How can incremental improvements lead to major victories for our company?

Today I’m joined by Michael Anthony Lord, the Vice President of Field Operations for 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Michael is an operations superstar and manages not only a remote team, but an entire network of franchisees.

We got deep into the tactical nitty gritty of navigating all the changes that come with business and how to set yourself up for success every step of the way.

My favorite part is that by making incremental improvements, we not only improve business performance, but we also establish a culture of winning on our team.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lord-837ab164/

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Discover how to work with me: https://www.adamliette.com/work-with-me

Transcript

Adam Liette
You guys know how jazzed up I get because I am finding the most amazing people out there on the internet in the world to bring onto this show to give you guys actionable steps, and today is no exception. I'm particularly geeking out about this one because I have another operations person in the house. Man, we just geek out on operations all day long. But let's dive in here cuz today I'm joined with the Vice President of Field Operations for one 800 got junk Michael Lord. Michael is a self proclaimed operations efficiency nerd who pull up my heartstrings brother. And he runs remote operations for a an incredibly large organization. And we're just going to have a ball of a time diving in today. Thank you so much for joining me, Michael. How's everything going for you?

Michael Anthony Lord
Adam, I am feeling really good. I'm on vacation this week. So I'm trying to stay out of my inbox and having some fun with my daughter. We've we've had a nice, very nice few days here. Thanks for asking.

Adam Liette
Nice vacation guys, we can take them. Let me give you a little hack tip, Michael. My team had permission to yell at me if they saw me in Slack. So that's one thing I gave my team. And my daughter's like, took my laptop away. It was crazy. I couldn't find it for like four days. The last time I was on vacation. So yeah, fully failure on the stay out of the inbox. But yeah, brother enjoy your enjoy your vacation.

Michael Anthony Lord
I am loving it. And you know what I've done? My hack is, I have just taken all the work apps off my phone, like every single one is off. And it's it feels a little quiet. But man, is it been great to recharge my batteries? So I'll take that away. Just hide your stuff. Yeah. And I'll get my team to yell at me too. I love that. Thanks.

Adam Liette
That's another good one. Those apps you can reload. But yeah, I love that, that you deleted the app. So it's like a mini victory when when we do that when we give ourselves that space to recharge. It's hard to do for us right, though? Because we're, we're always in the weeds, right? We're always involved with our team. So how has that been for you? Like, in the preparation for going on vacation? And like how do you, like prepare yourself for this type of thing?

Michael Anthony Lord
Adam, I'm very fortunate to have a really strong team at the moment. So I've got a lot of trust. And a lot of a lot of bank with them doing what they do. But But you're right, like operations is perpetual. We don't get to take a break. As long as the business is open or ready to open or we've just closed their doors. There's always going to be something to do. But yeah, I think it's like, for me, it's how you bringing in the right people and giving them the tools and resources. And then when I close my eyes and I go to sleep at night, I've got a lot of trust that they're going to do, they're going to do a fantastic job, which is great.

Adam Liette
Fantastic, love it, love it, everything about supporting our people, giving them everything they need. And then trust guys, you just need to trust that they're going to do the right thing. And they will do the right thing because you train them. So we establish that pattern in our business. We give them what they need. And we support them and the people deliver, you know, people are good. And when we treat them, right, they do good for us. So tell us a bit more about the organization that you're in charge of in some of your some of your daily roles and what you do.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, so Field Operations is the the piece the organization, I have the privilege to be accountable for so and the organization is one 800 got junk. So we're the world's largest junk removal company. We're in the United States, we're in Australia, and we're in Canada. Fuel operations is the arm of the business that ultimately comes down to this next statement, which is to support the success of our franchisee businesses, and protecting the healthy sustainable growth of our brand. So that's a large community of franchisees, Adam, we're a 100% franchise business. And we have these locations all over the world. And my team goes and travels those locations or supports them virtually. And we install the best practices that are curated from the community. We give them some system mapping around the best way to do it. We support them with some training and performance management as well. So we do a lot of stuff off In the last mile, have initiatives and programs in the business to help each of our franchisees be successful. So we really look at it, we do our best to look at it as a each business being successful, not just the organization of wanting hire guide drunk, but the the individual business owner.

