The Hardest Lesson in Growth: Bill Ryan on Confronting Leadership to Hit $350M

Executive Summary: The Hardest Lesson in Growth

This episode features Bill Ryan, an accomplished executive and growth consultant from the material handling industry, who details the necessary leadership shifts and cultural realignments required to achieve hypergrowth. He draws on his direct experience leading a company from $20 million to over $350 million in ten years. The central theme of this discussion is that sustainable organizational growth begins with courageous self-confrontation by the founder or owner.

Key Takeaways for Founders

Leadership Confrontation: The biggest barrier to growth is almost always the owner's behavior and leadership style. The change effort must start with the founder looking in the mirror. Founders must hire or empower an executive (a "Butthead" by Bill's measure) whose sole job is to tell the founder the uncomfortable truth, challenging their behavior when it conflicts with growth goals.

The Four Pillars of Trust: Organizational trust is built on four non-negotiable elements: Integrity, Competence, Experience, and Intent. Intent is the most critical; employees must believe leadership's intent is genuinely positive. Leaders should regularly review executive decisions against these four pillars, ensuring that the Intent behind every major decision is clearly and transparently communicated.

Cultural Alignment: Culture is simply "the way things are" (the collective habits, good and bad). Fixing culture requires defining and aligning three components: Values, Processes, and Agreements. Founders must document and communicate non-negotiable values. Then, audit processes and agreements to ensure they reinforce those values, removing any that contradict them.

Team Motivation: True alignment is achieved when all employees are focused on the same aspirational, shared goal. This creates a "Super Bowl" mentality across the entire organization. Leaders should use transparency to share high-level operational metrics (e.g., industry-leading safety standards, company-wide gross profit goals) with every department, showing how their individual role contributes to the win.

Transcript for Search & Skimming

Below is the complete, searchable text of the interview. You can use the speaker tags to quickly search or skim the conversation for key insights on courageous leadership, the four components of trust, and building a winning organizational culture.

Bill Ryan: And, um, traveled the country. Um, built, built, uh, built up stores, built up dealerships, sold some off. Um, you know, we had, we had, uh, many factory stores back in those days, so like 16. I really got my MBA when I was on the road, uh, working with dealers and, and entrepreneurs. Then, um, joined a company down here in North Carolina where I live currently, and it was $20 million when we got there. And, uh, when I left it, it was $350 million 10 years later. So learned a lot in, in that process, in those, those years, uh, making more mistakes than, than victories. I. Uh, but that's how we learned. Uh, and then I was able to join a, join my partner and wife who started a consulting company, uh, 10 years prior to that, uh, called TDT One, and we, uh, joined our forces together. She was an IT, uh, specialist, uh, working with, uh, all things analytical and, and, uh, accounting. And, uh, I, I lend my, by credence to the sales and marketing side, plus operations. We had 16 clients, uh, for the better part of 10 years. Um, and we just loved that, that part of the business dealing, dealing with it. So, yeah, and now I'm kind of semi-retired. I, I do a little bit of work now and again, uh, have a, a very fortunate to have a, a following, um, of people and friends I've made over the years. And so on occasion I'll get a phone call and say, "What do you think about this? What do you think about that?" Um, so it's, uh, it's been a great life and, and I really enjoy it.

Randell Mauricio: That's amazing. And, and the reason I ask for that timeline is, is, is not to age you, Bill, it's actually to prove the point that you've seen it all. You've seen hypergrowth, you've seen generational shifts, you've seen societal, economic shifts. I think that's really important because in the work that you've done with Brenda in, in, in consulting, you've basically seen it all. You've seen the evolutions and so now I'm curious. Given that experience and all the perspective that you've, uh, collected over the years, what are some of the pivotal moments or realignments that you've seen? Um, what, what was really behind the change in that company that would allow any company to, to grow and see that type of hypergrowth that you described earlier?

