Chris Miller: Give the Elevator Industry a Try!

INTRO:
Chris Miller is the General Manager with Kone in Salt Lake City, UT. Chris joined the elevator industry after several years in the US Air Force, where he took to heart the Core Values: INTEGRITY FIRST, SERVICE BEFORE SELF and EXCELLENCE IN ALL WE DO. Chris loves what he does and has come to know that the elevator business is truly a “team sport”; nobody can succeed alone. Chris is a student of leadership and strives to become a better leader every day.

SUMMARY:
Chris Miller, General Manager at Kone in Salt Lake City, discusses his journey from the US Air Force to the elevator industry. He emphasizes the importance of teamwork and leadership, influenced by his military background. Miller highlights the core values of integrity, service, and excellence, and the necessity of adapting leadership styles to different contexts. He shares insights on building trust with union members, the importance of equal authority, and the significance of humility and self-sacrifice in leadership. Miller advises new industry entrants to embrace the challenge and learn through experience, as the elevator industry offers a diverse and dynamic environment for leadership development.

TRANSCRIPT:
Chris Miller 0:00
Give it a try. Honestly, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s only good things can come from it, even if you decide that it’s not for you, that will help you find that clarity, you’ll always pick up lessons to learn and different skill sets from from joining this industry and trying the this industry, one of the great things about it is that nobody, regardless of whether they’re in senior leadership or middle management like me or frontline supervisor or salesperson or you name it, or mechanic, nobody can be successful in this industry on their own. Honestly, it’s you know, you were working with equipment from the 1950s all the way through present day, as far as age range goes, and then as far as breadth of equipment you’re working on, you’re working with hundreds of different kinds of OEMs. And so it’s the ultimate, like I said, proven ground for leadership, but it’s also the ultimate environment for people that are team oriented, it’s a total this is a team sport, the elevator industry all the way

Matthew Allred 1:09
Hello and welcome to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the Allred group. I am your host, Matt Allred, in this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. Today, our guest is Chris Miller, General Manager with Kone in Salt Lake City, Utah. Chris joined the elevator industry after several years in the US Air Force, where he took to heart the core values integrity, first service before self and excellence in all we do. Chris loves what he does, and has come to know that the elevator business is truly a team sport. Nobody can succeed alone. Chris is a student of leadership and strives to become a better leader every day,

Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks, Matt, appreciate you having me. Yeah, I’m excited. It’s it’s always good to talk to you, and I appreciate your willingness to to do this interview and share with me some of the things you’ve learned throughout your career. And first question I just want to ask is, did you ever as a kid think you would spend your life working in the elevator industry?

Chris Miller 2:22
No , that’s a good question, and I never even thought of the elevator industry. Never even thought it was an industry, until in 2007 a headhunter found my resume online and asked me if it was something I was interested in pursuing. And that’s when I was like, oh, there’s a whole industry around elevators. So, yeah, I had no idea about it

Matthew Allred 2:43
right, right. What was your early vision as a, as a, you know, a kid or growing up, you know, what did you want to be?

Chris Miller 2:52
Well, I actually wanted to be a race car driver for a long time, and then that pivoted to being a professional football player and then. But, you know, just as far as more pedestrian type goals with career, it’s funny because my when I would ask my parents, when I was growing up what my dad did for a living, they always just said, Well, he’s a he’s a businessman. And so I just always assumed I would, I would become a businessman, whatever that is. So those are my visions being a bit, going into business, whatever that is.

Matthew Allred 3:31
Yeah. Well, you ended up spending some time in the military. What was it that led you that direction?

Chris Miller 3:37
Yeah, I, you know, when I was growing up, I had a I did have a sense that I really did want to, quote, unquote, serve the country in some way, shape or form. And I as a young person, really felt that the way you serve the country is by being in the military. Now, quick caveat I’ve since learned, as a result of actually my military experience that you can serve the country in many, many other ways. The military is just one avenue by which you can serve. But nonetheless, I did have a desire to serve in the military, and I had the privilege of also getting recruited to play football at the Air Force Academy. So it became kind of a two birds one stone kind of thing. It was like, Oh, I can, I can be in the Air Force and I can play football in college. So to me, it was kind of a no brainer that that was, that was a path I was going to pursue.

