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Right People, Right Seats: Scaling Frontline Teams with Dave Cuff
6 Plays26 days ago
In Episode 6 of MustardHub Voices: From the Frontlines, Julie sits down with Dave Cuff, Chief of Staff at Loving, a production-based landscaping and sod farming business, to unpack what it really takes to scale frontline organizations without losing clarity, culture, or accountability.
Dave shares his unconventional journey from pharmaceuticals to franchising and into operations leadership, offering an honest look at the growing pains that come with rapid growth. He dives into the realities of restructuring leadership teams, applying EOS in practice (not just in theory), and the hard but necessary work of ensuring the right people are in the right seats.
This conversation explores breaking down silos, avoiding vanity metrics, documenting processes, and building leadership pathways that frontline and middle managers can actually follow. Dave also reflects on why leaders must resist firefighting, focus on outcomes that truly move the business, and never take their people for granted.
It’s a candid, practical episode for operators and leaders navigating growth, complexity, and the human side of scaling.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Mustard Hub Voices
00:00:06
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Mustard Hub Voices from the Front Lines. Here's where we talk with the leaders who roll up their sleeves and support and engage their teams from all sorts of industries and verticals, from hu healthcare care to hospitality, retail to the trades.
00:00:20
Speaker
Here's where we dive into the real stories and real strategies from the people who make it happen every
Meet the Host and Guest: Julie Wald and Dave Cuff
00:00:25
Speaker
day. I'm your host, Julie Wald, and I have the pleasure of speaking with Dave Cuff today. hey Dave.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hey, Julie. How are you? I'm doing really well. How are you doing? I'm fantastic. Excited to chat. I am excited to chat too. So I guess you know to kick things off, um I'd love it if you could introduce yourself, the organization you work for, what you do, you know lay it at us.
00:00:48
Speaker
all All the good stuff. Yeah, we'd be happy to. So currently I'm the chief of staff for a company called Loving, which is a production-based landscape and sod farm business.
00:00:58
Speaker
um ah Crazy to think that I'm even in this industry. um Nowhere near was it on the career path that that I was on. um But basically what I do kind of sitting in the seat, it's an integrator role. So work very closely with the ah ah with the founder and the CEO and work with the leadership team to make sure we're making the right decisions, we're pulling the the business in the right the right way, um right people, right seats, um all that good stuff.
Dave Cuff's Career Journey
00:01:25
Speaker
So I'm curious, how long have you been with the company? So um I actually just crossed my 12 month mark. um You know, I started on board with them um really as a consultant last December, met them through through a former colleague um and um came on board with them as a consultant for about two months and then joined full time really going into into March. So yeah, it's been it's been ah an official year.
00:01:50
Speaker
No, that's really exciting. And so what brought you into just the space in general? What was the career path and how did you... you end up where you are. So I'd say my career journey has definitely been not not normal. um you know I spent 10 years in the pharmaceutical world um and i ultimately thought that's where my my career was going to take me. And I worked through the the pharmaceutical sales rep, the management, the training and and all of that. And you know back in 2016, I got a random call from ah a close friend of mine, Landon Echols, who he and I had worked together in the pharmaceutical world.
00:02:27
Speaker
And he said, hey, we're going to franchise Clean Juice. Do you want to move to Charlotte and help? At that time, I knew nothing about franchising, um but you thought about it, prayed about it for a few days and up and walked away from a 10 year pharmaceutical career to start something brand new.
00:02:43
Speaker
ah Moved our family for about four hours inland from the coast of North Carolina into Charlotte. Spent seven years really growing that Clean Juice brand. Started with two locations. We ended with about a 250 unit brand. um That business sold, I guess it's been about two years ago now. And when the business sold, obviously you have ownership change and um you know kind of the group who came in, they had one plan and i thought it was really time for me to really move on.
00:03:11
Speaker
um So as I started looking for kind of my next opportunity, I really wanted to be able to focus on being in a seat that allows me to work with multiple ah multiple departments. I spent the majority of my career with clean juice really in development. So you know how do you get locations sold and opened in construction and real estate? And I wanted to be able to touch multiple departments. So um kind of through that, um I met the founder of another emerging brand called Hoppin, H-O-P-P-I-N, which is a self-pour wine and beer taproom.
00:03:44
Speaker
And um I spent almost a year with them really starting to build the the franchise ah the franchise kind of business. And ultimately, they decided to really slow down on the franchising side of things and just focus on the the corporate location. So last, I'd call it probably last October or so, i really started looking for what is that next opportunity? What's that next role that I can really dive in and make an impact And um sure enough, you know and this is where it comes a full circle moment. So ah Landon became an EOS implementer.
