Modern Manufacturing: Challenges, Opportunities, and Leading with Impact

Transcription – Modern Manufacturing: Challenges, Opportunities, and Leading with Impact

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Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast where we decode digital success one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now, let’s get started.

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This is Stacie Porter Bilger, your host for the Proof Point Podcast, where I feature B2B and D2C businesses and thought leaders sharing marketing, data tactics, sales strategies, and leadership insights that will kickstart your growth in this rapidly changing digital space. This episode is brought to you by Proof Digital. Proof Digital is a strategic and creative performance marketing agency.

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We partner with companies to create data field marketing sales funnels and overall growth strategies. Visit ProofDigital.com to learn more. Before I kick off, I want to give a shout out to Rise25 team and Jeremy Wise, they’re good partner of ours, and they made an introduction to our guests today, and I really appreciate their support and continuing to connect me with amazing people who are helping businesses grow.

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Today’s guest is Scott Hoselton. Scott is the president of ACS, a worldwide provider of fully integrated facility and equipment solutions for various industries, including automotive, autospace, aerospace, energy, industrial manufacturing, and laboratories. He leads the company’s global team with a strong focus on client relationships, business growth, and strategic leadership.

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With 20 years of experience in business development, planning, and operations management, he has successfully delivered complex and innovative projects for clients across the U.S. and around the world. Scott, thanks for joining me. Thanks Stacie, thanks for the time and the opportunity to speak with you today.

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Now, just to start off, tell me a little bit about yourself, about your journey into elevating companies in these spaces. Oh, thank you. Yeah, sure.

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Actually, I’m originally an engineer, but I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, and that all focused in the construction world or manufacturing world, so they like to build stuff and make stuff. And I became an engineer to continue the family business, and then like some family businesses do, it went a different direction right before my senior year in college. And so I decided to continue on and get into the engineering world for a few years.

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I found myself really liking working with technical dilemmas and challenges, but I didn’t like doing the engineering work as much as I liked providing a solution to a customer. So I had to go talk to people, find out what they needed, and then present a solution. Along the way, I had the opportunity to work at some world-class organizations and learn a lot.

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And then, fortuitously, I landed here at ACS 24 years ago, 23 years ago. Long time, long time. I came from the Midwest, moved to California, followed a girlfriend who became my wife, and then we moved back here to raise our kids.

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And so we’ve been in Madison now about, like I said, 24 years, and it’s been a great experience, great organization, and I’ve had a great opportunity to work with some wonderful people. That’s awesome. Tell me a little bit about ACS as a company and the industries you serve.

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Sure, sure. ACS, we’re a solutions provider, really an integration firm. Our core markets are automotive and aerospace. We provide test systems, and there are a lot of ancillary services and products around those test systems. For 800-pound Gorilla customers, we were really fortunate coming out of the gate. We got hooked up with people like Cummins and John Deere and Harley-Davidson, iconic American brands, and people buy their products and their boots.

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And they taught us how to do business, and it was all about customer satisfaction, all about service, all about the customer in front of us. And so we’re incorporated in 1994, so we’re 31 years old, and still work with those same three customers. And as you might imagine, those names in the resume opened a lot of doors for us.

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I’m sure they did. And Cummins is right down the street from, I believe, Columbus, Indiana, which they’re located south and have been a big employer in our state, and has brought a lot of innovation, not only to the community that I’m from, but across the world, obviously. So those are pretty big names and innovative companies changing the world.

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Oh, absolutely. Our biggest customer today is Caterpillar. And 60 miles north of you, up in Lafayette, is a big program we’re involved with now, have been for a couple years.

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And like I say, these companies are market innovators and market leaders, and we have an ideal client profile definition that we aspire to work with customers like these organizations. They’re hard to penetrate, but once you get in there, they’re very loyal, if you deliver. And they’re very fair companies.

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And so it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to work with those organizations. We’ve had more work in Indiana than any other state in the U.S. Is that right? Well, that is kind of unique. I know you’re up in Wisconsin, and I think you have offices in other states, Michigan being one, I believe.

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But that’s great. I mean, we have a lot of innovation in manufacturing. It’s an important industry as well. But they need complex solutions. They’re complex businesses. And so your innovation and bringing design and integration and just creativity to some of their complex problems is kind of a problem.

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I’m sure it’s a lot of fun. Well, you know, that’s one of the biggest feedbacks we get from our employees. They like working here because they very rarely do the same thing twice. And the technical mindset is typically problem solvers. And so the challenge to do that, and then not only to do it to make something work, but also make it cost effective, and reliable, and supportable, is really a nice challenge on a daily basis. And organizations not only have, they have needs across multiple fronts.

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For example, at Caterpillar, now we’re working on capital projects, working in test cells, working on a test stand, working on some other types of projects we really can’t talk about. And just that one customer can provide a lot of challenge. And we like challenge, we call it opportunity.

