WTW 074 Morgan Schafer - Open, Intentional, Strategic!

It's always a treat, always a treat to be with you on Walking the Walk, and always a treat to have— we just have the best guests. And this is somebody I met, I think it was almost 2 years ago now. He's part of a fast-growing organization called Aroma Joe's. I'm gonna let him talk a little bit more about that. And Morgan Shafer, he's a very interesting guy. And I thought he'd be a great guy to come on and talk about leadership, particularly to small organizations and particularly on the front lines as they have to promote this type of leadership in their various franchises, which are sometimes teams of just a handful of people. And all the challenges we're facing in that realm today, right Morgan?

Oh my goodness! That's an understatement, Jim.

Yeah, there you go. Well, tell us a little bit more about how, 'cause it's funny, one of the things that struck me when we met is that you said you were retired or you were trying to retire and they just, like Michael Corleone, they just kept dragging you back in, right?

Oh, well, first of all, this is wonderful being here. And Jim, great to be with you again. And I really appreciate what you're doing here and your message and your mission. And, you know, Aroma Joe's, we're a small coffee company out of Portland, Maine. We just literally 2 weeks ago opened our 100th franchise. Yay! Yeah, second one of this particular franchisee. And what's really interesting about that, only 15% of all franchises across the US and the world, I should say, go and grow past the 100 mark. So we've entered into a new realm, I guess. We're on a different platform. And so, you know, it's, it's, there's a validation that we've got something special here, something that can grow and something that people want to grow more importantly.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's great. It's great to be here. You talked about my retirement. Yeah.

Because you had some interesting adventures before Aroma Joe's.

That's yeah. Yeah. I, I had the privilege of working for a number of organizations who were startups at the time. Companies called Hula Hands back in my full-service restaurant days. And then I went with an organization called Au Bon Pain out of Boston, Mass. That eventually morphed into Panera. So that's exciting. And then a small company, people may have heard of it, called Starbucks. So I was with Starbucks when we— I was in the New York City market as a district manager. We had 42 locations from Philadelphia to Boston at the time. And then we started growing, and then our mantra was 2,000 by 2,000. So I had the privilege of working with the people that Howard Schultz, Oren Smith, and Howard Behar, we used to call them H2O. And they were highly, highly influential people in my career and got me to where I am today, quite honestly. And then from there, I went into the auto parts business and ended up here in New England, which is, we love it. It's great to be here. And then decided to, owned my own business. My wife and I owned a small little market here in Portland, Maine, and did that for a couple of years. And then it was time for me to retire. I quickly realized that, you know, getting up every day meant I had to be relevant. I had to give back and I had to have some purpose and jump out of bed to, you know, just outside of my own personal needs and my family needs. I needed more. So having been retired for a year, it really— I realized that I had to get back in the game. Maybe not necessarily at the rigor and at the pace that I was once at, but I had to get back into the game. And, you know, through some connections, met Dave Tucci, who you know, who was the COO of Aroma Joe's. And with my experience, thought it'd be— bring me in as, as somebody that could help the organization with my experience. With what I've done in the past and just be part of the organization and sort of blend in and help where organically it would take me, but help where they wanted me. I became a project manager and here I am.

You know, so fascinating about it too, because you've been, you've been with organizations that started small and grew, grew rapidly sometimes. What was the major challenges you saw in leadership, both internally and amongst the franchises that franchisees as that growth happened? I mean, because there is a lot of change. There's a lot of change from a small operation as it scales.

Yeah, a lot of changes. I would say the biggest was ensuring that we had the right people on the team, quite honestly. And sometimes the right people don't necessarily mean they're ready for the job. It means they have the potential. And that we had to nurture that potential. We had to develop that potential. So the people equation was always big. The other piece was understanding that as a small organization, people are going to have to wear different hats. And while you may specialize in marketing per se, or finance, or operations, there's going to be times where we just need a team effort and we need all hands on deck. And it's less about what your role is, it's more about being part of a team. And I would say that was really one of the key success components for being able to take it to the next level, where at some point you could bring more people on. And but there's always a danger in that. There's always a cultural risk in bringing on people and bringing on people too fast and maybe not necessarily giving them the right training, etc.

