Episode 032: Attributes of an Ideal Fleet Manager: Humble (Part 1 of 3)

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.

All right. Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. Glad to have you guys with us again. Steve, how you doing? Doing good. Jeff? Exquisite. All right, and I'm your host Josh. Glad to have you all with us again. Uh, today we've got a fun, uh, fun little topic. Again, another one near and dear to my heart because it's something we've been preaching about for a long time. We haven't talked about it yet on this podcast though, which surprises me.

We've mentioned it, haven't we?

We must have.

There's no way we have not mentioned this.

I don't know, we'll see. But we had to have mentioned it.

We mentioned it, we just didn't do a deep dive.

What? Today?

Unintentional culturist. I think we talked a little bit about it. Okay, so we didn't get into depth with it though.

All right, well, like I said, today is that day.

We're going deep.

So we were thinking about what are the— if you had to go out and hire a new fleet manager, or really if you had to hire anybody, but specifically we were thinking about a fleet manager, what are the attributes that you look for? You know, kind of like when you go draft a player in the NFL or you're doing your fantasy team on, uh, on your, your fantasy leagues. Picking which players you want for which positions. What are some of those attributes you're looking for? Maybe not necessarily stats, but things that you look for as somebody that you want on your team. And as we were kicking around a lot of ideas, we realized we'd actually already answered this question because we've defined what kind of attributes we would look for in our team with our core values. And so I know we talked to Ed Smith, we were talking about core values, Agile, and the journey they went through as they were, you know, adopting EOS and coming up with kind of their business operating system. Core values are a huge part of that. But I said, well, we already have these answers. Let's talk through our core values and what, what we look for, because we think it's pretty generic. It actually would work for most everybody. And just a little segue, like, when we talk about core values, what we mean with core values is, you know, these are just, these are behaviors or attributes that we look for in our interview process. We look for in our reviews, our quarterly reviews, our one-on-ones. We're constantly talking about core values. Every staff meeting, I'm reinforcing our core values. That's just how we act and how we interact with each other. And they're true, they're core about who we are today, not necessarily who we want to be tomorrow, because we hold each other accountable to these. So they're definitely a huge staple in how we do things here at RTA. And so we thought we'd share some of those with you guys. So First thing we look for, the core values at RTA, if we just summed them up in 3 words, it's humble, it's hungry, and it's smart, as in emotional intelligence or people smart, if you want to think about it that way. But what does that mean? It means different things to different people. In fact, before the episode, we asked, you know, what would you look for? And somebody said, well, work ethic. I'm like, well, how do you define work ethic? Um, that was me, and I said, shit, what a good question. What is a good question? I don't know. What would you say to that? And so one of the things that you have to do if you're going to go through this exercise for yourself and figure out like, oh, what would I look for? Make sure you understand what that means to you and that everybody involved in the hiring process is clear about when we say, you know, maybe it's humble, hungry, smart for you, or maybe it's work ethic or it's hustle. What does that mean? What does it look like? So for us, we actually did that exercise and we said, well, humble for us means being selfless and confident. It means being entitlement-free, vulnerable, assume positive intent, there's no job beneath us, and that we're kind of genuine, we're real. We'll kind of break down each of these, but the idea is that you want to give a descriptor that your people can memorize, that they can think about, and that as you're looking at it, when they're looking at new candidates and you're trying to hire that next person, this becomes kind of like a lens to look through. So when you're looking at the next fleet manager, if you're looking for a humble fleet manager, what does humble mean to you? What are the things about humble that stand out to you? And so it just kind of helps really define what that word is. We even go further and we explain things like when we say selfless and confident, what that means, and entitlement-free, what that means. So I think let's just jump into it.

Yeah, I'm just thinking as we're going through this, I mean, I guess we'd be remiss if we didn't say this is part of this from The Ideal Team Player by Lencioni.

Thank you. Yes. I wanted to give credit. Credit where credit's due, this was inspired by Patrick Lencioni's Ideal Team Player.

