Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast
“Inspiring Employee Growth: Keys to Employee Engagement and a Thriving Business“
October 23, 2023
Robb Wilson
Intro: How does your organization live out your values across the organization? Well, today on number 360 of the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, my guest is Robb Wilson, the third-generation leader of the family business, Wilson Lumber. And he'll highlight how a growing and thriving business can provide a healthy workplace where employees are engaged and inspired to grow.
Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.
Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.
I’m delighted to welcome Robb Wilson to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast today. Robb is the CEO of Wilson Lumber. He's the third generation to lead this thriving business in north Alabama. Their mission is to build a successful company that upholds Christlike principles and inspires people to grow.
Throughout our conversation, you’ll hear Robb talk about keys to building trust between leaders and employees through leadership development; a three-level approach to hiring for character, competence, and culture; proven techniques for inspiring and developing front-line managers; ways a healthy culture impacts his company financially; benefits to being involved in a peer group like C12; and the legacy he hopes to leave for the future.
I know that you're going to love this interview with Robb Wilson. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces new leadership and group-coaching program. We can help you transform your leadership effectiveness with our stakeholder-based coaching process. Learn more by going to workplaces.org/coaching, and check it out today.
And I'd like to welcome our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.
But now let me tell you a little more about Robb Wilson. Robb's the CEO of Wilson Lumber. He started working for the family business when he was 12 years old, helping to load customers’ lumber in the lumber yard and mowing the grass. And since then, he's held positions throughout the company and learned the business from the inside out. Robb loves Wilson Lumber and its people. His efforts center around accomplishing their mission statement, to build a successful company that upholds Christlike principles and inspires people to grow.
Wilson Lumber is a building-materials firm in north Alabama, specializing in lumber, doors, windows, and trusses. Wilson Lumber has been a family owned and operated for three generations. And since 1949, Wilson Lumber has supplied homebuilders in the Huntsville, Alabama and the surrounding area. Today, the thriving materials supplier is led by the third generation of the founder, Clyde J. Wilson.
Well, I know that you're going to love to hear my conversation with Robb Wilson.
Hey, Robb. It’s great to have you on the podcast.
Robb Wilson: Well, it’s an honor to be with you.
Al: Well, Robb, let's start off. Your grandfather, Clyde Wilson, started Wilson Lumber in 1949. You're not far from your 75th-year anniversary coming up. And it's been a family-owned and -operated business since then. So share with us a little bit about the company and then some of the unique challenges and opportunities that you face as a leader in a family company with a strong legacy like yours, especially as you lead into today's market with an eye in the future. Give us a little background.
Robb: Well, I definitely can't claim the strong legacy as my work. I'm 30 years, actually, full time now, after college. But, you know, when my granddad started with his brother-in-law, it was just so different back then. Times were different, and the company was different. And now we've grown a lot, of course, but he was more of a—and I mean this word in a nice way—but he was authoritarian. He was, you know, he had the best way to do things, and that was, you know, that was the way that you did it, and you didn't question it. And that's okay. That worked.
Well, the second generation comes along, his sons, and they were a little more passive, and they put other people in charge of things, and then that's all good, and that was very good. And I guess I'm a little bit of a combination of both. But it is still, when you use the word family company, I think that's accurate. I think it still is very much a family company. And, you know, after me, will the next person that runs it be a Wilson? I don't know. But I do hope to keep that family thing.
I think the biggest difference in how Granddad did it and my dad and uncles did it and how I do it is more of a—as the CEO, my primary responsibilities are vision; vision casting, you know, making sure we've got our eye on the future and where we're going; and clear goals; and then culture. And I take culture very, very seriously. And I want to, like you said, family company. I want to keep that family feel to it. And so we've done our best to define what that should look like and then work toward that.
Al: Yeah. And Robb, you know, as we've talked before, you're following the entrepreneurial operating system model, the EOS model. And again, you’re the visionary. You're playing the visionary role, and you've got a president that's playing the integrator role. So I love it that you've kind of defined company culture as one of the your primary focuses as well as vision.
I was just looking, just to give everybody a sense of scope, Wilson Lumber has, what, 300 employees? You make a couple hundred thousand doors and windows a year. You deliver millions of board feet of lumber every year. You're driving three quarters of a million miles in your various delivery trucks. You've got quite an operation there, for sure. Yeah.