Adam Liette
And that's really interesting, because it's franchisees, so they're not employees, you can't order them per se, you can guide them, right, I think it's a different dynamic that you have to have with a franchisee versus an employee. Right?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, it's, it's quite niche in the business world, because like, you know, you go on LinkedIn, and you look for like, regional manager as a role, and you're gonna get a lot of people that have direct reports. So like, whether that be the retail world Home Services, I mean, even even manufacturing, there's always going to be somebody when there's multi unit to support operations or business success in the franchise world. You know, we've got some, we've got some minimum requirements and some expectations that we have an agreement with our franchisees with, and they have some expectations of us as well. It's a partnership, it's a two way street. But yeah, I mean, it is at times difficult for us as the field leaders to get our franchisees to collaborate with us with certain topics, because they have their own initiatives, they have their own priorities. There's a few ways we do that. You know, I think it starts with trust, trust does make or break, and that is on the franchisee, and the franchisor, the need to trust each other, we're never going to be able to function at full strength. Without that, we can certainly operate shoulder to shoulder but that full strength is important. It's the cornerstone of successful business relationships, the franchisor is going to have to rely on the franchisee to do some things, and we're gonna have to do some things. And ultimately, there are missteps, from time to time, maybe on both sides. But ultimately, we need to do what's best for the organization, which means to be transparent, to share that information, to show that we have some we have some values that are the same. And to to get us where we need to go, which is which is what everybody wants, which is growth, growth and profit growth of our people growth the brand. So yeah, starts with that for sure.

Adam Liette
And with that large of an organization, I've been really nerding out on culture, and like company culture, like establishing kind of that, that heartbeat that keeps the company moving in that same direction, like how do you in? Or do you, like try to install unique core company culture in the franchisee world, or does that work.

Michael Anthony Lord
So this is something that one 800 got junk actually does quite well is we have a really fun, inclusive culture within our franchise community. So when we get everybody together in the same room a couple of times a year, we do a bait, we do a fantastic conference. And then we also do some other business connects where we try to get everybody together, the collaboration, the communication, the care that everybody has to support each other is is really something that started very early, through our founder, Brian Scudamore and has been through various leaders have been able to be sustained. And then on the other hand, there is there is many different cultures. So we've got some business units that are really focused on culture by driving transparency and communication. Some are really about fun, I'm thinking of a franchise on the West Coast, that it's all about their team, having fun. And then another I'm thinking of is really down in Philadelphia, really, really intentional about driving personal and professional growth. And so there's, there's some differences, how we support that as a remote team and as a field team, really complex. And it takes us a while to get the flywheel going, because we just have to ask so many questions to understand where each business is at and how we fit in and how we help.

Adam Liette
It's a never ending learning the opportunity to write, you get to see what these other franchisees are doing, you get to see what's working in some places versus others. And so you get to constantly learn and even adapt your own workflows, your own way of approaching things by virtue of being in that same within the gravity of that other person. Right.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. And it's connected to your previous question about like, how do you work with a franchise community a lot of it is what you just said so well, it's it's curating those best practices and sharing the experiences that we have working with all the other franchisees because we're often like a conduit so there's there's a franchisee that's really successful in personal growth and the franchisee you know, two states over it's like, I want some of that. How do I do that? So my team does Are we will do our very best to try to translate that information. Connect those franchisee leaders between each other, sometimes to a little bit of matchmaking get people together so we can learn. And that that's really the power of franchise business is you have ideally like minded business leaders that can that can share their shared experiences, and learn from each other in like business. Because if you're on your own, collecting that information from your competitors, or you know, just through, you know, Google, you're not going to get that same, that same squeeze in terms of value. And that's, that's one of the cool parts about the business, I get to Oregon.

Adam Liette
Do you have any ninja tricks for like actually collecting all that stuff? We talked about it, but it's like, I don't know how to do it at the scale. You're doing it as at or, like, have those best practices?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I mean, I, man, I'm, it's simple, but it's complex. And that's asking questions. Like, it's like a mike. Okay, no brainer. No brainer. Yes, Adam. But I think it's to show that you're genuinely interested. And when you ask those questions, really leaning in to get the motivation behind what they're doing tons of subsets and follow up questions, and just to fully understand the depth and how they're doing it, and being able to record that information. And I'll share what does not work is surveys with surveys are not the way to collect information this year. And I this this statement may not age well. So when we're listening to this in six months, I don't know. But it surveys has not been the way for me to collect information this year. So it's thing it's in person, asking questions, showing your invested showing you're really interested. And then taking that information and doing something with it. If you're just asking to ask, you'll start to get some resistance and maybe some fatigue.

Adam Liette
Hmm, that's interesting. And that's really helpful. I think, like surveys have been such a, they're drilled into our head from certain, you know, influencers will call them, but to know that they have worked. That's, that's really helpful. I mean, tremendously helpful. And what I found is the best leaders I know, and the best leaders I've had the privilege of working around, also asked the best questions, like they are constantly inquisitive and constantly trying to understand more, and they're doing it through that questioning. That's really interesting. And definitely a learning point is get better at asking good questions, and you will get good answers for sure.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I doubled down on your your learning about working with those leaders and asking great questions. Adam, totally agree with you.

