Can an Owner Really Know What’s Going On?

Introduction:

This week, Jay Goltz and William Vanderbloemen tackle a problem that business owners may associate with big companies: What happens when an employee becomes convinced that his or her manager is making bad decisions, but going through normal channels just isn’t working? Jay says he absolutely wants employees to speak up, even if that means going over a manager’s head. William agrees that there are times when an employee has to escalate a problem. But as the conversation unfolds, both acknowledge something that can be easy for an owner to underestimate: Speaking up can feel extraordinarily risky to employees. And how is that information going to surface then?

And in our latest Beyond Small segment, Jay and William discuss what, if anything, another bank could offer that would persuade them to move their business—and why both have grown wary of what happens when smaller banks get swallowed by bigger banks. Plus: How should owners think about the forecast of a prominent economics group that a severe downturn is likely to hit in 2030? And William talks about how his wife’s cancer diagnosis has changed the way he thinks about time, work, and succession. As one of his older golf partners put it, life is like a roll of toilet paper: “It goes really fast at the end.”

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Jay Goltz is CEO of The Goltz Group.

William Vanderbloemen is CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome, Jay and William. It’s great to have you both here. William, we haven’t seen you in a little while. You’ve spoken here in the past about your wife Adrienne and her cancer diagnosis. I gather, from a LinkedIn post I read recently, that she’s doing pretty well. Is that right?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, thank you. You’re so kind, Loren. We’ve been very blessed to have the very best medicine and doctor that there is for her particular kind of cancer, and it’s 10 minutes from our front door. We live in Houston and MD Anderson is it. And we go four times a year for scans to get a report card. And this last time, here’s the most accurate way to say this: At the moment, there is no evidence of active cancer in her body.

Jay Goltz:
Wow, great.

Loren Feldman:
That sounds awful good.

William Vanderbloemen:
It sounded really good. And I’m trying to say it with all the caveats that are built into that sentence because, I don’t know if you guys remember the old horror movies Friday the 13th and Halloween and all of these. I think the people who came up with that had this kind of cancer or a friend who did, because it loves a sequel. So we’ll take the win for today, and we’ll see where it leads. But we’re very, very happy, and as our doctor said, “I wish I knew what you were doing so I could give it to all of my patients.” So we’re all for science, but there’s something bigger going on, and that makes us—I don’t know, goosebumps. You know?

Loren Feldman:
Well, that’s awful good to hear. Has everything you’ve been through and Adrienne’s been through affected the way you think about the business at all?

William Vanderbloemen:
Yes.

Loren Feldman:
How so?

William Vanderbloemen:
Yes. I think more than ever—and it could be I’m just getting older—but I think more than ever I’m realizing the one thing I cannot create in this business is more time. And so I’m getting pretty focused on how I steward and spend the time that I have. And hopefully that’s a long time. Maybe it’s not, but one way or the other, you know, I’ve had a career as a pastor, and had the privilege of sitting with a whole lot of people as they died or were approaching death. And I have not had a single one say, “You know, that really took a long time.” [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
Most of the time, it’s like, “Wow, that went fast.”And I guess, if anything, it’s been a bit of a wake-up call for me to get really serious about: How am I spending every minute of the day? And that’s not getting stuff done. Maybe I need to be resting, but like really: This is the only day I have. So what am I gonna do with it? And that has affected business decisions in lots of different ways, but we don’t have time to go into all the different manifestations of that.

Loren Feldman:
Well, can you give us an example? I mean, how are you spending your time differently and in what way is it changing your approach to important decisions?

William Vanderbloemen:
I guess what I’m learning is, the old wise sayings are old and wise for a reason. So you know, “seize the day” is pretty important to me. “Control the first hour of my morning.” I’ve always said that, but I’ve gotten maybe more maniacal about that than ever. And it makes me far more productive at whatever you want to call my role in our company. And then thirdly, William, you really need to do only the things that only you can do. And the rest of it, you need to teach somebody else.

So this is an exception, but one of the new things in the last year and a half is it’s very rare for me to be sitting in my office alone. I’m gonna have a younger person who we’re training as a leader sit in here. This is a teaching hospital. We want you to watch one, do one, teach one. That’s all things that you guys have known for a long time. I guess it’s just gotten in really bright contrast for me, given the experience we’ve had in the last 18 months or so.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, does that give you cause to think about anything, or are you kind of already there?