And if you haven't read any of those books that he writes, they're awesome. I mean, they really are if you're trying to build a team. But I was thinking about the work ethic issue and something came to mind. Work ethic to me is someone that kind of goes the extra mile, someone that does things that other people don't do. And I was thinking of it yesterday when I went just to the 7-Eleven to get my wife a Slurpee. And I watched the 7-Eleven guy come out on the way to his car 'cause he was off shift and he was picking up garbage on the way to his car and he put it in the garbage and got in his car and drove away. Those are the kind of things to me are like work ethic. He didn't have to do that. He was off shift, you know? And it's the guy that goes around and sees a piece of paper on the floor in the office and picks it up and chucks it, you know? And just for some reason that's like ingrained in their brain. Some people just won't do that, you know, but some people do do that kind of stuff.

And so I think it's really important that if you're going to have words like that, that might have meant something different to Jeff, meant something different to Steve, you know, and he just shared that with us. But defining what that is, is a critical part of the process as you're looking for these things. And don't just assume that you know what you're looking for. Collaborate, talk to, you know, if you're the director of public works and you have to hire somebody over fleet, Talk to the technicians, talk to the drivers, talk to the, the operators, get input on what they're looking for. If you don't have core values, then this is a great exercise to try to help define some of those. But the idea is that you want to make sure that you have a good understanding of what's important to everybody and how to describe it. So when you're interviewing, you're looking for these behaviors. So for us, if there are 3 things, we're humble, hungry, smart. When we say humble, first thing that we're looking for with a humble person, somebody who's humble will be selfless. They're going to think about other people's needs. They're going to put others' needs ahead of their own. But they're also not a doormat, which means that they're self-confident, they're self-assured, not cocky, not arrogant, but they know who they are and they know their worth. But those two things are in a nice little balance. There's an old C.S. Lewis quote that we used to throw around all the time, and it basically says, being humble isn't necessarily thinking less of yourself. It's just thinking about yourself less. And so the idea is like, you don't have to be lowly, although we'll hear words like meek, is that you're just yourself, you're serving other people, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are subservient. You wanna go out and help other people, but that doesn't mean that you don't have boundaries or that you don't have a healthy emotional self-worth.

Well, and I think some of the, putting the customer's needs, for example, above your own. I mean, customers can get irate and they can get offensive and they can go off on tangents, and that's where you take the deep breath and you say, okay, there's a bigger issue here. I'm not gonna get offended by this. I'm gonna work on taking care of the issue and identify it and actively listen. Those are the kind of things you have to be to be humble. If you're not humble, you'll immediately lash out and say, "You know what? I'm not taking this from you." And of course, then the loss there is the customer, right? So that's why you have to have these kind of attributes where you have to really think about this stuff.

Well, it's because like Josh said on the work ethic, it means something different to somebody else. Before I came here, you know what my definition of humble was? Don't be cocky. Don't be arrogant. Yeah, and that's really what—

just check your ego, right? That's another common one that gets thrown out. But to hear, hear it said in a different way, you're like, oh, okay, like, I'm not, like, I'm not arrogant, but I also wouldn't think to ask, like, hey, how's your day going? Or what's going on in your life? You know, or thinking about how could I help that person do their job? You know, I'm not, I'm not thinking of others, I'm always just thinking about myself. So it's still that selfish element. I think we all fall into that trap a little bit, but well, we're—

it's human nature, right?

Well, I think that's the part of the core values. You're never going to be perfect, right? It's always—

Steve, to your example, you talked about somebody calling you up and berating you on the phone.

Yeah, yeah.

There's an element of like, hey, how can I help you? But then the self-confidence side is, you know, whatever this person says doesn't lower my self-worth. So because of that, they are more secure, right? They are more self-secure, and they're not— they don't have insecurities. It feels like I'm using that word a lot, but That's the best way to describe it, is they're not insecure. And so they can take things like that, but they also know when enough is enough, and they can say, "Hey, it's clear you're really upset right now," and they could do it in a way that they know is the best thing for both parties, right? Without necessarily being vindictive or anything like that. So selfless and confident, that they're both of those things together. Entitlement-free.

Jesus, let me tell you, this one, especially so many people, it's so hard. They, they think that you— that whoever they work for owes them everything or whatever. I mean, we live in an entitlement society. A lot of that is because of our government giving away free stuff all the time, but people feel like they deserve something. So if you've worked at a company, and we all have it, you have people that have worked at a company for 10, 20, 30 years, and they feel that the company owes them everything because they've been there for 30 years. Even though that company has paid them for 30 years.

Yep.

Right.

Right.