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And we’re ultimately in the risk management business. Yeah, they can’t do it themselves, they can ask us to see if we can help them figure it out. Right. I mean, you got to find you got to build scalable systems. But I mean, to complex problems, that’s good. Actually, I mean, it’s like a puzzle.

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I mean, if you can do that every day, that would that would be fun. Actually, now I think about it, I need to direct my son in this type of career we were talking about earlier when we first met about our kids and their interests. But I definitely think what you’re doing, I think, I mean, do you look back at those companies and their growth and their impact on communities? Do you get a chance to look back at that? Yeah, actually, pretty regularly.

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I mean, and you know, the nice thing about these organizations is that they provide tools to make the world a better place. Along the way, they try to make their tools better for the world. So it’s not only what they deliver, but it’s what they the tools have been hired to do.

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And then also how they function. So we get involved in things like emission reductions, electrification of the drive, right? Green, you know, greener type projects, greener type products. And then what they’re building is also many, many, many times opportunity for business growth, opportunity for people to have jobs and opportunity for new technologies to be deployed.

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So yeah, you can get certainly get some satisfaction of saying, Hey, I think we’re having in a small way, some big impact on the world here. And that’s very satisfying. As you get throughout life, you always ask yourself, Hey, what am I doing? Is this what I wanted to be doing? Yeah, we’re really lucky that way we get to work with some world class organizations, that that’s their business plan.

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And we can continue in our small way. No, you absolutely can. And you just hit on a couple things. I mean, innovation comes from these types of companies to make our lives better to make the world better. So if you get to do that, and get up every day to do that, you’re pretty lucky. So let’s kind of dive in a little bit.

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Let’s talk about I want to get into challenges and opportunities. Let’s go with challenges first. And then we’ll go to the fun stuff. I mean, what are some growth challenges that are facing? I’m gonna say, I mean, you talked about different industries, but just talk about one modern manufacturing companies specifically today. And, and how are these leaders navigating them? Great question. I’ve got a preparing for our discussion that I’ve kind of listed out some things.

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But, you know, the number one thing that people talk about still is labor shortage. Yeah, it’s hard to find people. And it’s hard to keep people when you find them. But I think we’re working through that now. People are getting very creative, people are and you know, a lot of different things that we can talk about. But not only was it the aging workforce, but it’s a skill gap, and attracting the talent into some of these jobs.

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Yeah. And they have the supply chain disruptions. We all heard about that. Sure. Still continue to be a major challenge across a lot of different market segments. And then you have the geopolitical situation that impacts that. Sure. Adoption of new technologies. People are doing things different today than they were last week. And it’s moving fast. It’s moving fast. Yeah.

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You really can’t talk about a five year plan anymore, because that’s some of those macro trends to, Stacie, cybersecurity. Big deal for everybody. Really big. Yeah. You know, and that’s a major focus and discussion at every level, especially when you’re talking about connected enterprises, and your manufacturing process is plugged in. That means other people can access that.

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Yeah. Sustainability, environmental regulations, people want to be cleaner and smarter, better storage of our world. We all need to be. I think there’s cost pressures. We’ve talked about inflation. Customization is a big deal.

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The global competition. You know, I think we all have our own opinions on what’s going on right now in our economy. But certainly trying to support our own OEMs and manufacturing here in the US should be priority number one.

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And we all know there’s global competitors out there. And we need to be able to actually compete on a fair playing field. I think there’s a regulatory complexity that’s out there that we have a permitting process.

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And I think it’s a necessary challenge, but it’s certainly a challenge. And then the last one, and probably it should be number one, is the capital investment hurdles. Not only do companies want to do a lot of these things and grow, but now they got to actually fund it.

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And every time you spend $1, we should always think to ourselves, what kind of return am I getting on this? And these organizations that we’re working with, that’s conversation number one. So we have to be flexible. Our chases are oftentimes very long because of these challenges.

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Yeah, I mean, the last one you mentioned, I mean, capital investment, it’s not in these companies you’re talking about. That’s not a small number. No, no. I mean, these are significant capital investments. So I can see why that kind of elevated to the top. And in the planning of those.

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Absolutely. And you know, we have a process that we step through with our customers, if we’re given the opportunity or earn the opportunity, where we try to define their project scope in enough detail, we can put scheduling costs on it very early, so they can go get an educated capital approval. Many, many, many times people are tasked with coming up with a project number.

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Now, you know, either in some expedited manner, or without the information they need to make a good assumptions or clarifications. What we try to do is help the customer say, how much money do we need? It’s a very transparent, open book process. They can go with confidence to get funding for their projects, because that’s never easy.

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And then they have to defend that number. And oftentimes they’re, they’re greenlit some funding with the direction that says, don’t come back asking for more. All what you want right now.

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I tell my kids that we go on vacation. It’s fun, but the budget’s already been established. Actually, that’s a good strategy. I’m gonna take that Scott, because I’m not sure how we always go over budget on vacations. That’s right. I want to talk about a couple of those things that you mentioned.

