Episode Description
Quality is critical in every aspect of a business. Not only do products need to meet certain expectations, but so do managers and team members.
In this episode, Steve Flory, a veteran in the plastics industry, discusses his experience and approach to vacuum forming, a manufacturing process that creates plastic parts by heating and shaping plastic sheets.
Steve shares his journey at Paramount Plastics, from learning how to work within deadlines during his education, to gaining ideas on how things should be done from his experience. In addition, he shares his perspectives on the importance of prioritizing high-quality production over cost and quantity, while explaining the ins and outs of vacuum forming. Furthermore, he explains the vital importance of properly training employees for longevity and success.
Emily Bopp also joins this episode to preview a miniseries on EV’s strategy that will cover the four key components: excellence in acquiring, stewarding, ESOPing, and storytelling.
What You’ll Learn
- Why quality outweighs low cost and high volumes in the manufacturing industry.
- The ins and outs of vacuum forming and the plastics industry.
- The importance of valuing your employees and how you can improve retention.
- The four pillars of EV’s strategy.
How to Listen or Watch
Listen below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Watch below or @Empowered_Ventures on YouTube.
Read the full transcript here or below the following media links.
Episode Transcript
CHRIS FREDERICKS: Welcome to Empowered Owners, the podcast that takes you inside Empowered Ventures. I’m your host, Chris Fredericks. Each episode, I’ll have a discussion with one of our employees to discover and highlight their distinct personalities, perspectives, and skills, while also keeping you in the loop with exclusive news updates on company performance and a glimpse into the future plans of empowered adventures.
This is an opportunity for me to learn more about our amazing employee owners, and an opportunity for you to hear regularly from me and others from within Empowered Ventures.
On this episode of Empowered Owners, I’m talking with employee owner Steve Flory, plant manager at Paramount Plastics. A thermoformed plastic products manufacturer based in Elkhart, Indiana that Empowered Ventures acquired in December, 2021. As you’ll hear, Steve is an expert in the vacuum formed plastics industry and also at managing in a manufacturing environment.
I’ll also be joined by EV’s chief of staff, Emily Bopp, at the end of the episode to debrief my discussion with Steve and talk about EV’s recently defined strategy and conceptually what makes up a great strategy in the first place. Steve Flory joined Paramount Plastics in 2018 and has spent pretty much his entire career in the vacuum formed plastics industry in the Elkhart, Indiana region.
He grew up in Logansport, Indiana on a farm with his mom, dad, and two sisters, and graduated from Purdue University with a degree in industrial management.
With that, let’s get to the conversation.
CHRIS
Hi Steve. Welcome to Empowered Owners.
STEVE FLORY
Hi, Chris. Good to see you today.
CHRIS
Nice to see you as well. Really appreciate you taking some time to join us. I thought it might be good just to, just to start, with learning a little bit more about you and your background. So, if you could just share, where did you grow up?
STEVE
I grew up in Logansport, which is about halfway between here in Elkhart and Indianapolis. Grew up on a farm. My mom and dad had about a 265 acre farm. My dad also owned a sawmill, so I grew up around businesses all the time, so that’s why I truthfully went into management. Kind of enjoyed that.
Graduated from Logansport High School after that went to Purdue University. Got a bachelor’s degree in industrial management, minored in industrial engineering. When I graduated, I then came up here to Elkhart, got a job as a, basically a foreman, and that was, it’ll be 40 years ago this August, and have been in vacuum form plastics the whole time since then.
CHRIS
Wow, that’s awesome. Going all the way back. Then you grew up on a farm, and then your and your dad owned a sawmill. Was the sawmill like on the farm, on the property?
STEVE
Yes, it was right across the street, so whenever I worked for him, it was kind of nice. You roll out of bed, eat breakfast, walk across the street, you’re at work.
CHRIS
Yeah. That’s awesome. What did the sawmill make?
STEVE
Mainly pallets. We also cut the material to make pallets that we sold to other companies. So we went, cut the trees down, cut ’em to size, built the pallets, delivered them.
CHRIS
Wow, interesting. Were the trees mostly off of the 265 acres?
STEVE
No, we would actually go to other farms and within, I think about 30 miles is about the furthest we had to go away and we would buy the mature trees. A lot of ’em, farmers that believe in getting rid of the mature trees, let the other ones keep growing instead of just. Clear, cutting it. So we would go in there, cut out the mature trees and the pallets and deliver ’em.
CHRIS
Fascinating. and what kind of animals were on the farm.