00:04:15
Speaker
And one of his clients that he was working with was looking for someone to really sit in that integrator seat um who can really partner with ah with the founder, and and get each individual kind of leader moving in the right direction. and And he called me one day and said, hey, what do you know about sod farming and and landscaping? And I said, you've known me for 20 years, not a whole lot. um But, you know, I had a chance to to sit down with the founder and he and I talked a few times, probably last October, November.
00:04:42
Speaker
um And man, just amazing company. You know, he he's an amazing guy. he He started this landscaping business at 17 years. and turned it into this multi multi-million dollar company through different avenues and you know it's he's got a great guy wears his heart on his sleeve and and really needed someone to kind of come and support him on the leadership side so um again I've been there know about 12 months we've made a ton of changes within the organization over the last 12 months um if you would have asked me two years ago hey you're going to be in in production landscaping and sod farming, I would have said, you're absolutely crazy. I knew nothing about it, but yet, you know here I am and absolutely loving, um you know, loving what I'm doing.
00:05:24
Speaker
i I love that you're loving it. My other, my follow-up though is, so now you're a year in, yeah how do you feel about your expertise in landscaping and sod farming?
Challenges in Organizational Alignment
00:05:36
Speaker
um I'll say my my technical ah my technical knowledge of kind of what our frontline team members do, I'll say is still limited. um you know and And there's a lot of various things that are different in production landscaping than kind of just a normal small landscaping business.
00:05:53
Speaker
um What I will say is it's a large company. We have about 120 to 130 employees. And what I'd say I've been challenged with the most just from a leadership perspective um is that concept of right person, right seat and getting the structure of the organization right. you know We spent probably the first three or four months when I was in this role just trying to understand are the people in the seats at the end of the organization because it's right for the organization or are they there because they've been with the company for so long and it just seemed to make sense where you know they were the next next man or woman up to to kind of fill that role?
00:06:32
Speaker
um And ultimately, what we've really found was that the way the company was positioned 12 months ago was not the right people. It was not the right seat. It was not the right structure of of kind of who owned what.
00:06:44
Speaker
And we spent probably six months trying to put a a square peg in a round hole until we got to that point of saying, okay, this isn't working. we got to make some changes. So the technical side of of landscaping and sod farming, i' I'm still learning you know every day, but definitely learning a lot about just the the leadership and how to work with ah a group of this many people.
00:07:05
Speaker
yeah When we were at Clean Juice, I think at most we probably had maybe 20 to 30 employees you know that that we that worked for us. you know And now to jump up to a you a company that's doing you know over 20 million in revenue and 120 employees, um completely different. So being just having very clear priorities and rocks and scorecards is just a game changer. Otherwise, you get lost in the weeds and you know you get really, really busy, but you don't accomplish anything.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's that's really true. It sounds, though, like you're getting a very good handle on everything. And, you know, this organization, especially with that shift in size. And I feel very confident that you will be driving around your neighborhood someday in the near future and be like, oh, my God, I can't believe you did that.
00:07:53
Speaker
like um i think it's um I think some days, yes. I mean, there there are days where I feel very confident of what we're doing, the thing you know the the processes we're creating. um And then I'll wake up another day and it's like just getting smacked right in the mouth where it's like, oh, no, that doesn't work.
00:08:10
Speaker
um You know, and I think it's um it is it's true in any leadership role. But, you know, when you you have to believe in your process, but then you also have to have the patience to see, number one, is it the right process? Is it the right person for that process? Right. You could have the you could have the right process, but the wrong person.
00:08:29
Speaker
You could have the wrong the right um ah the right person, but you don't have the right process aligned. And I think that's been probably the biggest thing that I've... i've you know It's been a challenge this year. um If you know anything about the culture index, um my C, which is your pace or your patience, is all the way to the left, meaning I don't really have any.
00:08:49
Speaker
So when you have an organization that is it's this size, you can make decisions pretty quickly based on where you need the company to go. But being able to take a step back and say, OK, did we give it the right time to see is it right? Is it wrong before making a a change? Because you don't want to do the knee jerk reactions. um But you also if if you know it's not right, you've got to be able to make that change versus keeping someone in a seat that you know maybe we know they're they're not right for.
00:09:19
Speaker
And one of the things I'm happy you mentioned um Landon. um So Landon Eccles, we had him on an episode of our other series, ah Behind the Build, ah quite a while ago.
00:09:30
Speaker
um And by quite a while ago, we've only been running the show for like six months. you know Not that long, not that long. um But EOS implementation, like you know as an EOS implementer and the people that have tapped into EOS,
00:09:44
Speaker
You get so much great clarity and you get so many great insights, especially as you're talking around these operations and finding the right fit. Like, I feel like that's something that can be really enlightening for a lot of organizations. It is. And what I'll say and and what has taught me this year um is you know, implementing EOS and having an implementer is is absolutely huge.
