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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
[00:00:07.13 - 00:00:10.18] Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
[00:00:10.18 - 00:00:15.02] Welcome to Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on leaders of
[00:00:15.02 - 00:00:17.21] businesses that people love to work for.
[00:00:17.22 - 00:00:21.00] My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I'm your host.
[00:00:21.00 - 00:00:24.19] And I'm also the founder of Rethink Culture, a company that helps businesses
[00:00:24.19 - 00:00:29.20] create happier, healthier workplace cultures by auditing their culture.
[00:00:29.20 - 00:00:36.04] Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Gina Schaeffer, who has bought or built
[00:00:36.05 - 00:00:45.23] 15 hardware stores with 300 teammates. She is a passionate advocate of building
[00:00:45.23 - 00:00:50.00] business people have to work for she's going to tell us more about how she does
[00:00:50.00 - 00:00:56.13] that and the community projects she works for and with and she also loves to travel.
[00:00:56.13 - 00:01:01.21] She tells me she recently went to a long trip in South America, several countries
[00:01:01.21 - 00:01:05.21] and she also loves to create...
[00:01:05.21 - 00:01:09.06] her personal greeting cards.
[00:01:09.23 - 00:01:13.18] And with that, welcome to the Rethink Culture Podcast, Gina.
[00:01:13.18 - 00:01:15.09] Hi! Thank you for having me.
[00:01:15.10 - 00:01:19.05] So, I'll pick a not topic to start with.
[00:01:19.05 - 00:01:22.08] I'm really curious about your personal greeting cards.
[00:01:22.16 - 00:01:24.04] I love it.
[00:01:25.05 - 00:01:29.05] Well, I mean, you and I grew up in an era before email when you couldn't just thank
[00:01:29.05 - 00:01:30.05] people very quickly.
[00:01:30.05 - 00:01:35.07] And so I developed a love of writing homemade
[00:01:35.11 - 00:01:37.08] thank you cards when I was a kid.
[00:01:37.08 - 00:01:42.15] And as I grew up, that morphed into a relaxation opportunity for me because I
[00:01:42.15 - 00:01:46.11] could create things with my hands and I could put together cards and believe me,
[00:01:46.11 - 00:01:48.10] they were not attractive in the beginning.
[00:01:48.10 - 00:01:52.01] So that I could send thank you notes to people throughout the week.
[00:01:52.01 - 00:01:57.17] And it's just, it's morphed into something that's bigger and more professional, I
[00:01:57.17 - 00:01:58.04] guess, for me.
[00:01:58.04 - 00:02:03.06] What was a proud moment with one of those greeting cards?
[00:02:03.06 - 00:02:05.20] Yeah, so this is a very... I have a good one.
[00:02:06.04 - 00:02:11.03] About 15 years ago, I made a card and I sent it to a man that owned a hardware
[00:02:11.03 - 00:02:13.17] store that I really wanted to buy.
[00:02:13.17 - 00:02:14.23] But I didn't tell him that.
[00:02:14.23 - 00:02:17.10] I said, when I grow up, I wanna be you.
[00:02:17.11 - 00:02:19.01] Congratulations on your anniversary.
[00:02:19.01 - 00:02:21.18] I think it was the business's 35th anniversary or something.
[00:02:21.18 - 00:02:26.21] And I sent him that card and 12 years later he called me and he said, and I
[00:02:26.21 - 00:02:27.19] never met the man.
[00:02:27.19 - 00:02:29.21] He said, I've never gotten rid of that card.
[00:02:29.21 - 00:02:31.07] Do you want to buy my business?
[00:02:31.07 - 00:02:32.01] Wow!
[00:02:32.01 - 00:02:35.05] Yeah. And it was magic that moment.
[00:02:35.05 - 00:02:39.07] And so, I mean, if that doesn't tell you the power of handwriting something,
[00:02:39.07 - 00:02:41.01] I don't know what does.
[00:02:41.01 - 00:02:47.15] Yes, you can touch people's lives in a very, very unique way.
[00:02:47.15 - 00:02:50.14] So, Ace Hardware, what is it
[00:02:50.14 - 00:02:53.17] and how did you start on that path?
[00:02:53.22 - 00:02:57.12] So Ace Hardware is a purchasing cooperative in the United States.
[00:02:57.12 - 00:02:59.18] We don't have any hardware franchises.
[00:02:59.18 - 00:03:03.03] So you join the cooperative, you buy a share.
[00:03:03.03 - 00:03:08.10] And so I am an owner of the cooperative or the corporation itself.
[00:03:08.10 - 00:03:12.21] And I started my first location from scratch in 2003.
[00:03:12.21 - 00:03:19.13] And what prompted you, like what was the journey to start that co-op or the first door?
[00:03:19.13 - 00:03:24.17] So I lived in a neighborhood, I moved to a neighborhood in Washington DC called Logan Circle.
[00:03:24.17 - 00:03:28.15] Logan Circle had been destroyed by the riots when Martin Luther King was
[00:03:28.15 - 00:03:29.23] assassinated in the 60s.
[00:03:29.23 - 00:03:32.23] There were several cities in the United States that had some pretty significant
[00:03:32.23 - 00:03:36.03] riots and my neighborhood...
[00:03:36.03 - 00:03:40.10] I didn't live here at the time, was one of those neighborhoods and so the business
[00:03:40.10 - 00:03:41.22] owners left.
[00:03:41.22 - 00:03:45.06] The community members left in the neighborhood just really sat dormant for
[00:03:45.06 - 00:03:45.19] decades.
[00:03:45.19 - 00:03:47.07] The windows were boarded up.
[00:03:47.07 - 00:03:53.01] There were very few businesses and at some point like the late 80s early 90s, people
[00:03:53.01 - 00:03:55.01] started moving back to this neighborhood
[00:03:55.01 - 00:03:56.10] because it was cheap.
[00:03:56.10 - 00:03:58.02] We could buy houses here.
[00:03:58.02 - 00:03:59.15] Everything needed to be renovated.
[00:03:59.15 - 00:04:02.09] There was lots of opportunity to buy places to live.
[00:04:02.09 - 00:04:03.21] And I was very young.
[00:04:03.21 - 00:04:05.06] I didn't have a lot of money.
[00:04:05.06 - 00:04:10.06] I was working in the tech industry and was sort of low woman on the totem pole.
[00:04:10.06 - 00:04:13.22] And I moved to this neighborhood because I could afford to buy something here.
[00:04:13.22 - 00:04:17.00] And I got very involved in the Community Association.
[00:04:17.00 - 00:04:20.23] And the Community Association was made up of new people, most of them new, who had
[00:04:20.23 - 00:04:24.12] moved to this neighborhood, who wanted people to buy the houses and renovate them.
[00:04:24.12 - 00:04:26.21] Who wanted to encourage businesses to open.
[00:04:26.21 - 00:04:29.12] And then I got laid off from my tech job.
[00:04:29.12 - 00:04:32.07] And so I like to joke, I was a tech reject.
[00:04:32.07 - 00:04:34.15] It was the third time I had gotten laid off.
[00:04:34.15 - 00:04:38.08] And so I came home from work and I said, I'm going to open a hardware store.
[00:04:38.08 - 00:04:39.23] That's what this neighborhood wants.
[00:04:39.23 - 00:04:45.04] I didn't really know what I was doing, but I figured it out and the community was
[00:04:45.04 - 00:04:46.14] very supportive.
[00:04:46.14 - 00:04:52.08] So what made the store special given the neighborhood and the fact that it was kind
[00:04:52.08 - 00:04:55.07] of an unusual place to start the business?
[00:04:55.09 - 00:04:58.01] Well, I think in the beginning it was because there weren't any other
[00:04:58.01 - 00:04:58.20] businesses.
[00:04:58.20 - 00:05:04.23] There was a there was a period of just really explosive growth in 2003 when we
[00:05:04.23 - 00:05:05.10] opened up.
[00:05:05.10 - 00:05:09.07] There were about 10 businesses that opened in our retail strip at the same time,
[00:05:09.07 - 00:05:11.06] retail stores and restaurants.
[00:05:11.06 - 00:05:15.17] And so there was a group of us that had banded together that were really just
[00:05:15.17 - 00:05:16.14] supportive of each other.
[00:05:16.14 - 00:05:18.20] We supported each other's businesses.
[00:05:18.20 - 00:05:22.22] We talked about our businesses and each other's businesses to the community.