Matthew Allred 4:37
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, what were some of the most valuable lessons you learned while you’re in the military.

Chris Miller 4:43
Yeah, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is really the the core values of of the Air Force, and that is integrity, first service, before self, excellence in all we do. And that’s something that right from day one and basic training that starts getting drilled into you. You. Into your head until, until it becomes less of a cognitive thing and more of a heart thing. In terms of those core values, without a doubt, those are still core values that I adhere to today. You know, and again, just to repeat it for the sake of conversation, you know, integrity first, you know that’s no matter what, you always have to have integrity. And you know the way I define integrity is integration between public and private life. You know that that’s no duplicity. You know it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s what you see is what you get. Your words and your actions are integrated service before self. You know, as we’ll talk about, I’m sure today, you know, I’m a big proponent of being a servant leader. I think that that is the model of leadership, the best model of leadership as a servant leader. So service before self, really, for me, started as a result of my experience in the military and excellence in all we do is really, you know, put in other ways, be the best version of yourself. So I think that those are beautiful core values to live by, and that came from the military.

Matthew Allred 6:12
Yeah, that’s awesome. And I’m sure we could spend a lot of time just kind of digging in into that. I do want to shift a little bit, because, you know, you had a transition out of military into civilian life. I’m just curious what that was like. I’ve heard some different stories and from others, but what was your experience?

Chris Miller 6:30
Yeah, yeah, you know, it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it probably took me a few years to what I would call demilitarize. You know, when I went into the civilian world, you know, looking back on it, because I got out of the military in ’06, so I was active duty from 98 to 06 and I think I was probably fairly rigid when I first got into the civilian world. Things were more black and white, if you will, in terms of how you do things. You know, it being in the working world, as a civilian, I had to adjust to the fact that people don’t just do things because you say, this is what we should do, exactly, you know, and and so it’s much more, you know, dare I say, you know, winning friends and influencing people by really getting them to buy into who you are and why they should trust you and believe you, as opposed To, you know, having the military structure of well, he or she’s the boss, and we have to do it because they say so so more subtle. Had to rely on much more than just my authority with the position that I was in. And also have to be more flexible, quite honestly. Now that probably sounds like a little bit of a oxymoron, because lots of times in the military, flexibility is key. In fact, when I was in the Air Force, I used to say Flexibility is the key to air power, and there’s a lot of truth to those things. However, in the civilian world, you just there’s a lot more well, I should say there’s a lot less structure, and therefore there’s a much greater importance on being able to influence people, not just because of the position that you hold

Matthew Allred 8:36
right, right? Yeah, it’s and I guess what’s coming to mind is, you know, just that influence seems to be more individual. You can’t just say to 100 people, okay, March after me and expect all 100. So you have to essentially work or or exert yourself to to kind of one by one, get to know the people and say, Okay, here’s, here’s where we’re going, right? Or,

yeah,

Chris Miller 8:58
yeah, yeah, very well said. You know, the, you know, it’s so interesting is that, you know, I do consider myself a student of leadership, and I think you never fully reach the top the mountain as a leader. If you’re a true student of any discipline. For that matter, there’s always continual improvement. It’s a labor of love, if you will. It’s an art. Yes, there’s you could say there’s a science aspect of leading, right, but the implementation of leadership is art, right? Making it your own, having it fit and be authentically yours. The principles of leadership, having them fit within your personality, and how you choose to apply them. And so my own leadership style, I would say, in some ways, has, you know, adapted and morphed a lot, from when I was in the military to where I’m at now, in the civilian world, in the elevator industry, but the core principles have remained the same, you know, like what we started out with. Those three core values and then, but the chain of command, you know, the way information flows, the need to set expectations, hold people accountable, follow through, communicate both with your internal customers and external and so that’s the dichotomy, if you will, that the implementation must be flexible and adapt to the situations you’re in, but the core principles kind of remain the same. And so, just to be more specific to your comments, Matt, the you know, it’s kind of like when you lead people, you have to hold everyone accountable, you have to hold a consistent standard, if you will, and that, hey, if this is the behavior, this will be the result, be it a positive consequence or a negative consequence, because one thing that kills morale quicker than anything else in an organization is if People feel that certain folks are getting unfair favoritism, or other folks aren’t being held accountable. But that doesn’t mean you treat everybody the same, right? And so how I motivate, maybe one of my superintendents, versus that has one type of personality, versus how I need to speak to or address, or address or motivate, let’s say, another salesperson with a whole totally different kind of personality. I need to adjust my style to effectively communicate right each person based on how they’re motivated, while also maintaining the consistency of equal accountability across the board. And that’s the art, the art aspect of it, if you will.

