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Victoria Loewenstern & Delilah Singer 33 min

Balancing Traits: Feminine vs. Masculine Leadership


Join Victoria and Delilah as they sit down with Chad Smith - a leader outside of SaaS. They discuss topics that include the differences between masculine and feminine leadership traits and how these apply across multiple industries.



0:00

Okay guys, let's huddle up.

0:03

Introducing guest number three, I think on the podcast.

0:08

Welcome Chad Smith.

0:11

Chad, welcome.

0:14

I just want to preface.

0:15

Delilah and I wanted to bring in other leaders within, you know, sales and

0:21

outside of the tech industry because at the end of the day, the skills and the

0:24

things that we're going to talk about today is very relevant, no matter what

0:27

industry you're in.

0:28

So welcome.

0:29

Thank you.

0:30

Happy to be here.

0:31

Chad, maybe you could start with your background, what your role is.

0:35

Introduce yourself, your backstory.

0:37

So I'm a general manager for an elevator company, TK elevator.

0:42

I've spent most of my career in the elevator industry coming up through sales.

0:46

This is more of a construction industry.

0:48

So it's been a little bit more of a niche thing.

0:51

I have worked in this industry in both Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and now here

0:57

in North Carolina.

0:58

One of the coolest things about his role is that he is in sales and it might

1:02

not be sales, but there are so many similarities.

1:05

And throughout the years, we've picked each other's brains on how we manage

1:09

teams or, you know, run our sales orgs.

1:12

So Chad, I want to get a better understanding from you on kind of like you

1:17

manage a, you have 120 indirect and direct reports total.

1:22

So kind of walk us through that, you mentioned articles that you've read in the

1:26

past about how you choose to hire certain people for certain roles and how even

1:31

though you're in an elevator company that you still have two branches of the

1:35

business, right?

1:36

You have your account managers and then your new business.

1:39

So similar to us, we have existing a new logo.

1:42

So there's a lot of ties that cross paths there.

1:45

So talk to us a little bit about that.

1:47

Sure. So I have approximately 120 direct reports that includes our field staff

1:53

as well.

1:54

So the people actually working on the elevators and we have a couple of

1:58

different lines of business under my purview.

2:00

One of them being our service arm, which is existing buildings.

2:04

We have a construction arm, which is new buildings, pure construction, and then

2:10

kind of the hybrid or a mix between the two and modernization, which is making

2:14

old elevators new again.

2:16

So we kind of three different arms of our business will say service, obviously

2:20

being our largest and kind of what we exist to be is a service company.

2:24

So under that umbrella of our service side of the house, we have in my team, at

2:29

least in Raleigh, I have a sales manager who reports to me and manages our

2:35

sales team, the account managers for our service customers.

2:38

And we have five sales reps dedicated strictly to account management.

2:43

They also have a growth goal.

2:45

So they do a little bit of the proactive sales function of growing the service

2:49

business, but the primary function, of course, is our existing customer and our

2:53

existing portfolios.

2:54

Chad, I'm curious, what kind of technologies are you guys leveraging in terms

2:58

of like a CRM platform?

3:00

Like internally, like how are your sales reps going out, finding new business?

3:06

Can you maybe talk a little bit about, you know, like what the processes or

3:09

what their methods are like?

3:11

It's funny because a lot of it kind of depends on the rep and what works best

3:14

for them.

3:15

We're lucky enough that if it's a building with more than one story, there's a

3:19

likelihood that there's an elevator in there.

3:21

So if we don't have it, then someone else does.

3:23

So that's just kind of pure in old fashioned cold calling where we'll walk in

3:26

the building, you know, drop a business card, want to talk to the manager.

3:29

But we do a lot of other forms of prospecting using resources such as like the

3:33

state database to determine what buildings do have elevators because that's

3:37

kind of what we're looking for first, right?

3:38

It's make sure they've got an elevator that we can service.

3:41

So from a service growth standpoint, we really kind of depend on a couple of

3:45

different things, some intricacies that we can lean on, but primarily it kind

3:50

of just boils down to like does the building have an elevator?

3:53

We have a lot of resources like Dodge data, which is a company that can

3:56

consolidate a lot of building permit data.

3:59

That'll help us that we can we through, but honestly, there's nothing better

4:02

than just old school being out in the area, looking at the buildings.