Adam Liette
Absolutely. So in the, in the current time we're in, you know, it's right at the end of 2022, over recording this, which there's a bit of headwinds. There's some weird things going on in the market, especially in Michaels business where he's, you know, with the housing market and everything like that. And I know we talked a lot about in our pre interview about efficiency and different ways that you are approaching that right now. Like, what can you tell us about becoming a more efficient organization, organization? Some of the practices that you're seeing work? Well,

Michael Anthony Lord
yeah, I mean, so yeah, acknowledge your statement around like, you know, the timing of this. I think there's also a lot of perpetual learnings from this conversation. So want to just call out like, I think, like, globally, business should always be looking at heightened operations efficiency. But yeah, I mean, there's, there's lots going on at the moment. So when I think about what really operations efficiency is, to me, it's costs incurred, versus output. And we can measure that a whole bunch of different ways. We can use some operations speak and talk about revenue, per se segments, sales per hour unit sold units delivered per hour. But really, it's about what you get from what you do or what you spend money on. And there's, there's a lot of things to think about. And there's some times really big things you can do to drive some substantial increases in overall overall efficiency. And then there's some really small things you can also do, you know, I was I was talking to somebody last week, appear not in the same business as me, but somewhere else. And he was talking about how he was able to save his business, a ton of money just by installing a different type of light switches in his warehouse, and I'm like, What are you talking about here? And he goes, Well, Mike, it's 20 cents per kilowatt hour. needs. So you say two cents. Every time you turn off the light bulb, you got 30 lights, and then he's got all this math, and he puts it through all of his warehouses. He's got six on the west coast for on the East Coast, and he's saving tours and $50,000 just by having some moderation around light bulbs. My mind is blown, because that's really no efforts. And I think that's the whole foundation of this conversation about efficiency is, there's a lot of things that are going to be really painful to do. That's a lot of change management. But there's also a lot of things you can do to just make a massive change in how you're in spending and investing money by doing some really simple stuff. And so in this conversation, here's, here's, here's my advice coming out at him, it's coming out. Don't overthink this, as business leaders, when you're looking at your own business, look at incremental change to how you're mitigating cost on your output. Atomic habits, right like, great, great book. That's what we're talking about is what James clear talks about, which is doing a little bit every day, and ensuring none of those processes fall off. That's, that's how you're gonna get a lot more squeezed.

Adam Liette
That is profound, because we're talking about minor adjustments. And we know, working with teams like working with people, that they're there, if you start talking about major change, like I get uncomfortable, and we can't imagine what our employees are feeling. But if we're talking to incremental, this is a whole different. It's not even the same discussion. It's asking people to make incremental changes, minor adaptations from what they're doing so much easier. And if you add up enough of those things, then you're starting to see a whole lot of juice, right?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, absolutely. What one more customer a day mentality versus, you know, a million dollars more in revenue. And here, like, let's talk about one more customer a day. And what we need to do to get that customer through our doors is that better sales, that better marketing is that keeping our doors open later. But I think that is going to have be the best way for people to start to get that efficiency, get those extra revenue dollars in the business. And here's the thing is, what you called out at the start of this conversation was like, hey, there's a lot of stuff going on right now. And a lot of businesses are succeeding. And a lot of businesses are not because of some of the challenges in the marketplace, there's a lot a lot of stuff in our news feeds, and what's going on there. But here's the thing, Adam, and I really want to lean into this with you, it's the businesses that do best in this environment, are going to come out of this so much stronger, because of the processes they implement, because of the the grit. And because the resilience of their teams were others, mainly because they're lazy, they don't have the competence, they don't have the energy, don't lean in to this opportunity. Those customers are going to go to the people that are really invested in efficiency really invest in growth right now. So it's a huge opportunity for I mean, I want your listeners to hear this is a huge opportunity, if you have the ability to really lean into what's happening right now. My two cents on that. And I love the debate on this one, I was chatting with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and we were debating on like, what, what should we do to react when these changes happen? Well, we're gonna have to get really good at it, I don't, because the way that customers are consuming products and services, and the way that the world is changing is at a pace that is unprecedented. So we're gonna have to keep thinking about these efficiency conversations and how we can how we can get past cost pressures and just grow the crap out of our businesses.

Adam Liette
Well, it's true. I mean, science proves this. We know this from the past, more millionaires are created during times of recession than any other time period. This is the opportunity time. So if you find yourself struggling in your own business, or needing to make these changes to become more competitive, there's, this is a great opportunity, guys. Because we're in a time of the turmoil, but we're in it, we're in that constant change management and market that constant fluctuation that the markets doing, which, if you flip your script on it, you can see as an opportunity was with your team. I'm always curious about this one. How having been through a couple of these various things myself, past couple of years? How do you lead your team? And how do you be the resilient ones sometimes that rock they need to lean on when we're dealing with with times of change?

