Leaving Well: Transitioning Out of an Executive Role with Marc Braun | 060

Leaving Well: Transitioning Out of an Executive Role with Marc Braun | 060

Welcome to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers, the podcast for leaders in Ops Management who want to spark improvement, foster engagement, and boost problem solving – AND still get their day job done. Here’s your host, Leadership Trainer, Lean Enthusiast, and Spy Thriller Junkie, Jamie V. Parker.  

Jamie: [00:00:28] Be honest. If your performance was rated on how your organization performed after you left, how do you think you would fare? How many people do you have ready to step into your role? How long would it take you to be able to leave?  

Well, welcome to the Lean Leadership for Ops Managers Executive Series. I’m really excited to share with you this conversation with Marc Braun, former president of Cambridge Air Solutions. Marc and I already had plans for him to join the podcast as a guest because of the great work he’d done in Cambridge. And when I learned he was transitioning out of the role in the organization, I knew that was the topic we had to discuss, because I hear about this from my clients, from prospective clients, from people in my community.  

So tune in as Marc walks us through a few steps you can take to develop other leaders to be ready for your role so that you can leave.  

Well, now about today’s guests. Marc Braun has a strong vision for creating a world where business is a force for good. He believes that the growth of an organization comes from the growth of every individual and is inspired most when he sees human genius at the floor level of a company being unlocked and unleashed. Now that Marc has transitioned out of his role as President of Cambridge Air Solutions, he serves as the chairman for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence and also coaches successful C Suite Executives who are committed to becoming even better leaders. 

Jamie: [00:02:08] All right, well, Marc, welcome to the show today. 

Marc: [00:02:11] Thanks, Jamie. Good to be here with you. 

Jamie: [00:02:13] You know, I’m really excited to have this conversation today. We’re going to talk about how we transition? How do we plan to transition as leaders? But before we do that, let’s get to know you a little bit. Now, I want to start off and ask you, what is a value or principle or mantra, something that you believe about leadership, something that you hold true about leadership? 

Marc: [00:02:35] Well, you asked me to think about this, and obviously we could go anywhere with this. But, you know, for me, if I were going to spend two minutes on it, I think about the amount of courage it takes to lead. And the amount of encouragement from outside, from others that it takes to be able to step into roles of leadership. And so I think we underestimate how challenging that is.  

I love Brene Brown’s work. And she says basically it takes a vulnerability to be able to lead. You actually have to be vulnerable. And I think that we’ve got to talk about how courageous it is to be vulnerable, to actually expose what’s really inside you, to be authentic, to do that.  

Lean leadership is courageous leadership. And so once you know that it’s going to be requiring courage, you know what resources you’re going to need. You’re going to need encouraging resources. So keep on looking for them and be an encouragement to others. I would say that’s where I would come from. 

Jamie: [00:03:33] Oh, we’re going in deep from the very beginning.

Marc: [00:03:37] That’s right. Go. Let’s go, Bere.

Jamie: [00:03:40] Yeah, vulnerability. You set the stage, my friend, for vulnerability. All right, here we go. Now, you have spent time, your most recent time at Cambridge Air Solutions. So tell us a little bit about Cambridge. Who’s Cambridge? What do they do? How do you create value?

Marc: [00:03:59] Yes, for the last 13 years, I’ve served at Cambridge in various roles and have absolutely loved it. It’s a family owned second generation business. It’s not my family. And Cambridge helps leaders in manufacturing and distribution create healthy, comfortable working environments for their hard working people.  

We do that through the HVAC systems that we manufacture. The US based manufacturer and basically anybody that’s too cold in their plants or too hot in the summer, we help them with the most energy efficient solutions to be able to provide comfort for their workers.  

I think it’s interesting whenever you think about culture and Lean, what we try to do in Lean cultures is break down the barriers between the office plant personnel and the folks, the office and the plants. You’ve got to actually have one unified team. And what’s interesting is you have to find tangible ways to break down those walls. If it is very comfortable in the offices, everybody is in perfect 72 degree low humidity, wearing perfect clothes anytime they want. And then in the plant, it’s miserable. It’s too hot in the summer, it’s too cold in the winter. It just feels like a huge disconnect. And so there’s many ways you can break down the walls. But one way you can do that is invest in the comfort systems for your employees. And we help them do that.

