[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_139":-5,"_140":-5,"_141":142,"_143":144,"_145":146},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3381/create-a-culture-where-its-safe-to-explore-ai-tools","id",3381,"title","Create a culture where it’s safe to explore AI tools","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.520\nWhat we've tried to do with AI in our company is the first place we put it was\n\n2\n00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:06.560\non productivity\n\n3\n00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:12.640\ntools, so our supply chain team. We've had a mantra here, and it's easy. The\n\n4\n00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:13.120\nsize of our\n\n5\n00:00:13.120 --> 00:00:18.280\ncompany allows me to do this, but we say we're not going to use AI to replace\n\n6\n00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:19.200\nyou. We're going\n\n7\n00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:25.760\nto use AI to make you better. And what that has done is it's created the, it's\n\n8\n00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:26.720\nremoved the barrier\n\n9\n00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:31.550\nfear, and it's enabled everyone. So we put chat GBT, co-pilot on every single\n\n10\n00:00:31.550 --> 00:00:33.120\nperson's computer.\n\n11\n00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:37.560\nWe have coffee work sessions on how people can share what they've done. And I\n\n12\n00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:38.800\nthink we've reinforced\n\n13\n00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:42.470\nthat we're here to use it to make us all better. Now, it may prevent us from\n\n14\n00:00:42.470 --> 00:00:43.600\nhiring the need to\n\n15\n00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:48.180\nhire someone in the future, but I think we've tried that I would say is we've\n\n16\n00:00:48.180 --> 00:00:48.960\ntried to create a\n\n17\n00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:56.280\nculture around AI that is one of safe space where I can look at and research\n\n18\n00:00:56.280 --> 00:00:57.680\nhow I can help my job\n\n19\n00:00:57.680 --> 00:01:01.680\nand not worry about it taking my job.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",2351189,"end_time",2410899,"keywords","Culture, AI, fear, hiring","slug","create-a-culture-where-its-safe-to-explore-ai-tools","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","DAu02g4BVQdia6v02zlORwQ33q022j02PMhUZzmLuvFJdwM","mux_asset_id","9o1wUNWyZK98SVgbxp7Oll2Cj028UGeRaoU2LEQyermk","leader_id",287,"episode_id",435,"updated_at","2026-06-26T02:03:50.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3381/create-a-culture-where-its-safe-to-explore-ai-tools","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_107":108,"_25":109,"_110":111,"_61":112,"_58":112,"_113":114,"_68":115,"_39":116,"_117":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_118":119,"_91":120,"_44":121,"_122":123,"_124":125,"_46":-5,"_126":127,"_128":129,"_95":130,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":76,"_43":-5,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":84,"_85":-5,"_86":-5,"_87":88,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_46":-5,"_92":93,"_94":-5,"_95":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Build for what’s next","build-for-whats-next","Most leaders react to growth after it happens. By then, their own company is a bottleneck. Instead, build for what's next. That way, you've got the infrastructure and organizational capabilities in place before you need them, not after.","summary","

Dave Ritterbush has helped lead some of the most successful consumer brands in America, including Califia Farms, Dreyer’s, and Quest, which sold for a billion dollars in 2019.

And he’s learned something that most leaders never figure out: you have to build your current systems for what’s next. Make sure you have the right infrastructure, processes, and organizational capabilities before you need them, not after.

If not, you may find that the biggest obstacle for your company’s growth … is your own company! Listen to this episode and get inspired to think bigger, build better, and drive real growth.

This episode is for you if:

You need some fresh ideas to strengthen your company culture
You want to hire more proactive people
Any part of your job involves creating or selling products
You sense your team is nervous about AI taking their jobs

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.230\nHello, friends, and welcome to another edition of How Leaders Lead, David Novak\n\n2\n00:00:04.230 --> 00:00:04.340\n.\n\n3\n00:00:04.340 --> 00:00:07.900\nToday, we have Dave Ritterbush on the show, and he's helped lead some of the\n\n4\n00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:08.720\nmost successful\n\n5\n00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:14.240\nconsumer brands in America, including Dryers, Quest, which sold for a billion\n\n6\n00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:15.120\ndollars, and\n\n7\n00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:18.360\nCalofia Farms, where he currently serves as a CEO.\n\n8\n00:00:18.360 --> 00:00:23.150\nDave's focus at Calofia is to build their company for what's next, to have the\n\n9\n00:00:23.150 --> 00:00:23.360\nright\n\n10\n00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:28.520\ninfrastructure, processes, and capabilities before they need them, not after.\n\n11\n00:00:28.520 --> 00:00:32.750\nIn this episode, you'll learn what it takes to do that for your organization as\n\n12\n00:00:32.750 --> 00:00:33.240\nwell.\n\n13\n00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:37.380\nEnjoy this conversation with David and Dave, and I will see you at the debrief.\n\n14\n00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:47.680\nYou've had one heck of a career, and you spent your career selling ice cream,\n\n15\n00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:51.360\nenergy drinks, protein bars, and now oat milk.\n\n16\n00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:56.540\nI got to ask you, which one of these products have you personally consumed the\n\n17\n00:00:56.540 --> 00:00:57.720\nmost of?\n\n18\n00:00:57.720 --> 00:00:59.080\nWell, I'm just going to go by time.\n\n19\n00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:03.830\nI spent 17 years in the ice cream business, and I have to be honest, I went\n\n20\n00:01:03.830 --> 00:01:04.480\ndown every\n\n21\n00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:05.480\nday.\n\n22\n00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.820\nWe had a little ice cream parlor right at the bottom of the first floor, and I\n\n23\n00:01:08.820 --> 00:01:09.520\n'd be lined\n\n24\n00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:12.440\nif I didn't set an ice cream every single day I worked there.\n\n25\n00:01:12.440 --> 00:01:17.040\nBelieve me, I had a lot of pizza, tacos, and KFC as well.\n\n26\n00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:21.040\nNow, for people who aren't familiar with your company, give us a snapshot of\n\n27\n00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:22.760\nCalofia Farms,\n\n28\n00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:24.160\nand what's your best known for?\n\n29\n00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:27.880\nYeah, you know, Calofia Farms is a great pivot story, really.\n\n30\n00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:32.820\nWe started a disuse company in the Central Valley of California, and then we\n\n31\n00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:33.760\ndiscovered\n\n32\n00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:34.760\njust up the road.\n\n33\n00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:39.420\nWe had all these almond trees, and alternative dairy had always been existed,\n\n34\n00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:39.560\nbut it was\n\n35\n00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:44.460\nreally having an increase in volume and acceptance by consumers, and we started\n\n36\n00:01:44.460 --> 00:01:45.280\nthe Calofia\n\n37\n00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:50.520\nbrand 15 years ago, and we started making almond milk, and we've really been a\n\n38\n00:01:50.520 --> 00:01:51.080\ncompany\n\n39\n00:01:51.080 --> 00:01:55.730\nhas been about quality and innovation, and since then, we've added all\n\n40\n00:01:55.730 --> 00:01:56.200\ndifferent types\n\n41\n00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:57.200\nof milks.\n\n42\n00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:01.270\nWe've gotten into coffee creamers, we've gotten into coffee, we've made refres\n\n43\n00:02:01.270 --> 00:02:02.960\nher brands,\n\n44\n00:02:02.960 --> 00:02:07.690\nand I think we're probably most known for our variety, and that iconic bottle,\n\n45\n00:02:07.690 --> 00:02:08.200\nit kind\n\n46\n00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:12.100\nof has this, looks like we call it the carafe, and if you think about the dairy\n\n47\n00:02:12.100 --> 00:02:12.800\ncase before\n\n48\n00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:18.190\nus, it was a sea of cartons, and what we brought to it was this really kind of\n\n49\n00:02:18.190 --> 00:02:19.080\nbeautiful\n\n50\n00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:24.320\nbottle with high design features, represented something premium, and we thought\n\n51\n00:02:24.320 --> 00:02:25.000\n, really\n\n52\n00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.650\ncaptured what was inside the bottle and stood out, and so many times, I run\n\n53\n00:02:29.650 --> 00:02:30.120\ninto people\n\n54\n00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:34.490\nand they go, Calofia and I do my hands in the curvy bottle motion, and they go,\n\n55\n00:02:34.490 --> 00:02:34.880\nI have\n\n56\n00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:37.000\nit in my refrigerator.\n\n57\n00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:38.000\nThat's great.\n\n58\n00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.400\nYou know, when you think of milk, you kind of think of a commodity category.\n\n59\n00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:46.080\nI mean, how hard is it as you being a leader to drive differentiation in your\n\n60\n00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:46.880\ncategory?\n\n61\n00:02:46.880 --> 00:02:47.880\nWhat's your approach to that?\n\n62\n00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:52.530\nYeah, you know, it's interesting, early in my career, when I discovered that\n\n63\n00:02:52.530 --> 00:02:52.900\npeople could\n\n64\n00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:56.410\nmake brands in the water category, I mean, they're literally can't be anything\n\n65\n00:02:56.410 --> 00:02:56.840\nthat's\n\n66\n00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:00.450\nmore of a commodity than water, it comes out of your tap at home, but then you\n\n67\n00:03:00.450 --> 00:03:01.080\nhave brands\n\n68\n00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:05.910\nlike Evian, you have brands like Fiji, and I realized that's really a misnomer,\n\n69\n00:03:05.910 --> 00:03:06.320\nthere\n\n70\n00:03:06.320 --> 00:03:08.640\nis no commodity category.\n\n71\n00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:13.790\nWhat it takes is building differentiation, creating some form of tangible or\n\n72\n00:03:13.790 --> 00:03:14.680\nintangible\n\n73\n00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:20.120\nvalue to a consumer, and that's how you break quote unquote, a commodity cycle.\n\n74\n00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.340\nNow, I got to tell you, Dave, you know, oatmeal just showed up in my\n\n75\n00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:24.560\nrefrigerator one day.\n\n76\n00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:28.800\nI don't know how it got in there, but it did, and now I use it all the time.\n\n77\n00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:30.920\nI really love it.\n\n78\n00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:36.030\nIs oatmeal, is it in the mainstream today or are you in the process of taking\n\n79\n00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:37.400\nit mainstream?\n\n80\n00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:42.300\nYeah, so if you look at all plant-based milks, they are in about 54% of all\n\n81\n00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:43.240\nhouseholds in\n\n82\n00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:46.760\nthe US, so I'd call that mainstream, right?\n\n83\n00:03:46.760 --> 00:03:47.760\nAnd depends on the usage.\n\n84\n00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:51.800\nIf you go to, I call them the third wave coffee shops, they're the ones that,\n\n85\n00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:52.520\nyou know, all\n\n86\n00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:56.710\nthe people half my age are going to get their lattes, 60% of the coffees they\n\n87\n00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:57.560\n're ordering\n\n88\n00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:01.200\nnow have oat milk, almond milk, coconut milk.\n\n89\n00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:03.600\nSo I'd say it's fully mainstreamed.\n\n90\n00:04:03.600 --> 00:04:07.530\nAnd even if you look at percent of sales, 17% of all dairy being sold is quote\n\n91\n00:04:07.530 --> 00:04:08.040\nunquote\n\n92\n00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:09.600\nalternative dairy.\n\n93\n00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:12.640\nMakes sense because I can't tell you when I had whole milk.\n\n94\n00:04:12.640 --> 00:04:16.040\nI can't, you know, I can't, I can't even remember a time.\n\n95\n00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.240\nI have some chocolate milk every now and then I got a, I got to confess, but it\n\n96\n00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:19.660\n's, it's\n\n97\n00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:20.660\nbeen a while.\n\n98\n00:04:20.660 --> 00:04:21.660\nYeah.\n\n99\n00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:25.050\nWhat you really find is that what we're looking for out of quote unquote dairy\n\n100\n00:04:25.050 --> 00:04:26.160\nmilk is this\n\n101\n00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:31.760\ncreamy, delicious thing to add to cereal, coffee, have it as a beverage itself.\n\n102\n00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:35.540\nAnd when we make it out of plants, we're doing it with a lot lower, what I'll\n\n103\n00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:36.440\ncall a nutritional\n\n104\n00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:41.440\nnegatives, much less sugar, much less saturated fats, much less calories.\n\n105\n00:04:41.440 --> 00:04:45.730\nSo as you go to make that, you give up nothing in terms of joy and experience,\n\n106\n00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:46.520\nbut you're\n\n107\n00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:49.560\nreally improving what you're trying to eat throughout the day.