ISI Brotherhood Podcast

130. The Power of Authentic Connection

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 15

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In this episode, we dive into authentic leadership with Frank Ableson, founder and president of Navitend, sharing insights from a recent ISI Roundtable Virtual Event with our Community. 

In this dynamic discussion, Frank reveals how he transformed his approach by celebrating team members’ “graduations,” embracing “stream workers,” and introducing workplace chaplains to support personal growth. 

Discover how involving family and fostering authentic connections can transform your business into a place of healing and belonging. 

Join us for future ISI Roundtable events at isibrotherhood.com/events to be part of these powerful conversations!


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Speaker 1:

We actually now celebrate when people come in, add value and graduate out, instead of taking it personally. That, candidly, was kind of like a gut punch anytime somebody wanted to leave, and it's actually been a blessing, because this job is only worth so much money in the marketplace and if they stay too long but they don't grow, that's actually bad for our business.

Speaker 2:

Frank, we're excited to have you man. Frank has prepared a talk about authentic connections, and I'm excited to hear this myself because I teach a lot on vulnerability and how that can transform your leadership. So I know that I'm going to learn a lot with you guys today. Frank is the founder of a company. He's the president and the founder of Navitend, and it's an IT professional services and managed services firm specializing in productivity, security and consulting services firm specializing in productivity, security and consulting, and through his consulting work, though, frank often helps entrepreneurs like us really bring innovation to software and hardware products to the market. So Frank is a special guy to me. Honestly and I'm not just saying this for this call he's a really good friend and he has been for a long time now. He's honestly one of my go-to guys. When I need any kind of encouragement or just plain common sense advice, I know Frank's always there.

Speaker 2:

Frank's been with us since 2018. Frank, I don't know if you remember that or not, but Frank's got a beautiful wife. Her name is Nikki. They have seven children. One of them I'm pretty partial to. He lives here in Nashville. He got some common sense and moved out of Jersey down here to Nashville, tennessee. So we're excited. Actually, I'm going to get to see quite a bit of Tristan here in the near future. But Frank's been involved in a number of ventures along the way along his career, primarily Navitin honestly, that's what we said earlier. Then, in courage work, he's had a company called Unwired Tools, eeo Training and Wellstat. Frank told me that he prefers, though, to forget some of those because they didn't make it, but many of them have done well. So, frank man, welcome to the ISI Roundtable today, and we're encouraged to hear from you.

Speaker 1:

All right, thanks guys, big A, always a pleasure to pull you out of that fishing retirement boat that you've got there, all right. So I'm going to share just really a few thoughts that are that kind of top of mind and whether they hit authentic leadership and vulnerability, well, you guys will let me know. I really wanted to kind of share what's been on my mind. You know, sometimes, no matter what the question is like, you're always kind of whatever's bouncing around your head is is coming through. So hopefully this is value and what I'm trying to do is share some thoughts here that in the subsequent breakout you guys can encourage one another and really prompt some thinking, and I'm happy to give really bad advice later too. I don't have anything other than a desire to help here and be available to you guys.

Speaker 1:

All right, I'm going to attempt to share this and do a real low-tech PowerPoint. Stand by, okay, I'm just going to kind of step through this in a low-key fashion. So Aaron already introduced a little bit about my background, already, uh, introduced my uh, a little bit about my background. That that last company, wellstat, aaron, when you were leading my group a few years ago, remember I got fired from that. I got fired again, so I'm uh twice from the same company twice from the same company.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but uh, they had to pay a little more when they fired me the second time. Yeah, it wasn't all bad news. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2:

I like to get fired like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm trying to get fired again, but I think I'd have to get divorced before I could go back, so I'm not going there. So how many of you guys ever trade stocks or options or something in the market? Anybody Anybody ever think about it? All right, there we. So how many of you guys ever trade stocks or options or something in the market? Anybody Anybody ever think about it? All right, there we go.