Jamie: [00:05:23] Ok, I think there are a lot of people nodding their heads right now, like, yes, we have been there before. We have been in situations where in the plants it’s just yeah, it’s just miserable. And you almost walk through the office in order to get a reprieve. So definitely a challenge. Definitely people nodding their heads, I guarantee you that.  

But what I love so much about this, your answer here and this is that I said something like, you know, what do you do? How do you create value? And you really did focus on how am I, how are we surviving and how are we making things better and how are we solving a problem? And the comfort system, HVAC part was this tiny little 10 percent of the answer, which I think is just a great way to present how we serve. 

Marc: [00:06:06] Well, thank you, Jamie. It’s been fun.

Jamie: [00:06:08] All right. So then one more question about Cambridge Air before we jump into this meaty topic here. Tell me about the role improvement thinking plays in your organizational strategy.

Marc: [00:06:22] Yeah, so first of all, it’s deep and wide inside of Cambridge. It’s the culture that is built. It’s a growth based culture where the people’s growth and organizational health leads to healthy business growth.  

For that to be the case, what we talk about at Cambridge is that, and this is from the first interview to onboarding to every meeting, is your job, as an Cambridge employee, is to improve your job, not just do your job, and actually you’re doing your job so that you can learn how to do it better. 

And so every single day, everyone understands that their role is to make it better than the way that they came in that day.  I think that that gives an enormous amount of hope to the individuals that come inside of Cambridge, because they know that if there are problems, if there are struggles, if there are challenges, that tomorrow I’m hopeful that it will be better and I’ll be part of that, making it better.  

We actually dedicate a set amount of time for every role, and every role has a minimum of 30 minutes each day dedicated to working on continuous improvement of the role. Not just doing the role. And so that mantra that daily habits of working on the business instead of just in the business is from the front level employee all the way up through the CEO.

Jamie: [00:07:44] So let me ask you. You said, hey, every role gets a minimum of 30 minutes a day to improve the job, improve the work. And I know there are some folks out there who heard that right now and are thinking, oh, must be nice. There’s no way we can do that. I need all hands on deck, you know, especially now.  

I’ve talked to a lot of folks who just in the last 18 months have kind of had this roller coaster where at first, you know, a lot of businesses went away and then are just slammed with work. And so what would you say to that person who says, yeah, yeah, there’s no way we could do that. We just can’t afford to have those people off the line. 

Marc: [00:08:23] Well, a couple of things I would say, first of all, I can understand that completely. It takes an enormous amount of courage and encouragement to lead in this way where you actually invest the time, put aside the time, you have to have faith that it’s going to actually produce more and benefits for the whole system if you’ll dedicate that time. But it’s not easy.  

And so I know that a lot of people just need people that are doing it alongside them, a coach, a mentor, friends that are actually leading in this way so they can go and see it. They can actually learn from others who are doing it.  

And I happen to serve as the chairman elect for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, which is a group of about 4000 companies and leaders that believe in this, that believe that if you dedicate the time to improvement, you will free up the time for dedicating the time for improvement. It’s a cycle. And so which one comes first, the time or the improvement? 

And, you know, if you’re alongside people, you can be encouraged to take the step and leap into that kind of a process. So I think it’s not easy. We have to build in excess capacity for operations. We have a vision to set a goal to have 20 percent excess capacity on operations at all times, because sometimes, like you said in COVID, people get overworked and slammed with demand. And so it’s not easy to do it alone. It takes courage and encouragement. And so just partner alongside people who are doing it and learn from them and grow.

Jamie: [00:10:05] Yeah, the community is so powerful. All right. So you are the outgoing President of Cambridge Air Solutions. So you’re actually transitioning out?

Marc: [00:10:15] I am transitioning out of the role of President. Yes.

Jamie: [00:10:17] And this is where I want to talk, because this is something that does come up for folks, is how do I prepare to transition out? And specifically related to feeling comfortable that I’ve set everything up. I feel good. There’s no guilt about the condition I’m leaving it in. 