Bill Ryan: Great, great, great question, Randell. Um, and it, I, I have to say no one size fits all, sure, that, that I can, um, go to. But I will tell you there were a number of, of, of. There were things that, that occasion, the changes, uh, almost all of them had to do with, uh, change in ownership or perspective on the part of the owners. So it was either we were selling something because of the, the, uh, economic climate we were in, or the condition of the company. In the case of, um, uh, the factory, certainly. Uh, we had, like I mentioned, we had 16 factory stores and the company changed hands and we had to dispose of those. We couldn't afford those, uh, so that we had to sell those stores off. So that was the, the, the economic push, if you would. Uh, but, but the change behind that was to find entrepreneurs that were ready to, to embark on in that portion of their life. Uh, so you had to, you know, help them with their, their funding and, and their, uh, their leadership. Uh, the strategy among, among all things, you know, question them as to why you're doing this and are you capable, et cetera. And of the companies that we did approach, in almost all cases, there was some kind of crisis. Um, uh, sometimes financial. More often than not, uh, market share wise, they just weren't performing. And, and their manufacturers, their OEMs were putting a lot of pressure on them. And so they wanted to, uh, uh, realign and, and get better. Um, and, and it almost, in all these cases too, the solution to rectifying the problems almost always came down to people and leadership. Or lack thereof. Um, you know, in one case, uh, we had a gentleman who was in his late sixties, and he was just, you know, he'd run outta run outta gas and, and he had two kids that were in the business. Um, neither one of 'em really were interested in being there. Um, and his, his parent, the OEM, that supplying him at the time, recognized that and said, "These, these kids just don't have it. Right. We're not going to appoint them to the dealership." So he call, he was smart enough to call me and say, "You know, Bill, you gotta come in and get me a leader." And so we did that. We, we put a, a, a profile together for a president for his company and went out and did the interviews and that I had to deal with his kids, you know, and explained to them that they weren't, they're gonna be owners, but they weren't gonna be running the company. Um, so that's just one example of it. In another case, the reason we went to Charleston, South Carolina was, uh, the gentleman owned that company down there. Uh, he had lost his two senior executives. He lost his sales manager and his operations manager within 60 days of each other. So we had to go back down, down, down there and spend four years just realigning people, hiring people, uh, you know, putting processes into place. Um, and sometimes it was, it was a recessionary crisis, like 2001. Um, you know, we're working with a company that had never been through an economic downturn, so we had to help them resize and get things down. So, as I said, it was always some kind of a crisis. Uh, but in the case of the company that, uh, alluded to that went from 20 million up to over 200 million, uh, there was no crisis there per se. There was just a recognition and a willingness on the part of the owner to, uh, get growth. He, he, he, he said, "You know, my company's is stale. Um, you know, I really can. I've been working at this thing for, for a long time. I really can't find the key." Um, so, you know, our task was to sit down with him and say, "Well, what do you want to do? You know, what, what are you capable of doing? Uh, do you, do you have the backing? Do you have the support? Do you have the people?" Um, and, you know, once we had the answers to at least most of those, those questions, we could start to put planes in place. Um, so that, that one was more, less of a crisis than a real honest desire on his part to get better.

Randell Mauricio: I find this really interesting because certainly this is a result. This is a story that many entrepreneurs and founders and business owners would want to tell about their career. Yet you've seen it and you've helped others do it. So could you dig in a little bit more into what that criteria looked like? If you, if I was that owner right now, uh, sitting in front of you, what exercise or exercises would you take me through to, to analyze and make sure that. Yes, I am ready and that I have the right mindset to to, to experience this hypergrowth.

Bill Ryan: Great lead in. First thing, first thing we do is we'd sit down and, and have, I'd have a conversation with you, right? And I'll say, "Randell, you know, tell me about your, your life. Tell me about, you know, where are you from? Um, you know, how many kids were in your family? You know, what'd you, what did your parents do? How'd you grow up?" Um, all that, um, by way of me understanding what your character is, you know, where you came from, uh, what, how you're motivated, what, what your, what your, uh, uh, outlook on life is, you know? And then I ask you about your values. You know, what do you believe in, you know, are, are, are things like integrity and honesty, and then, um, um, you know, teamwork, all these things important to you or not. Uh, so I get a feel for, you know, like I said, your character, but also now some of your, your vision and, and, and your capabilities. You then I go through, uh, the, the competence exercises. You, what's your background? What's your experience? Are you a left brain person, more engineer? Are you a right brain person, sales person? Um, so we can do. Define, you know, what it is you're gonna be really good at doing. Uh, and then what are your ambitions? You know, how big do you wanna be? Or, and then how profitable, uh, and why? Um, and you know, then you, you've got a platform. You've done essentially a, a very short order SWOT analysis, you know, where you, you explored some strengths, some weaknesses, um, you know, then, then out of that you can start to identify the opportunities, you know, and then later on you talk about the threats, you know, to the company. Um, but it's really getting that, that fundamental or foundational understanding of who the person is. Um, because in my experience, you know, everything hinges on leadership. Everything. And so few owner operators or, or entrepreneurs for that matter that, that we've been exposed to have done that self-examination. You know, most of them have gotten to where they, they were in life. Um, outta sheer perseverance and, and, uh, diligence. You know, they may have had a vision for you, how they do things for themselves, uh, but to grow into a larger organization with, with, you know, a, a competent succession plan in place, uh, that's, those are different skills, you know, different skill set for. So you, you've got to help the o the owner operators recognize that, "Yes, you've done a good job up until this point in time, but now you want to grow or you want to, you know, uh, uh. Put together an, uh, an exit strategy or plan." Uh, so there's some things we've gotta do and we, we've got to, uh, assess your leadership group, you know, your, your team, um, you know, what the capabilities of that. Let's do a spot analysis for the whole, whole dealership, for the whole team. And out of that, uh, the two of you, you come up with, "Okay, this is the vision, what it looks like." In the case of the gentleman I told you about in 2004, we got him, he was $20 million, but he only had, I think he had three facilities and he had one product line. And in the material handling industry, that's. That, you know, that that's just not, uh, the way to go about it. It's, it's too limiting. And so we had to come to grips with that, that, "Hey, you know, you're gonna have to expand, you have to take on different products, different, different strategies, and we're gonna have to get the people who have been so, you know, used to doing it one way to start to realize that, hey, they're not as good as, as they think they are. Right." Um, 'cause in this, his case, that was an illusion. They all had, that they had a, they had a brand name of a product that was, you know, recognizable worldwide. Uh, but they were, you know, woefully under, under report, under, excuse me, woefully under woefully underperforming. Easy to say. Uh, and he didn't recognize it at first. You know, so I had to show him some comparisons and say, "Look, here's what the real model looks like. You know, or here's what the model of a successful, you know, operation looks like with these, these, you know, these, these, characteristics and these people and all that." It took about 30 days for him to finally say, "You know what? Thank you." He, he said, "You got me to look in the mirror and recognize that no, we're not as good as we as we could be." He said, "And he said, you've helped me realize that it starts with me. I'm the one that's got to set the tone and, and the direction for where we're gonna go from here." I said, "Okay, great. You know, let's put a plan together." We put a strategy together over the course of the, uh, the holidays that year came back to each other and it was, wasn't surprising. Our, our number, our growth number in 10 years was exactly the same. I said, "You can go from 20 million to a hundred million in 10 years and here's how." Anyway, "That's my number too. Right? That's where I want." So we, we had a strategy and we added product, we added people, uh, we changed the whole culture. Um, had to sit everybody down and I said, "Look, you know, this is, gotten to this point in time, this way, but if we're gonna go to the future where the owner wants to go, not gonna work this way. We've gotta, we've gotta put this other thing in place." So we concentrated on, on the culture and we starting to looked at the bank accounts and the finances and all that, but really talked about the culture. We don't, and, and the culture, um, you, you, I go on for hours about this. Um, but it's an overused word, uh, that, that people say they think they understand. Yeah. If the culture is actually the way things are. In, in the organization, you know, are there, are there hidden agendas? Are there there secret things that are going on? Are there, you know, does, does it live up to the, the, the motto that's on the wall? Or is that just, um, you know, talk or wall talk? But so the culture comes down to, to really three things: comes down to, uh, the values. The of the owner and the people in the organization, are they, that they have integrity? You know, are, are they customer focused? Are they honest, they wanna work hard? All those, those values that gotta be in place, right? It comes down to the processes. The way the, the way we do things. Do we do things correctly? I. Do we do 'em consistently? Do we do 'em the right way? Or what kind of haphazard catches catch can, right? Uh, and if you get those two things right, you're surrounded by people with similar values to you and they agree, and we all agree on the processes. This is the way we do it. This is the way we treat each other. This is the way we treat you, our customers and our people, and here's our priorities. Then we can start to formulate agreements. Right. And the agreements say, you know, if you, if you come to work every day with these values and you abide by these processes, here's what you get. You know? Yes, you get paid of course. And, and, uh, you know, comparatively with good benefits, you know, and all that we can afford. But you get to work with a company that really has, you know, something to say for itself, we're really going someplace and we wanna do meaningful work. Um, because in my experience, Randell, I think wants to work for a winner. You know, nobody wants to join the, the, the, the team that's in last place and not have an addiction to say, "Okay, we're gonna put this, we're gonna, you know, raise the, uh, raise the bar here." Um, people will, will get discouraged and say, "Oh yeah, people just wanna get paid." That's not been my experience now. People, people isn't gonna get paid. We need the money, but we're gonna enjoy what we do. Um, and I shared with you earlier that that's part of why I feel so fortunate about being in this industry because to love it, you know, and it's something that just gets me motivated every day. And, you gotta stop me. I could go on for hours about this.