Matthew Allred 11:43
I love that. It definitely, it makes it more personal. Right to address each person in a way that that you can connect with them, build the trust, and then, you know, hopefully they have a desire to, you know, come along

Chris Miller 11:57
yeah, yeah. I mean, well, said, You know, it’s every, every single person as we know is different. We’re not all the same, and therefore a one size fits all approach, if you’re a leader, is never going to be the most effective approach you know. You have to, you have to know your audience, right? That’s, that’s like communication 101, right? There is, who’s your audience. Leadership is so much about communication, yeah, so knowing, knowing your audience, right?

Matthew Allred 12:23
Absolutely, absolutely, you shared with me a story about working in a labor union, and as I recall, this aerospace out after the military, what was share that with me and what, what you learned from kind of that experience?

Chris Miller 12:39
Yeah, you know, that was, that was kind of a transition job for me, you know, because I it was my first civilian job post military. So this was in the 2006 time frame, and I was running baggage handlers at a major airport. And you know, that happened to be organized labor, the workforce that I was running. And keep in mind, this is back when I was in just beginning the process of being air quotes here that demilitarized as very much in the military mindset, still, even though as a civilian then, and I remember going to a particular gate at this airport where the baggage handling crew, one of the baggage handling crews, was that I was running for that shift, and I introduced myself as their supervisor for the evening. And they proceeded to say, you know, Why the f do we care? And I thought to myself, well, I am not in the military anymore, am I? There was no salute and no calling me sir, and, you know? And so that was, quite honestly, there were a few good lessons that came out of that one year stint, that transition stint, before I eventually got, found my way into the elevator industry. And that is, you know, one, I’m not anti Union, but there has to be a balance of power, if you will, between the company side and and the union side. There has to be balance. And it can’t be if it’s a seesaw, if it’s tipped too much one way or the other, then that doesn’t make for Fair, fair balance and negotiating in good faith, if you will, right? And it doesn’t build trust, right? But the other thing, the other problem that I discovered through that experience, was that there has to be a balance between or rather, there has to be equal authority that’s commensurate with the responsibility level. So I was a superintendent in that role, and the superintendents, my peer superintendents, who were working with me at that location, for that company, we had all of the responsibility, but we didn’t have the authority that matched that responsibility, and so you felt kind of like a sitting duck or a sacrificial lamb.

Matthew Allred 14:50
Was it the company just not supporting you? Or what did that look like in as you saw it?

Chris Miller 14:56
That was from a lack of support from our leadership up the chain from us and because of leaders above the immediate superintendents, higher up operations manager level, folks because of their lack of courage, because when you’re in leadership, you’re going to have incongruity, you’re going to have to have courageous conversations. You’re going to have to hold folks accountable and and that doesn’t mean you have to have ugly conflict, but it means that as a part of human nature, there will be conflict. And in my opinion, because those folks weren’t willing to have any conflict whatsoever, it had created this imbalance where the union had all the power, the the superintendents didn’t have anything. We knew that if anything we did anytime we would try to hold someone accountable who was a union member, it would eventually be overturned through the multiple levels of the grievance process. Wow. And so that’s why I say there has to be authority commensurate with responsibility level, and that has to that begins with your higher ups supporting you as a frontline person, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Allred 16:07
I like the way you say that. And to me, it, what I’m seeing in my mind is just, you know, a leader has to be able, like you say, to live with that incongruity and kind of kind of bridge that gap, to kind of stand in that space between, hey, this is incongruous. And yet, being able to kind of deal justly with all all sides, and that’s that’s not an easy thing, and it’s not something that, like, say, you can just hide from if you’re in that role, you know, the forces on either side are going to, you know, create the imbalance and take advantage of the other perhaps.

