3 Steps to Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, & Belonging with 5x Author & Keynote Speaker Mike Robbins

Welcome to The Successful Contractor powered by CertainPath, a show for residential contractors about residential contractors. We chronicle business journeys, share insights, and celebrate successes in this wonderful industry. I'm your host, Bob Houchin. For more information on how CertainPath can put your contracting company on a certain path to success, Visit our website, www.mycertainpath.com. I hope you enjoy today's show and take away a nugget or two. Mike, thank you so much for being on the show today. I greatly appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man. We're excited to have you as our keynote speaker at our upcoming expo in Temecula, California. For those that are not familiar with your work, can you kind of share with everyone your name, what you do, and a little bit about your background?

Well, thanks, Bob. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, my name is Mike Robbins. And, uh, yeah, for the last 23 years, I've had a consulting business based here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And we work with all different types and sizes of companies and really focus on leadership, uh, team performance and culture and just, you know, overall success. So that's what I've been doing. And I'm really honored and excited to get to speak at the conference in Temecula. I appreciate you all inviting me.

Oh, of course. Of course. How did you get into this industry? It's such a niche, interesting industry. I know you had a sports background, but how did you venture into it?

Well, so yeah, my life growing up, I grew up in Oakland. So here in the Bay Area, played baseball all growing up, was really into it. Got drafted out of high school by the New York Yankees. Didn't end up signing with the Yankees because I got a chance to play baseball in college at Stanford and then signed with the Kansas City Royals out of Stanford. Um, you know, went into the minor leagues as you do when you signed a pro contract in baseball. And unfortunately, Bob, for me, I, my third season in, I tore ligaments in my elbow as a pitcher. I blew my arm out and, you know, was, was bummed as you can imagine. I mean, devastated. I had 3 surgeries. I tried to come back. I couldn't come back. And then after starting baseball at 7, I had to retire at 25.

Oh boy.

And, you know, I mean, I'd gotten an education, but I hadn't really thought about what I, what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I ended up getting a job working for a tech company in the late '90s during sort of the internet boom. And one of the things I had become most fascinated by as an athlete, especially by the time I got to college and was playing professionally, is I was fascinated by team dynamics. There seemed to be this sort of intangible thing that would like, you know, it wasn't always talent that, that made the best team. I was on teams with really good talent and the team wasn't very good. Because of the egos or the coach or something. And I was on other teams where the talent was decent, but the team was fantastic. And I was like, what is that? I thought it was a sports thing. And then that first job I had, I realized, oh, that's not a sports thing. It's a human thing. And after working for a couple of tech companies in the late '90s, I got so fascinated by this. I was like, I want to study that. I want to learn that. I want to see if I can figure out some things. And if I can, maybe I can share them with other people. So that was really what started me. down the path. And, you know, 23 years later and 5 books and having a chance to work with all these great companies in different industries all over the country, it's been quite a ride.

Yeah, very good. That's very interesting. I always love hearing how people get to where they are. I think a lot can be learned from that.

Yeah.

Yeah. You mentioned before I hit record, you had a conversation or you spoke to what, American Express yesterday?

Yep.

Yeah, very good. What was the topic? What did you talk, talk with them about?

I was talking to, it was a group of their leaders and we were talking about authentic leadership, you know, and, and, and, you know, how to be a leader that can actually really create a culture of high performance, especially, you know, for companies like American Express that are huge and people all over the world, you know, and even much smaller companies. And, and, you know, it's like, there's a lot of the way that we're working these days, especially in certain industries has changed so much just in the last few years. So figuring out how to utilize different technology platforms and connect with people, even if we're not in the same physical space. You know, I imagine in the, in the construction industry that's impacted some, but there's also a lot of difference in terms of depending on the size of the company or projects or what we're doing. But, you know, the world is not the same as it was 5 years ago, as we all know, and everybody's having to adjust and pivot.

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It's funny you mentioned that. I agree. Not only have we become more technologically savvy or had to be in our space especially, you know, we— there's a lot of people that shy away from technology in terms of video conferencing. They like being face-to-face and they had to overcome that. But I feel like just in communication styles, we're dealing with a lot of younger people now, you know?

Right.

And they're a lot different than the boomers and Gen Xers that are owning and running these businesses. So how do you kind of tell an older demographic on how to communicate and connect with the younger people?