Randell Mauricio: And and the impact you make.

Bill Ryan: Well, there you go. Yeah. And, and, and what is your legacy? Yeah. That, that's another big important question that that comes to mind when, when I think about, approaching the, these, uh, entrepreneurs or these owners say, "What are you, what are you doing? You know, what are the, what are the big questions in life for you? You know, we're all, we're all gonna leave this planet at some point in time." We all know that. Um, we say we know it, but we don't really. Um, you know, when you go, you know, what's, what's it gonna look like? You don't want the company to dry up and blow away, you know, do you have a succession plan? Do you, do you have, uh, some ambitions for people because now you've got families. You know, in the case of that small company, when we joined that company, there were 107 employees. Um, you know, and I got to know every one of 'em and their families and their kids. And when I left, we were over 1400 people and I didn't know everybody, but I still knew the vast majority of people because that was the lesson I'd been taught. You know, coming up through the initiative, it's all about people. It's all about getting to know them, you know, making yourself visible and providing them with, with some clear direction and good communications to say, you know. "You guys can be great. You know, you can be part of something wonderful here and let me show you what that looks like." Um, and one of the other conversations we got into with, with the managers at all those companies is, um, I. They would say, you know, as far as it was the forklift industry, I'd say, "You know, as far as I, I know, uh, nobody's defined the Super Bowl for forklift dealerships." And they'd all laugh and I'd say, "Yeah," I said, "But if there was one, it would look like this." And I, I gave 'em seven, seven criteria for, um, "These are the things, these are the goals, the measurables, metrics that great companies, you know, in our industry, uh, could, could aspire to. And if we just put those up there, we know what the best in the, in the country is. And, and we work toward each one of these things every year, every month, every year." Um, I will tell you that if we get to within, you know. 10% of being, being number one in those seven categories, gonna lay claim to that Super Bowl trophy, you know? And, and, and that was, that was inspirational for people. They'd go, "Wow, you know, we're, we're, we're headed for big things around here. Right." And, um, guy see me one day, he said, he said, "I. Geez, Bill," he said, "Look what you've done." He said, "You," he said, "You've turned the forklift industry into a religion." And I said, "No, but, but," I said, "But I appreciate that, that you, you see that the people believe, they believe they can be the best." Um, all the, all the while knowing that they're not there yet. You know, they still, still need to be humble and, and, uh, and um, and come to work every day trying to get better, but, and also taking care of each other too, and really caring about people. That's, that's key to the whole thing.