And I think that's the— I got in a discussion the other day about that. You know, as a business owner, I have a different perspective on things like equity, raising capital, things of that nature. And there's a huge discussion these days about, well, you know, do business owners, are they taking advantage of the working-class person? Or are they, you know, what do they owe people that give them their entire lives? And I agree, like, we work a lot and you give a lot of time to your work environment. That's why I put so much emphasis on culture. But I think a lot of people forget about everything else that doesn't work. They forget about the risk. They forget about the debt that the business owner has to go into, the personal guarantees that they put on things like line of credit and credit cards. The, you know, and the fact that the paycheck— a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, an owner they get equity from profit. What lowers profit? Supplies and wages.

Everything.

You know, especially in a service business or a computer business, right? But every time that they get a paycheck, they're actually getting a share of the profit just by that. And they don't equate that with equity or equity distribution or like, oh, when you go out and sell this business or when you go out and do this, that somehow we're owed or, you know, like I deserve an extra 10% even though I haven't done anything this year that I didn't do last year. And that mentality, that entitlement mentality, can just— it becomes poison because you start resenting the people who have it because they risked it. And that's like—

I've seen a lot of that where, you know, well, and a lot of people are risk-averse. I was just thinking as you said that, my youngest son started a business and I told him I was really proud of him because that takes a lot of guts to do that.

Well, so many businesses fail in their first year.

I mean, for him to put himself out there on the edge and hire people and You know, I mean, I, I think I first came to this entitlement issue, uh, working for a consulting company years ago when I watched the owner of the company mortgage his house to make payroll. You know, that's when it becomes real to you. Other than that, you don't really think about it.

Yeah.

You know, and, and, uh, you know, we owe a great deal of gratitude to the person that are employing us.

Well, do you remember when, when Jon Huntsman was running for whatever he was running for, and they talked about his dad.

Yeah.

And how his dad had to do the exact same thing. He had to mortgage his house. They own the chemical company, right? They make Styrofoam, that kind of crap. Anyway, he had to mortgage his house to make payroll, to pay his employees. Yeah, it's the same thing, and he has a much bigger company.

Yeah, I remember there was, you know, years— this is years ago, uh, like a decade or more— but there was years where cash would get lean, and all of a sudden Dad and the vice presidents are saying, hey, Don't cash your, you know, they personally were not cashing their checks and they were floating so that they could make payroll for the company. You know, there's so many times of that. Or, you know, we had one guy, this is, oh gosh, probably 25, 30 years ago, that stole a lot of computer equipment and put it all up on the company credit card that dad was personally guaranteeing. He had to pay every dime of that back. Otherwise, he would have lost the company. And so he had to go tap every resource he could, and then he still You know, that took him 10, 20 years to pay off. Do you think that employee, you know, like that? And that's the problem is like that entitlement. This company owes me, not realizing the jeopardy that they put everybody else in the business in.

Well, and I've seen that a lot in my career, especially in fleet maintenance where you got a bolt bin, right? Everybody takes a bolt home for, they need one for their car or they go to the parts room and get a battery or they won't mind, right? It's, oh, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a benefit. It's a perk. That's what you get for working here. They expect you to do that.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, and that's that mentality out there. And all they're doing is robbing from their future, if you think about it.

Yeah.

So, well, the only other thing I'll mention on the entitlement side is I've never been a fan of annual pay increases, and I know it's pretty standard, but it's because you're putting out there and saying, hey, now you're entitled every year to get more money regardless of your performance. I've always been merit-based big time.

Yeah.

So when I was running my company, it was the same thing. It was like, we didn't do increases. And when we did do them, it was for people that deserved it, not just people. And I had people upset at me. Yeah, right. But it's like, if we're honest with you, I will tell you this is why you didn't get it. So improve it 90 days, 180 days, whatever it's going to be. And then let's talk about an increase.

And I've had people come back and say, well, inflation and cost of living increases. So technically I got a pay cut. Well, yeah, if you want to think about it that way.

I don't think that— I don't think that's accurate at all, though.

