003: The Four Pillars of Fleet Success - Intentional Culture

Welcome to the Fleet Success Show, a podcast dedicated to talking about the fundamentals, standards, and best practices that empower today's fleets to achieve fleet success. Let's get into the show.

Welcome to the Fleet Success Show. Third episode in. It's been a lot of fun. Jeff Jenkins, Steve Saltzgiver, Josh Turley back at it again. How are you guys doing?

Doing good. Really good.

I'm really doing great. This is an exciting topic this week. I've been in many cultures and this is something I've learned a lot about.

Yeah. So this week, as Steve just mentioned, we're doing our second pillar of fleet success, intentional culture. Steve, tell us a little bit intentional culture.

Well, this is how we define it. Purposely deciding the type of environment you want your fleet and taking the ownership to shape that identity.

All right, that's how it is. It's all about purposeful actions, planning your culture, right? Like actually thinking about what you want it to be and not just letting it happen, and then taking the initiative, taking the ownership, recognizing that, hey, you're ultimately responsible for what goes on in your shop, right? One of the biggest things I think, you know, as we talk about intentional versus accidental, I think we've all been part of a company where there was no established culture, right? Or they had values that they said or threw up on the walls, but they didn't live by them. Like, it wasn't really true. You know, you guys have examples?

Well, I'm just gonna— I'm gonna ask you guys, have you ever worked at a company that actually does not have a culture and a set of values?

I think every company has a culture, right?

But, but like a defined culture, right? You're right, there is a culture that exists, but is it defined?

I used to work for that company. Yeah, we used to be that company, right? You know, like, and for a long time it was just kind of a, you know, we had an established culture, but there was no set norms. There wasn't anything typed out. It was just kind of a, you know, be a nice guy. You know, we had these accidental values is what I call them. You know, where you, you didn't really intend for it to turn out that way, but it just ended up being that way. You know, like, we were very family oriented and we were very just nice to each other all the time, right? We didn't intend it. That's just how it turned out. It's very accidentally, but I think that's kind of the definition of what we're trying to say here is like, you can have a culture and everybody has a culture, whether they know it or not. But what you've let accidentally take shape versus what you've actually clearly defined and then reinforced.

Probably the best example I had, I've been in a couple that did have a shaped culture or defined culture. But the leadership didn't live up to it. That was the issue, is they're, you know, they didn't understand how important it was to have a culture. You have to model it.

Yeah, you do. I've actually worked at a company where there was no set, nothing written down. There was no core values, there was no culture. And what ends up happening, right, is things are just so undefined that the bad habits stay.

Yeah.

And they exist and they permeate, and then you build bad habit, bad habit, bad habit, right? And so there's nothing that is intentional, right? And it's just, it's not a good environment to be in because everybody's always on pins and needles, right? There was a lot of CYA when it came to everyone getting copied on every email because no one wanted to get in trouble, and you wanted to have this proof that you did your job and the owner kicked the can down the road on every single thing that you wanted to do and have make decisions. And so it just was not a very good environment to be in. And a lot of that is because he, as the owner, didn't define what that culture should be in that company.

Yeah, if you're not intentional about it, then it is like the lowest common denominator ends up setting the culture for everything. You know what? I think one of my favorite sayings is, it's really not about what you preach, right? It's about what you tolerate. And so what you tolerate then defines the culture, you know, and if you don't— if you tolerate anything, then that's what your culture is. And, you know, anybody can get away with anything. There's no accountability. There's gossip. The politics are just out of this world, right? You know, people talking behind each other's backs. You don't have like a culture where, you know, we can actually speak to each other and say the honest, kind truth, right? So the question that is like, well, why does this matter for fleet, right? Like, why does it matter that we do this? I mean, you just mentioned a great example at a trucking shop, you know, but Steve, you know, working in state government, city government, like, why does this matter for those types of operations?

I think the biggest reason it matters is to get everybody rowing in the same direction. I always go back to some of the Stephen Covey stuff that, you know, that I've absorbed over the years and People don't know, people don't know the mission, the core values, you know, then they're off on their own doing their own thing and they're not working together as a unified team.

Yeah.

You know, that's, you're not even keeping score together, you know, it's like they don't even know which goal to kick the soccer ball.