[00:05:22.22 - 00:05:25.07] We were involved in that community association.
[00:05:25.07 - 00:05:30.04] And for me, selling nuts and bolts and tools, paint was a big one.
[00:05:30.04 - 00:05:32.21] Everybody was taking the boards off their windows.
[00:05:32.22 - 00:05:37.18] There were seriously entire blocks that were still boarded up.
[00:05:37.18 - 00:05:41.03] And so if you were a homeowner moving into this neighborhood and you were taking the
[00:05:41.03 - 00:05:44.19] boards off your windows and you wanted to paint and renovate and all of those
[00:05:44.19 - 00:05:48.12] things, it was very convenient to have a local hardware store.
[00:05:48.12 - 00:05:50.18] And we filled that niche.
[00:05:50.22 - 00:05:53.23] And what is a community project to you?
[00:05:53.23 - 00:05:58.03] Because you speak a lot about community, community.
[00:05:58.06 - 00:06:04.15] And you spoke about the environment, but what about the people side?
[00:06:04.19 - 00:06:07.08] So how do you work with local people?
[00:06:07.10 - 00:06:11.15] We had a really, I call it a happy accident.
[00:06:11.15 - 00:06:15.01] So there were very few businesses in the community, but down the street there was a
[00:06:15.01 - 00:06:16.02] healthcare clinic.
[00:06:16.02 - 00:06:21.12] And that healthcare clinic had a recovery program for folks who were dealing with
[00:06:21.12 - 00:06:26.08] substance use addiction, alcoholism, drugs.
[00:06:26.20 - 00:06:31.22] And my first teammate, one of my very first teammates came from that program.
[00:06:31.22 - 00:06:38.19] And I hired him, not knowing anything about addiction or whether that meant he
[00:06:38.19 - 00:06:42.13] was going to be a good employee or a bad employee or anything.
[00:06:42.13 - 00:06:47.03] And I gave him a job and he told a friend at the clinic to come work there.
[00:06:47.03 - 00:06:48.14] Who told a friend, who told a friend.
[00:06:48.14 - 00:06:52.17] And the next thing I knew, we had all of these people working in our business that
[00:06:52.17 - 00:06:55.19] were in some stage of recovery in their lives.
[00:06:55.21 - 00:06:56.22] And...
[00:06:56.22 - 00:07:03.11] That's where our really strong culture of community began in the hardware store.
[00:07:03.11 - 00:07:06.23] I mean, we already had people coming in from the neighborhood every day to support
[00:07:06.23 - 00:07:09.10] us, to buy things and ask us questions.
[00:07:09.10 - 00:07:14.08] But then we also had from the inside out, people who were becoming a part of the
[00:07:14.08 - 00:07:19.11] community, re-engaging with maybe friends they had left behind, family members that
[00:07:19.11 - 00:07:22.09] they had had problems with.
[00:07:23.01 - 00:07:25.21] It was just a really special place.
[00:07:25.21 - 00:07:29.12] Did you have to support them any differently?
[00:07:29.12 - 00:07:35.15] The fact that they were off drugs and needed to keep honest to not going back to
[00:07:35.15 - 00:07:35.20] drugs.
[00:07:35.20 - 00:07:39.12] Did you have to support them any differently to your other employees?
[00:07:40.02 - 00:07:43.22] We supported them differently, but the one thing that we made sure we did was to
[00:07:43.22 - 00:07:46.13] create a culture of openness.
[00:07:46.13 - 00:07:50.10] So if you come to work, let's just say you have a newborn and you come to work here
[00:07:50.10 - 00:07:53.23] and you're going to talk about your child all day long and we're going to love that,
[00:07:53.23 - 00:07:54.03] right?
[00:07:54.03 - 00:07:57.08] We want to see pictures and we want to ask you how that makes you feel.
[00:07:57.08 - 00:08:00.17] And if you're stressed about it or if you're happy about it, why wouldn't we do
[00:08:00.17 - 00:08:04.21] the same for somebody who was dealing with some kind of addiction?
[00:08:04.21 - 00:08:09.20] Or my actual very first teammate came,
[00:08:09.23 - 00:08:12.06] had been in prison for 17 years.
[00:08:12.06 - 00:08:18.05] So I wanted people, everybody to come to work and feel comfortable talking about
[00:08:18.05 - 00:08:19.11] their past, if they wanted to.
[00:08:19.11 - 00:08:22.08] I mean, I didn't think it was any of my business, but if I was going to ask you
[00:08:22.08 - 00:08:26.18] about your child and how that made you feel, I wanted to ask the person working
[00:08:26.18 - 00:08:31.04] next to you who may have come from the recovery clinic, how that made them feel
[00:08:31.04 - 00:08:32.19] and how they were feeling today.
[00:08:32.19 - 00:08:36.23] And just being able to be open about those conversations leveled the playing field
[00:08:36.23 - 00:08:40.09] across the landscape of our team.
[00:08:40.19 - 00:08:44.04] I was super emotional about being a new business owner.
[00:08:44.04 - 00:08:48.01] I might come to work stressed or I might come to work super happy and I wanted them
[00:08:48.01 - 00:08:49.03] to care about that too.
[00:08:49.03 - 00:08:53.15] And so we created that environment where everybody could just talk about where they
[00:08:53.15 - 00:08:58.14] were, regardless of whether or not it was someplace most people would feel
[00:08:58.14 - 00:09:00.02] comfortable talking.
[00:09:00.02 - 00:09:05.16] So what I'm hearing is, whereas today most, or post-COVID, a lot of businesses
[00:09:05.16 - 00:09:10.23] are thinking about mental health because a lot of us went through mental health
[00:09:10.23 - 00:09:13.14] issues in the last few years.
[00:09:13.14 - 00:09:21.14] You started much earlier with people who came off, let's say, a tragic past or a
[00:09:21.14 - 00:09:26.19] childhood trauma or some addiction of sorts, or some imprisonment.
[00:09:26.19 - 00:09:28.10] And because
[00:09:28.10 - 00:09:33.04] they went through this very vulnerable and difficult phase in their lives, you gave
[00:09:33.04 - 00:09:36.09] them the space to be themselves.
[00:09:36.17 - 00:09:38.13] And that created your culture.
[00:09:38.18 - 00:09:41.18] Well, you know, the opposite of addiction is connection.
[00:09:41.18 - 00:09:44.04] You'll read that in a lot of places.
[00:09:44.04 - 00:09:49.02] And I think the connection that we made among the team in the hardware store
[00:09:49.02 - 00:09:54.23] helped create the culture where everybody could be connected and that we nurtured
[00:09:54.23 - 00:10:00.16] that connection through openness, through trust, through...
[00:10:00.16 - 00:10:04.05] you know, common core values that we created as a team.
[00:10:04.05 - 00:10:07.13] I didn't just say, hey, these are the values that we're going to live up to.
[00:10:07.13 - 00:10:11.18] We actually sat down as a team when we were young and said, these are the values
[00:10:11.18 - 00:10:17.23] that we want to hold dear to us and talk about and celebrate and use throughout the
[00:10:17.23 - 00:10:18.23] company.
[00:10:18.23 - 00:10:22.04] That was particularly important when we decided we were going to grow.
[00:10:22.04 - 00:10:27.18] So we had opened the first location in 2003, and then exactly two years later, we
[00:10:27.18 - 00:10:28.21] opened the second location.
[00:10:28.21 - 00:10:30.21] And then we opened one a year for
[00:10:30.21 - 00:10:35.15] years, which is a really fast trajectory for a small business like ours.
[00:10:35.15 - 00:10:39.12] I mean, if we were a big box with billions of dollars to spend, it wouldn't have been
[00:10:39.12 - 00:10:42.07] as difficult, but it was a big deal for us to grow that quickly.
[00:10:42.07 - 00:10:48.01] So we had to make sure that everybody was aligned with the same kind of core values
[00:10:48.01 - 00:10:51.19] because I wasn't going to be at the store all the time.
[00:10:51.19 - 00:10:54.21] My husband joined me after I opened that first location.
[00:10:54.21 - 00:10:57.03] So the we originally was the team.
[00:10:57.03 - 00:11:00.23] And then my husband and I as the owners, we
[00:11:01.06 - 00:11:03.04] weren't going to be everywhere all at once.
[00:11:03.04 - 00:11:04.13] That's not how we wanted to lead.