Randell Mauricio: There's so much to unpack here, Bill. This is a gold mine, uh, of an experience, so thank you for, for putting this on the table. I want to get one small fact, uh, clarified, uh, for, for this company that, that, you know, uh, achieved this 200 million plus. Um, were you hired on as the number two or were you, or were you consulting from the outside looking in?

Bill Ryan: I was actually hired on as, as what was to be number one for this division. It was actually, I've been, I didn't, I could drop back and tell you this division that we, we went to was part of another larger company.

Randell Mauricio: Got it.

Bill Ryan: It was the material handling division of a large equipment company. And, um, initially when I met him, we went in as a consultant and, uh, to talk about the, the course, course of events and what we need to do. Two days. He said, "I need you." And I said, "Okay, let's talk about that. You know, what would that look like? And then where do you wanna go with it?" And, uh, it almost didn't happen because, uh, he was, um, he was successful. You know, he had a lot of money. He was third generation. Um, and, uh, I had to come to, come to the decision, "Okay, can I really help this guy?" You know, is he, he. He thought he was the smartest guy in the room all the time. Usually he was. Um, but he wasn't careful about protecting that either. And that was, that was part of the reason he had not grown or the company had not grown. Uh, 'cause the people weren't inspired. Um, so it was, it was some, some decision making and Brenda and I both consulted on it, you know, per. Better part of 30 days. He finally said, "Okay, let's, let's commit to this." 'Cause he has agreed that he'll, uh, he'll look in the mirror and recognize that, you know, it's not as good as it as it could be. And, um, but we went from there. Uh, and accident incidentally too, I said, over 200 million there, there are $385 million now.

Randell Mauricio: Wow.

Bill Ryan: So it's, uh, proofing the pudding and then they're continuing to grow. They're doing really well.

Randell Mauricio: Bill, that. Is such a pivotal moment that you described when that owner operator looks in the mirror and realizes, "Oh crap, I gotta look at myself now and, and, and address some things." What was key to guiding that individual to get to that point?

Bill Ryan: Wow. I'd say as much as anything, it was my, I'll just call it what it is, pat myself on the back head, my courage, and willingness to confront him. And say, "You know, hey, um, know, I, I, we'll agree to do this, we'll agree to help you with this, but you have got to, um, earn our trust, right? And I've gotta earn yours. Uh, 'cause without that, we're, we're not gonna go any place. Right." You know, he, uh. He, he, he told me he admired that, you know, that, the way to approach it that way. But then we sat down and had a long conversation about what trust is, you know, and I said, "Well, according to my reading," I said, "But my practical experience too, it's, it's really four things." You know, trust is integrity. You know, if, if, if a person doesn't have integrity, they don't do what they say they're gonna do, uh, we won't trust them, right? Or can't be trusted. Um, second part is competence. You know, they can say they're gonna do anything, but can they really do it? Because we don't believe they can, we're probably not gonna trust that either. Um, third part is experience. Have you done this before? You know, you're telling me you can do it, but can you show me? And in my case, I showed 'em three examples of how we, you know, turn companies around. So there's no question in his mind about that. Um, but the last piece of trust, that's more important, those other three is intent. You know, why? You know, why are we doing this? Are we doing this just to make a lot of money? Um, because that's never a, a solid motivation for, for growth. Well, certainly it's a, a measure of growth, but it's not a reason. It's not a reason. You just don't grow for the sake of growing. You grow for the sake of providing, uh, tools and mechanisms and opportunities to families. Uh, to be able to, to take care of their families, you know, and do things and grow and provide, you know, a, a higher level of service for all the customers that are out there. One of the highest confluence I ever got was I visited one of our branches down in southern Georgia one time, and one of the technicians down there who become. A pretty good friend of mine in a very short time. Um, he had just had a baby, baby boy, and, uh, he named the Boy Gunner, which I thought was a really cool name for a little kid, right? Gunner. I said, "So what's, what's the future gonna be like for Gunner?" And he said, "He's gonna be a technician right here at this company." I. I thought, "Oh my goodness, really?" He said, "Yep, absolutely." And that was 20 years ago. Yeah, and the kid's working there. He's a technician, you know, working beside his dad, which I think is just really fantastic, so. Mm-hmm.

Randell Mauricio: How important is, is establishing that fit, because I, I, I sense that that's what you were. That's what was remunerating in your mind when you were considering, "Is this something we wanna move forward?" Because as you said, you were a consultant, uh, and this offer was put on the table for you. Could you talk about that criteria that you personally had to decide, "Yes, this is something that is worth pursuing."

