Meet Jason Stocker, President, C&U Americas

[Transcript]

00:04

Welcome to the Finding Gravitas podcast brought to you by Gravitas Detroit. Looking to become a more authentic leader? Finding Gravitas is the podcast for you. Gravitas is the ultimate leadership quality that draws people in. It's an irresistible force encompassing all the traits of authentic leadership.

Join your podcast host Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales, entrepreneur, leadership coach, keynote speaker, one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry, as she interviews some of the finest leadership minds in the quest for Gravitas.

Jan: 00:50

How do you start life in Buick City, Flint, Michigan in a blue-collar environment and end up being President of C&U Americas, the largest bearing producer in China? How does that happen, exactly? Well, you're about to find out. Jason Stocker is going to share with us his story and tell us exactly how that happened, and how he lives his life with volition. Such a powerful word. He'll share with us how he incorporates volition in his personal and professional life. Jason Stocker, welcome to the show.

Jason: 01:29

Yeah. Thanks, Jan. Glad to be here.

Jan: 01:31

I'm so glad to get to talk to you today and get you on the microphone, my friend. It's gonna be a wonderful episode.

Jan: 01:40

Well, I'm looking forward to it since the time that you first asked if I'd be interested in doing this, and I've been excited looking forward to it ever since. So thank you very much.

Jan: 01:50

Well, let's get into it, shall we? Jason Stocker, what is your story? Let's hear it right from the very beginning. And how did you end up as President of C&U the Americas, a Chinese bearing company? How did that happen? But I don't want to jump ahead. Let's go right back to the beginning.

Jason: 02:10

Yeah, starting from the beginning. I'm a born and raised guy from Flint, Michigan. So Flint is well known as the original founding place, and headquarters of General Motors, still calls itself Buick city, even though they don't make a single Buick in that city anymore, but is proud of its heritage when it comes to automotive. And I come directly from that. Not only did my father work and retire from there, but I've had grandparents work and retire from General Motors, uncles, cousins, continuing to work there as well. So I come from a blue collar, black background, for sure.

And I feel like that was the basis for the kind of work ethic and the kind of goals and ambitions and dreams that I had, as I was growing up in a blue collar kind of a backdrop. I was very much motivated to try to be successful in my life, my parents were always encouraging of that. I was first able to really display that sort of self-motivation and try to reach certain goals was I started to play sports, when I was really young. Started playing sports early at about maybe five or six years old, baseball, basketball,

which was great for me because it started to allow me to kind of create a bit of a nice foundation of structure and things. But its where I met a lot of friends that I could even go so far to say are lifelong friends in that sense.

Also, in the childhood, you know, the fun little side story that started my career path was back in the day, you only had a few networks, right? So the family would get around and watch certain shows on network and NBC had their Thursday night episodes. And that included a show called Family Ties. There was a guy on there called Alex P. Keaton, Michael J. Fox’s character on there, and I don't know, something just lit a fire in me when I would watch this guy. And he was if you remember, he was this business man or wanting to be a business man, right? He started off in high school, went through college and then kind of moved himself along after that.

There was something there that really attracted me to it. And it was about at that age when I started to think about what I was doing in school and what might interest me in a career. And that's when I started to find some of the different business courses that I had in school and just started to kind of fuel that fire of where I wanted to go in my life as far as what I wanted to do as I grew up and really started to pursue an actual career. Seeing this guy, and hearing about his aspiration to work in finance and work on Wall Street, and it was this, it looked like this glorious world of money that I wanted to get into, right? This somehow being associated with business, and running a business, and being able to work in that sort of environment. So that allowed me to then start taking some of the poor, blue collar work ethic that I had of I'm going to work really hard in order to be able to try to accomplish these goals that I want to set for myself.

Through the encouragement of my parents, and through being able to have some really great teachers, during my formidable years, particularly through my high school years. That's when I would say that I took what became a, I had been bitten by the bug and really took off from there, because I had a couple of great teachers when I was in high school, business teachers, specifically. One in which was my accounting teacher, I took his class for a couple of different years, and he's the one that ultimately helped push me in the direction of where I might want to go when I head off to college. Because I didn't think back when I'm watching Family Ties, and Alex P. Keaton, that I might want to be an accountant one day. But after taking his courses, and really spending a lot of special, intimate time with me, you know, one on one, helping teach me and answer my questions and helping me better understand what it might mean to be a person in business, when I was able to turn my attention and say, You know what, I want to be an accountant. And I feel like that's a path that is going to help take me to where I want to get as far as my aspirations in some sort of a business career. So that was, you know, nice to be able to go through that sort of transition in my high school years, and then ultimately jump into college and start working towards actually trying to become that person.

And what was great about going to college is a gave me an eye-opening experience. I had more or less really never left the Flint area, we'd take some vacations, but part of being blue collar is that we didn't have lavish vacations, didn't really fly anywhere, or do anything like that. Our sort of vacation was more like hopping in the camper and, and go find some nice place out in nature to be able to spend some time. Going to college, boy, you know, I only went to Eastern Michigan University, I only went to the town of Ypsilanti, but that seemed like the big city to me. I was this, felt like a country guy coming in there, and I've got these crazy aspirations of becoming a business person at some point. So you know, it was a nice eye opening experience had a lot of great experiences while I was in college, both personally as well as being able to start develop myself, and work on the education and the aspirations that I had.

