The Importance Of Accountability For Growth, With Gordon Schroll

Jack interviews Gordon Schroll, the owner of ABC Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric in Chicago and ABC Plumbing, Air & Heat in Clearwater, FL. Scroll has been a Nexstar member since 1992. The two discuss how identifying and building accountability helps position both people and companies for explosive growth. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hi, this Jack Test, I'm the president CEO of Nexstar and a welcome to another edition, another episode of Leadership Lounge. I'm sitting here with, uh, the industry famous Gordon Schrole who is one of the owners of a very successful business in a suburban Chicago on the north side of Chicago, ABC plumbing, heating and cooling. Is that, did I get that right? And Electric and electric. All right. They continue to grow. And uh, how you doing? I'm doing great. Gordon is a up here doing some filming for our 25th anniversary celebration here and a little background on Gordon. You joined Nexstar in December of 1992. Oh, you've got a great memory, Jack. Is that right? That is correct. I remember when you joined and you came to our very first meeting in Anaheim in 1993 we did you along with your partner and brother Brian. That's correct. Yeah, I remember you guys. And uh, just so people out there know you are one of the first stars and Nexstar where you really took what you learned from the other members at Nextdoor, which is all we had. We didn't have, you know, coaches and training classes, we just have members getting together, sharing ideas. Right? Absolutely. And you guys, I remember you built a building in Buffalo Grove, Illinois that looked like no other plumbing and air conditioning company I'd ever seen look like a bank. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. And, and you know what? My brother and I went and looked at, uh, 13 buildings that day and we pulled up in front of that one, two foot of snow in front of it. And we had no idea what they were asking for it or anything else. And we just said, this is the one, well I wanted you to know that was, that changed the paradigm of what a plumbing business can look like for a lot of people. And uh, just one other point to note here, we held a membership recruitment event there where we brought in members or prospects from around the country and they saw your business. And I remember we signed up at least 60 people over a two day period, which really propelled next door that gave us kind of critical mass. So your company and your, in Brian's example really was a reason for a lot of our early successful. Thank you Gordon for that. Absolutely. But, uh, you didn't end there. Your business continued to grow and continues to be, uh, one of the best businesses and next star. And I think you've got a lot to share. So we, we've, we've had a lot of success. We've, uh, at a very open mind over the years, right. What other people are doing and even like within your own business when you see that somebody else can do it. A, I'm going to say, well we can do it too. Yeah. So the innovation hadn't stopped with you guys in our first couple of years here. 25 years later, you guys are still on the leading edge of innovation. Um, but what I've talked to you about is, is kind of get, uh, go back in time a little bit. And, uh, you mentioned to me before we got on on camera here that there was a moment where there was kind of a point of clarity that occurred with you and your partner, Brian, as it relates to running your business. Why don't you tell us about that? Sure. So back when we first joined Nexstar, uh, we had what we thought was a very successful company. Uh, we knew there was opportunity to get better. Yeah. Brian had certain responsibilities. I had certain responsibilities. Brian was more or less responsible for the warehouse, the trucks, some of that kind of stuff. And I was a accounting and the office and that kind of thing. But there were a lot of gray areas that really weren't completely defined, including marketing and some other areas. And so sometimes those things weren't really being properly attended to because maybe I thought Brian was doing it, or Brian thought I was doing it, or maybe we're like, you know, my plates pretty full. Um, maybe he'll take over. Neither was responsible. Yeah. Kind of. So that created some problems. And then what'd you do? So what we did back then as we, uh, one of the next star meetings, they had Michael Gerber and is a speaker, author of the myth, the myth. That's correct. And so we actually signed up for some coaching sessions with them. This is before Nexstar offered coaching. We'll before, way before, and maybe that was the foundation for it starting, I don't know, demand there. That was interesting. Yeah. So, you know, it was really helpful because basically they would call once a week and we'd have a one hour meeting that Brian and I would both be involved on the phone call and we were responsible for accountability and okay. And, uh, the coach would say, did you get this done? And we'd be like, go be a kinder or whatever, you know, and, and eventually we got to the point that we didn't, uh, we put more attention to it and, and, and got stuff done. All right, so you were building an accountability chart, so to speak, because we were building, building accountability within ourselves. So who's accountable for what, let's figure out what those various tasks are and then let's determine the accountability. So that we would, uh, make sure that we had that. And along with that came things like, uh, what they called an inbox solution, which was basically not over handling paper and things like that. And so it created a lot of good foundation for us as a company and figuring out who's doing what. So prior to that, there was a, there was a kind of a lack of clarity on responsibilities between you and in basically your business partner, right? Well, yes, but not in all things because certain things we were very clear on. Um, and again, I think we felt like we were running a pretty good organization, but we also knew that if we were going to grow and get bigger that we had to figure these things out. Otherwise you're going to sit on the sidelines and, and not accomplish things. So you've got that done. That would have been in[inaudible] 93 sometime? Correct. Started that work started? Yeah, I think it was 93. Okay. Later in the year. And that was kind of, it was, it was that like a, and you see and you mentioned, you know, prior to this podcast that, that that was kind of a moment of clarity for you and that you've carried that idea forward. What did you mean by that? So you've had this moment worked with Gerber Gushers assign accountabilities right between you and Brian and then became a way of life. Honestly, it became a way of doing things. And so, um, a lot of what we do today with our managers is all tied to accountability, responsibility and whose job is it to do what? And so, okay, you know, we've