Leading By Inclusion

To protect the people involved, I have changed the names of those involved to Tom, Dick, and Harry.  (Consideration was given to Huey, Duey, and Luey, as well as Larry, Curly, and Moe, but in the end, I went with the less insulting route).

Last week when touring a project in Oklahoma, the Foreman, Tom, was giving me a tour of the project when two apprentices, Dick and Harry, came up to Tom and asked a question.

We followed Dick and Harry over to their workspace, so we could look at the situation involved in their question. When we got there, we encountered a simple obstacle to getting into the room. 

While Tom quickly removed the problem and entered the room, Dick said, “He thinks he smart, and he knows it.”

Harry quickly followed up with “no, he just thinks we are dumb.”

Tom didn’t say anything.  He just moved ahead. 

Once we were all in the electrical room, the three of them went over to the panel and started discussing the situation at hand.  Tom resisted telling Dick and Harry what they should do. Instead, he asked for their input on how and where to mount the conduits coming out of the panel. 

Dick and Harry offered a solution.  Tom asked for more ideas.  Finally, after hearing multiple suggestions, the three of them came up with a plan.  Led by Tom, they went over the pros and cons of each idea. 

I was impressed with Tom’s management of the situation.

First, Tom didn’t take the bait and comment during the smart/stupid conversation, he just moved on.  

Second, he had Dick and Harry be part of the solution process and got them to think for themselves.   

I know Tom, and he wants people to learn and so they can do things for themselves. Tom didn’t let them make a mistake.  He coached them through making the decision and affirmed them by going with a plan they were part of putting together. 

Tom does a lot of things using similar methods.  He includes learning about the Electrical Code in the morning huddles. He works to improve the people he works with, and the people around him continually tell me how much they like Tom’s style.

I love watching people make a difference for people.  Glad to have all three of these guys on my side.

Reckless or Righteous

In 1972 Stealers Wheel’s Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan wrote, “Stuck in the Middle with You.”  In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, claimed the song was a parody of Bob Dylan paranoia.  The course says, “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, (but) here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

The song points out how they had found the exact right spot, and everybody else was wrong.  Good for them. 

In the 1980s, Jerry Seinfeld had a bit in his stand up routine, pointing out how, when you are driving, you consider anybody who drives faster than you to be a maniac, but you think anybody who drives slower than you to be an idiot. 

Since being enlighted by Jerry, I have noticed his comments hit the mark.  It seems all of us believe the speed demons who pass us on the highways of the world will cause people to be injured or die as a result of their recklessness.  At the same time, we all know the slowpokes produce numerous needless crashes as we all slam on our breaks to compensate for their traffic clogging over cautiousness.

I believe I have found the exact right speed to drive.  It maximizes the speed and safety of civic society to coexist and prosper alongside each other.  Please set your cruise control to the exact level of my Tahoe.

The world is moving into a phase—one with masks.  Or maybe one without masks.  

Modern COVID-19 times have many people applying the logic of faster/slower cars on the road to other people’s approaches to our current situation. 

At times you are made to feel you want people to die if you skip wearing a mask or open your business.  While others see people with masks and assume they don’t care about the job loss, or that our government is taking away our civil liberties. 

The situation is obviously much more complicated than the paragraph above. But it is a world with fistfights breaking out because people are told to put on a mask or because they are choosing not to wear a mask.

We tend to give ourselves more credit for being more righteous than our fellow man, while at the same time judging others as reckless because they aren’t complying with our standards.

Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book “Talking to Strangers” does a great job of helping us sort through our current situation.  “Talking to Strangers” lays out the case for understanding others before jumping to conclusions about their actions.  Understanding where people are coming from helps us understand why they are taking the path they are taking.  

I recently served on a panel with a speaker who referred to assuming positive intent as a critical point in all of her interactions.  At Willmar Electric, we agree wholeheartedly with this concept.  It is why we made it an underlining assumption within our company’s published “Meeting Code of Conduct.”