But it's also where I met my wife. And so that gave me a great opportunity and a nice story to be able to tell not only about, you know, how I met her and what I feel is like this great little story that I get to share with my kids and friends and whatever about how we met. But more importantly, what it did was after a fairly short courtship, her and I were both have the same mindset that we found the right person. And so we wanted to get married. And so she made it clear to me that her father was the type that he would like to have any sort of potential spouse ask for her hand in marriage. and so I did that. And this was still with a couple years ahead of me in college, same for her. And he told me straight. Listen, if you want to marry my daughter, I have no problem with that, but you can't do it until you have graduated college. Well, what my wife and I had agreed was we had already set the date, we already knew what month and what day that we wanted to get married. And what that meant was, I only had two years in order to be able to get my college done, where we're in reality, I had more like three years worth of schooling. Because of him kind of putting this stake in the ground, it really lit a fire under me because I had the clear ambition that I wanted to marry this woman. And he had set the bar at a level that said you want to do that, you got to be able to pass this bar. And so for the next two years, I crammed in about three years worth of schooling, probably got the best grades I ever got in my entire educational career as well during that time, really having a laser focus. So it's kind of crazy how this turn of events of meeting my wife and having her father say you need to be graduated from college before you can marry her, and the way that that turned into this great experience of being able to get a great education on a much faster speed than what I was going, and ultimately being able to get that degree and being able to then shortly thereafter, get married. So I I graduated in August and we got married in September, so just a few weeks basically before we ended up getting married. And in that time, I was also fortunate because I'm going to get married, I gotta have a job, I can't just graduate and rely on the kind of part time type jobs that I had been working in, so fortunately I was, you know, I had to dive in to figuring out, well, where am I going to work.

And I was able to pick up an internship in Human Resources of all places, I was trying to be an accountant, but, well, I need to get my foot in the door in Human Resources for a company called NSK, a Japanese bearing company. So that's how I got my start into the bearing world was through NSK, and I started in their Human Resource department as an intern, and I was able to impress enough folks around there that they ultimately decided that prior to my graduating, knowing that I was going into accounting, I was offered an accounting job. So everything started to fall into place, I've got this great woman that I'm about to marry, graduating with some of the best grades that I've been able to produce in college for a couple of years on a much faster pace than what I thought. Sky's the limit, right? It's gonna be fantastic. Not that the story goes south in any way, but to continue on, right?

Jan: 11:07

It felt like, it felt like for a minute, that's where you were gonna go, “and THEN… , something catastrophic happened”

Jason: 11:17

There's no left-hand turn in Albuquerque.

Jan: 11:19

I know, good, but hold on. Hold on. Before you go further, I gotta tell you something. As I'm listening to your story, see, I know a little bit about your leadership side already. So people who don't know you don't know this about you. But so here you are dealing with your future father-in-law, so basically, you set a goal, right? A very aggressive goal with an emotional connection to that goal. And you figured out a way to make it happen, even though it was, you know, it was a little bit unrealistic, right? I mean, it was gonna be hard to finish college in a short period of time. But you put that stake in the ground, and you made it happen. And I see that, Jason Stocker, come through in you in business. I don't know if you've ever thought about that parallel before.

Jason: 12:05

Well, I can tell you, Jan, you're stealing my thunder over here. Because, I know that, from the way this conversation is gonna evolve, there's a word that is how you and I got introduced to one another, and that word is volition. And when you and I were together presenting at an OESA event, volition was a topic that I was talking about and presenting to a group of people there. And why that word is so important to me is as you've just pointed out, there were so many events in my life prior to me having learned this word volition that I was living, breathing volition all the time , but never could sum it up in one single word. And this aha moment happened later on in my career after I had left NSK and found myself at another bearing company called SKF, this is where I learned it right? I have to give a lot of credit to my former company, SKF because they taught me a lot about myself, and about my career and volition was one of those. And I had this lightning bolt moment in my career that I learned about what volition was. And I learned about what willpower really meant and what a person can do when they really set their mind to something. And you're hitting the nail right on the head there, right? I mean, all the way back into my college years. I mean, not that I was a really good student. And okay, I got a little bit lazy, let's say during my first or second semester in college, because I had this brand new experience and this brand new world that I was entering, but you know, then things fall into place, and met my wife, decided we're going to get married, had my father in law put a stake in the ground for me. And yeah, you're right. I charted out a plan that said, this is what I want. I've got volition. I'm going to, I'm going to cross the Rubicon here, and I'm going to go make it happen.

Jan: 14:02

Yeah. And you did. You did. So what happened after SKF?

Jason: 14:07

Well, I'll rewind back to NSK, right. I started off in accounting. And that was, you know, in the big picture, that was a fairly short-lived career. Because after being in accounting, I'll admit, I was the guy that processed all the payroll, and so I could see what everyone was making and how they were making it. And I started to do my own math, and I started to think, okay, where do I want to be 10 or 20 or 30 years down the road and, and I could see that there was a little bit more to be made potentially in sales. And so I thought, you know what, I've got this opportunity here, where ultimately I wanted to become a CPA. Well, in Michigan, you can't become a CPA just by working in a corporate accounting setting. You had to work for a firm, and you had to go through the couple of years time working at a firm before you can actually go and get certified. So I thought, you know, I ultimately have this goal of becoming a CPA and becoming my own boss. At some point, I'm gonna have to learn how to be a salesperson because I have to sell myself. And I have to sell my capabilities and, and what my company, whether it's me working for someone or me having my own company could convince people to come be a client for me. So I thought, let's take the opportunity while I'm here, this is looking like a really great company and could probably teach me some things. Let's see if I can move over work in sales, maybe make a few extra bucks along the way, and see how things go.

