David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple, you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Okay, imagine this, your alarm goes off, and it's 1am. In an hour, it's your job to be on the back of a trash truck. Oh, and by the way, you're one of the top leaders of the company. Believe it or not, that's exactly what today's guest did. Every week for seven and a half years. Jim fish, the CEO of waste management is just that kind of leader, one who spends time on the frontlines to be with his team and truly listened to him. And I'm thrilled he's joining us today, he's connected to the people he leads. And he's focused on putting them first when he makes decisions. And he knows that by taking care of his people, they'll then take care of customers, and that in turn provides value to shareholders. It's a fantastic formula. And it's inspiring to hear how Jim is putting it to work, while also finding new ways to think about sustainability. And that includes being the title sponsor of the waste management open on the PGA Tour, which somehow is a zero waste event, despite the 700,000 fans who come for the party. We get into all that and more today, so let's jump right in. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Jim fish.

The first time I met you was on a golf course. And I was impressed right off the bat with just your infectious smile, and he had a big smile on your face. Do you bring a sunny disposition to your work in life? Or did you just have a low round?

Jim Fish 2:03 

I did not have a low route. So that was not it? No, I just think sometimes I feel like, you know, the world's too serious. And it is serious. And they're serious things about it. But I think my mom and my dad as well, always. And maybe that's been continued by my wife who's very positive, but always taught me Look, you know, life's life can be pretty short. And so have a sunny disposition, be happy about things. We're all blessed, in our own way. Maybe that's the way I feel about it. I you know, but But it definitely wasn't my rounds around was actually I should have been frowning if it were about my round.

David Novak 2:42 

Well, I've heard you say that stress is overrated. And I just, I think you explained why that's just part of your DNA, you know, you're in a fairly complicated business. But if you would, I'd like you to simply describe what you and your team at Waste Management do.

Jim Fish 2:57 

You know, it's complicated in some respects, because it is a big logistics challenge. For us, we run 20 some odd 1000 routes a day, we touch a lot of customers 25 million customers. So there are some challenges there. We're not splitting the atom here where you know, it's not, you know, biotechnology or complicated business, like an AI business. But there is some complexity to a big logistics business. Our landfill business is more of an engineering business. And then recycling is really almost manufacturing. So there are challenges in each aspect of waste management. And they differ, I would tell you probably the single biggest challenge for us is labor related. You know, we have 50,000 people that work for the company. The the pool of these trade type jobs has been shrinking over time. It's a challenge for us. It's a challenge for all companies that employ tradesmen and women. And so that's been I think the most complicated part of the job is not so much the technologies and and that is evolving. It's been dealing with people and I think people are are. They're always the backbone of every company. They're also the least predictable part of every company.

David Novak 4:06 

Yeah, I can relate to that. We had a lot of people that yum brands and that people intensive business is difficult to run. Well, you've been at the company since 2001. I believe, how is the business evolved since that time?

Jim Fish 4:19 

I think the change from for me from 2001 until today, aside from just kind of the career changes, has been that we've really started to recognize that people are the backbone of our company, that we have to cultivate people and make sure that we help them grow. It's different than when my dad was was in a small business. You know, I think people had fewer choices back then. And my dad's generation today, our young people have lots of choices. And if I don't treat them the way they would like to be treated the way they deserve to be treated. They'll jump ship pretty quickly. The average number of job changes for a young person Today I read somewhere that somewhere between 15 and 20 job changes over their career. I don't know what it was for me, but I sure haven't changed jobs, you know, companies, I guess 15 or 20 times I think I might have been with maybe five?

David Novak 5:15 

What was it about waste management that made you stay for over two decades,

Jim Fish 5:20 

I probably didn't know what I was going to stay for for two decades or two weeks when I started with the company. I mean, and that's probably no different for most of us. We, we don't know what to expect, we might say it looks like a good opportunity looks like a, an interesting company with with some interesting prospects. But but we don't know whether we're going to really enjoy it. And I think what ultimately causes us to enjoy where we work is, do we feel like we have a purpose Do we like who we work with? Do we like who we work for? It's almost never about things like compensation. I mean, you know, we've all had jobs where we made pretty good money, and we left because it wasn't about the money. I mean, that's something that's pretty easily fixable. If I love what I'm doing, but I'm not compensated enough, I can always walk into my boss's office and say, You know what, I love this, I love working for this company, I feel valued. I feel like I'm my opinion matters. But I'm getting offered a, you know, a position from a different company, and they're offering me $25,000 a year more. That's an easy fix. But if I don't like who I work for, that's a little tougher conversation to walk in and say, Look, my compensation is good. I like the company. But man, you're you're kind of a jerk. That's a tough conversation to have. So I do think that that part of why I've stayed here, and really, almost all of why I've stayed here is because I feel like, I always felt like if I took one more step I could continue to make, you know, even a bigger contribution, I never had a title in mind. So I never I didn't come to the company and Owen and say, you know, someday I want to be CEO of this place. I never really had a title in mind. But I always thought, Gosh, I'd love to ultimately move into our operations. So I did, I moved out to Boston, and then we lived in Pittsburgh, and we were, we're moving over to Philly when they moved me back to Houston. And the reason that I made those moves was not because I was trying to climb a ladder in any way it was because I felt like I could make a bigger contribution in the in the, you know, kind of the next job. And I've been allowed to do that. And and hopefully that contribution has has been valuable. I like to think it has and and so that's why I've stayed here as long as I didn't come into this thinking I was going to make my career at at Waste Management. But it's turned out that way. And I think part of it is because I've enjoyed not only the business, but I've enjoyed the ability to to make a contribution.