STEVE
Luckily the majority of ’em are actually the milk cows and chickens, my parents were done with that cuz my dad started the sawmill. But we did raise some cattle and pigs to eat, so we raised our own meat, had our own garden. Did, did all that?
CHRIS
Did you have siblings also working on the farm and stuff with you?
STEVE
Yes. I have two older sisters and they also worked on the farm. They helped feed the animals, helped with the butchering, whatever needed to be done. They also helped with the sawmill. They never got into, like I was cutting down the trees and that they didn’t do that, but they helped build the pallets and that, my oldest sister is now retired, but she was an engineer from Purdue.
And my sister that’s just one year older than me, stayed in Logansport, didn’t leave, and she’s also retired. Had a good career, good family.
CHRIS
That’s awesome. so growing up, did you, would you say you enjoyed the farm work and the mill work? Or like how did going to Purdue kind of come to mind?
STEVE
Well, I’ve always been the kind of person to be in charge. When I was in high school, I worked in the theater, built the sets, moved the sets, did all the organizing like that. So I knew I wanted to be in management. And truthfully, a sawmill is a very dangerous occupation. and my dad said I could have the sawmill if I wanted it. But get an education because if you get injured and hurt, you need something to fall back on.
And so I went and got the management degree, and by the time I graduated, he had scaled back the sawmill to where it was easier for him. And like I said, it’s a dangerous occupation. Talked about it a little bit and decided I’d go out and get a job away from the sawmill for safety reasons.
CHRIS
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Were your parents college graduates?
STEVE
No they weren’t. they actually grew up in Logansport, married, never moved away, my father passed away about 10 years ago. My mom still lives in the same house. That when they got married, they moved to that farm. It was a family farm and they lived there their whole life. But, they knew education was important, so they wanted to make sure if us kids wanted it, we got an education.
CHRIS
That’s great. That’s so great. It’s kind of that classic American story a little bit, you know, of parents making a better life for their kids and then the kids going to college. And it sounds like maybe you were some of the first, in your family to, to go get a university education.
STEVE
Yes. My generation was the generation of my parents. I don’t know if a single one of them had a college education, but they all worked hard. Majority of ’em ended up owning businesses and made very good lives for themselves.
CHRIS
Yeah. That’s so great. When you went to Purdue. Did you have any interest in getting into the theater kind of stuff or like what, what ended up leading you to go down the path of industrial management?
STEVE
Well, like I said, in high school, I even said, I gotta be a manager. That’s what I wanna be. So that’s why I picked management. And I wasn’t industrial. I didn’t want sales, marketing, any of that stuff. It did not interest me. And so that’s why I went into it. I did not go into the theater. I could have vol, not volunteered, actually got paid to help move bands in and outs of the theaters down there.
But I, I just never got involved in it. My friend did. He ended up, he is now stage manager for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. And I’m sitting there going, boy, if I stayed in theater, maybe, but I like being in a small company and I like what I’m doing, so it works out for me.
CHRIS
Yeah. That’s great. So, anything else about college, your college experience that, I don’t know, stands out as formative or, um, like how did it, how did that impact you other than, you know, coming away with a, a really good degree and something that led to a good career? Like anything else about that experience that was really formative for you?
STEVE
I, I don’t really know, truthfully. I know that it gave me a lot of ideas of how things should be done. It also got me the idea that you got deadlines, you gotta do things by, I know a lot of people say nowadays kids don’t have deadlines for their homework and all that. Back then, If it said midnight on the second, if it wasn’t in, you got an F, there was no give or take. So I mean, you learned how to live and you also, you know, learned how to live on your own. Cause up until then, you know, hey, mom made dinner, mom did the laundry. And so, you know, I had to start learning how to be more independent, doing stuff for myself. So I feel it did help there cuz I actually, after I graduated, I lived on my own for seven years before I got married.
So I was well prepared for that.
CHRIS
Yeah, I resonate with that. I think for a lot of people that college experience, other than the education itself, it’s the first time, you know, it helps a lot to, to become a more independent person. And, you learn how to take care of yourself in a lot of ways that you take for granted as a child and as a kid.
So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So when you graduated, You ended up in Elkhart, in the plastics industry. But were there other options, like did you think about going anywhere else? Were there, you know, or was that, did you get kind of honed in on that, that neck of the woods and that industry?
STEVE
Well, actually when I graduated, the economy was not very good
And I did interviews with several companies. Within about a 200 mile radius of Logansport and Medallion, our competitor, they actually contacted me to do an interview. And like I said, it was what kind of work I wanted and it was a fit.
So that’s when I accepted the job, moved up here.
