Chad Gono - Work Doesn't Have to Suck!

That's right!  Work DOES NOT have to suck and Chad Gono takes us through his journey of that realization.  Understanding Chad's perspective and guidance is certainly a way to Reinvent the Workplace right now.

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Transcript

Sara Best: 0:03

Hello everybody in the Bosshole Transformation Nation, Sara Best, your co-host, I'm flying solo today as my ever popular, always amazing partner, John Broer, is out in the field doing amazing keynotes and facilitating sessions and flying over the place this week, excited to share who we have as a guest today a subject matter expert. His name is Chad Gono. What I love about Chad is he makes a healthy organization his business. So, as an 11- year leader of a 52 year old company called Regal Plastics in the Dallas- Fort Worth area, Chad has significantly increased their bottom line, like $30 million. They've tripled the size of their company and he spends 50 to 60 hours a week focusing only on how to create a healthy organization.

Sara Best: 0:59

And if you go to LinkedIn and in the show notes, you're going to see some links to his posts, to his new, recently launched newsletter on LinkedIn. This is a guy who has something to say and what he has to say is all about how to be a leader who facilitates and creates a healthy organization. You're going to hear shades of the Patrick Lencioni themes in what Chad talks about. Excited to share this with you. So let's dig in.

Announcer: 1:30

The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

Sara Best: 1:53

So, Chad, we are so fortunate to have you with us today. Thank you for being here, of course, thank you. I think it would be important for our listeners to first just understand a little bit about your journey, like how did you end up in the seat you're in now and how did you develop such a passion and a voice for leadership?

Chad Gono: 2:15

Yeah, great question. So we are a 53-year-old company. My grandfather started in 1971 and we are third generation. I never wanted to do this. Growing up, it was just that yucky place that my parents worked. After 10 years of dabbling in entrepreneurship and doing some really cool stuff, I wanted to be back in Dallas. So I came here and started working for the family business and it was not a successful business in terms of profitability and there was not really any vision. And I worked here as sales for a couple of years.

Chad Gono: 2:51

But, like anybody else does, you get frustrated, but because of who I was, I was able to get frustrated enough to where I was like I'm going to start working on this thing, and I had no idea about leadership or running a company, or vision or core values or purpose or any of that stuff. And so you just start doing what anybody else would do is you start reading and read Jim Collins, you read "Built to Last, you read Good to Great and my life changed with that, reading these unbelievable companies and what they were able to do over a 15 year period. But really stuck out with me with those books was the values and the purpose. And the fact is like, listen, you got to have a reason why you do this that has nothing to do with money or profits. And look at these other companies they're some of the greatest companies of all time. They believed in this stuff that had nothing to do with the money or even the products Like why are we even here? And that stuff stuck to me.

Chad Gono: 3:53

And so in formulating basically the new company and revamping this entire business, I went through the process of basically over a four year period, letting go like 80 of our employees. These are the people that were the wrong types of people. These were the apathetic people and people that just didn't line with our core values. We created those core values through that period and once we realized, like listen, it's one thing Jim Collins says is like right, you got to get the wrong people off the bus. You got to get the right people on the bus and then you got to get them in the right seat of the bus.

Chad Gono: 4:28

And so we started doing that and then we started really creating the new vision for the company and when that started happening, we started getting all these amazing people that did line up with those core values and then we've developed that purpose and that they did believe in that purpose. Then that's where my I guess, leadership just kind of like it started taking off because of the people that around me, the atmosphere. I wasn't always like this, maybe it was inside of me, but it was all these amazing people, it was all of us that was really. We really came up with work doesn't have to suck and how important that is for us as a company. And that's really what's taken us from the company that we were $13 million and then adding $30 million to top line revenue over the course of the last five years, quadrupling the size of the company. It's been because of culture, values and purpose. We didn't change anything else other than the fact that we became a really healthy company.

Sara Best: 5:26

There you go. Wow, and the healthy part how that supersedes everything else, and that has been your focus. So do you remember the first time you posted something on LinkedIn that was a true, like a leadership message? Do you remember when that first happened?

