11. Supporting Each Other

Andrea and Griffin discuss the second value in the "Customers & Coworkers are our Team" category: Supporting Each Other. Plus Mother's Day and seat belts.

Values Poster: https://hahnrmg.com/about/values

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer and Griffin Hahn and producer Lex.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

How's it going today?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Great. What's new? This is is this a very special Mother's Day edition of the podcast?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I mean, it can be if you want it to be. Happy Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Thanks. Yeah. What do you what do you have planned?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Uh we're I think Sounds like nothing. No, my my in-laws are coming over and uh my wife's grandma. And so that'll be that'll be good. Uh as they're coming as long as my youngest isn't sick again, because they won't they won't want to bring uh the grandma over if he's sick. So we're I guess we're still waiting to find out what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Got it, got it. Well, at least it looks like really nice weather this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

All right. Well, I think this is the second in our series of values podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

What's what's the value of the day?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Well, we're still in kind of that that pillar of customers and coworkers are our team. And last week we covered taking ownership. And this week we're going to talk about supporting each other and what that means. So I think we can think about this both internally and externally. So how do we work with our you know the other members at Han ReadyMix and how do we work with our uh customers in particular, but also our vendors and making sure we are all successful together.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Good idea. So, like exactly how it says it on the poster, customers and coworkers?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah. Okay. That kind of that's why it says it.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

All right. Let's start with coworkers then. Tell us a little bit about supporting each other internally with our coworkers.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah. So uh a few concepts here, actually quite a few. The the obvious and simplest one to kind of understand is if you see someone that needs help, let's help them out. Right? If we see somebody that is either doesn't have the resources or can't handle something that's going on and needs another, if it's just needs another pair of arms or needs help figuring out uh you know a computer issue or or anything. If you see someone that needs help, we should help them out because we're all working on a team together.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think sometimes that's a little bit sensitive, right? Like you see somebody and you're like, oh, that doesn't look quite right, but how do you approach someone and offer help? And I found that being curious is really the best way to go into that. So just kind of say, hey, what are you trying to do here? And then they start telling you what they're trying to do, and then you can offer help that way.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great way to do it. One of the things that we always have to remember is that we all have lives outside of this place as much as we all want to be here a hundred percent of our time, right? But we have lives outside of our uh this place, and and we all have different challenges, different perspectives, different uh experiences happening. And and frankly, those things can color the way we view how things go at work or our attitudes or all that. And so we just always have to remember that everybody's walking their own journey, and sometimes that journey is harder than other times, and and that can make things more challenging at work. So having some empathy for other people's path and and whatever might be happening outside of work is a good thing to keep in mind as well. But you know, we're all in this together and we need to support those people, lift them up when when they're having tough times.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Absolutely. Just expressing a little bit of care and concern for people like you have no idea how hard it was for them to get into work that day. Nobody's coming in trying to do a bad job. So if you just try to understand where they're coming from and help them out as much as you can.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, absolutely. And then this is one of my favorite ones. We we learned this from Steve Ott when we did the leadership training, is assuming positive intent. So this happens, I think, all the time, particularly with uh written communication for sure, where a text message or a message over a tablet.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Or from dispatch in all caps.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yes, exactly. Why are they yelling at me? Is it's really easy to not necessarily misconstrue, but just read more into what someone is saying than than they might actually be trying to do, right? So I think it's a really good thing to keep in the back of our mind that if we assume positive intent on anything we you know, give the other person the benefit of the doubt, look at it through rose-colored glasses and say, maybe, maybe they said this because they think this, right? And give them that that chance, that that grace to to live up to that positive intent. And I think most of the time that's that is the case, right? I mean, I more times than not, people aren't thinking about the the potentially negative way, it could be could be read. So that is um something I I think we all can can work on, and and it's hard for everybody to do that. But um, assuming positive intent really helps avoid confrontation or hurt feelings and things like that. You can just say, hey, I don't understand, I need some clarification or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, I think this concept has been a game changer for the manager level where we all do realize that everyone here is working towards the same goal. And so when you apply that lens to whatever has happened, it's easy to get to the point where you understand where they were coming from. So I encourage everybody to try it.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah. Another one is we don't want to leave people hanging, you know, if we're supporting each other, we don't want to leave people hanging. So if you know, if you make a commitment or you know, you know that uh some task or something that you're assigned or that is part of your job is going to make something more difficult for somebody else, we don't want to leave them out to dry, right? So I'll just make up an example. If you're a dispatcher and you get some information about, hey, uh the truck has to come in from the north and we forget to put that on the ticket and the truck comes in from the south, that's hanging the driver out to dry that he's gonna get yelled at by the by the contractor. So it's just important that we make sure we're thorough and that we follow through with the things that we're supposed to be doing so that we aren't uh hurting other members of the team or making things difficult for other members of the team.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, or using the knowledge that you gained through an experience to help whoever's coming behind you. You know, like if this was tough for me, it's definitely gonna be tough for the next guy. So what can I do? How can I relay this message so that it is easier for the next person?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Absolutely, absolutely. Uh and that's that's a good segue into just communicating, supporting each other is communicating, right? Communication, um, I I definitely think there's not a such thing as overcommunication. So uh anytime we can communicate and uh share ideas, share information, it's gonna be a boon to the whole team.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, I think this company is made up of a lot of people who are really good at doing things uh and not always so great at saying that those things are done now, so no one else else has to worry about it, including myself. I'll put myself out there.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, the same. Yeah. Uh yep, that sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