Look, it's tricky. Yeah, it's tricky, right? I mean, generational issues, you know, when I first started, you know, so I'm a Gen Xer, about to turn 50 in February. And like when I first started doing this, I was 26 and I would go into these companies and there were mostly baby boomers were running the companies and folks even older than baby boomers. And then the Gen Xers like, us were the kids at the time.

Yeah.

And, you know, fast forward to today, and now we've got, you know, boomers still around and Xers. We're not kids anymore at all, and millennials aren't even kids really. And we got these Gen Zs coming in. And it's like, one of the things that I— look, I'm not a generations expert, but one of the things that I've said for years, and it's so true now especially, is like, it's really important for all of us to have an open mind and to learn from each other. And if we are a bit older, A couple things are true. Number one, we have more experience and more wisdom. We have more perspective, but we're also, we tend to be a little bit more stuck in our ways and it's harder to embrace new things, whether it's video technology or lots of other things. Younger people, while they lack a certain amount of experience and wisdom and perspective, tend to be much more flexible and fluid. And they also can kind of, you know, it's the whole notion of like digital natives as they call them. But so what I often say, regardless of the size of the business or the team, Or the makeup of it is, can we learn from each other? Can you be a leader who's both a mentor, but also at the same time, a protégé? Meaning like, there's going to be things some of your young employees can teach you, not only about technology, but about other things that you're not going to learn otherwise. I mean, I learn stuff from my teenage daughters all the time. They mostly think I'm kind of lame, but you know what I mean? They tell me stuff or teach me stuff. And I'm like, wow, I didn't know that. Or what does that mean? Or how do you think about that? And again, it's not that I want to be like a 17-year-old or a 15-year-old, but understanding what's the conversation happening, whether it's with teenagers or people in their 20s or their 30s. If you're going to be a good leader, you actually have to be curious about those things. Now, that doesn't mean you let them run the show and you can still be the boss, but at the same time, you want to do it in a way that's inclusive and empowering to them.

Yeah, you have to understand their perspective in order to better communicate with them because you need them to do a job and you want to have a good team. That makes total sense.

For sure.

Yeah. You mentioned obviously you've written some books, which I'm impressed because my background's in writing and that, that is an in-depth project. Yeah. Your most recent one was— is called We're All in This Together: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, and Belonging. What inspired this, this venture? Well, you know, how was it different maybe from some of the other books?

You know, I had written a book called Bring Your Whole Self to Work that came out in 2018. And there's 5 principles in that book. And the final one was create a championship team. And I've been studying team performance and culture for now over 20 years. But when I got done writing that book, I felt like I wanted to sort of double-click on team performance and culture. And especially with so many things happening in the world, you know, what you and I are talking about, generational differences, I mean, this was, I finished writing the book right before COVID and turned the manuscript in, actually came out in the spring of 2020. Um, and you may remember a lot of people were using that phrase, we're all in this together.

We're all in this together.

People were like, people were like, did you know? And I was like, of course I didn't know. I wrote a book. This book is about teamwork and performance and culture and inclusivity and really operating at a high level. But to me, Bob, it's, it's kind of the culmination of know, 20 years of research and experience. And I really wanted to write a book that gave people some tangible, practical tools they could use to navigate. You know, again, I didn't— it was before the pandemic. So even at that point though, just like the divisiveness and the intensity and the being pulled in so many directions and all these things showing up at work that didn't used to show up at work and people everywhere I was going, whether it was in the construction industry or it's in the technology industry or, you know, nonprofits or government or meta, you name it. It was like almost everyone I was working with was looking at me like, how do we deal with the pace and the nature of change? So a lot of We're All in This Together is really about looking at how do we find common ground with each other so we can perform well together, even and especially when things might be stressful and challenging.

Yeah, I think those differences have only been amplified really since COVID I feel like we're— it's maybe even more— it's, you know, more divisive than ever, unfortunately.

