From I to We: Jeremy Stick on Leading HR at DaBella

Show notes

In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, host Adriaan Kolff interviews Jeremy Stick, Chief Human Resources Officer at DaBella, a home improvement company with just under 2,700 employees across 68 locations in the US. Recorded in person in Austin. Jeremy holds a doctorate in human resources with an emphasis in leadership development from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent years as a human capital consultant in the DC area, and then built HR departments for private equity-owned and insurance companies in Texas, including GovOS, which he took through its acquisition.

The conversation starts with the lesson that rewired how Jeremy leads: the first management project he delivered early, and the boss who told him "You are the dumbest smart man I know" because the team would never work with him again. He switched from I to we and has led since on one rule: successes are the team's, failures are his. Jeremy explains how he builds trust by being open about his failures and weaknesses, why "we're not HR, we're not recruiting, we're DaBella", and how he stays empathetic without becoming too nice to make hard calls. He gets candid about private equity (not for everyone, and why), how a CFO taught him to think in EBITDA and turn a $60,000 turnover number into the real $200,000 cost, and the job he took out of panic that cost him time with his family. He shares the early warning signs to check before accepting a role, the dinner-table rule his family now lives by, how he recognizes people across 2,700 employees the way they actually want to be recognized, and the four words he keeps in his vocabulary: thank you and I'm sorry.

Timecodes

00:45 Welcome: Jeremy Stick, CHRO at DaBella

02:13 Why the best people functions are invisible

03:13 "The dumbest smart man I know": leadership vs management

04:59 From I to we: successes are theirs, failures are mine

09:26 Leading with vulnerability without going soft

13:22 Their vision before yours, and the burden of leadership

14:32 Why private equity is not for everyone

17:31 Run on a spreadsheet: drivers, passengers and the right seats

22:24 Speaking the CFO's language: EBITDA and the $200,000 turnover

26:08 The job he should not have taken, and the dinner-table rule

32:50 Know yourself: the warning signs before you say yes

40:57 DaBella, recognition across 2,700 people, and four words: thank you and I'm sorry

___________________________

Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/

Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact

___________________________

Connect with Jeremy Stick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremystick/

Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

Amp It Up by Frank Slootman, the book behind Jeremy's "drivers wanted" point: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/amp-it-up/9781119836117/

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RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

Transcription

[00:00:45] Adriaan: Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast. And today, I am in Austin recording several podcasts, and I'm very glad that today my guest is Jeremy Stick. Jeremy, welcome.

[00:00:58] Jeremy: Thank you so much, Adriaan. I'm super glad to be here.

[00:01:01] Adriaan: Awesome. Jeremy, for our listeners, I always ask my guests, give us a brief introduction about who you are, where you've worked, and what you're currently working on.

[00:01:08] Jeremy: Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. I got my doctorate in human resources with an emphasis in leadership development from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. I then went out to the DC metro area, was a human capital consultant for a number of years, moved to Texas, started working in HR and kind of standing up various HR departments for private equity companies as well as insurance companies. I was at a private equity company, or private equity-owned company, it was called GovOS, and got them through the acquisition. Took a short job after that, and now I'm sitting at a company as a CHRO called DaBella.

[00:01:45] Adriaan: And what does DaBella do?

[00:01:46] Jeremy: DaBella does home construction. So roofs, windows, siding, gutters.

[00:01:52] Adriaan: And how big is DaBella, just for context?

[00:01:53] Jeremy: Just under 2,700 employees right now. 68 locations across the country.

[00:01:59] Adriaan: Yeah. Okay. And I can only imagine being the CHRO of that many people across the US with all these different kind of levels of work. I'm glad that you found some time to have a conversation with me.

[00:02:11] Jeremy: Absolutely. No, it keeps me busy, but I love it.

[00:02:13] Adriaan: Yeah. Hey, Jeremy, you write on your LinkedIn, the best people functions are actually the ones that are invisible. You say, hiring happens fast, performance is clear, culture is strong, leaders are ready. What a dream. Right? What a dream. What is the secret recipe that you feel in order to hit all of those items, all at once to create that?

[00:02:37] Jeremy: Well, it starts with a lot of time. It's a lot of time and commitment. But at the foundation of everything is communication. Oftentimes when you've got an HR department, they're viewed as reactionary, and the job of a leader in HR is to reposition the entire team to be partners throughout the entire organization. So it is understanding what their pain points are, understanding how you can help, but then communicating and then soliciting feedback. Without those in place, you're never going to be successful, and HR will always be the, "Oh crap, HR is here. I'm getting fired."

[00:03:13] Adriaan: Yeah, you have a very interesting background, right? You studied HR, you had a very strong focus on leadership, right? Tell me some of the leadership lessons that you've learned along the way in order to be able to understand this and articulate this and communicate well.

[00:03:28] Jeremy: Biggest lesson I learned, leadership and management are two very different things. When I had an opportunity, I became my first management position, I drove my team really hard on a project. And I thought that I had to be overbearing, demanding, and almost arrogant, and got the project done, got it done early, and I was so proud of myself. And again, it was me. I didn't even think about my team. Boss calls me into his office and he said, "Jeremy, sit down." I walked in thinking, "I am gonna get a pat on the back. This is awesome." He sits me down, and this is a former helicopter pilot from the Vietnam War, so just very serious. He looks at me and he said, "You are the dumbest smart man I know." And I kind of sat there with a pause, and he said, "You got the project done, so I can't fire you, but you need to realize that team will never work with you again." And it was humbling. You know, I went from, "I'm gonna get a raise" in my head to, "I just got brought down." And walked back to my office, and it was the time to reflect, and it was the, "Okay. What did I do?" And nobody asked me to do anything after that. I went back out, talked to the team and said, "Look, I know I screwed up. All I can say is I'm sorry for what happened. In the future, if I'm given the opportunity, I would love to work with you again, but I understand for some of you, I won't have that trust." And it was just owning, and it was being vulnerable and saying, "I made a mistake."

[00:04:59] Adriaan: What changed after that for you as a manager/leader?

[00:05:03] Jeremy: After that, I switched my mentality from I to we. So everything was about the us and the we, and it was the team. My job was no longer to be in the front and get the limelight. My job was to be behind and make sure that the team was getting the credit. I was responsible for leading them, but successes were theirs and failures were mine. And it was, it was a hard lesson to learn.

[00:05:27] Adriaan: Such a hard and such a profound lesson. I will never forget. My first executive coach is one of the most profound guys that made such an impact on me. He was a former lieutenant in the Army as well. And he made me write down four lessons before we started our coaching. I would do my homework, I would prioritize coaching above everything else, we would start on time, and if anything would come in between, I would let him know 48 hours in advance. And the first coaching session, we were supposed to start at 7:00 PM. He came early, he sat down. I was still busy with something. I walk in with a cup of coffee, I sit down to do our coaching, and he doesn't say anything. So I'm sitting there and getting a little, "What's going on?" Shouldn't we be starting our coaching? And the only thing he asked me, he said, "Adriaan, what time is it?" And I say, "It's 7:00 PM." And he says, "No, what time is it exactly?" And I look at my watch, and it's 7:03. And he says, "Adriaan, the first rule that we said in our coaching: you do your homework on time, you prioritize your coaching, and number three, you would start on time. If you can't even keep your own promise, then what do you expect of your team?" And then I said, "Oh, you're right. We gotta lead by example." And he said, "No, you are the example."

[00:06:54] Adriaan: And to this day, it stuck with me, right? And, but it was such a profound shift. But I found it actually quite hard even though I, of course, really understood it to then every day show up on time, every day be the example, right? How has that been for you from that moment on that you got this slap in the face realization to, like, develop to the leader of I versus we?

[00:07:16] Jeremy: It's a great observation, and for me, as I was going through, it was realizing that the I and the we. What I started looking at is internalizing, and it was what am I doing, why am I doing it, how am I doing it? But then thinking about the concept perception is reality. And I had to also think about how somebody was perceiving me. So when I was doing something, while it made sense to my head, I had to think about the views from others. And it was if I show up late, in that example, am I setting that standard that's okay? Or if I'm cussing in a meeting, am I setting the standard that's okay? And realizing you have to take into it, and being a leader, you truly have to suborn your ego. Your ego just has to get put aside because it's all about everybody else, and you have to be willing to pivot to understand what each person needs, but set for the entire department, in my situation, the example. And I've talked with my team and I said, "Look, historically, HR has always had this negative connotation, and within this organization we've had challenges where sometimes it's viewed as difficult and using rules and putting up policies that's... We can't go outside of that." And I told them, "Look, we have to build the relationship for the partner, and in order to do that, I'm making the efforts by going out to our regional managers and our general managers and letting them know, look, I'm Jeremy." "If you've got a question, you can come to me." And then it's no longer I'm payroll or I'm HR or I'm recruiting, and I told them that... I used the example from the 1980 US hockey team, where the players had continued to identify themselves by the college they played at, and finally one of the players said, it was Mike Eruzione, and Herb Brooks said, "Who do you play for?" And he said, "I play for the United States." I use that as the example in my department. It's we are not HR, we're not recruiting, we're not payroll, we're DaBella." And that's how I identify. So everything that I'm doing is for the betterment of the organization. They see that, and then my goal is to use that to kind of portray the vision that I've got for my department.

[00:09:26] Adriaan: Is there a certain ritual or a way to really infuse that into your team? Like through repetition or just reminding people of it? Like, how do you instill that?

[00:09:36] Jeremy: We have weekly HR leadership meetings, so the entire department every week we get together, we talk about wins, we talk about challenges, we talk about anything else that comes up. They have the opportunity to ask me questions. But I also make it that I'm vulnerable. And I talk about what my successes were, where I failed, and I let the team get to know me. And it's promoting that open space for the communication and it's look, we all have a lot going on. We need the ability to talk, but ensuring that people understand I'm being transparent. I'm not hiding anything, and letting them get to know me as the leader.

[00:10:14] Adriaan: I love this concept. So tell me, unpack that even a little bit further for me, what it means to show up as a vulnerable leader to build that trust. Like how do you instill that? Like what are some of the things that you do share? What are some of the things that you might not share? Like, how much do you share of your personal life, for example? What have you found that works?

[00:10:35] Jeremy: I use a kind of a balance. On the personal side, I let people know I am human. You know, and it sounds that simple, but I have two children, I have a 200-pound dog, I have an amazing wife. I love to scuba dive. I let them know that, hey, there's something more to me outside of work. It's like, okay, he's actually normal. And then it's also, I let people understand what I'm proud of and it's what is the success that I've had in my career, why am I proud of that, and then I also let them know about my failures. I don't hide my failures. For me, my mistakes have made me who I am today. You know, whether it was something I did on a project or a job, anything that I've had in my life has made me at this point. And so I'm not ashamed of it, I just own it and let the people know. And I also talk about some of my weaknesses, and I joke about them. It's like I'm scatterbrained at times. I have very low patience. I keep moving and I said, "You know, there are gonna be times that I've already gone off and I'm five miles away, and you guys are still sitting at the starting line. Tell me." And I was like, "I'm letting you know that's going to happen." "It's okay. You can tell me, 'Hey Jeremy, can you back up and help me understand how you got from here all the way to there?' 'Cause I still don't see the path."

[00:11:56] Adriaan: Is there then-- Because sometimes when I have conversation with other leaders, right, the balance sometimes is being too vulnerable or being almost perceived as too nice gets in the way of being more direct on what results need to be made. How do you balance the two?

[00:12:10] Jeremy: It's tough, especially in leadership or in HR. You've got the... You're always dealing with people. But the joke is I can talk to everybody. I'm very social. I can empathize. I can sympathize. At the end, though, for me, I do detach. And it's one of those that I'm there for the business. I understand how to protect for the employees. I will give you everything I can. I will be your mentor. I will help, listen, guide. In the end, if it's not going to benefit the company, if you've made the determination that you're checked out, I can separate the two and it's the, this is for the business. And for some HR people, that's really difficult. They think they need to be very social and attached to everybody, and I can do it. I just understand that in the end, like in our situation, if we don't have salespeople, none of us have a job. And that's what my team needs to understand, is how important that one piece is. For me, it's the entire organization is my responsibility. So one bad apple can rot the bunch, and this is an organization that Donnie built and it's phenomenal. So I have to represent him and I have to ensure I'm protecting him.

[00:13:21] Adriaan: How do you make that clear when you come new into an organization, right? Like, how do you set those ground rules as a leader in terms of expectations, how you wanna work, versus something that has already been working or maybe not has been working? How do you do that?

[00:13:37] Jeremy: Coming in, I don't share my vision right off the bat. I ask them to share what their vision is. It's something I picked up, and it's been practiced here at DaBella as well. I wanna understand what their views are. You know, where do they think they need to go? And then slowly I start to unveil kind of what my thoughts are. And then I use it as, "Look, this is what's happened in the past. Here are my past experiences that I'm leveraging to explain why I wanna go this route." Then I ask for feedback. Why won't this work here? What are the pitfalls? But trying to get them into it, and then at some point it goes from the I've tried to encourage to now I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. Because in the end, when you are a leader, there are gonna be times you just have to make the decision. You're not gonna have the democracy where everybody's happy, 'cause they all have different views. It's your responsibility, but that's also the burden of leadership because if it's a mistake, it's all on you.

[00:14:32] Adriaan: Yep. Yep. Yep. So true. I wanna switch gears a little bit. You also worked at a private equity-backed company. Very interesting environment, not for everyone. Give us a little bit of a flavor of what it's like to work for a private equity backed company and some of the lessons that you've learned during that time.

[00:14:53] Jeremy: Private equity is not for everybody.

[00:14:56] Adriaan: Tell us why.

[00:14:57] Jeremy: So a lot of people, they wanna go into a job, and they have in their vision, "I'm gonna retire here." Probably not gonna happen in a private equity-backed company. There is constant movement. You know, it's all about making sure capitalization, making sure the company's value is up. But at the end, when they go through the acquisition stage, you can go to a strategic buyer or an investor. Investor, yeah, you've got another run with it. You go to a strategic buyer, depending on your position in the company, you're probably out of a job. That happened to me, but it's fast-paced. There's venture capital, series A, go, go, go, master of doing everything, and you have to be an expert, and then you have to pass it off as the company grows. Private equity, same type of speed, but you're in a kind of a focused area. It's still the pressure is there, and for people who don't do well with having to pivot and deal with constant pressure, it's not a good environment, and you'll burn out incredibly quickly, and that's something you have to know about yourself. Everybody thinks private equity is so cool. It is, if you like it. But if you are one of those type of people who you want a little bit more stability, the consistency, private equity's not gonna be for you.

[00:16:11] Adriaan: So tell me a little bit more, what makes it so different, right? Like, what is so different about that type of environment? I understand the speed, but tell me a little bit more what you had to learn as an HR leader to thrive in that environment.

[00:16:24] Jeremy: So when I joined and it was, a company was GovOS, it was kind of a rebuild of the HR department. And the intent was we needed to get to a point where there was some stabilization, our processes were put into place so that we looked attractive for the next buyer. And you have to move quickly. You don't have six to eight months to sit there and evaluate. You have to come in and say, "Here's the problem. Here's the problem. Here's the problem. Then here are the three solutions we can do," figure out which one you're gonna go with, and then start running. In the meantime, problem number two pops up, and then you've gotta go through that. And so you're running things concurrently, and then you could have a strategic initiative that gets put into place, but it's being able to balance that. And it's truly, you will have so many priorities you can't get them all done. And you have to figure out how you're going to do it. And it's not one of those where people say, "Well, I just communicate and let them know I'm gonna be late." It's the, "No, this is the ROI. I've gotta do this because this one thing sets up the other three that I need to work on. And I need to tell people, 'Look, I can't tackle your project right now because I have to do this one.'"

[00:17:31] Adriaan: How much is also the ability to really understand how the business makes money or saves cost, where private equity is often known for running businesses on a spreadsheet? How much is that true, and how much is there all still an element for seeing the human side of things?

[00:17:47] Jeremy: It's run on a spreadsheet. I mean, dollars and cents at the end, and honestly, people are, it's the most expensive cost to a company. Part of it is ensuring that you have the right people in the position. Sometimes there are companies, they get into a point where they start putting people into a role because they've got a gap. But rather than thinking, "I need to fill two or three gaps," they just fill one, and then they go get another person to fill a gap, and another. So now you have three people filling three different gaps, but you could have gotten one person who could actually do the work that those three are doing. It's a huge cost, and so it's the optimization. And it's part of kind of the downside on HR is often we have to look and ensure the right people are in the seats. And the hardest lesson that you have to teach somebody is, look, who's ever in the seat today, they got the company from point A to point B. If the company's going from B to C, not everybody is in the right seat. And there was a quote from the book Amp It Up, talking about the Volkswagen motto, drivers wanted. There are times that people wanna be passengers, and then there are times you need drivers. And as you're transitioning the company, if you have too many passengers, the company can't grow. And in fact, the company's gonna regress.

[00:19:12] Adriaan: Yep. And how much did you learn from that experience that you've taken to your next roles? Like what are some of the nuggets like, oh, because of that experience, like I now think differently about, to fire faster, or to hire for specific skills, or to be much more P&L focused.

[00:19:24] Jeremy: So for me, it was the speed. I, again, I had come from venture capital, so I had a degree of speed there. Private equity was amped up from that. So coming into my new role, it was first week, don't touch anything. Second week, you're not supposed to. I already started and kept going from there. The lessons that I learned though, it was to quickly identify. And then also thinking back to my previous experiences and referencing what do I see here today, what's going on, making those decisions, and then really putting the sense of urgency. So I got three priorities when I started, and they were like, so I have to focus on benefits, payroll, and recruiting. Like, those are the three. Start making the plan, and then executing against that. It's, okay, where are the challenges? And then building out how can I fix the challenges? What do I need to do? And then how do I need to train people? What do I need to give them? And is it something that I have for the knowledge? Do I need to take us outside? Do I need to bring somebody in? But it's going through that, but making it quickly, and not doing the analysis paralysis. It's truly here's the data, here's what it says, this is the action.

[00:20:34] Adriaan: Yep. Yeah, it's fascinating how that's all of a sudden when you come into a different environment where that's the standard, how quickly... Well, you either don't make it, or you get on that level, right? And that's something, that urgency that you then bring along. Yeah, it's interesting. I remember I started my career at Unilever, and Unilever is a well-established organization, and it would take us over a year to bring a new product to market. And when I say a new product, we would have a can like this, right? For our listeners on a podcast. You have a green can, and it would take us 12 months to develop a yellow can. Really, because of everyone, the material and the wording, et cetera, right? But let alone if we wanted to bring anything else, to market. Then I joined my first startup, and I had two founders that in the meeting when we would discuss something, we'd start making calls to get things done. I was so shocked. I was like, "Shouldn't we think this through? Shouldn't we..." And they were looking at me, as like, "Why? We just said that we wanna do it, right?" So that sense of urgency and drive was completely different than what I, what I was used to, and very quickly I caught on that bug as well. The downside of that was we often didn't think things through that well. Right? Like, that was the kinda like startup way. So I think there's a healthy balance to it. But it's interesting to see you really are a product of your environment in that way.

[00:21:45] Jeremy: You are. And it's also important, 'cause you talked about one company took a long time, the other one they were jumping into it. It's understanding which one you thrive in. So I've taken positions at companies, I've jumped from job to job, and looking back it's, okay, what didn't I like about the previous job? Or what do I wanna see from that job in my next company? And for me, I love the decision-making. Quick, quick, let's go. The long drawn out drives me nuts. It's why I did poorly at a state job. Everything was just how far can we draw this out? And I mean, I just wanted to shoot myself.

[00:22:24] Adriaan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I can totally relate. I can totally relate. Is there also a big finance component? And the reason why I'm asking is one of our advisors, he's a former CHRO who worked as a partner at private equity. And basically what he hammered us with was really understand how the business make money. Right? And he very simply said, "Enterprise value is your multiplier times your EBITDA minus net debt." And he said "That is the only thing you need to be focused on because if you speak that language, you can speak to the CFO and the CEO, and that's how you can drive change." Can you relate to that?

[00:23:04] Jeremy: I can. I was very fortunate when I was at GovOS. I reported to the CEO/president and the CFO/CEO. So I had the direct line. The CFO was always doing updates as to how we're doing on EBITDA, but then he took the time to explain to me what was happening, and gave me that deeper understanding. So I wasn't just a cost center. He's like, "This is how you're driving it. This is what you can do." Now I started to think more like the true business owner, and it was, okay, as I make this decision it's gonna impact over here and it's gonna save the company money. Or this could cost the company money, but in the long run I could get a better ROI. And so I started thinking more in terms of the financial component because I got that exposure.

[00:23:50] Adriaan: Can you give me like an example that makes it concrete, especially from an HR perspective, how you started speaking that language?

[00:24:00] Jeremy: Employees are always the biggest cost. There's so much that goes into them. And talking about turnover, so there's a cost of turnover and it's not just the lost time, it's recruiting, bringing them up, and then amping up. But started to think about, okay, if we lose these set of employees and it takes this long to recruit, this long to ramp up, what's the cost? And then driving it out and saying, "Okay, the turnover doesn't cost us $60,000. It's actually costing us $200,000 because in the meantime, while they're ramping up, we're overburdening somebody else and they're not able to function as a whole." So that's impacting the team, but then you risk the burnout on that person. So you can start creating this cycle that you can't get out of. So then it's the, how do we stop the turnover? What is it? And so going from there, so this $200,000 potential loss. Is it training that we just need to give or is it a new opportunity? Is it putting them on a development plan to show that we're investing in the career? So a $2,000 investment saying, "We wanna develop your career here. Here's how we're doing it." Keeps them and it stops that. So that's $180,000 savings. And using that and thinking forward, and then obviously you've got the ones that you can control, it's like your insurance and it's understanding insurance is one of those things, it can absolutely crush a company for premiums. But you want the best for the employees without getting to the point where it's just cutting the cost as much as you can so that the employer saves all this money, but the employees have garbage plans. Turnover starts. So do we bump up a little bit on our insurance plans and say, "Okay, here's where we are. We're gonna be better than market average. We're gonna be two deviations away from that to attract and retain." Because when people start thinking about the new job and they get to that final point, they start learning about the insurance.

[00:25:58] Jeremy: That can be a trigger, and it's like, "This isn't the place..."

[00:26:03] Adriaan: Constantly finding that balance, right?

[00:26:06] Jeremy: Constantly finding that balance.

[00:26:08] Adriaan: When we first spoke, you were very open about something because I asked you, it's like, "Hey, what are some topics that we can talk about?" And you already shared, hey, lead with vulnerability, that's how people connect with you. And one of the things that you shared, at certain points you made not the right decision in terms of accepting a job. That you intuitively felt, maybe, I don't know.

[00:26:30] Jeremy: I did.

[00:26:31] Adriaan: Give us some context. Tell us a little bit more, and what have you learned from that experience?

[00:26:35] Jeremy: So venture capital, everything moves fast. You know, one minute you're flush, the next minute you're not. Had a situation, one of the companies I was at went bankrupt. And so I was... It was during kinda the COVID time, and it was truly, I panicked. It was one of a couple of instances where I panicked on jobs. And had some opportunities, and I was evaluating three at the time. Immediately discounted one because it would've been a, my third insurance company, and my wife said, "You can't work for those. They work too slowly." "You'll lose your mind." So I was down to two different VC companies. And I sat there and I convinced myself of an opportunity, that it was the right one. And the warning signs were there. They really were. But in my head, I had already spun it up, and it was, "This is gonna be awesome. I totally buy into all of this." And two and a half, almost three weeks in, I realized I had made a mistake, and then I made another mistake. I continued to justify the behaviors and say, "Nope, I can make this work." And I just kept digging in, trying to make it work, trying to make it work, and realized that I was sacrificing who I was. I was not giving my authentic self. In a sense, I had truly transformed into somebody else to try to make this company happy. And the more I did that, the more I took away from my family, because I was miserable in that situation. And it was one of those that it was an opportunity. I didn't know what I was going to do. I had jumped to that company and was like, "I've gotta dig in." "I have to make this work." I was very fortunate. That's when GovOS reached out, and so I was able to make that transition over to private equity. But after that acquisition, I had the opportunity to stay on with GovOS through December, and it was truly one of those I was reflecting. It was an uncertain job market and right now you hear all the difficulties people have of getting positions. And I, again, took the opportunity. It's like, "I have an opportunity and I have the stability that I can go for five more months, but then I don't have this job." And it was truly I just made another decision. It was like, nope, I didn't look at it from the long side. I truly was short-sighted and it was the, "No, I can make this jump." And what it taught me is in those situations, I understand it's scary not having a job, and it's very easy for people who have a job to say, "You should try this." But for me, what I learned is don't jump into the next opportunity just because you need the job. It's gonna take more from you if it's the wrong opportunity. And I've also learned that the job, it takes time. And you have to remember, the more time you give it, you've taken away time from something else, and that you can't get back.

[00:29:44] Jeremy: I reflected on, and, this is me being vulnerable, I reflected on the fact that I missed time with my kids. And there were times I was on my phone at the dinner table and my son was trying to talk to me. My wife looked at me and she said, "Jake's trying to talk to you." And I didn't recognize it. I was so engrossed, and I had disconnected almost from the family to the job. And that was one of those things that's the trigger for me. And if I get to that point where I've actually put my family off to the side there's something else going on, and I need to really reflect on what the job is.

[00:30:23] Adriaan: That's an interesting point. If you're fully engrossed into your work, like things are great, like you have a lot of work to... Let's take the private equity example, right? High-pressure environments, probably not a nine-to-five job, right? You could also be at the dinner table and like one of the partners is calling and you're like, "Shit, do I answer or not," right? Then you come from like you're in the driver's seat, but you know things need to get done. And then there's the example of not a great culture and it feels more it comes from stress or anxiety. It's like, "Shit, if I don't do this I might look bad," or like they're... You know, like trying to prove yourself. Two different scenarios, but still with the same effect on your family. Help me understand a little bit better in terms of where do you then set the boundaries or how do you do that and like the realization that you've had, "Hey, I've missed time with my family." How do you protect yourself from even when you're really on it, to not fall into that trap?

[00:31:21] Jeremy: Interesting. The scenarios you're talking about, both are stressful. One is the, it actually takes... The stress has caused me to be physically and mentally detached because I'm focused on that. Or in private equity or current company, my phone can ring and I can look at it and I'm still energized. I'm not, "Oh, crap. Who's calling?" So that's the disconnect. What I've also done is because I realized what I had made the mistake of monopolizing time with work and ignoring the family, we've got rules. Phones go down during the dinner table. So for an hour we're all focused on that. There's no electronics or anything. We're having interactions. If for some reason I'm waiting on something, I come out at the beginning of dinner and say, "I'm keeping my phone on just in case something happens," but I know that's getting to that point. And then also dividing out, it's the work is still going to be there. So I can hang out, have some fun with the kids afterwards. My wife is phenomenal. She'll take care of putting them to bed. I can then go into my office and check on emails or deal with anything, 'cause we've got people on the Pacific Coast. But it's understanding that there's the stress there. It's in how you balance it. For me, in one scenario it was all-consuming and it was exhausting. In another scenario, like private equity where I'm at DaBella, it's exciting. It drives me and it's the, "All right. What can I do?" Let's go. Let's go.

[00:32:50] Adriaan: Let's go. Yeah. So looking back, right, you said the early warning signs were there. For our listeners, what are the moments that you should really reflect for yourself when whatever signs are there? Can you explain, to help others to maybe avoid the mistake that you made?

[00:33:09] Jeremy: Absolutely. First, you need to know yourself. You need to understand what is the type of environment you want to be in. So if you were to describe your perfect job, perfect boss, whatever, what is it? What are those details? And then what motivates you? Do you wanna be in the high-stress environment? Do you wanna be in the limelight? Do you wanna be a solid worker and you're like a number two? What is it? But then understanding those factors, and then as you're evaluating your job scenario and who you're interacting with, are they supporting those or are they combative? You know, are you being forced to change who you are to tailor to somebody else? And leadership is a gift. It's ongoing. In every organization there are great leaders and there are bad leaders, and it's truly looking through and reflecting. You know, if you're in a leadership position, do you have the authority and the responsibility? That's the kicker. A lot of times people get into positions where, director, SVP, whatever, they have all of this responsibility and no authority. So if you need to drive an initiative, you have to go through five layers of red tape, you're never going to be successful, unless that's who you like to report to. You want to have all those layers. And so it's truly reflecting on yourself. And my wife sat down with me when I was looking at opportunities and she said, "What do you want?" "What is gonna make you happy?" And she said "Could you go to a company and end up being a solid number two?" She said, "You might be, depending on the company, depending on the environment." She said, "You want to be in the front. You want to be the spearhead. You want to go a million miles an hour, hair on fire. That's what motivates you." And she said, "You need to remember that." And those were pieces that were missing in the companies where I struggled. It was the, everything was slow, and it forced me to pull back, which my energy is driving and going and making change. I love seeing it, got this, all right, what's...

[00:35:17] Jeremy: And it's the, oh, this is gonna take eight months just to move that far to change the color of the can. I wouldn't have done it.

[00:35:24] Adriaan: Yeah. Hey, and reflecting on yourself, right? Because that's the hardest thing that there is. What is the moment that you realized also during the hiring process that you were justifying some of the things that were coming through, yet you still convinced yourself to accept the job? 'Cause especially in this market, right? It's, on the one hand there are pockets of massive growth, right? And at the same time there are a lot of people struggling to find a job, right? And sometimes, if you've been without a job for a while or you have financial bills piling up, that's not an easy situation to be in, right? And you said it yourself, you panicked.

[00:36:06] Jeremy: Yeah. It's tough, in this market just because of how long people are out of a job. I completely understand. It's the, "I've got to take this." And it's a balance. I mean, there's taking a job because you need to pay the bills. Is it going to be a temporary job? And you need to tell yourself, "I'm doing this just because I have to, not that I'm going to invest my entire being into it." And it... That's probably a controversial thing to say right now, but employers and employees, there's this battle. And it's getting the right talent and making sure they match. But again, I know people who've been out of a job six, eight, 12 months, and they're gonna get an offer, and they're gonna say yes, and that was me. And it was truly in my head, I reflect back on those scenarios, and it was the desperation, and I kept making the excuse that it was going to be okay, and I was just in my head. But you do that because you're trying to worry about the basic needs of food, housing, shelter. So, it's a balance, and again, I don't have the perfect answer. It's one of those, if you're taking that job, but you've spoken internally and made yourself think that this is the perfect job, you need to evaluate. And it's one of those that as you're going through what's working well within the company, but also you have to recognize if you're not happy, they're going to see it. And you could very easily just find yourself up in the situation where you don't have the job again.

[00:37:36] Adriaan: It reminds me of one of my first companies where I had a co-founder that just operated on very different values, very chaotic, amazing, energizing guy. Like we always felt like we're going to the moon, but he would change course every single day, right? So it became very difficult to understand where are we going. And secondly, when he would change course, he would scold people that they were still going on the course that he set, that we were going the day before, right? So you get this huge trust issue because everyone knew he's gonna change course very quickly, and at the same time, he's gonna get mad if we don't follow him now. But if we follow him, then the next day he's gonna get mad because we followed him, right? And it was never about him. It was always... And well, in a way, I was standing next to him. It was about the employees that were, that were not following, right? So I constantly had to justify his behavior to the rest of the organization, and it was just eating me alive because it was... I could see, it's like, "This is not right. This just doesn't feel right." But I also was fearful of leaving a job, right? I'd left a safe job at Unilever. I was an entrepreneur, I was gonna conquer the world. But the reality was, is like, this doesn't feel right. And it took a long time before I finally came to terms and also start to realize, this is just not who I am. I cannot be successful in this company. And I really left that company feeling not very confident in myself because of that environment. And only when I finally felt the shackles being pulled away from me and getting true to myself, I realized, like, "Oh, wow, I actually know what to do." And when I started Matchr, the first thing I did with my co-founder, I sat down and said, "These are the five values that if you cannot agree on these, we cannot start a company together." Because I never wanna be in the position again where the values of us as co-founder are not aligned on how we wanna run this company, right? And to this day, it was a very important and powerful discussion that we had. And here we are eight years later, right? And we still work really well together because it was so important. So I can totally relate to that feeling of "this is not it."

[00:39:48] Jeremy: Yeah. Your comment about when you left, you felt the value and that you questioned yourself, the imposter syndrome. You know, I've had it. I thought I was smart. I thought I knew what to do. I thought I was this person, and at the company, I felt like I was an idiot. And I couldn't do anything right. And then when you go into the new company, the hardest part is to let that go because it was the past. And it weighs on you, and you start second-guessing yourself. And when I was talking with my wife about this new opportunity with DaBella, she said, "You need to remember, your past experiences have made you, but don't bring the baggage." And she's like, "You're gonna walk in day one, nobody knows you. It is first day of school." "Make the impression." And it was listening. She's smarter than me, so clearly.

[00:40:42] Adriaan: Yeah. Sounds like your wife is an amazing coach... And amazing reflection partner.

[00:40:47] Jeremy: She is. She does a great job of listening to me and then giving it to me very straight when I need to hear it. So yeah, I'm very lucky that she will actually tolerate me at times.

[00:40:57] Adriaan: Amazing. Hey, tell me a little bit more, about like what are you excited about with DaBella? Like what are you guys working on? Give us a little bit of a flavor, like what makes you get out of bed every morning?

[00:41:08] Jeremy: No two days are the same at DaBella. But what I absolutely love: the leadership team is phenomenal. I mean, you don't ever have to question what the direction is, where we wanna go. People are very transparent. Obviously technically still in my honeymoon stage with them. But it's just welcoming and then they're truly like, "Here's the department. Help us." And culture, it's a buzzword. Everyone talks about it, but it's what's driving DaBella. And what are the opportunities? And the HR function as a whole drives culture no matter what people say, and it's helping to really reestablish that we're the partners throughout the organization. We want to be here to help. We're going to help you through your career. We want you to develop. I mean, there are a lot of people at DaBella who have been there seven, eight, nine years. I mean, there's longevity. It's an amazing opportunity, and we have the chance now with the department to start making these changes to take us away from, oh, I have to deal with HR or recruiting to I get to. I'm really passionate about this stuff, and so I love motivating my team and saying, "Look, we can get there." And getting them to understand I'm here to mentor, I'm here to guide. You know, sometimes I'm gonna be pushing you from behind, sometimes I'm next to you. Other times, I'm gonna be the one running through the front door and I just hope you guys keep up. But there are a number of opportunities, and it's one of those that I could pick on any number of things, but it's grab some low-hanging fruit, get the ball rolling, get the momentum going, go for the next win. And showing wins is amazing. I love when the team gets that, like, oh moment and then it's the realization we did something good. So that's what's motivating me.

[00:43:01] Adriaan: How do you do that? Like, I love appreciation, but on a scale of 2,700 people, right? How do you get those little moments when someone does something exceptional or goes above and beyond? Like, how do you, one, filter it up to the, to the leadership or, like, the rest of the organization, and how do you celebrate that in your teams?

[00:43:22] Jeremy: So different people like to be recognized in different ways. Some are, "I need the spotlight." Others are, "Don't you dare put me on stage." And obviously I can't know all 2,600 employees. So I've got to rely on managers and the feedback. I want my HR team, my generalists, to be talking to the managers and our regional and general managers, "What's going on within your teams? What are some of the wins?" But using that to get the information, and the other departments, so in corporate. Listening to stories of success and making sure that those actually get up through the C-suite so that we can recognize. What I really want to get to a point is that we've got kind of a system where people are recommending people every couple of months or something, and a C-suite member sees the comment and then takes the time to reach out to that person and say, "Hey I appreciate what you've done. I know that this is a normal Tuesday for you. I just want you to know, I understand how valuable it is, and you went above and beyond." I have an example. I listened in on a customer service call and person was really pissed off. And the rep was as calm as could be on this call. And I was amazed, 'cause I know in my head, I would've said, "Disconnect." Like, "Eh." She listened, calm, repeated what he was saying, and just kept going over. And at the end when I got done listening to that call, I reached out and I was like, "We need to do something. This is an example. She needs to be celebrated." But before I did the typical Jeremy of throwing a parade and going down there, I reached out to her manager. And I said, "How well do you know this person?" And I said, "This is what I want to do. Will it be received well?" "Absolutely not. Do it in private." And so that was the key, but it's recognizing, in my head I know what I think people want, but again, understanding not everybody wants that public accolades.

[00:45:22] Jeremy: And truly asking people. With my team, right now, I talk as much as I can. I let them know I'm there. I say I have an open door policy even though we're in so many different locations. People in Austin are welcome to walk up into my office. I love when they do that. Other times, people will send a Teams message and we jump on a call. But I get to know them and understand who they are and really what motivates them. Because for each person it's something different. And then trying to make the opportunities to reward them based on those motivations. You know, is it the "I really appreciate what you do," or do they want an award sitting on their desk? I mean, the other thing is I keep four words in my vocabulary: thank you and I'm sorry. Hard words for people to say. When my team does something, I always say thank you. I appreciate it. Even if it was an ask that I sent out, when I get it, "Thank you. Really appreciate you turning it around in great time," or, "Thanks for going above." It's the little thing. And that gets you buy-in, and then that gets you trust.

[00:46:28] Adriaan: Wow. So simple. Jeremy, I wanna thank you for being a guest on this podcast. It was an awesome conversation. Thank you for also sharing some tips of where to go in Austin. I really appreciated the conversation.

[00:46:41] Jeremy: Thank you, Adriaan. I really appreciate it, and I cannot believe the time flew by that fast.