4:06

I don't have that building.

4:07

I'm going to go see who does.

4:08

Yeah, I was like thinking about it because Delilah, when we think about like

4:12

when we're prospecting, Oh, what kind of chatbot are they using?

4:14

Like, how are they breaking that pain or it's like, how are you qualifying to

4:18

understand like these types of buildings that you're looking at or whatever you

4:22

beat your competitor in a sense?

4:25

Like it's like interesting to think about it from like a different industry

4:27

perspective.

4:28

If you know, no, it totally does.

4:29

I mean, and one of the things we want to know is who do they have?

4:32

Who is their service provider?

4:33

Because we have different value ads that we want to present earlier on,

4:38

depending on who their service provider is based on what we've seen in the past

4:42

that are some of the pain points.

4:43

They're probably experiencing.

4:45

Yeah.

4:45

See, that just goes to show that sales is sales no matter what industry, but we

4:49

all have a similar journey in that sense.

4:51

It's linear.

4:52

Yeah.

4:53

Something I did want to talk to you about though is before, you know, we

4:57

started filming, we kind of all got together and we're brainstorming and you're

5:01

recently talking about hiring because that's something that Victoria and I are

5:05

constantly doing.

5:07

And as you know, Victoria and I are women in sales.

5:11

We're very proud of that.

5:13

And it was so interesting.

5:14

Chad actually told us that the last, I believe, seven, you said AM roles that

5:18

you actually hired all females.

5:21

So I would love to pick your brain about that.

5:23

I think it's always first and foremost, like the best person for the job all

5:26

the time.

5:27

And so it's just a byproduct of that of being the best person happened to be

5:31

women.

5:32

And obviously I very much, you know, wanted to expand our search to broaden our

5:38

ability to recruit, you know, all walks of life.

5:42

And with that kind of may take a little bit of a different approach, maybe or

5:48

thought on how do we assess the talent that we're hiring in terms of their

5:54

skillset and what's going to make them successful.

5:56

I think this is a very technical or mechanically inclined industry.

6:00

Elevators are right.

6:02

I mean, there's engineering involved and no one, no one knows what an elevator

6:05

does outside of just press the button and it's there and it takes me somewhere

6:08

and there's a lot of things going on behind those doors that people don't know

6:12

about.

6:12

So it can be very mechanically intricate.

6:15

And I think probably just from a generalization standpoint, women might not

6:19

always have a more technical or mechanical inclination.

6:23

So I think that has in some capacities maybe led them away from an industry

6:29

like this or they wouldn't think that there was an opportunity for them here

6:33

when like we just talked about with the parallels and sales and account

6:36

management.

6:37

It's just people.

6:38

It's just customer service.

6:40

You know, I think it's no secret.

6:41

There's more men and leadership positions, I think, or decision making roles

6:45

throughout like the workforce.

6:47

And I think what a very common misconception is, or maybe misconception may not

6:52

be the best word for it, but a very common mistake that leaders make when

6:57

hiring for sales positions, especially if they came through is that they're

7:02

going to a lot of times may want to see that the person that they're hiring is

7:06

going to have a similar skill set or traits that they had that made them

7:10

successful in their role.

7:11

And if they don't possess those, then they may not think they might, they would

7:16

be a good candidate for the job, whether that's a mechanical skill set,

7:20

technical skill set, more masculinity, whatever that may be could have been a

7:24

deterrent from hiring women.

7:26

Whereas, you know, we had a couple of really, really talented female sales reps

7:32

for us that kind of helped me to to see the different ways that women can be

7:36

successful in navigating customer relationships conflict.

7:41

While leaning on the resources at hand for some of the areas that they need to

7:45

help in if it was a mechanical or technical, you know, area.

7:48

Chad, I completely understand where you're talking about.

7:50

I think that your industry is like construction in general is probably very

7:55

male dominated.

7:56

So that's why I thought it was really interesting that for certain sales roles,

8:01

you, like you said, hired the best person for the job and didn't just do the

8:04

norm, which would be higher strictly men.

8:07

You were interested in different qualities between men in sales and women in

8:11

sales.

8:12

So that's kind of what I wanted to touch on.

8:14

You showed us this article that I referenced in the beginning of the podcast

8:18

about masculine and feminine qualities.

