The Secret Sauce of Successful Teams Quarterly Retreats and Role Clarity
Mar 29, 2024
Seth Lewis
Imagine pulling the emergency brake on your daily grind every three months to refuel your team's creativity and cohesion—well, that's the magic of quarterly retreats, and we're here to share how it's revolutionizing our work culture. Join us as we unveil the success stories behind stepping away from the desk, engaging in honest dialogues across company levels, and the profound ripple effects these retreats have on our operations. We promise you'll leave with a blueprint for nurturing a workplace where empathy is the cornerstone and productivity, the natural outcome.
As laughter is to life, so are our 'You Can't Make It Up' moments to this episode—get ready for side-splitting tales from the field that reveal the charming quirks of team dynamics. Our shop mechanic, an unsung hero, gets a special nod for keeping the gears of our business well-oiled, showcasing the impact of clear roles and communication. Whether it's the comical misadventures or the strategic genius that emerges from our collective brainstorming, this is your ticket to understanding how a culture of inclusion and clarity can be your company's secret weapon for success.
Do you want to grow your business and your profits? Is your business too dependent on you the owner? Improve or implement processes that help you grow. Eliminate stress while improving cash flow. Interested? If so check out LOS. Landscape Operating System with Peer group is for you.
Learn more here https://www.scalingscoresystem.com/los
Imagine pulling the emergency brake on your daily grind every three months to refuel your team's creativity and cohesion—well, that's the magic of quarterly retreats, and we're here to share how it's revolutionizing our work culture. Join us as we unveil the success stories behind stepping away from the desk, engaging in honest dialogues across company levels, and the profound ripple effects these retreats have on our operations. We promise you'll leave with a blueprint for nurturing a workplace where empathy is the cornerstone and productivity, the natural outcome.
As laughter is to life, so are our 'You Can't Make It Up' moments to this episode—get ready for side-splitting tales from the field that reveal the charming quirks of team dynamics. Our shop mechanic, an unsung hero, gets a special nod for keeping the gears of our business well-oiled, showcasing the impact of clear roles and communication. Whether it's the comical misadventures or the strategic genius that emerges from our collective brainstorming, this is your ticket to understanding how a culture of inclusion and clarity can be your company's secret weapon for success.
Do you want to grow your business and your profits? Is your business too dependent on you the owner? Improve or implement processes that help you grow. Eliminate stress while improving cash flow. Interested? If so check out LOS. Landscape Operating System with Peer group is for you.
Learn more here https://www.scalingscoresystem.com/los
Speaker 1:
Good morning everyone. Thanks for tuning in today. Remember, if you're enjoying this content, if you could like share and subscribe to the show. It helps us get exposure and it's good stuff. We believe we're trying to help people grow their business, grow their profits, so we're really excited about that. Also, if you're interested in growing your business, check out LOS. You can scan the QR code here on the page or check it in the notes. Los is a landscape operating system that helps you implement processes in your business so that you can grow. They have a peer group feature, which is pretty neat. So if you check them out, that would be great.
Speaker 1:
Today I'm here with the three of us myself, bren and Dan and really just you know I guess just diving in talking a little bit about the. You know what we've been doing recently. You know yesterday we had one of our quarterly retreats. Dan really works on putting that together and you know coordinating that. So I think it would just be interesting to kind of share for companies. You know.
Speaker 1:
You know what is the benefit, you know how did it come about, you know why is it important. And then we just talked today a little bit about you know what value is. You know has brought to us and if you're not currently doing something like that, it might be good to consider. So I guess, just to start, and then we always get into the you can't make it up which is always a fun thing to kind of share. So just maybe I don't know if, if, dan, you want to start with just maybe the, the quarterly meeting, and you know what it is, and we can just kind of go around the room and talk about you know why we do it, where it came from and maybe why it's beneficial.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you know the whole leadership team you know gets together. I mean we meet every week, but each quarter we have, you know, kind of we block out a day, we take the day, we try to find someplace to go kind of a change of scenery, um, just to have our quarterly meeting which is basically like, um, you know what are some of the things that have that have come up this quarter. We kind of review the last quarter how some things went, kind of give our processes and everything like a rating of like how it went. You know areas that where we can improve, we go through each department you know, find wins, areas for improvement there and just kind of tackle issues that you know involve the whole team. So you know we have, we have, you know, owners there, management's there, guys from the field are there, our mechanic is there. You know we get perspectives from from everybody on how we can kind of tackle issues and and make things even smoother and work better. Moving into the next quarter yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome, brandon, from your perspective. You know what, uh, um, you know why is it, you know, valuable to yours, or you know why did, why did we start it? Maybe you know it, you know. Okay, look at, you know either way. So what are some things that you feel beneficial to share?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So I'd say one thing is like definitely just getting feedback from people at like every level and you know everyone's affected differently by different things. So, like I've been in a different, a bunch of different companies and environments where you know there's always a little bit of conflict between, you know, maybe management, or they get frustrated between management and like the field staff, you know, and a bunch of different industries you know, and the restaurant industry.