David Novak 7:47 

You know, you began your career as a as an accountant at KPMG peat Marwick how has that impacted the way you lead the day?

Jim Fish 7:55 

I was there for a short period. I mean, it was it was kind of 1218 months, something like that. And so I would tell you that it probably didn't impact me as much on the leadership side, as it did on the technical side. I mean, I've tried to tell young college students that an accounting degree is a good degree, you know, it's, you're always gonna find a job coming out of college with an accounting degree. So maybe less about the leadership side and more about the kind of the technical accounting slash finance side, I use that accounting background. To this day, you know, even in today's board meeting, talking about certain things that are pretty finance heavy. I'm relying on a on a college degree and ultimately a graduate degree that really has served me well over over a long period of time. Well, look, I think leadership starts not with your company, not with your career. I think leadership in many respects starts in your very formative years. And for me it with my parents, most of us is with our parents. And so I I really felt like my parents gave me such a great foundation and some of the things that they instilled in me as a as a kid. I've tried to really keep all the way through to this day

David Novak 9:12 

will tell us a story about your upbringing that you know really shaped a lot of who you are today.

Jim Fish 9:18 

My mom was was a wonderful lady. She passed away nine years ago, dad passed away two years ago. Mom was a very, very humble lady. She's such a sweet person. You talk about kind of an infectious smile. I mean, that was my mother. And she was the first female from the state of Wyoming to go to Stanford University. And I said, Mom, that's such a neat little factoid. She said, she kind of whispered and said, but there weren't a lot of women in Wyoming. And so, but that's just her. That was just my mom. And so she used to take us as kids. You remember the old nursing homes that were kind of miserable places. I It's basically where you put old people to go die, right. And and, and so mom recognize that and and so we would go over to these nursing homes, she would ask who doesn't have any visitors and, and by the way, was surprising how many people at those nursing homes had no visitors. And we're just social creatures as humans. And so mom was such a social person. So I remember a little old lady, a little black lady, her name was Magdalene Mays, and mom would drag us, you know, I have two sisters, a twin sister and little sister and she would drag us in to her, we used to call it mom's little old ladies. And so we'd go in and we see, you know, Magdalene Mae is or another little German lady named Mrs. soggy and we'd go see these folks. And they had no visitors, their family, whether they just didn't have any family, that was still around, or whatever the case was, we would go in and mom would would make a point of, of, you know, bringing Christmas present to them or, or a birthday gift or Valentine's card or whatever it was. And you know, these little ladies, I would tell you, I think Mom lengthen their lives by 10 years, just by providing some, some social interaction, but bringing these you know, these young kids around and again, as kids, we hate it, and we're like, oh, my gosh, this is miserable. But what I've learned, I believe, from that experience, is that, you know, people matter so much, and mom treated people with such respect and such dignity. You know, I remember when mom was getting ready to pass away about about a month or two before she passed away. And I asked her, when she and I were sitting down, I said, Whatever happened to Magdalene Mays, and mom said, Oh, she passed away. And I said, Did you go to the funeral? And she said, I sure did. And and I said, was anyone there? And she said, Yep, there were two of us there. I believe in me what a story that is. And, you know, I mean, still even kind of chokes me up a little bit telling that story. Because that was Eve fish. And hopefully, I took some of that. And I've been able to use it in my role today.

David Novak 12:19 

You obviously have had great success at Waste Management, and you've worked your way up in a number of roles from being the GM to the CFO. When was it that you had that aha moment that said, I want to be the CEO. Do you remember that hit near to that ever? I do.

Jim Fish 12:37 

Yeah, I do. I mean, I, I honestly wouldn't have a great succession plan. I hope that they're happy with how I've turned out, but I'm not sure they were happy when they made the selection. And there was really very little discussion about who the succession candidates were. But I do remember talking to David Steiner, who was was my good friend of mine today and my predecessor, and him saying, you know, look there, there is a succession plan, and you're on, you're on it. And then there was not a whole lot more conversation about it. But at that point, and I remember actually where I was, at a golf course, kind of out by you. It's at Sage Valley, and David and I, you know, we're staying in a house together. And he that's when he told me that, and I thought, I mean, I maybe I do have another step in my career. And and so I went home and talked to Tracy about it and thought, Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I think I could probably make some pretty good changes. Not that David hadn't done a good job. He did a great job, but, but I think I could do some things as well, particularly on the people side. And so that's probably the time that I first thought about maybe being CEO of a, of a big fortune 200 company.

David Novak 13:48 

You know, waste management was founded by the legendary Wayne Huizenga, you know, what did you learn from him?

Jim Fish 13:55 

Well, I never met Wayne, but you know, it's interesting, his family, his grandfather, I mean, I believe it was his grandfather. That was really the forerunner of waste management. Wayne kind of put this this roll up together that then he called waste management. But his grandfather was was Polish I believe. His name was harm. Hi, Zynga started with just a horse drawn buggy that they that they threw trash in in Chicago, in reading about Wayne and and about harm. Hi, Zynga, what I learned was the value of of a strong worth, work ethic and how how much that will serve you well in your life. Sometimes I feel like today, you know, I look at our two daughters. And I think we've instilled a strong work ethic in them but I would like to see them put their dish in the dishwasher every now and then, you know, when they finish their meal, because I had to put all the dishes even though I had two sisters. So somehow I ended up doing a lot of the dishes. So I do think though, in all seriousness, I think that the high Xingu family that work ethic was was just instilled in them from from such a young age. And I have met a lot of the family even though I never met Wayne himself, that have talked about that and talked about how important work ethic is, I hope that that we're able to not only instill that Tracy and me in our children, but also make that kind of a core tenant of still of waste management that that carries through from those days, 51 years ago, when the company went public underway,

David Novak 15:38 

you know, you have something called the recycle plan in the future. You know, what, what drove your thinking on this, Jim? And how are you leading that plan in your organization?

Jim Fish 15:51 

It really stems all the way back to my childhood and somewhat of a conservative nature around consumption. I feel like we've become such a consumer society that, that everything is single use, and we throw it all away. And can we do something better? Isn't there a better use? It doesn't mean, by the way, that I'm anti plastic, for example, I think plastic is a very important material. But how do we do something more productive with it, you know, and that does for me stem back to my childhood, and not being wasteful. But But trying to use recycling as a way to, to preserve the Earth's natural resources. So the recycle plan to the future is really about increasing that if I get right down to that level of detail, it's increasing from 10% to 50%. What do you know, how do we get to 50% of that material being truly recycled instead of just 10%. And it not only preserves natural resources. But ultimately, I think it gets to a point where there's a better use for that material than just throwing it into a hole.

David Novak 16:53 

How do you galvanize your organization around that? Well,

Jim Fish 16:57 

fortunately, in this case, it's it's pretty easy. There aren't many people that say, Yeah, you know, what, just not a big recycle, as that's not what I like to do. I you know, I'd much rather just throw my, my plastic type bottle in there in, in the trash. Most people, particularly young people are saying, Look, I'm very, very pro recycling, and in fact, some are, are, are religious about it. But I do think galvanizing around the environmental aspect is less challenging than galvanizing around the economic aspect. I've said many times, I've said it on, on Squawk Box, and a lot of my business interviews is that sustainability has to be both environmentally and economically viable in order to really work it, it can't just be one, it can't be that, hey, this, you know, putting my PE T bottle in a recycle bin is better for the environment, and therefore it's a good thing. No, it has to make money for us as well, because most of this is processed by big businesses like ours, and our shareholders are going to hold us to an economic outcome, not just an environmental outcome. So it has to be both and and I think making sure that people understand that is really where we're, that's the piece that may be a little tougher to galvanize, than the environmental piece.

David Novak 18:18 

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I understand that you hired your first Chief Digital Officer in 2018. How is technology driving your business?

Jim Fish 19:19 

As we think about this pool of shrinking positions, and you saw that yum brands, I mean, a lot of these positions are becoming more and more difficult to fill the turnover is higher in these positions. And so we started thinking about this a few years ago, kind of right around that time and 2018 2017 which is if this pool of labor is shrinking, and there's this, you know, you hear about the great resignation, then how do I prevent that from ultimately jeopardizing the business? Probably have our 50,000 I'm gonna say close to 40,000 if not a little more are our hourly positions tray type roles. And if I can't fill those, then I'm then my business is in jeopardy. On the other hand, if I can fill mine and you can't fill yours, then it's actually a competitive advantage for me. And so how do you do that? I mean, there's only a couple of ways to really reduce your labor dependency. One is process change. And there's some overlap here between the two. But one is process change. And the other is technology. And that's why I say, some of those are interrelated. But, but as we think about technology, you know, I'll give you an example of, of customer experience centers, airlines started doing this, I don't know, 20 years ago, I can't remember the last time I called Southwest Airlines and actually spoke to somebody, I just go online to, to, to their website, and I booked my my seats, it might surprise you to learn that waste management wasn't there. Until very recently, we weren't there. If a customer wanted to self serve, check the status of a payment or order and empty and return for a can or order a new service. until fairly recently, within the last five years, they couldn't do that they had to call. And I don't care how good our Customer Experience Center is. It's never a pleasant experience calling customer service. I mean, you gotta go through a, an IVR. And you got to talk to this thing. And it's trying to, you know, and sometimes it doesn't understand me for you know, and it's a much better experience to do it online, if that's available for you. And if it works. So what we've been doing, though, to still keep in this people first mentality is that we're using technology to replace people who leave the company. We're not ripping anybody, we're not saying okay, you know, David, you don't have a job anymore. What we're doing is when when 50% of our of our customer experience, folks leave every year. And that's, that's really what the number was, it was almost 50% turnover, then my question for our tech team was, how do we use technology to to minimize the impact of turnover and actually not have to replace all of those folks that leave. So that was kind of the impetus behind it,

