The Art of Succession

00:00:00.000 — 00:00:20.480 · Speaker 1
It's very hard to find people that they trust will uphold the values and maintain the company and their legacy over time. We didn't build it to just let someone else tear it down. There seems to be an abundance of people in that position looking to sell or looking to transition somehow, but having a really hard time saying, I can trust this specific person to do it the way that I would believe it.

00:00:22.520 — 00:00:43.480 · Speaker 2
After years advising founders and leadership teams in companies worth tens of millions. Angelo D'Amico stepped into the pressure himself, becoming president of Canada Rubber Group, Inc. in Stable Marketing, Inc. Now he's revealing what it really takes to earn the trust to lead someone else's legacy.

00:00:43.520 — 00:00:57.280 · Speaker 1
You got 50 different companies that all think that what they're doing is normal, and you realize that there isn't such a thing as objective normal, because what's the value of a principle if it's not constraining something? It's the difference between free rein and not free rein in your behavior. What were some of the big.

00:00:57.280 — 00:00:58.920 · Speaker 3
Doubts in your mind at this time?

00:00:58.920 — 00:01:00.680 · Speaker 1
Probably when I started.

00:01:01.920 — 00:01:41.960 · Speaker 4
As you've been listening to this guest, you're probably starting to ask your questions. How do I apply this to our own situation, our own succession story at the company that I'm working in now at GW, CPA, we have built a custom GPT that you can find linked down in the description below on our website. We have loaded this GPT up with all of our knowledge about public accounting and tax preparation around succession planning.

We've also included the insights from the guests from the past two years of interviews at the Art of succession. You can find all of that at the custom GPT. Use it any time of day. Start to apply it to your situation. Ask it the questions that are keeping you awake at night. I want to thank you for listening so far and let's get back to the episode.

00:01:42.360 — 00:01:57.200 · Speaker 5
Welcome to the Art of succession podcast with Barrett Young. Join us as we explore the strategies, stories and insights that shape the journey of leadership transitions and business success. No matter where you find yourself along the journey, this is the podcast where you'll find the tools to make it happen.

00:01:57.240 — 00:02:23.760 · Speaker 3
My name is Barrett Young and this is the Art of succession podcast. My guest today is Angelo D'Amico, president and CEO of Canada Rubber Group. Angelo bought into the company and started the path towards CEO in 2019, eventually taking over the role full time in 2024. And today he's going to share his journey of stepping into a 60 person manufacturing company and the approach that he took to facilitate that transition.

Angelo. Welcome to the Art of succession.

00:02:23.800 — 00:02:25.240 · Speaker 1
Hey, Barrett. Happy to be here today.

00:02:25.240 — 00:02:39.480 · Speaker 3
Thank you. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I want to ask before we get into the details and everything. What brings you to the art of succession today? What is it that you really want to convey to our listeners? What do you hope that they would get out out of today's conversation?

00:02:39.480 — 00:03:06.480 · Speaker 1
I suppose if there would be one takeaway I hope for, it might be that people in a role like mine who are stepping into a an existing company and in a leadership position would do so in a principles first, values first way. I think there are real benefits to the people. I think there's real benefits to the person who's the incoming person.

And I also think there's real strong evidence that that's even good on a financial and process level. Okay.

00:03:06.640 — 00:03:13.840 · Speaker 3
Um, principle first, like opposed to what? What would be the contrast there that you're looking to draw on this episode?

00:03:13.920 — 00:03:42.600 · Speaker 1
Could be perhaps that somebody focused really strongly on, say, only process, or they could be really strong on financial management or there could be just really sales oriented, let's say. So maybe they're specifically disciplinary or departmental focused. And that's tempting, I think, because there's a lot of pressure in these types of positions to be the person who knows at the end of the day.

And that's an assumption that we all kind of make, is that we should be the one who knows. And I would challenge that. Maybe there's some advantage to not bearing that burden and being the person with the guiding principles.

00:03:42.640 — 00:03:56.720 · Speaker 3
Okay, great. So we're going to get into, you know, stepping into that role. Before we talk about that, I mean, just give me a little bit of background. What was your what prepared you to be invited in or sought out for this role? About six years ago.

00:03:56.760 — 00:04:38.200 · Speaker 1
Yes. Close notes on that. My background formally. My university background is economics, so I do have a little bit of a background on, I guess, finance on the financial side. Following that, I was working in consulting, management consulting for just over a decade. And in that role, we focused our consulting practice on manufacturing and distribution companies in Canada.

And they were all different sizes. But one of the clients that we had was this one. And now there were many clients that we had that were in the same boat where succession was a factor. And in fact, there were more than one client that was interested in how I might fit in their plans, and this was one that I was interested in and was interested in me.

And it all worked out in the end. Okay, gotcha.

00:04:38.240 — 00:04:47.880 · Speaker 3
Were you specifically working on, like, facilitating the transition or like a temporary CFO or CEO? CEO for hire, kind of in your consulting or.

00:04:48.000 — 00:05:17.800 · Speaker 1
Yeah, we were not focused on that. I was a little bit surprised, even by the timing. I didn't I didn't know necessarily that leadership was in that mind state where that they were going to be looking to fill, specifically their president position. I think that what I was involved in that helped me be a qualifier was I was involved in, um, you know, business model creation and, uh, oftentimes as a sounding board for strategic decision making.

And I think there was just a belief that I reflected the values that they were looking for.

00:05:18.600 — 00:05:19.040 · Speaker 3
I gotcha.

00:05:19.080 — 00:05:26.360 · Speaker 1
It was not a project, and I was not an expert in succession planning or supporting that type of thing. Okay.

00:05:26.400 — 00:05:39.080 · Speaker 3
About how long had you been working with this client and what were the range of projects? You know, business model generation, like huge transformations or tweaking. Just talk a little bit about that, that that made them start to look at you in a different light.

00:05:39.120 — 00:08:04.200 · Speaker 1
Sure. So we had been working with I had been working with this company, I think, in the neighborhood of eight years prior to this offer. So we knew each other well, not without discontinuity. The projects were continuous, but not without gaps in the beginning. The consulting firm I worked with was focused on like lean, continuous improvement type of work.

So I had some exposure. And then that's where my economics background initially came in was what's the dollarization of improvement if we're going to look for operational improvement? From there, though, it was evident that sometimes the constraints in that company and other companies was not a process level constraint.

It was a market constraint, and they could kind of bleed the stone all they wanted. It wasn't going to really change the dial enough. And so I took it upon myself to learn a little bit more about the revenue side of things. And I spent a good deal of time doing that formally. In the end, we opened up a portion of the practice, which was about the strategy side of how to generate revenue and how to build the business model.

Consequence to that, we did a project with this company to become what we coined, the Industry Informant. We created a business partner of mine, wrote several like blogs, and we worked on web communication and things like that. And the strategy really was how do we create as many valuable doors from which to get your questions answered, and to enter the website so that this would become the company whose authority you trusted in the industry?

The company that we're talking about, they sell mostly to purchasers and engineers. It's not a set product that we sell. It's or a contract manufacturer. So the customer calls us with their specification and their product designs. And so they're looking for somebody who can give them guidance on how to make it, what materials to make it out of and that type of thing.

So there's a consultative side to it, but the design itself is the customer. So how do we get these people who are working as engineers and purchasers to when they have questions about where to go or what they need to do because they're not necessarily working with our style of materials all the time. They could be, you know, we're elastomeric rubber, plastic sponge, these types of things, they might be making things out of all different materials all the time.