Speaker 1:

So when you look at a chart, you're like, oh, I should have sold here, I should have bought there. It's kind of easy, you know. You go to a training, you watch a class on how to make decisions in trading. It's really easy. And then all of a sudden it's like, hey, man, the market's open. You're on the right edge of the chart waiting for that next tick up or down and all your emotions grab you and it's very much like running an organization because we don't know what's going to happen in a few minutes, in a few days. So leadership in my kind of where I sit right now, in my experience, leadership is all about making those decisions when you don't know what's next Like. If we all had perfect information, you know, we'd probably all be out fishing with Aaron, but we're the rest of us are all here working because we don't have perfect information. We can't place those bets and not only are we making those bets and those decisions for us, but it's also for our team.

Speaker 1:

And there's a lot of language in the marketplace around managing versus leading and in my experience, my viewpoint, leading is what you're doing when you don't know what the outcome is. Managing coaching is kind of like what you're doing when you, when you don't know what the outcome is. Managing coaching is it's kind of like when you're when you're mentoring somebody or you're you're working with an athlete and you see they've got a, a really messed up jump shot and you're like no hold on a second. I've got a lot more knowledge about this. I know if you, if you hold your hands this way, you're going to get a better outcome. So when you have more information, you're more in that management space and what we're really after in the marketplace or really whether it's church marketplace. In my experience I'm much more comfortable in the marketplace, whether as compared to church or even in some parenting stuff. My wife, Nikki does a phenomenal job when the kids are young and tender and once they start getting a little bit older. I'm like, hey, bring them, give them to me, let's get them into the work setting because I can really equip and train people in that space.

Speaker 1:

So wherever you are, you really need people to be trusting in order to have any impact, any impact. Otherwise you're just kind of, you're just kind of pushing and you don't. You don't get a lot, of, a lot of progress. And this is kind of where we get into a little bit, a little deeper on these, these topics. So you know, when you kind of just tell somebody to go do it and like maybe if they're four and there's ice cream involved, they might do it, but but for the rest of our experiences, people don't always just follow through until they have some insight as to what the what, the reason behind that action might be.

Speaker 1:

And ultimately it's a, it's a function of our relationship to know that, hey, when Aaron says to Zig, I should probably Zig and I'll ask questions later, or when Aaron says to Zig, I should probably Zig and I'll ask questions later. Or when Mike says, I think you should do this with your marketing, you know, you kind of take that guidance because there's some trust involved and that's really a big aspect of our community is you get to walk with one another and get a sense of well, I know how this person thinks and I'm, I'm, I'm down with that and and I really, um, I really trust them and I'm going to, I'm going to go reach out to them for for some guidance, um, so I think this is um, this is. This is a hard one, um, and I just this is a hard one. And just in some context, I've got 26 employees in my company. About 23 of them are FTEs and a handful of part-timers, and it's actually as your organization scales. It's kind of and, to be fair, 26 people is not like scaling at what some people are doing, but for me it's a lot and it's kind of I kind of liken it to like a balloon that's expanding. There's a lot more surface area you got to cover and it's a lot harder to just kind of get around and have conversations with people and get to know them or to have them know you. So this, this is something you have to be super intentional about and and kind of remember that somebody might be having a bad day and kind of slow down and understand what's uh, what's going on with them. I'm going to skip past this funny slide with one really tough word on it. Um, and I want to talk about this, this idea, here.

Speaker 1:

It's been some new learning for me. I have two new daughter-in-laws. Both of my older sons just got married and the second daughter-in-law is a nurse in a New York City hospital and she's in the early part of her career, so she gets the night shift. She works in the pediatric unit and I don't know how she does it, cause she's always, always like hey, I'm sleeping for 18 hours so I can work my next shift. And I was talking to a friend of mine at church who's a like a family physician. He's like yeah, you know, some professions are like streams. You step into them and you step out of them and healthcare is very much like that. If you've ever gone to the ER at any hour, you hope somebody's there to take care of you and you're kind of glad you don't have that lousy night shift. Law enforcement is the same way.

Speaker 1:

So it was something I had. You kind of knew or understood that there'd be somebody answering the help desk late at night or running a uh being at the, the police department or at the hospital. But I never really. It never really made any sense to me and as I, as I, looked at that, I was like, wow, know what Some people on my team, that's what their job is like, because they come in, they answer the phone, they reset the password, they deal with a security issue and then they go home.