David Novak 22:13 

had your customer service metrics improved with the technology, they absolutely

Jim Fish 22:17 

have. In fact, if you think about our Customer Service Center call volume, which is a good proxy for how we're doing, because a lot of the calls that come in are complaint calls, we were taking about 15 million calls a year. So if we had 25 million customers, that means kind of 60% of our customers were calling at least once a year, that's not necessarily a good thing. You'd like to think that I don't call very often, I've been a customer for 10 years, hopefully I don't I haven't called in 10 years. And if I am calling it means I probably am calling because there was a problem, there was a problem with my bill, there was a problem with my pickup, you know, something happened with my driver, whatever the case is, if you look at that as a proxy for how we're doing on customer experience, our number of calls is down 25%. That's a good sign for me, that tells me that the folks aren't calling him with problems, the people that have to call in for new service, they can do it online, if they want to do it. If they're like my dad, you know, who was afraid of a computer, he'll still pick up the phone and call and and, you know, he would at the time, but but I think the the reduction in call volume at 25% is as good an indicator as any that, that our customer experiences top tier.

David Novak 23:34 

I would agree with that. And you know, Jim, you've said that the environment only has a voice because people advocate for it and who better to advocate for the environment than waste management. Now, how are you taking the lead to achieve your goal of being the most sustainable company in the world?

Jim Fish 23:52 

Maybe a microcosm of that is the golf tournament itself. And I'm talking about the WM Phoenix Open. It's 190 degrees from from your Masters tournament. I've kind of characterized it as a gigantic fraternity party that also happens to be zero waste. So if you haven't made it out, David, you got to come out for the tournament last year on Saturday. We had 400,000 people there on Saturday. Wow. But I think it's a representation. That's what I say it's a microcosm of what what's the art of the possible with respect to recycling and ultimately, our view to be the most sustainable company out there. We've taken that event and turned it into truly turned it into a zero waste event. Which means that none of the containers none of the food waste, none of that goes to a landfill coming out of the event of that event. So 400,000 people you can imagine, produce a lot of material. I don't call it waste because waste then implies that it that it goes to a landfill. It all goes for either recycling. It goes for reuse, it goes for donation, it goes for waste to energy. So it goes to something other than just a waste plant or a waste landfill. But I think when you talk about those constituents and the voiceless constituent being the environment, we really want to make sure we take care of all of our constituents, I always say we have five big constituents, our shareholders, our employees, our communities, our customers, and then what I call the voiceless constituent, which is the environment. And the reason I call it a voiceless constituent, is because it doesn't call me and complain, I mean, I, I get plenty of complaints, even though I think our customer experience is much better than it than it was, I still get customers who call me and say, hey, you know, the wheels broken on my container, and I want a new one, and you guys have been out to pick it up. The environment doesn't call me, it speaks in kind of long term, it speaks over the long term. And if we don't take care of it, it is going to speak to us and it's not going to be happy. It's not going to be a good conversation over the long term. So I think we have to make sure that we not only take care of those first four, but we take care of the fifth one, which is the environment.

David Novak 26:10 

You know, that's interesting, this silent constituency is going back to the Phoenix open for just a just a second. Yeah, I understand there are zero trash bins in the golf course. Now, this probably is one of the most heavily consumed alcoholic golf tournaments in the world. I would say, you know, how did you get everyone aligned around a vision like that and go out and execute it? Because that that had to be a different mindset.

Jim Fish 26:38 

No alcohol at that event? David? No, you're right. It's It's lucky. I think it takes everybody to this is one where it truly takes a village, I think, when we took over the events in 2000. So I think this is our 13th year, as the title sponsor, it took us about five or six years to get to zero waste. All of the all the participants that means the vendors have to make sure that the flatware, for example, the forks and knives and spoons are compostable. And if you're not going to bring a compostable fork or knife as a vendor, then you can't be a vendor for that event. And obviously, people want to be vendors for that event, because it is such a huge event. It's a moneymaker for them. But we dictate to those vendors what they can bring. And it's important that the fans understand how to recycle. What goes in the recycle bin versus the compost bin that that's there's an education process. So we have as many as 200 coaches, if you want to call them that, walking around, we've tried to label these bins, a compost bin and show pictures. People, you know, tend to focus on those pictures and say, oh, there's a fork there. This goes in that bin. They don't know what is, is compost. They sometimes they know what's recycling. I mean, you probably know that your your plastic bottle is recycling. But you don't always know is this Forca a compost item? Or is this a recycled item. So we put pictures on those bins to try and help them that does help us. Because all that that non recyclable material that's in the recycle bin ultimately has to be sorted out. And so the more that that the fans can self sort for us, the better off we are. So there's the fans. There's the vendors. There's the players themselves being big advocates for a zero waste event. That's been helpful to us that the PGA has been all in on this. So there's a lot of different parties that play a role here. And of course, not the least of which are our employees. We have I think last year, it was in the 1000s might might have been close to 2000 employees who were actually out there working in the event might have been north of 2000. But a big big number of waste management employees. Many of them fly in from Toronto or from Miami to to actually volunteer for this event and whether they're driving customers out to the golf course in golf carts, whether they're actually working on you know, is one of those coaches helping people differentiate between recycling and compost, whether they're on the sales side, and there's a whole host of different functions out there. But yeah, the golf tournament has been unique and i The interesting part about it is, I've asked Jay Monahan J. And he's the commissioner of the PGA we should be able to make every event a zero waste of it if we can make the WM Phoenix Open, which is almost a million fans effect slightly over a million I think the zero waste and why can't one of the smaller events, an event that only has 200,000 for the week be zero waste and so that Jay said I totally agree with you. But it does involve all parties getting together to make an app

David Novak 30:00 

You mentioned earlier that when you first had the idea or first thought that you could be become the CEO of waste management, you thought you could make some changes, you know, particularly on the people front and the culture front, what have you done jam on that front? And what's the culture today versus what it was? And, you know, where are you trying to take it?

