Verify In Field: The Millwork Podcast

From Expert to Leader: Rethinking Your Role with Skot Waldron

• Marketing • Season 2 • Episode 16

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In this episode of Verify In Field, host Jacob Edmond sits down with brand strategist, author, and leadership coach Skot Waldron to unpack what effective leadership really means in today’s evolving millwork and construction industry.

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Skot Waldrom

boomers are the biggest entrepreneurial generation we've ever had. They have built more and developed more and scaled more than any of us ever have. And they're holding onto it because it's theirs and they built it. And there's a lot of pride in that and they don't think anybody will take care of it like they can. So I see that a lot more than I do in the corporate space happening.

Jacob Edmond

Welcome back everybody to Verify In Field. I'm excited today for my guest, Skot Waldron, who's a good friend of mine and he is a brand expert, a speaker, and a coach. He's also an author and a fellow podcast host and the upcoming speaker for the 2025 National Convention for AWI in October. Thanks for joining me today, Skot.

Skot Waldrom

Hey, any invitation from you is a gift for me, to be here, so super cool.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah. So today I wanna have you on to talk a little bit about leadership and human behavior and business impact, which, you spend your time coaching and developing leaders, and you'll be speaking a little bit about that at National Convention, I hope. But if you could start, give us a little bit about just your background. How did you come to be a coach and working in leadership development?

Skot Waldrom

I did not go to school for this, as a lot of people in my industry don't do that. I did go to school for communications uh, work specifically graphic design and, what I call external communication, right? So helping companies and brands all over the world communicate externally. And capture who they are, make sure that they are representing themselves well, and then getting that out to the world. And I did that for almost two decades and in the course of that time you know, built an agency worked in Chicago for a number of years, came back to Atlanta and built uh, the agency here and then. Eventually just started just moving into speaking. I was trying to build some exposure for the company and, and what I was doing and getting the word out. And I was always loving facilitation of workshops and things when I was doing brand strategy work with companies and at some point I was like, I love this. This is so fun and I'm really able to like, impact a lot of people in this room right now. I'm getting a lot of, conversations going. And it was a lot of fun. And so I started to build and concentrate on that a bit more. Still building the agency work and doing that. And then the coaching stuff piped in because what I realized is. There were a lot of internal problems with companies, so I was solving a lot of external problems with companies. Helping them, communicate better and position themselves well and get the message out. But what I realized is that a lot of companies on the internal side were just. They were broken. There was no alignment, there was no trust, there was a lot of turnover. It was costing me a lot of money. Wasted money, wasted time because of the drama and silos and finger pointing and just not being on the same page. And I said, you know what? Why am I on the reactive side of all of this dysfunction? Why am I not on the internal side, like right when the proactive side. So I started saying, Hey, if you want me to do your external work, I'm first gonna have to work on your internal stuff, and then we'll work on the external stuff because it all starts on the inside. With our health, it's the same way folks on the inside and then we don't need pills so much for the outside. That's what kind of just branched off that way. And now that's pretty much what I do, but I take a lot of my brand strategy work from the past and implement that into a lot of the coaching and leadership teamwork that I do now.

Jacob Edmond

So it was a natural evolution of your work in branding and consulting and marketing with companies of, Hey, this is really the core problem. To the work you were trying to do with them that they were trying to accomplish, and it became a way for you to better facilitate that work and realize, Hey, I'm good at this. I like this, and this is making a bigger impact, it sounds like.

Skot Waldrom

it was, and I'm, I don't wanna downplay the design aspects of the work that I was doing before, but the work I started doing with the coaching consulting and the speaking seemed to have not just an impact in the moment on that campaign or that specific initiative and um, some of the brand strategy, our work did, last five, 10 years, right? But this was helping leaders and people just be better people, like better humans. They were just. Yeah, it helped them in that job, in that thing that they were doing. But it's gonna help them in their next job, their next career. And it also helps them at home where, where the biggest impact's gonna be felt by their spouse or their partner or their kids. Where I I'm able to I have, single moms come back to me and say, wow, because of Five Gears i'm able to now connect with my son in a whole new way that I wasn't doing before because of my time management and being productive and some of those things. And that's been crazy cool. Hearing those stories.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. So how would you describe like the types of organizations and leaders that you work with today?