Well, as a lot of stories go, I jumped into sales, and I never looked back . The days of being in accounting, the days of aspiring to become a CPA over time slowly deteriorated, and ultimately just went away, I really enjoyed sales. The same way I had been bitten by the business bug, and then had a great teacher that helped me get interested into accounting and finance and things like that, same thing happened with sales. And this was more so because of a couple of really good bosses that I had. But even more so a couple of really great colleagues or peers that I had, that we were all working together in a team. And you know, funny how things go, both of these people that I'm talking about that were in the same team as I, when I entered sales, one of those guys now works for me, where I'm at C&U, and the other guy brought me over into SKF and I worked for him for years. So great, great connections early on in my career, that have allowed me to not only develop myself personally, but just be able to have great friendships and great development opportunities over those years all the way back to my very early days of sales.

After being in sales at NSK. For a couple of years, I ended up leaving for, going to a job at Delphi, worked at the old Delphi, worked there for a couple of years. And ultimately, that's when I was attracted by one of my former colleagues from NSK who had moved over to SKF and he said, Hey, I got a job working in my sales department I’m the sales manager, would you be interested in coming over to work for me? One thing leads to another and I'm working for him within a couple of weeks after that. And once I got to SKF, I have to give a lot of great credit to that company because that's where I flourished. I really was able to learn a lot of not only about sales, but about being business savvy, really fine tuning a lot of the acumen and a lot of the knowledge and the capabilities of what I felt have transformed me into what I am today. And help lay a foundation for what are the things that I focus on to not only try to be as good as I can today, but also keep thinking about, well, how can I be better? What are the continuous improvements that I could make, in order to allow me to continue to evolve as I go through the remainder of my career. And that's where I got introduced to some of the great things from a professional standpoint, like volition, and perseverance, and willpower, and what those sorts of things can do, not only for my personal capabilities, but then also translating that into what I can do to help people around me, whether that's peers, people above me, people that report to me, you name it. That's my story.

Jan: 18:22

It's a great, it's a great story. I love this word of volition. And we should explain to the audience you know a little bit more about how we met and how all that went down. So as Jason said, we were both speakers at an OESA event, I think it was their young Leadership Council. And I was first, yes, I believe I was first I was before you. And then I was I was planning on leaving after that. And I looked at the agenda and I saw your name and I thought, Oh, I don't know him. I bet honestly, right. You probably you don't know this, but this is what went on in my head. I thought oh, he's you know, he's probably just another tier one guy, right? He's probably gonna come out with the usual. Oh, yeah. Work hard focus on the numbers make the tough decisions, you know, and you'll be successful, right? The same old usual, you know, automotive tough guy stuff, right? And I thought, yeah, I'm not gonna listen to that. And then I don't know, something caught me, and I thought no, I'm gonna listen. So I sat down.

And I saw a leader who understood the business very well, and now I know your accounting background, I understand that. But you started to talk about volition. And you started to talk about inspiring people, inspiring a team, and putting the goal out there and burning the boats and just, you know, just getting this team around you and, and focusing on the goal and making it happen. And that's volition. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I love this. This is incredible. And I love the way that you articulated it. And I was quite frankly surprised, but pleasantly surprised. But that's one of the reasons why you're on the podcast, because this podcast is all about authentic leaders who really understand leadership at a deep, deep level, sharing their stories in the hope that other people will give themselves permission to lead in a more authentic way and not follow the mold. Whatever the corporate mold may be. Now, there is a corporate mold for automotive. And it's very much command and control. And very rarely, you know, we give lip service to this idea of galvanizing the people around the goal and you know, getting people inspired, but we don't really spend a lot of time doing it. Bit of a generalization there. But how Jason Stocker, did you manage to get to the position you're in today and still stay true to your authentic leadership style?

Jason: 21:00

Well, there's a few contributing factors that I would point to. The first it goes all the way back to the beginning, I had my own personal aspirations since I was a young boy, that I wanted to run something, I wanted to run a business, I wanted to be responsible for something that would allow me to be able to not only create wealth, but to create something that has an impact. Regardless of what company I worked for, or if I was creating my own company, I wanted to have an impact. I think because it came so early in my life, it has sunk so deeply into my core of who I am and how I operate, because that still motivates me as much today as it did from the very beginning. In fact, it's simply grown more and more over time. So that's number one, right? It takes me all the way back to the beginning.

The second is, because of that, I was cognizant of the idea that if I'm going to somehow be running something, I need to be leading something. Early on in my educational career, as well as in my professional career, I was actively trying to identify the qualities, the traits, the capabilities of the people that I naturally would identify as a leader, and would point to that person and say, I would follow you, I would run through a brick wall for you and try to understand well, why would I? Right? There's no cookie cutter mold that each of these people came from, they're not all the same, there were different qualities from whether it be a past football coach to my accounting teacher to some of the bosses that I've had or CEOs that I've worked for, trying to grab on to these certain qualities that they had, and trying to grab on to them as something of my own because I was attracted to that. Not to say that everyone's going to be attracted to those sorts of leadership qualities, but I like it. Let me try to figure out how I can maximize that in my own leadership style. And in doing so, you know, when I combine those two, it kind of brings me to my last point, you talk about authentic leadership?

Well, I feel that nothing's more authentic in my world, than the fact that this little boy had this aspiration and wasn't going to let anything stop him. Didn't know what volition was way back then, but essentially, way back in my formidable years, as a preteen, and teenager, and so on, made this decision that I want to be a business person and I want to be a successful business person. And then translate that into figuring out well, what are these qualities that I am attracted to in these other people that I identify as leaders? And how can I somehow embrace them, bring them into my world? And have them be a part of who I am? And hopefully tap into the right qualities, right, so that other people are as well attracted to those but what makes it authentic is maybe not everyone is. But you know what, I'm gonna stick to my guns, because that's who I am. And hopefully, it's not only the best that I can be, but it's also something that other people can be attracted to from a leadership style.