[00:11:04.13 - 00:11:08.02] And so we had to make sure that the leaders that we were putting in place were
[00:11:08.02 - 00:11:12.06] aligned with the values so that we could then create that rapid growth, which
[00:11:12.06 - 00:11:16.18] allowed us to hire more people and meet more community members and do all of the
[00:11:16.18 - 00:11:20.13] really amazing things that a small business can do on a main street in the
[00:11:20.13 - 00:11:21.15] community where it is.
[00:11:21.15 - 00:11:27.11] And then in 2007, we opened up in a city 30 miles away.
[00:11:27.11 - 00:11:30.11] And that was a big leap for us because that
[00:11:30.11 - 00:11:36.20] wasn't just, I'm gonna jump in my car or take a cab and pop over if there's
[00:11:36.20 - 00:11:39.09] something that's going on 30 miles away.
[00:11:39.09 - 00:11:46.06] So the manager who moved to Baltimore to manage that store really had to be aligned
[00:11:46.06 - 00:11:51.09] and understand what we were about and how he was going to play into that and
[00:11:51.09 - 00:11:55.16] compliment that and help grow it in another city 30 miles away.
[00:11:55.19 - 00:11:59.03] So you mentioned values and that would be my next question.
[00:11:59.03 - 00:12:04.13] But before we get there, in the pre-show we talked about two truths and one lie
[00:12:04.13 - 00:12:10.00] about you, which is my favorite way of getting the audience to know you a little
[00:12:10.00 - 00:12:10.23] better.
[00:12:11.00 - 00:12:14.16] So I think you have these already, do you?
[00:12:14.16 - 00:12:18.05] The two truths and one lie about yourself in no particular order, of course.
[00:12:18.05 - 00:12:20.19] Okay, no particular order.
[00:12:21.04 - 00:12:22.22] I...
[00:12:25.00 - 00:12:26.18] Speak Portuguese.
[00:12:27.07 - 00:12:34.12] I hired a drug dealer to manage one of my stores and I inherited my business from my
[00:12:34.12 - 00:12:35.13] father.
[00:12:35.15 - 00:12:41.05] Okay, so I think three is the most believable and two is the most...
[00:12:43.22 - 00:12:45.00] Outrageous.
[00:12:45.00 - 00:12:47.17] Yes, probably.
[00:12:47.17 - 00:12:50.01] So tell us more.
[00:12:50.09 - 00:12:53.01] So I did not inherit the business from my father.
[00:12:53.01 - 00:12:56.04] I kind of gave that away when I said I opened in Logan Circle.
[00:12:56.04 - 00:12:58.03] Hardware is a very generational business though.
[00:12:58.03 - 00:13:01.23] Lots of my friends are now taking over from their parents who started the store
[00:13:01.23 - 00:13:03.20] or their grandparents who started the store.
[00:13:03.20 - 00:13:10.21] I hired a guy who was on house arrest for selling drugs and I hired him when no one
[00:13:10.21 - 00:13:15.16] else would because he was on house arrest, which meant he had a bracelet on his ankle
[00:13:15.16 - 00:13:18.09] and he had certain times where he was allowed to leave his house.
[00:13:18.09 - 00:13:20.07] And I gave him a job because
[00:13:20.07 - 00:13:26.03] when he came in to meet me, he said, my landlord still wants to get paid, of
[00:13:26.03 - 00:13:26.16] course.
[00:13:26.16 - 00:13:31.16] The phone company keeps sending a phone bill, of course, but no one will hire me.
[00:13:31.16 - 00:13:36.01] And I thought, how as a society are we expecting somebody like him to ever change
[00:13:36.01 - 00:13:38.12] his life if...
[00:13:38.13 - 00:13:42.16] It takes a year to get a court date because the courts are so backed up and he
[00:13:42.16 - 00:13:44.07] still has to pay his bills.
[00:13:44.07 - 00:13:49.04] And so I gave him a job and he worked with us for 11 years and he was fantastic.
[00:13:49.04 - 00:13:54.14] So I have been called all sorts of crazy names for giving him a job but it worked
[00:13:54.14 - 00:13:59.12] out to my benefit and obviously to his and so that was my, that's my other truth.
[00:13:59.12 - 00:14:01.00] And I speak Portuguese.
[00:14:01.02 - 00:14:04.15] And have you seen that person change over the years?
[00:14:04.16 - 00:14:11.11] Yeah, so it's, you know, life is a journey and he has, he changed in a lot of ways,
[00:14:11.11 - 00:14:15.05] both good and bad, and continued on his trajectory.
[00:14:15.05 - 00:14:19.01] He doesn't work at my company anymore, but he works at another company that I helped
[00:14:19.01 - 00:14:20.04] start.
[00:14:20.16 - 00:14:25.21] And yeah, I mean, it's, again, going back to that connection.
[00:14:26.10 - 00:14:32.01] We gave him a place to go so that he could get clean from his own substance use
[00:14:32.01 - 00:14:38.10] issues and get through his court date and any kind of legal trouble that he had to
[00:14:38.10 - 00:14:39.09] get through.
[00:14:39.09 - 00:14:42.09] And I'd like to think that we made a difference, but he definitely made a
[00:14:42.09 - 00:14:43.00] difference in my life.
[00:14:43.00 - 00:14:45.02] He taught me a lot of things.
[00:14:45.04 - 00:14:53.15] Have you ever looked back at like, hires you've made from people with addiction or
[00:14:53.15 - 00:14:56.17] from troubled backgrounds and thought, am I making the right decision?
[00:14:56.17 - 00:14:58.07] Have you ever doubted yourself?
[00:14:58.07 - 00:14:59.11] Nope.
[00:14:59.23 - 00:15:01.05] I'm not even going to pretend.
[00:15:01.05 - 00:15:01.19] I've not.
[00:15:01.19 - 00:15:02.21] And I'll tell you why.
[00:15:02.21 - 00:15:09.19] The very first person who stole from us, you know, they're shoplifters in retail
[00:15:09.19 - 00:15:10.22] stores all the time.
[00:15:10.22 - 00:15:12.13] And so let's put that aside.
[00:15:12.13 - 00:15:18.07] But the very first employee that stole from us was a college educated, very
[00:15:18.07 - 00:15:20.07] articulate young man from the Midwest.
[00:15:20.07 - 00:15:23.03] He was 23 whose parents owned a business.
[00:15:23.03 - 00:15:26.19] And if you looked at him on paper, he was perfect.
[00:15:26.19 - 00:15:30.16] Nobody said, Gina, you're an idiot for hiring him.
[00:15:30.16 - 00:15:36.21] But if I would tell somebody about the gentleman that I just told you about, they
[00:15:36.21 - 00:15:38.08] would say, my gosh, you're an idiot.
[00:15:38.08 - 00:15:40.03] Why would you give him a job?
[00:15:40.06 - 00:15:46.10] But the kid from the Midwest who went to college was the one who stole $3,000 from me.
[00:15:46.10 - 00:15:54.09] And so, you know, I think that the moral of that story is everyone can do something wrong.
[00:15:54.15 - 00:15:59.19] Everyone can be a bad person at some point in their life or do something they regret
[00:15:59.19 - 00:16:01.07] at some point in their life.
[00:16:01.07 - 00:16:06.04] And we have to, particularly as business owners, as people who are hiring people,
[00:16:06.04 - 00:16:09.12] have to keep that into perspective when we are hiring.
[00:16:09.12 - 00:16:13.10] Because nobody is perfect and anybody can cause problems.
[00:16:13.10 - 00:16:18.01] And nobody judged me for hiring that kid, but everybody judged me for my, not
[00:16:18.01 - 00:16:21.11] everybody, lots of people judged me for some of the other hires.
[00:16:21.20 - 00:16:24.04] So I never regretted any of them.
[00:16:24.13 - 00:16:28.07] I’m hearing we should challenge our assumptions every time we have the
[00:16:28.07 - 00:16:33.19] opportunity to about who we hire and what we think about people we don't hire.
[00:16:35.03 - 00:16:38.09] So back to values, I know it's an important topic for you.
[00:16:38.09 - 00:16:44.12] What are some of the values that you use that make Ace Hardware different?
[00:16:44.23 - 00:16:48.07] So I think, and maybe you've done this in your own business, there have been three
[00:16:48.07 - 00:16:51.00] or four times throughout our history where we've hired a business coach.