Chad Gono: 5:44

Before COVID, I got into like, there was an influencer. Her name is Shay Roe Bottom. She's on LinkedIn and I saw a few videos and she offered a class. I took that class and I was like. I was just like. I was like man, I got something to say. I want to talk about our experience in some way. I just feel like this is the avenue. I'm not going to do it on Instagram, I'm not going to do it on Facebook or TikTok. I was like I want to do this on LinkedIn because this is where the business people are and this is where my voice is. I have something to say. So I took her class and she was basically like listen, you just got to give value, just give value and give value. There's something that you know, that you have experienced, that is really valuable. Just put that out in the world for free and just generate a bunch of trust.

Chad Gono: 6:29

The difference with me and everybody else I didn't have anything to sell. It was not like I was trying to generate a business out of it, it was just out of passion, and so it was basically January of 2020, then COVID hits. Nobody saw that comment and so everybody's like basically stuck in their houses and so I had a lot of time to basically post. You know, and I did and it is taking. It's an evolution, but it's. The funny thing is it's like you post and you post and you post four years of posting and then all of a sudden like wow, you have a lot of followers and people are really relating to this, but it took I mean, I posted for like three years before anybody even noticed anything.

Sara Best: 7:05

Right, and if our listeners are unfamiliar, you need to go to LinkedIn. You need to search type in Chad. Go no G-O-N-O in your search bar and you'll have access to this encyclopedia. We were talking before the recording here today. It's like a playbook. It's a playbook for leadership and for a healthy organization and it's rich. And along with that, you just launched a newsletter where you actually get to take a little more time to unpack some of these ideas that you've tried and they're tested and they've gotten you results inside your organization.

Chad Gono: 7:40

Yes, what I want to do with that is go deeper than just the quick punch, and it's going to be really a lot of stories from me about the company and the experiences that we've gone through from the very beginning. You know, trying to figure it out, because there's no blueprint to this thing. There's no blueprint to life. We're all just trying to figure it out, but there's been mentors and books that have helped along the way and then add that to these experiences, and so I'm just going to share a lot of that. And one thing that I'm also going to do is I am going to share a lot of our employees' stories. Like they are going to write some of this stuff from their perspective of what work doesn't have to suck, and working in this atmosphere means to them, right, rather than just have it in my voice, I'm going to give it to them.

Chad Gono: 8:25

Sometimes I've got emails from these guys. I mean, they're going to be able to write about what work doesn't have to suck from their point of view, right, not just from me, and I think that that's going to be impactful as well. But you're right, it's to be able to go deeper. It was a challenge I had this year as my one year goal. Personal, I was like man, you got to get out there and start writing a newsletter, a longer form, something that's a little bit more substantial than just those quick posts.

Sara Best: 8:49

Yeah, I was really struck with the content of your first newsletter and I really look forward to the other ones. And if we looked at your banner on LinkedIn, you know work doesn't have to suck and that truly is the driving force behind. It's your purpose, it's your company purpose, so we'll make sure we put a link to the newsletter in there to your LinkedIn site. What you are putting out there in our world is bosshole prevention. These are tips and ideas and actionable items, ways of thinking, ways of approaching things as a leader, that prevent you from sliding into the bosshole zone. And that's the whole reason we created this podcast is we want to tell stories about what works and stories about how to not be the not best version of yourself, and so I'm just grateful, you know, for this content that you talked about employees telling their story.

Sara Best: 9:41

Well, the post that really caught my eye I've been hunting you down for a while. The post that caught my eye was about two weeks ago and you talked about one of your amazing employees is leaving and you actually posted the message he gave you and sent to you as he was exiting your organization, and the little note you show in the picture be the reason someone feels welcome, seen, heard, valued and loved. I was like, "oh my gosh, this is amazing. Just in short, this gentleman is talking about three years, only three years. But his question was like how can three years in a company be the best three years of my life? And knowing that, he left inspired. He said a company can change your life. I'm inspired that leaders make you feel valued, they know you, they make me a better father and a better partner and they make the world a better place. So I think that's a really good place to start. Can you jump back to that post if you recall what your thoughts were about it?

Chad Gono: 10:41

Absolutely. This is Mariano and he was an operations manager for us in San Antonio. He's been working us for three years and he has his family business and they approached him over this Christmas holidays and he was, like you know, this thing is not good and we need you to take it over. And so he left us to go do that. But there was such joy in having him leave the company and go pursue work doesn't have to suck to another 60 people because, like, that's why we exist. Like work doesn't have to suck is literally why our organization exists. Like, when I sit down with our teams and I talk about state of the company address, I don't start with numbers. I talk about like why are we here, why do we exist? Work doesn't have to suck.