Jim Fish 30:19 

Maybe I'll answer it this way. I was asked by probably the lead, Wall Street analyst, and he brought a bunch of investors into Houston, this was, I'm gonna say this is five years ago. And he said, Jim, what do you want your legacy to be as CEO when you retire? And I think he actually thought that my answer is going to be something along the lines of, you know, double digit, total shareholder return or something like that very much a kind of a financial answer, I believe is what his what he was expecting me to say. And I'm sure that the investors in the room are expecting something like that. And my answer was, I hope that when I retire, that people say, Jim, helped make this a great place to work to make a career. That is what I hope people take away from my leadership is that, first of all, that gym honestly cares about 50,000 people. And it's not just 50,000 people, it's 50,000 people plus their families, that I honestly care about every single one of those people. And I want what's best for them, whether it's pay, or whether it's benefits, or whether it's recognition, or whether it's happiness, that the small amount of happiness that I can provide them in, in having a job that's fulfilling. That's how I hope I come across. That's what I hope my legacy is. That's how I answered the question in that meeting, and I think it was surprising to that investor group, whether they were disappointed my answer, I don't know. But But I but I think they've seen that and this is I'm plagiarizing a little bit here from Herb Kelleher, because I never met her. But I always thought he was a great CEO, and maybe a little bit ahead of his time, because he recognized back in the 1970s 80s, and 90s, that if you take care of your people, that they're happy with what they do, then they in turn, will take care of your customers and your customers will be happy. And then your customers, happy customers will make for happy shareholders. And it has to be in that order. You can't change the order around and have a successful long term model. So I think our shareholders after that meeting five years ago, where I said, I want to be known as the CEO helped make this a great place to work, who maybe at the time, were saying, well, that's a dumb answer. Maybe they think they may have won. So DOM because the stock price has done pretty darn well. For us.

David Novak 32:47 

That's a great formula for success. There's no question about that. You know, but you've got this in your blood, you know, you really believe this, the genuine care for people and you run a big organization, how do you cascade it, so that it's not just you, I mean, you know, you're one person, you got to have everybody drinking the Kool Aid. changing the

Jim Fish 33:09 

culture is not something that happens over even a period of months or even years. I think it happens honestly, over a period of, of probably decades. I'm not going to be here for decades. I've been I've been with the company for a couple of decades, but but I've only been in this job for coming up on seven years. And I'm not going to be CEO for decades. But I would like to think that that my successor carries forward at least that piece of what I think I've started to accomplish. i I'm sure there are things that the Board says, Boy, we don't want that out the gym successor, I mean, what, but hopefully, one thing that they do say they want is someone who is who really genuinely cares about, about their people. And so as you as you said, David, it can't just be me, it can't be one person, because there's 50,000 People here. So it has to be something that we that we teach through leadership development that we look for in hiring back to herb a little bit here. They really looked for it in every position that they hired, whether it was a flight attendant or a pilot, you know, you you get on Southwest Airlines, and as I was this weekend, and and they're just it, it's just a fun airline to fly. And it wasn't look and it was a full flight. So I wouldn't say it was fun from that standpoint. Good for them for having a full flight. But, but it is, you know, still to this day and herb has been I think he passed away probably 10 years ago. But they have still somehow been able to maintain that. And the way they did it was not just Herb Kelleher, Herb really cascaded that down, through his hiring practices through his leadership, development, through everything that affects people through succession planning, all of that was something that I Thank her really emphasized, I'd like to think that I'm doing some of that.

David Novak 35:06 

I understand that your father in law gave you some advice a while back to not sit in the corporate office, but to get out and be with people. What's your rhythm for doing that today?

