How Listening and Relatability Shape Workplace Culture with Charles Banker

Charles Banker [: 00:00:00

I want to hear their challenges. I want to understand how I can help them be more successful is the translation of that. You want to move your culture, you want to move your business forward. I think that's the single largest differentiator, the ability to listen, relate, and solve problems for your team.

Kate Volman [: 00:00:19

This is Lead With Culture. And on this episode, we were joined by Charles Banker, who is the President and CEO at Snell Manufacturing. He has over 25 years of extensive industry and global experience in manufacturing. And we talked about leadership culture. We also talked about the dream Manager because he recently came down to Jupiter Beach, Florida, and got certified to be a dream Manager along with two of his team members. And so this episode is unique because we're talking to someone who hasn't yet rolled the program out. So we got into a little bit of how they're planning to roll the program out, why they got involved with it in the first place, why culture matters, and how Charles believes that this is going to really help contribute to the dynamic culture that they have over there, especially because they are acquiring organizations, and that can be challenging. When you take one organization now, you're bringing new people in, and you have to keep that culture.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:18

So we got into all those topics. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Charles, thank you so much for joining us today.

Charles Banker [: 00:01:26

Oh, my pleasure.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:28

I am excited about our conversation. Why don't you tell a little bit about who you are, what your role is over there at Snell Manufacturing, and a little bit about the organization and how many team members you have.

Charles Banker [: 00:01:40

Yeah, I'm happy to do that. I'm based in Nashville. Snell Manufacturing is headquartered in Nashville. We are the holding company of a portfolio of manufacturing companies. We currently have four companies over seven locations scattered throughout the Southeast. We attempt to acquire one to two legacy companies per year. So we have a company we're looking at today, for example, that would add 98 employees. So we currently have about 200 employees.

Charles Banker [: 00:02:09

In about 12 months from now, with two acquisitions, we could double that size. So, yeah, very challenging.

Kate Volman [: 00:02:16

Yeah, I was just going to say I feel like we talk to a lot of leaders about their culture and creating a great culture. And when you talk about acquiring new organizations, now you're talking about you have an existing culture, now you're bringing on 98 more people. How does that. How do you remain consistent in your culture when you do acquire new organizations?

Charles Banker [: 00:02:37

Yeah, I think that's a great question, and I think that's my single biggest challenge. There was a time when we started this journey where I knew everybody by name, family. I'd walk one of our plants in any location, in any state, and felt connected to them and had a pulse for the culture. And as we get larger, that becomes a larger challenge and probably unrealistic that I'm going to know 5, 6, 700 people intimately. And I say that because people come and go sometimes. Well, they have a very low turnover rate. People retire, new people come in. So really the challenge is, how can I hire good, competent managers that are an extension of myself and the owner of our company and the values that we have?

Kate Volman [: 00:03:21

When you came in as CEO, what was your strategy? I'm always curious, as you know, you come into an organization, what are you thinking about with the first 30, 60, 90 days a year, what you want to do? How are you looking at the people, the processes, so that you know what you want to kind of improve, what needs to remain the same? How do you identify the people and what everyone's doing? Like, how did you do that? Because you've been the CEO there for about three years now, correct?

Charles Banker [: 00:03:48

Correct, yes. The one thing that's clear for us is our mission and our culture. That's easily defined. When we acquire a company, sometimes things are less clear. It takes a little more investigating. We've got to understand, from equipment to customer bases to market segments, are they growing, are they contracting? But the culture. When we acquire a company, we want to implement the culture within the first 90 days. That's our first impression, if you will.

Charles Banker [: 00:04:14

And it's the same thing. When I came here, the interviewing process for my role was pretty extensive. Took about four months in total. And I bet two thirds of the conversation when I met with the board members, I met with the owner. And just the general process was about culture. So even in the interview process, we were defining what my vision for that culture looked like from the rising cost of healthcare. How can we take that off the employees and let them focus on less strenuous ideas, to charitable giving, to investment in our employees? So we come in. So my first 90 days on the job is really an implementation of that vision.

Charles Banker [: 00:04:52

And the same thing with the acquisition process. Today. We have certain goals and objectives in the first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and again, our culture is very clear. We can begin to implement that right away. Some of the other onboarding of an acquisition, we have to do a little more discovery, maybe a little more strategic, before we could just jump in and implement.

