From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Over-Responsibility: The Silent Profit Killer in Home Services with guest Roger Daviston
What if the trait you’re most proud of—being the one who always steps in—quietly destroys your profit and peace of mind? We dive into over-responsibility as a hidden profit killer and lay out a practical plan to reclaim your time, your culture, and your margins. With leadership coach and author Roger Daviston, we break down the mindset shift that changes everything: you are responsible to your team, not for your team.
We get specific about what boundaries look like in home services. From the installer who wants you to fix a supplier problem, to the friend who bypasses dispatch for a “quick favor,” to the manager who avoids hard talks, we share scripts and frameworks that push responsibility back to role owners. You’ll hear how “What do you think you should do?” becomes a coaching habit, not avoidance, and how trust but verify systems prevent chaos without smothering initiative. We also tackle the painful costs of inconsistency—underperformers lingering, KPIs tracked then ignored, family exceptions eroding standards—and how documented expectations and progressive discipline restore clarity.
This conversation is a playbook for building a culture of ownership: clear role ownership, process adherence, measurable accountability, and the courage to let things break so people can learn. Roger shares resources on the service call process and team alignment, and we connect the dots between healthy leadership and better marketing outcomes—because confident, supported teams show up differently for customers. Ready to stop bottlenecking decisions, reduce callbacks, and scale beyond your personal capacity? Press play, take notes, and try the questions and boundaries we outline today.
If this helped, subscribe, share the show with a fellow contractor, and leave a quick review so more owners can find it. What’s one boundary you’ll set this week?
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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
What's up, Lemin Heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Crystal, and today I cannot wait. This is something that I really feel like most owner contractors need to hear. Um, if they need this advice, they don't probably get it enough from some people that care about them and that actually understand the role that they have to play every single day. The weight of the company on your shoulders every day can be pretty emotionally taxing. So I love my guest today and what we are going to talk about. I hope you uh right now, this time of the year, snuggle up and listen to this episode as we talk through over-responsibility and the silent profit killer in the home services uh industry. And I can't wait for you to meet my guests. So let's zip some lemonade. Guys, welcome to this episode. I really am excited about this. It's a little outside of what I normally talk through, but I honestly think when you can be joyful in your job every day, I think that is it comes out in your marketing. So if you feel good as an owner and you feel solid about your decisions and you feel supported and you feel honestly mentally healthy, um I just think you naturally approach things differently. And so I know that this may not be directly related to marketing, but I can't help it. I do, I think it is on the backside. So, Roger, I'm so excited to have you today. This is Roger Davidston, making sure I said it right. Yes. Um, and he he and I have do not actually know each other super well. We kind of got connected. You know, it's the industry, so relatively small world. But he and I had a couple of conversations and he really started talking about this over-responsibility feature that he felt like contractors were struggling with that was really a profit loss leader, if you will, loss lead. He was one of the top reasons that profit is being lost, I should say, in a company. And I thought, I've never thought of it that way. I was really intrigued by this. So we are doing our episode about that. So, Roger, I start off all of my episodes like this. Why should anyone care what you have to say? So tell us about yourself and where you come from.
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's a very good question. Why should anybody care about what I say? And uh we'll we'll get to some of that later. I think it'll evolve out. But I my history is, you know, I have a degree in corporate finance investment management and I was a government securities trader at a bank for years and built and sold a couple of businesses. One of them was a heating and air conditioning contracting business uh back in the 90s. I um I bought the little heating and air conditioning business and didn't know anything about heating and air, which was a blessing. So I didn't have all the head trash all the other guys did. And so I built a business a lot different. We just canvassed neighborhoods and we skipped the service call process uh because we just you know we just went straight and knocked on the door. Um but through my learning and growing and personal development, I had a really terrible marriage. Anybody, does that ring a bell with anybody? Not anyone's gonna admit it out loud, probably, but I had this terrible uh mindset, you know, I didn't have the right to say no to anybody. That's kind of the place I grew up. You know, I grew up boundaryless, and when you when you have a business and you don't understand boundaries, your life gets out of control. And I'm my progression through growing personally was through psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy for me, and Sandler's selling system. And Sandler hung out with a therapist, a cognitive therapist, and Sandler used to talk about the selling process with his therapist. And so I was learning things in Sandler's selling that I was learning in therapy, but I couldn't connect it to the marriage, but I could connect it to the business, just like that. And the reason is is because the business was not near as emotional as the marriage. And so my background is changing your thinking so you can feel different, so you can change your behavior. Thinking leads to choosing. Well, in between, we have this feeling, and um so I like to think about leadership in terms of boundaries, and when you think about boundaries and leadership, it really is it answers a couple questions. It answers, okay, I run this company, what am I responsible for? Okay, I run this company, what do I own? Okay, I run this company, what will I allow? And what will I not allow? And who are we? Our identity. And that when you begin to think about your company that way as a leader and an owner, those kinds of thoughts lead to real good clarity. And so one of the symptoms in a boundaryless culture is a a leader is over-responsible. Okay, now responsibility, and we have to think about this word responsibility. What am I responsible for and what do I own? Well, I think the best way to relay that is just to give you a real quick story. Okay. I had a leadership development coach that helped me with this also, but I was hearing the same thing from another mentor, and here's here's what happened. My best installer called me at four o'clock in the afternoon and said, Hey, that SOB electrician that you hired, you hired, which was true, told me this morning that he would get out here this afternoon, and I told the customer that we would get his air on. And here it is, four o'clock, and he told me he can't come. Okay. Now, the old Roger, who was still not recovering from over responsibility, would have taken that problem and done what? I would have stopped it. Well, I had to learn. Well, hang on just a second. That's not my responsibility. I don't own that job. I'm not installing that job. The installer owns that job and is responsible for getting that job completed. And if he's got a challenge, what's his responsibility? Use my brain or his brain? He's supposed to use his brain.
SPEAKER_02:His brain.
SPEAKER_04:Well, before I didn't expect people to use their own brain. I used my brain. And you know what? I was really tired. Overworn out, exhausted. So here's how the conversation went. This gentleman's name was David. Best employee I had. Best. I said, Well, what do you think what do you think you should do about that? See, that's putting the responsibility where it belongs.
SPEAKER_02:Back on the back on the installer.
SPEAKER_04:On him. And he said, Well, uh, you could uh you could get his butt out here. I said, Okay, where is he? Well, it was over here. It's gone, he's he'd get home at midnight. This was one of those days. Yeah. I said, Do you think that's a good idea? No, I don't think that. I said, What else? What else could you do? Well, I guess I could tell the customer that I won't get his air on tonight. Okay. Is that what you want to do? No, I don't want to do that. I said, okay, well, what? I don't know. Tell me. Well, I could run up to the hardware store and I could buy some wire and I could just temporary it in for the evening, for the night. I said, You could. See, I didn't even have that solution. I'm not a installer or electrician. I don't know anything about I can't fix anything. So I said, I said, Oh, that's a good idea. How long will that take? Oh, it won't take long. I said, Okay, well, what do you want to do? Well, I guess that's what I'll do. It's okay. Sounds good to me. Now, how many of those kind of conversations do you think I have to have with people before they stop calling?
SPEAKER_02:Probably just a few, because then they're gonna be like, I'm gonna call him, he's gonna make me think through it.
SPEAKER_04:Just a few. Yeah, yeah. And so uh that's a listen, here's here's what responsibility, here's where we here's where we really get off track. I have a responsibility to my wife. I have responsibilities to her. Okay. But here's where we really get off track. I am not responsible for her. I'm not responsible for her. I have responsibilities to my employees, but I'm not responsible for my employees. So where we get over responsible is we we get we get blurred lines between what I'm responsible for and what I'm responsible who I'm responsible to. So you can begin to think about it's always the way we think about stuff. So let's think about receiving from another person. Do we if you receive from another person based on what's fair, that leads to obligation, and I'm gonna do things because I have to, and it leads to emptiness. Okay. Now, if I receive from another person freely, that leads to responsibility to the other person. For instance, if I receive a job freely, that means I don't owe the owner anything. I receive it freely, right? Am I obligated to anything? No. But it comes with tremendous responsibilities to the owner. And when I do things that I'm that I have a responsibility to do, I grow in character and I become more valuable to the team. And that leads to a feeling of fullness. One leads to emptiness, one leads to contentment, or or just a full life. So I had to learn that I don't owe any of my employees anything. They're responsible, they're responsible for themselves. But I have responsibilities to them. I have lots of responsibilities to them.