Skot Waldrom

I, I like to work with those that are at this tipping point. The tipping point is crucial. It's either a tipping point in like they're younger. Maybe they're a millennial and they're trying to move into that next phase of like leadership and moving into that next stage of their leadership journey. Developing those individuals is so fun and helping them, and they're hungry. That generation wants coaching, they want mentoring, they want growth. And so really leaning into that group has been awesome. Now. Also it's the, you know, gen Xers um, some of the older millennials, but like younger Gen Xers. That are stepping into now owning companies those that are like the boomers are finally retiring or they're trying to retire, but they're trying to, figure out their place in that new ownership role or taking on a lot of responsibility for the entire company or some bigger department or division of a company instead of just being like, the team lead or, something in that space. So it's that tipping point where they're really trying to level up who they are and what they do, because let's be honest, there's a lot of people that were promoted because they were good at their job and they were not necessarily good at people. And now they have to figure out the people part. They learned to trade, they learned something, and they got really good at it. And now they're like, wait, what? You're like, want me to I can teach people how to do the thing. Right. Sometimes I micromanage, but I, I will teach people to do the trade, the thing that I learned,'cause I'm so good at it, but I don't know how to help you manage your time or communicate better or make sure that we're efficient and building trust and all those things like that, that I never really learned how to do. So that's fun to, to really be in with those people.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah, it makes me think of some questions. So I don't know if there's any maybe anecdotal or you from your perspective, things you've learned. But, thinking in the past. I imagine coaches like you in leadership development, this didn't always exist in the form we have it available to us today, or maybe it looked different. Do you find that,'cause I know in our industry we have a lot of founders that are at that age where there's transitioning for the first time. But those founders, I'm sure didn't have a coach. Maybe they had a mentor or somebody, but they they grew the business from nothing to what it is today, and now they're maybe transitioning it over to those leaders that have hit their threshold of they were a great individual contributor and now they're the leader and they're having to learn to be a leader as well as teaching others to do like you're describing. Do you find that at all different, one, working with those two different types of, hey, there's, this is a founder that maybe later is realizing, okay, I need to work on my leadership, versus those people that are transitioning into it for the first time and they're. Do you find that our generation, modern people are. looking for this differently than maybe they were 20, 30 years ago?

Skot Waldrom

That's an interesting question. I wasn't doing this 20, 30 years ago, so I don't totally know the answer. But what I will say is that the medium and the way that it's done is gonna be a little bit different. I worked with if anybody knows the John Maxwell Company or John Maxwell and some of the things he's done and Pat Lencionni and those the, Stephen Covey's and those kind of old school leadership, those people that, like Ken Blanchard built the, leadership bucket. They built the industry. They were pioneers in really trying to do some of this work and make it more popularized. A lot of it was built on the, come in, do a workshop, read a book. Here's some tapes to listen to and things like that, right? To try to implement over time. And I think with that type of format I think the way we digest content now is a little bit different. The medium I think is changed. I think the way that we digest and process information is different. What I'll say though too is. Looking at the the desire for things. I think when they were building their companies, it was more about how do I get people to follow me and listen to me? And I think that desire is still there. I would say now what is probably more so is how do I build influence in my space? And how do I move with the changing market and how do I bridge gaps between this older generation and this younger generation? And because I know the generation's always been there, but the, it seems like it's more pronounced, technology has increased the divide has made it so much more obvious that there's a divide there. And I think. There's just different things that leaders are looking for, probably.

Jacob Edmond

I guess maybe a different, better way to phrase my question is, do you think natural mentorship of, a leader having a mentor, somebody that they can go to in their life that kind of naturally evolve, develops is less prominent today or less accessible for young people?'Cause from my perspective, it feels like, that's something I see people my age Hey, I'm looking for this thing, but I don't know what to name it, to call it how to get it. It seems like that was maybe more natural for the generations before us of, hey, they grew up with a leader that they're following or that they're going to. And it wasn't like they were having to intentionally seek out a coach, a mentor. Whereas today, and maybe it's, something we haven't learned to recognize that we have access to in our generation. Is that your experience, something you've seen?

Skot Waldrom

I would say I think the trades have always been a lot better at the mentorship thing. I mean in the traditional sense of, I'm gonna, you have to learn this thing. I'm gonna teach you this thing because I'm good at this thing. Corporate, it's been a little different because it wasn't like, Hey, I am building something tangible with my hands, teaching you this thing, right? It's like how to program. Sometimes it's how to think. Sometimes it's, there's different ways to go about the mentorship thing. So I think from a little standpoint, I think the older trade generations have always been good at that. Some of the trade generations now are still pretty good at that. I think the younger generations now, they do want it. I think that they're looking for it. I guess I'm gonna say that I see a lot of gaps in the way it's done now. I don't think it's very formal. I think it's, I think mentorship is too informal now, and I think that it's taken on that role, which I don't love to see. So I teach a mentorship model that is more intentional. I have people do an assessment to understand where they are on the process and where are they good at certain aspects of mentorship versus not. Then really leaning into those holes and tracking things. It has to be really intentional. Otherwise, it's just kinda like, Hey, I'm here on Thursday afternoon. I figured I got a few extra minutes. I'll show you how to do that thing real quick. I guess that's okay, but at the end of the day, I think it needs to be more formal.