[00:16:51.00 - 00:16:57.05] And that person has come in when we've had the need for a level of expertise that as
[00:16:57.05 - 00:17:00.07] kids in the hardware business, we didn't have or didn't, you know, we didn't know
[00:17:00.07 - 00:17:01.05] where to go.
[00:17:01.05 - 00:17:09.00] And probably 2006 -ish, we brought in a business coach to help us really document
[00:17:09.00 - 00:17:15.20] and hone down on the core values that we wanted to use the rest of our business life.
[00:17:15.20 - 00:17:18.13] And so we got the team involved.
[00:17:18.13 - 00:17:22.05] There were about seven of us that came together to talk about what we wanted to
[00:17:22.05 - 00:17:24.01] be when we grow up, essentially.
[00:17:24.01 - 00:17:29.16] And we decided on things like be a good neighbor because we think hardware stores
[00:17:29.16 - 00:17:32.04] are a very neighborly business.
[00:17:32.12 - 00:17:34.04] Always grow and share.
[00:17:34.04 - 00:17:37.15] Every day we should be learning something in the hardware store because we sell so
[00:17:37.15 - 00:17:38.13] many things.
[00:17:38.13 - 00:17:43.11] You can come in off the street and not know anything as a teammate and leave,
[00:17:43.20 - 00:17:52.02] and go on to school to become an engineer or an HVAC expert or a plumber because you
[00:17:52.02 - 00:17:56.08] get to work... a landscaper because you get to work with all kinds of really great
[00:17:56.08 - 00:17:58.04] products in the store.
[00:17:58.04 - 00:18:03.12] So I have a great example for the be a good neighbor value and how we use them.
[00:18:03.12 - 00:18:07.00] So I think lots of companies create core values and they put them in the
[00:18:07.00 - 00:18:10.17] newsletter, maybe the handbook, or maybe they put them on their website.
[00:18:10.18 - 00:18:13.04] But I think they need to be used all the time.
[00:18:13.04 - 00:18:14.07] You need to ask questions about them
[00:18:14.09 - 00:18:16.06] when you're hiring people.
[00:18:16.06 - 00:18:21.06] If I have to counsel you for doing a bad job, I need to talk about how... one of ours
[00:18:21.06 - 00:18:22.17] is communicate respectfully.
[00:18:22.17 - 00:18:26.12] If you're not speaking respectfully to our clients and I have to have a counseling
[00:18:26.12 - 00:18:29.14] conversation with you, I can bring up the core value.
[00:18:29.14 - 00:18:32.01] It's not just me making up things.
[00:18:32.06 - 00:18:35.11] And, you know, unfortunately people have to be terminated sometimes.
[00:18:35.11 - 00:18:38.19] If you're terminated and you violated a core value, you get to bring it up again.
[00:18:38.19 - 00:18:40.13] So it's always being used.
[00:18:40.13 - 00:18:43.20] So I was interviewing in 2000, shortly after this,
[00:18:43.20 - 00:18:46.07] actually, a very, very young boy.
[00:18:46.07 - 00:18:47.14] He was 14.
[00:18:47.16 - 00:18:50.23] I wasn't even sure if I was legally allowed to hire a 14-year-old.
[00:18:50.23 - 00:18:54.14] And he came into my business with a mentor because he was part of this local youth
[00:18:54.14 - 00:18:55.09] program.
[00:18:55.09 - 00:18:58.10] And every time I would ask, his name was Eddie, every time I would ask Eddie a
[00:18:58.10 - 00:19:00.16] question, the mentor would answer me.
[00:19:00.16 - 00:19:04.14] So it was kind of like I would say something to the kid and the adult would
[00:19:04.14 - 00:19:05.09] give me an answer.
[00:19:05.09 - 00:19:07.08] And I thought, well, I'm not hiring the adult.
[00:19:07.08 - 00:19:09.10] What am I going to do?
[00:19:09.22 - 00:19:12.18] So, and I was, you know, I was young and still learning.
[00:19:12.18 - 00:19:16.15] And so I said, Eddie, tell me about a time you were a good neighbor.
[00:19:16.19 - 00:19:21.06] And I said it to the adult because I was tired of, you know, the back and forth.
[00:19:21.06 - 00:19:24.02] So I actually asked the, hey, Eddie, I called him Eddie, Eddie, tell me about a
[00:19:24.02 - 00:19:24.21] time you were a good neighbor.
[00:19:24.21 - 00:19:29.08] And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eddie light up.
[00:19:29.08 - 00:19:30.06] I mean, he jumped up.
[00:19:30.06 - 00:19:34.02] We were, the hardware store at my first location didn't have an office really.
[00:19:34.02 - 00:19:37.01] So we were sitting on the stairs in the plumbing department.
[00:19:37.01 - 00:19:39.00] He jumps up off the steps.
[00:19:39.00 - 00:19:39.22] He'd never had a job.
[00:19:39.22 - 00:19:43.04] He had never had a boss, but he had a neighbor who he loved.
[00:19:43.04 - 00:19:44.12] And it was an older woman.
[00:19:44.12 - 00:19:47.15] I don't remember what her name was, but he, you know, he helped carry her
[00:19:47.15 - 00:19:49.15] groceries like any good neighbor would.
[00:19:49.15 - 00:19:55.04] And Eddie started talking and I thought, this is somebody who would do really well
[00:19:55.04 - 00:19:56.17] learning in the hardware store.
[00:19:56.17 - 00:19:58.21] And he worked with us for almost 10 years
[00:19:58.21 - 00:20:00.11] before he went to college.
[00:20:01.11 - 00:20:08.22] So the core values work if you use them and if you use them often in a variety of
[00:20:08.22 - 00:20:14.06] ways and that's just one, I mean it's just kind of a silly example but it made a huge impact.
[00:20:14.06 - 00:20:18.14] If I hadn't thought to ask that question maybe I might have never hired him and
[00:20:18.14 - 00:20:21.19] then I would have missed out on 10 years of a really great employee.
[00:20:21.21 - 00:20:29.05] I've read a lot about values and my favorite approach for making sure values
[00:20:29.05 - 00:20:38.12] are metabolized, are actually made part of real life is one I read in the book
[00:20:38.12 - 00:20:46.10] Culture by Design from David Friedman where he takes each behavior...
[00:20:48.13 - 00:20:51.02] I think he calls them fundamentals.
[00:20:51.02 - 00:20:54.08] So he takes each behavior or fundamental.
[00:20:54.10 - 00:21:00.20] And the CEO starts by sending out an email with a story about that behavior from
[00:21:00.20 - 00:21:08.08] something that happened recently and is a testament to how that behavior bears
[00:21:08.08 - 00:21:12.14] really fruit in the organization.
[00:21:12.14 - 00:21:16.22] And the CEO does it for a few weeks and then somebody else takes over and then
[00:21:16.22 - 00:21:18.06] somebody else takes over.
[00:21:18.06 - 00:21:23.22] And over time you have the entire organization cycle through telling stories
[00:21:23.22 - 00:21:29.22] about all the different behaviors and how they manifest and how they're metabolized
[00:21:29.22 - 00:21:31.01] at work.
[00:21:31.01 - 00:21:40.11] And I find out this is so not just practical, but it humanizes values and
[00:21:40.11 - 00:21:44.22] drops them down to like, you know, ground levels where everyone can touch them and
[00:21:44.22 - 00:21:45.19] feel them.
[00:21:46.00 - 00:21:46.14] Yes.
[00:21:46.14 - 00:21:52.02] rather than putting them on the wall and wondering what this like team spirit and
[00:21:52.02 - 00:21:55.12] camaraderie mean, you know, in practice.
[00:21:55.19 - 00:22:00.11] Yeah, a long time ago somebody said that if I was going to create a bonus program
[00:22:00.11 - 00:22:05.02] for my team, that the bonus had to be treated like a game because we all become
[00:22:05.02 - 00:22:06.22] complacent with the rules.
[00:22:06.22 - 00:22:08.10] And so...
[00:22:08.10 - 00:22:09.05] That's what we do.
[00:22:09.05 - 00:22:14.10] We change our bonus plan every two years, every three years at the most, so that
[00:22:14.10 - 00:22:16.05] people, so that we don't get comfortable.
[00:22:16.05 - 00:22:21.00] We're always trying to be better because the KPIs have changed or the rules of the
[00:22:21.00 - 00:22:22.03] bonus have changed.
