182 - The Power of Listening and Standard Operating Procedures with Nature Anywhere's Yaron Levite

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Yaron Levitte, you are the CEO and co-founder of Nature Anywhere, found at nature-anywhere.com. Thanks for joining us with Listening with Leaders.

Hey, thrilled to be here. I mean, I've seen all your previous guests, I really am very pleased with myself now.

Well, thank you.

So let's just start off, and you've had a, a, a really varied career, and now you're, now you're in e-commerce building these beautiful bird feeders that people can hang on their windows. Tell us how you got from here where you are today, from where you were in the past as an actor and a artistic director for shows and sort of that sort of thing. Quite an interesting journey.

Sure. Well, I started off as an actor. I graduated from acting school and I did a lot. I live in Israel and I did a lot of TV in Israel and especially commercials for some reason. I was very, very popular as a presenter for all these gigantic brands. I don't know why. I mean, I had hair.

I can tell.

I mean, you have a certain gravitas about you, so I can see how you would you would be very attractive on television.

I could be, but I also did have hair. I had a lot of hair on my head. So, but I didn't like acting. There was something about it. I couldn't stand the concept of my destiny being in the hands of someone else, a casting agent or a director or producer or, and just, you know, no matter how many gigs and how many jobs I landed, you'd just, you'd come back to the same, opening point every single time. You've got your auditions, so maybe you get called to bigger auditions, more important auditions, but still you have to audition for every single role. And, and, um, and I didn't like it. I didn't like being the master of my own destiny. Um, I, I think there was something— I was always very, um, independent. I have a very strong independent streak running through me, and I just, I didn't like it. I actually was originally— I was going to study computers, computer science. And I said, I'll just go to that, to like the best acting school in the country. If I get in, you know, it's a sign that that's what I have to do. And I got in. So bye-bye computer sciences. Uh, but then once I realized that I'm not crazy about acting either, I realized that the fun part was on the other side of camera. And I became a director specializing in large-scale stage shows and shows with hundreds of dancers and large-scale projection, and I loved that as well. I did that for about 20 years, and after about 15, I'd pretty much done everything I'd set out to do, and I started looking, you know, for my next chapter. I was always a huge bird lover, and actually, even in high school, I did my major on garden birds. And someone tipped me off to selling on Amazon. We started off on Amazon back in And I listened because that's what leaders do, listen with the leaders. And I saw, I decided to check what the bird feeding scene was like, and I saw all these lovely bird feeders, but I knew that I could make them probably a lot better, which is what I did. And the rest is history. I slowly phased out of directing shows and as the company grew, and today I'm 100% working as the CEO of Nature Anywhere and, and the chief, chief designer, I think you could call it. And, and I love it.

So you live in Israel and the company is based in the United States. How do you manage that?

A lot of flights.

You come, you come to the United States a lot then?

A couple, yes, a few, quite a few times a year. As COVID actually changed things a lot. Before COVID I used to be— I used to go fly a lot more, but today people have gotten used to doing Zoom calls. And something— I like something about Zoom calls as well, because the brevity, you know, you make it short, you make it sweet, because nobody likes being on a video call. And as opposed to meetings where people would just, you know, drag the meetings out, and you're sitting in the room, the conference room, at, you know, back at the office. And so, um, but, but, uh, um, COVID did change things for me. I fly a lot less and we do a lot more online, and I think that's true for everybody.

In my business, almost everybody's gone online. As a mediator and a peacemaker, you know, we used to meet with all the parties and litigate the cases with the counsel. And not now. Now everything is online. It makes it a lot easier, especially because I live in a rural part of California, so it's not easy for me to get out and travel. So this is a lot A lot more convenient for me. And, you know, we've all, as to your point, we've gotten accustomed to Zoom and I can talk to you and you're in Israel and I'm in California. And I mean, it's amazing that we're able to do that.

The world truly has become flat.

Yeah, absolutely. So getting back to you, what is it that you enjoy most about what you do?

My favorite moments of work are designing, are thinking of new ways to feed birds. Because we've got a very, very strong community of customers and, you know, that we love to bits as bird lovers, you know, crazy bird people like me, like myself, and they're an interesting bunch. And thinking about ways to make them happy, thinking about, you know, things that— because bird feeding for hundreds of years, it's been very natural. I think it really has changed a lot. Back in 2015, we designed the first tray-loaded window feeder, and that was like, that was a huge innovation in a field that hasn't seen a lot of innovation in hundreds of years. And basically that moment of finding an idea and then seeing if it works out and sitting with the mechanical engineer and trying to see if it will work. That's my favorite part of the job. Unfortunately, it's a very small part of my job. Most of my job is just seeing that all the different groups are working well and going over the reports. But that's my favorite part.