And, you know, when I talk to folks, I know this is something that’s on people’s mind. Like I’ve got two years or five years or eight years, whatever that timeframe might be. So let’s talk about it and dive into transition planning.  

And I’m going to let you kick it off here when we start talking about transition planning. What are some of the first things that come up for you?

Marc: [00:10:56] Well, I think about, you know, the vision of leaving well at the end of your role is what you’re painting a picture of and how do you do it? And I think it starts the first day you take a role. So my hope for everyone that works on the Cambridge team and my hope for myself is as I enter a role, I’m already thinking of what I need to do, what actions I need to take so that I can leave the role well. And I think about how to do that.  

The ability when you step into a role, to know that you’re going to have to not only learn the role, but learn it well enough that you can teach and coach others to be able to step into the role when you step into the next role. And so that first thing is the decision that this role is going to be a temporary spot where I serve the organization and I serve the world. And then I will move on to another role at some point in time. I may leave on my own. I might leave because of circumstances. My family might need to leave whatever it is, but I’m going to be not in this role forever.  

And so I need to be able to figure out a way to have it be stepped into.

Jamie: [00:12:04] Yeah. I don’t know if everyone goes into their roles thinking that. 

Marc: [00:12:09] I think  that’s the first piece of the puzzle. Have you ever seen anybody that’s been in a role forever? 

Jamie: [00:12:19] Forever? For an entire career?

Marc: [00:12:23] Ok. Have you ever seen anybody in an entire career in one role? 

Jamie: [00:12:26] Yeah. No.

Marc: [00:12:27] Ok. So what’s the longest tenured role that you’ve ever, ever experienced, like seeing somebody in a role for how long?

Jamie: [00:12:36] Hmm, maybe 15 to 18 years as the longest. 

Marc: [00:12:41] Ok, so that is very abnormal. But I think it’s possible, right? You could be in the same role for 15 years. The normal, so normally we have people transitioning in roles and careers. Even right now, the average is seven to nine times that people will change careers within their lifespan.  

And so they’re working for 40 years. So their average tenure in a role is two to five years. It’s short. And so if you think about how long do I need to wait in my current role to figure out that I might at some point in time, leave that role. Right. So you could wait until five years into the role and say, oh, I might leave this role or you could start planning for that to begin with.  

And I think that what’s fun about starting from the beginning is you start to think differently if you think I need to learn this role so well that I can teach others to take it on. You start to pay attention really intensely when I’m in a place. And I think I’ve got to have other people capable of doing what I’m doing.  

I start to think about how I simplify the process. How do I make it so that it’s so seamless and it’s broken down so well that I can get somebody else who can step into this easily.  

And so that is really the start of the planning for it from the beginning. Then the next is to identify other people that are inside of the organization, that are already doing other roles that can start to get excited about pieces of the role that you’re doing. 

Marc: [00:14:12] So an example, I’m in a transition. I announced that I’m stepping down as President. And one of the things that I needed in place was I needed to have people ready to step into my role. That gives me great confidence to be able to step into other roles. So the identification of people who could do the role started several years ago in the hiring process of those people, in the training process of those people, in the working and coaching of those people.  

I’m sitting there thinking what pieces of the role that I’m doing would they struggle with? What pieces would they need bolstering? What areas would they need to experience?  

Now, while I’m in the role so that they can prepare themselves for this role. When you’re thinking about your team and how many people you have ready to step into your role, your goal is to at least one person ready to step into the role when you transition to another role.  

I was blessed. We have a great team here and a lot of courageous leaders. And so we actually had three people ready to step into my role upon exit. And so that is a testament to their willingness to grow. And the investment in their learning and the coaching that they’ve received. So that’s a little bit of the transition planning.

Jamie: [00:15:38] You know, I really like this call out that you’re making is that you don’t wait until you think you’re two years out to start. This is something you’re really doing from the very beginning, from the time you enter a role.  

The thought is, how can I leave the role? How can I prepare to be able to leave this role? And so, you know, development saying, hey, we need to have at least one, preferably more than one, but at least one person ready to step into my role.  

Sometimes that can be easy to say. But then when we are actually trying to do this, we realize, gosh, she’s not ready, she’s not ready. He’s not ready; she’s not ready. And it’s harder than we thought it was going to be. So what have you noticed? What’s really worked well in the actual development process that you can share with us?