All right. Anything else on the internal coworker side of supporting each other?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

I got a couple things. We're we're kind of a macho industry, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And um we're oh yeah, I think of our drivers as cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah, yeah. So it's nobody wants to go around and say, yeah, yeah, I I I want praise or I deserve praise for this or that. But we're all humans and people like being told you're doing you're doing things right. And so uh a good way to support the rest of our team is to tell people, even if they're you don't have to be someone's boss. Like if you see uh one of your peers and you're like, hey, nice job, you killed it out there, you know, or or whatever, that matters to people. That that's a big deal. So I think that's something we could do a lot more of is give praise. We've been trying to do that kind of um from a top-down perspective in journaling, um, but it it doesn't have to be that way. We can we can just give uh praise to anybody we see deserves it.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

So yeah, I think it's really appreciated when people feel noticed. So not even just saying great job, but like I noticed this happened today. Thanks for getting that done. I think is going a long way with people.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, absolutely. And then the final one I had was course correcting. And this is kind of straddles helping out and and don't leave people hanging. But one of the things we've talked about a little bit is is if you see somebody that's you know doing things wrong or or maybe because they don't know the right way to do it or um isn't taking the proper time or whatever it might be, that it's it's better to help course correct them and so we're not continuing to do things wrong before it becomes you know either a serious safety issue or a performance issue where it's gonna get addressed. So even if the same thing, you have to be tactful in how we do it. But we say, hey, you know, I actually have you ever tried doing it this way? This is actually gonna work out better for you, it's or it's safer, or it's it, it's it's gonna be faster or or whatnot. So course correcting, if you see somebody that's off course on either how we act, our values, or or how we do the tasks we do is important. And I think we all have a a duty to help if we see that, right? It's not it's not being mean, we're not not trying to throw people under the bus and say, hey, you know, Andrea was doing this wrong today. That's not what we were talking about. We're talking about going to that person directly and say, hey, just have you thought about this? Have you have you have you looked at it this way? And and um and and that can make a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Good. Should we move on to uh customers?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, sure. So like we said before, it's customers and coworkers are our team, and we want to live that. And I think when you talk about supporting each other, that is something that we really strive to do for our customers. And a majority of our customers, you know, they buy all their concrete from us in the markets that we work in, right? So unless they're working in someplace we don't deliver to, um, they're buying all the concrete from us. And a majority of those don't even really take quotes from our competitors, right? So they're putting a tremendous amount of trust in us. They're they've really hitched their wagon to us. And so uh the onus is on us to make sure that we don't let them down, right? We have to support them if they're putting that kind of trust in us, the uh, you know, from a pricing perspective, keeping them competitive, but definitely with all the support that that kind of partnership deserves, right? So that's what we like to think of is we want to build partnerships. So, how do we do that, right? So any help we can provide a customer, no matter what it is, we want to try to do it as much as is reasonable, right? So, like John Allen's role, for example. He spends all of his time going out to contractors to try to get a feel for what jobs are coming up so that we can effectively plan and we don't get overbooked and drop the ball for a customer that we that we can't get concrete to them when they need it. And then going to those jobs when they happen and making sure that everything goes right. He is not afraid to jump on a buggy or grab a come-along or do whatever. Um, he's supporting them on the job site, he's communicating with dispatch, talking to the drivers. His whole role is just about supporting the contractors and making sure that their experience and their day pouring with us goes as well as it can. So that is what we all need to do. And he and he has a dedicated role for that, but we all can help achieve that. So, how do we do that? Uh good planning, right? So that's why we have the three o'clock meet meeting every day. We talk about what the next what's coming up for the next day. And uh if if by the way, if you can hear Kai's uh uh Lexus Doug is tune on a bottle right outside the door. And I guarantee it's just showing up. So thanks, Kai, for the background noise. But um proper planning to make sure that we are not surprised by the next day and that we can fulfill all the commitments that we've made. And then you know, technical support is a big deal. We put out the tech bulletins once a month. We troubleshoot or help customers come up with plans for how we handle difficult specifications or unique mixed designs. All those things are supporting them at being successful. Supporting our customers means fixing our mistakes, right? So there's so many variables in this industry that we will make mistakes and things will go wrong sometimes to like the catastrophic level of a tear-out and replace. And uh definitely when it's our fault, we have to step up to the plate and make sure that our customer isn't impacted by our mistakes. And then even on the flip side of the coin, let's say it's not our mistake or or there's some kind of shared um responsibility. We still want to help those that are really treating us like partners because their success is our success. And so, you know, we're not saying, oh, that that stinks for you, too bad, you know, that's not who we are. And um, so we're gonna stand with our customers and and help them be successful. And that that happens on, you know, the good days and the bad. So really supporting them through difficulties they have uh is is part of our responsibility if we're going to have that partnership status that we want. So that's a big deal. We we succeed with our customers and we fail with our customers. It's it's a team effort.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

So yeah, I think of this as re really being engaged with the customer every step of the way, right? This is so complex and there's so many opportunities for things to go wrong. So it's being engaged on that first phone call where we're making sure that we understand what they're trying to do so that we're helping them select the right mix and the right slump and get the right address. Yeah. And it's checking the ticket when we get loaded and checking the load and making sure that we're still on the right track. There's just so many points throughout the process where we have to be looking out for them. And there's so many times where we save it because we do that. So I think I think that's something that's really unique about how we do it.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah. And so for anybody that's listening to this, that's a uh, you know, uh an employee at Han, think about how we could do more of that, right? How can we support um what what do what do you know when you're on a job site that you could share that would help make the next time go better, right? That's that's something we all need to be doing. Yeah. And I think, you know, I know that's customers and coworkers are our team, but I think it applies as well to kind of our vendor partnerships as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Um, so you know, we work with a lot of vendors. Some of them, you know, it's it's a much more casual relationship, and some of them are are very strategic key partnerships. And um, we want to view that the same way that you know our best customers view us where they are treating us as partners, we want to treat our vendors as partners and and succeed and fail with them as well. So uh because there's times we go to them for that same support that we're trying to provide our customers. So um w we need to give them that trust uh as well. So it's a it's a it's a two-way street going above us and below us, I guess you could say, uh, on kind of the food chain of the construction industry. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the job that I get to do here is to try to make everyone else's job easier, whether that's through like improving technology or removing other obstacles or changing the rules or policies to like how can we get this person the easiest route to being successful, whether it's customers or co-workers?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Uh I did not get any um loaded questions this week. Lex, do you have one? I came up with a question on my own.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I came up with one since we're talking about supporting others. All right. I wanted to kind of stay on that topic. And we're talking about how we can support each other. But what is your favorite way to support others? How do you like to support others? I think you kind of mentioned it, Andrea.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, I think I would go back to that and say it's my favorite thing when we can make our technology work better for us. So I feel like that's a huge win when I can create a new system or a new thing that's gonna make someone's job easier. That's my favorite way to support people. I also like to listen to everybody's personal situations and help them out with those. That's that's my second favorite.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Like the company therapist. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh my fault, so I'm gonna answer this two ways. My favorite thing that I actually like to do, and then the thing I think is more most effective. Um so uh my my favorite thing I like to do is kind of teach about our industry, right? So um, if I can support our um our team members by uh explaining why things happen that we're seeing, right? If that's a a technical concrete issue or or production logistics or whatever, um, that's that's my favorite thing to do. But I think the most effective thing that I try to do is hear about and address any of the if you if you're talking about the and I know you talk about work stuff too, but if you you like the personal life, I I'm not great at that. That's not my that's not my favorite, but I do uh I do like to dive in when I hear about you know an issue that we're having in the workplace or um on a job site or a difficulty somebody's having uh with their job, then I like to dive in and try to help find solutions to that. So um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Okay, I'm gonna ask my question too, so Lex can participate.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Uh tell me about a time when you really felt supported at work.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Lex, you want to go first?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

No, because it's gonna take me forever to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

What about was there ever a time when you like had this idea to do a podcast and absolutely everyone dropped everything and built a podcast studio and learned how to produce podcasts for you? Did that feel like you were supported?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

That definitely did. That definitely did. There's a lot of situations where people have supported me along through my journey. Um, and I want to kind of come up with a an unusual one. I'm gonna give a shout-out to Darren Fick. Relatively early in my career, this was probably 10 years ago or so, we were talking about uh we were driving together to Des Moines uh for a Ratamix Association event, and we were talking about somebody that wasn't necessarily meeting expectations. And I said, Hey, would you do me a favor and tell me if I'm ever that guy, if I'm ever not meeting expectations or or um, you know, not pulling my weight? And Darren looked at me and said, You're that guy. And um that hurt, and it was everything I needed at that point in my career, right, to to reassess where I was and what I was doing. So even though it's kind of a it wasn't a fun support. A little harsh, but it was it was necessary, and um, you know, if he didn't truly care about my development or my growth, uh, the easy thing for him to do would be like, oh yeah, sure, I'll let you know, and then tell everybody else, like, uh, he's so oblivious, he didn't even realize, right? Uh, but he didn't. He was honest with me, and that was transformative for me. And um and so yeah, I think that was a way that he supported me that really made an impact. So yeah, that's kind of a long answer.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Very good example. Yeah. You with us, Lex?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah. I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head. But there's not a day that I come here and I don't feel supported by everyone around me, whether it be upper management drivers or whoever it is. Uh I always feel that I'm supported by everyone and try to give that back as much as I possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

You know, I see um, you know, you where your desk is, you sit with uh Sam and Darren and Bear and Jim. And when you guys you're you're often all out, but when you're all in there together, um almost all your conversations are are you guys collectively working in problem. Together. So I see that where you guys are continuously supporting each other by, you know, running ideas through the filter of each other's experiences and um and and all learning from each other through that. So I think that's valuable. I see that where you're participating in the supporting and getting supported through that process every day.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

So yeah, I think this week we've had a little bit more feedback from drivers even on the podcast. And I think any kind of interaction, sharing ideas is makes everybody better. So on any on anything from something as simple as the podcast to a big complex concrete problem, talking to each other is really supportive.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

All right. I have a couple announcements to end with. Unfortunately, we had another seatbelt ticket over the last week. So I will, I don't know how to say it more clearly how much I want you to wear your seatbelt all day, every day when you're in the truck. Please wear your seatbelt. I also continue to see the Hold on real quick.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

That's also important. And not only, you know, we it's a safety issue that we don't want you to get in an accident and have a catastrophic uh injury or something because you're not wearing your safe belt. But every time we get one of those seatbelt tickets, it impacts uh kind of our insurance. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So the score that we get from the FMCSA is what the insurance uses to evaluate how much we have to pay for insurance. Yes. Every dollar that we have to pay for insurance is a dollar we don't have to use for something else.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Correct. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yes. Good good point. Um and the other thing is we continue to see um rolling stops on the cameras. And I we don't want to use the camera information to be just coaching people and harping on people all the time. But I think this is a simple thing that we can all look out for each other and keep on top of our mind. Like complete stops are a requirement.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah. It just takes a moment to miss a car or somebody on a bicycle or something, and and something terrible happens. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Okay. Any other announcements here? I don't think so. All right, all right, great job, everyone. Thanks for listening to Loaded the Honready Mix podcast. Please remember to subscribe and share this with your friends.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Uh, we will talk to you again next week.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

All right. Thanks, everybody.