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Unbound is a weekly podcast, created to help you achieve more as a leader. Join Chris DuBois as he shares his growth journey and interviews others on their path to becoming unbound. Delivered weekly on Thursdays.
0:00
Today we dive into the importance of prioritizing people over processes and how culture changes the way we work. Are you leader trying to get more from your business in life? Me too. So join me as I document conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Steve Turner's the CEO of beyond resilience and the president of flow business solution. With 34 years of proven leadership at UPS. Steven knows that valuing people over processes is key to overcoming business challenges, having led international finance and operations teams, he understands that while culture is very hearts do not Steve is dedicated to enhancing leadership effectiveness by getting organizations to lead rather than managing their people. Steve,
0:51
welcome, Don Beth. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.
0:57
All right, I am glad you're here as well, because we are going to kick off with your origin story.
1:03
Okay. I started at UPS, and that was the ripe old age of 20 years old. And one of the things I had to deal with when I first got started, which really impacted the rest of my life. That is that the I knew that the people that reported to me were going to be younger than I was, excuse me older than I was. And at the age of 20, it matters when you're 3040 and 50. Nobody cares. So I figured, well, if I'm going to be successful with this group of people, which are all college students, basically, I decided I would just treat them the way I would like to be treated. And that has worked since day one has worked through the 45 years that has followed that. So 30 for UPS a little over 10 in the entrepreneurial space. And it's to me is just a golden nugget when it comes to leading people that if they can rely on you to where you will treat them like individuals, individuals that we like to develop and build into a better employees and better people for that matter. Things always turn out well. That's what I found anyway. Yeah.
2:18
It's interesting that you would bring up the age thing right from the start, because that was, I mean, my start with being in the military, right? Like I came in as a second lieutenant, 22 years old. And like, half the people in my unit had been through like multiple combat tours, you know, 10 years in the service. And they're like, they're looking at you like really, are you? But when I left active duty one of at a civilian who worked for me who could have been my dad, so I'm like me, how does it feel like, joking around? But uh, yeah, awesome. But who would have thought that the golden rule would actually apply? That's weird. Yeah.
2:54
And has all the time forever, even even in different locations? Because I spent five years in Europe, with UPS. And I covered 11 Different countries there in the different roles that I had. And I learned something really valuable. And you mentioned that in the introduction. cultures vary, but hearts do not. People are the same all over. If you treat them well, with respect, and, you know, honor and develop them, lead them or whatever it works
3:29
all the time. Right. It's amazing. Actually, I just want to get into the the international days of this, what are some of the things you didn't notice about culture and leadership? Right, obviously, treating people, like people tend to have good results. But what were some of the kind of nuances that you had to pick up on in order to just to get in the door and get the team moving in the right direction? Yes, a very
3:51
good question. One of the things that as you move around the countryside, now I happen to cover the countries in the Nordic countries. So I had Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and I came down through Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Turkey and Ireland on the other side. And they do vary. One of the things that I learned quickly in the Nordic countries, for example, specifically Denmark is this is where I discovered this. People don't like overtime too much. Because they value going home at night and spending time with their families. So rather than spending an extra hour and a half delivering packages, that UPS they'd rather be home. So that was just a one of those realities of working in that country. That that's the whole culture is that way. So you can't go in there and try to disrupt the culture because the one getting disrupted will be us. So another example, Germany and Germans tend to be pretty structured and what they do they are Excellent at following following procedures, and almost to the degree where I wasn't used to that rigid of following procedures, because, you know, I train people that this is the process of getting a job done. But, you know, if you run into a snag, roll up your sleeves and do your best to work through it. And they had a tendency to stopping, and they wouldn't move on, because the next step wasn't to do something different. And I had, I spent time in Germany, teaching people this isn't I was in finance and accounting them, teaching them billing procedures and what have you. And it was like a light went off in the leader over there. When he finally understood where I was coming from, in that we need to be willing to encourage people to that there, they have the opportunity and the freedom to go beyond the procedure to accomplish the overall the overall objective of the job. And all of a sudden, he got it, he's like, Wait, I got it, I got it. And that was the end of that. When you move further south, the further south you go, the later dinner starts. It also means their day starts early later. So you know, just different things. And elite, you know, tends to drive your conversation, so that you can communicate with somebody and talk about something that's important to them. And not always, it's not always about the job. And if you consider the rest, the job always goes better. Awesome. Yeah, it's
6:36
fascinating stuff. So it's now looking globally. What are some of those biggest like leadership mistakes that you've seen companies make that start to like disengage some of the employees?