So when they need somebody to answer questions in this kind of niche, where are they going to go or get those answers? And so we initiated a strategy to just become that place where you get that answer. And it was. It seemed to be quite successful. It was maybe the right move. I don't necessarily think that's the thing you have to do right now, but that was the thing at the time.

It was the right timing for that type of approach.

00:08:04.240 — 00:08:09.560 · Speaker 3
You know, people are hungry for information on the internet and you guys were the source for that information.

00:08:10.600 — 00:08:17.040 · Speaker 3
Kind of like an early they ask you answer kind of approach to this worked out for your your company at that time.

00:08:17.080 — 00:08:28.040 · Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean in advance of being able to go to an LLM or something like that and try to get quick answers. It was nice, I think, to be able to kind of ask your question and end up most of the time on this one place. So that was favorable for us.

00:08:28.080 — 00:08:38.719 · Speaker 3
How did the conversations around consulting shift in that direction? Was that something that you, your consulting firm initiated, or was that just response to what the customer started asking for?

00:08:38.760 — 00:09:46.150 · Speaker 1
Our role really was to help the company be sustainably profitable. You know, as consultants. So we were doing that with process improvement for a long time, but I think it became evident after 0708 into oh nine. That was a pretty strong downturn emerging from then. There was a lot of marginal customers to be had, and and companies who were just focusing on operational efficiency weren't going to be the ones who were going to scoop up that opportunity.

So it was it called for an outward approach to go kind of suck up all those customers that were out, kind of stranded, where maybe the suppliers they did have didn't make it or did come through for them in some way. So the timing necessitated an approach that was more outbound and customer capture focused if they were going to take another step of significant growth.

And so again, we kind of identified with that with them. And I would say they also, to their credit, gave us as trusted third party resources. You know, a lot of um, not I wouldn't call it autonomy, but I would say they just trusted our, our opinion about that sort of thing. So if we were to say, you know, we need to shift our focus this way, they were receptive to those kinds of conversations.

So we were not just pigeonholed into one one discipline.

00:09:46.190 — 00:10:48.110 · Speaker 3
I gotcha. So it was really while you're at that consulting firm, it was a business model shift for your firm. This is the direction our customers are going. It wasn't I mean, it is a little bit hand in hand. Do you want this? Yes, we want this. And you kind of morph it that way. But it wasn't just you responding to this one client to shift this direction.

You guys saw it across your whole base. Okay, great. Um, and obviously that worked that they were responsive to that. The customer was, um, how long of a process? I mean, how did you build up the trust to get to that place? You've trusted us on process improvement. Now, trust us with your top line because, I mean, you said you worked with this client for eight years.

That trust doesn't start on day one to go from, hey, we trust you on profitability, we trust you on growth, and now we trust you to step into the company. Talk me through small projects or like a misstep or, you know, or a chance you're able to turn it around and prove yourself in one of those cases.

00:10:48.150 — 00:11:37.350 · Speaker 1
Yeah, probably the latter. So it wasn't that there was a discrete ending to one project and a new starting to the other. It was that some time was apportioned to this, this thought. So like I said, we had some strong level of trust, I think, both as operational experts but but also as just advisors and people with the spirit of wanting to help.

And so the leadership at the time had actually a lot of humility. And that was a real strength to be able to kind of rely on the people around them and see what they could offer, even if it was different than what they had traditionally offered. And that was true for how they saw their people generally. So we were able to, I think, apportion some of our time on projects that were otherwise operational to start dabbling in this side, until it became evident that this is where the impact was going to be, and we never fully lost the operational side.

It's just that we really became two different hemispheres worth looking at and not just one.

00:11:37.390 — 00:11:40.310 · Speaker 3
Tell me about the size of the company at this time. Ownership.

00:11:40.310 — 00:11:54.990 · Speaker 1
Maybe a $10 million company? Yeah. No, actually they had they had been recently on to their second generation of ownership. So I kind of jumped in in support of that second generation. And then, um, you know what? Ultimately, ultimately, I became the third generation of it.

00:11:54.990 — 00:12:08.110 · Speaker 3
So how does that conversation? I mean, had you been having conversations around their exit and then it just kind of shifted to, I'm, I'm teaching you how to find your next CEO. And then it's like, here I am.

00:12:08.150 — 00:13:21.310 · Speaker 1
No, no, it surprisingly, it wasn't a conversation that we had and that probably worked out well. I never had any, um, other motives yet. I didn't have any other motives. And I wasn't really even aware that this was something at the forefront of their mind, either about me or just in general for their company.

Um, so I was just doing the projects I was doing, and, you know, there would be occasions where sometimes they would run a wellness event or something like that, and they might need a slide to promote that event. And I would do something kind of fun and a little bit risky for them that, you know, you maybe only do when you know somebody in their values a little bit better.

And those I think became the case examples for them in the long run. About that. maybe I share their values not just from a hard skills, but also a soft skills perspective. You know, I interacted with people at the company, but it also created some internal messaging that represented their brand for their people.

And so I think that they just they got to trust that not only could I take care of the company's sustainability from a financial perspective, but also maybe I would be somebody who could take care of the people well along the way. And that was a strong priority for this company. I ended up learning along the way that they, even prior to going the route they went with succession, that they were offered to be purchased by venture capitalists.

They didn't only have one option, they weren't stuck by any means. Okay.

00:13:21.470 — 00:13:39.390 · Speaker 3
What's the the makeup or the age ranges, the gaps between at this point. Now I know it's seven owners of the company, but like somewhere in there, you know, early career, somewhere in their late career. What does it look like to to way a venture capital buyout like that at this point.

00:13:39.430 — 00:13:41.710 · Speaker 1
In terms of the age of the participants?

00:13:41.710 — 00:13:48.150 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Just like, were they all towards looking at retirement or was it like half and half? What's the stagger there?

00:13:48.190 — 00:14:21.990 · Speaker 1
At the time two were, two were retiring. One had already retired. But the two that were retiring uh, were retiring over a five year period, one immediately the other five years down the road. And so that and the two that were retiring were operationally the most significant two people. So it was going to be a big change for everybody and a big risk, I think, for the company and its trajectory.

So there are still two of the partners that are still in the company now. And with me, um, another one member was brought on alongside me. Okay.

00:14:22.030 — 00:14:54.150 · Speaker 3
Gotcha. Because I'm, I'm trying to, you know, I'm one of two partners and we try to stagger retirements and bringing in future partners and everything like that. But I'm trying to to weigh, like the self-assessment that I would take for those other owners to say we need to bring in somebody effectively higher than me or, you know.

Like you said, operationally or bring somebody in as the president rather than just me, step into that role as the most senior owner. Talk to me just a little bit about that thinking process on there. And if you're if you're aware of that.

00:14:54.150 — 00:15:11.590 · Speaker 1
I believe there was fairly unanimous agreement by the ownership at the time that I was the the strongest candidate from a perspective of maybe rarer at the time was that there wasn't anybody in the company that would have had, say, the the business strategy

00:15:12.710 — 00:15:55.710 · Speaker 1
or macro level skill set. They would have had to put somebody through education for that. And then it would have been it would have been that they were newly educated that way. Whereas I came from a background of having been exposed to so many different companies in my consulting that were manufacturers and distributors, that I think the perspective that I got there was, you know, you got 50 different companies that all think that what they're doing is normal, and you realize that there isn't such a thing as objective normal, and you can look at what everyone's doing through the lens of what's everybody else doing and where could we all learn from each other.