[00:22:22.03 - 00:22:25.02] And I think in that vein
[00:22:25.17 - 00:22:30.13] the values that we want to uphold and be known for also have to feel a little like
[00:22:30.13 - 00:22:34.01] a game and that you're constantly, and maybe it's more of a story than a game,
[00:22:34.01 - 00:22:39.00] but they need to be used in a variety of ways and those ways need to change to keep
[00:22:39.00 - 00:22:44.18] all of us on our toes and to remind all of us constantly why they're important and
[00:22:44.18 - 00:22:49.16] what they do for us, what they do for our customers.
[00:22:50.00 - 00:22:51.06] Yeah.
[00:22:51.15 - 00:22:59.01] We also talked earlier about how trust is so important.
[00:22:59.01 - 00:23:02.18] You also alluded to it because you're hiring people that others would simply
[00:23:02.18 - 00:23:04.00] not trust.
[00:23:04.06 - 00:23:11.09] So you talked about openness before and having people be their, you know,
[00:23:11.09 - 00:23:15.17] authentic selves and supporting each other and so on.
[00:23:15.17 - 00:23:20.06] But like, what are the ways that trust is
[00:23:20.11 - 00:23:27.06] brought forward like made true and real in your organization?
[00:23:27.15 - 00:23:31.11] I struggle with this sometimes because I think at my heart I'm a just very, very
[00:23:31.11 - 00:23:36.19] trusting person, which I think makes this conversation for somebody like me a lot easier.
[00:23:36.19 - 00:23:42.08] I think if you are inherently not trusting, it's much harder.
[00:23:42.08 - 00:23:48.03] However, when we opened up 30 miles away,
[00:23:48.03 - 00:23:54.03] We trusted the manager who we moved there to open that store because he had already
[00:23:54.03 - 00:23:59.20] lived, breathed, embodied, explained all of our core values in his current location
[00:23:59.20 - 00:24:03.04] that geographically was very close to us.
[00:24:03.04 - 00:24:08.08] So the expectation, once those were also part of his own core values, was that when
[00:24:08.08 - 00:24:13.06] he went 30 miles away to open a new store with us, those values would then be
[00:24:13.06 - 00:24:15.13] disseminated from him.
[00:24:15.13 - 00:24:18.10] And so we trusted him because
[00:24:18.10 - 00:24:23.23] we had given him the tools and we watched him embody those tools where we could
[00:24:23.23 - 00:24:26.02] physically see him, literally see him.
[00:24:26.02 - 00:24:30.15] So we knew that he understood them and lived them already before we sent him 30
[00:24:30.15 - 00:24:33.21] miles away to...
[00:24:33.21 - 00:24:37.01] you know, bring life to a new team there.
[00:24:37.01 - 00:24:42.12] I also realized early on that if I hired people I didn't trust, I'd hired the wrong people.
[00:24:42.12 - 00:24:46.10] Now, for someone who is trusting, that might mean that I'm going to hire all
[00:24:46.10 - 00:24:52.11] kinds of people that nobody else would, but most of us have a sense of whether or
[00:24:52.11 - 00:24:54.21] not somebody should be trusted.
[00:24:54.21 - 00:25:00.01] And if that sense goes off in my brain, I know that there's an issue because I do
[00:25:00.01 - 00:25:03.03] inherently trust most people, but...
[00:25:03.04 - 00:25:06.01] You have to, you have to know
[00:25:06.01 - 00:25:11.06] who you're hiring and why, you have to give them the tools they need to be successful
[00:25:11.06 - 00:25:16.15] because oftentimes we'll hire somebody and we'll just throw them into the job. Well,
[00:25:16.15 - 00:25:20.07] you stop trusting someone if they fall short in their job and if you haven't
[00:25:20.07 - 00:25:25.02] given them the tools to exceed like the expectations and the roadmap they are
[00:25:25.02 - 00:25:28.18] gonna fall short and then you won't trust them and so it's you know, you can see how
[00:25:28.18 - 00:25:35.17] this this cycle continues to to evolve and so one of my expressions that I learned
[00:25:35.17 - 00:25:36.05] early on
[00:25:36.05 - 00:25:38.17] was inspect what you expect.
[00:25:38.17 - 00:25:42.18] And that in retail is, I'll give you the easiest example.
[00:25:42.18 - 00:25:46.18] If I have products that need to go on the shelf and I ask someone to do it and I
[00:25:46.18 - 00:25:50.18] don't give them a roadmap or any explanation and they do it and I don't
[00:25:50.18 - 00:25:55.02] like it or they don't do it right and I don't go look at it, a whole host of other
[00:25:55.02 - 00:25:55.22] things could happen.
[00:25:55.22 - 00:25:58.22] Maybe they didn't put the prices on the products or maybe they put the wrong
[00:25:58.22 - 00:26:00.10] prices on the products.
[00:26:00.10 - 00:26:01.15] Well, that's...
[00:26:01.15 - 00:26:06.06] my problem as the leader for not going giving them the tools and then inspecting
[00:26:06.06 - 00:26:09.10] what I expected them to do in a timely manner.
[00:26:09.10 - 00:26:11.13] Now it's great to talk about this.
[00:26:11.13 - 00:26:14.03] It all sounds really easy when you and I are just having the conversation.
[00:26:14.03 - 00:26:19.08] In theory it's hard and it's you know we we tripped along the way we still screw up
[00:26:19.08 - 00:26:24.04] 21 years later but you have to think about
[00:26:24.09 - 00:26:29.09] how you're putting someone into the role and supporting them so that you can trust
[00:26:29.09 - 00:26:34.06] them to do the right job and that they feel comfortable doing it.
[00:26:34.07 - 00:26:41.10] This reminds me of this saying from an earlier guest, Arnie Malham, who
[00:26:41.10 - 00:26:49.16] basically, he outsources culture habits to anyone in his organization.
[00:26:49.16 - 00:26:56.13] So say you want to start a book club or a Sunday lunch with colleagues or whatever it is.
[00:26:56.13 - 00:27:04.05] He says, he gives anyone who wants to start a new project a checklist, a KPI,
[00:27:04.05 - 00:27:06.01] and permission to fail.
[00:27:06.04 - 00:27:11.10] He's very trusting from the outset, but he agrees on what are the steps that you need
[00:27:11.10 - 00:27:15.06] to build this and how do we know if it's successful?
[00:27:15.08 - 00:27:22.21] Because you have the ability to fail, but let's agree on what success means and how
[00:27:22.21 - 00:27:26.14] long are we going to try until we succeed.
[00:27:26.23 - 00:27:28.18] And everyone's on the same page.
[00:27:28.18 - 00:27:30.10] It makes so much sense, doesn't it?
[00:27:30.10 - 00:27:32.01] It seems so logical.
[00:27:32.10 - 00:27:34.07] There's no such thing as common sense.
[00:27:34.07 - 00:27:39.03] And we all assume that everybody comes from the same place where our intellect,
[00:27:39.03 - 00:27:41.21] our experiences, and our common sense is common.
[00:27:41.21 - 00:27:43.17] And that's not true.
[00:27:43.17 - 00:27:49.16] So it's not fair when we impose, I mean, we think it sort of happens through the
[00:27:49.16 - 00:27:50.06] ether, right?
[00:27:50.06 - 00:27:53.02] Like I'm going to give you a task and you're brand new at this role.
[00:27:53.02 - 00:27:56.08] And I'm just going to expect that you...
[00:27:56.08 - 00:27:59.14] automatically know how to do it or how I would like you to do it or how the
[00:27:59.14 - 00:28:04.10] business has always done it without any kind of explanation or guidance.
[00:28:04.10 - 00:28:09.02] And it's unfortunate that's the way business operates so often.
[00:28:09.02 - 00:28:12.00] But it is, that checklist is fantastic.
[00:28:12.00 - 00:28:16.18] And even for something that would seem as simple as doing something fun, like, I'm
[00:28:16.18 - 00:28:18.08] going to take my team to lunch.
[00:28:18.08 - 00:28:22.03] Even taking a team to lunch could have expectations.
[00:28:22.03 - 00:28:23.08] You're starting a book club.
[00:28:23.08 - 00:28:25.04] How do we know it works?
[00:28:25.15 - 00:28:26.20] Simple question.
[00:28:26.20 - 00:28:27.19] Yeah.
[00:28:28.17 - 00:28:33.05] I use a lot the principle of accountability and I've learned this from
[00:28:33.05 - 00:28:41.07] Entrepreneur Organization, EO, where we are working, like I work a lot in with
[00:28:41.07 - 00:28:45.09] other teams of volunteers where we're all entrepreneurs, we're all peers.
[00:28:45.09 - 00:28:47.22] So we're all in a team working on a project.
[00:28:47.22 - 00:28:50.14] I cannot use leadership by authority.
[00:28:50.16 - 00:28:54.21] I'm not there to employ them, we're all peers, we're all volunteers.
[00:28:54.23 - 00:28:58.06] But what I can use is accountability.
[00:28:58.06 - 00:29:03.08] So I can be fully transparent and fully on the same page with everyone and at the
[00:29:03.08 - 00:29:06.10] same level and saying, what do we agree to do?
[00:29:06.10 - 00:29:08.10] Who's accountable for doing what?
[00:29:08.10 - 00:29:13.10] And how often are we going to check in to make sure that everyone is held
[00:29:13.10 - 00:29:15.15] accountable by their peers?
[00:29:16.04 - 00:29:18.06] And this kind of
[00:29:18.07 - 00:29:25.05] contract, if you like, a contract may be a formal word, but it's...
[00:29:25.05 - 00:29:33.05] It's a clear way of committing everyone to a shared goal and a shared way of meeting
[00:29:33.05 - 00:29:34.06] expectations.
[00:29:34.06 - 00:29:34.14] Yep.
[00:29:34.15 - 00:29:37.02] And are you surprised even among that group?
[00:29:37.02 - 00:29:42.20] I mean, do you find that the expectations are met 99 % of the time or is there
[00:29:42.20 - 00:29:47.17] still, you know, there's human nature to not do things or not follow through?
[00:29:47.20 - 00:29:53.14] So, of course it's human nature, but the important benefit of this tool, actually
[00:29:53.14 - 00:29:55.13] there's many benefits.
[00:29:55.14 - 00:30:02.16] One of the benefits is that you don't have to get into a difficult conversation,
[00:30:02.16 - 00:30:07.14] because once you're in a group where everyone is signed up to the same
[00:30:07.14 - 00:30:12.23] outcomes, same expectations, you're going to put in X amounts of hours or you're
[00:30:12.23 - 00:30:14.19] going to get this much done,
[00:30:15.05 - 00:30:19.20] then the accountability is to the group, it's not to the manager.
[00:30:20.04 - 00:30:25.19] And so if someone is not showing up to the meetings, very simple example, then you
[00:30:25.19 - 00:30:28.17] can go and say, well, this is what we agreed.
[00:30:29.05 - 00:30:32.12] You're not showing up to the meetings for three consecutive times, let's say.
[00:30:32.12 - 00:30:34.06] This actually happened to me.
[00:30:34.06 - 00:30:40.01] And the fourth time they didn't show up, I said, you know, I cannot turn a blind eye
[00:30:40.01 - 00:30:43.02] to this because the accountability is not to me, it's to the group.
[00:30:43.02 - 00:30:45.10] We all decide, including yourself,
[00:30:45.10 - 00:30:47.10] that will be showing up.
[00:30:47.10 - 00:30:53.21] And as a result, you made yourself ostracized, to use a technical word, but
[00:30:53.21 - 00:30:56.12] you excluded yourself from this group.
[00:30:58.13 - 00:31:08.00] And the biggest benefit is you don't have to have tough conversations because the
[00:31:08.00 - 00:31:12.08] ownership of responsibility is with the group and not with the manager.
[00:31:12.08 - 00:31:15.13] And it's clear, you know upfront what those expectations are.
[00:31:15.13 - 00:31:20.23] So if you fail or fall short, you know what you've fallen short of.
[00:31:20.23 - 00:31:21.18] Yeah.
[00:31:22.19 - 00:31:29.21] Another topic I wanted to touch on, Gina, is fairness, which I know it's something
[00:31:29.21 - 00:31:31.07] close to your heart.
[00:31:31.07 - 00:31:33.02] So tell us more.
[00:31:33.05 - 00:31:34.21] What is fairness to you?
[00:31:34.22 - 00:31:36.11] In hiring...
[00:31:36.15 - 00:31:37.16] So it's interesting.
[00:31:37.16 - 00:31:43.23] So my initial foray into the hardware world, I was one of very few women.
[00:31:43.23 - 00:31:48.06] And I was also one of the only very visible women, meaning I was vocal and
[00:31:48.06 - 00:31:52.00] participating and sort of challenging the status quo.
[00:31:52.00 - 00:31:58.09] So I wanted the industry to be more fair for women and easier for women to get into.
[00:31:58.09 - 00:32:04.03] And so I had that lens from the outset because I was really an underdog.
[00:32:04.03 - 00:32:07.02] I was opening in an urban area that was an underdog.
[00:32:07.03 - 00:32:11.10] I was a woman opening in that area in an industry that's very male dominated, still is.
[00:32:11.10 - 00:32:18.07] And so I wanted people to treat me like any other on their way to being successful
[00:32:18.07 - 00:32:20.00] business owner.
[00:32:21.07 - 00:32:25.18] But because I was very different in this industry, I didn't always get that
[00:32:25.18 - 00:32:28.04] fairness, or at least felt like I got that fairness.
[00:32:28.04 - 00:32:32.08] So when I started hiring people, I wanted to do a couple things.
[00:32:32.08 - 00:32:35.18] Across the diversity spectrum, Washington DC is very diverse city.
[00:32:35.18 - 00:32:40.08] And so I wanted my team to reflect the customers that were coming in.
[00:32:40.08 - 00:32:45.09] And then in order to do that, I wanted to make sure that we were treating everybody,
[00:32:45.09 - 00:32:49.21] no matter what their background was, where they were from, what language they spoke,
[00:32:49.21 - 00:32:51.17] what addiction they were overcoming,
[00:32:51.17 - 00:32:53.16] what jail sentence they had served,
[00:32:53.16 - 00:32:57.06] I wanted all of those people to have a level playing field.
[00:32:57.06 - 00:33:01.16] So everyone who started out started out basically at the same,
[00:33:02.12 - 00:33:05.14] the same level of expectations, the same rules.
[00:33:05.14 - 00:33:10.11] And to me, that was fair at its very... You think about, when you're in elementary
[00:33:10.11 - 00:33:13.20] school and you're on the playground and you're playing kickball and the teachers,
[00:33:13.20 - 00:33:17.10] when you're six, will say, everybody gets a chance to kick or everyone gets a chance
[00:33:17.10 - 00:33:18.15] to pitch.
[00:33:18.15 - 00:33:25.03] And the older we get, the farther away we get from that standard of fairness because
[00:33:25.03 - 00:33:30.15] somebody's better at kicking or somebody might not help the team win.
[00:33:31.23 - 00:33:36.06] I’m sort of babbling, but we went into it wanting, no matter what someone's
[00:33:36.06 - 00:33:44.08] background was, to be treated the same way every time they showed up.
[00:33:44.10 - 00:33:51.01] So how do you differentiate or do you differentiate between being indifferent to
[00:33:51.01 - 00:33:59.02] someone's background, ethnicity, race and so on, versus actually biasing towards
[00:33:59.02 - 00:34:02.07] people of minority backgrounds?
[00:34:02.16 - 00:34:05.11] For us, that was easy because we always celebrated it.
[00:34:05.11 - 00:34:10.17] I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the podcast or in our pre-call, but in a
[00:34:10.17 - 00:34:14.02] previous tech job, my role was to spoil all of the employees.
[00:34:14.02 - 00:34:16.07] And that was a pretty diverse population.
[00:34:16.07 - 00:34:19.00] And so, part of that spoiling was celebrating.
[00:34:19.00 - 00:34:26.13] If you came from Kenya, for example, and one of my coworkers there did, we had a
[00:34:26.13 - 00:34:28.04] day to celebrate Kenya.
[00:34:28.04 - 00:34:33.01] He was invited to do all, he was given a budget to feed us food from Kenya,
[00:34:33.01 - 00:34:35.15] bring us things from Kenya.
[00:34:36.01 - 00:34:37.13] And so...
[00:34:37.13 - 00:34:40.10] So everybody was considered interesting.
[00:34:40.10 - 00:34:46.09] So we invited everybody to celebrate and talk about what it was that made them
[00:34:46.09 - 00:34:51.18] different from us, which is where the conversation can start about how people
[00:34:51.18 - 00:34:55.21] from Kenya are exactly like people from Ohio in so many ways, right?
[00:34:55.21 - 00:34:59.03] So you celebrate the differences and then you share the commonalities.
[00:34:59.03 - 00:35:01.23] And that is exactly what we did at the hardware store.
[00:35:01.23 - 00:35:05.08] If you started working there and you...
[00:35:07.06 - 00:35:10.03] Yeah, you came from a different background, spoke a different language.
[00:35:10.03 - 00:35:11.13] You were gay, not straight.
[00:35:11.13 - 00:35:15.13] You were from Ohio versus California versus Washington, DC.
[00:35:15.13 - 00:35:19.00] All of those gave us something to talk about.
[00:35:19.00 - 00:35:22.22] I had this grandma when I was growing up who she always said I was nosy.
[00:35:22.22 - 00:35:25.21] Every time I would ask a question, she would say, don't be nosy.
[00:35:25.21 - 00:35:30.03] And I think when we take that attitude, her attitude, you forget that we should be
[00:35:30.03 - 00:35:34.18] curious because there are so many interesting things to learn about people
[00:35:34.18 - 00:35:37.10] and places around the world that if we're not asking
[00:35:37.10 - 00:35:40.18] questions or inviting people to celebrate that part of themselves,
[00:35:40.18 - 00:35:44.17] we're not allowing them to bring their whole selves to work and we're missing out
[00:35:44.17 - 00:35:49.01] on something that might add a really cool aspect to our culture.
[00:35:49.03 - 00:35:56.03] And we forget that as children it's much easier to be curious and very difficult to
[00:35:56.03 - 00:35:59.23] be judgmental, which is the beginner's mindset.
[00:35:59.23 - 00:36:02.14] But as you grow the opposite becomes the case.
[00:36:02.14 - 00:36:06.20] It's too easy to be judgmental because you're the expert and it's too difficult
[00:36:06.20 - 00:36:08.11] to have the beginner's mind.
[00:36:08.11 - 00:36:11.02] I don't, I find that so frustrating.
[00:36:11.02 - 00:36:14.15] It's, yeah, we should all have that tattooed on our heads.
[00:36:14.15 - 00:36:18.11] Like, don't forget to be curious and remember you don't know everything.
[00:36:18.11 - 00:36:22.02] And I like to think of my teammates as non-traditional teachers.
[00:36:22.02 - 00:36:26.03] I don't know if we've ever hired anybody that had an educational, like a teaching
[00:36:26.03 - 00:36:30.12] background or ever taught anywhere, but they all taught me something.
[00:36:30.12 - 00:36:35.06] And we can learn, like you've got always learning there on your kiosk, we can learn
[00:36:35.06 - 00:36:38.12] from every single person on the street if we're willing to be
[00:36:38.12 - 00:36:40.22] curious enough and listen to what they're saying.
[00:36:40.22 - 00:36:44.13] And I found that no matter who we hired, they had something to teach me.
[00:36:44.15 - 00:36:49.16] And there's also this project, Human Library, I think it's called, where people
[00:36:49.16 - 00:37:00.07] who have interesting, unusual, even backgrounds like have served jail time or
[00:37:00.07 - 00:37:04.14] have been impoverished for a long period in their lives, they are there for you to
[00:37:04.14 - 00:37:06.23] meet them and read them like books.
[00:37:06.23 - 00:37:10.19] So they're there to tell you their story, which is fascinating.
[00:37:10.19 - 00:37:12.15] And it's run in several countries.
[00:37:12.15 - 00:37:14.04] It's also in Athens.
[00:37:14.05 - 00:37:15.01] Yeah.
[00:37:15.01 - 00:37:16.03] Which is how I got to know it.
[00:37:16.05 - 00:37:22.10] It's a great way to connect with somebody who has a completely different background.
[00:37:22.10 - 00:37:27.18] I hired a gentleman who worked on my team for, I think he was there for about eight
[00:37:27.18 - 00:37:29.14] years before he retired recently.
[00:37:29.14 - 00:37:35.09] And he was homeless when he started working with us, or shortly before he
[00:37:35.09 - 00:37:36.22] started working with us.
[00:37:37.11 - 00:37:40.08] He lived on a park bench in Washington, DC.
[00:37:40.12 - 00:37:41.19] And...
[00:37:41.19 - 00:37:45.03] People could say, again, are you crazy for hiring that person?
[00:37:45.03 - 00:37:49.19] Or they could say, wow, what an interesting life he's led.
[00:37:49.19 - 00:37:53.17] You know, interesting takes on a different meaning in that use.
[00:37:53.21 - 00:37:55.05] What can we learn from him?
[00:37:55.05 - 00:37:57.19] Or what do we want him to share about that?
[00:37:57.19 - 00:38:02.04] Or are there still traumas that he's overcoming from that aspect of his life
[00:38:02.04 - 00:38:06.09] that we don't want to trigger in work or we want to help him with in work?
[00:38:06.18 - 00:38:10.07] You know, the cool thing about selling the business to my team is that when he
[00:38:10.07 - 00:38:12.04] retired, he was an owner.
[00:38:12.04 - 00:38:17.19] So he went from living on a park bench to owning part of my business to having a
[00:38:17.19 - 00:38:23.07] retirement account as an owner that he would not have had if he had stayed on
[00:38:23.07 - 00:38:23.20] that park bench.
[00:38:23.20 - 00:38:29.07] And just to bring it full circle, he left the park bench because a nonprofit
[00:38:29.07 - 00:38:32.14] organization offered him a pair of shoes if he came to the meeting.
[00:38:32.14 - 00:38:36.10] And when I learned this and I was asking him about it, I said, what made you go to
[00:38:36.10 - 00:38:36.21] that meeting?
[00:38:36.21 - 00:38:39.05] And he said, I was curious.
[00:38:40.11 - 00:38:43.21] He didn't understand why they wanted to give him a pair of shoes.
[00:38:43.21 - 00:38:46.10] And so he went and he said, you know, I was scared.
[00:38:46.10 - 00:38:47.09] They were different than me.
[00:38:47.09 - 00:38:48.16] They looked different.
[00:38:48.16 - 00:38:51.03] I they, you know, they weren't homeless.
[00:38:51.03 - 00:38:53.00] He said, but I was curious.
[00:38:53.00 - 00:38:57.09] I was like, wow, yeah, like that's the way it works.
[00:38:57.12 - 00:39:05.02] So, Gina, as we come close to wrapping the podcast, what do you think is the
[00:39:05.02 - 00:39:11.05] superpower that comes from being so open-minded, so beginner's mind about hiring
[00:39:11.05 - 00:39:24.08] people from challenging backgrounds or just being so enamored with this diversity?
[00:39:27.08 - 00:39:29.06] It’s a really tough question.
[00:39:29.09 - 00:39:32.01] I, the, my life.
[00:39:32.01 - 00:39:34.13] How has your business gained as a result of that?
[00:39:34.13 - 00:39:35.19] My -
[00:39:35.19 - 00:39:40.04] business, well, just from a retail perspective, our turnover is way below
[00:39:40.04 - 00:39:43.08] 50%, which is unheard of in the retail world.
[00:39:43.08 - 00:39:47.18] So if you want to talk about KPIs, I could talk to you all day long about how some of
[00:39:47.18 - 00:39:53.09] those metrics are good because we have this culture, are great, in fact, because
[00:39:53.09 - 00:39:54.10] we have this culture.
[00:39:54.10 - 00:39:59.21] I think for me personally, which as an extension perhaps was imposed on the
[00:39:59.21 - 00:40:02.23] business, we are more interesting.
[00:40:02.23 - 00:40:05.11] We have better stories to tell.
[00:40:05.13 - 00:40:10.21] Our customers are reflected, you know, our team is reflected in the faces and the
[00:40:10.21 - 00:40:14.15] language and the experiences of our customers when they walk in.
[00:40:14.15 - 00:40:17.16] So no one should feel, I mean, people come into the hardware store and they're
[00:40:17.16 - 00:40:20.10] nervous because they don't know what they're doing a lot of times and they're
[00:40:20.10 - 00:40:23.05] afraid that whoever they're going to whoever they're talking to is going to
[00:40:23.05 - 00:40:24.23] judge them.
[00:40:25.01 - 00:40:27.06] That doesn't happen.