Speaker 3:
It was the, you know, the waitresses and then the people that are cooking in the restaurant. So there's always, like this, a little bit of friction. So I think like one of the biggest things is like just trying to get that cohesive working together and say like, hey, here's what I'm seeing from this side, here's what I'm seeing from that side. And you know, most people in life go through where they're, where they're, you know.
Speaker 3:
You know, if you get to a leadership or management type of position like you've, most more often than not you've you've, you know, you've been on the other side of it, so you kind of know what it's like a little bit and I think, just trying to trying to get that cohesive bond going, getting feedback from those people to make it a better everyday situation.
Speaker 3:
You see all kinds of memes and things on the internet. Like you know, the the management ruins the business from, like, the field staff or the frontline workers. So, like you know, I think our objective is like we want it to be a great place to work, we want to have a lot of positivity and we want to, we want everyone working cohesively together. So, getting input, getting feedback, you know, and I think a lot of times it's just like alignment and understanding. A lot of times when you're on one side of the coin, you don't understand where the other side of the coin is coming from. So, like being able to attack and see both sides of the coin, I think is like a huge deal and it just brings, like, everybody together Cause, like you know, a lot of times the other person doesn't know what the other person's dealing with or going through and they might think, you know, they might think, oh, how, how hard is it to be out in the field and be on out and just relax and be mowing. But there's struggles with that, right. And then you think of someone in the office who's like, oh, it must be nice to be fat and happy in the office all day right. And then you put people in those other positions and you're like, wow, this is harder than I thought it was right. So I think that's the big thing and it's always funny and fun. When you get to, you know, sample a little bit of that and just get feedback.
Speaker 3:
You know, growing up and I'm getting kind of lengthy here, but like growing up, that was like one of the things as a field worker At one point in my life I was always coming up with ideas on how to improve things, like make my life easier, right. And you take it to management and sometimes, if you have a good manager, they acknowledge that and they let you do whatever it is that you feel like you need to do. Then you have other managers that don't and I think I've seen that from that side of it and that really for me has been a big pushing point to to get the feedback. You know, and not only me, but like our whole leadership staff and ownership and everything has been like a lot of times these. You know, people have great ideas and we want to, you know, give them the opportunity to voice it and and implement if, if it makes sense and it works out, which more often than not we do.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, I think that that's, you know, I think it's it's really good.
Speaker 1:
I think the other thing is just bringing the people together, like you said to to to talk about it. But I think being I know this is a focus that we've talked about this year and is really just kind of being honest and open with each other. How many times do we like in a company, somebody is not doing something the way that you want it and you just kind of like say to somebody else that they're not doing it the way that you want? And I think this year, one of the things that we've committed to, and even on this team, and we keep talking about it, hopefully we do it and, uh, you know, stay true to it, but really just kind of talking about it without like having the emotions affected and being like like getting bent out of shape. And I think sometimes we dance around things that need to be said for whatever reason. Um, and I don't know that there's, there's a real thing of you know that's not productive in any way. So I think, like, when you bring a group together, I mean I can think you know, and I'll get, I mean, a simple example of this yesterday, you know, in our meeting. You know we brought up, you know we're just trying to be positivity and I think, like a lot of times, like you have guys that like joke around or whatever in the field and then sometimes it just might feel like it's a little bit too far with some things that they say and they're great people. You know they're great people, they mean really well. But I think yesterday one of the things that is like a leader, I said you know, here's a one spot that I think we just like take it a little bit too far and it might make somebody uncomfortable. So I think being able to do that is just a sign that we have great people.
Speaker 1:
And I think even bringing that up you know we didn't have any, you know, bad energy from that you know we kind of talked about it I think that's a sign of like a strong team. And you know it was. You know I think it was fairly direct, like it was pretty clear, but it wasn't presented in a bad way. So I think the more that we can do those things and embrace, like saying it in positive ways, you know, really brings, bring the team together, I think it would be helpful just to kind of maybe point out what were some of the challenges, that you know why we did this. So the reason of like putting together a group like this? I mean, maybe you know we're just shop people, so I mean you can hear the air compressor going on in the background. You know like, well, this is we work. We work this. You know life.