6:51
Well, this can go all the way back to this is a long answer your question, if you go all the way back to the beginning of the current management style that we have in this country, it went all the way back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in 1850, when the farmers came off the farm and work moved into the factories. And now instead of them being 100%, control their lives, basically, you know, on their farms, somebody else started telling them what to do. And when that happens, there is a tendency to forget about the fact that it's people that still do the work. So the the issue that we've had for decades, and this this has been around since the Industrial Revolution, where we have not given enough consideration of the fact that it's people that do the work. Now we know that because six years after it started, the first labor union showed up. And those labor unions showed up as a result of people wanting to have a little more say in their life. And we get into the 1895 area. We have a gentleman named Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was probably recognized as the first industrial engineer in the American United States, there's nothing wrong with industrial engineers, ups as a great group of industrial engineers. But again, the focus was to run a business by numbers. There's nothing wrong with numbers, because numbers tell you if you've succeeded or not. And where do you need to make adjustments. But as as leaders go through the number process of establishing numbers for the purpose of establishing business goals, etc. And that message comes down through the ranks when it gets to the frontline supervisor, which is, in my opinion, is one of the more difficult jobs in a business. Because that person has to take the number message and convert it into an inspirational message, so that the people that actually execute the work, do it willingly. And that's very possible. It's just that it hasn't been done. Training hasn't been there. And then of course, as we know, processes and leadership styles tend to replicate themselves. So the next generation comes in under the previous generation, and the thing just keeps rolling. Now, one of the signs of this is that there's a statistic that that the Gallup organization has produced since 1990. And it says that 85% of employees are not fully engaged in their work. And that is a direct reflection on the leadership team. And I could talk about I could take up the whole half an hour talking about this, without you asking the question, which I'm sure that's not your intent. But anyway, it's it's a reflection of the fact that leaders are not leading people, they're managing them instead. systems, processes and procedures should be managed. People should be led and were created to be led as well. Yeah.
10:04
So how do you recommend people move like shift their mindset, right, from managing resources to leading people?
10:12
Well, the first thing is to understand that there's a difference. And if the if so the first step really is whenever I'm working with people and teaching them this, the first place of examination is the leader themselves, the manager themselves, as far as, where's their priorities? What are they focus on? What's important, and one of the pieces of the puzzle is missing very often, is the people piece, that when you bring people on board, and you train new people, there is a very, very successful way that that should be done. And if leaders would follow that process, it replicates itself, as the employee grows in the business. So the first thing is that the leader themselves has to understand there's a difference, and understand the impacts of the difference. And the fruit of it. So that's what we start with. So before I teach anybody, anything about communicating with employees, we start with an examination of what is the leaders role. And the process allows the manager to really think about well, how do I how am I doing with that? Right? And you can very successfully move people to see a different a different way of doing things. Because nobody does anything different unless they realize there's a difference. And the importance of looking at things differently.
11:44
Right, one of the sayings that has been resonating with me lately is that you can't change what you tolerate. And a lot of times that just comes from not knowing there's another way. And as soon as you know it, it's like, Oh, my God, I don't want to tolerate this.
12:00
Yeah. So there's, there's too much. There's too much confrontation, when the doesn't have to be
12:10
you can have, you know, positive communication with people and, and to, you know, train them and fix things and what have you. It's just a better way.