SPEAKER_02:That that is the that's the biggest thing that just stuck with me. Is and I wrote it down. What am I responsible for? And then who am I responsible to? Um, because I am an overly empathetic person. So even myself as a leader, I tend to over-empathize. But I will tell you one thing that I'm good at because my dad taught me this. My grandmother and my dad both were very entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial. Um, and so my grandmother, like, I'd be like, Well, I don't know how to count this. And she's like, Well, okay, what do you think you should do? And so when you said that a while ago, I was automatically taken back to those days. And so now literally it's internal dialogue with myself. Like, okay, what should I do? I naturally go to what should I do before I go to what should someone do for me. I don't know how to do it. It's kind of like when you teach your toddler and they're like, I can't open my cup. Well, how do you or have you tried to open your cup? Eventually they start trying themselves. And so that, and then also like, I am it. This almost empowered me when you said this. I am responsible to my team. So by me saying that I'm not responsible for you and how you handle things, but I am responsible to you. And I'm assuming that's going to go the direction of like to make sure that you have the resources that you need and that you have the tools that you need, that allows the empathetic side of me to make a still connection to take care of my team. It's just a matter of taking care of them in the right way that both empowers them and doesn't overwhelm me. So I I love that. I love the direction.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. If you uh if you're over-responsible, if you're exhausted, you're probably over-responsible. If you're exhausted in your business, call me. I can help you. I can help you figure out why you're exhausted. And I can help you learn how to how to you know establish some boundaries, but this takes lots of personal development and growth because it's emotional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is very emotional. So I I love just to recap kind of this. So this is, you know, over-responsibility by definition is when the owner feels responsible basically for everyone else's role, their job. Um, and the team underfunctions because the owner overfunctions, you know, and so we're over-functioning as owners and operators. And I mean, you don't know how well you probably do know. You're one of the people that would know this. I talk to contractors every day that are wanting to utilize lemon seed to get marketing off of their plate. So they just start identifying all, and honestly, I get them in a mode of desperation a lot of times. Like, I don't know, there's not enough of me. I can't multiply myself. We're not hitting margins or doing, I just need to get marketing off my plate. Um, but honestly, and this is gonna sound a little um new world probably to people, new age, but you know, I hear desperation in their voice. I hear like there's they've lost their joy, their spark, their love. And then I think like you can't help but take it home, right? To everything else that you do. Um, and so, you know, just you're constantly a firefighter instead of actually getting to scale. Um, and then I know we titled this, uh, Roger, like how over responsibility erodes profit. Um, and so that was your that was your line to me. And I was like, you know, this is kind of an interesting thought process here. So tell me a little bit about it. I'm assuming we're gonna go down the line of like underperformers and things like that, taking too long. But what where does that lead you when we say that that you know over responsibility erodes profit?
SPEAKER_04:Well, in a lot of ways, I think the the biggest way for me was that when I learned that I was not Superman or Fix It Man, and that I'm not the answer guy, and that I expected people to come up with their own solutions and use their own brain because they, you know, I don't own the role, they own the role. I'm not the technician, I'm not the salesman, I'm not the CSR, but yet I have to set expectations for them and put in systems of accountability that ensure we follow processes. And so if I'm always doing something that somebody that should be able to do for themselves, I can't duplicate it. It never gets bigger than me. Now, there may be some people that get it and do it, but yet we gotta we gotta have the mindset, okay, I'm gonna hire you to do this job. I'm gonna provide you, I'm responsible to you to provide you with the training, the the skills, the new flat rate process, if that happens to be the service call process, uh, which is a great process. Uh, the whatever selling process, I'm I'm responsible to you to support you in that area, but you are responsible for executing it. And my expectation is that you execute it. And we're gonna put in systems of accountability to ensure that you do what we ask you to do. We trust you, but we're gonna verify that you follow the process. Trust, but verify. Yeah. So uh, because I need that. And that's one of the hardest things I've got is I'm my own boss. I don't have much account, I don't have any accountability. Uh other than coaches and uh mentors and things, but yet I, you know, nobody cares if I get up and cancel today. I could cancel this. Nobody cares. Whereas, and that's that's you know, I have that's um I have a responsibility to myself to be disciplined. But so I guess the first way is that you can't get the business past your ability to do it all. That's the reason you're exhausted. It gets to a place where you just can't do it all. So that's the that's where it affects profits. You just can't grow past your own ability to do everything.