Jay Goltz:
I’m already there, because I turned 70 this year, and it’s a profound moment to think about. So I think about it every day. And I have no intention of retiring. I want to keep working. Whether I can or not, who knows? I feel perfectly fine, but I am painfully aware of the fact that when you’re 70, you’re in the—hopefully—the eighth inning. You could be in the ninth inning. I don’t know. But the last 20 years went very quick. Yeah, very quick.

William Vanderbloemen:
Jay, I play golf very early in the morning in the summer so that I’m done early and we play pretty fast. And that way, I’m back before things have really gotten going for the day. I play with an older guy. Lou is probably 85 years old, maybe a little older than that, and he’s the fastest player of all of us—and almost annoyingly so. And I said to him, “Lou, I appreciate the pace, but let me ask you something. Why are you going so fast?” And he said, “William, have you never heard that life is like a roll of toilet paper?” I said, “No, Lou, I haven’t.” He said, “Yeah, it goes really fast at the end.” [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
All right, we’ll have to make that into a bumper sticker. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
William, when you said that you think it’s very important to control the first hour of your day, is your way of controlling it by playing golf?

William Vanderbloemen:
No, no, my day starts long before that.

Loren Feldman:
But you said you play very early.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I get up earlier than very early. I kinda suck at sleep, Loren. I’m just not very good at it.

Jay Goltz:
Wait, how many hours do you get of sleep?

William Vanderbloemen:
You know, if I get seven, that’s a weekend. If I get six, that’s a workday. If I dip below five, we’re gonna have problems.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah.

Loren Feldman:
William, I think the last time you were here, you told us that you were really throwing yourself into trying to figure out AI and what it might mean for your business. Have you been able to keep that up? Are you still learning?

William Vanderbloemen:
I’m trying. I devote three days a week, 90 minutes a day, to focused learning on what’s out there. I mean, anybody who thinks they know AI well hasn’t done enough. I just feel sophomoric, but I do think that the chapter titled “LLM” in the book Learning AI, I feel like I’ve read that one. I’ve still got the premium subscription to all four of the what I consider the big ones: ChatGPT and Claude with Anthropic and Gemini with Google and Grok, and it’s interesting to see how each of the four function differently and work better at some things than others. But where I’m trying to turn my attention now is: Where can I actually employ agents to get things done for me and still guard what I consider to be very private information we’ve been trusted with, with people’s careers and their highlights and that sort of thing?

So I’m trying a few things. I can’t remember if we talked, but I turned 56 this year. So the biggest drop-off in driving distance for golfers is between 55 and 60. It’s when your body starts to atrophy and that sort of thing. So I committed to going the other direction. If everybody else goes down and I go up, what would that be like? And so I had Anthropic build an app for me called Fast Over 55. And that’s been kind of cool, but I’m trying the Grok Bot this week. One of my sons works for an AI-driven software company. He said, “This is one you need to try. Just don’t give it your banking information yet.” And so I’m very much a freshman in that world and not a sophomore. So I’m still trying to figure it out.

Loren Feldman:
So not no big changes, in terms of what you’re doing at the business?

William Vanderbloemen:
No, no, no. Sorry. I’m out front, but the business—there is not one piece of our business that doesn’t have some part of AI creating efficiency so that we can do what only humans can do in our work.

Loren Feldman:
Can you give us an example of one change, one efficiency gained?

William Vanderbloemen:
Here’s the most salient one for me. When I’m interviewing people, I really want to focus on the person and not having to remember everything they said. So I have all but dropped tech from my interviews, except for some form of notetaker that captures the whole conversation. And I don’t even use a computer. I use a little tablet called Remarkable. Have you guys heard of this?

Loren Feldman:
No.

Jay Goltz:
No.

William Vanderbloemen:
It’s really interesting. It’s just E Ink. It does nothing except take notes. It’s like a digital Moleskine. I can’t get on the internet. It will go on Wi-Fi to sync to my Google account, so I have archive records of everything I write. But you can draw, you can do highlighting, you can do whatever. I do my morning journaling in it. But what I’ve found in an interview is if I’m sitting there just with a digital pencil and paper in my hand, I am far more engaged with the other human across the room.

And so that’s been an efficiency that’s—I’m actually in the room with them. I’m not feverishly trying to capture some cool thing they said or bad thing they did. And I’m also able to pay attention to other things going on in the room. Like, what are the books on his shelf? Are they wearing a techie watch or a traditional watch? Lots of little just observations I now have the ability to do because I’m not trying to capture a transcript.

