Matt, General Counsel for MEI Group, Inc. one of the largest excavation and heavy civil contractors in the Portland Area, told Session 10A of the Leadership Development Lab (LDL):

“A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by the company chairman to advise regarding wage withholding for our new benefits program. Everyone had different answers, different opinions for him, but somewhere the new laws are clear. The HR Director had worked for months preparing to implement the program and she was frustrated. Some of our people didn’t seem to be listening to her, “They knew what to do.” She was following direction from our benefits company and “They knew what to do.” The benefits company was telling her not to withhold from paychecks until September. The press was reporting that employee withholding starts January 1. I could see the real challenge was more about the conflict and hurt feelings around the office regarding the changes.

“I researched the legal answer and learned that our private insurance would cover the benefit without withholding until September. Even at that time, it is considered employee contribution to the insurance policy rather than ‘withholding.’

“The crux of the problem: a misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘withholding.’ Once I explained to the chairman that our employees would be contributing to the insurance premium in September but that is different from the government plan, he was satisfied. Then, I explained to HR and payroll that we are not participating in the state plan in January. I clarified that we begin with our private plan in September and withhold insurance premiums at that time.

“The lesson I learned from this experience is that I need to help solve the actual problem and not get too distracted by what others think is the problem. The answer defining “withholding” is easy. Smoothing out the conflict was harder and more important in the long term.

“The action I call you to take when solving problems is always consider the feelings of people involved in the issue. Their feelings may be the real problem, always work to solve relational issues. Recognize when a problem has an easy answer that is being obscured by a conflict. Solve the conflict and the problem!

“The benefit you will gain is you will build a foundation for problem solving that avoids the distraction of personal conflicts. You will have a more cohesive team.”

As I heard Matt’s story, I wondered what part of the state’s language and the insurance company’s explanation may have played in causing confusion, misunderstanding, resulting in the conflict? Who knows? What we can learn from this story is to give up always wanting to be, “I am right!” Instead, look for “what’s right.” Learn to say, “I could be wrong, I frequently am.”

Stop trying to be right,
instead look for what is right.”

All breakthroughs start with a vision, a dream

(continued from Volunteering’s Ripple Effect Volume XIV, Issue 864 September 21, 2021…)

I was now in my third year of volunteering as a Sunday Speaker for the Michigan Council on Alcohol Problems, in churches across southeastern Michigan. I was serving on the Board of Directors of John Wesley College in Owosso, MI and volunteered to conduct a weeklong “How to Sell the Sales Course” training program in London, Ontario for Dale Carnegie careerists. Participants came from all over the country, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Alaska, Illinois.

In July of 1974, our family moved into our Village of Beverly Hills dream home. The house included drapes that cost almost as much as our first house! Headwaters of the Rouge River ran through the back of our three acres. There was a quarter acre of roses, twenty fruit trees, and an in-ground swimming pool for the boys. We kept pinching ourselves to be sure we were awake. With our bedroom windows open, we could hear water tumbling over the wonderful waterfall on our river. We loved the fireplaces in the master bedroom, living room, and basement recreation room.

We’d been settled in for less than six months, when our Regional Manager from New York sat in our living room and told us the New York corporate office wanted me to take over the franchise in Rockford, IL. It was an “about time” surprise. Of course, I had wanted my own territory, but Rockford? I’d never even heard of Rockford, IL. This was a big decision. We prayed about it, talked about it, asked Ralph Nichols and other trusted confidants for their input. Finally, I said, “If that’s what Dorothy Carnegie wants us to do, we’ll do it!”

I hit the ground running. This put in motion, new places for me to volunteer. I began by conducting free refresher training programs for the Dale Carnegie graduates, even before we established our office.

Our “dream home” was back on the market, and we were looking for a new house in Rockford.

The lesson I learned from this experience is people who influence my future path are watching, even when I least expect it. They are evaluating my potential, my character, and the future contribution I can make.

The action I call you to take is to give your absolute best in everything you do. Play full out. Don’t hold back until it really matters. Know that you are always practicing for the future and a bigger, better job for tomorrow.

I promise you, others will come to you and open the doors that need to be opened wide for you to step through into your ever-expanding career.

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Turn customers into clients

September 1: the first day of our eastbound 2021 Cross Country Adventure. We checked in at the Roseburg Riverside RV Park on the banks of the Umpqua River. We eagerly looked forward to dinner with Steve Potter, owner of C&S Fire-Safe Services, LLC, and his family.

We began working with Steve and his team in the winter of 2007. After surveying the team, we conducted a two-day, Leadership Team Advance off-site. C&S set aggressive BHAG “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” for 2008 including performance goals for every department. Each territory established new performance standards and feedback systems were agreed to for tracking performance. In less than 90 days, new sales performance records were set. C&S was off and running.

