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submitted by susan charlton

Below you will find some tips and benefits on keeping yourself grounded and happy physically, socially, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Exercising helps burn anxious energy and prevents muscle tension. When eating processed foods and foods that are high in fats, it can negatively impact your moods. A well-balanced diet may support mental health, improve sleep quality, boost your body image, and put you in a happier mood.

Challenge your brain by learning new skills and engaging in new activities. Go on a hike, paint, experiment with a new recipe, or pick up a new instrument to learn. Anything to keep your mind busy doing what you enjoy and love.

Disconnect from constant emails, alerts, and other interruptions. When you’re off the grid, the opportunity for default mode is all around you. Without the distraction of modern life, you can see the things you have overlooked, or gain a deeper understanding of how they have been impacting you.

The popularity of meditation is increasing as more people discover its many health benefits. People also use this practice to develop other beneficial habits and feelings, such as a positive mood and outlook, self-discipline, healthy sleep patterns, and even increased pain tolerance. When meditating, it not only reduces stress, but it also improves memory, increases attention span, helps you gain a greater compassion, and you’re less anxious. Even if its for 30 min. to an hour.

WHAT THE HIVE CAN TEACH BUSINESSES ABOUT

LEADERSHIP, EFFICIENCY,

& GROWTH LESSON #20 THE WISDOM OF BEES by: Michael O’Malley, Ph.D. Divest to Renew Successful colonies lay ample brood, add workers, and store sufficient amounts of honey to weather dry periods and harsh winters. As they thrive and grow, the bees reach an equilibrium point at which it is no longer feasible to continue increasing the size of the hive. There is a natural limit to growth. The queen can lay only so many eggs in a day and the hive structure can accommodate only so many bees. When the brood cells are nearly filled and no further workers are needed to tend the young and to gather water, pollen, and honey, the colony regenerates vvby divesting itself of a little over half of its members. The addition of workers would increase worker idleness, waste, and risk. In many insect colonies, including those of honeybees, the group often reaches a point in which the growth potential of two nests is greater than one. Bees subscribe to what we might refer to as a process of continuous renewal. The working assumption of the hive is that regular growth simply can’t be maintained over time without ill effects eventually occurring. Management teams must weigh many factors in evaluating whether an organization will benefit from carving out a part of itself in order to create a new organization. The success of the hive, as well as the experiences of successful companies, provides a few guidelines for knowing when size many be impairing the leanness and agility of the corporation, and when a divestiture will create greater value. Divestiture should occur only when the new “colony” has the resources needed to have a chance at success and when the move will competitively strengthen the parent organization. When a hive splits (or spins) off a large part of the colony, the bees are not dumping a worthless asset, but are giving the hive, and the newly formed organization, their best chances to remain productive. Hive divestitures create greater systemic value. More Pollen Organizational growth is a continual process of building up and breaking apart. No matter the nature of the group, the question is the same: “Is the team, department, unit, division, or company better off retaining a particular segment of itself or would overall value improve if the parts were divided?” If you wish to do as the bees, one way to unlock value from a pile of assets would be to create a separate, adequately stocked, organization that controls its own destiny.

submitted by susan charlton

For our new folks, and those of us who might have forgotten, March 31st was the end of our fiscal year. What a year it was! Although we were still dealing with the inconvenience of COVID-19, we did not quite repeat the absolute craziness of fiscal year 2020-21 ...(remember the cyber-attack and ice storm?). We even ended the year with record-setting one-month buy/sell revenue of $3.8 million! We beat our prior year’s year-to-date buy/sell revenue by over $3 million! While we don’t have final commission revenue totals yet, we had some pretty amazing months, so I have no doubt that we set some records in that area also. Also, we are celebrating our one-year anniversary with SAP Business One! Although we had a bumpy start with SAP, I see the benefits of this system each and every day. I am so proud of how well we have all adapted to this new platform, especially my own team! The best way for an organization to grow and strengthen is by having robust data to analyze. Not only are we gathering more meaningful data, but we are also able to access it so much more easily than before. I am constantly impressed with some of our team members who are learning more every day about how to harvest and analyze all this information. This past year, we made some big changes to our Human Resources team. We are all so happy that Karla Spigariol joined our family! She and Kenitha Brown have really turned into a powerhouse team. This additional experience has made a huge impact on our recruiting and on-boarding processes and we have only just begun! Allowing Kenitha to focus in on our payroll processes has allowed us to drive out some big improvements in that area also. As an example, you can now enter changes to your 401k deferral percentage at any time instead of waiting for quarterly update periods. Implementing this change was a HUGE effort by Kenitha and Gary Chinn. We have many other big improvements coming over the next year, so stay tuned! We also added Robbin Javier (Accountant) and Susan Charlton (Accounts Payable) to our team last year. What a great addition those two were! Business author Jim Collins said in his book, Good to Great, that the most important thing for success in business is to have the right people on the bus. We have a bus full of all-stars right now and I am so excited to see what the future holds for our team. It is important for all of us to take some time to consider WHY we had a such a successful fiscal year this past year. How much of our success was in our control and how much was just circumstance? Let’s make sure that our teams understand how they are doing, what they can improve, and what habits they should continue. As always, if there is anything I can do to help, my door is open!