Loren Feldman:
All right, it’s time for another edition of a segment we’ve been calling Beyond Small. Jay’s been here for these. This is new to you, William. It’s brought to you by my sponsor, our friends at Grasshopper Bank. The idea is we have my guests address a few questions that relate to managing their business finances. I’ve selected these questions with Grasshopper’s help, and their only request is that you guys answer candidly based on your own experiences, which is what we do here.

Today’s question is this: What would another bank have to offer to persuade you to move your business? Jay, I gather you’re pretty happy with your current bank. What would it take?

Jay Goltz:
The banking world has changed dramatically over the last 40-some years, in that there used to be a dozen smaller banks that were very much into small business and lending to small business. And the big banks make their money from lending money to gigantic corporations and from just retail transactions. So there was a nice niche there for these banks.

And I would say that, these days, it’s down to like two. They’re almost all gone. They got merged into other banks. So there’s not a whole lot of small business banks out there, in Chicago, that I would call a small business bank. I laugh out loud when I see sometimes these banks that are saying that they’re the bank for business, and they’re not doing small business loans. They’re just not.

So the only thing they could do for me is perhaps offer me a bigger credit line or something. But I haven’t seen banks doing that for many many years. They are extremely risk-adverse, and I don’t see any banks—here’s a good example. I’ve been in business 48 years. And I have a pretty big profile in Chicago, and I’ve got four different businesses. How many banks do you think call me every year to get my business? Zero. I would say, in 48 years, I’ve had maybe two banks call me. How many customers of mine are bankers? You gotta think a decent amount. How many have left a note to say, “Will you give this to Jay?” “Hi, I just had some framing done. I just was wondering who your bank is.” Doesn’t happen.

Loren Feldman:
If they called you, what would you want to hear from them?

Jay Goltz:
You know, I actually had this guy—I was at a lunch at a Crain’s Chicago Business luncheon one time, and this woman’s next to me, and she says she works at this bank out in Elgin, which is about, I don’t know, 50 miles out there. And I just innocently said, not in a sarcastic way, I just go, “Why would someone in Chicago do business with a bank in Elgin?” And she hit me in the arm. Like, how dare I ask her that? And like I thought it was a legitimate question. She could have very easily said—you know, one of the greatest ad lines ever had to be Avis. “We’re number two. We try harder.” I mean, she could have said, “Hey, we’re in Elgin. We have to try harder. We have to give better service and better credit lines.” And she didn’t give me that answer. So yeah, a better credit line, but I don’t see them doing that.

Loren Feldman:
How about you, William? What would you want to hear from a bank that might persuade you to move your business?

William Vanderbloemen:
We just switched. So I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.

Loren Feldman:
It is. Why’d you switch?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, because it was forced on us, and not because we’re not paying our bills or whatever. Our bank, similar to Jay’s journey, our bank got bought. And we have found that, for the way we work, agility is everything. And having to go through the machinations of one of the big two or three banks is like you have to get a Microsoft Teams meeting with five different people to talk about opening an account. I mean that’s hyperbole, but that’s how it feels.

So we’ve always stayed small, and then probably four or five times over the 20 years I’ve done this, the bank’s gotten bought, and it’s a question of whether we stay or not. This time Adrienne was smart enough to say, “William, we are changing banks. Like, they are changing. So we can stay with this new bank that we have, or we can look for another one.” And when we did, we found a bank here in Houston. It’s called Frost Bank. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s family-owned. It’s been family-owned for a hundred years. And that’s the front end of their mission statement: “We will always be a small, family-owned bank for small businesses.”

Jay Goltz:
That bank needs businesses like yours. These big banks do not need our business. They’ve got major corporations. They’ve got retail locations all around Chicago. I was with a bank for 10 years, never had a problem. They got bought by one of the big two, and within two months, they wouldn’t do a loan for me. So I really avoid big banks because I just don’t think—I don’t care what their billboards say. I don’t think they need the small businesses, and I think they want their deposits, but I don’t think they’re looking to give credit lines to them.

Loren Feldman:
William, Jay made clear in his answer that it was important to him to have a bank that’s located in Chicago. Would you consider an all-digital bank?

William Vanderbloemen:
Depends on their agility. I mean, we’re an S corp, so our company might as well be another checking account at our house, right? So if I want to move something around, if I want to change something, if I want to do it differently, if I can do it fast, then that’s the main thing. I had one bank where it was the relationship with my private banker, and that was just amazing. But that day, I think, has gone by. As Jay mentioned—I’ve experienced it as well—the banks seem to be more and more risk-averse and less likely to do things.