\n\n108\n00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:53.420\nYou were also the, the CEO of Quest protein bars and I have to tell you, I have\n\n109\n00:04:53.420 --> 00:04:54.040\nconsumed\n\n110\n00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:56.000\na, a lot of them.\n\n111\n00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:00.680\nAnd you know, what you learned there that's really helping you at a califia,\n\n112\n00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:00.880\nyou know,\n\n113\n00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:06.000\nI think what Quest taught me most and I'm going to put him in two categories.\n\n114\n00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.440\nOne is we were so close to the consumer.\n\n115\n00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:14.840\nPeople were passionate about this, no carb, low carb, eating lifestyle.\n\n116\n00:05:14.840 --> 00:05:16.400\nAnd those were our employees.\n\n117\n00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:19.160\nI mean, we lived the brand every day.\n\n118\n00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:23.440\nAnd when you did that, you understood all the pain points with that lifestyle.\n\n119\n00:05:23.440 --> 00:05:26.080\nAnd we were there to create solutions to that pain set.\n\n120\n00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:30.200\nSo I think the most successful products we launched were tortilla chips, right?\n\n121\n00:05:30.200 --> 00:05:33.080\nThey're kind of the quest version of a Dorito.\n\n122\n00:05:33.080 --> 00:05:35.200\nIt solved this huge problem.\n\n123\n00:05:35.200 --> 00:05:38.930\nWe were, we were creating things that people enjoyed, but had given up and it\n\n124\n00:05:38.930 --> 00:05:39.600\nwas called\n\n125\n00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:41.280\ncheating at the time.\n\n126\n00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:45.920\nAnd but by being so intimate with the consumer, we had thousands of what we\n\n127\n00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:46.360\ncalled questies\n\n128\n00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:48.760\nwho were coming to meetings of ours.\n\n129\n00:05:48.760 --> 00:05:51.160\nThey were actively engaged social media.\n\n130\n00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:55.160\nWe really felt like we were at one with our consumer.\n\n131\n00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:59.030\nAnd then the second thing I think I learned is just the importance of\n\n132\n00:05:59.030 --> 00:06:00.680\ncontinuous innovation,\n\n133\n00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:04.750\neven if that innovation might be a replacement for what was once your core\n\n134\n00:06:04.750 --> 00:06:05.480\nproduct.\n\n135\n00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.860\nBut I have this term, you have to eat, if you don't eat your own lunch, someone\n\n136\n00:06:08.860 --> 00:06:09.160\nelse\n\n137\n00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:10.360\nwill eat it for you.\n\n138\n00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:15.520\nSo it was this continuous cycle of innovation and keeping the brand fresh.\n\n139\n00:06:15.520 --> 00:06:18.400\nYou know, there's always the next wave in any category.\n\n140\n00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:22.800\nHow do you identify the trends before they become obvious to everyone else?\n\n141\n00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:24.560\nI think the tools are different, right?\n\n142\n00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:28.680\nI mean, in my early career, we would do tons of focus groups.\n\n143\n00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:33.300\nI mean, I remember sitting in the back of a one-way mirror, eating handfuls of\n\n144\n00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:33.600\nM&Ms,\n\n145\n00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:36.040\nlistening to people, tell us what they thought.\n\n146\n00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:38.600\nToday, it's really on all of our devices.\n\n147\n00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:40.920\nIt's social media listening.\n\n148\n00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:45.800\nWe have a focus group happening every second, and that is people interacting,\n\n149\n00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:50.090\nsharing stories, talking about things, complaining about things, which is great\n\n150\n00:06:50.090 --> 00:06:50.280\n.\n\n151\n00:06:50.280 --> 00:06:54.120\nWhen we understood that people wanted fewer ingredients and products,\n\n152\n00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:55.800\nthey wanted greater transparency.\n\n153\n00:06:55.800 --> 00:07:00.690\nThat all was emerging in social media, and it's your ability to respond to that\n\n154\n00:07:00.690 --> 00:07:00.720\n.\n\n155\n00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:03.760\nThat creates that connectivity to the consumer.\n\n156\n00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:06.920\nSo it's actually easier and harder, easier, because it's right there in your\n\n157\n00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:07.600\ndevice,\n\n158\n00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.560\nharder because it is so ubiquitous, right?\n\n159\n00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:13.120\nThere's so much data.\n\n160\n00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:17.440\nYou have to understand how to go through that and see what's really a trend\n\n161\n00:07:17.440 --> 00:07:20.160\nand what might be kind of a false hit.\n\n162\n00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:24.820\n- Does that finding the biggest problems that occur most frequently in your\n\n163\n00:07:24.820 --> 00:07:25.080\ncategory,\n\n164\n00:07:25.080 --> 00:07:27.920\nis that one of your keys, and then solving it?\n\n165\n00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:31.080\n- To your point, you've got to find the pain point for consumers.\n\n166\n00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:34.080\nThe reason they'll switch a brand, the reason they'll try something new,\n\n167\n00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:35.400\nis it's a different solution.\n\n168\n00:07:35.400 --> 00:07:38.800\nIf I'm perfectly happy with what I have,\n\n169\n00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:41.480\nI'm very unlikely to change my behavior.\n\n170\n00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:44.520\nBut if you're creating something for me that,\n\n171\n00:07:44.520 --> 00:07:47.280\n\"Oh, yeah, I've always hated that about that product,\"\n\n172\n00:07:47.280 --> 00:07:50.520\nor, \"That never quite gave me what I wanted in this.\"\n\n173\n00:07:50.520 --> 00:07:53.640\nThat's what we're all about doing and solving in our industry,\n\n174\n00:07:53.640 --> 00:07:56.780\nand probably every industry, it's really about what is the consumer's real\n\n175\n00:07:56.780 --> 00:07:57.920\npoint point,\n\n176\n00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:01.080\nand then how do I create a slightly better solution to that?\n\n177\n00:08:01.080 --> 00:08:05.740\n- So you mentioned the tortilla chips that you developed when you were at Quest\n\n178\n00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:05.880\n.\n\n179\n00:08:05.880 --> 00:08:10.890\nWhat would be the biggest pain point that you've had success attacking at Cal\n\n180\n00:08:10.890 --> 00:08:11.760\niphia?\n\n181\n00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:14.200\n- I would say our biggest pain point has been,\n\n182\n00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:17.360\nget the label with as few things on it as possible.\n\n183\n00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:20.600\nSo we created a line of press called Simple and Organic.\n\n184\n00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.800\nThere are organic line, really three ingredients,\n\n185\n00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:25.680\nand one of those ingredients is water.\n\n186\n00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:32.220\nSo by working to create products that had really kind of the least things in it\n\n187\n00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:32.400\n,\n\n188\n00:08:32.400 --> 00:08:34.440\nwe created the biggest impact.\n\n189\n00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:36.240\n- You've said, and I love this,\n\n190\n00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:40.280\nthat if you don't have failures, you're probably not innovating enough.\n\n191\n00:08:40.280 --> 00:08:43.840\nTell me about a specific failure at Caliphia,\n\n192\n00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:45.600\nor any other company that you've worked with,\n\n193\n00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:48.040\nthat taught you something really, really important.\n\n194\n00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:51.120\n- I can tell you lots of failure stories, those are easy.\n\n195\n00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.040\nI'd say the biggest failure hat is,\n\n196\n00:08:53.040 --> 00:08:56.160\nthe biggest trend that's happened in coffee consumption\n\n197\n00:08:56.160 --> 00:09:02.000\nis way over 50% now, so if you're in a cafe,\n\n198\n00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:05.000\nup to 70% of coffees now being consumed cold.\n\n199\n00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.010\nIf you think about it, the world was always designed and marketed towards hot\n\n200\n00:09:09.010 --> 00:09:09.560\ncoffee.\n\n201\n00:09:09.560 --> 00:09:11.560\nAnd so we thought, boy, we've got to slit.\n\n202\n00:09:11.560 --> 00:09:14.480\nWe came out with a cold brew creamer.\n\n203\n00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:19.640\nSo an ice coffee creamer designed to go pour right into your ice coffee.\n\n204\n00:09:19.640 --> 00:09:22.640\nWhat else, right, the whole movement's moved, we've had this set.\n\n205\n00:09:22.640 --> 00:09:25.760\nObject failure, we launched it, we were going to test it.\n\n206\n00:09:25.760 --> 00:09:30.320\nRetailers got excited about it, so we went everywhere with it.\n\n207\n00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:31.840\nAnd what consumers said is,\n\n208\n00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:34.120\nwell, the stuff I had before works in hot and cold,\n\n209\n00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:37.960\nso I don't need something that's quote unquote, there was no pain point there.\n\n210\n00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:43.120\nSo we thought we had one, no pain point, very low trial,\n\n211\n00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:47.240\nand it was a painful year launching and then discontinuing that item.\n\n212\n00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:50.920\nYeah, no, you're innovating constantly,\n\n213\n00:09:50.920 --> 00:09:52.440\nyou develop all kinds of new products.\n\n214\n00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:55.560\nIs there a big risk that you're taking right now?\n\n215\n00:09:55.560 --> 00:10:01.840\nOh, I think our big risk that we've taken is launching an entire line\n\n216\n00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.880\nof what one could consider to be duplicative products.\n\n217\n00:10:04.880 --> 00:10:09.820\nSo we've pioneered, we've been in almond milk for the whole career of our\n\n218\n00:10:09.820 --> 00:10:10.920\ncompany,\n\n219\n00:10:10.920 --> 00:10:15.120\nand then we launched the exact same product, but it's simple and organic.\n\n220\n00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.960\nAnd so the risk we had is, how do we do this so that it's additive and not\n\n221\n00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:20.320\nreplaceable?\n\n222\n00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:22.520\nAnd I think that was the risk we took when we came out with those.\n\n223\n00:10:22.520 --> 00:10:27.720\nAnd we're in the middle of still expanding and that product line,\n\n224\n00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:31.360\nand it's availability where we now have them both sitting together.\n\n225\n00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:35.160\nBut classically, you could have argued that could have been a disaster.\n\n226\n00:10:35.160 --> 00:10:37.040\nAnd how's that going for you?\n\n227\n00:10:37.040 --> 00:10:39.840\nIt's been going great because what we did is we opened up our brand\n\n228\n00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:41.320\nto new consumers.\n\n229\n00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:44.000\nSo we've been growing household penetration.\n\n230\n00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.160\nWe've had some of our consumers migrate up to organic.\n\n231\n00:10:47.160 --> 00:10:52.900\nAnd today we're growing as a company 20% in a category that's flat to slightly\n\n232\n00:10:52.900 --> 00:10:53.600\nnegative.\n\n233\n00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:54.800\nFantastic.\n\n234\n00:10:54.800 --> 00:11:00.240\nAnd as the head of dryers, you've seen a lot in the dairy industry\n\n235\n00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:02.920\nand you do it when you came into California.\n\n236\n00:11:02.920 --> 00:11:06.000\nBut how did you come into California with fresh ice?\n\n237\n00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:10.010\nBecause as a leader, you got to have fresh ice, you can't come in with just\n\n238\n00:11:10.010 --> 00:11:11.640\npreconceived notions.\n\n239\n00:11:11.640 --> 00:11:14.880\nI always call it the first day naivete.\n\n240\n00:11:14.880 --> 00:11:19.080\nAnd it's important when you come in to first observe.\n\n241\n00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:21.760\nSo I came into California still during the pandemic.\n\n242\n00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:27.150\nI mean, I met every employee on a Zoom call and every meeting I had was on Zoom\n\n243\n00:11:27.150 --> 00:11:27.520\n.\n\n244\n00:11:27.520 --> 00:11:30.080\nBut when you still bring into something fresh,\n\n245\n00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:34.720\nsome of the most valuable questions you have are ones that have just been taken\n\n246\n00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:38.790\nas a given in the industry, which is why I think people from outside every\n\n247\n00:11:38.790 --> 00:11:39.240\nindustry\n\n248\n00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:40.720\ntend to be very successful.\n\n249\n00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:44.080\nThey look at things and challenge some of the norms.\n\n250\n00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.160\nAnd so I try to keep track of those first day naivete.\n\n251\n00:11:47.160 --> 00:11:49.720\nWhat is it that just doesn't seem right?\n\n252\n00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:51.840\nAnd then I make sure that it stays fresh.