So I think they maybe saw that opportunity in me that I had the perspective of having been to many places and not just being exposed to that one environment for my whole career. I think that was something they couldn't get internally.

00:15:55.750 — 00:16:12.430 · Speaker 3
Okay, gotcha. Um, how long did this period of assessing venture capital looking at Angelo? You know, transitioning this? I know you said one partner one would got out of me. One was over five years. What did that process look like? And you know what shaped that decision? Do you think.

00:16:12.510 — 00:16:47.190 · Speaker 1
As far as I know, that the the process was around two and a half years long, it could have been longer and I could have not known about it. Um, initially, I think around 2017, I'm just guessing. I was approached about this opportunity. I'd been working in my consulting practice with a business partner who, if not for that person, I wouldn't have been in that position.

Who kind of took a chance on me, come straight out of school, put me in a position that maybe I ought not have been in that young and that that green. But there I was. And so I felt I owed a lot to that person. And my first question was, and what about that person?

00:16:47.550 — 00:16:49.790 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Can I leave them behind kind of thing?

00:16:49.830 — 00:17:06.949 · Speaker 1
The answer that I got at the time was, this is an opportunity for one person. And it was not about the fact that they didn't trust or respect the other person. I think it had a lot to do with where I was in my career and what they were looking for in terms of just the scope of what I could do. And so

00:17:08.110 — 00:17:14.350 · Speaker 1
at the time, I said, unfortunately, I can't, I can't do that. I have to pass.

00:17:15.430 — 00:17:47.390 · Speaker 1
So it was more worth it for me to look myself in the mirror at the end of the day. And I assumed that that meant that the opportunity was was finished, that I would never hear of it again. And I just went on with my life. I actually didn't mention it to my business partner at the time at all. He didn't know what happened.

I just we just went along, live in her life. And then about a year or year and a half later, I was approached again and this time it was. We've we've found a way we can make it work. And so then the conversation could start.

00:17:47.430 — 00:17:48.270 · Speaker 3
Had they

00:17:49.870 — 00:17:51.990 · Speaker 3
I mean, had they been at, um,

00:17:53.030 — 00:18:01.870 · Speaker 3
working through the venture capital due diligence process, or would that already concluded at this time that they approached you a second time? Like what caused them to shift things?

00:18:01.870 — 00:18:14.830 · Speaker 1
So that was still, I would say, not fully even off the table when we had that second conversation. I think the second conversation happened. It was, here's the way we'd like to go. Are you open to that? It wasn't a promise in that moment. And

00:18:16.030 — 00:20:06.310 · Speaker 1
I think the reason that that they were evaluating venture capital and that they ended up having multiple channels to even look at was because, well, they were working with and we still are working with an accounting firm that's that's quite robust in its ability to support. So they're not just an accountant that like kind of does bookkeeping and reporting.

They're there to kind of show you these are the levers. Here's where you're going right and wrong. There's an advisory element to that. And in our company we really want to work with, whether it's an accountant or a real estate agent or our bank contact like we our lawyer, right? We have these professionals that all have these specializations that I see as an extension of our critical team.

And because we've picked those providers who do those extra things, I'm a little bit more supported. And then I otherwise might be, as in my role. So the leaders at the time were in that exact same position, and they went to their accountants with this idea that maybe succession was on the horizon for them, and they wanted to talk about it.

And I mean, I wasn't part of those conversations, obviously, but but knowing them now and, you know, having been then picked up in the middle of that conversation with them. Yeah, they were really giving them those options. You know, here's what you would get in the market. You know, here's how you could construct if you were going to do this yourselves with through somebody like, like me in the end or somebody else.

Um, what would that look like from a risk perspective and an execution perspective. So they were able to, I think, assess. Well, I mean let's a venture capitalist is a lower risk option in terms of if you're an owner looking to get out, I mean, it's immediate. Generally it's more immediate at least. And maybe if you go with somebody, you know, because of the values, there's a little bit more risk involved.

Maybe things take time and maybe then the payments are contingent on performance. Right. So so you're taking a little bit of a larger risk. But the reason that they knew that there were these options that they could weigh was they they drew on the support from their accounting team.

00:20:06.310 — 00:20:17.990 · Speaker 3
So at the time when they approached you the second time, it was still very much an option of, we're going to roll Angelo into this deal, and the VC is going to be buying a president, CEO operations piece of this as well.

00:20:18.030 — 00:20:48.390 · Speaker 1
At the time, you know, it would have been one or the other. It would have been they sold to a venture capitalist, and I don't know how perhaps they would have approached me as an option if there was a need, like if if that was relevant to the deal. But no, I don't think that it would have been relevant in that in that pathway, I think they would have just maybe the people who were retiring would have just had a stipulation about how long they needed to stay on until they could retire, and that would have been a more realistic course of action, I think.

Just speculating. So no, my involvement would only be if they if they chose the non venture capitalist path.

00:20:48.390 — 00:21:02.630 · Speaker 3
So there was already something there leaning them away from that direction towards an internal, more traditional succession path. And they said, let's bring Angela and let's give it a six months to a year before we completely shut the door on the VC option kind of thing.

00:21:02.670 — 00:21:10.430 · Speaker 1
They shut the door on the VC option before bringing me in. Actually, they they they gained some clarity. Yeah, they gained clarity along the process.

00:21:10.430 — 00:21:13.870 · Speaker 3
So after they heard, okay, I'm in with with my partner that I can bring.

00:21:13.910 — 00:21:22.110 · Speaker 1
No, no, I think so. They were entertaining this idea about a venture capitalist. And I think just having that conversation

00:21:23.350 — 00:22:26.870 · Speaker 1
brought them to a point emotionally that they didn't think it would bring them to. I think that they they wanted to know what the options are, because information is a good thing, and they've worked hard to build a business. Right. So I understand that. I think what happened was they got to that point and they felt like if we take this route, what it's going to be the consequence to this thing we built and the people that are a part of it, as far as I understand, there was just a strong, maybe even unexpected feeling that we're letting a lot of people down who we care about, who we've been working with for a long time.

And yes, it might be more risky to go with this guy that we've been having as a consultant. But if we sell to a venture capitalist, what are they going to do to this community that we care about and to the values and culture that we built? You know, we didn't build it to just let someone else tear it down. We built it because we believe in it, and we want to keep thinking that it's something worth believing in.

So I think they they, they hit this crisis point emotionally. And so then, yeah, then with my interest, they felt they had another path and they pursued that path exclusively at that point. I mean.

00:22:26.870 — 00:22:45.270 · Speaker 3
Yeah, you said and a lot of people think low risk, lower risk option VC. But what you're bringing up here is that there's a different type of risk, like the deal falling through the financial side is going to be lower risk. But there's other risks of, you know, community effect, employee effect, turnover, all that kind of stuff, all that.

00:22:45.310 — 00:24:12.270 · Speaker 1
Yeah. When I was consulting, like I said, I did that for just over a decade. And I would say that this, this phenomenon of, of ownership even is still happening right now. I think to a large degree, there's a wave of ownership that for a couple of different reasons, they're looking to pass the baton. It might be that they want to retire, or it might just be that they're really involved in the operations in a way that they don't want to continue being.

