Keepin' It Clean
Keepin’ It Clean is the official Meyer Lab podcast where business, innovation, and people come together. Go behind the scenes with the team that drives Meyer Lab forward as we talk shop on entrepreneurship, growth, leadership, and the real stories that shape our company culture. Each episode highlights conversations with team members across the organization, giving you a closer look at the people, processes, and passion behind the brand.
Keepin' It Clean
Episode 8: Fundamental Beliefs & Embracing Change
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In this episode of Keepin’ It Clean, Mike and Hailey explore one of Meyer’s core principles: Fundamental Beliefs & Embracing Change. They discuss how strong foundational beliefs help guide decisions, shape company culture, and keep teams aligned, even as the business continues to evolve.
From industry changes and business growth to new opportunities and challenges, Mike and Hailey share how Meyer stays rooted in its values while remaining flexible enough to adapt and improve. The conversation highlights why embracing change isn't about abandoning what works—it's about building on a strong foundation to create a better future.
Tune in to hear how Meyer balances consistency, innovation, and growth through a commitment to both its fundamental beliefs and a willingness to embrace change.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Keepin' It Clean podcast. I'm Hayley Denham alongside Mike Miller. Hi, Mike.
SPEAKER_02Hayley, how are you today?
SPEAKER_01I am fantastic. How are you?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing well.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad to hear that. Um, it feels like we just recorded one of these a week or a week and a half ago when Patty was with us. But since then, uh, what's been going on in your world?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh professionally, I had a good Memorial Day weekend. Got a chance to go to the lake, Lake of the Ozarks here in Missouri, and celebrated my dad's 79th birthday. So those of you that see him around the office from time to time, make sure to tell him uh. Happy birthday to Duncan. Yes, for sure. And then uh professionally, I'm on a long streak of travel. I think I'm up to six or seven weeks in a row. But this past week I went to uh one of our whale targets and had the chance to meet at their corporate office with really some key decision makers. And um, it's one that I've been talking about for a while. It sounds like they're gonna continue to come in our direction. So um, you know, it's a 500 location opportunity, and I would expect, you know, probably by the end of this year we'll have a couple hundred of those locations and continue down the path into 2027 until we have all 500. So were there donkeys delivering water this time or there were no donkeys delivering water, different company, but um slightly less fun but equally exciting.
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so what are we going to be discussing today?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So today I'd like to talk a little bit about our fundamental beliefs as an organization, which we talk a lot about core values. I don't think we talk much about our fundamental beliefs. Uh and then I want to drill down on one specifically, kind of about uh change and adapting in the in the business environments that we're in today.
SPEAKER_00I love it.
SPEAKER_02You want me to kick it off then?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, uh, from a fundamental belief standpoint, a lot of folks in our organization may not know uh what our fundamental beliefs are. So I thought I'd spend a little bit of time talking about that. And it's slightly different than core values. Uh I would say fundamental fundamental beliefs are really just about how we operate as a company. So I want to go through these real quick and then we'll dive into one of those specifically. So uh first, we operate with honesty and integrity. I think that's table stakes for any organization. When we think about honesty and integrity, that's how we treat people within our organization. That's how we treat vendors and customers. We just want to do right by people. Uh, second is we embrace change and we're passionate about growth. That's what I'm going to spend some time talking about today. Uh, the third is we empower our employees to communicate openly and authentically. So when people ask me about my business philosophy, it's to do what makes sense. And sometimes organizations find themselves not doing what makes sense. And when that's a case, we need to trust our people to raise their hand and very politely let us know we need to do better and do it in an in a uh respectful but open and authentic way. And then finally, as any great team or organization needs to do, uh, we prioritize collective success over individual achievements. And I think that's just how you have to operate a company in order to uh to be successful.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So um I want to talk a little bit about diving into embracing change and being passionate about growth. Uh it's something that we've we've experienced a lot of change in our organization. And when I think about change, we need to change for growth, not just change for the sake of change. But I I often say this show me a company that's not changing, and I'll show you a company that's not being successful. And and really what I mean by that is when companies stop evolving, eventually they stop growing. You know, Patty talked about last time we were together hypergrowth and having what it takes to be successful in that type of environment. And it requires you to think differently, act differently, and consistently be evolving. And I think what our people have experienced um over the past few years here is kind of a consistent cycle of implementing change, evaluating the results, and refining as needed. And that will probably be a consistent cycle in our organization moving forward. And we'll talk about this some today, but you don't always get it right the first time. And that's okay. Uh we need to be in a place where we continue to evolve, refine, assess, trial new things, try new things, wade into the water waist deep, and be willing to get out of those waters if it's not successful for our company.