Bill Ryan: Yes, my, my criteria at the time, and Brenda and I sat and talked about it for a while and said, "Okay, this is gonna be a long-term commitment, at least 10 years at the time." This was, uh, 2004. Um, so we'll, we'll commit to 10 years. "Can we. Um, you know, can we see ourselves in this role? Can we see ourselves with this owner, with this company? You know, and are we prepared to withstand, you know, whatever comes our way?" Um, but back to having integrity, you say you're gonna do something, you better prepare, be prepared to do it. Um, so it wasn't until over dinner or, you know, good sushi dinner, you know, place right down the street from us. So we, we couldn't, we wait to, for, for years, um, that I looked in her eyes and said. "You know, Brenda, what do you think?" said, "No, you tell me. You know, what do you think?" And I said, "I think this is the right one." She goes, "Yep, I do too." So we had that agreement. That, and, and she was my partner. I mean, she, I trusted her with, with everything and everything. Her insight to people, uh, was extremely valuable to me over the course of my career, especially with other men. Um, you know, and. This is probably just me. And I don't, don't mean this to be, uh, uh, generic specific or, or whatever. Uh, but women, you know, they look at, at life and people differently than, than most men do. Hmm. Um, men we're simpler. Uh, we, we can be fooled, you know, we, somebody can, can give us a, a good spiel or a, you know, make us laugh about something. And we sold immediately. You know, women, they're more discerning, you know, they, they, they've been lied to their whole lives, so they, they can figure it out. You know, what's the truth and what's not. And so I always, always, um, tried to include her in any conversation we had with prospective employees, especially men. Um, and then, and receptionist as well too, right? Bring, bring a guy in for an interview of the sales, uh, sales interview and everybody in the building goes, "Wow, this guy's really good." You know? And on the way out, I'd say, "The receptionist, what are you thinking?" She'd go, "Nope." I go, "Really?" She goes, "Yeah, you don't want that guy." "Okay, good." Um. So the, the, the criteria was, was, uh, you know, "Can we trust this guy?" And, uh, and the answer was yes. Uh, and we also, you know, shared that with him too. I was back to courage and having the, the wherewithal to be able to be openly honest and say, "You know, there, there were some days that he just was, it was a butthead, and, and it was up to me to be able to say, 'Hey, you know, you're being a butthead today. You know, you need to get out of the way.'" Which is not something that most people are comfortable in doing. Um, but at that point in my life, in my career, you know, I was in my fifties, um, had done okay for myself. Um, I was competent, maybe even a little cocky. Um, but the fact that I was willing to confront him was refreshing to him. Um, because like I said, he'd come from a wealthy family, third generation and nobody had ever really done it with him. You know, they were all willing to kowtow and then bow out him and then acquis and I just said, "Hmm, no, I'm not that, I'm not that guy. You know, I'm not your yes man, and it's not gonna work if that's where it's gonna be." Did I respect him? Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, like I said, the smartest guy in the room. Harvard BA Yeah, he was, he was, he was really, really smart. Um, not so much. Right. And, and it was part of my job to point that out to him and just say, "You know, uh, you do great on the podium, you know, you do great in the boardroom. Um, you know. Well, I'm picking you out of this interview and it was, just come across as somebody that people go, 'Oh my God, I can't work for that guy. He's scary, right?'" Right. So you, you deal with personalities and you, and you work through them, not around them. And sometimes they're, they're very uncomfortable, you know? And, and, but if you're afraid to have those open conversations, you're not gonna be happy. You know, you're gonna go home and you know, things are gonna be miserable and you're gonna start winding yourself down. Um, and I just tell people, you know, you don't owe you, you know, you owe, you owe that to yourself not to be unhappy. You work, you, you can be challenged, you can have bad days. We're all gonna have up ups and downs, but at the end of the end of the day, you know, you wanna be able to say, "Yeah, I did good work today. I really enjoyed it. Uh, I'm looking forward to tomorrow." Um.

Randell Mauricio: I would dare say too, just, just listening to you tell this story that your personalities were a yin and a yang. You used the word empathy, right? And so if this individual wasn't. Perhaps not the most, uh, uh, empathetic or, or registering as the highest EQ, I can tell you, Bill, you did. And so that's that yin and yang that, that, uh, I can appreciate. Take, take us to, to a, a moment where you would say was probably the most challenging time that you've had with this individual. And without sharing the sensitivities, could you give some color as to what the issue was, why it was contentious, and how you. How you broach the situation to solve it.