Kate Volman [: 00:05:13

What do you think when you're meeting with other leaders in the world? Because you're very intentional about Creating a great culture. And fortunately at Floyd, we talk to lots of leaders like you who you're actively doing this kind of stuff. You already understand the importance of culture and what that does for the organization and the bottom line and growth. Why do you think so many leaders still are not as intentional about creating a great culture? Like, it's not necessarily a big conversation around the table as much as profit and growth and marketing and strategy.

Charles Banker [: 00:05:48

Yeah, I think most people I've come across as mentors of myself, peers, networking individuals, they talk culture and many of them get it. For me, I can distinguish those that get it and those that want to understand culture but don't quite get it. What I mean by that is I relate it to marketing. Sometimes you have a marketing spend, you can have a giant multimillion dollar marketing budget, and it's very difficult to relate every dollar when you're looking at a return on that investment. And I think it's the same thing with culture. A lot of it, it's soft costs. Right. You have less turnover.

Charles Banker [: 00:06:23

What does that cost the business? That's a little more challenging to measure. So I think some people with a culture, a positive culture, will move the business forward from a financial, economic and service perspective very positively, but slowly. And sometimes it's difficult to measure. So a lot of leaders that I'm familiar with, if they can't measure it, they struggle to understand it sometimes.

Kate Volman [: 00:06:44

So how are you measuring it? What do you say to those leaders that are saying, Charles, I get it, I want to get it, but I need to make sure that it's impacting the bottom line. I want to see profit growth. Right. So what do you say to those people on ways to measure culture and why it matters?

Charles Banker [: 00:07:00

So if I want to go the traditional, how do you measure it? I need to see an economic value to this investment. Our turnover right now is below 1%. And I'm very proud to say that because in my career this is the most favorable employee environment. And what I mean by that is they can go down the road tomorrow, one of our welders, one of our operators, and make a few bucks more. There's a shortage of skilled workers. Very favorable for them to go down the road, make more money and to have such a low turnover rate, that's something that's measurable. So the traditionalist that says I need to measure something, tell me how this positive culture thing is impacting the business. We can measure that.

Charles Banker [: 00:07:40

Or maybe it's more difficult or challenging to understand or comprehend relates to idea generation. Our Teams are generating ideas from the floor. They'll tell our middle managers, maybe me, when I'm walking the floor, hey, Charles. Hey, Billy. Hey, Bob, Suzy, come here. I have this idea for you. So to me, when the ideas are coming from 200 plus employees as opposed to just three or four individuals now, you become a dynamic, emerging, growing business that's tough to measure. But I know it's realistic that when they feel they're contributing, they're not just coming in, punching a clock, giving honest days work, punching out during the day.

Kate Volman [: 00:08:21

They'Re throwing ideas that really takes a certain culture to make people feel like they trust their leadership enough to share those ideas that you are cultivating that kind of environment where people feel like, oh, they actually care what I think, they're not just going to throw these ideas away or they aren't even providing an opportunity to share some of those ideas. So that's awesome. Now, you, obviously, we know each other because you came and got certified to be a Dream Manager, which we are so excited about for you. And not only you, but you actually brought two of your team members to come do that. And for those that don't know, it's. It's a lot of times the CEO will come and get certified knowing that they are not going to serve as the certified Dream Manager for their organization, but they just want to learn a little bit more and really get a good idea of what the program is so that when they're rolling it out, they're very familiar with it. So talk about how did you discover the Dream Manager and then what were your, like, what brought you to certification and to get two people certified along with you?

Charles Banker [: 00:09:29

Yeah. So the Dream Manager is brought to my attention by our owner, and that was brought to him, I believe, through C12, an organization that he's a member of. I spent a little bit of time investigating and I thought it complemented some of the programs that we already have in place very, very well. And I took it a step further. I thought if the culture starts with me, it begins and ends with me. Our Dream Manager needs to report to me. So I revamped our entire hierarchy structure to allow me to take on capacity to manage directly one more individual. So the Dream Manager reports to me, our coo, Bruce Petchin, who joined me at the certification, and the program also reports to me.

Charles Banker [: 00:10:10

So the three individuals that are certified Dream Managers in our organization, we are directly linked.

Kate Volman [: 00:10:17

Okay, so you've structured it this way. You guys have not rolled it out yet, but we wanted to have this Conversation with you because it's always fun to talk to leaders when they first come back. And before hit record, Charles was like, we wanted to start on Monday, right when we got back, we were so excited. So talk a little bit about certification, what your experience was coming down here to beautiful Jupiter Beach, Florida to come get certified. What was that like?