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Let’s talk about labor and people. It’s always been, and it’s not, I mean, back in the day, my first career, actually, I worked on workforce development, and it’s an ongoing challenge. But we do have a couple things.

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We have an aging population. And then we also have a workforce that necessarily, that’s not necessarily navigating to some of these industries as you would like them to. And so and then you also have kind of a population challenge that exists.

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We’re not alone in that in the world, actually, we might not be as bad about other countries as far as labor goes, as far as the amount of workforce, but what are companies doing to plan for that now? What are they, what are they working through? Because it’s an ongoing challenge. It’s not going to go away any time soon. No, I think it’s here to stay.

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And you know, there’s a big shift to, you know, several years ago, we’re now we’re all in each other’s time. Employers are in our time, we’re in their time, you know, you know, 15 or 20 years ago, it was lifetime opportunities. Now there’s competition.

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And we always say, if we can provide an opportunity for employee, we want them to stay forever. But along the way, if they find a better opportunity for themselves, their family, and their experience with us helped them do that, then we were ultimately successful. Because we got some value from them while they were here.

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And now we’re adding value to them as they advance their career. However, that’s not sustainable. We’d like to keep them as long as we can. Right. Thank you. That’s, that’s what we get into upskilling, or reskilling, continuous programs providing opportunity. I think it’s providing partnerships with educational institutions. Yeah, yeah. Making people motivated about their career path so they can go home 20 years now and be as proud about what they do every day, as they were the first day they started.

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And that’s a big deal. You know, that pride in what you do. And then I think it’s employer branding. You know, we have to be known as a high tech, clean, energy efficient, fun place to work. We’re very fortunate. We have a great team. And we have a lot of new people, our young folks that are bringing new life into our organization. Yeah, it’s the new workforce. And what they want to do and what they want out of us is different than perhaps you and I wanted out of our employers.

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And so have an open mind. And, and my wife would laugh at me say have an open mind. Trying to have an open mind is super important. You know, it’s like the way we learned by listening. And if we can listen to our employees with different perspectives, and we can be a better workplace. But it’s a it’s a continuous process.

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And we all saw it with the hybrid schedules, where everybody went remote for COVID. And they tried to stay remote. And now they’re all coming back. And we’re still on a hybrid schedule. It’s a mandatory Mondays and two out of the next four in the office because we have a very professional staff and they get their work done. Yeah, but it’s not without its challenges.

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Because right, you’re talking from the from the screens. It’s not the one on one interface. Right. And my company, we we are very much a virtual we do hybrid to some degree, which will bring everybody together, but it’s not always weekly. We’re in a different industry than some of those who serve. It’s kind of part of an expectation on bringing those offerings to to the workforce.

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However, I was talking to you earlier, my my daughter got an internship and I’m like, go to an office. Get into a building. Yeah, you learn so much more. You learn so much more. There’s so much more job satisfaction when you’re in the office. I do.

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It’s nice to have the flexibility. We’ve been very fortunate. We’re a model to give our employees that flexibility. Yeah. Every week, we just have more and more cars kind of staying here all week. And yeah, I think that’s just a sign of the human nature. Right. I think people like to be around other people. We need.

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Absolutely. And you talked about how to retrain and how to reskill. It’s faster when you’re in person, too. So and so those are those are some things. And so the balancing, listening, being open to consideration. I think those are good suggestions for for those industries. You mentioned also as part of that earlier in your challenges and opportunities is the sustainability considerations. These companies are are becoming more and more important. And it’s also important to that workforce to some degree.

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So how do these demands impact growth planning and competitiveness for these manufacturing companies? Do you have any insights to that? Yes. That’s a great question because it’s different for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s not one stock reply to that. It’s people try to measure.

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If you talk about sustainability, we can talk about sustainable, you know, the clean side of that. Right. Being better stewards of our world. Right. Part of that. It’s also business sustainability. It’s workforce sustainability. And so I think having a strategy that says, here’s how we want to continue our operation, maintain our culture, maintain our success and let people know this is what we’re working on. Yeah, I think I think a big part.

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We’re a small company. We’re one hundred thirty five people. Yeah.And we’re working with these world class organizations that are hundreds of times bigger than us. Yes. Yes. We have to kind of walk in there with a little bit education about how they do things. Right. I mean, a lot of our things, it’s like kicking, it’s like stubbing your toe on the coffee table at midnight after the movie’s over.

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You don’t want to do that again. Next time you walk through there, you kind of walk a little slower. Right. Same thing with us as we’ve learned through the years and stubbed our toe on some things. That’s become back as lessons learned, say, hey, we don’t ever want to do that again. Not only not do it, we want to be better because of that.

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And that’s right. With the sustainability mantra, if you will, I think it’s you want to be better because of this. So how does it impact your business in a productive way? It’s not a cost center. It’s got value on the backside. It’s got return on the backside, whether it’s employee satisfaction, it’s customer performance, it’s efficiency, it’s cleaner operations. All those things are that conversation.