00:10:07
Speaker
um But first and foremost is your leadership team has to
Implementing EOS at Loving
00:10:11
Speaker
buy into it. If they don't, it's just another tool. um and And even more so, I'll say when we first launched EOS with Loving, so I came in and started, i think Landon had had one or two meetings with him. So I was at at the beginning of it.
00:10:27
Speaker
Ultimately, we were probably in maybe eight March or April or sometime in the spring and we were rolling with EOS and we had our L10s, we had our scorecards, we had our rocks. But the trap that we fell into was yeah we would go through our L10s and if something was off track, It was simply ah off track, off track, off track. So we would go weeks at a time with the data we thought was critical to our business being red. You know, and if if you're someone like me, when you see red, it's like it's like a thorn in your side.
00:10:57
Speaker
But just from a leadership perspective, again, this goes back to having the wrong people in the wrong seats. um You know, myself and our founder, we were trying to drive the business at such a speed.
00:11:09
Speaker
a in the weeds type of of level because we weren't getting the results that we needed to. So ultimately we were having all these meetings, we were having you know all this dashboard and all of this data, but our outcomes at the end of the month were still crap.
00:11:24
Speaker
So we actually had to, we went through a phase this summer where we basically stopped EOS um because we had to really press pause on understanding and saying, listen, what we have been doing, it's not working. We still believe in EOS. We still believe in in the process, but we got to get our hands more wrapped around some firefighting. We got to make sure we have the right people and and go back through all of that. And it's really only up until probably maybe two months ago, of Q3, beginning of Q4, where we really started to re-engage with it. And we're we're re-engaging at a level of not going all in.
00:12:01
Speaker
So we started with our you know our new executive meeting. So we figured out kind of what that looks like. um But we didn't we started with just issues. We didn't start with our rocks. We didn't start with our scorecards. We so really started to kind of ease back into it. And what we're doing now that we have kind of our we have our executive team put together is we're now setting the scorecards for our leadership teams moving forward. So we'll be able to use the software. And Julie, you hit yeah julie hit the nail the head when you say clarity. When this is done right, um the clarity is what is so critical. It's not a subjective, well, I feel like I did well today. No, it's, hey, your number says this. Did you hit it or not? And I'll say the second go around for us as an executive team is the, if you're more than two weeks in a row of I am off track.
00:12:52
Speaker
All right, that's going to the issues list. We're not going to just assume you've got it. We're going to press in and figure out how you know How do we fix this? And that with, you know I mean, there was probably nine or 10 people on the leadership team when I first started. So again, the the meetings just got into this off track, off track, off track. OK, next person, off track, off track, off track. And we were just checking the boxes. And, you know, that made a spiral for a little bit. So it was a lot of ups and downs, you know really getting to just where we are, you know, you know now a year later.
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and you said something that's really important is like, you know, it's it's a tool. If you don't use the tool or you don't use it correctly, you're not going to get the benefits. And I think whether it is processes or systems and having procedures, or it it could be a tech tool, a platform, um software, if you only get out of it what you put in. you know if you don't use it, it's not going to happen. If you're just checking the boxes, you know i always kind of liken it to like actual tools. like yeah
00:13:54
Speaker
If you own a hammer and it's sitting in your toolbox, that photo isn't going to get hung up because you're not using the hammer. If you go to hang up the photo and you start banging it into it with the claw,
00:14:08
Speaker
you're also not going to be successful at hanging it up, you know? And if you are trying to hang up that picture and you come, come out with a ah snake for plumbing, you're,
00:14:20
Speaker
but you can't do it. You know, it's like you have to pick the pick the right things, you know, and just flailing the hammer in the general direction without thinking about it or looking also does it like you actually have to take that time and use these tools and invest because otherwise, especially if you think for smaller and growing organizations, um,
00:14:39
Speaker
I mean, of course, most organizations, most companies don't have infinite money. But, you know, if you're investing a lot of time in these tools and if you're investing in training for them and you're signing contracts like this can eat up a lot of capital that could be spent in other ways. A hundred percent. You know and there was, we were, it was probably mid-summer at our founder. he He made this statement that it stuck with me um because we started having this conversation of of, we're using this data, but again, the outcomes we're getting, you know, the the financial outcomes that we're getting at the end of the month are just, they're they're bad. They're not where we want to be. He said, with all this data that we have, um he said, it's like we're playing a basketball game without the scoreboard turned on.
00:15:25
Speaker
And it's, and we're doing all of this stuff, but we don't know, is this stuff we're doing going to lead to what is most important in our business, right? And that's being able to drive profits, right? Because with profits, you can, you know, you can take care of your team members, you can give more to your outreach partners, but you got to have those, those profits. So, know, when we really started trying to look through the lens of, of, okay, does this help us get to where we need to be?