[00:40:27.06 - 00:40:32.18] So we've created a sense of values that have allowed everyone, not just the
[00:40:32.18 - 00:40:38.13] employees, but also the customers to feel comfortable and engaged, engaging.
[00:40:39.02 - 00:40:45.00] And my life is just so much richer because of it, the stories I have, the people I know.
[00:40:45.19 - 00:40:46.04] Yeah.
[00:40:46.07 - 00:40:51.04] And what do you think we need to rethink about culture as leaders?
[00:40:51.20 - 00:40:53.01] If you could sum it up.
[00:40:53.13 - 00:40:58.13] Yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna sum up the, I'm gonna bring in the recovery piece.
[00:40:58.13 - 00:41:00.11] People need a place to go.
[00:41:00.17 - 00:41:02.15] And people need a purpose.
[00:41:02.15 - 00:41:07.21] And when societies are allowed to ostracize entire groups of people based on
[00:41:07.21 - 00:41:12.12] something in their past that they may or may not have had control over, we have
[00:41:12.12 - 00:41:19.04] eliminated an entire group of people from being productive, safe, healthy members of society.
[00:41:19.04 - 00:41:21.02] And that doesn't serve anybody well.
[00:41:21.02 - 00:41:22.14] It doesn't serve that person.
[00:41:22.14 - 00:41:25.01] It doesn't serve my neighborhood.
[00:41:25.01 - 00:41:29.02] It doesn't serve the main streets, the business environment.
[00:41:29.02 - 00:41:30.16] And I think business owners have
[00:41:30.16 - 00:41:36.23] to really rethink who and how they hire, our judgments, our biases, and what
[00:41:36.23 - 00:41:42.12] as a society we can do, even as a small business like mine, to make it a more
[00:41:42.12 - 00:41:46.00] vibrant and equitable place.
[00:41:46.03 - 00:41:51.15] And in a few words, is there something you would like to leave us with?
[00:41:51.15 - 00:41:52.07] Any thoughts?
[00:41:52.07 - 00:41:54.18] Any book you recently read?
[00:41:55.12 - 00:41:59.16] Anything we need to be more mindful of?
[00:41:59.16 - 00:42:01.04] Any takeaways?
[00:42:01.19 - 00:42:02.17] You have your book.
[00:42:02.17 - 00:42:05.03] A lot of what I’ve been reading and talking about has to do with
[00:42:05.03 - 00:42:06.13] selling your business to your employees.
[00:42:06.13 - 00:42:09.07] And so I will leave you with this, not that specifically.
[00:42:09.07 - 00:42:14.16] But as business owners, we have to know how and when and why we're going to sell
[00:42:14.16 - 00:42:16.07] the business or transition the business.
[00:42:16.07 - 00:42:22.04] And so a lot of what I've been talking about and researching lately is how do we
[00:42:22.04 - 00:42:27.10] educate the coming generation on taking over business and the current generation
[00:42:27.10 - 00:42:28.19] leaving the business.
[00:42:28.19 - 00:42:30.22] How's that turnover going to look?
[00:42:30.22 - 00:42:32.08] The baby boomers are getting
[00:42:32.08 - 00:42:37.02] the retirement age, what is that going to do to our main streets, and so that's a
[00:42:37.02 - 00:42:42.11] little bit of a tangent, but that's really what I've been researching and studying
[00:42:42.11 - 00:42:44.03] most recently.
[00:42:44.07 - 00:42:48.12] Gina, I love your story and what you stand for.
[00:42:49.20 - 00:42:52.05] Something...
[00:42:52.12 - 00:42:54.11] I would summarize it as follows.
[00:42:54.11 - 00:42:57.20] It's a business built around a purpose.
[00:43:00.01 - 00:43:07.15] And one that's very unusual, one that's unfortunately for many it's frowned upon.
[00:43:08.18 - 00:43:12.08] And maybe even seen as impossible or crazy.
[00:43:12.08 - 00:43:14.17] And you've been there and you know.
[00:43:14.23 - 00:43:17.13] But you've managed to turn it around.
[00:43:17.13 - 00:43:20.07] You're a trusting person as you say, but you...
[00:43:20.07 - 00:43:26.05] You have built your culture and your systems and your safeguards to turn it
[00:43:26.05 - 00:43:33.03] around and create a culture for people that come from any unusual and all the
[00:43:33.03 - 00:43:35.04] usual backgrounds at the same time.
[00:43:35.06 - 00:43:38.09] Yeah, you know, most communities have an underemployed population.
[00:43:38.09 - 00:43:43.07] It could be stay at home moms, it could be veterans, it could be the formerly homeless.
[00:43:43.07 - 00:43:48.04] I mean, there are entire groups of people, it could be new kids graduating from
[00:43:48.04 - 00:43:50.20] college or people who didn't get a college degree.
[00:43:50.21 - 00:43:54.18] All communities have a population that is underemployed.
[00:43:54.18 - 00:43:58.19] And so to the people who say, well, that would never work for me, one, I would say
[00:43:58.19 - 00:44:03.10] this is your problem, not the, you know, that's my solution is not the problem.
[00:44:03.10 - 00:44:05.05] It's your reaction to it.
[00:44:05.05 - 00:44:11.04] But I also say, think about who or how our businesses can help, where you are
[00:44:11.04 - 00:44:16.19] comfortable, where you wouldn't think that it's weird or stupid or impossible, and
[00:44:16.19 - 00:44:17.19] start there.
[00:44:17.19 - 00:44:22.00] The other thing that I learned over the last two years, I wrote a book and I ended
[00:44:22.00 - 00:44:25.11] up finding all of these other really great businesses across the country that are
[00:44:25.11 - 00:44:27.10] small, that are doing similar things.
[00:44:27.10 - 00:44:29.01] And that was very validating to me.
[00:44:29.01 - 00:44:33.14] And I hope someday that I get a chance to tell their stories, because it's not just
[00:44:33.14 - 00:44:35.03] my business that's been hiring this
[00:44:35.03 - 00:44:37.04] way or celebrating community this way.
[00:44:37.04 - 00:44:40.19] There are lots of businesses across the country that have popped up in my research
[00:44:40.19 - 00:44:44.20] and writing that are doing very similar things, which I find super validating and
[00:44:44.20 - 00:44:46.03] just wonderful.
[00:44:46.05 - 00:44:48.05] And the book is the one we see behind you for those...
[00:44:48.05 - 00:44:49.23] Oh yeah, Recovery Hardware.
[00:44:49.23 - 00:44:52.06] ...watching us on YouTube.
[00:44:53.10 - 00:44:57.22] And where can people find out more about you and your book?
[00:44:58.05 - 00:45:02.13] So I'm on LinkedIn at Gina Schaeffer and I love to connect with everybody.
[00:45:02.13 - 00:45:06.09] I'm on Instagram at Recovery Hardware, which was started when I published the
[00:45:06.09 - 00:45:09.11] book, but now it's a little more of a lifestyle Instagram account.
[00:45:09.11 - 00:45:12.23] So those two places and then GinaSchaefer.com.
[00:45:12.23 - 00:45:14.07] The book is for sale there.
[00:45:14.07 - 00:45:18.11] I always advocate buying it from a local bookstore, not a big retailer.
[00:45:18.11 - 00:45:24.01] And you can ask your local bookstore to order it for you.
[00:45:24.20 - 00:45:26.12] Wonderful, wonderful.
[00:45:26.13 - 00:45:28.19] Gina, I'm really glad we got to meet.
[00:45:30.02 - 00:45:32.16] And thank you to everyone who listened to us.
[00:45:32.16 - 00:45:37.02] If you like the show, you can tell your friends about it and you can leave a
[00:45:37.02 - 00:45:39.13] comment in your favorite podcast app.
[00:45:39.21 - 00:45:44.17] You can also watch and not just listen by subscribing to our YouTube channel on
[00:45:44.17 - 00:45:48.19] youtube.com/{rethinkculture.
[00:45:48.23 - 00:45:50.11] And don't forget...
[00:45:50.11 - 00:45:55.02] Don't forget to tell us what you think by emailing rethink{rethinkculture.co.
[00:45:55.05 - 00:46:03.00] And lastly, keep on creating a happier, healthier workplace for those around you.
[00:46:03.00 - 00:46:04.07] And keep leading.
[00:46:04.14 - 00:46:05.16] Thank you.