8:21

So, yeah, yeah.

8:22

So article is the Forbes article feminine and masculine workforce dynamics.

8:28

Author is Nicole Silver.

8:30

It's a longer article, but the biggest things that I like to take away is she

8:34

does a really good job of highlighting the.

8:36

Positive qualities of both masculinity and femininity in the workforce and why

8:42

they can both what different traits of each can be.

8:47

Beneficial so masculine qualities, including structure and planning, taking

8:52

action risk taking competitiveness, protectedness and being assertive masculine

8:57

traits get things done.

8:59

This means the plan is usually direct and structured where everyone knows their

9:03

role and what they need to accomplish when a person uses masculine traits

9:06

without balancing them with feminine traits, they may come off as aggressive,

9:10

uncaring and demanding.

9:12

How do you like determine this when when hiring like to Delilah's question

9:16

earlier like what qualities are you looking for when you're speaking to these

9:20

women that you are interviewing?

9:22

Really, I don't know that I'm looking for any specific mix of the qualities.

9:27

I'm more so looking for an individual that has maybe a higher level of

9:31

emotional intelligence to know what their qualities are that they can use to

9:37

their advantage and that they navigate conversation and maybe conflict.

9:42

Well, it's hard to determine someone's ability to navigate conflict and more of

9:46

an interview setting.

9:48

But just interacting with someone and seeing do you feel like they have a

9:52

competitive spirit?

9:54

It's my job as a leader that if they possess certain traits that I'm able to

9:57

help them develop those and maybe use other traits that may also, you know,

10:02

some of these subconscious habits that they have or make up to their

10:07

personality just that they're able to use them.

10:09

Well, I don't know that I have a set, they need to have these things.

10:14

I think sales is like 90% confidence and as long as they are using those to

10:20

embody that, you know, and that they're, they know them and are leveraging what

10:25

things they do well, then, you know, we can build on everything else.

10:29

It's so interesting because like the masculine qualities, I mean, we think this

10:33

all the time, but if a woman were to say something, sometimes it could come off

10:38

as like emotional or right or aggressive, but like if a man will say that in

10:42

more of like a higher up leadership role, I would say, it's

10:45

confident and assertive and all that. So that's why I just find this like so

10:50

fascinating, especially that Forbes wrote about it. So I would love to hear

10:54

about the feminine qualities and then like bridge the two together on account

10:58

managers and what qualities they have.

11:00

The feminine qualities, I think, when you're when you're thinking of a customer

11:04

service role or someone who is representing your brand or your organization,

11:09

customer facing, these would represent much better. So I'll just read them.

11:13

Feminine qualities include being receptive, caring for team members,

11:17

understanding the needs of the consumer that the brand services, speaking

11:23

effectively, flexibility, listening to intuition and patience.

11:27

Femininity is hard centered. This means they have good relationships with their

11:31

vendors and are positive influence on team members. They have a good line on

11:35

their customers and therefore can build a strong product and are adaptable.

11:40

When a person uses feminine traits without balancing them with masculine traits

11:44

, they can come across as passive, indecisive and indirect.

11:48

Totally. We talk about this all the time, Goliath and I, and I think, Goliath,

11:52

we do like a good job, I would say, at balancing both. I always say like I use

11:57

the term as like fiery, but then I realize like I shouldn't be saying that

12:00

because it can be seemed as like not a good way, but to your point, Goliath,

12:06

like when men are assertive

12:08

or aggressive or, you know, I guess quote unquote fiery in the workspace, it's

12:12

like, okay, yeah, they're confident, but when a woman is like that, it's like

12:16

emotional. Yeah, she's emotional.

12:19

Right. I think especially in leadership, right? Like for you guys being in

12:23

leadership, this would just be a theory, but if more men possess more masculine

12:27

qualities and more masculine qualities geared towards, or have a leadership

12:31

inclination in terms of being direct and being process oriented,

12:35

then, you know, maybe even more so as you get into leadership, you may feel

12:40

more of a subconscious pressure or societal pressure to be more masculine or

12:44

have more masculine tendencies.

12:47

Chad, what do you feel like you relate to the most? I think if I had like a

12:50

leadership brand, it would be empathy. So that may actually align more with a

12:55

feminine trait, I guess.