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And they’re all interdependent on one another as well. Yeah, that’s a great answer. And I can’t agree more. So that’s I mean, that’s a really great way to look at it. And you also mentioned when you kind of go into these these companies, they have different cultures, they have different goals, and your custom approach, probably, and your custom approach, but then also your knowledge base of understanding all different ways you can actually solve a problem will help, you know, speed up their process of solving their problem. I’m just making some assumptions there.

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But I’m pretty sure those two bring a magic to what you do. Yeah, that is true. If we’re not doing that, we’re not really adding value, because the one thing that our customers have, and in droves, is extremely capable, very talented, very intelligent, hardworking people.

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So we can’t come in and help them do their jobs better, quicker, more cost effective, they don’t really need us. And so that’s why we try to stay in our swim lane. And it’s a very technical place, where the customers recognize the technical value that we bring.

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But we also have to deliver that technology, like you just cost effectively, efficiently, yes, on their schedule, not ours. And we’re very fortunate. Right now, we’ve got a good pipeline. We’re busy. But our customers don’t care. If they need help, we need to help them on their schedule.

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The one thing that we always have to do is not tell them something we can’t do. So we have very, and it’s hard in my role to say no to anything. I know. Sometimes we have to say no. So we just don’t have the resources, we can’t make your schedule. We’re not going to take a responsibility on that we can’t deliver on.

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Especially because these organizations, it’s taken so long to earn their trust. The last thing you want to do is sacrifice that. So it’s a conversation. It is. It’s about I mean, my business is about partnerships. Yours is about partnerships, too. And just being and being honest about what, you know, if that timeline works or doesn’t work, or just, we can help you where we can help you. So and they, I’m sure they appreciate that. Yeah, that is it.

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We try to be, I know, Patrick Lencioni is pretty common, pretty famous author out there that talks about these, you know, five dysfunctions of a team. Yes. That’s called the ultimate team player. And he talks about being hungry, humble and smart. And, you know, and not be a jackass, excuse my language. Yeah, the reality is you do, right, you have to be smart, but you also have to deliver that solution in a way that people can receive it and want to receive it.

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And so we spent a lot of time on relationship build. Listen, spend time with the customer, get to know them, be part of their value stream. Because there’s a survey that was out there a few years ago. I think it might have been executed by National Instruments as part of their customer base. And it talked about what was, how do people invite suppliers back? And product and price were two and three. The number one was the customer experience.

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People want to work with people they like. And we don’t have to be everybody’s best friend. However, you need to be someone they can engage with and enjoy the interaction. And if we can do that, and also deliver something of value and be competitive, then we’re in the right place. That’s a big focal point for us. It makes a lot of sense.

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It makes a lot of sense. I want to kind of go back to, we’ve talked about challenges. Let’s talk about opportunities. What are some opportunities and greatest growth opportunities you’re seeing out there? Again, focusing on the modern manufacturer, but any of those industries that you work with? Yeah. So, you know, a challenge is, the great thing about a challenge is that the solution to that challenge is an opportunity. And so, if you look at it from that perspective, it’s like, oh my gosh, I have all this opportunity now.

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Some of them might not be the opportunities you wanted, but you have them. And so, for us, the opportunities that we have to impact manufacturing processes are really more about, you know, how do you take some of the risk out? And where’s AI fit here? Right? And so, we haven’t talked about that yet, but that can dominate the whole conversation. Okay.

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And smart manufacturing. And I’ll talk about that in a minute. But, you know, the reality of it is, when you think about AI impact on manufacturing, it’s accelerating the technology adoption. We’re all uncomfortable with that. You know, and again, that’s a connected enterprise. You’ve got to enhance your security systems.

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You’ve got to embrace sustainability. You know, I think you have to manage the cost pressures really well. These are all challenges. These are all opportunities, because you can get better and smarter and quicker at doing things and improve your customization, your agility. We don’t have a product. So, we try to have products once in a while, and we realize that nobody wants to.

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And so, we have to go back to the drawing board. But being agile and be able to customize cost effectively, number one for us. And then, I think we have to compete globally, even though we focus on the U.S. market, because our competitors are international firms, and they’re bringing in ideas, not so much cost structure, but they’re bringing in ideas and technologies that’s been developed somewhere else, and different thought process, a different solution scenario.

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And then, I think the last is, in our world, in the manufacturing world, you’ve got to navigate the regulatory world. Yeah. Because it’s, you know, there are things in place to have, for good reasons and maybe for not good reasons, but we have to deal with them. Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely.

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Since you talked on, you mentioned, which like you said, we can talk all day about AI and technology shifts and innovation that are coming rapidly. What are you seeing with these large organizations and how they’re adapting without going too far? mean, and maintain security, because that’s a big thing. I mean, I speak on AI for small and medium-sized companies.