SPEAKER_02:That you can't grow past yourself, and that's your own ability, is is amazing words, too. You know, and my brother again, my brother told me this one time just when we were getting ready to launch Lemon Seed. Trey, he told me he said, Well, Crystal, if I ran every service call for for McWilliams, we would never have grown like we did. I had to release control because I mean used to at Lemon Seed, I wanted to touch every single client, I didn't want anything going out without my hand in it. And they wanted it, or at least they thought they did. And I'm like, listen, my goal is to hire people smarter and better than me. Um, so trust me, you want them looking, you know, because I I really was so uh emotionally tied to every single customer, and so I can kind of relate like then I can't grow past my own capacity. Um, and I'm just stuck, you know, and so it it definitely um is impactful when you can kind of step step out of that mindset into a new, into a new thinking. So, you know, underperformers allowed to stay too long, I think, burns up company culture, um, lack of accountability. So, you know, you got your callbacks, and you know, again, my brother told me one time like it's just like with kids, we have to have consequences. So, callback is a consequence to not taking your time when you're on the job, but at the same time, you can't take all day. That's why we have performance pay. So we're performance pay to encourage you to hustle, but hustle with pride. So don't be sloppy. So then we have to kind of ding it back when there's a callback. Um, and so but if that is runs amuck and that's all over the place, and there's no people don't feel that, then they know you're not true about it. But another big thing that I see um, Roger, is inconsistent leadership from contractors. They're just inconsistent. One minute they're all tracking KPIs and they're keeping up with it and they're holding people accountable, and the next minute they're on a vacation, and we're not gonna look at any of these KPIs. You know, we're not we're not holding everybody to the same standards. Well, this is another thing is like this is my brother, so I treat him a little different than I treat, you know, Joe Blow off the street. Then, you know, and my uncle runs sales department, you know, a lot of us have family in the companies, and so I think that can also kind of you take on over responsibility to either catch up for them or answer for them. Um, and then decision bottlenecking. I I mean, I call it you have paralysis by analysis. Um, and again, but like you're saying, you're exhausted, physically and mentally exhausted. So the idea of processing another another choice, the idea of processing how to get rid of somebody and what do I do if I have to this underperformer, if I get rid of him, who's gonna do their job? Like all of those things are so exhausting. Um, but at the same time, you know, these are the invisible costs that um owners rarely like take into consideration when they're thinking through that. So So, you know, there are places that I think this shows up more inside of home services. You and I kind of talked about this on the pre-conversation, but, you know, I think when you're talking about dispatchers, technician performance and salespeople, you know, like again, if you are one of my contractors just the other day, he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm I'm I'm having to, I am the service manager. And so once he said that, I was like, man, this is gonna be a challenge for you because he is tech support. So all six of his technicians, and I'm like, six of them. This is not a this is not a million-dollar company. This is a large company where he is owner and service manager. So he was like full-time tech support. So he was so much down in the day-to-day. Um, and then, you know, another company that I deal with, I got them a couple of years ago. He made the dispatcher say, Okay, let me look at this and we'll call you back. So then I'm like, you are losing so much business. Book the call. But again, it was like this over-responsibility that I have to touch every call and make sure that it's dispatched correctly. And I have to be tech support. And I have, dang it, right now, we have to be marriage counselors. We've got to be parent counselors, you know. Um, I think that happens a lot. And um, you know, I look through there too, like even um customer issues, like owners that step in for every customer issue. Um, you know, this is not empowering your team. I think this was your point earlier, empowering your team to be able to make their own resolutions to their own problems. I think it builds culture. I think it makes better team members in the long run. Um, you know, I tell my team one thing that I read in a leadership book several years ago was about trust. So, like right now, one of the things I tell my leaders quite often is, hey, I trust your opinion. This is my thought. This is what I think we might should do. But what do you think we should do? Because I trust your opinion. Um, and I've worked for bosses that were like, they really didn't care what I had to say. They were gonna tell me how they wanted me to do it, and I don't need to do it that way. Um, yeah, right. And so anyway, I just I just feel like that. So, right, I think we need to rewire the owner mindset, right? So, how do you think, like literally, Roger, like how do we stop owning other people's problems? Like, what's the internal shift that's required so that we can break this habit for those of us that are kind of caught in this little conundrum?
SPEAKER_04:It's a real that's a really good question. And the the um the end result is or the process, I would say, is not easy. The owner, the person that has this issue must change and grow and change, and it's emotional, it takes time. But the way that you have to think about this is who let's just take dispatch. Let's take dispatch, let's say that you got a small company and you got a one person who's a CSR and the dispatcher, right? And so you have to clarify who owns and is responsible for dispatch. What's that person's name? Whoever. Yeah, Jackie. Let's say it's Jackie. Yeah. So what happens in the business is the owner comes to Jackie and says, Hey, I booked this service call, put it on the board, we got to get to it today. What just happened?