Bill Ryan: Another great question, Randell. One that comes to mind is that we had, as I told you, we had come into a, a smaller organization with one, one product line had a sales manager there, had been there for better part of. 18 years, I think, or close to, close to two decades. And he had firmly entrenched himself. He was, uh, he was the quote unquote leader, thought he was anyway. And, um, but he had a personality that was, I. less than authentic. Let, let's say it that way. He was, he, he good in front of customers. He could, he could sell snow cones to Eskimos if he asked him to. Um, but behind the scenes there was always questions about, you know, what, what's his real motivation? And back to relying on your, your colleagues to assess it. Brenda met him and she said right away, "No, you know, there's something wrong with this guy. He's not, he's not true. He is not telling you the truth. He's not, he's, he's, uh, he's licking your boots, but he's, he's not really believing you." And it became pretty obvious to me, right, right away. And so I looked at the, the rest of the people in the organization that were reporting to him, and half of the organization was, and they were all following suit. There was a lot of, uh, insincere people that were out for the money, uh, that really didn't care. You know, they pretended to care about the customers of the company, but they really, really weren't invested. And so I recognized that in order for this organization to change, either this individual's gonna have to change or I'm gonna have to change him. By, by that I mean Mo have him move on. So confronting the owner with that, he was like, "You, you're kidding me. You know, this guy's been here 18 years." I said, "Yeah." I said, "And this is part of why you are where you are." You know, and, and you're gonna have to come to grips with that because if, if, you know, you're charging me to run the company. Uh, and first, first thing is this guy was offended that I came in, you know, over him. Uh, 'cause like I said, he had thought, he had tenure, thought he was entitled. Um, but I got. The owner, owner on the same wavelength with myself. And I said, "I'm just gonna confront him and tell him what's going on." And, uh, I said, "I expect that he's gonna turn to you." So we had the conversations and they were hard conversations with this individual. He was, he was a good person, don't get me wrong. He just was, he just grown up the wrong way. I think in the visit, if there was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, he'd figure out a way to do the wrong way the first, first time around, um, which was extra work and just. It's just a mess. When I confronted him and said, "We're gonna change," he, um, he, he went away angry. And uh, then I got a call from the owner that night and he said, "Well, the so-and-so just called me. He wants to have breakfast tomorrow." And I said, "I'm not surprised." And I said, he said, "So what, what do I expect?" And I said, "He's gonna tell you how bad I am, gonna tell you what a bad boss I am and how this, and this and the boat and all that." And so the owner was ready and so they had their, their 7:30 breakfast and nine o'clock phone rings as the owner. And he said, "Good job." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "He just quit." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." He said, "Because I, I backed you up. I enforced everything that, that you had told him." He was shocked, you know? And then, uh, but we, we said, "Okay, but we wish him, well, you know, we, he's gonna, you have to take care of his family." So we helped him usher him off into another company. Uh, so there were no hard feelings other than, you know, he was, he was, felt like, you know, he'd been, been, uh. Run over, I guess. Uh, but the reality was, you know, he went onto another company and he changed his ways, or at least, so I was told, and I think he had a better future after that. The day that happened, the other people in the organization were at my door in my office me. "Thank, thank you for, for having the courage to make that move." Um, because, you know, we all knew that this just wasn't right. This wasn't working for all of us. Um, and it was breath of fresh air. And many times I went back to them in and months and years later and said, "You know, tell me why you were afraid to, to come to me and talk about, you know, what this individual was asking you to do or the way things are going on." I said, "Well, he was the boss," you know, "and I was, I needed my job, you know, I didn't want to, you know, get on the bad side." So, you know, pivotal moment in, in the, uh, in the, uh, growth of the company, but more, more importantly, pivotal in the growth of the culture. You know, to have everybody recognize that, "Oh my God, you know, he said things were gonna change and yeah, they're, they're changing." And can move in the right direction. And it was pretty much, don't get me wrong, there was a ton of work after that. Um, but we set our plan out from there and we had, I can't say we had 99% of the people on board, but we had 80% of the people on board. Um, and we know that factual because we'd measured. Every year we send out employee surveys and they come back and, you know, we knew the, the best dealer in the country had an employee engagement score of 88, and we were like 50. And, and we said, told everybody, "You know, we're gonna get to be 88, we're gonna get up there," you know, back to the Super Bowl. Um, and it took us 3, 4, 5 years, you know, with, with changes in, mm-hmm. and communications and reviews and all that. But we got up to, you know, 84%, uh, which is high water, high water country for pretty much any industry I've ever been exposed to. So, and that was one of those seven measures that I talked about earlier.

Randell Mauricio: What a brilliant story and an awesome payoff. I'm curious. Well, as you had mentioned, you were the change agent and to some, to some people that's, that's both liberating. And, and at times, probably in the early days, a little scary because, because the, the people you were leading didn't know you, you were still getting to know them, but how did you, over the course of three, four years, keep that alignment so strong? Because that's what it takes, it takes strong alignment to, to the north star. What was, what did you have to do day in, day out in order to achieve that?