SPEAKER_01That is something that um is absolutely uh pinpoints the environment that we've been in, but that can also be something that uh gives people a perception of whiplash and sometimes frustration. Uh so how would people get through that to still be able to see um to the other side and see the benefit in retracting versus continuing to go down the wrong path?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I that's a great call out because whiplash and change can feel the same at times. And so I think it starts with understanding, and that's part of the reason I want to talk about this topic today. Understanding that the path we're going down of kind of changing and evolving as an organization is intentional. We're not just wake up today, we're gonna go left, wake up tomorrow and go right. There actually, believe it or not, is a lot of strategy and thought that goes into the things that we do. So I think that's that's the very first thing is just understanding that uh this is an intentional thing. This is part of growing a business and starting to embrace that, which again, the the fundamental belief is we embrace change and we're passionate about growth. And just trying to understand that again, it's all in the matter of growth, it's not just changing for the sake of change. But you talked a little bit about uh the business environment that we've been in. And when I was preparing my thoughts for today's podcast, I was thinking about all the things that impact change. There's things that are exclusive to Meyer, some of it's self-inflicted, and there's some outside forces. And so I looked at, you know, kind of what are the things that have driven change in businesses over the past six years, starting with COVID. So when you think about the things that businesses, not just Meyer, business in general, has had to adapt to over the past six years, here's the short list. There's probably a lot more. First is the COVID recession and business shutdowns. That was followed by supply chain chaos and raw material shortages, which we experienced here at Meyer. We've put a lot of uh we put a lot of process in place to make sure that that never happens again. But I can remember some really scary times when there was raw material shortages. We were able to come through and deliver for our customers, but it changed the way we thought about business forevermore thereafter. What followed that was federal stimulus checks that led to an inflationary period. Uh, then we got into the Russian-Ukraine war, which impacted the global economy. Then in the U.S., uh right now, we're I I don't know that we're experiencing this currently, but we've kind of ridden this up, and that's interest rates hiking at the fastest they have since the 1980s. Then you follow that with the AI boom, that everybody's trying to figure out what to do with AI and how that impacts business. And now we're in a war with Iran, which is driving crazy fuel prices. So if you think about the past six years, it's just been a constant state of change and the need to adapt for not only Meyer but businesses outside of ours. Which brings me to, you know, uh a quote that I think is relevant here, and that is the greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence itself, it's to act with yesterday's logic. And you've heard me talk about Meyer blinders in the past, which all of us are guilty of getting Meyer blinders or business blinders on at times. We've got to continue to keep our head on a swivel, understand what's going on in our business, outside of our business, and adapt accordingly.