12:22
Yeah. And so, one of the ways you could probably get that assessment, right, is just getting feedback from your team. To see, you know, getting that honest feedback, which often is sometimes hard if you don't have the right culture to get the honest part. So what are some of the things you would recommend
12:39
making that happen? What are the ease, you really touched on something very, very significant here. And that is that people don't change anything unless they know for sure there's something wrong. Now, the one thing is that leaders need to know the views of their people. They can't rely on what they think the view is. Because it's likely wrong. Because who wants to think negatively of of the people that report to us right? So the first thing is to do is to have an assessment process. And I have to say, UPS was really good at this. UPS had an employee assessment every year. And over the years, it developed better managers, because they look, they were given the views of their employees at least once a year. Now, when you take that information, and then you start working with people, you get the views more often. Because you can, you can read how relationships change. So anyway, back to the assessment, once the the leaders have an assessment done with of their people, and you can do them very discreetly, and very effectively, that when they get the bottom lines, they Oh my God, I didn't think of that, or I didn't know that was an issue. You can then take those issues. And you can say, well, I'm over here. But I'd rather be over here. And then use we put together a strategic plan to get from one to the other. And the challenge part of this is is people understanding the process of the shift. And as it can all be done, I've done it many times. But obviously, first you have to be willing to want to do it. And then once we go through the process, establish the strategic plan to get from here to there. We then have KPIs in place, and routine processes by which we continue to confirm that changes have been made. Now the CEO wants to know that answer. So if you're in a large organization, where the CEO tends to be a little bit separated from the day to day work, that the CEO needs some Know the things working. So we, we put KPIs in place to give him the him or her the information that he or she needs on a continual basis to make sure it's working.
15:14
So I want to shift gears back to working with like individuals. So you get different cultures that you can work with, we get different generations of people now within the workforce. Obviously, treating people like people is going to work. But what are some of the ways that you've had to kind of figure out just how to actually reach people at the place that they're at, especially when it comes to like generations?
15:41
The Believe it or not, the the process really comes down to communicating with the individuals, and you'll find out what's important to them. Now, we know that there are certain characteristics as we go through the generations, right. And if I don't have the material with me right here, but when you look at the descriptions of each of the generations, you can see logically why they are what they are. Because it's a natural progression from the previous one. So now, you can't, you still need to understand where does each individual fit inside the model. What's important to the person and the only way you're going to know that is if you use these things, there's two of these, and one of these. And if you use them proportionately the same, you do more listening than talking, you'll discover what you need to know, you'll discover what makes people tick. What's important to them. Maybe somebody you know, they've got you know, they like having a big families have got five kids. And we know that would that would tend to take a lot of attention from an employee. Maybe they like sports. If you know that somebody likes football, it's a great topic of conversation. So it really comes down to knowing the individual as well. Now we know in this generation, that there is there seems to be an enhanced concern for quality of life. When you go back to the generation, I came out of which I was a baby, baby boomer, we were really focused on you know, getting work done, and being successful. And then our kids came out. And the each set of each generation tries to buck the previous generation one way or the other. And then they create something new. But at the end of the day, it's still people working with people getting things done. And that fact doesn't change at all. You just go generation generation and work it through. Now, I've been around long enough where I've touched more than one generation. But at the end of the day, we're still people. Yeah, yeah.
18:08
So it's what are some of your tips for communicating and just kind of building trust, through leadership with your teams?
18:15
Okay. One of the most important things is, first of all, to have meetings with people with your team. Now I'm going to I'm going to point I'm going to paint an exaggerated exaggerated situation, you're just to prove a point. If the manager happens to have done such a hard manager, to where you could describe the person as wearing a black cloak, right, they just had zero people skills, didn't talk to people at all right? And now they got that reputation. Well, when the time comes that somebody decides that they need to shift gears, and be a little bit more personable. The first step would be, and this is a bold step, by the way, you bring you get your group together, and you basically Humble yourself. And you say, I would like to have an opportunity to talk with you periodically, you know, once a month or so, and just get your ideas on what's happening around here. And do you have any questions good, because the end of the day, the employee knows their job better than the manager does. The manager knows the way it's supposed to be done. But the employee deals with the nuances of the day. If there's a problem, they have to deal with it, right? The manager sitting in the office doesn't know what's going on, unless the employee says something. So it's those nuances. The leader should know what they are so the leader can possibly do something to help the employee and this is where you start to experience a transition. But going back to the first meeting, it's very possible that the first meeting of a leader has the employees aren't going to say a thing because they still know, they remember you from the black cloak days, right. And just because a leader comes in and sits down and says I want to talk to you, they're not going to say anything. They don't have the confidence yet. So the first meeting could be very one sided. And it may be very short. But you say thank you, and you say, we'll get together in a couple of weeks, and then schedule the next meeting. Well, the next time we get together, now, it's the second time. So maybe this is the guy's real, maybe this is a real change. So somebody will bring up a couple of things, probably the more the more bold people have, the group will say something, the most important thing that the manager can do at that point in time, find something that they can put into place, find something that the employee suggested, and the manager does it. Whatever it is, even if it means bigger cups at the watercooler doesn't matter what it is. But as soon as the manager does something that came from an employee suggestion, now the door is open. And now it will relatively quickly pick up by the time to get to the third month of this. It's a new atmosphere now. So I just described the people that may need to make the big shift, that instead of putting on a white cloak, start wearing white tennis shoes first. In other words, start the process, take the steps necessary to break the mold. Because believe it or not, the employees want to change. And if they see it, they'll run with it, as well.