CHRIS
That’s great. So let’s take a step back. I’m really interested in you getting a little bit more educated. I’m, I don’t know, the vacuum forming plastics industry nearly as well as you probably almost no one does with 40 years in this space. So, for our listeners that don’t really know much about the industry, what is vacuum forming plastics?
What is the industry? What does that even mean?
STEVE
What we do is we take flat sheets of plastic. We put it in a clamping frame on the inside of an oven, heat it up to what’s called the plasticity point. If you felt it, it’d feel like a water balloon when it comes out of the oven. Either the frame will come down, seal around the box, or a mold will come up and seal around the frame.
We hit the vacuum, which takes the air out from underneath the plastic. Then the atmospheric pressure actually pushes the plastic against the mold. When it cools, it retains the shape of the mold, and the reason I say retained shape of it, it actually shrinks a little bit. Plastic expands and shrinks with heat.
So after it’s formed, we take it to either our CNCS or we hand trim it out to the specs that the customer needs. Vacuum forming is very good for larger parts and small volumes. If you went to injection molding on a lot of these parts, the molds would be. Hundred, $200,000. They just couldn’t afford to do an RV dash.
So a lot of what we do is the interior of RVs. we’re doing for cement trucks, the door panels and that. So there’s a lot of versatility in the vacuum form plastics. Got it.
CHRIS
That’s a great description. I feel like you’ve given that description quite a few times in your career.
STEVE
I have. One of the first things I ask people when they come in for a plant tour. How much do you know about vacuum forming? And if they say, well, we know about it, I skip a lot of that, but if not, okay, here’s actually How vacuum forming works. What you know, why are we doing all that?
CHRIS
So it’s really great for what I’m hearing is it’s great for large pieces, large components that would go into some sort of industrial, you know, product or application. like, or an RV or like a, a boat or something like a dash. A large piece that. Is it gonna be in huge volumes?
STEVE
Cuz if it’s in huge volumes, there’s probably what more automated approaches than
Well, according to how big it is, most of your large volume things are small.
CHRIS
You know, my cousin works at a machine shop and he went to a factory. They made the little plastic parts to hold the fuel injector. And Ford cars, well, they had 36 injection, molders making that same part
hours a day.
STEVE
Well, that’s injection molding, so they, I mean, they can kick out thousands of ’em a day. We here at vacuum form cannot even make the part, let alone the volume that they’re doing.
CHRIS
Got it. Super interesting. So what, in your experience, differentiates the different players in the vacuum formed space?
STEVE
Well, I’ve always said there’s several different vacuum form layers of companies. There’s some that run down the dirty parts, the fender skirt for a towable rv. They really don’t care if the quality is there just as long as it does the job. And those are usually pretty cheap. And the customers are also, they’re gonna move.
If somebody’s gonna get it to ’em for a quarter or less, then you move up into like there’s between us and that level. But where we’re at is we’re making high quality parts. When you sit down behind the dash in the rv, you’re seeing an automotive look. The parts fit together properly. There’s no wrinkles, webs, nothing else on it.
We do the vinyl, so there’s precision you gotta put into it. You can’t just slam ’em out. So, you know, that’s what we specialize in, is making it. So, like I said, you sit down on that rv, it looks automotive.
CHRIS
Yeah, so what I’m hearing is the customer might have a need for different levels of tolerance and, and precision and, quality. And some parts probably don’t have to be at that super high level that Paramount focuses on. Correct.
But you know, for certain parts or pieces that need to have a really nice finished look, that’s where someone like Paramount has to come into play.
STEVE
Yes, why we try, we try to go after the customers that want the quality they, they want the look. They’re not looking who’s the cheapest person that can make this part for us. We want the good customers to make good parts for.
CHRIS
Yep. That makes sense. What about leading in a manufacturing company and especially one like Paramount where it is, high precision and high standard on the product? Like what have you learned in your 40 years about, what it takes to lead or manage people, in that kind of a, a manufacturing company?
STEVE
I’ve learned you’ve got to teach them everything they need to know to do their job. And I usually try to give them actually more than what they need. A lot of times I will explain to ’em exactly. Why I’m making the decision. I’m making, why exactly this part has to look like this. You know, I may say, oh, that’s okay.
There’s a blemish there because that’s not seen. Well, I try to show them a picture or how the parts go together so they understand this is what the customer’s gonna see. This is what the customer buying the RV is going to see. So we gotta make it right for ’em, and by giving them all the information and all the tools they need to do it, it makes it easier for them to make the parts to the quality that the customer needs.
CHRIS
Yeah. So you make, you try to make sure they, they don’t, they’re not just viewing it as steps and a process and, you know, they just follow the steps, but you try to make sure they understand the actual reasoning for, what they, why we’re doing it a certain way or reasons for why we need to change something and do it differently.