Let's unpack that a little bit because that is one of the One of the issues that we hear quite often in workshops, especially, that as a company is scaling, how do you preserve that culture, particularly if it's a, not necessarily family business, but a family style? When an organization's small, you often hear people say that, right? This is like family. It's like family. And most every time I'm working with an organization that's scaling or in the process of it, they tell me they want to preserve that culture. And it seems like you've done that quite successfully. And again, you've done it with companies. Most of the companies you talked about really did start as family businesses are very small.

So it's interesting, and I'll go to the— my most relevant situation here, the Roma Joes, because what ends up happening is all those little things— social hour in the office, birthday lunches, celebrations, taking time out to connect and ensure that where we're collaborating and not necessarily on a business level, but on a personal level, it's, it's really easy to excuse away that it's either not in the budget or we don't have time or—

That's the big one, right? Usually. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And what we forget is it's those are the things that make us successful.

Right.

That allow us and enable us to do our jobs better. And what, what, you know, listen, Aroma Joe's, we've, we're busy. There's budgets, there's time constraints. But one of the things that I think I've tried to help, and we've got a number of advocates for this, is let's make sure we, we take time out and do the things that are really important, that we recognize people, that we Enjoy people. We have our birthday celebrations. We make people feel important, not because it's on our checklist, but because that's who we are.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm glad you mentioned checklist because it should be on a checklist, right? I mean, you know, one of the key areas we focus on is inspiration, you know, how to inspire people. And too often, I think people looking for the grand gesture, you know, big speech or some kind of great email that gets everybody up and frothing at the mouth. And that's not it at all. The most inspirational gestures that we see, expressions that we see that mean something to people in any organization, but especially in the workplace, is just caring. And that's what you're talking about, right? Showing an interest personally. And I think that avoids a lot of trouble too, doesn't it? I mean, you can trace almost every business problem to some sort of communication issue, some sort of communication breakdown. At least way more than half the time. In fact, and I don't want to pick low-hanging fruit, but, you know, people often ask me, why can't Congress get anything done? I said, well, it's simple, they don't talk to each other. You know, they don't sit down and talk to each other. They don't know each other personally anymore, as you're saying. How critical is that to the success of any organization?

Oh, I mean, it's so critical. I learned a long time ago, Jim, the more I care, the more they care. Mm-hmm. And that level of caring enables an environment of open communication. It enables an environment where people are not afraid to make mistakes, where people are not penalized for voicing their opinion.

Ah, there you go.

People are not judged for having a conversation about something that didn't feel right or was potentially inappropriate. There's that level of care allows us to check each other and check ourselves at the same time. And that enables the communication, that enables the mutual respect that all organizations have to have to be successful.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that word. That's often a scary word to people, you know, respect. And when you're talking about personal care, I don't know if I shared this story when I was with you guys, I probably did. One of the first times I was asked to present these ideas out in public was because the kids in my martial arts center were showing a lot more respect in their schools than the average kid was. And one of the area schools had a real issue with it. Anyway, they asked me to come and talk. And this— I came with my standard question, you know, what does the word respect mean? I share that if I'm working with CEOs. We want to work that question through because people don't think about it that much. This little guy Third grade, he stood up and he bowed. He said, Sensei, he said, respect means taking care of one another. And I've never found a better definition. I mean, that moment, I didn't know it at the time, but that's really changed my whole life. That changed my path. That set me on the path I'm on now. But how insightful that was, how important that was. That's exactly what you're talking about, right?