21:42
Yeah, I think there was a, there was a lesson that they captured. And Ted last are not sure if you've watched the show. But he showed if you haven't very good leadership lessons in the show. But he puts out a suggestion box and someone put down like a the showerhead pressure is terrible. And he fixes the showerhead, you know when nobody else knew. And so just a great, great way to build trust, right? Right from the start. So, okay,
22:10
let's talk,
22:13
decision making, and micromanagement how, as a leader, you can come and actually empower your team to make these decisions to or even collaborate with you for the decisions you have to make. Without feeling like you're just overbearing and telling him what needs to happen.
22:32
Well, you got two things here, number one, you can have just the normal decisions of the day, right? There's whatever they are. Now, then there's also the the the problem that shows up that requires a decision. Now, leaders should empower their people to use a somewhat of a standard, a problem solving process that the leader should define. And it could vary slightly based on whatever the business is. But if certain areas tend to have issues, then he should he or she should talk about the best way to analyze a problem. And then let them do it. Let them make him Let him make a mistake. We learn by mistakes as well as doing things great, right. And it is a it's a confidence builder, in people, if the leader will accept their decision from it dealing with an issue. Right? If they make a mistake, okay, pick up the pieces and keep moving. But you know, the, the micromanaging, that goes on because leaders are afraid to let somebody else make a decision. I just had a conference, conversation about this with somebody on this yesterday, how they worked for a micromanager and it was just no fun. Because every time he wanted to do something different, he had to get an approval. Right? People understand what the job is, how it needs to be done and what the results should be. So if if we give people the the opportunity to work and do the right thing and work now here's here's, let me just describe this. I challenge people to to live in a model that looks like this, that you've got the leader, and you've got their team members. And as a leader, you support the team, develop the team and then let them do their work. And I gotta go to Ronald Reagan here. Ronald Reagan made a made a comment that I think is really applicable. He said, surround yourself with good people and let them do their work. Now people are Good, two ways, they have natural skills. And then they have learned skills. Both are sources of enhancing the good level as he was referring to it. But the developing of the good, the good to be successful, and allowing the employee to grow a little bit. I mean, that is a very positive environment to work in. And I encourage people to let people you know, have a chance to, you know, make a decision, stumble, pick up and keep moving. The end of the day, everything's better.
25:38
Yeah, actually, I just wrote an article on this. Colin at the the businesses center of gravity, where it's, it's either the business is centered around the leader, where they're generally micromanaging, they're doing everything themselves, or the bottleneck versus the team, being the center of gravity, we're now your capacity has expanded the teams working together, collaborating and doing all these great things. So I mean, it fits exactly into what your what you just explained. So you get a lot to Ronald Reagan, for sure. Yeah. So what are some of the ways that you've worked with, with leaders, clients, anyone to and even just your own teams, right to encourage like innovation, and kind of avoids the stagnation that generally comes from like just complacency and the team doing the same thing, day in day out?
26:30
Well, generally speaking, my my approach is to be safe, be free to come up with new ideas. What in, in a small business, you can kind of get away with this, because the one of the nature, one of the characteristics of a small businesses, regardless of what somebody's job is, they have to be willing to roll up their sleeves and do something else. Because if you have 10, people, let's say five, if you have five people, and one of them's gone, you've lost 20% of your workforce. That means those other 80% that are there, have to up their sleeves to get the job done with, you know, 20% Less people in a given day, that only succeeds. If people have the ability and are released to be able to do other things. So it's, it's It's funny, when I interviewed anybody in the small business environment, that was one of the requirements, that I'm hiring you for this reason. But are you willing to do different things because of the nature of a small business? Everybody's gotta roll up their sleeves and get it done? And as long as they say, yes, it's a good situation, because they're going to have the opportunity to demonstrate the Yes. Now, when I like people to try new things, as long as they don't lose focus on the objective, right? Because you can't have you can't have 10 people doing the same thing. 10 different ways. All right, you need to have some standardization in the business. But that doesn't mean you don't try new things. Because there are better ways to do things. But it's got to be done in a bit of an orderly fashion. You know, somebody has a suggestion now let's try give it a try. And I they work almost all the time. Because they do the work and they know it works better.