Chris Miller 16:44
Yeah, it’s true. You know, the I have a tremendous amount of respect for frontline supervisors in any organization, quite honestly, because, you know, it’s, it’s where, what I say, that’s where the superintendent lives, in the brackish water, you know. And I don’t know much about sailing or boats or being on the water, but I know this, and that is some of the most turbulent water, is where fresh water and salt water mix, and that’s referred to as brackish water. And so that’s where the superintendent lives. That’s that’s their life is in the brackish water. They are right where the union and where the company meet. And that can be a good a good mixing, a good relationship, if you have a superintendent that knows how to bridge that gap and to build trust on both sides. Unfortunately, you don’t find many good superintendents, because it’s a very difficult job. It requires all of yourself, and it requires every bit of leadership skills and commitment to work ethic that one has. But I know it can be done. I’ve seen it done, and when it when it does happen, and when that gap is bridged and there’s trust between company and union, it’s truly a beautiful thing

Matthew Allred 18:01
Tell me about, you know, what? What are the critical components to really being able to bridge that gap and and as I say that I’m one of the things that’s coming to mind is somebody I talked with recently who, similar to you, came out of the military, got put right into a superintendent job, and they were telling me how, you know, to be able what they did. You know, ask a lot of questions. But even then, the mechanics were like, What do you Why are you asking all these questions? But also just being humble enough to realize that that I’m not here to teach you anything. I’m here to help bring some solutions. I’m just curious what you would say

Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure that, obviously, there’s a vast array of that. I’m just curious, how long does that take, and what are, what are some, maybe some specific examples of, you know, here’s, here’s when trust was won.

Chris Miller 18:40
Yeah, you know, it’s so interesting. Bear with me. I’ll meander a tiny bit. And that is, you know, I when we talk about diversity, right? One of the forms of diversity, I think, as far as let’s talk in the elevator industry, would be having superintendents, if you have superintendents in a particular office, and a blend between outside, outside the industry, superintendents and superintendents that have come up from the field that that’s a nice balance, because outside the industry, hires like myself have one particular approach and can see things, perhaps in a different way, dare I say fresh way. But others that have come up as mechanics have a level of expertise, technical expertise that guys like me that came in from the outside aren’t going to have. And when you put those two different kind of perspectives together again, a lot of beautiful, magic things can happen. But one of the things that I learned is that as a superintendent or an operations manager, you don’t have to be the technical expert. You know, it’s, it’s not my job to know exactly how to troubleshoot an elevator if it’s shown certain fault codes or, you know, or we’ve had multiple call outs on a particular elevator in spite of having done X, Y and Z. That’s the it’s not me as a superintendent that well, let me tell you what we need to do, Mr. Foreman Mechanic, and this will fix it rather a superintendent’s a generalist, and they need to provide the support and the tools and the training, or whatever the case may be, for the people that are the subject matter experts, which in this example, would be the mechanics in the field. So by making so how do you how do you get buy in, then from a union person, if you’re their their boss as a superintendent, and you’ve never been a mechanic, in my experience, what I learned is that you have to prove to them that their life is better with you around than not around, meaning your presence helps them. It helps them their job to be easier. It gets them the tools or the support, or you engage on issues with customers that that provides them a level of support and gives them a clear path to do what they do best, which is fix elevators. So when the field, in this case, the union folks, get that buy in that wow, life is better with this particular superintendent around. Then you start getting that trust, and then you start really again, beautiful things start happening.

Yeah, that is excellent question, and it varies, right? I’m going to sound like a politician when I say this, but it depends, Matt, but I’ll answer you. I’ll answer you direct here the it does depend on the people that you have. It depends on the culture that’s already in place. You know, because culture plays a piece of this too. And just as a quick aside, you know, there’s a there’s a saying, which I’m sure you’ve heard. Many people probably listening to this podcast, have heard it, and that is culture eats strategy for breakfast, and that is no matter what kind of fancy strategy someone may come up with, if your team has a winning culture, they’re going to figure out a way to get it done. Pick your favorite NFL team, whether you know Steelers in the 70s, Niners in the 80s or whatnot. You know they always with their culture. They always found a way to win. So you know what I have found in my experience as a superintendent, it’s usually a year, you know, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. You have to grind it out. You have to prove over the course of time that you are, who you say you are, and that, and that, who you say you are, is not just a flash in the pan. It’s, it’s real and proven over the course of time,

