Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm so glad that you're here. One of the things that I believe
is that the skill of managing, people have some very
foundational and common threads, no matter what industry you're
in, and no matter what kind of organization you're in, one of
the things I've seen, as I've been teaching, is that my
students come from every industry, every sect, For every
size organization, but so many of their questions are the same
and this is why today, I'm really excited to share a new
guest with you. He's not just an amazing person
and a great manager, but he's also my cousin.
I've known him for a long time and his name is Ross Suave and
he works in construction and in specifically working with very A
high end mill work, which he will tell you more about and it
was so fun to talk with him about what he has learned about
managing people in the course of his career and in his industry.
So get ready to take some notes, he has a lot of great insight to
share that. I know can be helpful to you no
matter what industry you're in. Here we go.
All right, Ross, I am so glad to have you on the show today.
Well, thank you. It's nice to be here.
Yeah. So why don't you tell us who you
are and what you do? I work for a mill shop, a
high-end interior. Woodwork shop do a lot of the
really wealthy clients Interior homes.
And my current role is to oversee all the blueprints that
are required to fabricate. All of that interior Millwork,
be it. All the doors or Cabinetry or
the crown or any type of trim or beans, basically any would work
inside the home except for the floors.
So I'm in charge of overseeing all of those blueprints that
need to go to the shop floor that are then fabricated and the
shop and then sent a site installed that sounds like a
lot. Like as you're talking I'm
looking just around my apartment at all of the wood things that
are not the floor. That's a lot.
Thank you. Until you really start thinking
about especially the doors. The doors are a much bigger deal
and I think people realize when it comes to Interior finish work
but there's a lot for sure. Yeah and I was so we're also
cousins which is which is also true.
We should have wood line. Yeah, we share it.
We and you know, we share like, you know, family summer
barbecues and things. And one of the reasons I was
really, I'm just interested to hear about your experiences that
In your industry. Like when you think about
building out a home you immediately think.
That's a lot of coordination. There are a lot of pieces, a lot
of people to that. Yeah.
And so getting your take on. How do you Matt like, what do
you like, what have you learned about?
How to manage people effectively and where I'd love to start with
this too is in your career who's the best manager you've ever
had? Best Buy.
I would have to say probably step and sakuma he was the one
that hired me into my current position about 13 years ago.
He has since retired but he was more almost more of a father
figure than a manager. Just really cared, wanted the
best for everyone at a small enough company at the time.
He knew everybody's spouses name and your kid's name.
You know only about 50 employees at the time they've since been
purchased by a much larger company Any.
So it doesn't have that that home that family feel any
longer, it's just how it happens.
But but he was a very pitiable individual in the success of me
being able to support and raise my own family.
You know. He gave me a lot of
opportunities and taught me a lot and a lot of freedom as well
to to learn and just to try to do it right as opposed to doing
a quickly with just a unique scenario in.
Action. So I always feel really
fortunate for that. That was really just about, take
your time, do the best you can. Because that's what we're trying
to provide. And I think like, I was there.
He said, I think that's a very unique opportunity in
construction because usually, it's three legs writes like a
stool. You can have kinetic quick and
can have it cheap, or you can have it good.
And you can only have two of the three ever one time, you know,
you can't have all three again, have high-quality really quickly
for chook, you know? So So it's really about my
industry is really about trying to manage those, trying to
manage the clients to a certain extent that you can't have all
of it. And you know, Stephen was very
integral and teaching me that and helping me navigate around
issues that arise from that went on the job site because as I was
the install for Min for 10 years.
So I was on site every day managing Crews, sometimes up to
28 German carpenters and some of these huge projects, you know,
one I'm but also having to deal with the contractor and all the
other subcontractors and occasionally when the clients or
the client reps, there's a lot there's a lot going on.
That needs to be managed. How did you learn how to do
that? Like when you when you say you
had 28 journeyman carpenters and you had to manage like clients
and subcontractor con subcontractors.
Was there a particular? I don't know.
Like was that like like what helped you to To, to manage all
of that, because I'm thinking that's a lot of people.
It's a lot of personalities. It's a lot of different, you
know, demands and needs, like, how did you do that?
Well, you know, try to sleep flexible 41.
And, and keep a, a larger picture in mind.
Not get caught up in the minutiae of daily details, which
is pretty easy to do sometimes, but trying to take kind of a
more of a macro view of what's going on.
Helped me and really it All just think it all just comes down to
managing relationships. Whether that the parent-child,
you know, lovers employees employer.
It's really just, you're constantly at least.
I am constantly collecting facts, whatever those may be.
And then assessing and adjusting and continually.
Reworking my perspective, I guess to a certain degree
because it's you know, it's a every relationship as a is a
living thing and achieving is yeah, going to keep paying
attention and kind of makes it sound like it's difficult, but I
have never found that it's just, you know, I like people and like
to communicate with people and I like to get along with people
and that's really worked out well for me, you know, being
able to identify with people as close to their level as I can.
It myself, wherever I think that level is you know and and
identifying and respecting other people really relationship.
You know everyone. Yeah.
And I think I'm I so appreciate that.
You're like what you said about it's about relationships.
It's about seeing the bigger picture not getting caught in
the details. You know that it's about really
caring because you know you like you like you you might think and
what I hear sometimes with my students and what they do is
they say well I'm really good. Good at the thing that I do.
But now, I'm managing people and that's a totally different skill
and in your world and the world of construction.
I'm imagining, you know, it's one thing to know how to build
and install really complex would work and that is a different
skill than managing, complex, relationships, and
personalities. Yeah, yes.
So I don't know. I've never really tried to break
it down. Yeah, it's just Me as a starting
point to get along with people and be more of the first things
I would always do when I got the job site is, you know, there are
a lot of moving pieces. They're like, sitting a lot of
other subcontractors, you have, you know, all of your
electricians and plumbers as well as the general, your
landscapers and people hanging the sheetrock and people didn't
fry me. And, you know, there are a lot
of people there and I would always make an effort to be as
helpful as I could to any of the other subcontractors right out
of the gate if they ever wanted help because I know noticed
early in my career there there there could be a lot of tension
built between those subcontractors because you know,
if you've got a lot of stress, a lot of things to do to install,
but then somebody's asking you for help and you can figure out
where this Plumbing lines supposed to come out of the
wall. So when your Cabinetry gets
here, you know, it'll be the right spot and the P-trap and
everything will work in the water will flow out properly.
I found that there were some subcontractors that Just didn't
really try to get along with each other and almost every time
by the end of the project was always a problem.
And I realized that. Hey, if I can help these people
out a little bit right at the beginning, even though it's not
my job and it's going to waste a half an hour of my day, if I can
help them. Now, that's going to create so
much. Goodwill that later down the
line. I'm gonna probably want a favor
from them to or some help them, something they're doing.
And I kind of learned that we're On the same team, you know, the
whole point is to produce the best product we can for this
client and do it in as timely manner as possible.
And I think that's part of that macro view.
I was talking about, it's not just about me focused in on just
getting my would work in. It's a, there's a larger
perspective coming at it from the the the concept that we're
all on the same team even if they're not technically my team
members, I think really worked well for me over my career,
really. Is in that everyone's just,
they're trying to make a dollar feed, their family do the best,
they can get out of there on time, so you're not running late
and not late to dinner or whatever it is.
And we're all just doing the same Rat Race, you know?
So having an appreciation that each individual is doing their
own thing and doing the best that they can.
At that time, I think really helped me in identifying with
people as individuals, I guess ultimately managing working on
managing each and every one of those relationships.
You know. Just like a Do with my family.
You know how I could do with my cousin, you know, I'm curious to
know if there was ever a conflict or if someone, you
know, like dropped the ball and you had to talk with them about
that. Yeah well the worst part is on
the fire somebody that's for sure.
First for me as a manager. You know letting somebody go as
tough you know because again it's like this is their
livelihood and but at a certain point he do have to have to cut
the string. You got to pull that.
Plug if somebody is is not pulling enough of their own
weight, if they're dragging you down with them because you're
having to go in and double check, their work every time and
And make sure that they're good things in the right location and
if I'm spending hours of my day you know helping somebody do
their job in a way that they should be able to do.
It are many with the right Advanced information.
You know this is where this needs to go.
These are the grid lines that you need to measure from.
These are the numbers of the face of this cabinet needs to be
in at go for, you know, and if I come back and it's wrong, then
it's like, okay, that waste my Time's wasting their time
wasting money so they give him another chance and two or three
times have been a few people that just couldn't do it.
And firing people's terrible worst part of managing them like
my opinion but also sounds like you know that's not the first
thing you go to like I really hear that you.
It sounds like you really give a lot of benefit of the doubt and
also that you really try to help people succeed with that whole,
you know, we're on the same team mentality.
Yeah. I got ya, give me a chance and
well it's part of my job to is to you know, make sure it all
worked and that everybody was doing what they could to be
successful. I found that it was important to
give the right job to the right person.
That was something that took me a little while to figure out not
everybody has the same set of skills.
Obviously you know some people are better at setting the door
or installing Crown. Also a difficult thing to do
because of the angles, you know? Certain people are good at it.
Certain people struggle. So I was, I found myself often
times doubt trying to balance. Is this a scenario where I can
help make this Carpenter better at the skill that they're
lacking at, or do we not have time to do that?
And they just have to get the same thing that they've proven,
they can do over and over again. And that would change on each
job dependent on the time frame and how many people I had and
what all was going on. But, you know, sometimes you
just gotta give the right job to the right person.
Because they can get it done. Even though they might not be
the best overall person. But, you know, they still have a
skill set that they can work with him.
And it sounds like, you know, you don't always know at the
outset. What the right job is for the
right person. No like people a chance to
succeed. Well and what I think is a great
about that too, is it's not like something is terribly wrong.
If the person who's really good at installing installing Crown
molds, can't do like the cabinet were Or the door framing or
something. Right?
Like, yeah, kind of there's still a use for that skill, for
sure. So I'm curious to know what have
you learned about managing up like managing your manager or
communicating, to the folks, at words, for me, it's the same
thing. It's managing a relationship,
you know, whether or not that person has the ability to fire
me or I have the ability to fire them.
It's really about Out. I mean, I feel like I manage my
managers just as much as they manage me, but just how you
would in a relationship of any sort.
We gotta pay attention to what that person finds important and
try to be able to identify with them when you talking with the
owner of the company and me talking with a carpenter that
is, you know, working with me. They're still a person, they
deserve respect unless they don't show respect, you know,
it's a two-way street obviously. But for me, it's kind of all one
in the same. I need You identify with and
meet my managers somewhere where we can, you know, connect
mentally and even emotionally. Oftentimes just as I would
somebody that work beneath me and I know that someone is going
to listen to this and think, how do you do that?
Like how do you connect emotionally?
Or how do you understand what your manager cares about?
Listen, listen and ask questions.
S, you know, people tell you about themselves.
If your be respectful and ask questions and things, you want
to know. Most people people like to talk
about themselves, which is not a bad thing at all.
You know, you're sharing and that's growth in a relationship.
Another question I wanted to ask is that you, you work from home
now, which I love because, yeah, because normally, when we think
of construction, we think of, like bodies on a construction
site, building things and it, Like, that's what you did at the
first part of your career and you've now shifted to a role
that lets you work from home and I man and I also want to point
out this was way before the pandemic sort of required
everyone to work from home. And I've been working for home
for around four and a half five years.
This and was that something that you negotiated for and you
decided for yourself or was that something that like already
existed and that He said it was that it was kind of organic, it
wasn't a plan, you know, on the job sites there will be times
inevitably where we don't have enough work to install it at a
given period, right? So the odd, I mean, the, the
options for the company are lay off the installers, you know
which nobody wants or find something else for them to do in
the next couple of months until we have something new to
install, right? So we had some of that down time
and when I started with the design would work in the
company, Stephen hired me with 13 years ago, the first thing
they did was they gave me a computer that had AutoCAD on it
and had all the drawings which I have never had never dealt with
or knew anything about at the time.
But over the years always having that computer on the job site
and, you know, just slowly kind of learning how AutoCAD worked
and trying to pick that up and then asking questions to the
guys in the office, you know, call up.
So, how do I do this? How do I make this rectangle?
How do I move this line, all that those little little tricks
to wearing? Eventually I had learned enough
for one time we had some downtime and I was like, hey,
just let me draw something like gold.
You know how to draw? And I was like, well, yeah, so
they gave me something and, you know, I drew it and, and there
are bombs great. And so I tried to play on that
as much as possible because I knew I didn't want to wear bags
my entire life, and be crawling around on my knees and getting
up at 4:30 in the morning to drive to San Francisco every
day. Because I live about two hours
away from there. And ultimately, I really Don't
know how it worked out. So well, to be quite honest, I
feel like I got lucky and the transition from when the old
owner sold it to the new company, I kind of fell through
the cracks a little bit there. There weren't that many people
working remotely. So I was able to transition from
the in known as the lead installer to be known more as an
engineer with the change of company.
So it just kind of kind of kind of all just fell together.
I think I think there's a fair amount of Luck in some of it,
but it definitely wasn't a conscious.
I'm gonna try to carve out a work from home position for
myself, in a mill shop because there really weren't any of
those to begin with. That's kind of a relief to hear.
I think, you know, like you don't have to have kind of a big
master plan, but I mean, it sounds like by listening by
asking questions by being right, being open to learning new
things, it Like, you really ended up designing this stage of
your career, in a way that works out really well for you.
And I'm guessing for the company to because now, there are all
these things that you can do, when the job site doesn't
require you to be there. Well, absolutely.
You know, I don't have to be on the job site hardly ever and
and, you know, working remotely. I think does work for the
company, you know, I mean, I always, they do is pay my
salary, right? And provide the, the computers
and whatnot. All the the heating and cooling
and somehow and electricity and you know, all of those office
space things, right. They don't have to provide any
type of overhead for me to work anywhere because I provided all
for myself. So I do, I like to believe that
there's a, you know, a benefit both ways and there must be,
otherwise, they wouldn't let me keep doing it.
Well, and it sounds to, you know, just like everything
you've shared about, you know, how you, how you have learned to
manage people. Everything that you've learned
about Relationship, building everything you've learned about
the business can only be. I'm sure of greater value than
you probably realize, right? Because I feel like it's easy.
It's easy for us to overlook the things that we do.
Well, very much. So, I mean, it's like teaching
you don't really know how. Well, you know, something is
totally teach it to somebody else, you know?
And that's that's been an interesting thing for me as
well, you know, those being in a position as a manager to teach
people things I realized like wow.
Now, I really know a lot more than I thought I did.
And yeah, I think there's value for that and Company, I think
one of the most important things, at least, for me in
life, and in my role, as a manager, or as an employee, is I
try to be as adaptable as possible.
I feel like the more useful I can make myself better, right?
Everybody wins. I gained knowledge, I learned
something new, the company gets an extra benefit without having
to, you know, send me to seminars or, or pay for extra
schooling or something just like, Right.
What can I learn? I want to learn something new
and you know, sometimes those vocational courses are required
and that's fine too. But I do think that is one of my
strongest suits is my ability to adapt and I Rely heavily on it.
What advice would you give to a new manager?
Patience be calm. Is honest as you can be.
I mean don't tell people you don't know what you're doing if
you're trying to wing it, but keep your eyes open, you know,
and communicate, ask questions, you know, get to know the people
that work with you and around you.
Whether they're above you or below, you manage the
relationship. I'm not managing somebody's
occupation, they do that themselves.
I'm managing the relationship that that person and I have in
order for me to explain I need them to do how quickly I need
them to do it and then they do it and then I critique it, you
know, and that's hopefully how there's feedback for them and
progress for their career and for the company and ideally the
whole team wins. Such good insight and you know
it when I hear you say, it sounds like oh, so obvious.
So simple, right? Look, we all want to be managed
that way, but it's really amazing.
How often people forget to do those that you think?
Well, yeah, so easy to be overwhelmed.
Yeah, no, I mean, it's just life in general.
The loop endemic thing now and I've got three small children.
You know, are at home that I'm, you know, it's summertime and
trying to work and the whole covid thing.
Yeah, there's it's really easy to get over.
I just got to keep breathing. All right, take five minutes to
sit on a cushion and do a little reading and home.
Calm yourself down, be patient and listen.
Yeah, anticipate in the relationship.
Don't just bark orders. Nobody wants to be barked at.
You know, you can give people Direction respectfully and it's
not hard to do. Just treat them like you would
like to treat when your friends. Yeah.
Nice Ross. Thank you so much for taking
time out. Out to share with all of us
today. Hopefully somebody find
something useful there. I certainly have.
Thanks so much. Okay thank you very much.
Fucking do you want personal confidential help with your
situation at work, I offer one-on-one coaching and can help
you overcome challenges reach your goals and become a more
effective leader to schedule a consult.
Go to my website, Kim nickel.com coaching and we'll schedule time
to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk
to you soon.