Yeah, I do. I think there's an element to it when things get more expensive, then the dollar doesn't go as far. But all you're doing is passing the buck onto somebody else. I think the challenge becomes, is do they— have they earned, you know, if they haven't earned a pay raise, then why are they still there? You know, so a pay cut might actually be in order and the pay cut might not be in form of an actual pay cut, but just a zero raise. Hopefully everybody's working hard enough and they're culture fit and they're performing really well. You know, now business economics aside, if the business can't afford it, that's a different issue. But if the business can afford it and they're killing it, I actually posted a comment about this the other day, is that don't wait until the end of the year to give somebody a raise. If somebody is ready for it right now, do it. Because the worst thing that would happen is they go out, find a better offer, come to you, and then you have to counteroffer them. And at that point, you're like, you've lost the upper hand.

Yeah.

You know, be proactive. Don't wait for the, you know, for the end of the year. Be proactive. Put it— if somebody's killing it, my checkbook's coming out.

Yeah. The last thing I'd say about entitlement is unfortunately we live in a materialistic society where things have become so disposable. And I think of my own kids, you know, that they just chuck their tennis shoes and they want you to buy new tennis shoes. And that's just the way life has become, you know, for all of us. There's not much recycling, not much hand-me-down anymore. Yeah, it's all going to be new.

I think one of the examples that we've seen here, like, we changed our vacation policy. We went to an unlimited PTO base, which basically the policy is if you need a day, you take a day. If you need to take off some time here and there, like, there's no, there's no limit to the amount of time that you can take off, you know, quantity. There's limits as far as when you can take it, you know, how long you can be gone. But the number of days, you know, typically, like, instead of earning it, it's just you get whatever you need. But for a long time, it was the opposite where, no, every 5 years you were here at the company, so the more loyal you were, then we're going to reward that loyalty with more vacation days. And it didn't keep up with the times. It was an outdated policy. But we had some people that have been here 20-some-odd years and they had, I think they had like 6 weeks of vacation saved up every year. And by the end of the year, if they hadn't used it, they would lose it. And so it was this use it or lose it mentality. And when we switched to the unlimited PTO, they still kept that mentality. Oh, no, no, no, no. The company owes me still 6 weeks. And it's like, you're not losing anything. If you need the time, take the time. And they would track it in their own spreadsheets and things like that. And that's where you're just borderline, OK, I think we might be missing the point of what PTO is there for. Instead of being a thing that, oh, no, well, I just don't have to work that day. You don't have to work any day. But yeah, that was an interesting transition. We've had several of those anytime we make a change. When you have people that are upset about, "Oh, well, you did this and you took away this 401(k) matching." You make a change to the 401(k) match and all of a sudden, there's one person in the whole company that's negatively affected and they want you to blow up everybody else's plan because that one person happened to be negatively affected.

Which is a perk. It's not— you don't even have to do that, right? There's a lot of companies that don't, right?

But everybody else won in that deal except for this one individual, and they wanted to— they wanted to blow up the whole thing because of it. And you're just— that's— and this goes back to the humble.

Yep.

Is they stop thinking about other people, even though— yeah, you know what? And the net, I think, for this person was $500. Like, it might have took $500 out of their 401(k) match, but because of that $500, they were willing to take away thousands for everybody else. And that's the, you know, because they don't think about other people. They're only thinking about themselves and what they've earned and what they deserve. Yep. So the next one we have on this: vulnerable and assume positive intent. So we talked about the 5 dysfunctions in here a couple weeks ago, and this one really stems from this, is that humble people have a much easier time being vulnerable, admitting they're wrong, admitting their mistakes, asking for forgiveness, saying sorry, those kinds of things. They can be vulnerable, they can be wrong, they can be seen as not knowing what they're doing. They ask other people for help. And that's step one, is having that trust is step one of building a healthy team. So this is one of the big reasons why we look for humble people, is because we know without humble people, we're gonna have a very dysfunctional team. There's always gonna be other agendas, and nobody's gonna ever be able to trust each other.

This is gonna shock you guys, but this is the hardest part of humble for me.

No way.

I'm telling you, I know. Jaws up. Stop leaving them down. Jaws up. But that's the hardest part for me. And it's not necessarily just assuming the positive intent. It's the vulnerability.

Right. It's being willing to be seen as inferior.

I've got pride. It goes for miles.

I think that's most people's, for them, especially if you're an assertive, aggressive manager that's Um, you don't want to be— you don't want to look weak by having some kind of a disability, like, uh, you know, that kind of goes along with—

no, I don't know, I don't know where you're going with that disability you're talking about here.