Bill Ryan: You got a great question, Randell. Um, know where I learned it. Uh, it's somewhere along I, I think I, I actually think I learned it from my parents. Um, uh, about being, about connecting with people. Um, you know, my mother, as a kid, you know, she was always so kind to, to, to everybody, but especially, you know, waiters and waitresses and, you know, the mailman and, um, you know, the, the, the, the, the kid, you know, out, out in the street, you know, that didn't have any shoes on. My mother was always so empathetic and kind of people, uh, I learned that from her and, and from them, uh, to always, you know. Yeah. You know, always recognize how important people are. You know, that none of us are, are better than, than any of the rest of us, but we've all good jobs to do. We've all gotta be, you know, in, in place to get it done. Um, and so they bequeath to me that ability to talk to people, to connect with them. Um, and I, I gotta say, it's, it's gotta be sincere. I mean, 'cause my experience, I don't think I ever. Knew of a different way to go about it, but I've been around people who pretended to be sincere, pretended to be, you know, really care about people, say they did. Um, but you could tell it in, in their, their actions. You could tell it in their, in their commentary or their, the lack of interaction sometimes that no, they really weren't, they weren't that interested in other people. Um, and part of my job, like I could tell from, from day one, especially in this last venture where I described, was to connect with people and just say. "Hey, you know, tell me about how's your day, you know, what's going on here," you know, and not being afraid to, you know, walk out in the shop and not be afraid. I, I loved to walk out in the shop and sit down at the picnic table with the technicians and, you know, cut up with them and talk about what's going on and what's going on with their families. And caring enough to know a little bit about their kids, you know, and say, "Hey, did your kid, did your kid make the ball team? No, I know he was trying out, did he make it?" Those connections are, are just. They're, they're worth the weight and goal, you know? 'Cause people go, "Oh my God, the president asked me about my kid," you know, I haven't seen him in, in, you know, three months. And they come back and right away he remembers that, yeah, my kid was trying to out offer for baseball. Um, small things seemingly, but important to people. Um, because like I said earlier, you know, in my experience and my, my education, everything hinges on leadership. Know, as goes, the leader goes the organization. And so that leader's gotta have this incumbent upon him or her, um, to, um, you know, convey gravitas, you know, which is that comfort, that wisdom, that, that, uh, confidence that, "Hey, we're all in this together and, and we're gonna be okay." You know, there's gonna be ups and downs. We're have challenges. We have to be honest with each other. Um, but this is my job is, is not to do your job, but to help you do it safely. Uh, with the right processes. Um, so you go home, like I said earlier, every night you go, "Hey, that was a good day. I really enjoyed working with this company." Uh, and, and one of the things I discovered early on, but was able to, I don't say perfect 'cause I don't think I ever got there, um, but to improve on was communications and, um. You know, there's nothing that replaces a, a one-to-one conversation with with somebody there. There's, there's just nothing beyond that. The more you can do it, the, the better you're gonna be at it. And I had 1400 people that were ready, willing and able audiences wherever I went. We had 18 branches by the time I left there. Um, sort of know them to know their names. Uh, and I've been lucky to have a, a decent memory. Uh, so I might not get the whole family name right, but at least got their first name. So it was a connection that way. To be able to sit down and talk a little bit about the business and what's going on, and listen to them and say, "Okay, tell me really, you know, what do you think about this company?" And we, we'd have meetings with technicians and I'd say, "Okay guys, we'll have a little meeting here." I said, "And we're gonna employ, uh, Las Vegas rules." And they'd all go, "What's that?" I'd say, "Anything that goes on in this room stays in this room. Unless it's a safety issue or an ethics issue, I gotta do something about that." But everything else you tell me. "How do things work around here? Or how, how they, how they don't work." And you know, in a room full of eight guys, you know, they're not gonna tell you right away, but doing it. You know, quarter after quarter, year after year, pretty they call for the meeting and they say, "Hey, why are we doing this?" You know, and, and I'd say, "Wow, I don't know. Let, did you ask your manager?" And he said he didn't know either. "Well, let's talk about a different way to do it. Maybe there's a better way to do it. Or something less wasteful or, or less, you know, cumbersome." And, and some of the best ideas that we, we came up with to grow that company, I said, came from the recs, came from the, the, from the technicians, came from the parts people. Uh, sometimes the people in the accounting department would say, "You know, this customer called up and complained about this billing." I. Right. "Why do we do it this way?" You know, "Well, good look, let's change it," you know? Um, that became my job. And toward the end of my career, when I knew I was getting outta there, I told everybody two years before I, I was ready to leave, that I we're gonna make a succession plan and here's what's gonna happen. And so no surprises. And I said, "We're gonna have a smooth transition." And, which I'm pretty proud to say that yes, we had a smooth transition. Uh, we've, because we, when I left, we were 280, 285 million. Now there are 370. Wow. I think. So they, they, and the same leaders, they, they've grown, they've added people. It's good. But, but at the end it was like, "Okay, well I know my job is not to do people's jobs." Um, but then somewhere along the line I realized that, you know, to grow managers and to grow, grow the leaders, my job is not to give them the answers all the time. And, uh, so again, don't know where I got it. I'm sure I borrowed it from somebody. Um, but I, I found a phrase where, uh, I employed it where a manager would come in and say, "Can, you know, can we get five minutes?" I said, "Sure. What's going on?" "Well, you know, I ran into this situation and, you know, I don't, don't know what to do. You know, what do you think?" And I'd say, "Hmm, well, what, what do you think about it?" And sometimes they'd dance around it and nine times outta 10 they'd come up with, "Well, I think maybe we could do this." "Yeah, that sounds right. Let's, let's go ahead and give that a shot. Right." So it didn't come from me. It came from them. Um, but then there on occasion there were some, some, uh, came up and I remember this one manager in particular where they'd come in and say, "Well, I don't know what to do about this." I said, "Well, what have you done? What have you thought about?" And they say, "I, I'm just, I'm blank. I can't come up with anything." At him and I said, "Well," I said, "You know, look," I said, "If you did know," I said, "I know you don't know. That's okay." Said, "But if you did know, what, what would you do?" And he answered me right away. I thought, "Okay." I gave you permission not to know and, and you really did know