Chad Gono: 11:23

And when Mariano wrote that email to our leadership team, it was everything that we're about. Said in that email, he said all I did was walk through this door. Right, I could have walked through any door of business, but three years ago I started walking in this door. Nothing in my life changed other than the place that I worked. And now I'm a better mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, whatever. It is right.

Chad Gono: 11:50

That is literally what we're all about, because we're like listen, if you come to work and you love what you do and you love who you do it with and you feel like you have a voice and you can make an impact and you make a good living, good money, and you have time off for other hobbies and friends and family and other things in your life, like you're going to really like your job, like you're going to be like man I like this place, you know, and when you leave work, you're going to leave work with a smile on your face and because of that, you're going to be a better person.

Chad Gono: 12:18

You're going to go impact the other people in your life yeah, positively, and like that's really what it's all about, because we've all had a bad boss, we've all had a bad job I have and you spend so much time, it filters into the rest of your life and you take that home with you and that's what we're all about. So it's like that's why I preach this and that's why like, if every company in the world thought this way, not only is it good for the numbers, but if every company thought this way, just genius of their heart is like OK, this world would be a much better place because we're filling cups, we're not draining them, and it's like it works for everybody. It works from a bottom line standpoint, it works from a top line standpoint and it works for your people. It works for everybody and that's what we've.

Chad Gono: 13:00

We've noticed and that's why I want to show this. It works for ownership, too. My mom is our owner, but like we're making 20 times more bottom line profitability than we were when I first got here, right, it's just because we've poured into the intentionality of healthy teams. Work doesn't have to suck and all the stuff I just said.

Sara Best: 13:19

Well, and I'm sure there are leaders listening who fret, they wish and they hope they want to become healthy, they want to have a healthy organization, they want to be a place where work doesn't suck. But they don't know how to do that. They don't know how to shift, and your thoughts, I think, are powerful guides. I'm going to start with one and for this part, you and I talked about this in advance, but there's so many great one liners and nuggets and phrases. I grabbed some, you know, from your post and I thought I'll just fire one at you. You share your thoughts in response. Love it. How about this? One attitude is more important than resume. Good one.

Chad Gono: 13:56

Okay, we've realized this. We don't really look at the resume, we really just look at the attitude of the person, like we created our core values and then we hire based off of those core values. We don't. We're not like, well, you have to be a really good outside sales person to get a job. To be an outside sales person here, Regal Plastics, it's like no, you just have to be the right type of person. All in and play to win is one core value.

Chad Gono: 14:24

Courageously candid is a second one of our core values and learn, improve, grow is a third core value. And we're also looking for humility, genuine, down to earth. This stuff matters. But I still do a good amount of our interviews, and when I interview applicants, I am not looking at the resume. Of course, I'm looking at a few things like making sure they haven't had 27 jobs in the last two years, but, speaking, I'm just like OK, let's talk about who you are, not what you do, because we can train you to be a good sales representative. We can train you even be a good manager. We can train these things. And so we look for the person, we look for the heart, we look for the alignment with our core values and that has worked so tremendously for us. So it's like that. We get those people and now we really try to only promote those people. Like our managers, we want to only promote from within the organization, because that has worked so well.

Sara Best: 15:21

Yeah, the promoting from within is rich. So you hire for the heart and I'll say the head too. You don't look at the briefcase, necessarily meet the minimum criteria, but you hire for the heart and you hire for how the person will do the work. You use behavioral analytics in part of your selection of people and that gets the whole person. I love that. Bosses, admit your mistakes.

Chad Gono: 15:44

Oh, I mean, this is just humility. I mean there's so many bosses out there that just think that they have to have all the right answers and it's just not true. We are a team and I stink at a lot of things, but I'm great at some things and we all every single individual is like that. You wanna know how not to lead. Think that you have all the answers. You gotta admit your mistakes and you gotta be outward. This develops so much trust because it's vulnerable. Like, you have to be vulnerable and genuine and real with your people. They will never trust you, they will never follow you because they will think like this person's not normal, like because we're all humans, we are all making mistakes. We don't know all the answers, but, for whatever reason, so many bosses out there think that they have to have all the answers because maybe that's what the media or TV or I don't know where they've gotten this from over the years, but it's actually not true at all.