00:15:52
Speaker
And man, I will tell you that is so hard when my brain and how I'm wired is if there's a if there's an issue, if there's a fire, my initial brain is how can I dive in and how can I help? Well, if you're a part of a leadership team, right you need to be able to take a step back and figure out how do you make sure your team has all the right tools in place to go and solve that problem?
00:16:16
Speaker
um And our you our founder, Mike, and I were wired the same. So we spent a lot of time this summer just really diving into the weeds where we we should have probably been focusing on, do we have the right people? do we have the right processes? um And a lot of that was hard, you know the the average tenure.
00:16:33
Speaker
with people who work for Loving is five years or more. So you know there's a lot of great employees. And one of the challenges just they kind of rose up through the ranks, but they weren't the right people to be in director, vice president, C-suite type roles.
00:16:51
Speaker
And all you had was years and years of instead of solving problems at the root cause, it was Band-Aids. So years of bandaid fixes and then got us to, well, you know, when we create a work order, you should touch it once. Well, our team was touching it 10, 15 times because of all these kind of work around. So, you know, you learn, but again, it's the tools of figure out what works figure out what doesn't and you know when i first started i was very rigid eos has to be this way we have to do this we have to do this we have to do this um and really what i've learned is is we have to find a way for the systems to really work for us um otherwise we're just putting in data that is not going to help us run the business and that was something i think was hard for me to wrap my head around of Okay, ah you know, when you talk to any EOS implementer, talk to Landon, he'll say, hey, you got to follow this process. And I do believe that, that there is a there's a rhyme and a reason to how we do it. But we also have to make sure that that process is serving us to get the outcomes that we need.
00:17:51
Speaker
You know, it's really, yeah, having, when you think of leadership, there are a lot of folks, and think that this perception is changing a lot, but I mean, there's, of course, these generational shifts in the multi-generational workforce. You know, there' there was, you know, the generation, um generations, where it's like, okay, well, i put in my time, I put in my time, so of course I'm going to make more money. Of course I'm going to get to the next level, really, regardless of fit or not. But you would see organizations, you know, have, you know, the cliched completely unqualified, know,
00:18:19
Speaker
ah middle manager who has no idea what the heck is going on. um But they probably bluster and yell at people and do all the other things that create um employee dissatisfaction, disengagement, because they don't know what the hell they're doing. right You know, they also, you know, training there too, you know, it's, um they need to really understand what it means to be a leader.
Nurturing Leadership and Career Development
00:18:41
Speaker
you know And then back to generationally, there's a lot of younger folks that are developed coming into the workforce or have been in the workforce or coming out of or they're doing entry-level roles. Really sharp people could be really great leaders, but there is an expectation of a lot of folks now that they're just going to be jumping right into that. And it's like, no, you you really have to learn what it's like to be a leader. Just because you're really, really good at something doesn't mean that you're ready to lead other people doing that. And I'll say that was something with you with the levels, the amount of levels that our organization has, especially when when I came in, um you know it's 130 people. So you've got your you've got your C-suite, you've got your VPs, you've got your directors, you've got your managers.
00:19:26
Speaker
um And ultimately what happened was, you know when I think of of leadership, I don't care about a title, right? it's ah A title's a title. If you have someone who reports to you in an organization, you are in a leadership role.
00:19:39
Speaker
And you know part of one of the the challenges we've had this year is how how are we creating that middle layer managers to be successful? um I truly believe that people leave bosses. They don't leave companies.
00:19:54
Speaker
um And I think ultimately, if we're not focused on our VP level and how they are treating, coaching, mentoring their managers underneath them, we're missing that.
00:20:07
Speaker
So that was one of the biggest things really that that we've missed is, yeah we haven't had that career growth platform of, okay, i have a I've got a director of logistics who has a logistics manager under her.
00:20:21
Speaker
But when I first asked him, hey, you know, what are her goals? What does she want to do? You know, how is how do you know you're going to help her kind of grow in in her organization? um He's like, well, I don't know.
00:20:32
Speaker
i haven't really thought about that. OK, well, OK. So he was put into this director level role simply because he was kind of the next man up. um um I brought on a chief people ah chief people officer um probably about four or five months ago, and she has been an absolute rock star. And one of the things she's passionate about is that career development plan.
00:20:54
Speaker
So, you know, and I think this is where having the right people around you is so critical where... I know how important it is to be able to develop other leaders. And it it would take me a while for me to create like that career path of different levels and what you have to do to get to this level. um But with with her, that's that's what she loves to do, right? So she can put together something pretty quickly. And now all of a sudden, within 30 days, we can go to any any of our employees and say, hey what do you want to do?