12:57

You know, it is a construction industry. There's a lot of things that have to

13:01

be very matter of fact. You know, this is some salt to the earth individuals

13:05

that I get an opportunity to lead and work with.

13:07

Some of our construction partners are very matter of fact. So you have to be

13:10

confident. You have to be direct. You have to be sometimes a man's man to kind

13:16

of make your name for yourself here or get respect, you know, amongst our trade

13:19

partners. But from an internal standpoint and managing my team, I think it's rooted in

13:23

empathy.

13:24

Definitely. I think the saying that people work for people goes such a long way

13:29

. And in this case, it's like not necessarily man versus woman. I do. I think

13:34

that the perfect leader will have traits of both.

13:37

But I think typically, like as a society, people think like the more dominant

13:41

and straight, like the higher up you get, that's what you need to be. But the

13:46

people that really have like a feminine, if you call it feminine, just in the

13:49

sense of this article, but that those feminine qualities as their foundation

13:54

where they're empathetic. They are, you know, they're a people person. Like they see their people as the

13:58

people they are. You make people want to work for you. Now you need a touch of

14:02

that, like setting expectations, dominant type of personality, right?

14:07

Depending on, especially like Chad, you have a team of 120 and such different

14:12

types of roles under you. You have to really balance it and be there for

14:16

everyone.

14:17

Yeah, I think it's so important that you have a good balance of both, right?

14:21

Like having empathy, but also being direct, being supportive for your team, but

14:26

also, you know, being assertive.

14:29

But to your point, like people work for people at the end of the day, like it

14:32

doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what gender you identify with as

14:37

long as like you're a good leader, you're assertive, you're there for your

14:41

people. You back them, you're direct, it really doesn't matter. You get shit done,

14:45

right?

14:46

Sure. I think it's rooted in confidence too. Like you sell best when you're

14:50

confident. You're most confident when you feel empowered and supported.

14:54

So for me as a leader, I'd have to empower my people and know that they've got

14:58

to know I've got their back. And if they know that, then they're running fear

15:02

lessly.

15:03

I love that. There was the New Zealand Prime Minister. Her name was Jacinda Ar

15:14

dern. I hope I didn't butcher her name. She gave a farewell speech during her a

15:15

farewell to Parliament when she was stepping down.

15:16

Now she was the Prime Minister of New Zealand. And I believe she was only the

15:20

second mother or someone to become pregnant while serving in Parliament for New

15:25

Zealand. So anyway, that's not relevant to the sort, but this was something she

15:30

said in her farewell speech.

15:32

She says, "You can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your

15:36

sleeve. You can be a mother or not. You can be a crier, a hugger. You can be

15:41

all of these things. And not only can you be here, you can lead."

15:45

Love. We can end it right here, guys.

15:48

Yeah, literally. We're done with the episode right there.

15:51

That is incredible.

15:53

I thought that was impactful, though. It's just, you know, it's now a woman,

15:59

right? I think, you know, you can have empathy. You can lead with passion. You

16:04

can have your heart on your sleeve.

16:06

I've done that. I'm lucky enough to lead talented people. So I'm able to tell

16:10

them, like, be a mother first, be a father first, be a friend, be a husband,

16:14

whatever it is that you have to be at home.

16:16

You can be happy there. That just, I think, bleeds over into pride and being

16:19

proud of what they do here because they feel empowered and supported.

16:23

I think feeling empowered is like the most important, right? Like, Delilah and

16:27

I try and coach our team on, like, hey, like feel confident enough to have

16:29

those difficult conversations or, you know, feel empowered to, you know, lead

16:34

your own discovery calls or, like, whatever it is that you need to feel

16:37

confident within yourself, knowing that your leader has your back at the end of

16:41

the day. Should you fall flat on your face or there to pick you up in a sense and guide

16:44

you along the way? Chad, totally agree on that.

16:47

Yeah, the one thing that you said that really resonates with me is be who you

16:51

are at home and then you'll be good at work.

16:54

Someone once told Victoria and I that being a manager or just like leading a

16:58

team or in general is part-time managing, part-time therapist.

17:02

Your people are people, like, at the end of the day. They're going through

17:05

their own struggles at home. They can't just come to work and be 100% all the

17:10

time and you have to understand how to be there for them on a personal level.