Chad Gono: 16:42

What actually helps leadership is like being like I have no idea, guys. What do you guys think that opens everything up? We are a team. With me, I might be in front of the camera, but that's about all I'm gonna. I'm like let's facilitate. And early on in my career it was all about me, it was my ego and it was all about I gotta have all the right answers. And you guys listen to me and I realize how that was so wrong. And nowadays it's like I'm just facilitating because, honestly, these guys are way better than me at like 99% of the stuff that goes on in the company. I'm just good at like taking it and then talking to you about it on a podcast, like that's what I'm good at, but all the other stuff they're the best at. And so you just you gotta admit your mistakes. Humility is a huge deal and being vulnerable with one another and admitting your mistakes is the essence of vulnerability and that's where you build the trust. You cannot have a healthy team if you do not have abundance of trust.

Sara Best: 17:34

Well said how to kill company culture. Reward high performing, toxic team members.

Chad Gono: 17:41

Okay, so this is a good one. So there is four quadrants, so there's values on one line, performance on another line, and so what we're saying is it's like the four quadruses rats, terrorists, puppies and rock stars okay, I just watched this video.

Sara Best: 17:55

I'm gonna get a link and put it in the show notes so people can see it.

Chad Gono: 17:59

Yes, and so I mean rats are easy. Right, rats you get rid of because they don't perform and they don't line up with the values of the organization. That's easy. They shouldn't be there. Then you've got rock stars they're performing credibly and they line up with the values of the organization. Right, the rock stars, they're a man. That's what you want.

Chad Gono: 18:13

Here are the two things, the two quadrants that are the most important quadrants. Right, here's the one quadrant that most companies fail at. It's the person that is the high performing, yet toxic employee. They do not line up with your values, yet they perform incredibly, and so they are allowed to stay in the organization because the results that they come up, the money, that's what the sales, right, that's what matters. But in essence, what they're doing is they're deteriorating the team that's around them. They're creating this havoc within the organization, just like a terrorist.

Chad Gono: 18:49

And what we've noticed and I've had situations here, I'm not even joking, I have we've had situations where I had to let go terrorists, and I have done this at a branch, and it cost us $500,000 to the bottom line over a two year period. What, looking at it, five years later, it's four times that in the positive, we made the decision to fire the toxic employees and, even though the results were good, it was the right thing to do in the end, because the team has stepped up and it has turned itself around, like we have experienced. Like it's hard to do. People don't wanna do it, bosses don't wanna do it, companies wanna do it because they're worried about the short term. But we have to look at things with a long-term mindset, and keeping toxic employees that perform there's just in the long term. It just makes no sense, and so we look for puppies. Puppies are the people that they don't line up with. They line up with your values, but they're just not performing yet.

Chad Gono: 19:49

And you're coaching them into rock stars, and so that's who we're hiring. We're always looking for puppies. These people, they're just like man. They line up with the values, they believe in your purpose, they love what you're all about and you just coach them up into rock stars, and so that's what we look to hire. We look to hire those puppies.

Chad Gono: 20:06

Make sure you get those terrorists out of the organization, because they're wrecking havoc and they're just depleting all the people that are around them. And what we've noticed too is that whenever we get rid of them, everybody else just steps up the game and it really is just kind of like oh, that's okay, everybody else just steps up and it ends up working out. And it's always always worked out for me over the course of the last 10 years here at Regal, every single time we've gotten rid of it. We have seven different divisions, eight different divisions. That branch or division has gotten better within a one to two year period. It happens pretty quickly the rebound. Even if you lose some of the numbers, it's back on it and all of them right now are doing much better than they did when they had toxic performers.

Sara Best: 20:48

I think it's wise counsel you're providing too. I know there are managers and supervisors and leaders who have all the reasons in the world to keep somebody the becausees you know. But you're giving us solid business case.

Chad Gono: 21:02

Well, you have to stand for something. You have to stand for something. Stand for something. And your people see that and they're like dude. I wanna work here, I wanna stay here with these leaders because they stand for something. Like when you don't stand for anything other than the money they're gonna leave. Like these other people around, they're like dude. I know what this place is all about. People are not inspired by just money and revenue and profits. They're inspired when you do the right thing, when you make their life better, when you pour into them and you know how you do that, you get rid of that toxic high performer that's right next to them, sucking the life out of them every day.

Sara Best: 21:37

So that leads me to another one that I loved. It's about compassion and empathy, but it starts with empathy. You have a couple of them that are that way.

