Sales and Cigars | David Sullivan | AMAG Technology | How To Connect Strategy In Our Vision | Ep 160

[00:00:00] Walter Crosby, Helix Sales Development, your host of Sales and Cigars.

[00:00:04] Got a great episode today.

[00:00:06] I say that a lot, but I'm excited about this guest, David Sullivan.

[00:00:11] He's a president of an organization that you probably haven't heard of that

[00:00:16] does some pretty amazing things with access control for some pretty important

[00:00:19] buildings around the country.

[00:00:21] But our conversation is about empowering our employees, about changing the culture,

[00:01:34] Welcome to the program. I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule.

[00:01:37] Yeah, thank you for inviting me.

[00:01:39] We had a fun conversation.

[00:01:41] I usually try to do a pre- of Getting Naked. It's a book about people's approach to consulting services and such. And I think that's a fantastic book for what's applicable to where my business is today. But another one that really transformed my thinking

[00:03:00] was the Blue Ocean Strategy,

[00:03:04] which talks about coming up with strategies

[00:04:02] strategy going forward. So yeah, I'd say those are probably

[00:04:06] two books that I look at a lot, you know, that getting naked is also the guy did the five function dysfunctions of a team.

[00:04:10] Yeah, Lindsay Oni's. Lindsay Oni's books, I think I've read

[00:04:16] all of them at least once. I've gone through his program to, to

[00:04:22] help, you know, manage that team, where you're, you know,

[00:04:26] you're working geniuses, right? So we stay in that working something that like a failure that you had or a challenge that you had that you were able to overcome these are like some of my favorite things that you know really successful people have you know run into a big problem and maybe even failed at it and then turned it around and made it a positive. Well I think the one that's anyway, I said, all right, I'll help to turn it around. And what ended up happening was I relied very heavily on an individual who was my COO to turn the business around. And I think that I waited too long. You know, I let him make the choices,

[00:07:01] go forward with, you know, doing the actions.

[00:07:04] I was coaching through him.

[00:07:06] But what I hadn't that was probably one of the biggest mistakes that I made. And from that, I just decided that I would never allow myself regardless of what position I'm in to be so remote from the actual activities that are going on in the different parts of the business

[00:08:21] that you just assume that they are.

[00:08:24] And while I think at a certain scale,

[00:08:26] it becomes difficult to do division, they need, for lack of a better term, scorecard to look at what's happening because sometimes it's difficult to get into the workplace, to get into the field and really understand. But is that a thing that a larger organization

[00:09:40] can do is put a scorecard in place to be But I think sometimes what people do is they tend to, you know, put together the strategy and then it sits on the shelf and gathers dust and you go about your core way of doing things on a daily basis. And there was this consultant that I had come in at one point

[00:11:01] to help me through a strategy approach.

[00:11:03] And his approach became, it a very tangible way to make sure we're moving in the right direction, and that we're all on the same page. And then I utilize that same document in a very sub set

[00:12:22] of the whole thing. It's go into a CEO's office and I'll ask a question that usually gives me that, like they kind of cocked their head like, what are you talking about? How do you developing that trust with your key leadership team. Linceon has got a bunch of ideas around that in his various books. From a practical point of view, you talked about a story where you

[00:15:04] probably had a little too much trust in, participate, and have a voice in the process. So when we sat down initially to put together the strategy, it was all of my executives' team involvement

[00:16:20] along with some other next-level managers.

[00:16:24] And we took the ideas who came up with it. And so from that perspective, that's how I got the buy-in.

[00:17:42] So, I mean, there's a, pops to mind

[00:17:46] the book that was written about Alan Malaley, talked about before, that empowerment align your strategy and help them see how they, in their role, they can make a difference for the customer because that's what it's all about. Is that kind of summarized? No, it does, but I'm gonna admit to you that it's not perfect, right? Because I'm seeing that,

[00:19:02] well, I've tried to create this environment

[00:19:04] and yes, all these executives are owning their part of it. are with me with their peer group. Because I've told and I'm going to set the stage just as you say there, you have to feel safe enough that one, it's not going to come back against you from me, which I think they do trust that. But I'm not sure that they trust yet that they can be that open with their

[00:20:21] peers and have that same openness of response. So I want What Lencioni talks about is that, you know, everybody has to be heard, and their ideas put forth in that, where as leaders, we need to be able to see that room where somebody might not be participating, and pull them into the conversation. And sometimes you literally have to pull them

[00:21:41] into the conversation to do that.