00:21:23
Speaker
um Here's your pathway. And then we can kind of coach to that level. And now we're creating that next, you know that next kind of bucket of leaders. um And it's, you know, just the organization was so bogged down with so many people. You know, we've unfortunately, we've had to let go of quite a few people this year, whether it was um ah need of the business or just the wrong fit from a culture standpoint. um You know, on our one of our departments, we let go of almost 50 percent of of the entire department. And those who are left are doing better work now than they were before. So it was just bogged down of this too many layers, too much management, where if you let people who are really passionate, who want to learn, who have the right culture, give them clarity on, hey, do you think you can do this?
00:22:12
Speaker
Let them see what they can do. And they're they're kicking butt taking names. And it's with less manpower. Yeah. And that's it's one of the things it's, you know, not only not bogging down, but you get, if you are in a role and you have clarity about what you do, if you want to advance what the path is, what needs to happen, what do I need to learn? What skills do I have? Are there, there these, you have it defined. Are there these opportunities? Can I grow? You know, if you're entrepreneur,
00:22:38
Speaker
Do you have engaged, competent leadership? Because that's going to make engaged, competent team members down the chain. like it's It's amazing because you are going to have so much better retention. You have so much better productivity. You have more loyalty. And even better, you have the people that when you're like, oh, we need to hire that are like, I'm going to recommend recommend someone because this is such a great place to work and they are going to love it and they are going to be rock star just like me.
00:23:04
Speaker
A hundred percent. And the challenge in that is is i don't think you'll find anyone in business who, who says that's not important. yeah um The challenge is then how do you execute it? And the, obviously the larger an organization, the harder it is because it's for every time that whether it's myself, our founder, our chief people officer, you know, anytime we have to jump in a fire of the day-to-day business, well, that takes our time, energy, brainpower away from the the bigger strategic things of creating these type of opportunities. So again, it it comes down to people and and find making sure you have the right people in the right roles who know exactly what they need to do.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, once you get these people, it's also, i think, intentionality um about being like, you know, aligning with what people actually want and need, whether that is working conditions and hours, benefits and rewards, like what what actually is motivating these folks and what actually is you know important to
Addressing Multi-Generational Workforce Needs
00:24:04
Speaker
them. you know if Again, multi-generational workforce, you know maybe the thing that's going to be a big hook for people if they are if you have employees on the older end, they might be like, oh my God, I really need to worry about health insurance. I need to write worry about retirement savings because it's all around the corner for me and I really need this. But if you offer childcare, for instance, um they're be like, my my kids are in their thirty s what are you what are you what what you know what am What am I doing with this? um On the other hand the and other end of the spectrum, younger folks who are joining the workforce, they're like, I don't have kids. I'm still my parents' health insurance. you know, like, can you send me to the gym? Can we have better snacks? You know, and it's really, you know, being able to take a temperature and like understand that, you know, you're also being intentional and also understanding, I think that your workforce isn't this amalgamous mix of,
00:24:56
Speaker
it it really same and It really is different, you know, and it's everything from the work from home. um So we do we do a hybrid um Mondays and Fridays. We work from home Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursdays. We're in the office um and you have some people who absolutely love it. You know, you have others who just have to be in the office to get stuff done. So, you know, working through just how do we become effective?
00:25:19
Speaker
As a as a team and move in the right direction and and you hit the nail on the head again where you things are are things that are important are different based on the individual. um You know, I had someone why director when we were at Clean Juice who his number one focus was PTO.
00:25:37
Speaker
it wasn't um you know It wasn't getting ah ah an increase. It wasn't a bonus. It was he wanted to be able to have more PTO days because he liked to go on long trips with his family. So that's what was important to him.
00:25:49
Speaker
And I think when you use that word intentional, when you're intentional with your team, um I mean, you can move mountains for because if you can if you can give one person who is in a leadership role, show them the path, help them get there and actually see it through, I mean, you've just got someone who's going to run through a brick wall for you because you've helped them. Again, I go back to the the challenge in all of that is the execution of it. And if you don't have the right people in the right seats, Well, now it's you're trying to focus and making sure everyone else is doing their jobs if they don't have the right scorecards, if they don't have the right metrics, if all they're doing is firefighting every day. And I think that's just that's you know kind of you business leadership in in a nutshell is how do you make sure you're intentional with your time, intentional with your people to focus on the big stuff for what is important in your seat? What's important in in my seat is different than what is important in you know one of the VP seats. We focus on different things. One is not better or more important than the other. But if if I'm focused on the same thing that they're focused on, well, now I'm going to miss some stuff. So it just comes back to the the right people and having clarity on on what do they need to do.
