move up to leadership and management roles as we move forward.

Very compacted question. I think first I'd like to distinguish the difference between leadership and management. I don't view them as the same. Management is. And I think the professional cleaning industry is filled with a lot of good managers, good people, and they know how to control and supervise and delegate the resources, etc. Et cetera. I think there's a sharp difference between good or effective leadership and our industry does not have great leadership for the most part. There's some, don't get me wrong, there's some great leaders in all dimensions. You know, the software industry you guys are involved in, but bscs, be it in house cleaning operations and manufacturing distribution, you could point to good, strong leadership, but there's just not enough of them. And to me, good leadership is going to be critical, especially moving forward. We're all not going to have the answer, especially someone like myself. You young guys, you guys forgot more about technology than I'll ever know. But I think where leaders needs to come in is open up the stage to have open conversations and start understanding what is possible, inviting those conversations, positioning all the stakeholders and planning it for the future. So to me, you know, it's good to have the good or right people, your frontline staff. It's important to have good and right managers. But it's critical to have leadership, effective leadership moving forward. And to me, leadership is really the critical because they make the critical decisions. Let's face it, if something happens to a company, it's sad to see, well, we're not getting their financial. Let's lay off a bunch of people. We're not doing this. The leader of that company should say, you know what, I failed. I failed because we didn't get these results. Clearly I need to accept responsibility because I am on top if they happen to be the CEO, depending where they are, but leadership are making the critical decisions. But more importantly, and I think it's going to change for the professional cleaning industry is the environment. Not only do they make those critical decisions, but they're responsible for creating or allowing to stick around that work environment. So is it one of empowerment, engagement, motivation with all the right skill set, or is it one of opposite? Where there's demotivation, there's no empowerment, et cetera, and only when you have that right environment, that right culture, that right Work culture, is it going to be able to deliver the required levels of efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, as well as consistency? And that will then drive your customer experience, which then feeds back into the results of good leadership. So to me, good leadership is required. And the good thing is I think it can be learned. It can be taught to those that have the ability to learn and desire to learn. So to me, organizations are going to have to look in the mirror and say, does my leadership team have the capability of driving effective leadership? And if they don't make those tough decisions, say, you know what, they're good guys or I'm a good guy, but I just don't have the skill set anymore to be that effective leader. If they don't, I think they're the ones. Regardless of what type of company they are, you know, feeding, you know, the different spokes into the hub of the professional cleaning industry, they will be disrupted by others that are more nimble, more quick. That's really going to understand how to create that work environment. Kane, does that answer the question?

Yeah, you blew it away. You hit it out of the ballpark. I love it. Thank you.

And it actually brings up a couple thoughts for me. So I've been recently reading the book by Jim Collins, Good to Great, and it talks about the importance of good leaders. And honestly, many of the good to great companies, one being ge. You mentioned ge. They use that as a case in the book. But if you don't have leaders that are willing to do what it takes, but do it in a way that empowers employees to your point, we have some statistics here that we wrote down just to share. And 57% of people have left a job to get away from a bad manager. And you mentioned a manager is different than a leader and that is true. I believe that as well. Management has an effect on productivity. A study at Stanford found that good management was correlated with higher levels of productivity. So it, it makes a difference. Managers and leaders. Right. Going back to the Good to Great book though, he talks about not just putting the right people on the bus, but the right people in the right seats on the bus.

Right.

And so your, your A players, the people who are really, really good and skilled and doing what they can, you put them in the right place to excel and succeed in that role the best. And many times that means being a leader or leading another set of employees to succeed as they are. And so I love everything that you mentioned and it really is insightful what you shared, jumping down a little bit more and then we can Find give you kind of our final question that we like all of our guests to share some insights, but you talk about leaders and kind of the discipline and the responsibility of a leader. And if you're not ready to take that on, take that mantle, have the skills to lead, you may not be right for leadership. Right. So how can you become, in your opinion, how can and to our audience, how can our audience become a better leader and help others lead and manage in the organizations as they improve themselves? Because you're always looking to improve as a leader. So how can you do that as you continue to lead and then help others do the same?