Oh, precisely. And, you know, taking care of each other could be as simple as, hey, you forgot to do this, but I got your back. Okay, I got your back. And knowing that somebody else has my back as well. Taking care of each other means, you know, as simple as cleaning up after each other. And knowing that this is how we live. It's— this is what we do here. And it's not a question of whose job is it. It's a question of this is our way of being. And respect also goes on the, you know, I'm going to confront you if I think you're not doing something wrong. I'm going to give you critical feedback. I care enough about you to say what you did in that meeting was inappropriate.

So let's talk about that. I'm so glad you went down that road because that's exactly what I was just going to ask you about because I don't want People will think we're going all lollipops and rainbows here. One of the key problems right now is this whole idea of quiet quitting. Now, quiet firing, never mind quiet quitting. And at the heart of that is just people not wanting to have the tough conversation. Now, being from a micro-business, micro-entrepreneur's background, I understand it. When we get very close to people, sometimes those conversations are more difficult. But I'd say even more necessary. Particularly, I love we're singing in harmony as far as you're not showing respect to the other person if you're not willing to have those difficult conversations.

Exactly. You know, the concept of tough love. I mean, that's how some people put it, although that implies more of a confrontation versus having a critical conversation. Right.

It doesn't have to be rude or denigrating, right? Sometimes it gets heated.

Passion is great. He said it's okay if it's contained, if it's done in the right spirit and not taken in the wrong way. And that's all under the guise of, you know, an organization's culture.

Right. And which better happens when they provide all the things you talked about— time to be with each other as human beings, time to socialize, time to get to know one another so you know a little bit more about the person's moods, right, and their way of presenting themselves.

You know, and I've been given a lot of wonderful techniques over time on how to have those conversations. And perhaps one of the best techniques is asking permission to give you feedback. Yeah, Jim, would it be all right if I gave you some critical feedback?

No.

And so, and with that in mind, well, why not? Let's have a conversation. All kidding aside, but that opens the doorway and that puts the onus on the other person's back and saying, yeah, give it to me. Yeah. And most of the time they say, don't hold back. So you're preparing them. It's usually when things come out of left field that your defensive guards go up and that you're not ready for it or you're just not in the right frame of mind to receive that. And so you feel compelled to having to respond and it's usually in a defensive posture or manner. Right.

Or you might have something else going on in your life, right? And again, if you have a culture where people— and I'm not talking about being nosy or sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. But to understand and know the people around you, then you're more aware. I don't even want to use the word sensitive. I'm more aware of the fact that there might be other things going on in their lives that might affect the way they're behaving in the workplace, right?

That's right. And great organizations, they understand that this is going to be one of their key tenets of the culture that they want to build. So they, they help people by training, they have role modeling, and they have role models that model this behavior all the time. So it becomes part of your, your company way of being. And it's funny, I would take it out to my family at times. They would always laugh, oh, Dad just came back from a conference, he must have been learned how to, you know, speak more politely. I'm making this stuff up right now. You know, and they were always funny. Well, this will last a week, and pretty soon, you know, you hear it over and over and it gets reinforced in many different ways.

Then it becomes a behavior, becomes a discipline, right? Yeah, it becomes a discipline.

Exactly, exactly.

No, that's interesting. Back to, you know, back to this dynamic of small organizations, how they manage things. You know, today it's interesting because a lot of emphasis on the word diversity and risking offending some people, not intentionally, you know, I keep going back to the original thought when diversity was introduced as a theory, a business theory, and it's about surrounding yourself with people who think differently than you, that had substantive differences that would mean something, that would make you stronger as a team, not focused on inconsequential— well, we shouldn't say inconsequential, but differences, innate differences that really shouldn't make a difference to us. For instance, the color of our skin or our religious belief. If you're not proselytizing in the workplace, that's a different issue. A lot of times gender might not make a difference in most places, right, in most jobs. But the idea, again, we're back to a small organization trying to get that diversity of thought. How have you approach that? Because I'm pretty impressed with, uh, I was very impressed with Aroma Joe's, that it seemed that the franchisees you had in that room, they came from a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different experiences, and yet, you know, you're coming to— how did you bring them together behind this vision that Aroma Joe's has?