And that's just a legacy of when they were maybe smaller and they needed to control and all the plates that were spinning at the same time. And now they're a little larger, and they would love to step back and maybe gain some of their life back as soon as they can. But for whatever reason, there is, I think, a whole chapter of people that are looking to find succession at leadership levels, and there are some serious challenges I think, that they face.

And if I'm appraising that at 30,000ft, I think it comes down to that it's very hard to find people that they trust will uphold the values and maintain the company and their legacy, you know, over time. So in in my case, there were a couple of my clients that felt that way and that were considering going my route for that exact reason.

I think they just thought I could be a protector of those values and maintain that. I don't know if you ever see this in your company. I'm sure that you do. There seems to be an abundance of people in that position looking to sell or looking to transition somehow, but having a really hard time saying, I can trust this specific person to do it the way that I would believe in.

00:24:12.310 — 00:25:00.060 · Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure. It's like, I think they're not there yet, or maybe they might be ten years from now, but I, you know, something is pressing on me right now and I don't have ten years to wait. Or it might take three people to replace the job or, you know, they've never really like you said, they've been on the ground floor.

They've been bootstrapping it for so long, working so many hours for so long, they've never really separated out. These are the roles that are unique to me as an owner, versus these are the roles that are unique to me as a president. As you're assessing this opportunity. How did you weigh that? I mean, it's very different to step in as the president of a $25 million company versus stepping in as an owner.

Did you separate the two, or did you ever have any questions about one versus the other, or was it always I have to do both. If we're going to do this.

00:25:00.180 — 00:25:17.780 · Speaker 1
I believe that very early on it, it was a no brainer that I was gonna be interested in doing both. Um, I suppose the only thing is there's a little bit more risk involved and obviously investment involved in becoming an owner that's that can be prohibitive, I'm sure. But

00:25:19.660 — 00:26:35.860 · Speaker 1
I think for me, I was very fortunate in that at my career, at that point, things were going well already. And I think what that affords is a little bit of clarity. Consulting was going well. The relationships we had were good, the revenue was good, the lifestyle was fine. And and I don't come from I'm not sure about you, but I don't come from a very fancy background.

And so I had already gotten to a point in my life I had to never expect it to. And so I had almost nothing to lose. And I already started seeing that. You get to a point, I think if you're fortunate where your career stops being a food on the table endeavor and it starts to become more of a a values endeavor, and I had reached that point.

So with this opportunity, I felt it would be a really interesting experiment. I've gotten to go to all these companies and see if I can affect things in a positive way, but I've never been officially a part of that community to test whether I could affect it in a positive way, more holistically. And I think I can I, I have this belief in myself that I can, but I want to control myself because epistemic I can't really claim that with a lot of conviction.

I have to just say it's a hypothesis. So I'd love to go in there and just test it out, right? Like, I have all the best intentions. And so let me try and. And I kind of went in thinking about it that way. And that's why it was an interesting opportunity for me.

00:26:35.900 — 00:26:50.860 · Speaker 3
What do I have to lose. You said, what do I have to lose? But I mean, a lot of people would be like, dude, you're comfortable. Your life is finally where you could just do this for the rest of your life. But you're like, I have this question about myself. I have this experiment that I want to test.

00:26:50.900 — 00:27:26.540 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I've had a really, like I say, fortunate time, I guess I think it's fortunate that I didn't come from having much in my younger years as well. My bar is a super low for what I need to be happy, and that's a, I think, worth something to me. And so pretty early on, I wasn't worried about losing anything because I knew the amount that I needed was extremely low, and that that probably freed me up to take risks that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise taken.

And I've only taken a few of those big ones in my, in my career, and but they seem to have worked out. But but yeah, I don't know if I would take them if I didn't feel the security of even if it went wrong. I'm comfortable with that.

00:27:26.860 — 00:27:36.780 · Speaker 3
What were some of the big. I mean, obviously there's the question that am I the right person for this or is this experiment going to work? But what are some of the big doubts in your mind at this time?

00:27:36.820 — 00:27:37.819 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. So

00:27:39.060 — 00:28:04.420 · Speaker 1
a team of 60 people, um, who I don't really know that. Well, I may know a lot of their names. You've worked with a dozen of them, but, um, and and really a team of 60 people where you have a good chunk of them. They've been doing it for 20 years, 25 years. And, you know, they're senior to me in every way you can think about.

Right? So, um, I'm coming into this in my mid 30s and people are going to look at me and.

00:28:04.420 — 00:28:05.580 · Speaker 3
Thinking, they're for 30.

00:28:05.580 — 00:28:45.260 · Speaker 1
Years, industry are going to do what? Uh, so I definitely had my thoughts about how that might go. Um, but to me, that just reinforces why the path that I went with my approach was the only maybe not the only, uh, I don't know what every path looks like, but the ones I could fathom was the one that was going to work.

And we could talk about maybe that too. Kind of what was the path I took. But but yeah, that was definitely a point of I guess I didn't ever feel imposter syndrome because I hadn't proven to myself I couldn't do it, but I definitely thought, oh, I wonder if I really have what it what it takes to to stand up next to these experienced and talented people and, and really be what they need me to be?

Yeah.

00:28:45.700 — 00:29:12.860 · Speaker 3
Yeah. So let's talk about that. Um, specifically, there's a book that you mentioned in your intake form that I was also given, thankfully, by another CPA when I came in here and stepped into a team of 15, uh, about eight years ago. And you said, this is like your main point for this episode, what is that approach that you took?

Um, and let's get into that. How did you approach this? 60 people? Yeah, of all varying levels.

00:29:12.900 — 00:30:37.100 · Speaker 1
So yeah. So the book we're talking about, uh, is called The First 90 days. Is that the one you're referring to? Yes. Yes, the first 90 days. Um, I definitely took a look at that one. And I thought, you know, really what it's telling you? Go out and read the book if you're in this position. But what it's telling you is when you pick up a new endeavor and you're going into an unfamiliar environment, you should take the time to kind of appraise before you go in and start prescribing.

And what a valuable insight that is. I mean, obviously it's a full book, so it says more than that. But if I took it into a sentence or two, I think that's what it would. That's what it amounted to. For me, that was my main takeaway. And I certainly went in again, like I said, around a lot of people with industry know how and even just career experience more than mine.

And so I wasn't going to go in there and be the one who knows the most. If I went in as the one who knows the most, I would be so pretentious, right? And nobody would buy that, and I would lose so much trust. But instead I did go in there, and I kind of leveraged what I knew best about as a consultant. My business partner and consulting always said, you know, our first priority is to help.

And so I thought, I'm going to start there. We were not a prescriptive consulting firm either. So I went in and I thought, I'm not going to go ahead and tell people what I think they ought to be or what this company ought to be, or what their process ought to be doing. I'm going to go and find out where the pain points are, what's going well and what's not going well, because then the people whose experience is so much greater than mine,

00:30:38.180 — 00:31:52.259 · Speaker 1
um, a are valued, but B they're going to teach me. So. So I did that. I kind of went around and just learned a lot of the pain points. And I also learned what was at the heart of the things that were going right, that I might not have seen operationally, because when I was a consultant, I still wasn't seeing the depth that you did when you were there.

And so I spent a long time doing that. And in my endeavor to learn about what's going right and wrong in the processes and in the company, I then just kind of got to know the people and what's going on with their families and their pets and their kids and their hobbies and all that sort of stuff. And, um, the the outcome from that was I did learn about the company and the things I needed to kind of get me going after that, that through that chapter of learning, initial chapter of learning, we're done.