Marc: [00:16:19] Well, I was just writing about this morning in a journal, and one of the opportunities is decision making. So leaders make decisions. And so in every chance you get as a leader, think about if the decision is something that I should be making or something that I can ask one of the team mates that are on my team to make that decision.  

And if you can provide the opportunity for them to make the decision and own the outcome of that decision, it’s a growth opportunity for them.  

And so I think about one tangible thing is just every decision that comes up in front of you decide, is this something that somebody else could make that’s on my team. If it is and you can accept the risk of them making it, let them make it.  

We have a structure called  RACI. R stands for the person that’s responsible for making the recommendation. The A is for the authorizer, the person that’s ultimately responsible for the decision. C is for the consulted people that are consulted in the decision before the decision is made. And the I for who’s informed on the decision.  

That structure has given the Cambridge team a lot of confidence. As soon as a decision comes up, we fill out those four elements. Who’s the R, who’s the A, who’s the C and who’s the I? Who needs to be informed?  

And we see if we can move that down one layer in the organization. Is it possible that the A could be lower in the organization? Is it possible that the answer could be lower in the organization? And as you do that, you the team starts to build competence and capability to make larger and larger decisions, because that’s really the difference between roles is the level of decisions that they’re making.  

And so that’s been a really great tangible way to elevate and grow the people inside of Cambridge. 

Jamie: [00:18:26] And I love giving decision making authority over. So let’s say you give that authority over and they make a decision that maybe you wouldn’t have or something goes wrong. So talk us through that. If it bombs, then what happens?

Marc: [00:18:40] It bombs. Well, I guess this is the first decision if you have to figure out that failure is inevitable if you’re trying to do anything great in the world. Failure is part of the process.  

What most people are taught in business school and quite honestly, in the school systems, because tests are the way you succeed or fail, what most people are taught is that success is the aim. Mistakes will happen once in a while and failure is not an option.  

Those are the traditional models in Lean thinking and operational excellence in the transformational way that Lean systems are built. It flips it on that head on the head of that. So it says failure is inevitable. If you’re trying anything great, mistakes are incredible opportunities to learn and make them and share them widely. And success is inevitable if you follow those first two things.  

So we basically flip it and allow them to make the mistakes. And we say, here’s what I say. I say, oh, boy, that mistake, that was a big one. That’s going to be a lot of learning. The more mistakes that they make, the more learning that they will have. And so you have to get over this idea that failure is not an option. And that success is the only thing we’re going to aim for.  

Or else you won’t get there. You’ll be too scared to turn over the decisions. You’ll be too scared to pour into them. And you’ll be too scared to build a culture like this. 

Jamie: [00:20:13] And this is what you’ve seen to work in your experience?

Marc: [00:20:17] I believe it works. I have seen it work from my experience. I’ve also got three boys and I’ve watched what parenting looks like when you’re trying to learn a new skill. And I have never seen success as the only option to be successful at teaching and learning. I’ve never seen it work the other way.  

But somehow when we watch our kids grow, we know that they grow by trying things and making mistakes and just getting through that through encouragement. Have you ever sang in your life? 

Jamie: [00:21:01] I don’t. That talent passed us over. 

Marc: [00:21:03] Well, my family are singers. So you might be able to. Have you ever heard a kid singing? And they don’t sound very good. Ok, so do you know that if that kid is up on the stage and they’re singing and they don’t sound very good and they finish the song, what does everybody in the audience do?

Jamie: [00:21:23] Everybody still claps. We clap.

 Marc: [00:21:25] Why do they clap? Why do they cry? Because they’re kids. Right. They clap. What are they trying to accomplish, though?

 Jamie: [00:21:33] Well, it’s encouragement and love. And, you know, we want to support them.

 Marc: [00:21:38] So they’re not clapping for the performance. They’re not clapping for the excellence of the performance. They’re clapping for the courage the person exuded. They want to encourage and they want to breathe courage into that youth.  

And so for some reason, we figured out that you learn that way as a kid. You need encouragement even when you fail miserably in front of people. But then whenever we become adults, we say stop clapping unless they succeed.  