Now, you know, Wilson Lumber’s been using the Best Christian Workplace Employee Engagement Survey now for four years, and you've had steady improvement in your workplace culture over time. And just really grateful, and I appreciate your leadership and bringing the culture into a very healthy position. But we find that organizations that continue to improve have a CEO, like yourself, that champions the importance of focusing on workplace culture and engaged leaders, you know, throughout the organization to take ownership and implementing changes that need to be made. So what's your experience been, Robb? How do you engage your senior team members and managers throughout the organization to understand the results of your Survey? And how do your leaders and teams decide what changes to implement to see improvements in the employee engagement and workplace culture across the different segments of the company?
Robb: Yeah. It's such a big question. You know, one of our core values is get the facts. And what we mean by that is, I don’t know, I guess what Jim Collins would talk about, face the brutal facts. But we want to make sure we have all the right information before we make decisions, or enough of the right information, at least. And so in a way, doing the Survey is just part of getting the facts. It’s just part of making sure that we're doing this thing the right way.
But I think through with that kind of question is what my friend David Theuies, he says, you got to be willing to fail forward, you know, make a mistake, but learn and keep moving forward. That’s kind of his term is fail forward. And when you try something and it doesn't work, doesn't mean that something wasn't worth doing; you just tried it the wrong way. And I don't know if you have it in front of you, but I think our scores the first and second year were exactly the same. Like, we did all that work and didn't raise it at all. And it was really kind of frustrating. But it was failing forward. “Well, okay. Well, that didn’t work. Let’s try it this other way.”
So I think the key to your question is it's a little different as far as how do I do it versus how I make sure all my managers are engaged in it. And I'm not sure I've got a wonderful answer for you. All I know is that I'm passionate about it, and I'm asking about it, and I'm following it. And when they're in their meetings, their follow-up meetings with Cary, I'm in there with them. And so I don't know. Is it a lead-by-example thing? I'm not totally sure, but I do find that what I'm passionate about they're passionate about as long as I'm willing to hold them accountable and define success for them.
Al: Yeah. Exactly. As you say, just looking at your results in that first two years, first two Surveys, yeah, exactly the same score, which is really unusual. So there you were, I'm sure. And Robb, thanks for hanging in there and, as you say, failing forward, because that can be really frustrating. It's like, “Oh, my gosh. We've done all these things, and it really hasn't moved the needle.” But, well, you certainly figured it out, because you've moved the needle since then. Yeah.
And one of the keys that we focus on is inspirational leadership. That's a key FLOURISH factor for Christian-led businesses and for having a healthy workplace culture. And part of that is trust. It's an important part of inspirational leadership along with character qualities such as humility, integrity, and compassion. And your organization’s seen steady improvement year after year in trust. And there's some room still for a little improvement in that area. So what are some practical steps? Help our listeners—because this is such a key area, even for them, and they'd love to hear from you—some practical steps that you and your leadership team have taken to build trust. And what would you say would be a next step, even, in improving that trust in your organization between leaders and employees?
Robb: Yeah. There's a couple of key things that we've done for trust. One is that, oh, in meetings, the trust exercise that everybody hates, that they always work, you know. The whole stop-start-continue exercise or the share your hometown, hero, and hardship, I think are the three. Those kind of exercises that you go around the table, and everybody hates doing it. But, man, those things work every time, and it helps you to, you know, when you—trust is not—the best way I can describe trust, at least in a business setting and maybe personal is, “Can I trust you with the information that's about to come out of my mouth?” And that trust really seems to, in our setting, revolve around that. And if I can trust you with what I'm about to say, if I can trust what you're going to do with it, then that's the kind of trust we need to build business on. So there's that, those silly trust exercises that are not so silly.
The other thing is we built an entire curriculum—we call it Wilson Lumber Grows—and the purpose of that was to grow leaders within the company. But it just seems like every year we keep coming back to hitting on trust. It just is the foundation for everything. And it's understanding each other, and it's understanding, you know, DiSC profiles and how we like to run the company and all that. But it all is kind of based on that foundation of trust.