Obviously learning is ongoing, but I also gained a little bit of trust from people. And my perspective about leadership generally is that the person who people trust to make decisions in their best interest is going to be the one who they trust as the leader. And it's not always a person in the role of authority.

But that's kind of, I think, the way that people look at it. Right? And if you're if they if they view you as being ambitious, ambitious, constrained by principles, that's more trustworthy than somebody who

00:31:53.260 — 00:32:22.260 · Speaker 1
has principles insofar that they don't interfere with their ambitious goals. You don't trust that person, right? And so I think I, I think by just going and talking to people and giving myself the, the freedom to learn and not be kind of a know it all that I that it wouldn't have been successfully anyway.

I was able to earn the trust and it was genuine. And and then that became the starting point for, you know, starting to make interventions with people and having them lead that that type of correction based on what they had said were the challenges.

00:32:22.820 — 00:33:33.180 · Speaker 3
Um, so, I mean, I read the same book, like I said, and my partner coming into this firm, she knew how ambitious I was. She knew how creative I was with the industry. But she told me coming in and she's like, no changes in your first year? Like, write them all down, but you're going to burn. And that's what I loved about the book.

You're going to burn your emotional capital on early projects, early trying to, you know, prove that you're innovative and people aren't going to trust you on the actual things that matter once you get to know how the company works. But when you're stepping into a role, coming in to be the future president, I see this struggle with team members.

You know, since then, there's such an expectation that you already know, like the direction that the company should be. You're the guy, right? You're the one coming in that's going to lead it into the future. And then you start getting into departments and you're like, so tell me more about what you do here.

How does this work? Or, you know, help me understand, how do you weigh that on your side? But then also in their minds too, where they're just like, Who's Angelo? Like, this guy knows nothing. He's asking me all these basic questions about rubber.

00:33:33.180 — 00:36:23.260 · Speaker 1
Firstly, because I think because our consulting practice was so non prescriptive in our in our nature, we always did people first improvement it when it was operational improvement. So when I was going to speak to people in their processes it was never like demonstrate to me you're worth it was always on somebody who's new.

I don't know what I'm doing here. Why don't you tell me what's not working? What's the headache in your day? And they were open with me about that, I think because I didn't carry the kind of the, the historical context. Right. And so they were open with me about what wasn't going right because they felt maybe that I didn't.

I wasn't the architect of the things that were going wrong. So why not be open with me about it? So I think there was that less fear to do that. Secondly, although I take what I call a principles first approach. That doesn't mean that I don't take seriously and recognize so that it's not just about, I say, principles first approach differently than people first approach, and there's a reason for that.

So when I would go into a company, I would always think, I want to know that the strategy and the business model are in good shape. I want to know that the financials are managed and monitored. I want to know that the process system is in order, and then I want to also know the people in culture, how that's going, and in no particular order.

But depending on the situation that you're thrust into, you might need to focus on one or another more. Primarily, there's not one that's primary objectively, but I think just different scenarios require different focus, at least in a transient way. So I went in to not an emergency situation. So it wasn't that I went in there and there was turmoil and financial ruin and but so I had I could work on things that I was familiar with that were responsible things, like I was looking at the business model and how it could improve.

I was already integrated into the marketing side because I had been dealing with that. The people that even the outsourced people that they were working with. So I was able to do some of that other stuff. Financial management was something I was able to kind of build better scaffolding around with the person who does that.

But on the people and process side, I made sure that I kind of just was this brand new person with brand new eyes that no matter if I've done consulting, these people firstly need the respect to know that I'm here to help, and secondly, that I don't think I know it all and that I'm willing to change and grow with them and with the companies.

So I was more, I think, maybe decisive or productive, uh, if you could say that when it came to observing financials, uh, challenging the business model, that sort of thing, I didn't take prescriptive action on it. But like you said, taking the notes and getting it right and having the right conversations with people behind the scenes who have those expertise.

But that's not what 95% of the people in the company see. So they just knew, I think, that I was working on those things with the existing leadership in the transition. But their experience with me one on one was more conversational and non-threatening and learning based, and I think that was a really good balance.

I don't think there was any thought to that because I was doing that. I wasn't focusing on the other things.

00:36:23.260 — 00:36:57.460 · Speaker 3
You had about a five year overlap with the exiting president before you fully stepped into that role, and that sounds like it's the same one that had the goal of, you know, five years on the retirement. So the timeline seemed to align right there. Talk to me about a decision made or a call that was not the right one for the company that caused you to doubt or caused them to doubt, or just led to some.

This is like a breaking point or like a, you know, critical, decisive moment in the during this five year process.

00:36:57.460 — 00:39:34.900 · Speaker 1
So I haven't had any moments that I thought, this is my breaking point for I'm out of here. That has not happened. I've been given a lot of autonomy during that time to rise to the occasion as I was ready. And for that president who again, another person with a ton of humility, was good at what he did, but saw that I also needed to be the one to do it next.

And rather than, you know, kind of glorifying his own name over those five years, saw his role as being an effective bridge for the company to go from one generation of ownership to the next. I'm so grateful that he did that because he was there to support, but he gave me a ton of learning freedom. What I can give you, though, is maybe there were some examples of times when maybe we took missteps that not to do with me, but to do with how leadership maybe approaches people during that transition as a leadership team, four of whom are operational at that time.

We presented a process change that was prescribed on a team that would split that team in a couple pieces. Okay. There was some rationale for that hypothesis, at least, but it was a very top down. This is what we need to do. Here's how it should happen. Let's meet with that team and explain to them what's going to happen.

And obviously there was a there was I don't want to go as far as to call it chaos, but people weren't impressed. Where I went wrong there, in retrospect, is that I knew better than that decision to approach that that way. But I was the new guy, and I was trying not to go against the grain too much. And so I kind of walked down this plank that I knew we were walking down until it hit that point where it got a little bit emotional for people.

And then I, you know, I did kind of champion the walking back of that decision on doing that decision and the kind of the social damage control that had to happen from that and that that's a that's a thing of the past now. But the next time something like that happened, where I was, where I was asked to intervene in a very prescriptive and participative way, I objected to it clearly, and that was difficult for me to do because I thought, I'm speaking to other people on my team again, who've been in the company longer than me and who, you know, there are certain things they just objectively know better than I do.

But I just remembered that, you know, it is against what what I'm about, and it is against the reason I'm there. And so even if it's a hard thing for me to do and a hard thing for them to hear, it just has to be said. Because the first time it happened, I knew it was going to go wrong and it went wrong. And so if I did it twice, then shame on me, right?

So that's an example of something that we did wrong.

00:39:34.900 — 00:40:00.540 · Speaker 3
How do you or how did you learn or I guess, gain the trust of people that I get that you've been in this longer than me. I want to have you participate in this thing. But ultimately you're not the leadership of the company. And a decision has to be made that, you know, you've got 60 people in a company. That means there's like 65 opinions about what the right, right answer is.

So how how do you

00:40:01.580 — 00:40:16.810 · Speaker 3
obviously with, you know, shadowing the current president and everything like that. A lot of that's conversations with with with that person. But eventually you got to say, look, I'm the buck stops with me, and this is the direction we've got to take the company. Talk to me about something like that. Situation like that.