It sounds like you wanna make sure they really understand, you know, what the underlying reasons for how things should be done.
STEVE
Yes, and I kind of joke around. I said, you know, say it actually makes my job easier because if they know everything that has to be done, I don’t have to be checking everything to make sure they’re doing it right. Since they know what’s expected and how to do it, chances are they’re gonna do it correctly.
CHRIS
Yeah, interesting. I think it’s in the, and in the context of like a manufacturing industry in Elkhart County, which probably, maybe not everyone knows, but a lot of people know is, The RV capital of the world, with a lot of, a lot of industry focused or oriented around the RV market. There’s a lot of, manufacturing jobs in that area and I wonder what are the characteristics or qualities of people that are especially, a great fit for a company like Paramount that has those types of exacting standards and also, You know, people that kind of have that interest in willingness to learn and be mentored the way you’re talking about, like what is it that makes a person a great fit for Paramount?
STEVE
People that are willing to become part of a team. Yes. Up here, when things are booming, you can get a job in a half an hour, but a lot of those places they’re going to run you into death, work you 50, 70 hours a week, and when you burn out, they’re gonna kick you out the door and get somebody else. They can keep up.
They also, we found out people that that’s all they’re interested in doing the piece work so they can get out of work as fast as possible. They’re not gonna give you the quality because they just wanna get it out the door.
So we look for the people that are wanting to stay at one place for a long time, wanting to do a good job, wanting to come to work every day. a lot of these RV factories up here, they just want a body that can push it out the door. And so we let those people go work in those factories and we try to find ones that want to do a good job and stay with us.
CHRIS
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So there’s probably an amount of pride of ownership and pride of work that you’re really looking for, in the folks that, are the, are great fits for Paramount plastics.
STEVE
Yes.
CHRIS
You mentioned piece work. So I’m kind of ignorant to some degree, in terms of manufacturing and, and especially in Elkhart. but I think that’s kind of a common approach some companies take, which is, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s basically paying for.
Like the quantity of production? Is that what that means? Like when manufacturing companies are maybe in a high production commodity situation, they actually are paying based on the number of units. Is that correct?
STEVE
kind of a lot of it is we’re going to pay you, let’s just say $10 per unit. So you get out 50 units, you make this much, you get out 10 units, you get this much. So they’re getting paid by the piece. So what you run into is, say they wanna get 30 units out the door that day. They don’t care whether you start at five o’clock and you’re done at 10 and you’re out the door.
Or if you start at five o’clock in the morning and work till one o’clock, you’re gonna get paid the same as long as you get those units out the door. So what’s everybody wanna do? They wanna get it done as fast as possible, get out there as fast as possible, not always lend itself to the best high quality work.
CHRIS
Yeah, it’s one of those things that can almost sound good in theory. Like, well, you know, you’re gonna make a lot of money and you don’t have to work as much. But ultimately, is that a way that people or the company isn’t necessarily valuing the people themselves? Like I, it kind of seems like a very commodity, oriented approach to kind of the employee and the company relationship.
Does that resonate for you?
STEVE
Yeah, that, and like I said, also they don’t, I feel they don’t care as much about the quality. Because like in our shop we can run the parts faster, but just cuz you’re running it faster doesn’t mean they’re gonna be as good. With abs plastic, you get it too hot, the part’s gone thin more. you get it too hot, it’s gonna shine.
So here they want a low gloss part. We run it faster, we can get it out the door quick. It’s shiny. It’s not what the customer wants.
CHRIS
Same with the cooling of it. If we demol it too soon, it can warp. So they’re set, you know, it’s gonna take you x amount of mins to heat it up, x amount of events, school it.
STEVE
So we can’t do the piece work because if we start pushing ’em to produce more, They can start ruining more parts given this poor quality. So we’re saying this is about how many, you should get an hour and we’re gonna pay you this much an hour. Let’s work our eight hours, get the parts out the door, get good parts out the door.
CHRIS
Yeah, that makes so much sense. What about the future? Is there anything that you’re excited about just with what the future might hold for Paramount Plastics?
STEVE
Well the employee owned is, it really made me happy. It really excited me and seeing how that keeps going. Cause you know, I think back over the last 40 years I’ve worked for four or five different plastics companies and all of the guys have retired as millionaires. And I’ll tell you, I’m not a millionaire, but now I feel like I’m working and getting to put some of that money into my pocket for the future.