Right.

You know, so it gets very chaotic in those situations.

Yeah, I think for any organization, you know, I'm a huge believer in this, right? And this comes from Patrick Lencioni, talks about how organizational health is the single most important thing that a company can do, right? And whether you're a software company like us, if you're a trucking company, if you're a city fleet or a state fleet, you know, how you treat people. And I think this is why I'm so passionate about it, right? It's about the people. You have people that are coming to work for you and they're giving their life force, right? Their time and energy to your job to help further the mission of the company. We talked last week about stakeholder satisfaction. Well, your culture is them giving their lives for that stakeholder satisfaction. You know, I think, I can't think of anything worse than to think that you allow people to come into your environment and not enjoy the work, you know, then not enjoy the work that they do or who they're doing it for because they're really just wasting their life on that job and you're allowing them to do that. You know, that's a hard obligation that a leader has to take, but It is, it's our duty and our responsibility to kind of create that environment for them.

I think as a manager, you have to understand that people are not just coming in to do a bad job. I mean, they really care about what they're doing. And if they get to a point where they just come in to sabotage the company or do a terrible job, then you better look at the leadership of that company because it usually something happened to foster that type of an attitude.

Yeah.

So one of the things I really like to do is I like to create these frameworks, right? And I, you know, I read a lot of Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni. In fact, this pillar by itself probably was one of the biggest driving forces behind us creating the Pillars of Fleet Success, right? Is taking lessons that we've learned from great business authors and applying them to the world of fleet where they don't necessarily, you know, like you don't really hear about Lencioni and Collins at fleet conferences and other events like that. So for me, one of the things that I really enjoyed was this lesson that I learned several years ago. My role as a leader is to build the team and set the vision. And for me, setting the vision, what does that even mean? Like, that's kind of a weird word, set the vision. You have to, as a leader, you've got to stand up and say, hey everybody, we're going this way, right? And you point down the road and This is where we're going, and you gotta rally the troops behind you. But setting the vision is picking that direction, right? And your job is then to create clarity, right? You have to create clarity about where it is you're going, why you're going there, how you're gonna behave, right? So we talk about core values. That's a huge part of setting the vision. You know, what's most important right now, right? And in creating that clarity and answering those questions, for your people, right? So that they know, all right, if I'm coming to the company, this is the direction we're headed, right? This is where we're moving. You know, without that clarity, they have to fill it in for themselves.

Well, even— and as a leader, sometimes you have to manage up. You know, if you don't have a clear vision from the top down, then you've got to become that clear vision from you down.

Yeah.

You know, so I mean, and I think that's a— that's important. So they'll follow you. You know, you're able at that point to actually do something maybe your company hasn't done.

Yeah, I think the one of the most important things that you said right there was the why, right? Because there's a lot of leaders and a lot of organizations that they've got a vision and they have a direction. We need to go from A to B, but there's no why we need to go to A to B. So it gets convoluted in people's minds. On what you're doing and why you're going in a certain direction. And then how do we get there, right? Okay, well, we're going to A to B, but how? Well, I don't know how because I don't know why. Those two are just so involved with each other that you have to know that. So it's, it's, hey, this is what we're trying to do and this is why we're trying to do it. And then here's the roadmap on how we're going to get there. So you have to have all of that in place.

Simon Sinek has a great book another great author, business author, right? And he has this whole thing about a golden circle, start with why, right? And flipping, you know, a lot of companies, they know what they do and they know how they do it, but they forget why they do it, just like you said, right? And he says, no, you've got to start with the why. The great companies that you think of, right? Apple, Southwest, Chick-fil-A even, they all started with why they're doing what they're doing, and then they move to the what they want to do, right? right? And they flipped it. Now, he also says, start with why, but don't stop there, right? It's great if you have a purpose, but if you don't think beyond the purpose, you know, then you don't really have anything, right? So create the clarity by starting with why. In fact, that is the first question you have to answer. Why do we exist? Why does this fleet operation exist? Why does State of Utah need a fleet management department, right? And defining the why, and this goes back to stakeholder satisfaction like we talked about last week, but You define that why, and all of a sudden, okay, I want to get in that boat because I identify with that, right? Like, that why motivates me. So you create the clarity, right? You work with your team, you work with your, your company, your department, and you create that clarity. Work with your higher-ups, right? If you have higher-ups that help you set that vision, get clear about what their vision is. Like, what is it they want from you, right?