Well, I, I have to tell you that that is the— that was— has been the success of the people way before me, because I, I don't I have not gotten involved with choosing franchisees, but I believe the key ways that franchisees were vetted out was, do they align with our mission statement of making a positive impact on our community? Do they align with our tenet of doing everything with excellence? Do they align with doing everything with a level of quality? So quality, excellence, and making a positive impact in our community. So, you know, less about what they've done. We, we feel that we can train people on how to create a great Aroma Joe's experience. What we can't do is give you the, the values that align with our mission. So you have to come to the party with the values, and then we can take those values and enhance them into the concept of Aroma Joe's. So less about, less about the skill set, more about the value set. And that has brought us That has brought us across a whole different group of people and diversity in age, diversity in experience, diversity obviously. Jim Bouchard. Yes, absolutely. I mean, allowing me this opportunity with 40+ years of experience, clearly I'm the oldest person here, which is great. For me, it's been wonderful listening to the, the, the, the, the different demographics that we have here and just learning and understanding where their head's at and why they act the way they act. And it's been, it's been so— I, I'm here to tell you that our country, while we do have some issues out there, it's not because of how the younger people are thinking. We just haven't figured out how to channel that in the right way.

Hmm, well, that's a challenge that, you know, leaders are going to have to face for as long as you and I are going to be alive, right?

Exactly.

Exactly. But if I'm hearing you right, a lot of the way through that is— and maybe that's something that's been lost in some aspects of our society and our culture— is uniting people behind that cause that each of us has a share in but is bigger than any of us as an individual. And it's interesting that, you know, you emphasize that idea of you know, benefit to the community. And to close that loop a little bit, that's how I met Dave Tucci. He was involved with Firehouse Subs at the time, which is another company that has a very strong focus. You know, they give an awful lot back, particularly to help first responders, firefighters, because I think the founders were firefighters, I believe.

I believe you're correct. Yes. Yeah. And I will tell you, yeah, it's, um, and so when we look back, um, 20 years from now, while we probably quenched a lot of thirsts, you know, hopefully people don't necessarily remember the drink they drank. Hopefully people know, remember the difference that we made.

Yeah, well, it certainly works for me because in the spirit of full disclosure, it's funny because every time I talk to somebody from Aroma Joe's, they say, what's your favorite coffee? I say, I don't drink coffee.

That's right.

I like your hot chocolate though.

And all kidding aside, I will tell you that Aroma Joe's today is about coffee, it's about breakfast sandwiches, it's about our Rush drinks. Who knows where it's going to be 20 years from now? But what we do know is we'll still want to be making a positive impact on our communities. We'll still want to have— do everything with excellence. We'll still want to do everything with a high level of commitment. We do— we'll still want to do everything with a high level of community— excuse me, with quality. Okay.

Yeah.

So, so that's, that's, that, that's going to get us to wherever society, wherever business is going to take us.

All right. And at the risk of putting you on the spot, because— and you open this can of worms. Uh-oh. You kept saying you're, you're the oldest guy around here, like you know, walking around with your walker or something, and which still wouldn't be a bad thing, you know. It's— I made some of my bones in martial arts by teaching cane fighting. So we took some people that needed canes and, and transformed their mindset a little bit, turned them pretty vicious for a while. But, um, no, this idea that, yeah, you have a level of experience, a senior level of experience, and yet your spirit is, is I'd say one of very, in the best way, a very youthful spirit. One that's always, rather than saying, okay, I'm at this certain point in my life or my career, instead of that, you look at it with what we'd call a martial arts beginner's mind. You know, it's fine wherever I am. Today is a new day. What can I do today? How am I going to get better? What am I going to learn? How am I going to grow, right? And I think that, I think your energy positions you uniquely to make that Britt, to make that connection. Because one of the things I believe is that we really seriously need to restore in our culture, in our organizations, is that idea that the respect for the elder— again, something we borrow heavily from in the martial arts tradition, right? To seek out the people that have the wisdom and the experience and to bridge those things. And you've done that very successfully. So this is where I'm putting you on the spot. What are some of the ways you think you've been successful in doing that, to be able to communicate so effectively with the youngest generations and to be able to facilitate that, you know, that nice sense of community throughout the different generations?