Chad Gono: 21:46

So if you do not show empathy and compassion to your employees, you will not be a successful leader. When I talked about this, it was more along the lines of like there's a lot of bosses out there that are like employees aren't loyal anymore. These young kids, you know they're not loyal, nobody's loyal anymore. Those same employers are like sorry, you don't have any more PTO. Figure it out, you can't admit. Figure it out. Like there's no compassion, right, there's no empathy for their situation. And the whole point is this like we're all humans and I've had some really tough time in my life, right, like my wife and I couldn't get pregnant, you know, and we had in vitro for our first two babies. That was a very hard time in my life. I needed people there close to me to help me through this time.

Chad Gono: 22:27

My wife's like we all go through things and our people, our employees, they go through things. Right, you get a bad diagnosis from a family member, or you know your car doesn't start, or you having anxiety attacks and you don't know why your kids are getting sick. Like things are happening all the time. We don't know what's going on at home with our employees. We just don't what we can do to create some loyalty around here is to actually emphasize with them and say, listen, I understand, it's okay, go home, figure it out, you're okay, we're going to be okay for the next few days, while you need some downtime to go through this really hard time, it's going to be okay.

Chad Gono: 23:08

That is how you build trust as a leader. They start to believe in you because they're like this person actually cares about me, not just what I produce here at work, but they care about me and my soul and my heart and they care about my family and they want me as the human being to be good, not just produce more, sell more. There's a soulfulness that has to come in business and great leaders understand that when they are like that with their employees, they create trust and they create that loyalty. That's why we don't have employees that leave here. I can't tell you the last time we had an employee leave this company for a reason that like wow, this place, like Mariano left for a great reason, you don't have to go push that thing. We just don't have people that leave this company. I think we've had four employees leave in the last three years.

Chad Gono: 23:59

We have 105 employees because we really intentionally care about this stuff and we have a leadership retreat every year with all of our leaders and we really, really coach and we preach this stuff. Guys, we're all going to be in that situation down in that valley at some point, and it really sucks when a boss doesn't really care and they're like get me that I don't really care. It's really amazing when a boss does care and they are empathetic, they are like hey, just whenever you can, even if it takes a couple of weeks, I understand you've got some stuff going through your life, it's going to be okay. I think that that stuff really matters.

Sara Best: 24:35

I agree 100%. In that post, you go on to talk a little bit about empathy and I think there's a statement in there about you feel with them. You feel what they're feeling, and I think sometimes people mistake empathy for sympathy, which is disconnected. I'm sorry that's happening to you. Go do what you need to do. What you're talking about is, hey, we want to join with you and support you and you do what you need to do and we're here and we'll take care of things until you're back. That's so powerful.

Chad Gono: 25:02

Yeah, we've had situations where we've had employees have come down I mean, I've had a point come down with cancer and we pay them their salary all the way through everything. We don't stop, we don't care about any of that stuff, we support them throughout the way. I mean, there's so many things that have happened with individuals with our company getting a bad diagnosis and we just we never stop doing anything, even if they're not here. We just continue on, the payments continue, the support continues and we got it. We're checking in on them. This stuff matters and they come back and they're you know, you can just that's a story, right, and we share those stories all the time and actually they share it with their own mouse every time.

Chad Gono: 25:41

We have the state of the company because we open it up for core value stories or purpose stories and things really impactful. When our employees hear other employees talking about like hey, like this really happened, like my child had this issue and like they just gave me like a week off and they still paid me for it. The employers are not taking advantage of us. We're having employees because when they come back they crush it. It's just that things go on in your life and as a company, we can be there for our people. We have that choice, and when we are, not only is it the right thing to do, but it also just again it works for everybody, because the rest of the team steps up and then, when they get back, we're excited to see them and then let's go back to work and let's enjoy it.

Sara Best: 26:22

Not that this is related to that, but it makes me think of a question how do you and your company handle mistakes? Somebody makes a glaring error, there are challenges, blunders. How do you address those?

Chad Gono: 26:35

It's everything. Mistakes are okay. Make them, learn from them, it's okay. So that's the way we deal with it. You don't want to make the same mistakes seven times in a row, but our people are smart. They don't. People don't. People genuinely want to do a good job at work and so they don't. But mistakes happen. We all make mistakes, like I literally misspelled there on a whiteboard the other day on one of my posts. It's like a mistake, I'm an idiot, I can't spell. It's okay. When our employees make a mistake, it's okay.

