Episode 105: How to Create an Intentional Culture at Your Fleet Operation

This is the Fleet Success Show. This is the only show designed for fleets where we won't pitch you on products, but rather we're gonna pitch you on ideas. Ideas around the four pillars of fleet success: stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management. Ideas from business and technology to Fleet and Leadership. These are ideas for tomorrow from the lessons of yesterday and today. This is the only show designed to help you raise the lid on your fleet because your fleet can only be as great as you are. We see that greatness in you. This show is for you, and we're glad you're here. We hope you're ready. Now let's get into the show. Joining me again, co-host Jeff Jenkins.

Hello.

It's a wonderful 106 degrees right now.

It is toasty.

In sunny Phoenix, Arizona. So we're feeling good.

That's right. Everybody's ready to get home, get to the pools, right? Get a nice cool off.

Wearing my shorts and tank top to the office. Nothing better.

Also joining us, we got Steve Salzgeber. How you doing today, Steve?

I'm doing great. The hotter, the better for me. Yep, I actually like the heat, so I'm one of those rare people, right?

What, you know, my name is Josh Turley, your, uh, your host today, born and raised here in Arizona, right? So that summer is my season, uh, you know, and there's nothing quite like it. People don't understand it, right? The dry heat. You jump in the pool and you jump out and you're freezing, right? Like you're, you're shivering. It's 106 outside and you're shivering. People don't understand that, right? But that's one of the blessings of living in Arizona, so If you ever get a chance to come out, jump in a pool, you'll get to feel what I'm talking about.

Well, reach out to me. I got a pool.

That's right.

You can come over. We'll have a barbecue, right? So we're good. That's an open invitation. It's about to get crazy, right?

So all you people out in Florida, I don't know how you do it. Anyway, today we're talking— this is an Intentional Culture topic, right? And we want to talk about, like, what do you do We're trying to implement, you know, these core values and the purpose and the mission, right? We want to try to set the vision like we've talked about as part of an intentional culture. And, you know, for a lot of people, well, you know, they're like, well, where do I start, right? Maybe you haven't had them, maybe you have had them. But the point is you got to get that clarity, right? And we want to define that vision. And that vision for us again is What are the core values? How do we behave? How do we work together? How do we interact with each other? What are the things that, that make a difference, right? Like, how do we expect people to behave around here? Once you have the core values, you know, you have your purpose. What is it we're trying to achieve? What's the reason for us to exist, right? Like, if we're a fleet maintenance department in a city, why does the fleet maintenance department exist? Why don't they just outsource it, right? Why does this entity deserve life within the broader context of the city? You should have a purpose, right? So as you're coming through and you're setting up and defining those two things, you know, you create that clarity for everybody that's on your team. You create clarity about why you exist and how you behave. Then you define, well, where do we want to go, right? And you create this mission. You know, you could start with a BHAG, as Jim Collins calls it. That's your Big Hairy Audacious Goal. That could be like a 10-year goal or just something huge moonshot type goal, but then you start with this, this idea of a mission, right? And missions don't need to be a big 10-year thing, but the idea is what's the aspirational thing you're trying to achieve? You know, what's something that you can rally the entire team? Like, all right everybody, we're going this way, right? And you point down the tracks.

Well, I think every team has to have a purpose.

Yeah, they've got to have a unifying vision, right? Where is it we're trying to go so that we can all march that direction?

And as, as leaders We have to set that vision and constantly remind people.

Yep. Sometimes, you know, I often joke about that, right? My title is CEO, but it's really not CEO, it's CRO, the Chief Reminding Officer, right? I even had people, are you really going to talk about purpose, vision, purpose, values, and mission again today? You better believe it, right? Like, that is my one job is to bang that drum as loud and as often as possible to the point that, you know, my people could do a good impression of me.

Right?