\n\n253\n00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.560\nAnd some of them I understand as I learn that that's actually a good thing.\n\n254\n00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:55.800\nIt's done that way.\n\n255\n00:11:55.800 --> 00:11:58.600\nAnd other times I look at it and it comes an opportunity.\n\n256\n00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:00.480\nGive me an example of a first day naivete.\n\n257\n00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:01.480\nI love how that rhymes.\n\n258\n00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:03.280\nYou can remember things like that.\n\n259\n00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:05.680\nYou must be that marketing heritage is coming out.\n\n260\n00:12:05.680 --> 00:12:06.680\nIt's coming out.\n\n261\n00:12:06.680 --> 00:12:07.680\nYeah.\n\n262\n00:12:07.680 --> 00:12:12.320\nSo I think when I first walked in to Cala, I'll give you two observations.\n\n263\n00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:16.990\nOne was an organizational observation and one was a physical structural\n\n264\n00:12:16.990 --> 00:12:17.720\nobservation.\n\n265\n00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:25.930\nSo organizationally, a company had been run with, I'll call it from a\n\n266\n00:12:25.930 --> 00:12:27.080\ndepartmental approach.\n\n267\n00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:30.680\nI'm a huge believer in interdependency.\n\n268\n00:12:30.680 --> 00:12:34.360\nI don't like the word teamwork because it's so used and nobody.\n\n269\n00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:35.360\nIt doesn't.\n\n270\n00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:38.040\nSo we use a term called fiercely interdependent.\n\n271\n00:12:38.040 --> 00:12:42.230\nIt's really about rewiring so that everyone understands the action that they\n\n272\n00:12:42.230 --> 00:12:42.720\ntake, not\n\n273\n00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:46.790\nonly creates a ripple effect within their department, it creates a ripple\n\n274\n00:12:46.790 --> 00:12:47.640\neffect across\n\n275\n00:12:47.640 --> 00:12:49.080\nthe whole company.\n\n276\n00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:54.760\nAnd so it's really about rewiring things to becoming fiercely interdependent.\n\n277\n00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:58.440\nThe second thing that I observed and we came in was really a supply chain.\n\n278\n00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:00.200\nWe were making product for the world.\n\n279\n00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:05.270\nWe were in Australia, we were in the UK, we were on the east coast and we had\n\n280\n00:13:05.270 --> 00:13:06.120\ndeveloped\n\n281\n00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:10.240\nso much in our own facility and we were making 100% of that in California.\n\n282\n00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:13.850\nOne of the things we looked at, which was obvious, was a rewiring of making the\n\n283\n00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:14.360\nproduct\n\n284\n00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:19.250\ncloser to our consumers, retaining the quality and heritage of what we do, but\n\n285\n00:13:19.250 --> 00:13:20.280\nreally getting\n\n286\n00:13:20.280 --> 00:13:24.340\nall of those unnecessary costs in the business system out because consumers\n\n287\n00:13:24.340 --> 00:13:25.040\nwill pay you\n\n288\n00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:26.040\nfor your product.\n\n289\n00:13:26.040 --> 00:13:30.700\nThey'll pay you for the brand you built and your tangible and intangible\n\n290\n00:13:30.700 --> 00:13:31.280\nbenefits.\n\n291\n00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:35.280\nThey're not going to pay you because you run an inefficient company.\n\n292\n00:13:35.280 --> 00:13:37.920\nSo those come out of your pocket because you just can't charge for them.\n\n293\n00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:41.230\nYou can't charge to say, \"Well, we don't do this very well, so you need to pay\n\n294\n00:13:41.230 --> 00:13:41.920\n10 cents\n\n295\n00:13:41.920 --> 00:13:42.920\nmore for that.\"\n\n296\n00:13:42.920 --> 00:13:44.240\nThere's no tolerance there.\n\n297\n00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:48.300\nSo your job is to make sure that all those costs that could be driven out\n\n298\n00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:50.040\nthrough, inefficiency,\n\n299\n00:13:50.040 --> 00:13:54.690\nthrough structure, are driven out so that consumer is only being asked to pay\n\n300\n00:13:54.690 --> 00:13:55.000\nwhat is\n\n301\n00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:56.520\na real benefit to them.\n\n302\n00:13:56.520 --> 00:13:59.440\nI love that first day in Ayavete, I'm going to remember that one.\n\n303\n00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:00.440\nThank you for that one.\n\n304\n00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:04.720\nYou've said your job is building a home, not flipping a house.\n\n305\n00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:05.960\nExplain what you mean by that.\n\n306\n00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:07.600\nI've always had this sense.\n\n307\n00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:11.910\nWhen you go and if you've ever bought a home and you walk into someone's home\n\n308\n00:14:11.910 --> 00:14:12.520\nand you feel\n\n309\n00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:17.500\nlike this is where they raise their kids, they were creating something, there's\n\n310\n00:14:17.500 --> 00:14:17.960\na real\n\n311\n00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:18.960\nvalue in that.\n\n312\n00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:21.980\nI always feel like you can walk in a house that someone bought thinking, \"Hey,\n\n313\n00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:22.320\nin two\n\n314\n00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:26.540\nyears I can flip this thing, I don't really need to put the same quality sink\n\n315\n00:14:26.540 --> 00:14:26.960\nin.\n\n316\n00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.440\nNobody will notice this, nobody will notice that.\"\n\n317\n00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:34.340\nWell in companies, especially private companies, everyone views the end reward\n\n318\n00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:35.120\nfor some kind\n\n319\n00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.520\nof a liquidity event, selling the company.\n\n320\n00:14:38.520 --> 00:14:42.740\nAnd too often I were seeing people run businesses like you would flip a house,\n\n321\n00:14:42.740 --> 00:14:43.640\nlike thinking\n\n322\n00:14:43.640 --> 00:14:45.640\nthere was some end game in two years.\n\n323\n00:14:45.640 --> 00:14:49.710\nBut in reality, when you're building a company, you're building it for perpet\n\n324\n00:14:49.710 --> 00:14:50.240\nuity.\n\n325\n00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:54.090\nIt may have different owners of the house, but whoever you hand it off to, if\n\n326\n00:14:54.090 --> 00:14:54.560\nyou do,\n\n327\n00:14:54.560 --> 00:14:58.320\nit needs to have the foundation, it needs to have the long-term thinking.\n\n328\n00:14:58.320 --> 00:14:59.840\nIt needs to be viable in the future.\n\n329\n00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:03.240\nNo one buys a business for its past, they buy it for its future.\n\n330\n00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:07.250\nBut people think there's some magic moment, like if I just get it to here and I\n\n331\n00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:07.800\n'll just\n\n332\n00:15:07.800 --> 00:15:10.630\nput a cheap coat of paint on it and then someone will pay me more for it, and\n\n333\n00:15:10.630 --> 00:15:11.240\nthen the paint\n\n334\n00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:13.600\nwill fall off and it will be worth less.\n\n335\n00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:17.140\nEvery business that I've sold, they've more than exceeded their three-year\n\n336\n00:15:17.140 --> 00:15:17.600\nplans that I\n\n337\n00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:21.420\nsold the businesses on, they're thriving in leaders from where that's at\n\n338\n00:15:21.420 --> 00:15:22.240\nbecause it was\n\n339\n00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:23.240\nbuilt for that.\n\n340\n00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:26.750\nIt was built to be a home that maybe I'm not going to be in for the whole time,\n\n341\n00:15:26.750 --> 00:15:27.200\nbut the\n\n342\n00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:31.870\nnext person is going to come into it, appreciate what was built, add to it and\n\n343\n00:15:31.870 --> 00:15:32.800\nkeep it going.\n\n344\n00:15:32.800 --> 00:15:38.300\nSo you really have to have a core foundation that you build on and you got to\n\n345\n00:15:38.300 --> 00:15:39.280\nhave a heart\n\n346\n00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:42.040\nand soul for what your company is all about.\n\n347\n00:15:42.040 --> 00:15:47.720\nAnd I understand that your late founder developed the product, Adwali, and sold\n\n348\n00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:49.040\nit to Coca-Cola\n\n349\n00:15:49.040 --> 00:15:52.720\nand felt that it lost its soul.\n\n350\n00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:57.760\nDid he have any advice for you on how to maintain your soul?\n\n351\n00:15:57.760 --> 00:15:59.480\nI wish I could have spent more time with him.\n\n352\n00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:04.780\nSo I joined the company and just a few short months later, unfortunately, Greg\n\n353\n00:16:04.780 --> 00:16:05.560\npassed.\n\n354\n00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:12.630\nBut I know that what he tried to do and what I've seen successful is you have\n\n355\n00:16:12.630 --> 00:16:13.480\nto build\n\n356\n00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:14.480\ntwo things.\n\n357\n00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:19.250\nYou have to build guardrails or a road map for your product because the most\n\n358\n00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:20.040\nimportant\n\n359\n00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:24.480\nthing as you go forward in a brand is what not to do, not what to do.\n\n360\n00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:30.060\nSo that was one and he always had this slogan he liked to say, think different,\n\n361\n00:16:30.060 --> 00:16:31.240\nthink better.\n\n362\n00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:37.730\nAnd I think that was a cultural component of looking at and building in that\n\n363\n00:16:37.730 --> 00:16:38.760\nlevel of,\n\n364\n00:16:38.760 --> 00:16:41.200\nhey, we're here to be disruptors.\n\n365\n00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:42.960\nAnd I think we try to keep that very true.\n\n366\n00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:47.180\nWe honor him every day on Earth Day with our founder's Earth Day just to remind\n\n367\n00:16:47.180 --> 00:16:49.160\nus that\n\n368\n00:16:49.160 --> 00:16:52.160\nwhere we started from regardless of how big we've gotten today.\n\n369\n00:16:52.160 --> 00:16:55.400\nWell, you inherited one of the fastest growing natural product companies in the\n\n370\n00:16:55.400 --> 00:16:56.500\nUnited States.\n\n371\n00:16:56.500 --> 00:16:59.560\nHow much pressure does that put on you, Dave?\n\n372\n00:16:59.560 --> 00:17:00.560\nAnd how do you handle it?\n\n373\n00:17:00.560 --> 00:17:05.200\nYou know, when you come in with something that's booming.\n\n374\n00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:12.800\nYou know, business for me is a, it's a job, it's a passion, it's a hobby.\n\n375\n00:17:12.800 --> 00:17:13.800\nIt's all rolled up.\n\n376\n00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:16.040\nLike, I don't know how to turn it off.\n\n377\n00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:23.320\nAnd I'm insanely competitive, I would say, and I just hate losing.\n\n378\n00:17:23.320 --> 00:17:24.680\nSo it's a lot of pressure.\n\n379\n00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:28.080\nI think it's probably the hardest thing about it.\n\n380\n00:17:28.080 --> 00:17:30.000\nIf you're really good at what you do, you're passionate about it.\n\n381\n00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.200\nIf you're passionate about it, you care a lot.\n\n382\n00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:34.760\nAnd when you care a lot, if it doesn't go well, it hurts.\n\n383\n00:17:34.760 --> 00:17:41.860\nSo I think my motivation has always been wanting to succeed for the effects\n\n384\n00:17:41.860 --> 00:17:42.960\nbecause I know\n\n385\n00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:44.440\nit happens when you stop growing.\n\n386\n00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:47.240\nWhen you stop growing, you can't, you don't just stop hiring.\n\n387\n00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:50.720\nMany times you have to let people go that you promise them a future.\n\n388\n00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:57.650\nSo I carry the burden of growth probably too much maybe, if I was to advise my\n\n389\n00:17:57.650 --> 00:17:58.280\nkids and\n\n390\n00:17:58.280 --> 00:18:02.560\nI'd say like, hey, kind of separate a little bit, but you got to wake up every\n\n391\n00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:03.200\nday with\n\n392\n00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:07.800\nthe sense of responsibility for your shareholders, but also for your employees.\n\n393\n00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:11.600\nAnd for me, the engine is growth, profitable growth, yes.\n\n394\n00:18:11.600 --> 00:18:14.720\nBut once you stop growing, bad things are happening.\n\n395\n00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:18.560\nWhere did that competitive drive that you have lead to something that was\n\n396\n00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:19.720\nreally outstanding\n\n397\n00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:21.280\nin your mind?\n\n398\n00:18:21.280 --> 00:18:24.670\nIn a healthy way, I'm going to say competitive and maybe last you can say it's\n\n399\n00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:25.360\nthe chip on\n\n400\n00:18:25.360 --> 00:18:27.600\nthe shoulder syndrome, right?\n\n401\n00:18:27.600 --> 00:18:31.440\nI always laughed as a kid who went to a very good high school.\n\n402\n00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:32.760\nI was a state school kid.\n\n403\n00:18:32.760 --> 00:18:36.760\nI'm so proud of my San Diego state Aztecs, but I didn't come out of Harvard or\n\n404\n00:18:36.760 --> 00:18:37.280\nYale and\n\n405\n00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:38.720\nI don't have an MBA.\n\n406\n00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:42.200\nSo I just figured I had to work harder to do that.