Data-Driven Decision Making
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah. And one of the things too, even with that, like you you talked about data earlier, you know, there's so many things, even things you might not think about that you can actually get data and metrics behind and making those choices again, intent with, you know, intentionality um you're able to start seeing like, okay, well, the numbers are actually telling me this, that if we do this,
00:27:19
Speaker
people stick around more. If we do this, we have greater output, you know, and it could be, you know, if we do this, we make more money, which is usually the important one at the end of the day. Sorry. Sorry, everyone else. That's kind of what business is. um But, you know, like, you know, this stuff and it's, it's, you can get this good data. If you don't look at, like, I've seen a lot of people collect a bunch of data and then they don't use it or, you know, knowing what to look for, you know, because there's a lot of things that maybe,
00:27:46
Speaker
you know, maybe more of vanity metrics or things that are really early down whatever pipeline that pipeline we're working at. And that are so focused, like, look, there's really big numbers here. And it's like, well, that's really cool. But what happens when we get here? What are these, you know, what are the outcomes? And you can also go then, what the heck am I doing wrong? Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned the vanity metrics. So um i would say for, and and even now the, the,
00:28:11
Speaker
Loving is not short on data. We have data for every possible metric that you could you could possibly imagine. um But again, you look into, are we looking at what moves the needle for the business?
00:28:25
Speaker
And you know for the, I'd say probably the first four or five months, yeah what I realized is the departments are so siloed that no one is talking to one another. So I had ah our internal operations department was pulling all of these reports. So they're they're spending hours upon hours every day and they're pulling these reports where they thought in their mind, the ah one of the operators is using it, even had it titled like like this is his his report.
00:28:54
Speaker
When I asked him about it, he said, well, no, like that data doesn't give me what I need. I haven't looked at that months. Well, have you have you told the people who are, I just, I never thought about it.
00:29:06
Speaker
You know, so it's, I mean, there's so much, so much data when you can really take a step back and say, okay, why? What is the purpose and why are we looking at it? um It is very easy, especially in in this industry to look at just a hundred thousand different metrics. It's who's the builder? What's the, you know, what's the labor for this builder? What's a specific material for this builder? How many hours are working? Are we including drive time? Are we not including drive time? Is this covered under warranty? Do we need to track this metric? so i mean there's you know I've got at least 62 different tabs open on my computer at any time with different things.
Improving Efficiency Through Communication
00:29:41
Speaker
We have to be able to take a step back and say, okay, if we do X, the outcome will be Y and all of these other metrics will take care of itself. But one of the big wins I'll say we really got a couple months ago was putting our operational team. So internal operations and field operations. um scheduling and logistics and getting them all in the room for their own l10 their own leadership meeting every week and that has just unblocked so much so much nonsense of someone saying well hey i do this report does anybody use that anymore
00:30:17
Speaker
yeah Nope. So it's now we can we can lower from a company standpoint. um you know just We don't need to have 130 people. We can really operate with 110, 115.
00:30:30
Speaker
um We can get more output because we're giving people more, hey, here's the clarity on what you need to do and here's why. And then when you can do that, it's It's like you remove those kind of roadblocks and the right people who are right for your organization will grab onto that and they will run with it Yeah, that why is a big deal because there's a lot of folks, if you don't understand how your work fits into the organization, like if you are just running certain reports and handing them off, why are we running those reports? Maybe there's a better way I can do this or faster if I knew what this is impacting. That's right. um or if you're doing work that no one looks at, like that is a big demotivator. Like if you're like, wait, you just had me spend all day doing something that is getting tossed, right?
00:31:16
Speaker
yeah like And they'd be like, I'm just go look for another job. This is and they and that's this is embarrassing. they yeah they They didn't even know about it. And I came across it by accident where I was looking for a month to date, um just a month to date revenue number. um and And when I looked at it, it included two days in the future. And I said, well, how is it month to date if it's two days in the future and and ultimately where we got to was, don't this is what we've always done.
00:31:40
Speaker
So if you're familiar with EOS, you know about the sacred cow and and all of the different animals. So the sacred cow, i mean, we use that thing at least two or three times a day. Anytime I hear, well, we've always done it that way.
00:31:53
Speaker
Okay, well, stop because we're the way we've always done it. It hasn't worked. um um I took over one of the reporting functions this summer because it was ah I was really trying to get into the weeds of, okay, why do we look at this? What does this mean? Are we looking at it the right way? um and and the report was for our field managers, who I would say are probably one of the most important roles in the organization because they're responsible for taking the vision from the leadership team and executing it down to the team that is actually going out and doing the landscaping and and laying the sod and, and doing all the work.