They could all get up there and repeat it word for word. I had a candidate the other day comment, I can't believe you said this in our interview, and then I asked the other guys when I was doing that interview, and they said the same thing you did. I'm like, that's exactly how the program's supposed to work, right? Everybody's on the same page. There's not confusion. We're all clear about where we're going, why we're going.

Well, and if you read— I mean, I read a lot, and I mean, I remember reading a book about Lee Iacocca years ago. And that's what he did at Ford. That's what he did at Chrysler. Chief reminding officer constantly. They just beat that same drum.

Yep. You pick a message, you pick the direction, and you preach, right? You are the chief evangelist.

Well, and they say it takes us 7 times before we even really hear it anyway.

7 times, 6 different ways or something like that, or 21 different— I don't remember what the number is. It's a lot. The point is you just got to keep saying it, and if you're not sick of saying it yet, you haven't said it enough. And the point you get sick of saying it, you need to say it 2 more times, right? Like, that's how long it takes to realize, okay, this is serious and I get what he's saying now and I understand it, right? So if you are sitting back and you're like, all right, well, we don't have any of this stuff. Okay, well, that's okay, right? We didn't have any of this stuff, right? 3 years ago, we had no, you know, codified core values. We had no mission. We had no purpose, right? We had a company and we exist and we kind of all knew in the back of our head, but we never put it down in words, right? We've never said, this is what we're, what we're leading towards. When we hire people, these are the kinds of people that we want to hire, right? When we let go of people, these are the kinds of behaviors of why we let go of somebody, right? We never codified that. And so if you're in that boat, you codify it, you get it written. If you need help with that, two great resources that I have found immensely helpful in that practice Good to Great, Built to Last, right? And pretty, pretty much anything by Jim Collins. But those two books were very helpful, Built to Last and Good to Great. The other one that was really helpful was The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Talked a lot about how to establish core values, create the clarity around the vision. If you're in the boat where maybe you guys already have some of these things, you know, like there's a lot of companies that already have a purpose, they already have values, you know, they hire and fire to. They already have a mission that they're working towards. That's awesome. Sometimes as we do a little gut check though, we realize, oh, we've let go. Like, we're not— we let go of discipline there. You know, somehow we've got people in the building that aren't on board with this mission, or somehow we've got, you know, we forgot where we were going. You know, we weren't reminding people and we got a little slack, and all of a sudden we're not— we're missing goals or we're missing things like that. And it's We've forgotten what our role was.

During my career, having worked in both corporate and government, there's a distinct difference generally. I remember still very fondly working at Coca-Cola where we had the 6 Ps. That was our core values. Or Republic Services where we had the 5 Rs. That was our core values.

Yeah.

And you had to understand them. You had to repeat them. You had to inculcate that into your, your team. You know, and to me, I found it, you know, refreshing actually. I, I enjoy that because I've always been that kind of a manager. I need a vision, so I try to keep— make a vision for the folks that work for me.

Did you ever have a moment at, you know, at either of those two places where like we had these core values and we had this mission but we just kind of forgot it, or we let it slip a little bit, or we got away from it and we had to come back to it?

Yeah, I— me personally, I don't know if the company ever had that. You know, me, I had a few epiphanies here and there where I thought, well, I, you know, we're really not following this core value, you know, and both those companies, part of their core values were sustainability, you know, those kinds of things. And depending on the economy, sometimes you would, you would falter and get away from, you know, still targeting, you know, sustainability, corporate responsibility, those things.

And I think one of the key things, right, is to recognize sometimes it happens, right, where you've let it kind of get away from you. The key is what do you do with that, right? And so the idea is that you want to make sure that people are still committed to the vision, right? Like, once you've got it in on stone, so to speak, you roll it back out and say, okay guys, this is my bad, I didn't remind everybody where we were going. Here it is, you know, is everybody on board? And one of the things you do is you just make sure that everybody is committed to, you are you here for the right reasons, right?