Manager’s Update Mark Hendricks GroupManager OklahomaGroup, Inc. & ArkansasGroup

The dictionary defines customer service as, the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people that buy or use its products or services. Other definitions might be, the act of taking care of the customer’s needs by providing and delivering professional, helpful, high-quality service and assistance before, during, and after the sale. Or, being a kind, courteous, and professional face for the company, listening and supporting customers wants and concerns.

There are many interpretations for customer service depending on who you ask, and what industry you are in, but they all center around the same result, a satisfied, loyal customer. I want to share some quotes that will help us understand what customer service is and why it is so important that we, as a company, excel in it.

For how complex customer service is, it doesn’t take much to understand it’s principles. You can sum it up in one statement. Service is not what you do but who you are. It’s a way of living, that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interaction. We have a top tier team at HMC. I know we sometimes overlook the efforts of our customer service teams, but our success in the field can only be achieved when we all understand that without us all working together, for a common goal, we won’t succeed.

Thanks again for all you do!

With the advent of Spring, and the pandemic winding down, comes the return of tradeshows and counter days. Over the past couple of years, tradeshows were non-existent due to the pandemic. This year, they are coming back bigger and better than ever. Our manufacturers and customers are hungry to get back to meeting face-to-face, shaking hands, and talking about the state of our industry and what’s new within it. With that said, I thought I’d try to provide everyone with a list of some of the different events HMC has been participating in this year so far. January started out slowly, but finished with one of the industries largest events, the AHR Show, held in the convention and entertainment capitol of Las Vegas, NV. This show drew 30,700 attendees and had 1,570 exhibitors. This made the show slightly smaller than pre-pandemic versions but was still well attended. Both the HVAC and PMG divisions of HMC attended this event.

Finally, HMC’s Oklahoma Group participated in the Oklahoma Rural Water Association Annual Meeting and Tradeshow in Norman, OK April 20-22. This list is not all-inclusive, but should show that our company, HMC, is exhibiting and participating in many industry events, on behalf of our manufacturers, to promote sales and build relationships throughout all the markets we work in.

MOTIVATIONAL STORY In the last decade, Google has spent millions of dollars on measuring nearly every aspect of its employees’ lives – from which traits the best managers share to how often particular people eat together. The tech giant was determined to find out how to compile ‘the perfect team’. The company’s executives worked hard on finding the perfect mix of individuals necessary to form a stellar team. They believed that building good teams meant combining the best people. But it wasn’t that simple.

In 2012 Google ran a project known as Project Aristotle. It took several years and included interviews with hundreds of employees. They analyzed data about the people on more than 100 active teams at the company. “We looked at 180 teams from all over the company. We had lots of data, but there was nothing showing that a mix of specific personality types or skills or backgrounds made any difference. The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.’’ – Abeer Dubey, a manager in Google’s People Analytics division Google’s intense data collection led to the same conclusions that good managers have always known: In the best teams, members show sensitivity, and most importantly, listen to one another. Matt Sakaguchi, a midlevel manager at Google, was keen to put Project Aristotle’s findings into practice. He took his team off-site to open up about his cancer diagnosis. Although initially silent, his colleagues then began sharing their own personal stories. At the heart of Sakaguchi’s strategy, and Google’s findings is the concept of “psychological safety” – a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Google now describes psychological safety as the most important factor in building a successful team. Google ended up highlighting what leaders in the business world have known for a while: the best teams are mindful that all members should contribute to the conversation equally, and respect one another’s emotions. It has less to do with who is in a team, and more with how the members interact with one another.