Jacob Edmond

So that your process when you're coaching a leader or a leadership team, there's assessment, it sounds like you start with. How do you work with them? Obviously, you know it's scheduled and it's intentional. And then how do you, how do you begin uncovering these gaps or these blind spots or, hey, this is, this is where we're gonna focus some attention, or this is what we need to work on. How do you, what does that process look like when you're working directly with a leader?

Skot Waldrom

I will initially come in and I'll, I'll talk to'em about their goals. Obviously I don't think it's much different than a lot of other people. I think I'll come in, I'll talk about your goals. What's going on, where's the pain point? I really wanna get to the pain. Sure we wanna achieve a goal of some kind but the pain is usually what's gonna motivate people to move. We don't like being uncomfortable. We don't like the pain, so we search for solutions. I have a goal to achieve. I can maybe find some stuff. I'm not as motivated, right? With those initial goals, that has to always be part of it. But I like to get to the pain so I understand the pain. What's the, What's the cost of not doing anything? What's the, what are we really trying to get to here and solve? And uh, I will also couple that with a, if I'm doing a individual, I'll do more of a leader 360. Now, my problem with Leader 360 is that they tend to be negative, focused like what's your problem? What's your gap? Where's the holes? How can you get better, et cetera. So when I present the reports, which I've done in the past, when I present the reports to the leader, what do you focus on? All the negative stuff. How do you walk away from that meeting? Feeling like garbage. You, right? Like it's ugh, I thought I was better at this. Or, oh man. It's like you start doubting yourself a little bit or you start fighting it like, I don't know what they're talking about. Like I don't, I didn't think I did that. And so it just becomes a defense thing. Now, lemme say this, I will focus on some growth areas. But I will highly focus on the positives of your leadership too, because why don't we just get wicked awesome at the things that we're already wicked awesome at, and just use that to leverage instead of trying to get a little bit better at the things we suck at, because it's like the progress we'll make in those areas will be marginal. If we're just naturally not great at that, it's really hard to get into that. I have to be really intentional. It's just harder. But if I can focus on the things that already gimme life and energy and that I'm really good at, how can we leverage those strengths while still working on the things that we need to improve on? I like to focus on that. So my three sixties are a little bit different. I'll also, when I'm doing teamwork with small groups or larger team assessments teams, I'll do an assessment for them too. Like a Team 360 that focuses on 71 different data points. It'll give you a percentage on how well we're doing. It takes an average, it's anonymous, and then we bucket those things into five different areas of communication, relationships, alignment, execution, and capacity. We'll think and hone in on a team, like where are some things we're doing really well? Where are some things that we need some improvement? What's holding us back from being the high producing team we need to be? So I'll focus on that as well and work with teams. So I do a lot of digging first, and then we go into building a program.

Jacob Edmond

So that's an interesting point you made about, doubling down on your strengths versus focusing on your weaknesses, which I'm sure it's a mix of both. But I think I would hypothesize that most people think when they think about, leaders and being a good leader and getting coached and mentored into being a good leader, I think most people think about a leader as okay, the ideal leader is this predefined person that's good in all these specific areas. And like you can drop that person that is a very well-rounded leader into any organization. And I think a lot of people think of it as you have to be this. And I, if I'm weak in these areas, I need to focus on those weaknesses so that I'm this well-rounded leader as opposed to what you're describing as what are you naturally already good at you're already in this leadership position to, for some reason. And how do we double down and, and reinforce those things? Like basically no two leaders are the same. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I don't know if you find that in practice that people come into it thinking about, Hey, I need to strengthen these areas that I'm weak in because I see this other leader that, in my perception of them, is well-rounded in these areas.

Skot Waldrom

I think it's our perception of the word well-rounded and our whole culture that we've been brought up in that we have to be well-rounded. Especially we learn it in school like straight A's. Straight A's means you'll get into a good college, which means you'll get a good job, which means, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? You'll have a good life supposedly. Straight A's means I'm well-rounded. That means that I got a's in all my subjects. But what if there's those kids out there that hate math? They suck at it. They're not good at it. They really struggle with it. Do I say ditch it completely?'Cause math is stupid. And you'll maybe, you don't ever wanna do math, you should just focus on the things you're really good at. No, because we're gonna have to use math at some point in our lives. We should understand some of those things so we can get a little bit better at them. But do I say you really need to hone in. Just focus on the math stuff. Just do the math stuff. We're gonna get you a math tutor. We're gonna make sure you're honing in on math. We're gonna make you study math for two hours every night. Make sure you get better at math. Hello. Please don't make me do that. I will hate life. Okay? As a parent, I would hate if I was doing that to my kids, it's torture for them it's torture. And it's just because in the name of culture and the way that I want my kid to be well-rounded and all these things. Now we call it the 70 30 principle. I teach at Principal 70, 30. 70% of the time, we should be doing the things that give us life. 30% of the time, we should be doing the things that, are draining to us. Why is it not a hundred zero or 90 10? Because honestly, that's not life. We've got to be able, we've gotta be able to step up when we need it. I always do a, a sports analogy too for those that, play basketball or, or something that's like If I'm a right-handed shooter i'm gonna shoot with my right hand. I'm not going to usually take a three point shot with my left hand. I just, I don't need to, it's like leaning into my strength with my right hand. Somebody's like, Hey, you should really be well, more well rounded. You need to be able to shoot a three with your left hand. I'm like, do I though? Really? And so now do I need to do a layup with my left hand? Yes, I should be able to do a layup with my left hand. Depending on where I am in the position in the court. I should be able to use my left hand. It's just gonna be needed. I'm gonna be able to need to dribble with my left hand, but I'm a right hand dominant, so you get the point. I think in today's world of leadership, too many people look at it as, I've gotta be good at this. I have one leader I'm coaching right now. CEO, and he is the most compassionate, thoughtful, like heartfelt CEO I've ever worked with. He's a very present oriented, very in the moment with the people I'm here for you. I will never let you down. Highly values based, like very people oriented. Which makes it a little bit harder for him to think like visionary, to be like really out there to think about where we're going and to focus on strategy. So is that a, like soft spot? The board wants more vision. His team wants more vision. He's gotta do more strategic planning. He's gotta, he's a CEO. He has to project vision but he knows that he's not great at it. So he hires me to help him work on that thing. But we're not just ditching the people side. We're doing it through the lens of people. We're doing it through the lens of his strengths, saying, okay, so you care about these people. What do you hope for them? What do you want for them? And have you told them that? And it's using the lens of what he's great at to help him with the stuff that he might not be great at.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. Yeah. So shifting gears a little bit thinking about, and you touched on this a little bit earlier, about working in the trades and leadership in the trades and to some extent, naturally trades are better at mentoring and teaching at least the hands-on side of the trades. But from your experience, is there anything you've found that makes leadership in the trades and construction in industries unique or challenging?

Skot Waldrom

I think it goes back to a little bit what. You said earlier where there are a lot of founders that it's been their life. It's been their baby. They've built it, they've grown it into what it is today. They started out that way. Maybe they learned something from their family member or they took over a family business of some kind and they scaled it and blew it up. I think one of the things that's making it hard is that those, a lot of those boomers that ended up doing that it's been their identity forever and they are not retiring. They're like holding on. They don't know what else to do. Why would they ever do anything else? That's all that they've ever done. And you've got the Gen Xers like sitting there saying, Hey, I can do this. And you've got millennials coming into a lot of management.'cause they already hold a lot of management leadership positions and they're coming in saying, Hey, by the way, we're not what the media said we were 20 years ago. Lazy, entitled, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that we keep getting labeled as even today. But the boomers. Use that as a reason not to leave. As a reason not to retire as a not yet. I'm not ready yet. I don't trust these generations coming after me yet. And there's a lot of that happening. So I see that more in, I think some of the construction and trade industry just because it is so like personal and they have built this thing and they've scaled it. Boomers are the biggest entrepreneurial generation we've ever had. They have built more and developed more and scaled more than any of us ever have. And they're holding onto it because it's theirs and they built it. And there's a lot of pride in that and they don't think anybody will take care of it like they can. So I see that a lot more than I do in the corporate space happening. And so that I think, makes it hard. For the dynamics within a team and for companies, I think to continue to scale and grow. I think they might be holding their companies back because they're not willing to shift or let go and the next generations have things to bring, but they can't because their hands are tied in some way. So I think that's a problem. I don't know. Do you see that at all? Yeah.

Jacob Edmond

No, for sure. I think especially, specifically in millwork and I think you'll probably see a lot of this, you know, at at AWI convention and there is still a lot of that older Gen X Boomer or older, ownership. And there's also, I think in our industry there's a lot of, founder owners, maybe second gen, but most of the owners come up from the shop floor, come up from doing right. And they've done a little bit of everything. And so do think that there is a struggle to develop leaders and there's a struggle to trust and delegate to those leaders. And I think, I managed to hear your perspective on this, but I think there's some of that of, nobody's going to do it the way I do. There's kind of the culture of personality versus the culture of the organization as a whole. And when 20, 30, 40 years, some of these people, it's been, one guy's call on everything. And not only that, I think those owners a lot of times struggle to hand the reins over to, maybe they've been developing that, that person for 10, 15 years, but it's hard to hand things over when, and I think a lot of times they see it as well, this person doesn't have the experience I have, so they won't be able to make this decision like I would. And I think it's like, okay, yes, but have you. Have you put them through the experience that you, yourself got? Or is your experience really the right recipe that's necessary for this? Or is it different now? Have you worked through that with any people or have you seen that dynamic?

Skot Waldrom

Yeah, I have quite a bit. I've, I've worked mostly with the generation that is trying to move up into those spots. I will say the other thing that makes the trades and construction a little bit different in leadership is that it wasn't a norm. It's I think a newer concept to train leaders and develop leaders in the construction industry. Number one it's not like a corporate space where you're all in an office or you can get, jump on a Zoom call'cause everybody's at their computers all day. Like y'all are in the field. Y'all are out on site doing things. When I have done some trainings with individuals, it's, a lot of them are in the trailer, right? They're on site, they take a break, they come into the trailer, and we have our coaching calls. There's, people moving around all the time in the background, and it's a little bit different atmosphere. It's a little bit tougher. So when you put that lens on it, I think the older generations. It was just never something they thought of or did. It wasn't practical to have a full day offsite where everybody gets together and, does Ken Blanchard work? It just never really worked that way. Now it's a little bit easier and accessible just because of virtual trainings that can happen. But it's still something you gotta work through and something you gotta understand because y'all are out in the field doing a lot of different things. So it doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.'cause there's a lot of things, a lot of young, like I said, the younger generation, they want it. Like they wanna know how to develop themselves and the trades are no longer just the guy on the side of the road or just the person hammering nails. Like, they are taking on more sophisticated roles and building a lot of different things From a business standpoint, it's no longer, Hey, just learn how to use a hammer. It's like you're doing a lot more now, which is cool. Yeah.

Jacob Edmond

I also see I, personally in my experience, I've seen a lot of, a struggle with, because I think technology came into our industry over the last 20, 25 years. And it was, Hey, we've done things manually with manual tools, without computers, without CAD, without all this stuff. And then it was okay, now we have some of this software. Now we have these CNC equipment, we need somebody to program. But it was the generation who did it without learned to do it with. And now we're at the stage where those people who both did it without, and then they were the ones who learned to do it with and they took that experience with them, are retiring. And for the first time we're having to figure out how to bring up young people that they're only ever gonna learn how to do with. And so there, I think there is this struggle of how do you teach that? Because I didn't learn it. I learned it by doing and I learned it by doing without. And then I learned it slowly in incorporating these new tools. And there's this kind of like void of people doing it, don't know, and frankly don't really want to teach somebody that just came outta college or just came outta high school and has very little experience. And, it's I want you in a couple weeks to get up to speed and be producing work. But it took them years to get there. And so I think there's this struggle and really a void of just nobody in these organizations has ever had to think about training and education as like a standalone thing of how do we develop somebody from nothing, intentionally. It was always just, it's easier to go say you can go start sweeping floors and watch the guy, and then he can show you how to do the thing, the physical task. But it, I think we have a whole side of this industry that never touches the material, never goes to the shop floor or, but still needs to understand a little bit of everything. You seen any of that dynamic play out, of. you said, everything used to be on the side of the road or on the job site, but we have a whole side of this business that is in the office all day long. And I think we're for the first time experiencing, Hey, we need new people and we're not bringing up the way that we did in the past, and we have to figure out a.

Skot Waldrom

I think that's so critical. Like I mean, the idea of doing it without now doing it with, I think is a really interesting, but you're seeing that across all industries and you're gonna see that with AI coming into it as Gen Z and Gen Alpha come up and start. They just, our kids go to an AI high school, right? And like it's just part of their curriculum. It's just part of what they do, and they don't think anything of it. So if we're not prepared for that as an industry, and integrating that and adopting things like that to understand or alienating entire generations that are gonna come up going, wait, what? You don't use AI in your businesses and how to like, okay, I'll go somewhere else. Because that seems so archaic not to use it. So I think as we start thinking about the without and the, with. It's all about the change in adapting. It's all about what is that focus on the future and where we're going and who are we catering to and how are we training people up because are we gonna lose the craft a bit of the, those that did without? Yes, we will. Honestly you had people that were, hammering, horseshoes, we had a lot of horseshoe blacksmiths. Hun, hundreds of years ago, all the everywhere. Did we lose some of that? Do we not really know how to hammer horseshoes? We do, but we have tires now, right? On cars. We don't really necessarily need the blacksmith hammering horseshoes like we used to. And it's okay. We're all fine. We all survived. The industry has grown and continue to grow and it kind of will, transportation. So I think it's just how do we adapt and change and not get eaten alive because we refuse to.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah. No, absolutely. I think there is an inherent fear of change, especially in, in the trades, because a lot of it comes from experience, and a lot of people have experienced change that and poorly. And so I think that there is this inherent this, I've been doing it this way and it works and this is my safe space and I know that I'm, I have a profitable business, or I did. And you hear a lot of the owners of I don't understand. I used to be able to do this with just me and three other people. And now we're struggling with 10 times as many people were struggling with adding all these tools and things, and there's rose colored glasses of the past sometimes as well, I think. Change is inevitable. And I think too, there's a missed opportunity if of what do these young people bring with their new perspective, their new, it's okay, what can they build when they're starting from here, they're standing on the shoulders of everybody who came before them. Let's teach'em as much as we can of what your experience is, or at least let them go in front of you and you're gonna be there, to use your experience to guide them. But what can they build on top of everything else that we never could have with our experiences and our knowledge and where we started from. I think that's the other side of the coin is a lot of times we focus on where did we come from and how do we not lose that versus where could we be going that we can't even see yet when we embrace this change in a constructive way.

Skot Waldrom

That is super smart. That is wise right there. If everybody had just a clip, they should listen to that, not me. They should listen to you say that.'Cause I think that's so relevant. And so important.'cause we all like. We think about the good old days, we think about, ah, how we used to, sit in the office or draft up something and then we used to go on site and we used to do this and do that. And there's all of that we used to think about that. Those kids today, they'll never know. They'll never know what that was like. They're, it's a lost start everybody. It's a lost start. And we put ourselves over here'cause we're so scared. We put ourselves on this pedestal and we try to keep them down here. Those kids will never know. They'll never know the pain. They'll never know what it's like. So we, we put ourselves in this like special club of oh, they'll never know, which keeps them what are we trying to do there? I think we're trying to keep them over here. We're trying to like say, you'll, you're in your own little club. You'll never know. You'll never be part of our club. Because we're kind of scared of the things that they're bringing and the things that they know that we don't know. So we try to keep putting ourselves up here on that, that pedestal, instead of stepping down into their world and saying, Hey, what do you have to bring to the table that could shape and scale what I've already done and built. And let me tell you how business works. Let me tell you how relationships work. Let me tell you how we operate from an operational side of things and see how you can integrate what you're gonna bring into that whole process. We are so afraid because we were so good at the trade, we were so good at the thing. And now we're not so fast anymore. We're not so slick, and so whatever that those young kids are like passing us up. And now we're intimidated and we're scared, and we're trying to keep them down here because we're afraid of losing our relevance. We're afraid of losing our identity. So Arthur Brooks is an author. He wrote a he wrote a book called From Strength to Strength. And it's all about this idea of fluid intelligence. At the beginning of our life, we go through this fluid intelligence state. We can adapt, we can grow, we can learn quickly and do things at a relatively high pace. And we crest, there's a, it's a curve, right? It goes up a hill and then it starts going down maybe in your mid forties. I don't know. It's like that kind of mid-career area where. We call it a mid-career crisis, but it's this idea of losing our identity a little bit and not really knowing where we're gonna go and what we're gonna do, and we start to dip. The problem here that Arthur talks about is that we keep going. We don't ever make the jump to the next curve, which is right, they kind of overlap a little bit. And then the next curve is crystallized intelligence, which is all of the wisdom that I've built over my career and life. That the fluid intelligence people don't have yet. But what we do is we hold onto the fluid stuff because that's the stuff we see and we go, oh, they're getting faster. Oh, there's new technology. Oh, there's all these things. And we don't make the jump to crystallize intelligence. So we get on the low end of that hill, of the other side of that hill, and then we start going, what worth do I have anymore? I don't even know why I'm here. Those young kids, they know things, so do things so fast, I don't know what I'm doing. And so they lose a little bit of that and they become like they drag their feet when they're trying to move out into something else, or they put up walls or stiff arm ideas and shut everything down instead of adapting and growing into the crystallized part where they should be. That's where their purpose should be and where their focus should be, and that's where mentorship, going back to our earlier conversation should be happening.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. Yeah, I think that's super pertinent and relevant, topic for at least where I see a lot of. Shifting gears a little bit again, but building on that of, we've talked a lot about leadership. We talked about developing leaders or developing the next generation but growing from that into the overall culture and the impact of culture in an organization on intentional leadership, developing leadership. I think especially in the trades, there is a lot of what I would call kind of cult to personality versus of the organization as a whole. There's a kind of a deference of, I don't know that those, in those companies, those leaders necessarily always are conscious of how much they are the culture or they impact the culture of their organization. What are some, what are some ways that one, they can open their eyes to that, discover that or two, invest in culture. Like how can leaders who, maybe this is the first time they're thinking, oh wow, what is my culture? Or should I be thinking about that? What's a, what is the kind of the jumping off point and two, how it, how does that impact everything we're talking about?

Skot Waldrom

Are you asking really, like how do they reflect on what their culture is if they haven't been aware of it before?

Jacob Edmond

Yeah, I I mean, I think that's where it really starts, right? Because it seems like a lot of people think, oh yeah, we have a great culture. Like we celebrate birthdays, we buy lunches for people. We have our, our values on the wall, not necessarily Okay, but would outsiders say that you represent those values? Does. Everybody in your company know that and use that to make decisions on a day-to-day basis and what's happening when the owner's outside of the four walls. Like to me, that's more of it. And I think a big indictment on most companies that is a shocker is we're struggling to hire and we can't find any talent and we can't get anybody to come, whatever. And I don't think people put two and two together so often of what are the people saying about your business that have already worked there? What are they hearing that's maybe causing them to say, oh, I don't think I want to go there. And maybe you would say that's not true, but does that matter in that moment? I think that's the reflection that a lot of people are incapable or doing right.

Skot Waldrom

Yeah, and you hit it. You are talking brand right now. So my brand strategy world, this is exactly where it comes into play.'cause your brand is what people say about you when you're not around. It's what we say at the barbecue, what we say that weekend about my job, about my boss, about, the industry. It's the reputation that we carry with us and every leader has one. So that's what I do is shape your leadership brand so that you know you are able to build more influence through the good interactions you have, what I call making deposits in your brand account versus withdrawals from your brand account. Every interaction we, we have with somebody is making a deposit or withdrawal where um, if we have a culture where people are constantly making withdrawals, having experiences that are, we're stressed, we're burnt out. There's dominating culture here, or passive aggressiveness over there, there's entitlement over there. There's finger pointing over there. You can buy all the lunches you want and you can have ping pong tables and you can have your yearly kind of get togethers at Christmas parties and stuff where, you give, have giveaways and all kinds of stuff. But, culture is the air you breathe. It is the atmosphere in what you create. And it is those that, that the sum of every interaction that you have there that is going to shape that and create that air that everybody's breathing. And if it's toxic, i'm not recommending anybody come work there, and that's gonna be some of your biggest referrals. Your biggest hires are from gonna be from referrals. And we want to keep it a place where people feel proud to refer their friends and family or whoever to come work there because it's awesome. So taking an audit of those, that environment is humbling, but necessary. And so part of that Team 360 is a little bit of that. But also on the other side I, at times I'll go in and say, Hey, do you know your company's values? And they go, we have company values. And I say, yeah, you do. There are these. And they go, oh. And then they'll look through and go, okay yes. What is that one? We don't do that. Like it just sounded good. Like people say we're innovative. And I go. Are y'all innovative? And they go we don't innovate anything. Like we take other people's stuff and kind of repackage it, but we don't necessarily innovate. It's not our thing and it's okay. Now everybody has to be innovative, but and I also say, okay, if you're gonna be say, innovative'cause everybody says it, or integrity, fine. What does it mean for you and your company? And do other people live and breathe that same thing? So

Jacob Edmond

Yeah.

Skot Waldrom

I think taking that audit, like you said, all the things that you said is really crucial to understand and sometimes leaders don't wanna know. They just say, oh, we're good. The lunches every other Friday. Our people should love us.

Jacob Edmond

I think there's this also this interesting dynamic. It particularly in the trades and construction for the of, the previous generation I think was successful based on what I would say is more reputation versus culture. And so you have these owners who they could go make a handshake deal and that GC that they worked with, they know, jacob, I, we've worked with you for 30 years. You've always come through for us. You saved us on that one thing 15 years ago. And that reputation carries weight and a lot of that comes with, represented by the owner, but it was based on a history of success and milestones and these things, right? And it wasn't so much focused on the team behind it so much as there's one guy that's signing the contract that's making the deal, and I don't know what's changing behind him or how he gets it done. I'm not worried about that. I just know as a client, he shook the deal, his a hand on the deal, it's gonna get done. And I think there's wanna go back to that and we don't know how to do business outside of that. And you can't hand that off. You can't train that. But there's also a lack of recognizing that came from maybe a team that no longer exists that really was behind that person doing that. And also today, your culture is more out there. We have social media, we have people that are interacting with you, with your team that maybe in the past didn't have to. So I think there's a conflation of reputation and culture and also a lack of understanding of how that shift, what's important today versus a single person in the past maybe could be the deciding factor. also today, your organization. It probably isn't what it was 20 years ago, though you're the same person.