\n\n407\n00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:47.770\nAnd I think I first got that when I went to college and I realized I had this\n\n408\n00:18:47.770 --> 00:18:48.560\namazing,\n\n409\n00:18:48.560 --> 00:18:53.450\nI took a leadership class and the professor was amazing and I ended up getting\n\n410\n00:18:53.450 --> 00:18:54.160\ninvolved\n\n411\n00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:56.080\nin a student organization.\n\n412\n00:18:56.080 --> 00:19:01.580\nAnd I really found for the time that you could really define who you are by how\n\n413\n00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:01.960\nyou\n\n414\n00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:03.760\nact and what you do.\n\n415\n00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:09.280\nAnd it kind of opened up my lens of what I thought potential could be.\n\n416\n00:19:09.280 --> 00:19:12.590\nAnd then I think I've been driven by not wanting to fail, even though I\n\n417\n00:19:12.590 --> 00:19:13.680\nunderstand failure\n\n418\n00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:15.080\nis a part of succeeding.\n\n419\n00:19:15.080 --> 00:19:19.320\nHas your competitive drive gotten the way of success in your mind at any point?\n\n420\n00:19:19.320 --> 00:19:22.450\nCan you remember where maybe it drove you to something that you should have\n\n421\n00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:23.040\nsaid held\n\n422\n00:19:23.040 --> 00:19:25.480\non a little bit longer to?\n\n423\n00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:29.560\nMaybe competitive drive sometimes also is in patience.\n\n424\n00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:33.550\nSo boy, I tell you, there's a couple of businesses that I wish I would have\n\n425\n00:19:33.550 --> 00:19:35.000\nheld on to longer.\n\n426\n00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.480\nI mean, it was the right time for the people involved.\n\n427\n00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:43.000\nI think what it can cause sometimes is reacting a little too quickly, right?\n\n428\n00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.410\nAnd so I think we've definitely forced a decision or an action that probably\n\n429\n00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:49.560\nwould have benefited\n\n430\n00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:53.460\nfrom a little bit more analysis, a little bit more time and the effort of speed\n\n431\n00:19:53.460 --> 00:19:53.920\nbecause\n\n432\n00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:55.840\nspeed is how you win.\n\n433\n00:19:55.840 --> 00:19:59.750\nSo for sure, I think I'm always trying to find that balance and the way I do it\n\n434\n00:19:59.750 --> 00:20:00.120\nis I\n\n435\n00:20:00.120 --> 00:20:03.720\nmake sure that not everyone is like me who works with me.\n\n436\n00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:08.720\nSo I have some amazing partners who've worked with me at a variety of companies\n\n437\n00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:09.300\nwho are\n\n438\n00:20:09.300 --> 00:20:15.520\ninvaluable partners by sharing their perspective and me having the trust and\n\n439\n00:20:15.520 --> 00:20:16.200\nconfidence in\n\n440\n00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:21.720\nthem that I realize sometimes when the brakes have to be tapped a little bit.\n\n441\n00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:27.080\nSo speaking of speed, what's the thing you've learned most about scaling fast?\n\n442\n00:20:27.080 --> 00:20:29.400\nYeah, you have to build ahead.\n\n443\n00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:34.080\nIt's an odd thing to say, but you always tell people, if I walk into a company\n\n444\n00:20:34.080 --> 00:20:34.500\nand it's\n\n445\n00:20:34.500 --> 00:20:38.440\n200 million, I say you got to pretend it's 500 tomorrow, if it's 500, you got\n\n446\n00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:39.080\nto pretend\n\n447\n00:20:39.080 --> 00:20:40.520\nit's a billion.\n\n448\n00:20:40.520 --> 00:20:43.840\nMost people forget to build the infrastructure.\n\n449\n00:20:43.840 --> 00:20:48.730\nAnd so they're so worried about the speed that they start to go at a pace\n\n450\n00:20:48.730 --> 00:20:49.640\nfaster than\n\n451\n00:20:49.640 --> 00:20:51.280\nthe car can go.\n\n452\n00:20:51.280 --> 00:20:54.140\nAnd then that's when it comes to an abrupt halt.\n\n453\n00:20:54.140 --> 00:20:56.830\nSo the thing that I do is, I don't know, maybe you could say it's the least\n\n454\n00:20:56.830 --> 00:20:57.400\ninteresting\n\n455\n00:20:57.400 --> 00:21:00.900\npart, but is actually building the infrastructure and getting it out ahead of\n\n456\n00:21:00.900 --> 00:21:02.920\nwhere you're going.\n\n457\n00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:07.570\nBecause I always say, we can never let the company be the reason that we've\n\n458\n00:21:07.570 --> 00:21:07.980\nslowed down\n\n459\n00:21:07.980 --> 00:21:08.980\ngrowth.\n\n460\n00:21:08.980 --> 00:21:13.650\nIt can't be our capabilities, our capacity, our internal processes, whatever it\n\n461\n00:21:13.650 --> 00:21:13.940\nis.\n\n462\n00:21:13.940 --> 00:21:17.880\nSo the most important thing I've learned and I've seen people not do it is you\n\n463\n00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:18.500\n've got to\n\n464\n00:21:18.500 --> 00:21:22.920\nbuild the organizational capabilities way ahead of where you are at today.\n\n465\n00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:27.820\nBecause if you're only building for you out today, then you'll run out of\n\n466\n00:21:27.820 --> 00:21:28.660\nrunway.\n\n467\n00:21:28.660 --> 00:21:33.950\nSo you have in your career marketing roots, you're a marketer at the very core\n\n468\n00:21:33.950 --> 00:21:34.460\nand it\n\n469\n00:21:34.460 --> 00:21:36.700\ncertainly sounds that way.\n\n470\n00:21:36.700 --> 00:21:41.780\nBut building the organizational capability, building the supply chain like you\n\n471\n00:21:41.780 --> 00:21:42.300\ntalked\n\n472\n00:21:42.300 --> 00:21:45.840\nabout early, that's not necessarily something that's associated with marketing\n\n473\n00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:46.340\npeople.\n\n474\n00:21:46.340 --> 00:21:50.430\nI mean, how did you pick up those additional skills or did you always have that\n\n475\n00:21:50.430 --> 00:21:50.700\n?\n\n476\n00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:51.700\nCuriosity.\n\n477\n00:21:51.700 --> 00:21:52.700\nSo it's interesting.\n\n478\n00:21:52.700 --> 00:21:58.620\nIf I started as a salesperson and then so in dryers, I was a salesperson who\n\n479\n00:21:58.620 --> 00:21:59.540\nwas a marketing\n\n480\n00:21:59.540 --> 00:22:03.460\nguy or a marketing guy who was a salesperson, but curiosity.\n\n481\n00:22:03.460 --> 00:22:08.140\nSo when we ran a new product that I was involved with, I went to the factory.\n\n482\n00:22:08.140 --> 00:22:11.640\nAnd if it was sometimes, they're like, Dave, we're running that product at 1 AM\n\n483\n00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:11.860\n.\n\n484\n00:22:11.860 --> 00:22:12.860\nWell, I want to be there.\n\n485\n00:22:12.860 --> 00:22:15.380\nI want to see what did it actually take.\n\n486\n00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:21.060\nSo I learned how plants operate at a much greater level of granularity.\n\n487\n00:22:21.060 --> 00:22:24.260\nI learned to spend a lot of time in the R&D department.\n\n488\n00:22:24.260 --> 00:22:30.000\nSo I think it was business curiosity that drove it, but I forced myself to have\n\n489\n00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:30.460\nthat\n\n490\n00:22:30.460 --> 00:22:31.460\nlevel of exposure.\n\n491\n00:22:31.460 --> 00:22:33.540\nI didn't assume someone was doing it.\n\n492\n00:22:33.540 --> 00:22:35.520\nI didn't do it because I thought I could do it better, but I just did it\n\n493\n00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:36.100\nbecause I wanted\n\n494\n00:22:36.100 --> 00:22:38.380\nto learn.\n\n495\n00:22:38.380 --> 00:22:42.650\nAnd I think the reason I gravitated to marketing, it was the closest thing to\n\n496\n00:22:42.650 --> 00:22:43.700\ngeneral management\n\n497\n00:22:43.700 --> 00:22:46.180\nthat existed at that time in my career.\n\n498\n00:22:46.180 --> 00:22:49.430\nAnd I could see all the puzzle pieces, but I wanted to see them all come\n\n499\n00:22:49.430 --> 00:22:50.140\ntogether.\n\n500\n00:22:50.140 --> 00:22:55.190\nSo that's how I did a lot of self-teaching, a lot of great relationships with\n\n501\n00:22:55.190 --> 00:22:55.820\npeople in\n\n502\n00:22:55.820 --> 00:23:00.340\nother departments, but curiosity was a number one driver.\n\n503\n00:23:00.340 --> 00:23:05.820\nYou describe yourself as someone who looks for builders when you hire.\n\n504\n00:23:05.820 --> 00:23:09.460\nWhat does a builder actually look and sound like in an interview?\n\n505\n00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:12.220\nAnd how do you find them?\n\n506\n00:23:12.220 --> 00:23:13.220\nTough.\n\n507\n00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:15.420\nIt's the toughest thing to find, I think.\n\n508\n00:23:15.420 --> 00:23:19.180\nBut in an interview, there's some key questions that I ask, right?\n\n509\n00:23:19.180 --> 00:23:23.910\nThe number one is, is there anything in your job that you've just had recently,\n\n510\n00:23:23.910 --> 00:23:24.540\nor maybe\n\n511\n00:23:24.540 --> 00:23:31.070\nit could be one job ago, that people refer to as, let's say I'm interviewing\n\n512\n00:23:31.070 --> 00:23:32.420\nMary, that's\n\n513\n00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:36.820\nthe Mary spreadsheet, that's the Mary process.\n\n514\n00:23:36.820 --> 00:23:41.480\nAnd that you created something that didn't exist before, or that you're\n\n515\n00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:42.180\nacknowledged for\n\n516\n00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:43.180\nit.\n\n517\n00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:44.180\nAnd so that's a builder.\n\n518\n00:23:44.180 --> 00:23:50.620\nA builder comes in and sees things, and they build upon them, as opposed to\n\n519\n00:23:50.620 --> 00:23:51.860\nmanagers.\n\n520\n00:23:51.860 --> 00:23:56.570\nThe other question is, you can tell a builder by somebody who's taken, I don't\n\n521\n00:23:56.570 --> 00:23:57.340\nthink it's\n\n522\n00:23:57.340 --> 00:24:00.780\nreal risk, but people perceive it as personal risk, personal accountability.\n\n523\n00:24:00.780 --> 00:24:05.810\nHey, I saw this, there wasn't this happening, I brought this forward, made this\n\n524\n00:24:05.810 --> 00:24:07.060\nrecommendation,\n\n525\n00:24:07.060 --> 00:24:09.380\nmade that recommendation.\n\n526\n00:24:09.380 --> 00:24:12.870\nAnd then the other thing is, if you know companies, builders tend to be very\n\n527\n00:24:12.870 --> 00:24:13.940\nfrustrated, working\n\n528\n00:24:13.940 --> 00:24:19.290\nwhere there's bureaucracy, where that kind of desire to change is hit with too\n\n529\n00:24:19.290 --> 00:24:19.900\ngreat of\n\n530\n00:24:19.900 --> 00:24:23.060\na resistance force to change things.\n\n531\n00:24:23.060 --> 00:24:25.460\nAnd that's why they're out looking for a job.\n\n532\n00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:28.220\nYou can always find them because they've done it before, but if they have it,\n\n533\n00:24:28.220 --> 00:24:28.740\nand they're\n\n534\n00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:32.650\ncoming straight out of a bigger organization that's known to be more process\n\n535\n00:24:32.650 --> 00:24:33.340\noriented,\n\n536\n00:24:33.340 --> 00:24:36.970\nyou sense and feel their real frustration of not being able to make personal\n\n537\n00:24:36.970 --> 00:24:37.580\nimpact.\n\n538\n00:24:37.580 --> 00:24:40.780\nSo what's the question you asked yourself before you hire somebody?\n\n539\n00:24:40.780 --> 00:24:47.380\nI've changed, I'm getting old now, but if I'm hiring someone I'm working with,\n\n540\n00:24:47.380 --> 00:24:47.740\nI just\n\n541\n00:24:47.740 --> 00:24:50.420\nrealize I want to like them.\n\n542\n00:24:50.420 --> 00:24:53.820\nThey can be very different, we don't have to be friends, but I want to work\n\n543\n00:24:53.820 --> 00:24:54.500\nwith them.\n\n544\n00:24:54.500 --> 00:24:58.780\nThere's something about that that's interesting to them, and interesting to me.\n\n545\n00:24:58.780 --> 00:25:04.220\nAnd the interview was more like a conversation than Q&A back and forth.\n\n546\n00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:07.060\nWhen I'm interviewing more broadly, when I first came into the company, just to\n\n547\n00:25:07.060 --> 00:25:07.260\nget\n\n548\n00:25:07.260 --> 00:25:11.100\nmy hand on, I interviewed every new employee, and it wasn't a control thing,\n\n549\n00:25:11.100 --> 00:25:11.660\nalthough maybe\n\n550\n00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:16.260\nI'll be accused of that, but I wanted this to validate that we're all looking\n\n551\n00:25:16.260 --> 00:25:16.420\nfor the\n\n552\n00:25:16.420 --> 00:25:17.660\nright people.\n\n553\n00:25:17.660 --> 00:25:22.320\nSo when I'm interviewing something more broadly, that maybe they're not going\n\n554\n00:25:22.320 --> 00:25:22.940\nto work directly\n\n555\n00:25:22.940 --> 00:25:28.600\nwith me, I want somebody who wants to read our annual report and feel like\n\n556\n00:25:28.600 --> 00:25:30.200\ntheir fingerprint\n\n557\n00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:32.500\nis somewhere in there.\n\n558\n00:25:32.500 --> 00:25:35.830\nCan you tell me a time, and you mentioned how hard it is, it's very hard to\n\n559\n00:25:35.830 --> 00:25:36.300\nfind these\n\n560\n00:25:36.300 --> 00:25:41.340\nbuilders, but can you tell me about a time when you got it wrong and you hired\n\n561\n00:25:41.340 --> 00:25:41.980\nsomeone\n\n562\n00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:46.420\nwho looked like a builder that wasn't, and what behavior did they have?\n\n563\n00:25:46.420 --> 00:25:52.040\nI think my biggest mistakes have come when I heard the right words, but I didn\n\n564\n00:25:52.040 --> 00:25:52.700\n't have\n\n565\n00:25:52.700 --> 00:25:54.300\nproof of the action.\n\n566\n00:25:54.300 --> 00:25:56.740\nSo I've made that mistake a couple of times.\n\n567\n00:25:56.740 --> 00:25:59.490\nSo now I'm going to say in an organization, you don't need everyone to be\n\n568\n00:25:59.490 --> 00:26:00.100\nbuilders.\n\n569\n00:26:00.100 --> 00:26:04.100\nThat probably would be too chaotic, but you need them in the right places.\n\n570\n00:26:04.100 --> 00:26:07.870\nAnd I was at a point where in a different company where we needed to have\n\n571\n00:26:07.870 --> 00:26:08.660\nsomeone come\n\n572\n00:26:08.660 --> 00:26:12.220\nin from our operations, we're going to be making a lot of changes to our\n\n573\n00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:13.100\nmanufacturing\n\n574\n00:26:13.100 --> 00:26:14.100\nof a structure.\n\n575\n00:26:14.100 --> 00:26:19.720\nAnd they said all the right things, but their background probably wouldn't have\n\n576\n00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:20.460\nprovided\n\n577\n00:26:20.460 --> 00:26:22.180\nme the proof points.