Matthew Allred 22:51
Which in my experience, is is difficult in itself, because, you know, looking back on some of my experiences coming out of college, I was an HR guy for a while, and I was like, you know, I was kind of a jerk. I just, I just, I didn’t, I didn’t have a good, I don’t think, a good self concept, you know, of who I was. And maybe I thought I had a little more power than I, you know, than they were willing to give me. But I there are some things that I regret. So maybe for me, it would have been a few extra years to kind of say, okay, dude, maybe, maybe now we can trust you. But, yeah, but I’m just curious,

Chris Miller 23:29
yeah, yeah, there’s one reason with superintendents in particular it takes a while to build trust, is because they turn over so quickly. And so a lot of times the field guys are like, well, who’s this latest guy or girl, you know, and we’ll see how long they last. And so again, it’s not for the faint of heart, but, you know, I’ll give you a real example. And I don’t mean this to toot my horn, but it’s something I’m grateful for. It was a team effort and but you know, there was a job in a major city, and I had come in as the service manager in this downtown office. We had 18 folks that I was running in the field, and the previous folks had been a revolving door, and it was extremely strong, crusty union environment, very anti company. And, you know, the definition of love is to will the good of the other and and I think when you look at servant leadership, people need to love their people, even if, even if their people injure them for that. Now I don’t mean love them like, Hey, I’m going to be your best buddy. Because leadership is not about being everybody’s best buddy, but leadership takes courage and just like a parent, in my opinion, a parent shouldn’t necessarily be their child’s best best friend. They need to be their mom or their dad, right? Well, in the same case, a leader needs to be a leader first, versus everybody’s buddy. But in this particular case, the example I’m referencing, it took every bit of a year before these very hardened IUEC gentlemen finally started warming up to me. And when they did warm up to me, the level of loyalty that I had from them is unparalleled to any level of loyalty I’ve ever had by any other group in the entirety of my career. And so it goes back to the old adage, you’re going to get out of it what you put into it. And anything in this life worth achieving is going to require blood, sweat and tears. That’s just how it goes.

Matthew Allred 25:38
That’s, that’s, yeah, I love that. I appreciate that. Then I think that’s certainly something to a rising generation, my own kids, right? Helping them realize that, that it’s not just about kicking back and putting your feet on the desk, right? If you you really want to engage and succeed. You know, there’s, like you say, blood, sweat, tears, there’s, there’s real effort that goes really deep into Who are you and how are you getting engaged with these people? And I think that, you know, referencing my example before, I think that’s where I was kind of struggling 20 something years ago. Was, was I was I was pretty insecure myself, and so I didn’t know how to navigate those waters. And it’s taken me a while to learn that, so thanks for bringing that up.

Chris Miller 26:23
Oh, you bet. And you know, in your defense, that all of us go through that truly, you know, and you know the I once read that the definition of humility is just thinking less of yourself. Now that doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself in terms of esteem, like I’m just a piece of dirt. No, it means thinking less often of yourself being more other focused. That’s, that’s a good example of humility. And I think it takes folks. You know, if we humans are like fine wine, we get ideally, we get better with age, right, right? And humility is something that oftentimes has to be learned, right when we’re younger, lots of times when we’re younger, as we see in our kids, it’s kind of me, me, me, right? Sure, absolutely, yeah, by default, I think we just kind of program that way.

Matthew Allred 27:15
So, so I’m curious what you know once you join the elevator industry. How long before things started to click that, hey, this, this is somewhere where I could actually stay. I can plant some roots here.