Speaker 1:

And I was kind of ignorant of the fact that right within my own organization I had some what I'll characterize as stream workers. Right within my own organization I had some what I'll characterize as stream workers and it kind of changed my perspective a little bit on like, okay, well, let me, let me understand what they're, um, what they're going through a little bit. And within my organization I've got a few different um, silos or or uh swim lanes is a better term of people. Some people are on the help desk doing stream kind of work, some people who are really pursuing career ambitions, and then other people who are kind of somewhere in between that are there, may be a little bit less mature, but they're a great fit in the role that we have for them in this, this season of our company and this season of their journey. So it's been helpful for me to understand who's here. What role are they in, and even be okay with the fact that a good portion of them are going to come in. They're going to learn, they're going to grow and then they're going to move on learn, they're going to grow and then they're going to move on. And I don't know about you guys, but there's a.

Speaker 1:

For a long while I had this expectation unspoken, just kind of like this gut feel that like somebody comes to work at our company, they're going to be there forever, because who wouldn't want to work with me and who wouldn't want to have our company name on their shirt? And why wouldn't they just want to be lifers like me? And you know super ignorance on my part to not pick that up that that's not the case. And now we plan for the fact that people are going to come in. They're going to grow. We might ask them to leave if they're not stepping up, or we might ask them to take another role within the organization, or they might say you know what Thank you for this opportunity. It's been my ambition to go do IT at the high school that I went to growing up and now a job opened up and I'm gonna go do that. And we actually now celebrate when people come in, add value and graduate out, instead of taking it personally. That, candidly, was kind of like a gut punch anytime somebody wanted to leave, and it's actually been a blessing, because there's some aspects of the organization that we learned were wow, it's okay if they move on, because this job is only worth so much money and you know in the marketplace, and if they stay too long but they don't grow, that's actually bad for our business. So it's been a lot of growth in my part, in our, in our management teams, to understand how we were looking at it and then get, get some better sense of what our, what our team is going through as they come in, understand how they're motivated and to help them get to you know where they are.

Speaker 1:

And again, this is a low-tech PowerPoint. I'm just using some of these slides as some reference for where we're. You know some things on my mind. This is again a tricky topic. Some people are going to be really private. Some people are going to be uncomfortable talking about what's going on at home. Some people are going to never stop shutting up about what's going on at home, and that's that can be a challenge, one of the things that that we do here is, um, we've engaged an outside party as, uh, chaplains.

Speaker 1:

So there's a guy and a man and a woman not at all related, they just both work for the same organization. They come in kind of like every other Friday, every other Thursday, alternating, and they have just like a ministry of presence in the organization, because sometimes people won't talk to the owner because it's uncomfortable. And we had a guy on our staff who kind of the arc of knowing him went from being a single guy dating a young lady, getting engaged, getting married, having a couple kids and then divorced. And I was thinking, like man, what could I have done there? What? What could I have done there? And it was, it just kind of weighed on me. So when I, when I learned about the, this idea of, of bringing chaplains into the business, that really resonated with. You know, it might not, it might not have changed that situation. And I don't have the, despite what, what Nikki might say, I don't have a Messiah complex. I'm not trying to solve everything, but it's a, it's a step to, to kind of make some things available and then, if they take, if they, if they express interest in wanting to, to share some more, try to try to be available. This idea is very important to me as well is the idea of working with, not like super hierarchical, like oh, so-and-so works. For me, it's like no, these people who are part of our team are collaborators, and that's really what we want and where we're, the culture that we're seeking and I think is a healthy place to be. And this is this is interesting.

Speaker 1:

You guys probably heard that we, with your children, with our kids, it's, you know, things are more caught than taught, and there was there was a many years ago ago I, um, I heard some language. I this probably happened on a couple of different occasions heard some language amongst the staff and I was like, oh, I don't like that. And then I had to check myself Cause like, oh, they're just repeating what I had said, but maybe in a different context, and I was like, wow, I, I gotta, I gotta stop that. And uh, we, we kind of instituted what I refer to as the mute rule. You know you've all muted your phone and be like, hey, hold on. I got big A on the phone. You know he's whining as usual, or whatever, and it's like wait a minute. That would be terrible if big A heard me say that. So we kind of said, well, well, listen, we're not allowed to, well, we might mute the phone to like legitimately protect somebody's ears or something.