SPEAKER_01I think that is a great point and uh something that I think that a lot of us have been guilty of. Um we just get going so quickly on whatever the task or project is, and it's easy to get those blinders on and making sure that we are not paralyzing ourselves and uh still making good decisions based off of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I feel a little preachy on this podcast, but I'm just gonna kind of wrap it up by saying uh I say I say all that to say this. You should expect our organization to try new things. You should expect to see change. And so again, you ask me how do you how do you live in this environment? I think the first thing you do is you just have to align your expectations with it. Uh we need to be comfortable wading into the waters waist deep, knowing that we may jump in, or knowing that also we may need to get out of those waters. We will not get it right 100% of the time, which is where, again, in the fundamental beliefs, the open, transparent, authentic communication that's done in a respectful way, all of the good ideas and all of the good decisions will not come from my office or from the offices of the executive leadership team. It's a collective success of the organization being able to communicate openly and authentically. There's this concept that I really like when I think about business and when I think about my personal life. And it's the difference between a one-way door decision and a two-way door decision. A one-way door decision is something it is a decision that you make. When you walk through that door, you can never walk back out of that door. A two-way door decision being a decision that you can walk through that door, you can see what's on the other side of that door, and if you don't like it, you can either adjust or you can walk right back out that door. And the fortunate thing about most decisions in business and in life that I've found is they're two-way door decisions. You can walk through that door and you can adjust, or you can actually decide just to walk back out of that. So uh that's a part of who we are as an organization. And really, again, the purpose of this podcast today and this topic was to make sure that our people understand that that's how I think about the business. That's how our leadership team thinks about the business. So when you see us doing this, I would ask our people to think about how they might be able to jump in and help us drive the success or help us refine the approach. Don't sit on the sidelines, figure out how you can engage with the overall success of our organization. And uh I think we'll continue to grow and be in a more successful place each and every day that goes by.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Uh, one thing that you say to me somewhat regularly is uh what's the worst that could happen? And I think a lot of times uh fear of not knowing what's on the other side of the door can be um a hindrance to some. And if we just think about what's the worst thing that could happen, oftentimes it is not um that bad. And knowing that we can turn around and walk outside out of the door once we've gone in, I think can help people as well. And I think too, as a leadership team and just um throughout all levels of leadership in the organization, I think communication is something that's really important and can um help people understand uh the why behind the what, so to say, as we're going through a lot of these challenges. And we do try to make sure that we are um communicating regularly through different calls and meetings that we have. I know everybody loves uh meetings, but they can be helpful and beneficial and the quarterly calls that we have, and I think that we just need to make sure that we are continuing to make that a priority and uh giving folks a platform to understand, but then also um communicate and have the ability to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I agree a hundred percent. In fact, when you were asking that question earlier, I meant to mention communication. Um, we own that as a team, the communication aspect of it. And I believe the better we communicate, again to your point, understanding the why behind the what. I think my team hears that from me frequently. Two things is people need to understand the why behind the what. The second is in most circumstances, adult learners need to hear things seven times before it actually registers with them. So if you've here heard me say things multiple times, that's why, because I want to make sure messaging sticks. And finally, you brought up something that we talked about on a previous podcast, and that's the fact that when you think about things in terms of the worst case scenario, although that sounds uh intense, it allows you to realize in a lot of circumstances, well, the worst case scenario is not actually that bad. And if I go into it understanding what that is, that allows me to plan for it. Hopefully it doesn't happen, and more often than not, it does in fact not happen. Uh, but knowing what that dynamic looks like allows us to plan and be prepared for whatever that may be.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to communicate all of this with us today. Um, before we kind of wrap up, is there anything exciting or fun that you have coming up that you want to share with us?
SPEAKER_02Uh the thing that initially comes to mind is next week we've got the Division Sales and Service Manager Summit in Charlotte. And since uh we've kind of gone to this business model, maybe only once or twice have we had all those folks in one room. So I'll be traveling out to Charlotte to at least spend a day with that team. And uh they're on the front lines every day. They're close to what's going on in our business. I'm sure there will be some open, transparent uh communication, but I think it's gonna help us get better, and and I'm just looking forward to furthering our culture and furthering our business with those guys next week.
SPEAKER_01We've got a great group of guys, and uh I'm sure there will be some some fun stories that come out of that week as well. So there will be perfect good deal. Well, thank you so much for your time, and we look forward to talking to you guys on our next episode.
SPEAKER_02Great. Thanks, Haley.