Okay. Well, it's a great reference you have with your book and that, you know that quote I mentioned earlier that was from Jack Welch. Well, 25 years ago, think of it, 25 years ago, he makes that quote that if the rate of change is faster on the outside of your organization than inside, you'll be disrupted. It's as or I would say more relevant today and that right seat on the right boss. I think with leadership, what I separate is skills versus attitudes and traits. And I'm a big believer of at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's frontline staff or if it happens to be management or leadership. You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitudes and traits, depending what the what where the bus is going. So in that analogy, if the bus is going here and is going this direction and you build and you need people with accounting skills or software skills, work alone or work not alone, etc. You need to identify the right attitudes and the right traits first of all, and typically their ability to learn and desire to learn. If they don't have those two skills, I don't care. I'm not going to hire them as a frontline staff, but they'll definitely not be my manager, supervisor, leader, et cetera. And then there's other ones. So for my frontline staff in a professional cleaning industry, I want to make sure that the person has an attitude or trait that they want to clean. You know, if they don't want to clean, you're going to be pushing a wet noodle uphill. But they are, they want to be punctual, that they have a tracker of being punctual, reliable, that they could work alone or the team. So when it comes to leaders, again, I would look for right attitudes and traits. And again, that would be someone that number one is integrity, that they have the high standards of integrity, trustworthiness, etc. If you don't have that you're never going to be a good leader. Other one are being able to practice empathy that you're, you know, being a good managed by walking around. And you got to be in the trenches and you've got to have great communication skills. Not talking but effective listening and really truly listening. And then you're asking those the right questions. So if you have those right attitudes and traits, they can be taught the required skills. So the frontline person can be taught the skills required that leadership and in leadership there'd be skills like team building. How do you build an effective team, how do you train effective listening, you look at things, decision making, how do you balance risk and reward? So if the risk is high or the reward is high or you put more time into collecting the data that's going to then make that decision. But if the risk and reward are low, don't spend a lot of time in that. So decision making, ability to delegate, the ability to build a team of where there's that environment that people really like to come to work and there's places like that even in the cleaning industry they love to come to work, they want to be with the people that they're working. But that is your leadership skills. And I think in conclusion from there would be that the leaders, you know, if you have the right attitudes and traits, they can be taught the right skills to develop. And then the biggest one is a constant desire to improve. A great leader doesn't rest in the status quo we've achieved. This is looking for how can we improve. That's doing a lot of testing. So really what that means in a leader in the marketplace, I think balancing that is with the Internet of things, with this great data driven atmosphere, I think people right now there's a heightened awareness and recognition of the importance of cleaning and disinfecting. And I think that when with information by data driven there's going to be a demand for real time data. So you're going to be going into a facility and saying I Wonder what my KPIs are on my indoor air quality. I think that's how real it's going to get. And leaders that aren't getting it to set those systems up and being able to communicate that right information is going to be at a loss. So this very in the end it's simple because it can be taught and learned, but only if they have those right attitudes and traits. And that's what you need to know, know what they are and hire for them, retain for them. Or, or de. Hire a person if they don't have them. That's the only way. You're then going to create this alignment of objectives, vision, mission, strategies and tactics where the people are aligned to the corporate culture and that alignment amongst each other and alignment of the people is going to be necessary in today's and tomorrow's world.

I love it. Wow, that was such a packed answer.

That's great.

For those who are listening, there are so many gold nuggets and truths that Mike just shared and you kind of already went in and answered our next question, which was what insights and things would you share with our listeners to help them take care of their Frontline team? And if you need that answer Specifically, go back 30, 40, 50 seconds, last two minutes, and listen to that answer again from Mike. You kind of have to like slow that down, dissect it.

I know.

Pull all the gold nuggets out of that one.

I usually don't write things down during the podcast because I'm on video too, but I wrote down like several things. I was like, oh, this is gold. I can go back. I'm the one editing with my marketing team. So.