Charles Banker [: 00:10:42

So first off, great location, loved it. The process was exhilarating. And what I mean by that is we had debate, some members of our team, we put this to committee to say we're going to invest in this program. A couple members of our team said, could we generate a version of our own, which perhaps people you know in business, you're looking at a return on your investment. Based on the research I had done, I said, no, no, we're going to invest in this. And within probably the first half day, it was a very proven decision to invest. I mean, the structure that you guys provide really stimulates the dialogue in the program. And I'll give you an example.

Charles Banker [: 00:11:19

I've shared this with myself and the two members of Snow Manufacturing that joined me early on when you guys asked us to write down 100 dreams. I think between us, none of us had more than five or six and we just froze. Then the process of stimulating and breaking it down in the program really is something that began to get us really excited. To say the effort in the program really helps foster engagement. Right. If it's too open ended, if we attempted to do this on our own and just said, oh, we're going to create our own version because we want to save a couple bucks, we absolutely would have struggled. But to go down there, the structure, and I've studied it since we've been back, is worth the investment. And it is, it's proven.

Charles Banker [: 00:12:03

You guys have been doing this for a while. We're not the first group to come through here. And we've already talked about, as we grow mentioned earlier when we started the dialogue that adding maybe a couple hundred more employees in the next 12 months. We're already talking about the future of how many future dream managers do we need as well? Would we need a second full time? Would we need a third full time? So this is a vested commitment on our part.

Kate Volman [: 00:12:26

Yay. That's what we like to hear, obviously. And it's so funny. We hear a lot after people read the book. They have made similar comments, oh, we're doing the program or we took pieces of it and made it our own. But when you do see that we actually give you the curriculum, most people don't realize we have the curriculum. Matthew, the book was written. It's a fable.

Kate Volman [: 00:12:54

Those are pieces that happen. Like, these were the questions that were that Matthew was guiding the team members along. And so they work, and they're very powerful. And what's so powerful about them really is because of its simplicity. That's the other thing that I find a lot of organizations, and you probably know this because people, when we're putting together process, people like to. We like to overcomplicate things. Overcomplicating is very easy to do.

Charles Banker [: 00:13:23

Here's a good example. I'll share with you. So, for example, we've recently engaged on our business side, voice of customer surveys, and we've hired professionals because it's proven. And there's a difference between a proven curriculum and attempting to do it on your own. My point is we have people in our company that interact with customers all the time and ask them various questions. The results we get from our interactions are significantly different than we're engaging in a proven curriculum with professionals that do this and have many, many years and decades of experience. And that's how I relate to the Dream Management program, is the curriculum is fantastic. I shared with you when we started this, we left Jupiter on Friday and the three of us were like, we want to launch this on Monday.

Charles Banker [: 00:14:03

We were so energized and enthused. And we've taken a step back, realizing we want to launch it properly and thoroughly. So we're building the foundation and we will be launching it in the coming weeks. But we are enthused, we're excited and enjoyed our time at Jupiter.

Kate Volman [: 00:14:17

Awesome. Yeah, I love that you're using that kind of language. I feel like people want to feel excited and rejuvenated and feel like they can't wait to go back to their organizations and show this to their people. And I also really like that you said that it was such a compliment to what you're already doing. Because we find that a lot of organizations, the Dream Manager, can become that kind of hub. You start learning about your people's dreams, and then if you have these other programs, these other development programs, now you're learning more about your people and you can help them get into those other programs where they might not have even known that they exist, or they might not have gotten that little push from their Dream Manager to take advantage of some of the things that you're offering. So I'm really excited for you to see that as you start to build and grow, talk a little bit about what that strategy looks like for you? Because a lot of our dream managers, they do go back. They are very excited.

Kate Volman [: 00:15:14

They also are kind of overwhelmed, a little bit nervous because they don't know how people are going to take it and really rolling it out the appropriate way. I think there is some fear around that sometimes because people feel like, I know I'm equipped to do it, but also I want to make sure I do it right. So what are those conversations? What does that conversation look like with your team members to create that strategy and how are you planning on rolling it out to your team?

Charles Banker [: 00:15:37

We've advanced on already, which is great. I'm happy to talk about that because we do have some clarity and definition around that. So we've identified one of our companies that we will launch it to initially. So we'll have all three of our dream managers, including myself and Perry and Bruce, will launch it as a group and we will solicit, we'll have an application process which we launch it to the employee group and we'll define a certain number that we want to bring on in the first 30 to 60 days because there'll be a learning curve for us to implement it. And then 30 days later, we're going to launch it to another company. We'll bring out another wave of individuals and we'll systematically, over the course of the first half of next year, by May, so we begin to launch this in a couple weeks. By May of next year, the seven facilities, eight facilities, we include corporate, will be fully rolled out. But we want to do it so that we want it to be successful.