So funny story, uh, Josh and I were at a conference in Dallas a few weeks ago, and the conference was ending and I was heading out, um, and leaving him, and he stops me. He's like, hey, hey, real fast, there's something I want to talk to you about. He's like, I got a check for you for 10% of your salary on my desk. And in my mind, the first thing I'm like is, hell yeah, bonus, right?

I'm kicking ass. Apparently that wasn't what it was.

Make it rain.

And then he goes, but I do this for everybody at their 90 days. He's like, I offer them 10% of their salary to go ahead and take that money and walk. And I was a little skeptical looking over, and I'm like, um, am I doing a bad job? Like, in your mind you're just wondering, am I doing a bad job, or what's going on? It's kind of weird. And then he explains really what it is. You know, I want people to be committed to the company, and if you're not committed to our vision, to our values, to our purpose then no hard feelings, take this, this 10% of your salary and go find something that you're a better fit for.

Yeah, and really put it in your hands and empower you to say, you know what, maybe I made a mistake. You know, I thought this company was going to be all rainbows and unicorns, and I realized this is not what I signed up for, right? I don't know if you guys have ever hired somebody and you get into the hiring process and you realize, man, I made a mistake in that hire, right? Or worse yet, you've ever gone into a job and realize Oh, I picked the wrong job, right? Like, I should have taken this other job instead.

Yep.

And a lot of people, once they get into the moment, they're like, well, now I'm stuck, right? And they get into the status quo thing. We kind of talked about this in the last episode, and it's easier for them just to go and maintain a status quo than it is for them to say, okay, I'm gonna stop, reset, and start over. And so this idea, you know, and I got this idea from, uh, from Infusionsoft, Clay Mask, you know, CEO over there, somebody I know, and I look up to and admire and respect a lot. And he talked about this, is like, yeah, it's part of their onboarding process. Now they do theirs at 2 weeks, and I think they actually got this from Zappos, from Tony Hsieh up there. And, um, but this idea, 2 weeks, they're like, here, you know, if we've told you everything, right, here's the Kool-Aid. You've now gotten indoctrinated. If this isn't for you, it's totally okay. No judgment. I understand. You know, here's a check with your name on it and it's for X number of dollars. I think actually think they do like $5,000, right? Here's 5 grand and you have the opportunity right now to say, you know what, I made a mistake. This isn't my company. This isn't— these aren't my people. I don't feel like I belong here. And I could take that money and I can walk away and now I've got a little something to get me to the next thing, right? But if I don't and I say no, I want to be here. Then I basically, I tear up that check, right? And I say, here, you have this back, right? And you give it back. And then they have you write a letter to yourself basically saying, here's all the reasons why I want to be here, why I'm committed to the mission, the values, like why this means so much to me, right?

It's funny, you're not the only one that got caught off guard. That happened to me too when I was new here at RTA, and it never happened to me at any job before. And I thought But after that experience, it was very refreshing. Mm-hmm. Because I remember, you know, I took a job one time. I left a job that I thought was a really dream job, great culture, loved working there. But I left to go to a different job that tripled my salary, put me in a place where my wife wanted to be. I didn't want to do it, didn't want to take it, but it was just like, like that old Godfather statement. You know, the offer's too good to be true, you know. And so I took it and I was miserable. The culture was completely different. I lasted only a couple of years, you know. I mean, fortunately I got paid enough in that 2-year period that made it worthwhile. But I was, I was so miserable. I would have took it in a heartbeat, a boss coming to me with a 10% check and I'd have left, you know. And I essentially did leave with a pretty good severance because I had negotiated that up front, but I still lasted way too long for that culture.

And you think about all the wasted— you know, I talk about this all the time, right? Life and time, those are the one things you can't beg back. And you imagine like the amount of time you spent at that job, 2 years that you spent just being miserable, and what was it worth, right? And I would rather have people not be miserable and feel like, man, this is where I want to be, right? And we all deserve that. And so this is an opportunity to kind of get you out of your own way because we do that all the time psychologically. We're like, no, I said I would do this and now I got to live up to that commitment. Oh, forget that. If you made a mistake, it's okay to realize I picked the wrong job.