Chris Miller 27:28
Yeah, another great question. The well, I’ll be very honest with you, for a long time, I was trying to run away from the responsibility of being a superintendent. I was, I was giving it my all, and I attribute the military background for that is that, hey, this is the mission before me. And even if I’m not enjoying it, I need to give it everything I got, right? But the elevator industry, and the superintendent in particular, in the elevator industry, is very demanding. You know, dare I say it’s kind of like a 24/7 always on commitment, yeah, and, I was very much when I was younger, seeking that the the Margaritaville that Jimmy Buffett sings about, and how am I going to make that happen, you know, and, and still have enough money, and just life is about, you know, relaxing and just having a good time. And sure, you know, as I’ve matured, because, you know, we were just talking about that in the previous question and answer, and that is just from my own philosophy. The older I get, the more I realize that life is not about me, it’s about serving others, you know, love, right, like as I defined it a few minutes ago to will the good of the other servant leadership, right? And so I had a stint back in 2015 as a year as a consultant, and I had thought to myself, a consultant in the elevator industry. And I thought to myself, Oh, this is great. I’m not going to have anybody that has to that reports to me. I’m going to be a lone wolf, independent individual contributor. I’m going to have better work life balance. I’ll be able to do kind of whatever I want. Well, it was very eye opening for me, but I I really did not like that job. I thought I would, but I thought it was everything I wanted. And we also know that one of the sometimes, one of the the funny things in life is when people get exactly what they want, sometimes they find out it’s not actually what they wanted. And that’s kind of what happened to me. Now, the consultant thing for me wasn’t my gig, and I realized, yeah, I realized that I wanted the leadership piece. I missed having mission and purpose. I missed having the camaraderie of having other peers and direct reports and bosses in the fight with me, right? And so it was at that time that I felt, in a sense, like the prodigal son and I decided to return. You know? I was like, well. Okay, this leadership thing, it’s what I do, and it’s the stressful side of this business. But this time, instead of running from it and fighting it all the time, I’m gonna go back into it. I’m going back into the fight. And I recognize now that this is what I do and that my life is not about me. I mean, at this point in time, when I had made that decision, I had two daughters and another one on the way, and so all of that played into me now, embracing the the responsibility that comes with being a leader. And quite honestly, it’s made all the difference. It’s made all the difference for me

Matthew Allred 30:38
yeah, so just leaning into like you say, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a weight, right? There’s, there’s a weight of responsibility on your shoulders. And what I hear you saying is, I was, I was wanting to kind of run away from that, and now I’m just, I’m just leaning in, you know, squaring my shoulders and putting that weight there and, and that’s where you’re finding your your joy.

Chris Miller 31:00
It’s true. Yeah, it’s it’s funny how that works, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s in self sacrifice that yes, they can be you can have very tough times. You might not be quote, unquote happy in a particular moment because of the stress and the things that are going on, but you can have joy. Joy is deeper than happiness, and you can have true joy if you know you’re own purpose and you’re serving others and that you’re and that the team that you’re a part of is on the right path, and the sacrifices that are being made are for a greater good. I do firmly believe that with leadership, what separates mere leaders that are posing as leaders versus authentic leaders. Genuinely authentic leaders is what I would call suffering and responsibility. That sounds doom and gloom, but I really think that that’s what it comes down to, is the true, bonafide leaders out there are willing to suffer. And they’re willing to say, put the responsibility on my shoulders. They don’t run from it. They run to it. Yeah, and it’s not meant for everybody.

Matthew Allred 32:14
Like, kind of, what I’m hearing is, is almost kind of like, willing to sacrifice your your whether it’s time, your your convenience, for for your people, for the greater good, for, you know, because bearing that burden of leadership is, you know, there is a sacrifice to that. But like, say, if that’s where your gifts are and that’s where you find your joy, then that’s awesome, you know, you Yeah

Chris Miller 32:39
I think it’s important to recognize where one’s one’s talents and gifts lie, right? Not everybody’s a leader. Not everyone’s meant to be a leader, right? And that’s not to say that leaders are better than other people. No, we need this. This world needs people of every kind of background and talent level and skill level and all different kinds of gifts, right? But for those who do have the quote, unquote, gift of leadership, and once they recognize that, then that’s something to be embraced, and that that’s there, then Dare I say that’s part of what your calling is, is if you have those particular gifts, there’s a reason for that.

Matthew Allred 33:18
That’s cool. You. You mentioned earlier, you know, being a student of leadership. And I’m just curious, what are some of the most powerful tools, resources, I’m assuming, and you can clarify this, but that that the student of leadership maybe came post 2015, versus prior to that? When, when you weren’t quite as settled in that role?