17:14

So, yeah, I love that line where it's like, if they're in a good environment

17:18

and happy and you're making sure, like, you're touching all those grounds, not

17:21

just talking about work. They're going to flourish in work in return.

17:25

Any time I make a job offer, I always end with, "Hey, I want you to know I have

17:29

all the confidence in you to do this. I know it can seem daunting. It's a new

17:33

industry a lot of times for a lot of people, but I want you to be you and do

17:37

the job. Don't try to be the job. Don't try to be what you think this job makes

17:42

you be."

17:43

That was some advice I got when I became a leader when I looked at other

17:46

leaders and I thought, "I need to act that way or be this way." And I realized

17:51

that I did the best when I was just being myself and I felt that I was

17:54

supported by my leadership to, you know, one do the right thing and be

17:59

supported in my decision making and have help when I need it.

18:01

Confidence comes a lot of ways for different people. Sometimes men might find

18:04

more confidence speaking about something if they know it more technically

18:07

because I know everything there is to know about this. I can speak to it.

18:10

Sometimes it's just I know that I can say, you know, or do the very best I can

18:14

here and my team will support me in that and I'll have people stand behind me.

18:18

It's also learning what is going to build that confidence for individuals that

18:23

you can help them to grow because all in all, if it's rooted in confidence,

18:28

everything else will just kind of be a byproduct of building their confidence

18:32

and they'll gain everything else along the way.

18:35

I was thinking about it too. Like when we talk about servicing our customers as

18:39

we're all leaders here, I think of our employees as our customers. Right? Like

18:45

we want to make sure that they're happy.

18:46

We want to make sure that we're servicing them. You know, we're being empat

18:49

hetic to their needs and what it is that they want and their goals and their

18:53

values and so forth.

18:54

I feel like as leaders, it's important for us to think of our teams as our

18:58

customers. I love that analogy.

19:00

You know, you'll have different customers with different needs and you have

19:03

different employees with different needs and different motivations, right?

19:07

I mean, I read a book by Nick Saban once or about Nick Saban and it wasn't by

19:10

him, but it was about him.

19:12

And in one of his analogies, Nick Saban's Alabama football coach, he's kind of

19:16

like my leadership mentor. I think if I had to say I have one, but he says in

19:21

his book that until he knows what motivates someone, he can't lead them.

19:25

He asked a kid, do you want to go be in the NFL? Yes. Okay. I can lead you to

19:29

the NFL. I have a rap sheet showing that I've gotten all of these players to

19:33

the NFL.

19:34

But if he's leading a kid or managing a player to be in the NFL and they never

19:38

care to be in the NFL, then he's not leading them the way that he should

19:42

because that's going to have different expectations or different things that he

19:46

's going to require of that person.

19:48

So it's also just about from our standpoint where I am with leadership. I need

19:54

to know not only from the personal standpoint of what motivates you, it's good

19:57

to know that you have things that you're doing it for people or whatever that

20:01

is.

20:01

But also, what do you want to get out of it? What do you want to be? How can I

20:04

develop your skill set? Do you want to be an SDR for your whole life?

20:09

That's okay. Let me just make sure that we build you a sustainable work

20:13

environment to where you are not burning you out or do you want to grow? Do you

20:17

want to have management in your future? Then let me kind of expose you to that

20:21

so that they're continuing to feel like they're getting challenged and

20:25

stretched and grown so that they're showing up looking forward to be in here.

20:28

See, this is why I love having guests on that are outside of SAS because it's

20:33

just so similar. I keep saying that it's exactly right. Like you just heard it

20:38

from Nick Saban, a football coach, had who manages like a huge team at a

20:46

construction elevator company and then us in SAS, we do the same exact thing.

20:50

Like we set our team down from the beginning and understand their goals,

20:53

understand what motivates them personally and professionally. I have some

20:57

people on the team that want to buy homes and then they also want to be AEs.

21:01

So it's like, how do we work towards that goal every single day? I just love

21:05

that you said that. But one thing that I wrote down to that you mentioned the

21:10

other day is the guts and grace reference. Can you repeat that again?

21:14

It's funny that this is a big topic for us as a company right now. We've been

21:19

working with some of our connect and inclusive groups to kind of have

21:24

conversation and dialogue around diversity, equity and inclusion.