During this time, I met Steve’s family when his wife, Helen, brought their preschool aged children by the C&S office. Their daughter Ceci is now a freshman in college. His son Brook will follow her in two years. It was great to see his kids now that they’re all grown up.

After a wonderful Thai dinner, Steve asked us over to his house and to see Helen’s “5X” (five times more enthusiasm) projects. What a joy! Helen caught Steve’s Turbo 5X bug, tiled the kitchen backsplash, and the guest bath. It was a delight for us to learn about their next 5X project, new kitchen cabinet doors.

As I stress in Repeat Business: 6 Steps to Superior Customer Service, moving from transaction to repeat business is the first step toward building the trust required to establish client relationships. The strategy of every successful enterprise is to convert customers to clients. The cost of acquiring new customers is, at least, six times higher than serving repeat customers. You must aim at converting every customer to the trusting client status.

It’s well understood that repeat business is more profitable than one-time customers. It’s also true, that once customers stop being just customers, and become your trusting clients, they are often counted among your best friends.

Think about it. Isn’t it true that you look forward to seeing your clients? They help make your day, add richness in many ways to your life’s experience. When they retire, move on to another company, if you lose track of them, you sense a loss. More than clients, isn’t it true that some become confidants?

So today, treat every customer like they will one day be one of your best friends. See them, not as a sale, instead see them as a future best friend. You will be all the richer for it.

You can’t put a price on the value of friendship.

Important announcements:
Winter 2022
Leadership Development Lab coming soon!

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Monday, December 13 at 5:50: after Donna Lee‘s double by-pass, open heart surgery Zack, her attending nurse, called to tell me they had taken the ventilator out of Donna Lee‘s mouth. He said I could come over to see her now. I rushed around and got over to the ICU quickly. Donna Lee was lying on the bed, unconscious, eyes closed, puffy face, labored breathing, pumps on her legs, tubes and wires on her hands, neck, and torso.

Red liquid was coming out of the clear plastic tubes from her abdomen. I asked, “What’s that?” “Blood,” he said casually. It was a tube from her abdomen to drain out excess and keep fluids from building up around her heart and lungs. Sounded pretty important. There were at least ten body functions being monitored, measured, and recorded on the various instruments in the room and back at the nurse’s station. The most recognizable to me was the steady “beep . . . beep . . . beep” of her heart monitor.

I asked Zack one of my dumb questions, “Which monitor do you watch most closely?” He said, “Well, they’re all important. Blood pressure is the most important for your wife right now.” The next thing he said was music to my ears, “Since your wife has an extraordinarily strong heart, none of the other monitors have to be watched as closely.”

I’ve asked this or a variation of this question to thousands of managers over the years. The answers I hear too often are subjective, “I just watch how people feel. I can tell how things are going.”

You can’t watch everyone on your team do their job. Your span of control is too broad, and if you could or tried to, you’d be breathing down their necks. You’d be micromanaging them. So, how do you know what’s going on if you’re not watching them every minute of the day? You must have clearly defined performance objectives with appropriate, reliable monitors in place to tell you how things are actually going. Part of what you’re doing with appropriate monitors is training your team members what to focus on and how to track of their performance.

You, and they must learn to measure performance not just by feelings, “I think things are going fine, I feel like everything is alright.” That’s not good enough! You’ve got to have some accountable systems of measurement, some indicators, to tell you in real time how things are going. The better your monitoring, and measurement methods are, the freer you and your team will be to innovate, improvise, and improve performance at every level.

Innovating is how you gain and sustain competitive advantage.

How you gain and keep your competitive advantage.

Important announcements:
Winter 2021 Leadership Development Lab
coming soon!

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What is your mission?

(continued from The Ripple Effect Volume IX, Issue 855, July 20, 2021…)

I was still listening to Earl Nightingale’s, The Strangest Secret, studying The Richest Man in Babylon, Acres of Diamonds, The Law of Compensation, everything I could get my hands on to help my career progress. About this time, I wrote out my personal mission statement, “Help people live richer, fuller, more productive lives.” I wrote my mission on 3×5 cards, put one on my shaving mirror, another on my car sun visor. This mission statement has guided my life ever since.

Dick Swanson, Marsh’s Calculator Sales Specialist, and I became good friends. Dick, trained by Olivette Underwood, knew far more about approaching large Ann Arbor companies. I started talking to Dick about being in the sales training business. It was just a dream..

When a coworker began the Dale Carnegie Course, he asked us to attend a free pre-view meeting as his guests. I mentioned the class to a customer, he told me about Success Motivation Institute’s® (SMI) office up in Southfield, MI. I attended their SMI® preview.