grown to add a heating and air service over the years and they had electric over the years. And so we have people who are specifically responsible for the plumbing division, for the Hvac Division, for the electric division, and it's clear what their responsibilities are. Uh, it's clear what our customer service managers responsibilities are. Try to carry that through to everybody so that we don't have this blame game going on. And I'm not saying it never happens. Right. You know, most of the time we can have that accountability because we know who to go to. So tell me right now, describe your management teams so we can understand kind of the depth of the complexity of what you're talking about right now. So, um, there's myself and then I have my three sons in the business, which sometimes can create some problems, but again, we come back to breaking them out by division. So one of my sons runs our plumbing division, one of my sons runs our Hvac division, and another one runs the electrical division. And so they're each responsible for things. Only three trades and three sons is on it all. We could find a fourth one if need be. Cyrus a great man. I'm not sure about the summer that the trade. Anyway, um, you know, and then we take that through. So for example, in our Hvac division, we have then a sales manager and we have a couple of field service managers. So again, these are things that fall under Eric's heading under as the Hvhc, a division manager. And he has then responsibilities for each of these people that, uh, again, it comes to the accountability. So what, so, so as you add these positions and so as, as the business grows, as the business has grown and you've taken positions that we're doing a couple of different things and then you split them as you add people, right? As you grow the business and then you might take things when you split them, you might give some of those responsibilities someplace else. So how, what's the process you go through to, to, to make these definitions clear in your business? How do you do that? Well, so, uh, initially when we were looking at Hvac or when we got into Hvac, okay, it was a small little nugget that wasn't a lot going on. And as it built, um, you know, some problems presented themselves and we had to start identifying them. And um, we put Eric in charge of the Hvac division, I don't know, maybe eight years ago, seven years ago, something like that. And it was all under him. 100%. You know, we didn't have other managers, we didn't have a service manager, we didn't have a sales manager. He was all of those hats. Right. And as time went on, then we needed to bring on a sales manager. So we hired a sales manager and he worked under, under Eric's umbrella. So, so did you ask her to do that, those definitions at that point to identify what he's going to give up and, and what he's going to keep me? Yes, absolutely. We worked together to figure out exactly what that looked like and um, you know, basically anything sales we identified and move that over to the sales manager. But then he's responsible for meeting with Eric for the performance and, and the, the, uh, what happens there. Okay. All right. So I kind of interrupted you. How many, how many managers on your management team now? We have 15 total, including myself. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's a lot going on. It is. It's a lot going on. And you know, one of our biggest challenges, uh, in the last couple of years has been this mid level management, um, kind of scenario. So we added a dispatch manager, we added a couple of field service managers, we added a new warehouse manager and you know, there've been challenges with all of those as an example of what, um, well for example, getting people to understand what's really important, what's really important to get done. Okay. First things first. Second thing is never right. Exactly. That's awesome. But it's hard to get them to, uh, really it takes a while I guess is what it boils down to. You have to keep meeting about it and talking about it. And so we, we have monthly meetings with all of our managers. Uh, we have to promote, we've had two per month up until now. Uh, starting next week we're going to three per month. And that's going to be for a additional training, you know, to help them get fully ingrained in where they need to be. Come a long way. It was just you and your brother and managing that business. Then your dad was around, but if think keep played solitaire on the computer mostly. So actually back then it was mostly on a charter boat, charter boat. He was the charter boat captain. He turned his hobby into a, into a job. So that's awesome. Then sold the boats and uh, you know, move to golf. So that's great. So yeah, so it was Brian and I and uh, we didn't have other managers back then know this, you two guys and now you went from two to 15 and the dynamic there, right? So today, you know, you're running this big business, you know, what, what's a day in the life look like for yourself, Gordon? Um, get in, attend the huddle. If I'm, you know, if I'm there, I'm attending the huddle, actually any manager that's there, we expect them to attend the huddle. Okay. You know, then I'll go through, um, some of the numbers, uh, you know, from a prior day and I have a lot of meetings, a lot of one on one meetings, you know, with my management team. How many people were the 15 report direct to you? Um, six or seven, I think about seven report to me. And, uh, so we, we have a weekly meeting at one or more minimum of one on one to talk about how things are going. Yeah. They provide a weekly report. We don't shove, might be modeled a little after some next star kind of story. I know that report. That's awesome. That's awesome. And, and it, it is helpful because it gives us some accountability again so we can talk about things, we can document things. So it's just not a gap fest right. When you guys get together not to be, well that's fun, right? Yeah. Try to try to make it productive and accomplish things. And um, we recently, um, I think this is our third quarter now with the hundred day plan that we'd been doing. And so, you know, we have accountability meetings on those and meet about that every two weeks. And you know, so a lot of my work is prepping for things like that and reviewing results from things like that. It's kind of my day. It's not a bad day. No, it's not. Congratulations Gordon. Thanks Jan is very exciting. Very exciting. Well, thank you for your time here today. We sure appreciate you sharing some of your journey as you went from you and your brother and a small family business to a just a beautiful business on north side of Chicago with 15 managers supporting your family and your kids families, and just doing a great job. So thank you. And congratulations again. Thank you, Jack. Awesome. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode of Leadership Lounges, Jack test kitchen next time. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Okay.