Speaker 1:

We operate in a in a mode of no muting because that way we're. We're just aware of uh, being professional, being courteous in our interactions. So I've had some examples where that's not always been the case and I don't know if you guys looked at. Before I go on here, does anybody have any questions or thoughts or wondering why Aaron invited me to talk and want me to just leave. Besides Baker, he'd like me to leave. That's okay, he gets enough of me.

Speaker 2:

Frank, I want to make a quick comment on something you said that I'd never really thought about, honestly, was bringing in kind of a chaplain type person, somebody that's unbiased, somebody that they could just share openly with. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what they do while they're there?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sure, so a little background there are. They're kind of that. I'm aware there are a handful of organizations that uh do this. One is called um, corporate Chaplains of America, cca, and then another one that we use is Marketplace Chaplains, and they have different fee structures. I want to say I spend three $400 a month, I think, for them to come in and um, so they, they come in, they kind of alternate weeks. They've also they'll also email me, uh, they've got a, an app, so any of the employees if they need somebody to talk to, they can just kind of reach out, uh, independent of me, and I get like quarterly reports of engagements, but I but it's, it's all confidential and it's it's really intended so that people who are in the in the workplace have the opportunity to have somebody to reach out to Cause a lot most people who are in the workplace are not at church and, and you, I'm in Northern New Jersey, uh, any, anybody who's further South in the country than me has probably got a higher density of churchgoers.

Speaker 1:

Anybody North of me has got a lower density.

Speaker 1:

Uh, even, just like between North Jersey and Philadelphia there's a big, there's a big Delta, so when something happens people might have their friends or they might have social media to go to, but they don't have a uh, necessarily a uh, eternal worldview, biblical perspective carrying person to reach out to. And hopefully we'd like to say that they'd reach out to us as business owners, co-workers, et cetera. We had a team member whose real good friend's spouse took their life and my employee was just kind of beside themselves just like what do we do? And I and I reminded them hey, we've, we've got this chaplaincy service. I bet they would love to reach out to you, to your friend, and it's, it's a nice, it's a nice resource to have. It's kind of, you know, it's like a insurance Nobody wants to have to have insurance, but it's, it's like uh insurance nobody wants to have to have insurance, but it's, it's good to have this resource if it's, if it's needed, and the reality is every one of us is one phone call away from just some traffic real, real bad.

Speaker 2:

Yeah right, yeah, that's good man, I like that.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for explaining it yeah, man, okay, um, so I think are to. Are we going to break out into?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're going to go in small groups after your presentation.

Speaker 1:

We're going to have a little Q&A at the end and then we're going to go into breakout. If you could change one thing in your business and replace that with organization for your nonprofit, whatever with respect to relationships, what would it be and what would the impact be? Does anybody want to? If anybody's done that pre-thinking, welcome you to share anything while we're in the broader group here. If not, that's okay too. We've got a few other questions, gordon. What do you got?

Speaker 3:

I just want to say I really thought long and hard about that and what you're talking about is very important of a principle to have in the workplace not only just working in an environment like that, but having that in your own. You know your establishment, that you have uh and want to keep that type of etiquette going around as you build with the people you know, just helping you know what, what you envision for your life and and having having that collective uh workmanship Uh, and I'm still pondering on this. But I just wanted to add that that's that's a vital uh part that I know about. I've experienced working in warehouses and stuff like that Uh, and it's it's stressful, you know yeah yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1:

I get it. We're all kind of running. Sometimes you kind of forget why you're running or how you got there, and it's important to take a step back, something that I learned years ago and when I learned it I was like, oh, that makes sense. How did I not think about this before? And that was that every private business changes hands because we don't do this forever and it's important to remember that relationships are bigger than transactions, I guess. Thank you, gordon, appreciate your comment. Michael Michael, brian, luke, anybody else have any thoughts? Tim Guitar man in the lower part of my screen there.