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It’s a simple thing. You know, don’t put your social security or your (23:39) numbers in AI. Don’t put, you know, so how do you maintain security with this amazing tool, (23:47) but also leverage it to speed up growth? And Boyer, there’s so many perspectives on it.

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I was at a board meeting for another organization last day and a half, and a lot of people start with their AI, what’s our policy? And let’s talk about, you know, how are we going to maintain the data of our customers that we want to utilize so we can build off of it? And then, one of the firms I was at the meeting with yesterday, and they’re a technology firm, 350 employees worldwide. They’re world-class. They’re a president.

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She’s brilliant. And their policy was to go out and let all of their software engineers do their own thing for six months, bring it all back and see what we learned. And what they learned was, oh my gosh, that, you know, and you can close it up, right? It’s already even the chat GPT that you can get on your laptop after lunch.

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You can select a private component to that so the data doesn’t go back. Everybody is already recognizing that we can’t be sharing everything with everybody. However, I think the flip side of that is, it’s not long before everybody can see everything. If you make it accessible, maybe there’s less enterprise to try to take it from you. You just have to manage it. But, you know, so I was really, we’re right at ACS right now.

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We’ve hired a young intern for the summer, a really bright young guy that’s working with our software team to develop, hey, what are we going to do with this? Because we do know that it’s going to have a major impact in the manufacturing world and they call it, you know, lights out factories. Those are around the corner. I mean, they’re really around the corner.

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You’re not going to need anybody in them. And it’s, you think about that, it combines multiple innovations at once. It redefines productivity. I think labor shortage issues go away or are minimized. Responsiveness goes way up and you’re scalable. Then you talk about 2030, they’re talking about 60 to 80% reduction in downtime in five years.

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Now, I know some of these numbers are like the electric vehicles going to the marketplace by 2025. We have to slow down the expectations because technology changes are also societal changes and those take a while. But, you know, the 40% increase in efficiencies, fully lights out.

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I mean, and I think the industry is leading in our automotive aerospace. And then you talk about semiconductors and pharma biotech. The reason we work in those marketplaces is because you have a need for integration between building systems and process systems.

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That’s right in our wheelhouse. So we’re figuring it out. We know it’s going to bring efficiency to our industry and to ourselves, but how do you adopt it? Right now we’re adopting it independently, but managing it globally.

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Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does. Yes. Limitations on it, but hey, go figure out how you want to use it. Yeah. And I think that’s a good approach. I mean, we use it a lot, code development, you know, obviously marketing communication messages, just cautious in what you put in it. You know, you, I mean, don’t put, you know, sensitive data into it. And then, and that’s, and make sure too, that it’s, you’re doing it in a responsible way within the system and have those policies in place. But if there’s the challenge, like you were talking about is those who don’t adopt it are going to be left behind.

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Yeah. I don’t think you have a choice. It’s kind of like, it’s just like, you know, you and I remember this when the film with everyone, we were told everyone, so we were all told that we were going to have our own computer in our home.

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We all laughed at that. And the next iteration was, then you’re going to connect to the worldwide web. Oh my gosh. And it wasn’t going to just be AOL and reading about recipes or sporting scores. Right. The next innovation was phones.

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Now, now there’s this technology is all going to be in your phone. And I’m like, you know, one of those guys had a flip phone. I’m never going to text. And of course now I live in my phone. And I think those are three major technological innovations that have changed the world. And I think AI is number four in that lineup.

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It’s the next one. It is the next one. And it’s going to have as much impact as it was prior to three of that. It really will. It really will. I mean, it’s, it’s up there with the printing press. I mean, it just really will change the way we work and live. And you were talking about lights out. I mean, I’m, I’m not, I’m not young.

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So when I was in college, I can remember sitting next to a guy who was on a computer, it was a black screen. He was writing code and talking to somebody across the, you know, the ocean. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s incredible.

(28:07 – 28:19)

Right. Well, that was before the internet was known to me. And we, in my first job, we did not have external email. That was not a thing. So, you know, it has rapidly changed. I can remember my first job having a flip phone and that was a big deal too. Yeah. It was a big clunky thing. But it’s changed.

(28:26 – 28:35)

And this, this AI will, I mean, it’s changing so quickly. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s getting better and better on a daily basis. Well, you know, it’s interesting talking about some of the older tools that we both started with.

(28:39 – 28:53)

I had, I had the, I had the car phone and the pager when I was plugged into the lighter. And, you know, it’s funny. I was actually, I had a customer one day that we were going to go out and have a nice lunch maybe a long lunch. I might end up on a boat later that afternoon, but, and he made a comment and he’s like, you know, here’s the deal. You can’t get away. You’re connected now.

(29:00 – 29:14) 

This was in 91. And he’s like, right, right. That’s when it was starting to start. Yeah. I had my car phone hardwired into my battery and a big console and then my little pager. He said, you can’t get away. And he goes, you know why? Cause you’re connected. And that’s the goal of all these tools is to be connected. Here it is 40, 35 years later.