Speaker 1:
But the idea is like what, what could we, what were we seeing of why we did this? And then so I think it's like like, if you're seeing X, so if you're a business owner or you're in a company and you're seeing these things, the symptoms, right, what are the things that should tell you that you need to do something like this? Because I think people don't always understand, like you know, what they're in now versus what this could do. So what are some of the symptoms? Or maybe, why did we do it? What were we seeing that we knew that we needed to do something different? Maybe, brandon, you want to start brand, you want to start to one more time for me. So you know, for somebody that is listening and they're saying, like what, what were some of the symptoms that we saw that we knew we needed to kind of bring together as a team to solve?
Speaker 3:
um, yeah, there's probably. That's just a little bit like disconnect here or there. Um, I think, like involvement.
Speaker 3:
Some of the things we've seen was, like you know, one of the big things we've seen is like there's a lot, there's, there was a lot being put on, um, just a couple shoulders, um, and it was a lot, a lot on just a few people and we just said, you know, hey, as as a group, we was a lot, a lot on just a few people and we just said, you know, hey, as as a group, we have a lot of people that are very smart, very intelligent, have a lot of skills, you know, that are leaders on our team and like we can get them involved and they could just take a small sliver of a piece of the pie to help out. And, like you know, they should be able to help out with a little task here or there and they're very capable. So just trying to get them involved, and not only that, but then that helps to groom them and get them set up for, like, continuing to grow within the company, so getting other opportunities, other opportunities, which, which?
Speaker 1:
is a really good thing, I think that I think, like having the you know assessing that it gives a place for people to shine. You know, obviously you just share the weight of the things, that the responsibilities. I think that's a big thing. You lot of times, one or two people hold everything, so doing that is really good. And the thing that always amazes me is the talent in people. I mean, I get really inspired by seeing people that have talents that you didn't realize you had, but bringing them out in people and giving them an opportunity. And if you never give them an opportunity, they never shine right. So that's really, you know, really, really really exciting. So you know, dan, what for you, what you know what problems did it solve, or you know the reason that we did it. So what were some of the things that we did? I mean, brandon touched on some of those, or you know what? Additionally, what are some things that we really benefited?
Speaker 2:
by doing this by doing this I mean a lot of our, a lot of our like processes have been developed or updated through through these meetings. I mean like some sometimes solutions to, to issues that come up here and there can like come up organically, but a lot of times it it takes being very intentional and like sitting down and saying like okay's, here's some things we're gonna discuss for one, but not just discuss.
Speaker 1:
It's like here's the issue, what are the ideas about it, what's the actual like next step and who's gonna do it to actually solve the problem, so we can cross it off the list like an example because I think the other thing I think is always good is like if you have a real life example, it helps people understand, like you know, this is, this is something that we created or solved from this, or an employee thing, or distributing the weight among the team members, like what would be an example, maybe from one from each of you that would just kind of give a give a good example would just kind of give a give a good example.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so, like one thing that came came up out of it was, um, so I I kind of do uh, reviews, employee reviews, like each week I just go over like you know how how the week went with with the guys, um, and some of that information that I kind of need in order to like inform how that's going to go comes from our starter, a guy who basically, you know, gets the guys going in the morning, checks the trailers, and I mean that process in general came out of the meetings but also just kind of like refining what. What the specific information that he gets in the morning that I can then look at and it, you know, helps me then do the weekly reviews with the guys, has been really helpful yeah, what about you, brandon?
Speaker 3:
um, one of the first things is is, like you know, before I'd have to be kind of like at the shop all the time checking in to see where we are on materials. You know asking guys kind of like randomly here or there like, hey, what's this, can you give me an update on that? What we have material wise? Um, because, as you know the size company we are, we go through material pretty quickly. You know we have mulch bins or maybe it's like you know, grass seed or other. You know other supplies and stuff that we have around and I try to like make sure, as like on the operations side you know managing that that we have all the supplies we need and we can keep our guys running a well machine. We don't want to slow them down, so that you know that became kind like a a little bit of a hindrance because you know there's a million other things that could be doing.
Speaker 3:
So, um, you know we have, we have a. You know our shop mechanic. He's there all the time. Um, you know, eats, breeds sleeves there, pretty much right. So he's, he's busy, he's there all the. He's constantly working on something, does a great job for us and we just said, hey, he's, he's run shops before.
Speaker 3:
There's no big deal for him to take inventory every once in a while and just give me an update. Hey, where are we on this? I can ask him. He has it and we kind of take care of it. So, pretty, pretty good like scenario for that is that that came out of that. And he's like hey, I can easily take care of that for you and give you an update. And it makes like a world of difference because I don't have to pop over there all the time to see what's going on. You know, I can be a lot of times I'm on the run, I'm training someone, I'm meeting with customers, I might be doing quality control, site visits, whatever it may be, and I can just reach out to him hey, what's the update on this?