And even this year, we're calling it “a leader worth trusting.” That's the theme for this year. And so to some extent, Al, it's simply talking about it a lot. Is that too simple of an answer, I guess? But, you know, as far as next steps, I think that Wilson Lumber Grows is working very well. And also, our corporate chaplain is doing once-a-month training for all the managers that want to come. And that's attended fairly well.
So next would probably be to add more accountability to both of those programs. You know, we're doing the training, not doing a great job quite yet of accountability and follow up on that, but we're really close and like what we're coming up with. We're just not quite home on that yet.
Al: Robb, tell us a little bit about Wilson Lumber Grows. And you said that's a leadership program. Is that over a year-long period of time, or what is that?
Robb: It is. And speaking of failing forward, we sure did it wrong for a couple of years. When it started, it was just me, and I just kind of went around and asked a few guys, “Hey, I'm going to read this book that I heard good things about. You want to do it with me?” And so we learned a little bit from that and eventually partnered with a man named David Achata, who does some of this kind of thing. And he's helped us to put together this program.
Well, it's changed over the years, but what we've found works for us—I don't know if it works for everybody—but what works for us is every other month, two and a half hours for training, there's some pre work, there's some post work, and that's what we're working on the accountability of, and we think we're about to get there. And it's based on the three building blocks for the first round of it are going to be through DiSC profiles, just to kind of understand how we relate to each other; EOS, which is our management system; and then, the five building blocks, or what Lencioni calls the five dysfunctions of a team. We turn them into building blocks so that it's not so negative. That's the first round.
And then, each year, people that have been through that already go through whatever we feel like we need at the time, which is heavily influenced by the Best Christian Workplaces Survey. And that's why this year we've chosen “a leader worth trusting” because we're really interested in growing that inspirational leadership part of our management team.
Al: Yeah. I love it. A leader worth trusting. And who goes through this, Robb? Is this all of your key leaders or does it go down to other managers and supervisors?
Robb: If you're a supervisor of somebody or something, you go through it. And the original, we call it emerging leaders, if you're a manager and haven't been through that yet, you have to go through it. But past that, anybody can go through that. If you just want to grow your leadership skills, then you're welcome to join us in there. But if you're a leader over somebody, I don't give you a vote; I make you go through it.
Al: You go.
Robb: Yeah, right.
Al: Yeah. Well, it's the privilege of leading others, and you need to be trained in order to do that. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And I love the, you know, the focus, a leader worth trusting. What a great, great theme for some leadership development. And you also mentioned Corporate Chaplains. So that's been a worthwhile investment on your part as well.
Robb: Corporate Chaplains has been a huge win for us, and I think they would say the same. There's just been a lot of good things that have come from that. The thing is, with a company that—and I think we're at 315 employees or something right now. We were smaller when we joined Corporate Chaplains. But once you get above 10 or 20 people, there's only so much that I as the CEO can really invest in people. And even then, there's going to be some of those people that won't let me invest in them because I'm the CEO. And we've found our relationship with Corporate Chaplains just to be very, you know, I should say we have the best chaplain in the world. Everybody probably says that. But they’re wrong, and I’m right. Bill Chapman is just an amazing chaplain for us and does a great job. And we actually have two because we have one location that's too far away for Bill to get to and Jason Kline. But both of those guys are amazing.
Al: Well, it certainly can be a challenge to find and keep quality employees at all levels of a business like yours. You've got production people. You've got customer-service people. You've got drivers. How do you find or what have you found to be important in the recruitment and interview process to hire people who are a good fit for your culture and who have the skills to do the job? So, you know, both the, let's say the character, the competence, and the chemistry to fit into your culture. And then, you know, once you hire somebody, how do you onboard them so that they can contribute to be sure that the healthy workplace continues and grows at Wilson Lumber?
Robb: It's not terribly easy to get hired at Wilson Lumber, I think. There's three interviews for any position. And the first interview is going to be the supervisor of that position, and they're going to be interviewing for competence and for culture, but heavy on competence. Can this person drive a truck? Can this person sell? whatever the competence is that’s needed. The second interview is that supervisor's supervisor, and it's going to be based half on competence and half on culture. And if they get through that interview, then the third interview is either myself or the company president. And we're really just focused on culture during that interview, just making sure that it's going to be a fit. And so many cases, I don’t know if that person’s going to be a good truck driver or salesman or manager or not. I'm too far removed from that. But I do know if they're going to fit our culture. And so if you can make it through all three of those interviews, chances are you're going to be a pretty good fit. No, it's not perfect at all. And it's important.