John Hurd, the SMI® representative asked, “What do you want to do?”

“Be an inspirational speaker.”

“Buy my program, join my team. I’ll make you an inspirational speaker.”

I bought the program, and went to work selling the SMI® program, Dick took the Dale Carnegie Course and started selling Carnegie Training. Within eighteen months, Dick was running the Dale Carnegie Sales Course in Detroit. I did my best to follow John Hurd’s training. It was a tough six months.

My mother found Word Record’s Family Program, and told her Holland, MI Regional Manager about me. I went on a joint sales call with him, loved his program and decided to sell SMI® during the day and Word’s program at night.

Dick kept calling, “Come to work with me!” He finally had a daytime class. I went through, an emersion, “How to sell Carnegie training” weekend and immediately after graduation from the 12-week Sales Course, I went to work for Dick. I was off and running.

The lesson I learned is the power and importance of knowing my purpose, what I stand for, my personal mission.

The action I call you to take is to write out your personal mission statement. Follow the guidelines in Making Moments Matter: 89 Tools for Taking Charge of Your Time page 37 The Big Questions or use the free guidelines we will enthusiastically send you.

The benefit you will gain is purpose and direction. Decision making will be easier, and your confidence will grow ever stronger.

One ship sails East, And another West, By the self-same winds that blow, Tis the set of the sails And not the gales, That tells the way we go. Like the winds of the sea Are the waves of time, As we journey along through life, Tis the set of the soul, That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Kurt, Foreman for a professional, full mechanical company including plumbing, hydronics, HHVAC and based in Vancouver, WA told Session 3B of the Leadership Development Lab:

“I started the job I’m currently on about a year ago. It’s a six-story apartment building in Hillsboro. This job had a tower crane set up. I hadn’t had much experience working under a tower crane, so I took a rigging class along with one of our apprentices.

“When I talked with the crane operator about how to rig up our fiberglass tubs he said they normally rig two tubs back to back and run the sling around them and he mentioned that he is always nervous when they are flying. Well, if he was nervous, I would be even more nervous!

“I decided to design a basket to haul the tubs up to the sixth story. First, we had to have the basket engineered and then build it in our shop. The basket hauls three tubs at a time and works great. We also used the basket to haul all our fitting up to the upper floors. Now we don’t have to carry the fittings on our backs up six flights of stairs. The basket worked so well that the other subcontractors on the job asked to either borrow or rent it. This basket saved us a lot of time because we didn’t have to rig each set of tubs that we flew, and we could haul three units instead of just two at a time, a 50%+ improvement in productivity!

“The lesson I learned from this experience is I will never improve performance if I keep doing things the way things have always been done. To beat the bid, I must continuously look for ways to improve our processes.

“The action I call you to take is push the edges. Keep asking, ‘How could we do this faster? How could we do this safer?

“The benefit you will gain is more fun in your work. You may find ways to improve your productivity by 50% and proudly ‘beat the bid.”

It would have been quite easy for Kurt to just continue doing the “flys” the way they had been done. To make this 50%+ improvement in productivity, he first had to ask himself, “In what ways can we fly the tubs easier, faster, safer?” Then listen for that inner voice of his subconscious mind to start suggesting ideas. Then, he had to have the courage to ask, “Could we build a basket?” Then push to sell his idea to the powers that be. This takes, as we say, the “courage of your convictions.”

“If you always do what you always did,
you will always get what you always got.”
Albert Einstein

For examples of how engaged leaders rely on the courage of their convictions, see

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A walk down memory lane

Day 10 of our 2,500 mile adventure from Loganville, GA to Seabeck, WA:We stayed at the Camelot RV site last night; one of the most well-kept, neat-as-a-pen, not a rock out of place, sites we’ve stayed in. Camelot RV is located in the town of my birth, Poplar Bluff, MO. Our plan was to visit my great grandfather’s house; the house I was born in, my grandmother’s home, and my cousin’s home where I stayed in the summers.

In the middle of the night, Mark Twain, the name of the school I attended in the 2nd grade came to me. We put Mark Twain School in our GPS, and off we went. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the Mark Twain School house I attended, disappointed we drove on. When we came out on Main Street, I headed south. We hadn’t gone more than a block on the quaint red-brick street, and there it was, my school house. It’s a museum now. I was excited! I got out so Donna Lee could take a picture of me in front of the school. A fella in his construction truck pulled into the parking lot, asked if he could help. I told him why we were there. The sign said open Sundays from 2 to 4. He told me he was meeting someone from the board in a few minutes. He was sure the board member would let us in. When David Johnson, Chairman of the Museum Board arrived, I told him our story, he said, “Well, come on in!”