I know. And, and again, it's like, how can we find common ground and come together with each other in a world that seems to be kind of constantly yelling at us to pick sides on things? And, and, you know, and even at work, it felt like a couple decades ago that sort of stuff at work was sort of out of bounds, and now it's like it just seeps in. for better or worse. And it doesn't have to be about the work, but it does create these divisions and these divides. And even back to the generational thing, I mean, I talk to people all the time, especially who are a bit older, and there's lots of, oh, these kids, these kids, you know, and I try to remind them, you hear that a lot. I try to remind them now, look, there are certain things that are unique to each generation, right? However, you know, when you were 23, there are certain things that are similar to the 23-year-olds today, even though the world may look different. There's just a certain, again, it's like, so I think it's like figuring out how do we respond to the world as it is today and not live in the past, but how do we also make sure, and especially if I'm running a small construction company, I want to run it the way it, that are based on my values and what I think is true. But as it grows, and if we're going to be successful, I also can't be so rigid in how I do it that I'm not willing to be flexible to some degree in order to not only respond to the team, But to the nature of what customers expect and what people want. Yeah.

I mean, you're going to have a growing business. You're going to have lots of different opinions and beliefs and you just have to work through that.

Yeah.

In your book, you talk about the foundation of a high-performance team. So maybe could you share some, some insights on how our members, you know, business owners can create a foundation in their small business? What does that look like?

You know, the key, a key foundation to a high-performing team is based on trust and what we call psychological safety. So trust is more of a one-to-one phenomenon. So Bob, you and I can trust each other or not, right? We can build trust. Trust can get broken down. It can get rebuilt. Psychological safety is more the group trust of the team. And again, if the team has 3 people on it or 5 people on it or 50 or 1,000, I mean, there's going to be, the bigger the group is, there's going to be more sub-teams within the team. But what psychological safety basically means is the group is safe enough for what? For risk-taking, for speaking up, for disagreeing, for making mistakes, even failing. Not that we want to, but on a psychologically safe team, we know if I make a mistake, if I fail, if I disagree, I'm not going to get shamed, ridiculed, kicked out of the group simply for doing that. And what's interesting, it's sort of paradoxical. If you create an environment where people feel safe that they can make mistakes, they're actually less likely to make them and they're more likely to perform at a high level. I think about my days as an athlete, like when I played for really intense, uptight coaches that would jump down our— yeah, jump down. And there's a lot of failure in baseball, right? The best team in the major league—

Yeah.

You lose, like if you're an awesome team, you lose like 60-some games in a season. Right. And, you know, if you're a great hitter, you get, you make an out 7 out of 10 times. So there's a ton of failure. When I played for coaches who were really like, would jump down our throat when we made mistakes, I would notice that not only for me, but for the team, people were kind of walking on eggshells and worried. To mess up, which doesn't create the conditions for high performance. So back to your question, what people can do, and a lot of this does come from the leader and the smaller the team, the smaller the group, the more influence the leader has. So again, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be in a good mood all the time. You don't have to say all the right perfect things, but it's important that you operate with a certain amount of authenticity, which allows for there to be trust and ultimately psychological safety. That means like, if you make a mistake, you're willing to own up to it. You don't always have to be the smartest person in the room. You don't always have to have the answer to every problem. You actually empower other people. Now, again, you can be the boss, but being the boss doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be the best. You want to have a team around you that actually has people who have skills that you do not have that you can defer to and go, you know what? I can't do that. Or I don't do that very well. I empower the people around me to do it. And look, I run a small business and have for the last 23 years. That can be tricky. I can be controlling and annoying and think I know everything, you know? So again, some of this stuff, like I teach some of the things that I also need to learn or need to remember. So, you know, we're all human and people get into this business that, you know, the construction business because of a passion, because someone in their family was, because they've done it for a long time because they care. And they're not necessarily, again, I mean this with respect to everyone listening. You didn't probably get into the business thinking, I'm going to be a great business owner. I'm going to be a great leader. It's like, I want to do a good job and right. Help people with their homes and take care of projects because I'm good at that. And then you realize, oh, there's all this other stuff I have to figure out, both the practical side of the business, but also the people side of the business. And those things can be challenging.

For sure. For sure. Uh, in building trust, I know something I think you talked about in the book. I know we talk about it, uh, this idea of radical candor, right? It's like you, you have to trust one another, but when there's something wrong, we have to have an honest conversation.

Yes.

You know, and, and direct conversation that's productive.

Yeah.

How do people avoid that candor though from sounding like biting criticism? Is there any kind of techniques or strategy you can, you have behind that?