You mentioned the follow up, which is just really a big deal. Our president often meets with people who have been with the company a month or two months, and he always asking the same question, “Is this the company we sold you when we were interviewing?” Interviewing is a two-way street. You're not doing them any favors to convince them to come work for you if they're not going to be a good fit. And so it's a two-way street. And I encourage people while I'm interviewing them, “You should be interviewing me as much as I'm interviewing you.” And so we want to make sure that we're painting a proper picture of the company while we're doing interviews. And so the new-employee orientation is fairly involved. There's those follow-up meetings that our president has. There are, in this case, many more steps that we want to do. We're currently looking at some sort of mentoring-coaching program and things like that where we can help to integrate people more successfully.
Al: Well, I love that. First of all, you're looking at multiple levels of the organization, you know, with an interview with the president or yourself as a third level and really looking at culture, and then, you know, a month or two later—I love this. I haven't heard much of this—a month or two later, having an interview and say, “Is this the company that we actually sold you?” because that gives you that continual feedback loop of, “Well, did we speak the truth?” And that speaks so much of integrity and building integrity right there. “Was this the company we sold you to start with as we went through the interview?”
Now, I'm sure you talk about your core values in these interviews with culture. Is that one of the key things? And maybe you could tell us what your core values are. People are always interested to know what a unique company's core values are.
Robb: It's the key thing. And in fact, in the interview forms that each person does, there's a checkbox for, “Did you cover the core values with the potential team member?” And so in each interview, there's at least supposed to be a walking through of the core values. Once it gets to me, it's a little more detailed because when I'm going through the core values, I'm explaining a little more about what they're about. So the first core value is always do the right thing. And I explain to people that that means that in any situation, we're going to choose what is most fair for everyone involved. Many times the situations you're going to find yourself in, there's a policy or procedure to do whatever it is that you have to do. But when it comes time to make a decision about something and it's not in a procedure book, just do what is most fair for everyone involved.
The second core value is treat others the way you want to be treated. And here's where I usually say something along the lines of, “Jesus said that. It’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for us.” He said a lot of other things while He was saying that. And then often I'll say, “You know, He said, ‘Treat others the way you want to be treated.’ But that’s not actually what He meant. He meant treat others the way they want to be treated and how they deserve to be treated. So that's with kindness and respect and understanding. That's the way we should be treating each other.”
A quick side note here is that so many people see that “treat others the way you want to be treated,” and they write it off as, “Well, I just want you to deal direct with me. So that's how I am with people.” Well, that’s not exactly what Jesus was saying there.
So the third core value is get the facts, and that just means don't jump to conclusions before you make a decision on something. And that's a big deal, and I've got many examples where that's tripped us up. So get the facts is important.
The fourth core value is be responsible for your actions. And the fifth core value is challenge yourselves to grow. And with those last two core values, as I found, unless you can help me out right here, right now is not really something that I can teach as much as it is those are the types of people that I'm looking for. I think those might be things that you learn before you’re five. Be responsible for your actions, and challenge yourself to grow.
Al: That’s great. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I love the Golden Rule there as your second one: treat others the way you want to be treated, and that allows you to kind of, you know, that's just really good common sense, but it does bring it back to Jesus, the One that said that. So. Yeah, yeah. Five great core values. Thanks. Appreciate it.
I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.
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Al: And welcome back to Robb Wilson, the CEO of Wilson Lumber.
Now, as we think about day-to-day operations, having great team leaders and front-line supervisors certainly are key to engaged employees. And what does a high-quality supervisor in your business look like? What are some of the attributes and qualities that you see in someone who's doing a great job leading their team? And does your company encourage and build these front-line supervisory and management skills?
Robb: This is how we went about building Wilson Lumber Grows, in many cases. When we first started with the program of Wilson Lumber Grows, the situation we had was a whole lot of management positions open and a whole lot of employees that weren't in management working for us, but nobody applying for those open management positions. And I just couldn't understand that. And I boiled down to, well, it's got to be one of a couple of things. One, either it's just really rotten to be a manager at Wilson Lumber, and I suppose that's a possibility, but that didn't really feel right. The other thing could be that there's lots of people out there that could be leaders, but nobody ever looked them in the eye and said, “I think you could be a leader.” And that's when we started building Wilson Lumber Grows around, “Okay. How do we encourage people to have that potential to grow within the company? I mean, our why is to inspire people to grow. Well, this is how we do it.”