[00:21:44] I think it's, I mean, wow, I've worked with you, not me, but some of their colleagues, I've worked with you for 20 years and I never knew that. I never really looked at it that way and it really helps me to understand how and why you're responding to that thing. So, Linceona really does have that accurate. I don't know if I'd go through that same facilitation again

[00:23:02] because I'm not sure it scales with what I'm dealing with,

[00:23:05] but he has a the topic, but he needs time to facilitate,

[00:24:20] but to contemplate the answer. Where me, I'll give him my be able to get all your work done and send it in. You guys do that, take the time to read through it so that you come to the meeting prepared and all those different discussions. Same as I do with my boss, right, the CEO of Allied Universal. He's, I make sure that I get anything to him well in advance so that by the time I get there,

[00:25:43] he's not caught by surprise and he So sharing the information in advance is helpful. If you if you help everyone understand that we're going to, there's some be something that we do to remind ourselves, because I have that, you know, if I'm coaching a salesperson, I've, I've had to learn to like,

[00:31:01] It's one of the things as a sales manager is ill prepared for because we've usually become a sales manager because we were a good golfer, but you have to understand the methodology that makes you a good golfer. You have to understand the mechanics of the swing. You have to break it down. But then not only do you have to be able to break it down and understand it, you have

[00:31:04] to be able to communicate it to somebody who's taking a lesson from you and observe what has to have their own style. But without the basic fundamentals and understanding of the fundamentals, it's a challenge for them. And a lot of us, I know it was me, before I identified what those fundamentals were and how I was being successful, I was just like, well, I'm good at relationships and I got this, you know, but there was a distinct way that I was approaching it that

[00:32:22] I later figured out and then was able to coach. And that's fun to walk through that. And I can explain that to a sales to a leader and say, hey, this is what's going to happen. And they're going to struggle at this point, they're going to struggle at this point. But this is where that nuance is. And we

[00:33:40] need you to help put those words in there to what you did naturally, what you did without thinking.

[00:34:46] word or a particular role, but is there something that you're particularly proud of in how you've led teams and grown teams? Yeah, I'd say probably my biggest accomplishment in terms of what I'm

[00:34:54] proud of has to be in... I was in a prior company to this. I was based in Dublin, Ireland,

[00:36:03] efficient, they won't need me anymore. But once we got that past that point, and people started to trust that we were

[00:36:05] truly seeking to improve the process, we really had huge

[00:36:10] participation. And it became a culture of continuous

[00:36:15] improvement. And in that year, we went from 85 million euros

[00:36:19] to 115 million euros, which was an astonishing growth curve for

[00:36:24] the company prior to that. But more importantly, was when we But that in my history was probably the greatest accomplishment and what you gain from that is those results. You know, that's to me the frosting on the cake. Whereas a lot of people are trying to get the results and not understanding how if you do the first part of it,

[00:37:40] you get a fantastic result as a result of that. culture has changed when you start to recognize that it's happening in the warehouse, it's happening in the manufacturing area, it's happening in finance, everybody's trying to like double check each other's work or make whatever that particular issue is. And that takes patience. Is there another lever there that you think is important to somebody who's trying to get

[00:39:04] there of that continuous improvement? with the same amount of people because we were so efficient with it. And the people didn't stress out now as a result of it because as it grew, they were still participating in ways in which we could improve. And so it was a natural process. And the end result there is really, customers can see sincerely

[00:40:20] that your employees enjoy their job,

[00:40:23] believe in their company, and as a result,

[00:40:25] they start to naturally, phrase from an admin, right? And she didn't mean anything by it. But that, I think that part of that culture, when everybody's trying to pull the wagon in the same direction, that naturally comes out to protect the country.

[00:41:41] Well, and I would maybe even go one step further there, Walter.

[00:41:45] You're right.

[00:41:46] But then what could happen? to dinner, I go out to a business to buy something, it's, you know, I'm evaluating how they think. And I try to get salespeople to think differently and to think about the business, not just the transaction, and to think about, you know,

[00:43:01] adding some business acumen to their world

[00:43:05] to understand what's really important of, you know, I, we, there's a component that was a part of the system. Now you could choose as a buyer to buy that component from us or you could go buy it from a third party. And I said, well, why aren't we getting our customer service people to, you know, would you like fries with that? And, and, you know, and then

[00:44:21] all of a sudden I came to this conclusion staff. But we did it and the attendance was like three quarters of the company, not mandatory, just did it on their own, they wanted to see, and they could select from whatever the curriculum was for that week, whether or not they wanted to or not. And we had a high level of people that were attending these things. And the

[00:45:40] big thing resulted from they all had confidence and understanding

[00:45:44] our business and could then ask, And I think access control, you explained it pretty well once before where you're helping people navigate a facility

[00:47:03] and going where they should go

[00:47:04] and stopping them from going where they shouldn't go.