I also, like, I, the reason I left my last job is they had me sitting behind a desk 90% of the day. That’s not me. I wanna be out on the floor. I wanna do production. I love production. And that’s what I’m getting to do with our new jobs coming in and you know, we’re fixing up some stuff around here looking at getting some new equipment to where we can grow the company even more.
To me, that’s exciting cuz that gives, you know, the future’s looking good and I can be part of it and help get there.
CHRIS
That’s great. That’s fantastic. My last question for this, part of our discussion, what advice would you have for your fellow employees and employee owners? Both in Paramount and, and across our, our group of companies.
STEVE
Well, you’re talking to all employees, not just management, because with the, I’ve tried. To get everybody to do it, and I do it myself. Treat everybody the same. Try to treat ’em with respect. Try to get them to know how to do their job. Know the individual person to help ’em out and realize that, you know, truthfully, like I said, with the employee ownership, there’s a lot of people in this world that don’t have that opportunity and.
You can become part of a good company. You can make it better, which is going to make you better. Because as the company grows, you grow and hopefully your retirement grows.
I think that’s a great answer, Steve. Thank you. so this has been a lot of fun. This part of our conversation. Thank you Steve very much, for your insights on the plastics industry, the thermoforming plastics industry, which I think is super interesting. coming up next, Steve’s gonna stick around.
CHRIS
We’re gonna have another short segment with Steve, to get to know him a little bit more. We’re gonna do five quick questions. so stick around.
Welcome back. In each episode of Empowered Owners, we bring our featured guest back for a short and hopefully fun segment to get to know them a little bit better.
This time we have five questions for Steve. Are you ready, Steve?
STEVE
Hi, I’m ready.
CHRIS
Okay. What did your parents do for a living? That was my pre-prepared question. Unfortunately, you already answered it, but I wanna know a little bit more about it. How did they get into farming and doing millwork?
STEVE
Actually, my great-great-grandfather moved to Logansport with two of his brothers and they bought about a thousand acres of land. Of course, at that time, land was really cheap. They divided it up into farms and my grandfather had two of the farms. So when my. Mom and dad got married. They moved on to one of the farms.
My mom helped. She was actually co-owner of the sawmill, so when my dad. Was out. She ran everything. She was the secretary, bookkeeper. if we had to run to Indianapolis to pick up a part, she jumped in the car and an ambulance driver actually said she got to Indianapolis and back faster than they could.
She has a lead foot, still does. But my dad always wanted the sawmill. So when he actually quit farming, he started the sawmill. And then once he got to retirement age, He shut it down and started actually working for another sawmill part-time until he died.
CHRIS
Thank you for sharing that. So next question, what would you say you’re not very good at?
STEVE
Sometimes I’m not very good at communication. I get concentrating so hard on what I need to do. Sometimes I’ll just walk up to somebody and say, I need to do this. I need you to do that. Instead, I usually try to say, can you do this for me? Or, you know, when you got time, I need you to do this.
So that’s one of my big biggest weaknesses in, the work when I get a little bit stressed and a lot of things going on. I’m not as polite as I should be, so I’m working on that.
CHRIS
That’s a good thing for us all to work on. And, I do understand Paramount is a, probably a pretty high-stress and fast moving environment, so I can imagine it can be tough you’ve got a lot on your plate, but it’s nice of you to have that on your mind and be cognizant of that.
I’m sure that that probably feels good to hear people. to know that you, that’s something that’s on your mind. So that’s a really good one. This is an easier question. What does your morning routine look like?
STEVE
Well, from the time I roll out of bed till the time I get here, normally I come in, I pull up the report on what is due. So I can figure out, is there something that’s on back order? Do I need to get that done first? Is there something that is like, I got a part that’s due this Wednesday high labor to get it trimmed. I checked the schedule, it wasn’t on the schedule. So I got with the scheduler and said, Hey, we need to put this on. Give me the paperwork so we can get it on the machine so we can then get it trimmed in time. So I spend about the first half hour evaluating that. After that, I go out the shop and my morning routine is, I say, good morning to every single employee in the shop. I’ve learned throughout the years that you know, the employees, they’re important, they’re important to me. They’re important to the company. By just saying good morning to ’em, it makes them realize they do matter, that the company doesn’t look at ’em as just a number. And if somebody wants to stop and talk to me, I’ll talk to ’em.
And if it’s even about, you know, what the ballgame last night or their dog, their kid, anything that’s going on, get to know ’em. That way we got a good relationship. So after I say hello to everybody, that’s when I then start going through double checking in more detail. Where each order’s at, are we gonna get this?
What emergency comes up? What problems come up that I gotta solve, and stuff like that. So that’s basically my morning routine.