And what is it that you— what's unique about you that you bring to this? Is it that artistic, your artistic stuff that you brought with you, or what makes you unique in this job?

I think my motto is that we'll never be a MeToo company. We'll never be— maybe not MeToo, I think MeToo's like a totally different connotation today, but we'll never be a copycat company. I'll never be like— there was a big wave in Amazon where people would see what was selling well, and then they just you know, find a supplier and sell it as well. And people were very successful doing that, but I can't bring myself to sell something that already exists. Anything that we create has to be so innovative that we can patent it. And that's something that drives me. That's what makes this work, this company interesting to me. You know, we're trying to drive innovation.

So, and you know, when you hear people talking about driving innovation, you're thinking about technology or some other— highfalutin thing and you're thinking about driving innovation and bird feeders.

Exactly, we're now starting a new field of home agriculture. Nature Anywhere will have Farm Anywhere and the vision of Nature Anywhere is to allow anyone to enjoy nature anywhere. That's where the name came from. And now with Farm Anywhere as well, we want anyone, if you have a little backyard in wherever you're living, You can grow vegetables, you can grow fruit, you can grow chickens, you can raise bees if you, you know, if the neighbors aren't too close. So we've just developed like the mother of all chicken runs. And that is so exciting for me because, sorry?

So people can have chickens in their backyard?

In their backyard, exactly. And it's a chicken run that's built for backyard chickens. Chicken agriculture. Really? Yeah. So, you know, there's— because living in cities, you've got dogs, you've got cats. Living in the country, you have all sorts of different predators. Yeah. So we've got predator-proof. It's easy to build. You can build it in like 15 minutes on your own in your backyard and you can start growing chickens, start raising chickens.

How many chickens does the chicken coop hold, the chicken run hold?

Well, the chicken run, one of our innovations is it's like an accordion. You can make it as long and short as you need. So each unit can hold up to 6 fully grown chickens.

That's a lot of chickens.

You can expand, you can buy add-ons and just expand it because chicken raising is addictive. Funny called chicken math.

I know, I live on 10 acres and a lot of our neighbors, when the egg prices went up, everybody went out and got their chickens, right? So we've got chickens and roosters all over the place. And we've been thinking about it, but we haven't decided to bite the bullet. But you're right. I mean, where I live, there are a lot of predators. I mean, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions.

I mean, and they're all looking at chickens as being, you know, and then from the sky, where if you live in an open place, you have hawks and eagles.

That's right. And we have all that. And so everybody has to coop their chickens. And so this is very interesting that you're designing this for an enclosed space. I guess also that it's going to depend on the zoning too, because land use regulation, because I'm not sure that the city planners want chickens in every backyard.

That's true. That's correct. But you can take the smallest version and have just a few, and I think you could probably get away with it.

Probably.

So we're still learning the zoning a little bit more into depth, but It can be done, right, from what we've checked.

So have you rolled out Farming Anywhere yet, or is that— you're still in the development phase?

We're about to roll in 2 weeks. In 2 months, we'll be launching our first chicken run and raised garden beds. Wow, very raised garden beds. And again, I'm bringing this up because, you know, you would say, how can you innovate in chicken runs? But you can.

Yeah, I know, this is fascinating to me. So, so is this going to be a separate website away from—

it'll all be underneath the Nature Anywhere umbrella.

Oh, okay, this is great. So people can go to nature-anywhere.com in a couple of weeks or a couple of months and find out that they can have a raised bed that they can put in their backyard and a chicken coop and become food sustainable.

Correct. And with the movement today towards self sustainability. I hope that people will choose us.

Oh man, that's it. That's really, really a great idea. So let's turn to another topic. So living in Israel, having your company in the United States, you've got to be dealing with messiness at times. Yeah, you have messiness come up with the company. How do you go— how do you go about managing that? Conflicts, fights, arguments, whatever kind of messiness comes up with people.