00:32:31
Speaker
um And I went, I was probably updating it for probably two or three weeks in a row, went into a meeting with them all to get some feedback and not one of them had looked at it. And I thought, man, like this sucks, right? Just yeah like, I spent tons of time doing it, but then in my in my head, it's like, okay, I haven't done a good job as their leader of communicating why this is out there um and and why I need it. So it's,
00:32:56
Speaker
Anytime we've gotten frustrated, I'll say, this is really where um our founder is really good. at At any time the conversation starts going sideways about, hey, you're not doing X, Y, and Z. It's like, no, no, no. like We got to put that mirror And yeah you know it's probably, on average, I probably make, I don't know, two three, four wrong decisions every week. um But at the end of the day, we're going to make a decision. We're going to learn from it. And then we're going to implement something that gets us to where...
00:33:24
Speaker
where we're we're we're good. we're're We're moving forward with the right data. So, you know, again, it's it's been a giant bowl of spaghetti to kind of get us moving, but it's a little win at a time. And and that's just, that's all you can do.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's so true. i mean, everything is always changing. Everything is always always evolving. And, you know, not that I don't, i love i'm I'm a planner. I can't even, you know, but, you know, there's a certain point where it's like, you can't plan. Let's put in processes. Let's figure out what we want to do and monitor and see and then adjust and plan what's next. yeah um I mean, you need a framework, but you can't, you know, because things change. You can't commit to doing one thing.
00:34:02
Speaker
Because business conditions change, staff changes, world changes, you know everything changes. You can't really know. um So that's kind of have important ah for to keep in mind to not get a little carried away.
00:34:15
Speaker
I mean, the processes, I think, are a ah a huge part of it as well, where if it's not documented, where if, if you're scheduling person, um, if they want to go out on vacation, which again, everybody is in tune, everybody should be going on their vacations. You have to be able to disconnect.
00:34:32
Speaker
Um, I've always just, how my brain is wired is I've never been the one who likes to put the away message. Cause I always think, well, you get, I gotta be able to be there if someone needs me. And again, it's something our, our founder, Mike is very passionate about, or if you're on PTO, put your away message up and and go away, make sure you, you, set the stage if somebody needs something covered.
00:34:53
Speaker
um But when you go away, he wants you to be able to disconnect. and And what we found over the first couple months when I started, and and even now to this this point, is um a lot of the processes are just in people's heads of how they've always done it. yeah So if we have someone who, you know, if someone wins the lottery or or someone decides, hey, i'm I'm out of here, like we're going to be have a hard time filling some of these roles. Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
because we don't have it documented anywhere. So being able to put those steps in place and and have a plan for, okay, this month, I need to get this process documented. Where are they all going to live? And and i mean, that's such a a big part of it, where at any point, if if you have a new person coming in and you can't hand them ah a notebook or or a PDF file that says, this is how you do your job and this is what's expected, you know you're you're missing the vote.
The Value of Documented Processes
00:35:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, you need a new yeah you need to set those proper expectations because otherwise your team doesn't know. You could have three people in the same role. And if they're working in different offices or you know they're working remotely, they could be doing three exact different things, you know may or may not get the same outcome, or they could be doing in different ways more or less efficiently. And so you could have someone who is doing something and knocking it out in 30 minutes where someone else is just wasting their entire workday, grinding away.
00:36:15
Speaker
And again, in dissatisfaction, like, yeah God, can you imagine like, you just like, oh my gosh, I spent all week looking at this and you're, you know, working on this and your colleagues like, oh, it took me an hour. yeah like and Like, oh, you just do it like this. And it's like, window when departments are, are, um, are siloed, it's, it's hard to even, even get to that level of where do you start to have that conversation? Yeah.
00:36:41
Speaker
um And again, and for us, it was, you know, I started in in December. We didn't get kind of an an operational L10 put together until this summer, so maybe July or August. So it was seven months of just trying to understand, hey, why do you do it this way? Well, I don't know. We've always done Okay, that's not the right answer, but let's break down why. Well, I do it this way because of this person.
00:37:02
Speaker
Well, if you go to talk to that person, it's something completely different. and If you look at how we're tracking the data versus what the field needs, um you know we learned just just a week ago that the field team couldn't open up a file that the internal ah team was sending simply because they're on their phone, not their computer.
00:37:21
Speaker
So the field team is trying to look through all this stuff on their phone that they can't do and they can't open it and it shuts it down. But they never communicated. All they did was complain about it. But now they have an outlet to bring issues to the internal operations
Leadership Lessons and Employee Value
00:37:36
Speaker
team. So, but again, it was, it took a seven months just for the light bulb to go off to say, Hey, I need to get you eight people in a room together to talk about these issues. um And I think that is that is trial by error. And I think that is probably one of the the most frustrating and challenging things of being in any leadership role. It is that mentality of, I am going to try 100 things and they're not going to work, but 101, going to work
00:38:06
Speaker
Maybe it's not. and And that's just kind of, that has been this year kind of in a nutshell is, okay, this worked, this didn't work, this didn't work, this didn't work, this didn't work. Okay. Ooh, ooh, little win, little win right here.