21:28

And I joined the women's network group last week as we were having dialogue. It

21:32

was really good. Just hear from other women in our company.

21:35

But the premise of the dialogue was guts and grace. And that was their way or a

21:40

very fun spin on when we refer to masculinity or feminine traits, guts and

21:45

grace and having a little bit of both.

21:48

And so that was, I think, the way or a nice way that we just summarized them

21:52

and got some grace and having both and navigating a male dominated space or

21:56

construction industry with both.

21:58

I love that you have to have the guts to say what you feel, but you also have

22:01

to have like the grace to be empathetic to like the tough conversations

22:05

essentially. Yeah. Next time anyone asks us what our leadership style is, we

22:10

should say guts and grace grace.

22:12

That's great. I think that's great. Yeah.

22:14

I want to go back on the point of like finding the motivation and the fact that

22:17

, you know, we're talking about different industries and everything like that. I

22:22

think it is really important because something that I've learned to it's like,

22:26

if you don't have a desire, you're not going to have a goal.

22:27

Right. Like you have to want something in order to get to your final

22:31

destination essentially. So I think it's so important to like as leaders that,

22:36

you know, what motivates me might not motivate Delilah or my desire is it's not

22:40

going to be just Delilah's, but our job as leaders is to find out each person's

22:45

motivation and each person's desire before we're able to lead them in a sense.

22:51

So I think Delilah, to your point, like it is really interesting that it's like

22:55

, you don't have to be in any sort of industry as long as like you have

22:59

essentially the human skill set or the leadership skill set, you can apply it

23:04

to no matter what industry or job that you're in.

23:07

Absolutely.

23:08

I have all walks of life here too. And we are more of an onsite job, which is

23:12

sometimes challenging for like I have some people or employees that are fresh

23:16

out of college with no responsibilities. Right.

23:19

And I have one of my leading sales reps on our team is a single mother of two

23:24

kids. The way that I can, you know, support her is much different than I may

23:29

have to support another individual where, you know, I tell her like you're

23:34

going to be a mother first and we're going to stand by that.

23:36

Because when I become a father, I'm going to be a father first and I want to

23:39

work in an environment that supports that. So, you know, it's rules for rules.

23:43

It's not rules for me and not for the like it's, I'm going to lead the way that

23:47

I want to be led and I've got to walk the walk and talk the talk.

23:50

You know, I can't just say I'm going to support you being a mother first and

23:53

then complain if they have to be a mother.

23:55

That also just continues to be a catalyst to the culture and the environment

23:59

and that employees engagement knowing they're empowered, supported, and then

24:04

subsequently confident, I guess, just what it's all coming back to.

24:07

I heard something. It's like, if you don't like your culture, change your

24:10

culture, like as a leader, like do what you can to change your culture.

24:14

You are that you're well and our people are that I had a company cookout this

24:18

weekend and one of the individuals, one of our field technicians his wife was

24:22

telling me he's so happy working here now he came from a competitor of mine.

24:24

He came from a competitor of ours about a year and a half ago and she said he's

24:27

doing the same job every day. He's still an elevator technician, but he's just

24:30

so much happier here because of the culture.

24:33

And I told her, I said, well, he's a part of that. He contributes to that.

24:37

Totally.

24:38

We're as lucky to have him as he feels to be with us. You know, it's not just

24:42

like I did in this huge favor. He's a tremendous asset. He belongs here.

24:46

And having that sense of belonging and knowing that you're a contributor to not

24:50

just the business and not just the professional aspect of what we get paid to

24:54

do, but you're a contributor to the people around you and their culture.

24:58

That's as much as anything else too.

25:00

I think that's a huge thing in our SDR work. Like every time that we talk to

25:05

our team about like why they like it here and what improvements that they want

25:09

to see or what they love about it, it always ties back to culture.

25:13

We do such a good job. I don't say so myself of harvesting such a great culture

25:19

Aside from anything else in the company, like we say true to ourselves, no

25:23

matter what's going on. It just goes a really long way.

25:27

I mean, I know you guys want to hear from me on some of this, but I'll tell you

25:31

that I think that you guys have a great challenge in terms of a culture being

25:36

more remote versus what I have in the sense that I'm lucky enough that I can

25:40

walk in and smile every day.