That’s what we do. We switch. And it’s just the wrong model for learning. Learning happens by clapping loudly and encouraging, even though the song is poorly performed. Yes. So we’ve got to do that while people are making mistakes in those decisions.

 Jamie: [00:22:19] I love it. I call this that we celebrate the process. Ok, so let’s say we have a listener out there who maybe they’re kind of like me and they’ve had this history of command and control management and they’ve, you know, kind of tended to focus on the results. When we hit the number, when it’s green, then we’ll clap.  

But this person is trying to transition and to show up differently as a leader. And they’re trying to celebrate the process. And what they notice as they’re making this transition is that sometimes they still just slip back into old habits. And it’s not maybe not as easy. And it’s a process to become a different type of leader and to show up differently. What would you say to that listener?

 Marc: [00:23:04] Yeah. First of all, I’m a recovering Know-It-All. And I thought that it was really good to tell everybody what I knew. And I found out that that’s not very helpful. I found out I’m really grateful I found out early, but I still am. I know it needs recovery for the whole time.  

So I still have to stop myself. I still have to figure out whenever I make that mistake and I still have to come in and apologize and own it and make amends for that. I think that, you know, that’s for me a step one, which is basically admitting that we struggle with whatever we struggle with.  

Everybody struggles with different things. But when they figure out that they don’t want to do it anymore and they keep on doing it, they’ve got to openly admit to the group that they lead. I struggle with this and I’m trying to get better at it. The next thing they need to do is they need to ask for help from the group, as well as most likely from a coach. I’m a believer in coaches. So naming somebody, a sponsor, a mentor or a coach and saying, would you help me as I break this habit that I have because I keep on doing it, even though I say I don’t want to.

 Marc: [00:24:14] And then they need to keep on asking for that feedback to see that they’re doing it from those people that are under their care. I’m a fan of Marshall Goldsmith’s stakeholder centered coaching process. Basically, it’s a method, a process by which you can break some of that habit, those habits there deep inside of you. They’ve been happening and you’ve been successful.  

Most of the leaders that are trying to change this, they’ve been making it and it’s been working for them all the way through their life. And now somebody tells them and they figure out that they don’t want to do it anymore. And that’s not easy.  

So invite your stakeholders in, invite your people that you lead into that process, admit that you struggle with it and say that I’m going to need help with it. Get a sponsor, coach, mentor, somebody that can walk alongside you, that you can bounce ideas and they can encourage you along in the process and then make the changes actually, you know, keep on following up on the changes until you’ve made the change of behavior necessary. That’s what I would recommend.

 Jamie: [00:25:17] I feel like we just took a full circle back to vulnerability. 

 Marc: [00:25:24] Be vulnerable. We did start with that, and it takes courage, humility and discipline to be able to do those things. And it’s not easy. Full circle for sure.

 Jamie: [00:25:32] Yeah. You know, you will one day leave your role. We all will. So one day you’re going to leave your role. And that’s why this is necessary now.

 Marc: [00:25:45] Yeah. And I have written on leaving well, but the transition timing, you know, getting all the pieces in place so that they’re ready so that you can so that you can step out of the role. You shouldn’t stay in a role forever. You shouldn’t expect to. Nobody should expect to. And you should be planning from the beginning and working on yourself to grow into the next role.

 Jamie: [00:26:08] You know, what’s fascinating is I heard you once say something like leaving well, is leading well, that they’re actually the same thing. Can you expand on this a little bit?

 Marc: [00:26:18] It is the same thing. Yeah. No, I was talking about leaving with the chairman and CEO, John Kramer, who’s my friend and who I’ve been working with for 13 years. And, you know, we were talking about the list of things that needed to be done before I left. And it was a year ago. We had a year to plan transition timing. 

And the list that I had in front of him was the same list that I have to lead well, it’s the same list, but the list is the same list, because there’s one more piece of the puzzle for me, and I can’t remember who I read it, but they said that they would be rated their performance would be rated by how well the company performed after they had left, not during the time that they were there.  