Michael Anthony Lord
Ah, well, I also have a great product to lean on, Adam. So I'll start with that. Like, I am very fortunate to work with some leaders that are highly resilient and highly experienced. So I'm always learning and so I'll often lean on a bigger rock is the shorter answer in terms of leading the team?

I think a lot about transparency, to drive that confidence and trust. So like, transparency, very foundational, so honest, open communication. I try to take every chance I get to show transparency, even if it's a tough message, or if there's conflict, or if there's bad news. I think without that, especially if there's some tough questions being asked, or there's some uncertainty or some feelings, or, or Hey, Mike, where's my career going? Or, or, or, or, if you don't have that, and people can't count on you for that, I think it's overall difficult to, to work and lead in any team.

Adam Liette
Very much. So. It's funny. I recently brought on a new client who's going to be working with me to level up his own operations. And he asked his operator to start documenting what she was doing. And as operator got freaked out, like, are you trying to replace me? Like what's going on here? Oh, no, we're bringing on this guy who's going to help us optimize. But he didn't lead with that conversation. So that could have gotten really bad for him. Thankfully, he did it. But transparency is so monumental. And I think that's one of the big changes in the last, like, couple decades of business. Would you agree? Or? Like, I don't know, have you seen transparency grow?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I, you know, I, I've worked in a few organizations, where I felt a lot of transparency and others where there's been a lack thereof. And certainly, I'm more committed to those that are open to sharing information. It just, it helps us understand the decisions that are being made, why they're being why they're why they're making them. And I think overall just makes a higher investment to the leaders. Hmm. Adam, question for you around transparency. Is there sir? Is there any advice that you would share to either your listeners or anything else else around this topic, because I, I'm getting this one bubbling up a lot lately, as well. And I'd love to hear if you have any, any thoughts on this? Oh,

Adam Liette
man, we turn the tables on me love it. Um, A lot of this isn't how you build your team and how you're leading your team. I've always I try to portray the fact that I am the foundation and they can't come to me with anything. So being even being on a fully remote team, when you have to deliver these types of candid conversations, be candid about them. Let them know what the plan is, let them know there is a plan, let them know we're working on it. And then keep the door open. So I've done so many, one to one, one off conversations, moments where my team felt they had to get vulnerable with me and more comfortable doing it in that group dynamic. But we had to break off into a one to one to one where I opened that door and said, If you have questions, if you have concerns come to me, just opening that door. And if nothing less, giving your team members a chance to download whatever emotions they're feeling and get it out. You might not be able to solve it right there. But sometimes just being able to say something out loud and express your vulnerabilities to someone who's going to be understanding not judgmental, help you through that processing. Even if we can't give them the right answer and say, Oh, everything's gonna be great. Well, it might not be great. But just having that door open has solved so many problems before they started.

Michael Anthony Lord
That's great advice. Adam, I like I like that you just allow people to ask some direct questions, make some comments. And I like the fact like your points around like, and even if they don't, you made the effort and you show that you care. That's great.

Adam Liette
And the final bit I'll put on that is have different ways of, of communicate different communication modalities that you're using. When you're in this type of environment. Some people are able to express themselves verbally, some people have to write it down. Some people have to draw a picture whatever i Everyone expresses themselves a little bit different. So allowing for that diversity of communication will allow for those really candid conversations I once had have a direct report. We got on the he sent me his like pre because we did a one to one at the end of every month and I had this worksheet to fill out before the one to one. And his one to one written was all rosy keen, everything's wonderful. And he got on the call with me and he was darn near in tears because he was at at this moment. Wow. So it's just one example of super rosy written down, gets on the phone with me and is almost breaking down because he wasn't comfortable expressing himself through the written word, he could only do it verbally. Yeah, people are so different. And I think if we respect that, and instead of running from it lean into it, just like we're talking about with efficiency and all the things that are coming up, we know they're coming. Do you guys want to run from or lean into them? I know what I want to do. I'm gonna lean all the way in. It's gonna be fun.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, for sure. Great story there, I, I've been in a couple of scenarios myself, where I've gotten the communication vehicle wrong. And you just you're not able to support the team the same way that you had intended. So that's, that's, that's good advice you shared there as well.

Adam Liette
Fantastic. And with that, since we're on team, let's stay on team for a while there, um, how many people do currently lead? How many direct reports do you have?

Michael Anthony Lord
Currently, there are five direct reports. And then the whole team is around round 14 people. The organization is is pretty large on the corporate side, were a few 100. And then in the franchisee community, it's, it's much, much bigger than that.