Chad Gono: 27:05

We all make mistakes because, again, it goes back to the humanity. We're all human, we all make these mistakes. Just learn from them. Just get better. And we do. But that's just the culture, that's the mentality. You're going to make a mistake, no big deal. Just learn from it. Just try not to make it again. Maybe you make it a second time, that's okay, but you're not going to make it a third. And they never do make it a third. It's just like one or two times, you know, and it's really not that big of a deal.

Sara Best: 27:31

Well, and I think that contributes to a psychological safety. That is the soil that you do all these other things in to build your healthy organization, but it's about creating a space for learning, like you just described. Okay, I can't step over this one.

Sara Best: 27:44

It's a post you made about why the Dallas Cowboys are flawed, and I just want to say the three things you mentioned are lack of vision, lack of accountability and only one voice. Yeah, so you've kind of spoken to this idea of vision, and people need to read your newsletter and some of your posts about vision to fully grasp how that began. You talked about it too in the beginning, how it drove. It began to drive and build your culture. But what about accountability? And what's this thing about only one voice, when you talk about accountability.

Chad Gono: 28:20

What we've learned is that people want to be held to an account. They do like accountability is really a great way to teach and it's like we all need that person. That's gonna be like hey, you good, like I've noticed, you know, this is kind of going on, or we didn't hit our numbers. Let's sit down and figure out why together. This is not a I'm doing your job, I'm the boss yelling at you because you need to get better. It's like no, let's down and try to figure this out, but we have to. We have to hold ourselves accountable, because that's the only way we're ever gonna drive results and accountability is a very healthy thing. It's not just like a free-for-all. No, we have leaders here and these leaders they hold their people accountable. Hey, man, like you got to get here on time and it's a good thing to be held accountable to. Of course, things happen in life and you can't get here on time, but, genuinely speaking, there's certain rules in life. Accountability is such a big deal. We always want that person that's gonna hold us accountable in our life to a higher standard, because it makes us better and that's what leaders are really there for. Like, the leaders are there to set that standard and then the hold the other people, all their employees, accountable to that thing. But just to know that, like, hey, we're all in this together, we're a team, but me, as the leader, I'm here to hold you guys accountable.

Chad Gono: 29:45

And it's a conversation, right? It's not a quick whip, it's not a hey, you're late. What are you thinking? It's a hey man, let's talk in the conference room and let's sit down and have a good conversation of what's going on in your life. And let me just have this let's just talk and sitting down and doing it in that regard, having a healthy conversation. I love you, I'm here for you. What's going on? Because I'm noticing this different type of action that I'm not used to. Maybe there's something that's going on. I like this is what we're talking about, and so accountability is obviously a big deal and having one voice.

Chad Gono: 30:20

You know, when we're talking about the cowboys and I was talking about, like Jerry Jones and it's are really just one voice from the top. But great companies, everybody has a voice and everybody can make an impact. We stress this all the time with courageous Lacana, but we stress this all the time in our leadership teams. Every single one of our branches has a branch leadership team and they meet every single 90 days to talk about, you know, basically, what's working, what's not working. They get in the same room and they create big priorities for the next quarter and whatnot, but it is a bunch of voices.

Chad Gono: 30:50

We want them to argue, we want them to debate, but they're debating for the right answer, not their answer. Yeah right, it's not ego, it's not like I want my answer, and this is coaching. We have to coach them on this. What's the very best answer for the organization, what's the very best answer for this team? To get there, it takes a lot of humility and a lot of vulnerability, but what we've noticed, too, is getting it off your chest and voicing yourself is much, so much of everything, right, sure. And then we make that decision and no matter what the team leader makes that decision, we walk out of that room hand-in-hand, no matter what, even if we disagree with that.

Chad Gono: 31:26

Yeah, that's a really healthy team, but you cannot have one voice that makes all decisions. You know, Jim Collins talks about the genius with a thousand helpers model. It only works as long as that person is a genius. But what happens if they're no longer a genius or they die. Everything else falls down below them.