CHRIS
I love that. That’s great. What’s something people are generally surprised to learn about You?
STEVE
I’m fairly open, so I don’t know if they’re ever surprised. I, there’s some things I’ve never told them. like when I was in Boy Scouts, I used to be in the order of the arrow and part of it was ceremonial where we dressed up in Indian gear and put on ceremonies, ceremonial dances. I used to do that.
But actually I’ve led a pretty boring life. So there’s, like I said, I pretty much have told everybody all the important things, so nobody’s really surprised.
CHRIS
I wouldn’t say it’s boring. Steve, I think you’ve lived a really, a really neat life. I’ll tell you what interested me was that you were involved in theater, back in the day. So I was curious to learn a little bit more about that. How did you get into theater originally?
STEVE
My sister was involved in it, but she was always, you could say in front of the curtain, but I never wanted to get in front of the curtain. I always worked behind, and I liked building things. So I helped build the sets, and then I would help move them between the scenes. So every once in a while they did get me in front.
I was a jury member in To Kill a Mockingbird. I actually was a dancer and Myfa lady. And I was a carousel operator in Carousel where I always had long hair that came under my shoulders, curled up and that, but they made it gray, put a beard on me. I went out there and we had an actual functioning carousel, so I’d get it in place.
The night started up, so it was circling while the show was going on. but I just love doing that and hanging the curtains, all the different sets, moving it, I enjoy doing that.
CHRIS
Sounds really, really fun. Last question, Steve. Where do you see yourself in five years?
STEVE
Hopefully retired. No. I’ll probably still be here truthfully. My wife is actually nine years younger than me. She just got her degree to teach special ed in the local schools. Like she said, you know, she’s 53 years old and she’s just now getting her degree, but that’s what she found out she always wanted to do.
So she’s gotta work another 14 years before she retires. So I’ll work here until I either can’t work or we’ve talked about in maybe 10 years. I’ll retire maybe before. And we’ll move down south. Because with her degree, she can get a job anywhere. Cause there’s a lot of jobs opened out there, especially she works with the, ed, the emotionally disabled children and that’s why she enjoys, and there’s openings all over the country for that.
So 10 years from now, I’m not sure where I’ll be.
CHRIS
Sure. That’s really great. That’s really commendable, what your wife is doing. Really inspiring. and thank you. I think it is inspiring that you’ve spent 40 years in the same industry and. For me personally, the approach you take to people and that you care about the people, your people, and, check in with them every morning.
I think that’s such a great thing. And, just grateful for what you do for Paramount Plastic, Steve. So thank you again for coming on empowered Owners.
STEVE
You’re welcome and thank you for the compliment there.
CHRIS
You’re welcome.
CHRIS
Coming up next, empowered Ventures chief of staff, Emily Bopp, will join me to discuss my interview with Steve and an overview of Empowered Ventures strategy.
EMILY BOPP
Hello. So excited to be back again.
CHRIS
Yeah, welcome back. to kick off, what did you think about that discussion I just had with Steve?
EMILY
So inspiring. So I have two words to sum up what I just heard from Steve. Well, I guess a phrase and word. First of all, management is in the blood. My goodness, when I was listening to him and I was thinking, who knows in high school that they wanna be a manager? And because they had this experience in theater, which has nothing to do with industrial management, but they knew that they liked, you know, helping people know what to do.
They liked directing, they liked, you know, getting things done through other people. And then to translate that to management, it’s like, man, Management was in his blood. And then as he went on to talk about his approach toward people, that it’s management isn’t just about tasks at all. To him, it’s very clear that management is really about knowing your people and valuing them and helping them understand the big picture and how their work fits into all of that thinking.
Wow, he really is a true manager, like in the blood management, in the blood. So that’s my phrase for him. And then the second word would be, Pride, like in a good way, you know, pride of, uh, you know, that interpersonal connection and working hard to do that pride and quality, you know, that we’re not just pumping out zillions and zillions of parts and who cares if some of ’em are, you know, a little wrinkled or.
You know, not quite right. No, no, no. We love making quality parts and then pride in now, you know, to see him smile about the employee ownership part. You know, that’s a newer thing for, uh, paramount. It’s only been now, what, a couple of years, maybe not even 18 months. so just the pride in that. Not only do we get to build on this great.
Past that we’ve had as a company and these great people that we have, but we get to build this amazing future and then we get to benefit from it. You know, that he’s watched these other companies where the owners make out like bandits, but they’re the only ones who do you know. And so just this pride in, in.