But if I can get things done fast, and it doesn’t require human discernment, I mean something like Capital One’s probably better. I have a good friend who’s with Capital One and has been since college and he said, “It’s not a bank, William. It’s a data company who happens to do banking, and they move really fast.” So, you know, something like that, maybe that works. I don’t know. But for me, you say, “What’s the thing that a bank can do?” Agility, the ability to move quickly. And we’re just not that big a deal financially. It’s not that much money to risk. So moving quickly rather than—you know, PT boat over aircraft carrier wins with me right now.

Jay Goltz:
And Loren, you said something that’s not necessarily true. I didn’t say I have to deal with the bank in Chicago. I have all these years. But I wouldn’t say to you that I wouldn’t deal with a digital bank if they could do what I needed. I’m open to that, because the world has changed. The days of me going to the bank on Thursday mornings with cash—I don’t take in any cash anymore, almost none. The world’s changed, and I don’t need the same things that I used to go to the bank for. So I would be open to it.

Loren Feldman:
You did say that there are only two banks in Chicago worth considering.

Jay Goltz:
Right. Yeah, that’s my world. I haven’t—well, here’s my point. Has a digital bank called me? No. Why would I ever—if I didn’t have you tell me about them?

Loren Feldman:
Do you listen to this podcast? [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
I do. I got it. But other than that, where would I have heard about this? I get emails every day for all kinds of cockamamie things. I’ve never gotten one from a bank.

Loren Feldman:
Let me ask you this: Do you want actual advice from your banker, the way you might from another advisor? Is that something that goes into this consideration?

Jay Goltz:
Absolutely not.

Loren Feldman:
William?

William Vanderbloemen:
No. No.

Loren Feldman:
Nope. All right. It’s unanimous. [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
Ha ha ha.

William Vanderbloemen:
We’re a pretty simple business. I don’t have a supply chain. I don’t have manufacturing. I’m not using our corporate bank as a retirement planning function. So no, not really.

Loren Feldman:
How bad would your current bank have to get, Jay, for you to actually take the leap and move to a digital bank or some other bank?

Jay Goltz:
It depends what the digital bank offerings are, because I have no idea how that works. Like I said, they’ve got a marketing opportunity here, and good that they’re sponsoring 21 Hats, because that’s a good thing. They should do some outbound marketing and get to people like me and make me realize, “Oh, wait, there’s a digital bank? Maybe that’s worth looking at.” Because up until now, I haven’t gotten any correspondence.

Loren Feldman:
All right, next topic. As I think you both are aware, there’s an economics forecasting firm called ITR Economics that’s been warning for years about the possibility of a severe economic downturn around 2030. In fact, they’re predicting the second Great Depression. I was just at the Great Game of Business conference where this generated a lot of discussion.

I don’t particularly want to debate whether ITR has the forecast right or not. I’m more interested in this: If somebody credible tells you there’s a meaningful chance of a severe downturn four years from now, should that change anything about how you do business today? William, what do you think?

William Vanderbloemen:
Depends on who the someone is. Sensational headlines are what everybody’s doing right now.

Loren Feldman:
Are you familiar with ITR economics?

William Vanderbloemen:
No.

Loren Feldman:
They are taken seriously. Their forecast is based on demographics and the smaller workforce that we are having every year. It’s based on government spending and the looming deficits, and a few other smaller factors. You know, not everybody agrees, but they are considered credible economists. Does it make you think at all?

William Vanderbloemen:
I don’t know, Loren. I just try and get dressed every day and do something productive. Maybe I’m jaded. I work in this world of people who are spiritually inclined, and the number of people who’ve said, “The end of the world is coming,” and it doesn’t is pretty staggering. [Laughter]

So will there be downturns and do I need to pay attention to that? Okay, fine. But cataclysmic, apocalyptic stuff? It’s kind of like AI. You know, hey, you can get worried about it, but if we are really in the prequel to The Terminator, who cares? It doesn’t matter. So there’s no hiding. So I don’t know, maybe I’m naive. I have a philosophy degree, Loren.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, well we have an opposite. So you have a philosophy degree and I have an accounting degree, though I didn’t go into accounting. That’s an important part of this. I’ve thought about this. In my case, it’s extremely simple. I’m using a word now that I never used in my entire life that I never even thought about using, which is: I’ve gotten conservative. I just don’t need to stick my neck out anymore. I don’t need to grow the business anymore. So I’m already in the defensive mode of: I’m not opening new businesses. I’m trying to get completely out of debt. So these are the exact same things I’d do if I thought there was gonna be a problem in 2030.