00:38:19
Speaker
um And then, you I mean, you go through all the normal business stuff of trying to figure out the the cost and are we spending our time with the right people? And then you get into the external factors in in this industry, like the weather, um you know, and if it's raining, you can't send landscaping crews out. So um it's it's a lot. But I think if you just if you have a plan and you know, art I got to get this wind today, then that helps you really keep moving.
00:38:47
Speaker
So I like that. I've enjoyed this chat. It's time to wrap it up though. So my question for you is i always kind of like to end, you know, end the episode. If you had like, when it comes to human resources, handling, being good, doing good by your people, um, proper people ops, anything like that, what is like a final idea or a tip or a call to action you want to ah leave for everybody?
00:39:11
Speaker
When it comes to people, um, Don't take your people for granted. um and i And the reason I say that is, you know when you get into an organization, again, large organizations are going to be harder because there's multiple levels.
00:39:27
Speaker
um But when I see what has happened to the culture and the productivity of just one department, where if you would have talked to the leaders who were in that role prior to this, ah The sky is always falling and there's so much to do and we don't have enough time to do it.
00:39:46
Speaker
um and And after we exited those people, the culture is better. Like it is a like you can taste it. It's palpable when you are in the office. um And the productivity is, you know, one of the guys who was still there, who was um two or three levels down from the executive. I had asked him for something on, um it was like Thursday at like three o'clock and I'd asked him for a report in my head, knowing my experience, I was assuming like by the end of next week, I'll get it.
00:40:15
Speaker
His response was, Hey, I can't get it to you by the end of the day. Keeping in mind, this was three o'clock in the afternoon. He said, but I'll have it to you by tomorrow. So I think when I say don't take your people for granted, it's not just your people, but it's are they in the right seats? um Depending on how many layers you have, are you having skip level meetings? So, you know, we have kind of our C-suite um right now and then we have kind of VPs and and directors. so So are you spending time with people who are not reporting to you and and really sitting down and understanding are they happy? um If you're not,
00:40:51
Speaker
do you I know that everybody says they have you know an open door policy and, hey, come talk to me if you have questions. And and we do the same, but I don't think it's that easy. um So really trying to create that environment of, hey, like I want you to be here because you want to be here.
00:41:07
Speaker
And that conversation can always come off as, well, if you're not happy, I'm going to fire you yeah and find another job. So you know I always kind of explain to our team, we're all on the same bus. Right. If you are great people, there will be a place for you on this bus. um Maybe you're not happy in your current seat. Let's find you another seat. We've shifted some people in seats all around. Right. Lateral moves, moving up, moving down.
00:41:33
Speaker
um And there's there's other people who you. Where the bus is headed now is different than where it was 12 months ago. And that's okay. Things change. And if you're not okay with that, then this isn't the right opportunity for you anymore. So, you know, people is such an an important part. And I think having that head of HR, again, it's, you we brought on our chief people officer probably about four or five months ago, and it has been life-changing to work with her. She's an absolute rock star. And, you know, she really focuses on on getting to that point where,
00:42:06
Speaker
people can be open and honest and not feel like, well, if I say I'm not happy, am am I going to get canned? um so I think that would be kind of, you know, focus, really focus on your people. and And sometimes there are people who are earlier in their career who can do some pretty amazing things if they have the right leadership versus a leader over them who is holding everything close to the chest for fear of, well, if I tell you, you're going to take my job. So, and I think that's important.
00:42:35
Speaker
I think that's a great way to close things out.
Engage and Connect with Dave Cuff
00:42:37
Speaker
So um before I say goodbye to everyone, Dave, where can people ah stalk you and or your organization online. um ah Find me on LinkedIn. um You know, I'm pretty, pretty easy to find. I'm pretty active, um active on LinkedIn. Again, the company is is loving, you know, pretty easy to remember. We're based out of Charlotte.
00:43:00
Speaker
um Would love to connect with, ah you know, with anyone and everyone who likes to chat business and leadership and just kind of at the end of the day, help making the the world a better place.
00:43:11
Speaker
I like that. I like that. Maybe I will start harassing you online. so Please do. I probably will. So anyway, great, great conversation. Great episode. um Everyone who is watching or listening, thank you so, so much for joining us today for Mustard Hub Voices from the Frontlines.
00:43:31
Speaker
Please like, share, comment, do all that kind of good stuff to ah get this episode out there to people that may get some really, really good advice from ah listening to Dave.
00:43:42
Speaker
Also, go to mustardhub.com, check us out, and sign up for free while you are there. Thank you so much. Till next time.