Noble leadership: Humanity,personal growth and letting go

By Dirk Beveridge, dirk@unleashwd.com

No truth revealed by my research and travels visiting with distributors during the We Supply America tour is clearer than this: People want purpose, not jobs.

Full stop!

As one distributor put it in the survey we conducted for our research on the changing nature of leadership:

“If your organization is not a people-first organization, your people will find one.”

ASA member Bender, a plumbing supplies distributor with six locations across Connecticut, has taken giving people purpose straight to the heart. So much so that it’s not uncommon to see tears during their regular Bender Purpose Meetings.

Bender’s leadership team embraces the noble calling, which means it:

Provides opportunity for all team members to improve the life and well-being of their families.

Creates an environment of growth for the individual.

Empowers employees to be the best version of themselves – and to believe in themselves.

In my research, 47% of respondents believe this is how distributors must lead in the next five years if they want to be successful. This requires a tectonic shift, because 53% of respondents believe distributors today lean on controlling and managing as leadership styles.

Controlling and managing are antiquated. We must change tack. Putting humanity at the core of leadership is critical if we want to build sustainable businesses for the next generation and the generation after that.

A significant 93% of survey respondents agree with this premise that the human element will play a significant role in leadership going forward. And if we are to ensure humanity is at the core of leadership, we’ll need to personalize the word “disruption” and recognize that disruption of the past few years has had a greater and more enduring impact on the individual than it has on the business as a whole.

It can be done. The team at Bender is a shining example. Bender is focused on the whole person, and humanity is firmly at the center of its leadership operations.

“We are developing leaders and letting go of the vine,” COO Mark Chirgwin told us during a follow-up discussion after my visit.

To them, developing teams means looking down two tiers from branch managers for leadership development opportunities.

“If I can look down and see leaders being built at that level, then I know I’m becoming a good leader,” Chirgwin says. “If it stops at the people that report to me, I’m not developing teams, because they’re not developing teams.”

Letting go: The importance of delegation

This is where letting go of the vine comes in. To encourage leadership mindsets at all levels, branch managers and warehouse supervisors at Bender are asked to let go of responsibilities, strategically and to those who want those responsibilities.

They’re asked to “delegate and elevate.”

Even the seemingly simplest tasks hold meaning: A branch manager handed coffee and snack ordering off to an individual who takes pride in having that responsibility. Another branch manager was still personally involved with several customers and trained another person to take on that opportunity.

“It gives us more time to work on the business rather than working in the business,” says Dan Falvo, a branch manager at Bender’s Waterbury location. “It gives the person we’re delegating it to some additional responsibility, and they get to step up and raise their game.”

To the Bender team, delegating is about helping individuals grow.

“More times than not, people want to continue to evolve,” Chirgwin says. “They want to do more, and you can’t do more if you don’t give up what you’re currently doing.”

Delegating and elevating is just one strategy Bender applies to make work more meaningful for employees. It also holds Purpose Meetings every Friday. In these meetings, the distributor covers topics tied into its core values and behaviors. They’ll break out into groups to discuss and share, and then reconvene to debrief and commit to an action. For instance, they might commit to being better listeners over the next week. They’re really bringing – and allowing for – humanity in the workplace.

By providing the space, resources and tools, distributors can help employees unleash their spirit and support them in their lifelong journey of becoming better people.

At Bender’s Purpose Meetings, it’s not uncommon to see the CEO sitting next to warehouse guys or the sales and marketing folks working with customer support and human resources –all on soft skills, which tend to be underrated.

When I was on a Zoom town hall with Bender’s team during my We Supply America tour stop at the Waterbury, Conn., branch, one man shared the value of these meetings with me. He simply said:

“I’m a better father.”

He then shared that at a picnic with his son, he could feel himself starting to get frustrated because his son was unwilling to leave his side and play with the other kids.

“He quickly thought about where he was, what he’s learned through our meetings and realized he needed to have more patience,” Chirgwin says. “By the end of the day, his son was more social, and he was so proud that the moment didn’t turn into an argument and ruin both their days.”

If we all commit to the same development and valuation of these softer skills, imagine what we could do in – and outside – the world of distribution.

“We’re trying to give people tools that make them better human beings outside the workplace,” Chirgwin says. “I’m a basketball coach, and I’m a much better coach today with the tools we’ve created at Bender than I was 10 years ago. Once I’m using those tools outside work, they come to me easily at work: listening, delegating and elevating, having more patience.”

Falvo says that’s been missing in leadership for a long time. “I think a lot of leaders have been mislabeled as leaders, when really they are managers. I never realized how wide the gap between a manager and a leader was until I came to Bender.”

“We can’t force people to have humanity, but there’s two things we can do for them,” Chirgwin says. “We can give them the opportunity to have humanity, and we can make sure they have an opportunity to self-reflect every day on: Did I have humanity today? Was I humble today? We can show them what a productive day is and ask them to self-reflect: Was I productive today? That allows them to leave work for the day with dignity.”