You know, the company and its future and the potential for employee ownership. So yeah, that was my long-winded way of saying I loved, you know, just he is a true like, um, what’s the word? Just an authentic manager and just exudes pride in his work is people and you know, the future of that business. Loved it.
CHRIS
That’s such a great summation. I’m not sure I have a lot to add, but, I really like that insight into his pride of ownership that he takes himself and how that really is such a perfect fit for Paramount and kind of what Paramount does. And, yeah, really neat. Thank you for sharing that.
EMILY
For sure, and this is like cheers to Steve, like let’s celebrate Steve across our family of businesses. Never would’ve known without this podcast. Way to go, Steve.
CHRIS
Yes. Thank you. Great point. Yes. Thank you Steve. So, in addition to that, we thought we might talk about EV’s, recently defined strategy, which. is really exciting. and you actually led us through our strategic planning process that we went through fairly recently.
And, and you really highlighted, I think the opportunity we had to get really clear on what our strategy actually is. And to be honest, I had never really. thought about strategy and what it really means. I think everyone thinks they know what strategy means, and you know, we kinda have an idea of what strategic thinking is, but, but there’s a particular like way to think about strategy that you led us through and, uh, I was, I thought that might be a good place for us to start is free to educate us on that a little bit.
EMILY
Yeah. Thank you. I’d love to. So I have to say that I just notice pieces of wisdom out there in the world and grab onto ’em. So nothing I’m about to share is original to me. I read it from a lot of different places. Especially Harvard Business Review did a little piece on strategy. So here’s the thing.
Planning and strategy often get confused, and they’re two different things. Planning is all about what we’re gonna do. And it would be very easy at EV to say, well, we’re gonna find great businesses to buy and we’re gonna support our companies within our family of businesses into their future, and we’re gonna make lots of plans to get those things done.
The problem is, is that absent a strategy, you don’t really know if you’re gonna win at doing any of those things. So a strategy is an integrated set of choices that position you on a playing field of your choice in a way that you win. And that’s a quote I did not make up, but I’ll say it again from Harvard Business Review.
Here you go. A strategy is an integrated set of choices that position you on a playing field of your choice so that you win. And the perfect example is Southwest Airlines. So they decided they were gonna be the low-cost carrier in the airline, in commercial airlines. That’s a strategy, that’s not a plan.
You can’t prove in advance that by trying to be the greyhound of commercial flights that you’re gonna win in that space. But you have a hunch that there’s a reason why if you win at business that way, you might take market share. That right now isn’t, isn’t being taken by anybody. And in fact, that’s what happened.
All the other airlines were just playing to play. They’re out there playing the airline game. And they were making all their plans and they were doing everything they needed to do to continue on in their business, but they didn’t have a strategy for how they were gonna win there. And Southwest did to be the low-cost carrier.
And so what did Southwest do? Well, they started small, but then they started, you know, getting more and more and more and more share of that. Playing field. And so for us to take a step back and say, well, wait a second, what playing field are we even on and how are we going to win there? That is much more difficult than just making a bunch of plans.
And so, we could have, like I said before, just started, you know, making our plans. But what we wanted to do was say, wait a second, what if there’s other people in this space And we end up just playing to play. The danger would be that they actually have a strategy and that because of their strategy, they’re gonna grow and win, and we’re just gonna be one of the little guys that’s still playing to play.
So, that was some of the background and just like the thinking toward approaching the strategy. And it was a discipline. I mean, you and I could both say it was a discipline to not continually slip into talking about planning and to really stay at the level of strategy. So I think about all of our people, all of our EVers would love to hear is, well, what is our strategy? And it’s actually super simple, and I think you’d be the perfect person to explain what we landed on. Like what’s our strategy? What are we doing? How are we gonna win in this game?
CHRIS
Thank you. That’s such a great explanation of strategy that I didn’t have any, I had no idea that’s how you could think about it before. And I, it helped us so much to go through this process with that in mind, so thank you. So yeah, EV’s strategy with that kind of thinking in mind is to be excellent.
In four areas, of what we do. So we want to be excellent at acquiring companies, the right companies for empowered ventures, the right kind of situation, for us. And we want to be excellent at finding those, sit those companies and acquiring them. That’s one piece of our, our four, pillar strategy.
Second, we wanna be excellent at stewarding those companies. Stewarding is the choice, the word choice we use very intentionally. Because we’re an employee-owned holding company, our intention is to build a diverse group of companies that operate independently as part of our. Overall enterprise, so at the holding company level, we choose to think of our role, as stewardship as opposed to, what other, some other investors or acquirers might think of themselves as as an operator or the person or people who are actually kind of stepping in and running those companies day to day. We have a very intentional thought process around what stewardship really means and what being excellent at stewardship means, as part of this kind of comprehensive strategy, so far acquiring excellence and stewarding excellence.