So it’s not changing anything I’m doing, because I’m already being very conservative. And I mean, given that, what would I do? Close some businesses before the crash? I mean, I own the properties. Okay, now there’s one: Now what if I didn’t own the properties? Sure, maybe before I sign a big lease, that would be something to think about. But I don’t have any leases. So in my case, there’s really no dials to turn.

Loren Feldman:
Well what about this: As you’ve told us, you are 70 years old. You might want to do something with your business in the next four to ten years. Does it change your thinking about that at all?

Jay Goltz:
No. In my case, I own all the real estate. I’m sitting fine. I don’t need to sweat over, “Oh my god, what if I can’t either sell the business or have a going-out-of-business sale or sell inventory?” I don’t think it’s ever going to get to the point that I’ve got to grab all my marbles and run out the door.

Loren Feldman:
You can think about it as something of an opportunity, and that’s kind of what they preach at the Great Game of Business Conference: Think about having as strong a cash position as possible so that you have the ability to take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves when the economy turns south, whether that’s acquiring other businesses or other real estate or anything like that.

Jay Goltz:
Well, again, in my case, I couldn’t care less. That’s the last thing I’ll be doing.

Loren Feldman:
How about you, William? I mean, you have spoken here in the past that, at some point, you might want to sell your business. Let’s just assume for a moment that you consider the possibility of a big downturn credible. Does that affect your thinking looking, forward about, what you might do with your business?

William Vanderbloemen:
I think that window has already shut, Loren.

Loren Feldman:
In what sense?

William Vanderbloemen:
If I wanted to sell the business and get the highest ordinal possible—or multiple, whatever word you want to use—I think that was about five years ago. Debt was free, the stock market saturated, and private equity was buying things like drunk sailors. And I should have sold then if I was going to do it. What little I understand about that world is: Timing is everything. And I think the ripest season to sell for the next bit has come and gone.

And so for me—and this is gonna sound terrible—it’s about the work sustaining and continuing it. Yes, I’ve got to take care of retirement. I’ve got kids. I’ve got lots of things personally. But for me, it’s: What’s the most sustainable path for this thing that I’ve tried to help create and grow over the last two decades? And that may be the wrong lens to look through things, but that’s the lens I’m currently looking at. Call me again when there’s a significant downturn.

You know, the pandemic was not a global economic depression. But in my little world, it was pretty damn close. It was the first year in the last 2,000 years that we haven’t had Easter services anywhere. And when most of your clients are churches and they’re not meeting, they’re also not hiring. And if they’re not hiring, I’ve got a problem. So I look back on that, I was thinking about it early this morning, and I’m not real sure how we got through that. I mean, we were conservative with our cash and we had some powder dry and that sort of thing, but that was pretty bad. And I’m hopeful that if we have another downturn, we’ll find the same—what is it: “Necessity is the mother of invention”—we’d find the same ways of meeting that challenge as we did before. That may be arrogant to say.

Jay Goltz:
Except the pandemic was just a freak thing. Who could have even imagined that? But in your case, why would a recession affect your business? Because it seems to me that churches would still be out there, and they’d still be hiring. So I’m not even sure that a recession or depression would affect you.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, the old saying may still be true. You know, “liquor and religion are the only recession-proof businesses.” So, who knows if that holds?

Jay Goltz:
Though that’s not necessarily true. I hear the liquor business has got problems, I’m told, because the young people aren’t drinking as much.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, they do. They do, but the CBD and THC business is on the rise. So it’s just a different mode of the same method.

Jay Goltz:
Is it also true: I heard that church attendance is up. Is that true?

William Vanderbloemen:
Significantly, yes. In the U.S.

Jay Goltz:
What’s the explanation for that?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I mean if you can figure that out, then you can write some books and survive any economic crisis.

Jay Goltz:
Well, I was hoping you were going to give me that input so I could write a book. So you’re holding out! [Laughter]

William Vanderbloemen:
It is interesting to me, Jay, that the bulk of the workforce right now has never lived through a significant economic downturn. Ever. Most of the workforce was not providing for a family in 2008. And they haven’t lived through a major war. They’ve been pretty coddled. I have a friend who calls it late-stage capitalism, which is kind of depressing.