Well, pretty soon that led to, “Okay. How do we build Wilson Lumber Grows? What are we trying to build it toward?” And so we did exactly what your question asks, which is, you know, who are the good managers? What defines those people? And particularly in the manufacturing, or I hate this terminology, but unskilled-labor world, there seems to be a lot of managers who—Al, I just don't know of a nice way to say—they don't treat people like they're people. They just have the thing that's got to get done and get the thing done. And it just boils down to treating people like people. I want managers who get the most out of their people because their people love working for them, not because they're the best chess-piece movers or slave drivers or whatever.
And so back to what you said a second ago, treat others the way you want to be treated, it was a little too vague, that core value. And so that's when we added the additional flavor. It means being kind, respectful, and understanding toward others. And so we literally chose the names of good managers and built Wilson Lumber Grows to make everybody like that. And that's the one that stands out, the kind, respectful, and understanding toward others.
Al: Yeah. So in a sense, people aren't the means to the end, and treating them with dignity as well as, as you say, kindness and respect. That's fantastic. Yeah. And what a difference that makes. No question.
Well, you know, people also want to be engaged in meaningful work, you know, work that has meaning and purpose, and know that their work really matters. And so one of the high scores that you've got is related to what we consider life-giving work, and really thrilled to see this because, you know, you're in the lumber business, you know, how’s that adding to people's lives? Well, you're communicating that to them. And in fact, they really appreciate the mission and goals because that helps them realize their work is important.
Also, I like, you know, people feel dignity because you're actually giving them responsibilities. You're putting them in the jobs—you know, as I'm looking at your Survey results—you're putting them in the jobs where they're able to use their skills, and you're not micromanaging them. That's coming out clearly, which is part of that, I think, is part of the kindness and respect that you're talking about.
So having a solid home, for example, with good windows, good doors, you know, it's important for families in your community, but sometimes in a manufacturing or supply business, it's hard to help people see the value of what they do. So how do you and your team impart the sense of value and the importance of their work every day?
Robb: Yeah. You couched that really well, because there is a matter of making sure a door we build is good quality because someday it's going to go on the kid's room and all that. And that's true. That is true. However, I don't think it's as much as could be. Our mission statement is to build a successful company that upholds Christlike principles and inspires people to grow. Now, if I have the option of my work having meaning because the door won't squeak when Junior opens it or inspiring people to grow, I'll take inspiring people to grow on that. Now, we built good doors so that they don't squeak if they're installed correctly.
But our why truly is to inspire people to grow. And so that's why we give back a lot. That's why we have an employee benevolence fund for when employees get in trouble. That’s why we partner with local ministries every year and help in any way. That’s why we go to Guatemala three times a year and do all those kind of things. And when we're doing that, there are many employees that won't ever do those kind of things. They won't participate. But boy, are they proud to be a part of a company that goes and does those kind of things.
And I do videos every week. We’re on Workplace, which is like Facebook, except just for Wilson Lumber. And I'll do videos there. And I'm always very careful to say, “Because of your great work, we're able to do this. Because you're doing that, we're able to—join us. But if you can't, just know that you're contributing to this.” And so I suppose you'd say, I'm trying to paint the picture of why those goals, why that mission matters.
Al: So we're encouraging people to go to Guatemala, you said, you know, on mission trips and those kinds of things, right?
Robb: Well, okay. This is a little weird. So there's a local ministry called Mission Firefly. Their purpose is to connect organizations, mostly churches, in the United States with villages in Guatemala. Well, because of a longer story, we on our care team at Wilson Lumber, we're a little frustrated with not being able to help in some ways with local ministries we were partnering with. And I just happened to know the people at Mission Firefly. And so I called them, and I said, “Hey, what if—I don't know, we're not going to Guatemala—but what if we met up?” And next thing you know, we're in Guatemala. And so Wilson Lumber has a village in Guatemala that we go to three times a year, and we do Bible school or we'll do projects. The main thing is not going down there to build something or whatever. The main thing is that we go back there three times every single year and build relationships and share the love of Christ. Of course, they share it right back with us. It's been an amazing partnership.
