Why is it so hard to keep people? Secchi founder Mike White

Shay

Foulk: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk with Mike White. Mike, how are you today?

Mike

White: I'm doing well. It is—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, it's a beautiful spring day here in Illinois. Um, next 10 days looks awesome. For those listening on the Ag View Pitch, we are definitely going to have planters rolling here in the fields next week. Corn and soybeans and whatever, you name it, everything's going in the ground. Get the sprayers out, get the planters out. It's It's time to rock and roll. So, um, for those of you listening, Mike, you and I actually kind of had a chance encounter, I think Minneapolis Airport, correct?

Mike

White: That's correct, yeah.

Shay

Foulk: And, uh, we were walking— I was walking by, I was doing my indoor workout. I was on 75 Hard at the time. I was doing my indoor workout, and I look over and I see this hat that caught my eye. And so I think the first message here is branding, you know, wherever you go. I'm a big fan of represent your brand, represent who you are, your farming operation, your businesses. I looked up and saw this hat. And so as I'm walking, I didn't have anything else to do and I thought, I'm going to look this up. So I looked him up on LinkedIn, felt kind of creepy. And when I came back through the airport, I just walked up and introduced myself and we started talking. I thought, you know, this would be a great podcast. So, Mike, I was hoping maybe you could, you know, introduce yourself, maybe give the listeners a little bit of a background on, on who you are, and then we'll jump into what you do.

Mike

White: Yeah, sounds good. So who I am, I'm a dad of 3. So I have twin boys that are almost 7. And since I know you're, you're out of Iowa, I'll mention they went to their first wrestling practice last week. Awesome. And you can imagine they loved it. So I have twin boys, Dean and Charlie, and then I have a daughter Winnie that's 3. Excuse me, she's 4 now, 4. And so married my wife, Jana, and for her, this will be our 10th year. And I have an HR background. So I was originally going to set out to be a teacher from central Illinois, not too far away from you. And I joke there's 3 jobs that you can be— work at Caterpillar, be a teacher, farmer. Those are most of the people that I grew up with. Yeah. So I was correct at State Farm there too in Central Illinois.

So yeah, so I ended up switching gears and looked at MBA schools, went to HR school at the University of Illinois, and then worked for major manufacturers for the last 15+ years.

Shay

Foulk: So let's, let's talk a little bit about, you know, how you grew up. You do have some roots and some tie back to agriculture here for the audience that's listening here today, what did that look like?

Mike

White: Yeah. My dad's Ron White, but not the Ron. Well, he says he Ron White. You're on. Yeah. So I grew up in Muhammad, Illinois. And I started detasseling when I was in— well, probably before I was legal. But I remember— I remember my first paycheck when I— when the government took their first— that cut that chunk out. I still remember that pain. And did that for a few years and my dad said, get some buddies together. I got some field cleanup work to do. So I did roguing, ended up starting a detasseling business that grew to about 80 people. And yeah, so I, I, I had all sorts of folks working for me and what I realized is that I needed to, I, I could make some pretty good money in business. And then the part I liked was leading people and putting in processes, which happened to be the HR side of it. I just didn't know it was HR. So I built standard work.

I, I created an onboarding process. I had check sheets, time studies, did a little bit industrial engineering, didn't know what I was doing there too. And my claim to fame when I talk about detasseling is I eliminated water breaks. And yeah, and you go, well, how'd you do that? One of the kids' dads worked at, there was a Bell helmet factory. Well, Bell made HydroPaks before HydroPaks were HydroPaks. This is 1999. Yeah. And so I got them all HydroPaks and, and they were like a defect. The guy sold it, sold the defects to me, which were all fine. They just had something wrong, you know, the, you it wasn't the content. And so I ended up, ended up eliminating breaks and we just dominated that last year. And, uh, so I did that for my dad, but I also ended up doing contract work for Monsanto too. Mm-hmm. They paid a little bit more.

Shay

Foulk: Not to, you know, not everybody likes the people management. Is there anything that drew you to that at a young age or, you know, why would, why were you attracted to that?

Mike

White: Uh, cuz I didn't like to study. No, I, no, I guess you say, I don't know, it's just, it's just in me. It's just fun. It's in me. I want to be around people. I took the Myers-Briggs test and my extroversion is like the one off the highest you can have. So I think that, that makes it fun. But what makes it good is the processes. So, It's not all, it's not all about, oh, you know, I think HR sometimes gets a bad rap of it's all about hugging and feelings. And my background is mostly the way I've been able to shape my career has been around data and labor relations. So I've done union negotiations, union avoidance, or positive employee relations.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Now that's awesome. And I appreciate that background. So you went to University of Illinois, went through the MBA program there. Uh, kind of what was your timeline there? When did you, when did you wrap up there? And then when did you jump into the world of, I guess, professional career outlook?

Mike

White: Yeah, so, uh, real quick, because, because I know you have farmers, I, I told, uh, I remember being, I think I was a junior or senior in high school, and I said, I'm thinking about, uh, politics or, uh, being a lawyer. And I, I remember my dad looking at me and being like, Those are horrible. Why would you want to do that? Yeah, why? And I ended up finding the program is the Master of Human Resources Industrial Relations. And I like to argue, and the union and the labor stuff appealed to me. I like the history of it. Up on my wall behind me is My great-grandpa was a United Mine Worker back when the unions were much, it was, it made a lot more sense. He started working on a coal mine at like 13. So the, that, I guess that brought me into the HR world and yeah, it was, it's been a good, it's been a good jump.

I don't know exactly the exact moment when I decided to do that, but, um, yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So what year did you leave University of Illinois and then what was your first job posting?

Mike

White: Yeah, so I, I left in, um, 2005. I'll do a little ad for the HR school. It's, it's a year and a half long and I did the business math of the program. It's, it's, um, you do a semester where I started, you do your first two semesters, you get a paid internship that paid at that time, like $30 an hour. And I applied to just this job out in Denver. I just wanted to be in Denver and worked for a company, Johns Manville Insulation Company, and in their total rewards. So their compensation and benefits department did mostly analysis all summer long and whatever they wanted me to do. My office was in a closet that they to put a window in, uh, me and another lady. It was a, it was a pure intern experience, but they treated me well and ended up being a full-time offer. That was 2005. Uh, they asked me, where do you want to go? They offered me a full-time job after that.

And where do you want to go? I said, anywhere but California, and, uh, ended up in Winder, Georgia. So, um, and then, and then that's where I, I, I, I met my steelworkers and kind of fell into that little niche.

Shay

Foulk: Interesting. So you've had multiple positions since then, um, just looking at your background and, and checking out your, your LinkedIn. We haven't talked on that a lot, but you know, today I, I think what I would like you to, like you to do is tell, tell the listeners here a little bit about, you know, where you are today and maybe your, your natural pathway on how you got there. And what inspired you to do what you're doing today. You've given us a little background on that, and then I'll probably, you know, poke and prod you with a couple questions.