But it’s a bit like we’re spoiled. We don’t know it. And I think that, you know, the last five years, whether it’s pandemic or politics or uncertainty or AI, has just created a real sense of people looking up from this very padded world we’ve lived in and saying, “I need to explore where there’s something more than this, because this feels pretty uncertain.”

Jay Goltz:
You know what, I think you just gave me my idea. I think some of it’s due to the fact that people are isolated on their computers and they need human connection. That’s what my book’s gonna be about. Done.

William Vanderbloemen:
The first thing that is called bad in all of the Torah is when God said, “It is just not good that man be left alone.” So I think you’re onto something.

Jay Goltz:
Wow. Okay. Let’s get off this thing pretty quick. I gotta start writing.

Loren Feldman:
William, you suggested that you might have missed the best opportunity to sell your business. What is your long-term thought then?

William Vanderbloemen:
This sounds like a platitude or some of your friends at—is it the Tugboat Institute?

Loren Feldman:
Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
But I’m much more concerned about: How can this work that we’ve worked so hard to make a normal part of life for faith-based organizations? How does it continue? Yes, I have material needs, and I’ll have healthcare needs and that sort thing. We’ve been very fortunate. I don’t need another house. I don’t need another trip. I’ve got all the fun toys that are—more than I should have. And you know, if I can find something to lower my golf score, I’ll need some money for that. But that’s a different podcast. To me, it’s how does this sustain? And is that an ESOP? Maybe? I kind of don’t think so.

Jay Goltz:
No, absolutely not.

William Vanderbloemen:
Is that, find a successor and become a chair of the board and take passive owner income? That’s certainly possible.

Jay Goltz:
Employee ownership trust is another version that doesn’t have anywhere near the complexity of an ESOP. So that might be a good option.

William Vanderbloemen:
As a genre, I could turn it over to the employees. I could turn it over to one of my kids. Neither of those seem viable to me. So it’s either hire somebody to run it and be chair of the board, or if the right buyer came along, that would sustain the work and not just burn it and flip it and that sort of thing. That, to me right now, feels right.

I’m 56, and I’m hopeful for good health and a good economy. And if those things happen, I think we’ve got some time. So for me, it’s about keeping as many options open as possible. I think the one with my kids, that ship has sailed. The ones that are adults are making too much money now to come back and work on—you know, what’s the old saying?—work the factory floor for a while. And they would have to work their way up. I’m not gonna have them just parachute in here and do this. So that one seems to be pretty closed.

Letting the employees take it? Maybe that’s open in some form that is not so complex. Hiring a CEO? Very possible. The place does not depend on me. It runs pretty well, maybe better, when I’m not here. But if the right suitor came along and I could have a reasonable amount of trust in their ability to sustain the work, maybe that. But the only liability we have is a six-and-a-half year lease on some office space.

Loren Feldman:
All right, last topic for today. You both have a lot of experience managing employees. You also have a lot of experience managing managers who manage other employees. And I want to give you a situation that I think is pretty common: An employee becomes convinced that his or her boss is making poor decisions, decisions that may be hurting the company and may be hurting the employee’s career. In that situation, what do you want that employee to do in your business? Jay?

Jay Goltz:
I absolutely want them to come and tell me what’s on their mind. The last thing I want in my business is yes men. And I’ve had that over the years. I’ve had a few poignant moments where someone clued me into something that I wasn’t aware of that I immediately took action, and it made a huge difference in the business. Because the employees have, obviously, a different vantage point than the boss. And it’s very easy as the boss to not necessarily see what’s really going on. So those people are extremely valuable.

Loren Feldman:
So you want the employee to go over the head of his or her manager?

Jay Goltz:
If necessary. I have a thing when I hire everybody. I sit down, and I explain to everybody what the mission is. And I go, “You should feel comfortable talking to your boss.” And then I say, “Does everyone know who their direct boss is?” Sometimes they don’t even know. And I go, “And you need to know, if there’s ever something going on here that makes you uncomfortable, that you feel like you’ve given it a fair shot, you’ve talked to the boss and it’s not going anywhere, you should feel comfortable to go to that person’s boss. And that might be me.” So, yeah, I absolutely want them to.

Otherwise—not that I’ve worked in a corporation—I believe that’s how corporate America works. Just don’t get in trouble. That’s their mission in corporate America: Just don’t get in trouble. My mission is to take care of the customer and make sure the place runs right. So I believe I have attracted and kept people with that mentality. I believe I have circuit breakers here that if something was going wrong, somebody’s gonna say something about it. And that has been the case.

Loren Feldman:
William, what’s your approach?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, it’s a super good question, Loren. I’d love to hear your answer after I give a brief one. It’s also a super uncomfortable question. I think it depends. What is the thing they’re noticing? Is it criminal? Is it a red card or is it a yellow card? That’s language we use. If it’s a red card, that needs to go straight to the top no matter what. You know, we had an employee make a couple racial slurs not too long ago. They’re no longer with us. And you go right over the head for something like that.

Is it a yellow card or a judgment call? We have been blessed to work with a whole lot of younger people over the years. And I’m looking out over my office now, and I’ve got kids well older than most of the people who are here on the office floor today. I tell them when they start: Look, first 90 days particularly, the first great value of somebody who’s been here a long time is institutional knowledge. The first great value of you as a new person is fresh eyes. Why do we do it that way? Why do we do it that way? Why do you do that? Have you ever thought about this? I want to hear that. You’ve got a 90-day pass for sure.

And then, it’s a delicate balance. And we talk about it this way: In great multi-generational businesses—I didn’t come up with this, but a friend gave it to me—the generation below honors the generation above, and the generation above respects the generation below. And that means it’s on me to go asking people, “What do you think about this? How should we do this differently?” And it’s on the managers to be asking their teams that. It’s on the people who are younger or perhaps a rung down on the org chart to provide honor. Sometimes honor is really questioning something that’s out of hand. But many times it’s like: “You know, I’m a little new. They’ve been here a while. I should go to them first and have a real conversation.” But I’ll end where I began. It’s a great question, and I wish I knew the answer.

Jay Goltz:
I will tell you this, to be clear: I most certainly do not walk up to an hourly employee who’s doing something, seeing him doing something wrong. I do not jump lines. I make sure I talk to the manager about it because, first of all, hearing from the big boss freaks people out, and I had to learn that one years and years ago. So I am not walking around getting involved with day-to-day, “Hey, what are you doing there? And what are you doing there?” You should be doing it that way. I don’t do that stuff.

I’m talking about people where you have a little bit of a relationship, that you’re having a conversation, but it’s not everybody, because I’ve got 110 people, and now it’s even worse because I’m not 30 years old. I’m 70 years old. People are freaked out about the boss. I get it. It doesn’t matter what you do. I don’t go screaming at people. I don’t care who you are and what you do, people are still intimidated. It’s not everybody. Some people are still intimidated by the big boss. And I try not to screw up and start getting involved in the stuff that should be dealt with by their manager.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, one other thing I’d add, Loren: A friend of mine, when I was a pastor, came to me for career advice. He was a COO of a very, very, very large company, and was asked to become the CEO, which was his vocational dream, at a little bit smaller company, but very large still. And I said, “Well, what are you concerned about?” And he said, “William, have you never heard the saying, ‘The first day you’re the CEO is the last day you hear the truth?’”

And I thought he was lying, but even in a little company like ours, I do have a handful of people that when I hire them or promote them or their annual review, I say, “Okay, Loren, here’s another part of your job description. It is your job to tell me the truth.” And that has helped some. Then not everybody has to run around, “Well, does William know?” But man, I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s a great question I wish I knew the answer to.

Loren Feldman:
You know, I think I may be the only person on this call who’s actually been in this position as an employee with a boss and trying to figure out how to negotiate that situation. Everything you guys have both said sounds good, makes sense, but I’m not sure you fully appreciate how hard that can be for the employee who has to decide whether to go over their manager’s head or not.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, let’s turn this around a little bit, Loren. I was at lunch with a guy named Loren—I’m not gonna tell you his last name—probably 20 years ago in an Italian restaurant in New York. And he had some real problems with his boss, who was a complete jackass. And I said to him, “Why don’t you go to the big boss and tell him?” And he said to me, “I’d rather quit.” Can you explain that?

Loren Feldman:
Easily! Well, first of all, you put it in slightly too strong terms. Not a complete jackass, but I felt doing things that were detrimental to the business, to the team, and potentially to my career. And I felt like my choice was either to—I mean, I’d said everything I could to that manager and it wasn’t going anywhere. And I knew it wasn’t going anywhere and there was no point in continuing that conversation. So I could either live with it or leave.

Jay Goltz:
Or speak up. No, you left out the third option.