00:40:16.850 — 00:40:52.650 · Speaker 1
Sure. I think some of the trust is from these kind of smaller examples, case examples of of learning from people and not being so prescriptive. So there was a little bit of a foundation of trust there. I didn't have to make like a hey, I'm the guy, let's just jump tuition right away. But, um, we were faced with, um, actually we were faced with a tariff issue in 2019, in the automotive sector.

That was serious. And we had, um, a large customer, um, who very aggressively came after us for tariff payment, um, with threats. And, and it was ugly. And,

00:40:54.210 — 00:41:12.530 · Speaker 1
you know, we've got people on the team. I'm trying to be sensitive that their livelihoods are at stake here. You know, when we're talking about customers, large customers that are threatening that, hey, if you don't do this, we're out of here. And the last thing you want to do is tell somebody like, hey, I'm going to come in and jeopardize your customers that you depend on for your livelihood.

00:41:13.730 — 00:41:34.929 · Speaker 1
But they were doing something that principally I didn't agree with. I didn't agree with the method. I didn't agree with the justification. I didn't agree with the values they were expressing as they went along the process. And they had barked up that tree already. So, um, they were asking for something they knew wasn't even there any longer.

Um, they had already done an exercise in the past that had

00:41:35.970 — 00:43:24.930 · Speaker 1
found any excess, if there was any, to give. So I had to make the tough call in those situations that while the threat was that you might leave us, um, we're not going to do it. We can't do it. And there was, you know, there was some real back and forth internally about whether I was jeopardizing something the company had built for a long time.

Seven figure customer. So it's not small and I'm new. I'm two months in maybe at that point, 2 or 3 months in, and the people I'm talking to are 10 to 25 years and who are saying, be careful, you know, with this. But ultimately we stuck to our beliefs on that, and it's just what we had to do. And we made the conversations that we had to have respectful.

And we didn't violate our values in defending them. And at the end of the day, we we came through that with, um, no harm done. And we've seen growth with that customer since. And the people who were, you know, kind of operating against our values on the other side, I think had to learn in the time I've been at the company, we're going to stand a little bit firmer for not because we're obstinate.

And I think that's the the thing with be very careful about we want to be everything where customers want us to be, except for when they ask us to be unprofitable and hurt our sustainability. Then we have to just be honest with them that if we make that decision, we're not going to be here for you. And if and if they try to crack the whip any further than that, it's just a it's an easy no.

And if you go the other way, then I mean, if we had a stayed with, you would have been damaged as well. So I'd rather the answer to how would I make that decision at least, how would I justify it? My own head is that I'm looking to make durable decisions, not ones that appease people in the short term. Now that means you have to have a long term understanding.

Um, but it's the best you can do is try to make justified, good long term decisions.

00:43:24.930 — 00:43:33.650 · Speaker 3
And in your position, you have to convey to your team, right. I have all the context here that you might not necessarily have. Right?

00:43:33.730 — 00:43:53.209 · Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I'd say yeah, there are there's instruction I'm I'm able to get when I speak to the leadership team behind closed doors about what we're what our risk tolerance is. For example, you know, do I have everyone's okay if I take this type of stance and it goes wrong, you know, so I know I'm coming at this with a certain level of confidence.

And

00:43:54.330 — 00:45:41.410 · Speaker 1
am I right to say that we're willing to stand on this belief? You know, do we all agree with this? You know, I think I'm here for this reason. So, um, yeah. So everybody doesn't need the whole long spiel all the time, but they deserve at least some cool notes, Coles notes about it. So I tried to make sure that those people knew.

And you can't say to somebody whose livelihood depends on sales from a customer, you can't say, well, hey, we're we're okay with the risk tolerance. That's not the thing you say. I mean, that's because it's not it's not the truth of their reality. And I and I totally respect that. I'm not even saying it's too bad, but I'm not going to tell you.

I think I just really do actually sympathize with that position. Um, but the decisions need to be more durable than that. And if we cave in the short term because things that are against our principles, we're going to get beat up all the time and we're going to have a worse company in the long run. So if we want to be durable and make our decisions durable, and we want to do what's right for these 60 people in the long run, and we have to start making decisions, we stand behind that we can stand behind for the next several decades.

And so this is the way we want to behave consistently. And I really think that leadership people bring their consistency or their volatility into the companies. They're in big time, bigger than they know. And so I'm just trying to I just always try to be consistent. If we can rest on consistent principles, I think we can make consistent decisions.

And that's really hard in the short term for people to understand, because the clarity about that isn't always obvious. But as the years go by, here we are, this company who's not pushed around. We're not unfair to people, we're extremely fair to people, and we're very flexible with our customers. But we're certainly not going out of business for you.

And that's just something that we needed to gain that bit of a backbone and know how do we do that? How do we toe that line where we stand up for ourselves, but we're not obstinate, like I said, so. So that's been become they've seen the durability of this type of approach I think over time.

00:45:42.530 — 00:45:43.250 · Speaker 1
Nice.

00:45:43.450 — 00:46:32.890 · Speaker 3
Yeah. I want to explore this just a little bit more because I know for me, starting my own company is very different than stepping into a company. And I've done both. And, you know, there's a concern when you take over from existing leadership that they just want you to repeat the same process as has always been there.

You know, you have this, like how much of it is honoring a legacy versus how much of it is. I'm now the president. I'm now the CEO for the next ten years, the next 20 years. And I've got to make decisions that do pivot us slightly. How do you weigh that and how have you since 2024, even leading up to that, made some of those pivots that are like, I get that we've been around for, you know, for 30 years, 40 years or whatever the case might be, but that's not who we can be in the future.

00:46:32.890 — 00:47:07.449 · Speaker 1
It starts, I think, with just being honest about the expectations in the beginning. So right from the get go, in those conversations, when asked questions like, you know, how are you going to be ready for this type of thing? My answer is, you know, if I'm trying to be you, I'm never going to be ready. It's just not going to happen.

That's not what my goal is. Uh, just know that if I come into this company, I will not do it the way you did it. I can uphold the same values, but I'm going to do it the way that I think I'm best suited to do it. And that's what you'll get. That's what you're going to get with me. And they

00:47:08.730 — 00:48:31.210 · Speaker 1
were happy about that. They were happy to hear that I wasn't going to emulate what they had done. And I think that takes a lot of again, I've said it three times now, but it takes a lot of humility on their part not to think they're the people who know best. And you're going to come in and the best you can do is emulate them.

Um, they felt that they had a way to do things and that they contributed that, and they kind of the company extracted that from them. Now, the company's institutionalized the things that were there, special sauce. And it's time for somebody with a different flavor to come in and add that to the to the ingredients list.

And I think that was something that they were very aware of, and I'm grateful for that. So, um, I didn't have to fight an uphill battle on that, but I am I would say that it's important to talk about it early, uh, that what is the expectation, you know, if somebody is in this position where, um, they're going to entertain joining a company that exists.

You're going to have a tough time. If you think the goalposts are here and there and they're somewhere else, you might think you're doing a great job by your standards. But the standards aren't what you thought they were. And so for your own sanity and for everybody else's sanity, it's important to get that out of the way.

So we did that early. And I think that's a that's a good decision. I think the things that I did after the fact that I've been there, that represent pivots, I suppose, are we became a little bit less sales oriented and a little bit more profit oriented.

