The Right Foundation for Supporting the Workload

In 2012, I made my first significant career change in more than a decade. While I had a hand in various human resource tasks and projects during the dozen or so years I led our facility’s behavior-based safety process and supported many of our company’s locations across North America that were active in that same initiative, this move pulled me completely away for safety and landed me neck deep into a world I previously only thought I understood. As I wrapped up Leading With a Clear Purpose, I shared how my own purpose evolved over time. I had found tremendous fulfillment in being able to pass along some of the tools I had learned to use as I advanced in my own career, and see my peers earn similar opportunities for advancement as a result. It seemed like moving into a role where my complete focus would be on our “human resources” was the next logical step to take.

What I experienced during the next two years or so was anything but that! I could look across the hall into my former office, but that’s as close as I got to feeling the kind of purpose I had been able to draw from developing the folks I worked with through that behavior-based safety process. I typically got to my office before 6am, initially to have some undistracted time to focus on the college courses I was taking with hopes of keeping me from going to jail for violating some sort of employment law. It didn’t take long for the folks whose shift began at 6:30am to realize they could catch me with any issues they had before their day started, and the folks whose shift ended at the same time realized they had a chance to bend my ear on their way out. By the time I worked through all that each day, the rest of the office staff started rolling in and it was time for me to dive into my daily routine of working through time and attendance issues, internal or external interviews to fill open positions, or address any disciplinary issues that needed my attention - and all of them ended up needing my attention…

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I had become extremely effective at keeping all the proverbial plates spinning. The workload itself wasn’t all that bad; it just sucked up a lot of time. The most difficult part of it all, and what played a significant role in me making the decision to leave that organization after working there for almost my entire adult life to that point, was constantly hiring people to work for a management team that I no longer believed lived up to the core values detailed in our employee handbook - the same handbook that I had invested countless hours into producing the most recent revision…

Don’t mistake any of this for me attacking that organization for making me work too hard or having devious intentions. I have yet to find a way to excel in any role that carries even the slightest bit of leadership responsibility without putting in more than a 40 hour week. And while the company as a whole had indeed changed quite a bit over the nearly two decades I had been there, I can’t point to anyone at the executive level who had horns or carried a pitchfork. Looking back, I’m convinced that the deciding factor boiled down to no longer seeing where the things I valued most were valued by the people I reported directly to. As difficult as the decision was, I realized that it was time for a change…

Good Organizations, But Something Was Missing

On October 6, 2014, I started working for a new organization for the first time since I was 19 years old. Truth be told, I thought I would spend the rest of my career there. I was doing similar work to what I had done in manufacturing but this was for a family-owned business with just under fifty employees. My manager was the son of one of the owners and an absolutely amazing person. The work in that particular industry had some significant risks but it was nothing short of fascinating. And to top it all off, I quickly realized how much most of the management team truly cared about each individual working there.

I had responsibility for developing a handbook, which may have been the first one in company history (but I’m not completely certain about that), processing payroll, filling any open positions, onboarding the folks coming into those positions, and assisting with performance appraisals and any disciplinary conversations. Since doing those things for a company with less than fifty employees took substantially less time than what I had just left at a site with close to 650, I also jumped in to help out with the company’s safety initiatives whenever I could. Working 7am to 5pm in an actual Monday through Friday role was like having a part time job in comparison - and that’s actually what led Cindy to push me toward starting our business a few months later, but we’ll circle back to that later on. 

As much as I liked the company, and as great as most of the management team genuinely was, I remember a feeling of everyone working toward the same basic goals but I can’t say that I was overly familiar with a core set of values that guided that work. I’m definitely not suggesting that they were doing anything wrong, just sharing that I couldn’t point to a solid why behind what we did. 

About a year into what I thought would be the last job of my career, an opportunity found me. I was offered a chance to serve as the Safety & Human Resources Manager for another family-owned business, but back in the construction field that I had started in before I ever had a driver’s license. Still doing very similar work to what I had done for the previous decade and a half, the workload was manageable even though I was juggling both responsibilities and for now nearly 100 employees. Again, I enjoyed the industry and I respected the majority of my coworkers. 