Yeah. Well, my, my friend Kim Scott wrote that great book, Radical Candor, and she really talks about, you know, challenging directly. And caring genuinely. And the way I talk about it in my book is that basically we have to have— look, what creates high performance for teams. And if we want to really empower someone is we have to have a healthy, high level of expectation. So we expect a lot and it's clear, but also a high level of caring and nurturing. So what's important in giving feedback, in challenging people, in coaching people, for it to not turn into this biting criticism. Is we really have to bring a certain amount of empathy and authenticity to those conversations. And look, again, one criticism that I hear sort of writ large as we talk about generations is like, oh, everyone today is so sensitive. These kids are so sensitive. You can't say anything. Everyone gets offended. And look, there, there is some truth to that collectively. I would say as a society, there's a higher level of sensitivity. Now you could argue that in some ways that's a really good thing. We don't let a bunch of really awful things just slide as maybe we did.

Yeah.

And at the same time, the unintended consequence is like, now it's like, well, I don't know what to say or do, or people get upset and offended. And I don't know, or they might, I say something and then they might post it somewhere or tell it, whatever the heck it is.

Right. Sure.

However, when you think about it this way, it's like one of the key things for us to do when we're giving feedback to another human being is to remove our self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the, like, I'm right, you're wrong. Phenomenon. Now, look, you, you might be talking to someone on a job site who's doing something that's dangerous, that's problematic, that we need to go in and say, hey, stop doing that. You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to hurt someone else, or this is going to be a problem. This is going to make a mistake that's going to delay the project or cost us a bunch of money. Like, so I'm, but if we come at it, even that situation, if we come at it with that intensity, like you're wrong, you're bad, this is terrible, people get defensive. And they're not always defending themselves against the idea or the coaching. They're defending themselves against the notion that they're wrong. So again, I'm not— when I talk to leaders about this, it's not about watering down your opinion, but it is about being able to recognize, okay, even if I have 25, 30 years of experience and I know the right way to do this, I've got to communicate more with conviction, not self-righteousness. Conviction is I believe this to be true. I'm willing to speak up about it. I'm willing to engage in what I call a sweaty palm conversation. But I have enough humility and enough self-awareness to realize I might be wrong, or at least there might be another way to look at this thing that I can't currently see. And if we bring that mindset to it, then people are less likely to get defensive and more likely to be open to what we have to say.

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Also in the book, you talk about the practices of high performance. And, you know, in our space, we have a lot of departments that rely on each other. Call center takes the call, they pass to a technician, Or salespeople, everyone relies on salespeople, everyone's relying on each other, but they're not, again, interacting often face-to-face other than the morning or giant company meetings.

Yeah.

You couple that not seeing each other all day and a lot of high-stress situations, for example, weather gets really hot, really cold, all of a sudden calls are coming in, you're trying to help as many people as possible, it leads to natural conflict, right?

Yes.

So how do our our business owners, our members, try and minimize those clashes from happening in the first place, whether it's giving them an understanding of what everyone's dealing with or I don't know, what advice do you have?

Well, look, I mean, I have a little bit experience of working with some companies in your industry, some bigger companies, some smaller ones. What I've seen, and this is true in a lot of industries, by the way, there's often a divide. And what I see in the construction world, of course, is like there's people who are on the business side and there's people who are out on the job site. And even within that, to your point, I mean, the bigger the company, the more departments, the more people are doing different things. And there can be this sentiment both ways where it's like, well, what do they know? What do they know? You know what I mean? We do this. And again, you take any company, it's like the marketing department and the sales department and the finance department and the engineers and whatever. There's a couple of things to think about. Look, that's normal. That happens. We're going to get stressed. We're going to have some conflict. We're going to see things differently because again, If I'm the business owner versus, you know, I'm a, I'm a foreman or I'm somebody out on a job site, or I'm someone in the business office and I'm running the finance, whatever it is, I'm going to see the world through my vantage point, through my own experience. That's normal, but trying to give each other the benefit of the doubt, trying to assume positive intent. And there's one distinction, Bob, that I've learned over the years that's really important. And that's the distinction between our job and our role. So everybody has different roles, right? And the roles are important and we want to do our role well and we have training and expertise in our role. But on a high-performing team, everyone knows that we all have the same job. The job is to help the team win. And like back when I was playing baseball, right, I was a pitcher. And being a pitcher is a very different role than being a center fielder or a catcher, or even as a pitcher, a starting pitcher is different than a middle reliever, than a closer. There's different roles within the But when I wasn't playing, sometimes I would be in the bullpen and I was mad because I wanted to be starting. And then if I'm over there in the bullpen, in my head, even not even saying it out loud, rooting against the guy who's starting, like, how come he's, how come he's starting and I'm not? Because I had my little ego and I was super competitive. In those moments, I'm actually not doing my job.