Seinfeld can’t use my example because it would get him booed off the stage. But most COVD-19 rants make me think of his routine from over 30 years ago.  Thirty years from now, I’m sure we will still have issues where each of us believes we have found the perfect balance between the maniacs and the idiots.

Do I Raise the Average

Motivational Speaker Jim Rohn has been credited with coining the phrase, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Please don’t take Rohn’s advice too literally.  Hanging out with five celebrity chefs isn’t going to make your meals worthy of a cooking show.  Assuming you are open to their suggestions, it should make you a better cook. Of course, it might cause you to add some extra pounds.

Rohn’s concept is so elementary.  If you hang around smart people, you get smarter. 

Spend time with people who lie and cheat, and you will become a better liar and cheater.  Yuck.

Famous Businessman, Philanthropist, and Author W. Clement Stone wrote: “be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.”  Stone is advancing the same logic as Rohn’s.  We become who we spend our time with and our time around.

During this era of sheltering at home, it is much easier for us to figure out who the five people are you spending the most time with.  (Hopefully, you’re figuring out a way to connect with at least five people).

Usually, this type of advice is given to people to encourage them to look at who they are hanging out with and making sure those people are a good influence, and they are helping maximize their potential. 

I think we can all relate.  We have all have had people in our lives we know are a good influence on us and make us better.  We also have all have had people in our lives we know are a bad influence on us and make us worse. 

For just one moment, I would like to challenge you to reverse the logic of Rohn and Stone’s famous quotes.

Ask yourself what influence you are having on the people around you.  Do you raise the level of others?  What are you doing to improve the environments of the people around you?

I realize most of us seldom stop to think about what our specific influence is on the people around us.  Especially if we don’t have something to gain in the short term.  But imagine a world where people thought in those terms more often. Imagine a world where we each focused on being an influence of good.  It would be a much better place to live. 

A true win-win-win.  The person you are influencing wins because you are lifting them.  You win because it feels better to build something than it does to tear something down.  Everybody else wins because the two of you are a positive influence.

As the shelter at home restrictions slowly get removed, and we all get the chance to mingle more with a larger group of people, the world is going to know from the people I spent my time with if I raised or lowered the average of the people around me.

Waiting for Somebody Else to Do the Right Thing.

Later this month, we will cross over the second anniversary of moving into our new house.  We love our new home.  We have loved it since day one. It is located on a local golf course and offers beautiful views of lush green grass and trees. 

The beautiful view was one of the main reasons we build our the house where we did. 

But one piece of frustration has been with us since day one.  A the bottom of our view is a pile of what used to be a barbed-wire fence—mixed in with the barbed wire, is some white piping.  From our dining room window, it looks like trash.

The main reason it looks like trash is because it is trash. 

We complained to the contractor who built our house.  They told us it was part of the golf course the property and we should contact them.

We contacted the golf course several times.  They never got back to us.  I did once see a young groundskeeper who was picking up trash go over to the pile and grab some of the wire.  He quickly pulled his hand back.  I can only assume he found out it was barbed.  Being poked by the pile promptly brought him to the same position the rest of the golf course staff seemed to have about the situation. 

Let’s just leave the pile of trash alone.

We have mentioned it to fellow neighbors.  They always agreed it looked like trash, and they joined us in complaining to the golf course.  But they also didn’t hear back from the golf course. 

Over time rock got placed on top of the fencing materials, and mud washed over it, making the barbered wire get buried in the dirt.  But the eyesore remained. 

It was clear nobody had any plans to get rid of this trash.  The longer it sat, the more it became permanent. 

My wife, Sue, and I thought it was a problem.  We thought somebody should do something about it. 

Our thinking has been it isn’t our problem.  It is somebody else’s problem. It’s not on our land and we didn’t put it there!

But since it only really bugged the two of us and nobody else was taking action, it was our problem.

So this weekend, I put on my leather gloves and a pair of work shoes and set out to see what it would take to move this pile of trash up the hill 50 yards to the construction dumpster on the street.  (The contractor who built our house is building another house nearby).