Loren Feldman:
Or speak up, as you suggested, which in that situation, I just knew I would never, ever do. Now, I think William’s red card, yellow card example is a pretty good one. Had it been a red card, I would have been willing to do that. But here’s the thing I think you’re missing—

Jay Goltz:
I know I’m missing it, because I’ve wondered for 20 years, so I’m anxious to hear what I’m missing.

Loren Feldman:
It was a yellow card, and as a result, I had very little confidence that if I went over my manager’s head, everything would suddenly fall into place the way I dreamed it should be. And the outcome was much more likely to be that that manager would never look at me the same way again and I would be forced to leave. I would have no choice whatsoever. I don’t mean that I’d be fired, but it would be an uncomfortable situation that I would choose to depart. And who knows, I might even have gotten fired.

Jay Goltz:
And to be fair to the situation, the one asking you that question was me. I’ve never worked anywhere, so I don’t know how it all works. In my world, it’s very simple: Take care of the customer, everyone works together, blah blah blah. I don’t understand the corporate dynamics.

Loren Feldman:
Well, translate this to your situation. Having had this conversation now, do you realize why an employee might be reluctant to come to you with a complaint about a manager and with the understanding that that relationship might be thoroughly destroyed?

Jay Goltz:
Sure. But your alternative was, “I’d rather quit.”

Loren Feldman:
Well that might be the alternative for your employee, too.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, I have to tell you, this is the God’s honest truth: I have very few people quit. And I love the whole exit interview concept, which I find sad. So you’re gonna find out the truth when they’re on the way out the door. I mean, we do ask. I think I’ve got a pretty healthy—first of all, there are not a lot of people quitting. And I don’t think I’ve got a lot of dysfunction at this point, I think. Because almost no one’s quit and 30 years ago certainly was a different story. There was stuff wrong and I didn’t get it. So back to what William was saying, this is very complicated. That’s for sure.

Loren Feldman:
William, can you think of a way to reassure an employee that going over their boss’s head won’t damage their relationship, their career, at your business?

William Vanderbloemen:
Nope.

Loren Feldman:
Okay.

William Vanderbloemen:
Did your mother already tell you no? Then why are you coming to me? Like, this is not a new problem. [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
Have either of you been in a situation where you discovered that in fact the employee was right and the manager was the problem?

JJay Goltz:
Absolutely.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I’ve been the employee.

Loren Feldman:
Oh, interesting.

William Vanderbloemen:
Long time ago, but I’ve been the employee.

Loren Feldman:
And what did you do?

William Vanderbloemen:
Probably not enough. I noticed some truly erratic behavior in my manager, and not like criminal or immoral, but like unstable. And I sort of mentioned it to the people above that person, but didn’t mention it with enough transparency. I probably should have mentioned it with questions. I think questions are more disarming than edicts. At least they are with me.

But I ended up leaving the organization partly because of it, but partly, the work I was doing there was over, and it was time to move to the next thing. But shortly after I left, within the year, the implosion continued to a point of like, “My gosh, why didn’t we see this before? Why didn’t somebody tell us?” And I felt a little remorse about that. It’s just very difficult. It’s very difficult. And I don’t know what I would have done differently, but I don’t think I did enough.

Jay Goltz:
You brought up an important point. I never ask the question anymore, “Oh my God, I can’t believe he didn’t say something.” I get it. They’re not gonna say anything. And I’m on a board with somebody, and this woman was being torched by one of the other board members. And I told my buddy on the board, and he goes, “I can’t believe she didn’t speak up.” I said, “She’s dealing with a guy that’s old enough to be her father, who’s been with this organization for 20 years. She’s got two kids and no husband.” And I had to tell him three times: “What part of this do you not understand?” I mean, he finally got it, but I had to work really hard for him to get the fact that this woman was not gonna go and tell the rest of the board: So-and-so’s being a jerk to me. Not happening. So I fully appreciate and understand that it’s very difficult for people to say something.

Loren Feldman:
Well, one thing I think you were definitely right about, Jay, is that this is a serious problem for corporate America. I have some friends who are going through this situation right now, and it’s really terrible. They don’t know what to do. They think their own careers are stalled or worse. They think the business is really being damaged. And they’re feeling paralyzed. I think it does happen in smaller businesses too, but I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to it, as I think we’ve demonstrated here.

My thanks to Jay Goltz and William Vanderbloemen, and a special thanks to our sponsor. This episode was brought to you by Grasshopper Bank. Thanks for listening, everyone.