Yeah.

When I'm griping about some of the internal politics within the team, even if it's a legitimate complaint, I'm not helping the team win. So these things become like great teams really talk to each other, not about each other. And the bigger the company gets, the more the leaders and the senior leaders in the company have to do the best they can to try to facilitate connection and communication across departments. Because as the saying goes, like, it's, it's hard to hate people up close, meaning I can get frustrated with you when you're over there, but when we're face to face with each other, and this is where sometimes I understand the resistance to all the digital communication. It's like, hey, let's get in a room and let's hash this out because eyeball to eyeball, unless it gets really gnarly, we're usually going to be able to work it out versus over a text or an email or one office and another office or one department, another department, one job site and the other job site. It can get pretty gnarly.

Yeah, for sure. So that was going to be my follow-up question is when the conflict happens, what do you do? So it's, there's still some value to getting face-to-face.

Yes. Well, look, there's really only 2 ways to resolve a conflict that I'm aware of in, in all my life experience and all my research and working with a lot of teams. One way is we deal with it directly all the way through until it gets resolved. Now, sometimes that can be easy. Sometimes that can be hard. Sometimes that takes a long time, sometimes a short time, but a lot of times conflicts escalate when we don't talk to each other, but we get into the room and it can be helpful to have a facilitator or someone, you know, for many years I did a lot of conflict resolution and mediation. I don't do as much of that anymore. But one of the things, Bob, that I would do if it was a one-on-one conflict or there was a conflict in a group, the first thing that I would do before I even got into the conflict is I would make the people involved convince me they were actually committed to, or at least open to resolving the conflict.

Oh, okay.

Because the reality is a lot of times we like to hold a grudge and we like to be right. So it's like, look, do you really want this to be resolved or do you just wanna win? Do you just wanna be, have the upper hand and make it go your way? Because if that's the case, That doesn't make you evil. It's just probably not going to work out.

Right. Yeah.

But if I could get both people to say, okay, I'm open to, even if I don't believe we can resolve this thing, I'm open to it. Then the second part of the process would be have each person sort of tell their story and have the other person listen, not respond, not rebut, not argue, but just like repeat back, what did you hear him say? Or what did you hear her say? And it would take a while and it was kind of tedious, but really getting, oh, because usually I would say, look, nobody here is evil, maliciously intended, trying to— it's just, we're seeing things differently or we're upset about something. And so I say that because it's working it all the way through. Look, the other way to resolve a conflict, that's way more efficient, by the way, is to let it go. And when I say let it go, I don't mean like pretend like it's cool when it's not cool. I mean, delete it from the hard drive and be like, you know what? Life's too short. I'm not going to be upset about this thing anymore. And I'm not saying we should just step over stuff or disregard it, but there's literally tens of thousands of things that you and I have let go of in our lives. We don't think about them anymore. Why? Because we let them go.

Right. So forget about it at some point. Right.

And sometimes it's just like, you know, I remember I come from a long line of grudge holders in my family. So I know a bit about this, but I, but I love the saying that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Oh, because that's what we do. Like the negativity is within, within us. And then we tell people and we're mad and we're upset and they're wrong and they're bad and I'm right and all the things. But at the end of the day, it does harm to us and it ultimately does harm to the team.

Funny you said, I just watched a video and it was, the speaker was talking about it. You're punishing yourself by holding that negativity. It really is.

Totally. Totally.

Uh, also in the book you took up, you talk about leadership of high performance teams.

Yeah.

Thankfully, you know, our industry has been doing really well the last few years. A lot of companies still doing well. And, you know, they're, they're getting to the point where they're growing and they need to identify leaders to, to help them grow to the next level. But yeah, to find leaders is difficult, right? So whether they're trying to promote from within or hire from the outside, you know, trying to decide who is actually good at leadership is a very difficult thing. It's not like being good at your job in sales or as a technician or call center. It's a different skill set. So when you, when you consult with companies, talk with companies about, you know, leadership and, and finding leaders for your business, are there certain personality traits or backgrounds people should look for? How do you, how do you handle that?