28:29
Awesome. Save on hit you with the are three final questions. Okay, man, this man. Yeah, great. I feel like this episodes just flown by. So first one being what book do you think everyone should read?
28:46
Well, my number one book is always the Bible. The number two book, there's a book that's written by James clear, it's called atomic habits. And one of the things when managing people start to shift their gear a little bit and look at things a little bit differently. There are mindset issues here. So his book, atomic habits, talks about changing habits. And it's really good uncovering mind set shifts, and there, there is a mindset difference. And you can do it, you can struggle with it. Or you can just, you know, analyze what you're doing, determine where you're going and leverage the principles that he hasn't as in his book. So he really takes and teaches people how to move in a different direction without losing who you are. It just, it's a different habit.
29:43
Yeah, and yeah, I would agree. Great book. It's actually I think, one of the most recommended books by our guests. And so, yeah, but uh, next question, what is next for you professionally?
29:57
Well, we are actually working on a huge project. Right now I was in corporate America ups for 34 years, then I moved into the entrepreneurial space. And I have joined up with another person that came up through the corporate ranks, but in a from a different direction. She rose up in the Projects perspective, so she was involved at AT and T when wireless first came out. So we are taking our experiences over all this time. And we are going back into corporate America, to change the way people do things. And we're, we're in the process of putting this together, I have a massive vision for this and showed us so to sheet we made this together. And the vision is this, to go out there and change the lives of as many people as possible. And I'm talking millions, how to change millions of lives, takes a multiplication factor in what we do. So as we get rolling, we're going to be working with I've been told this anybody, so you're getting this first shot, we're going to be working with businesses to help them specifically. But we're also going to be working in training people to be able to multiply the impact and reach as many people as quickly as possible. Because one thing about his come out of his last few few years, we've heard of the great resignation, that came out from the pandemic era. Well, it so happens that the great resignation really demonstrated what we talked about earlier today. And that is that people have did not like the environment they were working in. So when they had a chance to work from home, they didn't want to come back. There's a lesson in this, right? That is to eat to have an environment that's a little bit more amenable to people more fun. And develop people as individuals, that is a very common thread through all of this in all industries. That when people are developed as individuals, they will go higher, your the commitment of your team will be greater, your results will be better, your turnover will be much less. It costs $34,000 to replace an employee on average in the United States. How long does it take before you burned $100,000? wasted? Wasted really, because employees leave managers, they don't leave companies. It's the people that are leaving. So if we change the management style, so people don't want to flee, businesses will save millions of dollars. If you can just imagine this, a 1000 member organization will spend $3.2 million dollars replacing people every single year, of which most of them should never have been lost in the first place. Now, as a business leader, I would rather put $1.6 billion or half of that money in an investment to grow the business. Rather than putting it in a place I should never have had to in the first place. So that's what's coming. And that's the reason we're doing all this. We want to change the lives of employees at all levels of an organization. Because as much as we can easily focus on the people with the feet in the street. The management people have to learn how to do this if they scan through the whole organization, so this really is a top down issue in organizations. So that's the answer to your question.
33:52
Change the world. All right, look, I'm looking forward to seeing that all my last question is, where can people find you?
34:03
Well, you can find me at our website, which is www dot flow hyphen, business hyphen solution singular.com. You can find me at my email id is Steve at flow hyphen business hyphen solution.com. I'm also at LinkedIn, which may be the easiest place to find me because you can just go to LinkedIn and then go forward slash SW Turner is my extension at length at LinkedIn, and our our office phone number is 26775355682677535568. And that's where I am
34:52
awesome. Steve, thanks for thanks for joining me today. This is such a pleasure and great I love
34:57
talking about if you can probably tell
35:01
Cheers if you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership visit leading for effect.com As always deserve it
Transcribed by https://otter.ai