(29:20 – 29:30)

And it is, it was the goal. Let’s connect everybody. And it started on a pretty simplistic terms. And now we’re all plugged in and type into one another, talking to one another nonstop. Yeah, it is nonstop. And it’s just the pace of this change will be faster than any other technology.

(29:36 – 29:53)

I think that we will, we, we have it’s 10 X scene on a annual basis. So how do you operationalize it? Yes. How do you scale that? Absolutely. How do you scale? How do you operationalize that? And as soon as you scale it, the scale just gets bigger. That does. Well, you know, fun challenges for us both. Absolutely. Absolutely. Opportunity, right? Those challenges are now opportunities.

(29:59 – 30:21)

All the time. You know, the big thing here we hit on a little bit. I mean, the growth of these things and these companies hinges on leadership, right? What, because of the rapid change, because of the challenges and the opportunities, what leadership qualities in your experience? I mean, you’re running your own company, you work with some of the most influential executives in the country.

(30:28 – 30:45)

What’s the successful guide there for these companies as growth and change happens so rapidly? That’s a really good question. And yeah, I think it, it may fluctuate from side to side. There’s really probably 10 or nine or 10 key attributes of, I don’t want to say individual leaders, but leaders of business or leaders of manufacturing processes or leaders in any role.

(30:51 – 31:05)

And I kind of jotted a few down here, but you know, I think things to start with though, the qualities of a good leader is to stay committed to what got you there. Always try to improve it, but you know, I, I always talk about Tom Brady in football practice, they weren’t teaching him to block. And so they were teaching, they were letting him throw passes.

(31:09 – 31:21) 

You know, sometimes in business, we get focused on trying to fix everything, actually put people where they’re strong and then watch what they do. Don’t focus on their weaknesses, get them out of that role, replace it with someone that’s their strength. Got to play to our strengths.

(31:25 – 31:32)

And I think if you can build a culture around playing to strengths,  you have a better workforce, you have a happier workforce, you have a better product. So I think that’s a great place to start. I think also investing in your team, if you believe in them, it’s the best investment you can ever make.

(31:34 – 31:47) 

So, and then I think, know what your customers want and what you want to be. And so it better align. If it doesn’t, you’re probably going to be short-lived. How does that cascade to individuals? I think there’s a few key things. I think it’s been trying to be visionary. I know that’s cliche, but trying to look out three days, not one day.

(31:53 – 32:03) 

It’s hard to do sometimes, the trombone slide comes right up in your face and you can’t see anything. I think it’s being adaptable and agile and be able to be okay to change your mind. It’s not a failure or a weakness to say, oh, I messed up.

(32:08 – 32:16)

We need to pivot here. Because if we’re good leaders, we got great people we’re working with. They’re going to challenge us all the time and make us better. And, you know, get out of the group thing. I think it’s be decisive. Any decision is better than no decision.

(32:20 – 32:32)

Even if you make a bad one, you can fix it. To not make a decision, it’s frustrating to everybody and it’s stagnating almost instantly. Use your data world. The world we have is full of data now. Use that in your decision-making. We don’t have to make decisions based on lack of data anymore.

(32:36 – 32:49) 

There are times when you have to get out over in front of that, but you can qualify it and quantify it pretty quick. I think if you’re emotionally confident, you can build confidence because people say, oh, wow, this individual or group of people aren’t all over the place every day. They’re not yelling and screaming or laughing.

(32:55 – 33:09)

And I think good communication skills is really important across your organization. I also like empowerment. We try to talk a lot about giving our organization autonomy, the tools to make decisions on our behalf in the field. And then be focused on your customers because it’s all about them. It’s why we’re in business. It’s okay to make money.

(33:12 – 33:27)

They want you to make money. They want you to be successful so you can be a better supplier. And then I think the last two, you know, they have a backbone. You got to have some resilience and grit because it’s going to go south at times. And your organization and your customers want you to be able to withstand that. You can’t wilt under pressure.

(33:30 – 33:44)

And again, don’t be afraid to make a bad decision. Make a damn decision. And I think the last one is be committed to continuous learning because the world’s all around us changing. And my grandma who passed away at 104 was a wonderful lady. Her biggest miss in life was not recognizing that people would stand in line and pay five bucks for a cup of coffee. You know, it’s like continuous learning.

(33:49 – 34:17)

She said, if I would have known that, we would have all grown up differently. Sounds like a wise woman. And Scott, I mean, I was a schooled right there. I mean, those were perfect leadership insights. And I know them, but I need to be reminded of that over and over again. On those times that you want to put your hand in something that your team’s working on, you’re like, oh, maybe I should let them problem solve it.

(34:22 – 34:32) 

And on those bad days, no, those opportunities are going to be around. What can we learn from this? There’s so many nuggets in what you just said. I’m going to listen to this and remember that I need to work on my leadership skills too.