SPEAKER_02:He hijacked her schedule.
SPEAKER_04:He undermined any empowerment that he's trying to do. And here's the reason he does that. He has fear that he can't say no to the person that called him to book the service call. So he doesn't respect the limit. In this particular case, he can't say no, and he can't respect the limit and crosses over a boundary of responsibility and ownership that he should not do. He's not respecting what he's delegated to the dispatcher, and that needs to be addressed. The dispatcher needs to be able to say, hang on just a second. Would you have him call me? Now, this is what happened to me one day. And see, this is how I had to learn this. I I'm a recovering over-responsible person.
SPEAKER_02:Over oversteppers are anonymous.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I I went, I I if you have this issue, go to Al-Anon. Al Anon's a place to learn boundaries because it's you know, it's it's people get confused about what it is, but it's a place to learn how not to the able people. Um, and we have a big problem in our kind in our whole whole culture. But so back to the story. My Uncle Jim, who who I grew up little bitty kiddie, take me fishing, you know. This is the relationship I have with Uncle Jim. Love Uncle Jim. Called me one day in my truck, and I said, Hey, how are you doing? He said, Fine, can you get a technician, the 123 Ray Avenue? I got a rental property there and they got no air. I said, Hey, did you call Heather? Not and call Heather. Well, Heather owns dispatch and you know, she books and dispatches. I said, Well, Uncle Jim, I appreciate you calling me, but I don't do dispatch. I don't know what the schedule looks like. Heather's responsible for that. Uh, and I, you know, you're gonna have to call her. Well, I don't like dealing with them. Well, okay, tell me about that. Well, he's gonna have to deal with them. You know why? Because I don't I don't do dispatch.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and a lot of times people call in those, they want to call in a favor and act like they know somebody and it gets you outside of the stuff.
SPEAKER_04:I see this all the time in big companies, and it's not good for uh for clarity about whom owns and is responsible for what. So I told her, I said, listen, if if something breaks and we don't do the job right and you're unhappy with that, call me. But if you want a technician to come, you're gonna have to go through other. I don't do her job, she does it, and she's pretty good at it, by the way. That doesn't mean she's perfect, but I don't even I don't know what's on the schedule, I don't know what her plan is. I'm out here doing other things, call Heather. And he did.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and so you know, I'm I'm from rural East Texas, and so you know, you go to church with people and they will just call and say, Well, y'all need to go ahead and get somebody out here, you know, and I have to tell them, like, I mean, honestly, even if I wanted to, I have to tell them, I am so sorry. Like, I have no ability to rework the schedule. And it would be different if I was like in a single truck, you know, and could send. But when you're trying to run a profitable, honestly, successful business that's able to actively uh employ people at good salaries and things like that, you have to have processes and boundaries. And, you know, again, I as a leader, I'm terrible at boundaries. Um, I tend to overreach my own boundaries and into other people's boundary lines. And, you know, I've learned that, you know, people that are demanding a lot of times just need redirection. Hey, I am so sorry. You know what? If you really want this problem taken care of, you need to call Heather in dispatch. You don't want me, you don't want me to call Heather because I'm not gonna say it right, you know, however, you need to do that, but you're right, and it's it's very important that we put that our team members know that we are giving them the respect of we believe, which here's the word we trust, we have confidence in their competence, yep.
SPEAKER_04:And when we do it for them, we don't trust that. And um the other thing is, is um, you know, you you have to embrace um this idea that it might break, and you have to allow it to break. And you don't fix it, you expect them to fix it. So it's a culture of okay, it's okay to learn, it's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are just merely feedback, but we need to learn from those mistakes. But if we mess it up and it breaks, that's normal. Okay, so the leader, the leaders won't let that happen. Let me give you, let me give you an example. This was really this is how nervous and anxious you get. So it's about how do you change? Well, you have to embrace your anxiety. Here's what happened to me. I have a really small, tiny, tiny, tiny call center offshore. We book and dispatch calls for some of my clients, holidays and weekends, and nights. And at five o'clock Eastern time, we're supposed to take a plumbing company's phone on a Friday for the whole weekend. And guess I get this text message from the overseas. This this person is a this person's very capable, very smart. I get a text message like two minutes before time to take the phone. Hey, I can't log into the platform. We got a Zoom platform. Back then it was a different platform, couldn't log in. Two minutes. Now, whose problem is this? This is similar to the similar to the installer, just different context. My problem or his problem? His problem. His problem, but I'm nervous. Because two minutes and we're now we're a minute and thirty seconds. We might miss a call or two. So I sent him a text back and said, Okay, what do you think you ought to do about that? It's the same pattern. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same pattern. They try to give it to me, but I won't take it because it ain't mine. I didn't hear from him.