Jan: 24:16

I love it. How do you bring volition, I mean, volition is something, it's who you are, right? It's this ability to make this bone deep commitment, and have confidence in something, in a goal. Even if you don't have all the answers or have a path to the goal mapped out where you have the commitment and people respond to that. Right. People see that they feel that and they want to be a part of it. But how do you bring that into leadership every day with your team right now? How do you bring volition in?

Jason: 24:47

Let me pause for a quick sec and say before I answer that, I'm going to step you back and do just a real quick 20,000 foot overview of what I define as volition. First of all, for anyone that's listening, take your opportunity to look up Sumantra Ghoshal, and the work that he did around volition, that volition is different than motivation. In fact, he's got an article that talks about the transition from motivation to volition. And that volition by how I've defined it is a absolute commitment to achieving something.That you have created a deep personal attachment to a intention , and intention, meaning, something out there that you want to achieve. To be clear for you, Jan, and anyone listening. I mean, that's where I'm coming from when I think about that word, volition.

And so how do I bring that into leadership? Well, a couple of different ways. Number one, I live it, own it and breathe it every day. I am very open and transparent about what I see as a topic that I am going to apply volition. So anybody that I am engaging with, I use this term frequently. Because I want them to see that this isn't just do as I say, not as I do kind of thing. I act with volition on a regular basis. And I identify certain intentions, certain goals, certain aspirations, and I openly tell people that, hey, I've got volition around this topic. I'm going to do whatever I need to do in order to be able to see it to the end and make sure that I either I can achieve this goal, or we collectively can achieve this goal and make it happen.

In doing so, it opens up all sorts of opportunities on a very frequent basis that wherever I see that sort of an opportunity pop up in someone else's world, I try to grab on to that. And I try to, essentially, I try to challenge them and say, listen, you've got this great opportunity right there in front of you. Imagine if you don't do anything. Imagine what the world is going to look like one or two or three years from now, if you don't do something about this. And you, of all people, have passion about this topic. That's why we're here talking about it. Because of that passion, you can easily translate that into volition, you can make that commitment. You can identify what that intention is, and you can rally people around you to help you get there. Because I've been able to go through my own personal mental transition of figuring out what volition is, what it what it meant to me, way back years ago, and translate it into this one singular word that is so powerful, I feel like it's given, it's empowered me almost with a responsibility to pass it along, to pay it forward to people around me. Because I also know that when you get to that intention, when you finally achieve that goal, how satisfying that is.

Now you don't always achieve it. Let's be realists, right? You can't set every, you don't achieve every single goal that you set, especially these lofty goals that often come with volition, but that's okay. That's why you surround yourself with people that are going to be encouraging and motivating and supportive so that when you do fall, you've got people that are going to be able to help pick you up, dust you off and figure out what our next step is to go forward. But I feel obligated, almost, now that I've been able to grab on to what this is for myself that I want to share it with people. You know, I talked about having made this transition in my life to becoming a salesperson, well, I'm selling volition. So from that standpoint, it makes me very comfortable to do that, because I'm comfortable selling. Being able to share that with people and sell them on the idea that this is a really great and powerful thing. And it's going to professionally and personally bring you a lot of great satisfaction. That makes me feel great, too.

Jan: 28:54

Yeah, I think it's a powerful word. And I also think that it's something that we're going to see more of, and we need more of, in the future. The old model where leaders would have a team of people and say, Okay, these are the metrics, these are the numbers, right, we're going to have a monthly review and look at the numbers and, you know, on we go. And then some weak statement about a mission or a vision for the company that's going to be a world class manufacturer of widget x x x, right? You know, those things that don't really inspire anybody.

But when you've got, you know, people, Gen Z, for example, right, forget Millennials because you know, they're all in the workplace, but Gen Z is not going to come work for a company that's all about the numbers. There needs to be so much more, and leaders will have to really inspire a team of people to feel that passion around a mission, around where the company is going, and understand their role and their part in that. So this idea of volition as a leader having that commitment to the goal, and so much confidence in it, and in yourself to lead a team through it, that other people feel that it's infectious. Right? That's something that we're going to need much more of in the future. I'm sure that you agree with that. But do you see it playing a bigger role in the future as a leadership model in automotive particularly evolves?

Jason: 30:27

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I look at where the automotive industry is going, and I'm really excited about it. You hear some of the CEOs of the OEMs talk, and what makes it exciting is, you think about the companies that have this kind of sex appeal. They're, they're these sexy companies that people want to work for, from the Silicon Valley to now, in automotive more recently with Tesla, there's this wow factor that comes along with them. And when you mentioned something like inspiration, you know, these are companies that aren't attracting talented people to come work for them, because of the numbers. They're doing it because they've got this sort of mission that is grander than the company, grander than the people in it, right? And that's very attractive to a lot of people, I don't care what generation you refer to whether it's Z, Millennial, X, you name it.

So from my perspective, it's absolutely getting more and more important, because, you know, I'll take General Motors and Mary Barra, I often looking and listening to the things that she's promoting, because I feel that she has recognized that not only is the industry at a major turning point with what's happening with electrification, and the fact that there needs to be a influx of passion, and an influx of motivation , to see the industry make a 90 degree turn, right? We're a 100 year old industry, and now transitioning from gasoline to electric, and it's in within my lifetime, I do believe that we're going to see that you're basically majority electric. And that's going to be a huge transition. And it's gonna take a lot of very talented, very dedicated people over the next few decades to be able to make that happen.