Speaker 3:
Or he'll automatically send it to me weekly and that just kind of helps keep me in the know so I can continue, so I can continue to you know, order materials and just keep our guys flowing like very organically and well.
Speaker 1:
So I think that's kind of like a huge, a pretty, pretty huge deal. For me. It's yeah, I think that's that's great. Um, you know, a lot of things can be too, and again, some of the things and I say this a lot but just, you're looking at los and and that systems and processes, like if you're really looking to scale up your business, these are some of the things that we, you know we need to do and can be really helpful. So, you know, obviously, check them out, scan the code. But I just want to switch to the idea of you can't make it up. So we always talk about this great segment. We have actually fun talking about this in our meeting yesterday. We have actually fun talking about this in our meeting yesterday. You know, we were actually, I mean, we were just rattling off like things you know, you know all the time, right. So the idea is like there's so many things like you just can't make up. So I don't know if there's anything that you know, anything that comes to mind right now that you know.
Speaker 3:
Anything that comes to mind right now yeah, I mean for one for me is we have, you know, I kind of touched on this with, like putting new people in equipment or whatever but it usually never fails. Sometimes it's new guys, sometimes it's guys been around for a little bit. But you see the overconfidence factor that comes into play and that people have been doing something and they're like I'm the bee's knees on it Right, like I'm the best there ever was.
Speaker 1:
So they get overconfident and then they try to do things where they like they thread the needle on stuff, think it's like. I think one of the things that makes it like them good, funny, rateable is like when you have a specific uh, you know, obviously don't you know if we know the person. It's not a name, but like where you see it with somebody else, but like when you can actually like you know you kind of laser in on this person, did this. It's just like, um, you know, I always say you'll hear me say it many times like the guy that strapped down the dirt, like, um, there's a million things, the toilet plunger, I mean, I have a couple ones that I've used recently yeah, but they still make me laugh Like I can't believe.
Speaker 1:
you know, the guy forgot the manual for the toilet plunger. I mean, it's just you can the curve and going on a main road.
Speaker 3:
But for some reason, multiple times at the same property, different people we've had people try to turn down this tight, narrow alleyway and luckily the first time I wasn't there. The second time, luckily I was there and I'm just like, out of all the options that we have, why are we choosing to go this way? Like doesn't make any sense, like it's trying to like it's trying to put, like a pig down a narrow hallway that chickens go through, like.
Speaker 2:
What are we doing? Like?
Speaker 3:
there's a. There's a cattle shoot for cows over here and we're trying to go through a chicken coop hole like it doesn't make any sense. So yeah, that's my, for me that's you can't make it up, I, I just don't I don't understand.
Speaker 1:
It's just a flashing sign that says turn here like yeah, so it might be danger, but just turn here right, yeah, so for me on that property it's gonna be on the property map a big x.
Speaker 3:
Do not turn down this alleyway um, just because you know you can't make it up. It's like people like they get overconfident and they want to just like, for some reason, they're attracted. It's like a bug to a zapping light, like they're just attracted to it. Let's go to that. There's danger over there.
Speaker 1:
Getting cute with it. We say yeah, and what about you? Anything you can think of recently?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so while we're at this, you know, one of our larger properties that we have, I was kind of going around just doing some like double checks, just making sure a certain area was fully done as we were moving on. And I'm coming back to like the area where the trailers are parked. You know we got multiple crews there and I see a guy like you know walking away. He's kind of a newer guy, you know, hasn't been with us real long, still kind of in training, but he's walking away with the string trimmer, like he's getting ready to like string trim again and the fuel cap is off, it's clearly empty. He's just like walking away, like oblivious to it. So I don't know, you can't make it up. It's like what do you think is?
Speaker 3:
gonna happen. He probably put it down to put fuel in. It got distracted and then never put the fuel in. It was like yep, I took care of that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, got to go live from his phone or something, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Off the way without the camera. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for tuning in Again, reminder, just check out LOS if you're looking to grow, scale your business, get processes and improve your people so you can grow and grow your profits. Check them out Again, operating systems with processes and peer groups to learn from the best of the best. Like, share and subscribe what we have here. Be great for you to share. And also, don't forget to send us in your you can't make it up. That's always a good thing that we can share.
Speaker 1:
Again, we're we're compiling things and then we're going to start sharing them and then doing a bracket to see, like, who advances, and hopefully you guys can help us vote on which one is the best. And you know, we'll have a champion in 2024. Uh, we'll, we'll have some good, you know, prize or something that we'll come up with for that. But, uh, or send you some gear something be a lot of fun, prize or something that we'll come up with for that but or send you some gear or something be a lot of fun. So send those in. We'll, you know, start that, you know, once we have enough and we'll go from there. So, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you. See you soon.