Third, and this is a word we made up and I think you made up actually, Emily, but we’re gonna keep using it, is ESOP being excellence. So esop, you know, to be great at esop, what does that mean?
EMILY
It really, you know, an ESOP is a particular kind of, uh, structure for a company and there’s a lot of certain, particular complications and opportunities that come with being an esop. And there are best practices and it’s always kind of an evolving and growing area that involves governance and legal things and financial things.
So it’s kind of a particular set of skills that we already feel like we’re pretty good at. but we embrace that. Being excellent at ESOP is a critical part of this overall strategy because it’s key to who we are being an employee owned holding company. And then the last one, the fourth one, which, maybe at first glance won’t be obvious, like, obviously it’s part of this strategy, but it’s storytelling excellence.
So we want to be really excellent at telling our story, both with our, within our group, within our enterprise, with our people, and also externally for others. And what so excites me about storytelling excellence is, The more we tell our story, well the more that will attract, you know, great opportunities and people to us as well, which has been such a huge part of how we’ve grown so far, is to find great opportunities, great people, and attract them to what we’re doing because it really speaks to them.
CHRIS
So, that’s the very brief summary version of our four pillar strategy, which is acquiring, stewarding ESOP and storytelling excellence.
EMILY
That’s awesome. And you know, it is a strategy because we can’t prove in advance that’s going to have us win. We believe that as we develop excellence in each of those areas, the future is just bigger and more amazing than we can even imagine. Probably in the same way that Southwest. Could never imagine that they would’ve grown to the way they are now.
That’s why we believe that this strategy is gonna position us to win in ways that we can’t even imagine now. But ultimately, the win for us is creating those life changing financial and personal wellbeing outcomes. For our employee owners. And ultimately that’s why we do everything that we do. It’s for our employee owners and it’s to grow, the success of this business for them financially and for them personally to work in places that they love and that they can feel fulfilled and, really feel a, a positive sense of ownership around.
So yeah, I love that we landed there. It was a lot of work. You know, we are not making things or providing service in a certain industry. I almost feel like strategy’s hard enough when you’re in those situations. For us, it was even a little bit more complex and nuanced, but I love that we landed here and here’s why.
Now we can plan.
CHRIS
You know, if it’s, if it’s, a discipline to put the planning aside and to really come to a true strategy, the benefit of that on the backside is that every decision you make, because of that clear strategy and every plan that gets put in place. You have confidence that it is for a purpose that’s getting you down the playing field in a way that you want, and you’ve decided it’s not willy-nilly.
EMILY
So, personally I’m just thrilled that we have that clarity now as an enterprise that we didn’t before and that our planning now can be so incredibly pointed and just means so much more within the context of the strategy of what we’re all about.
CHRIS
That’s so well put. And in a very practical sense, one of my takeaways was a clear strategy helps, real time what to say no to. Cuz if some big opportunity or idea comes to mind and we ask ourselves, does this fit in our strategy? If the answer is no, then it’s a hundred percent no. You know, it doesn’t fit.
So I think that clarity is so helpful and so important.
EMILY
Yeah, super, super important. So, EVI years going forward, we are going to dig into each of those. Pillars because we want you to kind of understand what we mean even more by acquiring excellence, stewarding excellence, ESOP excellence. Yes, I did make up that word and storytelling excellence. So, stay tuned.
In the next episodes, we’ll be digging in one by one and helping you understand more of what we mean by those.
CHRIS
Awesome. I’m excited. Thank you so much Emily for joining. Quickly breaking down my conversation with Steve and doing a phenomenal job. explaining what strategy is and, previewing it for where we’re going, with the rest of our team. And, digging in further cuz it’s gonna be really helpful I think for everyone to hear even more about what we mean in each of those areas.
I’m so excited about that and looking forward to those episodes. Thank you, Emily.
EMILY
You’re welcome.
CHRIS
Well, that wraps up this episode of Empowered Owners. I’d like to thank Steve Flory and Emily Bopp for joining me in Paramount, Scott McConnell and Sue Fine for suggesting topics for the discussion. Remember, we want to hear from you. Please give us feedback, suggest guests and topics for future episodes and tell us how we can keep improving the show to reach us.
Email [email protected]. Or use the Contact Us form on our website empowered.ventures. Last but not least, a big thank you to our production team at Share Your Genius. Be sure to join us next time on Empowered Owners as we explore the lives and stories of the amazing employee owners of Empowered Ventures.
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