Once his wife, Sonya (MBA), joined four years ago as General Manager, they made several big moves together:

• Raised pricing and expanded Google-based marketing
• Expanded crews and hired production managers
• Implemented Aspire
• Built a state-of-the-art facility
• Developed a leadership team that is helping the owners regain balance

Kevin jokes that he is now able to work part-time: 35 to 40 hours a week.

The team has worked quite hard to get where they are. Kevin is now able to play golf weekly, so things are on the upswing.

Last week I held a 1.5-day roadmap session with their team and then took a wonderful vacation on Vancouver Island with my wife and partner, Corine.

During the roadmap session, we reviewed department and company-wide strategy and refined their Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). We set a much stronger course for the future.

Here are five lessons every owner and leader can learn from.

1. Facts Before Emotions

Both owners are full of passion, which means emotions can sometimes eclipse the facts, whether solving problems in the moment or managing by the numbers.

So we created the mantra: Facts Before Emotions. First get the facts and then explain their meaning. Only then can you decide how to feel about them.

That led to a discussion about clearer numbers. Aspire offers endless metric choices, but more metrics do not mean more clarity. Not every division uses the same metrics. You need to customize them.

2. Triangulate Your Numbers

Most metrics need two comparison points in order to be understood.

• How does the metric compare to the monthly and year-to-date budget?
• How did we perform at the same time last year?

That tells you whether you are improving, slipping, or simply reacting to noise. Only after triangulating your numbers do you know how to feel about your situation.

3. The Why Behind the Objectives

Anytime you set a goal, explain the why—especially when the goal involves increasing profit. Otherwise, employees may assume the owners simply want to line their pockets.

If you need to raise gross profit margin by five points, explain how it helps the team professionally and personally.

Make the why bigger than the how, and your team will figure out how to get it done.

4. The Cost of an Hour

We discussed giving revenue-per-hour goals to maintenance teams so they can track their own performance daily and weekly.

First, show what goes into that hourly number. If you earn $100 per hour, break out the major costs:

• Labor
• Equipment
• Fuel
• Sales
• Insurance
• Taxes

Then show what is left for profit and how quickly inefficiency can eat it up.

5. Creating Crew Accountability and Engagement

Crew leader engagement requires managers to spend 30 minutes each month with every crew leader. It is easy to schedule and should be cascaded throughout the organization:

• Directors engage managers
• Managers engage crew leaders
• Crew leaders engage their teams

If you want employees to care and be accountable, it starts with you.

Accountability also requires better metrics. What matters gets measured.

For example, if you want fewer workmanship errors, track go-backs and quality issues.

Your Challenge: Upgrade Your Own Leadership

After the roadmap session, I gave the owners four tactics each to increase their impact, based on employee feedback and my observations.

One recurring theme was improving meetings, so we tackled that directly:

• Sales meetings: More mentoring on sales techniques and challenges
• Production meetings: More sharing of company and department status, along with what the numbers mean
• Leadership meetings: Fewer day-to-day issues and more focus on higher-level goals

The biggest lesson was simple:

If you want your team to do better, clarify your goals and empower them with the knowledge and resources to make better decisions.

Go get ’em!

Regards,

Team member presenting his professional goals and challenges.

New facility sits on 3+1 acres, very efficiently organized.

Company photo – employee count is 10 people larger as of today.

After the roadmap, before we leave for Vancouver Island: Owners Kevin and Sonya, Jeffrey and Corine, sister Angee.

It’s not too late to register for our Summit, and enjoy the “Early” Bird Discount.