I think, I mean, there, there are certain things in people's backgrounds that can lend themselves to being good leaders, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to What we call emotional intelligence, right? Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management. Look, and in your industry, I would imagine depending on the nature of the position, having some technical skill and ability to do the thing is kind of important. However, as we all know, just because someone can do something well doesn't necessarily mean they can both teach it and coach it and be a good leader, right? I mean, look at sports. A lot of times it's very rare when you have a great athlete That's also a great coach. It does happen.

Very true.

But it's usually, you know, I know, look, most professional athletes are really good athletes, but in the scheme of things, it's the, you know, it's the Phil Jacksons and Steve Kerrs and Gregg Popoviches of the basketball world, if you will. And in some sports like football, they didn't even play, or maybe they played until high school.

Right.

It's hard when someone is really, really elite at something. It sometimes is hard for them to be able to communicate that To other people. So sometimes your highest performer or your best person in terms of producing the result isn't necessarily going to be your best leader. So you want to look for like, do they have a sense of warmth and compassion? Do they have a sense of being able to communicate with different types of people? And, you know, do you see them interacting with people and people feeling some sense of empowerment? With the interaction, you know, the type of person that tends to cause a lot of conflict or create a lot of chaos isn't usually going to be the best leader. Um, you know, the person that can stay sort of calm within the storm and, and knows how to de-escalate situations, those types of things. It's a lot of intangible stuff. Um, you know, and it can be hard to identify. And sometimes if someone hasn't had much leadership experience, you won't know until you give them the opportunity to do it. And if you can give them a little bit of leadership management responsibility initially to see how they do and then build from there, that can be a good approach.

Right. Uh, that, I think that's great. Obviously that makes sense for, for internal candidates, right? Trying to—

yes.

For the external, like, I, I feel like I don't have this person in-house. I need to start. Is there, are there certain practices or questions in interviewing you can try and gauge emotional intelligence or?

I mean, I, I think it's a tough question.

I understand.

It's tricky, right? It is tricky. I do think, you know, finding the right culture fit is, to me, it's always more important than what's on the resume. You know, um, and, and really understanding and, you know, I've, it's funny you mentioned this. I was just talking to someone the other day and she's, she's interviewed leaders for years and years, uh, in her position, pretty senior leader in, in this company and in the food service business. But she said one of the questions that she asks Is, did you go to summer camp? And I was like, well, that's a weird question. Why do you ask that? She goes, because if someone went to summer camp, what I know about them is like, they know how to, you know, work with different people and make friends quickly and figure stuff out and like be in uncomfortable situations. And I, someone, someone else said to me years ago that they would ask someone, and again, this can be tricky because it depends on people's background and socioeconomics, but they would ask them, where have you traveled? Just because he was like, I'm curious to find out if they've moved out or around from where they grew up, because the more that they've moved away, just even, oh, I went on this trip or I went here. Again, knowing that they can be vulnerable, they can be in situations where they're uncomfortable, they have to ask for help. So, you know, random questions like that. When you think about yourself or you think about your company, what are some of the key traits that are necessary to be successful, to lead in your specific company in the way that you do business? And can you ask questions of an external candidate? That might lend you to go to find out, do they have those qualities? Do they have those skills and ability? It's not going to show up on the resume necessarily, but if you can think creatively about questions to ask, I want to find out if they're going to be good at this, or if this is going to be hard for them, what could I ask them that would lead to that?

That's great. Yeah. Think about what core values you have in your business, reverse engineer the questions to get a response to see if that person meets that value. That's great. That's good stuff. Yeah. Um, Mike, just kind of wrapping up, um, again, you said what, 26 years you've been doing this? Uh, what, what are the most important lessons you've learned in your work as a leadership coach and author? Anything that really sticks out to you? I know it's a long career for a young guy.

Uh, yeah.

What sticks out to you?

I think to me it really, Bob, it comes down to humanity. I mean, owning our own humanity. Being a real human at what we do and how we show up. And that's both in terms of dealing with team members, you know, but also customers. Like at the end of the day, as corny as it sounds, it's like, we're all humans doing the best we can. And if you're going to be a strong leader, if you're going to build a strong team, if you're going to provide great customer service, what all the things that we want to do, even provide great value, it's going to be about humans connecting with other humans. As humans. And again, whether it's construction or it's finance or it's sports or it's entertainment or it's anything, it comes down to the human beings being able to not only tap into their own humanity, but that of the people around them. And when we do that, that can unlock people's potential and ultimately their greatness. But if we're acting like, you know, some professional robots that think we have to have all the answers and do it all right, it's not only erroneous and impossible, it's also super stressful.

Yeah, I think that's such a great point because I, I was just, you know, in our industry there's lots of different Facebook groups of business owners sharing insights. We have them in our own organization. I just read a post not long ago. It said, what's your personality type? You know, and it's either, you know, in the DiSC, it's Ds, a lot of high Ds or Type As. For people that don't know what DiSC is, there's hard-charging people who are like, just get on the bus.

Yep.

Get outta the way. That doesn't, it doesn't work. You have to show humanity and, and lead people, not just Pull them, right? So I think that speaks to that exactly. Um, how about, how have your insights evolved when you first started, like, you know, 10, 20 years ago? Different types of people, you know, you've learned a lot over the ways. Anything that was really insightful, like, boy, I used to think this, but now I see, see it as that?

I, I think, um, I mean, I think some of what I was talking about before about humanity, I think it's just expanded. And also cultural competence, cultural awareness, just understanding The nature of life and differences. Um, I even think in the last few years, especially one of the silver linings that's come out of COVID is like the importance of focusing on mental health, um, which is something we never used to talk about hardly at all.

Yeah.

Especially, especially at work. And I mean, look, I come from a family where there's a lot of mental health issues and challenges and like, it was always sort of taboo to even talk about it, even in the family, let alone. And I'm actually grateful that people are talking about it more and it doesn't mean that you have to be a psychologist or an expert, but just like if someone hurt themselves or broke their leg or was really sick, you would support them in like, go to the doctor and get that taken care of. And you would be at least mindful and sensitive. The same is true. I think when we think about people's mental health and just being mindful of the fact that, again, we're not machines, we're human beings. And I do feel like that has evolved over the last couple of decades in the way that we think about Work for better or worse. I think we work more than ever these days, and I do think there's some level of understanding. Like we have to create an environment that's both physically looking in the construction industry. There's a ton of focus on safety, as there should be, and I think we can continue to expand that from the standpoint of not just workplace safety physically, but also mentally, emotionally, socially. Like how is everybody feeling? Because at the end of the day, like that actually is what drives performance. All those years about playing baseball. The teams that I was on where I felt close and connected with my teammates and I felt passionate and we were like in, in it together, we played better than when it felt like there were a bunch of different factions and we were sort of playing in spite of each other and competing against each other. And that's what leadership is really about, is creating that culture where people feel like they belong to something important and they want to perform at the highest level.

Absolutely.

You know, I really do think it's, it's been, it's slowly evolving industry because when I started 20 years ago. It was, hey everyone, let's work as much overtime as we can. Let's, let's work as much as we can and just burn out. Now companies that are, are good, they're moving to 4-day work weeks.

Yep.

Limiting, then other people, that's what people want. It's, and it's a better work life. Their turnover's better. So, you know, it really, it's just a, it's a different environment, but that's what it is today. And it's a good, I think it's a good thing. You know, there's no reason we all kill ourselves.

For sure. For sure.

Well, Mike, hey, thank you so much for all your time today. Obviously, you're going to be in Temecula at Expo speaking. Really looking forward to that. For members that are interested in maybe looking at some of your books and acquiring them beforehand or afterwards, where should they go to check those out?

Best place is at our website, which is just mike-robbins.com. Everything's there.

Very good. Very good. And you said you also have a podcast. We talked about that Or hitting record, maybe. Share what that— what it's called. And I'm sure it can be found everywhere, right?

Yeah, wherever you get your podcasts, wherever you're listening to this, you can probably find it. It's called We're All in This Together. So it's— sometimes I do some interviews. A lot of times I just share a topic or a thought or an idea that's helpful for leaders or teams or people in general. So we have fun with the podcast.

That's great. How often do you drop episodes?

Every week on Tuesdays, unless I'm moving things and I'm flaky about it.

So good for you to do a standalone. I always stress about coming up with good questions, but be able to speak for your, you know, on your own for 30 minutes or whatever you're doing. I mean, it's, yeah, that's a challenge.

Well, as my wife likes to say, there's never been an amount of time I could not fill. So I have lots of things to say. That's fantastic.

Oh, thank God for spouses, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, good stuff.

Well, Mike, hey, thanks again for all your time. I really enjoyed the conversation. And I look forward to seeing you in Temecula in a few weeks.

Yeah, I'm excited to be there. Thanks, Bob.

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