25:42

I can be outgoing and jovial and my team is going to see the way that I'm

25:47

carrying myself and I'm going to almost set the tone visually.

25:52

You guys have a tough challenge of setting a tone, being empathetic, while a

25:57

lot of communication can be digital.

26:00

Anyone knows as well as I do, sometimes emails or text or words can get a

26:04

little bit misconstrued.

26:06

We often times need to remember that as leaders, you guys have all done it

26:10

where you sent something to your boss or your boss sent you something you over

26:14

think.

26:14

Why was there a period at the end of that sentence? Are they mad at me?

26:19

Kind of thing. I can just walk up and grab somebody and be like, "Hey, dude,

26:24

come on, let's go chat."

26:25

Whatever. They're not going to have that angst about it whereas you guys might

26:28

send a message and inadvertently have someone talking to their wife or husband

26:32

about it at night in bed.

26:34

What did they mean by this? What is this mean for tomorrow? I don't know. I

26:38

think that's tough. It's really tough.

26:39

Fostering like a remote culture is definitely difficult, but we've been doing

26:45

it for so many years now that it's kind of like we have that rhythm in place

26:49

and making sure that we're engaging with our team throughout the day.

26:53

Lila and I love to talk about sharing the small wins because they're just as

26:57

important as sharing the big ones. Even if someone picks up the phone, "Fuck

27:01

yeah, they just answered. Let's go."

27:03

Just even saying something like that. Chat, I know that you have said a lot of

27:07

really great things on this podcast. We're going to go into our fun rapid fire

27:13

questions, but the reason why I preface it like this is because the first

27:16

question is, and you have already said such good advice thus far, what's the

27:20

best piece of advice that you've ever received?

27:22

It's tough because it's come at different times. When I was a brand new leader,

27:28

the advice of just being you and doing the job was the best advice that I got.

27:33

So that would probably be to new leaders. BU, you've put in put there for a

27:38

reason. You won't know everything. You're not expected to.

27:42

You're put there because you possess some skill set that whomever puts you

27:45

there, sees in you that you will be able to figure it out. So BU and do the job

27:50

Then I received advice later that after I got into it and I just was, you know,

27:54

drinking from a fire hose of the volume of what came along with it, and I

27:58

started kind of fine tuning my own leadership style.

28:00

My previous manager at the time who I have an immense amount of respect for

28:04

gave me the advice of just doing the right thing. If you always do the right

28:08

thing, what you believe to holistically be the right thing, chances are

28:11

everything will turn out okay.

28:13

And that can be tough sometimes when you're running a business and you have

28:17

maybe the customer thinks there's something that's the right thing to do and

28:21

you may have a business case otherwise, you know, if I empower my team to be

28:25

empowered the same way that I was to just make the best decision that I can

28:29

at the time and not try to stress about what would Chad want me to do here,

28:32

what would Chad want me to say, you know, just do what you think is the right

28:36

thing.

28:37

Amen. Love it. Okay. The next few ones are a little bit quirky. So you got to

28:42

think fast.

28:43

Okay. If you could switch lives with someone for a week, who would it be and

28:48

why?

28:49

Probably.

28:50

I thought it was going to be Scottie Scheffler. Not a golfer. Scottie Scheffler

28:59

. Yeah, he's the world number one golfer right now. I thought it was going to be Tiger Woods for sure. Tiger's not in his prime right now. If I could switch with anyone at any time,

29:03

2000 tiger for sure. But Scottie Scheffler right now. Wait, is he the one that

29:08

had the baby?

29:09

Yeah.

29:10

I love that. He just he just won the Masters. Yeah. I know absolutely nothing

29:17

about golf. I love how I know him as just having a baby and you're again, he

29:19

just like won the Masters. That's like the Super Bowl of golf.

29:22

Yeah. I know. I can't watch golf, like, or play it or anything that has to do

29:29

with it. I think it's probably one of the most boring sports I've ever seen.

29:33

I have to agree. I got engaged on the golf course. Oh my God, you did. I'm so

29:41

sorry. Wait, not sorry that you got engaged there, but sorry that I am.