Jim Fish 35:16 

Well, so my father in law was, and again, he was similar to my parents passed away too young, and he passed away 14 years ago, a Pipe Fitter union Pipe Fitter from St. Louis, he and I always used to go back and forth on labor unions, you know, you know, good or bad, and I don't have a view either way, he had a very strong view. But, you know, one thing that he did say, where we, where we completely agreed, as well, because I used to say, look, union or non union, we're all just people. And so he said, I totally agree with that, Jim. And the advice that he gave me was, look, when you go out into the field, and I mentioned that we, you know, I started to use of it, then we went out to Boston, I've never been in a in a field job, I'd never had field employees, operations type employees, reporting up to me. And so what my father in law said was when you go out there, don't just sit in your office. He said, Go out and find out what what your team is doing. He said, If you can, he said, Do they have any kind of meeting, you know, like a weekly meeting, a safety meeting, and I said that I think they do. So well, if they do go to one every week, make a point of go into a safety meeting every week. And so when I found out when I got out there, and I called him back and said, Well, they do have safety meetings, and they're at two o'clock in the morning, or three o'clock in the morning, he goes great, perfect, go to the two o'clock in the morning, meeting. And he said, make sure you go to the early one, he said, if they have a two, three, and four, and then a six, don't just show up for the six. Because then the people the two will say, yeah, he couldn't make the early Bell, but he but he came out for the 6am. One, go to the two. And by the way, go every week, and maybe a ride along with a driver every week. So I did that for the for the seven and a half years that I was in the field, you can count, the number of times that I was was at a field location riding on a truck by the number of weeks on the calendar. So for for every single week, I made a point of, of going to a site. And initially what I was learning was about the business. I mean, it was it was you know, how do I learn about this business? But after a while, after seven years, it wasn't learning as much about the business. It was more about to your to your previous question about how do I kind of Cascade this down into the organization so people know who I am. And and people have started to learn who is Jim I've said this for many years, started saying it when I when I went out to Boston, but look, my priorities in my life, or my faith first, my family second, and my job is a distant third. And the reason I say it's a distant third is not because it isn't important. It's just because the first two are that much more important to me. And so often our leaders, we don't really know who they are, we don't know what their what their values are. We don't know what their priorities in life are. And so I've made a point of letting everybody know what those are. I think that's been an important aspect of my leadership. And certainly when I look back at my father in law, giving me that advice, and saying, go out and spend time with those with those drivers with with heavy equipment operators, with customer experience, folks. I think that was maybe the best advice I've ever received. I like to think that, that he's looking down on me and saying, Good job. That was exactly what I told you to do. And look what it turned into.

David Novak 38:32 

Do you still do that? Jim knows you're a CEO.

Jim Fish 38:35 

I do. I was, in fact, I went to, we call them crew out there. They're kind of safety meetings. But we also talk about other things. I went to a crew out in Philadelphia last week on Thursday morning. I'll be doing it again, here in Boston in a couple of weeks. So I I wouldn't tell you I do 52 of them a year. But I bet you I'll do 20 This year, I'll probably do 20 I used to actually go out on the back of a truck about once a quarter and actually throw trash back there. And the board did say you know that's probably not a great idea. We that would be a bad article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that that gym fish, you know, was injured behind the back of a truck throwing trash, you know, isn't there something better for him to do than throw trash and while I think that's a very important job, they're right about that I shouldn't be on the back of the truck. I'm a little too old to be doing that anyway.

David Novak 39:33 

Will be back with the rest of my conversation with Jim fish in just a moment. As the leading recycler in North America, sustainability is a key factor for Jim and his team at Waste Management. And not too long ago, I got to talk to a real pioneer in the world of sustainability and entrepreneurship Joy swell, injure the CEO of Allbirds. The conversation we had is full of great insights for anyone who wants to truly understand What it takes to make your business more sustainable and successful.

Joey Zwillinger 40:04 

The two worst conversations I've had and all birds have been from two former executives from very large companies that had played a major role in creating the industry as it stands today. And they both said, There's no way this is going to be successful. A because no one's done it before and be because it's just dumb. And they're disheartening. Because you know, those conversations are with people who know a lot about your industry. And they know a lot more than you'll almost ever know, and what they've lived in their industry. So how can you just ignore that, but you got to put it into context. And I think I think of myself as a network learner, where when I have a heart problem that I don't know the answer to, I generally go out to the five to 10 smartest people I know, who knows something about this issue. And I ask them the same question, and I get their advice. And then I tried to put context around where those people are coming from, and what's smartest with the idiosyncrasies of our business, and then come up with an answer or a solution that we think will work for us. And so I would say in those situations, I take those as data points. And I try not to get disheartened. And I think, you know, entrepreneurship, you run into these situations, you run into a lot more nose than you run into yeses, and you can't be disheartened by those. And if you would be probably stopped getting out of bed every morning. So no point no point letting him, let him get you down too much.

David Novak 41:27 

Go back and listen to my entire conversation with joy, Episode 31, here on how leaders lead

that you're not on the back of the truck anymore. What do you think is the most important characteristic of being a great CEO?