Chris Miller 33:40
No doubt, yeah. And again, very astute observation and comment on your part the right when, in embracing it, it’s almost similar to if you had a somebody who is has musical talent, but they never, they’re not interested in it. And I don’t want to practice the piano three hours a day after school, you know? But then something clicks, maybe when they’re older and they they recognize that, wow, this really is a gift that not many people have, and I need to, I need to cultivate it. I need to hone it. And then all and then, and then they, and then they start doing that and to validate what you just said. That’s very much how it was for me. I mean, I actually study leadership now. So to answer your question, you know, there’s three things in particular that have kind of formed the hallmark of my civilian leadership style that have helped out a lot, believe it or not. One of them is the old Gary Chapman book, five love languages. You know, I highly recommend that, because it’s not just about romantic relationships about it’s about relationships as a whole. You know, does somebody or words of affirmation someone’s love language? I could tell you, for me, if somebody says thank you to me, I’m willing to run through a burning brick wall for them, that’s a love language for me. Wow. Other people may be like my mother. Her love language is gift giving, that that is how she shows her love is by giving people gifts, even if it’s going to make her go bankrupt, she’s getting gifts for you to show you she loves you. So five love languages, one book I highly recommend. Another one is Patrick Lencioni, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and it basically talks about how trust is the is the most important aspect of any team that’s going to be world class. You have to have trust as its foundation. And he’s not talking about predictive trust. He’s talking about, you know, predictive trust, meaning, I know Matt Allred is going to ask another question of me, I can predict that’s going to happen, but the trust that Matt or that Patrick Lencioni is talking about is trust that I can be real in this on this team, I can actually have a different opinion than my boss, and I don’t have to worry about sharing that different opinion with my boss. I don’t have to worry that he’s going to fire me as a result of that. So that that’s a great book and great principle. I highly recommend everyone. And then the third thing is the disc model. D is C, and that talks about people’s four different personality types. Some people, under the I portion of the disc model are congruent. They’re they’re very affable. They get along with everybody. They want. People they want. It’s very important to them that people like them, other people like with D, are very direct, and it’s kind of like, Hey, you’re talking too much. Get to the point. Just I want it. What’s your point here? And so in leadership, you know what we were talking about earlier, is know your audience, right? All that helps me to know my audience. Am I talking to a D? Well then I’m not going to ask him how their day was. I’m just going to go straight to what, what we got to talk about. Let’s get to business. Or am I talking to somebody that’s a an S on that model? That means they love data, so I’m not going to give them my opinion. I’m going to show them data, because data to them is all that matters, right? These are all good things to keep in mind with. You know, leadership, if you will.

Matthew Allred 37:01
Yeah, yeah. So what? And obviously, we’ve talked a lot about leadership, I’m just curious what? What if you boiled it down, what’s, what’s the essence, what’s, what’s at the core of good leadership?

Chris Miller 37:14
caring about others. You know what I said before, about love? You know, it’s servant leadership. It’s about genuinely caring about those you’ve been charged with leading, you know, to whom much has been given. Much is expected, right? And leadership is It’s a humbling honor, you know, and it’s a lot of responsibility, and much is expected of it, yeah. And so you have to care, and you have to genuinely, and I use this word Love Your people will the good of the other, even if they injure you for it. You need to be strong enough as a leader and courageous enough of as a leader to deal with it, because it’s not for the faint of heart, right, right?

Matthew Allred 37:54
Well, and people can tell if you care or don’t care, right? And that’s, that’s what you’re going to get back is, you know, it’s, it’s, even though it’s, you know, it’s maybe easy to think that you can hide it. You can’t, right? They’re going to know,

Chris Miller 38:10
I agree, and I think that ties in, Matt to what we’re saying before, you know about, you know, when I was saying, it takes roughly a year to prove, to earn people’s trust. That’s because, you know, over the course of a year, you can really see the consistency of somebody’s motives, in the in their character. Really, it’s very easy for people to be turning on the charm and a certain way, maybe for a short period of time, right? And so that it’s over the course of time that that people begin to see that, you know what, I might not like this leader in terms of he might not be the person I want to hang out with all the time, but I respect him, and I recognize that that he or she is a good leader like is not necessarily synonymous with whether someone’s a good leader or not. I like I’ve liked plenty of people that haven’t been great leaders. There’s been other people that, quite honestly, have been maybe I haven’t liked as much, but boy did I have a tremendous amount of respect for them as leaders, and boy were they effective as leaders, and that doesn’t mean they didn’t care for me. They cared for me greatly. But you know, leadership, like I said, is not, shouldn’t necessarily be a popularity contest, you know, because whether someone likes you or not, feelings are so fleeting right, Feelings come and go, just like the clouds pass over the sky, but so over the course of time, you know, you can build that trust and and then people can begin to see, you know, if you’re truly who you say you are, as a leader and have their best interest in mind, right?