Mike

White: All right, that sounds good. So, um, yeah, I still have on my resume, by the way, that I ran, uh, White Management, the detasseling company I started, still today. Uh, it connected me with, uh, my last role, the hiring, uh, VP. He, he, he was from Ohio and he had worked in the cornfield, so I think that helped me out.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome.

Mike

White: Um, Yeah. So right out of school, I went, I, like I said, I, that was, um, oh, 2006, so, um, 2006 timeframe where I took that job and then, um, was in a fast track program where they're supposed to move me around. Well, the economy dropped out and I ended up in one spot in Georgia. Um, but I, I got more facilities and I started doing HR for more and more and more and more groups. And what I I kind of figured out, well, that's where I got disciplined on my processes and making sure that I can repeat stuff. And you know, that people are always there. They're the way we get things done. They're usually the problem at the same time. And I got to learn a lot of hard lessons in Georgia. And it was good to be away from any support group because I was all on my own down there.

I ended up getting promoted a couple, a couple times with them doing, and then I got the labor relation role, labor relations role. So negotiation, I was the number 2 guy. So you got to keep track all the notes. I learned all the business acumen of HR and negotiations. And that eventually led to, um, uh, I saw an announcement, excuse me, everybody, Everybody from my family told me about this announcement from Caterpillar to build a new plant in Winder, Georgia, 1,400 people. And, or excuse me, in Athens, Georgia, 1,400 people. And so I thought, I'll apply. I applied. I mean, the job description read exactly what I had done and worked with the local school system, worked with the local community. And got that job and ended up, he said 1,400 people when I left 4 years later, it was, it was 1,800. We hit all our marks.

It was, it was really driven by people, but it got me into Caterpillar, lived, lived there for, or had that job for almost a little over 4 years and moved up to Peoria in a more corporate role. And I got that, that's when Caterpillar was doing a bunch of layoffs and reorganizations. So When are they not doing that? But that was a big one. Uh, but I ended up having about, uh, the peak at about 28 facilities I was doing HR for globally. And it was a great experience in the corporate, um, the corporate challenges.

Shay

Foulk: Um, did you ever, did you ever imagine that you'd be in a role like that? And how did that progress? Because I know some people listening to this are like, boy, I would never want responsibility, or I would never want to have involvement with that many roles. And I appreciate the metrics that you put to that, you know, because 28 locations, that means something to you. It might not mean something to someone else, but a lot of people, a lot of responsibility. You know, when people get into those positions, I always find it fascinating of what brought them there. Did they enjoy the work that they were doing? You know, how difficult was the work that they were doing? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Mike

White: Yeah, I think when you're in a facility, when you're working with frontline folks, like my career is up to that point, I've been working mostly with frontline folks, minus corporate projects where you're trying to implement something, but it's, it's dealing with day-to-day issues that whether you're running an operation with 2 employees, or you have 150 or 1,400 employees, it's the same issues. It's just multiplied and complex. And you got to make sure you're consistent, you're creating the right culture, and you're developing the right people and you're understanding their problems and their issues because we all have them. I'm not somebody that believes, oh, just check your problems out at the door when you come to work. I know that I'd like to think that happens and it makes it easy for me as a leader. But the reality is it doesn't.

So you have to deal with a lot of issues and setting expectations. The challenge is the work. Like I, I'll quote one of my favorite bosses of all time. He told me I never worked a day in my life because he had worked his way up from the shop floor. Yeah. And he, he said, you know, Mike, you, until you've sat there and looked, he goes, you kind of worked by working in a cornfield. I'll give you a little credit, but you haven't really worked where you, you thought the entry-level job was the best job you were ever going to have. And he goes, that's work. And that really helped me with my perspective and respecting the folks that actually, you know, I've done part-time jobs, but it's not my job. And so it kind of switched in my head about, yeah, I do something. It's different than what you do, but it's not more valuable, if that makes sense. Yeah.

From a respect standpoint, the complexity, you the corporate role is more about communication and influencing and seeing a bigger, broader picture and understanding the takeaways of what I want to get done versus what the organization, the enterprise needs to get done. And then at the, as you move down and, or as I go back in my career at this or this entrepreneurial view of, hey, I'm gonna start this business when I'm 16 or 15. Versus how, versus the corporate environment isn't, you still attack the challenges the same way. It's like what's best for the business considering the stakeholders, the shareholders, your customers, the internal, the customers, excuse me, the shareholders, the customers and the employees, understanding that influence and that it's a balancing act.

I think I think what the corporate world probably taught me when I grew up around an entrepreneurial, in an entrepreneurial family, my brother runs his own dentist office out of Champaign and, and then my dad and the conversations that we had growing up and seeing is you're always solving problems. But to get the corporate world kind of tone or kind of the corporate world, the word would be like you fine tune your communication. You understand that it's not as black and white when it's just you making the decision. It's like, all right, decision this, let's go forward. But when you, when there's 150 people that care about this decision, your decision is different. Right. And Yeah, I, I actually, Ed Rapp, who everybody thought was gonna be the CEO cat, he's one of the guys, he, he, he wrote this book about 36 years of trials and tribulation.

He actually talks about the Athens facility in there.

Shay

Foulk: It's called Measure Twice and Cut Once.

Mike

White: Yeah, Measure Twice, Cut Once. He talks about go slow to go fast and the more people you have, the, the bigger the ship is that you have to turn. And so it goes a little bit, a little bit slower than what I'm used to and probably most of your audience of like, well, why do you have to call a meeting? Well, you know, you gotta, you gotta get 150 people thinking your idea is a good idea and it's in their best interest. So that's, that's the work. And then when I say work, you know, that's not real work, right? Like it is real work, but it's not, my hands aren't getting cut, you know.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. I like what you said there about, you know, bigger ships, slower it turns. And I think a lot of the people that listen to this podcast experience growing pains, as most businesses do. And the people management might not be as many people, it might be 10, 20, 30 people that you end up managing by the time you factor in, you know, your part-time work in the spring and in the fall for harvest operations. And then of course, a lot of people that listen here have other businesses, you know, they're running dealerships or event host centers or you name it, you know, people have other things going on here. So that, that patience is probably pretty crucial.

Are there any other virtues that you kind of found outside of patience and maybe having some flexibility in the communication and how you think about those processes that really helped you excel as you went through those roles?

Mike

White: Yeah, I think, so process, process, process. I also came across this idea. Well, let's just say I made it up, but I started realizing that everyone's a leader. And I think that because you get a title, you're like, oh, I'm in charge. I'm the leader. It's really not the case. Uh, the guy that cleans the, uh, the guy that used to come in and take out my garbage at the facility, this, when it hit, he was talking to me and he was telling me about church or something. And, and I realized that he was leading me in a direction and I'm going, everyone's a leader. I can be, I gotta, I gotta pick and choose when I'm the leader and when I'm the follower. And when that mindset, when you, when I changed that mindset, of, okay, I'll say that the union called me college boy, helped me a little with humility.

But it's more about the idea that anyone can lead you, you just got to make sure it's the right time, right person. That was hugely helpful in my career because so much talent is lost when you're constantly barking out directions and there's so many good ideas, better ideas than I could ever think of. That, that just set me in the right direction. So I can't tell you how many times I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so common sense. This guy just brought it up that I would have never expected to bring it up, but I couldn't see it at that point. The other, the other thing is you think about managing people is there's just, you know, I don't believe in the word fairness anymore. Like when you say fair, the word— I shouldn't say I don't believe in it. It's more that there's such a nuance to being fair.

And when I hear that, I get goosebumps because when you're dealing with people, it is, it is always tough. I mean, it's rarely cut and dry and you go, well, what's, what's fair? And you can't have a rule for everything. What's fair? When I hear that's not fair, typically I hear I'm not getting my way. And what I like to use rather than fair is consistent. I want to be consistent and I want to establish very consistent expectations because just like when you write a contract, you write the contract not for when things go right, you write the contract for when it goes wrong. And as much as I can do as a leader to tell you what my expectations are, that that will change whether you're managing 5 or you're managing 1,400. That is just drilling it over and over again. I can't tell you how many times people have come to me and go, well, I told him this already.

I told him, I told him he can't show up late, but then he shows up late and he's like, yeah, I just got T-boned. You can see my car, it's messed up. Well, I told you not to be late. Hey, I just got T-boned. Like, how do you— what's the right thing to do in that situation? What's fair? Well, it's not fair to the manager that you didn't show up on time. It's not fair to the employee that got hit. It's out of his circumstance, out of his control. But at the end of the day, you didn't— you lost money because that guy got hit by a car. Those situations, that's, that's not uncommon. What gets even more complex when you bring in family situations that are, you know, maybe even darker or hurtful and you got to figure that out.

And so establishing, being consistent and consistent in how you view that is better than being— it's not better than being fair, but it's easier to, to comprehend for the person that may not like the outcome. So that, that fairness, um, what, what I, what I came up with this model of like, if, if we have very, very clear understood processes, we execute those processes well, we're going to have a consistent outcome. Or a fair outcome. So whenever I hear it's not fair, I go back to, okay, what was the expectation? Um, example might be you hire somebody, you say, hey, I want— I expect— when you— they— you hire them on, hey, you're gonna get calls on Sunday night. Hey, you're gonna get— you know, we're working this plant. You were just talking about planting season. It's planting season. You're going to work a lot of hours.

And then they start complaining about hours and go, well, We talked about this when I hired you, right? And, and that, that goes to my, my other learning of most people are good and have good intentions, but our brains, for whatever reason, we think that people have nefarious intentions. So true. That's not true.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, yeah, it's so true that we think that way though. I mean, and, and we're guilty of it. And I think one of the biggest reasons, um, that we, that we get this conflict built up in our mind, or that conflict builds up in organizations. And we see it all the time in farms and ag businesses, is you think you know what people have for intentions, or you think that you, you try to outguess what they're, what they're thinking or what they're trying to say instead of just asking and bringing it up in a professional manner.

Mike

White: Yes. And so I see that in leadership. So it's, for those of you that don't have an HR department, a lot of my Well, why do we even exist? First of all, you know, it's not a real job. You're just, you know, doing benefits. That's not my HR. My HR— I don't know benefits. I don't really know how to do payroll. My HR is more as a business partner, meaning I have to get 1,500 people to think the same way and be aligned on the same goal and working together and feeling like this is the right place to work. You do that as a small business owner. You do the same thing as a small business owner. But imagine if you had to scale it to, to, at 1,800, 2,000, 3,000 people. That scares people. Yeah. And that's what I— so I'm, I'm the guy on the side. I don't usually report into the leader so I can tell them the truth. I get to tell them the emperor's not wearing clothes today. Right.

And that type of advice of, okay, example of like this guy, you know, perfect example for me is somebody down the line and this would happen in any exchange of soybeans or beans. Well, they did this. Because of this. And I'm like, so how do you know? How do you know that guy that was on the line down the line put extra oil in there to mess with you? Because I know that guy and he told me yesterday that he likes you. Why would he do that? And why, you know, these stories, if we don't, if we don't communicate what, what's happening, it's so easy for people to run down rabbit holes and especially if you're bored. So if you're, If you're sitting on a combine, I'm sure you're thinking about all the things that, yeah, you, and they build up and build up and build up and then you go ask them, why'd you put on extra oil on that? And they, oh, yeah, the customer asked us to do it.

Oh, you know, like it's got, I spent 3 hours thinking about that oil and I could have just asked you. So that, that's a big, a big thing for me is, is especially because I deal with a lot of folks that aren't good people, that bottom 5% is remembering, remembering that they have good intentions. And I rarely assume, or I never, maybe never— I don't like to use absolutes, but I don't assume I have bad intentions. You don't assume you have bad intentions. But why, why do I always assume somebody else has those? So that's a, that's a huge thing with people management is getting down past your position Past— I'm getting into negotiation theory. So past your, your outward position and looking at the deeper interests.

Shay

Foulk: So it's probably pretty important. And I would say for the agriculture audience here, but probably in some of the— or maybe in some of the work that you did too, is interagency or inter-business communication too, from the nefarious thought process. So like farmers as an example. You know, had a farmer walk in here during the podcast. And some people in the farming community think, well, the neighbor, you know, the neighbor's out to, out to get you, or the neighbor's out to, you know, go after things. And that's— I, I rarely have ever run across that truly where people have nefarious intentions. And I think it's the same thing, and I know it's the same thing in other businesses, is sometimes we have this thought that, oh, people are out to get you. That's not true. I mean, it's, you know, generally speaking, people have these good intentions.

So how do you manage that, you know, between businesses and maybe even between cultures as cultures mesh within organizations?

Mike

White: Yeah, so there's a thing you guys can Google this. It's called the GRIPPI model: goals, roles, interpersonal— goals, roles, process, and interpersonal. And the idea is establishing and aligning goals. So by the way, this is an old thing, probably most of your listeners, this was created, this is not new fancy technology, it's very simple. It's called, it's GRPI. So making sure your goals are aligned. And typically, I like to use the maintenance versus production example of maintenance, the take down the machine so that they can make Production run better. Production wants to run the machine and doesn't want it to break down. So your intentions are the exact same. Like, we all want to run the machine, but it breaks. So it's maintenance fault. Well, maintenance says, well, if you let me rebuild it, I could have kept it running longer.

And so it's this constant tension to be managed, not problem to be solved. And so as that tension builds, you say, all right, well, let's get our goals aligned. Well, how about our goal is we're going to do 10% proactive maintenance. So we're gonna shut down 10% of our time to do maintenance on this machine. That, that's an aligned goal. Now we have a number that we can agree upon that the goal is aligned. We have the same, we have good intentions. The goal's aligned. So now we can argue about that goal. Did we, did you give me my 10%? Did you not? Right? And if I gave you my 10% and it still failed, then that's, that's a problem. Right? The roles. So who's, who's assigned to what? And this is where when you have that, that accusation that somebody's out to get you, this is typically in a work environment. Somebody tells me they're out to get— I run through, okay, what's your goal? Okay.

Shay

Foulk: All right.

Mike

White: We have the same goals. Then I go to roles. So whose job is it? Well, it's my job when it's this and it's his job when it's that. And And typically it's not well defined. So if you can, if you got the goals defined, now you say, okay, what are our roles? Well, maintenance thinks that the production guy should also help with this. Okay. What exactly does that mean? Help. Does help mean I'm pushing carts over or does help mean I'm under the, I'm under the hood with you? Right. What does help mean? Let's define it. So, so you say this is our role. The last piece is the process or excuse me, the next piece is the process. So is your process aligned? So for that 10%, we've agreed upon the goal, but we don't have a process in place.

So maintenance just stops everyone at the beginning of shift when they come in and your production guys going, well, why didn't we wait till the— why didn't you do it after shift? Why are we doing this during— I'm paying everybody to be here. Why did— this is, this is silly. Well, the process wasn't defined. So let's define the process.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Mike

White: You want to, you want to take down a machine. When are you going to do it? How are you going to do it? We're going to have a meeting beforehand and agree upon time, and you have to sign a sheet of paper to say that time is agreed upon. Now our process is defined. So if you get your goals, your roles, your process, I would say that solves 99% of it. And then the last is the interpersonal. And that's just, are you a jerk, right? Or, or there's just people I've worked with I just don't click with, right? Like we just don't. We just don't click. They're good. They're a good person, good intentions. I just, they're not my, my cup of tea. So that happens rarely. I've been in charge of probably 60,000 folks in HR over my career. I can only think of a handful that I just prefer not to work with. Not that they're bad people. I just don't want to work that way.

So yeah, that Grippy model is super helpful for solving interpersonal problems.

Shay

Foulk: So you mentioned, you know, Myers-Briggs earlier, some of the other ones that we work with, um, DISC assessment, 16 Personalities, Working Genius. Yep, StrengthsFinder. Yep. So I think those are all super relevant, and, and we talk to clients and people and businesses that we work with to take it. And I would argue that in farming operations and in family businesses that it's maybe even more important, um, at that interpersonal level because like you said, you can't just leave family stuff at the door when you walk into a family business. We'd like to think that that happens, and it doesn't.

Mike

White: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So knowing how people communicate, and a little bit to what you're saying of having the good intentions, or understanding that people have good intentions, understanding that we need to have the goals, the roles and responsibilities, the processes, and then believe it or not, we still have to have interpersonal connection and communication. Within family members. And a lot of that stuff is more important in family businesses to be clearly defined. At least that's my perspective. I don't have much experience on the family business side. Or what are your thoughts there?

Mike

White: My, my dad fired me once. I was his cleaning crew at his office and me and me and a buddy got paid $20 to do it. And we, we left foot— we mopped and then got to the end of the hallway and decided we could walk back barefoot because that's clean. And when it leaves, it left footprints. And he's like, I'm just done dealing with these complaints. So he has fired me. And I— and then when I was running the detasseling business, I got offered— my capacity was about 300 acres, and Monsanto was paying gobs more than he was paying. And I said, hey, can you raise your rate? And he said no. And I said, I'll give you— I cut his acreage. So very compartmentalized in our, in our household. But the, the I like the Enneagram at home. I don't know. Uh, church got into that. I was down in Georgia and my wife, my wife's, I consider an expert on that.

So being able to understand somebody's, uh, core beliefs and intentions and what you find when you do the StrengthFinders, DiSC, Myers-Briggs, all those is that it allows me a framework to think about this, this mess as we are as people. Like to figure out that framework and give them— at the end of the day, it's grace. Give them— okay, I'm going to give them a pass because they don't see the world in the same lens I do. I'm on my StrengthFinders. I'm super positive. So I'm Positivity number 1. And as a Positivity number 1, what I find is that if you tell me really bad news, I'm going to immediately tell you something positive about that bad news. And that pisses people off. That pisses people off.

Shay

Foulk: I'm laughing because that would drive me wild.

Mike

White: You, let's say you were all playing, you're all excited to get planting this tomorrow. And let's say the weather's all wrong and it rains and you might call me up and say, hey, Mike, how's it going? I would say, man, it didn't rain as much as I'm glad it didn't flood, you know, and that pisses people off. And that's just something that as you learn these things, one that's a watch out for somebody that's super positive is, you know, nobody wants to hear any, you know, I'm good to bring— you don't want to hear at a funeral positive stuff. You do, but not too positive. Right. And that's that. I just— you got to be aware of that as a strength. Now, on the flip side is when the when the light at the end of the tunnel can't even be seen, I see it. I'm good. I'll pump you up. And so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

If you mess up, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because I believe I got that positivity built in me. So what that framework does is it gives you an understanding of when I mess up. For me, when I mess up, you're going to say, yeah, But that's who, that's kind of who he is at his core. I might mean, it doesn't mean I'm right, but I, I give that, that grace there and kind of, and that's, that's huge too.

Shay

Foulk: I like what you said about, or I think you said something to the effect of like within your marriage and, and Hannah and I took, um, The Working Genius, we did The Working Genius and it's really interesting because some of my working frustrations are her working competencies and then we both have, you know, working, um, I forget what the word is, but somewhere in between to where we don't like doing it but we're capable of doing it. And so we're kind of like polar opposites within, within our marriage and within our relationship. And even just going through the exercise and realizing, you know, there's times where I'm acting a certain way and she can look at me and be like, oh well, that's because it's his working frustration, so how do I, how can I help him, how can I serve him?

And likewise, there's things that I know or her working frustrations that, you know, she's not an inventor. I'm an inventor. You know, that's part of like my skill set is it just comes naturally to me. I'm a discerner. So I've already thought 3 steps ahead in a process, which you talk about something that pisses people off is she's a wonderer, right? And so she wonders, she wants to ask questions, well, why are we doing it this way? And I might be on step 4 or 5 in the process and she's asking me a question about step 1 and I'm like, no, you know, we got to— we're already there and I've already thought through this. And so just understanding how we work and how we make decisions within our marriage, within our relationship, is super powerful. And I think the message here is within organizations it can be very powerful too. So explore some of these tools.

I mean, they're free or little to no cost. I mean, I, I can't think of many better ways to spend money to help improve an organization.

Mike

White: Yeah, I, I agree with you. And that's what the big organizations do. They, they spend a lot more— like the Strength Finders, um, stuff is— if you have it at scale, it's expensive. Like one-offs, I think they're $35 or something. Enneagrams, the same thing. And just like you guys are opposites, everybody's opposite. Everybody that gets— everybody gets married. See, you know, as part of UNHR, I do have to— I get to hear crazy stories. And the thing that attracts you to somebody usually is whether it's a business partner or spouse or employee, they do something that you don't do well. So when— and that's— I look up to that. The example I'll give you right now in my business, my business venture right now, no longer in corporate America, but my guy Rudy that we work together, works for me and he, he is a discipline to the max guy. I wake up right now It's 9:00.

It was 9:00 AM when we started this call. He— I have 5 things that he wants me to do because he wakes up every— I know he's up at 5:30 every morning and he goes through his list and then he emails me his list, makes sure he tells me like he has a process that he does every day and he doesn't miss one day. And that's why I want him on the team is because I know, I know that I am going to— I got a great product. I have I'm good at leadership, but those day-to-day tasks drive me crazy. It's always, I'm looking at what is gonna, you know, 80/20, 80/20 at what's gonna give me the biggest impact. Well, it's 80/20 until one of those 20 items gets you stuck. And he's a guy that will make sure every item gets done. So that, that helps you out too, is, is you don't want somebody just like you. You don't. It feels good. Right. A little bit, but it's— you're missing— you're having blind spots.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. All right. So let's get to today. You left Cat, maybe had a couple positions in between, and then where are you at today?

Mike

White: Yeah. So left Cat, went to Fairlife Milk for a little bit. They got bought out by Coke. It wasn't interesting, the giant organization anymore. Went to Master Lock. They're owned by Fortune Brands. It's a medium-sized company up in Milwaukee. Negotiated their, their contract, UAW contract, last time and had facility, big facility in Mexico, operations supply chain in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. So now I'm in there, I'm in there and I had this idea right out of school. I had this idea of being better at leading at the front line. The software that exists right now is built for for, for leadership. It's built for people that sit behind a desk. So I talked about people that do the work, the actual worker. That's not who the software is built for. It's built for the CFO. It's built for the C-suite folk, CEO to manage costs.

But the actual experience of a frontline leader is, oh man, I have like, like we talk about these scales. So in a big facility, you have a frontline leadership group of 30, maybe one of the companies I'm talking to has 90. 90 people. So you gotta remember all 90 names. You gotta remember how they performed, how many times they were late, how many write-ups they had, how many, how many recognitions do they have. What we did is we simplified it and we made it about, that is a, that is a headache that the supervisor can't do. So if you focus on that frontline leader, I wanna make their life easier. That's it. And if I can make their life easier, they, they quick documentation on coaching, quick documentation on recognition, quick, quick documentation on discipline. Make it easy for them because in the corporate world it's too hard.

And I would argue even in the small business world, it's hard because you don't have, you don't have an HR guy to tell you what. It's hard when you have an HR guy. But what if you had a system that said, I want to, I need to talk to this guy about it, about him being late. How do I even start that conversation? What do I need to document? Is he gonna be mad? Oh, will he still work? How do I, how do I approach that? And so we, we created a software that's super easy to deal with it. And what's that called? Secchi, S-E-C-C-H-I dot I-O. That's our website, Secchi. And it's named Secchi because there's a thing called a Secchi disk. The Secchi disk gives you the measurement of how clear water is. So I can go out— you're near the Illinois River and I, I don't know, you don't usually see people swimming in that. No, you don't. And you know that it's not clear, right? We can say it's not clear.

I can look at that river and go, that is not clear. And you can run your, you know, boat over and see fish drop or jump into your boat. So that's not, not clear, but I can go to the Gulf of Mexico and that's clear. But what? What defines clear and not clear? And I relate this to employees. I would ask Subaru in that 1,800-person facility, is that a good employee? Oh, great employee. Are they great employee or did they hunt fish with you last weekend? You know, what's clear and not clear on if they're good or not. So what the software does is it automates all that performance management to give you a really clear picture of if someone's good or not. And it takes away all that, that tightness in your stomach when you go, I got to talk to this guy. I like him. And in, in your case, it's a family member. I got to talk to, you know, my, my father-in-law about this.

This is going to be awkward as hell. Like, what am I going to do? Well, in our system, you would have, you would have documented the previous, the small stuff. It gets the small stuff. If I can take care of the small stuff, then the big stuff won't be so big. And it's changing. I, at first I was an HR tool and really it's a productivity tool because if I'm documenting my coaching, I'm now not having to use my brain space to remember, did I talk to him about that? Did I not? I know I talked to him and all those, you know, negative thoughts that we talked about at the beginning of this, it becomes more of a tool to coach people and just coach people and retain people.

Shay

Foulk: I think, uh, you said an important part there early on that it wasn't— it's not just designed for disciplinary actions either. It's also, you know, reward and achievements and, you know, exceptional things that you've done. And I think, I think that's really, really important. How do you, how do you avoid making sure that you're not being too cynical, especially when you're maybe in a small to mid-sized organization And all you want to do is document that, hey, this goober was late again and ready to fire him. And now here I have these 17 things that document why I should fire this person.

Mike

White: I have this theory and I don't know how the heck I'm going to prove it, but that, you know, people say folks leave bosses, they don't leave jobs. And I hear that a lot. But there is a part of this that I'm a competitive— I'm competitive by nature. And I would imagine most, most of your farmers are competitive. Most of your listeners are competitive because they, they're in one of the most competitive markets out there. And when I go into the workplace and I have to work the— I work harder, 3, 4 times harder than somebody that is just showing up every day. I can't stand working in that place. And how do I deal with that bad person? Because the dealing with the bad person actually engages your best performers. And there's a study out there that says your best performers are 8x your average performers. So they give you 8 times the return. And we all know this intuitively.

Everyone listening to this knows their person that gives them that return. In order to keep that 8x, you can't allow that -10x. And So there's another study out of the University of Washington that says a bad apple reduces the work group performance 40%, not their performance, the work group. And this is perfect for your business and your, your small groups. We all know this. If 1 out of 5 of them is a toxic employee, not only will they bring down your performance of 40% for that work group, they will create more toxic employees. So there's two pieces. When I say performance management, our brain immediately goes to the write-up piece. But how do you keep— one is you got to get the toxic, the real toxic people out. You got to, and you're going to justify every which reason, the job market and everything else, but the real toxic employees have to go and you have to take the initial hit.

Shay

Foulk: Are small businesses too small or are small businesses too slow to fire?

Mike

White: Everybody. I actually would argue that small business actually might be better than big corporate bureaucracy because they're going to— we got a bad employee, we're going to get, you know, you're at a big multinational corporation. The, the, the, the freebie lawyer, the lawyers on the billboards are going to pick up, are going to pick up the lawsuit. So I need to make sure everything all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed. In a small business, I think that you have a different challenge in that I could recruit somebody else generally. But the but is the, the, the, the, the term— I have to worry about the back end more than a small business. Whereas a small business, you separate somebody, it takes a while to find— you don't have a line of people that go, hey, I want to work at my, you know, Chase Farm, right?

Like, you don't have a pool of people just lining up and family members you can get referrals from.

Shay

Foulk: Everybody listening to this podcast from the ag sector can attest to that. The labor market is challenging everywhere, and it's incredibly challenging at the farm level. So I appreciate that comment.

Mike

White: Yeah, I, I can't say enough. I— what I did over the years is connecting with somebody at high school, just your shop teacher, your local— getting Just even showing up and doing a speaking event at a shop, you're going to get an 18-year-old that doesn't know where they're headed. And, um, you obviously believe in your career, so you can sell that. And yes, they're going to go out and party and maybe miss a few days. But, um, that's, that's what, that's what I did is I, I started recruiting, really build those relationships in high school. When somebody goes, I don't know what's going on. Well, hey. Mike down the road, Caterpillar just came and spoke here, you know. Yeah, I don't know if the speed, so the speed is, you always, every termination feels like I should have done it faster. I don't know one that doesn't feel that way.

But I will say if you're somebody that just goes out and lets people go right away, you're not creating a good environment either because then your good employee, you got to focus on what's the lens of your best employee? How does he view this? Or she view this? If they view it as an unstable work environment, they're gonna look. So it goes back to that balancing of the stakeholders and establishing really good expectations and goals. One of the things that drives me nuts is I hear they're good when they're here. She's good when she's here. He's good when he's here. And I'm like, they're not good then if they're not here. Somebody is doing twice the work because of that person.

Shay

Foulk: The minimum expectation is that you show up at the job.

Mike

White: Yes. Yeah. Dependability is not— yeah. So, um, yeah, so I, I, but you got to think about performance management through the lens of the positive too. So we say performance management, but performance management is how are your employees performing against a goal? I, I would guess how many of you guys have written on your board at that board behind you? Do you have your goal? What? Is your, what's your goal for when the, when you're planting? What's your goal for, your, your, how many bushels? Does anybody have a goal for bushels right now? Do you have it written down so everyone can see it that we're all going for that bushel target? And I know there's always a million factors. You guys got weather, manufacturing.

We have weather, the, the, the metal, metal, supply chain, like, Yeah, where, where are supply— there, there's always things out without your control, but the idea is what is— what exactly is a win and making sure you can find that win.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and we make the analogy, or I do, just experience in the military of you don't go to a shooting range without having a target downrange, right? Because otherwise you're just like wildly shooting and you're wasting ammo and you're wasting everybody's time, right? So what's your target? How do you aim at it? We have Um, you know, on the consulting side of the business, we implement, uh, the Entrepreneurial Operating System with a lot of organizations. Obviously, farm businesses are a little bit different. So if, if someone hasn't read Traction or Rocket Fuel, go out, find those by Gino Wickman, give them a listen. There's lots of applicable, uh, lessons and things that you can, you know, like what Mike's talking about here is just go out and figure out what processes and procedures and how do you clearly define what your goals are, have that target for your operation.

But I think more importantly, what you're saying here is how do you build those metrics back into the goals for the employees? You know, are you setting those expectations? Are you following up on those expectations? Are you measuring what success or failure or improvement looks like? Is that right?

Mike

White: Yeah. So, yeah. So what I found at scale— so you may not have the guy that goes out, your field boss, and a detasseling crew may not have them. Goal, but he has an expectation. So when in, in absent of a specific goal, it's easy to say team goals, right? You can easily say, hey, this is— I'm getting a high level of bushels into the year. Well, hey, we want to have— my goal for you is to check, you know, 3 fields a day or 5 fields a day. That could be a goal, but the expectation's different. The expectation is you're here on time every day as scheduled, your expectation about— I expect you to follow our, our ethics and guidelines or rules, you know, even if they're not written, you have them. I recommend writing them down. And it can be as easy as be respectful. That— and that's broad and hard to define, but that it can be that simple, can be, be respectful.

Then you have your, your reward and recognize that right behavior from an expectation standpoint. So my program measures your recognition, it measures your, your discipline. So how many people don't follow the rules and it measures your attendance. Now, what we think performance management— I finally get to this point— recognition, recognition, recognition. I'm a big fan of the languages of appreciation, which are from the Love Languages book. I read the Love Languages book in my pre-marriage counseling. I go, oh man, this would be great for the workplace. But, you know, he ended up writing a book that was appropriate touch, which is a handshake, right? So that was the hangup on the love languages. But if you appreciate people in the way they want to be appreciated, one of those things that I found is I bought, I bought sandwiches for an entire facility, spent, spent $5,600 on it.

And I was like, golly, inflation. And and I walked away and I, it just bothered me and it stuck with me. And then I thought, you know what would be more impactful is I, I only made about 80% of those people happy when I bought that sandwich for 15 minutes because 80% of those people like what they got. 20% were pissed off. They, they got the regular chips and not the barbecue. And so, they not only was it disengaging and I spent that money, they, they now go tell 7 people, but they hate regular chips. So I thought about this and I thought, how can I figure out who's the best? And, and with our program, if you, if you enter in their attendance, if you put in some coaching and put in some recognition, I think it would be way more important to take 20 people and their spouse to a steak dinner for $5,600.

I can, I can You know, maybe even if we made it a buffet, I could probably even add more people and I could have them sit down with the president of the company and he would do it and, and say thank you for how awesome you are and being dependable. And that would be way more impactful than a bunch of Jimmy John's sandwiches. And that's what my program does. The reason we don't do that is because there's such a bias and there's so at scale, it's really hard to figure out. Who your best people are. So our program, when you recognize someone, it sends them a text. You send them a text so they can show their spouse. It also helps the leader understand how often they're doing it because our perception is we're doing a really good job of telling people they're good. I told him he was good. Or the other one I hear is he gets a paycheck, right?

Well, yeah, that might have worked in our parents' generation, but it doesn't work with with us. I'm at the end of the Gen X, beginning of millennial age. So I didn't get, I didn't get a trophy for everything. But there were more trophies than there were the previous 10 years.

Shay

Foulk: So yeah, I think as leaders and managers in ag business organizations, or just businesses in general, what you said there is we are not good at showing appreciation to the level that we need to be. And, and that's from small business to large business of we, we think it in our mind, but if you think that you're doing good, you probably need to do it 3 or 4 times as much as what you actually are. And just over-communicating that. And that's where we, uh, you know, a lot of the operations that we work with at, uh, daily meetings, or if they have weekly meetings, you know, at Mondays everybody's together. It's just a, you know, a toolbox talk of, hey, this is what we got going on this week.

And just say, you know, that's an opportunity for you to point out, you know, hey, Mike, I really appreciated what you did last week, how you managed that customer, had lasting impact on what our next couple months is going to be. So thank you so much for doing that. Just go around the room and say, you know, thank you for the things that you've done. That's a great starting point for people from a management perspective, just showing that appreciation.

Mike

White: And I would argue, I would argue is, and what my, my software does is you're doing that, the toolbox talk.. But after that's gone, it feels good. It feels good. But 2 weeks down the road, 3 weeks down the road, are you gonna remember that? And you're not writing that, you know, and I don't, the reality is everyone in manufacturing carries a book like this. I got a little book that write notes in and I have, I have 20 of them behind me because I pretend like I'm gonna go open that again. I may document it. I never do.

Shay

Foulk: And that's good for your mind too.

Mike

White: Right, right. It makes me feel good inside because my intentions are good and not nefarious. Nefarious. So the— what my program does is you write a little note into a book, into a— it's like a book, right? Like on your cell phone, you hit a little note, sends them a text message. They have it to remember, a document that they have because it's in text. And you have it on their performance report that you can recall 6 months from now when they ask for a raise and you go, Dude, you asked for a raise, you've missed 10 days. And they'll go, well, you thanked me in that huddle meeting. And you go, yeah, I did. On this date, I thanked you. You're right. And you know what? But you've missed 10 days. Like, come on, man. I'm not— I can't afford to pay. You show me that you can go 6 months without missing a day and you get 2 more of those huddle recognitions, then we'll talk.

That's my small business case right now. One that we're working with small roofing company. And he goes, you know, yeah, guys ask for raise, and I just kind of ask the supervisor, and we wing it. And, and, you know, not to say the supervisor in a data point, they should be a data point. But if you have the data, then that conversation that is really uncomfortable becomes less uncomfortable, because we're arguing, we're discussing the data, we're not discussing our personalities and emotions.

Shay

Foulk: And those employee reviews, we encourage people to do it at a minimum twice a year. You know, how frequently for small businesses or organizations that you work with, how often do you think that those employee reviews should be utilizing Secchi for, for that information?

Mike

White: So I think the— I will say the answer is all over the place. So big corporations have started moving away from reviews because they have more frequent check-ins. So like quarterly, some of the big ones have done this. And then there's been the push, there's been also pushback to say, all right, this is great to do, sure, but we need to have documentation because I need to know who my best employees are. So my personal experience and opinion and how you use Secchi is you use it how that what works for your business. So if you needed, you need to give your employees increases, this, it's going to happen, right? You're going to get inflation. Review it. And if you want to review it annually or wait till they bring it up, that's fine. But you want to have data to have that discussion.

Now, developing people, I would want to see in what our best customers, the customer that's getting the most benefit, increased production 15%. They're in there every week recognizing— I mean, not— I mean, every day, not even every week, recognizing, coaching people. Hey, reminder on how to do this procedure. Hey, this was a quality issue. You don't have to write people up for that, but you should document it. You should. If you document it, you will save so— well, I don't have time for that. You will save an insane amount of money on unemployment insurance. You will save an insane amount of money on— if you ever get into a legal mess, you have backup. And that little minute of, of documented coaching is great. One is the purpose is to make them better.

The purpose is not to protect yourself, but you get a little insurance policy and you make them better and you document, hey, look, oh man, you've really— we, we used to have to coach you on the way the office looked, right? And now I don't. I walk in there and it looks great every time. And now I have something to measure with it. So it's— go back to your question on a time frame. I think it depends on your business, but— and your individuals. And when you think about your individuals, think about your best employee. Take it through the best employee lens, because what we get caught in, just like we think everybody has bad intentions, is you, but you focus on that bottom 5%. If you continue to focus on that bottom 5%, you are building a business for that bottom 5%. So somebody mouths off to a customer, right? Like you had a farmer walk in.

If you mouthed off to that customer, and that you talk to the one of your employees does and you talk to that employee, hey, you can't— you got to be more respectful. And they go, well, where's the rule to be more respectful? What does that mean? And they argue. Get those people out as fast as you can, because if you have those folks that say, well, where's the rule? The rule is be respectful. The rule is you can even be as broad as you want. Hey, if you're representing me and my family, you're not going to act that way.. And that's the stuff you need to keep track of.

Shay

Foulk: So that's huge. And what you said there on— you build it for the people that you're working with, but it's also nice to have that documentation and what it could save you from, like you said, unemployment insurance or legal issues or whatever. It's a little bit the same way with safety that we talk about in farm operations and ag businesses is you never know how much money you're going to save by something that didn't happen. Yeah, someone that— and, and with safety, it's, it's life and death sometimes. If you never know whose life you saved by doing things safely and taking time to do that more slowly. And I think there's so many dollars that are at risk, and also real tangible dollars there from an employee management perspective, from a safety perspective, whatever other processes and procedures that are hard to measure.

That I think the system that you've developed here is probably crucial for that.

Mike

White: Oh, the input on safety and growing up professionally in the manufacturing world and then being brought on to safety in the farming world is, you know, the don't be a dummy. It's not great safety training. It helps with common sense and I learned the hard way. But you get in the manufacturing world and you're not holding the rail and somebody's like, what are you doing? Grab the rail. You know, because the joke, not even a joke, that boss I told you that told me I hadn't worked a day in my life, he, I said, what do you think the best safety advice is? And he's like, hold a handrail. He's like, that's the best. 'Cause there, we have so many rolled ankles in safety. And you know, you think about how many grain bins you've been up on, right? Did you hold the handrail every, like, it, it's silly.

It feels silly saying it out loud, but even those type of things and being, being diligent about it— and you don't have to be a jerk, but being diligent about the little things end up saving the big things, you know. I think that's—

Shay

Foulk: yeah, no, that's, that's huge. And I, I want to make sure, you know, as we're talking about Seki here, what, what haven't we talked about? What else is going on? Uh, who does this fit? You know, who's the audience that you think this is a great tool for? Not even specific to to the ag audience here, you know, the people that you're looking to work with that you think this is important with. Tell me a little bit about what else we maybe haven't talked about and then what the future of the business looks like.

Mike

White: Right. So I think, I think the question that, that I ask and that I'd ask your audience is, is why is it so hard to keep people? You know, why, why is that so hard? And when something's hard, whether it's a goal or a project you're working on, what gets measured gets done. What gets measured gets done. We're all getting measured. And so if you're not measuring your people, what are you missing out on? What are you missing out on retention? What are you missing out on in safety? What are you missing out on just extra effort? And, and from a Secchi standpoint, I, I can't say enough about creating clarity of your, of your workforce and getting people engaged on your teams. And not just in a way, not just in the soft way of, hey, let's be nice to people, but in a meaningful, authentic way that shows the recognition that your folks want.

And immediately what you hear a lot of, what I hear a lot is money. It's always money. It's not always money. It's, it's, are you letting that bad folk bring your team down? Are you letting that, are you going through the good employee lens? And the reality is frontline leadership's hard emotionally and tactically. So I'm gonna, Secchi takes away that emotional challenge with data. We're gonna give you data and that data comes from a really solid process. I kicked off this conversation talking about process and fairness and A clear understood process that is executed well creates a consistent fair outcome. And yeah, I would check us out. I just say on LinkedIn, I'm going to LinkedIn, we're S-E-C-C-H-I, Secchi, and or secchi.io. You guys can call me, message me, you can book a meeting with me off that website.

Anybody that's your listener, if they have a group, if they have a group that they'd want a performance management training on, I will offer that up as a free webinar with them personally. And then I, I'll give a quick plug to a book that I base my performance management off of. It's called— it's on Amazon. It's by David Dunn. It's called Baba on Business. And this is a read that if you— it is not— it is short. It has pictures. It is— if you're not a reader, you can still read this. I, I asked one of my plan managers to put it next to his toilet. I was like, just— you will be done in a month. Just put it in there. And it is so simple and it's common sense leadership. And you talk— Bubba in that book is the good employee. Take the good employee's lens. Stop dipping around and playing games with your pain employee and your pain employee.

There is a level— understand and create an expectation in your head. There is a level of pain that you put up with, with your best, especially technical folks, right? I worked with a building full of CAD engineers, some of the smartest people in the world. You know, there's MIT grads. And, you know, I, I'm from Mohammed, Illinois, right? And these guys, you know, I think about how smart do you have to be to come, come from a foreign country, you know, China or India where you're taking test after test at 6th grade. I mean, these folks are geniuses and even in, you know, the MITs or the local people, genius folks. But there's a level of You can be as smart as you want, but if you're not respectful and you're hurting our environment, then I, we, we got to address that. So, um, really thinking about your expectation of how much pain you're going to take.

Uh, like they're good when they're here.

Shay

Foulk: Oof.

Mike

White: Yeah, but you just, you're, you're setting the example, the other 10 guys about how they, they need to be dependable.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. So, you know, future, future of your business, uh, the outlook with Secchi. Um, you know, I, I think it's, I think it's huge. I think it could have a dramatic impact in multiple industries, and, and the success rate I think will be fantastic on your end. You know, how, how does this grow? Who's, who's part of your team right now? People that want to get involved with you, what else do they need to know about Seki?

Mike

White: So, so here, here's the, here's the big, here's the big dream, the BHAG. Is I firmly believe you all can Google hourly performance management. You can Google frontline performance management. It's built— all the software out there is built for people that sit at computers. You know, 360 reviews are great. Oh, they created an app, but it's based off of the mindset of people that Joe would say don't work for a living, like do the real work, right? Not that it's not, but they get their hands dirty work. And We're the only one out there right now that's really focused on the front lines. I'm, I'm, I did go to college and got the master's, but at the core of my environment, my friends are folks that do work. And I think I understand this problem intimately.

And we've got a really good, we have a really good solution that addresses that emotional challenge and that tightness in your stomach when you go, "Oh, I got to talk to this employee tomorrow. I don't want to do this. I like Jimmy and he's going to..." And even the toughest guys, even the absolute toughest guys from Aurora, Illinois and Mapleton, Illinois that fought with the union every day, behind closed doors, and I have those conversations, it's tough for everybody. Those are whether, whether you're managing a giant organization or you're managing 10 people or 3 people, it's tough. So the way you get rid of that emotion, the way you get away, away from that pain is you get data. That is, that, that is the answer. Data and process will alleviate that, that pain.

Outlook for me, the big, big BHAG is I'm going to, I joke, I want to enter, I want to improve the I don't— I shouldn't even say joke. I'm serious. I want to improve the productivity of the United States. So any operation, anyone in operation, people are 70% of the cost. Take away your supplies, 70% of most operations are people. The most controllable thing you cost you have are people. And the only tool you have to manage that cost, or most of us have to manage that cost, is Hire them or fire them and it goes up or down. But once they're there, how can you, how can you get the most out of folks? And the way you get the most out of folks is developing and identifying the right talent, what a great employee is, and focusing on with that great employee connecting with them in a way that, that that produces more results.

So on a high level, as an executive level, when you're looking across an organization with thousands and thousands of people, it's hard to do that. Well, our program creates the process and data to, to make that happen.

Shay

Foulk: You know, one of the, one of the closing things here as we wrap up that I like what you said from earlier is realizing that when do I need to be the leader and when do I need to be the follower, or when do I need to be led. And I think that's really important for people in growing businesses that have— that are high operating, that have huge aspirations for their business, is you got there, you got to your leadership role because someone led you and someone taught you, or you have these learned experiences that, that made you the way that you are. You need to continue to be led, you need to continue to learn in your business. And from an employee management standpoint, a lot of people out there are not good teachers.

And so using a tool like Secchi and to show the appreciation, to show your frontline management, to say, hey, you know, what do I need to be doing to make these employees better? Good employees get better because someone makes them that way. You know, someone helps elevate them. And a lot of times in the ag world, or I would just say labor management in general, whatever labor-intensive roles that you have, is we have this challenge of how do we develop people and do we have the time and the capacity and the skill set to do that. A tool like this helps you get there faster and helps take away those pain points and those challenges.

Mike

White: If you're not using data, whether it's written note, even written notes, or, or a spreadsheet, Right. If you're not using data, you're not going to get better. If it's not measured, it's not going to get done. And whether there's 2 people working for you or 100,000, if it's not measured, it's not going to get done. And having those solutions of real-time insights, communications, real-time leadership, and then data-driven, that those are the, those are the keys that will change it for you.

Shay

Foulk: Mike, any closing thoughts here on, on Secchi, on our conversation? You know, I really appreciate you taking the time. Any, any last thoughts here?

Mike

White: No, I just appreciate any follow on LinkedIn if you all are using LinkedIn. And then I challenge you all, when you see the headlines, Home Depot gives $1 billion to hourly employees. When you see the headlines, great resignation, people are harder to find than ever, crippling workforce shortages. Amazon— I'm looking at them right now. Amazon's attrition costs them $8 billion annually. That all those headlines transfer directly to your 2-person business. It's just a different scale. The same problems when you have 5 people as you have 500,000, it's the same problem. So don't— I guess I would encourage your folks, just like you said, hey, one of those personality tools, the Grippy Model, is so simple, so simple. You don't have to get a master's to use it. Just Google it. To use those tools to address these giant headlines.

If you're reading a headline, it probably relates to your business just on a smaller scale. And if you all need any help, you're welcome. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Seki.io. And I, I'll just leave it with this. What, what at its core, why this program is built is because there is an unfairness and there is a, I talk about not using fair. There is something really wrong in a workforce where somebody works really, really hard and does 10x, 8x what an average person does and you're not rewarding them. And I, my purpose statement when I started this company was let great workers do great work. So letting that great worker do great work means you're recognizing them, you're engaging that great worker more than you are anybody else. And you're doing it in a way that encourages others to be great workers.

Shay

Foulk: I don't think we could wrap it up any better than that. Mike, thank you so much for the time. For those of you listening, go check out Secchi. Have a happy Easter weekend here, Mike. I appreciate you taking the time.

Mike

White: Thanks. You too, Shay.

Shay

Foulk: And everyone listening, thank you. And we will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.