I was thrilled to get inside and look around. It’s been a long time. My memory of the school was sketchy at best. As we looked around I saw a display dedicated to my uncle Bud Mussel’s moving business. That was a thrill! Many memories came back. As we talked further David told us that the painting hanging in the entrance of the museum was painted by my cousin Deana’s husband, Bob Cradic.

They say you can’t go home; and I’m sure it’s true, because home isn’t there when you get there. Home changes and we change. What we can do is revisit in our memories those good times from yesteryear. This little trip down memory lane brought up many recollections. I shared those rich memories with Donna Lee, my wife. After 57 years of marriage we’ve shared about everything, but still there’s more, and with each remembrance shared our relationship grows richer.

Why not do what I did? Ask your spouse to tell you one of their powerful, positive, memories from childhood. Here’s a simple question: “Tell me about one of your positive memories from grade school?” You might be amazed at what you learn. More importantly, having this trip down memory lane will bring you closer together.

Neil, Plumber Foreman for a full-service mechanical and plumbing contractor in Wilsonville, OR, told Session 10 of Turbo Leadership Systems’ Leadership Development Lab (LDL):

“Every Monday at the Sam Barlow High School job site, we have our regularly scheduled safety meetings. I had noticed that after every meeting all 110 construction tradesmen had to walk through the school’s parking lot to get over to our designated work area. I watched as we dodged school buses and student drivers. After seeing this happen week after week, I decided to mention my concerns to the general contractor’s superintendent. I asked him if we could have our safety meeting at the designated work area to avoid the buses and student drivers.

“This past Monday morning I received a text message reading, ‘Safety meeting will be held inside the designated work area.’ I thought to myself, ‘Good.’ Coincidentally, this Monday happened to kick off National Safety Week to recognize safety and why it is important to be safe at work. The guest speaker thanked me in front of the group for bringing up the good idea of relocating our safety meetings to a more appropriate spot. I was a little embarrassed at the time, but I knew it was worth it. I would have felt horrible if someone trying to dodge buses and new drivers would have gotten hit.

“The lesson I learned from this experience is how important it is for me to stand up and speak out when I see improvements can be made. I learned how others can benefit when I exercise the courage to effectively speak out.

“The action I call you to take is to be alert, on the lookout for every performance and safety improvement idea you can find. When you stand up, speak out you count in your workplace and at home.

“The benefit you will gain is a long, upwardly mobile, injury-free career. You will have the purpose-filled feeling of knowing you count.”

Don’t miss this important part of Neil’s story: look at the risk he took when he “stood up and spoke out.” Most people justify their lack of initiative, “No one listens to me around here.” It takes confidence and, in many if not most cases, courage to bring up an idea that seems to run counter to the natural flow of things You and your firm lose the innovative advantage unless everyone, especially those closest to the work, are encouraged to bring their ideas for safety and process improvements to the table.

Kevin, Project Manager for a general contractor in Silverton, OR, told Session 3B of Turbo’s Leadership Development Lab (LDL):

“When I was in the 2nd grade I got into an argument with Forrest, a classmate and friend during recess. He began chasing me around the playground calling me names and I called them back. He was trying hard to catch me and I was egging him on. It was a fairly heated exchange and the recess teacher caught us.

“She took us to our 2nd grade classroom to see our teacher, Miss Welter, who attempted to get the details about the argument. Several of my friends were around and they provided their input of what happened and Forrest was found guilty of using foul language. Then Miss Welter asked me if I had used the same language. My friends tried to stick up for me and said I hadn’t, but I knew in my heart I was guilty too. I wasn’t sure what my punishment would be if I confessed but I knew I had to tell the truth and so I took the risk and told her I was guilty too.

“Forrest and I were marched off to the see the principal who then very seriously let me know that there were going to be consequences to my behavior and my parents would be informed. I was quite worried, wondering what those consequences would be when I got home. My dad knew I was already worried about what I had done and the consequences I had experienced at school. He asked me if I understood what I had said and done, then gently corrected me and coached me to behave myself appropriately in the future.

“This experience taught me several lessons that have stuck with me and I appreciate being able to look back on the experience now. I learned to be true to high core values and high ideals such as honesty and when I blow it, show it. I also learned by my dad’s approach to coaching me that I had done the right thing to admit to the truth and to refrain from that kind of behavior in the future.

“The action I call you to take is to accept responsibility for the mistakes you make. When you blow it, show it.

“The benefit you will gain is the respect of your peers and all the other people in your life and world. You will be seen as an honest person, a person of integrity. Everything you intend to do, everything you endeavor to build, will be built on a strong foundation.”