Well, what I'm trying to say is, I mean, if you admit you're wrong in a company, sometimes that makes you look inferior.

It makes you look weak.

You're negatively looked at. Yeah, that's not a good thing.

It makes you look incompetent.

Yeah.

And I think that's a lot of the bravado and what they're trying to do is preserve a false sense of invincibility. Patrick Lencioni actually talks about this in Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is that the symptom of an absence of trust is a lack of— there's a presence of invincibility, is that we can't be vulnerable. We can't admit we're wrong. The assume positive intent is really about that, is we can't be vulnerable enough that if Steve were to come to me and say, hey, you're really out of line here, Is my assumption that Steve is out to get me and that he's trying to score some points with somebody else, or is my assumption that, you know, Steve is really trying to help me out? Do I assume positive intent in Steve's motives? And that's really when we talk about trust is, do I trust your motive? Do I trust why you're saying that and how you're saying it? Because if we trust people, we're not going to be easily offended, and our self-security comes back and says, hey, I was totally unaware of that. Steve's a good guy. He wouldn't come and try to hurt me. Now I can be more vulnerable. I can be more open with him.

I think that last part of that, vulnerable and assume positive intent, is the toughest one, the positive intent, because particularly where we live in an environment where people are working from home, that can become a real problem. Somebody will say something on a Zoom call and you get off the call and you're going, what do you mean by that?

Well, the worst, you know, the worst is really online. You know, we talk about the detriment of social media and the keyboard warriors, right?

Yeah.

And what happens, the reason why it's so difficult is because when we put things online, we lose a lot of the communication. And it's very difficult to assume positive intent for somebody, A, you don't know, and B, you can't hear their voice and you can't read their body language.

Right.

And you naturally assume a negative intent And it's amplified because of the communication channel. And so that's one of the things that when I get like an email comes across my desk and it's written in a way that you're like, huh, I could take this one of 5 ways and only one of them is good. The other 4 are really negative. If you truly are vulnerable and you say, all right, well, let's take a step back, assume positive intent. He's not trying to hurt me. What's the way that they probably meant to say this? And you try to fill in some gaps about the positive that they were trying to achieve through that, or what motive would they have. We had an example a couple weeks ago. We had a little sit-down with an employee and we're like, hey, we're seeing some things and we need to kind of shore this up. And this isn't how we behave here at RTA. This is our core values coming into play, reinforcing our culture. And the natural reaction to something like that is, well, the problem is you guys, it's not me. But as we sat down and talked about it, I asked that question as well. What do they have to gain by bringing these issues to your attention? How does it help so-and-so? You know, like, how does it help somebody in support by telling you that you're doing this? They're not out for your job. They're not looking to go out and hire a new person in this role. What's their motive? And when you ask that question, you're like, oh, Well, I guess they don't really have one. Like, there's no angle.

Yeah.

And when you can take away the angle, all of a sudden, oh, I guess then what they said was legit and there's a— there's something reasonable there. I should work on that. So that's a really big one. It's a tough— it is really tough because everybody in any career that I've ever seen, you know, outside of companies that have adopted this type of mentality and a Five Dysfunction Mentality, is that it is dysfunctional and it is political and it is full of opportunities to get hurt, to get stabbed in the back, to, you know, have yourself betrayed. And that's why we armor up and we're not willing to be vulnerable, is because it hurts and we don't want to subject ourselves or be humble to that hurt. And I think that's honestly like, that's the toughest part that people come to grips with is, oh, If I really want to be humble, that means subjecting myself to the opinions of others without it affecting my own self-worth. And that's a very, very hard thing to do. Takes years of therapy, trust me.

So I'm in for a lot more. I've been going to therapy for like 4 months.

Oh, you got it. You got years, my friend. Next one, no job beneath us. This is my favorite one. Whatever it takes. We get the job done. You know, you'll see me, I'm the CEO, and I will wash dishes, sweep floors. You'll see me loading up the trailer, driving a trailer. Yeah, it's probably not the best use of my time. It's not the best ROI on my time, but I'm also not gonna like, oh, well, the dishes need to be done. Oh, well, somebody else can do that. That's somebody else's job. I love— there's a story from Bob Iger when he would walk through Disneyland and when he walks through— this is the CEO of Disney, one of the biggest corporations in the world, right? One of them. And he walks through and he has a garbage picker in his hand as he's walking through the parks. This is the CEO of a Fortune 100, maybe a Fortune 10 company. They're huge. And he's picking up garbage. Do you think he's got better things to do with his time? Yes, maybe. But he would tell you absolutely not. His job is just as important as the janitor's job in making that experience awesome for everybody that comes through the park. And you ask him, how many janitors do they have at Disney?