One of the things that keeps us sane is that we have an enormous file full of SOPs. I'm a bit of a nut when it comes to standard order procedures. Okay. Operating procedures, sorry. And there's pretty much an answer for any question. If we have an issue with manufacturing, if one of our retailers has a problem, Most of the problems we've already met, we've encountered before. We've been doing this since 2015, and I religiously, you know, wrote down every single possible option of something happening. Obviously, it doesn't always work. We do have scary moments. I do sometimes have to just, you know, get a ticket, fly and go and separate the fighters, you know, break up the fight. But But all in all, the SOPs is what keeps us sane. And again, because the company is built this way, because I'm here and they're there, it gives us certain structure to our day-to-day.

So part of the secret of being able to run this company is being able to— is having these standard operating procedures that are detailed and basically address 98% of the problems that might arise.

Happily, we don't really run into a lot of problems.

Oh, that's good.

But when we do, usually, you know, and again, that's because all our procedures are written down meticulously and are ready for use.

And everybody knows where to find them if they need to get an answer to the questions, like having a knowledge base out there.

Exactly. It's like we've got our own little wiki in nature anywhere. Yeah.

All right. So tell us about the importance of listening in your business. Listening.

I think listening is the base for everything.. And it starts first of all from listening to the customer. I told you earlier that the thing that I love doing most is creating innovative solutions for our customers to help them enjoy nature more. And you can't do that unless you listen to them. If you, if you see what they write about you, you can see what they upload about you on, on their social network, on social channels. Listening to the customer is the base for our success. That's our, that's like our secret sauce. Then of course there is listening to your employees. They're out there, they're on the floor, they're working, they're in Wyoming, they're in Miami. They know exactly what is happening. And there are so many horror stories that I've heard of these huge big CEOs who, whose jobs and salaries were only eclipsed by their egos. And they thought that, you know, they know what is best all the time. And if they only would have listened to the people who are actually doing the work, things would have looked completely different. No idea pops to mind right now, but which is why once a week you should have an all-hands, or if you're a huge company— we're not a big company, so we can do an all-hands. If you're a big company, once a week you should all sit down and talk. And most importantly, as the the manager, as the director of the operations, you should know that you are only as good as your employees, which is why you should be listening to them. You should be listening to what they have to say. I don't know if this is shocking news to people, but I really very strongly believe in that. Even when I was a director, which being a show director is like, you get like this golden ticket to be the most egotistical idiot and it's fine. You know, people will actually admire you the more you scream that you want this chair and not that chair or whatever. But I was always known as an egoless director, which was something of a novelty in the field because I loved listening. I used to listen to the actors and to the performers. And if I was doing like a launch, a product launch, I would sit with the customers and and listen to what they have to say and what their expectations are, what their market is. Listening is the base for success. If you don't listen, then you'll miss a lot.

Why is it that you think that there are a lot of people out there that don't listen or don't know how to listen?

I think that people's insecurities drive them to try and show that they are something that they are not. They're too insecure to have someone, one of their employees, tell them what to do. We'll call them, for example, or they want to show the world that they're the only one, that they know best. So their way is the only way. And it should be like that as a CEO, as a someone who manages the whole company, you should have a very clear way that you're taking your company. But you have to stop and listen on the way to see that the different stations on your journey, that you're in the right station. And the only way you can do that is by listening, listening to customers, listening to employees. And I think some people are too lacking in self-confidence to do these, to show, I think, People think that if you listen, you're vulnerable, or you're showing a vulnerability.

I mean, I think that's a good thing.

Exactly. That's exactly what I started to say, when I think that's a strength.

Yes, absolutely.

To say, I don't know it all. I am not the master of the world. I am just a guy who has this idea in my head. And I'm totally dependent on you guys to help me bring this idea out and make it into a business. So tell me what you think we need to do and listen. You don't have to do what they say. You don't have to agree, but you have to listen.

Right. Yeah, I mean, in my many other lives, I'm a second degree black belt and a tai chi master. And in tai chi, we say the softer you are, the stronger you are. The more vulnerable you are, the more powerful you are. Soft to be strong, vulnerable to be powerful.

Exactly.

And in Tai Chi, you just kick ass when you're soft and vulnerable. You really do. But that was a hard one. That was a hard lesson for me to learn because, you know, we live in this myth of rationality and that we're all rational beings and that, you know, emotions are bad, emotions are irrational, emotions are wrong. And, you know, I mean, it's all a myth. But it really is soaked into us by our culture, and it really perverts and distorts who we really are as human beings. And I think you're right, and that breeds a lot of insecurity. And, and then people, you know, people act on that, and they don't listen, and they're not emotionally self-aware, so that, so that they get distracted or they get triggered or they get reactive when they hear stuff they don't like. And I think it's difficult.