The fact that we are such an old industry, whether it's automotive, or when I talk about bearings, and I think about this idea of inspiration, I am constantly challenging myself and challenging my team to try to think about, well, if we're a growing company, which we are, C&U is a very fast growing bearing company in the world. And so we are regularly adding more people to our team. And so we're constantly trying to make sure that when we go to market, and we're trying to attract people to come to our company, bearings, what's sexy about bearings? Who graduates high school and says, I want to be in bearings for the rest of my career. I can tell you that those words didn't come out of my mouth when I was graduating high school or even college. But here I am, right, a couple decades later and still in the bearing world.

How do we make sure that we can have a mission inside our company that creates this sort of inspiration so that we can attract these people? And not only because the fundamentals are good, right? Look at our numbers, look at our growth, look at our profit, right? Okay, fine, all good stuff. But look at how companies like Apple or Google or Amazon, market themselves to the population for trying to be able to attract talented people to come work for them, we have to use that same sort of approach, that same sort of philosophy to be able to bring them into the automotive setting or into the bearing world.

Jan: 33:49

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's about mission, purpose driven companies that also have a strong brand. And brand is much more than just the brand of the product itself. I think people often miss out on the fact that a brand is all about how you behave as a company and as individuals in the company. And this is to use your idea of volition, right? That's part of who you are, your brand, which is now part of the C&U brand for the Americas, but everybody has to live, eat and breathe those values of that brand. And that's not easy when you have people coming in from other companies, when you're dealing with different cultures, your Chinese owned, there are multiple different cultures going on in your company. So how do you how do you deal with that complexity? You know, you're very clear, you're very focused, you know, who you are and what you want the culture to be. But how do you handle all this complexity coming in to make sure that it sustains itself?

Jason: 34:49

Well, let me approach that from a couple of different angles. Because when you talk about complexity, one of the biggest educations that I've had in my career is cultural complexity and being able to work within a multinational environment, you say, C&U is a Chinese company, but we're multinational, just like my having come from SKF is a Swedish company or NSK, a Japanese company, sure, they may have elements of the home country that are ingrained into the culture of the company. But being multinational like that, like I say, one of my greatest educations in my career has been how to work within that environment. Number one, being able to learn about how to work within different cultures is absolutely important. So the fact that I've gone through my own personal education like that, by no means suggesting that I'm some sort of an expert, but where I have my learnings, how do I bring that to the team?

Well, from a leadership standpoint, I have, I feel a personal responsibility that I can coach, mentor, and teach the team and make sure that they've got as well, great tools for being able to work well in this sort of a multinational environment. Because the way that they may be communicating a particular message to somebody that is coming from a Chinese background, or a German background, or a French background or Brazilian, there are some slight differences that I've been, that I've learned over the years, that I think make an important difference to make sure that you can be effective in that sort of a global environment. And the fact that we're always operating from an automotive perspective in this global environment. From my standpoint, one of the key elements of leadership that I'm trying to always help the team with is around this idea of being able to manage within multiple cultures.

Jan: 36:43

When we talk about a high performing team, every leader wants a high performing team, right? Well, how do you achieve that, is volition, your thing? Is that the one thing that stands out in your mind? Talk to me about that, about a high performance team.

Jason: 36:43

Yeah, well, for starters, to create a high performing team, it's not easy. One of the things that I've also tried to do throughout my career is wherever I saw things that I felt were really difficult to achieve, I would try to ask as many senior people as possible, people that I felt had had lots of experiences, and would likely be able to share with me from their experiences, how to do certain things. Team building is one of those. And why I say it's not easy is that to get to a high performing team, there's a few important elements that you've got to be able to have in play. One of those elements is that you've got to have a team that clicks . Like it or not, personalities have to be able to work well with one another. And if you recognize that there are personalities within the team that just simply don't work well together, you're never going to be able to have a high performing team with that group.

And like it or not, it's one of the things that you may recall from when you and I first met that I talked about, conflict management is, in my opinion, one of the worst managed issues in the corporate world. Because every company that I've worked for has done a poor job in how they do conflict management. They don't teach their managers how to manage conflict. If you have a poor performing person, most companies don't have “how to manage a poor performing person” training class. You're typically kind of thrown into the fire, and you've got to, for the most part, figure it out for yourself. So why I bring that up with a high performing team is, I've had lots of experiences throughout my career where certainly I've got a task to be able to organize this team, turn them into a high performing team, achieve certain goals and so on. But yet, in the midst of doing that I recognize, well, there's some toxic performers in here. Fortunately, through having some good managers and mentors in the past, I’ve been able to figure out the ways to do that.

But from a conflict management standpoint, you've got to really go straight to the core. Having listened to a lot of your podcasts, over the time that you've been doing these, one of the elements that I always listen for is whether or not they're talking about conflict management. Because to get to that high performing team, and to have a successful group of people working together, in my opinion, that is at the top of the list of the one thing that you've got to be able to address. Because coming back to what I was saying earlier, you know, everyone's got to click. That doesn't mean that they're all cut from the same mold and have the same personality and think the same way. You don't want a, you know, a “yes man” sort of a situation. But you all have this common goal. And you are all clicking from a personality standpoint to be able to work off of one another and feed off of one another. And if you've got these sort of toxic personalities that are somehow intermixed in there, all it takes is one. And that can not only make it difficult, I've had my experiences where it can essentially ruin what you're trying to accomplish with that sort of a team.

That's the number one thing that's always on my mind about a high performing team. You asked, or you mentioned in your question about volition, certainly volition becomes a part of it right. But it becomes a part of it once you've got the team gelling, once the team is actually working as a team, right? And there's that camaraderie of what you're trying to achieve from a common goal. And that goal can then be a part of what you then translate into volition.