For your listeners, to simplify it for them, the last little while, I've been putting out my own information on LinkedIn. So my own posts as well as sharing other posts, but they go into my LinkedIn, go down into my post and see them. There can be a ton of information there because I did say, what are the key. I didn't list all of them because there's probably 15 or 20, but I said these are the top seven attitudes or traits for Frontline. These are the key attitudes and traits for leadership. These are the key skills for. For leadership access. So there's a ton of information on my LinkedIn posts and as well as the website. So I welcome that. And at the end of the day, if anybody has any questions, it's not like a typical consultant. Phone me up the clock and start ticking. It's like, if I could help you out, I'll be more than happy to pay it forward. I do a lot of freebies out there. Just pay it forward. It won't be long engaged engagements, but it'll be if I could do something quick to help somebody or why not? Because I was blessed in my career in this wonderful industry to have a lot of mentors that gave me their time and expertise at no charge. So if I could be of assistant, check the website, check my LinkedIn profile, give me a call and I'll be more than happy to assist any one of your listeners out there.

That is awesome giving back.

Thank you, gentlemen. And it's because of the guys like yourself and your company is why I said at the beginning, towards the beginning of the podcast, we're blessed in the professional cleaning industry because while there's a lot of older guys like me leaving and and a lot of the others ones have left before, it's guys like you who coming in with a new skill set, probably when you're younger. Didn't say when I grew up. I want to be involved with the cleaning industry. But you know, you guys are bringing diversity and skill set that a lot don't have. And I think you guys should be applauded for your style of leadership management as well as your product because you're bringing value and you're demonstrating to people that if there's more people like the two of you coming up, our professional cleaning industry will be left in good hands for future generations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Alrighty, everyone. Well, that was Mike Sawchuk and we really appreciate him coming on the show. Man, what a so many gold nuggets in his conversation, which I want that to bring us right into our porcelain thought. Sam, what is our porcelain thought for today?

What I pulled honestly out of everything that he shared and something that I've learned as a leader in my time as a leader is the importance of attitude.

Right?

It really starts with attitude. If you have a negative approach or thought to your work, it cuts your productivity down and ultimately does not help you. Right. I have seen employees who have shifted their approach and it started with their attitude. And because they shifted their attitude, they became more open, they were more willing to be positive about the work that they weren't necessarily excited about, which does happen. But because they changed the attitude and looked at it in a different light, the work became more enjoyable, right? And that's just the effect. Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. By the way, that's a Willie Nelson quote. Thanks, Willie. So attitude's everything, right? When you change your attitude to be more positive, you're going to be more energetic, you're going to be more self motivated, right? You're going to have a greater desire to do positive things, do good things, which usually leads to helping others. And when you help others, that just makes you feel even greater. So then more teamwork, more productivity, more things being accomplished, more success. Because we started with a positive attitude, right? We came into something that could cause us to think negatively and flip it to the positive. So Porcelain, thought of the day. Positive attitude. That's where it begins. Leaders, frontline workers, no matter who you are, if you got a positive attitude, everything tends to be a little bit better.

I love it. And especially because when Mike was talking about the aspect of skills, skills being able to be taught, go and get educated versus you could be the most educated and skillful person at a job, but if you're a rotten egg when it comes to your attitude, that just deteriorates the rest of the organization, which is like kind of plugging into core values as a company, first and foremost is our foundation of our core values. That clean, intelligent versus, um, even some of the skill and the talent that we bring on. Right. And it starts with, with these attributes that Mike was talking about that. These are the attributes you know, for us as, as a, as a cleantelian. Being reliable, being open, being authentic, resourceful and outcome driven. You know, those, those aren't things that we put up on a plaque saying we have a certificate or an education somewhere. Those are foundational pieces. And I totally agree. I think so much in life starts with your attitude. What you get out of life is going to start with your attitude.

One final quote from Winston Churchill. I'm on a quote run right now. The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

Perfect.

And we will end the episode on that. Think about that. Go back, check out Mike's thoughts. Be sure to follow us. Good stuff. Thanks for listening to the Scrub.

Have a great one.