People want purpose in their work and want to be seen as a real person. If they don’t find that, they’ll go elsewhere. Chirgwin and his team at Bender recognize this and provide it in spades.

Falvo has been at Bender nearly 10 months now, having left a 30-year career in the furniture industry for less pay and greater job satisfaction.

“I go home exhausted every Friday, but it’s a different exhaustion,” he says. “I’m not managing anymore, I’m leading. It feels really fulfilling when you go home at the end of the week and know you’re having an impact on people’s lives within your circle of influence.”

Dirk Beveridge is the founder of UnleashWD, executive producer at We Supply America, president of the Beveridge Consulting Group and champion for the noble calling of distribution for more than 36 years.

Your website gives jobseekers a view into your company

What will they see when they get there?

By Steve Edwards, Recruitment Marketing Director

Competing for talent is a daunting task in today’s labor market. It requires employers to ensure all recruiting efforts and tools are buttoned-up and positioned to garner the best possible results.

It should come as no surprise that the first place most jobseekers will look when learning about potential opportunities is a company’s website. Therefore, it can’t be underestimated that the experience a candidate may have on a website could make or break the chance to attract the best talent possible.

When considering this, ASA members may ask themselves:

Does my website promote our culture?

Does my website provide a good candidate experience?

Is my website mobile-ready?

Can people easily find our website?

Answers to these questions and others can help begin to help companies understand if what jobseekers see and experience will encourage them to pursue career opportunities there or look elsewhere.

Defining a good candidate experience

The candidate experience is the perception jobseekers have of a business based on their interactions at every point of contact during the exploration or application process. This includes initial awareness of a company, its social media presence, the interview process and any post-application communication.

When potential candidates visit a company’s career page on their website, they expect to find some basic elements which help create a good experience. Features such as an overview of the firm’s vision and mission, information about

68% its culture, well-written job descriptions, a clear application process, an intuitive and easy-to-use listing of jobs and employee testimonials among others help shape and define the experience.

Managing the candidate experience becomes even more critical when you consider Careerbuilder.com’s research that shows 68% of candidates think that a company’s hiring process reflects how it treats its employees.

A mobile-ready website is a must

Making sure a website, and particularly the career section of a company’s site, is optimized for mobile devices is another way to drastically improve chances to attract talent.

In 2021, almost 70% of job applications were made from mobile devices according to a recruitment marketing benchmark report by Appcast. What’s more is the report also found that mobile application rates increased across the board compared to prior years and were especially significant in several sectors, including manufacturing, warehousing and logistics where nearly 80% of applications were submitted via a mobile device.

Understanding the differences between a site being mobile friendly and mobile optimized is important when considering a candidate’s online experience. Mobile friendly means that a site is designed for a desktop computer but can be viewed on a mobile device. These usually offer users a less-than-ideal experience. Mobile optimized sites are those designed for smaller screens and will reformat itself for mobile users and provide users a much better experience.

To improve a website’s search engine optimization performance, it is required that relevant keywords with good search traffic potential are included, compelling and useful content is used, and relevant links from high-quality sites are incorporated. Shutterstock Photo.

is called search engine optimization or SEO. To improve a website’s SEO performance, it’s required that relevant keywords with good search traffic potential are included, compelling and useful content is used, and relevant links from high-quality sites are incorporated.

There are countless online resources and third parties that assist companies with their SEO efforts, and it’s generally recommended that these services are considered given the technical nature of this very important element, unless internal resources are available.

ASA’s support of members’ local recruiting efforts

To help its members put their best foot forward with their recruiting, ASA recently held a live webinar to cover the topics discussed above and more as part of its PROJECT TALENT initiative.

Can candidates find your site?

Unfortunately, in today’s online world there is no “build it and they will come.” Building a great website with a beautiful design and solid content is simply not enough to get jobseekers to visit it.

Sixty eight percent of website visits begin with a search engine and 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search engine results. While most people immediately think of Google when considering search engines, others such as Bing and Yahoo get considerable traffic. Career-related sites such as Indeed, Zip Recruiter and Career Builder are also considered search engines but for jobseekers. Google now has a site for jobseekers called Google Jobs.

All of this underscores the importance of developing and managing a website so these search engines see it and include it in search results. The art and science of this of jobseekers apply for a job using their mobile phone. 70%

In addition to branding the industry, ASA aims to provide members with tools and resources to assist with their local recruiting efforts. Many of these tools and resources can be found in the online Recruiter Toolbox, including a recording of the recent webinar covering recruiting website best practices.

To access the Recruiter Toolbox members can visit asa.canto.com and click on “Access Request.” There will be three more live webinars throughout 2023 on recruiting topics such as leveraging Indeed, the power of social media and a more detailed session on SEO.