29:43

Does Monica play golf? I got her golf clubs for her birthday and marks. So she

29:47

's starting. She likes it. Okay. But yeah, we played. We did around. It's

29:51

actually where the US Open will be this year, which is like another Super Bowl

29:55

in golf.

29:56

Yeah, it's that course. Don't you have a friend who got engaged on a golf

29:59

course too? Yeah, I did. I think golf courses are like stunning though, to be

30:04

honest, like it's so pretty. Like I used to walk around like my neighborhood

30:08

with a golf course and you know what I do love.

30:10

I love to ride around on a golf cart. And you know, the food at like the

30:14

country clubs are always. Oh my God, so there's some reason it's always a

30:20

Buffalo chicken wrap for me at these golf courses.

30:23

Mike's going to get into it more now that he's out of football. It's just

30:26

something you can continue to compete in and you can drink beer and do it at

30:29

the same time.

30:30

Every dude loves golf. I swear. Well, that's probably why. Because you feel

30:34

good to compete and drink beer while you do it.

30:36

If you could rename yourself, what would you choose and why? That's funny

30:41

because there's another Chad Smith that works for this company. So I'm Chad

30:45

Smith too. So I've been trying to convince my company to let me change to my

30:49

middle name. Maverick, why don't you just be Chad Smith one. Why does he get to be numbered?

30:53

Why do you have to be number? I don't know. But I may.

30:56

I may just make like a midlife career name change and go by my middle name

31:00

professionally at this company, but my middle name is Maverick.

31:04

Wait Maverick is his thick name. Okay, this is my favorite question. What is

31:08

the most unusual item in your refrigerator right now?

31:12

Now I'll tell you, Monica and I live together. So she's always up to something.

31:16

I say something. She's been really proud of her sourdough starter lately. And

31:19

that's a big deal for her. I would have never done that.

31:22

We've been coaching each other through this while she's been coaching me. But

31:26

honestly, I don't even know if that's in the fridge. That's how naive I am to

31:29

this. I.

31:30

Hey, Chad, this is the final question. What's the last photo of you? No, not of

31:35

you. But what's the last photo you took on your phone? Enter golf course.

31:39

No, it's actually what I posted on my story yesterday of Doug at our neighbor's

31:44

house, my dog. Oh my God, that was the cutest video ever. Did you actually, you

31:48

couldn't find him when you got home and he's on your neighbor's porch?

31:51

It's not that I couldn't find him. I knew he was outside in the backyard. I

31:54

just walked out and I was like, Doug, Doug, we're just dug and I look over and

31:58

he's in the neighbors sitting with the kids dad or neighbor, just like getting

32:01

all the attention.

32:02

And they had to let him in. So the kids like open the gate and let him in.

32:05

It was so cute. Either way, if you guys don't know, Chad's dog is a golden

32:12

retriever named Doug D.U.G. if you've ever seen the movie up looks just like

32:15

that dog.

32:16

And he was recently nominated or made the chief happiness officer at TK.

32:25

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. The social media team reached out to me about posting

32:31

that on our like TK national social media.

32:33

And we told him not to just because not all offices have like are able to have

32:39

dogs in like I do with Doug on Fridays.

32:42

Let Doug shine. Let Doug live. I felt the same way, but I didn't want to ruin a

32:46

good thing. You know what I mean? So I just said, no sweat.

32:50

No sweat. So, but he's because he's got his own little uniform for work and

32:53

everything.

32:54

Well, thank you so much, Chad, for coming. I mean, your insights into all

32:59

things leadership, styles, hiring and qualities that you look for and obtain

33:04

yourself.

33:05

We're just amazing and really impactful. So we really appreciate you coming on.

33:10

Chad, it was amazing to have you on lots of good advice that I think so many

33:14

people can take from some great quotes that I learned from too.

33:18

So appreciate you coming on here. By the time this episode comes out, Chad will

33:25

be a married and whoo.

33:26

Where's your wedding? Oh, it's in North Carolina. Yeah, in the mountains. Oh,

33:31

it's going to be gorgeous. I can write some pictures. Is Doug walking down the

33:34

aisle?

33:35

Of course, he's in the wedding. Is Mike walking him down? Isn't he? Yeah. Yeah.

33:42

That's hilarious. All right. Well, thank you so much, Chad. It was great having

33:46

you on.

33:47

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