Chad Gono: 31:43

And so I've seen this in so many companies. Right, you've got that big CEO or that owner of that family business. Everything runs through them, everything go. They make every decision. They have to be touched like they have to be cc'd on everything. What we've realized here is the power in like no way we have this accountability chart and we push this stuff down. You make these decisions and these are big million dollar decisions and we got people making these decisions and they always make the right ones. It really frees us up to scale, really frees us up to create more leaders. But it's having those, having those voices, and giving our people the autonomy to be able to use those voices. And sometimes they make mistakes, like we talked earlier, but a lot that they always learn. But one thing we do as a company is we always grow and we always level up.

Sara Best: 32:30

So powerful. I mean there's a lot in there. You talked about the one-to-one conversations. You talk about that quite a bit in your posts. Yeah, it's a relationship lynch pin for the healthy organization you're talking about.

Chad Gono: 32:42

I would love to talk about that for a second. So I quickly. Every single one of our employees, every 90 days, gets a one-on-one With their boss.

Chad Gono: 32:51

Yeah this is usually off-site, sometimes in the conference room, but it is all about, hey, what's working, what's not working. It is not a performance review. There's not a piece of paper with a bunch of check this, check this. It's not a bunch of that stuff, not about the gesture. It is about the substance of the conversation. How are you doing, how's life at home, how are the kids? Okay, let's talk about work for a little while. Let's talk about what's working and what's not working, tell me some things, and then it's a flipside. Actually, the employee tells the boss what's working and what's not working. Right, some some hi there, because the they open up and say anything.

Chad Gono: 33:30

This is so healthy for us as an organization because it's that thing. It's like my wife and I have to go on a date. You know, we kind of go on date night. We got to reconnect and figure, remember, like why we're in love. And you know, before the kids, right before we have these three crazy young kids, like we got to remember about us and we. And when we sit down and we have that date night and we leave, they are that dinner. We feel so close to each other and we're holding hands and we're just back and it's like that is so much need, it's so healthy.

Chad Gono: 33:57

It is no different for your employees. And imagine if you are an employee and you literally don't sit one-on-one with your boss like ever. Like, let's say, it goes a year and you never sit down with them. You have no idea if you're doing good, if you're doing bad, like. Think of the anxiety that that causes in your life. And so every 90 days we're intentional about this all throughout the company. And it is extremely healthy because all of our people are like man I know I'm a great relationship with my boss, like we're having real conversations. Some of these quarterly conversations are tough, you know, because things are going on. You know I sometimes they're really easy and it's just like a really fun time, but it is something that they have to connect and that those hour and usually it's an hour and a half to two hours and it's a lot of time spent and we understand it. But we wouldn't have it any other way because, again, it's so healthy and it's so needed. Employees, we all need that connection.

Sara Best: 34:49

Yeah, and connection is the emphasis. I know feedback. We always say feedback is the oxygen of engagement. But feedback is helpful. It's the relationship and they're spending time together. They're deepening understanding of one another. I think that's probably the only way you can create a culture where there can be candor yes, one of your values. How do you say that? You say courageous courageous Lee candid. Yeah, so for people to be able to do that, they have to know how you roll, and you only do that over time.

Sara Best: 35:19

Yeah, I would say so all these things that you talk about are so powerful. They're simple but they're not easy. What can you share? Chat about what you do to bring yourself to the table every day with this mindset. I'm sure there's a practice or there's some things you do because you're human. I mean, I'm sure you have your emotional ups and downs and the things that trigger you and the frustrations and whatever. So Help our leaders understand just a little bit about how you show up. How do you bring yourself to the table every day to be able to be this kind of a leader?

Chad Gono: 35:52

Yeah, personally, what I've noticed about myself is when I wake up early in the morning and I have that quiet time and I am reading, for me it's reading. Mm-hmm. It's usually reading a culture book and it sounds crazy. But I'm usually, you know, even if it's something that I've read before I'm rereading. It's not just always company culture, but it's it's something about company health, and Patrick Lencioni is my favorite author when you talk about company health and he wrote the five dysfunctions of a team. He's written some books.

Sara Best: 36:24

I knew you were a fan because there's about ten things you've said I'm like, "Well, patrick Lincioni would say yes, 100%. We're big disciples of his framework.