Adam Liette
Awesome. And is there anything that has really helped you become that better team leader and communicate and keep things on the straight and narrow with your team?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I've gotten I've gotten if I'm going to put my own tires around that question, it's going to sound like this, I've gotten pretty good at asking for candid feedback. And really leaning in this is I'm saying leading in a lot in this meaning it's leading into that candid feedback. So if somebody says, hey, I need to do a bit more of this and a little less of this, do it or, or even better follow up and ask them questions to understand it better? Because I often find comes back to that survey question is People ask all these questions, they want to understand how you can be a better leader, but they don't do anything with it. That's eroding trust and not not building it. And then I think the second thing is just to show that you're invested in the people. And I want to be clear like this, this last statement, your item is not just a me and my team thing, this is just, I think the way that organization should work is know your people, like know the names of your people's kids, we've This is not new advice. We've, we've read this in many articles over the years, but just do it. Like actually do it every every time people say this, oh, get to know your team, get to know your people, what are their motivations? What are their hobbies? And then sometimes I'll ask that person that's giving me giving that advice, like do you know, tell me something about your team member? I don't know. And they don't know. So I think there's just such an opportunity to do that. But actually do it, and actually be invested and come back to the same conversations many, many times and show that you care. And it's hard. It's really hard because it takes a lot of energy. And it can take a lot of note taking. And and the business I'm in, there are 1000s and 1000s of people in our community. And to remember everything about everybody is really, really hard. But you just have to do that if people aren't going to believe that you're not just not just, you know, some type of nebulous leader, but somebody that actually really cares about their team.

Adam Liette
Hmm. Do you have any ninja tricks for keeping track of all that that have worked for you? Oh,

Michael Anthony Lord
boy, I take a lot of notes. Which is good, because I've got something to call back on when I'm prepared. But if I'm in a quick conversation, you know, out of pulling out my cell phone to check my my Google Keep is not the most efficient way and not the way to show people you care. So so I've got a little bit of growing to do there. I didn't really for a meeting here, especially this plan to just be really intense on just in your prep thinking about the people, not just the outcome of the meeting would be probably the best way I can answer that for you.

Adam Liette
Hmm, that's an interesting observation. Like, we get, especially if you're leading the meeting, we get so caught up in our agenda for the meeting. But like preparing that's a good one.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, like what when's the last time you talked to a person on your team? What was the last thing you talked about? Sometimes just coming back to those conversations for such a brief learning moment can yield just a little bit of trust and it shows people you're listening and it shows people you're paying attention and that you value them and I've I learned that from a specific leader that I used to work for. He was the master of memorizing facts about everybody he worked with and it was so awesome. You felt so valued. Every time he checked in with him he would bring up something you talked about in the past or you would tell a story about something that happened and it just made you really committed to working for the guy and I I've tried my best to to capture some of that magic. I have a lot of growing to do there unfortunately but I He was the best. His name is Bob. Great, great, great on that.

Adam Liette
Oh, it's so fantastic. I always think of like the the Michael Scott bit where he had all those cards with like sales leads and he had all the notes on the back of them of their little family things. And I, I do something similar like Evernote. So when I might meet someone new, I have like a template I build out, which has some of those key things in there like family, where are they from? What are their favorite sports? What are their drinks? Like all those little things. So like, I take some of the guesswork out of it. And just, I'm an I'm a nerd for templates. I just can't I can't help myself. I'm wanting to make a template out of everything. So I suppose things like perpetuates for sure. And I think if we look at the economy and how it's changed in the last 10 years, where suddenly even more of us are remote, I think that might contribute even more towards not being as connected as we're told to do. And like you said, like, this is no business secret that we're unveiling here. But in the remote environments, it's just different. Right. And I think that might have contributed to some of the disconnect.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I mean, how we work has changed. Even for those that don't work remote, like there's been a massive disruption to just ways of working think back to when things were pretty hot on the COVID-19 side, like operational processes, health and safety guidelines, the way that people communicate it the way that people showed up, how physically close you are to people like that's a massive disruption. And now we've got this kind of lingering disruption where most organizations have not gone back to their original way of working many, many have many exceptions in that statement, when I say most, but there's been some type of change that's ultimately occurred as a result, we do we do a bit of a hybrid approach. In one 800 Got drunk when I meet the team, it's usually intentional. Being that it's an opportunity for us to get together to be invested in each other to get some sense of work done. Or if there's a lot of collaboration required, like a couple days, we'll get together in a room. The way that we support our franchisees, there was some disruption there, we weren't traveling for a period of time, but our way of working there is been less disrupted, which is which is very, very helpful. We've been able to really get back into into their businesses get back into supporting their teams asking those questions. But yeah, it's different. It's different. I wouldn't say better or worse, just things have changed.

Adam Liette
For sure. And how have those, I love the hybrid model, and I would love to employ it. I'm coming out of a environment where I was fully remote entirely for almost five years. And I didn't actually meet my business partner for those five years. It was crazy. I like finally met in person after it it was it was weird meeting in person after like doing the zoom thing for so many years. What kind of benefits do you see from having those periodic in person meetups?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I mean, when you've got a larger room, sorry. And what I mean by that is more people, Adam, if you have more people, the conversation is more fluid. So you get this efficiency of being more collaborative. When it's virtual, at times in a larger room, like it's difficult, you may accidentally talk over each other, those that are less extroverted, also, it's been my observation, and I've done some reading about this, and a couple articles around those they're a little more introverted, may even be further introverted in the virtual world. So an opportunity to get the whole team collaborating is better in person, my opinion. I think also, in person meetings, they can't be disrupted by all the other stuff that can get in the way of us being really, really invested in the meeting. So it's reality that I sometimes see some multitasking, people are doing some other stuff. You got kids in the next room, you've got you've got, you know, lunches being cooked downstairs. So sometimes there's some disruption there. But that's also a benefit at the same time. Because you're closer to your family, you're closer to an environment that is one that you call your own. People are showing up more energized and engaged because they're taking that extra time instead of commuting to be exercising or spending time with family. So there's, there's certainly lots of pros and cons. virtual meetings I find take less time. Because that social connect that often what happened in a meeting, Adam is a little less I find, and so we often get things done or more done in a meeting that's virtual versus in person when you're kind of just going meeting to meeting to meeting

Adam Liette
because you're hybrid like I've had, I've taken very deliberate steps to introduce some of the social aspect to even a formal meeting, even it's on the back end. Because we were entirely remote and never met in person. But in your case, like, you can build up some of that cultural currency when you're in the in person area, and you're able to do things together team organization, maybe like a fun night together, and then leverage that for the next couple of months while you're back to remote. And it sounds like something, maybe I'm just thinking off the top of my head. But that sounds like something that you would get out of that type of hybrid.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, we get both, which is, which is cool, right? Like when we when we're in person, we try to be intentional, have some fun. We do some great team outings, there's a couple people that I have the privilege to work with on the team that are really creative, on that type of stuff. That's not my strength is creativity around fun, but they do an outstanding job in surfacing some ideas. And yeah, we also do some stuff in team that's very intentional around appreciation and recognition and fun as well, we've done a couple afternoon events also, again, hosted by somebody on the team that's really good at that. And just to make the intents of that that team connect in social Connect.

Adam Liette
It must be an operations guy thing, like we're not good at those things. But the good thing, the big thing from an organizational perspective is you're allowing someone else to be the star for a little bit. That's kind of cool, too, if someone who is that extroverted organizational person, and they're able to, you know, form the team event for the day, and you can take a backseat, guys, we don't have to be in charge of everything.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's That's great advice.

Adam Liette
And when leading teams when working with your your team, like is there been any organizational things that have really helped you keep things moving in, in the remote environment, as far as task management or project management?

Michael Anthony Lord
Not particularly we I mean, we've got some good internal communication systems that were built up already. Our organization actually does. For us actually, one of the things we do do to keep everybody up to speed and comes back to that transparency conversation earlier, we do an organization wide huddle every day at the same time. And so it's hosted by employees of 100 got junk, you can just sign up to be a host. And we do we go through some some numbers and how the business is doing, we do a quick news update from departments, and then any critical information that's shared, we do that every single day. And because we have that as the cornerstone of the way that we communicate, that transparency piece transcends into the way that we just generally communicate and get things done. So whether that be using chat emails, we do have quite a bit of meetings. But we work hard to make sure that we're always focused on the things that come from those daily meetings, because it helps drive your business forward.

Adam Liette
Hmm, I love the daily huddle. I'm a big fan of The Daily huddle. And to see it being employed on a company of that scale. I think it just reinforces the idea of that daily huddle being a critical part. And if you're like, Well, Adam, I have a small team, I can't do a daily huddle. Yeah, you can. And I'll teach you a little ninja trick. If your team is remotely dispersed, you can do a virtual huddle. So I used to do my huddle, filmed to zoom, it would be in the cloud, and then I disperse it via slack to the team. So we're still able to have that daily communication, even if we can't do the physical or the same timezone coordination. Like it sounds like you guys are doing.

Michael Anthony Lord
So if you had like a team member that was like traveling or with a client, they could just watch the recording and you'd follow up there and share it out. That's great.

Adam Liette
Exactly. Yeah, go team was spread. Our CEO was in London, but we were spread from London to New Zealand. So yeah, time zones.

Unknown Speaker
That's a few time zones. That's

Adam Liette
just a couple. At one point, I had loved these devices. I had like six different time zones that would show up on my computer. I just like click the button. So you were everyone was it's important right timezone sort of thing.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, I've we've got a few people. I mean, we support Australia, and there's a few time zones there for sure. So we're we always have to be thinking on the team like how and when we're communicating. I've got a peer out of eastern Canada and he's he's four hours ahead so just trying to be really cognitive there. Your your comments around, you know, London to to New Zealand. You said though that's a whole different level like that. That's like, complete opposite side must have been certainly a challenge to communicate.

Adam Liette
It was a learning experience, but that's what all these things are opportunities. To continue to love ourselves up, for sure. And I nerd out on those things, because they're great. So I know that you've done a lot. We talked about KPIs a couple of times they've come up, especially around efficiency. Like how I've always I've tried a couple of things like to track KPIs, are there any tricks that you've used that have really helped you manage that flow?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I mean,

Michael Anthony Lord
one of the things I've tried to focus on this year, is to focus on either building new reports, or refining are our data that's shared to our franchise community that's actionable. So just, that's important, because if everything's investigative, we simply are spending a lot of time and energy talking about things that we maybe can't control. Or we don't have an operational process to impact the efficiency around. So just that's that's been a bit of a change, because many of the businesses that I've worked in a lot of the data points have been like, strictly informational, or investigative. And I think there's just an opportunity to pivot away from that. So your listeners hear this is actionable data is the answer to Adams question is the primary foundation for this conversation. And then, yeah, on top of that, you know, getting away from reports that are spreadsheets will probably be my second thing is, how do we visualize data in a way that's digestible? And so you think about you think about just like a spreadsheet report that's got 26 rows and, you know, 30 columns, and a lot of KPIs. And we have that want to be really clear we have in our business, it's one of our most popular reports, but it doesn't at times, maybe do a great job of highlighting the opportunity in a clear way that you can walk away and go, Okay, there's an action for this. And that comes right back to the conversation, we started with around operations efficiency, because if you're not able to do something with that, to drive the business forward, be it profitability, be it sales, be it around people metric, I just get a little challenged on if it's worth spending a lot of energy on.

Unknown Speaker
Hmm. I love that. So

Adam Liette
it's kind of reverse engineering our KPIs based on what we know we have control over and what we know can make a difference. Right? So you're starting with the question first versus collecting data, because you heard that we should collect this from somebody, or because that's the way we've always done it. My personal favorite line from business, or life and

Michael Anthony Lord
business is different. My business is different. Yeah, yeah. And then the second part around your question around managing KPIs and managing performance, just benchmarking is so powerful. Like, if you, if you don't know the score, you can't play the game of business, like you have to know where you are versus, ideally, your competitors. But if you can't get that, at least, like businesses, or like minded business people get on the phone, and the people that are open and open to talking to you about the performance, their businesses, just benchmarking where you are versus where they are so powerful. And then in the business, I'm in like, you know, call it regional management or operations consulting, it's because we have lots of stores and locations, looking at how different businesses are performing and then collecting and curating those best practices, installing operational processes, efficiency related or sales related into the businesses to close the gap on the benchmark. So if you've got a business, you've got, like, let's say, a grocery store, doing an outstanding job in Ohio, and then we got another we got another location that's not doing an outstanding job. It's only a state away. Why is that? And then we can start asking those questions and really understanding what processes need to be put in place. And so yeah, two things. visualizing data that is that is actionable was the first and then two is benchmarking so powerful? And I think a really underrated conversation when we're looking at just overall business performance through reporting.

Adam Liette
Hmm, I wouldn't say visualizing, are you talking like charts and stuff? Or like what kind of ways would you visualize the data?

Michael Anthony Lord
It would certainly depend on the data but like the plainest graph can be too boring to catch notice or understand to make that powerful point. And then the more stunning visualizations could also fail, because you may not be conveying the right message to speak to because there's too much information kind of goes to that sec, that point I was making earlier around like spreadsheet data where it's this overwhelming, gigantic file of data like where do you start? I think anytime we're looking at data, it's that storytelling piece. So if you're using a report or you're you're presenting information, how do you make it as simple as possible to try Have you tried that point for it would probably be the way that I would recommend anybody to proceed with that. Hmm.

Adam Liette
So it's taking that raw data that's in that spreadsheet, and then presenting it basically. So it's not necessarily like a dashboard or something, but it's how you're presenting it to leadership or to your, your team, right?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, yeah, totally can go that way. You know, when we're, when we're making a very specific point, using that data, and pulling it out of a report can be really useful. Also, if, you know, of course, we're finding that we have to do that often, there could be an opportunity just to make the report better, and to visualize what we need versus just to be using stuff to put it somewhere else. Because, because Adam, that would not be operationally efficient to continuously take data out of the sheet and throw it into a slide deck, because that's going to take time, and it's time that could be spent doing something to drive the business forward.

Adam Liette
Oh, but Sprich Oh, sorry. No, that's my previous employee. That was a military. Yay. Because they love spreadsheets for and, and slide decks for no reason. No, yeah, we don't have to do it that way. Yay. Fantastic. And I love what you said about benchmarks, too, like, I use this on the micro level and the macro level. So on the micro level, we're talking about efficiency and direct reports and like managing our team, like what are what are your individual team members benchmarks? And what are we trying to improve on from for them? So like, that idea of benchmarks as where are we coming from, so we can know where we're going? I think it's so powerful in our people. Share, share with me this something you you've experienced, too, I think when we give people direction, and we give them actionable steps to improve that direction. If people respond to that, from my experience, and when you give them that roadmap, and here's what we want to improve and why.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, absolutely. You're, you're arming your team with the resources to be successful. And it's not just go do a thing is do a thing. And here's why. And here's some data that's gonna help you do that. For sure.

Adam Liette
The big one, the Y. Yeah, everyone loves the Y. And a lot of us are really bad at communicating that at times until you I was talking to someone else the other day said, like every, every directive has to have a why. And you have to be telling people why we're doing something. Because otherwise people just aren't going to care. They're going to just brush it off if they can,

Michael Anthony Lord
totally and making sure that y is closely aligned with the strategy is even the most ideal. Because if it's if there's a good y, but it's not a y that's connected to where the business is going, or what we said we were going to do. That's where people get stuck and leaders at times, we lose a bit of credibility when we don't have those things nicely connected.

Adam Liette
Yeah, I heard there was one initiative we were rolling out with. And my boss rightly said, is like, Well, why why should we do this? And I gave him my answer. He was like, well, that's great. Now I know why it's important to you. Can you tell me why it's important to me? I was like, Oh, crap. Okay. Good. Well done. So I had to think of that like, Okay, I need to make this important to my team members now too, because it's not just about us.

Unknown Speaker
AP testing. Great lesson.

Adam Liette
Awesome. I feel like we will nerd out all day. But is there any main like big learning points that have come across your desk in the last couple of years or since you've started down this journey that we haven't hit upon during this conversation?

Michael Anthony Lord
No, I don't I don't think so. Adam, you gave me the opportunity to get some stuff out here. If I came back to one thing, it's just that incremental efficiency conversation we had, like, you know, and I referenced atomic habits, just how do you make change in your business? In your team, every day, small increments. Pennies add up to nickels to dimes to quarters to dollars versus these massive changes. And this allows businesses just to be so successful when we're when we're faced with some potential headwinds, because you have the opportunity to take market share. So that that was really the big piece for me there that I wanted to reach out with you. Thanks.

Adam Liette
minds. We have a there's a great movie with Al Pacino called Any Given Sunday. I'm a football nerd. I love football. He said Football is a game of inches. Yeah, add up all the inches around. That's what makes the difference between winning and losing.

Unknown Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah,

Adam Liette
that love it incremental change win by inches. And your team responds to it. Because the other bonus thing you get out of that, Michael is that we're winning all the time. Like we have to make an incremental change. It takes us a couple of days. When it's done, team gets to celebrate a win. Everyone loves a winner. Everyone loves to win. So really, you just propel that culture of success, and achieving things and, you know, starting a project and finishing it. As crazy as that might sound, finished projects. Yes. Awesome.

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah. And then you get to celebrate and reinforce that great team culture if you have it.

Adam Liette
Fantastic. Dude, I'm gonna have to, we're gonna have to stake close connected, I can't wait to hear more about where you take this from here, and how you guys navigate the next couple of years and how everything goes. And for those of you listeners, me and Michael actually have a unique origin story that's shared, where we both started this journey as McDonald's managers. That's amazing. Yes. And it's when there's so much you can learn from that type of position. And I think it just continues to propel you forward. So anytime you have a leadership opportunity, no matter how small it might seem, it's all about building the better the fuller sense of ourselves, so we can continue to improve and become the next version of ourself. Thanks so much, Mike, for joining me. Where can listeners find out more about you or connect with you?

Michael Anthony Lord
Yeah, probably probably LinkedIn would be the best way and happy to connect anybody. I love the platform love the opportunity to steal shamelessly from other leaders.

Adam Liette
Fantastic, brother. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And until next time, we'll see you on smooth operations. Before you bounce out here, I have a free strategy session available exclusively for my podcast audience. In this 30 minute phone call. We will unveil the immediate steps you can take to operationalize your business and put you back in the driver's seat. Just go to www dot Adam liette.com and click Start Here.