Speaker 4:

You got like a real rock star here One of the things that I've reflected on in the past that I think probably we've done better in past ventures and times has been to sort of intentionally have more fun with our people. Like it seems like there's a lot of things you can blame it on, but the reality is that, like it's just not something that I think we put as much effort into. In this season I realized that there's a lot of yeah, there's just a lot of relationship credit that's built by shared experiences of joy and, um, that's something we, as as leaders and owners, we've got to. You know that that buck stops with us to create those kinds of opportunities, even when it feels like, yeah, but these aren't the people I want to hang out with. You know, like, uh, yeah, it's like going to a family reunion. It's good for you, even if you wouldn't choose to hang out with these people most of the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll share a little bit of a Nashville music city story. So a few years ago I was in Franklin, tennessee, with my oldest son, tristan, and he was talking to one of these, um, for a music studio recording studios that are now schools because the economy's changed they're like, hey, if we can't record, we'll, we'll charge young people who want to be, uh, music famous some dollars to learn the music industry. So this this guy said, um, something that, uh, every now and again I'll, I'll try it out. He said when you're taking on a project and I think it's applicable to some level and what your chair and Brian reminds me of it it's got to be good music or good software, good construction, whatever it is you do. So good music, good money and a good hang. You need two of the three. You got to do good work and with good people. Even if the money's not great, they're paying you ridiculously well. You could probably suck it up for for a season, but ultimately, ultimately, relationships matter.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that I would have fired a guy probably 15 years before I did, like, there's a guy on my team who for 20 years was just, I love him dearly, but eventually I had to let him go and, like nobody can accuse me of being, you know, having a itchy trigger finger, it took me 20 years to let the guy go and it's been revolutionary for me to not have that stress. But it's also been a challenge to kind of vacillate between the pain of the loss of what could have been and I finally realized that I was holding this one person above the rest of my team and that was just really wrong and awful. Yes, dr Baker, metal Mike, what do you got buddy?

Speaker 5:

Question for you. So, frank, obviously you know this that I don't have any employees right now. This that I don't have any employees right now Plan is to build and get larger to eventually have employees. But one thing that came to mind is right now I've got the potential of a niece, that she's graduated from college and all of that, but she doesn't have a job right now. And so I lay that groundwork for the question of thoughts on hiring family or extended family and A I guess not necessarily would you do it, but more of what are the things that you would say to be careful of in those types of situations and how would you handle that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I can start with a bunch of mistakes I've got. I've had. So in one form or another all my kids have worked in the business, even if that's just on Fridays, coming and doing a marginal job of cleaning the office. But I've had some of my older kids and still right now. So Aaron knows Tristan works for me, who's 26 and lives in Nashville, and right now I've got extended family of sorts and right now I've got extended family of sorts, I've got Ben's granddaughter's husband working for us now and that's kind of like a dotted line family connection of sorts.

Speaker 1:

I think the biggest thing is to have clarity on two things. One increasingly I've been thinking through, mike, the importance of having an org chart. Even if your name's in every box right now, having an org chart just kind of starts to get your brain thinking about the size that your organization is and what its next one or two steps would be. So then, as you're thinking about bringing your niece in, you know what box she would and wouldn't be in, and I think that's helpful for you and for her to have clarity of. Okay, I'm responsible over here and I know that all these other things are being done by Uncle Mike, the other thing that I've been schooled on I'll call it is I can very easily just go from dad mode to coworker mode and I've had my son a handful of times say, hey dad, could we just not talk shop right now? And what's funny is within 30 seconds he might start talking shop to me. But he's got the awareness to say let's put a boundary up. So I would say, just be very again, kind of it's a variation of that org chart thing to say you've got to understand what role you're in at what point in time, where your boundaries are. But the blessing that I would say is and, mike, I know your kids are a little younger and as they get you know your son and your daughter, as they get even just a little bit older, they'll be able to help you with things. And I would encourage you to give your younger family members and maybe older family members too and as a data point I've got, I've got two special people that are that are working with us right now. I'm going to tell them I'm going to circle around to give them bigger jobs and just move in rocks from one side of the yard to the other. Give them something important. Don't let it be. If they screw it up you're out of business. But give them important stuff.

Speaker 1:

I have not run payroll in my company in many years because my kids have run it. Now I look at it, I make sure it's not wrong. But right now, if there's a problem I will tell we'll go talk to my 21-year-old who runs it. I make sure it's not wrong. But right now if there's a problem I will tell we'll go go talk to go talk to my 21 year old who runs it. But he's been running it since he was probably 19 or 18. So people are young. People are much more capable.