\n\n578\n00:26:22.180 --> 00:26:27.420\nAnd so I fell victim for the, I said the right things, but I didn't have the\n\n579\n00:26:27.420 --> 00:26:28.540\nright examples\n\n580\n00:26:28.540 --> 00:26:30.580\nto reinforce it.\n\n581\n00:26:30.580 --> 00:26:31.860\nHello, friends.\n\n582\n00:26:31.860 --> 00:26:33.940\nI hope you're loving this conversation.\n\n583\n00:26:33.940 --> 00:26:36.380\nBe sure to stay tuned to the very end of the episode.\n\n584\n00:26:36.380 --> 00:26:39.950\nAs always, David and I are going to debrief some of the concepts that he talks\n\n585\n00:26:39.950 --> 00:26:40.620\nabout with\n\n586\n00:26:40.620 --> 00:26:41.780\nthis week's guests.\n\n587\n00:26:41.780 --> 00:26:45.860\nSo stay tuned to the very end, and I will see you soon.\n\n588\n00:26:45.860 --> 00:26:50.900\nI want to get back to your leadership at the Caliphate.\n\n589\n00:26:50.900 --> 00:26:55.700\nBut I want to take you back way back and tell me a story from your childhood\n\n590\n00:26:55.700 --> 00:26:56.580\nthat shaped\n\n591\n00:26:56.580 --> 00:26:58.420\nthe kind of leader you are today.\n\n592\n00:26:58.420 --> 00:27:02.140\nSo on the youngest of three, and there's a big age gap.\n\n593\n00:27:02.140 --> 00:27:04.700\nSo my oldest brother was 12 years.\n\n594\n00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:08.340\nMy other brother was seven and a half years.\n\n595\n00:27:08.340 --> 00:27:14.160\nMy father came from, you know, really nothing from a farm in Nebraska and moved\n\n596\n00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:14.780\nhis way\n\n597\n00:27:14.780 --> 00:27:16.060\nout West.\n\n598\n00:27:16.060 --> 00:27:21.300\nAnd by the time I was, you know, in what, six grades, seventh grade, I started\n\n599\n00:27:21.300 --> 00:27:21.980\nto travel\n\n600\n00:27:21.980 --> 00:27:25.540\nwith my father because heck, my mom wanted to go to some of these conferences.\n\n601\n00:27:25.540 --> 00:27:31.900\nAnd I really, I spent a lot of time with my dad and seeing how he interacted\n\n602\n00:27:31.900 --> 00:27:32.740\nwith his\n\n603\n00:27:32.740 --> 00:27:39.000\nemployees and his teamwork and just who he was as a person around business.\n\n604\n00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:43.770\nAnd I think that was probably, that was probably the impetus of why I became so\n\n605\n00:27:43.770 --> 00:27:44.740\npassionate.\n\n606\n00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:45.740\nAnd that's a use that term.\n\n607\n00:27:45.740 --> 00:27:46.740\nIt's a hobby for me.\n\n608\n00:27:46.740 --> 00:27:47.740\nIt's a passionate.\n\n609\n00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:48.740\nIt's a my job.\n\n610\n00:27:48.740 --> 00:27:52.230\nI think because I kind of grew up instead of tagging along with my brother\n\n611\n00:27:52.230 --> 00:27:53.140\ngoing to baseball\n\n612\n00:27:53.140 --> 00:27:55.700\ngame, I kind of tagged along with my dad going to work things.\n\n613\n00:27:55.700 --> 00:27:56.700\nAnd I love that.\n\n614\n00:27:56.700 --> 00:28:00.020\nYou know, and I also understand you're a little bit of an entrepreneur.\n\n615\n00:28:00.020 --> 00:28:03.540\nYou had your own paper route when you were 12 years old.\n\n616\n00:28:03.540 --> 00:28:05.900\nWhat was the biggest lesson that taught you?\n\n617\n00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:08.140\nBoy, you had deep research.\n\n618\n00:28:08.140 --> 00:28:12.660\nWell, it taught me that I don't have a job that's 365 days a year.\n\n619\n00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:16.880\nI mean, I remember waking up on Christmas morning and it was the morning route\n\n620\n00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:17.380\ntoo.\n\n621\n00:28:17.380 --> 00:28:18.740\nAnd there was no successor.\n\n622\n00:28:18.740 --> 00:28:21.100\nSo, you know, I had to deliver that paper.\n\n623\n00:28:21.100 --> 00:28:24.230\nThat's the only way my phone was ringing off the hook because they knew your\n\n624\n00:28:24.230 --> 00:28:24.780\nnumber.\n\n625\n00:28:24.780 --> 00:28:29.000\nSo, but you know, when it taught me hard work, I mean, it taught me that you\n\n626\n00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:29.900\ngot to do things\n\n627\n00:28:29.900 --> 00:28:34.550\nfor yourself, you know, they dropped off a bundle of papers and a bag of rubber\n\n628\n00:28:34.550 --> 00:28:34.660\nbands\n\n629\n00:28:34.660 --> 00:28:37.900\nand you folded them up.\n\n630\n00:28:37.900 --> 00:28:38.900\nAnd that was your responsibility.\n\n631\n00:28:38.900 --> 00:28:41.840\nAnd you realized that if you didn't show up, you were letting a lot of people\n\n632\n00:28:41.840 --> 00:28:42.260\ndown.\n\n633\n00:28:42.260 --> 00:28:48.140\nYou know, you spent 16 years at Dryers and, you know, great company.\n\n634\n00:28:48.140 --> 00:28:53.200\nAnd over time, you became the youngest person on the executive team.\n\n635\n00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:59.360\nNow, what did you have to do to earn your seat at the table when you were so\n\n636\n00:28:59.360 --> 00:28:59.860\nmuch younger\n\n637\n00:28:59.860 --> 00:29:01.500\nthan everyone else?\n\n638\n00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:07.450\nSo, I just never, my aspirations was maybe one day I could get a vice president\n\n639\n00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:07.980\ntitle\n\n640\n00:29:07.980 --> 00:29:09.820\nlike my dad had.\n\n641\n00:29:09.820 --> 00:29:15.260\nSo I didn't have this goal of trying to be a CEO, but I just was so competitive\n\n642\n00:29:15.260 --> 00:29:15.840\nto want\n\n643\n00:29:15.840 --> 00:29:20.760\nto, I wanted you the best I could do, not just for myself, but I loved it there\n\n644\n00:29:20.760 --> 00:29:21.100\n.\n\n645\n00:29:21.100 --> 00:29:25.080\nI met my wife there, I just, I met some of my closest friends there.\n\n646\n00:29:25.080 --> 00:29:26.440\nIt was a family.\n\n647\n00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:32.280\nAnd I guess I was, I was driven by just wanting to do well for myself and\n\n648\n00:29:32.280 --> 00:29:33.920\neveryone else.\n\n649\n00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.240\nBut I would say how I got there is I wasn't afraid to take risks.\n\n650\n00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:38.560\nI'll never forget the time.\n\n651\n00:29:38.560 --> 00:29:43.240\nI was pretty reasonable junior and I just disagreed with the CEO and he was a\n\n652\n00:29:43.240 --> 00:29:43.640\nlegend.\n\n653\n00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:45.960\nI mean, he's Gary Rogers.\n\n654\n00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:49.800\nAnd I took him on, not in a confrontational way, but in really expressing my\n\n655\n00:29:49.800 --> 00:29:50.280\nideas and\n\n656\n00:29:50.280 --> 00:29:51.520\nwhy I thought this was different.\n\n657\n00:29:51.520 --> 00:29:53.880\nAnd I just thought that's what you're supposed to do, right?\n\n658\n00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:55.640\nYou're here to do what you think is the right thing.\n\n659\n00:29:55.640 --> 00:30:01.810\nAnd I think it was that willingness and ability to take risk, personal risk,\n\n660\n00:30:01.810 --> 00:30:02.680\ntake personal\n\n661\n00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:07.240\naccountability, call it when you got it wrong, but also try to change things.\n\n662\n00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:13.840\nAnd so I did a lot of things that I was fortunate enough worked out for me, but\n\n663\n00:30:13.840 --> 00:30:14.360\nwas willing to\n\n664\n00:30:14.360 --> 00:30:17.440\nsay, great, but if it's bad, put it on me.\n\n665\n00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:19.720\nI'm willing to shoulder that.\n\n666\n00:30:19.720 --> 00:30:22.920\nYou know, as I understand, drives had what they called a groove-spaced\n\n667\n00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:24.640\nmanagement system.\n\n668\n00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:28.200\nIt sounds interesting to me, explain what the heck that is.\n\n669\n00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.200\nWe had 10 grooves.\n\n670\n00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:33.680\nSo you could call them values or principles, the same words with interchange.\n\n671\n00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:37.760\nAnd that's, it was how we truly ran the company.\n\n672\n00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:40.400\nAnd at one point, we had to change us at the very end.\n\n673\n00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:45.080\nWe didn't have an HR department because one of our grooves was manager should\n\n674\n00:30:45.080 --> 00:30:45.680\nmanage.\n\n675\n00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:52.370\nAnd what our leaders found is that if you have, if you separate management and\n\n676\n00:30:52.370 --> 00:30:53.080\nwhen things\n\n677\n00:30:53.080 --> 00:30:57.120\nget tough, you hand it off to someone else, that's not really being a manager.\n\n678\n00:30:57.120 --> 00:30:58.200\nIt's a very important role now.\n\n679\n00:30:58.200 --> 00:31:02.610\nI have an amazing person that runs HR and the whole team because there's a lot\n\n680\n00:31:02.610 --> 00:31:03.440\nof technical\n\n681\n00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:05.800\ncomplexities, but I still believe managers should manage.\n\n682\n00:31:05.800 --> 00:31:07.360\nYou should have the hard conversation.\n\n683\n00:31:07.360 --> 00:31:08.960\nYou should be the one developing.\n\n684\n00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:12.120\nYou should take accountability for career development.\n\n685\n00:31:12.120 --> 00:31:13.360\nThere were 10 grooves like that.\n\n686\n00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:16.680\nWe had ready fire aim instead of ready aim fire.\n\n687\n00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:18.960\nThat meant you better get things ready.\n\n688\n00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:22.240\nDon't just go out there firing away, but go ahead and take the risk figure you\n\n689\n00:31:22.240 --> 00:31:22.680\n'll aim\n\n690\n00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:23.680\nit later.\n\n691\n00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:24.680\nYou'll improve it.\n\n692\n00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:26.560\nThat was that speed thing that was taught.\n\n693\n00:31:26.560 --> 00:31:31.360\nBut those grooves are so important to me that everywhere I went, what it really\n\n694\n00:31:31.360 --> 00:31:31.960\nwas, back\n\n695\n00:31:31.960 --> 00:31:33.560\nthen, you didn't talk about it so much.\n\n696\n00:31:33.560 --> 00:31:40.080\nBut they created a culture that was motivating, retentive, and empowering.\n\n697\n00:31:40.080 --> 00:31:42.080\nAnd I think I've tried to sum them up in my own words.\n\n698\n00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:43.840\nI didn't agree with all of them.\n\n699\n00:31:43.840 --> 00:31:48.740\nBut everywhere I've gone, the first thing I do is find a language for us to\n\n700\n00:31:48.740 --> 00:31:49.640\ncapture the\n\n701\n00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:54.320\nvalues of it that will drive the culture because how you win is as important as\n\n702\n00:31:54.320 --> 00:31:54.600\nwhat\n\n703\n00:31:54.600 --> 00:31:55.600\nyou win.\n\n704\n00:31:55.600 --> 00:31:56.600\nTell me one of those.\n\n705\n00:31:56.600 --> 00:32:01.020\nTell me what do you think would be the most important one at the California?\n\n706\n00:32:01.020 --> 00:32:04.560\nFor purpose, I think passion is really important.\n\n707\n00:32:04.560 --> 00:32:07.480\nAnd I think we're a purpose driven company.\n\n708\n00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:11.280\nAnd so I think we want to have people that have a passion about what we're\n\n709\n00:32:11.280 --> 00:32:11.880\ntrying to\n\n710\n00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:16.200\ndo, both from a business objective, a health for people objective, a health for\n\n711\n00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:16.840\nthe planet\n\n712\n00:32:16.840 --> 00:32:17.840\nobjective.\n\n713\n00:32:17.840 --> 00:32:22.640\nI judge that by how many people walk around wearing our shirts or a hat or a\n\n714\n00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:23.240\nlogo.\n\n715\n00:32:23.240 --> 00:32:27.920\nLike they want to wear the brand out and really be proud of where they work\n\n716\n00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:28.800\nfrom that.\n\n717\n00:32:28.800 --> 00:32:31.820\nBut a challenge or a mind spit is also another one.\n\n718\n00:32:31.820 --> 00:32:34.700\nIt says, you know, we're here to be disruptors.\n\n719\n00:32:34.700 --> 00:32:39.020\nAnd so I try to find those, some of which are not fully there and so you have\n\n720\n00:32:39.020 --> 00:32:39.780\nto develop\n\n721\n00:32:39.780 --> 00:32:40.780\nand cultivate them.\n\n722\n00:32:40.780 --> 00:32:43.100\nSome are inherent in the organization you walk into.\n\n723\n00:32:43.100 --> 00:32:47.660\nBut the most important thing for me to culture is find a common language.\n\n724\n00:32:47.660 --> 00:32:54.960\nBecause if you say teamwork and I say interdependency and someone else says no\n\n725\n00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:56.300\nsilos, yes, you've\n\n726\n00:32:56.300 --> 00:32:58.980\nall said the same thing, but it's so much more powerful.\n\n727\n00:32:58.980 --> 00:33:02.120\nIf you walked an organization, we all say, we're fiercely interdependent.\n\n728\n00:33:02.120 --> 00:33:04.180\nAll three people answer it that way.\n\n729\n00:33:04.180 --> 00:33:09.310\nThat common language really and the words matter really submits that this is\n\n730\n00:33:09.310 --> 00:33:10.140\nsomething\n\n731\n00:33:10.140 --> 00:33:13.980\nimportant and I feel a sense of it and everyone says the same thing.\n\n732\n00:33:13.980 --> 00:33:17.900\nSo I think creating a language and creating those values are one of the first\n\n733\n00:33:17.900 --> 00:33:18.460\nthings you\n\n734\n00:33:18.460 --> 00:33:21.140\nhave to do as a leader coming into our organization.\n\n735\n00:33:21.140 --> 00:33:23.180\nWhy do words matter so much?\n\n736\n00:33:23.180 --> 00:33:28.620\nThe word fiercely in front of interdependent changes the whole meaning.\n\n737\n00:33:28.620 --> 00:33:30.500\nTeamwork, I feel, has been overused.\n\n738\n00:33:30.500 --> 00:33:32.180\nSo there's my example of that.\n\n739\n00:33:32.180 --> 00:33:36.780\nBut also even when you get into technical things, I want to make sure you and I\n\n740\n00:33:36.780 --> 00:33:37.020\nare actually\n\n741\n00:33:37.020 --> 00:33:38.460\ntalking about the same thing.\n\n742\n00:33:38.460 --> 00:33:43.560\nHow many times do you see people in a conversation where they actually are in\n\n743\n00:33:43.560 --> 00:33:44.780\nagreement but they're\n\n744\n00:33:44.780 --> 00:33:49.180\njust missing slightly different definitions of things.\n\n745\n00:33:49.180 --> 00:33:54.850\nSo when I look at it, I think on the things that really matter, us all having\n\n746\n00:33:54.850 --> 00:33:55.860\nthat common\n\n747\n00:33:55.860 --> 00:33:58.540\nlanguage creates a sense of unity.