Matthew Allred 39:54
Yeah, if they learn to trust you, then they can, then they can put their whole heart into it, knowing that you know you’re not just. Can be capricious or or, you know, because until they feel that safety is what I would interpret it then, then they don’t feel like they can give what they’ve got to give.

Chris Miller 40:12
It’s true and the boss, whether people are conscious of it or not, the boss usually sets the tempo, and the boss is busting his or her butt. That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to bust their butt, but more than not, they will. If the boss is playing hooky all the time, then most likely, their folks are going to. If the boss doesn’t care, then then why should I, you know? Yeah, yeah, the you know, so I will, I will say this, you know, for those, for other folks that you may be working with Matt, that are junior military officers or, you know, or senior NCOs, and they’re considering this, this elevator industry, I will tell you, it’s if you truly, if they in addressing them, if they consider themselves truly students of leadership, if they consider themselves leaders, and that’s their their profession is leadership, then this is a great industry for them. You know, because you know for myself, it’s not about elevators. The elevator is a great industry. But when you’re in a leadership role like I am, elevators just happens to be the currency in which we’re dealing with or that I’m dealing with, but it’s more about leading and organizations and social psychology and individual psychology and how people get along. And you know, it’s elevators now for me, and it will be the rest of my career. But you know, you pick the industry, these are all all the same kind of challenges that leaders face. And I can tell you that, you know, like the Marcus Allen story I shared with you a couple weeks ago. You know, I was watching this NFL life story on Marcus Allen, the great running back for the raiders and the chiefs. And one of the things he said was, one of the reasons he liked playing football was because he found it to be the ultimate proven ground for one’s toughness, as in this case, as a man, right? And I would dare say that leadership in this industry, and especially if you’re coming up as a supervisor, same exact thing. This is the ultimate proving ground for leadership, and it’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s going to require all of yourself and to bridge the gap between companies and union and it’s a tough industry, but that magic can happen. And I’ve had the good fortune of being a part of organizations where that does happen. And as tough as this industry is it, you can actually have fun in it when, when that starts clicking, and people start buying into buying into the common purpose, common goals, common objectives.

Matthew Allred 43:00
Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, and as we, as we get close to our time here, I just got one question. I think that’s going to tie this together, and that is, what advice would you give to someone who is brand new? Maybe they’re coming out of the military, maybe they’re coming out of college. Someone’s brand new to this industry, what would you tell them?

Chris Miller 43:22
I would tell them, give it a try. Honestly, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s only good things can come from it, even if you decide that it’s not for you that will help you find that clarity, you’ll always pick up lessons to learn and different skill sets from from joining this industry and trying the this industry, one of the great things about it is that nobody, regardless of whether they’re in senior leadership or middle management like me or frontline supervisor or salesperson or you name it, or mechanic, nobody can be successful in this industry on their own. Honestly, it’s, you know, you were working with equipment from the 1950s all the way through present day, as far as age range goes, and then as far as breadth of equipment you’re working on, you’re working with hundreds of different kinds of OEMs. And so it’s the ultimate, like I said, proven ground for leadership, but it’s also the ultimate environment for people that are team oriented. It’s a total this is a team sport. The elevator industry all the way and so that would be my advice, is to give it a try and progress through motion, even if you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, the way you get closer to finding what you want to be when you grow up is through progress. It’s not by sitting in a room and just saying I’m going to do nothing till I figure out what I want to do. No, it’s by doing something that you’re going to figure out what you ultimately want to do.

Speaker 1 45:00
I.

Matthew Allred 45:00
Chris, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure interviewing you, and I appreciate you being with me.

Chris Miller 45:05
Well, I’m humbled and honored that you asked me so thanks, Matt. I enjoyed talking to you.

Matthew Allred 45:11
Thank you. Good luck to you. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the elevator careers podcast, sponsored by the Allred group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please subscribe and until next time, stay safe.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai