(EOS Episode 33) Steel-Toed Boots and the Leadership Lesson

Certified EOS Implementer MIchele Mollard discusses why “trying to help” can backfire when leaders design policies without the people closest to the work. 

MIchele shares a real-world story to unpack how EOS creates traction through listening, employee ownership, and clear processes that actually get followed. 

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EOS-Traction for Your Workplace Goals is a Livemic Communications production.

Transcript

Welcome And The Traction Question

Richard Piet 0:02

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to EOS. Traction for your workplace goals. Have you been hitting the benchmarks that you want to hit with your business? Our suspicion is if you click the play on this, you may not be. Michele Mollard is a certified EOS implementer, Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS. She's back today with us to talk about the impact of EOS and to tell a few stories from the front. Hi, Michele.

Michele Mollard 0:37

Hi, Richard.

Richard Piet 0:38

Boy, it's always good to hear stories about things you've witnessed as an EOS implementer with folks who are on this journey to try and level up what's happening in their business and uh understand the process to do so. So we're anxious, I would say, to hear

When Help Becomes A Hindrance

Richard Piet 0:58

some of these stories.

Michele Mollard 0:59

Yeah. Thank you, Richard. I just want to start off with the first story. And I hope everybody's hearing me as we're saying this, is many times when we do something as leaders, we are always focused on that we want to help the organization. But sometimes the intent, which is to help, is not the same as the impact, which is not helpful. So I just want us to wrap around that. It's not intentional, right? The intention is to do something great. And the impact is just not that great. And so let me show you a quick little story. We're working for a company uh they happen to be running on EOS, which was kind of fun. And they had to require steel-toed boots uh with their employees. Uh and so they said from HR, like, oh, we're gonna buy them for them. So when they come into orientation, we'll ask them what their boot size is, and then we will have their boots ready for them in the orientation. So if they want to, if they can start the next day or whatever, everything is ready and they're running. It's kind of like you and I when we come in and we have business cards or a staple or a desk, right? It's feeling the same way. And so they're just super excited about engaging them and getting them working, arguably right, right? Right away. So, long story short, we're playing, we're we're going through the life, we're going through things, and finally somebody spoke up and said, These boots are the most horrible boots ever. And we're like, we've been doing these boots for like years, and why isn't anybody spec spoke up? And I'll tell you another story about that. Uh, and so our it our intent was to be helpful. The impact was not so good. And so we listened a lot to what was going on. We also found out that we were giving them one pair of boots uh a year, and they're walking 10, 15 miles a night picking product and doing things, and they're burning through boots more than one a year. Uh, if anybody's a runner, uh, you're running through your running shoes more than one a year. Right. And so then we learn that. And so, oh my goodness. And I'm like, all right, what do we have to do? What, what's the how do we talk to them, include them in this? And so, long story short, they buy their own boots, they're allowed two or three, depending on what shift they were in, a year, and we just reimburse them. And so they do it because we thought, well, maybe there's a cash flow problem and they wouldn't buy them, or or they would try to get away without steel toad because they're expensive. Uh, it didn't turn out that way at all. And so everything that we were worried about wasn't really happening. And so, what I want to teach from this is in EOS and in, I would say

Fixing The Boot Policy Fast

Michele Mollard 3:22

in any organization, I plead with you to start from the bottom up. Those that use the broom should buy the broom, right? Those that use the shoes should buy the shoes. Um, and so it's really, really great. And so I just wanted to share uh that story in that are we making cultures where we as leaders are dictating because we think we know what we're helping with, or are we listening enough to everybody in the organization to bring that what that tool, whatever that is, right? Boots are a tool, tool that's needed to them so they can do their job really well.

Richard Piet 3:59

Think about that. Uh and the leader's reaction to that, uh, it might be startling, and then uh maybe it's a a little bit emotional too. Well, I'm trying to help you here. Wow. Turns out the boots aren't helpful, at least the ones we're choosing. This is wild.

Michele Mollard 4:17

It's wild and it's fun, right? Like, so what I mean to me, it's the first part isn't fun. The learning and the adjusting is the fun part, right? And so sometimes we hear them and we like we, you know, we don't listen. Like, maybe about the boots, we probably listen, most organizations. But if it's saying saying, hey, we're about to buy a new CNC machine and we don't talk to the guy that will be running that machine, what are we doing? Why are we doing that? Like, they might know that sometimes these CNC guys and girls are heavily certified, and so they have maybe worked at other plants where the machinery itself is a better quality machinery, right? There's a lot of there's so many of these stories, uh Richard, that are there uh that you know just kind of uh solidify on

Making The Three-Year Picture Real

Michele Mollard 5:02

this. Uh, and it kind of brings me to the kind of next section of this, if you don't mind, yeah, is really them seeing themselves in the business, right? And so in the world of EOS, we have these things called a three-year picture or a one-year plan. And oftentimes we'll say a new building will be built in three years. Yet we ask nobody on the manufacturing floor how that should be set up, be run, what's the efficiencies? What are the, you know, should this, I mean, I know there's Six Sigma Lean Manufacturing, black belts, all that stuff out there. They're wonderful resources, absolutely wonderful resources, but all of them would be working side by side with your employees on the shop. And so really making that uh we call three-year picture come alive and have them see it. There's like a, it's a part where it says, what does it look like? And there's bullet points of what does it look like for this company, what does it look like for them to be in three years? And so showing everybody from the sales seat, can they see themselves in the finance seats? Can them see themselves in this journey? So if I'm gonna go from a five million dollar company to a $10 million company, what does that look like for me in the finance seat? What does that look like for me from the manufacturing floor seat? What is every seat in the organization, every position, every employee, every person, how do they literally cast an image, right? We have these vision boards out there in the world. How are we casting this image that brings them inside of the organization that says, ah, I can see myself in that expansion. I can play a role in that expansion. And then if we're listening to them, they're gonna engage. They're gonna come to be like, I see it on our three-year picture that you're building a new building. Are you gonna come talk to us about how that should be laid out? Because I got ideas. Sheer engagement at that point, like mega.

Richard Piet 6:46

I would venture to say some employees who have that in their minds may not step up and say, I have ideas, if they don't feel that there's an environment in which those ideas would be received well.

Michele Mollard 7:01

For sure. And sometimes we've talked about this a few times on all the other podcasts, Richard, is they've grown up in a organization or they've grown up in their career where that voice has been crushed. And so they assume that every organization is the same, not recognizing that companies that run on EOS, right, that are running on a different operating system, this is what we believe in. This is what like literally uh fuels my fire to say, uh-uh, those that buy the broom use the broom. Those that are running the CNC machine, they get to understand the upgrades. They up they write all of this, right? And so that's really it's it's it's taking the organization to flip it up at odds end and saying, they know better, right? Mr. Leader, I love you. You're an owner of the organization. You have done every job. I hear you have done every job. Except when was the last time you drove the semi-truck? When was the last time you were in the warehouse picking the product and wearing steel-toed boots? Probably many years, right? And so we just got to make sure that at a high level it is our business. At a high level, it is ours. But but the people that are helping us get this done have a voice and they need to have a voice and they need to be heard as we're going through there. So they're buying into even the core values, right? So it's not just that a vision of it. It's like, how do you see yourself in these core values? How are we building this culture, this engagement? And I have so many clients as Michele, this is utopia. It only exists in your mind. There's 30,000 companies running on EOS. This doesn't exist in their mind. It doesn't. There's more running it on doing themselves. That's just with the implementers like myself, right? And so it's no fairy tale. It happens and we can make it happen.

Richard Piet 8:38

Boy, let that one linger for a second. Think about that. I'm dying to know what happened with the boots. Did they change the approach to the boots?

Michele Mollard 8:47

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. They buy, I don't know. I don't, I have been removed from them for several years, so I'm assuming. But yes, instantly, as soon as we heard their voice, they buy it. And it's funny because someone did so I don't know if I'm gonna get in trouble here by naming brands, but someone had keens, which are like a sneaker-like steel-toed boots, and then someone in boots boots, like leather kind of boots. And so even that, we were just doing leather boots and not realizing there was even other things out there. So I mean, they knew better. There, they've been in steel boat toed boots before, right? I can guarantee you us and the HR team had not. Uh, I know all of us that were there. None of us has probably worn a steel-toed boot in our life.

Richard Piet 9:23

Yeah. Right? That's right. But those were the heck that is. That's where the decisions were being made.

Michele Mollard 9:28

And again, trying to help.

Richard Piet 9:30

Yes, trying to help. Oh man. So uh is that a is that a difficult thing for some organizations? If I'm gonna use the broom, I should buy the broom, then we've got to flip our procedure, like with the boots. Yep. Is this tough?

Michele Mollard 9:48

It

Let Employees Write The Process

Michele Mollard 9:49

is tough. And I think the one uh thing that I I have learned over time that makes it easy for leaders, uh easier, I should say, for leaders to flip the script in their brain is have the employees involved in the writing of the process. And so literally coming back to them and saying, okay, guys, we want to buy you steel toed boots. We have to, right? OSHA says, good. What do you think we should do? They're involved in the process, setting the rules, setting the pro, right? And so sometimes it's like, how do we make the widget and having them involved in it? And so as leaders, we have to kind of check our ego. We've got to check our uh we're the owner, right? At the door and saying, okay, I'm gonna have them get involved in the process. And then again, uh they'll be uh what I call journey champions. So people that'll want to jump in and they're people like, you're the boss, you make it. But I would argue say that's also how they were raised as in their businesses, not necessarily how it is. And you can break that, uh, you can crack that nut. You can, right? You can get them to say, okay, if you really want me to do that, I will do that. And then you just come back and be like, I just wanted you to check my work because I'm not really sure. And you are the expert, right? And so we can do this from a way of rewarding and recognizing their expertise, and we can do that through a tool as opposed to emotionally do this through process work for how do you document processes in an organization.

Richard Piet 11:18

I venture to say that this approach is transformative culture-wise, and it's going to pay off. Is that true?

Michele Mollard 11:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, they start to see themselves in the change or in the business and see themselves that they're connected to it and they know they're the ones pulling the lever, right? Of that machine or of that thing. And so once they start to empower them, you know, I got somebody else pushed back. Well, if I empower them, they'll get entitled. Well, I don't, you know, that's an employee problem, right? Like that's a personality problem. That's another whole podcast, Richard. Uh, I think it's wrong. I think that that is a is a short-sighted uh perception of that if they if I give them a voice that they'll turn in entitled. It won't happen. And if it does, then you know, call me and we'll have a conversation uh

KPIs That People Actually Own

Michele Mollard 12:11

about it, right? And think about the same thing with scorecard and metrics, right? So many times we say from the higher up, we say, okay, salespeople, all of you have to sell three million. And they're like, Well, how you guys are doing this on a budget with the same amount of people. And last year we only did two million, and how do you want me to do more? People are like, oh, but they don't just lazy. Your top producers aren't lazy, they're telling you something and you're not listening, right? And so the same thing happens when we set metrics or scorecards or KPIs, whatever we want to do, is we have to set them alongside of each other because they do know. Now, maybe there's a little bit of like, uh, you know, whatever, right? It's worth the listen. There's enough truth to what they're pushing back on for the listen for you to sit down with them and say, hey, maybe they can't do a million five each. Maybe a million is the cap, and let's talk about it, you know, right? And so I think there's a lot of that that again, we push these things down to our employees, and I don't mean that derogatory, right? But but but truly, as a hierarchical of an organization, we push them down and not have them engaged in it from the bottom up.

Richard Piet 13:13

And so by extension, I would say some of the leaders who end up aligning with the EOS process, yeah, that's transformative for them too.

Michele Mollard 13:25

It is. It is. It's really it's really cool to watch. Like I just had a lot of sessions this week uh as we were before we were recording this. Uh, and I have been watching some exceptional leaders be more exceptional. Uh, and it does, it empowers them because they no longer have to row the boat alone. And so when you see these little winds, just in life, right? I mean, I've dieted before and I get a little wind. Whoo, right? I've upped my weight at the gym, you know, my lifting weight of my goal, right? And so they feel this as well. And so your employees feel this way. I mean, uh, you know, uh rolling stone gathers no moss, right? Like this is what we're trying to perpetuate in organizations is that if you're rolling and they're rolling, get out of the way, right? Like just get out of the way of everybody and watch this company take off. And people don't think that can happen. And they think the leader has to be the only stone rolling. You know, if I if I can imagine one stone rolling down the hill and then 15 employees' stones rolling down the hill, what's gonna make a bigger impact?

Richard Piet 14:22

A lot of momentum there, a lot of momentum there. Yeah. Want

Momentum And How To Reach Us

Richard Piet 14:26

to create that in your company? Then let's talk about it. Michele Mollard, certified EOS implementer, is ready to understand it from your point of view and your company. Talk about it. Contact information in the show notes, reach out, have an initial conversation with Michele, and see what comes of it. Could end up with a lot of momentum rolling down your hill. And uh all the way to the bank, dare I say. Well, anyway, maybe we'll talk about that more on these episodes, too. Subscribe where you get podcasts, find us on YouTube, wherever you found us, stick around, follow us, and reach out when you have questions. Michele, we'll be back soon.

Michele Mollard 15:12

Thank you, Richard.

Richard Piet 15:13

Michele Mollard with EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals.