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Changing Organizational Culture with Steve Frenkiel, President of Dynamic Connections

In this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn DeWall sits down with the president of Dynamic Connections and Crestcom leadership development client, Steve Frenkiel, to talk about how you can change organizational culture through leadership.

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone. It’s Jenn DeWall. And on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am sitting down with Steve Frenkiel, the president of dynamic connections. And today, Steve and I are going to talk about how you can change your organizational culture through leadership. And I’m so happy to have Steve with us because he knows, and Steve knows firsthand what it’s like to walk into a new organization and think, how am I going to fit? How am I going to take ownership? How am I going to be this new leader? And what does that organization need to look like? So, Steve, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It’s really great to have you.

Steve Frenkiel:

Thanks, Jenn. A pleasure to be here.

Meet Steve Frenkiel, President at Dynamic Connections

Jenn DeWall:

Steve, tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you become the president of Dynamic Connections? What did that look like for you? I think sometimes people think about how does someone get to that executive leadership level position, and so many will take different paths. And so I’m so curious to hear what your path was like.

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. It’s definitely not a typical path. And certainly an interesting one as well. I’ll start from the beginning to give to give listeners some color. So I was an engineer originally by training, studied at McGill. I never actually worked as an engineer, but it always framed my thinking, my approach, my problem-solving. So I really valued that training. I ended up working in consulting for a few years, had a good experience, but realized I didn’t want to really sit on the sidelines of business. So from there, I was career transitioning. And I like to say I I snuck into Harvard Business school. Somehow the admissions made a slight mistake and let me into the program. So I had a really wonderful time and at HBS for a couple of years, getting exposed to lots of different disciplines.

And from there, I ended up going into finance—into a discipline called private equity, which is a field where you buy companies and work to make them better. It was a really good fit for me because of my strong financial skills, and it was still very entrepreneurial. You were working with entrepreneurs and helping them improve their business. I looked at other finance fields and decided on public markets and hedge funds. And, and that just felt way too far from entrepreneurs and business, because even at the time, this was, you know, 15 ago, I knew I had an entrepreneurial flair in me. I certainly it wasn’t going to happen at the time. I had lots of debt to pay off for school, so that wasn’t going to happen. But I knew at some point I could end up being an entrepreneur.

So private equity was a really good way to build a career and build a skillset and see what it takes to build a successful business. So I ended up doing that for a bunch of years— for about eight years— where we bought and grew a number of businesses. I worked with a number of entrepreneurs, and eventually, that itch or that plane sort of started growing. And eight, nine years later, I decided to scratch it. And I spent almost two years looking for the right business to buy. So I was trained. Yeah, I was, I was, I was trained in private equity to look for a good business, and I spent two years looking for a good business. I spoke to and evaluated over a hundred different companies in the Ontario region. Literally over 100, 120. Most of them, I turned down. And off a cold call, I discovered Dynamic Connections, and it was a good company. And the owner was willing to listen, and we got the deal done. And that’s how I became overnight—the President and Owner of Dynamic Connections.

Finding the Confidence to Make a Change

Jenn DeWall:

Which is an incredible story! And I think we didn’t even highlight some of the even challenges that you faced earlier on. Cold calling that many people to get it done! That takes a level of persistence and resilience that I think I just want to acknowledge because that is a big deal. And many people might’ve been after the first few conversations after the first few calls. Is this really where we want to be?  And that discouragement could have crept in. So what you did, it’s just, it’s fantastic. I mean, if I want to flip that back, you took everything that you are great at, your strengths, your experience, and you found the perfect opportunity to be able to let yourself shine, let yourself lead and let yourself apply all of these strengths, experiences, backgrounds, and insights that you had, which is just an incredible feat. So I really want to acknowledge that because that’s a big deal that I’m not sure everyone listening to this would say that they might’ve done the same thing because it’s hard work.

So I’m glad that you came to be. And I also did. I know we talked about this on the pre-call too, but Harvard! You know, I am not an Ivy league school grad. I know that there’s a lot where I think, oh my gosh, it’s Harvard, it’s up there, but you also talked about how people had what we call imposter syndrome there, which I was so surprised to hear. I shouldn’t be because I know that it’s common. Can you tell me a little bit about how you were in this group of people that were likely hyper-competitive, ambitious, driven? How do you sort out your confidence in that environment where I feel like everyone looks like they’re perfect from the outside, looking in, how do you, how do you find yourself and find your confidence and voice in that environment?

Steve Frenkiel:

Listen, it’s very true, Jenn. You’re absolutely right. A number of people, including myself, felt like they were the admissions mistake, and you know, how do we actually get in there? So you felt like, you know, you look around like, you know, it wasn’t supposed to be here and, you know, part of it was like, yeah, I’m not supposed to be here, but I’m going to make the most out of it while I’m here. So yeah, it, you know, in some senses that, that brings that, that sense of appreciation at calibrates people very well to be a little bit more humble and and and level headed. So, you know, lots of very, very talented people, very diverse especially for guys who are coming from, you know, what is a small town, what I call Montreal, not, not not, not a cosmopolitan of some, some of the rest of the world. And so it was a really, really great experience and just a really good personal development opportunity to experience lots of different types of successful people. Cause it’s not, it’s just not one cookie cutter. Everyone was special in one way or another. And it’s almost— sometimes you took some time to figure out I’m like, oh, okay. That’s how that person was special. And so it was yeah, very, very cool experience.

Inspiring a Change in Organizational Culture

Jenn DeWall:

And thank you for sharing that. And for those that are listening, remember if you are judging yourself, if you’re not feeling as confident or if you’re feeling like a fraud or what they are, how they define imposter syndrome, it happens to everyone. You are not alone. I just have to say that because I think, sometimes we might assume that the people at the top are the ones that maybe don’t have it. And we just have to remember, we all are going through it, especially for taking risks, doing something challenging ourselves, which is what brought you to dynamic connections. Tell me a little bit about why maybe you’re and you were so inspired when you took over as president to inspire a leadership culture.

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah, it was, in some sense, it was out of necessity. So remember when we spoke, so the person I bought the business from was an amazing individual, a true visionary leader. But who was as different as I am, as you could be. You know, picture me, I’m a five foot seven, 170 pounds, relatively square guy. And I bought, I bought the business from a guy who was six-foot-two, long blonde hair, drove a Ferrari and partied harder in his fifties than I did in my twenties. So, you know, it was a, it was really a real sort of tale of two cities, a dichotomy of one leader coming in after another leader. So, and we talked about it. Part of that was it almost made it impossible to lead at the beginning because this was a, he was a very, very big personality. When you walked into the room, there was no air left for anyone in that room.

So this was the type of leader that you really, you would stand behind him because it was clear that he was leading and he had a vision even if he was leading in the wrong way. Doesn’t matter. You didn’t know because of the amount of confidence he was exuding. You were sort of following. So he had built an organization around it that way, where there was a number of loyal followers, and there was no air left. And there was no question who was the, who was the leader when that person stepped into the room. And people were following sort of in due order. And

Changing Leadership Styles to Change Organizational Culture

Jenn DeWall:

I just have to say that cause I would be intimidated when you observe that or just hearing that I can picture that presence in walking in and saying, okay, how do I actually, how do I, you know, show them that I am here as a leader too? Like, that would just be a very difficult

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah, really difficult, Jenn. You’re absolutely right. In fact, it comes down to, you know, picture the first few months of this transition. I am, I’m trying to learn the business. So I’m not even an expert in this business. I’ve done a whole bunch of diligence and so forth. Still, it doesn’t mean that I’d spent 10, 20 years in the industry. So I am trying to both learn the business, develop a rapport with people, lead the organization and still have this, you know, the former owner there sort of in the background, where as soon as he’s in the room, there’s no, there’s no air left to lead. And he’s the expert. He knows more about the industry than I do. So it was a very, very uncomfortable situation for me because it was, it was virtually impossible to lead or to learn or to show him vulnerability because I’m trying to learn.

So it was very, very hard. And, and the key there, and we’ll tell, you know, we’ll talk about what I, what I did in terms of changing the leadership culture by necessity. But one of the key decisions I actually made, which some people would’ve thought was crazy after, I think it was four or five months, maybe four months. I asked him to leave. Even though he was the, you know, the godfather who had all the answers, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t grow and lead. With that, there just wasn’t enough air. So that wasn’t an easy conversation, but I asked him to leave because I sort of had some internal confidence that I would figure out the industry, but I needed the room. I needed the space. And I needed the space to grow that I can, I can, I can grow into the leader that the team could rally behind.

So I needed that space, and I needed that. And that was a very sort of important decision. I remember my wife helping me through that decision intensely. She’s not a business person, but just sort of the way it was. And we got through it. And so we at that four or five-month mark, I still didn’t know the business well enough, but I knew enough that I needed that I, I took the space back. And then we changed the leadership style, and then we changed it from having one person with a voice to having one person with a really good strategic vision. I’ve always had very good strategic thought and a good eye for opportunity, but I gave more air to other people who had the ability to take it.

Part of me as an entrepreneur what I’m good at is seeing opportunities. That’s what I believe most entrepreneurs are. There are people who see an opportunity to do something about it. And what I saw was a number of people in the organization that had the opportunity to contribute even more than they were. And so it was, it worked out very well because I changed the culture up upside down from having a big L leader to still, I’m still clearly very clearly in charge, but I’ve empowered a number of individuals to be in charge as well in their own, in their own sort of unique ways. And those were individuals that had the ability for that. And it’s helped. It’s changed the culture night and day from where it was and it, and it it’s good because I couldn’t be the other person. I wasn’t the big L personality person that he was. I couldn’t be that that’s not, that’s not who I was going to be. That’s not how I was going to lead this business. But now we’ve got a number of people in their own sort of unique and special ways who are leading it with a, you know, a Colonel and a bunch of lieutenants instead of a, just one general at the, at the head.

Empowering Your Team to Change Organizational Culture

Jenn DeWall:

There are so many points that I want to touch on there. I mean, first, because there are many people, whether you’re going into an executive leadership role, whether you’re taking over a company or for someone that might be just going into leading a team for the first time. It can be a challenge to be able to feel like you have to, in some way, be the same as that person or replicate that reputation that they might’ve created. And it can feel a little unnerving, especially when, you know, you’re walking in and, you know, they do have that rapport reputation with them of respect and appreciation. So I want to acknowledge like that moment, but you also talked about, you know, getting into it, like what you did to actually transform the culture of dynamic connections. And how you described it made it sound like it was so much easier than what it was, but you did it. You put in the work. So I know that that wasn’t either. It was not that, I guess, like, yeah, we just did that. You didn’t just make people leaders, like there was a lot more of a conscious and deliberate thought process that came around identifying and seeing, okay, now that you’ve cut off the security blanket, which was huge after having that agreement with the former president and saying, you know what, I have to actually step up, be vulnerable and just put me out there even more. Then what was step two? So step two was then to look at your leadership team and the people in your company to say, are they really doing what they’re meant to do? Is that kind of like the first place when we’re talking about how do you change your culture?

Steve Frenkiel:

I think one of the secrets of leadership and empowerment is that people actually want the responsibility. I think we sometimes forget that sometimes you try to take responsibility away from people because you think it’s a burden on them but actually gives them purpose. And so when you give people true ownership and responsibility, they enjoy it. They give purpose and they, they very often, if they have sort of, the basic skills will rise up to that occasion. And so that’s, that was part of the secret sauce where I could identify a number of people who had some basic raw skills. We gave them ownership and responsibility. We coached them. I coached them on decision-making. I didn’t tell them how to

Jenn DeWall:

So important, like from your perspective as a president, why was it so important to give them that ownership?

Steve Frenkiel:

Okay. Because I believe it gives them purpose. I believe that entrepreneurs are a unique set of people that are sort of naturally driven by the pursuit of success. But most people need some sort of professional purpose along the way. And having ownership and responsibility is the purpose and doing a great job gives you that sense of pride and purpose. You, you leave your work feeling proud of what you’ve accomplished. And so when I empowered a number of people to take ownership and responsibility have real responsibility, real accountability, coach them on decision-making cause they were, they, they, they, they might’ve not have had the same structured thought process that I was trained with to make sort of thoughtful and thorough, decision-making never made decisions for them. I really empower them to make the decision but help them coach them along the way.

It made them feel really good about what they were doing. And slowly, over time, developed a cadre of junior leaders. And again— this is in a context where remember— I wasn’t the subject matter expert. All my leaders knew more about transportation, about the technicalities of transportation, about our supplier base about our solutions. And I didn’t, I wasn’t, I didn’t grow up in the industry. I was, I’m an outsider. I’m a former engineer finance guy. So they all had more subject matter expertise. I just helped them coach in terms of decision-making and strategic thought, and basic blocking and tackling of business.

Have Confidence, But Not Arrogance

Jenn DeWall:

I mean, you know, the one thing that I really respect is that it sounds like you were able to really lead by suspending ego. Like it wasn’t about you maybe proving your natural strengths talents, like why you did this. It was about you taking the back seat and maybe observing and listening. And I think there are some people that would be like, what you didn’t have ego don’t most executive leaders have an ego, you need ego to lead, right? You need that to have the confidence of your shareholders, to the people that want the organization to succeed. But I, I love that, that lesson and what you did, Steve, because it’s such an important one is to sit back and just learn and not put the pressure on yourself, which I think a lot of people do. And as leaders to know all the answers to have to know everything, I think a lot of times leaders think, well, if there’s a problem, or if this is going on, I should be able to know everything and have it in my brain somehow, to be able to solve this or think strategically, whatever you want to call it. But you still gave permission to your team to say, I’m learning. That is such a difficult piece within leadership. And I just have to acknowledge it because that’s a big deal. I’m curious about your thoughts on that. Changing organizational culture.

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. I think both of those points are really important. Confidence is incredibly important. Arrogance and confidence are very different. You absolutely need competence. I needed the self-assured confidence to know that I was going to be successful leading this organization, despite not being the subject matter expert, despite loving less than some of my most junior people, but having the self-confidence to know that I was taking the company in the right direction. So it takes a tremendous amount of confidence. It also takes a tremendous amount of confidence to sort of shut up and let other people lead and give them the opportunity to grow. Sometimes you need the opportunity to make mistakes because you have the confidence to know that you’ll repair those mistakes, but that person needs an opportunity for growth. So yeah, it, confidence is it’s a really, really important trait and it’s also, you gotta be carefully balanced between staying humble so that you stay hungry as an entrepreneur there’s anything can change at any given moment. Companies that aren’t moving forward aren’t progressing, are resting on their laurels will find themselves outdated and beaten by their competition before you know it. So you gotta find a balance between being confident and staying both humble and hungry

Jenn DeWall:

At Crestcom, Steve Shapiro is an author that we had worked with. And one of the things that will always stick with me that he shared is when the pace of change outside of your organization is greater than the pace of change within, that’s when you’re going to be eaten. And I love that message about staying humble because you do have to be attuned to what’s going on. It’s not about always being right or proving yourself, or it’s always about having your ear to the ground to understand what’s going on, so you can make the best decisions.

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Building Credibility to Change Your Organizational Culture

Jenn DeWall:

Steve, let’s talk a little bit about that transition. So you take over, you know, you, you go for it on your own. How did you initially navigate this call or navigate this transition for changing the organizational culture?

Steve Frenkiel:

I think I built some very close allies right on the onset. I identified a few people that were really important to the organization. And I invested heavily into those relationships. That means I invested a lot of my time to help further their careers with certain objectives that they had certain goals that they were trying to accomplish. And so by me investing in them very heavily, explicitly and with good strategic thought and built a very sound relationship, a relationship based on mutual trust. And so, to then all of a sudden, instead of being alone, right, instead of going in there and not having sort of any, small team around you, I slowly had a small team of loyal and dedicated people that I was working together with. So, and from there ended up growing, and my influence started growing and getting more so, but it was really trying to at the onset build a small cohesive team to build that credibility and build a group that eventually can, can I was able to rally the rest of the company behind

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. Which is, you know, that’s what we need with change. Right. We need the champions of change. And so your first goal when you got in there, obviously wanting to manage and maintain and grow the business, but then was really focusing on the relationships. You had also talked about starting with really playing to your strengths. What strengths did you lean into during that transition?

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. Like I said, so I am I’m a good person. I’m good at seeing opportunities and being very strategic, and then executing. So, as I mentioned before, the opportunities that I saw were almost some hidden talents with some individuals that I didn’t think were actually getting tapped into. I saw plenty of opportunities externally, but again, I had to build a really sound house internally before I really grew. Like the first year, I barely added value in terms of growing the business externally, working with customers. I didn’t have enough knowledge base, but I did identify some internal opportunities for some individuals that had skills that could be leveraged in different ways. There was a success that came from our software developer that has now made a tremendous impact on our company, came from our controller, who is a huge asset, incredibly smart and analytical and brought tremendous value both to the finance function in terms of the efficiencies there, but generally for the analytical capabilities of the organization generally. Or one of my best, a salesperson, had natural leadership skills. He was an excellent salesperson and had some natural leadership, which is actually not very common. Most salespeople are better snipers, and they are managers of others, but he was a natural coach. So what does that do? There’s that sales opportunity of hiring more salespeople under this effective sales leader coach who actually the prior owner saw little value in, and he’s my most important contributor right now. So I was good at seeing an opportunity, helping opportunities grow with some coaching and some strategic thinking, some analytical rigor, and we developed some people into a tremendous, tremendous talent.

Tap Into Your Team’s Talents

Jenn DeWall:

It sounds like your ability to identify good or great or not so great business opportunities also extends into your ability to identify talent, which I just think is such great strength, especially being willing to maybe look at someone that maybe others have not connected with for a variety of reasons, right. We know personality differences. It doesn’t matter. We’re human beings. We don’t all necessarily get along, work together, play together in the best way, but you were able to say, actually that individual, like, I think there’s untapped talent. How would the heck did you develop the skill set to be able to identify untapped talent in people? I, it makes sense from a business perspective, because you can take the metrics you can look at, you know, what are, what’s the revenue, what’s our expenses? When you think about people, how in the heck do you do that? That is a true gift.

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. You know, that’s such a hard question. It’s just, and it’s a lot of experience. It has good judgment. I don’t know that it’s taught or learned. I’m not really sure. Part of it was having that sort of analytical brain that can break pieces apart. Part of it is being really intellectually curious that when you meet people, you sort of trying to understand who they are, why they’ve been successful. And then you’re trying to extrapolate sort of trends and patterns. I interview a ton, and I love interviewing. I feel like it’s like being a detective, trying to really get to know the person and trying to understand what makes them click. It’s a little bit of cat and mouse because, you know, I like to say the candidate’s objective going into the interview is to get the job.

It should really be to figure out if it’s the right job for them, but their only objective is to actually get the job. So they’re generally giving you answers that they think you want to hear. So they get the job, they get the option of the job. Your job as the interviewer is to figure out if you’re the right fit for the job. So you need to decipher through those questions. So, in the years of interviewing and working with people, I think I’ve developed a good judgment on people and their skill sets. A good optimistic judgment, too, in terms of trying to see the best but be critical, understanding what their shortfalls are and not be blind. But I think it’s hard to say what it is, but it certainly takes a lot of practice. And a lot of intellectual curiosity.

Jenn DeWall:

You are using words– and I teach leadership. I live, eat, breathe leadership every single day. And so much of what you’re sharing, Steve, is music to my ears. I’m so happy to see that you are leveraging your strengths and not putting pressure on yourself to be the only bright star in the room. Right. We want everyone to shine bright because that means as a collective group, not only is, is our intelligence greater, but we see different opportunities, making more strategic decisions, solving problems faster, so on and so forth. But then just treating, being curious, you keep staying curious, which is something that at Crestcom, we do teach a lot to people, but it’s not always innate for some. Sometimes it’s really hard to be curious because the initial thinking, I guess, is that black and white, maybe they’re good or bad or they’re right.

Or they’re wrong. But yet it sounds like you were able to be curious in that, which there are so many things that I really admire about what you shared. And so I just want to acknowledge that, because it’s not easy. And you also were sharing it in a way that people might think, like, oh, no, being curious with someone actually requires you to be curious, and just sit down and observe and not make snap judgments that we might be more trained or conditioned to do. It’s to say, what are they missing? What are their passions and purposes? So there’s just so much that I admire about what you shared in terms of that initial transition. I want to talk a little bit about what your first year was like. So you’re walking into the doors. We already know that you’ve parted ways with the prior president. What were some of the big changes that you made upon, like your first few years when you took over that leadership role?

Changing Organizational Culture is a Bumpy Road

Steve Frenkiel:

Listen, you know, my first year was probably the most anxious year of my life. I invested my entire net worth into this company. It was I was looking for a company to buy. The number one priority was finding a good company. This was good company. This was, this was a company that was in an interesting industry, with very good processes, very good use of technology, a strong team and in a fragmented industry. So I identified the opportunity said, yep, this is interesting. This is good. From the time I made that cold call to when we closed was six months. So for anyone who’s done deals before, it will realize that is a very, very fast timeline. And that’s because I saw something interesting there. And the owner put an ask on it on the business. I saw something interesting. I basically hit his ask and got a deal done. I was a finance guy. I’d never run a company. I never had a team below me. I had some sort of innate confidence that I could do it with, with some hunger and grit. But I didn’t know what I was doing. I explained to you the first few months of that transition where I had some stress with the prior leader. And then, on top of that, I didn’t, I didn’t actually mention two months after I said goodbye to that leader, we lost our biggest customer. So—

Jenn DeWall:

Let’s paint the picture. You’re the big person in charge, right? The president, you take it over. You say the former owner can leave. And then, all of a sudden, I want to paint this picture for our audience. You lose your biggest customer. This is the, oh my gosh. Like what?

Steve Frenkiel:

And there is as much anxiety as you can have. It’s a, is it with the sort of having bet the farm still having, not having yet a good handle on the business. And I lost the biggest customer, and it was a very, very trying time. Losing the customer wasn’t any fault of our own. It was a little bit of just bad luck. It wasn’t a service failure. It wasn’t a failure on our end. It wasn’t being out wanting to just, I would say to simply simplify some bad luck, a little bit of geopolitical bad luck. I lost the biggest customer and said to myself, well, I’ve got a problem here. And that’s where I just sort of put pedal to the metal and probably hadn’t worked as hard and put in all our focus on sales.

And I became a number one salesperson because that’s what entrepreneurs do. Do they just do what needs to get done? And we were losing lots of sales. And so I became a salesperson, and I went out and saw every single one of our customers, a couple hundred of them looking for opportunities to grow the business. We bounced back. We had a small customer end up being bigger than our largest customer that we had lost, yeah. And through, through mining opportunities and presenting really professionally, we took over some business, and they actually asked us to take over the business. We mined it, and then they asked us to take it over. And we grew from there. So that initial scare at the very beginning of a deal, which was very, a very dangerous, curious time when you have sort of high leverage and debt service requirements.

We got through it really through some plain old hustle, like it was just some blocking and tackling hustle. And amazing support I had at home with my wife, who was just sort of steadfast and supportive along the way and didn’t get nervous at all. Even though I told her I took all of her money to do this. Yeah. I’ll tell you a great story about, about my wife. She’s, she’s been a rock that the, you know, the night or the, maybe the week before I closed this deal, I think we’re, you know, we’re out for a quiet dinner. I just say to her, I’m like, Hey, you know I’m taking all of our money to do this. Like, I just want to make sure you’re up for it. It’s like, you’ll be fine. I’m like, are you sure? She’s like, you’ll be fine.

So, you know, having that confidence of your partner in your corner, I can’t emphasize enough how important that is. And so we just got through it, it just took some hustle, really took some hustle. It made me much better because I literally became, I became a salesperson and a very effective salesperson for that matter because that’s what the business needed at that point. And we grew out of it, and we grew ever since. We came out of that. We grew past that from that loss. I mean, we’ve grown, ever since we’ve gotten better as a company, tremendously better as a company. Our technology, I put up against almost anyone in the industry. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. And I think, I think we, the future is brighter than the, than the past, because we’re, we’re so much a better company than we were five years ago that I think we’re going to see even more opportunities. So, yeah, it was, it was a very, very challenging year emotionally, but that’s what happens with challenges. We all know you. If you get, if you come out the other side, you’re going to come out better. And so that’s, that’s what happened to both me personally and to us as an organization. Yeah.

Develop Your Leaders to Transform Your Organization

Jenn DeWall:

I mean, the bottom of the lows are always the opportunity to just get into the climb. And when you’ve climbed, like the top is that much better. So you decided to move forward. And one of the things that you did was you worked with Crestcom, and you brought Crestcom leadership to your organization. For those that are unfamiliar again, with what Crestcom for a one-year-long leadership development program with debriefs and monthly coaching sessions, what made you think that that was going to help or what made you decide to pursue or invest in that in leadership training?

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah, listen, I think you know, part of the secret, again, of getting the most out of your people is to invest in them and to give them opportunities to grow. Everyone wants to grow. Every time I do an interview with a new candidate, I talk about growth opportunities. People want purpose in their lives, and they want to feel like they’re evolving as individuals and as professionals. And so the opportunities, being able to provide opportunities for growth in and of itself are effective because you’re growing them because they’re developing better skills, but it’s also, you’re, you satisfy their desires for growth. So it’s a twofold benefit. So finding ways to invest in your people is a constant strategic objective of ours. We came across Crestcom, and we love the concept and the format of teaching some core principles and then having them debrief together on them.

My people still say I have two cohorts say that the debriefs are probably better even than the actual content because that’s where they’re really putting into practice what they’ve learned. And as we know, if you learn something, you don’t do anything with it. It’s actually really gone. Like if you learn something from a textbook and you didn’t do it, did it change your life six months, 12 months later? Unless you did something with it, it didn’t, it might’ve felt good at the moment, but it didn’t. So so the sticking part of what we have, what they learn, is in the debriefs that I ended up participating in, whereas a team, we’ve coalesced together, we dissect some principles of leadership that are called pearls of wisdom. And then we actually put some practices in place, and that’s what makes it stick and actually helps us improve as an organization. And a number of things I can point to across our company that has Crestcom written all over because they were sources, and they were ideas that were sourced through our to our debriefs.

How Crestcom Helped Dynamic Connections Make Positive Changes

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh, can you share some of those examples of maybe something of how Crestcom has helped your organization?

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. A number of them, the expression of “promote, don’t pollute.” We use all the time in terms of what comes out of your mouth. Are you promoting a positive culture, or are you polluting? And to be sensitive to what and how we speak. We do. We do a, and it’s so obvious. I don’t know how everybody, every company, doesn’t do it. We do a four o’clock Friday company-wide huddle every week, every week, we go, and we huddle the entire company. We’re almost 30 people, some people remote, some people together. And we talk about the results from the week. We talk about strategic imperatives. We talk about what’s going on. We talk about hires. People love people, want to feel informed. And we’ve discovered some of that through our learnings with Crestcom, that people have a very strong desire to be better informed. We thought we were doing a pretty good job about it with our various communications, but it actually wasn’t sufficient.

And so we put in place a standing four o’clock, all hands huddle that we do really fun things with, like, we sort of spice it up. It’s not always the same thing we have. Sometimes it’s a problem of the week that we have someone talking about what was the problem in the week and how did you resolve it? Because our life is problems and transportation. Sometimes we have the save the day of the week, like who saved the day for a customer of the week. Sometimes we have the technology initiative that we’re talking about, and the latest one will be, we dig into and explain it to people. So it’s been a that’s been a, an amazing and almost like silly that it’s so obvious that we didn’t think of it ourselves, but that was something that a hundred percent we’ll continue to do. And we continue to sort of spice it up, but to find a regular and meaningful and thoughtful way to communicate and keep your team informed. It has been a major difference, and it was, and we did it before COVID, so you can imagine how important it was through COVID to have that discipline.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh. I am feeling like I’m having a, you know, a leadership infatuation moment. I love what you did with your people, Steve, like a four o’clock standing huddle on a Friday. And I like even talking about the problem of the week and getting them to think about how, how can they also contribute to solving problems? How can they make revisions or adaptations to maybe streamline a process? I just love the inclusivity that you create. And again, I’m trying to draw out these themes just so people can hear that it’s not, it’s not a, “just a.” It wasn’t “just a” huddle. That huddle is the opportunity to maybe bridge some gaps in terms of transparency or more communication. That huddle is the opportunity for people to feel seen and heard. That huddle is an opportunity to process our mistakes or the challenges of the week. Like, and so that’s why you’re probably like, why is Jenn just saying this back to me? But it’s because it actually is much more than what I think the average person might realize what that does. A standing huddle does so much for your culture than what you might realize. And how long does that huddle take? And you do fun things with it too. Like how long does that huddle take?

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah, we try not to have it go more than 30 minutes. We really track we’re sensitive to people’s Friday afternoon times. And we try to keep it, like, keep it fresh. As a company, an organization, and a culture is like I say, it’s a living, breathing organism. It is. It needs food. It needs nourishment. It needs variety. Like, just like you can’t eat the same thing every day. So does a culture. It can’t take the same thing every day. So, you know what we do in the huddles now isn’t the same thing we did a few months ago. Because you have to keep it fresh and still be pursuing the same call overall strategic objectives. So yeah, we do lots of different things. We do, you know, we, we, we used to do like the during COVID you know, during the height of COVID we were working in the office, we brought people back, we were wearing masks, we were sanitizing, we’re socially distance.

We, we used to have, you know, a prize of the week for the person who was the most positive person of the week, they ended up getting the bell. You know, and that bell, every time that person rang that bell, everyone would have to sanitize their hands. So we were trying to make sure that everyone sort of stayed safe. So you have this bell going off, and that person will have that bell have that control. It was just, you know, a bunch of little sort of gimmicks to keep things fresh and sometimes just lighthearted sometimes actual actually sort of sound business, continuous improvement principles. And some things, things just to keep things lighthearted and fun. So you gotta, you gotta find that balance, but it is, it is really, it’s an opportunity to discuss, keep the team informed and keep things fresh.

Words of Wisdom- Give People a Chance, They’ll Surprise You

Jenn DeWall:

I love that. Steve, what would be, so in closing, knowing that we have to wrap up what would be your words of wisdom, right? We talked about a lot of different things in terms of what you did to change the culture in terms of, you know, being vulnerable, being curious, allowing yourself to not be the expert and allowing yourself to learn, leveraging people’s strengths. What would be your advice to someone that might be new to leadership, new to taking over an organization? What would you say to them?

Steve Frenkiel:

I would say I think most people will be surprised at what someone can accomplish when you put them in a position that you think they might not actually qualify for. I think a lot of people cherish and relish the opportunity, as I said before, for true ownership, responsibility, accountability, and it actually gives them purpose. And I think we all can get surprised by trying people out and actually giving more, giving them more responsibility than you might think they can actually handle and watching them strive and live up to the challenge. I’ve seen that a number of times where a number of people have, we’ve tried them, we’ve given them opportunities, and they’ve stepped up. And I think it’s a win-win. It’s a win for everybody. It’s a win for you as an employer that you feel good. You’ve given someone an opportunity for growth. It’s a win for them because they grew into it. It’s a win for the company because the company now has a more sophisticated and empowered individual. So I think giving people opportunities may not actually be ready for. Actually, I believe more often than not can surprise all of us.

How to Connect with Steve Frenkiel

Jenn DeWall:

Steve. I very much appreciate your people-first approach. I just think there’s so much that other people can learn if they truly want to create a better culture, a more engaged culture, and just a place where people feel valued, Steve, how can people connect with you? How can they hire you? How can they hire Dynamic Connections? Tell me that.

Steve Frenkiel:

Yeah. Yeah. If they want, you know, a little commercial for us, we have a couple of hundred customers and may two to 300, and I would say probably 95% of them will tell, we’ll tell you that we’re the best company they’ve ever dealt with so if anyone wants to experience best-in-class services, they can reach out to Dynamic Connections for their the third-party logistics.

Jenn DeWall:

Thank you so much deeper taking your time. I know that you’re busy, but just to share with us and also be vulnerable about the fact that, Hey, it’s not always easy. It’s a scary place, because again, sometimes we don’t get to peek into maybe the executive leadership experiences and hear them in that way. So I just really appreciate you sitting down and sharing with us and being open and vulnerable, and talking about what we can do to create great cultures. Thank you so much for your time.

Steve Frenkiel:

Absolutely! Thanks, Jenn!

Jenn DeWall:

Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast. It was a great conversation with Steve Frankiel. And if you want to connect more with him, you can head on over to dynamicconnections.com; Dynamic Connections offers cost-effective and efficient warehousing solutions to meet all of your inventory and fulfillment needs. It was a great conversation, and I loved hearing about how Steve uses leadership to change organizational culture. If you enjoyed this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service. And of course, if you’re interested in changing your organizational culture through leadership contact Crestcom.com. We would love to help you develop your leaders.