And that just sticks with me. You know, the idea that how well this organization, Cambridge Air Solutions, after I’m gone does is a reflection of my leadership after I’m gone. And so if that’s the case, I want to do as best I can to set them up for success in the future. And I think that, you know, that that feels like a high bar to say that you are responsible not only for how performance is today. There’s been so many people that have built what the company is today, and we’re enjoying that time. And I want it to be successful in the future when I’m not here. And so I want to be able to lead well and leave well, which happened to be the same thing.

 Jamie: [00:27:51] I love it. Every single bit of it. All right, Marc, as we wrap up this conversation today, because I would love to continue talking, we could go on and on.

 Marc: [00:28:00] We could talk for a while, Jamie.

 Jamie: [00:28:03] But as we wrap up, what are you up to next? And what words of encouragement or courage would you leave our listeners with?

 Marc: [00:28:11] Yeah, well, I know you would ask for for what I’m going to do after this time. And I think I shared earlier in our discussion, the Association for Manufacturing is a place where I believe and I’ve been serving as a volunteer for the last five years. I’m on the board now and will be the chairman come October 1st. 

And I would love to talk with any manufacturing leaders on the benefits of being a contributing member to that organization, because I believe that this is too hard to do alone, and you need people encouraging you along the way.  

And then I actually, for a select number of folks, I’m going to be doing executive coaching for them. It has been such a powerful piece of building my leadership over the last twenty seven years. I have had unpaid coaches. I’ve had paid coaches for the last 20. And naming somebody other than me that I could bounce ideas off of and be encouraged along the way has been such a critical part for for for my leadership that I’m going to want to do that for other leaders.  

And so I think, you know, if you’re leading in this manner or if you want to find somebody who can be an encouraging member of your team, it doesn’t have to be a big list. Brene Brown says write it on one inch by inch piece of paper and then let them pour into you. Be selective in that group. And then go out and pay forward that encouragement to others, breathe courage and to others. It comes back tenfold. It has in my life at least. And so you’ve been an encouragement to me by reaching out and having this conversation. And I think that’s what I would leave you with.

 Jamie: [00:29:53] And breathe courage into others. Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us today. For folks who want to connect with Marc, we’re going to send the links to his LinkedIn and to his website, all of those things. And Marc, I’m just really looking forward to seeing all the great things you do with AME coming up. You know, I know I’ve taught at the annual AME Annual Conference for the last five or six years and love that organization. So looking forward to seeing how you help people share, learn and grow through Amy aME through your coaching.

 Marc: [00:30:25] Sounds great, Jamie.

 Jamie: [00:30:26] All right. Thanks for joining us.

 Marc: [00:30:28] Thank you.

 Jamie: [00:30:32] Leaving well is leading well. How about that is the same list, it’s the same stuff. The thing is, it’s really easy to get caught up in the day to day management and forget to deliberately lead the way Marc described with intentional people development.  

And I love that Marc talked about how we need to kind of flip our views about failure and success in order to have the courage to give over responsibility and to encourage people to learn through failure.  

So here are Marc steps on leaving well: 

1. Start from the beginning. He schooled us on this, didn’t he? It was great; start from the beginning.  
2. You identify other people  
3. Deliberately develop what’s needed.  

And of course, I don’t think you can walk away from this conversation without remembering courage and encouragement. You know, after we recorded this conversation, but before it was published, I saw Marc post on LinkedIn his definition of encouragement.  

And he says, “Encouragement is to breathe courage into another human being for the purpose of helping them become everything they were created to be.”  

And on that, it is time for you to take action.  

Reflect on what you heard in this episode and then head over to LinkedIn and post your thoughts. 

Remember to tag me Jamie V. Parker and tag Marc Braun. And that’s Marc MARC.  

As always, links to our profiles are in the show notes at processplusresults.com/podcast. And if you’re enjoying this series, invite some colleagues to listen in.  

We have one more interview as part of the September executive series. So next week, Scott Post shares his experience leading buffet restaurants in a pandemic. Talk about a challenge dropping in your lap.  

And if you missed them, head back and listen to our previous three episodes from the series. First, Gary Peterson drop some serious inspiration, including my new favorite quote. So go back and hear that Javan Lapp talked about clarity and collaboration being at the core of improvement in Kristin Ogo shared her experience growing a leadership team through business growth. Until next time.