(34:38 – 35:01)

Well, you know, it’s interesting. I talk kind of fast and I kind of mind wonders at times. I was at this meeting yesterday with some really smart people and some really committed and conscientious people that care about their business and the people around them. And we were talking about our guiding principles or our values. And just like I read off those nine or 10 things just now, we have 10 guiding principles. And I think it’s too many because you can’t focus on any one.

(35:05 – 35:22)

And so even talking with these leadership skills, I try to think about, okay, what am I going to work on today? Because it can’t be all 10 of them because it’s going to be all over the place. However, all 10 of them are equally important. And so you have to kind of prioritize and not prioritize for the month or the year, almost prioritize by the week, because these opportunities to make decisions or influence or adjust exist every day.

(35:28 – 35:43)

And if we think about these things in the context of what we want to be and how we want to operate, then they help you. But if you get to be too much, and it was funny because two of us in the meeting, I have these 10, or actually it’s nine guiding principles for our business. And it’s all about being good stewards and responsibility, professionalism, teamwork, integrity.

(35:50 – 36:11)

Yeah, they had 20. And then the other two firms had three. And all different perspectives on why. And nobody was right or wrong. Other than if you have 20, is anybody going to ever know all 20 of them? And if they’re guiding principles, everybody should know them. And that’s why I met with nine. I would never put Emily on a spot sitting here if I asked her guiding principles. It would be unfair to do that. And in fact, she might say, Scott, why don’t you start? And I might start along the way too.

(36:16 – 36:40)

And so we can’t ask things that we, you know, unrealistic expectations of our team. And so making things manageable and actionable is really important. It is. And since you talked about that, what is your, how do you do that? I mean, for yourself? I mean, just out of curiosity, because it’s always a battle for me, although I have some of my values behind me. And sometimes I think team, drive results, be the change. I mean, those are some value things that are around our company.

(36:47 – 37:01)

But how do you put those things into practice? You said weekly, you do that? Yeah, we try to do is try to exhibit those things and just lead by example. And almost subtly, you know, I mean, so we’re not sitting there and pounding at home. We have them on the wall up front and we talk about them before every meeting.

(37:07 – 37:42) 

But we try to behave that way too in our activities and our actions. I think that’s more powerful. Actions are much louder than words. And, you know, I go back to another horrible quote, but Mike Tyson, I think once said that everybody has a plan to get punched in the mouth. And that’s kind of how we do it on a weekly scale, because things change from morning to afternoon pretty regularly. Priorities change. And so how can you impact with these guiding principles, with these leadership traits in a way that people can they can be visible? I think it’s by trying to do it, trying to act that way. And, you know, and then people see how you behave, like, okay, that seems like a good way to do things. Or I don’t want to do that.

(37:47 – 38:13) 

That’s a horrible way to behave. And so it’s not do those things. It goes both ways. It does.We try to act on that shareholder group. We have a group of investors that are active operators in our business. We talk about it regularly. We hold each other accountable for it. So these are principal goals. And if they’re not doing it, we’ve had off-site meetings where we’ve, you know, stood up in front of the room and said, what’s your biggest value to the business? What’s your biggest weakness? And if you don’t answer it, we’ll answer it for you. It’s pretty humbling. And it keeps people in check.

(38:18 – 38:30)

I think it’s a good exercise to have. But we try to keep ourselves accountable. And nobody’s perfect, right? You have to be realistic in your expectations. Right. But those, I mean, that that that’s, it’s just the the dotting I’s and crossing T’s across your day and week. I mean, first, you have them and you, you know what they are.

(38:36 – 38:53)

You work to practice them, you review them. And then you have accountability folks to keep you in line. And so those are all good, all good suggestions and ones we can all be reminded from, because it’s better than you have to go further than having them on a wall or written down somewhere.

(38:57 – 39:19)

And you have to live them right. And then you have to help people. And I think the other thing that is, we’ve been very fortunate here. If people aren’t accountable to those, don’t be afraid to make changes, because you can spend a lot of time trying to fix one tough situation when you have 134 that there’s no situation with. And so I think I recognize who’s on the team, who is not. And that’s where our next offsides the next month, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna work through this ideal team player book, because we’re in a growth phase right now.

(39:23 – 39:42)  

And we don’t want to make bad hires. And sometimes you get impressed and influenced by really good resumes and good communication skills. But they got to be cultural fits too. So we actually depend so much on our team in front of these world class customers. Everybody does, I get that. But you know, we’re a small firm, we can’t really, we can’t really afford to have too many misses.

(39:46 – 40:29)

And we’re gonna have misses, we know that, but you have to act on them. And that’s a really good point. I’ve, I’ve been no, I’ve, in the past had lessons there where I didn’t move quick enough on some of those. And it’s not fair to the other members of the team when you don’t make that decision. But the culture piece is really important as well. And so you know, how, what are some things that you do with your team to build that culture that drives that project success that kind of elevates those shining stars that you need to be in front of those world? You know, I think what we do, and what we aspire to do, I don’t want to say what we do all the time, because we all don’t do everything we say we’re gonna do all the time, but we trust.