I moved some rocks and pulled.  It moved the pile slightly. 

I moved some more rocks and pulled some more.  I got more movement.

I repeated the process several more times, and in what seemed like no time, I had the pile moved next to the dumpster.  The victory was ours.  The trash is gone. (The next day the contractor but the trash into the dumpster).

All the time we spent trying to get the “right” people to do the “right” thing and clean up their mess was a waste of time.  We spent hours of our lives complaining to people trying to get the issue cleared up.  When I stopped complaining and went into action mode, it took about ½ hour. 

Have I become a world-class enabler?  Will the golf course start to think I will do their work for them consistently?  No, and doubtful. 

I’m happier, and my view has improved.  I feel kind of foolish.  Why did I let an issue I could solve myself bother me so much?

Embrace, Quit, or Improve

The best golf advice I ever received was “if you’re a boogie golfer approach each hole with a plan to bogey the hole.” In case you not familiar with the term bogey, it is finishing a hole with one stroke over par.  Once I put this philosophy into place, I started to golf better.  My scores started to get closer to par!!!

(Please stick with this story even if you hate golf.  I will get beyond golf before it is over).

Let me back up a step. I’m sure; everybody has had the experience where we turn in the performance of a lifetime. 

Perhaps you have gone out and shot a round of golf about ten strokes lower than usual.   You walk away thinking you are the guy who should be shotting a 77 every time you play. 

Then the next time you play lose six balls and find taking solace in the fact that although you lost two sleeves of balls, you are a net winner because you found a random collection of 7 “new to you” balls looking for the balls, you hit out of bounds.

Granted, your “new” balls are mostly brand names you have never heard of with business logos from places you aren’t even sure what business they are in, you are still happy with your new windfall.  You almost forget the 12 penalty strokes you should be adding to your score.*  (See footnote below).

The brief moment of happiness you get from your better than the typical performance leaves you with a lifetime of failing to live up to your new lofty expectation for yourself.

I realize I’m getting lost in golf with my example above.  But the same logic applies to other areas in life. 

For example, we can apply the same logic to shooting free throws. If you are a career 60% free throw shooter and you make nine out of ten the next time you play, you are now a 61% free throw shooter.  You can consider yourself a 90% shooter if you have changed something in your approach shooting.  Otherwise, you can look forward to making about six out of your next ten shots.

Would you like me to give a non-sports example?

Let’s says you tend to make rock hard cookies or burn the cake, but one day everything comes together, and you make a “to die for.” dessert. 

I think you get the picture.

Many of us seem out of touch with who we are, frustrated with where we are, and our situation.  My experience when things go right, we attribute the results to ourselves, and when something goes wrong, it is bad luck.

So I’ve adopted a stress-reducing way to live my life, and I I want to pass it along.    

It seems we all have three choices.  Accept our current performance for what it is.  See ourselves as not cut out for the task at hand and move on to something else.  Realize we need to work to improve our performance.

I challenge you to make a list of this you are doing with your time.   Put each item into one of those three categories; Not cut out to do, happy with the current level of performance, and the things you need to improve.   

With the list of things, you’re not cut out to do, stop doing them.

With the list of things you are happy with your current level of performance, stop having

Anxiety over them, and enjoy them.

With the list of things, you want to improve, come up with an improvement plan.  If you can’t come up with an improvement plan, the item should move to one of the other lists.  

I promise if you try this system out, you will be happier with your results, and you will see improvement with several things. You will stop trying to accomplish the unlikely, and you will have a plan for improving things you have a realistic chance at improving.

By the way, golf is on my improvement list, free throws are on my happy with the current level of performance list, and baking is on my not cut out the to-do list.

*It is essential to note you do need to count these strokes when asked about your score by a fellow golfing buddy, but you don’t have to report these strokes when reporting into your wife.  A wife could think golf is a waste of money.  High scores might make her think you are a lousy golfer, and you should give up playing!  Here is a great chance to let her know you made money because you have more golf balls in your bag than when you left. 