Jan: 40:45

Yes, and I think that we, as leaders, you know it depends, it goes back to mindset, and volition is very much about mindset. I think many people see the role as a leader, as the person who sits at the head of the table, barks out the agenda, right, and says, you know, basically, I'm going to hold you responsible and accountable for these metrics. And if you don't perform, you’re outta here, right, there's a little bit of that sometimes in leadership model. But I think the leadership model of the future is heading much more into a servant leadership model, and certainly more of an authentic leadership model, whereby, as a leader, you see yourself as more of a coach. That you are supporting the people on your team. And you're right, you know, even in a coaching role, you do everything you can to help the person get there, right, to understand the behaviors that that support the culture, whether or not they are exhibiting those behaviors or not. And having those conversations early on with the right mindset of as the leader, I'm here to help you and support you, and get on track.

But sometimes, at the end of the day, there are toxic players out there, and you have to deal with it. And we've talked about this topic before. And what I've found is that you've got to give everybody the opportunity to see the behavior and the impact their behavior is having on people. But at the end of the day, if it's just not changing, you got to deal with it. Where it gets tricky, is when the toxic player is the top performer and gets the numbers. And I love listening to Gary Vaynerchuk on this issue, and he just has no tolerance for it at all. He says, You know what, there's a toxic player, they gotta, you know, get the f out of here, because he drops f bombs all the time. And I believe, as I look back on my experience, over three decades of it, it's so true. I have tolerated the toxic employee because they brought in the numbers or were able to do some magic that nobody else could do.

And I have also taken out the toxic player, even though they had a good reputation for producing whatever field they were in. And I will say that the damage that toxic player does in terms of the culture, and the inability to move your team forward into that high performing realm is far greater than whatever they're doing as an individual contributor. They could be the best, either the sales guy or purchasing guy on the planet. But if they are that, if they're creating that toxic culture, it holds everybody else back. And then you're not able to get that multiplier effect to really get that team moving in a high performance direction. So it's not easy, and you're right, there's a lot more discussion, a lot more training and coaching that we need to need to give leaders so that they're comfortable handling these situations. And I'm sure you would agree, Jason, you got to catch it early. The moment you see a behavior with somebody on your team that's not in line with the culture or the way you think it should be, you have to have that discussion. It's like having kids. If they misbehave, and you don't do anything, that's acceptance. You're saying you saying that it's okay. And you see it when people send scathing emails when they misbehave, for want of a better term, in a meeting, as a leader if you don't deal with that, like right away, then I think you're asking for trouble.

Jason: 44:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, you remind me of a couple of other topics that are kind of related to that, right. You know, a high performing team, you mentioned, identifying the toxic individual or people and trying to address it as quickly as possible. Well, failure is a great way to learn . And I can tell you, I've failed in that instance. I have acknowledged the fact that hey, there's this toxic individual in the team, and I've allowed it to happen, and then too much time passes, and it becomes even more and more difficult to do something about it right. Well, again, you don't get this handbook handed over to you, that gives you all the answers about how to deal with conflict management and in toxic individuals.

I mentioned failure because, whether it's from a leadership perspective, or a high performing team, that's another aspect that I am constantly reminding my team that failure is okay. It's okay to fail. In fact, I encourage you to fail. I'd rather you do something, take action, do something. And if it fails, you know what, that's okay, there's nothing that you can do that is going to, it's going to be such a catastrophe that the company is going to go under, or you're going to ruin our business somehow. So wipe that fear from your brain. I'm telling you, be comfortable, be confident, make decisions, ask for help when you need to . And if we need to change course because something got messed up, okay that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. I'd rather have that, than have you stuck in some sort of a stalemate and not do anything.

\

Jan: 46:00

Yeah, you're right. Fear, fear will hold people back, they will hold things in. And you're just going to get people who are just going through the motions, right. They come to work, or they get, jump on their computer in the morning and do the absolute minimum. And there is so much potential out there in people, in humans, in the workforce today. Gallup ran a study and they said that only 30%, and I would suspect that that number is lower in automotive, only 30% of people in the workforce truly feel inspired and engaged. And feel that that volition, and that passion, and fully engaged in into what they're doing. That number not too long ago was 15%. So it did jump up to 30, but I think it's lower than that in auto.

Jason: 46:58

Well, if you go back to Sumantra Ghoshal, and what he had observed, he was at the 10% level. That's the segment of your company that is truly acting with inspiration, acting with volition, only 10%.

Jan: 47:13

If you only got a piece of equipment on the shop floor operating 10%, right, you'd be like, going out of your mind. Yet when it comes to people, we’re, I’m not gonna say we're okay with that, but sort of, you know, we're like, oh, yeah, okay, well, yeah. All right, nice, soft stuff sounds a bit soft to me. People sometimes talk about human skills or soft skills, which drives me up the wall, because they're not soft skills. They are indeed, the things that we talk about in authentic leadership, are the things that will inspire people, will drive employee engagement, will get better results for the company. But yet, I think there's, oh it's soft skills. You know, it's not.

Jason: 47:53

What you had said earlier reminded me of, and what you're saying now reminds me of the same thing that, you know, when you talk about people skills, I remember when I'm the employee, and I'm looking to my boss over my career, the thing that I wanted him or her to give me the most was just give me the tools. Right, give me a little bit of direction and give me the tools, whether those are physical tools, or developmental tools, whatever that may be. Just give me the tools. And with those tools, I can go get the job done. You know, you flip the coin. It's not a conflict management issue at that point, but from a leadership perspective, I often think about that, because I as well often question, am I giving my team the adequate tools so that they can go and be successful? You talk about a high performing team? Well, I got to be able to give them the tools, as well, so that they can go do it. If I'm not doing that, well, then I'm not delivering to my team. And they have room to complain. They could say, Jason, why are you asking me to do xy and z, when you know that I need these things in order to be able to go do that? Okay, well, let's figure out what our plan is to go get you the things that you need so that you can go do the job.