Exactly. Not even if it's not articulated in writing, sit down with them, do a one-on-one with them and say, you know, what do you— what's your vision? What do you see? Where do you want us to go? How does fleet align with the company vision? Sometimes fleet is an afterthought, you know. They know, they know it exists, but it's a cost center and nobody really pays attention to it unless something happens that's negative.

Yeah.

So it's your opportunity to manage up and create some expectations. Yeah.

So I talk about this like in terms of setting the vision. I think about setting the vision like setting concrete, right? Like Before you set concrete, you frame it, right? And creating the clarity is that framing, right? And then what you're gonna do is you over-communicate it. And over-communicating clarity, you know, they've said it all the time, is look, you have to tell somebody the same thing like 6 or 7 times before they remember it, right? And sometimes you have to tell them 7 different ways, right? And so, you know, well, I've heard it from you when you said it, but then I read it in an email and I got something different. So your job as a leader is to not just communicate it, but to communicate it to the point that you physically feel ill repeating yourself, right? It is tough to do this, but I can tell you, because I've done this, is that people don't hear you the first time you say something and they don't hear you the second. It takes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times of repeating yourself before they really get it.

They've actually done studies. 7, 7 is the, is the number.

It's like a magic number.

That's the magic number. And if you look at big companies, you know, you'll see a leader do exactly that. You know, I remember Lee Iacocca when he took over Chrysler, and every time I'd see him speak, he'd say the same thing every single time. And I kept thinking, who doesn't get it by now? You know?

And there's somebody, there's somebody out there that didn't, right? Yeah, they say that you should be able to— you should repeat yourself enough that your team can do a good impression of you. Yeah, that's when you know, right? So what usually happens is by the third or fourth time you're tired of repeating yourself, when your team finally is like, okay, I've heard this enough, right? It's usually— it takes until about the seventh time because the first two or three times they weren't listening, or they listened but in one ear out the other, and they just don't retain it because they have so many other things going on, so many other responsibilities and duties that they're thinking about. You know, is this really important to him? Well, let's see if he says it again. Yeah, it's important, right? The last piece about setting the vision, right, we think about that concrete, is reinforcing it, right? This is the rebar in the concrete that keeps it from chipping, keeps it from breaking. You have to reinforce it, and we're talking reinforcing is leading, right? This is hiring and firing and, you know, putting it up on the walls, and you talk about it all the time in your staff meetings, and you You know, this, the reinforcement is the— these are the policies and procedures that you put into place, right, that help you establish that vision and then keep that vision going. You know, if you just set it, create the clarity, oh yeah, we answered the questions, then you never talk about again, or you talk about it your 7 times but then don't change anything, you didn't really do anything, right? Reinforcement is about changing the culture, and it's about establishing that clarity.

And you'll know when that comes. I mean, I remember at Republic Services, we had a mantra called RACE. It was an acronym for what we were trying to accomplish. And I remember going out to, I think it was York, Pennsylvania, and I sat down with the fleet supervisor and I said, so what are we doing? He said, we're racing to the next level, boss. So then, you know, it's got inculcated into the culture when you have that happen because they finally heard it enough. Saw it enough, and now they can see the vision.

Yep.

You know, so that's something you need to think. Test yourself. How far down did it go?

Yeah. You know, so setting the vision, a huge part of, you know, your responsibility as a leader. The other part is building the team, right? And part of this goes to reinforcing the clarity. It's a bit of a circle if you want to think of it that way. But building the team, it's, you know, it's about eliminating politics. You know, I don't know if you guys have ever worked in an organization that was political. Like you just feel the politics. You had backbiting and, you know, you had, well, we don't want to say anything to hurt their feelings. Or, you know, you have the meeting after the meeting. I don't know if everybody's ever gone through that where you have a meeting and then afterwards somebody else comes in and says, hey, I just need you to know, you know, so-and-so was doing this, right? The meeting after the meeting is killer. You guys ever been in a political environment? Like, what, what does that look like?