Jim Fish 41:47 

Well, first, that implies that I'm a great CEO. I don't know whether I am or not. But first of all, I think being decisive, and this is all something, David that you can relate to, I think being decisive and as one of our board members said, being decisive is easy. But being decisively, right is not. So you know, I if I'm decisive but I'm decisively wrong. That's not a really great trait to have as a CEO, but But I think being able to, to see around corners and think of a little bit into the future. So for example, one of the things we talked to the board about today was not so much what is the economy hold over the next 1218 months? I think there's a lot of opinions on that. And yeah, do we go into a downturn, maybe probably do some type of soft downturn? Here's what we talked about. And here's what I kind of laid out for them at the beginning of the meeting today was, if you look at the amount of debt that the United States has, and there's a lot of books, and I read a lot on this, the amount of debt of 30 to $33 trillion plus what's not even on the on the balance sheet, which is Social Security obligations and Medicare obligations, there is the real potential for a really, really ugly downturn. I mean, I'm not talking about a 20, q4 of 23, or q4, one of 24 downturn. I'm not talking about a South soft landing, I'm talking about a really ugly downturn. And I've talked to a couple of Federal Reserve folks about this. And so those are the types of things that I think you want a CEO to at least to be able to, to think about. How does it affect my business? Potentially? And if I'm 100% wrong about that, that's okay. In fact, I hope I am. But if I'm right about it, then at least the business is somewhat prepared. I do believe that you want someone in this job? Who can think about the what is the future hold for us? And And then secondly, how do I prepare the company for that possible future outcome? And if it's a negative future outcome, how do I really protect the company? Let's use China as an example. If I'm a big manufacturing company, and I have a big percentage of my supply chain in China, do I want that? Should I prepare for something that could be ugly? I don't know whether it happens. But it sure could. There's a lot of conversation about it. So having that that type of of an educated foresight, I believe is important. I also think that, you know, look, I like to think that people think of GM as being a fairly humble guy. I think that's important. I think it's an important trait. I could be better at that. But But I do think it's an important trait. I think a level of intellect. I'm not the world's smartest guy, but but there was a study that showed that, you know, there's a minimum IQ for CEOs and then and there's a direct correlation between shareholder return up to that minimum IQ and then everything above that is driven by other factors like EQ or or whatever. Those are all I believe important leadership traits as a CEO

David Novak 45:00 

If you've had a lot of success, you know your stock is has grown, which has been great, you know, when you're leading a team that's had so much success, how do you build a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Jim Fish 45:12 

It's kind of a double edged sword in our space, because we've been so successful. And sometimes you're a product of your own success. And you get a little bit of apathy there. We've really tried to weed out that apathy and help people understand that the burning platform is not that we might not make payroll next week. But the burning platform is that demographically, we're looking at the United States, the average American has gone from age 30 and 1980, to age almost age 40 today, and will continue to climb. That's that's a risk. And that that's also a risk not only to the to the macro economy, but it's a risk to our business, because we hire a lot of folks in at that entry level. So I think that while it may not be something that they can see that is next week, oh, I might not be able to make payroll, that's not the issue. Look, we're always going to be a successful business, we're always going to generate solid returns to shareholders, but there are some risks and trying to make sure that people understand those, and that there is this sense of urgency, it is a challenge to your question, but hopefully we've done a decent job of, of building that sense of urgency, and maybe that's been part of our success.

David Novak 46:24 

You know, I want to have a little little fun here. But before I go into my lightning round of questions, I want to go back to the Phoenix open and I understand that you play in the program every year. Tell me about what dorks Bentley is coined the fish effect.

Jim Fish 46:40 

Alright, so Dirks I played with him a couple years ago and we've we've developed a nice friendship with Dirks such a nice guy. His father was actually a Thunderbird. In Phoenix in the Thunderbird group the Thunderbirds, we partner up with them. They've been running this golf tournament for 80 years. So darks his father was a Thunderbird. So I played with dark play with him a couple of times, but but when I first met him, we were it was in the program. And at the time, I played in probably five pro apps, and and just purely coincidence, but every single Pro that I played with, not only did they win a tournament that year, but they won a major that year. So I played with Vijay Singh, the year that he went to a won the Masters I played with Webb Simpson the year that he won. The US Open play with calcavecchia and calcavecchia one, the British Open. So they're the open I guess they call it The Open Championship. But anyway, so it was just purely coincidence, but I told Dirks I said and that year, it was funny. We're playing with a guy named Jonas Blixt, who was ranked number 185 in the world or whatever. And we didn't even get to pick. I wasn't CEO at the time. And so I told darks, I said there's this thing called the fish effect. He goes, What's that? And I said, you know, every year you play with me, you want to major Jonas is listening in and, and so he says, Wow, he goes, Jonas, that should make you happy. So anyway, long story short here. Late Jonas. Later, he didn't qualify for the masters. He made the US Open and missed the cut, didn't play in the open gets to the PGA. He had won an event that year. And he is literally leading the PGA with two holes left. And Dirks Bentley sends me a note and says the fish effect is real. And he said, If Jonas wins this tournament, you should auction yourself off next year for to play with GM and the pro app.

David Novak 48:39 

That's funny. Yeah, there's been a lot of fun. And I want to have some more now with my lightning round of questions. And so you're ready for this?

Jim Fish 48:45 

I am, I hope,

David Novak 48:46 

What's one word others would use to best describe you competitive? What would you say is the one word that best describes you? A learner. If you could be one person for a day besides yourself? Who would it be?

Jim Fish 49:01 

Tom Brady? Said I'm not a cat. And I'm not a pats fan. But Tom Brady,

David Novak 49:05 

what's your biggest pet peeve?

Jim Fish 49:07 

I think apathy is for me is a big pet peeve.

David Novak 49:10 

What would you know about Houston only if you live there, but Houston really is a great place to live in a word or phrase to describe what it's like hitting a tee shot on the 16th hole of the waste management Phoenix open in front of 20,000 people.

Jim Fish 49:26 

It's exhilarating because there are a lot of people there. It's not pressure packed because it's a nine iron or a pitching wedge. And for me, the driver is the much bigger risk for me but it's it's exhilarating.

David Novak 49:37 

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You probably

Jim Fish 49:40 

hear Sirius XM radio or maybe a podcast or two.

David Novak 49:45 

What's something about waste management that few people would know?