in the back of your mind. I. Then a couple months later, he comes to me and he's gonna, he said, "I got another problem." He said, "I don't know what to do and don't ask me if I did. If I don't tell me that," you know, "Um, it's okay not to know, but if I did know," he said, "'Cause I just don't know." Uh, I thought, "That's another lesson, right? You take it so far." Um, but that became my job toward the end. The last year was not to answer people's questions, not to provide them with direction. Uh, it was just to support them. You know, and thank them. Uh, I spent all my time traveling the branches and, and, and, you know, just thanking everybody every day for everything they did. Um, and somewhere along the line too, it also discovered that, you know, finding good things to, uh, talk about with people, um, is not that difficult. You know, they, you people tend, people tend to think managers to come, come to the, the, my location and they're gonna find all these things wrong. They're gonna be critical of this, critical of that. How come this isn't that? How come this isn't this way? You know, looking at the financials, et cetera. Yeah, they expect that. But if you show up and you are, are applauding them for the good things that happen, you know, the improvement in the safety record or the, you know, the, the, the, the cleanliness of the shop or the, you know, the productivity or the, the cash receivable coming down and people will have to sit back and go, "Oh wow. You know, he came to town and he told us what a great job we were doing," you know? And then one of the other things in communication that, that I discovered was an effective use of email. 'Cause I always thought email was impersonal. Um, didn't really like it as, as a tool. Um, but back to this concept of the Super Bowl for forklift dealerships, we came up with that scheme and then all the criteria for it. And every month we'd sit down and review it and everybody we'd publish it. You know, say we fell short in this mark this month, whatever. And if we hit our quarterly numbers, uh, we, we, um, had a profit sharing program and it was for everybody that was not on a bonus or a, a commission, right. But all the, the people on rank and file, and every quarter we measure it, we set target. If we hit those targets, everybody got some, some money, everybody got a payout, right? When I first introduced this concept, my managers this is not a good idea. I said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, you know, people, people get paid to do their job, but that, that should be enough." I said, "Really?" I said, "Then why are you guys on bonus points? Right? You know, you do your work, you get paid, right? But you expect at the end of the year to get a bonus because you hit certain goals and objectives. I, is that any different for anybody else in the organization? Right." So they said, "Well, this is gonna be a lot of work." I said, "I know, but let's, let's try it." Then he came back and he said, "Yeah, but you know, it's okay. As long as it works. You know, we have a good quarter and everybody gets a check, right? A couple hundred bucks doesn't really matter how big it is." I said, "But then it's gonna come a time when we don't make it, and we're gonna have to tell 'em that we didn't make it." I said, "Okay." I said, "Yeah, that's a reality." I said, "But let's look at our values again. What's, what's number one, integrity. What does, what does integrity stand for? It's, it's doing what you said you're gonna do, but it's doing the right thing. So we tell everybody, 'Hey, we're gonna be open and honest with you, you know, and when we make it great, we're all gonna celebrate, we're all gonna be happy and, and, uh, you know, and, and share the, share the wealth. If we don't, you know, we need to tell 'em that as well and why we tell." Sure. Well, we went along for a year and a half, almost, maybe. Probably into the third quarter of, of the second year and every quarter we hit our targets and every quarter we grew and everybody was, was making good money. And it was actually the end of the second quarter now that I think about it. And we fell short. Not by a lot, but by enough. So we didn't make it. So my email that went out the fifth day of every month that talked about all the great strides we had and the great orders we got and all the wonderful things we did, and ended with the, by the way. We made our quarterly target and everybody's entitled us in profit sharing. That month it came out and I said, "You know, thank you for this. Thank you for that. We did all the good things in the month." I said, "However, I told you that we would tell you, you know, we're gonna be honest, that when we didn't make it, we didn't make it." And I said, "We didn't make it in the second quarter, and here's why." And uh, actually it. It was the third quarter. I would get emails back. I sent it out to everybody in the company and I would get maybe, I don't know, 150 emails back. My admin, my executive assistant would say, "Do you want me to answer all these emails?" I said, "No, no. I, I, I really don't want you to do that. It's gonna be, I'll be here little till nine o'clock tonight, but I'm gonna answer each one of these emails." And so I'd get a hundred, a hundred plus every month thanking me. What a great company, blah, blah, blah. When I sent that message out about, we didn't make it, sorry, but we didn't make it. I got probably 300 emails saying thank you for telling us the truth. What do we need to do? Wow. So we doubled down and we, we blew the numbers out of the water in the fourth quarter. So much so that I went back to the, to the owner and I said, "Look, you know, we didn't been making the third quarter, but we doubled in the fourth quarter. I think we owe everybody profit share, not only from the fourth quarter, but also from the third quarter." And he agreed. Everybody got big checks, you know, that January, um, and, and. And I tell you that by all way of way of saying that became my job. Like my job became to be the cheerleader. Um, the, yeah, the cultural coordinator. Um, and also the role model too. I was very conscious of the fact that, you know, I was very visible. I. Open door policy, you know, anybody could stop by. I encouraged people to, you know, stop by headquarters when I was there, even notice. It was great to see 'em. And then of course there were time constraints too where I couldn't, couldn't do everything I wanted to do, but not to get in the way, not to micromanage people, not to be making decisions for them, um, but encouraging them to, to make their own decisions and, and. In essence, you know, mimic my behavior. Hmm, that sounds egotistical. Um, but to a degree there were certain criteria that I expected each one of them to, to maintain, you know, that rapport, that gravitas, that honesty and integrity. "You know, if you don't do those things, you, you can't be on this team." Um, I had to, I had to rep reprimand a couple of people a couple times. Um. That was obvious to everybody in the rank and file too. They all saw that. They said, "Yep, that's the way to do it." Mm-hmm.

Randell Mauricio: Bill, I'm not just saying this, this is hands down one of the best conversations, if not the best conversation I've had as you, as I told you earlier, I've got a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for you and uh, I told you initially I was gonna keep this at 30 minutes, but I says no. Bill has so much wisdom that. Please don't be surprised if I ask you for a second recording, if I may.