Speaker 1:

Our society delays or, excuse me, delays or, excuse me extends adolescence to a very unhealthy degree in my opinion, and I think. I think my 21 year old and Aaron this is recorded. You're not allowed to send this to him Okay, I think he thinks through things a lot more clearly than I do. You know, a lot of times we're super close to something and it's and it's, it's. It's good to get that other feedback. Obviously, mastermind is is uh, you know that by kind of by definition. But you can, you can equip people uh so much better in your by including them in your, your business, so much better than you know. Bring your kid to work day and get a balloon and some popcorn, like that's. That's nonsense. Give them something meaningful to do. That's like we were designed to work the other.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I want to quickly share is I've I've got a young man on our team who is high functioning, autistic, and he makes about four or 500 cold calls a week. For us. It's not yielded like crazy cash, money, success, but it's yielding fruit and it's giving him a place to show up and belong and have purpose, to show up and belong and have purpose. And we've got another team member who's extremely capable guy. You look at his resume like this is a guy who's done a lot.

Speaker 1:

He is a friend of mine from church and he lost his wife about 18 months ago and he was kind of like, hey, think I'm thinking of like going to walmart and getting a job. And I was like, no, no, you, you come work with me, help me, help, help me solve a problem. And then the, the, the business in our, in all of our flaws and and messiness, is a therapeutic place for people. Now you always have to have boundaries and say, okay, well, you got to go get that fixed outside of the business. But the business is a tremendous vehicle for people to grow, people to heal, people, to have a place to belong grow people, to heal people, to have a place to belong.

Speaker 2:

Frank, I want to share two quick stories, as it relates to authentic connection. Bill Sturrum was in ISI for about seven or eight years, runs a company that probably has 600 employees. They collect the bad debt for Visa and MasterCard and he hired me to coach him one-on-one and I said how many direct reports do you have? And he said 12 direct reports to me and I started going through the list of each one of them, calling them by name, and I said what do you know about them personally? And we went through all 12 and he didn't know anything about any of them None of their aspirations, their goals, their family, their spouses, their children. He didn't know anything about any of them, none of their aspirations, their goals, their family, their spouses, their children. He didn't know anything. And he was embarrassed when we got through and I said well, your assignment is going to be every other day. You're going to take a direct report to lunch. If it's a lady, you need to take somebody with you. If it's a man, just go to lunch, and you are not allowed to say anything about your company whatsoever. All you're allowed to do is ask questions about them and he did that for about three months and he called me at the end of that. We talked every week. He called me at the end of that three months. He said it's been a cultural game changer for our business and he said I was so selfish that I didn't know anything about them.

Speaker 2:

Another quick story Mike Michalowicz Many of y'all know Mike or know of Mike. He wrote Profit First. Mike is a friend and I was interviewing him recently and we were talking and it was on this very topic and he was also equally embarrassed that he didn't know anything about his team. And so he created a tree, a physical tree, and they put it in their lobby of their business and the leaves on that were information about all of the employees, their goals, their dreams, their aspirations about their family. And he said when I turned the corner and started being a giver and not a taker and really pouring into my team culturally, it changed everything about what we do. So, frank, I commend you on what you're teaching. There's great value in this authentic connection.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, awesome, good stuff. All right, I think we're going to break out and I've just got a few questions for for the groups to to go through. I want to make sure you understand what stage your business is in, uh, and just understand whether you're leading people right now. Um, how do you bend or how do you lean? Uh, more leader, more, more manager. Like I can't manage things to save my life because it takes diligence that I struggle with, but I've, I've, I've gotten. It's been beneficial for me and those around me to understand that. Um, how do you deal with uncertainty and what's your, um, what's your appetite for risk? Is it like, yeah, this is awesome, or do you want to crawl under a rock? I think these are some areas that I've that I'm kind of working through myself at times, and I think it might be a good exercise to share with one another and get to know one another through that lens.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. First of all, excellent presentation, very good bullet points. I learned a lot personally, so very good bullet points. I learned a lot personally, so very good.