I have. I remember when I first became a fleet manager in the state of Utah, it goes back to that. There's two types of powers, right? If you're a manager, you have position power or you have personal power. Well, I started an organization where the assistant manager to me had all the power because they had the personal power. All I had was a position, and I would leave staff meetings and walk around the corner and I would listen to to everybody and she would just countermand everything I said. Well, it was after I walked out of the staff meeting. It took me a while to straighten that out. I finally had to just commit myself to saying, okay, I'm going to get that power because a manager's got to have both.

Yeah.

Or you're not respected. And it took about a year. And in this particular case, she was— in this case, she had an opportunity to leave the organization. You know, so I mean, things can work out, but you really got to be intentional about it.

Yeah. When you've got a political environment, you're looking out for yourself, right? Or each of the individuals. There's not a team network at that point. Everyone is just looking out for themselves because you have the backbiting, you have the rumors, you have everything else that goes on. So that culture of teamwork is not set in that organization at all. And I mean, I'm not a political person. I don't talk politically correct. I don't do it. And I've been at a place— I was CEO of a company. And it was political to the point where we had a bunch of long-term people that have been there 30-something years. And they went behind my back to ownership and amongst each other because they didn't like the pressure than they were getting themselves. And it was very difficult to manage in that environment because the most senior people were the ones being the most political. They were the ones that were causing the culture to be a very negative culture in that whole organization. So, and you could tell how the overall attitude of the people in the office were based on those 2 or 3 different individuals. Which is amazing that you can have just single people take down a whole company.

Yeah, it's poison apple, right? You have a, you have a bad apple in the bunch and it will spoil the whole bunch. You know, same thing with bananas. If you've ever seen that on the counter, right?

Yeah.

Get a bad banana, then like the rest of them, it spreads because, you know, like it lets off gases and things like that. The same thing happens in your organizations, you know, because they're going around venting to everybody and gossiping and, you know, like just You set a direction, Steve, like you said in yours, and all of a sudden they're coming around undermining it and dumping their verbal garbage on everybody else. Those are the types of things that happen in accidental cultures because you don't root it out. You don't figure out how to barricade and reinforce against those kinds of things. And it's tough because it's human nature almost in some of these cases.

Well, a lot of organizations, the intentional culture usually comes from the human resources department. Department. Yeah, that's just sort of a natural thing. So a lot of leaders don't bother. They just follow that lead because they're the one doing all the engagement studies and all the things like that. And then you don't get buy-in. If the leader doesn't have buy-in to the ultimate culture, you're not going to have a culture that's intentional.

Yeah. So, well, the leader should set that culture, right? Right. And that's part of the problem is they just delegate it down.

Yeah, but not even delegated. They abdicated, right? That's my favorite.

Exactly.

You know, it's okay to delegate things, but you can't abdicate, right? And so if you abdicate the responsibility for creating a culture to HR, well, no wonder things are bad, right? And so it's not about abdication. You want to make sure that, you know, if you delegate, I like collaborating, right? So as you're setting a vision, trying to figure out what our core values are, you know, that's a collaborative effort. That's not one person, but one person is responsible, and that's, you know, you as the leader. This is your job. You can't delegate it, you can't abdicate it. You can include others, but that responsibility can't shift.

So really a good place to start if you want to figure out where you are and baseline it is just ask all your people in 5 words, what define this culture that we have?

What's it like working here?

What is it like working here in 5 words? That'll open your eyes. Most likely you're not going to get the same 5 words from your people if you don't have a cultural like that.

Yeah. So, well, and if you don't have a culture, you know, you have to be careful with that. You might have to start, depending on how bad things are, you might have to start with like anonymous surveys.

Yeah.

Because people might not feel safe sharing their opinions, right, and sharing their perspective because there might be retribution, or I'm worried about my job, who's gonna read this, like who's seeing this, right? And so, you know, you might have to do some anonymous surveys and try to get their feelings on What's it like to come into work here at this company? What's it like to be a part of this division in the city? I think one of my favorite questions that we do, we do an ENPS survey, right, which stands for— it's an employee net promoter score. And it kind of takes the concept of a normal net promoter score, which is, you know, hey, how likely would you be to recommend this company to your colleagues and friends from a product perspective, right, where you usually would ask that of your customers. Well, now you ask your employees, hey, how likely would you be to recommend working here to your friends and family, right? The idea being is that, you know, if you have a great culture, your employees and your team, they're absolutely going to want to have their family and their friends come and work for them, right? Oh man, you should totally come over to this, you know, this company because it's just awesome. They take care of their people. They love you. They listen to you. They appreciate you. Those are things we all look for in a job, and yet so many people go to jobs that don't have that. We have to do better as leaders to create that environment for them.

What are they looking for when they go other places? They don't know the culture necessarily. A lot of people, they're not thinking about that on what their work life is going to be. They're thinking about, one, I just need a job. Two, what's it paying me? Right. What are my responsibilities? I mean, culture, how often does that ever come into play when people look at jobs? Not often. I don't think I've ever said, with the exception of here, there's never been a place that I've looked at that I've been like, I wonder what their culture is like. I wonder if I'm going to be a good fit. Yeah, right. And it's bitten me in the ass a couple of times.

Yeah. I think most people are optimistic and think the culture will be okay.

Yeah, right.

Grass is always greener on the other side, right? And it can't be any worse than here.

You know, regardless what you hear, you're probably, oh, that person probably just had a bad attitude or they left for whatever reason. Usually that's not the case. If there's people leaving, there's a reason why.

Yeah. Any other suggestions? You know, like if you're hearing this for the first time, you're thinking, crap, like I am in the neck deep of this nasty culture. What do you guys do? Like how do you build and get rid of that poor culture? You know, what are some of the first steps that you guys think they should take?

I think you first, like I said earlier, you have to baseline it.

Figure out where you're at.

Figure out where you're at. I mean, uh, you know, maybe even pick a couple champions in your group that are, you know, highly respected, good, good, uh, maybe leaders of the model, right?

I think that's something we look at as exactly like, find your models, find the people that, oh, if we could duplicate you and make 100 copies of you for our company, you know, identify those people for sure.

Well, you have to look at personnel. Because the people you have working for you are usually the reason why you have a good or bad culture.

Well, the people are the culture. Absolutely.

They are. So you can define it all you want, but if you don't have the right people working for you— goes back to building the team— you're never going to get to where you want to be. And if you look, those people that are like, oh my gosh, I'm in such a poor environment right now, well, look and see why, right? Who is the reason? What is the reason? And then those are the things that you have to address. Address.

Jim Collins talks about getting people on and off a bus, right? Yeah. And I think most people have usually heard this analogy, but he talks about you got to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off, and then you got to get the right people in the right seats. And it's all about first who, then what, right? So before you decide what to go do, oftentimes you've got to figure out who's the right people and then use those, those model citizens, as you were, like, okay, these are the right people, these are the people I want to duplicate. Have them help you set the vision and create that clarity that you need to.

As we're talking about this, I was thinking of kind of an unintentional culture, unintentional culture. I had a person, one of the places I worked, that my boss came down to me and said, do not let that person send another email. You know, it had permeated all the way up to the top and it was cursed and it was, uh, very crass and, you know, very, very offensive, you know. And so, I mean, so now you have to go down and you got to talk to him there. That was a key person in one of my organizations. So now I've got to teach him how to write a respectful email. You know, I don't think it was an intentional thing on their part, but, you know, it offended a ton of people and it became a real issue. So, I mean, that's part of this, too, shaping the culture is You know, you got to make sure that we talk about, you know, the kind, intentional words, right? So that we make sure people, you know, are not offended, but they do get the feedback they need. So there's a lot of things you have to look at, I think.

Well, there are. And when you— here's a good guidepost that I go when I— to identify those people, right, that may or may not be a good fit, is I look at someone and I say, if they were to quit, would I rehire them? If the answer is not yes, they're not a fit for your company. It's that simple. If you would not rehire someone that has left you, why are they there now?

Yeah, right. Yeah, if you had it to do over again, would you hire that person?

Yeah.

And having gone through that, you know, yeah, we've had that here, you know, and it's, it's quite the litmus test, especially when you put it that plainly, and then you're like, yeah, but What do I do with them? Well, the answer is you need to help them recognize they're not a fit, and then you need to help them— we often call it you got to make them available to the job market. And it's not always about, oh, we just got to fire them, right? Like, fire them, just get rid of them. Usually it's, are they coachable? Can you even coach them up? Is it a behavior that you can change? Do they want to change? If you talk about— and this is one of the reasons why you over-communicate and reinforce clarity. The more you talk about things and the more you talk about the company you're becoming or the organization you're becoming, the more people are going to be like, "Yeah, I'm out," right? And they'll self-select out because they will feel that pressure. Like, "Yeah, I'm not a fit here anymore." I mean, we've had that, you know, where we change the culture a little bit and somebody's like, "I don't like the direction this company's going." Perfect. Thank you so much for recognizing that. And there's no hard feelings because what you've done is you've recognized their dignity. Like, hey, It's okay that you don't agree with what we're doing or how we're doing it. You need to go find someplace that you do agree with, right? Like, life's too short.

Yep.

You owe it to yourself to go do that. And we encourage people all the time, like, hey, this is the direction we're going. This is how we behave. If you don't feel like this is you, you owe it to yourself to go find another job somewhere else, right?

Now, we're not coming out and saying, hey, everybody should quit, but we are saying You know, and as a supervisor, I, one of my most memorable conversations was during evaluation with an employee. And I finally just, you know, put everything on the table and I said, do you like working here?

Yeah.

Is this the place you want to come every day? You know, this person was always miserable, always upset. And they finally just said, you know, I hate working here. And I said, okay, let's work together and find you. What do you like to do? Yeah, like, I wanted to be an accountant, but I'm in the fleet business. Well, how do we get you there?

Yeah.

And it took, it took a few other months in coaching, and we rewrote the resume, and we finally found this person a job in accounting. So even as a leader, you have to identify those situations and don't totally write them off, you know, try and help them find where they're going to be successful.

All right, so we've, we've kind of talked about building the team, you know, we've identified we have a poor culture And this is just the tip of the iceberg, right? I mean, we're going to be talking about this a lot. How do you set the core values? How do you come up with those? How— what are those 6 questions that I talked about? What are things you can do to help reinforce? Like, what hiring practices do you have to go through to make sure you are attracting the right talent and the right people, right? How do you filter them out, right? We're going to have a lot of conversations around that. You know, but I think the biggest piece, you know, if I had a takeaway that I want to make sure everybody has is there's a book called Extreme Ownership. It's by two former Navy SEALs. Terrific book. This was a game changer for me personally because one of the things that it came out was, you know, one of the quotes that they had in there was that there's no bad teams, there's only bad leaders. You know, and agree with that if you— if you don't agree with it, it's totally fine. I get it. But I will tell you You go read that, read the story that he comes along with it, and it was impactful to the point that you recognize, I'm ultimately responsible for the success of my team and for what this culture looks like. And because of that, well, now I can't blame anybody else for the culture I have, even if I inherited it, even if, you know, I can't get rid of anybody because of union or whatever. There are things that I can do to make a difference and make it better. Am I doing those things right? There's no bad teams, there's only bad leaders. That's impactful when you recognize that, oh, okay, yeah, it really is my responsibility. I'm either to blame because I brought these people on board or I'm to blame because I'm letting them stay, right?

I've always said I've learned everything I know about leadership from my leaders. Yeah, that could be good or bad. What not to do, what to do, right?

So yeah, I work somewhere That was a good story. So I worked somewhere, and I'd been there 2 weeks. And the CEO flies in. He's got us all in the conference room, just the executive leadership team. And we had— I think there was 5 of us in there. And we walk in. He's sitting in there, and he's actually standing there. He's got it right at the whiteboard, and he's got a dry erase marker in his hand. We sit down. He doesn't say anything. He turns around and he writes fuck on that dry erase board like 10 times—fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, right? Takes the dry erase marker and throws it across the room at the wall. This is how I feel about how this department's performing. This is what's wrong with this play—and he just started going off. And I've been here two weeks and I'm like—for a second I thought I was being pranked. Like, is this pumped? Am I like—where's the cameras, right? Because no one acts like this! Here comes Ashton Kutcher out of the side room—I had like two individual one-on-one conversations with this man, and he was nothing like that. Yeah, right. But I mean, he was interviewing me in one of them, so obviously he wanted me there, so he probably didn't display that. But, but after seeing that and then being at that company for a while, that's exactly the culture that he set. Yep. And it was total intimidation. You would get just bow-bree— browbeat up and down all the time by them. And it was just, it was a terrible culture and you never would have known it, right, if you weren't a part of it. On the outside, very successful company, billion-dollar company in trucking. But that CEO, that was his management style, is he managed by fear. Nobody in the executive ranks really stayed there longer than a year and it's because of him.

Yeah, I've been actually been in a culture like that and it's not fun.

No, because you're worried the whole time. Yeah, like I wanted to stay there 5 years. I had a fantastic 5-year payout on a bonus plan if I could have made it, but after 18 months I'm like, yeah, this isn't for me, right? You feel it. Yeah, I mean, I thought at one point in time I can do anything for 5 years. Hell no.

Nope. Wasn't happening, right? Well, and I think too, you know, the flip side of that's also true is that when you have a bad hire, right? So you had a bad leader, but sometimes like you make mistakes in hiring. I know I have. And when you have a good culture, the same way you felt like, you know what, I'm not a fit here, the culture will recognize that somebody's not a fit there and it'll actually almost like your immune system, it'll kind of like, you know, gear up the antibodies and it'll actually help expel that infection. You know, and that's what it feels like is, uh, this isn't right. You don't belong here. And all of a sudden, you know, your white blood cells are reproducing and, you know, like you just, it expels an infection. That's what it feels like when you have something in the organization that, yeah, this isn't right. Like something, we got something wrong in the hiring process, you know. Thankfully most of ours have been, we've recognized it pretty quickly and so we correct it, you know, and they usually feel it too and they're like, oh yeah, I I totally thought this is where I wanted to be, but now that I've kind of seen it in reality, I recognize maybe this isn't a place for me, right? And we said, yeah, we're feeling the same way too, you know, and we move on, right? But the culture helped us do that. Whereas if we didn't have it, oh, we would have let a couple people stay for years and who knows what they would have— what the impact they would have had, you know, for good or bad, that, you know, they probably would have done some good things. But we're really convinced that it would have destroyed the culture we were trying to create. And that's what it's all about is what are we trying to create? That intentional culture, right? Not what we accidentally just ran into, got handed, you know, by not even trying, this is what happened, right? That's accidental culture. What did we define and what did we enforce? You know, what are we sticking with? And that's what it's about.

One of the things, and I'm going to give you some accolades here, right? So when you and I first started talking about me working here, The first thing you did was read this book. If you're not on board with this book, because this is what our culture is, you're not going to be a good fit here.

It's going to be terrible and miserable. You're going to hate it.

We're going to hate it. Absolutely. So very intentional. Hey, this is our culture. If you're not a fit for this culture, let me know. Right. And we don't even have to have any more talks and you can move on.

I got the same books, right?

Yeah. So, so we know, we know coming in, right, what to expect and what, what's available. Like, if I had read those books and I was like, yeah, no chance, I don't want to be a part of that, it's a much easier decision for me knowing I'm not a good fit for this organization. Yeah, right. But I mean, I've never had anybody say that, hey, here's our culture, if you like it, if you like this culture, you know, if you don't like this culture, then take a hike. Yeah.

And it, and it really is like, it's in your best interest and my best interest for us to be on the same page because if we're not it's just going to be painful and people are going to suffer for it, right? And that's really what, again, I keep coming back to the people, you know, is I owe it to you and to you and to everybody that works here in these halls to make sure that I protect that culture, right? I've intentionally set it and now it's all about protecting it because nobody likes coming to work where they hate working, right? Like, you know, they want to come to a job and they deserve to come to a job where they enjoy it, right? And everybody that, you know, that you're listening right now, your people deserve that same thing, right? And you deserve that same thing. You deserve to work at a job where you enjoy it. And so maybe if you don't enjoy your job, you have to find somewhere that does appreciate you and does find those things, right? And as much as you have that control, create that for the people that work for you, right?

The moment that you decided what your culture was going to be, right, you're going to set it. How long did it take for you to feel like, hey, we've achieved the culture we're working for?

So I will tell you, this has been a 7-year journey and we didn't get clear until year 4, right? And we made a lot of mistakes in years 1 through 4. When we finally got clear, you know, it's been 3 years since we started that process. You know, we went through several iterations. You know, we landed on our core values probably about a year into it. And I will tell you is that we should have done that really early on. I should have read Lencioni a lot sooner too, I guess. But reading that and coming up with our core values, it's been probably a 2-3 year process of helping people recognize that this is what I'm about, this is who I am personally, and this is the kind of company I'm building. And to help, you know, set people free, let them find out, oh yeah, this isn't what I want. And also bringing in others that can carry that banner with me. Right.

You know, I think that's important to recognize too. Somebody's always asking, how long does it take to fix a fleet? It's usually 3 to 5 years. It's not overnight. Yeah, you have to establish the culture and you have to get the buy-in. And, you know, you can't just do this in one year.

Yeah, that's why I asked the question, right? For anybody listening, that's going to be like, well, you know, we need to reset our culture. It's going to be a a quick thing. You know, we're going to start it now, and by the end of this quarter, our culture is going to be set. Well, that ain't going to happen. You can create the clarity real quick, right? But you're not going to get everybody bought in. You're not going to get the culture how you want it. People aren't going to act on it, right? That's not— it's never going to happen that way. It is a years-long process.

And you owe it to people too, especially as you're changing the culture like we have here, right? You owe it to people to give them the chance to grow and turn into something that maybe they're not today, right? right? And we've kind of done that, but that does lengthen out the time, right? But because it's about the people, it's worth it. For me, I could have just said, "Nope, this is what it is, and if you're not that, you're out," right? But I think a big part of our culture, again, is part of that being about the people and growing them and nurturing them. And some people, it's just not gonna work, and that's okay. You can't change your stripes all the time.

This is such an important topic. I think we could go on way longer than this. Oh, for sure. You know, but I'm sure down the road we're going to talk a little bit more about this and have even more information.

Yeah. Like I said, this is my jam, right? This is something I'm really passionate about and it's something that I don't think gets talked enough about in fleet. Right. And so it's one of the reasons why it's such a huge pillar of being a fleet, a successful fleet. Being able to take these lessons and these great, great ideas that we've learned from great authors and turning them into real results. The question you asked is, how long did it take? And I think the follow-up question is, is it worth it? Right? I mean, you say, man, this is gonna be a 3-year journey. Is it worth it? And I can tell you 100% it is worth it. Because you do, you get to that point where you finally start getting momentum. And you finally feel like, man, I've got a team behind me and we have this just rocking. And you feel it and you're excited to come into work every day because you're excited to work with the people you work with and you love the people you work with and you're like, this is just great. But without that, if you decide not to do this, just know that nothing's gonna change. You know, you're gonna be the same 3 years from now as you are today. You know, unless by some miracle you get different people on the boat. Right. But the idea is that your accidental thing got you to this point. What got you here won't get you to where you want to be, right? And if you want to work in a place that's just amazing, you have to create that.

I was actually a leader at Intentional Culture. I got to the point where I had to leave. Yeah, because everybody else was on board and I was getting ready to break it, you know? And so I said, you know what? They're doing exactly what I intended them to do. It's time for me to move on. Yeah. And so that's what I did.

Well, any last parting thoughts as we wrap up episode number 3 here?

No, I don't. I think we actually had a very good episode. I think that it was very informative, and I hope, you know, people are getting something out of it.

Yeah, I agree.

All right, well, if you were looking for those books that we mentioned, you know, a couple to start with— anything from Patrick Lencioni is a good start. Specifically, I mentioned the The Advantage, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, it was one of the books that was mentioned. Ideal Team Player is another. We talked about Extreme Ownership, which is by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, and Start with Why by Simon Sinek. I think I threw out some Jim Collins stuff in there. You can read anything of his. He's amazing. But you can always check out the show notes below for books and resources, anything we recommend and put our stamp of approval on. But be sure to go tell your friends and coworkers about our, our new Fleet Success Show. Tag us on social media @fleet_success and subscribe to the Fleet Success Show wherever you listen to podcasts. For Jeff, Josh, and Steve, we're signing off.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Fleet Success Show. If you liked our show, we'd appreciate your 5-star review. Be sure to subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts and come hang out with us anywhere on social media at complete success. See you next time.