Jan: 49:08

Jason, we talked a lot about authentic leadership. Gravitas is the hallmark of authentic leadership. What is gravitas to you?

Jason: 49:20

I've thought a lot about this, Jan, because the challenge that I have whenever I think of how to answer this question, or hearing, you know, the whole name of your podcast Finding Gravitas, the easiest answer that I come up with is there is a “it” factor. I don't have probably the perfect way of defining that but when I think about “it” factor I go back to what I was saying earlier. I think about the people in my life that I am attracted to as a leader, and every single one of them had some sort of an “it” factor. The natural attraction for me, probably because of my sales background and so on, is someone that is having a more extroverted style, having, they're having great abilities to be able to tell a story and articulate what it is they're trying to say. And more importantly, if they're trying to inspire me, where it is they want to take me, where do they want to go? Why am I going to come along for the ride with you? And they convinced me along the way. And that may happen over the course of one speech, that may happen over the course of months or years.

But these sorts of qualities about that gravitas, I mean, I think about that a lot, because it's something that I feel doesn't get said, because even I've struggled with, how do you say something like this without sounding egotistical? But I'll say it, right, I want to be a good leader. I want a legacy to be created over time that people might say, hey, this guy was a really good leader. I enjoyed working with him, I enjoyed working for him. And I enjoyed the journey that I got to go on as a result of being in his sphere somehow. Yeah, I want to do that, I will admit it. And so I'm constantly trying to figure out what are the ways that I can have that gravitas. That I can capture the attention of the audience in such a way that I'm going to be able to bring them along for the ride.

And I think about my style, I've created my own style. And I've got a very energetic style, I try to articulate myself in as good a way as possible, I try to think through and prepare myself as much as possible and all the way back to the first time that you and I met, you saw my style. And that's a style that I've been developing throughout my career. And I anticipate I will continue to develop and evolve as I go through the remainder of my career. But I attribute that style to, this is my version of gravitas. This is my authenticity of who I am, and how I am going to be as a leader. If I can't translate this through to you in a few minutes or less, then I'm not doing an effective job as demonstrating my ability to be a leader or having any sort of gravitas, having that “it” factor.

Jan: 52:15

Yeah, very well said, I would agree with you. And I think this, the storytelling ability is a subject that doesn't get enough attention these days, either. But if you're going to have volition, if you're going to have confidence in a goal, if you're going to exude that confidence into a team to inspire a team, you have to be able to bring them in at a deep emotional level. And that requires the storytelling ability. And it's not a skill set that I think, can you learn it? Yeah, there's probably there's probably ways to learn it, you know, the Donald Miller book story brand, which I had read, no not “had to read”, I mean, I read for my business, which talks about how to how to build a story, a brand, and how to lay out a website because you tell a story, you bring people into the story. And there's a great structure in that. And I'll drop a link into the show notes for people who are interested in that. But with a lot more attention, we need a lot more attention into these kinds of things, and more importantly, time.

And what happens when we get into these roles into these leadership jobs, right away, we spend, we tend to dive into the detail immediately, right. We get into the task, and the data, and the numbers. And then then we spend it you know, we spend as much time as we can with the people on the team and do the one on ones. But we almost need to reverse that right? We almost need to spend more time, one on ones with people doing the storytelling, understanding where people are coming from, supporting them, coaching them, then we do on the tasks. But what I found is that as a leader in automotive that I was judged by how deep I got into the detail. And if I employed my authentic leadership style, which is to spend more one on one time with my team, then I was judged harshly and severely for doing that and not being into the detail enough. So what do you what do you think about that?

Jason: 54:28

Oh, it's… The there's two things that I want to comment on in there. Number one, I'll come back to the first one while it's on my mind is storytelling. I want to come back to that. But I mentioned earlier about constantly seeking inputs from seasoned veterans that I felt were good leaders and might be able to somehow educate and inform me, and one of the common questions I would ask was about work life balance, because admittedly, throughout my career, my wife will attest to this, I’m a workaholic. I mean, there's no denying it. A 60-70 Hour work week is the standard work week for me. And I always thought, what the hell am I doing wrong? I must be doing something wrong because I see other people that I feel are successful, and it doesn't look like they're working as hard or as long as I am, I must be doing something wrong.

So let me ask these leaders, these people that have climbed the corporate ladder and gotten into vice president, President and CEO type positions, and see if I can find someone that will finally be straight with me, just tell me the straight story. Work life balance, is that a bunch of crap or what? Well, I've come to my own personal conclusion, after my experiences, and after hearing as much feedback as I can gather, and I’ll for sure continue to keep asking these sorts of questions. But it's very difficult, from a hours standpoint is very difficult. Well, let me let me be clear what I mean by very difficult, in my opinion, to get to a high level of success in terms of leadership in terms of your career position, and so on, you've got to put in the hours. And you got to put in a lot of hours, and I'm of the opinion, I buy into the 10,000 hour rule, I want to be an expert. And to be an expert means you have to put in the time and effort in order to be able to develop your skill set so that you can be getting close into that realm of expertise. From that standpoint, that work life balance, what I've come to the conclusion of is you have to be able to define that for yourself. And don't define it in terms of hours.