Al: Something about inspiring people to grow.
Robb: That's right.
Al: Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Well, certainly at Wilson Lumber, I mentioned this, your employee engagement has really increased over the past few years, and you've certainly been intentional. And that's what it takes, most of the time. You know, you're intentional about your workplace culture and using the results of the Employee Engagement Survey to move things forward.
So do you see the impact on the financial health of your company as the workplace culture is improved? We're often asked that question, you know, so what's the benefit of a healthy workplace culture, and is there a financial outcome? You know, are there new opportunities that you have because of this new level of employee engagement that you're witnessing so far?
Robb: Without question, there's financial impact. I'm not sure if I can show you a mathematical equation that says as much, but I can show you lower turnover, and I can walk out onto a manufacturing floor and point out, “See, this is different. This is different. This is different.” So, I mean, yes, we're making more money now. I guess that's good. Of course, we're in the building-materials business, so in the last few years, if you didn't make money, then you're not going into work, I guess. But, Al, the opportunity is this: our why, our mission statement, to build a successful company that upholds Christlike principles and inspires people to grow, that's what we're doing through the Survey, through the Best Workplace. We are finding better and better ways to inspire people to grow. And we're finding ways that they're not growing, that they don't realize that they're not growing. But through the questions and the interviews after and all that, it's a snowball. It's, you know, you score a little better, and you see what success looks like, and you want to do more of that. And then you score a little better, and then you see what that success looks like. And then you get kind of frustrated that, “Well, that got better. But what about that over there? No, we got to fix that over there.” And so it is a snowball. It's been really great for us.
Al: Inspiring people to grow, yeah. That’s a good why in itself. And when people grow, you know, there are just multiple benefits to that, not only in their own lives, but then as a group, as an organization, as a company. Yeah. Yeah. Great.
Well, you've been active with C12, and we've been part of that, both Best Christian Workplaces, you know, we've been active with C12 and C12 leaders. And many faithful Christian business executives meet with their peers in C12 forums to encourage and challenge each other. I know that you and Cary Humphries have talked about your C12 environment and involvement. You know, what's your C12 experience meant to you? Why do you continue to do it? Why are you part of this network? And what would you say to other CEOs who are interested in considering even as well being involved in C12?
Robb: Al, the Wilson Lumber is owned by six people, so myself and my dad, two of my uncles, and their two sons. And so there's six of us. And even with that, there is the saying, “It's lonely at the top.” And I'm not trying to bring praise on myself for being at the top, but I'm the CEO. “It's lonely at the top” is even true in a 74-year-old family business, where the other owners are your dad and your two uncles and your two cousins. And C12 has—I've been in it for 17 years—has removed aloneness in just ways that I just I never thought were possible, I guess. But I have relationships with these guys, some of them for 17 years. And so I've got a problem, a complaint. If I'm going to complain about a cousin, one of my cousins, who am I going to go to? Their dad? So I mean, not that I complain about my cousins much. But I know who to call if I've got an issue. “Oh, I need to call Chad about… Oh, I need to call Mike about that.” And so that's been one major thing is just a simple removal of aloneness.
I think the benefit that is out there for more people than just the guy at the top would be the business-as-a-ministry aspect of C12. And we wouldn't go to Guatemala if it weren't for C12. We wouldn’t be partnering with Next Step Farms here in north Alabama if it weren't for C12. And so they, the C12 relationships, materials, and all of that is pointing me to the right direction to do business as a ministry. Or to Corporate Chaplains, where countless people have come to Christ at Wilson Lumber because of all that.
And I want to be careful here because there's not a template, there's not a cookie cutter that, you know, “Do these seven things, and then you have a business as a ministry.” It's different for—God calls us all to do things differently. But I thought the building-materials business was fun, and it was, but not near as fun as running a building-materials business as a ministry to make an eternal difference in people's lives.
Al: That's great, Robb. Yeah. You know, and you mentioned at the outset that you're a third-generation leader in a thriving family business. And as you look to the future, what do you want the business to look like when you pass it on? And you know, that's not going to be anytime soon, but as you pass it on to the next leader, what do you want people on your staff, your customers, your community, what do you want them to say about Wilson Lumber in 20 to 30 years?