Well, we're all human and we do make mistakes. I mean, unless you're honest.

The interview process doesn't tell you everything about a job. You get an idea, but it's kind of like dating and then marriage, right? You get an idea what it's like being, you know, when you date your fiancée and then you get engaged and, you know, it's even better. And then you get married and you're like, oh wow, this is a totally different person, right? And then you've got to figure out how to make that work. The same thing happens at a job. You know, you get enamored with this idea of what the job could do and could be, and then expectations aren't quite what you thought they were. And now you're left like, okay, is this really what I want to do?

Well, you know, the bottom line is, and I've always said this, to myself and to my bosses. If my boss doesn't want me here and I'm not contributing, I'll leave because life's just too short. You know, I'm going to be miserable. They're going to be miserable. It's just time to separate your ways.

Well, and that misery trickles to everybody else.

Yes.

And that's the biggest problem. When you're miserable, everybody else feels it.

And you want to know why I do that? It's because of that right there.

Right.

It's because it's not just you that you're affecting. You're now affecting— and this goes back to stakeholder satisfaction. I love these lessons that tie into multiple pillars, right? But stakeholder satisfaction doesn't just affect you. Imagine you're a manager. Well, guess who else it affects? It's your employees. It's your team. It's your coworkers, you know, they're your colleagues that you have to work with. Because you don't like your job, you're going to be kind of a jerk to everybody around you. The worst people it usually ends up infecting, though, is your family, because you go home and you're miserable. And then you take it out on them, right? And it's not fair to them. It's not fair to your coworkers. It's not fair to you. What I wish everybody did this, right? If you're miserable in a job, why not give you that opportunity?

Hey, you reminded me of a really funny story. I, when I was working as a manager in transit, my, one of my employees, a mechanic, called me over and said, take a look at this bell housing. And I went over and I looked at it and there was a beer can inside the transmission bell housing. Can you imagine what happened in that culture for one of those employees to leave a beer can in a transmission?

Right.

You know, what got to— what got that person to that point?

It was so bad, man, I just need a drink on the job.

Oh, here comes the boss. Hide it, throw it in there, button it up, send that vehicle out on the road so I get it and have to fix it. Because eventually it, uh, it's aluminum on aluminum and it's just gonna seize up the transmission, right?

So What kind of beer was it?

I couldn't tell.

That will really reveal the character of this.

Well, that's why I was asking, right? If it was a Natty Light, you're like, oh, he's just an alcoholic, right?

So coming back around, right, one of the things for those of you, maybe you're just starting out, right, and you're trying to figure out, well, how do I implement this culture? I've already got all these people on board. Uh, you know, one is to do it with your people. Right? To help them, have them have a voice in the creation of the core values, right? Help them identify what has worked well here, what hasn't worked well here. You know, again, go read The Advantage, go read Good to Great, Built to Last. They talk about these things and exercises you can do to establish core values in already established teams, right? And again, the idea about core values is they're true to who you are today, not aspirational, not something you want to be better at. They are true about who you are today so that when you hire other people, they belong in your organization, right? They fit. That's why we talk about culture fit.

Um, and there's tools obviously you can use, right? Personality testers.

I mean, yep, we do it all, right? That's all part of our hiring process. Um, but the idea is that you want to establish what a fit looks like, but then you're going to have the problem is you're going to recognize that there are people in the organization that do not match that type. Right? Because A, you didn't have it, and so you let people in that you shouldn't have. B, maybe you had it, but you got lax and undisciplined. And so then what do you do then, right? Now, I've done this little process here where I offer 10%. I've been doing it about a year, right? A little over a year, and it's worked pretty well. I haven't had anybody take me up on it yet, uh, from, you know, from the new hire perspective. But I realize I need to give everybody that opportunity. You know, I've got people that have been with me for over 25 years. They've been here at the company longer than I have. And giving them that same opportunity to reevaluate and say, you know, am I here just because it pays the bills, or am I here really because, you know, it's not just about the money, right? I'm here because I believe in the mission, I believe in the purpose, and I love the values. The values speak to me. You know, so you do what we call this all-in moment, right?