What that means is, sure, I may work those hours, but you know, I've created a work life balance for myself that allows me to enjoy my professional time, and my personal time. And I'll cut to the chase, I'll tell you right what it is, I wake up at three or four in the morning. I get my workouts in when I can early in the morning, I've recognized that I'm a morning person, my thoughts are much more clear and quick in the morning, because when five o'clock rolls around, if someone comes to me with some critical issue that they want to talk about, that's going to take 30 or 60 minutes of my day, let's talk tomorrow, because you're not going to get a whole lot out of me, because I've just burned 12 to 14 hours of my day by the time we get to the end of the normal work day. Well, what that does is it gives me the opportunity then with kids in sports, or wanting to do things with my wife, I've got the whole evening. You know, maybe I don't always get as much sleep as my doctor might suggest I do. But that's the reality.

I've always asked that question. And if someone listening to this is wondering the same question for themselves, well, there's no great answer for that. I haven't found the vice president or higher type job that is a 40 hours a week or less kind of a job. Work life balance is something that I'm very aware of in my life, and as I learn more about how I can best balance that, I am very much promoting that as well to the to the people that I work with whether they're reporting to me or not, right. You've got to be able to find your own personal work life balance and don't let hours worked somehow be the definition to that.

Jan: 58:12

Yeah, it's a good point. And as I started in my career, and probably well into my career, too, there was this idea that, you know, you had to be, before the days of working from home, right, and the days that I worked in a manufacturing plant, you had to be in the plant late. You had to be in there early, and you had to be there late. And you were considered weakened, less of a human being, if you didn't follow that model, right. And then the guys that would come in and say, you know, I haven't taken a vacation day in five years, right? Well, you idiot. What? What? But it was worn as a badge of honor. Right? And there's still a little bit of that out there in some companies. But we cannot. We are human beings and you need to live a life that's right for you. You have control over your schedule. And people say to me sometimes, oh, well, I don't, my company this, my company that, no, no, no, no, no. You. It's how you work, how you show up at work, it's the value that you attach to work and family and other things in life that will determine, you can call it balance. There are just simply there's decisions that you make every day.

And when I was a working mother, a single mother with a VP job with an international travel schedule, I did not miss one of my daughter's events, whether it was a ballet recital or whatever it was. Now I missed a few practices, baseball practices. Thank God because they're awful when kids are young, and boring as hell... Oh, did I say that? But I didn't miss anything, because I made a choice, I made a decision. And there were days that I made a decision to put work first, and I was in the office 12-14 hours, and there were days that I put my family first. It was no, it was never an all or nothing, there are simply decisions that you make every single day of your life, and you make them in line with your values or you don't. And if you don't make those decisions in line with your values, you end up feeling conflicted, and you know, tearing yourself apart, and you and you feel guilty for one instead of the other. And I went through all of that. And once I realized, Hey, this is my life, I'm going to run it the way I want to run it. I showed up, I was far more authentic, and I was much happier. So I don't think there's any one answer. You know, just like you said, there are only… It's you, It's up to you how you want to run your life.

Jason: 1:00:52

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is my version of how I'm defining my way of working and, you know, to tie it back to your earlier comment about the whole why I bring up the whole work life balance is, you're asking about knowing the dirty details, as well as being able to operate at a high level. Well, again, reflection on my career, that you're always, I've always been pulled in both of those directions. And so that is a driver for why the hours come into play. Because I've always felt I do need to know the details, at least on the topics that I know are important to our company or to my leadership that I need to report to, and make sure that I'm managing things at that level. And then as well, being able to step back, take that 20,000 foot overview, and still act as that sort of aspirational leader as well.

Jan: 1:01:49

Yeah, it's not an easy thing to do. It is not, but it goes back to mindset, right. It's who are you as a leader, knowing the leader that you want to be. And I found that when you start a new job with a new company, you know, it's you're not able to operate the way that you'd like to operate. I've always thought that I wanted to work myself out of a job so that the team was so strong, and performing at such a high level that they didn't need me. And honestly, my last role, I remember going on vacation, and I think it was in Wales or something, I was gone for about two weeks. And I didn't get one phone call. And I said you know, that's it, they got it, the team's got it. They don't need me. And it's a little bit unsettling for a minute, right. But that's what, that's what good leaders do, right? You get the team they're in, they're in control, they know what they're doing, they can figure, work away through any problem. And then that way, you have the headspace to move into that creative zone where you're looking forward most of the time. You know, what a wonderful place to be.

Jason: 1:03:02

Well, and it reminds me to come back to this storytelling piece, right? Because when you are able to step back, and have those times where you can think broader, think longer term, in my experience, storytelling is for my style has become an essential tool at how I'm able to then start to move the team in that direction. Another couple of simple words put together that I've stood by for a long time now is “imagine if.” I love telling stories where I can start, “Imagine if our world looked like this, imagine if we could do this, or if we could do that? And what kind of impact would that have on you?” And typically, you know, I'm trying to push the envelope, and I'm trying to paint a picture of what a world could be that most people would say, ah, Jason, come on, you're crazy. There's no way that that's possible. Well, you know, what, imagine if. What if it is possible, then what would you have to say about that? What if we could accomplish that sort of a goal? All right, well, let's set our mind to figuring out how we're going to accomplish that goal. So storytelling is, you know, a very important part of not only that authentic leadership, that gravitas, and developing that high performing team. I mean, it all ties in together.

Jan: 1:04:16

Yes, it does. And that is a beautiful way to end our time together today. Jason Stocker, you are indeed an authentic leader. And I know that you're building a very strong High Performance Team, and I wish you all the best.

Jason: 1:04:32

Jan, thank you very much for having me.

Jan: 1:04:35

It's been a pleasure.

1:04:40

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast and you found something of value that will help you on your quest for your Gravitas, then please share with your friends and colleagues and subscribe. Visit us at Gravitasdetroit.com to find out more.