Skot Waldrom

Exactly, and it is the. That old school mentality of handshake, personal relationship, talk to you, look at you in the eye, fly across the country for three hours to make the deal, fly back. And I'm not saying there's no value in that. I know some people will still do it. I've done it before. And I think at times that is super valuable, especially in a time when we are so digital and virtual. COVID made us all Heen very aware of the fact that we still like human interaction. So I think there is some value there, but to understand that it's no longer just that solitary individual that makes a project run or work or function or you hang every hat on that one person. That mentality, like you said, I think is gone. That there is an entire team and everybody knows it, especially in a world of authenticity, which Gen Z is super critical about and super needing is that we need to be authentic. It's'cause they're always skeptical and they're always looking at you like, okay, you're promising this thing, but does your team know how to do this thing that you just promised me because I've been burned by you sales guys before you guys come in, you promise me all this stuff. And then it doesn't deliver like you say it's going to. Now, if you have a reputation of delivering, then I know that's probably your team that is in alignment with you that is helping deliver that thing. So that's why team, alignment, trust, communication. All the things I teach are so critical.'Cause that's what makes that whole flywheel turn well.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah. Awesome. You're we've got a's national convention coming up you're gonna be speaking given the, a keynote up there. What can attendees that maybe are thinking about coming, what can they expect from your session in in Texas?

Skot Waldrom

they can expect. A definite aha moment. That is my thing. I'm a very actionable, whenever I have whenever I'm talking to event planners, I'll say, listen do you want me to come speak your thing? Super cool. Do you want inspiration or do you want application? And that's one of the first questions I ever ask. If they're like, we just need inspiration. We just want people crying. We want people like high fiving. Whatever. Then I say, I'm probably not your guy. I am going to inspire. You'll have pieces of that. They're like, most people are like, yeah, we want a little bit of both, and I'm like, cool. I'm your guy for that one because I definitely believe that you should have something that you can take away and use on Monday, like when you return back to the office or, I don't know, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day you get back from your conference. It is what you can apply and use immediately. I don't want this to be some kind of like out there cloudy idea of oh, that's an interesting concept. Let's talk about how to implement that in six months. You're gonna forget it, you're not gonna do it. And that's the way some of these conferences, I think, don't serve their people. Um, mine are my, I have very actionable things I'm gonna ask y'all to do. So you'll, everybody will take away some, everybody will have an aha moment. They'll go that's interesting and I'll actually make you reflect on that by the end. So I think that they can do that. Now, the topic itself about change and leading change well is so important. So what I'm gonna do is talk to you about some different reasons why people might drag their feet when you are on the front of change. You're like trying to make it happen, but nobody's coming with you. Why? So I'm gonna help explain a little bit of that. Maybe you're the one dragging your feet and you're like, I don't want this change. I'm resistant to this change. This change is scaring the crap outta me. Like you said, maybe I've been traumatized by some change in the past. I'm gonna help explain a little bit of why and what's some guards that you have up as to why you're not moving with the change. Here's my final take, and I'll just spoil my whole concept here, is the idea that change isn't good or bad, y'all. Change just is. And the way we feel about change is what makes it good or bad. The way we think ultimately about change is what makes it good or bad. Something can change. We could have, the interest rates go up by a full point. It's not good or bad, it just is. Now, if i'm trying to buy a house. It's bad. My thought about that is bad, right? I mean, there's multiple ways that we can think about change. It's just how we present it in our minds. It's really gonna shape it and drive ultimate buy-in with our people when we're trying to build change into our culture.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. I'm excited for it. For those who are listening and are wanting to connect or find out more today about about you, about your work how, what's the best way for'em to do that?

Skot Waldrom

They can connect with me on LinkedIn, go there, find me. I'm there multiple times a week doing different things. I put a lot of free content out there for people to digest and hopefully help you in your leadership journey. You can go to my website@Skotwaldron.com, S-K-O-T-W-A-L-D-R-O n.com, and you can see some of my stuff there. All my, my podcast is also on there, which is unlocked with Skot Waldron. You can find that wherever podcasts are. My YouTube channel, you can go search for me there. I got a book on Amazon or wherever you buy books called Unlocked, a 52 Week Guide for the Intentional Leader. There's I'm everywhere. Jacob, I'm everywhere.

Jacob Edmond

Cool.

Skot Waldrom

They can come have breakfast with us sometime. One of our sessions. Yeah whatever.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. We'll link all that in the show notes, so if you're listening, you can go to the show notes and get through all those links. Skot, thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing uh, your leadership insights and expertise. And I'm looking forward to your session, your keynote.

Skot Waldrom

Yeah. I'm looking forward to being there. I like this crowd a lot it'll be fun being there.

Jacob Edmond

Great.

Skot Waldrom

Great.

Jacob Edmond

Thanks Skot.

Contributor

Jacob Edmond

Host