I told you, you can't get warm. Yeah, you did. This is where I use the tactic of stalling so I can think about it.

No, I said please, it's a tough question, that's a deep question.

So I think one of the things Jim, that I've had the pleasure of being a student of is this concept called servant leadership. Back in the early days of Starbucks, we— and Howard Behar, if you just Google Howard Behar, he is probably the— outside of Robert Greenleaf, who conceptually developed it, he's probably the servant leadership sensei master, and using some of your terms. Out there, and I just had the privilege of working with them. And the whole couple of the key tenets was being authentic, being present, and being useful. And yes, the question goes back to how did you connect and how did all this get going? I think it just was an attempt to being a servant leader. For the people in our organization by being present.

So you're putting their needs in the foreground.

Absolutely. It's— this is— I'm here to support you. This is not about me. And I think that's what servant leadership is all about. And as a result of being authentic, being present, being useful, being genuine, Being caring. People realized that, and I was authentic in, teach me what you do to help me understand what is your role. And by doing that, you create a level of Understanding of being more approachable.

I'm so glad you brought that one up because that's one that I think leaders need to, a lot of leaders need to really focus on as a discipline is, especially as an organization grows, a lot of people, and especially as you bring in people from other industries and whatnot as the organization scales. Because a large organization does have different needs and some talents will translate a little bit differently. Someone might not necessarily need to have come from the front lines, right, in a larger organization. But that idea of going to them and asking them to— going there with a genuine, with a sincere attitude that you want to learn about their life on the front lines and how you can help understand that. Sam Walton was awful good at that. And along those lines, you've used the word authentic a couple of times. I think one of the biggest mistakes that leaders make, senior leaders, is trying to appear youthful in a disingenuous way, you know, either adopting the slang or the language. I like that idea of authenticity, right? I think you earn a lot more respect by being authentic than by pretending to be something you're not. Does that make sense?

It makes a ton of sense. And Jim, if I may, I'm going to talk back to after I left Starbucks. I got into the auto parts world. And to be perfectly honest with you, I really, I knew my wife, Elsa, knows more about cars and auto parts than I did at the time. And she's a keeper. Yeah, totally. And she said, what are you doing? I said, well, listen, leadership skills are transferable. This is a great opportunity. I think I could learn a lot. And so you go into this industry, and were these very, very significant car people. And they can be very, very judgmental on your car knowledge. And I really didn't have any car knowledge. So what I did have was my capacity to connect, my capacity to really want to understand how I can help them. And lead to solutions for their problems and make them more successful.

Right.

And I would have failed miserably if I tried to come in as a car guy. Mm-hmm. I learned a lot. And ultimately, my passions didn't necessarily long-term align with being a car guy, but it allowed me to enjoy a tremendous amount of success and more importantly, help a lot of other people become successful. So, you know, yeah, and it was a great experience for me, and, and I think that allowed me to even learn more to bridging the, the gap and coming in here and, you know, truly demonstrating that, that I, I want to help and I want to serve.

Oh, that makes perfect sense. You know, it's, it's that idea that, um, you know, leaders, the best leaders are not necessarily the people with all the answers. And again, especially as a in an organization that scales or if you're crossing industries, the best leaders I've met that I admire are the, they're the people who know how to form, they've disciplined themselves in the practice of formulating the right questions, right? Continually and always looking for that next question. Yeah.

The people on the front lines. Yeah, I learned a long time ago, I didn't have to know everything. I just needed to know what questions to ask.

Well, but you know an awful lot about, you know, the importance of the capacity to show compassion, caring, and that, that's— there's the bridge, no? If I'm hearing you right.