00:48:32.330 — 00:48:49.010 · Speaker 1
Um, so we had a leadership team that was very had a strong sales background. And as in the chapter the company was in, that was what it needed. It needed to be able to capture those customers and get a critical mass. But at some point, you're just doing a lot of work and,

00:48:50.490 — 00:50:20.210 · Speaker 1
you know, are you are you really getting the return on the work? You know, um, you ought to be getting a certain amount. Otherwise you ought to liquidate this whole thing and invest. You know, there's a certain amount you need to do to make this worth everyone's while. So we have done we've made tweaks to how we assess orders and how we track things and the way we price and things like that, where we're fair, even the way that we do, like logistics.

We're very fair. We're very competitive. We would know ahead of time if we take this type of order, it's not going to be profitable. And we would just kind of look for the win, look for the revenue, or we would tolerate a customer who was very difficult to deal with. And there were a lot of hidden costs that they weren't receptive to changing, and we would tolerate that as well.

And so there was profit leakage all over the place disguised as like friendly accommodation. And so my challenge to that has always been we can be a very service oriented, friendly company and we can we can accommodate all these requests, but we have to know the boundaries where it becomes not worth it for us, because maybe we could just be more honest and think in 90, more than 90% of cases, we've just been a little bit more honest about.

Here's the challenge we're having in the current scenario. You know, can we change the way this label looks? Can we change, hey, can we update the pricing? We forgot to give you that update four years ago, and we're just been afraid to tell you that, like, whatever those those things were, we started to kind of defrag all those issues and it's been really strong.

So

00:50:21.570 — 00:50:23.850 · Speaker 1
that was a bit of a mental shift that we had to take.

00:50:23.890 — 00:50:52.930 · Speaker 3
My saying that I create this, it's similar to this is, you know, the saying shouldn't be the customer's always right. I say that the right customer is right most of the time, but you've got to make sure you're listening to the right one. Because if you say every customer is always right, then you're there's a ton of that leakage like you're talking about.

But when you say, we're going to be in this area here and sometimes we're going to listen, and even sometimes the right customer can say something like you said, that's not long term beneficial for the whole company.

00:50:52.930 — 00:51:35.730 · Speaker 1
So if you're going to be in a role in a leadership role, you can't escape, but be responsible for a longer time horizon, a broader group of people. Right. So I think being overly sympathetic in the moment or overly emotional or reactive in the moment, it undermines the task. You have to wail. That's where I like the idea of principles, because at the end of the day, you know, if you're making decisions based on that, they will be durable, you know?

So I think that's an important takeaway. Just that people, they know that that's not contradictory to being ambitious or that's not contradictory to caring about financials. It's just a way to make decisions where you think that in ten years, you're going to still think fondly about the way you made those decisions, and you will have made decisions that accumulated to a positive outcome in the long run.

00:51:35.770 — 00:51:51.090 · Speaker 3
How do you develop those principles just personally, and then also align them with the principles of the business? Because I have some principles that necessarily I wouldn't make institutional principles. How do you develop those and shape those and, you know, context contextualize those?

00:51:51.130 — 00:53:05.770 · Speaker 1
Yeah. If we were talking about, like, somebody's personal values, right. They could just say like, well, I've got a lot of self interesting, self-interested values, and that's how I lead. Right. Um, and so that's kind of why I distinguish a little bit between, uh, values and principles, because I think, yeah, we want to make sure that these are things that are defensible and that we would be open to in the public knowing.

Right. So there's a couple of ways we could vet whether the thing we're believing is, is too self-interested or doesn't weigh the integrity against the ambition well enough. Yeah. You know, so I think there are several criteria that we could use for that. Like our company has strong values already that include things like open communication, people and teamwork and respect and integrity like those are built in.

How we interpret those, though is going to be somewhat subjective. And so we got to bring this. I'm going to talk to you in a way that values you as an end and not the means to an end. You know, I'm gonna work with customers in a way that reflects our values, even though they're not a part of our company, but we're going to still treat them that way even when they're not good to us.

We're going to make sure that they learn how to be good to us, but we're going to be good to them and not retaliatory in the process. Repeated behavior and just basic. I don't think we have to be hyper inventive about what good principles are. I think, you know, the things we would stand behind if they were publicly known about how we treat people is a starting point.

00:53:05.810 — 00:53:21.770 · Speaker 3
Well, Angela, I mean, I've really appreciated this very philosophical conversation that you've you've led us down. Um, before we jump, we get we're coming to the end of the episode. So before we jump to the lightning round, is there anything that you want to add that I haven't touched on at this point?

00:53:22.010 — 00:53:29.450 · Speaker 1
I don't know that you haven't touched anything you haven't touched on, but I can't repeat enough for somebody who's in the position that they are.

00:53:30.650 — 00:54:17.730 · Speaker 1
They're inbound, you know, they're they're on their way, um, into some new uncharted place with whatever skill set they have that they ought to be confident in, and that that's probably underpinning why they got that opportunity in the first place. Um, that, you know, you're not going somewhere to. To be a know it all.

You're not going. No one thinks you're perfect. And when you go there, you know, just make long term, durable decisions with the best interests of the people at heart. And I think then you get buy in to improve processes. Um, and you get a pay a pathway paved for you as the leader to make decisions that you need to make that include that are executed by people through people.

So, um, principles first. All right. Very good.

00:54:17.770 — 00:54:20.490 · Speaker 3
All right. Are you ready to get our lightning round?

00:54:20.530 — 00:54:20.970 · Speaker 1
Yeah, sure.

00:54:21.010 — 00:54:23.610 · Speaker 3
All right. Coffee or tea? And how do you like it prepared?

00:54:23.690 — 00:54:25.770 · Speaker 1
Uh, I drink coffee with two milk, no sugar.

00:54:25.810 — 00:54:28.170 · Speaker 3
Okay. Pie or cake? And do you have a favorite kind?

00:54:28.210 — 00:54:28.770 · Speaker 1
I would be a.

00:54:28.770 — 00:54:29.010 · Speaker 3
Cake.

00:54:29.010 — 00:54:31.090 · Speaker 1
Guy, and I would favor something with chocolate.

00:54:31.090 — 00:54:33.490 · Speaker 3
Okay. Chocolate cake and icing or just.

00:54:33.530 — 00:54:36.850 · Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, I sings good. Sure. Yeah. We'll do icing. Yeah, yeah. All right.

00:54:36.850 — 00:54:39.050 · Speaker 3
Um, what's your favorite holiday and why?

00:54:39.210 — 00:54:44.450 · Speaker 1
Um, for me, Christmas. It's nostalgic, it's family oriented, it's intimate. So I like it for those reasons.

00:54:44.490 — 00:54:48.210 · Speaker 3
Uh, are you a morning person or a night person. And do you have a favorite routine?

00:54:48.250 — 00:55:00.130 · Speaker 1
I've traditionally been a night person. I've got two young kids. One's two and a half. The other one's just about four months in a few days. And so I'm now, by necessity, a morning person. So I'll say morning for now. But but night by nature.

00:55:00.130 — 00:55:01.650 · Speaker 3
All blends together.

00:55:01.770 — 00:55:37.370 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's all the same. Sounds like you've been there. Um, so I think I think because of that. So my favorite routine from a family perspective is, is, uh, eating at the table. I love that. And, you know, it's chaos, but I love it anyway. And then, uh, on a personal side, um, I like my drive in, actually, to the office.

I usually throw on a podcast like this one somewhere. I'm going to learn a little bit of something, and, uh, maybe that's my closest thing to being meditative, but, um, I get a little bit of learning. I get to be a part of, uh, or a fly on the wall to an interesting conversation. And so that's a routine I really enjoy for myself.