Thousands.

Yeah, yeah, 65,000 or something like that. How many employees do they have at Disney? It's the same answer because everybody is a janitor. Everybody, like, there's no job that's beneath them. And I think that's that. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty. You have to be willing to put your— put the time in, put the sweat in. And not be above something. We work in tech, and that white-collar world, I tell you what, tech are some of the most entitled people I've ever met because you have to deal with companies like Google and Facebook and Microsoft, and those guys throw the book at these people. They throw every benefit and perk and thing that they can to entice these people to stay because it's so competitive. And, you know, you'll have them come in And they're like, "Oh, well, if I went to go work for Amazon, I wouldn't have to wash dishes." I'm like, "Okay, well then go work for Amazon. Here at RTA, if you see a dish in the sink and it's not yours, you can still wash it." We don't walk by messes. We don't walk by and see trash on the floor and just say, "Oh, somebody else will get that." We all take responsibility for our space.

When I was in Texas, we We would have parties and whatnot, right? And then afterwards you'd clean up trash. Anyway, there was a trash bag that was too big and too heavy for the girls in the back. And we had this guy that worked for us, we'll call him Jacob, which was really his name. But Jacob, he was asked by one of the ladies, "Hey, will you take that garbage out to the dumpster? It's too heavy. None of us can carry it." "It's not my job. I don't take out the trash." Turned around, walked off. You know how long he stayed at that company? Another 3 days.

Nice.

I found out about that, I was so hot and livid.

Fired on the spot.

Not fired on the spot, but given the opportunity to—

Inspired to leave.

Yeah, we'll go with that.

I like, I like being inspired to leave. I like, you know, that's one of my favorite things to do is if I've got somebody that's not a fit, I rarely will ever have to fire anybody. You know, usually it's I've done a good job and we can inspire them to leave. We had— well, I'm just gonna move on. So, but it is, it's one of those things that you look at and you say, wow, that's— oh, this is what I was going— we had a receptionist we were interviewing for, and literally in the interview she was giving us some answers and she was doing so well in the interview, and she says, you know, I'll do anything you ask me to except take out the trash. That's, you You know, like, "I won't take out the trash." Like, "Oh, okay, well, thanks for coming in." You know, like, the interview almost ended on that question because it really is such an important thing here that, "What do you mean you won't take out the trash? I take out the trash. You know, like, this is not a big deal. Why won't you take out the trash?" But in her mind, she saw taking out the trash as something that was beneath her stature. It was beneath her qualifications and her skills. And Frankly, I think she just didn't want to feel like, oh well, they would just dump that on me and they would always make me take out the trash. So it was just, it was very interesting, but it definitely told us, nope, this is not your person you're looking for. Which is what I was kind of saying at the beginning is make sure you take these and you incorporate them into the interview and incorporate them into whatever attributes you're looking for. Have ways to bring these things out, have ways to identify where people aren't being humble. You know, that they do show some form of entitlement. "When's the last time that you did a service project?" That's one of my favorite questions to find out. "When's the last time you did something for somebody else? Tell me about that." And if it's something really superficial like, "Well, I washed the dishes for my mother-in-law." You're right. I would like to hear an answer like, "Oh, well, whenever I'm over at my mother-in-law's, I always wash the dishes." You know, she cooks dinner and then I wash the dishes. There's tons of people that could help, but that's my thing. I just go and wash the dishes, and it's just expected. Is it expected? You know how it is, right? Like, it totally is. I would be amazed if anybody else in that house ever stepped in and stopped me from washing the dishes because it's just, it's, you know, but that's what I do, and I don't mind doing it. And so as long as they need to get done, I'm there.

I'm going to remember this on Sunday.

Are you going to do the dishes on Sunday?

I think I will.