Chad Gono: 36:32

Yes, absolutely obsessed and so I'm reading his books and and Seth Godin's got The Song of Significance now, and and this time that I have in the morning, right before the kids wake up, and it's gotten earlier and earlier, but everybody it's different. For me it has been getting myself in a book early to start the day. Then I walk in with that mindset. I gotta always continue to go back to why, like I'm always thinking about this, right, why, why do we exist as an organization? You know, work doesn't have to suck healthy teams and one thing that I did personally, or we did as a team, personally, but we run on EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System, and I'm it's called the visionary, and we have an integrator and our integrator, Jacob Mydell, is fantastic, but he runs the day-to-day of the organization. He runs everything, all the branch managers, you know, he runs the executive leadership team and he is that.

Chad Gono: 37:30

I am able to spend 90% of my time focusing on purpose values, stories, writing, putting up stuff on LinkedIn, and so it gets my mind in that framework, right, I'm really focusing on this stuff 90% of my time, and so when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, okay, what can I do today? That is going to remote work doesn't have to suck or one of our values, right? What can I say? What can I write and what can I email to the guys? What can whatever it? What can I do? Who do I need to call? Who do I need to text message?

Chad Gono: 38:03

We don't encourage enough Mark Connelly, one of my greatest mentors. He said you know, the praise to criticism ratio needs to be six to one raise, praise, praise, praise, praise, praise. Then we criticize. We cannot praise enough and the ratio needs to be six to one. And we know it's not that in business. And so this gives me time to go back through those types of things, right, and when I read something, I think praise. And then I'm like, oh my gosh. And so then I'm writing into my notes. I'm like I need to praise.

Chad Gono: 38:32

You know, Mike in Miami for this and that stuff really matters. So it's for me. You know, it's literally just like waking up early and getting my face in a book, but it needs to be one of those types of books. If that's what's important to me and if it's a Jim Collins or Patrick Lencioni or I'm reaching out and trying to figure out, you know something else, like it's. It's usually a book that has to do with company and culture and our awareness. You know, something like that, the untethered soul, I read last year for the very first time and it changed my life. Just about being aware, just anything but getting myself in a book. That's been the most important thing for me that I've noticed. That's how I work.

Sara Best: 39:06

Yeah, and that's a ritual. I think it's not it's not a new idea, but that well, that leaders take time and consistently invest that time to settle in to center to learn so I was curious about how you did that.

Sara Best: 39:22

This has been so incredible. I have like 10 million more questions for you. We will make sure that our listeners have access to your newsletter and your LinkedIn profile. And you know what's so great about you, chad, is you're doing this because there is something important to say and you're not just saying this stuff. I mean, you're right, you're not selling. You're not selling you, you're selling leadership, but it's it's a way of life for you inside your organization which makes it authentic and real, and you're a real person. I just want to say thanks for jumping on with us today. It's been awesome and I would love to have you back on down the road here a little bit. Yeah, we reconnect.

Chad Gono: 40:02

Oh, of course, anytime, work doesn't have to suck has changed my life and I used to leave here and tears just thinking about, like you know, when the culture got really good around here, like three or four years ago, and just Seeing the happiness of our employees compared to what it used to be, just the atmosphere that we've created around here.

Chad Gono: 40:22

I like to talk about this more than anything else, because it's hard to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. I truly believe that, and it's really fun to work with people you love Every single day, and it can change lives. And when you see, you know, when you see work and an atmosphere that you've, you know, created and your companies created, like change lives, it's it fills your cup up so much you just want to talk about it to everybody. You just want everybody to do the same because, like man, this can put a dent in the world. This can change lives. You know, this is really and it's all about because we spend so much time at work, so I'm always down to talk to it. It's something I love so much, yeah, something I'm just so passionate about.

Sara Best: 40:59

Well, I would say this did not suck at all. And I'm just curious have you ever talked to Patrick Lencioni?

Chad Gono: 41:07

I haven't and I know I want to talk to somebody. My buddy, Travis, got me a signed book when we were having like our second child. I couldn't go to this I think it was the EOS conference and he was speaking but he, like you know, he signed one of the books and was, like you know, hope the birth went good, you know type of thing and like signed it for me.

Chad Gono: 41:23

But man, that guy is just, I mean, he gets it company, health it's, it's, I mean he's. He is definitely an inspiration, and I know he is to a lot of people and I know we model a lot of what we do here off of him.

Sara Best: 41:36

It's been a pleasure. I wish you all the best. We will reconnect sometime in the near future, but until then take care, and we'll see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles.

Announcer: 41:49

We'd like to thank our guest today On the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. Once again, my story@ thebossholechronicles. com. We'll see you again soon.