Nice.

00:55:37.570 — 00:55:57.640 · Speaker 3
Yeah. It's something I've come to appreciate. Um, I don't have to. I could work from home, but I'm like, I like that. 30 minutes. Yeah. Both coming to the office and leaving the office to transition to, you know, think about something long term, like you're talking about this whole conversation. So, um, what's a common belief among entrepreneurs that you would want to challenge.

00:55:57.920 — 00:56:27.560 · Speaker 1
Uh, that doing more is, by definition, better? So doing a broader range of things is always better isn't true. Or even just being quote unquote busier isn't always better. There are opportunities that you could take that wouldn't be in alignment with your values, that would make you burn out because you're now busy and you don't believe in that busyness.

So I think looking at things that align with you or not just about saying what opportunities you take and don't take, it's also just about the opportunities you do take. Take them because they align with your values.

00:56:27.600 — 00:56:31.320 · Speaker 3
Um, what's one thing that you would want your successor to remember you for?

00:56:31.600 — 00:56:35.360 · Speaker 1
For being consistently principled over being opportunistic.

00:56:35.440 — 00:56:38.160 · Speaker 3
I think you've proven that in our conversation.

00:56:38.200 — 00:57:00.040 · Speaker 1
I'm gonna I'm gonna also say, before we say anything else, I know I'm droning. I'm droning on about that, um, I fail, I do fail, so I want everyone to know that I know. I'm looking at myself. I fail at it every single day. So it's not something where I'm saying, like, look at me in this perfect state that I'm in.

I'm failing a lot. The key is that I'm trying to be aware that I'm failing a lot. That's that's the only thing I'm trying to do.

00:57:00.840 — 00:57:14.400 · Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna because you've said two words consistently this whole time. I'm going to break the lightning round here and say, how do you be consistent? Or how do you be humble and principled at the same time?

00:57:14.400 — 00:58:08.160 · Speaker 1
Well, principles come at a cost. They are essentially constraints. Because what's the value of a principle if it's not constraining something? If if you're just it's the difference between free rein and not free rein in your behavior. So I think you're accepting right away that if you're going to be disciplined about how consistent you are in being principled, you're going to stop to have justification and consider the consequences on other people besides yourself.

You're going to accept that you're not necessarily making the popular short term choice. You're going to have a whole bunch of costs that you now have to bear that you're not going to be popular on day one, necessarily. But again, I'm talking about durability, and I think that you will gain the trust of people and those decisions will accumulate to being something really positive.

So there's humility built into it because it's about constraint. It's not about just opportunity at all. It's the opposite of that. And it it doesn't fight against opportunity. But those constraints help to guide the opportunity so that you believe in them.

00:58:08.200 — 00:58:20.080 · Speaker 3
Yeah I mean I it's people here principled and they think like hard line or, you know an iron spine kind of a thing. And you're not necessarily saying that's the, the, the case when you're saying being principled.

00:58:20.120 — 00:58:31.639 · Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't mean about being hard on people or anything like that, but I do mean being committed to a set of things that you believe in. So if you believe you shouldn't treat people like an end

00:58:32.640 — 00:59:13.040 · Speaker 1
or source, you shouldn't treat them like the means to an end. You should treat them like an end. Then I think paired with that is, am I really doing that all the time? Because I'll tell you that I think about that concept every day, and I fail at it sometimes in conversation. And then I go back and I, I think about how I failed about it.

And so I'm trying to be better little by little. And I think that's all we are all doing. So there's I think there's humility in that. And I don't believe that I'm, I've arrived at some sort of like epiphany where I've got it, I've labeled the mountains we're trying to climb here, and I know I'm not anywhere close to the top of the mountain, but I just still think we should look at the mountain and say it's worth climbing.

00:59:13.200 — 00:59:18.080 · Speaker 3
Thanks for unpacking that a little bit more for me. Um, where are you finding creativity right now?

00:59:18.080 — 00:59:21.720 · Speaker 1
So books, podcasts and a little bit of writing I do as a consequence of that.

00:59:21.720 — 00:59:28.120 · Speaker 3
Anything in particular you're you're listening to or reading right now, like in a certain direction, trying to figure out.

00:59:28.160 — 01:00:29.680 · Speaker 1
I'm strong on philosophical content. As you can imagine. I'm not a fiction guy, really. So it's all nonfiction. Uh, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle I sometimes cite back to stoicism, although I wouldn't characterize myself that way. But these are the kinds of things I like to read for podcasts. Anything like this where it's nonfiction and it's it's informative, and especially when it's got a little bit of a philosophical slant.

Um, then I enjoy that a lot, you know? So, um, uh, Alex O'Connor is a big one. Sam Harris, those types of guys, um, are are really big ones for me and and for my writing. I'm writing things as a consequence of kind of what I'm talking to you about today. You know, as I think about what's going right and wrong for me and what I'm failing at, a lot of times I think I forgot this way that I want to be.

I missed that today. I failed there, and sometimes I'll. Then I hit to writing, right? And I say, well, what if I made myself a little bit of what if I try to think this through a little bit more? Would I be better at remembering it? Or would I actually wrap my brain around the nuances of how I could apply it better?

And so I often write as a method of self-improvement as well, although I wouldn't characterize my writing as self-improvement writing.

01:00:29.680 — 01:00:34.560 · Speaker 3
So last question. What do you have coming up in the next year that's got you really excited?

01:00:34.600 — 01:01:57.480 · Speaker 1
Yeah. So we're now a good chunk of the way into 2026 And we're in the middle of an ERP implementation in my company, where we've been doing it quite a long time, but we have a long road still ahead. It's going to affect a lot of people, but we're adopting this, you know, wrapping our brains around all the new the way to handle the technologies of things.

Um, as everyone I think is right now. And how do we create equally or more human organization as a result of those types of changes? So we're doing that, which is exciting. Um, we are doing a little bit of how do we present ourselves to the world? We're a little bit more mature, grown up company than we were the last time we hit our, you know, website and branding and those types of things.

And there's a nice opportunity to kind of make it fit who we are today a little bit more. And then on the personal side, I'm kind of like what I'm doing with you today. I'm doing a little bit more philosophical thinking, a little bit more conversation, a little bit of writing. So those are things on the horizon for me that, um, I'm really looking forward to because I, I do have a background, like I said, when I was in university, I did a little bit of philosophy and I enjoyed it so much.

And then I got into my career because it's what I had to do, right? And I left it behind. And it's only in this last little while that I've decided, you know, like I said, I've got two small kids, so we're not watching TV all day. We're not going on a vacation with a four month old. So what am I doing with my time now is I'm getting back to this old passion of mine and trying to rekindle that.

So I'm very excited.

01:01:57.520 — 01:02:03.920 · Speaker 3
All right, Angela, I appreciate you. Just you being a guest on here. Where can people go to find out more about you or get in contact with you?

01:02:03.960 — 01:02:24.920 · Speaker 1
You can go to Angelo D'Amico. Com or my LinkedIn. Angelo D'Amico. I'm on there as well. Either of those places. If you go to Angelo D'Amico, Canada. Com, you can actually read a little bit of my writing and see some more places where I've, I've either written or I've been at an event speaking or I have appeared on a podcast.

Very good.

01:02:25.000 — 01:02:31.840 · Speaker 3
Well, Angela, I just want to I want to thank you again for being a guest on the Art of succession. I've really enjoyed today's conversation there. It's been great. Thank you.