(40:35 – 40:57)

And, you know, and with trust, it becomes people have vulnerabilities. And then you have vulnerabilities, you’re more transparent. And so if we trusted an employee to deliver a solution on behalf of us to a customer, and we give them some autonomy, there’s checks and balances, certainly we can’t afford to send things out that don’t work. But our people have a lot of freedom and autonomy to do their jobs. We try to set the goals. Everybody buys into that goal setting process.

(41:01 – 41:10)

So it wasn’t done in an absence. We’re not getting a number from, you know, corner office, collaboratively set, then we try to behave collaboratively and say, let’s work together on this. And, you know, there’s some cliches, win together, lose together, but it’s really true.

(41:15 – 41:20) 

The cowboy doesn’t really fit into ACS, because there’s no reason to be that. You have, you have resources across the aisle from you that are better at you and what they do. So why not use their skill sets.

(41:25 – 41:41)

And kind of go back to my dad used to say, don’t ever buy a riding mode unless you’re going to use it. And, and why would you invest in a tool like that if you don’t need it? And I believe that here at ACS, we trust really a lot. And, you know, when you trust it’s, it’s empowering to folks, because they feel and they truly are the highly valued people.

(41:46 – 42:00)

And, and we try to say thanks regularly. You know, appreciate the effort, because people are working hard, we all have the same goals. If we didn’t have to be here, we probably wouldn’t be, you know, and so we all whatever that goal is, it might be you love it, and you want to be here because it’s your technical desire, might be a financial, might be a family or whatever the requirement is, we’re all coming to work every day.

(42:01 – 42:01

So we gotta be respectful of each other’s time. And then I think just continue to provide opportunity for folks. You know, and the opportunity might be in a project might be in a market, it might be in a role, but continue to allow them opportunity to grow that role.

(42:18 – 42:36)

And we try to help let them define what they’re in the context of what we need. What’s your role within that? Unfortunately, we would love to have a guy that makes ice cream here, that wouldn’t be any value to us. But no, it might elevate everybody’s blood sugar. That’s right. But you know, I’m saying we try to be focused on what we need, and try not to be too whimsical. But on the other side, we try to have fun too.

(42:42 – 43:01)

And make the job fun. We try, we do some softer things that other organizations all do. We have cookouts, and we have happy hours, and we share our site together. We have a little area here where we sometimes, you know, have a refreshment at the end of the day. But yeah, just to be connected. Now, you hear all these, these championship teams, they always talk about, man, we reason we were good, we were connected. Well, what does that mean? I believed in my teammate. Yeah, that’s pretty simple stuff. It is.

(43:07 – 43:15)

And the best teams I’ve ever been, I was actually a sports person. And the best teams I’ve played with all different personalities, all different skill sets, the ones who you let do the job, and they did the job, magic happened. And, and so it really is that respect, and, you know, and trust.

(43:25 – 43:34) 

You talked about what are the leadership qualities that you really need for these is growth mindset. My dad was an athlete as well. And I think the number one quote I’ve ever heard was, the best coaches always have the best players.

(43:40 – 43:55)

And that’s true. And that means the best leaders have the best team. And if you don’t think you have the best team, you better go get a GM that can get you the right players. Otherwise, you’re not gonna be in the job very long. And it’s again, it’s kind of cliche, but it’s true. If you look at Pat Riley, or Phil Jackson, or Red Auerbach, or, or Vince Lombardi, I said the best players.

(44:01 – 44:10)

100%. And, you know, and so, and that again, people sometimes coach gets too much credit when you win and too much blame when you lose. That’s why you’re in that role. You know, that’s right. That’s right, is to kind of work on pulling that the right team together. That’s a really good place to kind of as we kind of wrap up.

(44:15 – 44:28) 

Today, I think it’s a really good place to kind of, and, you know, kind of honor in our conversation. Is there anything else you want to leave the listeners with as we kind of wrap up here today? You know, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I really enjoyed the conversation.

(44:32 – 44:37)

I think, you know, the reality of it is in life, you just got to put in action what you want to do, work the plan. I think there’s so many people that do strategic plans. But there’s no execution of the strategic plan.

(44:42 – 44:55)

You get it done, and you put the volume on the desk, like your trust. I hope you don’t ever need it. And, you know, and then it just sits there and gathers dust. I think you have these conversations, you have good interactions, maybe you learn something along the way, go put it into action. That’s what we try to do. We don’t always do it, but we certainly aspire to do that.

(44:58 – 45:15) 

Thank you very much. We’ve been talking with Scott Hoselton, president of ACS. Scott, thank you for being on the Proof Point podcast. Thank you, Stacie. It was great to meet you. Thanks for listening to the Proof Point podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.