Yeah, completely.

So how do you, how do you deal with people that, that say things that you disagree with?

I just, you know, choose what I want to do and that's pretty much, you know, and I say, listen, I've heard what you said. I don't know. I don't agree with this. I agree with that. I don't agree with this. And I think what we should do is that. Go do this, go this route. So many times I'm wrong. Many times, one of the silliest things I've ever done was I designed a security bar bird feeder for people who, you know, because if you've got security bars on your windows, you don't, you can't use suction cups to attach, right? What I wasn't listening is that there's a The safety code in the United States in most states says that you cannot have security bars. So basically I created a product for no market. So I'm not— I know that I'm not the cleverest person in the room and I know that I make mistakes and I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I think that that's the right attitude to have. If people are disagreeing with you, that's when I feel you gotta listen even more closely and question your own assumptions and listen for value. What is this person saying? Now, it may be that they're completely wrong, but it may be they've got a kernel of information or truth that could tip the way that you're gonna ultimately make a decision. And so it's really worth listening to them. Having a bunch of sycophants that all they do is agree with you is pretty worthless in my opinion.

Exactly.

I want people who will take a different perspective and stretch me and force me to think through a problem or decision, maybe very differently than I might have without that kind of input.

Having said that, there is a line that you need to draw as a manager because arguments can last forever if you let them.

Right.

At a certain point, you need to draw the line and say, thank you, this is the way we're going.

That's right.

That includes showing— you spoke about feelings and emotions, and as the leader, you can't show your emotions all the time to everyone. You need to filter out. If you're in a— if you had a bad, like, a fight with your wife that morning and you're really pissed off, you're not going to come and, you know, tell everybody about it.

That's right.

You still have to be the person that people look up to and trust and believe, because basically, you know, you're one of the most important people in their lives because you pay their salaries.

That's right.

You need to know where to draw the line, both when it comes to being an emotional person, being a vulnerable person, but also listening. At a certain point, when the discussion becomes repetitive, and both sides are pretty much saying the same thing, That's your cue to say, thank you, I'll take it from here.

That's right, absolutely agree. And so, and having the emotional self-awareness to know that maybe you're internally upset at something and it's not appropriate to project that upset onto other people and keep it, keep it, keep level. Because as a leader, you know, leaders provide three, um, 3 psychological services to their, to their groups they lead: focus, direction, and safety. And oftentimes safety means keeping, keeping an emotional equanimity even when there's a whole lot of chaos, so that people will focus on you and they will see your equanimity and say, well, okay, if he's okay, we're okay too. We're all going to survive this little chaos that we're in right now.

Becomes very important.

And I've seen situations where leaders can't do that, and that leads to a condition called emotional contagion. So if you're upset, it spreads through the herd, right? It's like the one antelope looks up and the other one looks up, and then secondly, all the antelope are sprinting away.

That's, that is so clever. That, that's so correct. Yeah.

And so, so being able to manage the emotions of the group becomes very, very important.

It is. Also, you have to choose, I think you have to make a decision what kind of group you want to build around yourself.

That's true too.

And you want a group of people who are courageous enough to come and to say no to you. And if you want them to be, to have the confidence to come and offer ideas of their own, or suddenly, listen, I've got this design, you're the designer, but check out this design. You want people to do that, right? So you have to project that to them. You have to, they have to know Right. You have to, you have to be that, uh, a confident person for them to be confident back at you.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, and, and I think that the way you, you instill that is by creating psychological safety so that people feel safe to come to you. They know there can be disagreement, but they're not going to get their heads bitten off. They're not going to get insulted. They're not going to be disrespected. They're going to be deeply heard., and there may not be agreement, but it's, it's not based— it's just based on maybe a different design philosophy or a different idea or a business idea or something like that. But they, but they're always going to be, be encouraged to be creative.

Exactly.

I think that's the key. All right, well, we've come to the end. I, I have one more question for you and then we'll wrap it up. Um, so what— tell us one thing about yourself that we wouldn't have a clue about unless you revealed it to us.

Um, I put myself through acting school by working as a private detective.

Perfect.

During the summer holidays, I, uh, a friend of mine hooked me up with this, uh, office, and they sent me out with the camera and a tape recorder to tape insurance, uh, insurance scammers.

That is great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a great conversation.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.