Charles Banker [: 00:16:30

We don't want to move so quickly that the early adopters maybe aren't getting the full benefit of the program. So we spent a lot of time since we left Jupiter tweaking this and getting it right. We're really enthused. We think we have a really well defined program that even the early adopters are going to see the benefit from. And I say early adopters, meaning is we learn and implement for the first time.

Kate Volman [: 00:16:56

That's going to be very exciting for those leaders that are listening. What do you feel like are the top three skills that leaders need today in any area, whether they are in management or just somebody coming into organization? What are the leadership skills that you look for in a person?

Charles Banker [: 00:17:16

The three things I look for. One is the ability to listen. I've had a lot of success in my career and I don't know it all. This stage of my career, don't know it all. And even areas where I'm somewhat refined. Having another perspective is extremely important. So if we have somebody that comes in that I'm looking to interview to join our team and they have a struggle around listening, it's a disqualifier, the ability to engage. When we have our individuals walk the floor, don't be in such a rush that you can't stop and say hello.

Charles Banker [: 00:17:51

Ask them how they're doing, get to know them a little bit on a personal level, because that's part of the culture, is that if you have a title, you have a VP title, you have a president's title, you have whatever it might be, there can be a certain inclination to be intimidated by that individual. And if they get to know you, we want them to realize that you're relatable. And then there's a competency that comes with it and a competency to implement not only strategic initiatives but the culture. I find a lot of really smart, intelligent people out there. I interview for a job and we'll get inundated with resumes. The blocking and tackling is there. The differentiator for me is again, can you listen, can you relate? And can they implement culture outside of just implementing a lead business practice or a up to date marketing strategy? So those are the three things that are extremely important to me and what I believe differentiate us from our competitors.

Kate Volman [: 00:18:41

What is one activity? What is something that a leader can do today to help strengthen their culture?

Charles Banker [: 00:18:49

The easy answer is just to relate to the three points that I was just looking for, right. Is relatable and listening. I'm looking to hire somebody right now. I won't tell you the role, I will tell you where. But I asked him how he answers normal typical interview question, right? How do you see the first 30, 60 and 90 days? And he said, I want to meet the employees, I want to meet the customers, I want to meet your third party service providers. I want to listen and I want to understand what's important to them. So you can imagine I went ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes, I like this guy, right? The competency is there, but his ability in the first 90 days to say, I want to get everyone else's opinion, I want to hear their challenges, I want to understand how I can help them be more successful.

Charles Banker [: 00:19:29

Is the translation of that. You want to move your culture, you want to move your business forward. I think that's the single largest differentiator is the ability to listen, relate and solve problems for your team.

Kate Volman [: 00:19:41

Charles, thank you so much for sharing some of your insight. Like I said, we're Very excited to see how you roll the program out. And we know that they're going to be so excited. Your people are going to love the program. I'm so happy that you guys felt so awesome about coming to Jupiter and had such a wonderful experience yourself, which I know even though you're not going to actually be the Dream Manager, what did you discover about yourself?

Charles Banker [: 00:20:11

Just going through the program discovered that I had limited dreams until they were encouraged and nudged out of me. And I say that jokingly. Yeah, I discovered a lot. I think when you look at the curriculum the Dream Management program is you've defined it with the curriculum is 12 monthly sessions over the course of a year. So if in two days I'm pulling things out of myself that maybe I was aware of and haven't acknowledged in a while or addressed in a while, and maybe some new things that maybe I was not aware of, if I can get that out of it in two days, the employees engaged with this program for a full year are just going to walk away with, I just think, a high level enthusiasm and development.

Kate Volman [: 00:20:50

Yes sir. It's going to be awesome. So we are excited. Thank you so much for taking some time to chat today, Charles. I so appreciate it.

Charles Banker [: 00:20:58

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Kate Volman [: 00:21:03

As always, thank you so much for listening. We so appreciate you and of course I hope that you found one idea or some type of aha moment that inspired, inspires you to go back to your team and continue to build a dynamic culture in your organization. If you are curious about the Dream Manager program, if you don't yet have a certified Dream Manager at your company and you're interested in what that might look like for you, then we would love to have a conversation. You can go to thedreammanager.com, check that out and someone on our team will be in touch with you to have that conversation. Thank you again for listening and until next time, Lead With Culture.