SPEAKER_03:You know how texting is for like six minutes. Oh, I could reach out to customer support.
SPEAKER_04:So we gotta support because he's got for free support. I didn't tell I I knew the answer, but why do I not want to give it to him? He needs to think for himself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he's a he's in medical school doing surgery under supervision.
SPEAKER_02:Sir, this is not rocket science or heart surgery. I think we're fine. So now this is five after.
SPEAKER_04:Now I'm still what's what's I'm nervous. And he finally, ten after, hey, I got in. Did we miss any calls? No, didn't miss any calls. I said, call me. Call me. So here's the conversation. I said, David, listen, you're very smart. You're in medical school, you're doing surgery under supervision. My expectation is that you are you own and are responsible for your job. And if you have a challenge, you can call me and talk to me, but please don't come to me with a problem unless you got a solution.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And if you've got a solution, I'm happy to help you through that. My door's open. But please, David, don't ever come to me with a question that you ain't got a solution to. I want you to use your brain first, and maybe you'll figure it out without me. Because you can. Because you can. You can.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, one of the things people tell me about my kids, so I have a 15 about to be 16-year-old in two weeks, and uh 18-year-old about to be 19 in February. And people are like, they're just so mature. Well, one of the things about their maturity, I think, is that I've always been a conversational parent. And so I'm not one of these people like, you're absolutely not going to use all of your savings on a video game or whatever. I was always saying, Oh, that sounds like a strong decision. Like, what do we what do we really think about that? Like, I mean, if we use all your money for that, what if you want to, you know, do this? And I remember being conversational with my kids, and now I see them actually put that practice in. So my son is um a club fitter for golf clubs. And so naturally now though, like he was not afraid to take on this role, this like side hustle, if you will, of custom fitting because he's learned how to work through issues. Because I told him, I said, what are you gonna do? Not every grip is the same, not every glue is the same, not every heat gun. Like, and what if, you know, he's like, Mom, you know, I'll figure it out. And I'm like, so many kids nowadays, I sound like a whole person, but so many young adults right now, one of their biggest issues is they have no coping skills and no problem-solving skills. Everything is like, oh, I don't know. I don't know, it's not me. Uh, you know, instead, I'm like, man, I just like people, I tell even my own team now, if you will make a decision and it needs to be a different decision in the future, I'll coach you on that. Please make me hit the brakes, not the gas. So I want you to keep going, making decisions. I'm happy to give you insight, but I don't want to have to give you the answer to every little problem that you face because number one, you're more than capable to answer for yourself. You have all of the resources at your fingertips to figure it out. And it bottlenecks everything when you can't move until you talk to me. Well, there's 30 of y'all and one of me. You know what I mean? Literally, I have you have to teach your team how to treat you. And you have to teach them how they can grow professionally themselves. And so, I mean, this conversation, like I've never thought of it in this way, but um it's definitely um a unique perspective because this is this is a problem in the industry. Yes, and we're not working ourselves out of a hole either. So if you might feel like you're in a hole right now, like oh my gosh, like you have to just start. I know that sounds crazy, but like you just need to start asking that simple question. Well, what do you think we should do about that? That one simple question, it's not threatening, it's not you're not practicing avoidance. I don't think that's avoidance. No, it isn't.
SPEAKER_04:It's you're trying to you're trying to you're trying to really coach them to use their own wisdom to evoke from what's in them so they can use it and learn how to use it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and we need to be quiet as owners. Sometimes we just need to hush and let them think through it. So, you know, again, you know, same little little mantra here, you know, your baby's like, oh, gonna touch the stove, and you're like, that's hot, don't touch it. You know, and then they they get a little closer, that's hot, don't touch it. You know, and eventually they some of them, some of our little rascals, you know, they touch it. And then I'm like, okay, I told you that that was hot. It's that same mentality, like, hey, you can do it. What do you think we should do?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then redirection. So I I love all of that, you know, and I also think this has a cultural impact, Roger. Like, you know, when you reduce the amount of over-responsibility, I think it builds a culture of ownership, like owning your lane, owning your job. I call it leading from your desk. Every I tell people at my Limit Seed team, every single one of you are a leader, every single one of you are an expert marketer. It just depends on what you know department you're in, but you need to own your role, own your what's now I'm gonna say start saying your responsibility.
SPEAKER_04:I think it actually ownership and responsibility. It it it it just it it screams ownership. Responsibility is ownership. That's one of the one of the things. So it's ownership. Listen, you gotta take ownership of your job. And if you don't know how we're gonna give you all the skills to teach you, but I'm not gonna do this job for you. It sure is not mine.
SPEAKER_02:Well, one of my really good friends, Kristen Gallup, who's the president of women at HVACR this year, she taught me this this year um as we were on the board together. She's like, we got to keep quit throwing this over the fence, and we've got to teach people. And so, like that little saying stuck with me. I'm like, we just keep tossing this over the fence. So it'll go to somebody when they don't know what to do, instead of going and figuring it out, they toss it over the fence to whoever, whatever unlucky soul catches it the next time. And I'm like, man, you got to take ownership of those things. I also think it increases, it makes your team you you're able to set higher standards for performance. Um, and that that again is across all industries, you know, when you um when you reduce over responsibility, it increases the standard levels that you have put in place. I think it actually helps you have better margins because people are more efficient in their working. And then it creates confidence. And if I had to tell you one thing that I really see missing from young, especially young professional women, it is professionalism. It's uh I'm sorry, confidence in there. They're very professional, but they have zero confidence and zero coping skills. So the minute that a contractor gets a little spicy on a call, it's 106 degrees, and you know, they they spout off something, your my team will be like, oh my gosh, I'm uncomfortable. This, you know, and I'm like, you speak with confidence, right? Own the fact that this is your role.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they get they let they get pushed around.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. That's yeah, I understand. That's uh that's an assertiveness skill and a coping skill to sit still and embrace your fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's uh uh, you know, um I uh one of the things I read the other day because I was reading this uh young millennials site. So I'm really at the end of a millennial. I was born in 81, so I can kind of go millennial, you know. But um one of the things that I was reading about was this they literally call it an epidemic of uh anxiety disorders right now, of so many people being literally riddled with anxiety. And I see it, I see it right now, and I think a lot of it is just because not clear boundaries, not clear parameters, and when you want to leave everything, like I just want to be this cool place to work and I want to be helpful, all of that is great until there's actually uh someone to be held accountable for it. So everything's great when everything is a shared collaborative environment until at the end of the day, who didn't get it done? And then everybody's hands off, you know. So, okay, I have a few little scenarios that I thought I would prop out to you kind of quick, like a little, a little speed round, if you will. Um, and I just wanted to kind of know, because I think these are three things that I came up with that I think you can give me a kind of a quick answer, but how should an emotionally responsible? So an emotionally appropriately responsible leader handle each of these scenarios? So the first one, uh we have a technician who is repeatedly late to jobs, and the owner keeps giving him chances. What would an emotionally responsible leader do?
SPEAKER_04:Let's call him uh Bob. Hey, Bob, listen, I love you, man. But here's your attendance, here's your tardiness. You've been this is what we saw. You came in at this time, this day, at this time, this day, at this time, this day. So there are this is just the facts. I gotta be honest with you. I am really frustrated with you.
SPEAKER_03:I am not happy. Can you fix this?
SPEAKER_02:And then let them talk. Make them talk.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I can fix it.
SPEAKER_04:Tell me how. What's your plan? Yeah, that's that's great. Here's what this conversation is doing. Where am I placing the whose problem is this? Mine or his?
SPEAKER_02:His he's late.
SPEAKER_04:I'm clearly placing the responsibility to fix it on him.
SPEAKER_03:I can't fix it for him.
SPEAKER_04:But I have an expectation that he's going to be on time. And we'll see if he can fix it. But you gotta start, you know, you gotta start documenting that and writing down this and he taking ownership. Here's your plan, how you gonna fix it? And you know, I mean if it's habitual, it's gotta be a progressive discipline process in writing. And it's we call it write them up, but you gotta get, hey, you see this, you agree with this, how you gonna fix it? Here's your plan. And then you go, if it's habitual, I'm gonna have three, you get 90 days, three strikes, you're out. I can't, you can't, you cannot work here and be late this late as a pattern. Yes, you can be late. I've been late. You ever been late? We all have been late, but it ain't a pattern. See, it's a is it a pattern of behavior that needs to change? And if it is, the reason it continues is because you as the owner allow it.
SPEAKER_02:You deserve what you tolerate.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. You're gonna get what you allow, and if you say no to it, here's here's the truth, and this is what we're afraid of.
SPEAKER_03:When you put limits on people, sometimes they get fired.
SPEAKER_04:Sometimes they get divorced, sometimes they go to jail, sometimes they wake up in humility and say, you know, I really do have an issue that I need to change, and I've gotta change it. All of those are good.
SPEAKER_03:Every one of them.
SPEAKER_04:But this the facts are if you put limits on people, they either grow or they leave.
SPEAKER_02:Go. Grow or go conversations.
SPEAKER_04:Grow or they go. That's right. That's right. So what we're afraid of is I can't put limits on people because I'll have to have a really a really good recruiting process. But we call that you are um uh we are enabling their dysfunction because we are dependent on them. And they are dependent on us. So it's a dependent relationship, not a relationship that we relationships that you're when you're in a relationship with an employee because you need them, that ain't good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:If you're in a marriage because you need that relationship, that's not good. Any relationship that's out of need is not a healthy place. Want is better. I want you in this business because I want you in this business, not because I need you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:If you ever, you know, and this whole industry is codependent, not the whole industry. A lot of it, we they're hanging. We got to grow and learn how to recruit. A lot of people have. Yeah. A lot of people have, and it's doable, but that's where you listen, if you're gonna start putting limits on people, you better put in a recruiting process because some of them are gonna get fired or quit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because they don't like it.
SPEAKER_04:Well, they don't. That's the reason they work there.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. That is totally right.
SPEAKER_04:There's not much accountability and expectation about certain things, and you know, they go other places and get fired.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, and I think that same philosophy answers these other two. So my other two little quick examples, but your answer solves these as well. You know, the sales rep won't quit, won't use the pricing system. They keep making up their own pricing. Again, this is a them problem. They're not following your rules, put the expectations and let them do it. And then a manager that avoids hard conversations, like the owner keeps stepping in and handling those hard conversations when that cannot be. This is a them problem, not a you problem. They need to learn to figure it out, or they need to grow in that or they need to go. And so it's the same philosophy. So, you know, on our way out here, Roger, what I thought I would ask you is, you know, so let's say a contractor or someone's listening today and they're like, okay, maybe I need a little Roger in my life here. How do they get connected to you? Like, what is your product service, leadership coaching?
SPEAKER_04:Well, I do a lot of things. Uh basically, what I do is I help people think so they can change. Change your thinking so you can change your behavior. And all we're doing here is thinking about, you know, we're trying to think differently about our leadership role. So, really, I'm a behavioral change expert. I help people change and grow, change behavior. I have the technicians do that. So, you know, do a lot of stuff with, you know, the service called Blueprint. I wrote a book called Service Call Blueprint. I wrote another book called How to Book and Dispatch Service Calls, Passive Time. So I work in that space, but also that's kind of micro space. I helped the technician with that process, so his average ticket goes way up. And then I helped the leadership, the team build unity of purpose, unity of purpose in the culture, and we change the culture, and we just we try to make a build a culture, culture of responsibility and ownership, and then expect everybody to do what they own and become excellent at it. And it's a lot of we there's a lot of times you have to get a lot of toxicity out of the culture because the culture's boundaryless, and it's it doesn't work very well when there's no boundaries and people don't have clarity about what they own and what they don't own and responsible for, and you have a lot of excuse making, gossip, triangulation, sarcasm, uh people standing around waiting to be told what to do, just a bunch of stuff. So I work on the the culture, service called process, which leads to sales process, but uh the whole business gets better. It's a it's a it's a big micro, macro and a micro approach.
SPEAKER_02:I I love it. I mean, I think of this it's so needed in our space right now. So how do people how do you want people to reach out to you?
SPEAKER_04:The best way to reach me is send me a text, 205-837-3643. And of course, you can go online and grab an appointment at rogerdaviston.com. Okay. Perfect. Lots of stuff to read. Uh, we've talked about a lot of it here today, but I write a lot too.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I love it. Listen, I want to encourage contractors that are in this space, or if you feel yourself headed to this space, or you just want, you know, maybe just a friendly, like, hey, I don't know if you're a solve, you can solve what I've got going on, but at least someone that is focused on the mental clarity and things that contractors need. So, Roger, thank you so much. I have written two pages worth of notes today for my own self. Uh, so that was that was helpful. But uh, thank you for being on here. And for our listeners, thank you for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. It's the beginning of a new wonderful year. So I wish you a great year of blessings. Please go and share our podcast. Leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure you join us every single week for another episode of From the Yellow Chair. Have a great 2026.