Robb: I think that question weighs on leaders, it weighs on me, because once I retire, I don't have a vote anymore, you know. I'm giving up my rights to keep things the way they are. Or so I really, I've thought about this a lot over the years. I think that if I could script the next 50 years, what would never change is the core values and the mission. Those things would not ever change. Now, the long-term vision would change. And we have a 2030 vision, probably going to meet at the end of this year. We'll change to 2035. But other than the core values and the mission, I think it's leaving a structure and a process in place to continue that healthy growth. There's such a thing as too much growth. There's such a thing as too little growth, in our case. But I wouldn't want to leave a company where somebody has to come in and clean up after me. And that's where has been really helpful. So I think that one of my biggest contributions has been getting everybody on the same page and pointing due north. “That's due north. We're going that way. This is who we are. That's where we're going.” And so I think that's my thing. I think I want to leave a healthy company to somebody who is going to continue with the values and the mission that I put on paper. They were already there long ago, but my granddad would have never thought, “Hey, we should write our core values on paper.” That just wouldn't have occurred to him. And that's okay.
So I don't have a Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A of the building-materials world in mind. That’s not—that's great, I guess. But I do know this. I do know that we have made a positive difference in the lives, in the eternal lives, of individuals. And I think that's what we need to keep doing forever.
Al: “We've made a positive difference, an eternal difference, in the lives of people.” Wow, that's great, Robb. Yeah. To make sure that the core values and mission would continue, never change. And that having a company where you've got processes and structures in place for it to continue to grow and be successful, yeah, that's a great legacy.
Well, Robb, this has been a great conversation. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it, and I know our listeners do, too. It's been a pleasure to get to know you and a little bit about Wilson Lumber. And we just started off talking about your role, again the CEO role, the visionary role of being sure that you're creating a healthy culture and that you're in charge of the vision. And actually knowing how to measure, at least the culture aspect, and knowing how you're doing on that has been a pleasure for us to help you with that. And the importance of trust. And you're even working this year on two aspects: the Wilson Lumber Grows program for your front-line managers and supervisors, but also to a program that says a leader worth trusting. And boy, I like that as well. And your advice on interviewing, you know, three levels of interviews, and that coming back a couple of months, a month or two later, and just checking in with the new employee and saying, “Is this the company that we sold you?” and getting that feedback and kind of getting, even if it was necessary, for adjustments. You shared with us your core values. I thought those were very interesting. And as you said, those were values that the organization has had over time, just not written down. And it's important, I think, for every organization to know what really are the values, not just making aspirational values that don't connect. Yeah. The core conversation and again, the importance to you of C12 membership. And then I loved your response on, does having a higher, more engaged culture have a financial impact? But it helps you focus on your why of helping to inspire people to grow at the same time. And then, you know, your legacy conversation.
Robb, it's just been a great conversation. Thanks so much.
Now that we've had this conversation, anything that you'd like to add, any bottom-line point that you'd like to emphasize as we close our discussion?
Robb: Yeah. I think that if anything, I think I said it a second ago, but my contribution has been to get the mission and the values in front of everybody, and that's good. But I do want to be real clear that God is excellent at running a business. He's the best CEO that there ever was, and His spirit lives in me. So whatever I've said in the last while that that sounded like Robb did something good, I want to quickly say that was God doing something good, because I just want to be quick to give Him credit because there's nothing wrong with running a successful business as a ministry. And He's really good at it, and it makes it a lot more rewarding and fun when He's doing it.
Al: Amen and amen.
Robb, well, thanks so much for your contributions today. I really appreciate your commitment to upholding Christian principles in your company, inspiring people to grow. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.
Robb: Always enjoy talking to you, Al.
Al: Thanks, Robb.
Well, thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Robb Wilson. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
And you can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and the transcripts at workplaces.org/podcast.
And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have questions on the flourishing workplace cultures, please email me. My address is al@workplaces.org.
And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. To help, share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your own organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, please go to workplaces.org.
Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.
We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.
Al: And next week you're going to love my conversation with Ryan Hyde of Calvary Christian School in Bellefontaine, Ohio. He's going to share how the FLOURISH model has really worked for him in a Christian-school setting.