Jim Fish 49:49 

I don't think people realize we're the biggest recycler in North America. They always think of us as a landfill company or the big green trucks.

David Novak 49:56 

What's something about you few

Jim Fish 49:57 

people would know I can bear But ski, David, I really can, I can barefoot ski.

David Novak 50:02 

And I have to ask this one for my wife, Wendy, who wanted to know what's the most unusual piece of garbage that you or your team has ever picked up,

Jim Fish 50:12 

we had a boat anchor from a cruise ship somehow ended up in our recycle plant. I don't think it was a cruise ship, because those are gigantic. But it was a big anchor that ended up somehow. And I don't know whether it came out of a big roll off box. But it ended up on the floor of a recycle plant. Obviously, that was not recyclable. Through a small conveyor belt that processes tin cans and plastic cups.

David Novak 50:38 

Just curious, you know, you mentioned earlier faith, family jobs, way down the list versus that, and you're in a 24/7 type of job? How do you balance all of that?

Jim Fish 50:51 

I try not to take the job really, to seriously I know it's an important job. But also try and keep it in perspective, as a CEO, yes. The jobs important, particularly to 50,000, folks, but also try and recognize that look, if I think about this, and kind of the scheme of all the great people in history have not of which I am not one, there are so many people that I look to and say wow, that, you know, whether it's Abraham Lincoln, or whether it's Winston Churchill, or Martin Luther King, or whatever their legacy will live for forever. So part of this work life balance, which I think is what you're alluding to a little bit is, is recognizing that, that I'm not that I'm not that important, I'm never going to be one of those folks, I do have to recognize that important too. I'm important to those to those 50,000 people, and try and do everything I can to make sure that we're helping, as I've said, make waste management a great place to work. But keeping that priority in line. And that's why I oftentimes say that, that that job is a distant third, is because I recognize that I'm just not that important. You know, and, and so let's keep that in perspective, not get too I try to keep my highs pretty low, and my lows pretty high. And so I'm fairly even keel. And I think that's important. And while we didn't talk about it in terms of, of traits of a good CEO, you don't want to be a CEO that has real high highs and real low lows. So I think that's important, too, if you are one of those types of people to try and temper that a little bit.

David Novak 52:30 

All right, last question here. Jim, what's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who wants to be a better leader? I

Jim Fish 52:36 

think if you want to be a better leader, first of all there I described myself as a learner and and leadership in some respects is is an eighth. You know, there are some leadership skills, I think that we're we're born with, but a lot of leadership is learned. And so I always tell folks, look, you know, if you if you want to, to be a better leader, there's some things that you can do to better yourself. Watch others who you perceive to be good leaders. And what are they doing? Read about it? You know, listen to podcasts, I think this is hopefully this is a helpful tool for folks who want to be a better leader hope they look at this and say, you know, I think this Jim fish guys is a decent leader and I can learn something from it. A lot of leadership is learned through experiences. So take advantage of those experiences.

David Novak 53:25 

Jim, I gotta tell you, it's just been a blast. You know, getting this time with you. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Jim Fish 53:31 

Well, thanks for having me. I had a great time as well.

David Novak 53:43 

You know, Jim drops the line in this conversation that I absolutely love. He says, People are the backbone of every company. They're also the least predictable part of every company. Boy, is that the truth? And in order to lead Well, we have to understand both of those realities. Yes, people are 100% your priority, because taking care of them is the key to taking care of customers and driving results. But people aren't predictable. You can never take your eye off the ball. as your business grows. As the labor market shifts, as competitors make moves, you always have to stay tuned to what your people are thinking and what it really takes to prioritize their best interest. You got to get out there, make connections, and heck, maybe even ride on the back of a trash truck at 1am in the morning. So how can you really apply this big idea at work this week? Well, here's the suggestion. Before you make a decision, just pause. Take a moment and think about how it will affect the people on your team. You might even write yourself a little sticky note to remind you to take that moment of consideration. This simple discipline will help you frame up every decision around the people you serve, but it might just do more than that, you may realize you don't really know your decisions affect certain team members. And in that case, you'll need to make stronger connections with your team and really understand how to take care of them so that they can take care of customers and grow your organization. So do you want to know how leaders lead, what we learned today is the great leaders put their people first, coming up next on how leaders lead is Geoff Colvin, Fortune Magazine, senior editor at large, and the author of two of my favorite business books, talent is overrated, and humans are underrated.

Geoff Colvin 55:42 

In the world of business, we spend virtually all our time actually performing, and very little time, typically doing what you'd call practice. And so what you have to do is find ways to practice within the work. And you can do that. If you have the right mindset. You're thinking even while you're working, okay, what skill am I working on right now? You have an ability to step outside yourself and look at the situation like what am I working on right now? And how am I doing? And then you think afterwards, how did that go? What did I miss? Now that I think back? How could I have done it better? It's a little more work than most of us put in, but it really, really pays off.

David Novak 56:31 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you can become the best leader you can be. And one more thing we started a new how leaders lead podcast called three more questions. And in this podcast, I teamed up with Kula Callahan cool, turns the mic around and actually asked me questions, three questions about the podcasts that I just posted in the prior week. It's a lot of fun, and hopefully it'll give you insights that you can start putting to use every single day.