Our 100th Birthday

On April 20^th Willmar Electric will turn 100 years old.  We had planned several parties to celebrate the milestone and the many people who made it possible. 

We have no idea how many people have helped us reach this milestone.

We know six different Chapins across four generations have owned all or part of the company.  Each of us has had the loving support of a kind and understanding spouse.  Many more of our sons, daughters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins have worked alongside the six of us as we have tried to make our family business something the entire Chapin family could put our name alongside.

We currently have over 140 coworkers who we proudly stand side by side with day after day.  But thousands came before us.

Our customers are too numerous to count.  We would struggle to count each of the individuals we have worked with at each of those customers. 

Our vendors and suppliers are also too numerous to count.  Like our customers, we could never hope to identify all the individuals from those organizations.

Nearly every project we have ever done involves several other trades.  Those other trades are an essential part of our longevity, and they have helped us more than we can list in this brief letter. 

We also owe a debt to many fellow electrical contractors who have to help us understand and improve our business.

We have enjoyed the support of countless business professionals: accountants, bankers, insurance brokers, bonding agents, and attorneys that have helped guide us to this milestone.

Numerous government officials, including inspectors and elected officeholders, have helped provide a cooperative environment where we could provide a safe product efficiently to our customers.

We have served alongside and benefited from many civic organizations, associations, and business groups who have helped us make our communities and industry a better place to live and work. 

Since we can’t put a number to all the people, it is hard to know where to start to thank this large group of people. 

Decades ago, we adopted the purpose statement of “People Making A Difference For People.” 

It is easy to understand who makes up the first group of people in our purpose statement.  We often get asked who the second group of people is we are referring to when we introduce people to our purpose statement.  With the second “people,” we are referring to all the groups of people we acknowledge above.

Every day each the first set of people works to live up to our purpose statement when we interact with each other and the second group of people.

The extended version of our purpose statement could have been, the employees of Willmar Electric making a difference for our coworkers, customers, vendors, suppliers, related business professionals, competition, government officials, and civic organization.

If you ever find us not living up to this statement, please let us know. 

More importantly, if you ever find one of our coworkers making a difference for people, please let them know, it means a lot.  Everybody likes to succeed, and your feedback will help our coworkers know they are making the difference they are trying so hard to make in the lives of others.

Sometime this year, when we are all allowed to come out to play, we are going to have the parties we already planned. 

For now, we are sending out this note to thank all the people who helped us get to 100. 

Did my 401k Tank?

I recently shared some very personal information with my coworkers.  They seemed interested, so now I am sharing it with the world. 

Last week somebody asked if I dared to look at my 401k yet.  I commented; it didn’t matter what today’s balance is because I can’t do anything with it for 8.5 years. 

(I don’t plan on retiring in 8.5 years, but I will be 59.5 years old then, and that as far as I know is the first date I could withdraw the money without penalty).

Another person commented on how this is a good time to invest because stocks are on sale.  True, but that doesn’t help my current balance go up, it only helps future balances increase faster. 

So, I am letting you know what my rate of return has been.  But notice I never just pull the data for one day, like the entire media loves to do. The markets hit an all-time high on February 19^th.  I was so excited I had a party and ate pie.   People walked around, congratulating me!  

But until we hit an all-time high again, your rate of return will always be a negative number. 

So go ahead and pull several dates and see what your rate of return is and I’m sure you will find sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is terrible.  In my case, most of the time, it is good.

So go ahead and check out your rates of return.  But keep in mind every day isn’t as awesome as my 51^st birthday.  So don’t use it as your only benchmark. 

This information doesn’t include the amount I have deducted from my paycheck or the amount matched by Willmar Electric every week. What you see above is just the return on the investments made on my behalf.

Keep saving for your retirement because someday it will come, and you will want to have as much money as possible on hand.  (But if you run a TV network only give out information that will cause people to tune in tomorrow).