All right, we'll see how that goes. Yeah, so But those are the kinds of things you want to look for and ask questions about. When's the last time you did something for somebody else? How do you feel? You know, is there ever a time that you felt like you were owed something and didn't get it? Why are you leaving the company you're at right now? You know, I've heard that one come back, well, I just, you know, it's been a while since I've got a raise. Or there's little things you can look at. Not any one answer will disqualify a candidate unless it's something like, oh, we just don't take out the trash. But typically you're looking for a pattern and trying. If you're not sure, then just keep digging on that one thing. Um, we're at the 30-minute mark. This is a good kind of a pause point. So if you're listening—

so do we want to do the 3-episode deal here?

Maybe. I think this is a good one because we're, we're really diving deep into this. So I think we've got our next 2 episodes, which is Hungry and Smart.

Yep. So, well, let's finish the last one, Genuine and Real.

All right, thank you, Steve, keeping me on task. So my last one, which of all of us, you know, Steve is admittedly ADHD, so staying on task is not his deal. But thank you, Steve, for doing that. I appreciate that. I needed that. So our last one is genuine and real. I think one of the biggest things that I see in political environment is that politics is that people say something to your face and then they say something completely different behind your back.

Yep.

And that drives me crazy. So I'm always looking for somebody who's genuine. They're down to earth. They're real. Like, I just, I want people that are genuinely nice. They're kind. They care. But they don't hold their punches either. Tell me like it is. Don't sit there and, you know, be artificial with me. Nothing drives me crazier than somebody who I know is being fake. And I think we've all met people who are fake or that we've learned they're fake after the fact. They try too hard, you know, they're coming on with a big charming persona, but behind the scenes they're just not that person. I would much rather have somebody who's just genuine, maybe even soft-spoken, but they're real.

Yep.

You know, what you see is what you get. And I think that's really critical. Anybody that you bring in is that they're very genuine, they're upfront with you, and, you know, if they're looking at other offers, I'm actually glad when somebody tells me, I am looking at other offers, but this is what I'm looking for. And you can just tell they're real about it is they're not trying to scare you. They're just trying to be honest so that you know where you're at. You know, that you're looking for people that, you know, they're just— they're truth tellers. They tell the truth. They're honest. But that's kind of a qualifier. Like, everybody should be honest. I want to take it another step further, which is you're honest with everybody, right? Because we've had that. I think you ever worked with somebody that's political?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, you probably have too. Right.

More than I could count.

I think corporate's more political than government, actually.

In that element, absolutely. And this is one of the things I actually love about working in fleet. Most people in fleet that I've ever worked with have been very genuine and real. There are some politicians, you know, and I'm not going to name names, but I know they're out there and, you know, they're very much more about themselves and putting themselves out there and like, hey, look at me, look at me. But That aside, I'm looking for people who are just genuine. They're down to earth. They're real. One of the tests I always love hearing this, like when you look at people for electability, like when they're electing president, they ask the question is, which president, which candidate would you rather sit down and have a beer with?

Yeah.

And that's their way of asking like, who seems more genuine and real that you'd like to spend time with? And that's a great way to look at candidates for your position.

Right.

Who do you want to spend time with? Who seems like, yeah, this is, This is who I am. You know, you're not gonna get something from me and have it be totally different in the interview than it is when I show up to work on Monday. You know, and if you do see that, if a different candidate shows up for the job than showed up in the interview room, run. Like, that's a huge red flag that what you're seeing is not what you're getting. And yeah, it might be little things today, but in a week, in a month, in a year, it's going to be big things and it's going to be damaged relationships and political backfighting and dysfunction in your team all of a sudden because nobody's going to trust that person.

Yep.

Because they, they can't trust their motive because whatever motive they're pretending to have isn't their real motive. And that's what's so dangerous about people who are not genuine and not real.

What I like the, the story of like the CEO who goes, takes an interview candidate out to lunch and purposely has them mess up the order. To see how they will react when their food comes with a messed up order. I mean, what a—

what better way is there to judge somebody than in a stressful situation and things are going wrong?

Yes, because that actually happened to me the other night at a restaurant.

You were on an interview the other night?

No, but I— they messed up, they completely messed up my order.

I got awkward.

And I, I said— so when they came back, I said It's okay. I'll just eat this.

And then you have to take it.

But I don't have a problem. It wasn't like a terrible thing that I didn't want to eat. Just—

No, but there are a lot of people out there who are huge assholes and they would just be a jerk to whoever brought their food.

Because they don't care about that person. They will absolutely— It's a positional thing. It's the no job beneath us.