\n\n748\n00:33:58.540 --> 00:34:04.390\nYou were the CEO as we mentioned earlier of Quest and you've sold businesses\n\n749\n00:34:04.390 --> 00:34:05.220\nand Quest\n\n750\n00:34:05.220 --> 00:34:09.900\nwas acquired for a billion dollars under your leadership.\n\n751\n00:34:09.900 --> 00:34:15.050\nWhat did going through that process teach you about actually creating value in\n\n752\n00:34:15.050 --> 00:34:16.060\na business?\n\n753\n00:34:16.060 --> 00:34:17.060\nWhat's humbling?\n\n754\n00:34:17.060 --> 00:34:22.500\nI think a company is very humbling because you're not used to talking to seven\n\n755\n00:34:22.500 --> 00:34:23.140\npeople\n\n756\n00:34:23.140 --> 00:34:26.700\nand having four say they're not interested.\n\n757\n00:34:26.700 --> 00:34:28.140\nSo that's the first part.\n\n758\n00:34:28.140 --> 00:34:33.720\nI think what it really taught me is the first thing any large corporation is\n\n759\n00:34:33.720 --> 00:34:35.420\ngoing to do\n\n760\n00:34:35.420 --> 00:34:38.260\nis say why can't we do this ourselves?\n\n761\n00:34:38.260 --> 00:34:43.560\nAnd so you have to have things built in that are, I called it the special sauce\n\n762\n00:34:43.560 --> 00:34:44.100\nthat you\n\n763\n00:34:44.100 --> 00:34:47.850\nwalk in and people realize there's something about this, whether that's the way\n\n764\n00:34:47.850 --> 00:34:48.340\nin which\n\n765\n00:34:48.340 --> 00:34:53.010\nyou interact with your consumers, it might be an approach to product\n\n766\n00:34:53.010 --> 00:34:53.860\ndevelopment.\n\n767\n00:34:53.860 --> 00:34:58.080\nYou have to have some things that are uniquely yours because if what you have\n\n768\n00:34:58.080 --> 00:34:59.060\nis simply their\n\n769\n00:34:59.060 --> 00:35:04.640\nplaybook done on a smaller scale and the builder buy you'll always lose, they\n\n770\n00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:05.580\n'll build.\n\n771\n00:35:05.580 --> 00:35:10.320\nAnd so you have to have created something about that and I think that is a\n\n772\n00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:10.980\nsense of\n\n773\n00:35:10.980 --> 00:35:14.390\nsome levels of finding what you're going to be really excellent at and doing it\n\n774\n00:35:14.390 --> 00:35:14.580\nin a\n\n775\n00:35:14.580 --> 00:35:15.940\nunique way.\n\n776\n00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:19.430\nAnd then I think the second thing is comes back to culture that the people\n\n777\n00:35:19.430 --> 00:35:20.060\nthere feel\n\n778\n00:35:20.060 --> 00:35:24.730\ndifferent in a sense of the connectivity of the product and the brand and the\n\n779\n00:35:24.730 --> 00:35:25.140\npurpose\n\n780\n00:35:25.140 --> 00:35:27.100\nof what the company is about.\n\n781\n00:35:27.100 --> 00:35:33.020\nDave, what would you describe as your biggest leadership moment at California?\n\n782\n00:35:33.020 --> 00:35:35.580\nI don't know if there's any one moment.\n\n783\n00:35:35.580 --> 00:35:39.620\nI think it's about showing up every day for me.\n\n784\n00:35:39.620 --> 00:35:42.340\nI'd love to.\n\n785\n00:35:42.340 --> 00:35:46.990\nIt's such a good question, but I think at the end I have always not looking for\n\n786\n00:35:46.990 --> 00:35:47.580\none stand\n\n787\n00:35:47.580 --> 00:35:49.380\non the rooftop and make a speech.\n\n788\n00:35:49.380 --> 00:35:54.380\nI think it's about how you show up in every meeting and I hope that it'll be a\n\n789\n00:35:54.380 --> 00:35:54.980\nseries\n\n790\n00:35:54.980 --> 00:36:01.650\nof one-off moments of sitting down in a meeting with the brand management team\n\n791\n00:36:01.650 --> 00:36:02.740\nor having gone\n\n792\n00:36:02.740 --> 00:36:07.780\nto the midnight shift and served them dinner near the holidays to thank them.\n\n793\n00:36:07.780 --> 00:36:10.140\nIf I were to sit, I think it's the way we entered the company, right?\n\n794\n00:36:10.140 --> 00:36:12.700\nIt was during the pandemic.\n\n795\n00:36:12.700 --> 00:36:17.350\nWe decided to have a virtual cooking class and we had to get people all the\n\n796\n00:36:17.350 --> 00:36:17.700\nsupplies.\n\n797\n00:36:17.700 --> 00:36:20.820\nSo we had them come and this is when you still, you know, we were masked up.\n\n798\n00:36:20.820 --> 00:36:22.180\nYou couldn't get out of your car.\n\n799\n00:36:22.180 --> 00:36:24.580\nThey showed up and me and my team stood there.\n\n800\n00:36:24.580 --> 00:36:28.140\nWe loaded their trunks and our CFO will kill me.\n\n801\n00:36:28.140 --> 00:36:32.800\nI made them wear a little sandwich board that said free window washing and then\n\n802\n00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:33.380\nwe watched\n\n803\n00:36:33.380 --> 00:36:38.880\nevery single employee's windows as we loaded their trunk before we got on zoom\n\n804\n00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:40.100\nthat night.\n\n805\n00:36:40.100 --> 00:36:43.620\nAnd I think that was a moment where I said, \"I'm coming here to be with you.\n\n806\n00:36:43.620 --> 00:36:45.420\nI'm not coming here.\n\n807\n00:36:45.420 --> 00:36:47.740\nI want to be a part of what we're doing.\n\n808\n00:36:47.740 --> 00:36:52.300\nI'm not here to be anything other than a part of the team.\"\n\n809\n00:36:52.300 --> 00:36:57.900\nWhat behaviors do you really aggressively and actively try to recognize?\n\n810\n00:36:57.900 --> 00:37:06.100\nI really try to recognize people that have shown self-initiative, people that\n\n811\n00:37:06.100 --> 00:37:06.820\nhave seen\n\n812\n00:37:06.820 --> 00:37:11.500\nan opportunity, created a solution, and then acted upon it.\n\n813\n00:37:11.500 --> 00:37:13.820\nSo I think that's probably the one I want to do.\n\n814\n00:37:13.820 --> 00:37:18.500\nAnd then the second one is I want to acknowledge people that have built\n\n815\n00:37:18.500 --> 00:37:21.260\ncollaboration, a team,\n\n816\n00:37:21.260 --> 00:37:25.980\nhave created something that involved an activity even bigger than themselves.\n\n817\n00:37:25.980 --> 00:37:30.630\nAnd those people had humility about it, were quick to recognize the role of the\n\n818\n00:37:30.630 --> 00:37:30.820\ndifferent\n\n819\n00:37:30.820 --> 00:37:35.260\nteam members and how it came together as a collective effort.\n\n820\n00:37:35.260 --> 00:37:39.910\nHow do you go about making people feel valued at every level, whether vice\n\n821\n00:37:39.910 --> 00:37:40.220\npresident or\n\n822\n00:37:40.220 --> 00:37:42.860\nthey're on the manufacturing line?\n\n823\n00:37:42.860 --> 00:37:46.060\nFirst of all, we institute a peer recognition system.\n\n824\n00:37:46.060 --> 00:37:50.740\nSo on our intercompany website, there's a very quick way I can acknowledge\n\n825\n00:37:50.740 --> 00:37:51.420\npeople who\n\n826\n00:37:51.420 --> 00:37:56.180\nhave demonstrated the way in which they work that's core to one of our values.\n\n827\n00:37:56.180 --> 00:38:00.130\nSo I think people see recognition, they very publicly hold a town hall every\n\n828\n00:38:00.130 --> 00:38:00.700\nmonth.\n\n829\n00:38:00.700 --> 00:38:03.100\nWe show that screen of everyone who's been recognized.\n\n830\n00:38:03.100 --> 00:38:07.100\nI think that we literally put everyone on the same.\n\n831\n00:38:07.100 --> 00:38:10.850\n70% of everyone's bonus is the exact same as mine, is the exact same as\n\n832\n00:38:10.850 --> 00:38:11.500\neveryone through\n\n833\n00:38:11.500 --> 00:38:13.660\nthe whole organization.\n\n834\n00:38:13.660 --> 00:38:14.660\nIt's about teamwork.\n\n835\n00:38:14.660 --> 00:38:18.560\nThere's plenty of room for individual, which we have in our goal setting, but\n\n836\n00:38:18.560 --> 00:38:19.340\nstructurally\n\n837\n00:38:19.340 --> 00:38:21.380\nthe bonus is that way.\n\n838\n00:38:21.380 --> 00:38:24.060\nI also think transparency is another way.\n\n839\n00:38:24.060 --> 00:38:28.130\nIt sounds odd that you would connect those, but people really feel appreciated\n\n840\n00:38:28.130 --> 00:38:28.820\nand engaged\n\n841\n00:38:28.820 --> 00:38:32.740\nwhen they know what their role is in the whole system.\n\n842\n00:38:32.740 --> 00:38:35.660\nSo for example, as soon as someone joins our company at any level, they go\n\n843\n00:38:35.660 --> 00:38:36.260\nthrough it,\n\n844\n00:38:36.260 --> 00:38:41.280\nwe call Camp Calofia, two half day sessions where they understand the workings\n\n845\n00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:41.820\nof each\n\n846\n00:38:41.820 --> 00:38:43.460\none of our departments.\n\n847\n00:38:43.460 --> 00:38:47.470\nSo they see as we say how we go from all men to consumer, I want them to know\n\n848\n00:38:47.470 --> 00:38:48.180\nthose roles\n\n849\n00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:51.860\nso that they have that sense that everything that everyone does in this company\n\n850\n00:38:51.860 --> 00:38:52.560\nis critical\n\n851\n00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:55.860\nand is important to our overall success.\n\n852\n00:38:55.860 --> 00:39:00.340\nAI is obviously the hot topic these days.\n\n853\n00:39:00.340 --> 00:39:04.050\nWhat are you learning at Calofia about AI that other leaders can apply to their\n\n854\n00:39:04.050 --> 00:39:06.060\nown business?\n\n855\n00:39:06.060 --> 00:39:07.060\nYou learn something every day.\n\n856\n00:39:07.060 --> 00:39:10.700\nIn fact, I literally just came from a meeting where we were talking about AI.\n\n857\n00:39:10.700 --> 00:39:16.200\nI think what we've tried to do with AI in our company is the first place we put\n\n858\n00:39:16.200 --> 00:39:16.620\nit was\n\n859\n00:39:16.620 --> 00:39:20.600\non productivity tools, so our supply chain team.\n\n860\n00:39:20.600 --> 00:39:23.780\nWe've had a mantra here, and it's easy.\n\n861\n00:39:23.780 --> 00:39:27.720\nThe size of our company allows me to do this, but we said we're not going to\n\n862\n00:39:27.720 --> 00:39:29.460\nuse AI to\n\n863\n00:39:29.460 --> 00:39:30.460\nreplace you.\n\n864\n00:39:30.460 --> 00:39:32.980\nWe're going to use AI to make you better.\n\n865\n00:39:32.980 --> 00:39:38.500\nAnd what that has done is it's created the, it's removed the barrier of fear,\n\n866\n00:39:38.500 --> 00:39:39.180\nand it's\n\n867\n00:39:39.180 --> 00:39:40.180\nenabled everyone.\n\n868\n00:39:40.180 --> 00:39:45.420\nWe put chat EBT, co-pilot on every single person's computer, we have coffee\n\n869\n00:39:45.420 --> 00:39:46.700\nwork sessions on\n\n870\n00:39:46.700 --> 00:39:48.860\nhow people can share what they've done.\n\n871\n00:39:48.860 --> 00:39:52.340\nAnd I think we've reinforced that we're here to use it to make us all better.\n\n872\n00:39:52.340 --> 00:39:56.290\nNow it may prevent us from hiring, need the need to hire someone in the future,\n\n873\n00:39:56.290 --> 00:39:56.580\nbut I\n\n874\n00:39:56.580 --> 00:40:01.250\nthink we've tried that I would say is we've tried to create a culture around AI\n\n875\n00:40:01.250 --> 00:40:01.580\nthat is\n\n876\n00:40:01.580 --> 00:40:08.330\none of safe space where I can look at and research how I can help my job and\n\n877\n00:40:08.330 --> 00:40:09.380\nnot worry\n\n878\n00:40:09.380 --> 00:40:10.380\nabout it.\n\n879\n00:40:10.380 --> 00:40:11.380\nTaking my job.\n\n880\n00:40:11.380 --> 00:40:16.070\nYeah, so how do you, how do you do that when AI can be so productive and save\n\n881\n00:40:16.070 --> 00:40:16.700\ntime?\n\n882\n00:40:16.700 --> 00:40:19.140\nI mean, how can you really say that to someone?\n\n883\n00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:22.690\nBecause it's easy in a growth company, because when you're growing 20% a year,\n\n884\n00:40:22.690 --> 00:40:23.460\nI think imagine\n\n885\n00:40:23.460 --> 00:40:24.460\njust the P&L.\n\n886\n00:40:24.460 --> 00:40:26.340\nYou're, you ran brilliant companies.\n\n887\n00:40:26.340 --> 00:40:31.020\nIf I drove 20% a year and I never have to hire another person, and if you say\n\n888\n00:40:31.020 --> 00:40:31.380\nworld\n\n889\n00:40:31.380 --> 00:40:36.270\nclasses five to 10% turnover, and I never have to replace some of those jobs, I\n\n890\n00:40:36.270 --> 00:40:36.500\ncan\n\n891\n00:40:36.500 --> 00:40:41.990\nfundamentally never have to hire another employee, you could call that job\n\n892\n00:40:41.990 --> 00:40:43.220\nreplacement, which\n\n893\n00:40:43.220 --> 00:40:47.910\nit is, but it's not replacing a current employee's job that is where they want\n\n894\n00:40:47.910 --> 00:40:48.460\nto be that's\n\n895\n00:40:48.460 --> 00:40:49.460\nnot there tomorrow.\n\n896\n00:40:49.460 --> 00:40:51.960\nYeah, growth solves all kinds of problems, doesn't it?\n\n897\n00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:54.780\nYeah, that's why I love, it goes back to my first statement.\n\n898\n00:40:54.780 --> 00:40:55.780\nI love growth.\n\n899\n00:40:55.780 --> 00:40:59.760\nAnd, and, and personally, how are you using AI and other tools to, to keep\n\n900\n00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:00.580\nleveling up\n\n901\n00:41:00.580 --> 00:41:01.780\nyour leadership?\n\n902\n00:41:01.780 --> 00:41:05.380\nI think in two big ways, I, I'm using chat GPT to get ready for a meeting.\n\n903\n00:41:05.380 --> 00:41:06.820\nI have a commodities meeting.\n\n904\n00:41:06.820 --> 00:41:10.720\nI plug in what our core commodities are and, and a quick summary of what's\n\n905\n00:41:10.720 --> 00:41:11.500\ngoing on from\n\n906\n00:41:11.500 --> 00:41:12.500\nthat standpoint.\n\n907\n00:41:12.500 --> 00:41:17.180\nUh, so I think it helps me more better prepare myself to engage in deeper\n\n908\n00:41:17.180 --> 00:41:18.060\ndiscussion.\n\n909\n00:41:18.060 --> 00:41:20.020\nSo I'm not just hearing headlines.\n\n910\n00:41:20.020 --> 00:41:23.860\nWe can now start talking about deeper rooted subjects within that.\n\n911\n00:41:23.860 --> 00:41:26.890\nAnd then, you know, listen, I'm using it for my own personal efficiency,\n\n912\n00:41:26.890 --> 00:41:27.540\nwhether our\n\n913\n00:41:27.540 --> 00:41:32.500\nco-pilot can help start takeover and start to auto draft a response.\n\n914\n00:41:32.500 --> 00:41:37.810\nSo it's trying to, I'm using it as a way to take out a time of doing things\n\n915\n00:41:37.810 --> 00:41:38.460\nthat are\n\n916\n00:41:38.460 --> 00:41:42.060\nkind of not value added to create more time for value added activities.\n\n917\n00:41:42.060 --> 00:41:45.220\nDave, it's been a lot of fun and, and I want to have some more with my\n\n918\n00:41:45.220 --> 00:41:46.140\nlightning round\n\n919\n00:41:46.140 --> 00:41:47.140\nof questions.\n\n920\n00:41:47.140 --> 00:41:48.140\nSo you ready for this?\n\n921\n00:41:48.140 --> 00:41:49.140\nAll right, let's go.\n\n922\n00:41:49.140 --> 00:41:54.580\nThe three words that best describe you intense, empathetic, hopefully humble.\n\n923\n00:41:54.580 --> 00:41:58.220\nIf you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be?\n\n924\n00:41:58.220 --> 00:42:04.030\nI would love to be Tim Cook to run Apple computers for a day, your biggest pet\n\n925\n00:42:04.030 --> 00:42:04.860\npeeve.\n\n926\n00:42:04.860 --> 00:42:07.990\nPeople who don't bring something up in a meeting, I call it the Emperor wears\n\n927\n00:42:07.990 --> 00:42:08.740\nno clothing and\n\n928\n00:42:08.740 --> 00:42:13.700\nthen tells their friends afterwards what a disaster that idea was.\n\n929\n00:42:13.700 --> 00:42:15.180\nWho would play you in a movie?\n\n930\n00:42:15.180 --> 00:42:20.820\nJeff Bridges, you've been continuously employed since the age of 12 or 13.\n\n931\n00:42:20.820 --> 00:42:24.140\nWhat's the job you, you'd least want to go back to?\n\n932\n00:42:24.140 --> 00:42:26.820\nA paper route, very monotonous.