Right.

And again, this is another idea I got from Clay Mask over at Infusionsoft. Uh, and it's the same kind of principle, right? Here's 10% of your salary, but you do it to everybody, right? It's, it's not just one person. Let me tell you, it's much easier to do this one at a time. It's very expensive to try to do this for everybody, right? Because, you know, you could have several people walk out and now all of a sudden you got a backfill. Like, it's a risky proposition, but I can tell you it's worth it. I did this, right, a few weeks ago. I said, hey everybody, look, here's the deal. You know, our values: we're all about humble, we're all about hungry, we're smart, right? You know, we think less of ourselves— or we think of ourselves less without thinking less of ourselves. We have an attitude of gratitude, right? We readily admit our mistakes to others and we ask others for help, right? And we talk about these core values all the time. We talk about the mission, right? We're trying to build the platform, ignite the engine. We talk about, you know, our BHAG. We want to go out and dominate the, you know, this market and be the FMIS provider in North America. Right. We talk about our purpose. We help fleets succeed. We even, you know, like the name of our company is The Fleet Success Company. Why is that? Because that's what our purpose is. We're all here about helping a fleet get better at their job. And the question then becomes to everybody that's on on the team, is this your company, right? Do you feel like this is a part of who you are? And if not, I totally get it, and I wanna, I wanna help you on your way, right? It's no hard feelings. I get this isn't for everybody. Maybe you don't resonate— humble is just not your thing, right? Maybe you got a little bit of like arrogance, or, you know, like you just, it doesn't feel good to you, right? But you're super hungry and you like talking to people. All right, well, that's okay. This just isn't your company. You're making other people miserable. You're miserable. You don't feel that sense of belonging. What I'm going to do for you is here's 10% and you can decide right now, do you— are you just here for the money? Here's money, right? This will take you— 10% is basically 5 weeks of pay, right? When you do the math. Here's your 10% severance and I will help you write your resume. I will help you find another job if you want to help interviewing, if you want, you know, references. I am here for you and I will do everything in my power to help you find that next spot where you can be a rock star, right? Because it's not here. And what you're doing is you're just making yourself miserable trying to make it be here, right? And so again, we're resetting status quo. We're saying this is the easy way out, right? Here's, here's a check and just take the check, you know?

And for those managers out there thinking, oh my gosh, that's so expensive. You know, think about the flip side of that when it's, you know, I remember it cost us like close to $20 grand to onboard somebody, train them, get them up to speed before they really became even productive.

Yep.

You know, so I mean, it could be cheap in the long run.

Well, especially if you've got a bad fit. You think about, you know, just roll it out a little bit. How much time and energy do you have to spend managing employees who aren't culture fits? How much, you of your life force do you give to the job to deal with that? How much stress do you go home with? Ah man, I had to deal with so-and-so again today.

Right.

You know, it adds up. And I could tell you, I will gladly pay 10% of somebody's salary to not have to deal with that.

Right?

Now maybe that sounds a little selfish, but I'd rather help make them available to the market. You know, there's another job out there calling for them.

Right.

Where I don't have to have that same stress and anxiety. I know it's a little selfish, but You know, it's this idea that you're trying to ram this square peg into a round hole and you're wasting a ton of energy to do it. 10% gets real cheap real fast.

I would challenge that it's selfish to think that way though, because you're not thinking necessarily about you and the time and effort you're gonna have to put into micromanage. You're thinking about everybody else at the company.

Oh, that's true too, right? It's not the only consideration, right? It definitely, in the long run, you know, it benefits me not to have to deal with people that don't want to be here.

Right.