They bent over backwards. They were going to replace it and everything. I said, you know what? Don't go to that trouble. This is not that far off. I'll eat this.

Yeah.

And that person that gets an attitude most likely won't tip either. And this is totally off topic, but I hate people that don't tip. By the way, it's annoying to me. I could have the worst service in the world and I'm still going to give you 15%.

Well, especially the people are depending on that.

But you won't give people a consistent raise. Merit only, merit only raises.

Well, but here's the deal about the waiting staff. It may have been, it may have been the kitchen that was backed up, not that, right? It's not, they may be understaffed. Yeah, there's a lot of factors that go into that. And when you buy alcohol, 3% automatic goes to the bar. So if you stiff that waiter, that comes out of his pocket. Oh.

Man, well, that's the other thing too, is you know that wait staff, like, they're just grossly underpaid anyway.

Yes.

And so like everything comes off that tip. So genuine— well, the other thing that I like doing is we play cards as part of our interview process. And what that does for me is it actually helps. I've had candidates come in and I could tell they have stood in front of a mirror and rehearsed answers, you know, like they have practiced answers. My favorite is when I ask a question and they answer the question that they wanted me to ask. It's like, well, that's not the question I asked you. Like, you know, like, tell me more about this. And they kind of like start answering, and then all of a sudden, big left turn, and they're on a totally different topic, segue, because they found a moment, or they know how to pivot because they're really good at interviewing. That's not genuine and real. So what I like to do is we play cards, and what it does is it gets them out of their element and it gets them off their spot. And where they have to think on the fly, but they're also having to figure out like, how do I win this gare, this card game? And so they have to pay attention to a lot of things and it just, it flusters them a little bit if they're one of those that's really well-rehearsed. For the people that aren't well-rehearsed and they're super nervous, I play a simpler card game and that just kind of helps lighten the mood a little bit. You know, yeah, you're coming in to meet with the CEO and a lot of people get like nervous about that, especially, you know, when I was interviewing receptionists and things of that nature. But they get really nervous and like, "Oh man, this is big time." And so we just play a card game with each other and I'll play a couple rounds before I ever ask a question, you know, and I'll ask some softballs like, "Hey, tell me about yourself and tell me your life story and everything, but we're just gonna play a few rounds of cards and just kind of have some fun." And the— just the tension, you can feel it almost leave their body because they're all stiff at first and they're sweating and drinking water like crazy, and then all of a sudden they're laughing and being really fun and Like, it just settles everybody down. And so I can get to know who that real person is and not the, like, here's the face I've got to put on because I'm so nervous about this, or here's the face I got to put on because I know that I'm not a really nice person and, like, I've got to do this so that I get the job. And I— this is something we look for. We look for it. We hire to it. We fire for it. It's really important to us. And I think it's one of those things that if we were going to hire fleet managers If I were in a shop, this is what I'd be looking for.

I agree.

All right, well, let's end this here with humble, and we'll pick up hungry and smart in a couple episodes down the line. But definitely one of my favorite topics is, is all about behaviors and how we treat each other and how we act. So until next time— oh wait, hold on.

Oh, I thought I was gonna forget.

I totally did forget. So thank you. I was about to— James, I'm gonna give you a shout out. You didn't even do everything over there, but I looked at your head and your beautiful head said, hey, Don't forget, we do have Fleet Success Summit coming up at the end of April, April 20th and 21st out here in Mesa, Arizona. Weather's going to be beautiful that time of year. We're going to be bringing together people from fleet leadership, business, technology. We're talking about the four pillars, everything that we've been talking about in this podcast. We're going to have outside industry experts. Steve, Jeff, and I will be there, of course, but we'll have outside industry experts, thought leaders in the space coming. And presenting to you single stage setup. Tell your friends, tell your coworkers. You can go to fleetsuccesssummit.com. Go sign up for the interest list and get registered for the event. We'll have speaker announcements coming out in the next couple of months, along with the details around pricing, hotel registration link, all that. But it's going to be here at Mesa, right next to Wrigleyville, where the Chicago Cubs spring training facility is at. So hopefully we'll see you guys all there. As always, tell your friends, tell your coworkers about the podcast. Love to have your comments if you email podcast@rtafleet.com. And until next time, for real this time, play ball.

We're out.

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