Before you interpret either of those references about “most of the management team” being great or “respected the majority of my coworkers” as me making a negative statement about those companies, I’d challenge you to name any group or organization where you’ve had a perfect relationship with every single person. In more than three decades in the working world, I’ve learned that the folks who say they get along with everyone all the time will likely lie about other things too!

Like in each of my previous two roles, I helped that organization write a handbook. In this case, we only released a revised edition but it contained some significant changes. And like each of the other handbooks I had worked on for the other two companies, this one had a few pages early on dedicated to the organization’s specific mission, vision, and values. While I remember those being included, I can’t remember anything specific about them - or much about the ones from the other companies either, not even the one I had worked at for nearly twenty years…

Overall, I liked a lot of what I did in each role and I enjoyed the working relationships I had with the majority of my peers. But I can’t tell you that I truly loved any of those companies, mainly because I’m not completely sure that my values were in line with their values. I don’t share this to say I believe they didn’t have values, just to say that I can’t tell what theirs were - because if I had heard them at any point, it was only in passing and not nearly enough to develop a clear picture as to what those values looked like in practice or how the work I was doing fell in line with them.

Since moving into full time self-employment, I’ve helped a bunch of companies with safety and human resource related tasks, in spite of that not being what I find fulfilling at this point or it being where we’ve been focused. Each time I’ve worked on a handbook, helped with staffing, or even had a hand in safety meetings with the employees in those organizations, there’s almost always been some sort of reference to the company’s mission, vision, or values - but rarely have I heard more than a vague reference. Interestingly enough, the places where I’ve heard values discussed more frequently, and in more detail, have also become some of our favorite organizations to work with. I know that’s not a coincidence!

Identifying What Was Missing…

As I opened the second part of Leading With a Clear Purpose, I made a strong case for how much each of us are attracted to being part of something that matters. I’m convinced that this applies to everyone at any level of any organization. I realize that there are plenty of folks who do what they do, day in and day out, without having a definite purpose to commit to, but I’d bet just about all of them would change that quickly if given the chance.

Just like with the companies I worked for as an employee, Cindy and I have found that some of the organizations we serve through our business are a better fit than others. As we started out, especially early on and during the lean times forced on us through the Covid shutdowns, we were willing to do nearly anything we were capable of for almost anyone willing to pay us. For the most part though, we did get to work with people we liked. But even then, there were times where things went as smoothly as we could have hoped for and times where it was just stinking hard; not the actual work itself, but landing on what the outcome should look like or what the steps would need to be taken to get there.

In many of the cases where we had to hardest times coming to terms with the organization on what they could measure to show that anything we provided was successful, which typically took more time and energy than the service we were actually delivering (and was never billable), we also received the most pushback on what we needed to charge - be that for a complete package or a set hourly rate. 

Don’t throw stones at me here; our goal from the time we’ve started our business has always been to provide an exponential return on investment for anything we do. Quite honestly, there have been several occasions where the proposal we submitted was brushed aside due to being too LOW! I realize you may not believe that; hell, it’s dumbfounded me every single time. But I can point to at least a half dozen specific examples. Within the last 18 months, we had the opportunity to chat with an executive of a company we had done a lot of work for - just after he retired. I asked him how we stacked up to what he expected when initially contracting with us. He shared that our price point was about 50% of what he thought we’d charge and we had delivered better than anyone he had ever worked with. As strange as it sounds, far too many folks in a role like this will see a price point that low and view it as subpar; we’ve had to work on that whether we’ve wanted to or not.

The common theme we’ve found through the work we’ve done over the last decade has been that the organizations we’ve worked with best have also been the ones where we’ve shared the most common values. And while we didn’t necessarily connect it directly to those shared values initially, it’s certainly been something that's stood out more and more as time has gone by. Specific to our business relationships, these have also been scenarios where cost is rarely part of the conversation - largely because the value we’re able to produce with them through the end result has been what we’ve all been focused on. Interestingly enough, we’ve experienced the same thing in relationships with boards, associations, and even friends. When we’ve placed like value on similar things, there’s been a level of cohesion that just isn’t experienced otherwise.

Just like feeling a lack of connection even when working for a fairly good company as an employee, there have been multiple times where we didn’t feel like we had the right fit with a client or some other group. I could often feel this intuitively but I didn’t have a complete understanding for it until something I experienced in the final quarter of 2021 - so we’ll pick up there soon!