\n\n933\n00:42:26.820 --> 00:42:30.170\nThis is something you've been curious about lately that has absolutely nothing\n\n934\n00:42:30.170 --> 00:42:30.700\nto do with\n\n935\n00:42:30.700 --> 00:42:31.700\nwork.\n\n936\n00:42:31.700 --> 00:42:35.300\nSo I got two beehives and I'm now obsessed with beehives.\n\n937\n00:42:35.300 --> 00:42:37.340\nThe one thing you do just for you?\n\n938\n00:42:37.340 --> 00:42:40.500\nI read before I go to bed every night.\n\n939\n00:42:40.500 --> 00:42:44.020\nBesides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?\n\n940\n00:42:44.020 --> 00:42:45.700\nMy outdoor barbecue.\n\n941\n00:42:45.700 --> 00:42:48.860\nIf I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?\n\n942\n00:42:48.860 --> 00:42:51.700\nProbably something from the 80s, hopefully Billie Joel.\n\n943\n00:42:51.700 --> 00:42:55.100\nWhat's something about you that few people would know besides the beep beep be\n\n944\n00:42:55.100 --> 00:42:55.820\nep passion?\n\n945\n00:42:55.820 --> 00:43:01.650\nYeah, I think probably most, I have a really hard time saying no, I'm a massive\n\n946\n00:43:01.650 --> 00:43:03.420\novercommitter.\n\n947\n00:43:03.420 --> 00:43:06.660\nWhat's one of your daily rituals something that you never miss?\n\n948\n00:43:06.660 --> 00:43:07.660\nReading the news in the morning.\n\n949\n00:43:07.660 --> 00:43:11.620\nThe first thing I do is try to catch up on what's happening in the world before\n\n950\n00:43:11.620 --> 00:43:12.060\nI have\n\n951\n00:43:12.060 --> 00:43:13.060\nto start my own day.\n\n952\n00:43:13.060 --> 00:43:16.490\nAll right, we're out of the lighting around, just a few more questions and I'll\n\n953\n00:43:16.490 --> 00:43:16.900\nlet you\n\n954\n00:43:16.900 --> 00:43:19.020\nget back to your hobby here.\n\n955\n00:43:19.020 --> 00:43:22.860\nYou've sold a lot of companies and you've got Califian and it's private.\n\n956\n00:43:22.860 --> 00:43:26.730\nYou know, a billion dollar question or a billion dollar question or whatever it\n\n957\n00:43:26.730 --> 00:43:27.100\nis.\n\n958\n00:43:27.100 --> 00:43:31.340\nAre you building Califia to sell?\n\n959\n00:43:31.340 --> 00:43:35.740\nI'm personally building Califia for the long term.\n\n960\n00:43:35.740 --> 00:43:41.870\nIt's not a house I'll live in forever, but whoever does it, I want them to have\n\n961\n00:43:41.870 --> 00:43:42.820\na business\n\n962\n00:43:42.820 --> 00:43:45.940\nthat is built for a long term.\n\n963\n00:43:45.940 --> 00:43:51.340\nI don't want to see it just be a transactional thing and however, if we were to\n\n964\n00:43:51.340 --> 00:43:52.380\ndo something,\n\n965\n00:43:52.380 --> 00:43:56.100\nI would hope that it brings more resources to the company and gives it even a\n\n966\n00:43:56.100 --> 00:43:56.580\ngreater\n\n967\n00:43:56.580 --> 00:43:58.940\nchance to grow and thrive.\n\n968\n00:43:58.940 --> 00:44:03.170\nYou turned down opportunities more than once because they required you to move\n\n969\n00:44:03.170 --> 00:44:04.740\nyour family.\n\n970\n00:44:04.740 --> 00:44:08.180\nTell me about the hardest one you've ever had to walk away from.\n\n971\n00:44:08.180 --> 00:44:11.810\nThere's been some great food companies that I've had an opportunity to work for\n\n972\n00:44:11.810 --> 00:44:12.180\nin the\n\n973\n00:44:12.180 --> 00:44:13.860\nMidwest that I wish I would have done.\n\n974\n00:44:13.860 --> 00:44:18.510\nI think the hardest thing I've done is I still, my office is in LA and I live\n\n975\n00:44:18.510 --> 00:44:19.220\nin Northern\n\n976\n00:44:19.220 --> 00:44:20.220\nCalifornia.\n\n977\n00:44:20.220 --> 00:44:24.880\nProbably the hardest thing was getting on a plane 50 weeks a year to come down\n\n978\n00:44:24.880 --> 00:44:25.900\nto work.\n\n979\n00:44:25.900 --> 00:44:28.100\nHow do you think about leading at home, Dave?\n\n980\n00:44:28.100 --> 00:44:31.780\nWhat do you try to do with your family?\n\n981\n00:44:31.780 --> 00:44:35.140\nI try with my family to be incredibly close.\n\n982\n00:44:35.140 --> 00:44:38.220\nI have this saying that we toast every dinner.\n\n983\n00:44:38.220 --> 00:44:42.040\nWe have more than a few people together and it says, \"Make your family your\n\n984\n00:44:42.040 --> 00:44:42.700\nfriends and\n\n985\n00:44:42.700 --> 00:44:45.100\nmake your friends your family.\"\n\n986\n00:44:45.100 --> 00:44:49.420\nI think that is probably the core to who I want to be.\n\n987\n00:44:49.420 --> 00:44:54.310\nI try to live and demonstrate that by really having a parental role, but a\n\n988\n00:44:54.310 --> 00:44:55.580\nfriendship role.\n\n989\n00:44:55.580 --> 00:44:56.580\nMy kids are now.\n\n990\n00:44:56.580 --> 00:44:57.580\nThey're adults.\n\n991\n00:44:57.580 --> 00:45:02.240\nI count them as some of my best friends and I count some of my best friends as\n\n992\n00:45:02.240 --> 00:45:03.020\nmy family.\n\n993\n00:45:03.020 --> 00:45:08.260\nBack to Caliphia, if Caliphia were a book, what chapter would you say you're\n\n994\n00:45:08.260 --> 00:45:08.380\nwriting today?\n\n995\n00:45:08.380 --> 00:45:10.660\nIt's so funny that you gave that one.\n\n996\n00:45:10.660 --> 00:45:14.320\nI always think of a company as a book and I just told the company that we just\n\n997\n00:45:14.320 --> 00:45:14.780\nstarted\n\n998\n00:45:14.780 --> 00:45:17.780\nthe fifth chapter.\n\n999\n00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:26.220\nThe fifth chapter that we're in is really all about maturity.\n\n1000\n00:45:26.220 --> 00:45:32.160\nWhat we're really about is creating the next Caliphia 2.0, the next future of\n\n1001\n00:45:32.160 --> 00:45:33.020\ngrowth.\n\n1002\n00:45:33.020 --> 00:45:34.020\nLast question here.\n\n1003\n00:45:34.020 --> 00:45:37.400\nWhat's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader\n\n1004\n00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:37.620\n?\n\n1005\n00:45:37.620 --> 00:45:39.260\nIt's always about the people.\n\n1006\n00:45:39.260 --> 00:45:44.420\nI've walked into too many companies, companies that are declining 15 percent,\n\n1007\n00:45:44.420 --> 00:45:45.420\nand yes, there\n\n1008\n00:45:45.420 --> 00:45:49.490\nwere some structural things, but at the end of the day as a leader, it's all\n\n1009\n00:45:49.490 --> 00:45:50.140\nabout the\n\n1010\n00:45:50.140 --> 00:45:51.140\npeople.\n\n1011\n00:45:51.140 --> 00:45:56.180\nIt's who you put around you and how you motivate them that will be the success.\n\n1012\n00:45:56.180 --> 00:46:00.000\nWell, Dave, you obviously have had a lot of it and so you know what you're\n\n1013\n00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:00.580\ntalking\n\n1014\n00:46:00.580 --> 00:46:03.880\nabout and I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on this show.\n\n1015\n00:46:03.880 --> 00:46:05.340\nI appreciate it very much.\n\n1016\n00:46:05.340 --> 00:46:07.980\nDave, it was really great to have this conversation with you.\n\n1017\n00:46:07.980 --> 00:46:10.740\nThanks so much.\n\n1018\n00:46:10.740 --> 00:46:19.580\nDavid, I got to tell you, as a non-dairy milk girl, I really enjoyed this\n\n1019\n00:46:19.580 --> 00:46:21.860\nepisode learning\n\n1020\n00:46:21.860 --> 00:46:24.660\nabout Caliphia Farms and all that Dave is up to.\n\n1021\n00:46:24.660 --> 00:46:27.820\nAre you an almond milk person, an oat milk person?\n\n1022\n00:46:27.820 --> 00:46:29.520\nI'm an oat milk person.\n\n1023\n00:46:29.520 --> 00:46:30.520\nOat milk's taken over.\n\n1024\n00:46:30.520 --> 00:46:34.710\nI remember when almond milk came on, everybody said, \"Oh, that doesn't taste\n\n1025\n00:46:34.710 --> 00:46:35.540\nthat good.\n\n1026\n00:46:35.540 --> 00:46:37.660\nNow that's all everybody drinks.\"\n\n1027\n00:46:37.660 --> 00:46:40.060\nI mean, when was the last time you had real milk?\n\n1028\n00:46:40.060 --> 00:46:43.580\nI actually was thinking about it, listening to you and Dave talk and I don't\n\n1029\n00:46:43.580 --> 00:46:44.220\nthink I can\n\n1030\n00:46:44.220 --> 00:46:47.980\nremember when that, when the last time I had real dairy milk is.\n\n1031\n00:46:47.980 --> 00:46:49.380\nIt's been a while, you know.\n\n1032\n00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:52.410\nI like some really good chocolate milk though every now and then, you know,\n\n1033\n00:46:52.410 --> 00:46:53.060\nthat's pretty\n\n1034\n00:46:53.060 --> 00:46:54.060\ngood.\n\n1035\n00:46:54.060 --> 00:46:55.060\nI know you do.\n\n1036\n00:46:55.060 --> 00:46:56.060\nYou mention that.\n\n1037\n00:46:56.060 --> 00:46:57.060\nThe chocolate milk bandit.\n\n1038\n00:46:57.060 --> 00:46:58.060\nThere we go.\n\n1039\n00:46:58.060 --> 00:47:03.430\nWell, David, I'm excited to get your take on some of the concepts that you and\n\n1040\n00:47:03.430 --> 00:47:04.140\nDave talked\n\n1041\n00:47:04.140 --> 00:47:07.340\nabout in the episodes of that our listeners have something really practical\n\n1042\n00:47:07.340 --> 00:47:07.940\nthey can take\n\n1043\n00:47:07.940 --> 00:47:11.100\naway and apply to their own leadership and to their own life because that's\n\n1044\n00:47:11.100 --> 00:47:11.860\nreally what\n\n1045\n00:47:11.860 --> 00:47:15.700\nwe're all about with this podcast and specifically with this debrief.\n\n1046\n00:47:15.700 --> 00:47:18.830\nThe first concept, David, that I want to debrief with you is this idea of\n\n1047\n00:47:18.830 --> 00:47:20.500\nbuilding ahead.\n\n1048\n00:47:20.500 --> 00:47:25.180\nDave talks about building your company's infrastructure and processes for the\n\n1049\n00:47:25.180 --> 00:47:25.740\nfuture,\n\n1050\n00:47:25.740 --> 00:47:26.740\nnot for the present.\n\n1051\n00:47:26.740 --> 00:47:30.940\nHe says, \"We can never let the company be the reason we slow down growth.\"\n\n1052\n00:47:30.940 --> 00:47:35.420\nWhat are some practical ways, David, that leaders can do this effectively?\n\n1053\n00:47:35.420 --> 00:47:40.070\nWell, I have always believed that you really have to create a first of all a\n\n1054\n00:47:40.070 --> 00:47:40.540\nfuture back\n\n1055\n00:47:40.540 --> 00:47:41.540\nvision.\n\n1056\n00:47:41.540 --> 00:47:46.270\nYou know, get together with yourself and your team and really identify what you\n\n1057\n00:47:46.270 --> 00:47:46.820\nthink the\n\n1058\n00:47:46.820 --> 00:47:48.980\nfuture is going to look like.\n\n1059\n00:47:48.980 --> 00:47:53.630\nAnd then you have to say, \"Okay, if that's where the world is heading, what are\n\n1060\n00:47:53.630 --> 00:47:53.900\nthe key\n\n1061\n00:47:53.900 --> 00:47:56.260\nstrategies we're going to have?\"\n\n1062\n00:47:56.260 --> 00:48:01.090\nAnd then how do we structure around it with our resources and people so that we\n\n1063\n00:48:01.090 --> 00:48:01.780\ncan truly\n\n1064\n00:48:01.780 --> 00:48:08.140\nexecute those strategies so that we can lead the way in the future?\n\n1065\n00:48:08.140 --> 00:48:12.140\nAnd then at the same time, you know, really think about your culture and ask\n\n1066\n00:48:12.140 --> 00:48:12.900\nyourself,\n\n1067\n00:48:12.900 --> 00:48:16.480\nwhat cultural behaviors are we going to have to have to really make sure that\n\n1068\n00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:17.660\nwe're prepared\n\n1069\n00:48:17.660 --> 00:48:18.980\nfor the future?\n\n1070\n00:48:18.980 --> 00:48:24.220\nLike now, obviously AI is the big craze and all the CEOs that I talk to that\n\n1071\n00:48:24.220 --> 00:48:25.060\nare really\n\n1072\n00:48:25.060 --> 00:48:30.380\nfocused on AI are now building in a cultural behavior of curiosity and asking\n\n1073\n00:48:30.380 --> 00:48:31.220\nquestions\n\n1074\n00:48:31.220 --> 00:48:32.740\nwith their teams.\n\n1075\n00:48:32.740 --> 00:48:38.250\nSo they want people to be able to ask chat GBT good questions so they can get\n\n1076\n00:48:38.250 --> 00:48:39.020\nnot just\n\n1077\n00:48:39.020 --> 00:48:44.040\nthe run-of-the-mill answer because the better question you ask, the better\n\n1078\n00:48:44.040 --> 00:48:45.660\ninput you're\n\n1079\n00:48:45.660 --> 00:48:46.860\ngoing to get.\n\n1080\n00:48:46.860 --> 00:48:50.940\nSo, you know, create a future back vision, then, you know, develop the\n\n1081\n00:48:50.940 --> 00:48:51.980\nstrategies that\n\n1082\n00:48:51.980 --> 00:48:55.320\nare going to get you there, make sure that you leave versus get behind, and\n\n1083\n00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:55.900\nstructure\n\n1084\n00:48:55.900 --> 00:49:00.580\nbehind it, and then make sure that you have the cultural behaviors embedded in\n\n1085\n00:49:00.580 --> 00:49:01.980\nyour organization\n\n1086\n00:49:01.980 --> 00:49:04.500\nthat are going to make sure you win down the road.\n\n1087\n00:49:04.500 --> 00:49:06.820\nI love that idea of a future back vision, David.\n\n1088\n00:49:06.820 --> 00:49:10.310\nCan you give some just practical tips around what that future back vision\n\n1089\n00:49:10.310 --> 00:49:10.960\nreally looks\n\n1090\n00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:13.540\nlike or maybe an example from your time at Yum?\n\n1091\n00:49:13.540 --> 00:49:18.260\nWell, I think, you know, we were pretty much a one-day part company.\n\n1092\n00:49:18.260 --> 00:49:21.840\nAnd you know, so in other words, you know, pizza was good for dinner, Taco Bell\n\n1093\n00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:22.340\nwas good\n\n1094\n00:49:22.340 --> 00:49:25.620\nfor lunch, KFC was good for dinner.\n\n1095\n00:49:25.620 --> 00:49:30.860\nAnd you know, the future back vision we had was we needed to really leverage\n\n1096\n00:49:30.860 --> 00:49:31.620\nour asset,\n\n1097\n00:49:31.620 --> 00:49:33.980\nyou know, throughout the day.\n\n1098\n00:49:33.980 --> 00:49:38.020\nAnd we also needed to provide more meaningful variety.\n\n1099\n00:49:38.020 --> 00:49:42.980\nSo we literally thought about the business in terms of creating concept layers.\n\n1100\n00:49:42.980 --> 00:49:46.180\nLike we didn't have desserts out of all our businesses, so we were going to do\n\n1101\n00:49:46.180 --> 00:49:46.740\ndesserts.\n\n1102\n00:49:46.740 --> 00:49:50.560\nWe didn't have breakfast, you know, certainly at Taco Bell, we needed to have\n\n1103\n00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:51.500\nthat to really\n\n1104\n00:49:51.500 --> 00:49:54.740\ncompete with McDonald's, you know.\n\n1105\n00:49:54.740 --> 00:50:00.180\nSo we didn't have value menus, you know, all around the world.\n\n1106\n00:50:00.180 --> 00:50:03.620\nSo we always wanted to make sure we had really great value.\n\n1107\n00:50:03.620 --> 00:50:08.380\nSo we basically created a sales layer vision of how we could really leverage\n\n1108\n00:50:08.380 --> 00:50:09.060\nour asset\n\n1109\n00:50:09.060 --> 00:50:15.730\n24/7 throughout the day and develop the products and the extensions that would\n\n1110\n00:50:15.730 --> 00:50:16.620\nallow us to\n\n1111\n00:50:16.620 --> 00:50:18.940\nget more sales down the road.\n\n1112\n00:50:18.940 --> 00:50:22.520\nAnd that's what we geared our future towards.\n\n1113\n00:50:22.520 --> 00:50:25.440\nAnd that's how I think we're able to really drive sustainable, same-store sales\n\n1114\n00:50:25.440 --> 00:50:25.820\ngrowth\n\n1115\n00:50:25.820 --> 00:50:27.700\nfor so many years.\n\n1116\n00:50:27.700 --> 00:50:30.420\nAnother concept that I thought was super interesting that Dave talked about in\n\n1117\n00:50:30.420 --> 00:50:30.660\nthis\n\n1118\n00:50:30.660 --> 00:50:34.420\nconversation was this idea of first day naivete.