Totally, absolutely. And, uh, I go back to what I said earlier, the more I care, the more they care. And the more they care, that's when the magic happens. That, that, that's, that's the secret sauce right there. Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because a lot of times in these conversations it turns to a lament and you say, oh, you know, the world's going the wrong way. But I've got to tell you, and it's a joy to be able to share this sentiment, that in talking to folks like you, I'm nothing but more and more encouraged. And again, you know, having met a lot of the folks from Aroma Joe's and other companies like yours, we're blessed now that we're a little pickier. We tend to try to work with— well, I think that's important though, too. I know with what we're talking about, we bring a lot more value when we're working with an organization that's in philosophical alignment, right? If someone doesn't believe in the things that you and I are talking about today, we're not going to do them much good. You know, it's hard to fix that.

It's a waste of your time. It's a waste of their resources.

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, I'm so encouraged. And I think especially the younger generation that I'm seeing now, I see a lot of potential there. I see a lot of promise. Like I said, what I'm really fascinated with is how can we encourage more people to do what you're doing and bridge, you know, bridge that gap. It's kind of a shame that the gap even exists, that we talk about it, but yeah.

Yeah, and truth be told, Jim, I'm in a very fortunate position in my life right now as a result of some of the benefits I've enjoyed throughout my career. And I would suggest that there are a number of us out there that if they just were satisfied for where they're at and understood what their mission for the best half of their— best third of their life going forward is, and maybe, you know, they can support and inspire this generation that I believe is incredibly intelligent, incredibly hardworking on the things that matter. And, and it's a function of inspiring and motivating and helping people understand what their goals are.

No, that's perfect. And to put you on the spot just one more time before we wrap up, because one of the things that we've, we've been talking about quite often now is, you know, as folks retire and retiring, many are retiring at younger ages, to access that. Because people, a lot of people don't want to stay on the bench all the time. They may not want to be involved in an organization full-time. But what a tremendous resource. And I think more organizations are reaching out to folks like you and saying, "Hey, how much, you know, how much time do you want to devote? What can you contribute? What can you offer to us?" And to use that, it's awful that we, we let that, you know, that experiential capital just, just go fallow sometimes. So What advice would you have for someone who hasn't been invited back in, hasn't had that Michael Corleone moment there?

Well, there's a couple of things. One, I give the leadership of Aroma Joe's a tremendous amount of credit saying, okay, what are your needs, Morgan? How can you balance your needs with what what our needs are. So one was they created an environment that allowed me to meet the balance of taking it down a couple of notches and having some more free time with my wife and grandkids and children, and still allowing me to do what I wanted, what they needed me to do here. So they created the environment. Number two, you know, you you as an individual, whomever, need to figure out what you want to do for the next back half of your career, your life. And I would say that, you know, having some purpose, having some relevance, whether it's volunteer work, whether it's with small organizations, whether it's with your community, your church, whatever that is, Be very, very intentional with, with, with what you want to do, and then seek out those opportunities. And sometimes you, you have to find them. They don't necessarily come to you. They're definitely not on Indeed or LinkedIn. You've got to go out there and you got to smell them out and you got to sometimes even create them for yourselves. So be open, be intentional, Be strategic with the direction you want to take your life and then approach organizations. And if it's the right organization, they're going to understand your needs and their needs and how to make that work.

Well, usually I wrap things up by saying we're going to give you the last word, but those are pretty damn good last words right there. So I'm going to, I'm going to thank you for, for being with us today, Morgan. And let's— we got to give a plug for Aroma Joe's, though. How do people get in touch with Aroma Joe's if they want to get involved with the organization?

So please, AromaJoe's.com, get on our website. There's information if you're interested in becoming a franchisee on how to approach that. If you're interested in learning more about the organizations and what opportunities are, there's ways you can communicate to us, but also feel free to drop me an email at mschaffer@aromajoes.com. I'd love to be able to help anybody learn more about this great organization that I have the privilege to being part of.

I'm going to say do that. You want to, you want to talk to Morgan, talk to Morgan.