But I also recognize it benefits the entire company. And there's nobody else in the company that's going to have that conversation. Right. Patrick Lencioni talks about this in his book, The Motive. Terrific book. But it's all about servant leadership. You have a job as the leader. You're the only one in a position to do anything. About people who don't fit. And a lot of times we abdicate that and we say, oh, I just don't want to deal with that, or that sounds like a really hard conversation. These conversations, you know, here's your 10%, are hard conversations. And your job as a leader is to have those hard conversations, right? Is to make it really clear, hey, it's okay if you don't want to be here.

I can remember 3 employees during my career I've had that conversation as their leader.

Yeah.

And all 3 of them Well, 4 actually to this day are still good friends of mine. They're waiting for that conversation in some cases.

And it takes courage to do that conversation on both sides. Yeah.

You know, for you as a leader to sit someone down and ask those questions, are you a good fit? And for them to come forward and, you know, they've got families, they've got bills for them to come forward and say, you know, I'm not a good fit. How can we rectify this?

Yeah.

Well, there's also other issues that they may be having that you don't know about, because I've had those same conversations and I've gone in my whole mindset as being, you know, I'm going to get rid of this person, they are not a fit, they're not— they don't belong here, right? So you open up that conversation with, hey, do you want to be here? And most times I got surprised with the, yes I do, but— and then there'd be some type of conflict that they were dealing with at work or maybe at home that was affecting that attitude and what they were doing. So that, that's why as a leader it's also important to actually find out about those things and to be engaged with your employees.

That's where those one-on-ones come in, right? Yeah. So you can keep a pulse on what's going on, because all of us, we're all human, we all have things that affect us on a daily basis, whether that be at home, whether that be school kids, could be anything that could, you know, bring your attitude down, impact your job.

And like you said, the one-on-ones are a chance for you as a leader to have that uncomfortable conversation, enter the danger be bold, be courageous for the sake of your employees because they're all counting on you to have that conversation right now. 10%, right? I keep saying that number. That's courageous to say, like, I'm willing to give up 10% and this might cost me a lot of money. You know, I did that for the entire company.

I just added that up.

I'm like, especially in the COVID environment, right? Like, it's hard to find people. And I even said that in the staff meeting too. I'm like, look, I might be the only guy here on Monday, and if I got to answer phones and do tech support, I will do that and I will start this thing over if that's what it takes, because that's how much the purpose and the values and the mission mean to me, right? That's commitment. Your people are counting on you as the leader to have that courage, to have the hard conversations, to take the bold steps, to do what's necessary to keep people committed and to keep people all rowing the same direction. That's your job. That's the, that's the whole aspect of being a leader.

You know, and some of the best jobs I ever had, I remember an intentional culture that I belonged to that I really loved. And I left, and I mentioned earlier that I left for a bad culture, but I never really even thought about the intentional culture and how much I loved it until I had left it. But I do remember, I remember, you know, I don't want to name drop, but Coca-Cola was where I was at and I loved working there. And I didn't realize how much I loved working there until I came to Arizona and I was sitting at an AMC theater watching a Coca-Cola. They have those little pre-things before the movie starts. And tears came out of my eyes.

Oh wow.

And I thought, oh my gosh. I mean, 'cause I'm not an emotional guy, but they had got that culture so far into me that I, I just all of a sudden realized that at that movie, it was weird.

And you don't drink Pepsi either?

No. Oh yeah. I'm, I'm totally—

You were all in on Coca-Cola.

I actually watched them fire people for drinking Pepsi or Mountain Dew.

So they got that into your head real quick too. Well, that's gonna wrap it up for us today. Again, not everybody can do this. But bold steps like this, right? You define where you're going, you define the culture, and then draw your line in the sand, help people feel like they belong. And if they don't belong, then help them find somewhere they do. You owe it to your people to do that. You owe it to their stakeholders to create that intentional culture for them and then live it. But with that, We're going to sign off and we will see you next week.

Ice, ice, baby.

Bye.

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