\n\n1119\n00:50:34.420 --> 00:50:37.420\nAnd I always kind of smile when I say that because it sounds like a little j\n\n1120\n00:50:37.420 --> 00:50:37.860\ningle.\n\n1121\n00:50:37.860 --> 00:50:41.960\nBut this idea of first day naivete is a good way for all leaders to remember\n\n1122\n00:50:41.960 --> 00:50:43.020\nthe importance\n\n1123\n00:50:43.020 --> 00:50:47.420\nof looking at things with fresh eyes and really questioning the status quo.\n\n1124\n00:50:47.420 --> 00:50:51.430\nWhat ways can leaders incorporate this type of practice into their business and\n\n1125\n00:50:51.430 --> 00:50:52.060\ninto their\n\n1126\n00:50:52.060 --> 00:50:53.060\nteams?\n\n1127\n00:50:53.060 --> 00:50:55.350\nI think number one, you've got to listen to what comes out of your mouth many\n\n1128\n00:50:55.350 --> 00:50:56.180\ntimes.\n\n1129\n00:50:56.180 --> 00:50:58.810\nSometimes, you know, I've heard people say, well, that's not the way how we do\n\n1130\n00:50:58.810 --> 00:50:59.220\nit around\n\n1131\n00:50:59.220 --> 00:51:00.220\nhere.\n\n1132\n00:51:00.220 --> 00:51:04.820\nWell, that means you've got this embedded process that's going to keep people\n\n1133\n00:51:04.820 --> 00:51:05.420\nfrom trying new\n\n1134\n00:51:05.420 --> 00:51:09.860\nthings because, hey, this is the way we do it at this particular company.\n\n1135\n00:51:09.860 --> 00:51:12.540\nAnd this is the way how it's going to be.\n\n1136\n00:51:12.540 --> 00:51:17.420\nAnd I think that stifles creativity and stifles fresh thinking.\n\n1137\n00:51:17.420 --> 00:51:22.090\nWhen I had to exercise, which I absolutely loved, it was called hot shot\n\n1138\n00:51:22.090 --> 00:51:22.800\nreplaces me.\n\n1139\n00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:27.480\nAnd every now and then, I would say, hey, if somebody came in and took my job\n\n1140\n00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:28.100\nand they\n\n1141\n00:51:28.100 --> 00:51:32.910\ncame in first thing and they looked at everything that was going on in the\n\n1142\n00:51:32.910 --> 00:51:33.980\nbusiness, what would\n\n1143\n00:51:33.980 --> 00:51:34.980\nthey do?\n\n1144\n00:51:34.980 --> 00:51:36.660\nWhat would they see?\n\n1145\n00:51:36.660 --> 00:51:39.660\nAnd what would they act upon?\n\n1146\n00:51:39.660 --> 00:51:44.270\nAnd so I would do the same thing, and I'd ask myself, if I came in day one,\n\n1147\n00:51:44.270 --> 00:51:44.740\nwhat would\n\n1148\n00:51:44.740 --> 00:51:45.740\nI see?\n\n1149\n00:51:45.740 --> 00:51:52.340\nAnd it really forced me to step back, define reality in terms of the way the\n\n1150\n00:51:52.340 --> 00:51:53.300\nbusiness\n\n1151\n00:51:53.300 --> 00:51:54.660\nis.\n\n1152\n00:51:54.660 --> 00:52:01.170\nAnd then I would develop an action plan to make sure that we acted upon what I\n\n1153\n00:52:01.170 --> 00:52:02.220\nbasically\n\n1154\n00:52:02.220 --> 00:52:04.540\nwas seeing with those fresh eyes.\n\n1155\n00:52:04.540 --> 00:52:08.660\nBecause the reason is cool, I really love my job.\n\n1156\n00:52:08.660 --> 00:52:11.140\nAnd I didn't want some hot shot to come in and take it.\n\n1157\n00:52:11.140 --> 00:52:14.880\nSo I figured if I kept acting like a hot shot, and I mean that in the most\n\n1158\n00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:16.300\npositive sense,\n\n1159\n00:52:16.300 --> 00:52:19.790\nsomebody who's really talented that could come in and look at the business with\n\n1160\n00:52:19.790 --> 00:52:20.140\na fresh\n\n1161\n00:52:20.140 --> 00:52:23.740\nset of eyes and do what they would do because they would identify the real\n\n1162\n00:52:23.740 --> 00:52:24.620\nchallenges and\n\n1163\n00:52:24.620 --> 00:52:28.320\nopportunities to grow the business, there's no way I wouldn't be successful.\n\n1164\n00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:30.820\nSo I love that hot shot replaces me exercise.\n\n1165\n00:52:30.820 --> 00:52:31.820\nThat's so good.\n\n1166\n00:52:31.820 --> 00:52:35.410\nI thought listening to this part of the conversation about this thing that you\n\n1167\n00:52:35.410 --> 00:52:36.100\n've said a couple\n\n1168\n00:52:36.100 --> 00:52:39.100\nof times, which is you can only be green once.\n\n1169\n00:52:39.100 --> 00:52:43.780\nSo if you're entering into a new job, then really take advantage of being green\n\n1170\n00:52:43.780 --> 00:52:44.260\nand not\n\n1171\n00:52:44.260 --> 00:52:48.100\nbeing deeply ingrained into systems that have been there for forever and really\n\n1172\n00:52:48.100 --> 00:52:48.620\nquestion\n\n1173\n00:52:48.620 --> 00:52:49.860\nthe status quo.\n\n1174\n00:52:49.860 --> 00:52:54.120\nAnd you know, when you are in a new environment, I think it's so important to\n\n1175\n00:52:54.120 --> 00:52:54.980\ndo just that,\n\n1176\n00:52:54.980 --> 00:52:59.010\nto actually have that first day naivete and really lean into questioning things\n\n1177\n00:52:59.010 --> 00:52:59.260\n.\n\n1178\n00:52:59.260 --> 00:53:00.260\nYeah.\n\n1179\n00:53:00.260 --> 00:53:03.700\nAnd I may have stated that incorrectly when I said you're only green once.\n\n1180\n00:53:03.700 --> 00:53:05.540\nAnd yeah, you are only new once.\n\n1181\n00:53:05.540 --> 00:53:10.710\nThere's no question that gives you an advantage to come in and to take a sharp\n\n1182\n00:53:10.710 --> 00:53:11.540\nlook at it.\n\n1183\n00:53:11.540 --> 00:53:15.210\nAnd then what happens with a lot of leaders is once they've been there for a\n\n1184\n00:53:15.210 --> 00:53:15.740\nwhile, they\n\n1185\n00:53:15.740 --> 00:53:20.630\nstart to get defensive and start defending why you do things the way you need\n\n1186\n00:53:20.630 --> 00:53:21.300\nto do.\n\n1187\n00:53:21.300 --> 00:53:22.900\nAnd that's the worst thing that can happen.\n\n1188\n00:53:22.900 --> 00:53:26.050\nSo I think if I was going to rephrase it now, I'd say, you've got to find a way\n\n1189\n00:53:26.050 --> 00:53:26.540\nas a leader\n\n1190\n00:53:26.540 --> 00:53:28.580\nto be evergreen.\n\n1191\n00:53:28.580 --> 00:53:34.520\nYou know, always be fresh, always look at the business with new eyes and don't\n\n1192\n00:53:34.520 --> 00:53:35.540\nbe defensive\n\n1193\n00:53:35.540 --> 00:53:40.440\nand don't let the ways that you've ingrained in your company keep you from\n\n1194\n00:53:40.440 --> 00:53:41.360\nforging new\n\n1195\n00:53:41.360 --> 00:53:42.360\nterritory.\n\n1196\n00:53:42.360 --> 00:53:45.510\nDavid, the last concept that I thought was super interesting in this\n\n1197\n00:53:45.510 --> 00:53:46.740\nconversation is\n\n1198\n00:53:46.740 --> 00:53:48.900\nthe idea of hiring builders.\n\n1199\n00:53:48.900 --> 00:53:53.580\nDave talks about how he hires builders, people who are proactive problem sol\n\n1200\n00:53:53.580 --> 00:53:54.060\nvers.\n\n1201\n00:53:54.060 --> 00:53:55.620\nThey're creating their own systems.\n\n1202\n00:53:55.620 --> 00:53:59.020\nThey do things in the company that make people say, oh, that's the Mary\n\n1203\n00:53:59.020 --> 00:54:00.100\nspreadsheet, Mary\n\n1204\n00:54:00.100 --> 00:54:01.100\nbuilt that spreadsheet.\n\n1205\n00:54:01.100 --> 00:54:03.140\nAnd now we use it and that's the Mary spreadsheet.\n\n1206\n00:54:03.140 --> 00:54:06.860\nSo this idea of builders, I'm curious, David, how do you spot a builder?\n\n1207\n00:54:06.860 --> 00:54:10.360\nWhat would you look for and people to make sure that they are builders when you\n\n1208\n00:54:10.360 --> 00:54:10.820\n're trying\n\n1209\n00:54:10.820 --> 00:54:11.820\nto hire them?\n\n1210\n00:54:11.820 --> 00:54:15.720\nWell, number one, I asked people, for examples of where they've had step change\n\n1211\n00:54:15.720 --> 00:54:16.380\nthinking,\n\n1212\n00:54:16.380 --> 00:54:20.610\nwhere they've looked at a business and really thought outside the dots and come\n\n1213\n00:54:20.610 --> 00:54:20.980\nup with\n\n1214\n00:54:20.980 --> 00:54:23.980\nways to really grow it in a dramatic fashion.\n\n1215\n00:54:23.980 --> 00:54:30.910\nSo I want somebody who can really think in bold ways and then drive execution\n\n1216\n00:54:30.910 --> 00:54:31.860\nto really\n\n1217\n00:54:31.860 --> 00:54:33.660\nmake it happen.\n\n1218\n00:54:33.660 --> 00:54:37.660\nThe second thing is, is I always look for know how builders, because the know\n\n1219\n00:54:37.660 --> 00:54:38.460\nhow builders\n\n1220\n00:54:38.460 --> 00:54:43.860\nare real learners and they're seeking knowledge wherever they can get it, they\n\n1221\n00:54:43.860 --> 00:54:44.700\ndon't care\n\n1222\n00:54:44.700 --> 00:54:47.530\nwhere it comes from, but they're just trying to get better, make sure that\n\n1223\n00:54:47.530 --> 00:54:48.540\ntheir teens better,\n\n1224\n00:54:48.540 --> 00:54:51.450\nmake sure their brands better, make sure their company's better, and they want\n\n1225\n00:54:51.450 --> 00:54:52.740\nto learn.\n\n1226\n00:54:52.740 --> 00:54:54.540\nAnd they try to learn from the best.\n\n1227\n00:54:54.540 --> 00:54:56.100\nSo I look for know how builders.\n\n1228\n00:54:56.100 --> 00:54:59.870\nAnd then the third thing is, is that you can't build any business without great\n\n1229\n00:54:59.870 --> 00:55:00.460\npeople.\n\n1230\n00:55:00.460 --> 00:55:03.510\nSo I look for people who had a demonstrated track record for being people\n\n1231\n00:55:03.510 --> 00:55:04.100\ngrowers.\n\n1232\n00:55:04.100 --> 00:55:08.820\nSo step change thinkers, know how builders, people growers, those three things\n\n1233\n00:55:08.820 --> 00:55:09.340\nreally,\n\n1234\n00:55:09.340 --> 00:55:14.020\nI think, help you hire people that can really build your company for the future\n\n1235\n00:55:14.020 --> 00:55:14.180\n.\n\n1236\n00:55:14.180 --> 00:55:16.380\nWell, Dave's done that throughout his entire career.\n\n1237\n00:55:16.380 --> 00:55:19.140\nI mean, he did it at Dryers and now he's doing it at Calofia.\n\n1238\n00:55:19.140 --> 00:55:23.420\nAnd so, you know, when you, when you choose a type of behavior that you want to\n\n1239\n00:55:23.420 --> 00:55:24.300\nhire for,\n\n1240\n00:55:24.300 --> 00:55:27.600\nand then that cascades across your entire company, then three years down the\n\n1241\n00:55:27.600 --> 00:55:28.020\nroad, you\n\n1242\n00:55:28.020 --> 00:55:31.650\nlook at your company and say, Oh my gosh, this is why we are where we are today\n\n1243\n00:55:31.650 --> 00:55:32.340\n, because\n\n1244\n00:55:32.340 --> 00:55:36.530\nof all of the builders that I've hired owning their own piece of the company\n\n1245\n00:55:36.530 --> 00:55:37.260\nand really\n\n1246\n00:55:37.260 --> 00:55:39.180\nbeing proactive and solving problems.\n\n1247\n00:55:39.180 --> 00:55:40.180\nYeah.\n\n1248\n00:55:40.180 --> 00:55:44.820\nAnd they have, what I always talk about is a healthy dissatisfaction with the\n\n1249\n00:55:44.820 --> 00:55:46.100\nstatus quo.\n\n1250\n00:55:46.100 --> 00:55:47.820\nYou know, they don't want things to stay the same.\n\n1251\n00:55:47.820 --> 00:55:50.620\nThey want things to get better day in and day out.\n\n1252\n00:55:50.620 --> 00:55:53.930\nAnd you want that kind of building mentality in the people that you have in\n\n1253\n00:55:53.930 --> 00:55:54.620\nyour company.\n\n1254\n00:55:54.620 --> 00:55:58.230\nDavid, as we wrap this episode today, what do you want people to leave this\n\n1255\n00:55:58.230 --> 00:55:59.060\nconversation\n\n1256\n00:55:59.060 --> 00:56:00.340\nreally thinking about?\n\n1257\n00:56:00.340 --> 00:56:05.100\nI think number one, get prepared for the future and define what you think your\n\n1258\n00:56:05.100 --> 00:56:05.660\nfuture\n\n1259\n00:56:05.660 --> 00:56:09.290\nback vision is, and then make sure you're structured with the people\n\n1260\n00:56:09.290 --> 00:56:10.260\norganization to\n\n1261\n00:56:10.260 --> 00:56:12.240\nreally make it happen.\n\n1262\n00:56:12.240 --> 00:56:16.910\nNumber two, you remember the importance of staying evergreen, you know, having\n\n1263\n00:56:16.910 --> 00:56:17.140\nfresh\n\n1264\n00:56:17.140 --> 00:56:18.900\neyes when you take a look at things.\n\n1265\n00:56:18.900 --> 00:56:23.340\nI think my hot shot replaces be exercises really, really phenomenal.\n\n1266\n00:56:23.340 --> 00:56:25.700\nI encourage you to do it today.\n\n1267\n00:56:25.700 --> 00:56:29.220\nAnd number three, you know, to grow, you have to hire builders.\n\n1268\n00:56:29.220 --> 00:56:31.980\nYou have to have the people capability to really get you there.\n\n1269\n00:56:31.980 --> 00:56:35.700\nAnd you know, I talked about the three things I look for, step change thinking,\n\n1270\n00:56:35.700 --> 00:56:36.180\nknow how\n\n1271\n00:56:36.180 --> 00:56:37.780\nbuilders and people growers.\n\n1272\n00:56:37.780 --> 00:56:39.900\nAnd maybe that'll help you too.\n\n1273\n00:56:39.900 --> 00:56:40.900\nAwesome.\n\n1274\n00:56:40.900 --> 00:56:44.030\nWell, David, thank you so much for another excellent episode of How Leaders\n\n1275\n00:56:44.030 --> 00:56:44.460\nLead.\n\n1276\n00:56:44.460 --> 00:56:47.300\nThanks to Dave Ritterbush for joining our show.\n\n1277\n00:56:47.300 --> 00:56:49.900\nAnd thank you, of course, to you, our listeners.\n\n1278\n00:56:49.900 --> 00:56:51.820\nTune in next Thursday, and we will see you soon.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL3705245204.mp3","dx_media_id",3829,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2026-06-25","itunes_episode_id",297,"youtube_id","XE0s7hx9Ww4","2026-08-19T21:43:02.000000Z","Listen to this leadership podcast with Dave Ritterbush, CEO of Califia Farms, and discover how to build your company for what’s next.","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/Nno7DMW8y3UKRm2t1pwraUoyOXLFWdWEGLBGnmxs.mp3","dx_filename","Nno7DMW8y3UKRm2t1pwraUoyOXLFWdWEGLBGnmxs.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","sE3Lq5lXPiWuODYV1i80102HiuP6bMMQgzzgEK3atI6ew","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/3829.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",3414717,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/XE0s7hx9Ww4/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_96":80,"_97":78,"_98":-5,"_31":82,"_33":99,"_100":-5,"_101":84,"_87":88,"_102":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","0284ImgDFGa00FvK6xoFjR6C5D00bmly4HgOvVy900rxijc","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Dave","last_name","Ritterbush","job_title","Califia Farms, CEO","Dave Ritterbush, CEO, Califia Farms, food and beverage","external_links","https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-ritterbush-02160616,https://thesimplygoodfoodscompany.gcs-web.com/board-member/david-ritterbush",0,"image_media_id",3807,3808,"2026-07-20T20:29:54.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/z3XJZIDzRJu22LrFcdle8nDAixJBHQ7fGZvZ4UQe.png","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/k6NJmeG6eQYuToEF3n1QawT7FkwBJQzvGnplwZ3B.png","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/287/dave-ritterbush","industry_id",8,"industry",{"_13":123,"_134":135,"_136":138},"industries",[133],"image_media",{"_13":114,"_96":132,"_97":119,"_98":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_100":-5,"_101":-5,"_87":-5,"_102":-5},{"_13":115,"_96":131,"_97":120,"_98":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_100":-5,"_101":-5,"_87":-5,"_102":-5},"k6NJmeG6eQYuToEF3n1QawT7FkwBJQzvGnplwZ3B.png","z3XJZIDzRJu22LrFcdle8nDAixJBHQ7fGZvZ4UQe.png",{"_13":123,"_134":135,"_136":137},"name","Food and Bev","pivot",{"_35":36,"_122":123},{"_35":36,"_122":123},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_147":148,"_149":150,"_151":152,"_153":154,"_155":156},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]